Simple Strategies for Successfully Rebranding Your Company’s Social Media Profiles

Posted on November 28, 2012 by admin

Are your social media profiles in line with your current business strategy? Oftentimes we make important business updates and forget to reflect those changes in our social networks. But a total overhaul of social media profiles isn’t always necessary. Instead, consider a few key things before making the decision to undergo a full-fledged rebranding effort.

According to an article featured at the Social Media Examiner online, rebranding may only be required in select instances. Companies that are being overhauled due to antiquated business practices or those undergoing structural changes such as a merger may benefit from rebranding their social media profiles. Another instance where rebranding is appropriate is when an organization is completely changing its product line.

If any of these situations apply to you, it may be time to consider rebranding as an option. Here are a couple simple steps to get you started:

Conduct Proper Background Research. If at all possible, make certain to snatch up both the domain name and Twitter username that matches the name of your new brand. As Netflix found out when it partnered with Quikster but failed to clench the @Quikster Twitter handle, users spewing negative information with your name will most certainly result in damage to your reputation. Focus groups can also be helpful for revealing any underlying issues with rebranding that may not be immediately apparent.

Familiarize Yourself with Shortfalls. For instance, on Facebook and YouTube it’s not possible to simply change an identity associated with social media profiles already in place. In order to complete a name change, Facebook requires a new page be created once a user acquires 200 likes. This process is meant to circumvent the buying and selling of fans, but creating a new page can result in loss of followers. YouTube users also can’t just alter their usernames – however, they can ‘mask’ a previous channel’s content with an updated URL.

Nobody understands the ground rules for reshaping social media profiles quite like the experts at Susan J. Campbell Copywriting Services. Let our copywriters show you how to effectively rebrand your image with minimal downtime and disruption; call today.

 

Posted in Brand, Content Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Can I Afford Content Marketing? Introducing the 52 Points Principle

Posted on November 27, 2012 by admin

Right now, a competing organization is reaching the “52 points principle” and capturing leads you could have for your business, while seeing their marketing costs decrease.

Many organizations ask themselves “can I afford content marketing? And should I?” and the answer, more than ever, is yes. In fact, in today’s environment, organizations can’t afford not to invest in content marketing.

As explained in an article form the Content Marketing Institute, there’s a 52-points principle at work here. At 52 points of contact or information achieved through content marketing tools, site hits and results from content marketing take a noticeable shift toward traffic and leads. In just a few months’ time, organizations can well exceed 52 points of contact because content marketing recycles information and builds upon itself. Furthermore, the posts, blogs, videos, emails and other elements are more direct and more targeted than traditional online ads in terms of connecting with your desired audience.

Why is content marketing affordable?
– Control and flexibility. Optimizing on a keyword list, utilizing blogs that highlight specific information about your product or service and changing out your social media tools to meet shifting consumer interest makes content marketing one of the most affordable ways to engage in marketing. You’re in charge of who you reach, and when, compared to more traditional advertising methods.
– Content marketing makes a serious impact on your search engine rankings. Today you can say yes to the question “can I afford content marketing” because with a planned strategy and the use of varied platforms, you’ll see results. Organizations that combine social media, video, blogging and other tools consistently get higher search engine rankings and new leads – especially important because at least 84 percent of consumers expect to be able to find information and interact with an organization online.
– The cost goes down as the results go up. As you carry out your content marketing strategy, your number of “impressions” or traffic points across blogs, strategic linking, social media conversations and video mean you build a strong bank of information to capture and drive traffic to your organization.

Here’s another great way to answer the question “can I afford content marketing?” In less than six months’ time, the price for creating a lead using content marketing tools drops by around 80 percent.

It’s true. There’s nothing like an effective content marketing strategy to see results climb, costs drop and your consumer base begin advocating for you without being asked. Start today.

 

Posted in Consistent Customer Communications, Content Marketing, SEO, Social Media Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Monday Morning Coffee with Broken Creek Youth Ranch: Dreams Made Real Daily

Posted on November 26, 2012 by admin

 

You don’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.

Just ask the children who reach out to connect with one of the horses at Broken Creek Youth Ranch. You can see this truth in their eyes, and their smiles, without asking.

The horses, part of the equine therapy offered at the ranch, remind the participants that they are wonderful and that they have something to offer the world no one else can. The children who take classes or receive therapy at the non-profit ranch, located just east of St. Joseph, Mo., also have a great deal of wisdom and insight to share back. Most have a disability, ranging from physical delays to speech or motor delays, or have disabilities along the autism spectrum. Some have specific mental health challenges, such as anger or mood disorders or have lived through past experiences of abuse or neglect. All seem to feel a special connection to the horses, and demonstrate their bond in their own unique ways.

Last year, a young girl receiving therapy at Broken Creek Youth Ranch asked why her horse had large scars. The leader explained that the horse had survived skin cancer and several surgeries. Gently resting her hand on the horse, she said “you don’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.” It’s a lesson this participant learned while growing up with a cleft palette and not receiving corrective surgery.

