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July 13, 2018/in Blogs, Digital Marketing, Google My Business, Google Reviews, Online Reviews, SEO, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Todays Tips, Tools /by Mark Toney

Why Google My Business, Google Maps, and Online Reviews are CRUCIAL to your business? Here’s What You Need To Know.

Google My Business provides you with the ability to list your business location on Google Maps and local search results. You can display valuable and key information about your business, including the opening/closing times, contact phone number or a link to your website. You can display important information about your business, including the opening/closing times, contact phone number or a link to your website. More recently Google has also released a new feature allowing you to post a link to articles or up and coming events.

Setting up your Google My Business listing is one of the simplest and most effective ways of establishing your business to be found online. More and more search queries are becoming geographically specific, and Google’s algorithms have been developed to consider user intent. Why do this? Check how often your business shows up in local searches by clicking here. (Scroll down to FREE Online Visibility Check)

So, how important are Google Reviews for Local SEO in 2018? Several studies regarding Google reviews provide proof of the reasons that your business should be soliciting reviews. These reasons include things like “most consumers read reviews before making a decision” and “people trust online reviews as much as personal reviews.”

These reasons are completely valid and will come into play creating larger conversion and clickthrough rates to your website when a potential customer has found you and is deciding between your business and a competitor. For these reasons Luce Media Video Talks About Google My Business and Google Reviews

When it comes to reviews – here is the bottom line.

The quality and quantity of reviews on Google is one of the most important ranking factors for local SEO. And, when a person scans the search results for a local product or service in Google, the business listings that include customer reviews present greater credibility and, naturally, receive more clicks.

Watch as Mark Toney, CEO of Luce Media talks about the latest information for small to medium-sized businesses in completely filling out the information on Google My Business as well as the importance of soliciting Google Reviews for your business.

We can not stress the Importance of Google My Business, Google Maps and Good Reviews for Small to Medium Sized Businesses.

This is just one of many of the aspects we focus on for your business -and encourage YOU to look at all these variables. Do you want to GROW your business? Do you want more online presence?

Luce Media works strategically helping all of our clients grow. Get started today with our FREE Social Media Analysis. We analyze your website, all current social platforms you are on plus tell you immediately what your Online Visibility looks like. I guarantee you will learn key elements to grow your business. And it is FREE.

Please follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to continue learning.

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.

Luce Media - Digital Agency & Social Media Marketing McKinney, Frisco, Plano, Dallas

Social Media Marketing for Small Business

April 22, 2018/in Digital Marketing, Facebook, Instagram, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing /by Mark Toney

Social Media Marketing for Small Business

Every small business needs customers. Without qualified customers, it would be hard for any type of business (big or small) to survive in the long run. What’s the best way to acquire customers? Social media marketing for small business.

While there are many reasons as to why you should use social media marketing for small business to enhance and grow your company, the most obvious being, it will help you win more customers. And help your company gain more prominence.

With the growing popularity of social networking, there is little doubt that your potential customers are using major social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And the best part is, many of these social media users (your prospects) visit these platforms every day.

Here are some stats to help you understand the importance of social media marketing for small business and why you need to take it seriously.

According to a survey conducted by eMarketer, 88% of businesses use social media.
96% of the people who talk about your brand online aren’t following you on social media.
Customers spend 20% to 40% more on products/services by companies who engage with them on social media.

When you use social media marketing for small business you can easily reach out to your target audience and build a long-lasting relationship with them. This is a highly effective way to build a brand that people trust while getting more bang for your buck.

Also, when compared to traditional marketing techniques, with social media marketing for small business you have a higher chance of getting a positive return on investment. This is due to the fact that marketing via social media is much cheaper for a small business, especially one with a limited budget.

Being a small business owner, you should see social media as a robust tool that can help build strong awareness, increase the number of sales and build a real customer base. When you truly understand the potential of social media marketing for small business, you will see that the results that you achieve are far more better.

Social Media Marketing for Small Business: What Works

Let’s look into four relevant social media marketing for small business tips that will help your company gain an edge over the competition.

#1: Have a Clear Plan in Place

When it comes to social media marketing for small business, having a strong and a clear strategy is the first step towards finding success. There are many reasons why a business may fail to get results with social media marketing, but sometimes it is only because they did not know what they were doing.

Every action you take towards building your social media presence and marketing your brand should be carefully planned. It doesn’t matter what kind of business you run or who your target audience is, as long as you have a plan laid out, you will find it easier to overcome any challenges that you come across.

Here’s how you can create a solid social media marketing plan for small business plan.

A) Set The Right Social Media Goals

What do you want to achieve with social media? When using social media marketing for small business, it is important that you set goals and objectives that actually help you grow.

For instance, if you are marketing on Facebook, you should not only focus on getting more likes to your posts and your page but also try to boost the number of leads and sales you’re getting. Try to align your social media goals to your business goals.
When leveraging social media marketing for small business, it is easy to get stuck on vanity metrics rather than improving the bottom line of your business. But do understand that social media will only be beneficial to your small business if you’re ultimately getting more customers using it. Or else it’s simply a waste of your time, money, and energy.

B) Conduct a Proper Social Media Audit

In order to get the most out of social media marketing for small business, it is crucial that you know which of your customers and prospects are already connected to you on the major social media platforms, and how they perceive your brand. It gives you a better idea of your position in the social media arena.

