Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marketing. Show all posts

Wednesday, 20 May 2015

21 Ways To Market Your Business Online On A Shoestring Budget

Who says you need to spend millions on marketing? Columnist Steve Olenski tells you how to market your business yourself without spending a ton of money.

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I often hear from business owners who feel they’re too busy running their business to spend time on marketing. This is valid — and to be honest, sometimes marketing is best left to the professionals.
But a problem arises when you simply don’t have the budget to hire a full-time consultant or marketing person. The following will cover 21 ways you can market your business yourself, even on a tight budget.

Online Review Sites

Having your business listed on online review sites is important not just for driving traffic and sales, but for protecting your online reputation. The following sites are some of the most influential, as well as the most cost-effective (free!).
  1. Set up a Google My Business page: This listing will get your business on Google Search, Maps and Google+ and enable customers to review your business. Local business reviews tend to receive high rankings in the search results, giving you some great (free!) real estate. Google+ Local reviews also influence the search rankings of people you’re connected to, meaning your business’ reviews may also appear when your connections perform relevant searches on Google.
  2. Create a listing on Yelp: As the biggest online review site, creating a Yelp listing is definitely worth the effort. It’s free, and gets you in front of the platform’s more than 140 million monthly visitors.
  3. Create a free Angie’s List page: Users pay a monthly fee to use the platform, but listing a business is 100 percent free. Available for service-based businesses only.
  4. Get listed on Yahoo Local: Yahoo offers local businesses the opportunity to get a basic business listing in its directory for free. Listings are integrated with other Yahoo products like reviews, maps and events.

Social Media

  1. Join industry Facebook and LinkedIn groups: Become a valued member of two or three groups in your business’ industry, offering advice and support. This helps to establish you as an expert in your field, and ultimately builds your reputation and sales.
  2. Create your own Facebook group: Create a free Facebook group for customers or prospects to get help or support with a problem related to your niche. (For example, a social media consultant could start a “DIY Social Media Mastermind group.”)
  3. Use images to offer discounts on Facebook or Twitter: Using images to offer discounts or coupon codes is a great, non-threatening way to promote your products without being too “salesy.”
  4. Promote a free, no obligation 15-minute consult to your followers: Reduce the risk your prospects feel by offering a risk-free consult.
  5. Monitor brand mentions: Use a social listening tool like Social Mention to monitor and contribute to conversations happening in your niche.
  6. Create and share an original infographic: A tool like Piktochart requires no design or coding skills, and costs start at only $29 per month — much cheaper than hiring a designer to do it for you.

Blogging

  1. Contribute guest posts to a well-known industry site: To find blogs to contribute to, do a search for “your niche” + “guest post”.
  2. Hold free webinars on your site: If you’ve investigated webinar software, you already know how costly they can be. Not to mention that most require a monthly subscription — not exactly small business-friendly! A great, low-cost alternative is using a WordPress webinar plugin like WebinarIgnition. It has a one-time cost of $97 for unlimited webinars with unlimited attendees.
  3. Partner with a complementary business to co-sponsor a contest: Co-sponsoring the contest gives you access to each other’s audience, maximizing your efforts. Submit your contest to popular sweepstakes sites to extend the reach of your contest.
  4. Install a free social sharing plugin on your site: Using a free WordPress plugin like Share Buttons ensures all your blog content can be easily shared by your readers.
  5. Comment thoughtfully on blogs in your niche: It’s perfectly acceptable to leave your website URL in the appropriate field, just be sure to use your real name or business name, not keyword-rich anchor text.
  6. Create an award for businesses or products in your niche: Create a simple badge using a free program like Canva, and then write a blog post of the Top 10 _______ (e.g., Top 10 websites for Web designers). Award each of the winners with a badge that links back to the post. This strategy works best once your site has built up a reputation in your niche.

