Having a Great Social Media Network and making it Work for Your Business

By Thomas R. Reich PhD

Why do Businesses Fail?

1. Not enough people know they exist, little or no social media networking
2. They did not do enough to get the word out
3. Did not work hard enough for brand recognition
4. Did not remind the customer daily through social media why the business matters

A successful business must have a daily promotion habit, do at least one of the following each day:

1. Write or post a new blog
2. Tweet a timely question
3. Do a radio interview
4. Do a webcast
5. Post on LinkedIn
6. Write a letter to the editor
7. Link and share pictures on Facebook page
8. Do at least one thing that will publicize your product each day through social media networking

Other things to do on a regular basis:

1. Contact 5 people a day that could help you publicize your product
2. Give the social media network a hook to use to grab their audience (in the end you and your product do not matter to that media outlet, to the organization giving you the publicity, it’s how   you can add interest to their show or blog, even their tweet stream, remember this!)
3. Research what various factions of the social media network can put in their heading or intro;
   “Coming up________” that will help their audience to stay tuned in or check back.  What about you or your product would cause this reaction think of catchy phrases, make it easy to           promote you or your product.
4. Again, you need to come up with hooks, what makes this social media network member or blogger or interviewer’s audience tune in to his or her show or blog.  If it pushes you or your product at the same time, that makes it a win win, that is what we are looking for!
5. Hook = “Could you go to jail for linking the wrong website?” or “have you checked your FaceBook picture for malware, XYZ co knows why you should” or “Is your health drink, healthy?”

5 Ways to Create a Hook for the Social Media Network

First: create interest

1. How to do; “How do you Tweet a Question?”
2. Counter a Myth; “Parents want a quick fix to poor study habits-could drugs be the wrong answer?”
3. Make a prediction; “Why the US will soon experience dramatic food shortages” –or—“Why food prices will continue to rise”
4. Ask a Question, “Can you give the media a question they can use?” or “What are cats thinking?”
5. Give them a timely hook, a reason they need to have information about your product now; Tax advice at tax time, new business start up advice in January, new kind of tomato plant in the spring

Create an effective publicity plan

1. Who is your core audience
2. What does that core audience read or watch
3. When will your topic be timely; time of year, anniversary, create a holiday around your product, look in the book Chase’s Calendar of Events for listing of 10,000 holidays
4. Is there a predictable news event that can be spun to your product and sent to the social media network, release of a movie, elections, release of monthly employment figures or farm reports

Avoid the “I’ll wait till it comes out to publicize the product” approach

1. When a new or updated product is released, the publicity must already be in place, The Social Media Network; Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn announcements kicking for weeks before the product hits the street.
2. Again do interviews blogs and email blasts, and consistent social media network exposure before the release date as well, to create anticipation of the new or improved product.
3. Listen to your core interest group, you may find improvements or hooks you never thought of before the product even comes out.

You want the influential bloggers

Get publicity and exposure on blogs that reach your core audience, not just your personal blog. The top 500 bloggers sites have over 100,000 visits per month, this is a resource you need to tap into!

Main ways to get valuable coverage on blogs:

1. Offer to write an article, this is called a “guest Post” free.
2. Offer the blogger the opportunity to interview you
3. Offer the blogger mention or a posting on your blog
4. Offer the blogger a free product so they can review it
5. Offer to run a free advice column in their blog
6. Offer copies of your product as prizes

Find blogs that get a lot of traffic

1. Give them timely hooks
2. Always get a plug in return for the appearance
3. www.technorati.com to find blogs to contact in your field

You Need a YouTube Strategy

You must have a strategy, YouTube should part of any social media networking plan

1. What could your core audience be looking for?
2. How can you set up your video so your core audience can find you?
3. Video must be no longer than 2 min.
4. Better to have 40 videos, each 90 second tips than to have 6 videos, each 15 min speeches.

The YouTube videos should contain:

1. Hi I am _____________
2. I am important to you because _______________
3. Here is what we are doing for you
4. End with find me here and follow me on twitter
5. Ask for a response from them through your social media network

Google’s new RankBrain Algorithm Will Drastically Change the way SEO Works and the Success of Client Searches

By Thomas R. Reich PhD

For many years, SEO was the bread and butter of PR pros everywhere to attract search traffic their client’s website. The formula was simple, find out what keywords corresponded to what the client was selling, stuff the content on the website with those targeted keywords and the search engine algorithms would do the rest.

