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help your customers find you.

utilize social media the right way in 2021.

at the close of 2020, in the united states alone, there were approximately 31.7 billion* registered small businesses. of those businesses, only 40% utilized social media to promote or market their services.

consider that statistic.

less than half of all small businesses in america use social media to promote their services or products.

in a time where the world has gone virtual and the average person spends over two hours* per day consumed in social media, it is safe to say that advertising on one or more social platforms is necessary for businesses to thrive.

the businesses that are not promoting themselves on social media have the potential to be missing out on thousands of dollars worth of opportunities.

but why? why would businesses under-utilize such a powerful tool?

although many spend hours scrolling through social media for enjoyment, knowing how to successfully utilize the platforms for your business may seem out of reach. and that is okay! after-all, you started your business to make a living doing what you love, not posting to facebook about it.

deciding on a post schedule, content ideas and creation of those posts, developing an organic and paid strategy, and continuously monitoring these platforms can become time consuming, cumbersome and out-right stressful. but there is no need to stress. our team will work hands-on to learn the ins-and-outs of your business and will bring your social media to life.

let us fine-tune your social media. start speaking with your customers where they already are, online. contact us today to schedule your consultation.

*source: prnewswire, digitalmarketing.org

source: oberlo

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it is estimated that 97% of consumers learn about local businesses online.*

think about that for a moment.

in a pool of 100 strangers that you’ve never met, 97 of them learned about your business over the internet.

maybe they happened to ask for a recommendation on facebook and a good friend of yours tagged your business. or, maybe they were searching on yelp to find the perfect contractor. regardless of the avenue they’ve found your business, they’ve found you.

here is where your online presence can make or break you.

when those 97 people locate your business, whether on facebook, on your website, or sometimes worse, on a review site, what impression will they get of your business?

  • will they see customer reviews that you weren’t even aware of?
  • will the reviews that have been left show responses that demonstrate that your company is customer-service oriented?
  • will they see accurate information about your company, like the correct phone number across all sites?
  • will they see a consistent and cohesive message across all of your platforms?

if you’re unsure of how your online presence is represented, you’re in good company.

you’re a business owner. you’re busy working on projects in your field. those projects that truly make you money and are the reason you went into business in the first place. your mind is not thinking of whether you’ve checked all of your social media accounts today, or whether the customer that seemingly everything went wrong for, despite your best efforts, left you a negative review. and that is okay! you can’t handle it all, but you also can’t afford to lose customers because your presence is unmanaged. and, you’re not alone. many business owners struggle with these issues, especially with the ever-changing avenues of technology.

that’s where we come in.

jaclyn michelle advertising is your dedicated team when it comes to managing your online presence, online reputation and overall professional appearance. don’t lose a customer because you were too busy to keep up with your online presence. contact us, today!

*source seo tribunal

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so, marketing isn’t your thing.

that’s ok. it’s ours.

the marketing world has changed tremendously over the last few decades. the message itself and the vehicles that carry it have had to change in identity, more times than we can count.

so, as a small business, how do you keep up with the trends?

that’s where we come in.

we understand. you’re busy. you are focused on running your business. you’re not concerned with how many likes your facebook post is getting, or how many views that video you posted last week has. but we are. we understand that those small details can mean finding the right set of eyes to resonate with your business. we understand that having a concise, cohesive message and brand can mean the difference between gaining and losing a client.

let us help.

jaclyn michelle advertising offers a collaborative, hands-on approach to helping you find your company’s best features and developing a brand to help target your appropriate audiences, on the appropriate channels.

we work closely with your team to help showcase everything there is to love about your company, on the most effective platforms to reach your customers. we monitor industry trends and strategize the best ways to help you succeed. and, we do it with a smile.

so what are you waiting for?

we’re just a call, text or email away.