By conducting a proper social media audit, you basically understand your current social media following and also learn which platform is mostly used by your customers so that you can tap into it.

A social media audit also gives you knowledge of the areas that you need to improve on. And a better perspective on how your competitors are building their social media presence. Remember, the more you know about your customers and your competition, the easier it will be for you to win the social media game. Which in turn helps your business survive and grow.

C) Build Up Your Social Media Presence

If you don’t already have social media accounts for your company, it is time you create them. However, it is extremely important that you only work with social media networks that will directly help your type of business to grow. In other words, the social media network that you dedicate your time to should suit the goals of your small business.

Once you are through this step, you will need to build your social media presence on the network of your choice. This does not mean that you post any random type of content on your social pages. Every single step that you take to enhance your presence should match your big and small business goals.

Your social media activities should also be in line with the likes and dislikes of your target audience. Regardless of what you want you to achieve with your social media marketing activities, make sure that each of your accounts reflects your objectives and your core brand values.

D) Get Inspired by Other Brands

When you are doing social media marketing for small business, it is easy to get confused and misunderstand what your audience is looking for. This can lead you to create content that does not go well with your overall business goals. Which is why you need to spend time looking and analyzing the type of content other businesses are posting to their social media accounts.

These companies can be your direct competitors or may even compliment your business. The idea is to get a clear understanding of the type of content that is working for them. Look for patterns and see what’s fetching them the most social response.

You can also leverage social listening to find insights about your prospects and what they want to see from you. This not only ensures that you create appropriate content on a regular basis, but it also helps you stand out from the crowd.

When seeking inspiration, it is not necessary that you only stick to analyzing other small businesses using social media marketing. You can also go beyond and actually learn from industry leaders and bigger brands such as Starbucks, Oreo, Netflix, Apple, etc. It allows you to grab some real social media soci lessons firsthand.

Remember, these big companies have huge budgets that they allocate for social media and a lot of what they do is backed by real research and understanding. When you grasp their way of doing things and see how they are implementing their social media tactics, it gives a real inspiration to formulate your own strategy.

E) Create a Social Media Calendar

Creating quality social media content is not enough. You also need to make sure that it reaches your followers on a consistent basis. An effective way to share the right kind of content is to use a social media calendar. Without complicating things, a social media calendar is nothing but a detailed schedule of the type of content you will be posting to each of your social media accounts. It gives you the much-needed clarity to post social media updates that matter.

There are multiple ways to create your social media calendar. You can either choose to go the simple way by using a spreadsheet or calendar in your Google Drive, or use a more robust approach by using a paid tool.

It doesn’t matter what tool you use to create your calendar, what actually matters is how detailed it is and how you will be executing it. Because ultimately your precise execution plays a major role in making your efforts successful.

Having a clear social media calendar allows you to stay accountable, be consistent, save a ton of time, get more productive, and achieve peace of mind – all of which contributes to building a results-oriented social media marketing approach.

#2: Choose the Right Platform

One of the things that can impact your social media marketing for small business results is the choice of your platform. In order to get the most out of social media marketing for small business and make your brand stand out from the rest, it is crucial that you choose a platform that is suitable to your business goals. If not, you may end up spending your time and money on a social network that will most likely not give you a favorable return on investment.

Do not make the mistake of selecting a social media platform based on a wild estimate or on what others are doing. It is important that you take into consideration your target audience, their preferences, and other demographics before starting to work with a platform.

Let’s look into three of the major social platforms, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn and what makes them different.

Platform 1: Facebook

One of the reasons why Facebook is an attractive option for social media marketing for small business marketers is because it has over two billion monthly active users, which makes it huge market to tap into that a small business may not otherwise be able to reach.

The kind of reach you can experience with Facebook cannot be found with any other social media website. Which is why having a strong presence on Facebook, can help your small business go to the next level.

Another important thing to consider is the fact that these days a lot of people are searching for products and services directly on Facebook. That’s right, gone are the days when Google was the only search engine on the Internet.

Today, Facebook has given people a new option to search and find what they are looking for.

Here are some key Facebook demographics for you to consider:

Facebook users largely fall into the 25 to 34 age bracket.
When it comes to genders, 47% of Facebook users are male and 53% of them or female.
Talking about senior online users, 56% of baby boomers (65+ in age) are found on Facebook.

Facebook has become a center for businesses and brands to connect with their target audience. It is THE social platform that gives you access to a large number of eyeballs even with a limited budget.

This is exactly why the advertising system that has been created by Facebook is one of the most efficient ones out there. The level of targeting that you can achieve with Facebook ads can help small businesses like yours get the best return on their investment.

Having a strong presence on Facebook is as important as having your own website. It gives you an edge over other small businesses in your niche that do not use Facebook to do market the business and build new relationships.

The best part about Facebook is that it helps you connect with a large number of relevant people at a fraction of a cost. These can be your potential customers that you may not have reached without Facebook.

Facebook also has live streaming features that allow you to reach out to your audience in real time. This is a great way to grow and nurture new relationships and improve the level of trust people have in your brand.

Last but not least, Facebook also allows you to integrate your e-commerce business and helps you increase the number of sales in the long run. Obviously, this depends on how efficiently you leverage Facebook and the kind of effort and money you put into making your brand’s presence felt.

Platform 2: Instagram

If you are active on social media in any way then you should know about the popularity of Instagram. Instagram is a photo-sharing app and a social network that is owned by none other than Facebook.

When you see Instagram’s overall mission and how its parent company Facebook wants to position it in the market, you will be able to understand the true potential that the social network offers. It is much more than a photo sharing app. Which means as a small business, you should be able to find your target audience on it and also connect with them visually like never before.

Every Instagram user knows that being an Instagrammer is all about sharing and spreading attractive visuals in the form of images, videos, and stories. And they’re doing their part. Which is bringing in more users day in and day out, and increasing the level of engagement?

Slowly and steadily Instagram is becoming one of the most important places on the Internet to connect with other people by sharing visual content that actually matters to them. More and more brands and small businesses have started to use Instagram creatively to not only spread awareness but to also generate sales.

Here are some key Instagram demographics:

Gender wise, Instagram has more males than females. About 51% of Instagram users are male and 49% of them are female.
The US. is a popular market for Instagram as 55% of Its users fall into the age bracket of 18 to 29 years. This means Instagram is being dominated by millennials.
After the millennials, the users who have the most share on Instagram come in the 30 to 50 years age bracket, making up to 28% of the overall user base.

Instagram will work amazingly for your business if you have the right visuals to share. For example, if you are an e-commerce website catering to a female audience, then Instagram is a great place to share pictures of your physical products and engage with your potential customers.

What makes Instagram different from the rest of the social networks is that it allows you to showcase and present your products the way your prospects actually want to see. People want to connect to a product on a visual level before investing in it. By creating and posting relevant visuals, you will be able to tell a story that your target audience can experience in a unique, memorable manner. What could be more appealing than that?

You can also leverage Instagram’s unique stories feature and take people behind the scenes. Show them what they would not normally see. For instance, you could give them an office tour or show them how your team works in the background. This is a perfect way to document your business’s journey and share it with your photos to grow your brand.

Instagram allows you to communicate with your audience in more than one away. You can even go a step further and communicate with your followers on a much deeper level by leveraging the power of direct messaging. This way you can connect to your audience in a more personal manner. Which can obviously have a positive effect on your business and how people perceive your brand.

Platform 3: LinkedIn

LinkedIn is where the web’s professionals hang out. It is a social network that lets professionals of all levels connect with each other and create more opportunities along the way. Some people see it as an official version of Facebook, with the exact tools you need to grow your brand’s reach.

There is absolutely no doubt that LinkedIn gives you access to users that you may not be able to identify on other big social networks like Facebook and Twitter. It is where business happens. No wonder Microsoft spent more than 25 million dollars to acquire it in 2016.

Some more demographics to help you get a better picture:

About 56% of LinkedIn users are male and 44% of them are female.
25% of regular users on LinkedIn fall into the 18 to 29 age group.
More than 60% of LinkedIn users come in the 30 to 65 years age bracket.

LinkedIn offers some of the most relevant and user-friendly features for a small business to take advantage of.

First and foremost, LinkedIn has a community of professionals that love to engage with other professionals and brands. They have a keen business sense and understanding of how to connect and work with others.

It’s a social media platform that offers you a professional type of setting to build connections with other businesses that are also active socially. Which means as a small business it’s easy for you to become a thought leader by leveraging the power of the LinkedIn community.

You can use LinkedIn to increase your brand awareness and get more people to show interest in your business by creating a dedicated company page.

Even when you are looking to hire someone for your small business, LinkedIn allows you to create and post targeted job vacancies that can be found by the right candidate.

Yes, the LinkedIn advertising platform is a little expensive than that of Facebook, but it can be worth it, especially if you are in the B2B sector.

Use the above information to analyze and find out what social media network would work best to help you grow your small business. If needed, you may have to spread out your efforts over multiple social media sites. One or many — your decision should depend on your business goals.

#3: Work with Buyer Personas

Your social media marketing for small business “adventure” will be short-lived and outpaced by your competitors if you fail to understand your target audience. You need to know your audience like the back of your hand to get a better picture of their pain points and also of what excites them. You need to know their goals and objectives.

How well you know your audience can be clearly seen in the social media content you create. If the content doesn’t offer value to your audience and doesn’t help them in a worthy manner, then they will avoid reading it. Which will obviously affect the number of social shares and followers you get in the future.

When you understand your potential customer and what they are looking for, it becomes easy to connect with them on a higher level. Your business will be able to generate more numbers and add to the bottom line with each customer you connect with.

If you look around, you’ll find that more than half of the businesses haven’t worked on creating a buyer persona, which is the first and the most basic step to knowing and serving your audience. The more you know about your customers typical day and the hurdles they face, the easier it will be for you to live up to your promises and give them worthwhile solutions to their problems.

Step 1: Research Your Audience

To know your audience, you need to do some research about them. This allows you to create a realistic and precise persona. This leads you to learn about the important details of your customers that you wouldn’t have found otherwise.

Begin by understanding your current customers and how you interact with them. Learn about their habits and how they interact with your brand. Do you have some customers who are a big fan of your products? Do some of them buy from you again and again? What traits make them different or similar to others?

Asking yourself the right questions can help you discover the common points between some of your most valuable customers. Based on this information, you would be able to create a strong persona that helps you connect with potential customers on social media.

When you’re using social media, you also have a unique opportunity to connect to customers that have complained about your product/service on Facebook or Twitter. These customers with a bad experience can offer you a lot of unique advice on where you’re going wrong and how you can improve.