Then in recent years authority links were added to the picture, and a big business grew up in attracting or contracting links and linked guest posts from “popular” blogs and websites in the same industry as the client. These links became essential for the search engine algorithms to find the websites of the client.  Google and other popular search engines would take notice of these indicators, bump the websites SEO Rank” and the website would end up on the front page for targeted keyword searches.

Old school on-line marketing firms, still largely push this method as the standard of the industry. But all it ever was is math; Keywords and backlinks alone never really got the searcher to exactly what they were searching for. The theory was; the searchers would more easily stumble on to what they were looking for on the first or second page of search results.

The obvious problem here is that strictly judging content by keywords and backlinks, the system can be “jacked” or “gamed” to bring a searcher to the wrong information. Just like all those spam emails you hate, the same “tech heads” were out there one step ahead of the algorithm updates, leading the searcher to an unrelated buy it now landing page.  Even though Google or Bing did their best to send the searcher to information on day schools the searcher got many results for various spam somewhat related to the search.

SEO is Dead, Long Live Deep Content SEO, RankBrain and Deep Rich Data II. Things have changed, Google’s latest update, Panda 4.0, is designed to make content – rather than the keywords – the rightful king of the search engine. The search engine giant’s aim is that their users will find relevant content, not content merely stuffed with keywords.

The more things change, though, the more they remain the same. While SEO isn’t quite what we thought of it before, the idea still remains the same. But now, it’s all in the execution…

The New SEO

“Content is king,” but what does that even mean? One of the other “rules” of writing blogs and making other content is to make as much of it as consistent to a core of targeted information relating to the client’s products and services as can be achieved. So – problem solved, just stuff the website with related content and you’re done, right? Not so fast, SEO is not dead, Search Engine Optimization is literally that, we must improve, optimize and polish each piece of content for maximum readability and accessibility.

On top of these basics, today’s PR professional should try to increase the quality of any content associated with the firm they are promoting. First, all content that was designed around keyword stuffing should be revised to a more readable form, old articles updated or eliminated and blogs and posts irrelevant to the core of the stated target topic removed.

The reason is simple, Google’s newest algorithm RankBrain, focuses on what is contained in the content and its relevance to a topic, rather than what keywords are in it and in what location those keywords appear.

When it comes down to it, however, even though SEO has changed from Keyword stuffing and backlink driven optimization, it has finally become true optimization. While some might cry the end of SEO or even say it’s the end of the concept of SEO, this is the farthest from the truth. What has really happened is Marketing and PR has been taken out of the hands of the tech programmers and put back in the hands of the creatives and the writers where it belongs. How should you take advantage of this change?

In the first place, remember that keywords and backlinks are still vital to the publicity and search engine success of a piece of content. Keywords, used sparingly, guide the search to the topic of the content and appropriate backlinks improve the credibility of the piece of content’s relevance to the topic. Remember that the new algorithm changes were made to weed out the more “spammy” aspects of searching on Google. So great content that’s informative, funny, and easy to read is soon to become the normal results of a search. What actually attracts the search engine attention will be the relevance of the content itself. But optimizing that content sparingly is still a vital part of that content’s visibility to the search engine and therefore it’s success.

You can’t insert arbitrary keywords into content that does not exactly match the intent of the content anymore and expect results. This actually makes good relevant content easier to get out to the potential client when you think about it. In the past, SEO meant searching for the keywords that would attract attention of the prospect you wanted, not necessarily the client that would be interested in the actual content of the post or blog.

Today, your concentration should be on the relevance of the post or blog’s content and anticipating what answers the potential client may be searching for. It seems a fine distinction, but really it means all the world of difference.  Now you focus on the campaign at large rather than bother with little details like what keyword to repeat 8 times. Today you search for relevant topics to research not spend hours keyword researching.

Getting legitimate internet traffic, traffic that is targeted and relevant to what you are selling will always be a challenge. But one thing will never change: write blogs, press releases, videos and other content to reflect your original ideas, target them to your products, services and thoughts – and you’ll be fine.

Older Internet Websites are becoming Ineffective

Evolving, Small Business Must Change with new Standards and the Emerging Smartphone Dominance of all Searches for Services.

By Thomas R. Reich PhD

It was only 10 years ago that the iPhone smartphone transformed our lives in ways we never thought possible. But like most new technologies, only the tech savvy and the wealthy early adaptors get the first generation of a successful device.  Then a cheap knock off is introduced, we all saw millions with those, functional but not the full internet functionality of the iPhone.

