• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Quadrant Technology

Performance Marketing Agency & Shopify Experts

  • Services
  • Works
  • About
  • Blog
  • Partner Program
  • Contact
  • Career

small business marketing

Top 5 tips for managing small business social media accounts

June 28, 2017 by Maria Paiva Leave a Comment

Spending the entire day managing your social media profiles – especially if you own a small business – can prove to be a tall order. It’s an entirely different story for a social media marketing professional – whose job is to spend hours and days managing social media accounts for various clients. However, knowing a few social media account management and optimization tips and tricks – will save you a lot of time, effort and help you focus on other aspects of growing a business and acquiring potential customers.

Monster.Co.Uk GIFs - Find & Share on GIPHY

There are tools and software that you can use for managing small business social media accounts, like, HootSuite, Moz, Buffer, SproutSocial, BuzzSumo, and others. The price range for most of these resources starts from $99 to $400 / month.

I am going to share inexpensive (you can say free!) quick and easy methods and techniques to manage multiple social media accounts for your small business.

Top 5 tips for managing small business social media accounts

#TIP NUMBER 1

Social listening

Social Media connects brands with audiences. The channels – apart from promoting businesses – also creates a two-way source of communication between consumers and businesses. To manage social media accounts for your small business, you first need to listen and get acquainted with your audience on various social media platforms.

Obama GIFs - Find & Share on GIPHY

It is called social listening. Hear about the conversations surrounding your business via messages, comments, mentions, hashtags, etc. on social media channels. Social Listening helps in enhancing customer experience.

#TIP NUMBER 2

Chrome extensions

Chrome Extensions are super efficient (if you choose smartly). There are 10 Chrome Extensions – specifically applicable for social media management and social media managers.

  1. Bit.ly – With Bit.ly you can shorten longer hyperlinks and get enough space for social media posts.
  2. Pocket – Sharing relevant posts and messages on social media drives engagement and results. The best way to curate and access the best posts and articles across the internet is available via Pocket.
  3. Pinterest Save Button – This extension allows you to access images that you want to share in your Pinterest Dashboard.
  4. Mini Feedly – Find shareable content and posts without opening Feedly or logging into it in another window. The Chrome extension will do the work for you, saving time and effort to post the best content across all social media channels.
  5. Video Cutter – Video Cutter Chrome extension is YouTube supported. It allows you to cut and edit videos to share online.
  6. Agorapulse – Agorapulse is a social media management tool. With its availability as a Chrome Extension, you can schedule posts, share and schedule reshare on multiple social media platforms.
  7. Browser Stack Local – Browser Stack Local Chrome Extension does help in saving a massive amount of time. You can test workflows, layouts and more on both mobile and desktop browsers, without visiting or using any other resource or tool.
  8. Google Forms – The extension allows to create reports, analytics, forms, run surveys, and quizzes, create questionnaires and more for better productivity.
  9. Pic Monkey – Do instant image updates, edits, brush ups, fixes and more, with a simple Pic Monkey extension.
  10. Google Keep – Create your to-do list, create memos, voice memos and collaborate with your team, without spending an extra minute in using other tools.

#TIP NUMBER 3

Add wordPress plugins for social media management

If you have a WordPress powered website, you can use plugins for easy social media management directly via your site. With plugins, you can manage, schedule posts, control your social media accounts and thorough analytics and reporting tasks as well. Some of the social media management plugins for WordPress are:

  1. All In One Auto Social Marketing
  2. Social Media Auto Post & Scheduler
  3. Revive Old Post Pro
  4. CoSchedule
  5. WP to Twitter
  6. HYPESocial Buffer Pro
  7. Pinterest Automatic Pin WordPress Plugin
  8. Juicer

#TIP NUMBER 4

Tricks to engage with your audience

Driving engagement is the central objective of all your social activity. More and more customers prefer interacting with brands and businesses on social media if it holds relevant to their needs. From replying to customer queries, commenting, liking to tagged content, resharing, to following influencers and users who will drive results to your business, are a few ways you can engage and interact with your audience on social media. But you have to be a wise owl, instead of a night owl to maintain the pace and tap on the sources.

