“LinkedIn is one of the most effective platforms for expanding your reach and improving your business results,” reports a June 2015 article on SocialMediaExplorer.com.
With 364 million members globally (around one-third of those in the U.S.), LinkedIn is living up to its claim to be the largest professional network. And it’s not only for job-seekers. Recent developments are expanding its reach as a networking and business development tool for businesses of all sizes.
Businesses of all sizes have a valuable resource right at hand for improving the success rate of their products and services — yet many often never tap into it. What is it? Customer feedback.
Recently, Website Magazine featured an article by Kevin Dunne entitled, “Check Your Ego: How to Avoid Killing Customer Feedback,” which addresses the importance of hearing from and listening to your customers.
“To succeed in a fast-paced world with increasing customer expectations, development teams need agility. Agility means adapting product to customer, and that agility can only come from visibility into what the customer really wants,” writes Dunne.
Have you typed a term into Google search on your phone recently? If so, you’re in good company – as some estimates say more than six out of every 10 Google searches are mobile. If you’ve been in the six or seven, did you find what you were looking for? Did your search results provide a link to a relevant, mobile-friendly site, one that could be viewed easily on your phone?
Google wants to ensure its mobile users are getting “friendly” results. Consequently, in 10 days the company will institute a significant change in how it ranks pages in mobile searches.
Ready to work smarter when it comes to social media involvement in 2015? There’s no shortage of research on making the best use of your “social” time online. For this post, we’ve pulled statistics from reputable sites such as FastCompany.com, SocialMediaExaminer.com, Mashable.com and Facebook to help you plan for making the greatest impact.
Think “blog post” when you hear the term content marketing? Blogging was one of the earliest content forms and can be a significant element of content marketing — but it’s rarely the only one. Potential elements are numerous and can include email campaigns, an active social media presence, downloadable white papers or e-books, even in-person events.
Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as “the strategic approach of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.” Key aspects of the approach are providing information (content) that educates, entertains and engages members of the target audience, establishing the content provider as an accessible authority on the matter at hand, and developing a relationship of trust and loyalty with audience members.
Reading recent statistics about the value of visual content on a website brings to mind this centuries-old adage: “Seeing is believing.” Consider these stats reported on wishpond.com, for example:
Have you searched for your name and business on Google and reviewed the results lately? Are you monitoring and managing your online reputation? What others are saying about you online can have a great impact on your business. In fact, it could have more impact than anything you have posted yourself (on your website, ads, social media, etc.)
The way sites are found on the Web has changed significantly in recent years. Search engine optimization or “SEO,” a term that refers to how sites are found in online searches, is now more socially driven and is likely to become moreso thanks to Google Plus (Google+). We recommend building a following on Google+ as an integral part of your online strategy as we expect it will play an increasingly important role in internet marketing going forward.
Since using Google+ to its full potential can be game changer for business, we are providing this post as an orientation to the social platform. Here are 10 things you need to know: