Facebook is undoubtedly one of the most important social media websites today. The website has more than 700 million users just at the start of 2012, making it one of the most lucrative platforms for businesses to market themselves. How can you capitalize on the social media phenomenon that is Facebook and convert your Facebook display advertising into customers? Here is a simple and step-by-step answer to this question.

Step 1- Know the Rules and Set Your Goal

Before you kick off your Facebook display advertising, you need to know what medium you are dealing with. Facebook has a solid standard model for its advertisements, so you can easily understand what you can and cannot do with your Facebook display advertising. All the ads are of the same size, format and structure.

As you can guess, the rigidity of Facebook display advertising also means that it is very difficult to stand out from your competitors and capture your viewers’ attention. That is why it is important for you to set your goals before you begin creating Facebook ads. If you know what you want and who you are targeting beforehand, your job will be much easier.

Step 2- Choose Your Payment Option

Facebook offers two payment options for hosting your advertisements. The first option is to pay for each impression. This option is great if you just want to build a strong impression or image for your company. However, if you want your Facebook ads to direct viewers and increase traffic to your website, you can choose the per-click payment option.

Step 3- Create the Right Title and Body

Once you have finalized the payment method, you need to pen the title and body text for your advertisement. As mentioned above, the Facebook guidelines for display advertising are fairly strict, so you need to stick to the word limits for your ad’s title and body. The title is limited to just 25 characters, while the body should come under 65 characters. You need to send out a strong and catchy message within these character limits, but that is not the only challenge you have to face.

Step 4- Choose the Right Image

If you have already added your text to your display advertising, you can proceed to the next step- adding a relevant image. The image has to complement the words you just wrote down and your company’s profile in general. Your company logo may seem like the easiest option, but it is usually not the best choice.

You should use an image that has just one subject for your Facebook ads. The photo can have a maximum size of just 110 by 80 pixels, so a lot of objects within your picture can make them difficult to distinguish. Even if you have just one subject, you should use a close-up picture so that it is discernible. Your picture will always be noticed first, so you must choose one that stands apart from the rest. You can use a unique image that has some shock value (in a positive way). Alternatively, you can use images that have contrasting colors with the blue and white scheme of Facebook.

Check out the video look book below produced by Thinking Giant

After all, they have already spent a huge amount of time, effort and money on setting up their website, and they now have to spend even more money on search engine optimization and website promotion. What benefits could they possibly get from web analytics? Well, here are 7 reasons why you should know your website’s analytics:

1. It lets you know how many people visit your website
The primary function of web analytics is to calculate the number of visitors to your website. This information is important for you to understand where exactly your website stands amidst your competition. If you do not know how many people visit your website, you won’t know whether your business is successful or not either.

2. It provides you with the source of these visitors
As a website owner, you may be promoting your website through different mediums, like search engines, affiliate websites, etc. Web analytics lets you know which of these mediums are offering maximum traffic in terms of visitors.

3. It tells you about the most popular sections of your website
Another important benefit of web analytics is that it lets you identify the popular parts of your website. As a businessperson, you should know the focus of your target audience so you can meet their requirements. By understanding which section of your website visitors like most, you can understand the strengths of your business.

4. It informs you about the most common keywords used to search for your website
This is another important advantage of web analytics if you are using search engine optimization techniques like a majority of other websites do. By learning what keywords work better for your website, you can change your SEO strategy to give you better results.

5. It shows you the areas where visitors log off your website
The fifth advantage of web analytics is that it shows you the areas of your website where your visitors log off or move elsewhere. These areas are your website’s weak points, and once you recognize them, you can change or update them to avoid visitors from leaving your website.

6. It tells you about the problems faced by your visitors
If your website is not able to attract traffic, it may be because your site is difficult to navigate or because it takes a long time to load. Web analytics helps your ascertain if your visitors face such problems, so that you can make your website more visitor-friendly.

7. It helps you understand what is ideal for your customer
The seventh and final reason for you to know your website’s analytics is because it helps you bridge the gap between what your website currently provides and what your customers are looking for. This helps improve your business and your website further to meet your visitors’ expectations.

1. It creates a strong and positive image for your business

Social media like blogs, forums, wikis and social networking and micro blogging sites have continued their progress undeterred for this year as well. By associating yourself with the latest trends on the Internet and taking part in popular trends, you can improve the visibility of your business and also create a more modern, positive image of your business.

2. It helps you understand your customers

Social media is all about interacting with the help of Web 2.0 technology. You can not only use social media outlets and tools to market yourself, but also interact with customers and understand them. This helps you shape your marketing campaign and maybe even change your products or services to meet the changing needs and trends of your customers. After all, the success of every business is ultimately gauged by how satisfied its customers are.