Magnet GIFs - Find & Share on GIPHY
  1. Add social media accounts on your website
  2. Add social media accounts in email signatures
  3. Curate and create content that your users can resonate with
  4. Create easy to consume content
  5. Ask questions directly to your audience
  6. Set up and share infographics
  7. Respond to user interaction activities on your social media profiles

#TIP NUMBER 5

Ifttt or zapier for ultimate automation

IFTTT or If This Then That is an app that allows you to automate everything you do via the Internet from websites, applications to online accessories. You can use IFTTT to automate social media posting and relevant tasks. You can also go with Zapier for easy automation of all your digital marketing duties.

Create automation – applets – through IFTTT by signing up for free.  Access business, bookmarking, blogging, social media, email, and hundreds of other tools and networks.

You can create Applets through IFTTT to –

  • Share engaging content
  • Share customer experiences
  • Set up and assign social media marketing tasks
  • Monitor, report and analyze competitor posts and content on social media
  • Tweet based on location of your users

I will share an in-depth analysis and a thorough guide to social media marketing – Done easy, and done to drive results – in the next post. But here’s a tiny glimpse of what I am going to cover in the easy-to-read-easy-to-follow Guide To Social Media Marketing For Small Businesses:

  1. What is social media marketing?
  2. What are the benefits of social media marketing?
  3. Why should small businesses make every use of social media marketing?
  4. How to find and choose the ideal social media network for your small business?
  5. Best practices of social media marketing
  6. Metrics and ROI of social media marketing
  7. How to create an effective social media marketing strategy?
  8. Content marketing to support social media marketing strategies and execution plan
  9. Tools to use for social media marketing
  10. Measuring social media marketing campaigns

Conclusion

You can – any day – use HootSuite and similar social media marketing tools to create, share, schedule content on social media, manage multiple accounts, create reports, monitor campaigns and do lots more. But at the end of the day, you need to optimize your task list, work on in-depth strategies and engage with your audience from the core level to drive the desired results.

Managing social media accounts for your small business is not rocket science. You can spend a few minutes or the entire day to follow a workflow but with a smart worksheet, you can a day’s task in just an hour’s turnaround time.

Top 5 Ways A Blog Can Benefit A Small Business

April 12, 2017 by Maria Paiva Leave a Comment

Blogs – when packed with social media – becomes a powerhouse conversion, branding and customer acquisition tool for small businesses. Then why most small businesses refrain from tapping the blogging opportunities? What benefits can small business blogs bring in?

THREE REASONS WHY SMALL BUSINESSES AVOID HAVING BLOGS

Small Business Blogs

  • Lack of time
  • Knowledge and technical know-how
  • Unaware about blogging benefits

SMALL BUSINESS MARKETING BLOG – A LOST-IN-THE-CROWD BLOGGER SYNDROME?

When I started blogging (remember blogger.com?) – and wrote on important issues – ranging from politics, life, health to trends – I did it as a part of my hobby. Never thought of continuing it as a part of our in-house marketing strategy.

WHY AM I WORKING ON MY COMPANY BLOG?

  • Share information, communicate key messages and connect with our users
  • Drive traffic to our site
  • Conversion

And these three reasons are equally relevant for small businesses too – that currently are absent of blogs.

TOP 5 BENEFITS OF SMALL BUSINESS BLOGS

Small Business Blogs

CONNECT WITH THE TARGET AUDIENCE AND KEEP THEM INFORMED ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS

A website has its core pages – About Us, Services, Contact Us and other pages – and each is designed and created for meeting a particular purpose. But these pages cannot connect your business with the target audience.

A blog is a single entity of your website that will act as a bridge – filling up the gap between your small business and audience. You can add content discussing your new products, launches, services, a buzz around your enterprise and more and give a direct ticket to your audience to the same.

You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on campaigns, billboards, press media and other paid resources to connect and share information with your users – The blog will do the JOB!

LEVERAGE AND DRIVE ACTIVE SEO RESULTS

Small business blogs – when updated with fresh and optimized content – boost SEO score and suffice SEO criteria of sites.

With a blog, you can add content, images, and creatives – integrated with backlinks and targeted keywords – which will help in enhancing SERPs of your website.

