Small Business Archives

Why Small Businesses Absolutely Need to Use Instagram Stories

July 22, 2018/0 Comments/in Digital Marketing, Instagram, Metrics, Small Business, Social Marketing, Social Media Marketing /by Mark Toney

Instagram is a great social platform to bring a strong identity to your brand, have interaction with new followers and expand your reach. Not only are Instagram Stories are not only fun and creative, but they’re great for growing your engagement, building brand awareness, driving traffic to your website, and even making e-commerce sales!

However, if you’re simply posting images to your business’s Instagram page, you’re missing out on a major opportunity on the platform: Instagram Stories. With stories, you are able to show the personality of your business. Is it fun, serious, very people oriented, etc? Instagram stories are great to show a behind-the-scenes look at your business. Stories can also allow you to build authentic relationships with your followers.

If you’re still wondering: What’s the point? There are over 400 million active daily users of Instagram Stories, and 33 percent of the most popular Stories are from businesses. Not only that, but 20 percent of Stories posted by businesses result in direct messages.

While it might sound daunting at first, you’ll never know until you try. To help you get started, here’s a quick guide to using Instagram Stories.

First and foremost, it’s important to prepare — brainstorm a plan for the story you want. It’s all about the images- you can upload new or older images to Stories now.

Next, figure out the best time of day to post by taking a look at your audience. Generally, user engagement levels are highest on Mondays and Thursdays between 7 and 9 p.m., but this can vary based on your followers. Another important piece of advice is to make an impact in the first four seconds of your story. Viewers’ attention drop after four seconds, so it’s important to get to the point.

Within the world of social media marketing, and especially within the world of Instagram, Instagram Stories is an important place for your business or brand to show up. Among all the social platforms, Instagram is where people engage the most.

If your business needs help with Social Media Marketing in McKinney, TX or anywhere in the Dallas area, please contact us at Information@LuceMedia.net.

If your business needs help with social media marketing in McKinney, TX., please call us at (469) 907-1057. Luce Media has deep expertise in Digital Marketing, B2B Marketing, Internet Marketing and is a well established Digital Media Consultant in McKinney, TX.

Social Media Marketing for New Businesses

July 17, 2018/0 Comments/in Case Studies, Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, Facebook, Google My Business, Instagram, LinkedIn, Paid Social, paid social media strategy, Paid Social Strategy, Small Business, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Twitter /by Mark Toney

For most entrepreneurs and business leaders, social media marketing is an important tool. You need to be forward thinking and have a forward-looking approach towards it. However, having worked with many small businesses, we notice that many of them don’t take enough advantage of this amazing marketing channel. This is why, we have developed an easy social media strategy for startups, which everyone can implement.

Why should my business have a social media strategy?

The first and most obvious reason to do social media marketing is to avoid your startup to fail. You might have heard that, in the 3rd quarter of 2017, Facebook has reached 2+ billion monthly active users while Instagram reached 700 million, Snapchat 350 million, Twitter320 million, LinkedIn 500 million and Pinterest 150 million average monthly active users. Most marketers will tell you that a social media strategy is crucial for your business. The issue is that many entrepreneurs do not have a technical background and don’t see marketing or growth hacking as a serious tool. Social Media Marketing is the top channel to get your business discovered. Whether you are building a business from scratch or you have a more advanced business, social media needs to be part of your marketing strategy. Don’t miss out this opportunity. Luce Media can help with all your Social Media Marketing needs in McKinney.

Which social media channels should your startup use?

Each social media platform has its particularities, and your target might be using Facebook but not Instagram, Twitter or SnapChat. It is fundamental for you to know your target to choose which social media channel you should be using. To know more about social media, you can check social media demographics.

Social media marketing in McKinney has a huge potential to drive traffic, get new leads and increase sales. There are many ways to promote your content on social media. But, with a lack of understanding and without effective tools and tactics, you’ll struggle to get results.

Using social media marketing in McKinney, TX will improve your brand recognition, make your voice heard and connect you with your potential users. Word-of-mouth is known as being the most effective channel to get new customers. You have to picture social media as word-of-mouth on steroids.

Having a social media strategy for your business will make you connect with potential and current users in a more personal way. If you do it right, you will build brand loyalty and create more leads and sales.

Define your message and identity

To reach the right audience, you should have a relevant identity. If you are in the banking industry, have a professional profile picture and post about FinTech, BlockChain or funding; if you are in the sports industry, talk about sports. This might seem obvious to most, but a lot of people use social media in the wrong way and don’t deliver the right message, image or branding.

If you want a successful Instagram marketing strategy, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or else, it’s key that you define your identity.

Engage and interact with your potential or existing users

You need to interact by following potential users on social media, posting interesting and relevant content, sending discounts, reposting content from others, answering your followers or commenting on their posts. Social Media Marketing is all about creating a relationship with the user. You should also be interacting and joining conversations on social media with people who may need your products or services. Staying active on social media will allow you to get direct answers and feedbacks about your startup, idea or concept. Luce Media provides Digital Media Consulting in McKinney, TX.