Step 2: Develop Separate Personas

Once you have the minute details that you find common between the best customers, it’s time to organize them into different personas, which helps you target with more precision when using social media marketing for small business.

You can easily do this by creating a list of customers within your audience that share the same kind of goals and face similar challenges. Create separate groups out of these customers and categorize them. Each category you add is nothing but a unique persona that you will be leveraging later on.

For instance, if you are a yoga teacher, some of your students may want to do yoga to perfect their posture while others may aim to do it for building muscle strength. While both of these customers want to do yoga, but for different reasons or goals. Which is why it makes sense to create two different personas for them.

Step 3: Name Your Personas & Add Details

When you give a name to your buyer persona, you’re achieving two important things: first, it will be easier to connect with your buyers when you feel that you are actually interacting with a real person. Secondly, it can help you create far better content that is personalized or customized to the right set of audience.

Businesses that take buyer personas seriously make sure that they focus on the details. So if you can, add a picture to each of your buyer personas to make them easier to connect to. The more realistic, the better.

#4: Don’t Ignore the Power of Promoting Via Social Media

Many small businesses think that social media is only about building a brand and growing awareness. But did you know that by not leveraging social networks for promoting your products you’re actually leaving money on the table? That’s right. Social media is huge and when used the right way, it can bring in a ton of sales to your business.

Now, if you’re thinking that promoting via social media is just about sending out a tweet or sharing a photo on Instagram, then you’re wrong. You need a targeted strategy to make sure you reap the best results from your efforts.

You have to cater to your social media followers by balancing valuable content with promotional content. In other words, most of your social media activity should be non-promotional to build trust and add value to your follower’s lives. A small percentage (say 20 percent) should be focused on actually increasing your sales numbers. For every 8 engaging and informative tweets, share 2 promotional tweets that help you increase your customer base.

You should also leverage the right type of content for promotion based on the social network you’re working on. Each social media site is different in terms of the content its users share. You have to fit in and create content that goes with the overall theme of the network. If you need more advice on how to implement a strategy for social media marketing for small businesses – that’s our specialty! Check out our social media management services and then schedule a time to talk about how you can leverage all the potential customers out there waiting to see your brand!

This information was originally posted at https://www.lyfemarketing.com/blog/social-media-marketing-for-small-business/

Icons of Locations to Have a Online Presence

5 Reasons Why Having an Online Presence Is Essential for Your Small Business

November 10, 2017/in Digital Marketing, Digital Presence, Engagement, SEO, Social Marketing /by Mark Toney

Having an online presence increases accessibility for your clients or consumers. It’s an effortless way for them to browse prices and hours and compare all these factors with your competition with a simple click. And it’s important that it’s effortless—nothing should take too long to load, and nothing should be difficult to find. Any questions that may need to be answered should be readily available on the site itself, and if they’re not, then you should really be sure that your contact information is displayed in an obvious way.

How visible is your business online? Click here to run a FREE report that will show you what percent of searches your business is potentially showing up in.

An Online Presence Garners a Wider Audience

An online presence also allows the customer to come to you. Even when you’re closed, customers will be able to purchase goods and services online. Basically, they’re doing your work for you, even when you’re not working yourself. There’s no better give and take for a business than that. You’ll be able to reach a wider audience, such as people who are unable to make it to your physical shop for whatever reason, be it disabilities, lack of transportation, or even because they’re in another country.

Enabling your business to reach the widest audience possible will only be beneficial. The best part? When customers like what they see, they’re willing to share the news of your products and services with others. Allowing these secondary customers to see that your site is up-to-date will ensure that you come across as professional. To enhance this, having active social media accounts will allow your products and services to be shared easily between customers, and then you’ll have even more customers coming to your site. Win-Win!

An Online Presence Builds Relationships and Consumer Trust

The beauty of having a site, blog, and social media accounts is that they enable reviews and comments about your products. As an expert in your business, you’ll be able to answer any queries quickly and thoroughly. Any glowing praise that is publicly available will build your online presence and show even brand-new customers that you’re a reputable business.

Even where there are less-than-kind reviews or comments, you can reach out to unhappy customers and resolve the issue so that your good name stays intact. It’s better to know about an unhappy client so you can make amends and carry your name forward, rather than having an angry customer sharing their distaste for your business without you even knowing they were unhappy in the first place. Being able to right wrongs only helps to build customer loyalty. If you’re not forgiven, at least other clients and customers can see that you tried and that you’re willing to do everything in your power to keep customers happy.

An Online Presence Enables Effortless Marketing

Selling your products and services becomes an effortless process thanks to your online presence. Consumers will be able to browse your products and ensure that they’re happy with their choice without feeling pressured by sales associates. And, as we said, you don’t have to be there for this entire process to take place. Even at night, customers will be buying.

Not only is the process no longer limited, but it’s also never-ending (in a good way!). Marketing yourself online can cost as much or as little as you decide. You don’t have to mail out coupons or flyers; you can simply share them with the click of a button. You can advertise your products and services for free across your social media sites and on your blog. And, if you focus on improving your SEO, then the search engines will work in your favor.