Update blog for your small business on a scheduled basis – aligning with the best SEO guidelines and techniques – and you can be ahead of the SEO game – called high PageRank.

ENHANCE SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE

Having a strong social media presence is important for small businesses. And a blog helps in meeting this component of both small business marketing and social media marketing.

Social media is where you can find your potential customers. The platform not only connects brands with users but also creates a two-way communication system for both the parties.

A blog acts as a trigger to boost social media entity of small businesses. Add social media buttons to the blog and help users to share and build awareness amongst the community for your brand.

BUILD AND MAINTAIN RELATIONSHIP WITH BOTH OLD AND NEW CUSTOMERS

When you create valuable and informative content for your small business blog – you’re building authority in your sector. And your audience will consider you as a reliable source and start believing in you.

More than SEO ranking and brand promotion – a blog helps in building a cohesive customer relationship. It will work as a tour guide for your audience – taking them around the website and providing them beyond a set of informative static pages.

Blogs talk about the different experiences, pain points, ups and downs of not only the concerning business but also the customers – which enables the audience to connect and relate to. With a blog – you’ll be creating a foundation for a stronger and long-term customer/business relationship.

COST EFFECTIVE MARKETING CAMPAIGN

If you know the basics of blogging and are driven by the purpose and proposition value of your business, you’ll definitely make the best use of a small business blog.

Blogging is one of the most cost-effective and result-oriented marketing investments. Creating regular posts and updating blogs with fresh, original and engaging content – will not only drive users to your site but also build brand identity, awareness and help promote your services/products/brand value to both old, existing and new customers.

Small Business Blogs

And the best part of having small business blogs – is that you don’t have to spend a dime in using blogging as a marketing tool – unless, you hire writers and professionals to work on your blog.

 

How You Can Employ AI In Your Digital Marketing Today: Small Business Marketing

December 29, 2016 by Maria Paiva Leave a Comment

What is Artificial Intelligence and how can we use it in digital marketing strategies?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is way beyond a robot or advanced machine that is stereotyped in all movies and TV series (read: I, Robot, RoboCop, Tron and so on).

What is artificial intelligence?

No, it’s nothing like the RoboCop. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the ability of computer systems and machines to complete human tasks. Its performances included language translation, decision making, speech recognition, visual perception and more.

Artificial intelligence is changing consumer-brand relationship dynamics

The shifting paradigm of digital media from the web to virtual reality proves that AI can enhance the digital marketing world today.

Cambridge and Stanford Universities conducted several studies related to the connection between digital marketing and Artificial Intelligence. And most of them assert the fact:

Computers are capable of comprehending human beings in higher clarity than human themselves.

Examples of artificial intelligence and its use in digital media

  • RankBrain – an AI system – used by Google for search query interpretation
  • Natural Language Processing (NLP) processes every language and formats it into structural data or text format, eg: “Okay, Google!”, “Siri”!
  • Speech recognition feature in Skype
  • Customer segmentation via CRM
  • Image recognition, eg: Google Photos, SnapChat Face Swap, Baidu’s DuLight,
  • ChatBots
  • WordSmith – for content generation

How to use Artificial Intelligence in your small business digital marketing strategy?

Content Personalization Machines will author 20% small business content by 2018 – Gartner

Content is the backbone of every business and digital marketing plan. One of the crucial elements of an engaging and result-driven content is an impactful Call-To-Action. Call-To-Action or CTAs increase the conversion rate by 42%.

Copywriters and marketers have been creating personalized call-to-actions in various blog posts, landing pages, newsletter and marketing materials.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is gradually taking the baton from the hands of digital marketers and writers. Now, with the help of AI, you can generate CTAs and content to drive sales, traffic and boost conversion.

The new phenomenon called Programmatic Advertising. Artificial Intelligence is slowly taking over every protocol of digital marketing. In fact, it is making the process less strenuous and more efficient.

What is programmatic advertising?

It is the process of programmatic marketing, advertising and media buying. It involves real-time algorithmic selling and buying of ad space, via the use of the software. More and more marketers are opting for programmatic advertising because it’s customer specific and targeted.

