Outsourcing Social Media Management: When and Why not to DIY

1 via Andylim | Dreamstime Stock Photos

In the long, long list of things that contribute to a successful business, social media is a crucial, but often overlooked, tool in the arsenal of small and medium business marketing skills. Having a strong social media presence, through various platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and even YouTube, is critical to building brand recognition, and having regularly updated blog and website content is essential to getting higher rankings through SEO. But business owners often find themselves floundering under the weight of these new marketing responsibilities and social media management tasks. Why not save yourself the headache, while also optimizing your online presence?

Why Outsource Social Media Management?

How hard could it be to take care of your own online presence? You update your personal Facebook status five times a day and tweet every other waking hour, right? How difficult would it be to transfer that energy into marketing your brand?

As it turns out, very. There is more to social media management for business than occasionally tweeting about a sale or posting an article about the industry on Facebook. Everything has to be optimized to get the best rankings possible to bring in clients. The necessary posting, updating, advertisement and content creation can quickly become a mountain of work that eats into the time you could be spending on more important things – like the day to day operation of your business such as taking care of your clients and customers.

2 via Meckfisto | Dreamstime Stock Photos

When Should I Consider Calling in a Professional?

There are two reasons to hire a social media management firm to handle your online marketing needs: too much work, or not enough business.

Too Much Work

You may find that keeping up with the constant updating and posting and optimization is simply too much work to add on to your everyday responsibilities. If this is the case, hiring a social media management firm would ease that burden and free up your time to get back to doing what you do best.

Not Enough Business

Likewise, if you’re struggling to convert traffic to sales or to attract clients, professional social media management could be an ideal solution. The experts who work at these firms know the ins and outs of SEO and social media marketing and can right the ship and generate more traffic, convert more visits to sales, and land you more clients, all while you take care of your business.

3  via creativecommonsstockphotos | Dreamstime Stock Photos

In 2013, 86% of marketers reported that social media was very important to the health of their business, and that is still the case today. Social media management firms may seem like a luxury in the age of DIY fever, but they are an important partner in building or growing a successful business.

Social Media Management firms, such as Little Egg Solutions, help to ease the burden on small and medium businesses. They take care of the back-breaking mound of marketing and content management tasks, as well as public relation issues like brand recognition, trust, and humanization, without breaking your budget. They do all the posting and all of the updating for you, and they have the skills to make sure your content is not only top notch quality, but optimized for SEO impact.

Contact our social media savvy specialists at Little Egg Solutions for a free consultation today and find out how we can work hard so you don’t have to.

6 Signs Your Small Business Needs Help

6 Signs Your Small Business Needs Help with Social Media

by Ryan Kh on December 20, 2016 in innovation, Latest

When you start a business, naturally you’re not going to know everything about how to operate it. Some of it, you’ll learn as you go along, and other parts of it, you’ll need to get assistance with. As most small business owners might agree, deciding to “give up the reigns” to a certain aspect of your business often means a new expense. As a means for saving money, many business owners decide to continue doing the task on their own, but in the end, it only ends up hurting the progression of business.

Take marketing for instance. Marketing is a necessary aspect of running a business. It is the method or methods in which a business gets the word out about their products or services. As you likely know, there are hundreds of ways to market your business, each bringing in their own level of returns. Most business owners jump into marketing head on, only to make so many mistakes, that they end up ruining their brand. Here’s a few signs that you may need to outsource to a social media management company:

1. You Have No Idea Where to Start

If the concept of social media management for your small business is completely foreign to you, you are probably going to want to call in the reinforcements. In order to successfully market your brand on social media, you must understand what creating a social media strategy is, what platforms you’re going to use, and how much you’re going to invest in it. If this will require a lot of trial and error or research on your end, you should probably outsource.

2. You Only Have a Few Minutes Per Day to Dedicated to it.

In order to create and implement a social media strategy properly you’re going to need to be working with several platforms several times per day. Not only will you be posting content, but you’ll need to monitor for engagements and respond accordingly to keep your audience interested. This all takes a great deal of time. So if you only have a few minutes per day to dedicate to social media, you need to have someone do the managing for you.

3. You’re Not Good with Navigating the Internet

There are some business owners who have no need for the internet – other than marketing. They have a brick and mortar location or work with their hands and have no need for online platforms. This can be an issue as knowing how to navigate the internet and online platforms is imperative to successful social media management.

4. You Don’t Use Social Media

Don’t have a social media page yourself? Or maybe you haven’t updated it in 4 years? If this is the case, your social media skills might be a bit shabby. Working with a social media management firm can ensure that the content posted to your page is relevant, current, and attractive to your followers.

