Recently, we were tagged in a post by another company. There was nothing inflammatory about the post, but my company is very sensitive regarding what is posted on our wall. As of right now, the post does not show up on the Page’s wall or in the news feed of people who like the Page. Would you let me know how tagging works for Facebook Pages, as it seems to be different from personal profiles? Also, is there a way to review tags and approve them before they are posted?

Facebook Tagging Overview

Facebook Tagging - How it works for Timelines & Pages

Facebook tagging links a person, Page, or place to something you post, like a status update, photo or app activity. Tagging is a useful feature because it:

• Notifies a friend or Page when you post something that pertains to them, letting them know that they were mentioned;
• Makes the post more visible because it appears in the news feed and timeline of the friend or Page you tagged (if the person has set the post to be visible to friends or public).

When a friend or Page is notified that they have been tagged, it increases engagement because they are more likely to comment on or like the activity in which they have been tagged. Without tagging, you could post a nice comment but your friend or the Page owners may never know they were mentioned. However, since your entire post including associated comments is automatically posted onto the wall of whichever friend/Page is tagged, there is an unspoken etiquette of Facebook Tagging that you need to understand.

Facebook Tagging for Timelines

When someone tags your personal profile (timeline), you have control about how you handle tags. You can turn on Tag Review in your privacy settings to ensure you always approve a tag.

Timeline Tag Settings found in Privacy Settings

If you don’t want to restrict people, you do have many options if someone tags you unfavorably.

Facebook Tagging for Pages

Only Pages within the Brands & Products or People categories can be tagged in photos. In addition, the privacy of the photo is always respected when a Page is tagged in a photo. If a photo is published to “everyone”, then it can appear publicly on the Photos tab of the Page and the admins can see it.

Since Masterful Marketing’s Page is in the Brand or Product category, I was able to tag my page in a photo and a comment.

Facebook Page Photo Tagging

I took a screenshot as I hovered over the image and you can see that I tagged my laptop. I also received notification in the Admin Panel of these events.

Page Tagging Notification

The photo was visible on the Page under the photos area, but not on the timeline.

Photo Tagging for Pages (click to enlarge)

The layout of the photos section of your Page Timeline has your albums on top and tagged photos below.

Tagging in posts show up on your timeline. Below is a post where I tagged the MH Paint Works Page and note that the post is in the right column.

Page Tagging in Posts (click to enlarge)

Some of these settings are editable. Go to your Admin Panel, click on the down arrow next to manage and select “Edit Page”. Then select “Manage Permissions”.

Page Tagging - Managing Permissions

As a Page Admin, you can set the permissions for your Page for how you want to handle posting. To make your Page more interesting, you should allow people to post content, photos and videos to your Page.

The Post Visibility section enables you to put posts by others at the top of the right column on the timeline. That is what you see in the image above for MH Paint Works – my post in the right column.

Plus you can restrict people from tagging photos that you post.

Pages Tagging other Pages

Tagging a Page from another Page is a nice way to promote other brands in which you may have a relationship, but to do so, you need to be using Facebook as your Page. To change to your Page, click on the down arrow next to home and select your Page:

Using Facebook as a Page

Once you have done that, you can tag another Page in a post.

Facebook Page Tagging another Page

I have not found any type of Tag Review for Pages as there is for Timelines. Admins need to be aware of what is going on with tagging and monitor the activity to avoid any issues.

Have I missed any features of tagging for Timelines and Pages? Have you taken advantage of tagging to increase visibility for your Facebook Page?

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

Facebook Tagging – How it Works for Timelines and Pages is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

What value are you providing to your clients?

Marketers like to ask clients “what’s your value proposition?” But what does that really mean to you, the small business owner? Your value proposition is a clear statement of the tangible results a customer gets from your products or services. Once you have identified your clear, compelling value, you can then optimize your website and social media properties to clearly project that value to your visitors and help you convert more visitors to customers.

But First You Need to Know Your Real Value

If you have trouble explaining to people what you do and why should I buy from you, it’s time to identify the one thing that really makes you different from your competitors (hint it’s not price!). You must be crystal clear about why you are uniquely different and communicate it with confidence. There is no magic formula for creating a value proposition, but there are some key ingredients that help you refine it.

