How I Learned Vocal Tonality

12 February 2021 by Taylor Reaume

Have your heard yourself lately?

Learn these secrets to sounding like a celebrity.

There is a saying that some people learn visually, but that’s not the only way to learn or take in information. I have always been an auditory learner. Because of that, I’ve had a real connection to audiobooks almost since they were invented. I love to learn anything.

Audiobooks today have become such an easy way for me to satisfy that thirst for learning I have. If you’re reading this, you understand that a little. You want to learn from audiobooks too.

One thing that’s always fascinated me about audiobooks is how the narrators use their voices to tell a story. If you are an audio learner like me, you don’t even need to see the person or the character to really get a sense of what story they are telling you. I’m intrigued by this. It is an actual thing called vocal tonality.

Vocal tonality refers to how your words resonate, and the phonation of your voice. Phonation is what happens with your vocal cords, while resonation refers to the other parts of your mouth and throat that make up words and sounds. That includes the larynx, pharynx, jaw, teeth, and lips.

Princeton University develops speakers that they call Word Smart speakers. They are among the most brilliant voice over workers on the planet. They’ve learned this craft of vocal tonality.

I’ve checked out a few audiobooks on vocal tonality that I think you will like that can help you master this. That includes the Word Smart product. Have a look, and see what you can do with your own voice afterward.

The Sound of Your Voice by Dr. Carol Fleming

Dr. Carol Fleming is a speech pathologist, a speech expert, and a consultant with speech communication. She’s developed this book that will help you to listen to how your voice sounds, and develop it into the voice that you want it to be. She calls it “voice image.” What does your voice sound like to the rest of the world? That’s a voice image. Dr. Fleming shows you what the fundamentals of voice image are and takes you through the process of understanding your voice better.

Through this book, you will understand more what your own voice says about you. You learn how to diagnose and analyze your own voice. You begin to understand what its problems are, and how to correct them. If you want to learn regional dialects or mannerisms, the tools are here to practice those. You also learn things like how to become more confident in your voice, and how to make it sound stronger and more clear.

What I liked about this one is that it focuses more on interpersonal communication, and it is not entirely about the business sense of things. You may not learn how to speak professionally here, but you will learn the basic skill of sounding more confident when you speak to people. This is a skill that can be built upon if you want to use your vocal tonality professionally.

Vocal Awareness by Arthur Samuel Joseph MA

For many people, the first thing they get to know about you is your voice. When you call your bank for the first time, for example, the first thing they get to know about you is your voice. Are you aware of how that comes across? This is what fascinates me about audiobooks. If you have no idea what the narrator looks like, you can get an entire perception of someone by just listening to them. Vocal Awareness by Arthur Joseph tells you how to understand this identity part of your voice so that you can control more of what people see in you when they hear your voice.

Here you learn how to master your voice and coordinate it in your life in a way that is powerful. It’s an excellent tool to become more aware of what you sound like. We don’t often get to hear what we sound like or understand our own voice identity, and I love that this book gives you the tools to do that.

Voice of a Leader by Arthur Samuel Joseph

Another thing I love learning about audiobooks and their narrators is how much we learn about a person when we hear them speak. This concept goes beyond vocal identity and picturing a certain person when we hear them. Voice of a Leader by Arthur Samuel Joseph is an excellent sequel to Vocal Awareness. This is a book that is used by a number of professionals in speaking, from politicians to corporate executives. If you’re practicing the art of vocal tonality for professional purposes, this book is a good one to hit in the middle of your journey. Start off just learning how to learn more about your voice, and you will find that you’re taking this craft to an entirely new level.

One thing I liked doing when I listened to this is I took a recording of my voice before I listened to the book, and after. After I used the principles in this book to study my voice more. I really felt like I got to know myself better. That helped me to improve my vocal tonality. This book is worth the try.

Word Smart Genius Edition by The Princeton Review, Michael Freedman

Word Smart is Einstein-level vocal tonality work. This comes right from The Princeton Review, and it is used by the best in the world. It doesn’t feel like you are learning Princeton-style the whole time. You definitely get the sense that this is higher-level learning at a very elevated level. However, you have examples that make you laugh, monologues you will enjoy, and little quizzes that make it easy to retain information.

You also get some good vocabulary lessons here. These are words you’ve never heard of, most of the time, and it makes the process fun. The work here is done in a very clever but easygoing way that makes the process of learning something fascinating very easy. This one is a must-have, and worth every penny.

Study Vocal Tonality Today

There isn’t one book here that I recommend over the others. They are all industry leaders developed by industry leaders. Get them all. I learned so much more about vocal tonality, and me, by working with these audiobooks. Have fun!

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How To Increase YouTube Views

6 February 2021 by Taylor Reaume

YouTube is inarguably the biggest platform for video creators to potentially reach millions of people around the globe. The problem many creators face is how to get those views.

If you’re a marketer or content developer looking to boost your YouTube views for free, the process can take time and effort. But if done correctly, you’ll be rewarded with more views, a better user experience, and opportunities to grow your content and audience.