5. You’re Taking Too Long to Respond to Followers

In the “digital age,” consumers expect instantaneous results. They’re looking for a quick response to their questions or concerns, and if you’re not providing a quick turnaround on their responses, it could lead to a ruined reputation or a dissatisfied follower. If it’s taking you hours or days to reply to a follower on social media, a social media management company is best for you. They can respond quickly to keep followers from becoming dissatisfied.

6. You’re Not Getting Responses on Your Content

While slow feedback and response is to be expected when first starting a social media page, if you’re not getting any feedback after a few months, this could mean that your content is not engaging enough for your followers. Bored followers will move on which of course is the opposite of what social media marketing is for. If you’ve been posting content for months with no likes, new followers, comments, or reactions, you should certain consider outsourcing.

If you’ve realized any of these signs within your social media marketing strategies, you should really sit down and consult with a social media management firm. You may find that they have affordable solutions that free up your time, improve your brand, and gets you the followers that you’re looking for.

Need Help Explaining Local Search? Use Pizza!

Many small business owners know that they need to invest in local search engine optimization (SEO), but most have no idea how it works -- So columnist Greg Gifford came up with this simple metaphor to help explain it.

We like this blog post from Search Engine Journal and wanted to share it with you. The original can be found here: http://searchengineland.com/need-help-explaining-local-search-use-pizza-227448

If you’ve read my monthly posts in the past, you know that I like to focus on tips and ideas to help those of you who practice Local SEO on a regular basis.

Yes, I know that we just had a major shakeup in local with the rollout of the new Local Stacks in Google (RIP 7-packs, we’ll miss you). And I know that everyone is posting about that update now. But honestly, the only people truly freaking out are Local Search practitioners.

The fact is, the general public has no idea what local search is. We had a client come on board a few weeks ago who told us he wanted to rank in Dallas, Detroit, New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles… but he was located in Pittsburgh.

Most people have no idea how local SEO works, and it’s up to us as local practitioners to educate our clients and potential clients.

Almost a year ago, I shared our simple back-of-the-napkin Local SEO math equation that we use to help show business owners why local SEO is so important. This time, I’m stepping even farther back and sharing the incredibly simple example we use to explain how local SEO works.

If you’re pitching a potential client, and they have zero clue about local SEO, this metaphor is simple and clearly illustrates the point.

Your Business Is Like A Pizza Delivery Company

The example is as simple as that — Just tell your potential client that in Google’s eyes, they’re very much like a pizza delivery company. The trick with educating potential clients about Local SEO is using an easy-to-understand metaphor that they can grasp quickly. You don’t want them to lose interest if you get into anything too technical.

Tell your potential client that a great metaphor is pizza delivery. Ask them to do a quick Google search for “pizza delivery” on their computer (or even on their phone). Show them how Google returns local results, based on their current location — even though they didn’t enter a city.

Then, tell them to think about doing the same search at home that night, and how Google will display a completely different set of results. If you don’t see the proverbial light bulb pop on over their head, you can even spoof the results by doing the same search again with a different city set manually in Google.

Explain to the potential client that Google knows when someone searches “pizza delivery,” they need a result that’s close by, even if they didn’t go so far as to specify where they’re located. Explain that Google knows certain searches are always conducted around businesses that users expect or need to be local. Whether we’re talking about the new Local Stack or simply organic results, Google will return local results.

Doctors, lawyers, plumbers, car dealers — They’re all included in Google’s “local” business type. This is where we’ll typically tell clients, “No matter how much you want to make Google work the way you think it should work, all we can do is work with the way it actually works for local results.”

Even with little to no computer experience, the simple pizza delivery analogy almost always gets the point across quickly. Your potential client will now understand that Local Search is different and that Google will treat their business differently when someone is searching for them.

Push The Pizza Metaphor Even Further For Better Results

While most agencies would stop here or move directly into price discussions, this is where we like to push the pizza metaphor even further.

Now that you’ve got your potential client understanding how Local works, you can extend the example to show them another reason they need your services. You can very easily demonstrate that they’ll need original, unique and useful content on their site if they want to stay competitive. Simply tell them:

“Now that you understand how Google serves up local results for your business, just like pizza delivery, think about this: Why would someone order your pizza when they can just heat up a frozen pizza or order from the cheap guy who’s closer?”

Most SMBs have cookie cutter websites. They’ll all tell you that they treat customers like family, or that they’re family-owned, or that they provide the best customer service around.

Using that same pizza example, you can show your potential client that they need to be better: They need a better website, one with better content and better customer service.