Simply, a value proposition creates interest because it speaks to the needs of your prospects and differentiates you from your competition.

Where do I start?

Understand your ideal client needs and how their needs align with your services. Knowing your target audience intimately will help you define and communicate your solution to their problem with ultimate clarity.

• Do you know what challenges or stress them out that you can help them resolve?
• What is the biggest struggle or obstacle they encounter on a daily basis?
• What is their biggest money or time leak?
• What is the one goal that seems unattainable to them?
• What is the biggest improvement they could make in their lives or business that you can help with?
• Is there something that they would do ANYTHING and pay (relatively) ANYTHING to solve, eliminate, or achieve?

Describe how your products or services achieve results such as increased revenue, decreased costs, improved productivity, enhanced customer satisfaction, streamlined processes and procedures, or improve customer retention.

What are those differences?

Understanding what makes you different is something that evolves as your business evolves. When you know your strengths, new opportunities can surface that align with those strengths.

Identify what your clients have said about working with you that made you stand out in their minds. Most likely what made you memorable was something that to you that was really simple. And because it is simple to us, we don’t place any value on it. We are taught to believe that things of value have to be hard to do. But normally what is easy for you is hard for others. You need to become consciously aware of this value you provide and use it to your benefit.

• Are you a master at simplifying processes for your clients?
• Do you bring a new perspective to a challenge that helps your clients determine a solution they never would have thought of without you?
• Are you able to do something faster than anyone else could?
• Do you create systems that help your clients learn how to do things more effectively?

Your differentiation should be things that make you different in your field, packaged in a way that others cannot copy. Record these unique differences and keep working on them until you have one that sets you apart from others and aligns with the needs of your ideal client.

What’s your value proposition?

Delivering value requires real understanding of what your customer wants to accomplish, the challenges they face, and what is important to them. I’ve listened to many small business owners talk about lack of control of their online marketing and how they are unable to gain online visibility because the tools are out of their control (website, social media, email marketing, etc.)

My value proposition is: I help small business owners dramatically increase their online visibility and attract more clients by taking control of their marketing.

What’s yours?

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

What’s the Real Value in Your Value Proposition? is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

When I search for you, what do I find?

“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.”

This children’s rhyme does not apply in today’s highly connected world where a few negative words can cost your company a lot of business. Now everything from quality reviews and recommendations, legitimate issues and reputation damaging complaints are there for the entire world to see.

Managing your online reputation is no longer optional and needs a simple strategy that combines monitoring what is available about you and responding appropriately to ensure your business is not unknowingly damaged by negative comments.

Even if you have never added your information into Yelp, Yahoo Local, Google Places or other online business directories, it doesn’t mean that your business isn’t already visible online and immune from the backlash of an unhappy customer.

How should businesses approach online reputation management?

Because of its critical nature to the success of your business, you need to proactively manage your online reputation. It’s not something you should leave up to someone else because when it comes to responding and engaging your audience, you should handle that personally. Here are 5 tips to get you started:

• Regularly monitor your brand’s reputation – Search for your business name and see what comes up. Doing a vanity search helps you identify not only where you are listed but also what is being said about your company. You want to be sure your information is accurate and complete. Set up Google Alerts for your name and your business name and choose whether you want email updates or an RSS update. You can also use Google’s Me On the Web, a tool that helps you manage search results on your name.
  

  "Me on the Web" in Google's Dashboard

• Claim your local business listings – According to Google, 97% of consumers search for local businesses online so you need to be visible in a crowded local market. When a listing is claimed, it sends a message that the business is open and ready to help. Unclaimed listings make your business seem out of touch. Make sure the content in the listing is accurate and optimized to include your top keyword phrases to get better visibility for local searches.
• Stay or get more active online – It’s difficult to remove negative information so your best option is to create more interesting and positive content to push the negative down and out of the first few pages of the search results. If you can make the time, start a blog. If you aren’t ready to commit to your own blog, guest post or post comments on other blogs. Update your status on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn or Twitter regularly. Google wants fresh content so the more you post, the more content you will have in the search results, moving a not so favorable review out of site.
• Encourage customers to write reviews about your business- It’s not easy to ask customers for online reviews, but you need to get your best customers to speak on your behalf. Add a note to your invoice asking “How did we do?” and point them to your website. Create a big “Write a Review” button on your website which takes them to a testimonials page that contains links to your Google Places, Yahoo Local, Yelp, InsiderPages or other online review sites. This makes it easy for you to point them to one place where they can click a link and write a review.
  

