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Online marketing has become increasingly important in the world of business. Search engine optimization, as it was originally understood in the earlier days of the internet, focused on websites with high levels of authority linking to your own website in order to build your own authority in turn. 
However, as the Internet continues to develop and search algorithms become much more advanced, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that these traditional approaches are no longer as effective as they once were.

Instead, a new standard is taking place, where a link to your own site is much less important than it used to be. Now, the building of an online reputation is becoming much more focused on a mention of a particular brand – something that is positioned to reflect the more mobile-friendly nature of the Internet as more people do their Web browsing on tablets and smart phones. In the emerging world of online brand mentions, it requires a completely different approach to build the authority of a brand. Here are six highly effective tactics to improving your own company’s online brand mentions.
Recommended:  

• The Do's & Don'ts for Building a Successful Brand  
• Are You Making These Annoying Branding Mistakes?

Increase Your Presence on Social Media

The number one location for brand mentions has quickly become social media. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and others are the home of nearly limitless digital interactions, with individuals discussing, referencing, and commenting on your brand name. Increasing the exposure of your own brand name will increase the chances of individuals mentioning your brand in their posts on these individual platforms.

New developments in this realm, such as Twitter and Google forging partnerships, are a testament to how much social activity and brand mentions are becoming inextricably linked. A strong social media presence will encourage additional mentions, and this will soon reward you with increased traffic as a result of these increased partnerships. Additional social media platforms are likely to follow in these footsteps; while not necessarily to the same extent or with the same partners, social media platforms such as Facebook – already a powerful force to be reckoned with – have already begun to implement new features that reward original content over simple third-party links.
Also read: Guide to Building an Online Brand for You and Your Business

Building your own Personal Brand.

Businesses are not created in a vacuum. They’re the results of hard, often tireless work of business owners, their workers and, to a lesser extent, loyal fans and customers. The most important role you can play as a founder of a company is to have a strong personal brand that can then be associated with the brand of your business in turn.

Increasing your individual authority – whether as a marketer, an entrepreneur, or simply as a person – acts as a tool to base the growth of your company brand around this activity. The reach of your brand will increase significantly if you “name drop” the brand in settings such as offline mentions, guest blogs you write for other outfits, and your own personal blog as well. Meanwhile, growing your personal brand can also be done by mentioning it in the context of your business brand – one feeds into the other, which in turn provides opportunities to feed it back to the original in the future. This means that time spent growing one brand will benefit the other and vice versa.

Spend Time Outside the Internet

While it might not be as directly influential as blogging when it comes to the building of your business brand, many experts still recommend spending time outside the Internet. One of the best ways to accomplish this brand building offline would be personal appearances at conferences. Attendees at these conferences will often provide additional information about them on digital platforms, either through their own personal or business blogs or through social media mentions on Twitter or Facebook. The results are that your brand mentions have the potential to increase from several sources all at once, making it an efficient use of your time and energy.

Additionally, speaking at offline events not only holds the capacity to build your business brand but your own personal brand as well. As detailed above, this has a cumulative positive effect on both personal and business mentions that can reinforce your efforts elsewhere.
Recommended:

• 10 Keys to a Successful Digital Marketing Strategy  
• The 10 Most Common Online Marketing Mistakes

Guest Blogging

One of the more direct ways to foster your personal brand is by guest blogging. While some take a dim view to guest blogging, as it can often be interpreted as a rather less than savory way of link building, this doesn’t change the fact that savvy content marketing experts can leverage these opportunities to build personal and business brand mentions in yet another area.

In all honesty, the link is relatively irrelevant when it comes to making money. Besides, links can be omitted by editors or blog owners or simply not followed by any visitors to the site. Instead, the true benefits of guest blogging include building brand recognition by providing valuable information while helping others and also meeting needs. In the end, it’s going to be just one more place where your brand is mentioned – and that’s one more feather in your cap when it comes to building authority in the new social media Internet.
(Start guest blogging with us)

Forum Interaction

It may seem like the Internet forum is more of an old-Internet way to market your business, but the truth is that the popularity of the forum has yet to wane. The marketing potential behind forum-style platforms such as Reddit is undeniable, and other forum hybrid services like LinkedIn can provide large amounts of potential when it comes to marketing. 
Essentially, these forums are one of the most straightforward and effective ways to improve the number of brand mentions for either your personal or business brand. In addition, it’s not just you working on your business’ online brand mentions but anyone else who discusses them in the forum threads you create or comment on.

It’s this discussion that can truly breathe life into a brand when it comes to its online mentions and recognition. Once those search engine web crawlers notice entire conversation threads and begin to tally up just how many times your personal or business brand ends up getting mentioned, these search engines will begin to sort your business higher than it had in the past.

Provide New and Unique Content Constantly

The fundamental shift in the SEO landscape away from black hat techniques known as “link building” has most certainly necessitated the adoption of brand mentions as the newest litmus test for building authority behind your website. Now, with web browsers being able to detect link building for the spam that it is, it has become more important than ever to provide unique content legitimately.

