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Robyn Ackerman
In Blog, Marketing, Tips, Web Development

5 Questions to ask when Building a New Website

Building a new website is a project many companies take on with excitement.  However, after countless hours of confusing proposals from web designers, the project can quickly turn tedious.  In order to ensure you are getting the most out of this endeavor, I have compiled a list of 5 important questions you should ask when interviewing potential website designers.

  1. What platform do you recommend for my business?

building a websiteThere are many different website building platforms out there and understanding which one your designer is most skilled in is very important.  More so, you want to know why they would recommend your site to be built on a specific platform.  If you work as a photographer, Square Space may be best for you. Whereas if you have high traffic online store, Drupal may be the top option as it has the highest rating for multiple users at a time.  WordPress works great for many CMS (Content Management Systems) needs and is usually Pop Digital Marketing’s “go-to” platform due to its versatility.

Your site should reflect the needs of your customer!  Not solely the expertise of the web-designer.  A web-designer must be well-versed in all the top options in order to best evaluate which one would fit the needs of your site while also assessing what type of online experience your customers are looking for.

  1. Does my package come with a responsive design?

A responsive design refers to a site providing an optimal viewing experience across a range of devices (computer, phone, tablet etc.) while minimizing the need to re-size words or navigations.  In April, 2015, Google began to boost ratings and positions of sites that had a responsive design.

In today’s world – you should not be charged extra for a mobile ready site.  Any theme created in the last 5 years is already made with a responsive design option and all custom designs should include that in the package.  Paying extra for a responsive site in 2017 is like paying extra for air-conditioning in a car after 1970.  The demand is that 100% of sites need it, therefore it should not be an optional “add on”.

  1. Will you be using a pre-made template or custom building one?

This question is important because the price between the two options varies immensely.  If your designer is using a pre-made template or a “theme”, it means they do not have to build the infrastructure of the site, rather they are just using modules or plugins to “fill the pieces in”.  If the designer is custom building the site, they are doing everything from the ground work up.

There are certainly pros and cons to both.  Overall, a pre-made template will cost you a lot less.  Using a pre-made template means updates are done by the theme designer- not your website designer, at no extra cost and requires little from your end.  If you have an employee on your team that can routinely press the update button on the site when prompted, this may be the best choice for you.

A pro to building your own custom site is that it is made exactly how you choose.  You do not feel constricted by what a theme can or cannot do.  A con to building a custom site however is you will likely have to pay your web designer an ongoing fee to maintain the site.  What if they go out of business or show a lack of responsiveness?  You do have to consider how a long term relationship will play out with this web designer.

  1. How will the site be optimized?

The whole goal of a website should be to attract leads and develop them into a customer.  If your site is not optimized from the backend with meta data to the front end with on page relevant keywords and call to actions, your site will fail you.

As a result of search engines now measuring on-site engagement in their rankings, you must also ask your designer what they plan for the “user experience”.  Will there be a user flow plan?  What actions do you anticipate the potential customer to take on each and every page and how will your site nurture their interest?

  1. Who will update it and how often?

It is important to understand the ongoing expectations before you sign any contracts.  If you have someone on your team that can manage the sit-e great!  If not, make sure to ask your website designer what type of retainer fees/programs they offer to maintain your site updates.

This will help you avoid the common issue of possessing a great website but not knowing how to add to or edit it.  Ask your designer to include an hour or two training session as part of your contract once the site is done, but before you go “live”.

