Leading Effects Of The Internet

Although the internet has only been widely used for a couple of decades, it's hard to imagine life without it. We use Google, Facebook, and countless other websites on a daily basis to look up information, connect with people, and find entertainment. But what are the effects of the internet and online communities on society, business, and other areas of life? Because the internet is so pervasive in our society today it's easy to overlook some of its effects. Here are some of the ways the online world has transformed the way we live. (more…)

Ep 011: 10 Growth Hacking Strategies For Small Businesses With Small Budgets

by Brad Friedman | The Digital Slice

Ep 011: 10 Growth Hacking Strategies For Small Businesses With Small Budgets

by Brad Friedman

10 Growth-Hacking Strategies For Small Businesses With Small Budgets

The Digital Slice Podcast is brought to you by The Friedman Group, LLC

Jon Ferrara’s a technology entrepreneur and noted speaker about Social Sales and Marketing. He pioneered relationship management as a co-founder of GoldMine Software, one of the early innovations in CRM and marketing automation. Now, Jon's the CEO of Nimble.

Establish yourself as a thought leader or trusted adviser in your industry
Tools to use for identifying content and influencers as well as for sharing content
How quick it is to read and share content, both personal and professional daily, as an individual or company and as a team
The five E’s of social selling: educate, enchant, engage, embrace, and empower your customers
How to use a CRM to keep track of your network when it begins to expand considerably
The advantages of using a contact management over CRM
How to use Nimble as a contact manager that will connect your contact, email, calendar, and social
Use social listening and social CRM like Nimble to discover common interests and contact data
Using segmentation as an eighth strategy
Use group messages
Nurture your segmented list with email sequences

Quotes From this Episode:
“Relationships are critical to your personal and business success.” - Jon Ferrara
“Your personal brand helps people to see you.” - Jon Ferrara
“I think we connect on the 5 F’s of life: family, friends, food, fun, and fellowship.” - Jon Ferrara
“If you listen to people, they’ll tell you exactly what you need to know to find a way to add value.” - Jon Ferrara
“When you’re connecting with somebody, what you need to engage effectively is context and insight.” - Jon Ferrara
“Just by sharing the content of others, you actually begin to surface as a thought leader yourself.” - Jon Ferrara
“If you’re a business owner today, don’t forget that you can’t just share content on your corporate identity, you need to share content on your personal identity, and ideally on your team members’ identity.” - Jon Ferrara
“Whatever tool you choose, should have at its heart, contact management and social, work with all the tools that you use and work in the places wherever you’re engaged in.” - Jon Ferrara
“Contact management is about you, and engagement, and relationships.” - Jon Ferrara
“It’s easier to sell to somebody you’ve already sold to and get referrals from them than it is to go find somebody new.” - Jon Ferrara

Resources:

Jon Ferrara
Twitter: @Jon_Ferrara
Facebook: jon.ferrara
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonvferrara/
Website: https://www.nimble.com

BuzzSumo
http://buzzsumo.com

Buffer
https://buffer.com

Hootsuite
https://hootsuite.com

Zest
https://zest.is

Nimble
https://www.nimble.com

Brad Friedman

Twitter:

@BradFriedman

@FriedmanGrp

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thefriedmangroup

LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bfriedman/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-friedman-group-llc

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/friedmansocialmedia

Website: https://friedmansocialmedia.com

Books
“Brad Friedman on Digital Marketing,” by Brad Friedman
“The Small Business Owner's Guide To Inbound Marketing,” by Brad Friedman

Be sure to sign up for the Brad Bot at TheBradBot.com To get reminders when I go live on Facebook and to receive freebies and other content from The Friedman Group, LLC.