Broken Creek Youth Ranch is certified to provide equine therapy for youth with disabilities or special needs using the PATH curriculum and the SpiritHorse therapeutic riding program. There is no cost for a child with a disability to participate, and new therapies are explored all the time – such as helping children who can’t leave their wheelchairs to drive a team of horses from a custom buggy. Other participants soon find their own riding style that brings freedom and joy, such as riding sideways, backwards or without a saddle.

“As the children show their individual expression toward riding, and find their own way to create that balance between the horse and rider, they find freedom. They also experience life just as a child without a disability would, and it changes their lives,” says the team at Broken Creek.

Corporate retreats are also offered, and the ranch exists solely on grants, volunteers and donations. The numbers of participants grows each year, with noted benefits toward the children’s ability to handle challenges, work on skills like strength and balance, build self-confidence and improve communication.

Broken Creek Youth Ranch stands as a reminder that with some innovation, a generous community and a little sheer grit, almost any dream is possible.

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SEO Tips and Tricks to Guide Your Strategy

Posted on November 23, 2012 by admin

In the world of search engine optimization (SEO), it’s easy to assume that throwing a few keywords into your content will optimize your site. It’s also easy to assume that throwing many keywords into the content will also optimize the site – for each of those keywords. While the technology available in the early days of search engines may have supported such thinking, algorithms have changed to ensure search dominance is given to sites that provide value to the one searching. That’s why you need SEO tips and tricks to build your strategy.

To be considered as a value-added site, yours must do more than just push out information. The content that you include has to be relevant to the reader. It must answer a question. If you plan to implement SEO tips and tricks and optimize on keyword phrases about automotive parts, you can’t plug these keywords into content about electronic equipment or travel or other nonrelated topics. The content must be relevant and it must make sense to the reader (and the reviewer) for your keywords to be included in your content.

To help you better understand how to implement SEO into your online efforts, we borrowed some wisdom from WordTracker in this article about SEO tips and tricks. While our source piece offers 220 tactics, we’ll only focus on SEO for this post, saving the remaining knowledge for future sjccopywritingsolutions blogs.

Today, we’ll focus on a few truths about SEO:

It takes time – don’t expect to rank immediately once you start using your keywords. It takes time and consistent activity.

Use unique text – especially when writing product descriptions. If you truly want to stand out and capture a first page rank result, don’t imitate the competition.

It’s getting harder – you may want to consider getting help with your SEO. To be successful, you really have to do more than just use keywords.

You will experience failure – even when you do all the numbers right, you can still be outsmarted by others trying to optimize on your keywords. When this happens, study your process and that of the competition to learn where you need to make changes.

If it’s too good to be true – if you enjoy rapid SEO success, monitor this process very closely as it’s likely to be targeted by the competition. Without a proactive strategy, you will quickly lose dominance.

Ignore the Google updates – Google is really concentrating on ensuring quality content gets the most attention. If you’re producing quality content, you have nothing to worry about.

Most SEO tips and tricks may focus heavily on algorithm updates, but we take a different approach in copywriting for businesses. The content we produce is based on value and provides a firm foundation in the specific industry topic to enable readers to learn more, click through or take some other type of action to make a connection with the company. This should be the main goal of your site and any content you produce. If not, the last tip above may not apply.

Posted in Content Marketing, Copywriting, Marketing Strategy, SEO, Social Media Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Happy Thanksgiving from the SJC Team!

Posted on November 22, 2012 by admin

On this national day devoted to giving thanks, those of us at     Susan J. Campbell Copywriting Solutions would like to take the time to thank all of our readers, customers, colleagues and supporters for enabling our growth and success in the past year. We are also thankful to our families for supporting us in the work that we do, and championing for us when challenges arise.

We have a solid team of devoted individuals who care about their co-workers, their community and their clients, which makes our focus everyday less about the work and more about the experience. Thank you for the opportunity to keep doing what we love to do.

Posted in Blog Writing, Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Support Local | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Four Social Networking Mistakes to Avoid

Posted on November 21, 2012 by admin

Wondering how to navigate the never-ending rules and tools within your social media networks? A lot of people do as too often, strategies don’t exist to guide content and sharing, or a company uses their platforms to shout out information instead of engaging the audience. Fortunately, social networking mistakes can be corrected – as long as you know they are happening.

A recent Jeff Bullas article (a source we like to use often as his insight into the industry is intuitive and realistic) highlights a few mistakes companies make and how to turn the tide toward effective social networking. Let’s take a closer look and see how these mistakes fit in your environment and what to do to get on a positive path for change.

A Lack of a Clear Social Networking Strategy

Like any other tool you use in business, without a clear guide for where you are, where you want to be and how to get there, your social networking efforts should be guided by a clear strategy. Be sure to put this in place before you ever build a profile – you’ll save time when you don’t have to go back and make changes.

The Social Networking Strategy Lacks Consistency

When you don’t plan your social media posts in advance, it’s easy to post contradicting or inconsistent information across different platforms. Therefore, plan your posts in advance and check them against your strategy. It also helps to have another person involved in the process to double check the posts. At the same time – be sure you or someone else is monitoring the site. Nothing is worse than a follower leaving comments that are ignored.