Robyn Ackerman
In , How to, Marketing, , Tips

What Facebook’s New Recommendation Tool Means For Your Company

In October 2016, Facebook rolled out a brand new option to ask for “recommendations” on your personal feed or in a group. Facebook automatically detects words like “I need a recommendation” or “I am looking for” and converts the post into a distinct “recommendation” post that now includes an active map.

facebook recommendationsBenefits of the Recommendation Rollout:

  • For the everyday Facebook user, the new rollout is a quick and easy way to poll one’s connections for nearby establishments offering the services they are looking for or events to attend. When a friend starts writing the name of the company they want to recommend, Facebook auto fills in the company page and will put a marker on the map above. It also provides quick links to that business page. Facebook is currently saving all this data to use in its next roll out of providing you with a tab of your friends’ current recommendations all in one place.
  • This is beneficial to your business because your customers are now able to easily promote your business to active seekers of your services! It also gives your company exposure to everyone else reading or active on the post. Your company is automatically linked, so you do not need to depend on the happy customer to copy and paste any website URLs which is a step often forgotten. Plus, if your Facebook page is set up using a CTA (Call To Action), the new visitors can convert immediately!

Potential Opportunities to Use it in the future:

As more companies build brand ambassador partnerships with happy customers, the new “recommendation tool” can be used as a simple and free tracking method. Once your page is mentioned, you will receive notification on who recommended you. Those insights will be key for rewarding your online referral sources.

Another impending future roll-out is rankings of places that receive recommendations. The more you get, Facebook will measure and eventually rank you in your industry with those numbers.

Robyn Ackerman
In , How to, Marketing, , Tips

5 Key Tactics to Create Engagement on Facebook

facebook engagement tips

Big brands and small brands alike all have similar goals on social media: To cultivate our online community, grow our followers and ultimately create a platform to convert new leads. 

What is Facebook Engagement and why does it matter?

Many times our clients at Pop Digital Marketing ask why they should try and solicit responses, likes and shares on Facebook. Facebook Engagement Rate is measured by the percentage of people who saw a post (the reach) and liked, shared, clicked or commented on it. As a result of Facebook’s EdgeRank Algorithm, your page’s engagement rank will play a leading factor in which newsfeeds your posts get displayed in.  So in short and simply put (there is a bit more to it), if people are not interacting with your posts, they will eventually stop seeing them.

5 Facebook Posts to Drive Engagement:

  1. Contests. Create a fun contest that requires participants to comment or share the contest photo. Facebook has removed the contest requirement of using a third party application, so you can make this as simple as you want now!  Facebook contests with the goal of increasing engagement also carry many other benefits if your team strategizes well.  Over 38% of Facebook users are active in contests and when the rules are simple to follow that number goes up to over 52%.

What works: Try requiring followers to post a link to a product or service from your website to your page.  This now increases web views and brings awareness to what you are selling. 

  1. Photos. According to Wishpond– Facebook photos attract 104% more comments than an average post. And while insights of engagement vary across different industries, there is a global statistic that engagement rates are higher on Thursdays and Fridays. 

What Works: Right now, Throw Back Thursdays and Flash Back Fridays are driving many successful engagement campaigns.  Another fun way to get people interacting with your photos is to ask followers to “caption” the photo.  This creates “buy-in” from the followers and makes for a fun way to inspire creativity. 

  1. Ask for opinions. Let your followers know they matter. A powerful way to solicit comments are merely by asking.  According to a hubspot study, the way you phrase your questions will determine the likelihood of response success. 

What Works: Ask your fans a “Which would you rather” question about 2 new services you are contemplating offering.  This will help with creating a sense of “ownership” and anticipation from your prospects.  For more on generating comments, read this blog. 

  1. Fill in the blanks. Fill in the blank posts are another fun way to up your rankings. Use this opportunity to be light and even humorous! 

What Works: While we generally post close to subjects regarding our business, fill in the blank posts can actually deter out of your industry zone.  The more entertaining the post is, the higher the likelihood of generating responses.   Tie it into the local weather, news or hot topic. 

  1. Like vs. Share. Like vs. Share posts are a nice little trick to utilize the draw of visuals while still extracting that opinion benefit mentioned above.

What Works: Post a picture/visual of two opposing sides (A and B) that people have strong views on and ask them like the picture if they want A to win or B to win.  Note: This one won’t really give you qualified leads but is an easy way to increase your edgerank.