  Ask your best customers for reviews

• Respond to negative comments and reviews immediately – You cannot ignore what is being posted about your brand online. Reviews, both good and bad, will happen whether you want them or not. Most rational people understand that you can never please everyone all the time, so a couple of unflattering reviews are expected. But if all I find are negative comments, I will question the integrity of the company. Take the high road and respond to negative reviews and try to resolve them quickly. Respond as you, the business owner and be visible, authentic, concerned and humble about the situation. This will alleviate fears and send the message that your company is concerned about their customers. (Then strive to get happy customers to post positive reviews!)

For most of us, monitoring and managing our online reputation is not that difficult. It takes a little time to monitor what is out there and determine what you need to do to respond or change the perception. This exercise is important to create the image you want your prospects and customers to see. Even if you don’t have any negative content about you, you still have work to do to create an image that is visible, credible and consistent with your brand.

A Word of Caution

If you think you need help, buyer beware. Do a little research and you will discover another industry that has its share of unethical companies. Many of these “reputation management experts” are the same “SEO experts” that I have previously warned you about. Their reputation management services use black hat SEO and other questionable tactics to bury the negative content in the search engine rankings. Once again, when it comes to your web presence, be cautious about who you trust to help you.

Do you know how your business is perceived by your customers and prospects?

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

5 Tips for Managing Your Online Reputation is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

Your brand identity, website, domain name, email list, customer list, white papers, presentations, pay-per-click advertising, social media, directory sites or any platform that houses your important marketing content, are critical assets to your business.

Why are these online marketing assets critical?

Let’s take a look at what these assets mean to your business:

• Your domain name is associated with your business and most likely is your business name. Your website and blog, built using that domain name, provide online visibility to your prospects and customers. If you were ready to sell your business, these assets would be valuable to the new business owner. Did you register the domain name under an account you own (i.e. like Godaddy or Network Solutions) or did someone do it for you?
• Your Google Places page is another online asset that provides information on your business location for local search such as phone numbers, directions and reviews. Is your Google Places page verified in your Google account or in someone vendor’s account?
• Your Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools associated with your site are important tools to assess the effectiveness of your online presence. Are you the owner of these accounts or did someone else set them up and provide only reports to you?
• Are you running Google AdWords or other pay-per-click advertising for your business? If so, did you set up the accounts and have someone managing it or did you have an outside agency set it up for you? Is the money you spend monthly all going towards clicks or is some being pocketed by the agency?

Why am I concerned about who controls these assets?

A couple of things happened this week that reminded me that many small business owners still don’t understand the value of their online presence, are totally unaware of their online reputation and have fallen prey to unscrupulous “online marketing experts”. Unfortunately, these experts target small local businesses that need to be online but don’t have the time or expertise to do it themselves. And once in their hands, it is very hard to regain control. For example:

• A small business owner was spending $700 per month in pay-per-click campaigns but had no idea what keywords they were bidding on, how much each keyword cost or how much of this money was actually being spent on clicks. Lesson learned: Set up your PPC accounts directly with a credit card and work with someone who can set up and manage your campaigns through your account.

• Another was unaware that his domain name was expiring and a disgruntled web developer chose not to tell him. His website and email disappeared, the domain expired and the business has to wait the redemption period (about 30 days) for him to register it under his own name. Unfortunately, in 30 days Google will have dropped many of his website’s pages from the index and when the site returns, it will basically have to start over. Lesson learned: Never let someone else register your domain name unless you are totally confident that you can trust that person. Someone you trust will most likely tell you to register it yourself.
• A local business had his Google Places page and other local business listings set up by a local search firm using their accounts, not one from the business owner. When the local business decided to discontinue working with this firm, they refused to release the Google Places page so the owner could claim it. Lesson learned: Claim your Google Places page and other local business listings yourself or hire someone to do it on your behalf through accounts you have already set up.

