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Create Content To Increase Sales & ROI

4/21/2015

Author @AlmuCorazon

Conten_Marketing_to_Increase_Sales_ROI_Simple_and_Social_@AlmuCorazon

Do you want your content to ensure sales, drive traffic and help build your online audience? Or perhaps your content needs to be designed to enhance your online reputation and search ranking? Either way, you are on the right place! Today I'm sharing with you 8 powerful #tips and steps you should follow and include in your marketing plan to take your online game to the next level. Regardless of whether you offer services, physical products, or media, these #tips and ideas will help you increase your opportunities to create effective content marketing to support your business goals.

Content marketing is being recognized as its own discipline. From building brand equity to managing online crisis communication, content creation has been crowned as the king of the digital kingdom. As such, content demands to be of the highest quality and follow a smart strategy. No doubt about it, there is a very real need for organizations to rethink their business plans by adding content to their marketing mix, and refining their existing strategy. Now, the real aha moment here is the realization that an effective content marketing strategy doesn’t create itself. It’s the result of clear intention, careful planning, well thought out management and focused execution.

Have you ever stopped and ask yourself if what you are triggered to click is worth your time and attention? Well, you are not alone; most of us click rather impulsively. Our online shopping and engagement behavior is very close to our behavior in supermarkets. Business psychologists and researchers have for decades been studying various shopper profiles to strategically design their store layout and merchandise distribution. This is why you always find attractive little items near the cashiers that instantly grab your attention and invite you to toss them into your shopping cart. In online communications we have digital intelligence experts like myself who optimize your online messaging, or what we call "content marketing" to boost your sales, reputation and lower your investments.

To this end, you first need to know that online users click on calls-to-action based on emotional connections, desires for instant gratification, short term-needs, long-term goals and other psychological and pathological behaviors. The following 8 #tips are designed to guide you on how to create 101 content that will drive your audience to link to your great deals and opportunities. Make sure to include them in your content marketing creation and your e-commerce development to increase ROI:

Identify your audience before writing content, designing visuals and developing web pages. Every piece of information has its place and time. Whatever you do online to create leads and sales think about how your consumer targets will process your content and approach your page layouts.
Create an editorial calendar - as I always say, plan your work and work your plan. Planning in advance what you will be posting allows you to find other sources of content to support your information, products and services. Every month there are multiple major events -- #EarthDay, #CancerAwarenessMonth, #ValentinesDay -- that allow us to diversify our content marketing to specific themes. Doing this helps you become influential in trending topics, increase leads to your website/online store and grow your fan base.
Make your readers feel special by creating content that adds value to their experience, lives and business. Cover their needs and provide exclusive access to information. You can utilize a wide range of content formats, such as checklists, videos, interviews, pictures, how-to articles, infographics and worksheets.
Create content having your online visitors, existing customers and prospects in mind. You want to attract them at every stage of the engagement journey, seeding awareness and nurturing ongoing interest. My extensive experience has taught me that it pays off to plan your content program from the start in order to minimize costs and to leverage related distribution and promotion opportunities.
Q & As. Extend the value of your content by answering questions that audience members formulate. You can collect this data from your reader and follower comments on your blog, Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms, webinars, industry colleagues and peers, etc.
Avoid repetition. Curate additional content to support your core information from your website, blog and online store. Complement your new stories with existent content to bring a new message to every single online channel. This will help your audience better understand the issues involved; and, it is also a good way to repurpose your older content and give it new life and online visibility.
Invite your team of co-workers and key people in your industry to write and co-write with you. This gives your audience a behind-the-scenes glimpse of your company and network. Think theater, applied to content. Even “boring” businesses can leverage the power of talking to employees to make a product and service come to life through pictures, graphics, videos and interviews. Find those members of your team who are truly passionate about your service/product, regardless of what their roles are within your organization. It’s these internal evangelists who can really bring your brand to life.
Develop #SEO friendly content. The search engines are constantly leapfrogging over each other to expand development and deliver better results. This intense and continuous activity makes for an ever-shifting landscape. Why? Well, the business success of a search engine company is completely dependent on satisfying the human searcher. This leads to demanding content creators and communication managers to constantly optimize their online game to meet the requirements of search engines. Google, for example, typically makes between 500-600 algorithm changes per year. While most are inconsequential, a few are major enough to impact your #SEO efforts. So your business and brand success will 100% depend on how well you know your audience needs and how fast you can cover them through content creation.

Are you getting a clearer idea on how to create effective content marketing to increase sales? If not, leave me a comment below. But no matter what we can agree that content marketing is the liaison between brand awareness and the generation of great leads. When you generate good content, you get to build familiarity, affinity and trust with prospective and current customers because the information you provide resonates with them – in the right format, through the right channel, at the right time.

The rule of thumb is to remember that content marketing isn’t about selling. It’s about creating the emotional connection with your readers, entertaining your audience, educating them, or otherwise informing your followers in order to earn their trust over time. To be successful, you need to find ways to get them activated. To do that, you need to understand where your audience is, why they are there, and what they want and need from you.

