Why should you use social media?

Here are some reasons why you need to get started with social media marketing today for your business.

• It's free! Yes, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs etc are all free to set up.
• It's popular. There are about 750 million active users on Facebook, with about 50% of them going online every day. In Australia and New Zealand, there are over 13 million users altogether. Research shows that nearly 2 in 5 Australians online are now interacting with companies via social networking sites.
• It's not just for the kids. Most facebook users are female and are aged between 18-24 (25%) and 25-35 (23%) years of age. The 25 years + segment accounts for approximately 30% of all online users and is according to Nielsen Online, the fastest growing segment.
• Social media allows you to be personal. It makes it feel like a customer is interacting with a real human and not a corporation.
• Social media lets you stay in front of your customers and remain top of mind with them.
• It's a two-way communication tool. Twitter and Facebook lets you interact and engage with your fans. You can answer their questions and respond personally to their feedback almost immediately.
• Facebook pages are now being searched and indexed by search engines - great for rankings
• You can use social media to cross-promote with other marketing channels and extend your reach far beyond what was possible previously. You can now reach friends of your online fans at little to no cost, where it was almost impossible to do so previously.
• Social media is everywhere. People can check their facebook page wherever they are with the help of their mobile phones

For help getting started on social media, speak to one of the social media marketing consultants at TA Fastrack today on 07 3040 3588 or visit www.tafastrack.com.au.

Start using Twitter for your business

What is Twitter?
Twitter is a useful communication tool that allows people to interact with other people from around the world. It is usually referred to as a 'micro-blogging' service, which means you can post short updates which are limited to 140 characters or fewer. This makes it very compatible with mobile devices and text messaging as it allows the user to keep the updates short. It also allows the end user to receive rapid-fire and concise information immediately.

How can you user Twitter?
Twitter can be used to:

• Develop and promote your business and brand
• Interact with your online fans
• Track what people are saying about your business, brand, products and services
• Create buzz around an event
• Promote other content you've created, such as blog posts, website articles, tips, specials etc
• Develop relationships with your fans
• Generate sales leads
• Drive traffic back to your website

Signing up for a Twitter Account

• Your username is very important as it is what people will refer to you on Twitter and how people will find you.
• You can user your full name, a variation of your name, your company name or a combination of your name and industry to use as your twitter username.
• We don't recommend that you use a random username. No one will know it's you and you will have lost a branding opportunity for you and your business. We also don't recommend using numbers in your username, as it may not seem professional.
• Make sure you personalise your profile page with a photo - for example, your logo
• Don't forget to fill out the bio information, such as the description, website URL and specialisations
• Customise your twitter background with your brand.

Start Tweeting now!

• You can tweet about what you're doing now, what events you're attending, share a link to an interesting news article, add a link to your company blog or latest special

Follow other people

• Use Twitter's 'who to follow' feature and start following other companies, brands, or interesting people relevant to your business and industry
• See if any of your favourite thought leaders or bloggers are on Twitter and follow them
• Don't follow hundreds of people at once and remove all who don't follow you back. It is artificial network building and not a best practice

How to get people to follow you on Twitter

• Add a twitter icon and the link to your profile page on your email signature and on the website
• Include a twitter feed on your facebook page
• If your tweets are relevant and useful, you will find that other people will follow you
• Avoid using Twitter only as a promotional tool. Mix it up with interesting links to news articles, industry updates, events in the area etc

If you would like more information on how you can get started on Twitter or for advice on social media marketing, speak to TA Fastrack today on 07 3040 3588 or visit www.tafastrack.com.au.

How to use LinkedIn to increase sales

1. 1.Use LinkedIn Answers - This is where anyone who has a question about business goes to for advice. Be seen as the expert in your field when you answer a question in LinkedIn Answers
2. Use LinkedIn Applications - This is where you go to add new and interesting apps that will improve the experience people have on your LinkedIn page. For example, you can add your blog post to your LinkedIn page, or set up polls to find out what's on your customers' minds
3. Use LinkedIn Groups - Join various groups on LinkedIn that will help you grow your business. Join groups where you think people might be able to use your services. For example if you are a marketing expert, join groups outside of your industry, such as an entrepreneurs group, or a small business owners group.
4.  LinkedIn people - this is great for sales people or people looking for jobs who want to get their foot in the door of a large company. Eg you could ask your network or friends through LinkedIn to introduce you to someone at your target company.
5.  LinkedIn Ads - Use ads on LinkedIn to drive new customers to your page or website. It works the same way as a Google Adword, where you simply write a headline, add some text copy and create a destination link at the bottom to direct the person to a URL. You then bid on how much you want to pay for each click.
6.  LinkedIn Mobile - it's now available as an app on your mobile and it works best when you're a trade show or at an event. For example, when you're having a conversation with a potential customer, ask them if they have LinkedIn on their mobile and to turn it on. Bump your phones lightly together and LinkedIn will transfer your contact information between the two phones using Bluetooth. Instant transfer without the need to type in the name. Easy!

Internet marketing tips for your website

1. Website Design

• Make sure your website design loads quickly - check your hosting to ensure that servers are based locally and it's reliable (low down-time)
• Check that your website loads up properly in all major browsers, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari etc
• Make it easy for search engine crawlers and humans to navigate through and find the information and pages they want quickly and easily
• Check for spelling and grammatical errors
• Carefully select website colours. For example, light font colours on a dark background can be hard to read and hard on the eyes
• Make it easy for customers to contact you or book directly with you
• Have a strong call to action - direct people to call or book immediately
• Include a sitemap and text links to all webpages in the footer - this is good for SEO and makes it easy for people to find the page they want straight away

2. Content is King

• Write good quality and unique content for each webpage
• Include keywords within the content
• Break up text with bullet points and headings
• Use fonts that are easy to read, such as Arial or Verdana
• Keep font sizes no smaller than 10, otherwise it's hard to read
• Don't write sentences all in capital letters as it's hard to read
• Check for spelling and grammatical errors

3. Search Engine Optimisation

• Use heading tags within your webpages, such as H1, H2 or H3 near the top of the webpages
• Include your primary keywords in the first paragraph of your content, but don't keyword stuff it
• Use alt or image tags
• Include keywords within your title tags and description tags. Make sure it's unique for each webpage
• Create keyword rich URLs for each webpage. For example, instead of rooms.html, call it holiday-apartments-gold-coast.html
• Try to avoid using flash, as search engine spiders cannot read them and they don't show up when someone views your website on a mobile
• Check that all links are working

Ensure that your website follows the above and you are on your way to improving your search engine ranking. If you need a new website or need help with search engine optimisation, speak to one of the website marketing consultants at TA Fastrack today on 1300 659 289 or visit our website on www.tafastrack.com.au for details.

Are you communicating with your clients?

Whether your clients are long-term customers, find you through the internet, through word of mouth or referral, it's very important that you collect some contact information about them, such as phone number, email or address. You can offer tips, travel information or specials on a monthly or weekly basis through email marketing. It's important to keep in touch with them constantly, as even though they might not be buying anything now, you will be at the top of their minds when they are ready to commit.

You should keep a list of your past clients, so that if you come up to a lean period, you can send an email newsletter or a flyer to them, to simply remind them about your products and services. It doesn't even need to be a hard sell. I can guarantee you that you will get a response from people who have been meaning to call you for weeks or months, but never got round to it because they were busy or forgot - until you emailed them.

So here are some action steps for you to take to ensure that you start building your database of potential and past clients.

1. Collect names and contact details of every single person who expresses an interest in your business and products and services. Set a process in place to ensure that you and your staff are capturing the vital information - from your front desk, to phone enquiries and the website.
2. Follow up and stay in touch with your customers. An email newsletter or a postcard is a very cost effective way to stay in touch with clients.
3. Start now. Make sure you start collecting that data now. You can always fine tune the process or data capture and follow up messages as you go along
4. Set goals. Just as some people measure sales and profits, we recommend that you consider 'growing the size of your database' as a goal/measurement too 

If you would like more information about our email marketing services and how you can stay in touch with your clients, speak to TA Fastrack today or email us direct on email@tafastrack.com.au. 

Running a competition on Facebook - what you need to know

Before you decide to run a competition on your Facebook business page, it's important to understand what a contest can or cannot do for your brand.

A facebook contest can...

1. Help boost engagement between your brand and your fans
2. Help incentivise new users to like your facebook page
3. Be used to promote a new product and get the word out there about your brand
4. Build awareness of your brand and products and services.

On the other hand, a facebook competition cannot...

1. Make up for a poor product or customer service. A contest could potentially damage your brand further through negative comments, as was the case of the Qantas Twitter competition that backfired.
2. Create an instant, online community of fans that are loyal to your brand

Before you run a facebook competition ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do you have the time, resources and budget to plan, manage, monitor and continue to engage with your fans when you run the competition?
2. Do you have the budget for a prize that everyone will find value in and which will encourage participation from your fans?
3. Do you have clear goals for this contest?
4. What is the purpose of running this contest? Will it support the rest of your marketing strategies?
5. Are you using a third party app provider to administer the contest? Note that this is required as per Facebook's guidelines.

Below are some points to take into consideration when running a contest on Facebook.

