Category: Recent Blog Posts

So we have a combination of static foundation content and graphics, a blog conveying weekly changes, a Facebook feed that conveys daily changes, and finally a Twitter feed that presents new activity several times a day.

The challenge is, once having committed to this foundation, it requires a disciplined on-going engagement in order to be successful.  Of course, it’s much easier for us to hold ourselves accountable to our scheduled writing and posting of blogs and social media feeds. After all, it is what we do every day.  There is also constant communication and meetings to ensure we are keeping to our planned message campaigns.

It’s tough for many of our small business clients as it compels having to plan and implement theirs – something many struggle with finding the time for… and this is only the beginning.

What Does it Take to Have an Effective Website?

As I said, it starts with establishing the site foundation and committing to a routine to continually maintain it. For highly competitive online service-based businesses like HVAC, attorney’s or real estate entities, there is no choice but to adopt  this strategy to effectively compete online for that elusive first page – first position in Google.

If your business can keep to a strict posting schedule with good information that your audience benefits from, then it makes it much easier to adopt more personal and engaging techniques we’ll be talking about later to solidify your brand online and increase your search engine indexing.  For a pre-exposure of how this works take a look at this video from Whiteboard Friday.

For us, it has paid off with increasing what was already a strong organic seo indexing in the major search engines as well as generating response on a personal level from the information we have been continually offering through our own effective website presentation. Our primary purpose was to provide relevant information that we know our audience has an interest in. However, we are also thinking of ways to get a bit more personal in engaging them so that we are the company that is on the top of their mind if they need or are referring our services.

Until next time…

Now what about Facebook? There has been a drastic decline in organic reach on Facebook, but it is still a good place for potential clients to vet or review your business. How about Twitter? This is a platform that many businesses underestimate. The potential for exposure on Twitter is wonderful. Pinterest is a great place for businesses as well! Another platform many businesses miss out on by not having a presence is LinkedIn for Business. If you do not have the time to manage multiple platforms on a regular basis, and do not have the budget to hire a company to manage your Social Media strategy for you, then you will be best off choosing 2-3 major platforms and keeping them fresh, updated, and interesting.

The next step of your social media audit is to determine how up-to-date your current profiles and platforms are. Do you keep your information current?  All of your professional and contact information should be consistent, link back to the appropriate places, and be formatted similarly.  I know this may seem like common sense, but it’s a step that so many people overlook!  Accuracy, consistency, and visual appeal go a LONG way in marketing yourself.

Keep scrutinizing! Are your pages visually appealing?  Brand yourself!  Make sure to use image size best practices.  Keep your profile picture, header, and logo (if you have your own) consistent.  Think about any major company or professional figure out there.  They tend to be very visually consistent across the board.  If you’re anything like me, you might want to get creative and have different headers and profile pictures on every platform, but trust me…You should keep at least the key elements similar in order to lend to brand awareness.  You want people to know it’s YOU, the same YOU, no matter what platform they find you on.

Finally, examine your content. Have you been posting consistently? Is the content that you post useful, interesting, or entertaining? If not, it may be time to reevaluate your content creation strategy. If the content you post on social media isn’t interesting, then people have no incentive to follow you. Never forget to keep the “social” in your social media strategy!

Don’t forget to subscribe to our blog, and keep your eyes peeled for the next segment of The Steps to a New Social Media Strategy!

Showing your target audience you can stay professional and relevant can go quite a long way in building trust and brand recognition. This is not to say you need to toss aside your visual strategy to chase trends, staying current is simply updating to match social and technological growth.

In terms of keeping web design current, a grasp on the changing landscape is paramount. In the internet world web design standards change much faster. What may have been the latest and greatest in web design only two to three years ago may already be considered outdated now. It was just 2007 that the first iPhone was released starting the smartphone revolution that has created a need for mobile friendly websites.

Now, a large percentage of internet users are browsing via mobile device making a simplistic, responsive web design a necessity.  The social media push has caused a big upset as well, with the introduction of large screen-spanning graphics on almost every popular platform.

Finally, with desktop monitors and graphic technology constantly improving, websites are becoming wider and larger with more of an emphasis on high resolution design.

Aside from the technical reasons to update your look, a visual refresher can be the ticket to getting noticed in a sea of stale competitors. We tend to be overwhelmed these days by so much visual stimulation that typical advertisements or designs fall flat. Don’t be afraid to push out of your comfort zone and go a little different with your logo and web design. It’ll make for a striking presentation that will be remembered. Why be another Times New Roman logo when you can be unique?