3. It helps in generating reliable leads

The third reason for you to start a social media marketing campaign is that helps generate leads. Lead generation helps create an interest among prospective customers, and it can also be used for search engine optimization purposes. Your social media marketing campaign can be used as a very useful lead generation tool.

4. It helps optimize your website for search engines

You may have already heard about search engine optimization or SEO and its benefits for your business. Your website can get a lot of traffic by simply getting optimized for search engines to rank you high in their results pages. There are several ways to optimize your website, including social media marketing. Search engine bots are always on the lookout for real time search results, and social media bookmarks or updates can help rank your website better among search engines.

5. It generates relevant traffic

The main function of any social media marketing campaign is to generate traffic for your website, and it is also the main reason for you to plan a campaign. Social media websites have the highest number of traffic at any point of time, so they are the perfect place to attract huge volumes of traffic to your website. Apart from common social networking websites, you can also target other niche social media channels.

Everything has a shelf life. Even your website. If you’ve thought that your website is good enough for the work it has been cranking up all along, then you have to rethink that attitude and take a good hard look at it again. It probably doesn’t match up to industry standards, especially in terms of SEO. The thing is that you have to keep SEO in the circle if you’re trying to redesign your website particularly because SEO is not a fixed entity. It changes according to the trends and current vibes in the industry. Here are a few best practices that you need to keep in mind before you redesign your website.

• Consulting the experts – A good idea before getting down to work would be to consult experts in the same domain. Ask them what usually works but be more specific with the questions. Experts come with loads of experience in marketing and website usability so make sure you get their opinion on the current website and the redesigning options that you have.
• Checking out the competition – What are they doing right and you’re missing out on? Try and figure it out by researching the competition thoroughly. SEO is mutable and you have to be well versed with the different ways in which it works and the different forms in which it floats around so you can get the best redesign for your website. Also, understanding the competition means that you can avoid their mistakes and improve on their positives to make it work better for you.
• Reviewing usability – A good website has to be functional at best. Almost everything else comes secondary. While redesigning your website, it would be a good idea to get the usability tested especially in terms of SEO. What are the terms that people are using on search engines to reach your website? You’d have to read the next point to understand that better.
• Making Google Analytics your friend – Google Analytics is really one of the best features that you can use to understand your visitors better. There are many ways in which it can make things clearer for you regarding your content and the visitors it draws and where they linger the longest. Google Analytics helps you understand your website’s flaws and strengths, segment by segment.
• Getting killer content – If SEO is what’s needed to keep your website alive, you have to remember that unless you have some really good content, no amount of SEO will keep visitors coming. There has to be a good balance between SEO and content and the best part is that they’re both closely interconnected. It’s just that few people realize the value of good content when they’re busy pumping their website full of SEO.

Redesigning a website is a big job and not something that can be undertaken lightly. There are numerous things to consider before you start and it all has to go back to the beginning, the very reason for the existence of the website.

Marketers everywhere know that it’s important to adapt to the changing times especially when it comes to the ways in which consumers can access them. Today Social Media Marketing brings the customer to your doorstep literally with the click of your mouse and if you’ve had any doubts whatsoever about whether it’s good for sales or not, now’s the time to leave your doubts behind and surge ahead. Here are five great reasons why. And they’ve all got to do with boosting your sales figures incredibly.

1. Increasing accessibility

Social media is swiftly bringing down the walls between marketers and consumers by increasing the number of ways in which the two can interact. The more places you can be reached, the more people you will end up reaching out to. Where earlier getting hold of customers was difficult, today creating a presence in a social media forum can go to great lengths to help build a customer base.

2. Establishing trust

Trust is an important aspect in the consumer-marketer relationship. If the consumer feels the marketer is trustworthy, they will proceed to take a closer step towards the product or service and will eventually pay money to make it theirs. With social media marketing, establishing trust becomes a little more easier because it’s easy to see how many others have been influenced by the marketer and people usually follow the  ‘if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for us’ rule.

3. Building communications

For a lasting relationship between consumer and marketer, there has to be good communication.  Social media marketing may not offer personalized communication but goes to great lengths to ensure that consumers are informed immediately regarding any situations or new products or releases. Having knowledge of certain products before they even hit the market give the consumers an edge over the others and fosters a feeling of closeness between the marketer and the consumer.

4. Creating a distinct voice

Social media marketing allows you to create a distinct voice and become a tangible entity in the eyes of your consumers. Building a relationship and sustaining it with them becomes so much easier when consumers know who is at the other end. Social media marketing brings the consumers closer to the marketers, demolishing the walls and bridges between them that often lead to disinterest and even defection.

5. Extended reach

Most social media sites allow users to sign in to other sites using their sign in identities. This continued expansion into the consumer’s interests can prove to be an excellent way for marketers to focus on sending targeted content to consumers.