1. Set clear goals

• What do you aim to achieve from running this contest?
• What results do you want to see at the end of the contest? Eg increased engagement with fans, increased number of fans etc

2. Details of the competition

• How will you get your online community to participate in the competition? Eg photo competition where they have to upload a photo and write a caption and the best photo wins a prize, write a story or a line to say why they deserve the prize or will they simply enter email and contact details in a form and the winner will be selected randomly?
• It's important to keep the contest simply. If the entry forms are too long or complicated, it will deter the user from participating. Make it effortless and eliminate the chance of them becoming frustrated or having a negative experience.

3. The prize

• Take your target audience into consideration - what prize will attract them to participate in your competition?
• What does your budget look like? It doesn't need to break the bank as long as the prize is of value to the fan
• Choose a prize that will match the interest of your audience. This will help with participation and encourage them to share it with their friends

4. How will your winners be selected?

• Will your online community help to choose the winner? For example, the photos submitted with the most votes wins a prize, or will they simply enter their contact details and the winner selected randomly?
• Make sure rules are clearly defined

5. What personal information will you gather

• Only collect the information you need, for example, email and contact details to notify the winner
• Too much information required may deter participation
• Keep it simple. If it looks too long or too hard, it will only cause people to abandon your contest

6. Check that your contest is Facebook compliant

• Check the Facebook guidelines for more details: http://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php
• In summary, Facebook states that contests must be run through a third-party app, you cannot use Facebook features and functions as part of the contest mechanism, you can't use the Facebook 'like' button as a means of collecting votes on entries and you can't notify the winners on Facebook, such as a wall post, message or in chat.

7. Check the fine print with legal

• If need be, get your terms & conditions reviewed or drafted by a legal representative
• Your T & Cs should include entry regulations, selection of winners and how winners will be notified, restrictions on certain groups to participate (eg above 18 years only), how entries can be used by the company in the future (eg for marketing purposes), or alternative modes of entry
• Check to see if you need to get a license to run a competition if the prize is over a certain value amount. This will vary from state to state.

8. Promote your contest

• There are many ways to promote your contest on Facebook, for example, sending an email to your database advising them of the competition and encouraging them to participate, promote with facebook ads, add a competition banner on your website, make it shareable so fans can share with it their friends, send out a flyer or put an ad in a magazine etc.

9. Manage your contest

• When you've launched your competition, make sure you regularly check it to ensure that it's running smoothly. Monitor comments, feedback and other activity. Answer questions from fans and encourage them to participate.

10. After launch

• Monitor the results after launch - did you achieve the goals you set out to achieve? What are the topics, questions or conversations that were asked by your fans? These can be used for future marketing or to better your service
• After the competition has ended, make sure you continue to work on engaging with your fans to grow your online community. For example, provide them with unique content, specials, news, events etc that will keep them coming back to you.
• Keep a two-way conversation happening with your fans to ensure loyalty, brand awareness, trust in your brand and ultimately, increased sales

Facebook competitions are a beneficial way to create buzz around your brand, create fan interaction and generate long-term relationships with your customers online. It's also important that after a competition that you continue to engage with your fans by providing them with content that they will find of value, whether that is special offers, sneak peek previews, event updates or tips.

For help with facebook marketing and how you can get started, speak to one of the marketing consultants at TA Fastrack today on 07 3040 3588 or visit www.tafastrack.com.au.

Best practices for email marketing success

Below are some of our top tips for email marketing success.

• Get started! It doesn't cost much, it's so easy to do and it works so well! If you can't bring yourself to do a regular newsletter each month because of content, then at least one e-Christmas card a year is a good start. 
• Make it about them. Did you know that 294 billion emails get sent each day? If you want people to notice your emails and not delete them, then give them something they want and they can use. It could be a special offer, a whitepaper download, news updates on upcoming events in your area or travel tips. 
• Make it personal. Don't be lazy and send a mass email to everyone. Have a look at your database and see if you can send them something that's unique to them. Whether it's using their first name, writing a personal message, or giving them a deal based on their interests or hobbies. It shows that you care and you're listening. 
• Keep it short. People have short attention spans. They don't have time to read, so keep it short and sweet. 
• Use pictures. Pictures say a thousand words and can make your newsletter and articles look good. Don't overdo it though with too many images that take a long time to download. Take into consideration that some email clients may block images from showing through. 
• Don't spam. Australia has a very strict anti spam legislation, so make sure you follow it, or you will be fined. 
• The best time to send your emails is on Tues/Wed after 10am. That's when most people are reading your email 
• Include a strong call to action 
• Use an attention grabbing subject line

To get started on email marketing, speak to one of the marketing consultants at TA Fastrack today on 07 3040 3588.