By keeping up with how your customers are accessing information and what they like to see with their web design, you’ll have a constant advantage by offering what they need and how they need it. Ask Graphic Memory how you can take your company to the next level with a new logo or website design!

Work to Gain Followers

Remember, with a new program…It all starts at home!  The people closest to you (friends, family, etc.) will be your biggest fans –especially in the beginning.  Ask them to help you gain some momentum.  They can do this easily by liking or following your pages, engaging and commenting on posts you make, sharing your content with their own networks of friends and associates, reviewing/rating your business(if they have used your products/services), and by inviting their friends to like and follow you. Never forget that interaction begets more interaction!

Develop Consistent Posting Habits

Remain active - on 2-3 major platforms this quarter (or this year).  Solid social media strategies encompass using Facebook, Google Plus, and Twitter as all good places to start.  Other options include more audience or industry-specific platforms such as LinkedIn (which has a more professional audience) and Houzz (which is construction/contractor industry-specific).  If you do not stay active and consistent, you will see far less favorable results.

Drive interaction!  - Post frequently and consistently. Respond promptly and courteously to all interaction. Find creative ways to make people WANT to talk to you.  If people begin to see that you do not respond to messages, comments, or questions, they often will not try again.  Other people will also take notice of this, and many of them won’t even bother to try.

Manage your expectations - Your initial goal should not necessarily be to get somebody with no current need for your product or service to become your next client.  The goal, in the beginning, should be more along the lines of planting a seed. Put your business in the backs of the minds of a large audience of people.  Do this effectively, and even if they don’t need your services now, they will likely think of you (instead of your competitor) when they eventually do need what you offer.

Cultivate relationships – I’ll level with you.  Even if you’re not interested or if you think the people commenting on your posts will never turn into sales, cultivate those relationships!  There are far too many businesses that don’t bother responding or acknowledging their followers, or that give half-hearted responses that make the commentor feel insignificant.  Be almost nurturing in your response.  This will drive further interaction, and as I mentioned before, interaction begets interaction.  When more people see that there are real, living, breathing HUMANS behind your business, they will be more inclined to interact in the future.  Always remember…the more interaction you have, the more people will see what you post.

Track your performance using insights and analytics provided by those platforms, and by researching and utilizing third-party social media analytic tools.  Social media strategies are tough to gauge without this critical step. If you are performing unfavorably, I cannot stress my next point enough…Be flexible!  Always be willing to tweak your methods, timing, and content.  This being said, never forget how important being realistic in your goals and expectations is.  If you are not paying for actual ads, your new social media strategy will take time to develop.  It’s essential to be patient and avoid giving up prematurely.  Remember that social media is not traditional advertising, and your return-on-investment (ROI) cannot be measured using the same metrics that are used to measure paid advertising success.

We all know how well you rank in search engine results play a major part in how customers find you, and in turn how much business you will receive. I’ve talked extensively about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) importance, and an overview on what factors can improve your ranking. This week I’d like to go into more detail about what I consider to be the most important part of SEO… Content.

Website content in its broadest term is every piece of text or media on a website. For the purpose of this article, I will be referring to just the text portion. A fantastic design and great photos are extremely important in a well-rounded web presence, but when talking about how to effectively direct your target audience to your website it is all about the text.

Search engines can’t match search terms to a website if the text isn’t there to tell them what you’re about. However, this doesn’t mean that a boring page littered with popular search terms will skyrocket you to the top of the results. Keyword usage should always be natural to avoid sounding like a spam ad. Proper website content writing is a fine line between making sure keyword usage is strong enough to be found, yet engaging enough to be credible and shareable.

You may have heard the phrase “Content is King”. In 1996, Bill Gates wrote a piece with the same title, where he explains his vision of the future of the internet being driven by up-to-date, easily accessed information and personal involvement. Fast forward to today, and websites with plenty of fresh content such as Buzzfeed or any news source are dominating. Coupled with the immense popularity of social media sites, it’s clear to see he was correct.

Knowing this, you can see a pattern forming. Customers want to see informative engaging material that will entertain or educate. In a world where everyone and everything is on the internet, you’ve got to stand out!