When you want to hire an external resource to help you with your online marketing, just remember to think through what happens if you decide to discontinue working with them.

• Do you still have access to your accounts?
• Can you take over the management of the campaigns?
• Will remnants of these efforts remain long after your relationship with these agencies end, such as phone numbers you don’t own showing up associated with your business in the search results?
• Will your online presence remain visible on the Internet or will you need to start over?

My Advice

Take inventory of all of your online assets and determine who has ownership. This can be done by your office manager or an intern who can search for your business and record the information they find. Once you have that data, determine how you will claim all the properties and update the information so that it accurately reflects your business.

Do you have control of your online marketing assets?

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

Online Marketing Assets – Why You Must Be In Control is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

But don’t worry – as an admin, you can preview what your page will look like, make the changes you want and tweak for a while. The world will continue to see your current page until you publish or March 30th, when Facebook is migrating all pages to the new format. So you have this month to update your page and create an exciting cover photo.

The major thing to think about now is how your page will look to your visitors. If you do nothing, your page will look a bit dull. So, here are the changes you must address now so you are ready before the timeline goes into affect on March 30th:

New Cover Photo

The new cover photo will be a nice addition. The previous 180x540px image was restrictive. Now with 851x315px of space, either mimic your website header if appropriate or create something more exciting. But with all the good, there are restrictions that you must understand so you don’t violate any of Facebook’s requirements. Review the Facebook Page guidelines for complete information, but the following highlights the important restrictions to your cover photo.

You can not include:

• Price or purchase information
• Contact information such as a website address, email, mailing address, or information that should go in your Page’s “About” section
• References to Facebook features or actions, such as “Like” or “Share” or an arrow pointing from the cover photo to any of these features
• Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends.”

So be creative and show who you are with a visual representation. That is much harder for some of us than others, but we’ll figure it out! Right? Here’s a screenshot of my updated Facebook page and new cover photo:

Masterful Marketing Facebook Timeline Cover Photo

Custom Tabs

You probably spent a lot of time creating custom tabs and now you may think they are not as valuable because the side navigation is removed and you no longer can direct non-fans to a special welcome landing tab. You can however, still use custom pages to contain information that you want to provide to fans. Plus you can send people to them directly through other means – your email signature, from your website or email campaign. To find your tab URL, hover over the image, click on the edit pencil and select “Link to this tab”. My welcome tab is: https://www.facebook.com/MasterfulMarketing?v=app_324041830948398.

Your custom Facebook page content probably need some edits to make them fit into the new 810 pixel width. This is also a nice change because you can fit more valuable information above the fold! However, until you get around to it, your previous 520 pixel pages will be centered in the new page with white space around it.

Profile and Application Thumbnails

Your cover image and your profile photo/thumbnail should work together. I purposely left my logo off of the cover photo because the logo works nicely as the profile thumbnail. These images must be created at 180px by 180px. You can also add thumbnail photos for your custom tabs to make them more interesting.

To upload a new image, hover over it, click on the edit pencil in the corner and upload an image:

Adding an image to your application tabs

Note the “Custom Tab Image” link. Click on “change” and upload your image. You can see that my welcome tab now has my square thumbnail image associated with it.

Rearrange your Facebook Custom Pages to Suit your Needs

You can also rearrange the order of these applications to provide the most important information visibly because, although you can have up to 12 applications, only four show and Photos has to be in the first position. Some may miss the little arrow with the number in it to the right of the four applications.

Change Happens, Change is Good

The Facebook Page design changes have many good features that outweigh the few perceived negatives. I highly recommend you start updating your visual presence on Facebook now so you have a great image projecting to your fans sooner than later.

I’d love to see your new Facebook cover photos! Post a link to your updated Facebook page in the comments here or on the Masterful Marketing Facebook page. It’s OK to brag – we all can get some inspiration from your creativity.

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

Facebook Page Changes – 3 Things You Need to Address Now! is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

• Stamina to continue on course for the long term no matter who says you should change
• Determination to make it work and see your business succeed

Marketing is a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Inbound marketing is a process that requires regular, consistent delivery to increase your visibility and demonstrate your expertise. Patience and persistence is necessary for this to work and for you to see the results.