While link building rose and fell rapidly, the idea of content creation emerged, phoenix-like, from its ashes to become one of the most valuable techniques when it comes to legitimate marketing. In the subsequent months and years, many search engine algorithm updates have come to reflect this by weighing content as increasingly important. In fact, it’s no longer an amorphous future destination when it comes to providing content instead of just static link building. It’s already proven effective in making it obvious that your business is an authoritative and trustworthy source.

Don’t be left behind when it comes to adapting to the newest and most effective techniques for building the authority of your business and its online presence. Emergent trends such as brand mentions should most certainly be adopted as soon as possible; while brand mentions are still not considered a mainstream technique today, that’s changing quite rapidly.

To achieve a successful marketing strategy should mix the traditional approach to new technologies. Every day, Internet takes more ground in consumer preferences, so should be considered.

The advent of the Internet with all its possibilities to develop e-business and e-commerce has necessitated a completely different from the traditional marketing approach. However, the basis of success of any good advertising strategy is to combine the tools of both formulas.

Internet marketing has opened incredible means to develop its objectives and has provided a variety of tools and alternatives that can mostly be free, or low cost use. Because of this, they are accessible to all and are very useful in enhancing strategies of SMEs.
Also read: 10 Keys to a Successful Digital Marketing Strategy

Currently, all entrepreneurs begin to become aware of the need to engage in the digital world, because who remain outside it, is lost on many new niches that begin to migrate to new technologies.

As this trend is very important for the future of your company, here we will give a series of tips to make your foray into the digital marketing:

1. Purchase a domain. If you want to give a serious image to your visitors, register a domain name for your business and hires a professional hosting. Stay away from free pages and lengthy addresses that offer such services, this will only scare away potential buyers. Need help? how to buy domain name or from where? Here is all you need to know about buying a domain name.
Read: Top 10 Tips on Choosing the Best Domain Name

2. Caring for your image on the Internet. It offers exclusive web design your visitors, make an attractive slogan for your products, choose a domain name equally appealing and make your business look different from the others.

3. Show your alliances. It is important that the page shows strategic alliances with other sites, with their products or services, complements the web. Thus avoiding competition with other products that are offered and gives added value to users who visit it.

4. Exchange banners. To publicize the site without spending money, the Internet offers many possibilities. You can start exchanging banners with other websites and a reach to a wider exchange of inserting banners of other companies public is achieved. On the Internet, there are many specialized pages in these practices, as bannerexchange.com.

5. A product return policy. Give your buyers the assurance that, if they are not happy with the product purchased, the money will be refunded without buts or questions. Having assured that you are not "risking" to buy something that may not like it, it helps to decide to buy.
Also read: 11 Common Content Marketing Mistakes and How to Fix Them

6. Discounts on sales. A good idea can be to offer discounts for buying more products, or if the purchase exceeds a certain amount, giving the customer a voucher worth X for the next purchase you make in your online store.

7. Promotions for a limited time. This can help the undecided to decide and to reduce the number of people leaving for another time buying what you like about your online store.

As everything is becoming more digital, businesses are looking to online marketing to increase their business’ reach. However, online marketing is not an easy task, especially when you’re running your own business, managing employees, your sales, and everything else all at once. Whether you’re new to marketing or a new business owner, starting your online marketing path can be confusing.

When you’re new to online marketing, it can be easy to make mistakes and error that affect your business. Choosing the wrong strategies and implementing them incorrectly can damage your business.

Also read: How to Stop Being Novice Online Marketing

To prevent mistakes and succeed, the neatest thing someone can do is to master the ropes of the business.

Here is a list of common mistakes that beginners are making. Are you making any of these?

Spending Too Much Money Too Soon

Spending a lot of money right away is not always necessary when starting a profitable business. It might be exciting to see the power and potential online marketing has for a business, thus tempting you to spend a lot of money in the start.
However, it’s important to realize that the success of your marketing campaigns and business does not increase when your marketing budget increases. There is no correlation between the two.

The best attitude would be to learn about your strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities in the market. Stay informed and knowledgeable about the industry trends and marketing tactics of your competitors through research and analysis.

It’s best to be prepared first before committing to marketing strategies that will not produce results.

Also read: Top 10 Display Advertising Mistakes You Should Avoid

Ignoring SEO

Many small business owners are in a great position to power SEO, but countless push this course to a corner burner. In fact, many businesses believe that SEO require lots of money and can only be accomplished by big enterprise companies.

That’s a misconception that should be broken because even the smallest of business can rank on search engines. A high standing on Google, Yahoo, or Bing can bring traffic to your site, which in turn, can generate leads for your business.

SEO can definitely be managed by yourself. However, as an entrepreneur, it can be a relatively difficult task to monitor and analyze your performance. Therefore, it’s best to allow professional SEO experts and agencies to help.

From the title, the title tag, and even the description of your links, the content of your website can be optimized for search rankings to crawl.

Not Obtaining Local search

For the past few years, Google has gotten hyper-personal. When location aware is enabled for search engines, the results that are made in SERPs are tailored towards your location.

