Digital Marketing Tips

Facebook

Your business is for your customers. Build relationships with them, reach new people and drive sales using Facebook.

Over 900 million people like and comment an average of 3.2 billion times every day. When you have a strong presence on Facebook, your business is part of these conversations and has access to the most powerful kind of word-of-mouth marketing -- recommendations between friends.

Four Steps to Business Success on Facebook

• Step 1 - Build Your Page. Everything starts with your Page
  
• Step 2 - Connect With People. Ads help you reach the right people
  
• Step 3 - Engage Your Audience. Quality posts keep people interested
  
• Step 4 - Influence Friends of Fans. Expand your reach through friends

Facebook Resources

• Creating a Facebook Page
• Facebook Support
• Facebook Ads Manager
• Facebook Business Resource Hub

Instagram Stories has become the reason to use Instagram. It's why 50 percent of businesses have now created a story. Often, the unedited content that captures real-life outperforms the pristine photos uploaded to Instagram itself.

Instagram Stories has had more than 250 million daily active users as of August 2017. Those under the age of 25 spend more than 32 minutes per day on Instagram, on average, while those 25 and older spend more than 24 minutes daily.

It is worth your time to create Stories like these that are proven to perform. They're what your audience most wants! For more information, go to Instagram resources website.

Every day, millions of people turn to Twitter to connect to their interests, to share information, and find out what's happening in the world right now. Anyone can read, write and share messages of up to 280 characters on Twitter.

These messages, or Tweets, are available to anyone interested in reading them, whether logged in or not. Your followers receive every one of your messages in their timeline - a feed of all the accounts they have subscribed to or followed on Twitter.

This unique combination of open, public, and unfiltered Tweets delivered in a simple, standardized 280-character unit, allows Twitter users to share and discover what's happening on any device in real time.

Go to Twitter's resource page for more information.

Better understand how Twitter can help your business and learn how to start using it for free.

Video marketing can be a critical marketing tool for your business. Almost 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube every day, for entertainment, information and education. But how do you get started? YouTube hosts the Creator Academy where you can get a quick start guide, learn the basics and get information on how to brand your channel. Don't forget to review user guidelines and policies.

Start with the Quick Start Guide to get your first video online and in front of your ideal client.

There are also lots of articles online with extra details and facts as well as firsthand expertise on how to get your video seen. Check out this one from Inc.com.

1. Builds Trust
2. Increases SEO Rankings
3. Free Advertising in Prime Google Locations
4. Reach new customers through local searches
5. Funnels users back to your website and social accounts

Listing your business on Google Maps

Millions use Google Maps each day. Download the pdf with step by step instructions on how to add your business on Google Maps or watch this video from Google with step by step instructions. 

Additional Ways Google Can Help Your Small Business

Download the Google Guide for Small Businesses to find out more about how you can improve your digital presence using Google, including creating a website, analyzing traffic, digital advertising and posting on YouTube.

TripAdvisor is the world's largest travel community.

• More than 56 million monthly visitors
• 32 million members
• Over 75 million reviews and opinions
• 30 sites in 21 languages

The TripAdvisor Management Center is full of free tools to help you build your business. In order to access it, you need to register on as an official representative for your lodging. Go to Trip Advisors Owners page, search for your property, fill in the required details, and confirm your association. Once registered, you will be able to access all of the Management Center resources.

With a free business account you can:

• Update your business details
• Showcase your business with great photos
• Receive e-mail notification of new reviews
• Respond to guest reviews
• Promote your business with free widgets and badges
• Compare your business with competitors by tracking your performance

Some helpful TripAdvisor hints

First Steps

• Add TripAdvisor links to social media networks
• Establish best practices for managing reviews
• Order and distribute TripAdvisor comment cards and encourage guests to review
• Write detailed descriptions of your location and offerings
• Keep images (20 or more) fresh and current
• Use booking/reservation links

After receiving a review

• Respond quickly and professionally. Make sure to always respond - a simple, "Thank you, we're happy you enjoyed your visit", says volumes.
• Display TripAdvisor awards and badges online or on location

 Reference business opportunities and other features on Trip Advisor.

With voice search steadily growing, here are tips from which you will benefit and hopefully have your website displaying at the top of the search engine result pages. This is important because the top 3 results are what voice search will show.

Points to remember

• Grammar matters
• Ensure you claim and optimize all opportunities across Google My Business and Google Maps so you own local i.e. someone may say, "Okay Google, show me the nearest bagel shop"
• Keep web content fresh
• In 2017, "how" was the largest search term i.e. "Okay Google, how do I find the suspension bridge?"
• Don't put tables into your website since answers cannot be obtained from them.
• Answer a popular question early on your website i.e., "Do you serve vegetarian options on your menu?"
• When you get the chance, test for voice searching on your website and see how Siri, Google or Alexa respond