How long? That can vary from one business to the next. In today’s highly connected world, time to visibility, credibility and profitability has been reduced, but it is still doesn’t happen overnight.

Three Tips to a Successful Inbound Marketing Marathon

So many small business owners get excited about setting up their web presence. They develop a website, set up their social platforms and then stop and do nothing. Why put all the time and effort into training for a marathon to just stop when you get to the starting line?

So before you put money and time into setting up your web presence for your long term inbound marketing activity, here are three tips to ensure you understand the effort required:

• A Standalone Website is a Thing of the Past – The website needs to support the rest of your online strategy. A quality website provides a landing area for those who come from your other web properties. Once your visitors finally get to your website, be sure to give them something to do – a call to action – so they provide you the contact information that begins the process of building a relationship with them. Tip » A website is the central hub of your web presence but it is not the end of the game. Once the website is set up, add links to all of your social media profiles so your digital footprint covers a wider area of the Internet.
• Your Social Sites won’t be Social Without You – The pleasure of your presence is requested – on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest or … . So many platforms, so little time! I get it. It’s hard to be visible across so many platforms while running your business and servicing your clients, but that’s why you create a plan and select only those platforms that make the most sense for your business. Tip » Social media marketing is a long term commitment, not a marketing campaign that has a beginning and end. Select your platforms based on your target market and then stay active and present to create the most value.
• Your Brand isn’t Built Overnight -You didn’t build your personal reputation overnight (although some people manage to destroy theirs that quickly!), so you shouldn’t expect your professional or business brand reputation and visibility to be created instantaneously. Establish a consistent brand and project it on your website, social profiles, email marketing campaigns and anywhere you maintain a presence to help your brand’s visibility and recognition. Tip » Set a goal to become one of the top three brands in your niche and do what it takes to get there.

Running the Inbound Marketing Marathon

For inbound marketing to succeed, you must become the consistent, patient, always present and helpful business owner providing relevant content to your target market.

If you make a commitment to increase your brand’s visibility through inbound marketing, make sure you are ready to be there for the long term before you establish a web presence of any type.

Are you getting ready for a marathon or a sprint? Which one do you think will be the most beneficial to your business visibility?

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

Inbound Marketing – Marathon not a Sprint is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

Top Facebook Questions

Here are the top Facebook Page questions that I get asked regularly. Given the frequency, I thought I would share the answers for the benefit of everyone.

1. Question: I want to set up a business page for a business I own but I do not want my personal profile linked to the business page. Can I do this?

Answer: A Facebook Page is a separate account that does not have login information and are created by people through their profiles (timelines). This does not associate it with your personal profile other than you are an administrator. People who become fans will not gain any access to your personal account. Log into your personal profile and go to https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php to get started.

2. Question: I want to link Twitter and my blog to my Facebook Page not my personal profile but when I link the accounts, the posts go to both. How can I link Twitter and my blog and not have the posts appear on my personal profile?

Answer: Any posts to your Facebook Page will appear in news feed of all the fans, therefore if you like your own page (which you should), you will see the posts on your personal news feed.

3. Question: I see businesses creating “personal” accounts so they can quickly network and gain strong “friend” numbers rather then growing them through “like”. Some businesses have actually deleted their Business Page only to re-make one as a Personal Profile. Will they get shut them down?

Answer: These businesses are violating Facebook’s terms of service and they do run the risk that their account could be disabled. There are many ways to increase engagement and build relationships. You can:

• Install the Like Box or other social plugins on your website to encourage Likes
• Get higher visibility in the search engines because your pages are always visible
• Access Insights (analytics) to see how your fans are engaging with your page
• Set up custom tabs just for your business (like a welcome tab and a reveal page)

4. Question: If I create the Facebook Page for my company, will I be able to transfer the admin permissions to another employee?

Answer: First, you should make sure that you have multiple admins so you don’t run the risk of stranding your page. Second, Facebook now provides the ability to remove the person who originally created the Facebook Page.

5. Question: Will I be violating Facebook regulations by creating a Personal Profile using a new Gmail address in order to create a Facebook Page?

Answer: Yes, you will violate Facebook’s terms of service. See questions 1 and 3 as to why you don’t need to do this.

