Category: Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing

Linked In Guide 2021

Feb 22, 2021 by admin 0 Comments #Linked In, #Social Media Tips 2021

Linked In Guide 2021

Linked In is the social platform favoured by professionals and is usually more geared up for Business to Business networking.  Although Positive Sales and Marketing supports the hospitality sector, there may be individuals or businesses within this sector that will make use of Linked In. Maybe you are a caterer that serves local offices and events, or you are an event management company that uses suppliers from hospitality. Therefore, we have put together this quick Linked In guide 2021, listing the features you can utilise to raise your personal profile and to showcase your business. The company and showcase pages are a great alternative if you don’t have a website, where you can demonstrate your expertise and professionalism in your field.

Personal Profile and Company Page

Linked In has two elements, first the personal profile to build your personal brand. This is ideal for professional freelancers and employees that build relationships with customers. It is a platform for networking and keeping abreast of industry news. It also allows you to exhibit your expertise and thought leadership. Secondly you can set up a company page as a business overview and then make showcase pages for each of your services.

Linked In’s Guidance

Linked In itself makes recommendations on how to put together your personal profile. One thing it isn’t is an online version of your CV. It is a platform to tell your story, share your ethics and values and how you can be of service to your industry based on your current skills and attributes.

Here is a summary of Linked In’s recommendations for your personal profile

  • Your profile picture should be professional and high quality resolution
  • The background photo should be of your business
  • The headline is not just a job title – explain the why and what of your role
  • Summary – this should tell your story, narrate your ethics, values and vision
  • Avoid common buzzwords
  • Sync up with your email list – connect to clients you already know
  • Keep your skills relevant
  • Complete Linked In Learning courses and display certificates
  • Share case studies
  • Use the publications section to share your blogs, e-books or whitepapers
  • Add comments when you like and share posts
  • Share and comment regularly on other posts to share expertise

Other Features of Linked In

Once you have completed your personal profile if you are a business, you can set up a company page and link it to your personal profile. The company page shows information about your business, its mission, values and proposition. From your company page you can set up showcase pages that can reveal what your services are in more depth, the norm is one page per service. You are allowed up to 10 pages.

Showcase pages are also great for your clients because they can choose to simply follow the page they are interested in rather than the company profile.

To set up showcase pages first set up your company page, then click on the edit drop down menu on the right hand side and choose ‘create a showcase page’.

Linked In Guide 2021 Top Tips

Below is a checklist of tips to enhance your profile and company listing.

 

  • Optimise your profile – say what you can do for others
  • Engage – share/comment/like (not sell)
  • When you connect – personalise the default message and put in a call to action – meet for coffee etc
  • Use the publishing platform to educate/inform/inspire
  • Create and build business relationships – build smart network rather than a large network through connections based on relevance TO YOU such as location/industries you have worked in/suppliers
  • Don’t just have a profile – be active, because 350m people are on Linked In
  • It is the top B2B tool for generating leads (especially if you upgrade to the paid for version)
  • 40% of users check in daily
  • Customise your URL – so that it is easy to transfer to other channels or print on business collateral
  • Fill in profile fully, there is a graphic within your dashboard showing how complete it is
  • In your summary – tell your story, include keywords and answer basic questions
  • Add media – documents/photos/links/presentations/videos
  • Don’t forget to encourage endorsements of your skills
  • Encourage happy customers to leave recommendations
  • Include any honours, awards or publications you have
  • Post once per day as it immediately makes you more visible than your competitors
  • Set up a company page and use ‘showcase pages’ to segment your services
  • Use the publisher stats on the publishing platform for a breakdown of the demographic of readers
  • Include calls to action in your posts
  • Promote Linked In URL on other media
  • Consider some of the features that you need to pay for such as Sales Navigator that links you to your potential leads
  • Join Linked In Profinder Network for Freelancers

 

Linked In is a platform that requires an initial investment of time to set up and maximise but only needs a once per day check in to engage and share, so not time intensive. If you publish regular articles and blogs its publishing platform is the best of all the social channels.