Approximately 80% of website traffic is directed to your site via search engines. Studies do show  people tend to give business to results appearing at the top of the page, either paid or organic. But internet users overwhelmingly click on organic results by a margin of 94 percent to 6 percent on both on Google and Bing. This makes it very important to include basic SEO best practices when building a website. It also makes it imperative to stay abreast of algorithm changes implemented by the search engines.

Paid Search Benefits

There are times when paid search ads are more effective. Reaching the top of organic searches list takes time and work to achieve. Paid results go to the top of the page as soon as they are purchased. Paid, or "Pay Per Click" ads can be customized to reach your exact target demographic by criteria such as location, income, age, gender or industry. The cost of these ads is driven by the popularity of the keywords being searched and the frequency in which your demographic searches them. Thus, monitoring your ads and adjusting your budget is paramount.

Working With Both Venues

In most cases, success stems from a combination of both types of search results. Top ranking organic results carry with them a sense of respectability, which is  useful for service-oriented businesses.  But for companies that are product specific, paid ads can help to drive clicks to the website and potentially increase revenue. Organic search results are also evergreen; they have the potential to rank even after you have completed the work, whereas paid ads stop showing up when you stop paying.  So there is no real organic versus paid search but rather organic and paid search that you want to target. Therefore, it is strongly recommended to have both good organic and paid results in your internet marketing plan.

What is The Walk to End Alzheimer's?

The Alzheimer's Association's Walk to End Alzheimer's is the world’s largest event to raise awareness and funds for Alzheimer’s care, support and research. Held annually in more than 600 communities nationwide, this inspiring event calls on participants of all ages and abilities to reclaim the future for millions.

Almost exactly one year ago I lost my Mother to Alzheimer’s disease which naturally would impact my support for The Walk to End Alzheimer's organization. I've described it as “its own form of special hell” for all of the dynamics it presents through different stages of its progression. Unlike other forms of terminal disease, it is not necessarily physical pain for the victim through much of its course. Just like all sufferers, we just watched Mom have a continual hard time of incredibly frustrating struggles to remember things, effectively interact with others and perform everyday tasks.

Graphic Memory is a 2014 Gold Sponsor for the Walk to End Alzheimer's event to be held on Saturday, October 18, 2014 at Port Warwick in Newport News, VA. It starts at 8:30AM with a 2 mile support walk within the community starting at 10:30AM. We would be honored to see you there.

Our Personal Battle With Alzheimer's

I’m angry that she worked and sacrificed all of her life only to start suffering at a relatively early age for the disease within a couple of years of her retirement at age 60. Instead of enjoying that earned retirement, over the next 8 years, we slowly watched this strong independent woman degrade to someone totally dependent for every last function and meaningful interaction of daily living until her passing at age 70.

There are countless things about the experience I could talk about, but a couple of good overall examples of what all Alzheimer victims and their close ones go through is enough to make you want to pray every day - all day - for a cure to a disease that seems to have become an epidemic. When you are touched by this and start talking about it with others, for me it was interesting to hear that almost everyone has a relative or knows someone who is suffering from or is struggling to take care of someone with this disease.

As a long-term disease, it is especially stressful for the relatives providing care for the sufferer. My overall family struggled with a lot of complex problems this particular disease presented. For example, it was hard to determine when Mom crossed a threshold of no longer being able to safely do things she liked to do – like driving, making her own meal or clothing herself.

It was hard when we made these “take away” decisions knowing that it was just another step in her losing the essence of who she was. It was particularly hard trying to make her understand why she could no longer do them.

My sisters and I also agonized over knowing when it had gotten to the point that we couldn't effectively care for her in our homes anymore without constant attention for her health and security. There are few decisions harder for a family to face when the last thing anyone wants, especially Mom, is to be moved to an assisted living facility. In our case, we held out for as long as we could to make that decision and in hindsight feel the timing was right and it was much more to her benefit to have done so.

However, despite saying this, there will always be an undeniable guilt we will carry in the back of our minds – and I think this would be the case for most everybody. In an ideal world, we would have rather have been by her side every minute available to care for her until the end. The reality is, life’s responsibilities for any family makes it rare to be able provide the time, patience and care required 24/7 for an Alzheimer’s patient. What is really scary is there are countless families who cannot bring themselves to make this kind of decision – often with severe consequences for the well-being of everyone involved. The stories are tragic.