The Benefits of Blogging

between all of the different social media channels, podcasts and live videos, you may wonder, do blogs even still exist? and are they worth writing anymore?

they do still exist, and they’re important!

by definition, a blog is a website or web page that is updated regularly by an individual or a group of people about a subject or series of subjects of interest to the author. you may think, ok, as a company, we update our social media sites all the time, and, we update our website content pretty regularly with new products and services. so, doesn’t that constitute as a blog?

not exactly. a blog is more-or-less an online journal, focused around a particular theme or series of themes, created by a group of experts or an individual who has knowledge on the topic that they choose to blog about. a blog can be utilized in many different ways, including video blogging, or, “vlogging” (but that’s a topic for another blog).

so you think, we’re already expressing our point of view and opinion on our social media sites. so, aside from expressing a point of view about a particular subject, what else are businesses using blogs for?

search engine optimization.

including local-terms (like the city your business is in, and areas that your business provides services to), industry terms that your customers may search for and advice articles (like how-to’s or lists) are all wonderful (and very cost-efficient) ways to help your business’ website rank on the top search engine sites.

having a blog linked to your website with articles added regularly that include relevant information to what customers are typically searching for will increase your website’s visibility, without having to spend a dime!

are you ready to start adding blogging into your monthly marketing strategy? we can help. contact our team, today!

Marketing Industry Terms Explained

If you are a small business owner, chances are, you’re an expert in your field, but not necessarily the Marketing field. And that is ok! Afterall, you cannot be an expert at everything. When trying to market your business, you likely hear a ton of different terms like “digital marketing”, “conversions”, and “cost per click”. You might even hear words like “impressions” or “reach” and wonder what on earth those terms mean.

That is where we come in!

Here is a quick reference to help you understand a few of the industry terms that you might often hear.

Digital Marketing – Advertising on “digital” platforms such as search engines, social media and websites.

Traditional Marketing – Advertising on non-digital platforms such as broadcast radio, newspaper, magazines, and billboards.

OTT/CTV: Connected television. Internet streamed television advertisements.

Reach – The amount of people that your ads have been seen by.

Impressions – The number of times your ads have been seen (this number may include the same audience members seeing your advertisement more than one time).

Frequency – The average amount of times your audience saw your ad.

Clicks – The number of times your ad was clicked on.

Cost Per Click – The cost per click-through from your ad to your website, calculated based on your total budget divided by total clicks.

Goal Conversions – The number of times an action was completed on your website based on the goals you select in Google Analytics.

Time on Site – The average amount of time your audience spends on your website.

UTM Parameters – Tags added to the end of your website URL to give the advertiser the ability to track where each user clicked through to the website from.

Mobile Responsive Website – A website that changes its layout and functionality based on whether the user is browsing on a desktop or mobile device to best serve the customers.

Mobile Adaptive Website – A website that adapts its existing layout and functionality based on whether the user is browsing on a desktop or mobile device.

Google AdWords – Google’s paid advertising platform where you can select keywords and run ads to promote your business.  

Google Analytics – A tool that can be installed onto the back end of your website to give you the ability to track your website traffic, how users ended up on your website and their behavior once on-site.

#hashtag – it’s more than just a pound sign

so, you’ve seen those goofy pound-sign-looking tags at the ends of social media posts, but you never quite understood their purpose or how people come up with them, or even why. is there really a purpose to them, or are they there to call out the “subject” of the post?

perhaps, a little of both.

formerly introduced as the ‘pound sign’ to generations prior to millennials, the ‘hashtag’ was introduced into the social media world in 2007 as a way of connecting posts on twitter. fast-forward 14 years and that hashtag, still used for the exact same purpose, is hanging on, and now can be found on all social media channels. whoever created that idea must have been a genius, right?

right.

the hashtag is used today on facebook, twitter, instagram, tik tok, pinterest, and most blog sites, just to name a few. the purpose of them is to connect your idea to other similar content. using a common hashtag will link your post to thousands of others with that same hashtag.

so you ask, what is the purpose of that?

to bring more eyes to your content. social media users can search for content based on hashtags, and, by selecting a commonly used hashtag, you increase the chances of your posts being seen by a relevant audience.

but, what if i want my own hashtag?

make your own! branding your business or even an event or campaign that your business is promoting with your own unique hashtag, like ours, #jaclynmichelleadvertising brings all of your posts to one place. additionally, users can #hashtag your business with your unique #hashtag to help promote your business to your audience, and even their own followers. by tagging your unique hashtag, their followers can explore your content more thoroughly. plus, customer photos always resonate with the followers of a business, so, seeing posts from happy customers is a win-win for you.

want to learn more about hashtags, tagging, and how social media could truly benefit your brand? contact us and we’ll give you the rundown!