Thus, companies with Google My Business are able to cater towards to users searching for their relevant terms in their servicing areas. This allows businesses to capture leads and customers that will come directly to the storefront.

If you’re an online business without a physical store, it’s important to create pages or content on your website that allow Google to know that you’re servicing specific areas. This way, customers are able to know that they can contact your business if they need a specific product or service you’re offering.

Misusing Satisfied Customers

Another great feature of Google My Business is its ability to show reviews and your business’ rating.

Many businesses have loyal customers and satisfied customers that have purchased or experienced their products and services. These happy customers are a great opportunity to promote your business online.

Try following-up or contacting many of your pleased customers with a link to leave a review on your Google page a few days after their purchase via email.

These reviews and testimonials are also powerful equipment. Satisfied customers are eager to share his or her excitement about your business, so be sure you capture their positive experience.

Not Focusing on Quality Content

Over and over again, marketers talk about the importance of content marketing and having content on your website.

Although businesses are creating content, they are neglecting to focus on creating quality that is relevant, powerful, and can generate traffic to their website.

Many business owners and new marketers tend to focus on quantity, rather than quality. They create numerous blogs and write lots of content, but fail to write articles that can attract customers.

It’s important to note that content marketing does not generate conversions right away like PPC. Even so, a great piece of content can generate leads, inbound links, improve search engine rankings, engage readers, and improve conversion rates for your business.

Ignoring Comments

Comments on your posts, products, services, and content are feedback from your clients. These comments are extremely important because it allows for you to engage with your customers.

Sometimes, these comments are questions to concerns that users are having. You can use this as an opportunity to prove your business as an expert by replying and educating them.

Whether the comment is a simple “Great Post” or in-depth response, it’s important for you to answer them and acknowledge their comments. Take advantage of these opportunities to build a strong relationship with your customers.

Neglecting Social Media

Many business owners and new marketers fail to realize the importance of social media. Many believe that social media is a place for friends and people to connect, but why can’t businesses connect with them over Facebook or Twitter too?

Big brands like Coca-Cola and Sony have proven the power of social media through their brand popularity and engagement on social media platforms. In fact, these types of success can be replicated with small businesses too. In a world of billions of people, there is no doubt that there is someone searching for a service related to your business. The ability of Facebook Business Pages and Twitter profiles allow you to connect with them like friends.

These two social media platforms have targeting options that help you to reach your Facebook advertisements to the customers you’re looking to target. The different call to actions allows you to attract users to call you, visit your website, or simply just build engagement on your social page.

Poor Allocation of Budget

Sometimes, you’re just not familiar with where to allocate all your budgets. When you’re first beginning your online marketing efforts, this is a common mistake that everyone can make.

Different businesses have different needs for their marketing efforts. Their target audience, their conversion goal, and overall marketing goal can differ. The PPC and SEO budget for Business A will be different for Business B. Even when businesses are in the same industry, their targeting efforts can be different.

Therefore, it’s important to test which marketing strategy is working best for your own business. If you’re generating more results on PPC, then allocate more budget towards PPC. If most of your conversions are generated through Facebook, then it may be a better idea to push more Facebook Advertisements instead.

Too Much Self-Promotion

Of course, everyone likes to talk about themselves and showcase their advantages and benefits. However, not all customers want to hear and read everything about your business.

In fact, customers are more engaged when you focus on their needs and wants instead. Because like I stated earlier, people like to talk about themselves. So,  why not create content that answers what the customers want to know.

Instead of stating how amazing your business is, talk about how you can generate results for them. How can your business be beneficial for the customer? What can you do to help them with their problems? Why should they trust you?

Also read: Boost Your Online Business with a Good Website

Lack of Knowledge

Finally, the lack of knowledge. It’s crucial for business owners that run their own marketing and new marketers to be informed about new trends in the market.

When Internet marketing moves so fast, we must stay informed with any new algorithm changes and updates on search engines and strategies.

When you’re not familiar with new changes, you may be jeopardizing your business’ performance. Therefore, stay informed with internet marketing news and trends by reading forums to ensure that your strategies are up to date. You can check out a great list of digital marketing resources here.

These are the some of the common errors that is made by the beginners in the internet marketing. Taking these things into consideration will make you to do a good campaign for your business and internet marketing clients. Knowing the clear tricks to be successful is very important in becoming successful in online business.

How to Stop Being novice Internet Marketing: The Beginner's Guide to Online Marketing. Internet marketing is evolving rapidly. You can Get a degree in online marketing. This also creates difficulties to live up to online professionals. I was lucky to meet only a small part of online marketing because I like to learn new things. If not continuous learning, my knowledge today, no longer serves me for tomorrow.




Online marketing is a complex world. I admit that sometimes I can hardly keep up in my fields with all the new developments that are on the market. I do not even want to imagine the impact of information this market must have a person who starts with these issues. Although it is not easy to be a day worth having an average or advanced level in this field. You will see that you go on the more getting into, it will mean less effort. To keep up, you need a strong foundation with the Beginners Guide to Online Marketing.

Related: 20 Internet Marketing Strategies for Small Business Owner

Why is it important training in online marketing?

No one doubts that the "traditional" marketing will not disappear with the possibilities offered online. It's good to have training in both fields to take advantage of both worlds seen that a separation does not make sense. All our actions have an impact on the "offline" have an echo in the "online".

1. Demand for staff: in times of crisis the Internet sector is the only one that continued to grow in 2011. There remains demand for skilled personnel and experience of Internet marketing. 
2. Sales Channel: If you are an entrepreneur or you work in a marketing department of the online channel can help in the growth of your company. To this we must have a knowledge of the different tools and know which are suitable for the business itself. 
3. Evolution continues, even if they are already part of the market is important to know the latest trends and developments. Nothing else needs to take a look at the map of social media marketing is only part of digital marketing to understand that it is a complex world.
   

Top 5 ways to train in online marketing topics

Life is a continuous learning. Although online marketing is no longer the future, it is still like science fiction to many beginners. So you do not constantly feel like a movie Star Wars is time to get some batteries.

1. "Learning by doing": I have learned so. Start slowly and play with the different tools offered by the online marketing knowledge will generate automatically. Having a blog example introduces you to the world of analytics, online monetization, social networks, etc. (If you wants to make money from Internet Marketing you can Read this article on Infolinks with Blog and Money.)

2. Read industry blogs: I had doubts if added to this list of online marketing books also make sense. Finally I have not done that are always a bit behind what you can read in blogs. Since we can subscribe to this blog to stay abreast of topics of online marketing ...;) Take a look at this on: The Absolute Beginner’s Guide To Starting A Small Business.

3. Make placements: In my life I have done many unpaid internship as a student. I learned a lot and would do it again. If a scholarship is good it does not have anything to do with exploitation. It is quite the opposite. Much time is spent to form a person. Trust me!

4. Participate in events: there are many events on online marketing. Not all are worth seen that the added value is in the quality of the speakers. If you are interested in the world of blogs and entrepreneurs in Seville EBE you may merit a trip.

5. Take training courses: Nothing comes to you if you do not invest (time, money, effort, etc.) anything not get anywhere. A master online marketing can be a good investment in your professional future.

It does not matter how you do it. What matters it is to conduct continuous training in online marketing because things evolve too fast to stand still. 
Some takes Internet marketing as passion, I started as too, and then converted it to profit and start making money from my skills using internet marketing. 

I belief everyone has some special exceptional skill which no one else has. But most of us can't find our inner good effective skills to make it out to take our professional life ahead.

What are your tips for training in marketing on the Internet?

Online marketing, which is also called internet marketing or online advertising, is any tool, strategy or method of getting the company name out to the public. The advertisements can take many different forms and some strategies focus on subtle messages rather than clear-cut advertisements. 

One of the main internet marketing strategies that can help online retailers build a successful Internet business is search engine optimization (SEO), the process of tailoring your website to the algorithms that search engines use to rank websites based on “signals” that the site emits.
Related: 50 Simple Definition Every Young Entrepreneur Should Know

There are many things to consider when crafting a successful internet marketing strategies, but there are Twenty key decisions that over the years I have seen help hundreds of small business owners grow their sales and create sanity in their internet marketing strategies.

Internet Marketing strategies For Small Businesses With Limited Budgets

Define Your Brand

Build A Simple & Effective Website

The website is the central component of any business’ digital marketing strategy; it’s how your current and potential customers can most easily find and connect with you. Given its key role, it’s astonishing that more than half of small businesses owners (52%) said their business does not have a website, according to the Yodle survey.
Related: How to Create Self-Hosted Personal Blog in less than 20 min
 
Make your website a priority this year. Whether you’re just building your website now or looking to improve the one you have, keep these key things in mind moving forward:

• Make Contact Information Visible & Consistent: Incorporate your business’ contact information (phone number, address, email address, etc.) throughout your site, not just in your About Us or Contact Me section. Ensure that your contact information is consistent with what you have included on online business listing websites.
• Design An Appealing, Easy-To-Use Interface: Invest in a contemporary website with a visually appealing color scheme and straightforward navigation. It will not only make your website more attractive and seamless to navigate, but will also reflect on the professionalism of your business. Be careful about using features such as Flash which may negatively impact your site’s search ranking potential and which don’t load on some smartphones.
• Use Defining & Searchable Keywords On The Front & Backend: In drafting content for your website, be sure to incorporate keywords that consumers will most likely use when searching for your products and services. Ensure that your web designer incorporates these keywords into anchor text in page URL links and adds keyword-specific titles, descriptions and tags to videos posted on your website.
• Keep Current By Regularly Updating Content: In order to stay relevant to those visiting your site (including search engine crawlers) be sure to update your website content on a consistent basis. Develop an editorial calendar to update your site in conjunction with big promotions and sales, events, and other notable activities, or when you introduce new products or services.
• Monitor Website Analytics: Pay close attention to where your website visitors are coming from, how they’re finding you, and what they’re doing while on your website, so you can consistently update and improve their experiences through tweaks to your site’s navigation and content.

Publish Great Content

I don’t think I even need to say this, but it’d be neglectful not to mention the importance of kick-ass content. If you can create it yourself, all the better (isn’t free always better?). Even if writing isn’t your strong point, you shouldn’t have too much trouble getting someone on your team to crank out some articles for your blog.

Create Instructional Videos

Video content is really valuable to internet marketing strategies, and while it can cost big bucks to get professional YouTube videos produced, there’s nothing wrong with giving it a shot yourself or hiring a film student off Craigslist. Wistia offers a great video tutorial showing you how to shoot expert-looking footage on your regular old iPhone!

Post to Pinterest and Instagram

If you are selling a highly visual product or service, say you are in the bridal or food business, you should be regularly posting images on Pinterest and/or Instagram. Posting is free and both platforms have large followings (read: how to get followers), particularly among women. Pinterest is the ideal social media to add in list to your internet marketing strategies, if your products or website is mainly female based.
Related: 6 Pinterest Board Tactics To Increase Blog Traffic

"You can drive major traffic to your website via Pinterest, and no platform uses hashtags to build audiences like Instagram," says Eric Elkins, CEO and chief strategist at WideFoc.us, a real time social media company.

What is Your Unique Benefit?

Your unique benefit should highlight the one (or two) main things your product or service actually delivers (benefits) that your target customer really wants, not a long list of all the things your product does (features).
At Infusion-soft, we know our customers don’t just want our software: They want to grow sales and save time. We don’t describe everything our software does or the hundreds of benefits, we keep our focus on those three key benefits in everything we do. And the simpler we describe it, the better our marketing works.

Who is Your Competition?

When someone is looking to buy a solution to a problem, they will quickly make sense of the alternatives to compare against – your competition. However, most entrepreneurs haven’t specifically defined who their real competition is and don’t focus their messages to create clear differentiation for their buyers. This frustrates the buying decision process and makes your digital marketing efforts weaker.
 Related: A Beginner’s Guide to CPA: CPA Marketing

You need to be clear in your own mind about what your biggest competition is in digital marketing. If you are a tax accountant, is your competition really the other tax accountants in town? Other CPAs or financial planners?  DIY tax software? Doing taxes manually? National tax accounting chains? Each competitor type would create different comparisons, so you need to narrow it down to one or two main competitor types.

Never Stop Growing Your Network

In internet marketing strategies "if you stop, you will die". Expand your network of contacts and potential clients. Ask your best, most powerful, most influential friends or business associates to introduce you to the five people they think you should meet to expand your business. Take each of the contacts out for coffee and get to know them. Discuss your plans and future goals, tell them about why your business is special and ask for their advice. You will be amazed at how these new contacts will pay off ten-fold with recommendations to you for new business and innovative ideas you hadn’t thought of.

Internet Marketing on Twitter Giveaways

This might sound silly in internet marketing strategies plan, But give away your product or promotional item on Twitter will work better. Ask a question about a product on your website or blog. The first person to answer wins. When you send the item write, “Retweet upon receipt,” to be entered in a second contest.

Google AdWords On The Cheap

Run market research on the cheap by using Google Adwords to target an audience. Make the landing page a question survey. A snappy question to attract people, along with Google’s Geo-targeting can provide great results, for next to nothing. You might interested to read: Top 15 Reasons Your Business Should Use AdWords for your Internet Marketing Strategies.
Related: 5 Mistakes You should avoid When Setting Up Ad

Explore Bing Ads for internet marketing

With Bing Ads, you can create ads to reach the right audience and meet your business goals. Currently BingAds has lower competition than google, so you can eaily work with them. They has lots of features life geo targeting, age, device etc. Recently BingAds added 20+ new features to make your internet marketing strategies easy. Here are Top 8 Reasons to add Bing Advertising to your Internet marketing Bucket list.

StumbleUpon Advertising for Internet Marketing

If you want to try some paid advertising but you’re not looking to break the bank, StumleUpon’s Paid Search Discovery could be for you. Paid Discovery delivers users straight to your site, ready to engage. What works best on Stumble Upon? Photography, visual assets, and humorous content.
Stumble Upon is pretty cheap compared to other paid ad structures. You start with a base price of 10 cents per click, then add +2 cents for age targeting, gender targeting and device targeting. You can see the whole price list for detailed info.  Whichever way you spin it, Stumble Upon’s paid offering is leagues cheaper than most other social media ads; Facebook ads, for example, can cost as much as 80 cents per click.
Also Read: How to get traffic from StumbleUpon?: A Secret Guide

To really benefit from StumbleUpon, use targeting options to make sure you’re hitting the right audiences and niches.

Add Online Reviews to internet marketing strategies list

Let your fans review your business, then incorporate their reviews in your blog post — good or bad, unless of course it’s obscene, not-safe-for-work bad. Online reviews are a critical component of your business’ reputation and can do wonders for converting new customers. Services like RateItAll.com/Promote allow you to submit anything for review – whether it’s a local business, a blog, a website, a product, or a brand. Other popular review sites include Yelp (local businesses), TripAdvisor (travel related items), and Viewpoints (products).