6. Question: How can I post to my company’s Facebook Page as myself if I am the administrator?

Answer: As an admin, you can switch between using Facebook as you or as the page. You as an admin will always post as the Page unless you switch your posting preferences under settings. If you do that, you can post under your personal profile, not the admin.

7. Question: Does a Facebook Business Page and a Facebook Business Account have different functions?

Answer: Yes, they are very different options. The Facebook Page has richer functionality geared toward engaging fans and provides visibility for the brand in search engines. A Business Account is available to a company that does not have nor wants to create a personal profile that wants to create / manage / advertise the Facebook Page. A business account is restricted from adding friends or installing applications.

8. Question: What does Facebook mean when it says you can’t add applications to your business account?

Answer: Do not confuse Facebook Business Accounts with Facebook Business Pages – they are not the same. See question 7.

9. Question: Why does my business have two Facebook Business Pages?

Answer: Facebook started creating community pages from the information people put into their personal profiles around topics, causes or experiences. Before you were able to create a Brand Page for your company, what you put into your personal profile ended up becoming a community page for your business. This has resulted in duplicates for many companies. There is a merge tool for duplicates under resources which will be visible if there are eligible pages, but the tool has not worked for many (including me).

What questions do you have about Facebook Pages that I haven’t covered here? Feel free to post your questions in the comments area below.

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

Top 9 Facebook Page Questions is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

(Email subscribers: get the presentation on Slideshare or via the Masterful Marketing Blog directly)

Let’s face it! Your future patients, clients and customers are going to find you one of two ways:

• Through a referral from a family member or friend, or
• By searching online using keyword phrases that include a local component.

And if they look online and you aren’t there, or worse, you are there with negative reviews and an inconsistent brand, they will choose someone else to meet their needs. So in order to effectively compete, you need a high quality online presence that is consistent, controlled by you and helps your business or practice stand out from the rest.

Consumer Trends

• According to Google’s Marissa Mayer at SWSX 2011, 20% of all searches are local (40% if mobile), i.e. dentists marlborough ma
• According to comScore, there are 18 billion monthly searches across the major search engines on average, translating to approximately 3.5 billion monthly local searches. Google’s share is about 65%.
• According to the Local Search Study conducted by TMP/15Miles/comScore:
  • 80% of local business transactions occur within 15 miles of consumers’ homes
  • 69% of consumers are more likely to use a business if they find their information online
  • 82% of local searchers follow up with a phone call or visit your business
  • 61% of online local searches result in an offline purchase.

Local Search Opportunity

There is a huge opportunity for small businesses to optimize their local web presence.

• According to Marketing Sherpa, only 27% of 1500 businesses surveyed actively optimized their site for local search
• Only 16% of local businesses have claimed their Google Places page
• According to BIA/Kelsey, by 2015, 40% of the total marketing spend for small businesses will be spent on online marketing

Simple Local Search Marketing Plan

Local Search Marketing Plan

In 6 steps, you can have a simple local search marketing plan that will help you take control of your online visibility and be found more often by that profitable local prospect.

1. Conduct a Web Presence Analysis
2. Develop a consistent brand
3. Define clear messages to your ideal client/patient
4. Select which online strategies you will use that make sense for you
5. Put together an action plan for implementing the strategies
6. Review periodically and adjust as necessary

Selecting Your Online Strategies

Local Search Marketing Strategies

Being found in a local search is a combination of:

A quality website – Establish your online home base with a quality WordPress website. WordPress gives you the best option for being able to update the content and maintaining control. Do not allow someone to create your site in a way that ties your hands.

Local search - Local search includes claiming your local business listings in the top directories and optimizing them based on your top keyword phrases.

• Do a search for your business and identify the local directories that you find a listing. Then claim at least the following: Google Places, Yahoo Local, Bing Local, Merchant Circle, Yelp, Insider Pages, City Search and Local.com. Select others that may be popular in your area if necessary.
• Select the top keyword phrases that people use such as “dentist marlborough ma” or “plumber sudbury ma” and use them in your descriptions in your listings.
• Ask for reviews. According to a Local Consumer Review Study conducted by BrightLocal, 69% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Put a button on your website to direct your audience to a page that lists links to all of your local business listings to encourage reviews across different sites.
• Fill out your business listings completely, including descriptions, links to your website, images and videos, etc.

Local Search & Social Media

Social media profiles – The selection of which social media platforms you use is dependent on your business and your resources. It does not make sense to try and be present on too many platforms if you don’t have the time or people to help you stay actively engaged. A simple strategy like the following may be sufficient:

• Create a Facebook Page for your business or practice
• Put a Like Box on your Website and
• Encourage your customers/patients to like your page.

Then create a system that helps you remember to post daily with tips, ideas and news of interest to your target audience.

Own Your Web Presence

Remember that your web presence is a business asset and like other assets, you need to remain in control of them.

• Always register your own domain – use a service like Godaddy.
• Purchase a hosting plan that supports WordPress – Blue Host or Host Gator come highly recommended but there are others. Do your research. Then find someone that will build your site in WordPress and will train you on how to maintain and update the site yourself.
• Research keywords and optimize your website using your keyword list. Have the WordPress SEO plugin installed to help you implement on page SEO for all pages on your site.
• Add Google Analytics and Webmaster tools to track progress

The bottom line is to seek help but stay in control of your web presence. It’s fine to outsource when necessary but work with someone who understands the importance of you maintaining control of your business asset. In the end, it is your business’s reputation that is on the line and as the business owner, you need to ensure you always are aware of how you are perceived.

What is your plan for adding local search marketing to your marketing activities?

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

Local Search Marketing – Getting Found in a Crowded Local Market is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

In fact, your personal brand is so much more. It is a way of consistently projecting a true, authentic view of you, your expertise and your promise of value to the marketplace.

The personal branding process enables you to:

Discover who you are, develop a consistent image and make it visible both in person and through your web presence to provide value for your audience.

Why is personal branding important?

Personal Branding Process

Having a strong personal brand is important to your success or the success of your small business. Even if you work in a corporate position, it is important that your company support its employees in developing their individual personal brands. A personal brand:

• Helps you to clearly and consistently project who you are, what you do and why you do it;

• Is a promise of value to those with whom you work;

• Answers the question what makes you different and why;
• Allows you to focus on your strengths and follow your passion.

Passion, Purpose and Personal Branding

Understanding and following your passion and purpose, whether it is the reason why you chose to go into business for yourself or the career choice you made, is the key to your personal brand. The purpose – the emotional connections you make with those you help – is why some people naturally want to connect with you and not someone else in the same field. And if you are passionate about what you do and are comfortable with the way you are perceived, your confidence will start to become contagious.

Benefits of a strong personal brand

• Increases visibility and value:  You become the expert for those needing your solution, increasing your value in their eyes and allowing you to charge fairly for your services.
• Increases confidence: When your brand is strong, authentic and compelling, it increases the confidence you have in yourself and projects that confidence to everyone around you. We all know people want to be around strong, confident and successful people and having this strong brand becomes your beacon in the sea of business owners.
• Raises credibility and authority: The more you establish yourself as the authority and expert in your area, the more people seek you out. People want to work with the experts and although someone may be just as good as you, if they aren’t known through their personal brand, they will be hidden.
• Sets expectations: Your personal brand speaks volumes about what you can do and how you will do it, differentiating you from your peers, colleagues and competitors.
• Influences whether your prospects buy from you or your competitor. Your passion and purpose will attract those that will want to work with you.
• Creates trust with your prospects and clients. A strong personal brand that is well developed adds an emotional attachment that becomes part of the decision-making process.

An exercise that will help you figure out your personal brand regardless of whether you are just starting to develop it or have one, is to answer the following questions as if you were developing your personal marketing plan. To help with this exercise, I’ve adapted the my marketing plan template to help you jot down your answers.

• What is your passion and purpose?
• What are your values? What do you stand for?
• What are your short term and long term goals? Where do you want to be in a year? Three years?
• How do you want to be perceived? (i.e. linear, focused, collaborative, connected, expert, ethical, etc.)
• What are your core strengths? What are your weaknesses? (not to beat yourself up but to understand them so you don’t try to pursue something where one of your weaknesses is mandatory)
• How do other people describe you?
• Who is your target audience? Who do you want to work with or for?
• Who is your competition?
• What makes you the ideal choice for your target audience to do business with you rather than your competition, i.e. what makes you different?