Thank you

For taking the time to read our blogs. Positive Sales and Marketing is a small business in the North West of England passionate about educating the UK hospitality and freelance artist sector on understanding their marketing.

We offer training and education to enable businesses to take control of their own destiny rather than blindly relying on agencies. We can also offer transparent website design services and copywriting should this be taking up too much of your time.

We work with clients all over the UK and also operate directories for the holiday accommodation sector.

We would love to hear from you, give us a call on 01257 433331 or 01744 670055 or email Caroline@positivesalesandmarketing.co.uk

You can also find us on Twitter @Psalesmarketing or Instagram possalesmarketing please follow us to read our blogs or receive daily inspiration.

 

 

 

 

Digital Marketing

Landing Pages for Small Businesses Explained

Feb 16, 2021 by admin 0 Comments #Landing Pages, #Marketing Strategy

Landing Pages for Small Businesses

Landing pages for small businesses, what are they? You will have interacted with these many times when looking for information on products or services. Big brands use them as standard. Here are some examples.

 

Independent Landing Page for subscription

 

Landing Pages Explained
The Independent Landing Page

 

 

Mark Manson Author

 

Landing Pages Explained
Mark Manson Landing Page

 

 

Woolrunners Product Landing Page

 

Landing Pages Explained
Wool Runners Landing Page – Shop Now

 

 

Using Landing Pages

Landing pages are a great way to build an email list. In the advent of GDPR customers are more reluctant to share email addresses and they are harder to collect.

If you run paid adverts on Facebook or Instagram or have a blog that talks around a certain service, you may generate interest and people may want to know more. At this stage they are seeking information but may not necessarily want to contact you. Offering some useful information or tips, or offering a free trial is a great way to get prospects to engage with the only risk to them of supplying an email address. They are looking for you to earn their trust. Having effective Calls To Action (CTA) on your social posts, print and digital adverts will help drive traffic to a landing page.

Having a landing page allows them to go directly to the product or service you have advertised or written about and allows them to dip their toe in the water by getting a free sample, trial or report that they would find useful.

 

Where are landing pages housed?

For those with a website you can put a landing page on your site by using either your web builder if they offer that as a feature. For WordPress and other sites you may want to check out third party options.

Knowing which one to use will be determined by your technical knowledge and budget. Read this article to find out the latest best options.

Wix, Weebly and Site123 are good if you don’t have a website and want a landing page to promote certain products and services and want to generate leads.

 

Thank you

For taking the time to read our blogs. Positive Sales and Marketing is a small business in the North West of England passionate about educating the UK hospitality and freelance artist sector on understanding their marketing.

We offer training and education to enable businesses to take control of their own destiny rather than blindly relying on agencies. We can also offer transparent website design services and copywriting should this be taking up too much of your time.

We work with clients all over the UK and also operate directories for the holiday accommodation sector.

We would love to hear from you, give us a call on 01257 433331 or 01744 670055 or email Caroline@positivesalesandmarketing.co.uk

You can also find us on Twitter @Psalesmarketing or Instagram possalesmarketing please follow us to read our blogs or receive daily inspiration.

 

29 Top Instagram Tips 2021
Digital Marketing

29 Top Instagram Tips 2021

Feb 5, 2021 by admin 0 Comments #Digital Marketing Tips, #Social Media Tips 2021

29 Top Instagram Tips 2021

Instagram is undergoing radical change. In 2020 more and more features were added including Reels. Its aim is to become more of an e-commerce social platform that can be tied into third party sites such as Shopify. It is quite hard to keep abreast of all the features and how to keep hold of followers organically. Here are 29 Top Instagram Tips for 2021.