Inspire Customers To Call You

Do something really different. Send a monthly postcard instead of a hard copy newsletter. Self-printed cost is $0.46 ea. including the stamp. Make it fun and colorful with a strong “Call to Action” title, like: “100 reasons to call us. List 10-to-20 reasons, including your skills, talents, and tasks. Give customers a coupon for a discount, or a free doughnut, or something fun to inspire them to call.

Digital Marketing with LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a major social media site that is often under-utilized. Don’t just add network connections and sign out – join groups, enter into dialogue with connections, and share your blog posts. There’s a ton happening on LinkedIn, and it can be a great place to promote your content, share ideas, and build your brand.

Apply Online for Business Awards

Most industries have business awards you can win, providing you with an online badge you can place on your website. Badges like these can boost credibility, and as a result, increase sales. If there aren’t any awards for your industry, host your own! You’ll get a ton of attention from other industry businesses who want to apply for your award, which means even more connections and more possible future collaborations!

Email Marketing as Digital Marketing

Email marketing is a great way to get new visitors engaged with your business, as well as maintain relationships with your existing customers.
Get new website visitors to sign up for your newsletter by offering a bonus content piece for subscribing (e.g. get your free ebook detailing how to make a homemade pizza when you sign up for our First Slice newsletter). Slowly nurture your subscribers via email until they are ready to become paying customers. Start your email campaigns with a free email marketing service like MailChimp.
Related: How to turn your blog post into an ebook

Be smart about SEO

Still don’t have a clue about search engine optimization or how it relates to your blog or website? SEO is critical for having massive success is online marketing – and can’t be ignored or overlooked anymore. Develop a comprehensive SEO strategy about how to improve your search engine rankings for your best keywords and let’s get to work.
Related: 34 Search Engine Optimization Techniques

Get endorsed by a local celebrity

Its true; your internet marketing strategies should start from the local market. Many business owners dream of having their product or service endorsed by a global celebrity. But instead of trying to get a superstar to support your business, try seeking out a local celebrity instead.
Who exactly are local celebrities? These are people your local paper is writing about -- perhaps an "unsung hero" such as a teacher or a resident who's doing something positive and newsworthy. Since they're in your neighborhood, these people should be relatively easy to locate and contact by phone or e-mail. Let them know you'd like to send them a gift, namely your product or service.

Improve your irresistible free offer

Perhaps it’s time to replace that outdated “free report” or “eBook” with an even higher value freebie to offer site visitors. As I referred to in my post about the best freebie out there – my favorite is still the Audio CD – which has huge intrinsic value because it’s a physical “thing” and you can capture mailing addresses in addition to just email addresses.

Creating a clear online marketing strategy is not what companies do after they get big, it’s what small companies do to grow and get bigger in the first place.

100 Must-Know Social Media Acronyms

Navigating your way through social media isn’t easy. The web has a complex dictionary full of its own acronyms, figures of speech, and memes.

This is a comprehensive list of what I think are the 100 most important acronyms on social media. The list is divided into two parts: marketing/business-related terms and conversational acronyms. Please don’t bust me on the exact number, it’s an approximate living list.

Marketing and Business Terms

When buyers and sellers communicate over the web, they share a unique language of technical terms and abbreviations. The average Twitter user may not come in contact with these acronyms on a daily basis, but if you’re involved in any type of online commerce, then these are 50 terms you’ll need to know:

FB – Facebook
IG – Instagram
G+ – Google Plus
LI – Linkedin
U2BE – YouTube
B2B – Business to Business
Sales that occur from one business to another

B2C – Business to Consumer
Sales from a business that go straight to the consumer

GA – Google Analytics
Online tools that allow you to view critical online information like page views, inbound links, etc.

DM – Direct Message
Sometimes referred to as Private Messages (or PM’s); these are simply non-public messages sent directly to your profile from another user

ISP – Internet Service Provider
The largest ISP’s in the US are: Comcast, AT&T, TimeWarner Cable, Charter, and Verizon

P2P – Person to Person
Often refers to financial transaction from one person to another using mobile apps or online banking

PPC – Pay Per Click
A web advertising model; how much you owe a publisher each time your advertisement is click by a visitor to their site

CPC – Cost Per Click
Another way to refer to PPC (Pay Per Click)

PV – Pageviews
A numerical value for how many times a single web page (HTML) is loaded on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis

RT – Retweet
When someone wants to repost or forward another person’s tweet on Twitter

SERP – Search Engine Results Page
After typing in a search query into Google, the list of sites that the search engine spits out is called the SERP (typically refers to Page 1 unless otherwise noted)

SEO – Search Engine Optimization
The process of building your site’s web recognition by making it easier for consumers to find your business at the top of search engines

SMB – Small and Medium Businesses
A generic term that refers to the thousands of companies that operate on a relatively small scale with fewer than 100 employees

SMO – Social Media Optimization
Building your business with Google+, Twitter, or Facebook and using the medium to communicate with customers

TOS – Terms of Service
The long, small-print that you have to read (or simply scroll through) in order to sign up for a web service.

