Tag Archives: Blogging

What is Facebook Live? 6 Tips on How to Use It

While Facebook Live has been available for a while for elite users, the tool finally made its way to the average user. Facebook is beginning to push for users to take advantage of this great tool, even altering the Facebook News Feed algorithm so Live Videos rank higher. As a result, the tool is growing in popularity in the marketing world and is becoming a new resources social media marketers need to take advantage of. Using Facebook Live is relatively simple, but there are a few tricks of the trade to ensure the live videos meet a marketer’s goals.

What is Facebook Live?

Facebook Live allows users to share live video from their mobile devices. The option is included in the iOS app so there’s nothing you need to download. Individuals create a Facebook Live video from their personal account, and marketers can create this video and then share it to their organization’s page.

Mark Zuckerburg’s goal for Facebook Live is for the tool to offer “a way for people to have a more authentic and intimate experience sharing about their lives.”

This goal, of course, fits right into a marketer’s efforts to humanize their organization and foster relationships with their audience. Marketers can use Facebook Live in a variety of ways: sharing a daily/weekly message, hosting a question and answer session with someone, sharing breaking industry or company news, sharing industry secrets, walking audiences through the steps of a how-to, product or service demo, providing a behind the scenes glimpse, the list goes on and on!

7 Tips on How to Use Facebook Live

Part of the beauty of Facebook Live is the opportunity for spontaneity by organizations-but that doesn’t mean marketers should abandon any planning or strategy! Marketers can be intentional about how they create videos to ensure they gain the most marketing bang for the buck when they create scripted or spontaneous videos. The tips below will help you be as effective as possible when creating Facebook Live videos, and follow the timeline of before the live video, during the live video, and after the live video.

Identify the focus and purpose of the video. You don’t need to write a script word for word, but as with any social media marketing effort you do need a clear understanding of why you are doing it. Ensuring your video has a clear and concise focus prevents it from becoming a convoluted rambling video that will bore audiences. Articulating the purpose of the video helps shape the direction of the video, and provides a foundation for measuring whether the goal of the video was met.
Inform followers of an upcoming live video. Make sure your followers know you are planning on streaming and what time they can expect the video with a simple post (“live streaming our fundraising event in an hour”). To kill two birds with one stone, you can later tweak that informative post to make it the description of the video when you create it. You can even have views subscribe to know when you are going live.
Pursue variety in the video itself and among the videos you create. In each video, vary your voice and use front and back cameras to change up the scenery to keep your audiences engaged. Utilize a variety of topics and structures when you create videos. Just like you wouldn’t follow the same Facebook post structure each day, don’t fall into a predictable video pattern either.
Interact with followers. During the live streaming, viewers can send in comments. When relevant, acknowledge individual users and answer their questions or respond to their comments. Give them a personal shout out! This is a great, simple way to really strengthen that relationship and show your organization’s devotion to its consumers.
Include a call to action. Always. Always. Always. In your marketing you want your customer to DO something. Give them a task. Give them somewhere to go. Every social media effort needs a call to action, and live videos are no different. A call to action can be as simple as encouraging people to visit a website, sign up for your newsletter, or send them to your lead page. But use a call to action to keep the relationship going.
Edit the video. After the video is published, go back and make sure the thumbnail, category, and call to action clearly represent the video’s focus. Always be thinking of your brand. Does this video match what you want to represent?
Play around with various broadcast lengths and times. Just as you should be with post creation, vary up the length of video and the time you stream to see when your audience is most responsive.

Make sure you go Live often and be creative. Have fun with it and enjoy getting to know your fans!

Facebook Live offers many different uses for marketers to reach their audience in an engaging and personable way. If you know you want to take advantage of this great tool, but aren’t sure how to get started or want guidance, Alpine Small Business Solutions is here for you! We’d love to help guide you through Facebook Live video (or any other aspect of business building). Just shoot us an email or call us on up!

Why Do You Need a Virtual Administrative Assistant? 10 Answers

QUESTIONS

1. Do you sometimes feel like you want to clone yourself to keep up with all the mundane and repetitive tasks that you need to do to keep your business going?

2. Are you so bogged down in the everyday duties of running your company that you can’t find time to do the real production that you are responsible for?

3. What if you could have someone help you with those pesky administrative duties? Things like answering the phone, responding to emails, online research, setting up meetings and events, and taking care of your social media?

ANSWER

The answer is an affordable virtual assistant. These skilled, efficient, independent men and women are hard workers who are able to handle everything electronically for you through phone, fax, and computer.

1. Have your office phone forwarded to ring directly to a real person who can respond quickly to any customer orders or questions. No more missed calls or mangled messages on your voice mail.

2. Send documents via email for your virtual assistant to fax or mail to clients and customers.

3. Ask your virtual assistant to find you the best source and pricing for equipment or products that you need. He or she can research online and then call to find out details, giving you a report about the best options.

4. Skype with your personal administrative assistant and show your ideas for a PowerPoint presentation that they can create for your next workshop. Give a visual representation to ideas that you want the assistant to pursue for you.

5. Engage with an efficient copywriter assistant, who will write press releases and update your social media sites on a regular basis. Once you know what a virtual assistant can do for you, all your Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Website accounts will have a dedicated person who can monitor them and give you reports.

6. Assistants can research lodging, hotels, restaurants, and activities for your business use and for a much-deserved vacation. (With all the time and money that you save by using an affordable virtual administrative assistant, you’ll be able to take that vacation and getaway to somewhere nice, knowing that the office is in good hands!)

7. Give your virtual assistant access to your email and let him or her respond on your behalf, post calendar appointments, send reminders, and offer updates. Consider setting up an auto responder series, written and managed by an assistant.

