Turbo Social Media Marketing » Social Media Strategy | Turbo Social Media Marketing

Developing Your Social Media Plan For 2011

Tom Sullivan — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 17:19:39 +0000

As the year winds down and the Holiday season swings into full force it is important for your business to think about your plan for 2011. You can follow these basic steps below for building your plan from scratch. You’ll probably need to revise it several times, but it’s a good idea to get started on this when you have some downtime during the holidays. Not everyone has “down time” but if you’re on, or waiting for a flight, on a long car ride (as a passenger) or simply in between items on your to-do list, do yourself a favor and start thinking about 2011.

1) Start with some notes: This is where your brainstorming begins. Think about what went well this year and what did not. Which marketing strategies were successful and which were not? If you can’t answer that question then you know you need to improve the tracking of your efforts. You should also jot down your goals for the year and then break these goals into monthly goals (even weekly goals if necessary). This will help you with the other steps.

2) Analyze individual efforts: Think about all the different elements of social media: Your blog, Facebook, Twitter, Videos, Press Releases, Social Bookmarking, etc. Now analyze each effort individually and what you can do to improve the effectiveness of each. Start to set aside how much time you’ll be willing to dedicate on a weekly and daily basis.

3) Determine your budget: Now that you have an idea of which elements of social media you want to focus on, as well as how much time you can devote to each, it is important to set aside a budget. Of course, this budget will depend entirely on how much of the work you’ll be doing yourself vs. how much you’ll need to outsource. Think about the value of your time and do a cost/benefit analysis to help you determine what you should commit to yourself.

4) Find a strategic partner to help you execute or fine tune your plan: If you have an employee who has been helping you with your social media efforts make sure they’re on board for 2011. Make sure they’re comfortable with your plan and what you need from them to make 2011 a success.

If you have some ideas that you’ve put together, but you need help coming up with a strategy, or if you’re new to social media and would like to see how it can benefit your practice you should turn to an agency to help. Even if you have experience with social media and have had successes, an agency can help to expand on past success, offer new insights, and free up more time for you to run your business.

If you’re interested in learning more about how to develop a social media marketing plan for 2011, consider talking to Turbo Social Media. We’re a full service social media marketing agency with a focus on ROI. Fill out this form for a free consultation or give us a call at 877-673-7096 x2.

Happy Holidays to all!

What is an Authority Blog and How can it be used?

Matthew Arndt — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 06:40:10 +0000

As you may or may not know, blogging should be used as the center of your social media strategy. Why? Its simple, the content that you produce and publish on your blog is not only great as a way to share your knowledge, but also the base of all the content that you can share through all of your social networks!

I’ll start out here by explaining what an authority blog is, and how this is different than other blogs. An authority blog is a great way for an expert to share their expertise on a variety of subjects by use of their name as a brand. Sure, many of us have seen blogs (such as this one for instance) where the blog is based on a brand, company, or product, and the purpose of that blog is to teach about that subject. This blog is centered around social media marketing. Other blogs are personal blogs on different subjects such as a food blog or a personal travel blog. These are all centered around the same concept, with the point being to share information on a subject.

So, why would one want to make an “authority blog”? Well, in business, if you are a coach, consultant, or an expert in many fields, then an authority blog gives you the chance to teach on many different topics. The goal here is the same with other business blogs, to educate potential clients, and hopefully get them to opt-in to your RSS feed, Newsletter, or other call-to-action with the end goal to pick up a new client. Authority Blogs are the way to go if you meet the following criteria:

1. You are the authority (or have knowledge to share valuable content on a regular basis)

2. You have multiple disciplines that you are sharing content on (i.e. different market segments and niches)

3. Your followers and industry recognizes your name as an expert

If you meet these criteria, then building an authority blog is the way to go. We just finished a great example of an authority blog, from Catherine Maley, CEO of Cosmetic Image Marketing. You can check out her blog here. Catherine offers a variety of services and products teaching cosmetic surgeons how to effectively market their practices, and her blog will be sharing that content with everyone, as well as being syndicated through her Twitter and Facebook.