An Online Presence Shows You What Works—And What Doesn’t

Finally, an online presence allows you to see the effects of all these efforts. Understanding and tracking the metrics of your site and social media accounts is quite simple. You’ll be able to see numerical proof of what works and what doesn’t. If you share a new blog post and see a huge spike in visits, then you’ll know you’ve hit on some content that your audience likes to see. Being able to see the results of your efforts will allow you to make improvements in every aspect of your business and let you experience the real ROI of social media marketing.

Building an online presence isn’t just beneficial to growing a small business—it’s absolutely essential. By creating a blog, maintaining your site, and becoming active in social media, you’ll be more accessible to a wider audience. You’ll also build consumer trust and be able to market effortlessly. Best of all, you’ll always be able to make improvements in all these areas.

This post originally appeared on allbusiness.com

Why We Engage on Facebook

August 8, 2017/in Engagement, Facebook, Social Marketing, Social Media /by Mark Toney

Do you start and end every single day by scrolling through your Facebook newsfeed and seeing what your friends are up to?

If your answer is YES – It turns out you are not alone––statistically, most people probably do the same thing. Almost half of Facebook users “like” content posted by their friends at least once a day. But what makes us click that thumbs up?

Liking something is a quick way to give someone a nod. When you give someone a “like,” you’re letting them know you agree with them.
Liking content allows us to affirm ourselves. Did you know that you can look at someone’s likes and learn everything from their ethnicity to sexual orientation?

Additionally, liking lets us show empathy and get likes in return. This infographic also examines sharing, which is often done to let our friends see things we find interesting, important or funny, and commenting, which gives us a way to express our opinions.

The problem is it’s harder to get those likes, comments, and shares when your posts aren’t being seen by a large portion of your audience. It’s kind of a catch-22. You need engagement to show up in your fans’ News Feed, but you need to show up in their News Feed to get the engagement.

Would you like to get more likes, comments and most importantly SHARES on your business Facebook page?

Lucé Media can help you do that. Send us a note here for a free discussion of how your social media efforts are performing.

Just How Dominant is Facebook? The Numbers Speak For Themselves

July 28, 2017/in Engagement, Facebook, Metrics, Social Media /by Mark Toney

When people think of Facebook as a company, they mostly think of it synonymously with Facebook the social network. However, Facebook Inc. is much more than that, as this chart nicely illustrates. With WhatsApp, Instagram and of course the namesake Facebook and Messenger, the company owns four of the world’s largest social media / messaging services. Facebook alone reaches more than 2 billion people per month and both WhatsApp and Messenger also passed the billion-user milestone recently. Tencent, the Chinese company behind WeChat and Qzone might also boast a billion users in total, but still doesn’t come close to Facebook’s global footprint.

What all of the services mentioned below have in common, is their immense attractiveness to advertisers. Not only do they all boast hundreds of millions of users, but they also have the ability to target specific groups based on likes, dislikes and past behavior. That is why social media advertising has grown immensely over the past few years. In the U.S. alone, social media ad revenue is expected to reach $17.8 billion this year, with more growth to come in 2018 and beyond. For more information on social media advertising and digital marketing, contact us here at Lucé Media.

Facebook now has more than 2 billion monthly active users.

It is hard to fathom what this number means, but let’s put it this way: what started in a Harvard dorm room in 2004 is now used by more than 1 in 4 people on planet earth. Considering that the company behind it all also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, two other immensely popular social media/messaging platforms, it is no surprise that Facebook is now one of the most valuable companies in the world. So take a look at the incredible, rapid growth of Facebook.

Social Media Coaching and Training

July 6, 2017/in Journalists, Metrics, Social Media /by Mark Toney

Here is something that is going to help your career….guaranteed! We all know the realities of today mean that journalists of all types must embrace social media. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social platforms continue to dramatically change news gathering and sharing. Journalists today are required to have a strong Social Media presence to promote their content to audiences everywhere. In fact, how you perform in Social Media may be a key ingredient of your employment agreement, your ability to get promoted or even make more money.

So how do you succeed in this rapidly changing social media environment? How do you stay connected, engaged and become an effective multi-platform journalist?

Lucé Media announces the creation of a Social Media coaching and training program providing you Social Media intelligence for your own personal brand. This is an ongoing, annual partnership designed to help you become more effective in social media by being more efficient. Our mission is to educate, empower and build your capability as a multi-platform journalist so you can be an even greater success in your career. I don’t know if you’ve thought much about it – but all that work you put into Social Media should have a positive and rewarding impact on what you do every day as a journalist and a long-term positive impact on your career. For instance, it might prepare you for the next big job, or get you promoted even faster or even make more money. Our goal is to help fast-track your career and Social Media efforts by providing you with the tools, techniques, and a clear, easy to understand personal action plan for Social Media success.

The Lucé Media Coaching and Training program includes a customized social media strategy for individual journalists, online reputation management, tactics on becoming an influencer, content strategies, personal customized social media analytics, and more. The partnership will help you establish a dynamic presence on the key social platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc. How do you do this? Simple. We start with a timeline that suits you to give you feedback on your current efforts, show you how you are currently performing in social media compared to other journalists in your shop AND at your competitors.