Other Channels To Get Yourself Out There

  1. Join relevant industry forums and respond to questions with helpful advice:I’m not talking about writing spammy, thin comments just to gain links back your site. Make meaningful contributions to conversions to capture the attention of other readers.
  2. Sign up with HARO (Help A Reporter Out) to get free PR for your business:Respond to relevant media queries and land free mentions and links in publications like Huffington Post, Forbes and other popular outlets.
  3. Email a well-known business or influencer in your field with an authentic testimonial: Businesses love receiving testimonials, and many times will post them on their website (along with a link).
  4. Invoice your business like a pro: Make sure that you’re billing your clients on time each month as well as keeping track of everything. I personally love Due invoicing as it’s a free option that invoices clients, and for a small fee you can bill people over PayPal.
  5. Answer questions on a Q&A site like Quora: These sites consist of real people looking for answers to questions. Search the site for relevant questions you can answer intelligently.

Over To You…

The Internet has leveled the playing field significantly when it comes to marketing. The reach and visibility that used to only be available to big brands with big budgets are now within the reach of even the smallest businesses.

Tuesday, 7 April 2015

10 Tips for Using Visual Media to Improve Your Business

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Interesting visuals can make a huge impact on your website and online marketing efforts, whether they be photos, videos or other forms of media. Social platforms like Instagram, Pinterest and even Meerkat have made these visual forms of media even more prominent.
Members of our small business community have some tips for using each of these visual platforms and for including visual elements on business websites. Read on for the full list of tips in this week’s Small Business Trends community roundup.

Find Free Images for Your Blog

(Custard)
Photos can help you add some much needed visual interest to your blog posts. So if your business is not one that creates its own original visual content, you should look into finding some other images to use (legally) with your blog posts. Here, Matt Fielding provides a list of some resources where you can look for free images.

Use These Instagram Analytics Tools

(Talkwalker Blog)
Instagram is one of the fastest growing social platforms. So if your business has any kind of visual content to share, you’re likely already using it. Whether you’re already on Instagram or just considering starting an account, analytics can be helpful in growing a following on the platform. And Richard Sunley shares five of those analytics tools here.

Build a Successful Instagram Account

(Headlines)
Since so many people and businesses are using Instagram, it can be difficult to make your account stand out. To make your Instagram presence a success, it can be helpful to look at others who have used the the tool effectively. That’s why Martin Smith shares a case study about Instagram success here.

Brand Your Pinterest Page

(MadeFreshly)
Pinterest can be another useful social platform for sharing visuals. Brands use the platform in many different ways. But it’s important to really make it your own. Inthis post, Elizabeth Fein shares some tips for branding your Pinterest page effectively.

Learn About Meerkat

(DIY Marketers)
Video content can be a great way to add some visual interest to your content marketing efforts. And now that video content can be streamed live to your social media followers, thanks to Meerkat. Ivana Taylor shares more about the Meerkatapp here. BizSugar members also share their thoughts on the app.

Consider Mobile Video Ads

(Marketing Land)
In general, online and mobile videos can increase engagement and visibility for businesses. And as it turns out, the same can be said about videos used in advertising. According to this post by Ginny Marvin, mobile video ads are five times more engaging than standard banner ads.

Learn if Your Website is Mobile Friendly

(Entrepreneurship)
Since most customers are now using mobile devices to access the Internet, having a site that is mobile friendly is more important than ever. But if you’re not quite sure what your website might look like on different mobile devices, there’s a simple way to find out. Michael Hartzell shares a bit about that tool, along with some tips for going mobile friendly here. And the BizSugar community comments on the post as well.

Optimize Images for WordPress Speed

(WP Curve)
Images can almost certainly benefit your business website. But too many images, or images in the wrong format, can slow down your site. To ensure that you can use visuals on your website without slowing it down, consider these tips from Kyle Gray.

Use These Content Solutions for B2B Marketing

(Ron Sela)
Marketing a B2B business is a lot different than marketing a B2C company. The visuals and other content are likely to be a bit more focused. But producing interesting content is still important. Here, Rosemary Brown shares some tips for creating great B2B marketing content. And BizSugar members discuss the post further as well.

Consider Translating Your Website

(Small Biz Daily)
Your website is the online face of your business. And while photos and other visuals are important, most customers still want to be able to read what your business is all about. Depending on your client base, that could make it necessary for you to translate your website. Stephen Pritchard discusses the pros and cons of translating your site here.
Help us make the community roundup posts even better each week. Suggest content to feature. Send your recommendations to sbtips@gmail.com or simply submit posts to the BizSugar community.

Wednesday, 1 April 2015

Is Internet Marketing A hoax ?

Is Marketing a Good Career Path

“I’m in a similar situation, my degree is in an industry that doesn’t have many jobs right now, and I may need to do something different,” a little later her friend squirmed in her seat and with a sense of uncertainty retorted, “I’m thinking marketing is where it’s at…”
This caught my attention.
When working out of the home office, I try to remain focused, some days are easier than others. On this particular day, at this coffee shop, I couldn’t help myself. What I did next might be considered somewhat bold.

Reasons to Consider a Career in Online Marketing

Encouraged by the dialogue these new college graduates had, I decided to take it a step further, and introduce myself… At first I was hesitant, not because they were complete strangers (harmless young ladies might I add), rather because I had plenty to do, and this would not aide my “focus” cause.  Then I reasoned, who know, they could be at a crossroad, and the conversation might yield something useful. I went ahead.
This encounter caused me to reflect on why marketing is a great career choice, here’s what I’m thinking.
Marketing taps into the creative side like few other professions. One of the complaints I hear, and had myself in my earlier years was that a job was “boring”. I had several of these types of jobs, from delivering newspapers, to assembling water bottles, and working retail. As you might suspect these jobs were short-lived for me. What I’ve found is that marketing invites the creative side to solve problems, stand out, and get a message across. Of course with all the dynamics of online marketing, and opportunities it brings it is never boring.
More money being spent online than ever. Spending money online is at an all-time high. Consumers are becoming more and more accustomed to buy online (stats here). It is only going to continue to grow as mobile computing continues to explode. Having a skills to present a marketing message in the right place at the right time will land you sales, and might very keep you employed for years to come.
Marketing invites the creative side to solve problems, stand out, and get a message across.
The results of your efforts are measurable. Numbers aren’t for everyone, but knowing your numbers is a competitive advantage and key to having a successful online business. Virtually everything done in marketing today is done electronically, and as such can be measured. Having business metrics allows marketers to optimize their marketing performance for maximum ROI. It’s also gratifying to know you’ll get results for your efforts, which can be used to further hone your skills over time. You can see an example of a business metric we use in our video marketing in this video traffic academy review.
Marketing skills are transferable to industry or market. Marketing, in large part, is “being where the eyeballs are”. More and more eyeballs are looking on the web than ever. As networks grow, and mobile devices become more prevalent and affordable, main stream businesses of all sizes will be looking for more exposure. Honed marketing skills will be valued in any market segment, especially those not known for leveraging technology.
We had a nice conversation about the current job market, entrepreneurship, and marketing, discussing some of the points mentioned above. They seemed to enjoy the discussion, for me it was nice to hear the opportunities some college graduates are faced with as well as reviewing the benefits of having a career in marketing online. It’s amazing what can happen at coffee shops!


















Friday, 6 March 2015

How to Make Great Infographics for Your Clients and Why

Explaining the finer points of jewelry and gemstones to clients face-to-face is always valuable. But many consumers, particularly visual learners, may have trouble retaining your thoughtful spiels.
Enter the infographic—a highly versatile tool with the power to educate and entertain. 
Houston-based diamond retailer (and fifth-generation diamond cutter) Brian Gavin, owner of Brian Gavin Diamonds, recently created and released a pitch-perfect infographic explaining the hearts-and-arrows diamond cut for his consumers. 
We asked him to walk us through how—and exactly why—he created the tool.
Courtesy Brian Gavin Diamonds
JCKWhy did you want to create this infographic?
Brian Gavin: We wanted to create the hearts-and-arrows infographic purely to help educate consumers about the cut. There is a lot of information available that is not accurate, and we wanted to consolidate the correct information into an easy-to-reference format. The effect that the hearts-and-arrows cut has on a diamond is unparalleled, but some people either aren’t aware the cut exists or of the power it possesses. Simply put, the cut allows a diamond to sparkle more brilliantly and to outshine the rest. 
JCK: How did the infographic come to be? Did you commission it or was it done in-house?
Gavin: The images used in the infographic were actually photographed in-house by our photographer, who shoots photos of each and every Brian Gavin diamond, then edited to match the graphic nature of the infographic, so the photos are a completely precise representation of what the hearts-and-arrows cut looks like. We worked closely with our graphic designer on the rest of the components of the infographic so that it was aesthetically pleasing, without taking away from the hearts-and- arrows images.
JCK: How are you using it in your marketing?
Gavin: We shared the infographic on Brian Gavin Diamonds’ social media channels, including Pinterest. [But] the infographic is less of a marketing tool and more of an educational tool. We like to educate people about what makes a diamond sparkle so customers have a better appreciation for the stone’s brilliance. Many people just think about the color, size, and shape of a diamond but don’t understand how it sparkles or came to be this coveted stone. But we want them to know exactly why diamonds are so special. When consumers understand how a diamond sparkles, they’ll come to appreciate the precision and high performance of a Brian Gavin diamond. So, in a roundabout way the infographic is a marketing tool in the fact that it educates consumers. 
JCK: Why do you like this diamond cut?
Gavin: The exceptional degree of optical precision required to produce a pattern of hearts and arrows that is consistent in size, shape, and spacing, combined with a zero for light performance as designated by AGSL, provides the highest volume of light return and a virtual balance of brilliance and dispersion with broad spectrum sparkle. The majority of ideal-cut diamonds simply can’t compare. 

Thursday, 19 February 2015

Most Recommended Marketing Tools By Pro Bloggers

This is the Part 1 of the "Recommended Marketing Tools" series - where successful bloggers share the marketing tools they couldn't live without. Co-authored by James Richman.
Most successful bloggers are not only great storytellers. They know the best and most effective tools of the trade too.
In collaboration with James Richman of 1stWebDesigner, we've asked some of the most influential bloggers as to what are their 3 most recommended tools for content creation and promotion. We asked them what are the tools they couldn't live without and here's what they recommend.
Winning tools for this round are: Buffer, MailChimp and Google Analytics. Be sure to check out new tools and share with us in the comments what we've missed!
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2015-02-06-KristiHinesExpertFreelanceWriter.jpgKristi Hines

Kristi is author of Blogging for Business: A How-To Guide and one of the most trustedfreelance bloggers in the online space.
Her blog Kikolani covers blog marketing and blogging tips for personal, professional, and business bloggers.
Tools Kristi Can't Live Without
I am a marketing tool addict. I love seeking out new tools that can simplify specific areas of my business. While I was only asked to share three tools that I couldn't live without in my business, I couldn't help but sharing five that I use on a daily basis.
One of the biggest challenges of being a soloprenuer is finding the time to manage my clients and my business. I use a lot of different platforms for advertising, email marketing, invoicing, publishing, SEO, social media, and web analytics.
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Cyfe is an all-in-one dashboard software that allows me to see data from most of the platforms I use in one place. It saves me a LOT of time - without it, I would have to go to Facebook Insights, FreshBooks, Google Analytics, MailChimp, Moz, and several other websites to see my business data on a daily basis.
Competitive research can be a great teacher when it comes to marketing strategies. I use Rival IQ to keep up with other freelancers in my space to analyze their website, search, and social media strategy. I also use it to help my clients identify areas in their online marketing that could use some improvement based on what their competitors are doing.
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My favorite feature is the ability to quickly compare multiple business's website titles, Twitter bios, Facebook descriptions, and other social taglines and get alerted when competitors make changes to any of these. It's a great way to make sure your business is offering what your customers want.
As a freelance writer, one of the things I do for my clients is promote the content I create. This helps them accomplish their content marketing goals, including traffic generation, social engagement, and conversions. Oktopost allows me to promote content to all of my social channels in one platform and get social engagement and click through analytics.
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My favorite feature is the ability to not only post to my social profiles, but also to Facebook and LinkedIn groups. Thanks to the analytics Oktopost provides, I can see which groups offer the most engagement for my content and keep up with comments that need replies within each group.