To learn more about Social Media Marketing for Business (as well as authority blogs), fill out the form on the right to watch our free video series or give me a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Matthew Arndt, President, Turbo Social Media

Will Social Media Marketing Work for Every Business?

Matthew Arndt — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 02:53:01 +0000

It often seems that whenever a new “dominant” type of media emerges, coaches and consultants tell all of their clients about it, agencies begin their pitches, and information marketers start selling it as the magic pill that is going to move your business to the next level. Is social media marketing that new magic pill? Will it work for your business or practice?

When it comes to understanding the “new media” known as social media marketing, there are a few things that will help you understand why this might work or not work.

The first thing is what Seth Godin calls “The Purple Cow”. This concept means, basically, does your product or service push the boundaries of your industry? Are you offering the same thing that everyone else does, or do you have a unique take on your industry that will be making leaps and bounds into the future?

Being unique is very important with social media marketing, but that in and of itself is not enough to determine whether it will work for you. One thing that people tend to misunderstand about the Internet, is the sheer number of people using it, and what they are looking for. On the Internet, people search for very specific things. Whether they are looking for a doctor who treats the chronic condition fibromyalgia in Menomonee Falls, WI or for someone who knows how to fix redwood siding in Sausalito, CA, the new internet consumer wants their information, and they want it now. This is a form of the concept of “The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson. Although some people will know to search a general category so they can shop their problem around, it’s those who can be in front of the consumer when its time to make that buying decision that will ultimately succeed.

So now that you have a basic understanding of a “Purple Cow” and “The Long Tail”, it’s also important to understand the power of sharing information and proper education of your visitors. In the early days of the internet, huge efforts were made to “trick” the search engines using so called “Black Hat” techniques. Keywords were stuffed, meta tags altered, gateway pages created in and effort to get to the top of the listings. These days, Google and Yahoo know better, and this is the reason you see great content like blogs, facebook profiles, and article sites showing up in the search results. As you can see, sharing content, especially good content that can get spread throughout the internet, position you as the expert in your field, and build your brand, will generate leads.

To learn more about Social Media Marketing for Business, fill out the form on the right to watch our free video series or give me a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Matthew Arndt, President, Turbo Social Media

How Important are Social Bookmarking sites in Content Syndication for Social Media Marketing?

Matthew Arndt — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 02:30:18 +0000

Many people have heard of things like “The Digg Effect”, where a link to a blog post gets pushed to the top of Digg.com (one of the biggest social bookmarking sites out there for those of your just getting acquainted with the term) and the server crashing as a result of having hundreds of thousands of visitors to the website in a matter of minutes. BUT, there are better reasons than just an influx of traffic to your website as a reason to syndicate to the social bookmarking websites.

In this post, I will share with you a few secrets that we have found when it comes to syndicating content.

Syndicating your content to social bookmarking websites can create additional listings in the search engines.

Below, I have posted a screen shot that shows the search for “Dallas Zerona” from one of our clients Dr. Jade Malay of http://www.BodyByZeronaLaser.com . As you can see from the image, the top 5 results are a mix of social bookmarking links that we submitted on her behalf with a double listing for her actual website! (Click the image below for a larger view)

Syndicating your content to social bookmarking sites can help to drive traffic.

In this screen snip is proof that Dr Don of http://www.TheZeronaLaser.com got traffic as a result of the syndication to the social bookmarking sites. (Click the image below for a larger view)

Syndicating your content to social bookmarking sites can result in a higher Google Page Rank for the page submitted.

After less than a month of this post by Dr Don, with the syndication done correctly, this page received a Google Page Ranking of 3/10. While this may not seem like a big deal to the majority of you, most sites take a VERY long time to get a Page Rank of 3, and this was done in about a month!