facebook is standing up for small businesses amid apple’s newly implemented ios 14 privacy restrictions

if you’re a business owner, and you’ve recently heard about an update to apple’s privacy policy that requires users to opt-in to allow tracking of their behavior, you might be weary of how this may affect your business.

apple, recently rolled out their newest operating platform, ios 14. as users upgrade their software, they will have to opt-in to allow ios to record and track their behavior while using their devices. some may see this opt-in as a way to help protect their privacy, but, for small businesses, this could be a game changer.

but how?

if users do not opt-in to allow their behaviors to be tracked on apple’s operating platform, ads being run, particularly by small businesses, lose their ability to more closely target their customers or prospect customers with their ads that navigate social media on their mobile devices. this could mean already modest budgets that are being run on facebook could soon be watered down even more, as ads will be reaching a larger number of people and not necessarily the right audience. in short, a small budget will now be spread even more thinly.

but why are larger businesses not affected?

larger companies have more robust budgets. (well duh, that’s obvious.) a more robust budget means that not only can you reach a larger number of users on facebook, it also means that you can pair with a third-party data company, such as oracle, to pay for rights to target customers based on the data they provide.

small businesses, with smaller advertising budgets, typically will not use their small budget to purchase data from third parties. after all, let’s face it, once you pay for the list, you may not even have enough money left over in your budget to run ads.

small businesses often rely on geo-targeting and re-targeting of their existing customers with additional look-alike audiences. but, with apple limiting the data available to target, small businesses are left at a huge disadvantage.

so, is facebook going to do anything to help businesses?

yes, they are. facebook announced in early 2021 their plan to counter apple’s privacy policy. in a statement on a “speak up for small businesses” forum, they provided the following statement: “small businesses deserve to be heard. we hear your concerns, and we stand with you.”

in order to try to help small businesses overcome this newly enforced challenge, facebook is rolling out a page that will explain to users why tracking is important, and why it allows for personalization of their ad experiences. this page will be paired with apple’s newly established privacy policy and will be pushed to facebook users world-wide, over the next several months.

here at jaclyn michelle advertising, we understand that small businesses are often faced with unique challenges. and we’re here to help. we’re monitoring the situation as it progresses and will strategize ways to help your company overcome these hiccups. contact us today and let’s get your plan underway.

facebook’s algorithm: is your post reach doomed?

if you’re a small business owner, and you’ve posted to your business’ facebook page in the past, you may have noticed a notification under each post with how many people your post reached. some of your posts have may more than 100, some may have less than 20. knowing your business page has a few hundred followers, this number may seem quite discouraging.

so what gives?

why is it that with several hundred followers, your posts are only being seen by a fraction of those people?

enter the facebook algorithm.

if you’re new to facebook for business, you may not have even heard of such a thing. but that’s ok, we’ll help explain.

facebook can be a fantastic resource when it comes to showcasing your work, keeping customers informed and marketing your business. arguably, it is also a pay-to-play platform which is frustrating for many business owners. facebook’s audience (approximately 2.74 billion active users each month*) is their largest customer. not their advertisers.

read that again.

facebook’s audience is their largest and most important customer. not businesses. not advertisers.

so, it only makes sense for facebook to show content to their most important customer, their audience, that will keep their audience engaged and on the platform for as long as possible. after all, this is how they make their money, based on impressions and clicks on ads from their paying advertisers. their audience is who is scrolling and clicking, which in turn makes them money.

so what does that mean for businesses?

if facebook’s audience isn’t typically engaging with business posts, those types of posts are going to be seen less, to make room for posts that the audience will best resonate with and engage with. mix in paid advertisements, and the average person that spends 37 minutes* per day scrolling through Facebook may never encounter the posts that you’ve worked so hard on. just because they’re from a business.

think of it as a pyramid. at the top of the pyramid (facebook’s most important content) are posts from family and friends, especially posts that your mutual friends engage with. in the middle of the pyramid are paid advertisements, from all types of businesses. at the very bottom of the pyramid are business’ every-day organic posts. it is difficult to get those posts above two layers of posts. especially without paying for it.

your posts may never stand a chance.

with all of the posts that flood facebook’s newsfeed and the formula for facebook’s algorithm, you may feel defeated.

how will you get your message out to your customers?

there are several ways to ensure your posts are being seen, and it won’t cost an arm and a leg. contact us today and let us help you win back your business’ post reach!

*source: hootsuite