Engagement Strategies Social Media Marketing

So we are heading into September, month nine of the year. How is your Digital Marketing Strategy working? Are you achieving the desired result you were hoping for? Absent a solid  strategy, that blends and integrates your overall marketing plan for your business, measurement doesn’t mean much. But what if you do have a plan, but have drifted off the mark, now what?

Digital Channels perform Differently by Business Vertical

The good folks over at Hub Spot recently released a report titled On Line Marketing Opportunity Report. There are some great nuggets of information that may shed some light on ways to increase your On Line Marketing yield, and fast track the Digital Highway.

You have finite resources and nearly infinite possible online marketing channels. Where should your company put its marketing dollars and effort to work? Do you wonder if it is worth the effort to start a Twitter account or a Facebook page? Are you having trouble going beyond basic search engine optimization (SEO)? It can be difficult to know if it is worth the time and money to expand the online marketing for your business and even tougher to figure out where the conversation is happening.

Where are Folks Fishing

We have bantered about Fish Where the Fish Are, but where is that really. There may be a better leverage point for your Social Media Program than your current tack. As an example, according to the Hub Spot report, if you are in the real estate business, over 50% of your program shroud be aimed at Search Engines, 30% aimed at a Blog and 20% aimed at Social Media. So, if your resource allocation is not consistent with these numbers, you may want to make a shift.

When the topic of Digital Marketing comes up, people gravitate toward facebook and twitter, and while those platforms serve well to some business verticals, they may not be the best place for your marketing resources.

Blogs and Search Engines

The good news for Real Estate folks are that Blogs and Search Engines play well together. The company blog should be the cornerstone of your digital marketing plan, and with well crafted copy, can serve as a catalyst for enhanced SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

With that, perhaps a better question is, How is your Business Blogging going? That’s what we do here at Digital Sherpa, and we can help you and your business get on the Digital Highway to greater leads, increased web traffic and an overall enhanced Digital Footprint.

If you would like to discuss how Digital Sherpa can help your business get started on a digital marketing plan, heres how you can contact us, We look forward to chatting,

You can find Eric on twitter or ebrown@nci.com

You can find Adam on twitter or ajapko@nci.com

Social Media Marketing

Build a Local and Relevant Following

One of the many questions that surface from our clients as they begin to think about launching a Social Media Strategy for their business is targeted traffic and followers. A local design studio in Kansas City isn’t interested in twitter followers and blog readers from Birmingham, Alabama. And while building a strong twitter following and blog readership isn’t a perfect science, there are many tools, coupled with a little guerrilla marketing that can greatly enhance the overall quality of your digital footprint.

Business is About the Numbers

Business success is and has always been about the numbers, or said differently, results. Growing the size of your digital footprint doesn’t happen without a plan to do so. Can you get some general organic growth, yes, but likely only a trickle without a consistent aggregation method. There are also specific phases of an integrated digital marketing life cycle. We believe that the cornerstone your social media marketing plan is your business blog. As we begin to populate your business blog with quality, relevant posts we also reach out to local folks in the digital space that may have interest in becoming contributors

Where Are They Hiding

There are an array of tools in your digital toolbox to help sharpen your hunting skills. One such tool we use is the search function in tweetdeck to ferret out local, relevant followers and blog contributors. For example, we have an apartment client in downtown Chicago, Left Bank at K Station Apartments that we have created a custom sherpa digital marketing program for. We have launched a life style blog, Left Bank Life to help them drive traffic and rental leads to their web site. We set up search categories for “West Loop”, “Fulton River District” and several other local search strings. When you Fish Where the Fish Are, you catch fish, and we have a series of Guest Bloggers lined up.

Locals Expand Your Digital Footprint

The newspapers used local news and happenings effectively. Local people and stories get talked about. Not only do local folks help you expand your reach, they also bring into the mix their own following, which quickly begins to expand. While not everyone you come across will be suitable writers, many are and they love to tell and share their story. But with that, they also begin to tell your story, as your brand gets talked about. That is how buzz gets started, people talking about your brand, which is why social media works.

Let us help tell your story

With over a thousand digital sherpa clients in several different verticals, we are helping brands and businesses share their story, and expand their digital footprint. We can get people talking, by getting people talking.

If you would like to discuss how NCI can help your business get started on a social media marketing plan, heres how you can contact us, We look forward to chatting,

You can find Eric on twitter or ebrown@nci.com

You can find Adam on twitter or ajapko@nci.com