Bottom line here is that syndicating content to social bookmarking websites is extremely important for optimizing your SEO and Social Media Marketing efforts. Of course, there are some other principals that you should always do when you are using social bookmarking sites like making sure to use unique titles and descriptions for each bookmarking site as well as encouraging your friends to write reviews, and “digg”, “thumbs up”, or comment on the bookmark. Although we all know how time consuming this process can be, it is incredibly important in the overall scheme of your social media marketing.

To learn more about Social Media Marketing and Social Bookmarking, fill out the form on the right to watch our free video series or give me a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Matthew Arndt, President, Turbo Social Media

Press Releases via PR Web : Are they worth the money?

Matthew Arndt — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 01:14:10 +0000

Lately we’ve been asked about Press Releases that are available through PR Web. In this article I’m going to talk about why doing Press Releases are such a good idea and how they can benefit your blog/website’s search engine optimization. I’ll also tell you which Press Release option I recommend, and finally, very important things to remember when doing a press release. Sorry if this gets lengthy, it’s a very important subject, and I’m going to try to be very thorough without confusing anyone on the way.

Press Releases have always been a great part of any marketing plan, however, they are also important when it comes to Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing. Obviously, getting the word out about your company’s products and services is important, but its especially important to announce events, product launches, new hires, anniversaries, clients and partnerships, charitable and community events, investor information, and client success stories. These are all great reasons for utilizing press releases. If done correctly, these press releases can provide additional search engine listings, traffic, visibility, credibility, and of course links to your website.

When it comes to the press release, the content and messaging IS important, so make sure you have a plan when writing it. Also, it is very important to write the release from in the third person. It often helps to hire an agency that is familiar with the press release format and style (like us of course!).

Once you’ve put together your press release, the next step is to figure out your distribution level. I always recommend using PR Web’s SEO Visibility Level or Media Visibility for a few reasons:

Ability to Use Anchor Text: It’s important to be able to be able to use “Anchor Text” for Search Engine Optimization purposes. Although with any of these releases you get a link that will point to your website or blog, if you understand how to employ and optimize the release with “Anchor Text” then the positive SEO effects are going to be much greater in terms of bang for your buck. Since only the SEO Visibility and Media Visibility include the ability to use Anchor Text, that is where my recommendation lies.
Distribution: The Media Visibility and SEO Visibility releases are syndicated through much larger networks than the lower level releases. This means that your release (if optimized correctly of course) has a greater chance of being picked up on high level pages like Google News or Yahoo News, and the Media Visibility gets traction through the Associated Press Networks and USA Today! From my experiences with the Media Visibility releases, they are worth every dollar in the long term scheme of things when trying to get exposure and boost your site’s SEO.

To sum it all up, when it comes to doing the press releases for your company, make sure you have a newsworthy subject to write about, plan your message, make sure that you pick a release level that you are comfortable with, and finally, use search engine optimization techniques to increase your long-term response! Are they worth the investment? Without a doubt!

If you are interested in having us help you with writing and optimizing a press release, give me a call at 877-673-7096 and I’ll be happy to walk you through it.

To learn more about Social Media Marketing, fill out the form on the right to watch our free video series or give me a call at 877-673-7096.
Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Matthew Arndt, President, Turbo Social Media

Flip Cam and Video Marketing

Zack — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 07:15:10 +0000

Per our last blog post, we answered the question on whether or not a Video Marketing video needed to be done professionally or not. Here at Turbo Social Media we use the Flip Cam. The Flip Cam is the new technology in digital cameras, as it is an easy to use, cell-phone sized camera, with a built in USB port. There are a couple downsides to the camera, as it does not have a built in microphone jack, the zoom is pretty awful and if you are going to use it, you almost MUST have a tripod as the slightest movements shake the entire screen.

Aside from those couple pitfalls, we still use the Flip for a couple reasons: It is beyond easy to use (as easy as any digital camera), it is lightweight, it’s inexpensive (30 min Flip Ultra for as low as $50 on Amazon.com), makes good quality videos, and most importantly, it is extremely easy to upload videos. The Flip has a built in USB jack that you plug directly into your computer. From there you can bring up the Flip program and name and save your videos without any hassle. You can even pause the video and take snapshots for photos as well.