[PODCAST] Take Your Blog To The Next Level With Mike Allton

by Brad Friedman | Digital Marketing

In the midst of the social media revolution, can blogging still be an effective way to reach your target market? It was in 1997 when blogs were first coined as “weblog.” The term was created by Jorn Barger when he made his first blog, the Robot Wisdom. (more…)

Ep 010: Take Your Blog To The Next Level – Tips And Tricks For Bloggers

by Brad Friedman | The Digital Slice

Ep 010: Take Your Blog To The Next Level – Tips And Tricks For Bloggers

by Brad Friedman

Take Your Blog To The Next Level - Tips And Tricks For Bloggers

The Digital Slice Podcast is brought to you by The Friedman Group, LLC

Should you be blogging at this point in your business? Content marketing has always been on top of the list of any organization’s or brand’s marketing strategies, and for a good reason. In particular, blogging as a form of content marketing has helped many companies achieve success in measurable ways.

For one, it can help you establish thought leadership in the industry. It can also drive traffic to your website and increase the likelihood of conversions. But, how can you maximize the benefits of blogging so it can continually help you with sales and marketing?

In this episode of BRADS.LIVE, we discover many ways to generate content, make use of tools, and genuinely help people with your blog content while growing your company.

Mike Alton is a speaker, award-winning blogger, author, and brand evangelist. His blog, The Social Media Hat is a content marketing haven and resource complete with ebooks, guides, and free articles for small businesses. Mike teaches businesses strategies, tactics, and tools for success through content marketing together with SEO, social media, and mobile apps. He is also an Agorapulse brand evangelist, strengthening its relationship with agencies, influencers, social media educators and brands.

In this Episode:

How Mike has been blogging for 10 years and how he started The Social Media Hat
The direct relationship between the amount of content created and speed of online success
How helpful content brings in traffic, leads, and sales conversions
The results of a HupSpot study on how effective content creation is for numerous companies
How blogs generate organic traffic
How to overcome the challenges of creating enough posts for your blog
How blog posts should ideally come from your own experience or opinion instead of being heavily researched
How to use Evernote to track your ideas for blog topics
Making use of your audience’s frequently asked questions and questions they’re supposed to be asking as blog post ideas
How to use videos or video interviews as the basis for your content
How content creation is more cost-effective and inbound marketing-oriented
The advantages of content publishing vs. Cold-calling
How to develop the blogger’s mindset
How sharing about personal interests can make you relatable and focusing on only one interest for branding purposes
The real essence of newsjacking and leveraging the news cycle bell curve
Considerations on what you can write about in relation to interest and layering
How to gauge which content is relevant for your audience using tools
How blogging should be very conversational like you are speaking to your audience directly
How to create authentic content that’s more your own than outsourced
How to do SEO by linking, interlinking, and creating long-form content
How to use Agorapulse to custom-promote your content

Quotes From this Episode:
“The more that you’re able to publish, generally speaking, the faster you’ll get to whatever those goals are.” - Mike Alton
“After about 50 pieces of content, the number of visits and the number of leads began to rise exponentially.” - Mike Alton
“Blog posts do not have to be heavily researched.” - Mike Alton
“The other hurdle that a lot of people have that they may or may not admit is that they hate to write.” - Mike Alton
“Once you’ve pushed it out, that content keeps working for you, day and night without you ever having to pick up the phone.” - Mike Alton
“But if you spend an hour creating a piece of content that really helps people, all the feedback is positive.” - Mike Alton
“That’s what happens over time once you do inbound marketing, people come to you and they’re already grateful.” - Mike Alton
“I need to talk about something personal so that people can relate to me on social media.” - Mike Alton
“When they see a particular event that has happened, you need to ask yourself, is now a good time to write about?” - Mike Alton
“If you got an idea for a particular blog post, but you’re not sure if there’s real interest there or not, take it to social and ask.” - Mike Alton
“Your blog is a real opportunity for you to share who you are.” - Mike Alton

Resources:

Mike Alton
Twitter: @mike_allton
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeallton/
Website: https://www.thesocialmediahat.com

Evernote
https://evernote.com

Newsjacking
https://www.davidmeermanscott.com/books/newsjacking/ -Online Course
Newsjacking-Inject Breaking Generate Coverage -eBook by David Meerman Scott

BuzzSumo
http://buzzsumo.com/

SEMrush
https://www.semrush.com

Agorapulse
https://www.agorapulse.com