Stay tuned for more tips!

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10 Steps To Successful Self-Leadership

4/13/2015

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Author @AlmuCorazon

Simple_and_Social_selfleadership_#tips_SimpleandSocial_AlmuCorazon

Any time you want to embrace change, you activate your self-leadership skills to navigate through the evolution of your goal. A big part of self-leadership is being curious and hungry for more; listening to others and yourself; and asking why and/or why not.

Life is constantly changing, so, becoming a lifelong learner and someone who finds happiness in adapting to new circumstances is a great and useful quality to have. After I published an article on Self-Leadership To Become Successful, I was asked multiple times for a roadmap to achieve success by leveraging self-leadership. In response, I’ve put together ten steps to achieving a strong self-leadership:

Forge healthy self-esteem. Appreciate yourself for who you are — faults, foibles and strengths. The difference between someone who has healthy self-esteem vs. someone who doesn’t lies in ability or innate skills per se. Good self-esteem is simply in the acknowledgment of your strengths and your weaknesses, and moving through the world safe in that knowledge. When you have healthy self-esteem you are able to feel good about yourself for who you are, appreciate your own worth, and take pride in your abilities and accomplishments. You also acknowledge that while you’re not perfect and that you have faults, those faults don’t play an irrationally large role in your life or have an overwhelming impact on your own self-image (how you see yourself).

Clarify your vision. Visualize how you would like to see yourself in the short-term and in the long-term. On a piece of paper create four groups: one for (1)yourself, one for (2)family, one for (3)work, and the last (but not least) for (4)what's important for you. Divide each group in two sections: the first section represents your short-term vision and the other section your long-term vision.

Vision boards and plans are perfect to get you started. We tend to be very busy and constantly bombarded by distractions. Making use of vision boards and vision plans serves several purposes, some of which include identifying your vision and giving it clarity to keep your attention on your intentions. In our program "the power of perception" we guide participants on how to create an effective vision plan to break through the dynamics that stop them from achieving what they want. We have different techniques to help you embrace your visions, and to concentrate and maintain focus on a specific life goal.

Identify goals. Once you are clear on your short-term and long-term visions, set goals to achieve them. Note your age for each goal and the age of those involved and affected by your goals. This will give you a more realistic understanding of your expectation. Every goal affects you differently, as each aspect is intertwined -- your family, your job and what's important for you in life. Really acknowledging the bigger picture of your visions will help you work within the context of your whole life and thereby make follow-through more likely.
Create a timeline with an action plan. Schedule your week with discipline -- plan your work and work your plan. Every action you take has a reaction in the four areas you identified in the step #2. Think of each area as requiring 25% of you. In order to be completed, to reach a 100% potential, you need to work on each of the four areas. So, your timeline has to reflect actions on yourself, your family, work, and what's important for you. This will create positive momentum for potent self-leadership.
Identify measurable results. Out of every goal you have, identify measurable results to know if the actions you designed to achieve your goals are effective. This will allow you to make sure you don't set yourself up for failure. In other words, setting up measurable results will save you from wasting time on actions that are not taking you closer to achieve your goal. For example, if I want to lose weight, I'm not going to jump into a very strict diet the following day because my body reaction won't be in alignment with my willpower. Instead I will gradually cut off foods that I know work against my goal such as sweets, fat and carbohydrates. In addition, I will start to include healthy meals and habits so my body begins to learn how to adapt to new routines. Reaching out to a nutrition expert and initiating new exercise habits to help activate my body will also be a part of my strategy.
Take initiative. Volunteer to be first. Be daring, bold, brave and fearless, willing to fall down, fail, and get up again for another round. Your action plan will assist you in having integrity with your vision. Vulnerability makes you stronger when all is said and done, so embrace it with power. See yourself as a winner -- not as a victim. Learn to love ideas and experiments. Turn them into pilot programs that preface decisions. Things are impossible until the first person does it.
Be humble and spread the credit. The best way to lead yourself and others is by being a team player. If you praise the accomplishments of others with genuine enthusiasm, you will be considered a team player. At work, your supervisor will see your ability to defer to others as a positive leadership trait that might benefit you during your formal employee evaluations and your general profile. This might even earn you a promotion!
Make very clear distinctions in your life. We have the capacity to reason. We can choose what works for us and what doesn’t, what fits our plans and what doesn't. To make informed choices we need to acquire sufficient knowledge of relevant details so that we can distinguish between what fits and what doesn’t. Distinction, discernment, decision … a good path.
Surround yourself with other influencers, mentors and people who are smarter than you. Surround yourself with smart beautiful people who seek to achieve similar things in life. Creating this environment will allow you to motivate and learn from each other. In addition, learn from others by listening while others learn from you. This is the give-and-take of goodness and success.
Care for and about people. Compassion and empathy become you, and keep you ever-connected to your humanity. Beauty exists in everything and in everyone. Learn how to find it, you’ll be amazed how little you have to invent and much is waiting to be displayed.

