Here are some quick facts showing the tremendous role of social media in today’s business world, as per the 2013 Social Media Marketing Industry Report:

1. A significant 86% of marketers said that social media was important to their businesses.
2. By spending as little as 6 hours per week, 64%+ of marketers see lead generation benefits with social media.
3. 75% of marketers reporting positive results in terms of traffic increase as one of the major benefits of social media.
4. A significant 89% of all businesses that have a dedicated social media platform as part of their marketing strategy reported an increase in their market exposure.
5. More than half of marketers who have used social media marketing for over 3 years reported an increase in sales over that period.

Now that we have understood the influence of social media on your target market, let’s discover the applied benefits it offers to your business.

 1.  Showcase Your Brand 

Handling a strong social media presence is an efficient way to build your company’s reputation and showcase your business. By regularly updating your prospects on all the brand and social happenings, they subconsciously start to view your company as an authority. Once you define your business objective–whether creating brand awareness, relationship building ordriving new sales–you can work in parallel on all of them.  It is just a question of how well you will manage to position your business on the major social media networks.

 2.  Develop a loyal community of prospects

In reality people simply enjoy being part of a business that is proactively building a lively community. Studies have discovered  that customers would purchase from businesses with an active Facebook fan page rather than without. An emotional connection with your prospects will vouch for your positive business reputation. Community strength is a very powerful branding force, and social media offers exactly this kind of relationship-building opportunity that is virtually limitless. From a marketing perspective, it delivers the best chances for brands to create a massive community of loyal and active customers.

3.  Increase digital exposure

If you are eager to be found among the millions of sites on the web, you sure need to work hard on enhancing your social presence. Social media leads to massive exposure due to its worldwide access, sharing capabilities, and huge amount of daily users. It delivers instant information in the digital marketplace, thus giving businesses the ability to advertise their products, going beyond distance. Statistics have proven that interacting in social media networks even 2-3 times per week can significantly increase your online presence in both the traditional and digital market space, while you are building new relationships outside the four walls of your office.

 4.  Enhance company trustworthiness

Social media channels are proactive tools when it comes to increasing your company trustworthiness. By closely communicating with your clients on a social media level, you become a trusted source of information which makes it a great asset when creating company awareness and brand credibility. Social media can be a great source of customer service, transforming negative customer’s experience into a positive outcome for your business. Always keep in mind that customer satisfaction is the key to retention and in the long run it is loyalty awarding to your brand.

5.  Expand sales

Getting speed access to consumers’ feedback is undoubtedly going to jump-start your sales results.  Prospects are more likely to become customers if you respond to their specific requirements in a prompt and personal manner. Social media helps you easily discover your customers’ preferences so that you can: focus on meeting their special needs and expectations, gain proficiency in that exact niche, excel your product list, and research your competitors. Believe it or not, this will do the trick for your business and will monetize your efforts.

6.  Boost traffic and search engine ranking

Social media channels are major generators, constantly bringing high volume of traffic to your webpage. That has brought to life the idea of integrating social media to companies’ websites as a way to convert leads into prospects. Website builders, such as Puzl, now offer an option to connect your page with social media and share your business updates with a click. The more channels you participate in, the more the traffic to be reached online. In regard to the search engine benefits, the truth is that Google likes social media. In recent years, the search giant has allowed live tweets from Twitter to appear in search results, together with personal profiles and Facebook business pages. Businesses can easily use that privilege by optimizing keywords in the title and description in a way that reflects the search queries.  Combining SEO efforts with social media will become a powerful mix to help maximize your marketing efforts.

7.  Cut marketing costs

Social media marketing is one of the most affordable ways to brand your business. In the past years it has solidly taken over traditional print marketing and advertising. Promoting your products on social media platforms will  increase your return on investment (ROI). With a strong social media strategy you can achieve business miracles in the market. Using social media lets your advertising opportunities grow exponentially, while energizing your PR efforts without a huge money and time commitment.

Social media has become an imperative for all brands looking to be a part of the digital market and create buzz around their business. Although the importance of social media in today’s business landscape is indisputable, businesses are still not making the most of its full potential. It simply takes creativity, passion, and consistency to keep your social media campaigns ruling and rolling. Regardless of the serious competition, there are millions of people waiting to be reached.

Don’t let your competitors beat you out in the socialsphere. Your next prospect could possibly come from social media. 

Thank you Velly Angelova | http://www.likeable.com/blog/2013/09/7-reasons-why-social-media-is-an-absolute-must-for-business-branding

The post 7 Reasons Why Social Media is an Absolute Must for Business Branding appeared first on Sassy Sites.

Google GOOG -1.98% the term “Is SEO dead?” and what comes back in return is over 44 million references including the aptly titled article of the same name by fellow Forbes contributor Jayson DeMers. In his article DeMers shares a conversation he had with Sam McRoberts, CEO of VUDU Marketing and a widely published expert in the SEO field.

When queried if in fact SEO  is dead, McRoberts said “SEO is far from dead” but added the caveat that “it’s changed so drastically that people really need to learn to think of it as less of a marketing tactic, and more of a branding play.”

Not sure I agree with that assessment but regardless of that and contrary to what you may have read recently, organic search engine optimization is far from dead.

In fact, many companies, including the London based SEO agency – Go Up, are making a renewed commitment to investing into developing solid, SEO optimized web infrastructure that is search-engine friendly, given the engines’ continued commitment to improving their algorithms over time.

Here’s a list of seven specific reasons why your business should definitely consider investing in your organic SEO:

1. It still works – First and foremost, the techniques employed to improve SEO still work. Even though data regarding organic traffic from Google was pulled fairly recently, the techniques themselves remain sound. Plenty of SEO case studies performed post-Hummingbird can verify this. Joshua Guerra, CEO of marketing firm BIZCOR says “As long as you are focusing on optimal user experience while performing methodic SEO strategies, you will be rewarded with higher positioning and organic traffic.”
2. It is not going to stop working any time soon – Based on the way search engines appear to be developing, it is not likely that SEO will cease to be effective any time in the foreseeable future. On some level, even audio and video searches ultimately depend on keywords the same as traditional text-based content; this link ensures the continued success of SEO techniques as long as it exists.
   1. It is cost-effective – Compared to the costs associated with other forms of online marketing such as PPC advertising, social media marketing, or purchasing leads for an email marketing program, SEO provides fairly good ROI. While PPC may drive more revenue and social media may be more important for your image, your organic SEO in many ways remains a bedrock of your online presence.
   2. Search engines grabbing more market share – Somewhere between 80-90% of customers now check online reviews prior to making a purchase, and this number is only expected to increase. It won’t be long before virtually everyone is searching for products and services online. Do you want them to be able to locate your business, or not?  Without organic SEO in place, people will have a very hard time finding you and will instead find your competitors.
   3. Rise of mobile bandwidth and local search optimization – Later this year, the amount of traffic delivered to mobile devices is expected to exceed that delivered to traditional desktop devices. With this dramatic explosion in mobile usage, a whole new world of effective SEO techniques have opened up for companies, such as local search optimization.
   4. Not having a healthy content profile is damaging – With each and every update to its search algorithm, Google and other engines change the way they look at websites. Things which didn’t exist a few years ago, such as social media indicators, are now given fairly high importance in terms of their impact on your rankings. Not building a healthy content profile spread out months and years is potentially damaging to your business, as it is one of the factors Google evaluates when looking at your site.
   5. Your competitors are doing it – “Remember, SEO is a never-ending process,” says Jason Bayless, Owner of BestSeoCompanies.com, a website which tracks and ranks the efficacy and service of many of the nation’s leading SEO providers. “If you’re not moving forward and improving your position, you’re losing ground to a competitor who is. That’s a simple fact of how the process works.”  Don’t let your competitors out maneuver you by ignoring this valuable tool for your business.

   Investing in organic SEO is more important now than ever before, despite the current difficulty everyone finds themselves facing regarding the lack of organic keyword data and traffic. Your business definitely needs to have an SEO strategy in place if you are interested in succeeding in terms of online marketing; it remains one of the single most important components of any organization’s branding efforts and online presence.

   Thank You Steve Olenski,  CONTRIBUTOR | http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolenski/2014/03/26/7-reasons-why-your-business-should-invest-in-seo/#2aadb0821337

The post 7 Reasons Why Your Business Should Invest In SEO appeared first on Sassy Sites.

A simple question, What is a website? In its bare form, a website is a single domain that consists of different web pages. We should all know that by now, but surprisingly what we don’t all know, is the benefits a website can provide for your business and its shocking to witness how many business don’t actually have a website or online presence!

If you have a business and don’t have a website, you are losing out on great opportunities for your business. A website itself can be used to accomplish many different marketing strategies to help your business grow.

As a business owner, you need to know where your consumers are. But what if consumers know your business and what you can offer, but they can’t reach you? That is one of the risks you take by not having a website for your business.

What are some other benefits of having a business website?

Cost Effective
You know exactly how much your website is going to cost you and it’s ongoings – a brick and mortar store, on the other hand, is susceptible to many out of the ordinary occurrences which could blow out the costs such as leaving the lights on, theft, damage, extra staff etc.

A strategically developed website and online presence solution provides tremendous benefits and costing outlines.

Accessible around the clock
Your website and social media accounts are accessible 24/7/365. Imagine that you want to buy from a store. You put in all the effort required to go to the store, bu
t when you get there, it’s closed. We all know how irate we feel in that situation. You’ll think twice about going back given the bad taste its left (ok might have been your fault for not checking but hey, this is proving the point here!). You will just find another store that is more easily accessible.

Since your website is operational around the clock, from the convenience of the local coffee shop, their couch or their bed, your customers and clients can easily access your website and services.

Convenient
What is more convenient: driving outside to look for different stores that are available to shop in, or sitting in the comfort of your own home and shopping for the products you’re looking for? Pretty obvious answer, unless you like aimlessly driving around. Smart businesses realise this and thus have their own website housing their products and services so that potential customers can browse online for the products they want to purchase.

Credibility
By building a website you are giving your business the opportunity to tell consumers why they should trust you and the testimonials and facts to back up those opportunities. Believe it or not, most people will search the internet for a product or service before the purchase to check the credibility first. When you provide good service or product, positive word-of-mouth about your business is likely to spread. Which in turn, delivers more repeat and new business.

People tend to trust a business after they have done business with it. Using your website, you can continuously serve consumers online and increase your credibility as a business owner.

Sales
Without sales, or selling more than you spend, your business is doomed. By having an online presence you allow for the sale of your products or services around the clock to whoever whenever with no or hardly any limitations; Unless you run out of stock or overworked, but that’s a good problem to have right! Giving your business the online presence it deserves is crucial to your brand and accountants smile.

In short, being visible worldwide means you are very likely to gain more customers. The more customers and visitors you have, the more sales you will generate. The more sales you generate the happier you and your shareholders will be!

Marketing
Having a website and online presence strategy allows you to market your business online. There are lots of marketing strategies you can use to advertise and market your business. All online marketing strategies have been proven to be effective. Which ones you choose depends on the type of business you are in.

Bottom Line
It is imperative for every business to have a website. The more professional your website is, the more advantages you can gain.

Thank you for this info: http://dogulindigital.com.au/

The post 6 Reasons Why a Website is Important for your Business appeared first on Sassy Sites.