A personalized program designed specifically for you. Monthly calls via Skype or Phone to talk about your personal growth in social media. Given the hundreds of emails you receive – together we will set up the best form of communication so you get help when you need it.
Quarterly, in-depth strategy calls to gauge your growth and influence and create the next set of goals to move you forward.
Tracking your progress – you are provided with a customized monthly report highlighting the growth you have shown over the previous month.
The coaching and training program provides you with a deep understanding of the latest social media tools, tricks, and techniques making you a better anchor, reporter, or writer.
Your own personal “Content Farm”. A text message sent out when you need it (early afternoon, mid-morning, you decide) with 2-3 ready to go posts that will generate engagement on your social platforms. Simply cut and paste and you will significantly increase your efforts in social.
You also get a bi-monthly newsletter featuring the latest developments in social for the news business. It will show you examples of highly engaging news posts, sharing practical advice for managing your own social accounts, and a social media superstar of the week.
An open phone line to me when you need motivation, feedback, ideas or just a little push.
Special video interviews with the news industry’s social media experts and influencers.
Your subscription includes access to dozens of “How To” videos on each social platform.

Mark Toney

Mark Toney brings his 25-years as a successful veteran of news management to you. He has an accomplished track record of building winning stations in the top markets in the country. For the past decade, he has helped dozens of local news outlets become successful on a variety of platforms. He’s an author, public speaker; digital entrepreneur, national presenter and thought leader. Mark has created and launched six digital and social media companies in the past 15 years. Two of his current ventures deal specifically with social media metrics and content. He has provided digital counsel and successful social strategies for clients such as ABC Owned Stations, NBC Owned Stations, Scripps, Raycom, NBC Sports, Comcast Sports, Fortune 500 companies as well as digital startup companies.

Mark’s reputation is that of a no-nonsense, easy to understand, straight shooter with a common-sense approach that gets results. Known as a cutting edge innovator, Mark brings his front line experience and forward thinking that will help your social media efforts and career grow. He is the author of the book The Amazing Guide to Social Media Metrics and How to Be More Engaging. Mark provides you a strong understanding of the social media space as well as help you create an individual action plan to make you a successful journalist. He has access to thousands of successful posts by journalists around the country to share with his clients.

To get a FREE initial analysis including real-time metrics on your own Social Media performance – click here.

For more information on the Social Media Training and Coaching program for Journalists – send an email to Information@LuceMedia.net

Latest Social Media Stats 2017 – For Those Keeping Track

June 22, 2017/in Metrics, Social Media /by Mark Toney

So here are some new numbers for those of you keeping track on Social Media. Approximately 2 billion internet users are using social networks and these figures are still expected to grow as mobile device usage and mobile social networks increasingly gain traction.

The most popular social networks usually display a high number of user accounts or strong user engagement. For example, market leader Facebook was the first social network to surpass 1 billion monthly active users, whereas recent newcomer Pinterest was the fastest independently launched site to reach 10 million unique monthly visitors. The majority of social networks with more than 100 million users originated in the United States, but European services like VK or Chinese social networks Qzone and Renren have also garnered mainstream appeal in their areas due to local context and content.

Social network usage by consumers is highly diverse: platforms such as Facebook or Google+ are highly focused on exchanges between friends and family and are constantly pushing interaction through features like photo or status sharing and social games. Other social networks like Tumblr or Twitter are all about rapid communication and are aptly termed microblogs. Some social networks focus on community; others highlight and display user-generated content.

Due to a constant presence in the lives of their users, social networks have a decidedly strong social impact. The blurring between offline and virtual life as well as the concept of digital identity and online social interactions are some of the aspects that have emerged in recent discussions.

If you need help growing your business on various social media platforms, drop us a note here at Luce’ Media and we’ll get right back to you.

WHAT ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT SOCIAL METRICS FOR TWITTER?

June 7, 2017/in Metrics, Social Media, Twitter /by Mark Toney

I hear the debate all the time when looking at social metrics. I’m referring to the Twitter debate. Is Twitter still a good social platform for business? Should we consider Twitter to be a marketing tool or is it just for people who have a lot of time on their hands and have a need to jibber-jabber all day long? Think of Twitter as a means to get instant public messages out to your audience, whether it is an audience of friends, colleagues or potential customers.

Twitter is becoming an increasingly important platform for online communication and, yes, conversation. And where there is a conversation – there is opportunity and money. The latest research shows 61% of customers’ purchasing habits are decided by those companies that deliver custom content. Content and engagement are critical components of a successful Twitter strategy. But how and what you measure on Twitter with regard to social metrics will point you in the right direction for executing a successful strategy.

By measuring how your audience responds to your Twitter presence, you’ll turn what seem like random interactions into an actionable strategy.

Every social media platform has its lexicon when it comes to naming features and taking action, and Twitter is no different. You can run month’s worth of reports, but they won’t mean a thing if you don’t have set goals and are trying to measure something you don’t understand.

To help you better navigate your Twitter metrics, here are some of the standard, most basic social metrics you should know about the platform.

Direct Messages (DM): These are private messages sent from one Twitter user to another. They can be used for one-on-one conversations or between a group of users. Twitter’s 140-character limit no longer applies to DMs.
Likes: This is used to represent a stand-out Tweet. The motivation behind clicking “like” is subjective, but it’s usually positive in sentiment. Likes replaced Favorites in 2015, and use a heart instead of a star icon. According to a Twitter product manager, this change was due mostly to the versatility of the heart and meant to be a change towards something more universal that can be understood easily by new users.
Followers: The number of people that currently subscribed to your updates.
Mentions: Refers to a Tweet in which your @username is included.
Replies: A response to a Tweet that begins with your @username.
Retweets (RT): Occurs when a user shares an existing Tweet published by you (or another Twitter account) with their followers.