How to track engagement:

Using Facebook insights you can easily track each post and its success or lack of in generating engagement.  It’s very important to track both your overall page engagement (how many people are clicking on your page and its tabs) as well as the individual posts engagement rates.  Once you have at least 4 weeks’ worth of data, you can start creating campaigns based on what you know your audience responds to best!

Robyn Ackerman
In Blog, E-Marketing, , LinkedIn, Marketing, SEO, , Tips, Training

5 Actionable Digital Marketing Resolutions For 2015

As we wrap up 2014, now is a prime time to look back at what successes we’ve had at work and where we may have room for improvement.  Many business leaders are projecting the next year’s potential growth along with strategies to increase business development.  While there are many known general methods to market a business, here is a list of 5 very specific actions you MUST take to stay ahead of the curve in 2015.

5 Specific Marketing Action Steps to Take in 2015:

marketing trends 20151. Use Facebook “custom audiences” for ads. Facebook has recently launched a new way to target your ads to your current contact lists.  You can import emails or phone numbers in the audience tab in ‘ads manager’.  Then when you create the ad, you can choose that custom group to show it to. 

Why it works: With Facebook targeting options you can narrow your ads even more by age, location, and interests.  This will increase click-through’s substantially as well as provide you with more options such as Facebook offers, deals and more to present to your interested lists that you could not otherwise through email. 

2. Build your personal brand on LinkedIn. Since rolling out the ability to post blogs and articles directly on the LinkedIn platform, many savvy leaders have begun to leverage their knowledge and expertise to further their personal and business brand awareness. Make sure your profile is updated and start planning the types of posts you can contribute on the largest business networking social media site. 

Why it works: When you post quality content on LinkedIn, you position yourself as a thought leader in your industry and build yourself a positive reputation with potential customers or referral sources.

3. Get on Google My Business. Google+ has been slowly creeping up on Facebook as the second largest social networking site since it launched in 2011. Google provides you with the platform to create a personal identity along with a business page, locations for your company and it all gets tied together under Google My Business.

Why it works: Having all these elements updated and posting relevant information to your page can actually help you rank higher!

4. Brand your visuals for Pinterest. Pinterest currently has 70 million users and that number is growing by the minute. People pin articles, blogs, websites, recipes, shopping, lifestyle dreams and work ideas onto their boards, and the one thing they see when searching the site is the visual associated with the content. Make sure that each piece of collateral you produce is branded well and also includes a quick catchy title.

Why it works: By placing your logo on all your visuals, you are expanding your reach to each and every person that searches for that topic on Pinterest.  When you place a CTA title on the visual, it will increase the clicks and provide viewers with a sense of motivation to read more.

5. Re-purpose your blogs. Pick 5 of your most popular 2014 blogs and expand on them.  Take those blogs and create a “part 2” for each. Or turn one into into a whitepaper or e-book. 

Why it works: By re-purposing your successful content that you already know is popular, highly searched for and engageable, you can collect leads and take potential customers further down your funnel.

2015 will bring us many new opportunities to build our audiences and see marketing success.  Which of these actions do you plan to implement into your strategy?

 

Robyn Ackerman
In Blog, , How to, LinkedIn, Marketing, , Tips,

4 Wedding Traditions to use in your everyday Social Media Strategy

wedding traditions and social mediaWe have all heard of the wedding day traditions for wearing something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.  Originating from an old English rhyme, the 4 items a bride carries with her is supposed to bring her good luck.  Transitioning into today’s digital age, we can actually leverage these 4 elements as a means of remembering some best practice strategies for top notch social media posts!

Post Something Old:

For the bride, something old represents continuity. Psychologically, people prefer to see social media posts they are comfortable with and they can relate to from their past.  This creates a sense of safeness.  This explains why so many people love the “Throw Back Thursday” picture phenomenon. A great tip: post something exciting about an employee that has been with the company from the beginning to give your prospects a sense of your company’s stability.