UV – Unique Visitor
Quantifies how many hundreds, thousands, or even millions of individual people are clicking on your profile or website

UX – User Experience
When the average visitor lands on your site, what do they think? Is the site easy to operate and visually appealing?

EOD – End of Day
Example: I’ll get my social media plan to you by EOD.

MIME – Multi-Purpose Internet Mail Extension
Documents, photos, audio files, or programs that are sent in an email message

TLD – Top Level Domains
The end of a website’s URL; could refer to .com, .net, .org, .edu, .gov, or dozens of country-specific codes like .ca (Canada)

VK – VKontakte
Russia’s largest social networking site. Also popular throughout Europe

CTR – Clickthrough Rate
The average number of clicks that an advertisement receives per 100 impressions (or views)

PRT – Partial Retweet
To purposely omit part of a tweet in order to still meet the 140 character limit

NIC – Network Interface Card
A hardware circuit inside your computer that allows it to connect to a network

F2F – Face to Face
Refers to real-life meetings or encounters that occur outside the web

ROI – Return on Investment
The percentage that is gained (or lost) after capital is invested in a web marketing campaign. Was there an increase in sales that outweighed the cost of the investment?

RSS – Really Simple Syndication
XML-based software that compiles headlines, newsfeeds, and other short blurbs from across the internet into a syndicated stream of content

SMM – Social Media Marketing
Using Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and other social media sites to promote your business

UGC – User Generated Content
Sites that use submissions and posts from unpaid users to fill content needs

UI – User Interface
How a site’s HTML code is transferred into usability for a visitor

CMS – Content Management System
Online tools or application that allow you to edit, post, review, and publish things directly to your site

OEM – Original Equipment Manufacturer
Mostly refers to industrial or mechanical manufacturers that sell products to a reseller

API – Application Programming Interface
Programming instructions or guidelines that are released by software companies so that developers can produce other services

KPI – Key Performance Indicator
Financial and non-financial metrics that are used to assess business growth (can refer to conversion rates, customer loyalty, etc.)

MT – Modified Tweet
The purposeful modification of a tweet to either change its meaning or fit the 140 character limit. Always precedes with “MT” so that readers know it is not the original tweet

CPA – Cost Per Acquisition
How long and how expensive it is to gain new customers based on how much money is spent on marketing campaigns and how many customers buy your product or service

MTD – Month to Date
YOY – Year over Year
Social media marketers may compare a given month with the same month the previous year

QoQ – Quarter over Quarter
SaaS – Software as a Service
Applications or programs that are hosted by a single source on the internet so that you don’t have to deal with software management on your own computer

404 – Page Not Found Error
Defunct on nonoperational sites – unable to reach the server (Example: the site seemed to be running fine the other day, but now it’s 404)

DDoS – Distributed Denial of Service
Online hacking attacks that send overwhelming amounts of traffic to a site at a single time, temporarily shutting it down

Conversational Acronyms

With a 140-character limit on Twitter, people need to be creative to cram as much information into each Tweet. From the classic TTYL to the ubiquitous OMG, these are the 50 terms to you need to know to REALLY understand the language of social media:

AMA – Ask Me Anything
The featuring of an expert or popular individual on a social media site for the purpose of answering questions from the community.

IIRC – If I Recall Correctly
@Kevin9883 Tom Brady threw 2 interceptions in his last game IIRC

IMO – In My Opinion
Well IMO, that restaurant is nothing more than overpriced garbage

ITT – In This Thread
ITT about global warming: lots of people who have no idea what they’re talking about

ICYMI – In Case You Missed It
Pinterest board: ICYMI here are the best outfits from the Academy Awards 2015

TL;DR – Too Long, Didn’t Read
TL;DR got in a fender bender, ambulance shows up, hospital visit, lengthy court battle, lots of money from settlement, margaritas on the beach

SMH – Shaking My Head
@fellowclassmate can’t believe you’ve been late to every class this semester smh
FOMO – Fear of Missing Out
JaneKop32 tweeted: Major FOMO tonight cuz I can’t celebrate @HeatherChap01’s birthday downtown. Happy Birthday gurl

FTFY – Fixed That For You
@sportstats21 the team actually holds the SECOND worst record in the league FTFY

IRL – In Real Life
@carreviewsnet the new Model T looks great in commercials, but doesn’t drive nearly as well IRL

ICYWW – In Case You Were Wondering
ICYWW at 11pm tonight there will be meteor shower visible in the northern hemisphere!

AFAIK – As Far As I Know
AFAIK, @astronmerdude14 has no idea what he’s talking about. It’s not supposed to happen until next week!