Like most major social media platforms, YouTube operates on an algorithm that suggests videos that a particular user will most likely be interested in to keep them on YouTube for longer. This data is collected from the user’s viewership history and engagement on videos they have watched in the past.

Thankfully, YouTube’s algorithm considers a wide range of variables when determining which videos are the best and should appear at the top of its search results. This algorithm is vital in determining if your video makes it onto the suggested and trending page.

Whether you’re just starting a YouTube channel for the first time or you’re seeking new ways to gain viewers, it’s important to stay on top of the latest methods.

So, here’s 10 of the best practices for getting more YouTube views (bonus: don’t miss the 3 mistakes you’ll definitely want to avoid).

10 Best Practices For Getting More YouTube Views

1.) Allow Ads On Your Videos

If you’re trying to monetize your blog, allowing YouTube to run advertisements can be a great start. But if you don’t use the right kind of ad placements for your video, it can drive away viewers. If your video is longer, it’s reasonable to run an ad in the middle. Shorter videos should stick to ads placed at the beginning or end of the video. Even though studies show that visual attention is higher for advertisements on YouTube than on TV, you shouldn’t expect viewers to watch more advertising than content. So before you check yes to placing ads in every place you can, consider the perspective of the viewer.

2.) Keyword Optimization

For each of your videos, it’s imperative to embed unique keywords in specific areas. Creating strands of keywords for each video will improve the reach of your video. It will also place your video in front of the right crowd. If you haven’t been customizing your keywords for each video, you can open the data from previous videos by going to “Videos” in your YouTube Studio Dashboard.

TITLES: Write Youtube Titles that are descriptive and keyword rich. Picking a good title is critical. Your title should not give everything about your video away but should be intriguing enough that someone would want to click on it with the promise of what the title is delivered in the video. A engaging and descriptive title accomplishes two goals: it provides keywords for the algorithm to sort for relevancy, and it attracts viewers and informs them about the video’s content. You can do your keyword research through a keyword planner provided by Google. Go to keyword planner and select YouTube search on the far right to see how common a keyword is on YouTube. By reminding users and search engines of what your video is about, optimizing your video content for the right keywords can help you gain organic views.

DESCRIPTIONS: The video description informs the viewer what the video is about without giving too much away. You can think of it as a meta-description except for YouTube. A description that stands out and captures the viewers’ interest increases the click-through rate, thus generating more views. Entice users with keywords you know they are looking out for when they search for a particular video. An excellent format to follow is to have a strong introduction of approximately 2-3 sentences, an outline that is about 150 words, and links to relevant websites and your social handles.

TAGS: Video tags help create a niche for your video and your content so that the algorithm understands what viewers may be interested in when they watch your video and those like it. Tags, therefore, push videos with relevant tags to the forefront of a user’s suggestion page, increasing viewership. The best place to put these phrases is at the bottom of your description. But also remember to change the automatically generated keywords in the “Extras” section.

Pro Tip: It can also be useful to keep a notepad or Word document with common keywords for you to add to your videos. Keeping this list can help you generate these words faster and cut down your uploading time.

Include keywords in these places:

Thumbnails
Tags
Video Description

3.) YouTube Subscribe Watermark

The more subscribers you have, the more likely viewers are going to see your posts. But how do you draw viewers into subscribing? By creating a “subscribe” watermark for your videos. Creating your own “subscribe” watermark is simpler than it may look. In YouTube Studio, select Settings > Channel > Branding. From this screen, you can choose an image for your branding watermark and the amount of time you would like it displayed on your video. Make sure the image design catches the eye and matches your channel.

Pro Tip: Casually reminding viewers in your video to subscribe and click the Notification Bell can be a great way to also invite new viewers to subscribe. This method is especially effective if you make it fun or unique to your channel.

4.) Aim to Entertain or Teach

There are two reasons most people watch YouTube: to be entertained or to learn something. If your videos are doing one or both of these actions, then you’re in a good place. The more entertaining or informative your videos are, the more likely people will share them, talk about them, and gain trust in your content. Gaining consistent subscribers and viewers in the key to growing your YouTube channel.

5.) Create YouTube Playlists

If you’re a content creator that dabbles in several different kinds of videos, you may have noticed that some of your videos will get different responses. Some viewers may only want to watch certain types of videos you’ve made. But how do they find all your past videos for these categories? One way to help viewers find the content they are looking for is to create playlists for each category of videos you make. Creating playlists generates a “binge-watch” mentality with viewers. It also gains you more consistent views.

Playlists give top-performing channels an extra edge over other channels simply because of Auto-play. From a viewer’s perspective, it takes effort to pull your attention away from an entertaining video, so it is much easier for videos to keep playing.

The concept of loss aversion states that people feel more significant pain from losing something than gaining the equivalent. This can be visualized so that an individual is likely to work harder to keep $100 than earn $100. Auto-play uses this concept to keep viewers on YouTube. So instead of the ‘loss’ of clicking away from a video, a viewer would instead continue watching. Use this to your advantage by curating a playlist that the viewer is likely to watch for longer.