8. Virtual assistants can implement and manage your organic SEO campaigns, blogs, and articles. With minimal direction from you, this important ongoing aspect of your business can be taken care of.

9. For your next webinar, teleseminar, or workshop, have an expert virtual assistant set up, manage, and coordinate all aspects of the program.

10. Delegate almost anything to an affordable online business manager and/or virtual assistant. For more ideas, visit Alpine Small Business Solutions at https://www.alpinesbsolutions.com/virtual-assistant/.

BONUS ANSWER

Best of all, most virtual assistants are independent contractors and you save hiring and job costs associated with salaried or hourly employees.

That’s 10 great reasons (with a bonus) to hire a virtual administrative assistant! What are you waiting for?

How Long Should A Blog Be?

In this big world of content management, social media and blogging, it is easy to get lost in all the details that are available. The beauty of the web is that it is never constant and is an ever changing environment. That means if you are a business or entrepreneur you need to be sure that you have flowing and updated information on your own website. This ensures optimal Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ranking on such sites as Goggle, Bing and Yahoo. One way to ensure that you have fresh content on your websites is to be consistent in blog writing.

What is a blog, you might ask, well a blog is essentially a journal or diary that is on your website. It is a place you share information pertaining to you and/or your business. A blog can provide up-to-date news, technical information, political topics, business support, health, wellness, sports and other topics that burn passion in your heart. One of the most common question asked by businesses and new writers wanting to join the online social blogging community is, “How long should a blog be?”

Many professional bloggers have a different answer for this. The best way to put it is that there is no right or wrong answer! Some may say a blog should be 250-500 words while others say 500-750 words and there are even those who swear by 700-1,000 words! Then you have those that will not give a number and just say however short or long you need the blog to be in order to get your message across!

It’s actually quite natural to have blogs with different lengths. A blog post should be as long as you need it to be to make your point across to your reader. You want to keep your audience engaged. Your topic will determine the length of your blog. If you are blogging about where the best place is to buy eggs vs. who should one vote for, the length can vary greatly! You will also want to reflect on your blog once finished. Is it too wordy or is it too concise? If you don’t feel good about it you should change it!

You would not want to write 750 words on where to buy eggs. This will bore your reader and you will lose their interest! However, if you want to write that much when it comes to the heart of politics, especially if it is something you are passionate about, go for it! If you feel that a blog is getting too long and is becoming a book I strongly suggest breaking it down and creating a series of blogs. This will help with your SEO and will keep readers coming back for more.

There are advantages in both short and long blogs. Short blogs take a shorter amount of time to write so if you want to write everyday then a shorter blog would be the way to go. If you expect 800 words or more every day, you may lose interest in blogging soon after starting. However, as easy as short blogs are they will not implement On-Page SEO techniques, which are ultimately, what attracts attention to your page. While lengthier blogs do take longer to write, readers who appreciate the content will value the information and will draw attention to your site. Readers also enjoy images within blogs which allows them to connect more with the topic being blogged about.

Many bloggers like to change it up and have a short blog and later that week they may have a longer blog. I personally think a variety of blogging is good. You don’t want to be predictable. Readers often enjoy reading short blogs more often because their attention span does not stay on the subject, therefore when writing both short and long, you give the reader reason to check back frequently and even subscribe to your blogs. Keep your readers coming back for the variety you may offer them. As long as your keyword density is intact and you are getting your point across you should be set.

The more the blog is to the point, the easier it is for the reader to extract the information you are relaying. Readers tend to scan not read long blogs, keep the content compelling and strong. The first paragraph of any blog should grab the readers’ attention so they want to keep going. You could create a series of blogs to make your blog grow quicker. By doing this your readers will be looking forward to reading about what you have to say next. Don’t be afraid to use the thesaurus to find new vocabulary and be ready for the replies you may receive. Keep your own interests in mind; do you like long or shorter blogs? Remember to keep an optimistic mind and you will be a successful blogger! Most of all…Happy Blogging!!!!

What is Blog Bookmarking & the 20 Sites You Should Be Posting Your Blog to…for Free

In most cases the whole reason you have gotten into blogging is to share information about your dog, your business, your mandolin picking progression, your health and weight loss or the experiences that have shaped and shifted your life. You have also likely learned that blogging will help you gain visibility and traffic to your website and is a necessary step in increasing your SEO. That is all well and fine, but how are you going to achieve the traffic and visibility to your content. Unless you are a SEO ninja or have a super sweet SEO team backing you, you likely have to take things into your own hands and learn the ropes. The question most people want to know is HOW?

The answer is easy! Harness the power of Social Media & Social Bookmarking. With a few strokes of the keys and clicks of the mouse YOU, my friend, can make some serious magic happen! Within minutes of submitting your blog to various social media outlets, social bookmarking and directory sites you are instantaneously and automatically connected to thousands of other like minded folks all over the world. Which means that traffic and visibility to your blog and website is happening all the time even when you are sleeping, showering or shaving! How flipping cool is that, right?

If you want to brush up and learn more about social bookmarking check out the wiki page.

There are hundreds of social media and social bookmarking sites out there. Some fail, some suck, but the bottom line is that there are way too many for me to list here. I have been doing this for a long time and with endless hours of trial and error, I have finally come up with a dream list of 20 Social sites that you SHOULD be posting all your blogs to. The best part is they are all FREE to submit to.

If you have a site that you post to and love and don’t see it in my list below, feel free to hook me up with the details. Post in the comment string below or send me an email. I would love to check it out.

Don’t have time? Does all this info makes you dizzy? No problem, we got ya covered. Contact us, today and let Alpine Small Business Solutions take care of all your social media and social blog bookmarking for you.

Public Service Announcement: Hey you, sit up straight, shoulders back, your posture is important.

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