Most are now realising that Content marketing  is one of the finest ways of engaging with and getting a reaction from a specific targeted market. This infographic from Content Plus explores just how successful content marketing can help businesses grow online. Read their blog post exploring this infographic in more detail  here  or  watch the  animated video . NEW!  The Anatomy of Content Marketing in more languages :   Arabic Danish Dutch Finnish French German Italian

One Giant Leap into Social Media Marketing I thought I would share the intro of my book with you. I have had many emails from people that have found the blighter super handy when tackling their own social media.  It is available at the ridiculously low price of £4.49 GPB on iTunes , Amazon and all good digital download stores. “A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him” William James. Introduction: If you have a business, a product, a service

I know. You have seen this kind of heading before right? True, there are many folk offering sturdy advice on using Twitter for business. But they all seem to leave out 5 really significant deal breakers that could mean your tweets get maximum visibility and actually WORK for you rather than disappear into Twitter cyberspace with nothing but a poof of turquoise smoke! Get it into perspective. Many of my clients really worry about not being on Twitter at the right time to catch

40 Brilliant Facebook Tips for Freelancers Who Want More Clients and Consistent Income

Here’s a fun Twitter info graphic for you!  All the up to date facts and figures for Twitter 2012.  Browse more data visualization . #PR #thinkandtweetlater #Twitter #socialmediaplanning #onlineprtips #webdevelopment #OnlinePRandMarketing #promoteyourcompany #SocialMedia #ticketsales

SO – end of the year is here and I suppose it’s time to evaluate the blog. Urgghhhhhh. Well, its not just about writing one is it?  It’s vital to know how it’s doing, and work out a few stats. For me, this task is similar to doing my tax returns. I dread it.  I detest it. It’s like a  summer holiday without the sun, chips without salt and vinegar..a Sunday roast without a Yorkshire pudding. Oh you get the picture.   Ahem. Still it IS a necessity. Unfortunately. Necessary for

Happy Monday!.. I came across this brilliant infographic which gives you the best and worst times to post up on your social media channels and wanted to share!  I found this via a fellow follower, who writes a great blog, Marianne who found it reading Tony Phallets blog!..Are you with me?! You can follow Tony on his blog , Twitter – @tphallett – and  Google+ ) Enjoy! Source: social caffeine | Embed this on your own website (FREE) #socialcommunities #SmallBiz #Twitter #Face

Another infographic from the delectable Brafton and  here’s their brilliant blog post to go with it  written by Katherine Griwert ( @kgriwert ) their Head of Marketing Content and Communications.  We know that quality written content is brilliant for Google rankings and search friendly content, keywords and quality information presented for your readers also adds to that. Granted.  This infographic fabulously shows how this is so!  Thanks Katherine… Source: Brafton | Embed t

What actually is an effective marketing strategy?  Wiki says A “ Marketing strategy  is a process that can allow an organization to concentrate its limited resources on the greatest opportunities to increase sales and achieve a sustainable  competitive advantage .“ Well, if you are like me and despise the word ‘strategy’ but realise its’ importance within most long term goals, you will understand that there are several steps in which to take to make sure you reach those goals

To get the best out of social media takes planning.  Have I drummed that into you enough yet?!  Once you know what you want and you’ve figured out a way to get there – you are on your way! All you have to do is to produce valuable content and information that people will find useful, unique and unrivalled. Ahem. Now if you are a pub, bar or restaurant, using social media is vital. But you are up against a lot of competition. You also don’t have a lot of time, being very busy

We all know we have to, but how do we start? Well this post is designed to help you do just that! 1. Understand your own site before you do ANYTHING. Why would somebody want to link to your site? 2. Find out who is already linking to you, if anyone. Go to Google and type in link:domainname.com and then research these guys.  Who else do they link to? (Your competition) and what keywords, anchor texts do they use? 3. Now figure out your strategy:. Find out who is linking to yo

Successful Viral Content is Easy! OPT gives you 10 reasons why viral marketing will work for your business, career or brand: If you write a passionate, eloquent, or well-researched argument that your niche will  agree with, you will gain followers. Fact. There is already an army of people who agree with you so they are ready and waiting to jump in a say ‘AYE’! You could take the ‘stirring up’ angle and write a well-written piece in answer to another argument or challenge a po

OPT offers you top 5 tips that your competitors will already know! read on… It is fair to say that online pr is NOT the same as offline pr. The differences are significant.  And it is important to learn that both are pitched differently.  This is something successful marketeers have learnt over time and you can learn this from them. Online PR is a varied mixture of brand reputation monitoring and management activities and it’s main goal to influence media, communities and au

How about beginning a audio or video tutorial for your niche? Do you think that your audience will benefit from you offering them a mentoring service? Tips and Tricks for your specialist service? Whether your skills lie in being a creative or an expert in your niche (you could be a great golfer or know how and when to pot certain plants a musician, or a retail manager, etc) Think of the qualities you could share with other businesses in your field or your online clientele. Re

OK, So you’ve got your twitter page looking hot, you’ve written your 3-month campaign and have a decent strategy in place. Then comes the networking right? Imagine you have been invited to one of those work events, you’ve got your name badge and you are fully equipped with a head full of mind numbing questions that you really don’t need to know the answers to, wine in hand – off you go. GULP. One of the upsides of twitter is that you can do all this in your PJs from the comf

In one of our earliest posts – we asked; ‘ if your content lacks good, strong keywords then how do you expect others to find you? ‘  This lead us to chatting about Keywords. I am still getting so many questions about this subject, I wanted to just reiterate the basics. Keywords are the words that your customer/client would type into  Google  to find you.  If you were a catering company, I would take a guess that ‘catering hire’, book caterer’, ‘party food’ and ‘event catering

What are promoted Tweets I hears you cry? Well, a promoted Tweet is an ordinary Tweet that has been purchased by advertisers who want to reach a wider audience or to engage with their existing followers. They are clearly labeled as ‘Promoted’ so you know which ones are being paid for and the ones that aren’t. They can be retweeted, replied to, favorited and so on.  With the same concept of the Facebook ads as mentioned in my post last week, it helps you to reach out to target

At last! we Google is catching up!  Evolving all the time, the new Google + features bring it bang up to date and much easier to navigate.  It certainly is a platform to get into and I can see this developing into an essential social media channel for business in the very near future. Here’s the low down on the new features! 1.First of all there is a brand new header image and profile photo option that makes your page stand out and gives Facebook a run for its money. I have m

Ok – so we now know how to set up an ad campaign on Facbeook. But where to drive them is just as important. Driving fans to a page that contains a “ Reveal Tab ” hiding exclusive Fan content is the most effective way to convert visitors to fans.  And now Facebook has evolved somewhat, we can now add custom tabs and pages and tailor make them so only fans who have ‘liked’ your page can see certain content.  Genius! Therefore, it would be a waste of an opportunity if you just d

Happy Friday people, So, you have a nice big juicy database to utilise right? Great! todays post is all about writing that perfect newsletter and reaching out to that database on a regular basis (not too regularly though!).  Whether in the form of an email subscription, a simple blog or a tangible letter through the post, these are important. Its another way to deliver content to your audience and although ‘the newsletter’ has had bad press over the years, I believe that they