Years later Samsung smartphone and others introduced true high tech equivalents to the iPhone, then came the 2 the 3 and so on up the fire prone S7 Plus and now the really cool S8 Edge. We are told the best iPhone smartphone of all will be out for Christmas.

Bottom line, almost everyone now carries the promise of Steven Jobs in our pocket; the power of the entire internet in our pocket. Most of us now have a TV studio, carry our full filing system with us, can watch any how to video sitting in the Dr Office waiting for an appointment, and even watch a movie!

Oh YAHH—We can also search the most powerful and intuitive search engine in the world, now trying to actually provide actual answers to exact questions. So, let’s say your car gets a funny noise while you are driving.  No longer do you ask “what could be wrong”.  Instead, today you search for an answer right there from your smartphonephone in the car, and click on the call now button when you find the answer to make an appointment.

If this sounds like science fiction, open your eyes, if it surprises you, listen up! The whole way small business has looked at the internet is obsolete or declining. Prospects, for the most part, do not sit at their home computers at night searching for advertising that fits what they need.

Remember that whole IPad thing, well that really did not become a very big part of things outside of business use, and the smart phone replaces its functionality more every day. The fact is the smartphone accounts for about 70 – 80 % of small business services searches today, not tomorrow today!

If a business website is only optimized for desktop, laptop and responsive to IPad and iPhone, you are defiantly losing sales. How can I say that, the logic is simple, the same material written in the same way and displayed the same way simply is not perceived the same on a 5 inch screen as it is on a 24 inch screen?

Today websites must SEO optimize and create content with the mobile smartphone in mind. This means answering real questions in short clear paragraphs whenever possible, providing real information not sales pitches, and for the phone versions – lots and lots of appropriate pictures to the hold interest of an audience viewing on a very small screen.

A ricent report by Forrester revealed the average 25 – 40 year old smartphone users are spending 85% of their time on mobile phones using apps and only 15% in the traditional browsers, even at work. And by far the most popular of those apps are Google, FaceBook, Apple Seri and Bing.

Does this mean that apps are overtaking websites and website based social media and social sharing sites. The answer is no, it is only indicative of how people are getting to those social sites and getting to small business websites, through app versions of popular search engines on their smartphone.

Tim Berners-Lee’s vision way back in 1995 (The inventor of the World Wide Web) saw the web as “an open platform that would allow everyone, everywhere to share information, access opportunities, and collaborate across geographic and cultural boundaries”.

Today advertising on the commercial web is now being by two mega sites, Google and FaceBook. Believe it or not, these two entities have a sustained 90% of all advertising growth on digital platforms. But this does not mean that a small or midsized company must buy PPC on Google or FaceBook.  Actually, their monopoly had opened the opportunities for true Deep Content Marketing and Generic Traffic.  Fearing regulators and lawsuits similar to recent findings in Europe, the internet has opened up for real and solid information on thousands of websites, not set up as sales landing pages.

Find out more about smartphone searches, Deep Content Marketing and Generic Traffic, building a good quality information rich content based website may be what you need. Contact Cheetah Marketing Group today for a free evaluation, see if Content marketing could be the answer to bring your business cost effective targeted prospects.

Cheetah Marketing Group

Experience Matters

30 Years of Excellence

When a Business Website uses Content Marketing, it becomes a Magnet for Prospects, but not by selling, by Teaching.

By Thomas R. Reich PhD

Here are the 10 Most Surprising Benefits of Employing the Content Marketing Method

If you haven’t invested in Content Marketing yet, it might be because you are skeptical of the long-term benefits; reluctant to invest heavily in what you may think is a fad. You might be intimidated by what you perceive as a complex strategy.

Obviously any company would naturally be afraid of the unknown, and starting a strategy for their website that they do not fully understand. Maybe the company’s marketing department (or in a smaller company, you) are busy with other marketing strategies that you are convinced still work for today’s internet.

If this sounds like something happening in your company, it is time to realize that content marketing is one of the most practical, effective, and useful marketing strategies available to small and medium sized business today.

In fact, just a few years ago, content marketing was just for large companies with even larger budgets and advertising campaigns to go with the content. Today, content marketing has reached a point where it can be used to lower marketing costs and pinpoint targeted prospects to actually get results from the internet.

