Social Media Marketing
The online space is extremely crowded. There’s a TON of information, hundreds of thousands of brands, and new competition showing up every day! That’s why it’s SO important that your SEO game is on point. When someone looks up “best law firm in SoCal” or “med spas near me”, you want to be sure your brand makes the results list and stands out in the crowd.
To make that happen, SEO (search engine optimization) MUST be a major part of your digital marketing toolkit
As a social media platform built with the sole intent of bringing business owners together and creating strategic connections, LinkedIn is a wonderful place to market your services. Here are some Pro Tips for swinging the algorithm in your favor.
Handles have come to YouTube!
This is exciting news for creators in the video-sharing platform. YouTube recently announced this new feature in their channel and it was met with tons of excitement from users! And we can’t blame them! We’re pretty excited about it too. After all, a handle for YouTube is a pretty dang cool idea!
Now for those of you saying, “Wait a minute—what are handles?”, let’s backtrack a little bit.
In the world of social media platforms, handles are how your profile is identified. It’s your unique ‘online identity’. They can also be referred to as your ‘username’. You can typically find it just below your company name when viewing your profile. Just look for the ‘@’ sign.
Take a look at the examples below. You’ll see that our social media handle is @AmpUpMyBiz.
Amp Up My Biz’s Facebook Bio
Amp Up My Biz’s Twitter Bio
Amp Up My Biz’s Pinterest Bio
And we can’t wait to add that handle to our YouTube channel!
According to YouTube, “Your Handle will show across a few surfaces within YouTube – including your channel homepage, search results, the Shorts feed, within comments and community posts, and more.”
This will provide another layer of distinct branding for your biz across the platform by allowing you to:
A custom handle will also make it more difficult for spam accounts and copycats to imitate you or your brand. By claiming your branded handle no one else will be able to use it.
This new feature is already being rolled out! When it’s your turn to claim your handle, YouTube will notify you via YouTube Studio. They will also send you an email letting you know it’s time to snag your custom YouTube handle.
Now If you already have a custom URL for your channel, you can sit back and relax. YouTube will automatically reserve your custom URL as your custom handle. THANKS YOUTUBE!
If you don’t have a custom URL, then you want to make sure you take action before November 14th. That’s when YouTube will automatically assign a handle to your account. You don’t want to waste this awesome branding opportunity by ending up with a random handle like ‘@YTuser123’ so be sure you’re checking for that notification! When it arrives, follow the instructions and choose a custom handle that matches the handle for your other social media platforms. This creates a cohesive and consistent online branding for your biz.
As an added bonus for new accounts, once you choose a custom handle it becomes your personalized YouTube URL. (Even if you don’t have 100 subscribers yet! WOOT!)
When it comes to deciding what your handle will be, YouTube has established a few guidelines regarding your choices. We recommend you keep these these five things in mind when claiming your YouTube handle:
If you follow these guidelines, you’ll be well prepared when your chance to claim your YouTube handle arrives!
And while you’re there, be sure to subscribe to Amp Up My Biz’s YouTube channel for more online marketing tips and tricks. We’ll see you there!
You’re a business owner — the CEO of your company, who often becomes the ✨Chief Everything Officer. ✨ Especially as a small to mid-size business owner, you might also be the head of operations, the hiring manager, the sales team, and likely the social media marketing team. Your goal is to keep…
Lights… Camera… FREEZE!
You know the feeling. You’re all set to record your AH-MAZING video content and as soon as you start recording, you’ve got…
FLASHBACK! The year is 2013. The Instagram app lives on your phone, and you’re posting pics once every few days (mostly of what you’re eating for dinner) when all of the sudden—BAM! A tiny video icon appears! You didn’t know it was coming, and you never dreamed it would change social media the way it did.
“Business is booming!”
If you find yourself having this thought about your biz—Congratulations!
But make no mistake, the real question is “For how long?” As entrepreneurs, we MUST always be thinking, “What’s next?” In business, like life, you’re either “growing” or “dying” there’s really no standing still.
You know you have incredible products and services and that’s great, but it’s only part of the equation. To make sure business is always booming, you have to keep your clients and customers at the forefront of your thoughts. They are the people who can make or break your brand’s continued success.
Even the most loyal of clients will soon tire of your marketing efforts if it’s always about you. Simply asking them to BUY-BUY-BUY is not an effective strategy for creating long-term clients. It HAS to be a two-way conversation. One that includes your company giving back to the client without any expectations.
This is what’s referred to as relationship marketing and even though it may sound daunting, you can make it easy-breezy-cover-girl when you use the following 5 Principles.
1. Focus on Your Target Audience
When you try to appeal to everyone, you’ll appeal to no one. So spend some time analyzing your current clients and determine who accounts for ⅓ or more of your sales. This is your target audience and focusing on meeting their needs is just plain good business sense. If you think of your biz as a casino, your target audience is its high rollers.
2. Consistent Engagement Builds Relationships
Once you’ve identified your Target Audience, it’s important to consistently engage with them. It’s unlikely that your biz is the only one competing for their attention and their spending power. They have dozens of choices when deciding what brands they support, so it’s VITAL that yours is always on the top of their mind. Find new and exciting ways to engage with them as often as you can.
3. Keep Them Coming Back
Making a sale is NOT the end of your relationship marketing efforts. It’s just the beginning. The true beauty of relationship marketing lies in creating loyal, repeat clients.
Let them know they made the right decision by choosing to work with your biz. Make sure your brand is constantly offering them support and guidance. This can be done by following up on their purchases, offering tips and advice on how to get the most value from their new purchase, and ensuring your clients that you care about their satisfaction beyond the point of purchase.
4. Reward Loyalty
Loyalty is rare, that’s why it should be valued. Reward your loyal clients by providing them with more than expected. Gift cards, bonus items, loyalty programs, and AH-MAZING client service are all ways you can exceed the expectations of your loyal clients. There’s no better way to assure that your biz is on the top of your target audience’s mind than by delighting them with an unexpected surprise!
5. Welcome Feedback as the Gift It Is
Don’t shy away from feedback, even when it’s bad. Actually, it would be more appropriate to say ESPECIALLY when it’s bad. Negative feedback from your target audience is the perfect opportunity to open up a conversation with them and build a relationship. When a problem is handled correctly, it can turn a frown upside down, convert a 1-star review to 5 stars, and transform an angry client into a satisfied and loyal client.
The opportunity to handle feedback well is such a gift that your company should regularly invite your clients to provide it. Consider forms, polls, and calls to show your clients that you are interested in and listening to what they have to say.
ABSOLUTELY! When you use these principles of relationship marketing, you will be rewarded by turning first-time clients into long-term, loyal fans of your biz. Finding new clients has a much higher price tag than earning and maintaining the loyalty of your existing ones. Happy clients spread the word, and I’m sure you know the value of word-of-mouth marketing for your brand. Put these 5 principles of relationship marketing to work today, and you’ll find you have a thriving biz tomorrow.