mRelevance

By BDX Guest Blogger, Carol Morgan, mRELEVANCE

LinkedIn, the top social network for professionals, is looking to increase its business appeal by introducing sponsored updates for company pages.

While LinkedIn advertising has existed for a few years, the newly added sponsored updates allow businesses to specifically target updates to customers. And, with a new prominent placement in users’ news feeds, instead of in the sidebar, sponsored updates exponentially increase the potential for engagement and exposure.

When it comes to defining the audience for your sponsored update, the sky is the limit. Audience filtering options include countries, states or regions within states; specific companies, industries or company sizes; job titles or function; education; skills; group memberships; gender and age. However, audience isn’t the only thing businesses can control, as they can also determine budget, campaign length and if they want to pay every time LinkedIn shows or every time a user clicks on their update.

If LinkedIn advertising sounds like just another social media network you have to pay money to, think again. While Facebook and Twitter are great for reaching current or potential customers, LinkedIn is the go-to source for building or enhancing business relationships and for reaching professionals who are searching for their next job. LinkedIn’s core audience is already on the site because they want to learn more about you, your company and your job openings, so sponsored updates are a great way to more effectively reach an already willing audience.

 

 

By BDX Guest Blogger, Carol Morgan, mRELEVANCE

Last month, LinkedIn reached the 200 million members worldwide milestone. This comes as no surprise since the online professional networking site has plenty to offer for those of any status in the work force, from recent college graduates to seasoned business professionals.

One of the newest, and most useful, features of LinkedIn is the endorsement sections. This section is easier to use than the lengthy testimonials section and because of this has become quite popular. Endorsements allow professionals to validate and recognize the skills and expertise their peers have added to their profile. Reward your business partners and coworkers for their mastery of a skill by giving them recognition through an endorsement. This feature is the perfect opportunity to do so without having to write out a full recommendation.

Here’s a quick overview of how to endorse your peers:

  • At the top of a connection’s profile, you’ll see recommended endorsements, simply click on the skills you want to endorse them for
  • In addition, you can suggest additional skills
  • Endorsements can also be made in the new Skills & Expertise section

If you’ve been endorsed, you will receive a notification from LinkedIn both by email and when you log into the site. You can view who has endorsed you for each skill by viewing your own Skills & Expertise section, where you can also accept any new skills recommended by your colleagues or include additional skills.

While the new endorsements section is great for recognizing other’s achievements and expertise, it does raise a few questions when it comes to business etiquette.

  • If someone endorses me, do I have to endorse them? Endorsing someone isn’t time consuming, and it’s always good to return positive favors!
  • What if someone endorses me, but I don’t want others to see it? Simply click on their face next to the skill they have endorsed you for. Then, you’ll be able to select the hide endorsement button.
  • Is endorsing someone even worth my time? On the whole, I wouldn’t suggest going on an endorsing spree, but if your peer has done exceptionally well at something or if you know they are looking for a new job in a specific field, endorsing them could potentially help them out.

For more tips and tricks when it comes to social media and business etiquette online, be sure to visit www.MarketingRELEVANCE.com.

By BDX Guest Blogger, Carol Morgan, mRELEVANCE

Is your home building business overwhelmed by social media? Many of you probably didn’t even hesitate before you answered, “Yes!” And, that’s completely understandable. In today’s society, builders now have to worry about more than just their website and sales center looking good. You also have to worry about Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest and every other social media site that your customers could possibly be looking for you on. However, just because a social media site is the latest and greatest or you have one or two potential customers on it, this does not mean that your business should actively use it. As with everything else you do as a home builder, social media takes time and dedication to build a product you can proudly put your name on.

Contemplating joining that new social media site you just read about? Stop! There are a few considerations you need to take into account before loading your profile picture. First, are any of your buyers actually using this new network? If the site is popular among your customers and competitors, then it might be worth your time, but if not, don’t waste your valuable time and resources. Second, is the site suited to your content? For example, joining YouTube won’t do you any good if you don’t actually have any videos of your communities or ads to share. Next, is there any SEO benefit to being on the site? Finally, do you think this site will actually last or is it just a passing fad? Not every single social network is going to stick around, so make sure the ones you choose are unique and simple enough that they stand a chance of survival.