Small Business Marketing Tips For The Holidays

November 8, 2016 by Maria Paiva Leave a Comment

Halloween kick-starts the holidays. ‘Tis the time to be jolly and cash in on the consumer’s spending spirit. Holidays give way to marketing campaigns, sprouting faster than mushrooms. Every business works out marketing campaigns. However, not all succeed. Holiday small business marketing is all about Smarketing or Smart Marketing.

Here are a few examples of major brands cashing in with the smart Holiday marketing campaigns. Check these 18 awesome holiday campaigns and use some of the strategies in your small business marketing campaign.

Holiday marketing campaign success stories

Another fantastic source of inspiration is Shark Tank. The show not only sharpens our innovation and creative streak, but also help hone your selling skills. Businesses that pitch on their special holiday episodes also provides tremendous insight into the opportunities that you can tap into niche or theme products.

From The Living Christmas Company – which is a live Christmas Tree Rental company – to Tipsy Elves and their quirky, signature, Ugly Christmas and Tacky Christmas Sweaters. These and many others are a great example on how we can tap the Holiday Market. Watch here.

Scotty – from The Living Christmas Tree Rental gets a sweet deal from Mark Cuban for 40% stake in his company and $150,000 investment. Tipsy Elves, on the other hand, last year itself had $900K in sales!  Watch here.

Emails Overhaul Hallmark

Emails overhaul Hallmark this holiday season. The fact that using an app or email to wish your colleagues, near and dear ones – no doubt about it – is a lot easier than the snail mail and traditional greeting cards. So, here is a brief Holiday Email Marketing Report that you can download and get ahead of the game.

You can also keep it simple, and make it fast with this cool Email Marketing Holiday Calendar and Planner 2016 – 2017. Or trust the champs – MailChimp – of email marketing with their season’s best tips and advice for your email marketing campaign strategies.

Digital Marketing For Small Businesses: Weekly Round-Up – V2

October 24, 2016 by Maria Paiva Leave a Comment

Lots happened last week. The pressure was undoubtedly high in Silicon Valley, with Peter Thiel double endorsement for Trump and Mark Zuckerberg defending The association. Silicon Valley is experiencing a Political Evolution, with its complete support for Hillary Clinton. Let’s get into the weekly update digital marketing for small business update and bypass this political fiasco for few minutes, shall we!

52 ways to get the best out of your content marketing strategy. Joe Pulizzi from Content Marketing Institute in his recent research pointed out the Result-Generating-Period for a company’s content marketing plan. He says, “It takes 12 – 24 months to get results from your content marketing efforts.” But, you don’t have to wait for 2 years. Use these 52 ways and start witnessing the impact in your business!

Online Marketing PODCASTS to look out for. Visual and audio content are gradually stepping up over other content formats. Here’s a list of 10 peer-to-peer online marketing podcasts that can help you in creating result-driven strategies.

Boost brand influence and increase its exposure amongst your target audience with these top live streaming platforms.

It’s Customer Experience Day. And what better way to kick-start it, with these expert-recommended books on CX. Focusing on Customer Experience is key to the success of every business.

Today, the marketing is customer-centric. Given the rise of social and digital media, along with the transforming buyer behavior, it is only mandatory to prioritize customer experience above every other business goal. These books will provide you with insights, expert advice and guidelines towards delivering the best customer experience.

2017 – digital marketing experts and analysts bet – will be about interactive emails. The market is flooded with apps and smartphones. Statistics suggest that users are becoming less keen on downloading majority of these apps.

Email – though considered as an underdog – is slowing gaining a lot of popularity amongst different businesses. It’s, in fact is becoming a key channel for communication.

More and more newsletter and email content are being integrated with GIFs. So, the concept of interactive emails is a possibility.

Interactive or static, whatever content format you use for your email marketing plan, you need to engage your audience and convert them into potential leads. Here’s a list of ways you can increase email marketing engagement and succeed in your outlined plan.

Footer

footer-logo
  • Works
  • Services
  • Partners
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact

  • google-partners

  • shopify-partner

  • big-commerce

  • inbound-certification

  • bing-ads

  • klaviyo-ads

  • wpe-partner










© 2012-2021 All Rights Reserved - Quadrant Technology.

Fill your details