Here are 10 Surprising Benefits of Content Marketing:

More Targeted Content on the Company Website Means Prospects spend more Time on the Website

With a good targeted content marketing program, a business website is built out with pages and blogs concentrating on a specific targeted topic. That targeted topic is inclusive of your product or service.  As the search engines begin to send traffic to the company wesite for that targeted information, the prospects are within your website even though they were just searching for information about a product or service not where to buy it.  The more information, videos, pictures and blogs on that topic they find on the company website the longer they stick around.

The longer they are on the company branded website the more familiar they become with your product and your brand. The better the content, and the larger the variety of content the greater the chance the potential client will stay longer on your website and within your branding.

Higher Visibility to the Search Engines

Every page posted to a company website, every blog, every video and picture provides higher and higher visibility to the search engines. Google and other major search engines “Index” every page on the internet that is properly listed and linked.  More pages alone does not guarantee more search traffic, more quality pages and visuals does however.  Duplicate pages, originally on another website does you no good at all and as a matter of fact, can even hurt your traffic.

All content must be original, targeted and clearly written for SEO and Meta data response. Pay attention to targeted long – tail keywords and topics that fit the targeted niche you have chosen for the company website.  Topics frequently searched by your target customers can be researched by a good content marketing firm like Cheetah Marketing Group.

Attain Higher Domain Authority without PPC

The more quality content on your website the higher the company website domain authority will become. Consistent, updated high quality content will increase the perceived and real authority of the site and therefore the relevance, expertise and trust of your company.  As the company website articles earn inbound links form external sources, the websites domain authority increases further yet.

The higher the domain authority of a company website, the higher search rankings it will attain, and therefore the higher organic traffic it will receive. Remember organic traffic is the best kind, it is 100% targeted to your core topic and it is the best kind of all it is free as opposed to PPC.  The more organic traffic the more potential clients find your company’s website without formal and usually quite costly advertising.

Automatic Referral Traffic from other Websites.

As your Domain authority grows and the company reputation of expertees in the industry becomes unquestioned, others will ask members for your firm to write a guest post on their website. As long as that company or organization is not direct competition, such as a Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, Supplier or Association related to the company it is a great potential traffic generator.

Make sure to get the agreement to place at least one back link to the company website from that article on their website. If that website is a high traffic website such as a Chamber of Commerce, it could mean hundreds of extra clicks interested in the company and its products or services.  Again, this traffic generator costs you nothing but time, expertise and connections.

The Company’s Social Media and Social Shearing Sites become more Relevant and useful as traffic generators.

It is important to have a social media network and social shearing network, but not to interact with potential customers on the social sites themselves. This has long been proven to be unproductive for most small and medium sized businesses. However, as a traffic generator to the company website with targeted content, a good social network can be invaluable.

Now that you have a rich and varied core of content within your targeted topic, and you have a network of social media and social shearing sites branded to your company website and logo, syndicate them. Bind them together with what is called a share bar, which allows a visitor to share articles out to their followers with the touch of a mouse.  It also allows your staff to share a different article every day or so to all your syndicated network.  The shares are simple one line description of the article a picture and a link.  This link brings them right back to the company website from Twitter, Facebook, Reddit or wherever they happen to see it!

Increase the Chance of a Comment or Contact Us, do not Forget the Auto Call Button!

With Content Marketing, the point is to crate a core of targeted information that answers as many questions about that targeted topic as possible. The trick is to write in such a way that leaves open questions, leaves the reader wanting more information.  It is then that you need to have clear ways to contact the company, contact us, email, phone number maybe even a mailing list sign up.

Always end articles inviting a potential client to call or contact you with any questions or comments, and encourage them to do so, make it easy to start the call. But the key here it to always be tactful, do not “Advertise” Content marketing is about making the company the expert, the trusted friend.

The Company’s Reputation, Trust, Expert Status Greatly Improved.

Content Marketing has the added affect of improving a company’s brand reputation, the expert status it holds in the community and the trust potential customers feel towards the company after experiencing the expert content on the website.

A Content Marketing company website which is helpful, informative and enlightening helps potential clients think more highly of the company’s brand. Further, when potential clients see the company brand logo and graphics published on various social media brands it increases confidence even more.

Guest posts on leading community websites, clearly linked back to the company website, in a clear way adds those websites endorsement and credibility to the company website. All these factors together increase the company’s overall reputation, trust and expert status in their product or service.