Post Something New:

For the bride, something new offers optimism for the future.  One the social media spectrum, posting something new positions your company as the thought leaders.  When you are the first to post the latest events, products or news in your industry, it is your post that will get widely shared, commented on and “liked”.  Furthermore, when you are posting about your company’s news and updates, you are demonstrating your company’s ability to provide top service or products by exposing its growth.

Post Something Borrowed:

For the bride, something borrowed symbolizes borrowed happiness.  When it comes to social media, you too should be borrowing happiness and success.  There is no need to re-invent the wheel.  When you see another company’s digital marketing campaigns working well, borrow their strategy! While it’s always ideal to be the first, it may not always be practical.  It is better to be on the right bus, even if you aren’t driving, than to not get on it at all.  Tip: borrow a post but put your own unique spin on it by adding a call to action or a different opinion!

Post Something Blue:

For the bride, something blue stands for purity, love and fidelity.  In social media we know that when a customer loves a post they become passionate to spread it.  Every once in a while, post something controversial to incite engagement.   Nothing attracts more shares and comments then the posts that hit a nerve, good or bad with followers!

Use these 4 tactics in your social media strategy to ascertain your commitment to your followers and with time they will say ‘I Do’ to your services!

Robyn Ackerman
In Blog, E-Marketing, , Hiring, Marketing, Tips, Training

5 Reasons to Hire A Digital Marketing Consultant

You may have your own in-house team of talented marketers, or you perhaps you are on the fence about hiring a full-time employee to take on your marketing needs.  Regardless of where your company stands with it’s marketing strategies, your business can always benefit by bringing in a digital marketing consultant.

Below are 5 key reasons you should consider hiring a marketing consultant:

1. Digital Marketing Consultants stay on top of the latest trends in the marketing world.5 reasons to hire a marketing consultant

A digital marketing consultant NEEDS to know exactly what the newest and greatest strategies are in order to stay in business themselves. Consultants make sure to continuously educate themselves by attending webinars, expos, conferences and networking events. The greatest part is that the consultant does this all at his/her own expense, not on your company’s dime.

2. Digital Marketing Consultants have great insight from working with  other companies and multiple industries.

This is one of the most motivating reasons, if not- the most important reason to hire a consultant.  A successful digital marketing strategist or consultant works with an array of clients.  When a specific campaign is successful with one client, the consultant will likely implement it with all other clients where deemed appropriate. Consultants will also use his/her positive experiences with other business’s marketing platforms (pros/cons of email platforms, tracking software, lead generation systems etc.) to bring to your company as recommendations.  It is this type of constant exposure to other options that sets a consultant apart from a full time employee.

3. Digital Marketing Consultants give you what you pay for… and then    some.

Unlike a full-time employee, a consultant only gets paid for actual work produced. Great consultants work hard until the job, campaign or project is complete, which in most instances means quicker turn around time.  Consultants also have great resources of marketing experts. Need a web developer? Looking for a graphic designer? Marketing Consultants likely have a plethora of names to refer.

4. Digital Marketing Consultants have a fresh take on your company.

Let’s face it, things get stale. Even the greatest content developers hit a wall at some point.  Bringing in a consultant will also bring in fresh ideas.  Digital Marketing Consultants also often pick up on areas that can be improved that have been a part of the strategy for so long, no one else even gave it a second thought. A consultant can also work as an additional asset to your marketing team.  Many companies are confined by time and resources.  It can never hurt to bring on an expert to help loosen those restraints on the team.

5. Digital Marketing Consultants can connect you to other clients.

Building your network also builds your company. Many inbound marketing strategists/consultants will connect clients to cross-promote events, guest blog for one another, send targeted emails to segregated lists and feature each other’s products on social media.  This is a great way to expand customer reach and gain greater exposure.

To see if you business would benefit from a digital marketing consultant, contact us here.

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