Get to Know Your Twitter Activity Dashboard

There is an activity dashboard available to any Twitter user who has signed up on the platform (or who has access to

Twitter Ads). The data displayed on your dashboard can help you optimize the effectiveness of your Tweets and inform you on what types of content you are creating for both paid and organic Tweets.

This activity dashboard will offer you some potentially valuable information. Here, you’ll see how people engage with your Tweets in real time, and get a detailed view of the number of retweets, replies, likes, prompted follows, and clicks each of your Tweets receives. You can also get detailed insights into who’s your audience.

Your dashboard is separated into three main areas: Tweets, Audiences, and Events. These are the key metrics you will find here:

Home Tab-Your Home screen provides a monthly at-a-glance summary of your Twitter highlights. This includes your:
Top Tweet
Top mention
Top follower
Top Media Tweets
Tweets published: The number of Tweets you posted during a given period.
Tweet Impressions: The number of people who saw your Tweet in their timeline or search results
Profile Visits: The number of times your profile is visited as a result of a Tweet.
Mentions: The tweets that mention your @username and received the highest number of any reactions or impressions. This does not have not have to be posted by the user; the user only needs to be tagged or mentioned.
New Followers: The number of people who weren’t previously subscribed to your Tweets and now are. If you lost followers, this would be a negative number.
Tweets linking to you: The number of Tweets that a user’s Twitter Card(s) give a summary of a website or video through an image that is tweeted by the user or others.

Under the tab labeled Tweets – these are the most important metrics to track:

Engagement: This is a user’s interaction with your Tweets. It includes mentions, replies, Retweets, likes, line clicks, and new followers.
Tweet Impressions: This directly relates to the numbers of followers, mentions, and retweets that a user receives. How many streams a tweet is added to.
Engagement Rate: The number of engagements or clicks on the tweet including likes, retweets, and follows divided by impressions.

We should point out that this “Tweet” tab focuses solely on Tweets that you’ve created (including replies you’ve sent), and doesn’t include any Tweets that mention you.

Audiences Insights Tab

The more information you have about your audience, the more compelling content you can create. The Audience Insights tab helps you discover valuable information about your followers and the people who’ve engaged with your Tweets. Here you’ll have access to data about:

Demographics: Such as gender, language, origin, gender, income, marital status, education and more.
Interests: A real-time interest graph displays what percentage of your audience are interested in specific topics, ranging from technology and entertainment to business and tech news
Lifestyle: Identifies the occupation, TV viewing preferences and political affiliation of your audience.
Purchasing behavior: Breaks down your audience’s buying style and the types of consumer goods they favor.
Mobile footprint: Informs you about which wireless carrier and device your audience is using.

Twitter Metrics Reports to Run

The Profiles Report

Your Twitter Profiles report will help you see how your audience is interacting with your content. From this report, you can build an engagement strategy that’s relevant to customers and drives performance.

The Twitter Comparison Report

The Twitter Comparison report is a way to gain insight on how your Twitter strategy stacks up to that of your competitors. Through this report, you receive a breakdown of your engagement, influence, follower growth, and mentions—and then compare that to one of your competitors to see where your strategy can be improved.

The Twitter Listening Report

One of the newest features, the Twitter Listening report, lets you track current and historical keyword usage data across Twitter. It calculates aggregate Tweet counts for any keyword or phrase on Twitter across any time period.

With the Twitter Listening report, you can better understand the effectiveness of your Twitter campaigns and uncover trends in the usage of brand keywords and hashtags.

Put Your Best Foot Forward

Content is a huge piece of your social media marketing strategy. Creating powerful content that delivers results requires actionable data. When paid attention to, your Twitter metrics can have a significant impact on what you get out of the social network.

While there’s no right or wrong way to track your performance on Twitter, using these basic tools can help your efforts on Twitter become more productive with your reporting and social metrics.

But are These Metrics Enough to Grow Your Business?

Over 500 million messages are posted every day on Twitter. How many mentions your business? What about your company? This might be a good time to find out. The metrics described above are the most basic metrics offered by Twitter. But in a world where deep data can make or break many marketing campaigns – new metrics and new methods of measurement have proven very successful. At Lucé Media we offer a product called ShareRocket that provides a very deep dive into social media metrics of all types.

Our social media metrics tools will allow you to manage your entire social footprint with the social metrics that matter. Our SHARE and SEI® metrics are simple to understand, yet powerful social metrics that change the culture and improve the performance of your entire organization. Robust metrics guaranteed to move your business forward.

We have created the industry’s best real-time metrics to manage every level of your brand’s social presence. Look at your performance on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at a glance. Dive deep into our dashboards and reports for actionable insights.

Lucé Media customers see dramatic growth over their competitors that use standard analytics tools like those we have described in this article. Grow your Engagement and expand your revenue opportunities. Clients using Share Rocket see up to 150% more engagement than using standard analytics tools.

Social Media Spending- ROI Impact Disconnect

May 17, 2017/in Research-Data, Social Media /by Mark Toney

Luce Media

Social media spending is expected to climb to a 20.9 percent share of marketing budgets in the next five years. This share was only 5.6 percent in 2009. What is striking, however, is that only 3.4 percent of marketing leaders report that social media contributes very highly to firm performance; 40 percent report a below average contribution (see insert).