Ultimately though, your company blog should remain at the center of your social media marketing strategy.  Blogs provide a stable syndication hub for content. Additionally, they allow for better search engine optimization, help you to reach a wider audience, are more controllable and ultimately have a longer shelf life than other social media sites. Essentially, blogs are the starting point from which the rest of your social media content should come from, which means social media should never become more important than maintaining your company’s website or blog.

Social media is worth the time and effort as long as you know that the audience you are trying to reach is there to hear you. If you are a homebuilder looking to improve your social media marketing strategy or need help getting your blog up and running, contact Marketing RELEVANCE.

Carol Morgan Flammer is managing partner at Marketing RELEVANCE and author of BuilderBooks best-selling Social Media for Home Builders 2.0. Find her on Google+

By BDX Guest Blogger, Carol Morgan, mRELEVANCE

Problem: you’ve created your website, blog and social media and have implemented search engine optimization, but you don’t know how to effectively measure your return on investment (ROI). Solution: Google Analytics. Yes, the answer really is that simple. Google Analytics is a free, easy to use tool offered by Google that allows you to filter your traffic to see the true impact of your efforts.

Once you’ve created an account, your Google Analytics report will show you graphs of your daily visits, average time on site, bounce rate, the geographical areas your visitors are from and more. Furthermore, Google Analytics recently launched social reporting which means you can now see the referrals to your website from social media, conversations on your social media sites, how your content is being shared socially and more. Both of these reports allow you to analyze your traffic to determine what your home buyers are actually looking at and looking for.

By becoming better educated about how home buyers are interacting with you on all of your online platforms, your company will be able to adjust or make changes to your plan to meet unforeseen needs and to continue to increase what is working. These tools essentially make you a smarter provider because you’ll know what your audience wants and how to get that to them.

For example, in 2008, we had a Florida home builder who needed to cut their marketing budget. And, even though they cut their budget by 85 percent over the next three years, traffic to their website tripled thanks to the information we gained from Google Analytics. Now that’s what we call a good ROI!

If you’re company wants to increase your ROI or if you’d like a walkthrough of what your Google Analytics report is trying to tell you, contact Marketing RELEVANCE.

Carol Flammer is managing partner of Marketing RELEVANCE, LLC, a Marketing, Communication, Interactive agency with offices in Atlanta and Chicago.

By BDX Guest Blogger, Carol Morgan, mRELEVANCE

The new Timeline layout for Facebook Pages has been around for a couple of months now, but many businesses still aren’t taking full advantage of the social media site’s redesign. Here are some ways your home building company could be using Facebook to build your brand:

  • Create a unique, relevant cover photo. Get creative with this critical space by using photos and collages of your homes and communities, photos of home buyers or highlight favorite features. Include your tagline or unique selling proposition, and make it fun.
  • Add content. The new timeline layout allows pages to go back and add dates of important company events. Pages can also choose what information they want to “highlight” or hide on their page. Page managers can now schedule posts for a future date, so feel free to plan posts for the future.  Just don’t forget to monitor your page!
  • Delegate. One of the most recent updates to Pages is the ability to assign administrative roles to the people who manage your page. The five roles include manager, content creator, moderator, advertiser and insights analyst. Descriptions of these roles can be easily found in the Admin Panel.
  • Promote it. You may have seen or gotten emails about the new Facebook Ads and Promoted Posts. These two options allow pages to pay Facebook to help increase their business’ reach. Businesses may create ads that encourage people to like their page or to view one of their posts, while promoted posts simply increase the reach of a specific post on your page.

The best way to acclimate yourself and your company with the new Facebook Timeline Pages design is to use it. By taking into account our suggestions of some of the design’s coolest features, and by playing around with the site, your home building business will be well on its way to improving your interaction with customers and potential buyers.

Carol Flammer is managing partner of Marketing RELEVANCE, LLC, a Marketing, Communication, Interactive agency with offices in Atlanta and Chicago. She is the author of “Social Media for Home Builders 2.0” published by BuilderBooks.