Create unique content for your startup

This takes time, but content creation should be part of your social media strategy. It could be blog posts, visuals or infographics. By creating your own content, you will deliver a message and build your startup branding. The goal is to interact with your audience and see their reactions about your content. You can apply growth hacking to your social media strategy in order to A/B test what you post and according to the data or feedback you get, you can optimize your content. The content itself should be relevant to your business industry but it could also be informative, funny, shocking depending on what your goal is. There are many content marketing tactics you can get inspiration from to create perfect content. Remember that you should find the right spot between what you want to tell and what your readers are looking for.

Should your business pay for social media ads?

It really depends on what stage your business is at. However, we love A/B Testing and I believe that you should A/B test social media ads for your business, even if it is as little as $ 1 / day. This will help you understand how social media ads work, as well as train you to understanding data and even give you some insights about your users that you wouldn’t have known without testing. Testing, tracking, and measuring is key for your business’s social media strategy.

What you learned about implementing a social media strategy for your startup

Graphic showing Digital Marketing Services in McKinney, TX provided by Luce Media

Having a social media strategy is essential. If you want to outperform your competitors, you need to create better content than they do, engage with your community, etc. You learned that social media is a must for your business to get your first users’ feedback and also to get traction. There are top social media marketing tips out there, don’t hesitate to apply what you learn. On social media, you need to curate great content, create and share compelling content as well as being personal and talking directly to potential users or customers.

Social media is a great marketing channel and needs to be A/B tested in order to take the best from it. You have to know that social media is only 1 marketing channel your business can use and you can define a marketing strategy around it. Social media should be part of a bigger picture and is an essential element of inbound marketing. At Luce Media, we are experts in the area of Digital Marketing and Social Media Marketing. We are kind of social media hackers if you want. We will A/B test different social media, grow your community with our growth hacking methods, improve your business’s brand image, interact with your users, analyze the data, get users feedback; all this in order to accompany your product development growth and success.

If your business needs help with social media marketing in McKinney, TX., please call us at (469) 907-1057. Luce Media has deep expertise in Digital Marketing, B2B Marketing, Internet Marketing and is a well-established Digital Media Consultant in McKinney, TX.

Sign on store door that says Come in We're Open

Costly Mistakes That Sabotage A Business’s Local Search Presence (And How To Fix Them)

March 23, 2018/0 Comments/in Digital Marketing, Digital Presence, Online Visibility, Search Engines, SEO, Small Business, Social Media Marketing /by Mark Toney

More customers are actively searching for small businesses online than ever before. Google processes over 3.5 billion search queries per day, over half of which take place on mobile devices. That’s a lot of on-the-go mobile shoppers looking for nearby stores. But that traffic is worthless to businesses that fail to optimize their local search.

Improving your business’ online visibility and placement in search results is one key to attracting more local shoppers to both your website and your small business location. That said, local competition can be fierce. Small businesses that want to connect with local consumers online can’t afford to make marketing mistakes that place them at a disadvantage.

Although there’s no perfect formula for dominating local search, there are certain mistakes that you must stop making to keep from sabotaging your own visibility. Today, we’ll examine the most common mistakes and what can be done to remedy them.

Writing Content For Search Engines, Not Local Customers

Done right, content marketing can be a powerful tool for local businesses. Publishing consistent content allows you to tell your brand story and educate consumers about products, news, and trends, all while establishing your small business as an industry leader.

Quality blog posts also help search engines learn more about your company, which can lead to increased credibility and higher rankings in search results. To be specific, Google loves E-A-T content — content enriched by the author’s expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. Local small businesses need to take it a step further and realize content is most effective when it has a bit of local flavor. A local perspective can infuse blog content with personality, make it more relevant to readers, and help the business build a stronger connection with local customers.

Sacrificing Backlink And Citation Quality For Quantity

Gone are the days when those scoring the most backlinks are guaranteed to come out on top. Backlinks are the number of other websites that have a link in them pointing to your small business website. Sure, having lots of citations and backlinks pointing to the business’ website can still be great for SEO, but only if the sources are authoritative and credible.

Businesses that invest in high-quality link-building and submit listings to respectable local directories will see a boost in their online visibility. However, search engines do notice when a site receives most of its traffic from untrustworthy sources, which can result in lower search rankings. Luce Media has a very cost-effective program to get your business on the top 50 online directories. To check what your online visibility looks like, click here.

Instead of trying to get as many backlinks as possible, focus on earning high-quality citations from reputable sources. The citations themselves should offer up-to-date information, and the business’s name, address and phone number (NAP data) must be consistent across the web.

Here are a few suggestions for improving your web presence through backlinks and citations:

Submit small business listings to high-quality local directories
Contribute guest posts to authoritative websites
Sponsor a local charity event or Little League team
Include the website in social media bios for the business

Just remember: Quality is more important than quantity.

The online visibility of any small business is essential for getting found by consumers in this digital age and, if there is bad data, duplicate listings or no listing at all, then small businesses are losing customers. Luce Media has the tools and the technology to make sure your small business is highly visible online. Online visibility is not a “one and done” process. A small business’s local presence must be monitored, maintained, and adapted based on algorithm changes on a consistent basis. Contact us here at Luce Media to find out how we can help you improve your SEO and be found more often in Google searches. Luce Media helps companies in McKinney, Allen, Plano and Frisco with social media marketing.

Written by Bernadette Coleman and originally appeared in Advice Local’s blog.

Should your business pay for social media ads?

What you learned about implementing a social media strategy for your startup

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