What does your brand have in common with an ancient Greek soldier? Back around 480 B.C., a messenger ran approximately 22 miles to Athens Greece from a place called Marathon. This is the origin of the long arduous foot race that we are so familiar with. It also reflects the journey we go on when building a brand. Luckily, brand building with social media has given us leverage that entrepreneurs in the past could only dream of. There is some bad news to cover first. Your brand isn’t Coca-Cola, Pampers or Kleenex. But, there’s good news too. With the role of social media in brand building, you don’t have to be a mega-corporation to get mass amounts of attention. Social media gives us direct access to share our message with the entire world. Which is great because so many people are attached to their phones and computers constantly, we can easily get our messages in front of our ideal audiences and build our brand; just as well as anyone else. And, to help g...

Have you ever heard the following? “Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.” That saying is as true for your business advertising as it is for relationships, healthy living, and planning for retirement. If you don’t set a clear objective at the beginning of your journey how do you plan to measure whether the results are successful or not? When you are using Facebook to do your marketing the same concept of having clear objectives applies. You have to tell Facebook what you want to accomplish in order to track progress, invest ad dollars wisely, and scale up the successful campaigns. Do you want even more people to know who you are? Do you want Leads? Website visits? Physical store visits? You can have any of these if you communicate with Facebook correctly. If you make Facebook your partner. Facebook as your Partner Facebook can be your best partner. They want you to succeed because that helps you grow your busine...

- Does the design of your brand communicate the right message - Your brand design should speak to a specific person with a specific message. - If your brand is pretty but doesn't say the right thing, then you won't attract the right people to your business - Here's how to check your own brand to make sure you are communicating the right message through your design: - 1. Does your audience respond to your content? In other words, are they picking up what you're putting down? Are they engaging with it by commenting, sharing, replying, or liking? - 2. Are your sales consistent or are you hearing crickets? A good way to know if they are receiving the right message from your design and marketing is if they are actually buying your offerings - 3. Have someone else look at the design of your brand and website - Do you quickly and clearly understand what you do and who it's for? Is the design clean and professional (so you look legit and no...

First, you must be visible A business that maintains a website is more likely to receive traffic just by simply being there. And according to Google and Nielsen, 73 percent of mobile searches trigger additional action and conversion while 55 percent of purchase-related conversions occur within one hour of an initial mobile search. Make sure your website is mobile friendly. Aside from having a mobile-friendly website, there are a few other things you can do on your own to improve your visibility and online presence. These include improving your search engine rankings, creating great content that people want to link to, and curating content. The higher your website ranks in the search results the better. According to Gravitate Online, a sample of over 8 million clicks shows that over 94 percent of users clicked on a first page result and less than 6 percent actually clicked to the second page and selected a result displayed there. Other places you...

7 Creative Ideas for Using Snapchat to Market Your Business In my last post,  A Beginner’s Guide to Snapchat for Business,  I covered why Snapchat is a great new tool for your business and how to create an account. Now it’s time to start thinking about how you can use Snapchat at your business and what to share with your followers. Snapchat has already gained a lot of attention from larger companies and organizations. And if you’re looking for a new and creative way to connect with your target audience, now is the perfect time to give these fun Snapchat ideas a try. Here are seven unique and creative uses of Snapchat for your business. 1. Coupons The immediacy of Snapchat provides customers with an urgent incentive to shop. Try offering a call-to-action like “15 percent off today only!” or “Screenshot this snap and present it at the register for $5 off.” These enticements encourage your customers to shop while making them feel like they are in the know o...

6 Easy Ways Your Business Can Get Snapchat Followers Growing a following on Snapchat can be difficult, but using your current audiences for promotion makes it easier. While you don’t yet have a following on Snapchat, it’s likely you have a social following elsewhere. By taking advantage of the audiences that you have worked so hard to build on other channels, you’ll have a Snapchat following in no time! In this blog post I’ll provide some easy, actionable tips to promote your Snapchat account and grow a following. 1. Use the network you know the best — your email list! I bet you saw that one coming. Your contacts signed up for your email list because they want to hear from your business.They are likely to connect with you on other social channels, such as Snapchat, because they’re already your most devoted followers. In your next email campaign, make sure your subscribers know you’re on Snapchat. Be sure to include your username, a brief description of w...