Good Content on a Company Website Creates Tighter Customer Relationships with Existing Customers as well as Future Clients.

The better a company’s brand reputation, the easier it is to build the audience for that content, and the brand reputation grows even stronger. Brand reputation makes loyal clients that are encouraged to brag on the source of their purchase and recommend that company to friends and colleagues.

It is important to remain in contact with customers after the sale, follow up with more information on the product or service. Hold the clients interest, keep the company’s brand in the forefront of the clients mind as information, and as a loyal member of your client family they will become your best source of new prospects.  There is no better lead than one sent by a loyal, satisfied and enthusiastic existing customer.

Customer Recommendations and Endorsements as Content can Rocket Interest.

It is important for any company to encourage endorsements and recommendations from their clients, but in content marketing we take it a step farther. In addition to the usual customer recommendations page, content marketing suggests articles as case studies on successful applications of your product or service.

Video interviews of clients happy with their purchase or ongoing service is always great content. Additionally, survey results of existing clients pointing out what they like most about a product or service builds positive re-enforcement of the company’s interaction with customers.  Last, if you have installers or salespeople, articles of unusual installations or a particular situation where a company representative really helped out a customer in a time of need is also great content marketing material.

Content Marketing for Small and Medium Business can make any Product or Service Seem more Interesting.

No matter what product of service a company represents, Content Marketing can make it more interesting, intriguing and thought provoking if it is handled by a content professional. Even an un-sexy business like car mechanics can be a search magnet with the right articles on what a noise may be, or how to save money by preventive repair on an area not usually talked about.

Cleaning services can have content about improving health and losing weight simply by reducing dust mites, automotive tinting company’s can create articles on exotic sports cars to attract readers interested in cool looking cars. Even a yard service company can create articles on cinch bugs and nurseries can blog about exotic plants.

Great content marketing comes from great content writers like those at Cheetah Marketing Group, where we have created interesting and compelling content for over 30 years. Content is as effective as it is written, and the content marketing business website is as effective as its core of overall content.

Bonus:  Content Marketing for Small and Medium Business Is Cost Effective.

Unlike expensive one time advertising, radio ads, cable TV spots, Magazine pages, printed material and the good old news paper, Content Marketing is an asset that stays virtually forever and builds with each new piece of content. While a radio ad is over in 30 seconds, a news paper ad in a day and a magazine ad in a week or a month, content never dies.

The other great thing about content marketing is that even the supplemental traditional advertising a company may do to increase traffic to the growing content website, can become part of the content core. Digital copies of the ads can be in a permanent part of the website preserved forever in archives for future customers to look at and reflect on.  Once more those ads can be presented with a small article about them and linked with a unique URL to the search engines, and those ads become even more long term content!

Content marketing is inexpensive, safe, available for anyone in any industry, and beneficial in many different areas. The sooner you start investing in it, the sooner you’ll start to see results, and the better results you’ll eventually see. Whether you’re in it for the increased traffic, higher conversion rates, or just better relationships with your customers, there’s no reason content marketing shouldn’t be included in your marketing arsenal.

How Cheetah Marketing Group can help Your Company with Content Marketing

Compared to almost any other type of advertising, a well written, growing and well maintained content marketing website is the most cost effective form of advertising available to small and medium today. The best part of content marketing is that it enhances any other kind of advertising, yes it can be used stand alone, but used with other traditional advertising campaigns it only increases their effectiveness.

Very few businesses have effective writers within their organizations and if they do these writers are usually not familiar with writing for SEO and the on line search engines. Even if a company has a lot of great writers, that is actually a wonderful advantage for increased flows of material on the website, but are you an expert in constructing a Deep Content Marketing Business Website?

Cheetah Marketing Group developed Deep Rich Data in 2010 (one of the factors that created modern content marketing) and the new Deep Rich Data II a unique testing system. With Deep Rich Data II we can evaluate your company’s website and provide suggestions for moving it towards a compliant content marketing business website.

We can handle it all for you, the writing, SEO spinning, picture, social media, linking even the local outreach. It all depends on your level of need, and your commitment to a content marketing website.  The evaluation if free, each program is customized to the needs of a specific company and we have been successful doing this since before there was a true internet!

Give us a call today, let’s talk, you need something to replace the yellow pages, maybe this is the answer for you!

Cheetah Marketing Group

Experience Matters

30 Years of Excellence