These are among the latest findings from The CMO Survey. Conducted biannually since August 2008, the latest edition received responses from 289 top marketing executives.

The Contribution of Social Media Spending to Company Performance

What explains the disconnect between social media spending and marketing impact?

Social media is often going solo: When asked to rate how effectively social media is linked to their firms’ marketing strategies on a 1-7 scale where 1=not at all integrated and 7=very integrated, marketing leaders report an average score of 4.2. Although higher than 3.8 from 4 years ago, this number is still too low to get the best returns on social media investments.
Customer social media information is not integrated with other customer information: Companies are not integrating customer information from purchasing, social media, and other communication channels. On a 1-7 scale where 1=not at all effectively and 7=very effectively, the average customer integration rating across these three sources is 3.4, which is a poor showing and lower than last year. This means companies do not yet have the critical 360 that could help them increase customer acquisition and retention.
Proving social media’s impact is elusive: This has remained a challenge for marketers, and new results indicate that they have yet to get a handle on it. Only 11.5 percent of marketing leaders report they have proven the impact of social media quantitatively. Another 40.6 percent report having a good qualitative sense, but not a quantitative assessment. 47.9 percent report have not been able to show any impact yet.
Partners may not be fully utilized: As companies build a presence in social media, they often seek outside agencies to help. In fact, marketing leaders report that 20 percent of their social media activities are performed by outside agencies. One challenge is that old “not invented here” syndrome—where companies fail to accept new ideas developed outside their borders—could be keeping this external expertise from making its best contributions.
Cross-functional marketing leadership is needed: Marketers lead social media activities in 83.9 percent of companies—a percent that has climbed from 71 percent in 2011. Marketing leaders managing social media need effective cross-functional skills in information technology and traditional marketing to make social media effective.
Lack of social media goals: Many companies do not have clear objectives for their social media activities. Without objectives, what should be measured? The best social media activities have a clear objective and measure performance against it. For example, in the recent survey, 15.6 percent of companies reported they will invest in social media to develop new products. Given this, what process and outcome metrics make the most sense to assess impact in this area?
Social media expertise is not embedded in marketing teams: Social media experts should be closely linked to the brand and customer teams they support. This involvement pays off because social media experts are tuned into the latest platforms and know which approaches generate interest from current and potential customers, fans, and enthusiasts. As a result, these experts can guide brand and customer teams to think differently.
Failure to drive toward the financial performance connection: Results from prior surveys indicate that companies are using more intermediate performance indicators such as buzz. This is a good choice to show social media’s initial contribution. However, lifts must ultimately be understood in terms of customer outcomes, such as acquisition or retention rates. Doing so may require companies to perform more thorough experiments with their use of social media.

Why Digital Presence Management Matters-FREE Download

May 17, 2017/in Digital Presence, Research-Data, Tools /by Mark Toney

What happens when a potential buyer goes to Google to conduct a search on a product you sell? Does your business show up on the first page of results? How about the second page?

Digital Presence Management has many moving parts. There are many building blocks that can be arranged to provide services to a specific business. To have best in class local presence management strategies, a business must understand what makes up Digital Presence Management (DPM). Here are just three areas you should know:

Local Presence. All of the information surrounding a business’s actual physical location, such as where to find it on a map, business hours and its name, address and phone.
Online Presence. All of the information, processes, and marketing for a business that is presented online. Consumers usually conduct a Google search to find this information, which includes the website, any social media pages, blogs, online reviews from multiple sites, any search engine optimization (SEO) done, and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising just to name a few.
Local Presence Management. This refers to the seamless merging and control of local and online presence components to positively affect and cultivate a brand’s or business’s presence across the Internet.

Get FREE Report Here

Two years ago Google announced that mobile search had surpassed Desktop search. Fast forward to today and more consumers are making more purchases from an iPhone or Samsung than any other device. But have brick and mortar companies taken the time to keep up with the technological opportunities that will drive foot traffic in your business. For instance, is your website optimized for mobile users?

Similarly, with changes to Google’s algorithms the need to have consistent data about your company or business across parts of the Internet will insure you rank much higher when that Google search is conducted. Having consistent data such as: address, phone, and business hours; makes it easier for search engines and consumers to find the business. Today, submitting your information just to Google or Bing or Yelp will not guarantee you the highest ranking in searches possible.

Consistently staying active on at least the major social media channels – Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – will also contribute to a higher ranking in online searches. In short, having engaging social media posts will alert consumers to your business which in turn will send more foot traffic to your locations.

Finally, shoppers want to be able to easily find a business on their mobile device in order to get to your location quickly. It is imperative if you are a brick-and-mortar location to correctly appear on Google and Apple maps. To accomplish that, you need to make sure you show up in the dozens of syndicated listings used by mapping companies to correctly locate you.

What’s The Solution for Digital Presence Management?

Luce Media

At Lucé Media – we get it. Managing all of this information is hard, time consuming and probably not in your wheelhouse. But it is in ours. Click here to get a FREE report on everything you should know about Digital Presence Management. Luce’ Media will offer you low cost solutions to enhancing your Digital Presence. We can provide easy to understand methods of posting to social media that gets results and can consistently monitor your Digital Presence to make sure it remains optimized at all times. Click here, scroll to the bottom and plug in your companies name and see if your Digital Presence is optimized. If not, let’s talk!

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