Video Marketing is a great way to create buzz around your product. The Flip cam has just made this easier, as now anyone can shoot a video and get it online.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Zack Zucker, Director of Operations, Turbo Social Media

Business Coaches leveraging Social Media Marketing to promote programs and events!

Matthew Arndt — Thu, 21 May 2009 06:40:54 +0000

I love being about to share great content about how clients are using social media marketing as well as other forms of traditional marketing in order to hit their business goals. In these two videos below, Kelly O’Neil head coach of Marketing to Millionaires, a program that teaches its clients how to market to the affluent, is interviewed by me! We cover a lot of her marketing strategies and you get the chance to learn from a pro how to market an event and build your business.

In this first Video, Matt and Kelly discuss the ways that Kelly markets her coaching program and how she had been leveraging social media marketing in the past.

In Video 2: Kelly reveals how she has been leveraging social media marketing including blogging, article marketing, and social networking, for her company and to promote her retreat, and what she recommends for her clients…this insider information is incredibly valuable, as Kelly’s private coaching days run more than $10K! Watch and enjoy!

To learn visit Kelly’s blog, visit http://www.MarketingToMillionaires.com

To learn about Kelly’s retreat, visit http://www.MarketingToMillionairesRetreat.com

Now, Kelly leaked that we spent some time with Patti Stanger, of the Bravo TV show, The Millionaire Match Maker, I thought I would also include some photo proof of that. Patti is going to be a special guest at Kelly’s Retreat coming up this October!

To learn more about Social Media Marketing, fill out the form on the right to watch our free video series or give me a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Matthew Arndt, President, Turbo Social Media

The most important part of Social Media Marketing…Strategy.

Matthew Arndt — Tue, 19 May 2009 05:13:06 +0000

As a social media marketing expert I am often asked, “what is the most important thing I can do to market using social media marketing?” If I could give one piece of advice, it would be to have a strategy. Now I know this is extremely vague, so I’ll get deeper into this.

The strategy I’m talking about is not about how you should target your prospects, what keywords to use, which picture to use on your Facebook account, or what you should name your blog, but it goes back…way back, to the principals of effective marketing. I guess I should clarify even more, the kind of marketing I am talking about is Direct Response Marketing. In this form of marketing you ask your clients to respond to what they have found on your website with a “call-to-action”. This call to action can be anything from “Give Us a Call” to “Watch My Free Video Series” as it is on this blog. Many times, this is done within a headline, or, as I often do in blog posts and articles that I write, put it at the bottom of the article. The reason this is done is because most people don’t do anything without being told to!

There are many other strategies that are important when putting together a blog, your facebook account, twitter profile, or anything else related to Social Media Marketing, however, few will outweigh the power of having a great call-to-action with something of value that your visitor actually might be interested in. Of course, having a properly setup website with an automated follow-up sequence will increase your results, but the bottom line here is that without a call-to-action, there is no reason for having a website, blog, or even using social media for business purposes.

To learn more about Social Media Marketing, fill out the form on the right to watch our free video series or give me a call at 877-673-7096.

Thank You, and I encourage you to leave and comments or questions below. To learn more about the video series, Medical Professionals should click here and Entrepreneurs should click here.

Article by Matthew Arndt, President, Turbo Social Media

Turbo Social Media Marketing » Social Media Strategy | Turbo Social Media Marketing

Developing Your Social Media Plan For 2011

What is an Authority Blog and How can it be used?

Will Social Media Marketing Work for Every Business?

How Important are Social Bookmarking sites in Content Syndication for Social Media Marketing?

Press Releases via PR Web : Are they worth the money?

2010 SEO Best Practices

Flip Cam and Video Marketing

Business Coaches leveraging Social Media Marketing to promote programs and events!

The most important part of Social Media Marketing…Strategy.