Social media marketing is definitely not a hindrance as most old school marketers are prone to think. If the right balance is worked out, then it can prove to be a wonderful way to drive revenues even in a faltering economy.

SEO vs SEM

If you were launching an internet marketing campaign, you would have surely heard of the terms ‘SEO’ and ‘SEM’. These two terms are the mantra for success in the field of internet marketing today.

However, it is odd how people are either pitting SEO against SEM or using both terms synonymously, because both concepts are incorrect. The truth is that both are complementary to each other. Of course, there are a few basic differences between the two, and you must know what they are before you opt for either of them to help build your business.

SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It includes using appropriate keywords to get high rankings for site on a directory or a search engine. With SEO, you have to create content that brings people to your website. This is done with the help of keywords, images and videos that are relevant to your business.

SEO involves tailoring your content to suit the needs of your visitors and through this, increases the chances of the visitors being converted into leads for business.

Paying to get top placements on sites has become common these days but it can sometimes dilute your credibility. This is why organic SEO is important and in the end it all boils down to your content and how good is your offer.

SEM

SEM on the other hand is Search Engine Marketing where search engines are used to promote or market a website in order to increase business. SEM is a more targeted concept and if you are willing to shell out a few bucks, you should opt for it because it can get you results that are more streamlined.

SEM includes ‘pay-per-click ads’ where you have to pay only when someone clicks on your ad and is directed to your website. The thing to note here is that people might come to your website through these ads, but do you have the information that will make them stay?

To catch the attention of your visitors and to make them take an action you need ‘landing pages’ – which are very important aspect of any SEM campaign. Every cent and dollar is important, so concentrate on making your landing page informative and accessible so that the visitors are encouraged and curious to know more.

For a successful internet marketing campaign, it is a good idea to combine both SEO and SEM, or rather use those elements of each that are relevant to you and your business.

Ideally, it is not easy to separate SEO and SEM and the lines begin to blur if you want to have a fantastic internet marketing campaign that will boost traffic to your website and drive sales.

The present day and age is certainly the best time to be marketing your products or services online. Social media has propelled online marketing to new heights since millions of users across the globe are now connected through it. While you can Tweet about your services or create a social media campaign to increase awareness about your product, don’t discount the importance of email marketing, because it’s just as important as social media marketing.

Email marketing may seem old school today, but it isn’t. In fact, it forges a personal connection between you and your customer. The best thing to do would be to create a marketing mix that employs both email and social media marketing strategies to create the most effective marketing campaign.

Here’s a look at the seven ways in which you can promote your business using both social media and email marketing:

1. Choose the right social media – You can’t be everywhere at once. Social media is constantly expanding, but that doesn’t mean you have to create a footprint everywhere. Look for those social media channels that your customers are likely to frequent, and make your presence felt on such platforms.

2. Use your email contacts – If you’ve been doing email marketing for a while now, use the contacts you have to build your social network base. You may be surprised at how many of your customers or clients are already on a social network. Send them an email to inform them that you are also a member of that social media website.

3. Link your content – If you have a newsletter service, make sure to include a link to your social media page in your newsletters. In this way, even if people forget to see the email, they’ll be reminded of it through your Tweets or updates.

4. Use limitations to your advantage – Remember that social media updates do not allow for much space. For example, the limit on Twitter is just 140 characters. Use these limitations to your advantage by creating teasers about articles that are already there on your blog or website. This will enable you to attract some much needed traffic to your site by upping the curiosity quotient in your readers or clients.

5. Forge a connection – Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, or Google Plus you’re using to create a buzz about your products or services, combine it with targeted emails to forge a stronger connection- one that doesn’t wane the moment your customers sign out of their social media sites.

6. Get social network friendly – If you have an excellent newsletter that’s been doing the rounds for quite some time, then a good idea would be to include a ‘share’ button through which your customers can share your content with their contacts on social media networks.

7. Use polls and surveys – Conduct polls and surveys on social media to find out what customers want so you can provide them with targeted content via email newsletters.

Social media marketing and email marketing are most effective when used together. It doubles the impact and makes sure that your customers stay informed and aware.

For help with your social media and email maketing, contact The Thinking Giant

In this role, you will be:
+ Working with the business development team to create and execute strategic marketing initiatives & campaigns
+ Managing the day-to-day activities required for those campaigns
+ Develop copy for ads, microsites, blog posts, and social media websites.
+ Reporting and dissecting results with the business development team and company leaders.
+ Doing things that nobody could reasonably expect would work, but do anyway by virtue of sheer force of will and ingenuity (i.e. because you were bat$&*t crazy enough to try)

Qualifications
• Excellent writing and communication skills
• Familiar with social media sites
• Organized and detail oriented, work well independently
• Interest in social media marketing
• Creative thinking

To apply send email with resume to info@thinkinggiant.com