2015-02-07-DannyBrown.jpg"Danny Brown

While Danny blogs about marketing and social media and where we're heading, he also blogs about what it means to us as humans.
How we can tell better stories; be better businesses; and live better lives. After all, business comes and goes; but we only get one shot at being good people, in life and in business. He's the co-author of Influence Marketing: How to Create, Manage, and Measure Brand Influencers in Social Media Marketing.
3 Tools Danny Can't Live Without
It's the only social media dashboard worth using if you're serious about keeping tabs on engagement levels, topics that are important to you, and a mobile experience that replicates the desktop one perfectly.
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It's not as cheap as Hootsuite, but the features are more than worth the investment(besides, Hootsuite gets pretty expensive if you want the kind of reporting that comes with your Sprout Social license).
It's just perfection. Everyone is busy, and not always around when it comes to growing awareness of you or your brand.
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Buffer makes it simple to schedule content delivery, and at a time when it makes sense for your audience. Their analytics are useful for seeing what type of content works, and they just make the web a better place. :)
This is a WordPress plugin that makes it easy to create email lists, forms, newsletters, and more.
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Their features are excellent, they complement the most popular email services, support is awesome, and the metrics really help you understand how effective (or not) your email list is. Excellent, and the one I recommend every time.

Jacob Cass

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Jacob Cass is a strategic, multi-disciplinary designer & Art Director who has worked with clients such as Disney, Jerry Seinfeld, Red Bull, Nike & VitaminWater.
Although his skill set is vast, his major skill sets lie in the world of art direction, visual design, brand identity design, brand strategy, UX, UI design, interactive design (mobile + web design) and print design.
3 Tools Jacob Can't Live Without
Buffer
It allows me to find great content to share, across multiple platforms, as well as give key insights to each post.
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Follow Up Then
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Allows me to follow up with people I email.
DropBox
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Allows me to easily share files while having peace of mind.

Kevan Lee

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Kevan is a professional writer with a knack for storytelling and is a Content Crafter at Buffer.
He specializes in blogging, email marketing, and content creation and writes for Buffer, Lifehacker, Time, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, The Huffington Post, The Next Web.
3 Tools Kevan Can't Live Without
Quite simply, this saves me the most time in online marketing, every single day. I can schedule to every social media channel I've got, all in one chunk, then spend time the rest of the day to work deeply on other tasks, knowing my social media is well taken care of.
Incredibly, I can create some pretty snazzy imagery at Canva - and I have zero design experience! It's intuitive, straightforward, and easy to learn. I create at least an image a day at the site.
I can send automatic emails every time a new blogpost publishes and greet new subscribers with a custom, happy message. Mailchimp handles it all, from start to finish.

Jason Swenk

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Jason is a digital-preneur and author with 12+ years running a successful digital agency until he sold it in 2011.
He started his digital career with Arthur Andersen in the 90s. After realizing the vast opportunity in digital marketing, he quickly started his digital agency in 1999.
Since then, Jason has worked with some of the biggest clients in the World from Aflac, Lotus Cars, Hitachi, AT&T, Coke and Legal Zoom.
3 Tools Jason Can't Live Without
Infusionsoft is a great platform to organize contacts and automate marketing efforts to help you save time and increase sales in the process.
TinyPNG uses smart lossy compression techniques to reduce the file size of your PNG files. By selectively decreasing the number of colors in the image, fewer bytes are required to store the data. The effect is nearly invisible but it makes a very large difference in file size!
tinypng.org
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Leadpages is a dynamic software company that creates simple and beautiful software and web apps that allow businesses to grow large and devoted audiences. Their goal is to create insanely useful (and technologically sound) tools that work almost instantly, make life easier, and eventually change our industry.

2015-02-07-4.pngLewis Howes

Lewis Howes is a bestselling author, entrepreneur who has built several multi-million dollar online businesses, and former professional Arena League football player. He hosts The School of Greatness, a talk show distributed as a podcast.
3 Tools Lewis Can't Live Without
Aweber
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It allows me to promote my webinars via email marketing.
LewisHowes (WordPress)
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My WordPress blog allows me to post useful content to generate more leads for my business

2015-02-07-5.pngMaria Elena Duron

Maria Elena specializes in creating community, connection and commerce working with high performing entrepreneurs, executives and businesses on how to manage their personal brand, the conglomeration of personal brands in their company and their business brand.
3 Tools Maria Can't Live Without
Twitter
As founder and moderator of #brandchat, Twitter has been the most useful and effective community building, connection and relationship building tool. It's also a great tool to keep up-to-speed with what's important in my industry and to our connections.
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A whole fleet of marketing tools (campaigns, newsletter, event marketing, email marketing, social campaigns, autoresponders and easy social sharing tools) that help the small business owner build their list. The quality of your list determines the quality of your business.
LeadPages
Provides the instant "lead page" creation to be able to quickly segment your list building. Again, your list is key to the success of your business.
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2015-02-07-6.pngBrian Honigman