Material Used for Social Networking has Mistakes

Quality content should always be a priority when implementing any type of social networking strategy. Whether it’s your original content or something from an expert in your field, be sure it’s error free. Nothing kills your credibility like bad grammar and spelling errors. Readers will only see the errors and won’t keep reading.

Branding Opportunities are Missed

Any communication with the outside world should include the company name, logo, links to assets and more. It doesn’t mean that all of these things should be included in every post, but don’t send something out that lacks a representation of your brand. It is your most valuable asset – use it.

In all reality, these four social networking mistakes only scratch the surface of challenges you could be having with your current social media efforts, but they do represent a good place to start. For more information on how to launch an effective campaign, give us a call today.

Posted in Consistent Customer Communications, Content Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

No More Random Acts of Video Ads: Social Video Becomes the Evolved Method

Posted on November 20, 2012 by admin

Whether you call it social video, video marketing or digital advertising, call it awesome in terms of generating brand power – especially in terms of getting your audience to send it forth to their friends and contacts. But only call it awesome if you’re planning to extend outward from just quick video advertisements.

A recent article on emarketer looks at how social video represents an evolved version of just a basic YouTube or company video, and how this medium if poised to change the way organizations create and use their video content. How is social video different than traditional video content?

1. Social video is video on a mission. Instead of breaking in to a viewer’s world with a brief advertisement, organizations using social video as part of a more in-depth, total message campaign are seeing higher successes.

2. Social video places a very high emphasis on encouraging fast sharing across social media platforms. At the same time, it allows for the creation of a “feature” style video. This means it’s more information-rich and more impactful than a quick video ad.

3. Social video, like all well-planned content creation strategies, provides valuable, engaging information that actually gives the viewer real benefit when they watch … hence, they want to share more often.

4. The viewers of video content are the key force for encouraging the distribution and usage of the videos – instead of random acts of video advertisement appearing all over multiple platforms.

The emergence of “experience” based video, including mini-moments, is also triggering a new interest in users sharing these video messages through their Facebook accounts. Organizations that depict the actual experience of their product, and even their team engaging in the product process, are seeing more viewers strengthen their brand message for them by rapid and enthusiastic sharing.

YouTube still retains first place for its volume of social video, but interestingly, Facebook is the preferred method when it comes to viewers actually taking the step of sharing the video onward. More than 70 percent of viewers will use Facebook to send the video on to others in their network.

However dynamic and engaging, video is only one element of a successful content marketing strategy that’s built upon listening and responding to customers across multiple platforms – so not random.

Posted in Content Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Online Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Video Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Monday Morning Coffee’s Look at One Man’s Efforts to Improve St. Joseph

Posted on November 19, 2012 by admin

This video is a tribute to Joe Houts in honor of some of the extensive contributions to the community of St. Joseph. Thank you Joe for having such a positive impact in the community and always being willing to lend a helping hand.

Posted in Monday Morning Coffee, Uncategorized, Video Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Engaging Social Media Fans by Listening

Posted on November 16, 2012 by admin

Guess what, there’s a right way and a wrong way to use social media.  The wrong way is to blow your entire marketing budget on brand promotion only.  Social media is about so much more than tooting your own horn.  It’s called social media precisely because it should be a conversation rather than a shouting match.  

The best conversationalists know how to listen.  Then, when they do speak up, the other party can hear a thoughtful response which tells them that what they had to say was valuable.  Listening more and speaking less means that what you have to say affirms the benefit of shared dialogue.  You win more fans by listening.

Engaging social media fans is 75 percent a matter of learning how to listen well.  Most customer issues which work their way into social media could be easily and happily resolved if the format had been used more for listening than talking.  Automated responses and form replies don’t count as customer engagement – that is just more talking.  And it’s irritating talking at that.

This means that social media is much more a public relations tool than a mere marketing platform.  The way to get the most out of your social media investment is to view it as a way to listen to your customers.  Your own words should reflect attention to what the customer is saying.  That is just one reason why form responses are a major no-no.

Always keep in mind that engaging social media fans isn’t as much about hawking your wares as it is about listening well in order to offer prompt and meaningful responses.  Social media gives you the opportunity to demonstrate great conversation skills.  It is your chance to let the customer see that what they have to say is valuable.  In all likelihood, the customer migrated to social media in order to be heard after not finding satisfaction through other contact routes.

Social media engagement gives you the chance to diffuse a problem before it ever really develops.  Strong listening skills and pertinent responses can do more for your brand than the drone of publicity messaging ever will.  Get the most out of your social media budget by putting your finger to your lips and, instead, lending your ear to your customers.

Posted in Consistent Customer Communications, Content Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

The SJC Beat

Posted on November 15, 2012 by admin

You need someone who can listen to your story, understand your market and create the communications strategy you need to succeed. When you partner with SJC Copywriting Solutions, you gain so much more than content; you also gain the ability to develop a key strategy for brand growth, create marketing materials that promote your brand and your mission & strategically plan your marketing communications according to your overall goals.

 

Posted in Brand, Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Video Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment