Category: digital marketing

11 Google Chrome Extensions for Productivity, Experience and Security

Here are latest 11 Google Chrome extensions boosting your productivity, experience and security.

  1. iCloud Passwords. iCloud Passwords allows you to use the same strong Safari passwords you create on your Apple device, with Chrome on Windows.
  2. LastPass: Free Password Manager. An award-winning password manager, saves your passwords and gives you secure access from every computer and mobile device.
  3. Save to Pocket. Pocket’s Chrome extension is the easiest, fastest way to capture articles, videos, and anything else you find on the web.
  4. HTTPS Everywhere. Encrypt the Web! Automatically use HTTPS security on many sites.
  5. Adblock Plus. A free extension that allows you to customize and control your web experience. Block annoying ads, disable tracking, block sites known to spread malware and lots more.
  6. Privacy Badger. A browser add-on that stops advertisers and other third-party trackers from secretly tracking where you go and what pages you look at on the web.
  7. Print Friendly & PDF. Print Friendly and PDF any Webpage. Print Friendly removes ads, navigation and junk before your print. Pages are optimized for the ultimate print reading experience.
  8. Pablo. Pablo is the simplest way to create beautiful images that fit every social network perfectly.
  9. Google Translate. View translations easily as you browse the web. By the Google Translate team. Highlight or right-click on a section of text and click on Translate icon next to it to translate it to your language. Or, to translate the entire page you’re visiting, click the translate icon on the browser toolbar.
  10. Save to Pocket. Save to Pocket allows you to save articles, Web pages, images and videos for your reading or viewing pleasure. Then it syncs everything across numerous devices, such as your smartphone or tablet.
  11. Boomerang for Gmail. The ultimate email productivity tool. Send later, track responses, and use AI to write better emails.

Financial Advisors: Use Twitter’s Referral Traffic to Convert Prospects into Clients

Twitter should be part of your firm’s marketing strategy. There are a tremendous number of potential clients out there on Twitter looking for Financial Advisor (advice) help. As social media continues to increase with financial advisor usage – Advisors are using platforms such as Twitter as a powerful tool in increasing traffic back to their respected website.

Twitter is a tremendous source of delivering traffic to your website and hopefully (with the help of a superb website funnel) will convert them into quality leads. Twitter is an attractive channel for Financial Advisors (see statistics below) to not only reach prospective clients, but to nurture relationships with existing clients as well.

    • Around one-in-five U.S. adults (22%) say they use Twitter
    • According to 90% of marketers, their social media (Twitter included) marketing efforts have increased the exposure of their business, and 75% say they’ve increased traffic.

Dedicate a small portion of your day on Twitter promoting your firm’s original content as well as engage with users looking for financial advice. If your busy with current clients and have no time for social media marketing, hire a freelancer that specialized in FINRA & SEC compliant best practices.

Social Media Post Lifespan for 2023

Tweet post lifespan = 15 minutes (Avg.)

Facebook post lifespan = 6 hours

LinkedIn post lifespan = 24 hours

YouTube post lifespan = 20+ days

Make sure you optimize your posts for retweets and shares. You can also try to “boost” a Facebook post with an ad to extend lifespan. With Twitter, “pin” tweets to the top your profile page to guarantee a greater lifespan. For a LinkedIn post, add content to your profile and join groups to share that content there. Add relevant keywords in your YouTube video title, description, & tags.

Lastly, #Hashtags can help extend or “stretch” lifespan for all social media platforms posts.

The Best Time To Publish a Blog Post in 2022

Publishing a blog post really depends on the platform, demographic, and region. There is no blanket “best time” to publish. Ideally, should be published when your target demographic is getting home from work and they start checking their favorite websites as well as checking in on Facebook and Twitter.

Alternatively, another good time to post a blog article and share it on social media is at noon. Visitors will start to creep in and view the post while at lunch when they have free time.

Tuesday is a good day to publish a blog post for social shares (according to OkDork and BuzzSumo). Some quick Twitter and Facebook worst days/times to share your blog article:

  • Twitter. Friday after 3PM and any day of the week after 8 PM and before 8AM. Weekends are the worst days to post.
  • Facebook. Weekends are the worst days to post.

How many blogs per week? To boost organic traffic (from search engines, for example), you should publish 3 to 4 brand new posts per week, each of them fully optimized for search engines (HubSpot).

I encourage everyone to look at the metrics once you get into a posting groove. If one time slot is not getting high click rates, change the posting time a bit until you find that “sweet” spot. Also, if you are located in the time Pacific time zone, and your customers of potential clients are in the Eastern time zone, be aware when scheduling. Always post for your ideal demographic time zone!

9 Real Time Social Media Tracking Tools for 2022

Social Media monitoring is crucial to your marketing campaign. These tools will help your business or service keep track of every conversation, keyword, and hashtag related to your accounts. You can also use the data to look at trends and insights. Will help you “iterate” and dial-in your Social Media marketing efforts.

SocialMention. A social media search and analysis platform that aggregates user-generated content into a single stream. Track and measure what people are saying about you, your company, your product, service or any topic in real-time.

Mention. Listen and make sense of posts across social media. Uncover trends in conversation, filter and analyze data from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Pin-point important conversations. Easily monitor sources across the web daily, including press articles, review sites, forums, and blogs.

Google Alerts. Monitor the web for interesting new content. How often. As-it-happens. At most once a day. At most once a week. Sources. Automatic. News. Blogs. Web. Video.

Social Mention. Social media search engine with Real-time social media search and analysis.

Buzzsumo. A tool for content research, and also monitor your Facebook pages. What day is the best to post, how long your posts should be, what types of content works best, and monthly stats over time.

Keyhole. Hashtag Tracking tool to measure your social campaigns in real-time. You can also create reports on-demand.

Unbox Social. All-in-one data-driven influencer marketing platform to discover, evaluate & track campaigns at scale. You can also compare hashtag performance to see how well your brand hashtags are being received by your target audiences.

SparkToro. Instantly discover what your audience reads, watches, listens-to, and follows. Discover the websites, blogs, podcasts, social accounts, and publications that reach your audience.

 

Financial Advisors: The Basics of Pay Per Click Online Advertising

Pay Per Click (PPC) is one of the many ways of promoting your financial service or business. You only pay when a user/potential customer actually clicks on an ad to visit your website. You pick keywords or phrases such as “shopping” or “Green used car” and when the results come up your ad will be displayed. Google AdWords, and Microsoft Bing Ads are some of the largest PPC network operators. PPC is often used to refer to keyword advertising on search engines and social media website such as Facebook & Twitter. With PPC, search engines & social media platforms can give you instant traffic and allow you to test out new business models and ads in real time.

Getting Started with PPC Online Advertising

To get started, you will need to create a (campaign) simple text ad (or banner ad) that will catch your specific  customer or ideal client’s attention. Customer research (demographics) is crucial. The key to online advertising is to think creatively. You need to find specific keywords that are related to your service and/or business. You must word your ad in a way that it manages to attract only that reader who might be interested in your product and/or services. You are actually paying on a per click basis and hence you must only get those visitors who will buy and utilize your product or services. The best way to go about configuring the perfect wording is tweaking the ads that you have created. If your first ad is not working out, try re-wording or adding or deleting a sentence.

Once you start getting results, track your progress in Microsoft Excel or use the PPC tracking results manager that can easily export to CSV file. Most PPC Ad managers have visual front-ends and easy to track success rates. Use one column for keywords, and another for keyword clicks. Back to Excel…Create columns that will represent category phrases. Once you figure out your phrases, think about what local or geography you will sell your product or services. Once you input the data, take out any phrases that are too generic. Start using the keywords that are left in your PPC campaign and then grab the click through rates and conversion data and add the new columns and paste next to that particular keyword. This way you can get a organized visual of what keyword is working and what keyword is not working. Use the Google AdWords Keyword Planner for validating the keywords you’ve found by showing you search volume data and trends, cost per click, and competitive data.

  • Understand what makes you special and why people will want to choose your service or product.
  • Keep an eye on your competitors’ keywords, messaging, and deals/offers.
  • Cater ads to different buyer wants and needs.
  • Test price, information that reassures buyers (e.g., “official site,” “24/7 support”), and time sensitivity (e.g., “Offer ends soon”).

You can also choose where you would like to advertise (demographics) such as:

  • Geographical location
  • Age and gender
  • Income levels
  • Popular sites
  • Blogs
  • Your favorite websites
  • Day of the week
  • Time of day (morning, afternoon, or night)

Don’t have a website but still want to advertise online? No problem. Most PPC networks will allow you to create a “mini” website that your ad will point to. You can add graphics, images, color schemes, and videos to your mini website. Anyone without a website no has no excuse to advertise online. For “brick and mortar” stores, make sure your PPC campaign list the city you are advertising. When your ad is seen, you want to make sure the person surfing notices that your ad is specifically for the area you are advertising for which will increase the quality of your click throughs. Avoid sending the reader of your ad to the home page on the first click. If there’s nothing local about the landing page, the user may abandon the page and move on. Send the reader directly to the product page you are advertising.

What I like about buying keywords on a PPC search engine, Facebook, Twitter is that it provides a trackable medium. Before you start any marketing campaign, you will need to decide what the goal of your marketing medium. If you are just “branding”, then you should know up front to expect to lose money to gain mind share or reinforce your brand.

The advantages to advertising online enables site owners to receive new traffic, new client leads and more measurable ROI. Another advantage include small businesses to be able operate nationally & globally. If your plan is to target the U.S. or the world with your ads, you better have a big budget. Broad PPC campaigns can get very costly in a short amount of time. Instead, begin by targeting the local market you’re familiar with. Your geo-targeted “buyer-persona” ads will cost less, and they will be better aimed at your specific audience. Make sure you localize your keywords. Not only do you have a greater chance to appear in the top SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages), but you have an opportunity to do so much faster than if you were targeting global customers.

Tips On Setting Up Online (Interactive) Newsrooms

With the advancement of internet technology and the increase adoption of bandwidth around the world, the new PR/media relations professional has to make sure to embrace the modern day platform. Setting up an online newsroom for your company is essential for a few reasons:

1. It’s going to be the main source of credible information about your company, especially when journalists, analysts, and customers are researching at all hours or use your online news center to obtain breaking news.
2. The newsroom is also a great way to maintain control of brand communication (much better for a journalist to receive info straight from the brand rather than another source).
3. Newsrooms can also save in costs associated with sending out media kits or informational product USB sticks. All Media kit information can be converted into PDF format and posted in the newsroom as well as USB sticks converted into video format.

Most journalists or investors expect to see the basic elements included in your newsroom. Basic elements include:

– Contact info for your main PR contact. Basic facts about the company. Executive bio section. Company’s point of view on its industry. Access to financial information, quarterly newscast of earnings. Easy downloadable images for stories. Images and logos should be in 72 dpi for web usage and hi-res 300 dpi files for print publications. Searchable news release archives. Product information.

Online newsrooms range from the basics to the more advanced media centers with searchable databases, video presentations, and podcasts. These interactive newsrooms can contain blogs, RSS feeds, and SMR (Social Media News Releases). When sending out PR email alerts to journalists or investors, it’s always good practice to put link-backs to the online newsroom. Targeted messages using RSS feeds are also great for wireless devices like mobile phones.

Other online newsroom features you will want to include are E-press kits. E-press kits include targeted news releases, images, statements and related content. Also include the ability for a journalist to sign up for email “media alerts.” If you really would like to cater to your journalists and media personal, include personal folders in the newsrooms with a password protected (encrypted) area to store information they’ve researched and want to archive for future use. Add special icons into press releases or other collateral that will enable the journalists with a simple click to add to their folder.

Break the newsroom into a “corporate” and “consumer” section. The consumer section should include news and info on customer satisfaction, feedback, e-commerce, marketing, safety, compliance and service. As you build your online interactive newsroom keep the following in mind:

– Your brand’s newsroom will be a main source of credible information as journalist’s research story ideas or analysts looking for financial information.

– Understand the basics of your online newsroom before enhancing it. Add features and functions slowly. Keep in mind that most journalists today that access your newsroom are technologically savvy. Don’t be afraid to add advance features.

– Always post fresh content everyday (blogs are a good example). Fresh content will have journalists & Investors returning to your newsroom to check out the latest news and information.

– Build your newsroom in phases starting out with the basics. A second phase can include features such as RSS, podcasts, video. A third phase you can add blogs, tags, social bookmarking sites and even Twitter searches or Mention to check out all the chatter on a topic in the blogosphere or social media platforms.

Why Your Business or Service Needs To Get On Twitter NOW