Brian Honigman is a marketing consultant, freelance writer and professional speaker. He works with both startups and brands improving their content marketing, social media and search engine optimization efforts.
He's spoken at NYU, UNICEF, Huffington Post Live, the American Advertising Federation and for other organizations and conferences.
He is also a contributing writer to Entrepreneur, Huffington Post, Forbes, the Next Web, Wall Street Journal and others.
3 Tools Brian Can't Live Without
Buffer
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Saves me time every day and allows me to quickly schedule social content for the weeks ahead while keeping in mind the unique nuances of each social channel I'm active on.
Allows me to quickly create a weekly newsletter that's beautiful, simple and engaging. It's a free way to build a healthy list of subscribers.
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Helps act as a mini-CRM to help me better manage the contacts in my greater network. Love using it on the go on mobile to help me better manage relationships with others when I have extra time.
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Neal Rodriguez

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Neal helps mid-sized businesses and enterprise level organizations meet and exceed the objectives for which their websites were developed.
He has a 10 year track record in generating exposure and revenue for companies from the search engines - SEO - major social media platforms, and everywhere else on the web.
4 Tools Neal Can't Live Without
I'm not the typical marketer who solely uses tools developed specifically for marketing activities. As a content marketer, I help clients and myself develop content that has the best chance of securing viral exposure.
I use several tools for this, such as Google Trends, the Reddit Top section, and just recently I've found BuzzSumo to be key in finding content that has enjoyed viral or at least the most exposure among a given topic. From there I aim to tie it to a brand's vertical and develop content ideas. I could also get ideas from random things that are occurring in my life at the moment.
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I also use some tools that are developed for marketing purposes. Such as Google's Keyword Planner and Majestic. These are mostly SEO plays; they tell me how popular keywords are and the quantity and quality of links that are pointing to a website I may want get a link from.

Jeremy Goldman

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Jeremy Goldman has been working with companies looking to take their operations online and inject "social" into their processes for over a decade and the author of Going Social: Excite Customers, Generate Buzz, and Energize Your Brand with the Power of Social Media.
Under Jeremy's leadership, Kiehl's won the 2009 WebAward for Outstanding Achievement in Web Development, achieved a Top 25 ranking in the L2 Digital IQ Index in the Beauty & Skincare category, and received a Top 50 Facebook IQ ranking amongst all luxury brands.
3 Tools Jeremy Can't Live Without
Buffer
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Such an easy to use interface that lets me send content to multiple social platforms at once. Plus, as someone always on the go, the ability to easily schedule content for the perfect time is a must.
Evernote
As a digital marketer, this is an no-brainer. Evernote lets me quickly and easily store random ideas for blog posts that pop into my head, wherever I am. If I find an article that inspires me, I can email that to Evernote, or use their easy Chrome extension to clip content. It's the second brain I never knew I needed.
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The most underrated platform out there for managing and parsing your Twitter following, SocialBro lets me surface interesting and unexpected relationships, create dynamic Twitter lists, target my content at the perfect time, and so much more.

Francisco Rosales

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Francisco works with small and mid-size business on creating and implementing successful online strategies through social media, advertising, content and email marketing.
He is also author of the online courses "Likeable to Profitable" and "Email Marketing [not so] 101." As well as he offers training and consulting and blogs at SocialMouths, an award-winning social media blog.
3 Tools Francisco Can't Live Without
Mailchimp
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Basically because I use email marketing as a lead generation tool, and there is nothing online that can compare to the effectiveness of email to drive conversions. Mailchimp simply because I consider it the best ESP in the market by far.
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Just because Facebook practically killed organic reach doesn't mean the platform no longer works to generate leads and drive business. The opportunities Power Editor offers to tap into different kinds of audiences of highly targeted prospects is not available anywhere else.
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I use Insightly as my CRM. Many of us focus too much on marketing and then drop the ball on sales. This gives me visibility of the opportunities and the relationships being established at the business level.
We hope these recommended tools by some of the influential bloggers help you better craft your content as well. Writing great articles is just half the battle. You need the most efficient tools as well to aid in your promotion and getting your content discovered by more and more people.