If your pizza really is more delicious, then customers will always call you for delivery. It’s that simple.

Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

Greg Gifford is the Director of Search and Social at DealerOn, a software company that provides websites and online marketing to new car dealers all over the country. Check out their awesome blog for more of Greg’s local search posts and videos.

From Search Engine Land: 10 reasons why SEO is just like fitness

Like getting in shape, ranking well in search engines takes time. Columnist Kaspar Szymanski explains the similarities to help educate clients and neophytes.

Kaspar Szymanski on October 20, 2016 at 10:12 am

(Original article found here: http://searchengineland.com/10-reasons-seo-just-like-fitness-260070)

SEO industry workers and professional fitness trainers alike can relate to the awkward moment when a client asks for guaranteed results — only to find out that there are absolutely none. That’s disappointing, but unfortunately, it’s true.

Neither discipline is free of snake oil salesmen, some of whom nurture unrealistic (or even impossible) promises. In the process, they do a disservice to themselves, their clients and the industry’s reputation.

Search engine optimization and the recreational sports industry have, at first glance, seemingly little in common. On a second, closer look, however, both industries almost mirror each other when it comes to honest expectation management:

1. For starters, in both search engine optimization and fitness training, there are no guarantees. There’s only so much a consultant or trainer can do in terms of both planning and execution. At the end of the day, the hard work of improving the site or taking the first step of a run must be done by the client.
2. In both areas, it’s all about stamina and following a long-term plan. One-off optimization initiatives have about as much potential to bear lasting results as one intense training session: zip.
3. Serious athletes and SEOs will agree: there are no short cuts that work over an extended period of time and that do not cause serious side effects. No “wonder pill” will turn a couch potato into an athlete, and no automated link-building program will make a poor website soar in organic search (or not for long). Results demand hard work.
4. Nutrition is extremely important. Not even the best planned and executed training regimen will translate into desired results if an athlete ends up supplementing it with poor nutrition. In the same way, great on-page optimization will not be enough if it’s hampered by half-hearted, low-quality link building. Links are the bloodline for a website. Like poor eating habits, the results of bad link building will negatively impact overall performance.
5. Neither SEO nor sports is a level playing field competition. In sports, the body type determines, to a high degree, how far an athlete can get. Relatively few people have a perfect mesomorphic body that requires little effort to shape up, just as relatively few websites bring a great unique sales proposition to the table — an outstanding feature, product and service that makes them instantly popular with users. Sometimes that handicap can be overcome. But ultimately, many people and websites simply don’t have what it takes to be number one.
6. Optimizing websites and training at a competitive level can be a frustrating experience, because the world has not stopped dead in its tracks, and there’s a chance that someone else (or a competing website) will still do better, despite your best efforts. This is why the next point is absolutely critical for long-term success.
7. Motivation is important. No workout should be motivated by the approval of other people, which may or may not be forthcoming. In sports, the intrinsic drive towards a more balanced lifestyle is a much more sustainable reason to maintain course. Optimization for search engines may or may not translate into desired organic search visibility. Optimizing a website for passionate users — or better yet, in order to grow a great online business — does not guarantee success with search engines, but it does help in dealing with short-term setbacks.
8. With both fitness programs and SEO, measuring progress is everything. Without metrics and trends to follow, success cannot be sustained.
9. Very much like physical exercise, search engine optimization initially requires little more than focus and few tools; a pair of decent running shoes here, Google Search Console data there. Both disciplines, however, demand more advanced equipment in order to continue progressing over time. A specialized heart rate monitor can be for an athlete what a MajesticSEO or Onpage.org are for a committed site owner or a professional SEO.
10. For search engine optimization and sports, there’s a simple rule of thumb when it comes to special deals: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true.

Like with physical exercise for the recreational athlete, long-term search engine optimization for brands is a lot about avoiding (site) health risks, maintaining focus on the right objective, and keeping course. It’s all about staying lean and fit over a prolonged period of time. Jumping on the latest trend, in either case, can often be nothing more than a distraction.

Lastly, there’s one more quality both SEO and fitness have in common: the more it becomes a habit and part of a regular routine, the better the chance that the success achieved will exceed all initial expectations.

Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

Kaspar Szymanski is a founding member of SearchBrothers.com and well-known Google Search expert specializing in recovering websites from Google penalties and helping websites improve their rankings with SEO Consulting. Before founding SearchBrothers.com, Kaspar was part of the Google Search Quality team where he was the driving force behind global web spam tackling initiatives and the public face spearheading Google webmaster outreach and communication efforts.