 

How to Boost Organic Reach

  1. Using Hashtags – you can use up to 30 but the average is 15-20 using a variety of hashtags topics. Don’t necessarily choose the most popular include some that are specific to your sector, some that may be local or geo tag, some that are specific to your products.
  2. Hashtags can be used in the caption or comment box, algorithms don’t prioritise
  3. Get ready for the move over to keywords coming this year, hashtags will start to become less relevant

Instagram stories

  1. The opposite to hashtags – use popular topics this gives more chance of being seen
  2. Use stickers in your stories or the text box to manually type your captions
  3. Underline text to make it clickable

Increase chances of engagement with your posts

  1. Algorithms don’t prioritise video over image as you may expect, although the carousels of 10 images or more appear more regularly in feeds
  2. When posting images think colour spectrums, what colours engage the best?
  3. Put people in your images this makes posts more relatable
  4. With images use different angles don’t always take from same spot or of same subjects
  5. As with any other platform AIDA is important – particularly the first line of your captions, incorporate capitals, emojis and hashtags
  6. Be more involved with your own feed, remember to chat to others and like and comment on other posts
  7. Don’t put logos all over images and stories

Where to post links

  1. IGTV allows links in the Call to Action
  2. Direct messages will take links
  3. If you link your story to an IGTV video this will enable you to put links in if you have below 10k followers
  4. DM me stickers encourage direct messaging for links
  5. Link in Bio – the most popular method
  6. Make use of landing pages

Reels – short form video up to 15 seconds long

  1. Can use multiple shots or one take and is a mobile only feature
  2. Swipe right from the home screen to activate Reels camera
  3. The icons on the left allow you to shoot, add features before a shoot, activate speed, add effects and use timer for hands free shooting
  4. Cannot use music over reels if you have a business profile, but can add in stickers and text
  5. Can share reels to stories as well, but do this first as once it’s posted to reels, it can’t later be added to a story
  6. Pick a cover image that will attract viewers to click on the reel (like a book cover)
  7. You have 2200 characters to write a caption and 30 hashtags = there is no warning if you exceed these limits and you won’t know – your post will not be published
  8. You can share or save as draft once finished film and edit
  9. Insights on reels are only basic likes and shares, not very detailed
  10. Reels lend themselves to short tutorials, behind the scenes, meet staff, customer testimonials, daily updates, news, new products coming soon, highlighting special offers

 

Thank you

For taking the time to read our blogs. Positive Sales and Marketing is a small business in the North West of England passionate about educating the UK hospitality and freelance artist sector on understanding their marketing.

We offer training and education to enable businesses to take control of their own destiny rather than blindly relying on agencies. We can also offer transparent website design services and copywriting should this be taking up too much of your time.

We work with clients all over the UK and also operate directories for the holiday accommodation sector.

We would love to hear from you, give us a call on 01257 433331 or 01744 670055 or email Caroline@positivesalesandmarketing.co.uk

 

We can help you set up your Instagram business account or help you devise a strategy around target marketing with effective Calls To Action.

 

 

15 Tips to Grow Your Facebook
Digital Marketing

15 Tips to Grow Your Facebook Audience

Feb 3, 2021 by admin 0 Comments #Facebook, #Growing Audience Organically, #Social Media Tips 2021

15 Tips to Grow Your Facebook Audience 2021

 

How to grow your Facebook audience organically is the main challenge a lot of small businesses face. In recent years those who follow your page are not guaranteed to see your posts, unless they interact regularly with your content. Facebook has become less about businesses and more about community over the last couple of years.  Therfore, posts that appear in people’s feed need to have a social and community element. Our 15 tips on how grow your Facebook audience will help buck that trend.

More and more small businesses now have to rely on paid adverts to grow their brand awareness and grow their followers. This is not unrealistic, after all advertising should be paid for and small businesses should have a budget for this. But a mixed strategy of organic and paid is still the ideal.

Quality content and engagement are key. Good posts that enthuse audiences and add value are what the algorithms love.

 

15 Tips to Boost Organic Reach

  1. Less is more – focus on high quality content posted less frequently – once per day is enough
  2. Build community – Start a Facebook group or host regular Facebook lives
  3. Facebook Watch Parties – the best way to get user engagement and comments
  4. Make 2/3 of your posts video
  5. Boost popular posts through paid ads
  6. Signpost users from your other online channels – website, Twitter, Blog
  7. Use blog posts to signpost users to Facebook to discuss topics or answer questions, put questions related to blog posts on Facebook
  8. Host regular Q&A sessions – ideally through FB live or on page
  9. Encourage customers to supply video testimonials and post them to your page
  10. Photo posts have higher engagement
  11. The majority of your content should be informational and educational not a hard sell
  12. Engage with your audience, start conversations, ask questions, ask for them to post content related to a topic or project – social media is ‘social’
  13. Avoid posting links that will take users away from Facebook
  14. Don’t use phrases such as please ‘like’ or ‘share’ or ‘comment’ as this is seen as spamming by FB
  15. Show not tell – demonstrate why you are the best