IDC – I Don’t Care
@gangstarapper_OG tweeted: yeah but IDC what all the haters say, still gonna make my music

IDK – I Don’t Know
IDK the best way to cook a steak, but microwaving it probably isn’t the best idea

TBH – To Be Honest
Everyone says that Lebron is the best in the game, but TBH he’s not looking great this season

RN – Right Now
@currentnews1 RN Mayor de Blasio is addressing an audience outside city hall

CX – Correction
CX – the conference will be held the 21st of April, not the 12th

SO (or S/O) – Shout Out
@WalterWhite tweeted: Gotta make a S/O to my boy @JessiePinkman. Been with me since day one!

#TBT – Throwback Thursday
@nostalgichighschoolfriend tweeted: look at this picture of how thin I used to be 15 years ago #TBT

#FF – Follow Friday
Instagram Post: it’s #FBF so make sure you follow me back if I like your photos :)

WBU – What About You?
I’ve been alright recently, just got a lot of work these days. WBU?

#L4L – Like For Like
Instagram Post: omg look at all these awesome photos of the Annual Chili Cheese Dog festival #L4L

#F4F – Follow For Follow
@bentoto10 tweeted: I want to be your friend, so follow me and I’ll follow back #F4F

JJ – Just Joking
Can’t believe you got so upset by my comment earlier… You should know that I was JJ

LMK – Let Me Know
Facebook post: looking to give away my collection of CD’s. LMK if you want over 300 new albums!

OBO – Or Best Offer
Often used on Craigslist as: Selling a 1974 Chevy Camaro. New leather interior, 152,000 miles, and a new transmission. Looking for $12,500 OBO

BTW – By the Way
Hey @stacymacy55, I ran by your apt today but u weren’t there. BTW I think ur dog chewed up a pillow in your room! #featherseverywhere

DAE – Does Anyone Else?
@fastfoodfanatic tweeted: DAE feel a little lightheaded and bloated after eating 3 big macs and downing a large coke?

ELI5 – Explain Like I’m 5
Often seen as a Reddit post: ELI5 – how and why have gas prices dropped so dramatically recently?

FBO – Facebook Official
My relationship with @badrelationshipbarry is finally FBO! Now the whole world knows deeply in love we are.

FTW – For The Win
Doritos FTW! Because everyone likes Doritos.

ORLY – Oh Really?
@RandomJeff44 tweeted: ORLY @weatherguys? You said it was gonna rain today. Yeah right!

_OTD – Of the Day
Examples: Quote of the Day (QOTD), Message of the Day (MOTD), Recipe of the Day (ROTD)

WYCM – Will You Call Me?
LinkedIn post: Hey Sam, I tried calling you earlier about our meeting next week, but you didn’t answer. WYCM please asap!

QQ – Crying
@HarryPotter03 tweeted: QQ because my favorite professor Dumbledore just died. So sad.

TIL – Today I Learned…
Reddit Post: TIL I learned that there are more than 1000 internet abbreviations that are slowly destroying proper grammar and pronunciation

RLRT – Real Life Retweet
Definition: when someone tweets a phrase or sentence from a real life conversation (i.e. @randomdiner tweeted: RLRT “a 76 on our health inspection isn’t great, but it still gets the job done” – our waiter tonight at dinner haha)

FWIW – For What It’s Worth
He may be a terrible actor, but FWIW Nicolas Cage is still making more money than me and everyone else I know.

MRW – My Reaction When…
@Embarassedgirl02 tweeted: this video perfectly shows MRW I’m supposed to do any kind of public speaking

DYK – Did you Know?
On a popular forum or post: DYK that over 70% of citizens over age 18 are in favor of the legislation?

TMB – Tweet Me Back
@famous_celeb I know you get hundreds of tweets every day, but I’m your biggest fan so please TMB

Q4U – Question for You
Facebook Post: Hey quick Q4U – just noticed those awesome pictures from your hike last week. Where did you go?

NVM – Never mind
NVM the message I sent you last week. We’re going to change the due date to next month anyways.

WYD – What (Are) You Doing?
Google+ Post: I noticed you haven’t been publishing as much content over the past month. WYD these days?

HMU – Hit Me Up
@baddogowner tweeted: Hey everyone, my dog just ran out the front door and is now sprinting through the neighborhood. HMU if you see him!

OOTW – Outfit of the Week
Definition: a popular Instagram trend where fashion gurus pose with their favorite new outfits (sometimes changed to Outfit of the Day)

ISO – In Search Of
Definition: mostly used on dating boards and websites (i.e. Male, 34 years old, computer technician ISO a blonde, adventurous woman)

LTR – Long Term Relationship
@relationship_advice tweeted: if you’re in an LTR and need new date ideas, try a trip to the local farmer’s market and then cooking dinner. How romantic!

BRB – Be Right Back
Gotta step away from the chat room real quick to use the bathroom, BRB.

GTG – Got to Go
I know we’ve spent the last hour chatting about vacation plans for next summer, but I GTG right now. See ya!

LOL – Laugh Out Loud
Definition: the classic, most famous acronym of all. Often used as a substitute for “haha” or “that’s funny.” Can sometimes be changed to “lulz” or “LOLZ”

OP – Original Poste