Social Media Zoom Factor with Pam Moore | Social Media Marketing | Branding |Business | Entrepreneur | Small Business | Digital Marketing | Content Marketing | Marketing | Influencer

Audience marketing is a requirement for business success on the social and digital web today. An audience first marketing strategy increases ROI, generates more leads, increases sales and helps brands better know their customers so they can serve them better. http://socialprofitfactor.com

Audience marketing is a requirement for business success on the social and digital web today. An audience first marketing strategy increases ROI, generates more leads, increases sales and helps brands better know their customers so they can serve them better. http://socialprofitfactor.com

Do you need a personal brand as a working professional? Here are 5 reasons why you do and why personal branding is an absolute requirement for business today. Learn more at http://themarketingnutz.com/personalbrandwebinar Do you need to worry about your personal brand as a working professional? Or is a personal brand only for those "online gurus" trying to get rich and famous? The truth is this… You have a brand regardless if you plan it or not. Your brand is made of perceptions. You can sit in a room and create, ideate, and develop your brand for the next year to 10 years. You can create fancy messages, fancy graphics and amazing social profiles that rock the online web. However, at the core of human attraction is the fact that people will either like you and your brand or they won't. They will decide within a matter of 8 seconds if they are going to stick around on your website, LinkedIn profile or Facebook page… or not. Your brand is not simply the fancy graphics, words and colors you spent hours, days and weeks to create. Your brand is what others think and say about you. It's how you make them feel. It's how special you make them know they are to you, or not. It's how you smile at them, how you respond to their comments, tweets, posts on your Facebook page… or ignore them. Your brand is made of perceptions more than it is made of your fancy lingo and graphics. So let me ask you the question again… do you need a personal brand? Do you have a personal brand? Do you need to worry about your personal brand? Find out the answer to these questions and more in the free webinar I am hosting on Thursday, September 28th at 2pm et! Register for my free webinar "Personal Branding 101: Why, What and How to Ignite the YOU FACTOR in Business"

Register for Webinar: Irresistible Content Creation & Curation: http://socialzoomfactor.com/contentwebinar1 Are you sick and tired of spinning your wheels in the content creation marketing engine feeling as if you are creating, creating, creating loads and mounds of content yet getting nowhere? ROI is not something you have seen in a long, long time? Have you ever thought that maybe you have lost your mojo? Maybe, just maybe you have been shot down one too many times? Maybe you are falling to some lazy content marketing tactics without even knowing it? Or could be you are stuck in a bit of a rut? You know what they say about "insanity." Doing the same thing over and over and over, yet expecting a different result. Could this be you? If this is you... have no fear. I am here to help you do a reality check and get a grip on your content marketing program starting right now. Take a listen to episode #234 of the Social Zoom Factor Podcast where I serve you a serious yet nice dose of TOUGH LOVE! Find out if these 8 content marketing bad habits are stopping you from achieving more success creating and leveraging content! In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 8 Bad habits that stop content marketing ROI in it's tracks How to get unstuck if you are guilty of these bad and lazy content marketing habits Why you must slow down to speed up if you want success Why you can't skip the planning and goal setting The risks of building your business on rented land such as Facebook and Instagram Why integration should be your favorite word when building your online platform Questions to help you understand if you know your audience and ideal customer as good as you should How to create content that will inspire and attract your ideal audience Why you must get out of your own way to achieve real success The importance of call to actions being bold, loud and clear when creating content Why quality really matters in all facets of content creation and curation

Facebook advertising can be a challenge particularly for new marketers or those still figuring out the best strategies and tactics for ocial media marketing. Here are the top 7 reasons your Facebook ads are not converting. If you are having challenges converting your Facebook advertising investment to a positive return on investment, then this podcast is for you. You can also learn more inside of our Social Profit Factor Training System and Member Community - taking you from zero to turbo with social media, branding and digital marketing! Everything you need to develop your social media strategy, plan, set goals and master every top social network such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, Snapchat and more! Use the coupon code ZOOM for extra special savings. http://www.socialprofitfactor.com/zoom Facebook advertising is an incredible way to increase sales, brand awareness, build community and achieve your business goals. With more than 1.28 billion daily and 1.94 billion monthly active users on the platform, it is probably your target and ideal client is using the platform on a regular and likely daily basis. Developing and launching a Facebook advertisement is easy and only takes a few minutes. You can spend as little as $1 a day up to hundreds of thousands if you have the budget. Although the tactics of simply setting up the ad are quite easy, achieving real business conversions at an optimal cost is not always as easy. There are some key mistakes many marketers make that are stopping them from success with every ad they launch. Take a listen to the latest Social Zoom Factor podcast episode 233 to learn 7 Reasons your Facebook ads are not converting and how to fix them! In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 7 Top reasons your Facebook ads may not be converting How to increase the ROI of your Facebook advertising investment Why you must know your customer and who you serve before even thinking about starting Facebook advertising Why you must respect where your ideal customer is in the sales funnel The importance of visuals in successful Facebook advertising for business Why your ad may not be converting due to message that is not relevant, or on target with the needs of your audience The importance of a relevant and valuable offer that resonates with your audience Understanding the different levels of your conversion funnel How to stop the leaky bucket and capture more leads Need more help? Social Profit Factor Training Academy and Marketing Nutz Can Help! Check out our new comprehensive online social media and branding training academy, the Social Profit Factor, that will help you tap into the power of Facebook marketing and help you create a solid social media strategy and plan. Sign up now to become a founding member and receive some incredible deals plus bonus offers. Need us to help train your team? Give us a shout and let's get a custom workshop schedule for your organization. Increase sales by generating more leads using social media to nurture relationships.

Facebook Groups provide a unique opportunity for brands of all sizes to build community, increase brand awareness, generate leads and sales. Take a listen to this podcast episode to learn how you can leverage Facebook groups to achieve your business goals. Learn more detailed strategies and tips for social media in Social Profit Factor Training Academy and Member Community http://www.socialprofitfactor.com In this podcast you will learn Difference between a Facebook Page and Facebook Group When to use a Facebook Group When to use a Facebook Business Page How to setup and start your Facebook Group How to build and grow your community using a Facebook Group How to market your business using a Facebook Group How to promote your Facebook Group and Community Importance of establishing community Guidelines for your Facebook Group How to choose the right privacy settings for your Facebook Group Tips to inspire natural community leaders in your Facebook Group

Do you have social media problems? How about digital marketing problems? Or maybe even business branding and personal branding challenges? I have amazing news for you today. We have answers -> http://www.socialprofitfactor.com/zoom We have been working the past year on a game changing project to help your biggest challenges and problems related to social media marketing, digital marketing, branding, Facebook marketing, Instagram marketing, LinkedIn marketing, Twitter, blogging, content marketing, audience marketing, influencer marketing and the list goes on! I am beyond excited to announce that we are opening the official public doors to our brand new Social Profit Factor training academy and member community TODAY! Yes, we have removed the opt-in wall and you can now check out the details of Social Profit Factor right here, right now! Take a listen to this podcast to learn more!

Have you been spinning your wheels trying to utilize social media to grow your business? Do you feel as though you know the tactics and strategies yet are still struggling with how to align social media to your business for real results? When you hear your colleagues or others in your industry talk about the success they have achieved with social media, digital marketing, content marketing or email marketing do you want to just run away crying? If these thoughts seem familiar to how you feel, no worries. You have landed on the right blog post today. Unfortunately many small business owners, entrepreneurs and even marketers working inside of larger organizations struggle with how to achieve measurable business results using social media. Much of this comes from the fud that exists in the social ecosystem. Too many bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers and more spend their life touting how easy it is to make money using social media. Unfortunately most of these same people are still living in their mother's basement and/or struggle with keeping the lights on, let alone make an actual income from their efforts. Many talk a good talk but when you pull back the black curtain, they are far from walking the walk. So, how do you define success? How do you set goals? What is the difference between a social media strategy, plan and tactics? How do you determine what Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) you should focus on? If you struggle with answering these questions, then you need to take a listen to the latest Social Zoom Factor podcast episode #230 which will help you understand how to define what success looks like. In this episode you will learn: How to define success for your social media efforts Example business and marketing goals Definition of a business goal, marketing goal and how they differ The difference between a goal, objective and KPI Definition of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) Example KPIs and loads more... Need more help? Social Profit Factor Training Academy Can Help! Check out our new comprehensive training academy, the Social Profit Factor, that will help with you improve the ROI and business return on all of your social media, digital marketing and branding investment. Sign up now to become a founding member and receive some incredible deals plus bonus offers. Social Profit Factor will teach you how to win at the long game, not just jump in and out for the short one night social stand.

When was the last time you read a blog post, watched a video, listened to a podcast or engaged with a piece of content of any format and thought "wow, that was an amazing piece of content that will help me solve the problem that has been stressing me out lately"? The truth is if you recently had this experience, you likely remember not only exactly what the content was, but also what person and/or brand provided it to you. The same person or brand likely earned your trust and has a higher level of authority in your mind. Chances are high you will be back to their website, blog, YouTube page, Facebook profile or whatever platform it was you originally found the content, to explore more ways that they can help you! It's easy for marketing and business leaders to get caught up in the whirlwind of social media and content marketing vanity metrics. Many get addicted to the likes, shares and follows. Sometimes the desire for quantity over quality wins out over producing content that provides real value for our target audiences. If you really want to connect with your target and ideal customer in a real, human, meaningful and memorable way, you need to help them. You need to consider producing content that actually helps them solve problems. Content that helps your audience be better, perform better and achieve more in their life brings your content true meaning to their business, heart and sometimes even soul. Instead of chasing shiny social media objects, watching Facebook Live video all day long, I challenge you to set the same time side aside and focus on a few pinnacle pieces of content to set you apart from the status quo and even your toughest competition. The road is rarely crowded on the extra mile. While others are settling for generic content that looks, smells and acts like the same content everyone else is producing and publishing, you should be taking your content to the next level and developing real solutions to your customers problems. I know you can do it! Take a listen to the latest Social Zoom Factor podcast episode #229 to learn 25 Ideas for Helpful Content Marketing that will inspire, educate and empower your dream customer! Need more help? Social Profit Factor Training Academy Can Help! Check out our new comprehensive training academy, the Social Profit Factor, that will help with you improve the ROI and business return on all of your social media, digital marketing and branding investment. Sign up now to become a founding member and receive some incredible deals plus bonus offers. Social Profit Factor will teach you how to win at the long game, not just jump in and out for the short one night social stand.

If you are responsible for content marketing in your organization you know the importance of proper planning, organization, work flows and structure of content. The days of throwing social spaghetti content at the wall and hoping it sticks are over and done. Smart marketers and leading brands both big and small know that content is at the core of every online and social conversation with prospects, current customers, online community members and more. It is content that delivers value, context and inspires the reader, viewer or listener to take action to open, click, read, listen, share and even buy. The social networks and social media simply provides a medium for brands and marketers to communicate in different ways with other human beings. We can't take the converstaions for granted and just assume that because we write the message, the blog post, the status update or a beautiful Instagram image that our audience will find it useful. We must do our research and not only understand who our our audience is, but also be clear on exactly what their needs are and how we can help them solve their most simple and even big problems. Social savvy marketers know how to leverage content marketing to better inspire, connect with and help their audience achieve their goals. They know how to write the blog post headlines that grab attention, the blog post content that gets read, the visuals that gets shared. They know how to whip up 140 character conversations and Facebook posts that keep their audience engaged and activated toward growing closer to their brand. Content marketing is at the foundation of every business of every size. Regardless of your industry, niche, age of company or primary communication medium used, you better have a content marketing strategy to connect you and your brand with your target audience, customers, partners and stakeholders. This episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast provides a tutorial for how to use our new 2015 Content Marketing Editorial Calendar. Download the calendar here-> 2016 Content Marketing Editorial Calendar Template What is content marketing? Content marketing is an umbrella term encompassing all marketing formats that involve the creation and sharing of content in order to engage current and potential consumer bases. Content marketing subscribes to the notion that delivering high-quality, relevant and valuable information to prospects and customers drives profitable consumer action. Content marketing has benefits in terms of retaining reader attention and improving brand loyalty. *Source: Wikipedia Editorial calendars are important because they: Help you focus on needs of your audience Help you inspire and connect with your audience Help you provide value to your audience Force you to think further than today and tomorrow Help you integrate across mediums Leverage across mediums, different audiences Create once, use many (= increased ROI) Streamline resources Drive internal teamwork Fuel idea generation and innovation Create a drumbeat approach to content development Help set expectations with your audience Help you create loyal brand evangelists Editorial Calendar Highlights Monthly conversation theme. Weekly conversation theme. Blog post title. Social Post. Channel. Target audiences (primary, secondary & tertiary) Author Editor Purchase cycle (awareness, consideration, preference, purchase, loyalty) Draft due date Primary keywords (5-10) Blog categories Supporting image(s) Other supporting media (image, video, podcast) Embed in other resource kits or publications Syndication Possible whitepaper (y/n) Client testimonial / graphics Call to action Social Zoom Factor Podcast #228 Episode Highlights Tutorial for how to use our new Content Marketing Editorial Calendar Template for 2016 2017 Content Marketing Predictions 2017 Content Marketing Statistics and Trends Why every business and marketers needs a content marketing editorial calendar Why you manage your content marketing like a publisher Benefits of using a content marketing editorial calendar The importance of knowing your audience How to organize and keep track of your content marketing assets such as visuals, call to actions and more Leveraging content you already have to increase business results and ROI Supporting Resources: Content Marketing Editorial Calendar Template for 2016 Audience analysis worksheet to help you identify and prioritize your top audiences. Content Marketing in a Nutshell (episode 50) How to Create a Content Marketing Framework, Strategy & Plan Evergreen Content Marketing in a Nutshell Content Marketing ROI: Leverage Content You Already Have (episode 30) 16 Content Marketing Golden Rules Brand Humanization in a Nutshell (episode 5) 8 Steps to Develop a Social Business Plan and Strategy (white paper) Social Media Audit, Consulting and Marketing Services from Marketing Nutz Agency

Would you like to have customers come to you organically because they know for a fact you can help them achieve their business and/or life goals? It's a wonderful thing when you don't have to sell to your customers, instead they contact you and are excited to business with you! They aren't thinking "should I do business with this person or brand." Instead they are thinking "HOW can I do business with this person?" Would you like to increase brand awareness, generate more leads? Even better, let's help you get more sales and even decrease the sales cycle and the time it takes you to close business or that big deal you have been working on for months! It's not a new phenomenon that people buy from people. Long before Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and even blogs, people have been buying from people. Yet, why do people still hide behind social media logos and contact forms? It seems they either don't understand or are afraid to come out from behind the social media corporate wall and show their true human side. They fear they must share what they ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner to build their personal brand. This couldn't be further from the truth. Have you thought about your personal branding strategy? If not, you should. Regardless if you have taken time to plan your personal brand or not, you have a personal brand. Your personal brand is defined not only by what you want it to be, but also by perceptions. Your personal brand is impacted by what people think of you. It's what people say about you behind closed doors. It's what they say about you when you leave the room, what they think about you after they watch your Periscope or Facebook Live video. It's how they giggle with or at you after watching you and your funny filters on Snapchat. The truth is everything you say, do, post, like, comment on and share is a representation of your brand. Building the best brand of YOU, requires understanding and defining your goals. What do you want to achieve as you become more known in your industry? How do you want people to perceive you? What are the goals that will drive your actions? Have you ever thought about these things? Take a listen to the 227th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 7 Top Goals of Personal Branding. These will help you better define your personal branding goals and also develop your personal brand strategy. Building a personal brand is not just about creating a shiny social profile, but presenting yourself in the most authentic way possible to your community and audiences in a way that will attract them to you organically. When done right, personal branding not ony builds the brand of you, but also will help you achieve many personal, life and business goals. Business and life are about human connection. The social web is really one big fat social conversation and relationship, made up of many micro-conversations and relationships. It's about humans connecting with other humans as humans, not robots. You might as well define how you as a human want to fit into it and not only give the most that you can to help others but also be able to benefit from it as well. This episode is part of the "You Are the Media" series in which we are digging deep into how you can build an integrated social and digital platform that works when you are not working. A platform that helps you inspire, connect with and delight your audiences. Be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud! In this 25 minute podcast you will learn: 7 Top Personal Branding Goals How to define your own personal branding goals Why personal branding matters Tips to become the "go to" thought leader in your industry and local market or niche How to increase brand awareness of your business with your own personal brand How to generate more leads and sales by building your personal brand How to decrease the sales cycle with personal branding strategies How to tap into the power of influencer marketing more easily when you build your personal brand Supporting Resources: Digital Body Language: 105 Factors Impacting Your Brand (white paper) 10 Reasons Personal Branding is a Requirement Not an Option (white paper) Know Your Audience! Audience Analysis Worksheet 7 Foundational Steps to Build Your Personal Brand Personal Branding: Zoom Your Brand with the YOU Factor Brand Storytelling in a Nutshell Brand Strategy in a Nutshell 10 Tips to Zoom Your Brand with Social Media You Are the Media: 10 Reasons You Need a Blog (episode 111) 15 Characteristics of Human Brands (episode 55)

Facebook live streaming is an amazing way for businesses of all sizes to tap into the power of live video. Take a listen to this episode to learn 10 ways small business can use Facebook Live Video Streaming to build brand awareness, nurture relationships, grow community, generate leads, promote events, launch new products and more! http://www.socialzoomfactor.com/226

The days of slamming out content that looks, smells and feels like what everyone else is writing are over and done. I recently saw a video and blog post from a leader in our industry offering tips to come up with ideas for content blog writing. The worst part is that the only idea this person offered was to leverage content from other people. They instructed bloggers to "borrow" ideas and themes from other leading bloggers and influencers in your industry. They went so far as instructing them how to leverage RSS feeds, do social listening and more to get ideas for new blog content. While this strategy may work for some, it is going to be short lived. It's also not surprising this recommended strategy came from someone who has been known across the industry to borrow and even steal content from others. The truth is that there is not a shortage of good or even epic content on the web today. The goal is not to create masses of content that looks, reads and sounds like everyone else. The goal should not be to copy ideas and themes from others so that you have masses of quantity. What happened to providing value to your readers, listeners and views by... being unique? being relevant? solving problems? providing solutions? For new businesses hopping onto the social and digital web, taking the advice of following status quo copycat content is going to do absolutely nothing to set you apart from your competition! So, how do you create content that... inspires? educates? empowers? connects emotionally with your target audience? differentiates you from your competition? helps you rise above status quo? enables you to stand out from the noise of yesterday? Your goal is not to build a blog, website or business that is status quo, right? You want amazing customer experiences. You want customer relationships that are real, authentic, relevant and unique. You want a business that is built on what it is you have to offer that is unique. Your blog should be a living, breathing representation of who you are, and what you have to offer. Your blog should not be a copycat version of the rest of the blogosphere. When you write amazing and epic blog content, people will remember it. They will share it. They will write about it. They will link to it. When they share, click, like and link your friend Google will also fall in love with you and your blog. Traditional SEO is changing. What your customer thinks of your brand and content will show in the actions they take to share and engage with your content, or not. If you want to establish thought leadership, trust and authority in your industry and niche, then build the brand of you, not the copycat version of someone else! Take a listen to episode 225 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 10 tips to create epic blog posts that will keep your readers coming back for more. This episode is filled with strategies and tips you can implement immediately to start differentiating from your competition, increase brand awareness, generate more leads and even impact your bottom line! Take a listen to episode 225 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn the following: 10 tips and strategies to create epic blog posts for business Importance of blog post format, planning and goal setting How to identify 3 problems you can help your audience solve and create content to solve those problems Writing blog headlines that draw people in authentically and organically How to leverage your blog to tell compelling brand stories that connect with your audience emotionally Informing your readers early on in the content of what they are getting and ensuring the expectations are set properly and honestly Using visual images to grab attention and connect with your readers Backing up what you write about with facts, case studies and examples Including the YOU factor in your content to differentate from competition and stand out from the crowd Why you must share your best content and not hold back the good stuff! Importance of making content actionable!

Are you speaking to your audience in a way that they understand? When you tweet do people listen? Do they take action? Do your tweets help you increase brand equity, generate leads and sales? Are your tweets helping you grow community and nurture relationships? Are your tweets helping you increase the ROI of all of your content marketing, digital and brand marketing? If you answer no to any of these questions then you have incredible opportunity to fix the problem and turn every answer listed above into a yes. Could it be that you are over automating your tweets? Maybe you are speaking to your audience like a robot vs being a human. Maybe you are over selling? Or maybe your tweets are all about you and it's obvious you are only using social media and Twitter to blast noise about yourself. Newsflash: You can not fake relevancy or caring using social media. Your audience knows. The concept of people buying from people was not invented by Facebook or any other social network. People have been connecting with other people in human ways for centuries. We communicate, we share, we help one another. Social media is really no different if you think about it. It's just a medium for us to do the same. Social networks such as Twitter, simply enable us to more easily connect with other human beings. Social media empowers us as humans to inspire, connect and help our audience achieve success. Just because you can spam and automate every message on Twitter 24/7 doesn't mean that you should. Instead of logging on to Twitter each day and thinking... how can I get people to read my blog, watch my video or buy from me, we should be thinking how can I empower, inspire and help my audience be and do more. Would you like to... Connect with your audience in a human way? More quickly earn trust with your target audience? Provide your audience massive amounts of value via your tweets and content you create on other platforms such as your blog, YouTube channel? More quickly establish thought leadership in your niche or industry? Generate more qualified leads? Increase sales? Increase ROI of every marketing dollar you spend? Become the "go to" source of information for your industry and niche? If you answered yes to the above questions then you are going to love episode 224 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast! Take a listen to the 224th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn 10 easy ways to humanize your tweets! Take a listen to episode 224 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn the following: 10 ways to humanize your tweets Why you must listen more than you talk when it comes to social media Why you can't fake caring or fake relevancy on the social networks Why your over automation of tweets may be hurting your brand more than helping How to balance automation with real-time engagement How to make time to connect with your audience in a human way Importance of varying the types of content you share on Twitter (video, images, text etc.) How to become a curation expert by sharing 3rd party content Tapping into the power of the OPC - other people's content and community Tips to humanize your visual brand - personal profile image, colors, header etc. Be sure to subscribe to our entire digital and social media

Thought leadership is important for any person and brand wanting to establish themselves as a leader in a particular industry, niche or related to a certain topic. Answer these questions... Would you like to be seen as a trusted resources for your target customers to help them learn and grow? Would you like to be a leading authority of information in your industry or niche? Would you like to be the "go to" person for people wanting to learn about what you know and offer as a business? Would you like to establish authentic relationships more easily built on trust and authority? Would you like to increase brand awareness and equity simply by being an authority? Would you like to increase brand affinity as people are more organically attracted to your brand? If you answer no to this question, would you like to be? Would you like to become part of the natural conversation earlier in the customer research and buying process? If you answer yes to these questions, then you need to take the time to understand how you can establish thought leadership as a leader in your industry. Establishing thought leadership for your business and for your own personal brand can bring much benefit to you personally and professionally. This is important for both B2B and B2C businesses but incredibly important in B2B due to the longer and more complicated buying processes.

It is clear social media marketing is delivering real and measurable business value for companies large and small today. Marketers of all specialties from digital, content, strategy and even operations know they must not only learn, but also deeply embrace social media as a way to connect, inspire and serve their new online audiences as well as current, prospective and future customers. With this incredible opportunity created for businesses using social media there is obviously solid opportunity for smart and savvy marketers to specialize and build a career in social media marketing. However, as I discussed in detail in episode 218 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast, social marketers must also have a solid understanding of business and marketing. Smart social media marketers also know how to align social media to business goals. Building a career as a social marketer is not as easy as jumping on Twitter or Snapchat and firing off some 140 character tweets and selfie snaps. Being able to rock your personal brand as a new college graduate doesn't necessarily translate over to knowing how to use social media for business. Big difference. Unfortunately many new social media marketers jump into the fields of social networks, tweets, snaps, and Facebook live video to find themselves overwhelmed. They are often thrown to the wild pack of tweeting craziness as their management teams and leadership know less than they do in understanding how to drive business value using these new social tools and methodologies. Many new social marketers start out excited only to find their hopes of a career in social media completely deflated. Not only do they feel overwhelmed but they find it hard to show and prove their value. They lack the necessary training to understand data and measurement, conversion funnels, content marketing, foundational digital and visual marketing skills and the list goes on. It's even more challenging for recent graduates who lack solid business or marketing experience in the real world. These same new social marketers may be working 24/7 yet making little progress. They're tweeting through the hamster wheel and making little to any forward progress in learning. They often lack real mentorship, business experience and because of this they wind up stunted in their career. They think.... "nobody told me it would be this hard." I've had many new college graduates working in social media marketing come to me and proclaim they had no idea they would need to know so much about marketing or business to be successful running social media for a company. The truth is that social media is not a band-aid for a broken business. Hiring a cheap intern who knows how to tweet, snap and stream a live video is not going to fix your brand perception problems, inspire your customers to engage in a relationship with you. The intern or person new to social media is not going to help you solve the customer services problems you have by setting up some auto Twitter auto direct messages (DMs) to anyone who asks for help. Embracing social media for business is a journey, not a destination. We are all learning and the only guarantee we have is change. Take a listen to episode 222 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn 10 truths nobody ever told you about being a social media marketer. This podcast episode is helpful for the following people: New or experienced marketers considering jumping into a new role as a social media marketer Current social media marketers struggling to grow in their career Managers of people working in social media marketing Business owners and leaders who are hiring or leading teams and want to understand the truth about working as a social media marketing Be sure to subscribe to our entire digital and social media marketing series on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud! In this 20 minute podcast you will learn: 10 Truths nobody ever told you about being a social media marketer Why social media for personal branding is not the same as social media for business Tips to grow in your career as a social media marketer Why social marketers must understand the foundation of business and marketing The importance of having a mentor to help you learn and grow as a social marketer Why even social media newbies must learn to be a data and analytics junkie How to navigate working for a manager who doesn't understand marketing, business or social media Giving up the drive for perfection and importance of embracing imperfect perfection Why business leaders must be careful who they hire to manage their social media programs

We all have 24 hours in the day. It's how we spend each of those hours that determines the pulse, depth, happiness and quality of our life. Have you ever wondered why it seems that some people just simply have more free time? Yes, they may be busy, however, they seem to float through life a bit (or a lot) happier, while you feel as though you are stuck in a hamster wheel. Do you have a vision and mission for your life yet feel as though you are having a difficult time getting there? Do you wish you had more time to spend with the people that matter most to you in your life? Or maybe it just seems that there is simply not enough time in a day to do all that needs to get done? Take a listen to the 221st episode of the Social Zoom Factor for 10 Time Hacks to help you build the life and business of your dreams. In this 20 minute podcast you will learn: How to have a mindset of essentialism and focus on what will get you to the life you dream of Why you must focus on mind, body and spirit The importance of taking care of you so that you can take better care of everyone else How to start from the dream life you envision 10 or more years from now and work backwards to where you are today so you can make the right decisions to help you get there Why you must first value your time so that others will value it too The importance of being bold enough to break the rules in regard to what the rest of the world tells you that your working day should look like Importance of working with clients that bring you joy Avoiding time stealers in both life and business The power of the pivot and not being afraid to change the plan The importance of confidence Power of smart multi-tasking for increased productivity

Success in business utilizing social media and digital marketing requires both art and science. Learning how to connect with your audience in an authentic and human way can help set you above the crowd, rise above the noise and build a relationship with your audience members and customers that only you can do. The social networks present a goldmine of data and insights that can help you learn about your audience, understand their behaviors and empower you to connect with them in a unique, relevant and human way. Take a listen to the 220th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn 5 easy ways to humanize your brand utilizing data and social insights. Sign Up for More Training: Social Profit Factor

Learning how to increase conversions is often a top goal of smart and internet savvy marketing and business leaders. Unfortunately most marketers lack the basic foundational skills to truly optimize their conversion rates. Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a process for increasing the percentage of visitors to a website that convert into customers or take the desired action the owner of the website is wanting the website visitor to achieve. In simple terms, CRO helps marketers determine what users are looking for and then giving it to them in the best way possible that will help the visitor take the desired action. Conversion rate optimization helps businesses increase leads, sales, return on investment and more. For many businesses, CRO can make or break their business success. Any business that is utilizing online marketing, social media and digital marketing of any kind should not only learn the basics of conversion rate optimization but should dive in deep to understand specific strategies and tactics that can help them increase conversions rate. Bottom line, conversion rate optimization can have immediate and long term positive impact on business results when done correctly and with clear focus. Conversion rate optimization requires knowledge of the business target customer such as their behavior preferences, desires, problems and aligning such with solutions to help them solve those problems. CRO also requires knowledge of how to properly build a website, blog, landing page. In addition, optimizing conversions requires quality content writing of headlines, call to actions, and even button placements. One color used could be throwing off the entire psychology of if a website visitor converts to a sale or not. If you would like to learn more about conversion rate optimization as well as the factors impacting conversion rate for your business, you have landed on the right blog post and podcast today! Take a listen to episode 219 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn the following: Conversion rate definition Conversion rate optimization (CRO) definition Why conversion rate optimization matters to your business How to increase sales, leads and ROI with conversion rate optimization 20+ factors impacting conversion rate optimization on blogs, websites and digital platforms Tips to create a landing page that converts Conversion rate optimization testing basics How to determine your call to actions for online visitors (website, blog etc.)

Are you a digital or social marketer wanting to progress in your business and marketing career? Do you find yourself getting stuck, getting passed over for promotions? Do you often find it hard to win budgets, grow your team or simply justify your own job? Or it could be you are having a hard time landing or even keeping the job in the first place. If this is you, then you definitely landed on the right blog post and podcast today. Social media is not a band-aid for a broken business. If business leaders really want to ignite business results using digital and social marketing, they must do more than hire a social media intern who knows how to get new followers on Instagram, post to Snapchat and do a live video stream on Facebook. Before you even think about how you are going to tweet, snap, live video stream or tell stories on Instagram, you better nail the business goals and have more than a 101 level understanding of business and marketing. If you are a social and digital marketer working at a new company in a new position, the first questions you should be asking should be related to understanding business goals and objectives, not asking for the logons to the social networks. Business owners and leaders must start being more careful of who they hand over the social media keys to. In addition, social media and digital marketers must learn business. There is a clear gap in the social ecosystem of qualified people who know business, know social and digital marketing and also know how to align social media to business goals. Check out episode 218 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn 3 things you MUST know to be successful in your career as a social and digital marketer. These three things are... Understanding business Understanding marketing Knowing how to align social and digital marketing to business and marketing goals and objectives

Do you have an interest in Pinterest for Business but don't know where to start in developing your Pinterest for Business plan? Pinterest is an amazing platform that surpassed more than 10 million users faster than any stand alone social network in history. Pinterest is different than some social networks though in that it requires both art and science even more so. It requires visual connection and an understanding of the ecosystem of Pinterest. Many business leaders overlook Pinterest as it confuses them and they may not understand it's true power. This episode is the 2nd in a series on Pinterest for Business I'm providing to help business leaders and entrepreneurs like you, explore if Pinterest is something you should take a deeper look at to help you differentiate from competition and ignite business results. In addition, you can download the slide presentation deck I used for the 90 minute "Advanced Pinterest for Business" workshop at the Social Fresh Event. It includes all 7 steps, loads of statistics and more. Download here-> "7 Step Success Strategy to Build a Pinterest for Business Plan" In this 30 minute episode you will learn how to build a Pinterest Business Plan to help you achieve your business and marketing goals. Would you like to... Increase traffic to your website or blog? Increase brand awareness? Generate more leads? Increase sales of your product or service? Grow your email subscriber list? Leverage the investment you have made in your mobile responsive blog or website by connecting with Pinterest's highly mobile users? Build a loyal community of trend seekers that are engaged, shares your amazing content and takes action? Pinterest is a powerful social network and platform that can help you ignite your marketing and business success by... Tapping into a social network with more than 110 million active daily users and 175 million registered users Increasing opportunities to connect with the 49% of US women online who use Pinterest Inspiring and educating an audience that visits blogs as the top destination from Pinterest Creating authentic and inspirational opportunities to build relationships with an audience that accounts for more than 90% of the social shares on the web Tap into a platform that is available in more than 30+ languages with offices in London, Paris, Berlin, Brazil and Tokyo Leveraging a blank canvas to inspire and connect with your audience with a goal of helping them achieve their goals and objectives Organize your content in a way that empowers your audience visually, emotionally and intellectually With features such as buyable pins, rich pins that support blog posts, place and product locations, maps and more you could be missing an incredible opportunity by not at least doing the double click research to understand if Pinterest can help you achieve your business goals. In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 7 Steps to Create Your Pinterest for Business Plan Key Pinterest features you must consider for your business How to leverage Pinterest for customer and audience research Setting Pinterest goals and objectives How to quickly learn in just a few clicks who is already pinning your content, even if you don't yet have a Pinterest account for your business How to learn who your Pinterest audience is following Key Pinterest tools and technology to help you achieve your goals and continuosly optimize business results Understanding behavior of Pinterest users Making sure you have the right mindset to succeed on Pinterest Recommendations to explore if Pinterest is right for your business

Why is it so many smart social media and digital marketers claim they want to lead or are already leading their industry and niche? They write blog posts, record and publish videos, webinars and podcasts teaching and preaching others how to build a unique brand or how to have ultra success overnight. They talk about differentiation and how to stand out from the crowd. However, when you do the "double click" and take a deeper look at their strategies, tactics, and content you may see it's truly lacking differentiation. They have become a spitting identical image to everyone else. Too often they are chasing shiny object, have a deep rooted fear of missing out and end up wasting cycle after cycle on social networks, technology and tactics that simply are not even appropriate for their business. They forget who they are serving, such as their customer and audience as they get caught up in social media fame and being the first to make the leader board on a social shiny object. Unfortunately many of them don't have close to the results and success they claim to have, yet they paint this picture that their "unique" methods work and that for the low, low price of $99 you too can be rich and famous if you buy their magical super powered class. Even worse most of them don't know how to measure results. Many don't know the basic data and analytics when it comes to their blog or website traffic, conversion funnels or even social media community engagement. They lack basic business, digital marketing and social media marketing knowledge and experience. The truth is that the real rebels are the leaders who trade in fear of missing out for focus. They know how to work smart, not just hard. They know the key to success is smart hustle, not just working 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year. Success requires a healthy mind, body and spirit. So, how do you rise above the status quo? Are you a leader who wants real, impactful and measurable results? If this is you, then you have landed on the right blog post and podcast today. Take a listen to episode 216 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 10 Tips to Be a Social Media and Digital Marketing Rebel. It's time you stand out from the noise, rise above the crowd and and stomp status quo forever. Are you ready? Listen to the podcast now. You won't be sorry. In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 10 Tips to Become a Social Media and Digital Marketing Rebel Why real marketers are not afraid of data and analytics Why prioritization and focus delivers better results than chasing shiny social objects Why less is truly more when it comes to social media, digital and content marketing The truth about following your passions with no real plan to monetize Why you should not be afraid to leverage social media automate and get your life back Why smart and savvy marketers understand the deep foundations and details of developing and optimizing lead conversion funnels Why you must never be afraid to ask for help The power of stomping the fear of missing out and embracing focus Why it's not about what the technology can do for you, but instead what you can do with the technology

Do you have an interest in Pinterest? How about Pinterest for your business? Would you like to tap into a social network that can help you generate leads, sell more product and deliver you more blog or website traffic than Twitter? If yes, you can't ignore Pinterest. Did you know... When Pinterest launched in 2012 it surpassed 10 million users faster than any other stand-alone social network in history There are 110 million active daily users and 175 million registered users on Pinterest 49% of US women online use Pinterest 70% of purchasing decisions are made by women 60% of Pinterest users are from the USA, followed by India, UK, Brazil and Canada Pinterest is now available in 30+ languages with offices in London, Paris, Berlin, Brazil and Tokyo 50% of those who notice promoted pins click to get more information (*Ahology 2016 Report) 40% made a purchase, suggesting promoted pins inspire future action (*Ahology 2015 Report) More than 60% daily winners access Pinterest once a day or more using a smart phone 67% active and 86% daily pinners have accessed Pinterest while shopping to buy something they pinned The average site visit to Pinterest = 14 minutes The most common destination for users who click on a pin is a blog (*Coschedule infographic) Pinterest = 90% social shares on the web Take a listen to episode 215 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to explore if Pinterest may be right for your business. With features such as buyable pins, rich pins that support blog posts, place and product locations, maps and more you could be missing an incredible opportunity by not at least doing the double click research to understand if Pinterest can help you achieve your business goals.

Every marketer and business leader is faced with the challenge of where to prioritize their time and investment. Time is our greatest asset in both business and life. How we spend our time can make or break our business success. When it comes to digital marketing, social media and branding, it is no different. In my 20 years of business and marketing experience I have never heard a marketer exclaim, "I have so much time, resource & budget I don't know what to do with it." Unfortunately, there are far too many "experts" online touting that you must be on every new shiny object and social network. They'll even go so far as to warn you that if you don't start snapping on Snapchat, storytelling on Instagram and delivering live video on Periscope that your business is destined to fail. Let me tell you right now this is 100% false. Marketing and business leaders must give themselves permission to prioritize. You do not need to be everywhere all the time. You do not need to be on every social network. You do not need to work 24/7, 365 days of the year to be successful. Release your fear of missing out and start prioritizing your time and investment of money and resource. The truth is that the more you focus and prioritize, the better your results will be. Stop only playing around with the social networks. Instead, get serious, get focused and you will start seeing real results. It's not about what technology will do for you, but instead, what you can do with the technology. " quote="It's not just about what the technology will do for you, but instead, what you can do with the technology. You are in control of your business, your time and your investment in social media, period. What matters is where your audience and target customer is online. You must be where they are. You must deliver them value where they are using methods, language and mediums that will inspire them, connect with them band bring them closer to your brand. How do you prioritize what social networks you invest in? How do you know where you should engage? How do you determine where your audience is hanging out online so you can build the most meaningful relationship with them as possible? Take a listen to episode 214 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn our 5 Step Success Strategy and Tactics to prioritize what social networks you invest in for your business. Pre-register for our brand new training portal, Social Profit Factor! In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: 5 Step Strategies and tactics to prioritize what social networks you invest in for business. Why you must get real on your time and budget available to invest in social media What skills you must have to be successful at social media for business How to leverage the data available natively via the different social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and more The difference between a business goal, KPI and objective Tips to set goals, measure results and continuously optimize What to look for when you do a monthly audit and refresh of your online social presence and efforts How to prioritize and select tools for analysis, measurement and audience research Suggested tools for audience research Why it's not about what the technology can do for you, but instead what you can do with the technology

Instagram recently announced a new feature called Instagram Stories that looks, smells, feels and behaves a LOT like SnapChat! The new Stories features empowers users to share their favorite moments in 10 second increments of video and photos into a story that gets compiled and stored right within their Instagram profile. Viewers of the profile not only see the stories of the people and brands they follow at the top of their Instagram app, but they can also easily view the story when clicking on the profile picture of any Instagram user. These stories are non-intrusive and do not currently appear in the standard feed for Instagram users. Instead, people can easily choose to watch or ignore the Instagram Stories of the people they follow. Similar to Snapchat, the Instagram stories only last 24 hours. It's a snooze or lose type of viewing engagement. If you miss it, you miss it. Snapchat turned down an offer to sell out to Facebook in the past and now it appears this is Facebook's way of coming back and kicking Snapchat straight in the shins, or maybe the face. Snapchat has done an amazing job at capturing the hearts, minds and eyeballs of teens and millennials. Many other social networks envy Snapchat with this demographic. However, where Snapchat has struggled is expanding the demographic as well as presenting a solid value proposition that is both affordable and understandable for brands working in the business to business (B2B) space. There are simply too many choices when it comes to where people and brands can invest their time. Smart marketers know they must focus where their customers are hanging out online, not where the fud and the hype of the internet tell them to invest their hard earned dollars. Unfortunately for Snapchat, Instagram Stories launches at a time I believe many brands were / are on the fence about investing in Snapchat. Our agency, Marketing Nutz, works with brands both large and small and I can tell you we have numerous clients in this situation. With the launch of Instagram Stories I predict many brands who were "sitting on the fence" with Snapchat, may very well head on over to Instagram instead. Could this deliver fall over adoption from Instagram Stories to Snapchat? Only time will tell. Snapchat has struggled since day one with discovery. Building community and followers on Snapchat is difficult for both brands and people like you and me. It's become the wild wild west with brands and users of Snapchat begging their audiences to follow them on Snapchat. It reminds me of the early days of Facebook where brands were desperate begging for likes and follows. It didn't take social savvy marketers long to learn that it's not just about the "like", it's what happens after the like that matters most. Brands must give their audience a reason to follow them, a reason to do more than simply click the like button. This is an area I strongly believe Instagram has an immediate advantage over Snapchat. Brands have already invested in community and relationships on Instagram. Discovery is built into the platform with hashtags, search and the list goes on. You can't argue with the fact that Facebook owns Instagram and features such as the advertising platform are integrated. Marketers don't have to go to a 2nd platform for advertising on Instagram. It's build into their Facebook business manager and ad manager platform. This enables brands to easily "test the social advertising waters" without a lot of extra time invested to learn another platform. Win win for Facebook and Instagram obviously. Would you like to know more about Instagram Stories and what it can do for your business? Check out this video for an overview of the features, how businesses can use it and a comparison to how it differs from Snapchat for marketers wanting to embrace the power of easily digestible video and visual marketing to inspire and connect with their audiences. In this video you will learn: What are Instagram Stories? How do Instagram Stories differ from Snapchat? How can brands use Instagram Stories for Business? What are the key benefits of Instagram stories for business? Prediction for what the teens will do. Will they jump ship or stay on Snapchat? Key differentiation for Instagram Stories vs Snapchat, including discovery community Facebook advertising platform Usability and a friendly interface security for women and much more Be sure to subscribe to our Social Zoom Factor podcast brand new series, "Welcome to the Pay to Play World, Are You Ready?" on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud! Free webinars: We are launching a series of webinars and training opportunities to dig even deeper. Sign up here-> Social Profit Factor

To be successful in business and online, digital and social marketing, you must do more than simply focus on the near term. You must know where you are going and how you are going to get there. In addition, you must understand the larger ecosystem of which you are working within. In the online world, keeping up with trends can be a challenge. Not only do you have to keep your current platforms and content performing, you must also be ready to embrace the changes to come. The only one guarantee we have in the social and digital world is change. Get use to it. Would you like to know this about your peers.... What they are doing to ignite their business using social and digital technologies? What priority are they placing on video and visual focused social platforms such as SnapChat, Instagram etc.? Top social media goals and objectives chosen? What social networks are marketers achieving the greatest ROI? Where do they plan to invest in the future? What social platforms do they plan to spend the most money on for advertising? What forms of content are they creating the most and least? What role will video and live video play in their marketing plans? Most popular social media software platforms? How are they utilizing and implementing influencer marketing programs? What types of roles are they hiring for? If you would like the answers to these questions you have come to the right place. In the 212th episode of the Social Zoom Factor Podcast I interview Jason Keath, the CEO and founder of the Social Fresh Conference. He partnered with Simply Measured and Firebrand Group to develop "The Future of Social Media" research report. It digs deep into how brand and marketing leaders are utilizing social media today and how they plan to embrace the new technologies and opportunities in the future. The report is packed with insights even the most seasoned social and digital marketer can leverage and learn from today. Download your copy now and take a listen to the podcast to hear even more details from Jason Keath. As the Founder and CEO of Social Fresh Conference, the longest running social marketing conference, Jason Keath curates some of the smartest voices in marketing. He has trained digital marketers at over 200 of the Fortune 500 companies. He is on the Advisory Board for Internet Week, cohost of the Social Toolkit Podcast and editor of SocialMediaCurrent.com, a daily news source for social media professionals. Take a listen to episode 212 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast and download the "Future of Social Media Report" to learn the following: Top social media trends Top social media goals chosen by marketers What social networks produced the most ROI in the past year How social media teams are spending their time Most common social media roles being hired for Where marketers are investing their dollars for social advertising What content types are marketers planning to invest in (video, blog posts, infographics, Snapchat stories, whitepapers etc.) Most popular social media software How marketers are using and executing influencer marketing Join me at the Social Fresh Conference in Orlando! I'll be delivering a 90 minute workshop on Pinterest Advanced Strategies & Tactics to Generate More Leads & Real Profits! Check it out and use this link to save $100 off your ticket! Hope to see you there! The event will include speakers from Twitter, RedCross, Economist, Spotify, IBM, Citrix, Full Sail University, and loads more! Grab your ticket & meet me there! Be sure to subscribe to this entire brand new series, "Welcome to the Pay to Play World, Are You Ready?" on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud! Supporting Resources: Future of Social Media Report (download free report) 5 Unpublished statistics on the future of social media What is a better social media goal? Customer loyalty or brand awareness? Not using social media software? It may be costing you. 2016 Social Media Predictions Free webinars: We are also launching a series of webinars and training opportunities to dig even deeper. Sign up here-> Social Profit Factor

It's probably not news to you that blogging is an incredible way to build your business and your brand. As tempting as it may be, building your business on rented land such as Facebook is quite risky. The only guarantee we have today with the social networks is change. Mastering the skills and knowing how to build and utilize an integrated social and digital platform inclusive of a quality blog will help separate any marketer and business from the crowd of status quo. The #1 question we hear from the clients our agency, Marketing Nutz works with is "how do I build a blog and write content that brings real and measurable business results? The days of hiring an SEO company to simply throw up some text on a page, buy some links and watch the sales come in are over and done. The truth is these lazy tactics never really worked that well anyway. If you want to learn the foundational requirements for writing a successful blog post that will support your business and marketing goals and objectives then you have landed on the right blog post today. Blogs today are not simply text thrown on virtual walls. Successful blogs integrated different forms of media such as audio, video and compelling visuals that inspire and help you connect with your target audiences. Before you waste a ton of money and time throwing social content spaghetti on the wall, take a listen to this episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to ensure that you maximize every word and minute! http://www.socialzoomfactor.com/211

You have created the perfect marketing campaign. It's 100% in tact and beautifully integrates social media marketing, video and visual marketing. Now you are ready to take it to market and let the world know about it. You know Facebook advertising is the perfect platform to help get the word out and reach your target audiences. So, you login to the Facebook ad manager or Facebook power editor and spend the next hour setting up your campaign. You submit the ad for approval to Facebook and are dreaming about the increased brand awareness, new leads and even sales this new campaign is going to generate for you and your business. You head to dinner for a pre-celebration with a glass of wine. Unfortunately, later that evening you get an email notification from Facebook informing you that your ad was not approved. "What the heck!" is what you are thinking. How could Facebook not approve your ad? The email states it violates their policy. "What policy?" is your next thought. Now you get to spend the next day reworking your campaign, supporting visuals and maybe even some of the video, depending on what creative and social assets you have included in your marketing program. Not exactly what you had planned for the next day or two, correct? If this has ever happened to you, don't be too hard on yourself and go crawl under the "hide from social media and Facebook forever rock." Instead, it's time you educate and empower yourself to better understand the Facebook advertising policies. Yes, Facebook has what may seem like a ton of rules and guidelines if you are new to them. However, the truth is that as a marketer or business owner it is up to you understand the Facebook advertising policies and guidelines. Facebook is not going to force you to read the guidelines. Instead they are going to make the policies available to you and it's your responsibility to not only learn where they are but understand them. If you don't take the time to understand the Facebook policies, particularly for advertising it will only hurt your efforts over and over again in the future. It's obviously much better to be proactive and take the time to understand the details. Take a listen to episode 210 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn the following: Clear explanation of the Facebook advertising policies Walk-through of the key highlights of the Facebook advertising policies Prohibited content - content that is prohibited from Facebook advertising Restricted content - content that is restricted from Facebook advertising Video advertising - guidelines, prohibited content and restrictions, entertainment and related restrictions Targeting guidelines and restrictions Positioning guidelines including relevancy, accuracy and landing pages Guidelines for lead advertising Use of the Facebook brand assets Data use restriction This Social Zoom Factor episode is part of a new series titled "Welcome to the Pay to Play World, Are You Ready?"

Would you like to achieve more ROI from your Facebook advertising and boosted posts? Do you see that cute little Facebook "boost post" button but don't really know how to optimize it? If you answer yes to this question then you have arrived at the right place. The truth is that although the Facebook boosted post advertising option is very easy to use and may often seem easier than other Facebook advertising options, there are clear scenarios where it may be worth your time to consider the alternative options. There are definitely pros and cons to using the Facebook boosted post ads. Take a listen to episode 209 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn the following: Clear explanation of the Facebook boosted post Key differentiators for how the Facebook boosted post differentiates from other Facebook advertising options Pros and cons of using the Facebook boosted post When and how it is appropriate to use the Facebook boosted post How to maximize the use of Facebook live video, uploaded recorded video in combination with the Facebook boosted post How to set yourself up for success with Facebook advertising Tips to best use the Facebook boosted post for the highest return on your investment possible This Social Zoom Factor episode is part of a new series titled "Welcome to the Pay to Play World, Are You Ready?" Be sure to subscribe to this entire brand new series, "Welcome to the Pay to Play World, Are You Ready?" on iTunes

Facebook advertising seems to be one of those things that "every marketer is talking about it, but very few actually know how to drive real business results." Our agency, Marketing Nutz works with brands big and small to help them drive a positive ROI with every dollar spent on digital, social media and marketing overall. We train and speak all over the world and one of the top questions I always hear is… "does Facebook marketing actually work?" Then, the next question I hear is…"why doesn't Facebook advertising work for me and my business… I have tried it numerous times and finally just gave up." Does this sound familiar? You get confused when you logon to Facebook ad manager You run away from the Facebook Power Editor because it gives you bad dreams You have wasted far too much money on Facebook advertising with little to zero return You don't know where to start when it comes to paid media, earned media and everything in between You don't know the difference between a Facebook boosted post or any other type of Facebook advertisement If these thoughts feel a little too familiar, then you are in the right place. The truth is that Facebook advertising requires both art and science. You can't just hop on Facebook, insert your credit card and out pops loads of leads, sales and ROI. I know some marketers may want you to believe such, but the truth is they likely just want your email address or your money. This podcast is part of a new series titled "Welcome to the Pay to Play World, Are You Ready?" Take a listen to the 208th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn 5 things you MUST know before you spend one dime on Facebook advertising! Be sure to subscribe to this entire brand new series, "Welcome to the Pay to Play World, Are You Ready?" on iTunes In this 20 minute podcast you will learn: 5 foundational and fundamental elements you must know before spending a dime on Facebook marketing How to get started right from day one as you start using or learn to optimize your Facebook marketing efforts and investment Why you must have the right mindset for success using Facebook advertising Different types of Facebook advertising options The importance of setting goals, objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure success Tips to determine your Facebook offer The importance of an integrated digital and social platform for converting leads and achieving your goals Why your problem in achieving your results using Facebook advertising may not be Facebook but other issues with your digital platform and conversion funnels Why you must focus on your conversion funnels as a top priority before wasting time and money on Facebook advertising The importance of knowing your audience to target your audience and increase ROI of Facebook advertising Check out the new social media and digital marketing training platform launching soon here-> http://www.socialprofitfactor.com with training to help marketers succeed in a competitive, pay to play world. Training will include everything from social media foundational strategies and tactics, paid media, influencer marketing and more.

Every smart and savvy marketing and business leader knows the power of branding. They also know that a brand is much deeper than a logo, pretty colors or a tagline. Download resources mentioned in episode: http://www.socialzoomfactor.com/207 The best marketers know that emotional branding is the secret sauce to igniting customers to loyal advocates, followers and fans! Emotional branding helps connect you in the most human ways to your audience, customers and fans. It helps you build a foundation built on human feelings, emotions, understanding and desire that drives action that engages the customer or audience member even deeper with your brand. Emotional branding is not just about finding a funny or sad photo, video or quote to tap into the emotions as a one night Facebook gone viral approach. Instead emotional branding is about igniting emotions at the core of everything you say and do. It's about understanding your audience, humanizing your brand, using language that connects you with your brand and the list goes on. Wikipedia defines emotional branding as follows: "Emotional branding is a term used within marketing communication that refers to the practice of building brands that appeal directly to a consumer's emotional state, needs and aspirations. Emotional branding is successful when it triggers an emotional response in the consumer, that is, a desire for the advertised brand (or product) that cannot fully be rationalized. Emotional brands have a significant impact when the consumer experiences a strong and lasting attachment to the brand comparable to a feeling of bonding, companionship or love." Source Take a listen to the 207th episode of the Social Zoom Factor to learn how you can tap into the power of emotional branding to ignite your audience, business and brand! I share with you 8 foundations for integrating emotion into your branding strategies. Be sure to subscribe to this entire brand new series, "Welcome to The Inspiration Age. Are You Ready?" on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud! In this 20 minute podcast you will learn: Foundations of emotional branding. Why you must know what excites, motivates, empowers and enlightens your audience. Why it's NOT all about you! How to strike an emotional chord with your audience. Learning how to surprise and delight your customers and audience every chance you get. Importance of being human in your communication, language and engagement with your community, customers and audience. Understanding the difference between authenticity and transparency. Storytelling with audio, visuals and text. How to plan your content and why you should not "wing it". How to plan content yet save time for dynamic, real-time content marketing. Building something bigger than yourself and engaging your audience and customers in it as well.

It's not news that social networks such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn are moving to a pay to play model. The glory days of being able to gain massive organic reach with a simple, on the fly Facebook post are over and done. Results in the social world of today require more planning, integration, and money. The social media ecosystem over all is moving to pay to play. What this means is that brands and the marketing leaders within must not only purchase media that in the past use to be free, but that they must also know how to develop and execute an integrated program and strategy that organically attracts, inspires and engages community. Marketing leaders today must understand and embrace the know, like, trust and pay model for growing their business. At the heart of business today is people. At the heart of social media is people. Marketing leaders and brands that embrace and master the art of human connection will leap frog years ahead of their competition that only focuses on clicks, follows and likes. You can't buy advocates, friends, fans, evangelists, or word of mouth. A person that likes your Facebook page or follows you on Twitter is not immediately going to trust you, love you or want to tell their friends about you. Paid media will help you attack the right audience, get more likes, followers, views and clicks. However, it's up to you to invest in relationships that will help you earn trust, advocates and loyal customers. Earning brand advocates and making friends via the social networks is based on trust. It requires investment in the human beings within your community. Unfortunately, less than 3% of the people that like your Facebook page will ever visit the actual page again. Bottom line, the best relationships take time. Take a listen to the 206th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn 8 strategies and tips to build loyal tribes of advocates and social media friends.

In March I spent almost a week with 10k digital marketers at the Adobe Summit event. 2016 was my 2nd year being paid as an Adobe Insider to cover the event. Again we took our #GetRealChat on the road and talked live on Twitter from the event in Las Vegas. I love the Adobe events as I get to hang with my kind of people. They're not just geeks or technologists. It's a marketing and business event packed with 10k marketing technologists. These are geeks that understand not only data, coding and marketing, but the importance of inspiring, connecting, engaging and serving the customer. This year the event had quite a line up on speakers including George Clooney, Thomas Middleditch (star of the HBO show Silicon Valley, Donny Osmond, and Abby Wambach. Of course there were brand Leaders as well from Mattel, Mcdonalds and industry leaders such as Brian Solis, a good friend and one of my favorites in the industry. The focus of content and discussions this year at Adobe Summit centered around customer experience as the future of business and marketing. For marketers, it's imperative to understand the true definition and foundations of customer experience. What does an experience business look, smell and feel like? What are the top 4 characteristics of an experience business? How do they differentiate? What are the benefits? How and where do brand leaders start if they want to shift focus of marketing and business investment toward customer experience? How do you get approval from key stakeholders and executives? To hear the answers to these questions and more, take a listen to the 205th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for a recap of the event and my key take-aways. http://www.socialzoomfactor.com/205

Do you ever feel as though you are going through the motions, maybe even working what may seem like 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, yet the results are not bearing the fruits of your labor? Download White Paper: How to Stomp Random Acts of Marketing We all have the same 24 hours in a day. It's how we use the hours that matters most. If you are struggling with achieving real results in your life or business could it be that you need to better prioritize your time? Maybe you need to better focus on the right things that are going to help you move forward in the right direction? Could it also be you are struggling with patience? Are you struggling with an addiction to Random Acts of Marketing that may bring a short term false sense of success? Often times a lack of patience is what drives randomness. Although crossing random tasks off your list may feel good for the short term, RAMs will eat every morsel of ROI before you even realize where the problem is if you are not careful. Think about these questions... Do you know what success looks like to you?Do you know where you are going and why?How do you envision your life and business 1, 3, 5, 10 years from you?What do you want to achieve and how are you going to achieve it?How are you going to provide value to your ideal customer and audience?WHY should anyone care that you and your brand exists?WHY are you doing what you are doing?Are you prioritizing and investing your time in activities and tactics that are truly helping you achieve your WHY of life and business?Are you prioritizing your time on activities that will truly help you achieve your goals and objectives?Are you making measurable progress toward your goals and objectives this year? If not, why not?Is it time to pivot or stomp the Random Acts of Marketing in your business? Take a listen to the 204th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to hear some solid strategies and tips to help you focus your time, energy, life and business on the highest value tasks that will help you achieve your goals and objectives. In this episode I share my personal reflection after being off the mic and podcast for two months while fighting a terrible flu bug and bronchitis. In this 20 minute podcast you will learn Strategies and tips to better focus on the most impactful priorities.The importance of patience and avoiding Random Acts of Marketing.Why you must focus not only on short term results but most importantly, long term sustainability and endurance.Staying focused on your WHY of business and life.Why life and business is about the journey, not just the destination.

Achieving measurable social media ROI is very similar to teens and sex. Everyone is talking about it but very few are actually doing it! It's interesting because many marketing and social media leaders within brands and organizations of all sizes dream about achieving real ROI using social media and digital marketing, yet very few of them actually bring to fruition much more than a social media dream. In addition to running a busy social, branding and digital agency, Marketing Nutz, I also do a ton of international keynote speaking, training and workshops. We work with brands of all sizes from startups to Fortune 10 brands. Regardless of the size of the organization or their allocated and approved marketing and social media budget, unfortunately very few social marketers take the time they should to set goals, objectives and map a path for success. As marketers it's in our DNA to move fast. We want to dig into new platforms, learn by trying and failing fast. This mindset can be good and drive results. We believe in risk. We believe in jumping onto social platforms before they are proven. We believing in life long learning and that life is one big course for the taking. However, at the same these behaviors can push teams and organizations into cycles of wasted time, mindshare and investment. It's one of the biggest fallacies of the digital and social media world... that social media is free! Social media is not free. Social media takes your biggest asset which is time. How you as a marketer or business leader spend your time every day will determine success. It will also determine if your dream of achieving an ROI using social media ever makes it out of your dream and into the real world. Too many social marketers promise goals and objectives to their executives and key stakeholders that they know from day one they will not deliver upon. They feel as if they get backed into a corner. Many fall into the mistake of thinking "I must promise something, anything, so I can get and keep some level of budget." The truth is this thinking is hurting them more than helping. Smart social media marketers know they must... Understand social media business success and ROI is only as good as the business goals and objectives for which it is alignedAlign social media to business goals where it can have the greatest impactTake time to slow down to speed upAvoid shiny object syndrome and fear of missing out (FOMO) unless it aligns to their core business goals and objectivesCare about customer experience across their digital and social platforms because customer experience is their brandUnderstand the needs of their audience and ideal customerKnow how to not only build community but build real relationships with human beings built on trust and authenticityBuild, tweak and optimize conversion funnels, content strategy and plans, digital platforms and more over time and that results are not achieved overnightBe patient when changing mindset within a company that is new to social media and digital marketing strategies and tacticsSo how do you choose, set and prioritize goals and objectives for social media? How do you align social to business goals where social media can have the greatest impact? Check out episode 203 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for strategies, tips and a framework to help you not only set goals, but also achieve them. If it's ROI you are looking for, then you want to listen to this episode! You get out of social media what you put into it. Take a listen and learn how you can prioritize every dollar and minute spent. Be sure to subscribe to our entire digital and social media marketing series on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud! In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: How to identify and prioritize business goals and objectives to align your social media efforts for the greatest impact4 Foundations social media goals are usually centered aroundHow to make sure your goals are SMART - smart, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bound15+ sample business goals where social can have the greatest impact10+ sample KPIs (key performance indicators) for social mediaThe difference between a KPI, goal, and objectiveHow KPIs help you measure desired transformations in your businessWhy the focus must first be on humans, relationships vs solely focusing on conversions and salesWhy it's not about what the technology can do for you, but instead what you can do with the technologySupporting Resources: How to Get Your Social Marketing Budget Approved (white paper)10 Proven Strategies to Get Your Social Media Budget Approved (podcast)Your Logo is Not Your Brand - Marketing Branding Strategy in a Nutshell10 Habits Highly Effective Social Media Marketing LeadersAudience Analysis Worksheet (worksheet to help you prioritize your niche)2016 Social Media & Digital Marketing Predictions 10 Questions You Must Answer Before Hiring a Social Media Marketing AgencyEarned, Owned an Paid Media in a NutshellInfluencer Marketing in a Nut

Twitter is an amazing platform to not only build community and brand awareness but also to generate leads and increase sales! Yes, smart and social savvy marketers know how to generate sales using Twitter. However, to do this you must understand that Twitter is not designed as a spamming platform. You can't just hop on Twitter and start spamming urls to your website, blog or sales page. Instead, you need to build relationships. You need to design and implement a well thought out and tested conversion funnel that helps you organically attract, inspire and engage your ideal customer. You need to inspire them to pay attention to you in a way that builds trust, nurtures relationships and helps you convert the business to the desired state over time. Learning how to increase conversions and sales using Twitter requires both art and science. There are many features within the walls of Twitter than can help you convert more sales. You can tap into the power of Twitter ads, Twitter cards, Twitter lists and more. However, what many marketers so not understand is that what you do off of Twitter is as important, if not more important as what you do on Twitter. Having an integrated, social and digital platform that is ready for the social savvy and mobile customer is a requirement, not an option for brands looking to generate leads and sales using Twitter. If your blog, website, content and engagement strategies suck, your conversions on Twitter will be the same. Take a listen to episode 202 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn 14 tips and strategies to increase sales and conversions using Twitter. Included are 14 ideas you can implement TODAY to help you increase the ROI of the time and resource you invest in Twitter. Be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud! In this 25 minute podcast you will learn: 14 strategies and tactics to generate leads, increase sales and conversions using TwitterHow to tap into features such as Twitter advertising, Twitter cards, Twitter lists to increase salesUsing Twitter, blog content and other social media posts for A/B testing to increase conversionsLeverage Twitter analytics for optimized resultsUsing web analytics such as Google Analytics to optimize conversions and salesHow to use Twitter to learn more about your audience and ideal customerImportance of a good content strategy and plan to increase salesAvoiding spammy tactics to ensure positive brand perception

When many business leaders think of the term "brand" they think of pretty colors, expensive logos, fancy graphics, Facebook cover photos and traditional tv or radio advertisements. Smart marketers know branding is much more than a logo. In reality, the logo is the easy part and only one small component of your brand. Smart and savvy marketers also understand the importance of building a brand architecture and strategy inclusive of the brand identity with supporting visuals language and more. The colors, language and visuals are supporting elements, not "the" brand. Big difference. Your brand is your promise and value you offer customers, your community and all who come in contact with your brand. It's a promise delivered. It's value received. It's community. It's relationship. It's empowerment, inspiration, education and the list goes on. Are you influencing brand perception in a positive way? Your brand is your personality, communication, tone and perceptions of all who experience your brand. At the root of your brand are a set of experiences. You can't control perception. However, you can influence perception if you know how to build, launch and manage your brand architecture. Every brand touch is an opportunity to influence perceptions, to build your reputation. At the core, your brand is rooted in who you are and how you care about others. It's not just about you. It's not just about pretty colors or a logo you pay a marketing or branding agency big bucks to design. It's not a brand manual the same agency delivers and you don't look at again until the next agency asks for it. Your brand is the foundation and one of the most important aspects of your business. Regardless of the size of your business, you have one chance to make a first, second and third impression. Every brand touch counts. Every brand touch is influencing perception and building your reputation. You are either earning trust, building though leadership and relationships or you are not! A good brand architecture and strategy will enable you to better share your brand story in an authentic way. Doing such can emotionally bring people closer to your brand. The more confidence you have in your brand foundation the more confidence your ideal customer will have in believing in your brand promise. Would you like to learn where to start in building your brand architecture, strategy, vision, mission and more so that you can impact brand perceptions, increase brand equity and build a loyal tribe of brand evangelists? If you answer yes, then you have landed on the right blog post today! Take a listen to the 201st episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast where I provide the definition of a brand, reputation and most importantly the top 5 reasons why you must develop your brand strategy and how it can benefit your business, customers and greater community! In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: Definition of brandingDefinition of a brand identity Definition of brand architectureDefinition of visual brandingDefinition of brand trustDefinition of reputationTop 5 reasons you must develop a brand strategy for your businessImportance of brand story telling How to increase brand equityRisks that lead to decreased brand equityEstablishing thought leadership, earning trust and credibility via brandingHow to differentiate from your competition via brandingHow to tap into the power of emotional branding Take a listen and be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud!

It's hard to believe this is the 200th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast! What started out as a "test of the podcast waters" transformed into an amazing media and revenue channel for our agency, Marketing Nutz. The Social Zoom Factor podcast has enables us to differentiate, diversify, build community, provide value to our audience, generate leads, increase revenue, diversity revenue streams and the list goes on. We entered the podcast world pretty clueless as to what it would take to not only lunch but run a successful podcast that could be an amazing part of our business. We dug in deep and did the research. We learned from mentors, and developed a solid strategy plan for success. We knew the future of podcasting is bright and wanted to be at the front of the movement to audio. Ever since the day we launched our first agency in early 2010, sold it in late 2011 and built the following agency, Marketing Nutz to where it is today, we have held on tight to our WHY of business and life. I didn't leave a corporate career of 15+ years to simply work 24/7. If it was about the money I would have stayed in corporate. I left corporate to build something amazing, something that could employee wonderful people, empower them to build something bigger together than we can ever do as individuals. Has it been easy? Nope. Have there been late night? Of course. However, I have much more time to live life on my terms today than I ever did during my tenure in corporate. We have tried our best to work smarter, not just harder. We believe in the #SmartHustle and building platforms that work even when you are not working. That is exactly what the podcast does. It works when I am not working. It works 24/7. Take a listen to the 200th episode of the Social Zoom Factor to hear how we launched and 5 solid tips to help you differentiate and diversify your media platforms and social networks to bring the highest ROI not only for your business, but also for your life! Take a listen and be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud! In this 20 minute podcast you will learn: 6 tips to differentiate and diversify by selecting the right new media & social networks to embrace to grow your businessHow we got started in podcastingStrategies that helped us hit and maintain 100k unique monthly downloadsMentors we depended on to create, build and launch our podcastThe benefits the podcast has provided our businessWhy you must keep your WHY at the foundation of business decisions when looking to shake things up, diversify and differentiateAvoiding shiny objects and the fear of missing out (FOMO)Aligning your passion with your whyUnderstanding where you fit in the market and the unique value your brand offersThe importance of taking risksNever giving up!

The days of only using textual content marketing to build your brand, attract, inspire, engage and empower your audience and customers are long gone. If you are only using textual marketing you are already falling behind. In case you haven't noticed, the world is turning visual. As humans we are bombarded by marketing and media everywhere we look. Every brand, every marketer and human has an opportunity to be the media. Social media levels the playing field. Today even the smallest of businesses and brands can compete with the biggest if they know how to tap into the power of modern, social and digital marketing. A picture can truly speak a thousand words! Visual marketing is a form of content marketing that enables and empowers savvy marketers to better communicate, educate, empower, inspire and connect with their audiences in a human way. Did you know... The human brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than the time it takes to decode text?84% of communication will be visual by 2018People are 85% more likely to buy a product after viewing a video89% of internet traffic will be video by 2018The average person gets distracted in 8 secondsPeople form a first impression in 50 millisecondsPosts that include images produce 650 percent higher engagement than text only posts *Source: WebDam InfographicVisuals are powerful as they help people more quickly understand and retain information. It takes at minimum 5-6 brand impressions for someone to remember your brand. Visual marketing can help ensure each touch counts even more and becomes more memorable. Standing out from the noise is half the battle for even the smartest of marketers. Rising above the noise and connecting in a human way can help smart brand leaders zoom past the status quo quite quickly. Have you tapped into the power of visual marketing? Do you understand the need for visual marketing and don't know where to start? Many marketers know they need to start better leveraging visual marketing. However, they don't know where to start. Would you like to know what types of visual content marketing work best? How about understand what visual content will be shared by your audience and fans like mad? Visual marketing doesn't have to cost you a fortune. You can leverage everything from infographics, personal photographs, video, to custom designed or even stock photos to build and share your brand story. Take a listen to 199th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 12 Visual Marketing Content Ideas that Get Shared Like Mad! Be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud! In this 20 minute podcast you will learn: Why visual marketing?12 visual content marketing ideas that get shared like madHow to leverage infographics to educate, empower and inspireHumanizing your brand with visual marketingBrand storytelling with visual marketingSharing behind the scenes images and videoSharing stories of travel, corporate and customer eventsWhy images of action can drive actionThe power of connecting as humans in an emotional way with imagesLeveraging simple branded images for quotes, tips and tricks and moreTips for using coupons on the top social networks such as Facebook and Twitter

Do you struggle with having what you think may be the best social media marketing plan on the entire planet yet have no budget to implement? Show notes / blog post and resources can be downloaded here http://www.socialzoomfactor.com/198 Do any or all of these problems sound familiar? You struggle with getting budget approved to implement your social media plan Your executives don't understand social media You struggle with articulating the goals and objectives of your social media program to key stakeholders You feel like you are boiling the ocean as it relates to getting your social media plan approved You lack needed support and buy-in for your social media program and plan You don't know how to align social media to business goals and objectives your executives and key stakeholders care about You know your organization is filled with employees who want to power up your brand and could be loyal brand advocates but you can't get the support you need to empower them Would you like answers to these questions? If yes, you have landed on the right blog and podcast today. One of the biggest challenges business, digital and social marketing leaders face across organizations of all sizes is obtaining the needed support and funding to achieve their desired goals and objectives. My agency, Marketing Nutz works with organizations of all sizes from startups to Fortune 10 organizations. We help them earn the needed support, trust and budget to that they can begin to finally once and for all implement modern and social media marketing strategies and tactics into their business to increase measurable results. Take a listen to the 198th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast and learn how you can setup a 6 month plan for budget approval. The key is to earn the trust and respect early on in your social media program so that you can earn the needed budget in later phases of your project. The podcast will provide you with the foundation to help you win support of even the toughest to please c-suite executive and stakeholders as early in the process as possible! I split the podcast into two sections. The first includes 5 things you should NOT do and the second includes 5 things you MUST do. In addition the bottom of this blog posts is loaded with helpful resources, templates and white papers for you to leverage in your planning and execution. Episode Highlights 5 things you MUST do to get approval for your social media budget and plan5 things you should NOT do if you want to obtain approval for your social media plan and budgetWhy you must have a solid foundation that includes knowing your audience, goals, and objectivesWhy starting with a well defined scope and plan will help you achieve results faster than trying to boil the ocean from day oneWhy you must simplify your plan for key stakeholders to understand and provide you the buy-in you are seekingWhy you must know where you are going and why before you can get others to board your trainSetting key performance indicators (KPIs) and ensuring all stakeholders and executives understand themThe importance of ensuring all team members and executives are speaking the same languageConsider doing a survey to help you better understand the skill and needs of your executives, stakeholders, team members and employeesWhy you must align your social media efforts to your top business goals and objectivesWhy collaboration is key and you must avoid working in a bubbleWhy you must not "fake it until you make it" and instead get the necessary 3rd party help if needed

Businesses of all sizes from solo-entrepreneurs, startups, small businesses to Fortune 50 brands often turn to social media and digital marketing agencies to help them develop a social media and digital marketing strategy. They tap into the agency teams of experts for help to implement the plan and tactics, identify KPIs, select measurement systems and social dashboards, build their digital brand and communities and the list goes on. How to Get Your Social Media Budget Approved (white paper) Show Notes / Blog Post For this Episode It is important that before contacting a social media agency for help that you first answer some foundational questions about your own business, team and goals. The better you understand your business, your ideal customer, your overall market and competition, the better an agency or consultant can help you. This doesn't mean that you need to know all of the answers before you start, or before you engage a third party for assistance. My point is that you need to be crystal clear on what you do know and what you don't know. What are your greatest strengths? Who are your strongest team members that can help you win, not just stroll along with status quo? What data do you have in your marketing arsenal that the agency can leverage to help you zoom turbo in building, launching and optimizing your online digital and social presence? In addition you must know what gaps exist. What are your greatest weaknesses? Where are you at risk? How do you plan to mitigate the risk? What resources, time and budget to you have available to commit to the project? Many business leaders struggle with budget allocation for social media and digital marketing. They think that if they contact a ton of different agencies and request proposals from as many agencies as they can, that they will eventually get a proposal that is low price and delivers higher value than all the rest. The truth is that most social media agencies are not going to lower or raise the price just because you give them a target budget. Instead, the better they understand your budget the better they will be able to better develop a proposal, strategy and plan that will serve your needs, help you win and can be realistically implemented with your available time and resources including money. Knowing these details will enable the social media or digital marketing agency to help you win. The online and social world is getting noisier by the minute. You can not just throw up a Facebook page, Twitter profile, Snapchat account, live Periscope stream, Facebook Live session or Instagram page and expect to build overnight community. Success using social media and digital marketing requires research, knowledge of the broader ecosystem, an understanding of your competition and how you fit within your industry and niche. The goal is to develop a strategy and plan with tactics that will help you connect with your ideal customer and audience in a human and authentic way. The goal is to earn trust and bring people closer to your brand. You must trust the agency you hire with the knowledge they need to enable this to happen. Results are not going to be achieved overnight or in a matter of a few days or weeks. You need to be invested in the program for the medium and long term, not just a short one night stand with Facebook and Instagram. Check out episode 197 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 10 Questions Every Brand Must Answer for Themselves Before Contacting a Social Media Marketing Agency. Take a listen and be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud! Episode Highlights 10 questions you must answer before hiring a social media agencyWhy you must know where you are going and whyThe importance of understanding your business key performance indicators for successWhy you must know your budget before hiring a social media agencyThe importance of assessing the time, talent and resources available to allocate to your projectWhy you must do a sanity check on your in-house skillsThe importance of understanding your strengths and weaknessesAssessing the state of your digital platformUnderstanding the state of your social platform and digital brandThe importance of a content strategy aligned with your business goals and audience needsWhy you must understand the larger ecosystem at least at a base levelHow to clearly identify your gaps so that the agency can best help you achieve your business and marketing goals

Pinning tweets on Twitter is likely one of the most useful but overlooked feature of Twitter. If you are not using or haven't even thought about using pinned tweets, I hope this blog post and podcast will change your mind. Pinned tweets provide numerous opportunities for you to generate leads, convert more sales, grow your email list, increase brand awareness, conduct market research, increase ROI of your content assets and most importantly connect with your audience. You can easily pin any tweet that you have sent. After pinning the tweet it will be showcased at the very top of your profile for all to see! Do you ever have a tweet that you wish the world could see? Well, pinning the tweet will not obviously guarantee the world will see it, but it will guarantee more people who visit your Twitter profile will definitely see it! The new tweet stays pinned to the very top of your Twitter profile until you remove it! It doesn't require expert Twitter skills. Here is how you pin a tweet: Find the tweet you want to pin. Click the three dots on the bottom right of your tweet Click "pin to your profile" in the box that pops up Hit "pin" again when Twitter asks you to confirm or cancel Now go back to your Twitter profile and refresh to make sure it is there Don't know what to pin? No worries. Take a listen to the 196th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 10 use cases of how to use the pinned tweet feature for business and life. Check out the blog post recap with more resources for this episode at: http://www.socialzoomfactor.com/196 Be sure to subscribe to this entire brand new series, "Welcome to The Inspiration Age. Are You Ready?" on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud! In this 25 minute podcast you will learn: Benefits of using the Twitter pinned tweet feature 10 use cases for using the pinned tweet feature for business How to use the pinned tweet to increase conversions How to use the pinned tweet to increase brand awareness How to use the pinned tweet to increase ROI of content assets you create How to incorporate video and podcasts into pinned tweets How to embed a video or podcast as a pinned tweet Maximizing views of live video from Periscope, Meerkat and other mobile broadcasting platforms using the pinned tweet How to maximize brand storytelling with the pinned tweet How to grow your community using the pinned tweet How to humanize your brand using the pinned tweet Why you must avoid spammy tactics even for the pinned tweet and focus on value

Many smart and social savvy marketers and business leaders look forward to the starting of a new year! I personally love taking the time to slow down to speed up and plan, strategize, and prioritize. Our agency, Marketing Nutz lives for helping our clients stomp random acts of marketing and help ensure every dollar spent is providing the highest return on investment possible. Digital and social marketing is changing the game. Customer experience is the new brand. It's no longer just about your logo, brand colors or fancy words crafted by a paid marketer. Instead brands must learn how to embrace real-time engagement, conversation that inspires and connects with their audiences, community, partners and stakeholders in a human way. We must think mobile first as well as customer first. We must know our customer intimately before our customer knows what they want or need from us. This can get very overwhelming to many brand leaders. It's normal to struggle in trying to keep up with the technological changes, industry leaders or even your top competitors. The only guarantee we have in this crazy tweeting, Facebook and always on, social savvy, media hungry world is change! Regardless how overwhelmed you may feel, don't fall to spammy social and digital marketing tactics. Avoid falling back to old ways, old marketing strategies and tactics that are a recipe for failure in the new always on, always connected digital and social savvy connected SnapChatting, Twittering, Instagramming, Facebook posting world. Brands can no longer hide behind fancy corporate speak and pretty brochures. Today, marketing and communication is real and raw. It's human. It's not perfect. It doesn't have time to wait until words and visuals have been perfected. Given these challenges, how do you build a brand utilizing technology and social networks that are always changing? How do you utilize social media and digital marketing to establish thought leadership, earn trust and grow your business? The truth is you must know where and how your brand is positioned in the market. You must be certain of your own intent, goals and objectives. You must have a solid plan for content, conversation and be aware of your own digital body language. You must build an integrated digital marketing platform that works when you are not working, or else wind up working 24/7/365! The choice is yours. Are you going to work smarter, not just harder? Or are you going to keep running in the social and digital hamster wheel and wondering why you lack real business results. It's time you get off the chasing shiny object train. It's time you quit trying to be first on every social platform ever launched on planet earth. It's time you learn, and invest in the solid foundational elements that will help you build a brand online that will deliver real and measurable results for the short, medium and long term. Are you ready to learn the foundations for how you can leverage social media and digital marketing to build your brand in 2016? Take a listen to episode 195 of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 8 foundational elements to build your social and digital brand upon in 2016. Show Notes / Blog Post for this Episode - http://www.socialzoomfactor.com/195 Audience Analysis Worksheet: http://www.socialzoomfactor.com/audience 105 Factors Digital Body Language Impacting Your Personal & Biz Brand: http://www.socialzoomfactor.com/digitalme\ In this 20 minute podcast you will learn: 8 foundational elements to build your brand using social media and digital marketing Why you must decide first how you want to position your brand in the larger ecosystem Why intent is so important in the online, social and digital world How intent drives behavior, and how behavior determines how people perceive your brand The importance of content and conversation in building your brand platform and perception Why your brand is so much more than just your logo, brand colors and fancy corporate speak Why you should build an integrated platform that works even when you are not working Importance of understanding the impact of your strategies and tactics and how to set goals that will help you achieve your business objectives Why customer experience is your brand

At the foundation of business and life is people. At the core of people are hearts and minds that want to connect with other people. It is in our DNA to want to connect with other human beings in a communal way. We want to rub elbows, clink glasses, laugh, cry and celebrate with people who have the same goals, objectives, beliefs, and interests as we do. At the heart of social media is people. Social media is one big fat conversation that inspires, empowers, engages, delights, educates, and activates human beings when used for good. So given that people want to connect with other human beings at the core of their being, and that social media is about connecting humans, why is it that marketers struggle with connecting humans together, using social media? Do they struggle because.... they have self centered goals?they don't know how to connect humans to other humans so they simply focus on what they do know, which is spam?they are technology addicted shiny object chasers and put their geek desires before business?they struggle with communication?they don't know their audience?Whatever the reason is, we all know there are far more brands and digital marketers building communities with self serving goals vs brands delivering real value for their communities. We also know many brand leaders question the real value of social media. They struggle with connecting the dots from a social network to a human to a business goal or objective. They don't know how to prioritize where they spend their time or what social shiny object they should invest in. Are you confused as to what social networks you should be leveraging in 2016 and beyond to build community? Should you continue to focus on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter? Or should you start integrating live streaming? If yes, then should you dig into Facebook mentions, Facebook live, Periscope, Meerkat or none of the above? The truth is you should not start with the technology. You should start with the people. You should start with your goal for building community. Why do you want to connect with other human beings? WHY do you want to connect other human beings together? What is in it for them and you? If these are some of the question you would like to answer as you finalize your social media and digital marketing strategies and plans then take a listen to the 194th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast. In this episode I provide 10 goals for building and nurturing community that you can leverage to help you select and prioritize the social networks and platforms you should invest in to build community for your business and brand. Take a listen and be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud! Episode Highlights 10 goals for building communityHow to leverage the 10 possible goals to help you select what social networks and platforms to focus on in developing your social media and digital marketing strategy and planWhy building the size of your community should never be your only goalThe power of tapping into the OPC - other people's community and contentLeveraging community to increase brand awareness or improve public perceptionEstablishing thought leadership with communityIncreasing reach of content with the power of communityWhy you must be careful of chasing shiny objectsThe importance of knowing the goals of your audience and ideal customer

Is your marketing delivering promises that you can't keep? Are your websites, blogs, social profiles, Instagram photos, tweets and Facebook updates over promising? As marketers we are paid to build excitement, increase brand awareness and drive results. The social web is becoming more noisy by the day. It's difficult for even smart marketers to stand out from the crowd and rise above the noise. Many marketers fall into the frenzy of beautiful visual graphics, never ending sales pages, over exciting live video sessions and the list goes on. Before they know it they have made a long list of promises that are far outside the scope of what their websites, blog, content, or business can provide. Instead of helping their efforts, their over promising marketing messages and actions are hurting the brand. These broken promises lose trust, hurt relationships and decrease brand equity. Today, authenticity and transparency rules the social web. Customer experience is your brand, period. Customers, community and audience members demand that brands deliver on what they promise. Marketers must learn to stop over selling. They must stop over promising and under delivering. Smart and savvy digital marketers know they are better off under promising and over delivering. Why not surprise and delight vs oversell and then disappoint? Check out the 193rd episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 7 ways social, digital and brand marketers can keep their promises. Included are strategies, tips and tactics to earn trust, create a conversion funnel that actually converts and ensure that marketing efforts are helping the brand, not hurting brand reputation.

It is every marketer and business leaders dream to have crystal ball that can predict the future. Imagine having the knowledge to know exactly where to invest your time, resource and budget to bring the maximum return in all facets of product, service, digital, social and content marketing. Unfortunately the chances of any of us finding that digital marketing nirvana crystal ball are slim to zero. However, the fun part is we can predict what we believe can happen. We can base these predictions on data, experience and our gut feeling. Smart marketers know their audience and know how to selectively choose the right social and digital platforms, content channels, communication mediums to inspire their customers to connect with them. They know how to tap into the power of earned, owned and paid media to drive more than clicks, and to build community and grow brand awareness. They know how to invest in influencer marketing relationships, not just influencers who will tweet for them for a single one night show. So what will happen in 2016 in the world of digital and social marketing? The good news is even though I can't deliver you a magical digital marketing crystal ball, I can offer you my predictions based on experience working with brands ranging from well funded startups and entrepreneurs to Fortune 10 brands. Check out the 193rd episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 12 Digital Marketing and Social Media Predictions for 2016. I provide insight, strategic direction and recommendations on tactics for you to embrace the new year and business planning with the knowledge you need to succeed. Check out the 190th episode of the Social Zoom Factor for 10 Top Content Marketing Mistakes that could be killing your marketing and business results. In this 30 minute podcast you will learn: Top 12 social media and digital marketing predictions for 2016.Video will obviously be big. Okay, huge in 2016. How brands can be ready.The importance of working with earned, paid and owned media.Why many brands will take influencer marketing more serious in 2016.Content marketing will get even noisier. Are you ready?The winning brands who break through the noise will do so because of an integrated strategy, knowing their audience and selecting the right tactics and platform.Embracing the pay to play media model on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and more.Why Facebook will continue to rein.Why I think the jury is still out for Snapchat in 2016. Communities will continue to be more formalized. I also predicted this in 2014. Brands are still learning in this area.Visual marketing will continue to be big but quality, inspiration and emotional branding will rein in 2016.User experience is your brand. Brands must embrace designing the best user experience for their audience, readers, listeners, community and customers in 2016.Mobile first has been a requirement for several years. Some brands are still learning this.Why omnichannel marketing is a requirement, not an option for many retail and other brands.

Social media can be a powerful communication medium to enhance relationships, earn trust and build brand awareness. Delivering a solid and quality product or service is only part of the equation for brand success and serving the needs of the always on, always connected customer of today. What customer journey and experience are you designing for your customers and audience? Your customers do not just land on your website and then buy from you within 5 seconds. They have likely been on a journey and your website, blog or social platform is simply one of the stops on their journey. Communicating with your customers when, where and how they want you to communicate with them is critical. Today's mobile and connected customer requires you know not only the right time but the right place to communicate with them. If you don't, they will just go to someone else, to another brand who has taken the time to understand who they are and what they need. Smart brand leaders know that social media can help them differentiate and rise above the sea of status quo and leap frog their competition if implemented correctly and with goals that help improve user and customer experience. Social media can easily be used to provide the most positive experience possible. Social media can be leveraged to nurture relationships with customers, prospects, partners and their broader community. Every brand touch matters. From the first touch on your website, contact form to your Facebook page, Twitter communication, email marketing or phone conversation with your customer or sales support team, every brand touch requires thorough thought and planning. Did you know that it takes on average 6-7 brand touches before someone will remember your brand? You have less than 10 seconds when a person lands on your website or blog for the online visitor to determine if they are going to stick around to learn more about you or bounce right out. The same goes for when they land on your Facebook page, LinkedIn company page or your own personal social profile on any of the social networks. Your brand is not what you say it is or what you write for your corporate Twitter bio, Facebook profile or LinkedIn company page. Your brand is what people say about you. Your brand is what and how you make people feel. Your brand is the experience you deliver to customers, prospective customers, partners, your community and your audience online and offline. Your brand is how quickly you reply and answer questions. Your brand is the tone you use when communicating with your peers, thought leaders in your industry and niche, your employees and even competitors online. You brand is how you show gratitude. It's how you handle a public online, crisis. It's how you build and nurture community. Customer experience is your brand, period. What customer experience are you delivering your customers, audience, partners and community online? Is it positive? Is it human? Is it authentic? How transparent is it? Is it helping you build a lasting and meaningful impression? Is it inspiring people to connect with you, engage with you and buy from you today, tomorrow or next year? Or is it turning people off? Is it pushing them away or bringing them closer to you and your brand? Take a listen to the 191st episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn 10 easy ways you can start using social media today to provide an amazing customer experience for your audience, customers and broader online community! Learn how you can leverage social media to differentiate your brand and win in your specific industry and niche. Be sure to subscribe to this entire brand new series, "Get Fit Social Digital Business" on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud! In this 25 minute podcast you will learn: 10 ways to improve customer experience using social mediaHow to design a customer journey that inspires and connects you with your ideal customer and audienceWhy you must be proactive in creating a crisis preparedness plan vs being reactive and waiting until a major crisis happens and causes major problems for your brand and businessHow to integrate social media into the overall customer journey and experienceHow you can enhance the customer experience at every brand touch pointWhy even answering simple questions quickly online using social media can improve customer satisfactionHow to solve problems by integrating social customer service processes into your overall business support proceduresHow to leverage social media and social customer service to differentiate from your competitionHow to gather feedback and customer insights to learn about your customerThe power of giving your employees and customers a voiceEmbracing the power of brand humanization and ensuring that you are communicating with your customers in an authentic, transparent and human way

Do you ever feel like you are spinning your wheels when it comes to developing and integrating your content marketing strategy and plan into your business and overall marketing initiatives and programs to achieve your business and marketing goals? Content marketing planned and executed properly can help you ignite not only online results but also true business results. You can increase sales, generate more leads, increase brand awareness, build and nurture communities, humanize your brand, and reach markets you simply couldn't reach with other mediums. Unfortunately many brand leaders are their own worst enemies when it comes to defining and executing a well laid out content marketing plan with strategies and tactics that delivers real results. Often times they get lazy and impatient. They want immediate results and don't understand it takes time and ongoing investment. Content marketing is not a "set it and forget it" type of initiative. You must constantly be feeding the content engine, inspiring and connecting with your audience to achieve desired objectives. Bottom line, content marketing for business requires work. Real work. The kind of work that may even make your head hurt from time to time. It may even keep you up at night. Could it be that you are making some basic content marketing mistakes that are holding you back from the success you deserve and expect? Sometimes we get so focused and stuck in our ways that we need to have a fresh eye, a fresh perspective, a fresh voice to help us acknowledge it could be one, two or a few silly things we are doing that are sabotaging our efforts. Check out the 190th episode of the Social Zoom Factor for 10 Top Content Marketing Mistakes that could be killing your marketing and business results. In this 25 minute podcast you will learn: Top 10 content mistakes killing your success and business resultsHow to not sabotage your own content marketing successWhy you must have a foundation to build on that includes a plan, goals, objectives, KPIs, call to actions, knowing your audienceWhy you can't ignore the data and why you must focus on data driven decisionsWhy you must avoid too much selling and self promotion onlineThe danger of not sticking to a planAvoiding chasing shiny objects and your competitionWhy you must write for your customer, not Google onlyThe importance of headlinesHow to not get stuck in a rut and ensure you are always innovatingWhy basics matter such as spelling, grammar, user experience and visual appealWhy you must own your distribution and platform vs putting all of your social and content marketing eggs in a basket (social network you do not own)

How is your content marketing plan and strategy coming along for 2016? Are you ready to create and deliver valuable content that will inspire, connect and organically attack your ideal customer, audience, investors, stakeholders, and partners? Do you know what content you will be delivering on what month, week and day to inspire, empower, engage and activate the members of your online social communities? Are you ready to leverage content marketing to achieve your business and marketing goals and objectives? Are you ready to tap into the power of content marketing to generate more leads, earn trust with your ideal customer audience, establish thought leadership, connect with and foster relationships with influencers in your industry, and grow your business? Did you know: Only 30% of B2B marketers say their organizations are effective at content marketing. This is down from 38% last year. (Content Marketing Institute)67% of B2B buyers rely more on content to research and make B2B purchasing decisions than they did a year ago. (DemandGen Report)70% of marketers lack a consistent or integrated strategy. (Altimeter)51% of B2B marketers indicate they will increase their content marketing spending in the next 12 months (Content Marketing Institute)If you want to get a grip on your content marketing starting today, then you have come to the right place. We are thrilled to announce the availability of our 2016 content marketing editorial calendar template. The 189th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast provides a detailed tutorial to help you create your own content marketing editorial calendar for 2016. Step 1: Download our calendar here-> Content Editorial Calendar. Step 2: Listen to the 189th episode for step by step directions for how to use our content calendar template. Step 3: Subscribe to the entire series, "Get Fit Social and Digital Business" on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud! Benefits of using a content editorial calendar: Helps you focus on the needs of your audience and ideal customerHelps you inspire, connect, empower and activate your audienceForce you out of your box and to think further than today or tomorrowIncrease value of your content to your audienceBetter integrate and leverage different communication mediums and platforms to keep things freshCreate content once, use many = increased return on investmentStreamline all investment and resources for content creation and marketing related activitiesEncourage teamwork internally and with external partners and stakeholdersFuel innovation and idea generation, avoid getting stuck in a rutBetter set expectations with your audience and fansHelps you create loyal brand evangelistsEditorial Calendar Highlights Prioritization of audience via our audience analysis worksheetMonthly conversation themeWeekly conversation themeBlog post titleTarget audiences (primary, secondary and tertiary)AuthorEditorPurchase cycle (awareness, consideration, preference, purchase, loyalty)Draft due datePrimary keywordsBlog CategoriesSupporting imagesOther supporting media (image, video, podcast)Embed in other resource kits or publicationsSyndicationPossibly white paper (y/n)Client testimonial / graphicsCall to action (link and description)In this 20 minute podcast you will learn: Content marketing definition in a nutshellWhy you need a content marketing calendarHow to use the 2016 content marketing editorial calendar provided by Marketing Nutz (download here-> Content Calendar Template)Recent industry trends and statistics regarding content marketing for 2016How to increase the ROI of all of your content marketing by planning ahead, documenting your strategy and knowing your audienceWhy you must set goals, objectives, clear call to actionsHow to create and prioritize monthly and weekly themes for content and social conversationsHow to keep track of visuals integrated with your content marketingImportance of quality over quantity in developing your content marketing assets

Do you know what your ideal customer and audience wants from you? Do you know the perfect content that would help them solve their biggest problems and inspire them to connect with you and your brand immediately? That would be the perfect content marketing scenario wouldn't it? The scenario where your ideal customer visits your blog, website, or other social or digital platform and is provided with exactly what they want and need! Content marketing is an amazing way to build your brand awareness, foster community, establish thought leadership, generate leads and grow your business. Content can come in many forms such as text blogging, video blogging, audio and podcasts, visual marketing, infographics, live streaming mobile content and the list goes on. While it may be tempting to start testing every social network and content medium available, it's better to crawl, walk run and ensure you have a plan before wasting a ton of time, resource and money on content that your audience may not even like, read, watch, listen to or engage with. The first step in creating your content marketing, digital marketing and social marketing plan is to ensure that you know your audience. You need to know what your audience needs and wants from you. How can you help them solve their real problems? How can you offer a unique perspective and solution that stands out from the crowd of noise in your industry? A top goal for social and digital marketers should be to ensure their content is providing value for their ideal customer and audience. The better the content can inspire, connect with and engage the reader, viewer or listener, the higher the return on investment the content is going to provide. Check out the 188th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast for 10 tips and strategies to help you write for your ideal audience. Be sure to subscribe to this entire brand new series, "Get Fit Social and Digital Business" on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud! In this 20 minute podcast you will learn: 10 ways to create content for your ideal customer and audienceHow to increase ROI of all content created by writing for your ideal audience How to research and know your customer using social media Importance of selecting 3 specific problems your customer has and creating content that helps them solve the problems How to select the right mediums for your ideal customer and target audience Importance of understanding your competition Why you must understand industry trends in your niche and larger ecosystem Why you must select the right headline and make sure you make it clear what the value is for your audience Importance of not throwing social spaghetti at the wall and hoping it sticks