 

For more tips on growing your audience, check out our 29 Top Tips for Instagram in 2021

Thank you

For taking the time to read our blogs. Positive Sales and Marketing is a small business in the North West of England passionate about educating the UK hospitality and freelance artist sector on understanding their marketing.

We offer training and education to enable businesses to take control of their own destiny rather than blindly relying on agencies. We can also offer transparent website design services and copywriting should this be taking up too much of your time.

We work with clients all over the UK and also operate directories for the holiday accommodation sector.

We would love to hear from you, give us a call on 01257 433331 or 01744 670055 or email Caroline@positivesalesandmarketing.co.uk

 

Guide to Digital Marketing in Lockdown 3
Digital Marketing

Guide to Digital Marketing Lockdown 3

Jan 14, 2021 by admin 0 Comments #Digital Marketing Tips

16 lockdown 3 digital marketing tips

Digital marketing is still a mystery for a lot of small businesses.  It is one of those parts of being a business owner that can be confusing and perplexing.  After all you have a trade and customers to serve, taking time out to learn the intricacies of Facebook or Instagram can be a drag, especially for those of us of a certain age. Hopefully our guide to digital marketing in Lockdown 3 will help you overcome your social procrastination

 

  1. Make sure you are listed on Google My Business and Bing Places – set up Google My Business first then pull the information through to Bing at the push of a button
  2. Twitter is the new Costa – if you are business to business get on Twitter to find local businesses to network with and have a chat, people have a bit more time on their hands. Social media is for being social, so look beyond posting and have real conversations.
  3. Business to consumer – if you are selling to the general public make sure you have a Facebook business page, keep it fed with interesting news articles, what you are up to, photos – show your customers how great you are don’t just tell them.
  4. If you have a social element to what you provide set up a Facebook group from your business page, great way to build your audience
  5. If you are Business to Consumer invest in Facebook and Instagram advertising – minimum £100 per month per campaign. Very cost effective because of the laser focused targeting and analytics you get on your ads
  6. Invest in a website and start to blog to show your authority, particularly if you can’t trade at present, utilise this time to build your brand awareness
  7. Sponsor local causes – communities come together and there are a lot of initiatives to help communities, are any looking for sponsorship or donations – be a philanthropist
  8. Public Relations (PR) contact local online newspapers, magazines, community blogs and send them an article about your business, it has to be newsworthy, not just a plain sales ad, what have you done that’s interesting?
  9. Collaborate with other businesses online that are complimentary to your own, you may be able to join forces and do joint ad campaigns or offer reciprocal referrals. Make an objective to make one new associate a week. Twitter is a great place to network.
  10. If you already have Google My Business make a schedule to put on one new post every week and update images every week, audit your profile to make sure it’s complete. GMB is very important in your SEO, is your shop window and first impressions count.
  11. Build up your citations
  12. Take time to cleanse your Linked In profile, have you set up a Linked In company page? Are you making use of showcase pages? This is best for you if you are business to business.
  13. Instagram is becoming more of a visual platform – be bold and try posting short videos to bring your brand to life – engage with your audience – carry out product/service research.
  14. Look at boosting client engagement on your social profiles – run competitions, encourage user generated content (your clients interacting with your product)
  15. Take learning opportunities, if you have gaps in your skills and knowledge on digital marketing look at online courses
  16. Offline – it seems a world away before we can go to events and mingle but those days will return, plan your post covid offline strategy – events, expos, fairs, pop up shops.

Many business are booming right now because they keep engaged with their clients and people are sat at home with the same needs but different ways of accessing them. You can even make this Guide to Digital Marketing Lockdown 3 your New Year’s resolution list!

We would love to hear from you for an informal chat to help you with your content, website or professional development, please get in touch.