Finding your personal brand is not a quick exercise. It takes time and thought to really know your passion and purpose in life. And sometimes it evolves through comments people make, people you start to work with and seeing yourself with a different perspective.

Have you started discovering your personal brand and does it work for you?

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

Personal Branding – Discovering the Authentic You is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

A successful web presence that attracts your ideal client and makes a great first impression is now much more complex, incorporating not only your website and blog, but also your social media profiles, business directories and review sites.

It’s no longer enough to just have a website. Your website is just one component of a complex network of information about your business that projects your brand and expertise to those in search of a product or solution.

The opportunity to develop an solid web presence as part of your online marketing is immense. A well thought-out plan can help you gain visibility, develop an expert reputation and create a large digital footprint that attracts attention of your ideal prospects.

There are many steps and tactics to make your web presence effective that will be different depending on your business model. But regardless of your tactics, there are six overarching elements that are required for successfully creating a powerful web presence.

1. Solid Strategy

Developing a web presence strategy is not a difficult exercise as it should be integrated into your overall marketing strategy. If you have your marketing strategy defined, include the following additional information:

• Figure out your goals for this effort. Are you looking to increase visibility, obtain an expert reputation or drive inbound leads? Knowing what you are trying to achieve heads you towards the right activities and eliminates wasting time on exercises that won’t get you where you want to go.
• Understand all the places that your business listing can be found and determine which ones are worth the time to claim. Do a search for your business name and catalog the various directories where it is listed. Compiling this list helps you understand the overall effort it will take to pull it all together and help you plan your time and resources.

2. Coherent and Consistent Brand

Web Presence - 6 Elements to Ensure Success

Is every place I can find a reference to your company consistent in what it says and how it looks?

Think about how many businesses that have a similar name to yours. When someone searches for your business and finds you on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Google+, or finds your Google Places page or a listing on a review site, including the Better Business Bureau, will they immediately know it is you?

To ensure people always recognize your web properties and to build a recognizable expert brand, be consistent in all you do including using the same design elements such as color, images and logos. When a visitor finds your business, make sure there is no doubt that they have found the right business.

3. Continuous Participation

You can’t just set it and forget it. You have to be present regularly to respond to questions, participate in conversations and acknowledge those who mention you on social sites. You also need to keep content flowing regularly, updating your blog, offering new content to your visitors and sharing content from others you find interesting.

On the local search front, it is also not enough to just let your business listings lay dormant. Seek them out and claim them, ensuring your company name, address, phone numbers and all other relevant information is accurate and consistent. To search engines, Masterful Marketing and Masterful Marketing, LLC are not the same.

4. Relevant Content

Creating the right content for your audience is difficult, but if you create a content strategy that defines what you are going to write and a content marketing strategy to define how you will use that great content to gain visibility, you will be more likely to be found when your audience is searching for a solution. Get their attention and help them out of a problem and you become a valuable resource they will keep going back to for advice.

5. Ongoing Optimization

You have an opportunity to optimize your web presence, including website, social profiles and business listings using your top keyword phrases. Once again, you can’t just set it and forget it because search engines change how they index web pages frequently, so you need to produce new content and incorporate basic SEO components to stay visible and highly ranked in the search engine results.

6. Religious Review

Periodically do a review of your web presence to be sure all listings are kept up to date. If something changes, update it across all properties. If you get a review on one of the review sites, know about it. You never want to be surprised by a good or bad review. Keep a spreadsheet of all the sites where you have claimed your listing so you can keep them updated when necessary.

How does your business look to searchers?

Web presence takes a commitment in time, effort and persistence, but the payoff is huge. Ensuring that all of your web properties work together to project the consistent image and professional reputation you want is important to getting found regularly. Make this the year that you commit to your online web presence and make it the best that it can be.

Have you done a web presence analysis and put together your plan?

©2012 Masterful Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

6 Critical Elements to Guarantee a Successful Web Presence is an original post from Debra Murphy, Small Business Marketing Coach: Masterful Marketing - Marketing in the New Media World. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Debra on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.