Now that you have "10 Steps To Healthy Self-Leadership" and "Self-leadership, The Key to Your Success" I invite you to champion change. These 10 steps will improve your self-leadership skills – and, as a result, people will choose you to lead them.
As the saying goes: those who do what they’ve always done, will get what they’ve always gotten. Seek to be continually inspired by something, learning what your triggers are and self lead yourself into greatness.

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Learn to #Hashtag to Maximize Your Online Potential

4/7/2015

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Author @AlmuCorazon

Do you know how significant are hashtags for small business owners? The power of the #hashtag is unlimited and it should be central to your marketing, branding and PR strategy online and offline. The right tag can help you drive brand recognition, increase audience advocacy, boost the reach of an advertising campaign, help you assess and analyze ROI and positively impact customer loyalty.

A #hashtag is so powerful that it can bring together a community around a specific topic allowing you to have local and international digital exposure in seconds. In fact, a hashtag immediately identifies what’s going on, whether at events, an emergency or breaking news, it gives you a real-time feed of all posts using that hashtag… so, are you ready to maximize your online potential?

Think celebrity: #Madona, #Beyonce or #EltonJohn. Think major event: #Oscars, #elections or #tweetparties. Think activities: #roadtrips, #summervacations or #smalltalks. Or brands: #Chanel and #Nike. Or think about the groups you identify with: #bloggers, #thoughtleaders, #latinas or #entrepreneurs. You can reach all of these different types of market niches by using a catchy, easy-to-remember #hashtag following organic strategies to effectively engage your potential to theirs. To create a fitting tag or hashtag, just type a hash or pound sign (#) in front of a word or phrase to identify messages on a specific topic. Yes, as simple as that.

Know that every online footprint gets registered and tracked. Hashtag is not just a Twitter thing; it started within it, but was quickly expanded once online makers realized its global potential for connection. You can use #hashtags anywhere on the Internet, from any social media platform such as Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to your own website, forums and/or search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. It’s time to dominate the searches when it comes to people looking at your #hashtag.

The key is to find the way to turn the potential of hashtags into an effective business effort, as there are some important things to remember to ensure the successful use of hashtags. For this reason I created a golden guide of dos and don’ts of hashtags to take your digital game to the next level:

Don’t leave spaces or use punctuation. Make sure there is no punctuation and there are no spaces in the words preceding the hashtag/pound sign (#), as it will break the link and it will create a disruption in the connection of the selected topic.
Use hashtags across all digital platforms. This will help you widen your reach, diversify your message per channel, and encourage your audience to continue the conversation wherever they feel the most comfortable doing so.
Anytime you think about a brand, think about its audience. As social media is the fastest communication channel and there’s a lot of noise, use #hashtags as a way to create signals, not to add more noise. You want to portray your brand as an efficient leader to guide the conversation and encourage audience engagement (not to become a spammy source and an annoyance to followers).
Engage with your followers and potential clients through hashtags. Hashtags can be used to promote your products and services and find out what your competitors are doing in their marketing and PR attempts. For instance, using a competitor’s hashtag in your content marketing will increase your audience reach by becoming visible to their clients.
As a brand, influencer and entrepreneur, join the conversation with the most organic hashtags your followers are already using. Share your content marketing using established hashtags in order to increase your content's visibility. This can be a chance to strengthen your brand loyalty and have your followers, fans and advocates feel acknowledged.
Choose a catchy #hashtag that is unique to you, easy to remember and crystal-clear. Even though acronyms or multi-word phrases might be trendy and more specific to weed out questions, choose a hashtag that represents good your product or service, something short and easy to remember.
Don’t become a spammer by using inaccurate hashtags. Don't post content with popular hashtags that have nothing to do with your message. This impulse could lose you followers and permanently cheapen your brand’s social media reputation.
Don't add hashtags to every single word. Adding too many hashtags to your sentence makes your dialogue on social media look forced and too aggressively marketed.
Track your hashtags to analyze their ROI. Monitoring and listening to the online conversations your hashtag is creating will allow you to gain better knowledge of your ROI. This will help every department in your company to better plan future business efforts. Want to track your hashtags? Or those of a competitor? Use #Radian6, #Hootsuite, #tagboard or even #Google Search.
Use #hashtags offline. Hashtags can generate giant amounts of buzz outside of the Internet as well. Place a #hashtag next to your logo or slogan to boost your message on pictures, pamphlets or ads in a well- trafficked public location or somewhere that will be seen on TV, in magazines or videos.

Hashtags are an easy way to educate, entertain and engage your audience about your brand. The best thing is that hashtags aren’t copyrightable as of yet, so small businesses and entrepreneurs can freely expand their branding.

Don't be timid about harnessing the #hashtag power! Do you have a branded hashtag that follows all of these rules? Share with us in the comment section below!

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