Pro Tip: Spend time organizing your playlists. It may seem logical to place them chronologically, but also consider the flow and topics of each video so they blend seamlessly together.

6.) Balance Following Trends and Creating Unique Content

Sometimes referred to as “newsjacking”, creating videos about current trends can generate more views for your channel easily. Once a trend is picked up on YouTube, you’ll find everyone releasing videos about the same subject or content, hoping to catch the tailwind of viewers. The problem with many of these videos is that they regurgitate the same content without offering anything new or unique. There’s nothing wrong with creating content that people are already interested in, but try to create something unique which has your spin on it. Be sure that what you create is true to your channel’s themes and other videos.

7.) Create Relationships For Guest YouTuber Appearances

Creating bonds between like-minded channels can be a great way to increase viewership. Even writing engaging comments on popular posts can draw people’s attention to your own channel. Try contacting similar channel creators and ask if they’d like to do a collaboration video. Having popular YouTuber guests on your posts can draw in new viewers, but it can also create a sense of community for both of your channels’ subscribers. Collaborations are a massive part of the YouTube community. When YouTubers collaborate, they increase viewership by attracting viewers from all the parties involved and introducing them to other content creators similar and in the same community.

8.) Be Present in Your Content Community

Engagement with your viewers and community is on the rise. This is because the viewer feels that they have established an authentic and organic relationship with their content creator. Doing so increases the chances that viewers care about your brand and are likely to subscribe and expand your knowledge and understanding of your particular audience.

9.) Link Your YouTube Videos on Your Social Media Pages

People that are in contact with you on other social media platforms will have an easier time getting to know your YouTube channel and the content you create with just one click. Pushing traffic from your social media profile to your YouTube channel also helps out with the algorithm as your video is seen as a source of clicks from other websites.

10.) Use cards and end screens

These tools help promote other videos from your channel and are a call-to-action. Doing so ties in with the concept of loss aversion used in auto-play. Cards are a tool that pops up at certain times during your video, relevant to what content you are going through at that moment. An end screen is a frame at the end of your video that wraps things up and suggests other videos created by you. This keeps viewers on your channel and increases the viewership of your other videos.

There you have it, ten steps that you can take to increase your viewership. Above all, focus on creating great content for your target audience. Then optimize your content with the above tips and watch your viewership grow.

Gone are the days where YouTube trending videos revolved around funny, strange cats and dogs on skateboards. More than 500 videos get produced every minute on the platform.

YouTube is now a thriving platform with various topics and subjects for everyone. It’s time to get your business on Youtube and start generating an additional stream of traffic to your website.

but what about the 3 mistakes to avoid?

3 biggest mistakes to avoid:

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Which of these tips will you put into practice?

Comment and share below!

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I Grew Up on a Ranch

3 February 2021 by Taylor Reaume

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When I was just 10 years old, my father made the life-altering decision to move our family from Pasadena, California to Santa Margarita, California. Although it was only a distance of about 200 miles, it felt like we were traveling from the “Big City” to the “Wild West.” We drove past Santa Barbara, skirted the Los Padres National Forest, zipped by Santa Maria, and arrived at our destination. To say the least, I was not impressed.

My father, a contractor, had the big idea of creating a place where his family and friends could congregate on holidays and reunions, while simultaneously generating income to service and maintain the property. What looked to me like a ranch that needed a lot of work eventually grew into what is now a thriving business, Seven Oaks Ranch.

As I grew up on that ranch, I learned to appreciate the serenity of country life, and the magic of doing nothing, just sitting and listening to nature. The area only has about 1200 residents, but I eventually met some great friends, most of whom were Native Americans, and I felt fortunate to be immersed in a culture so different from my own.

Where is Santa Margarita, California?

Santa Margarita is located on California’s central coast, just north of San Luis Obispo, and in the southern foothills of the Santa Lucia Mountains. The environment is clean and fresh, but the town easily mixes its rich historical narrative with modern-day luxuries. Within easy driving distance are beaches, bays, lakes, mountains and streams, as well as great wine and horse country. Even after traveling extensively, I still find this place to be one of my favorite places in the world.

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The Long History of Santa Margarita

The roots of Santa Margarita are said to stretch as far back as 900 B.C. when Native Americans are first thought to have reached California’s central coast area. The first hints of European influence came with the arrival of Spanish explorers in the late 1700s. Using Native American labor, the Franciscan friars who came with these expeditions built several nearby missions including Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa (eight miles south of Santa Margarita), its submission Santa Margarita de Cortona, and Mission San Miguel Arcangel (27 miles north of Santa Margarita). In fact, the 600 mile El Camino Real trail, which originally linked the 21 California Spanish missions, now serves as the city’s main street.

In the early 1800s, the Mexican government offered 35 land grants in the San Luis Obispo County area to soldiers who had fought for Mexico in its War of Independence. This led to the early formation of some of the area’s largest ranches. California became part of the United States, the Gold Rush brought new settlers, and the signing of the Land Act of 1851 all caused great changes to the make-up of Santa Margarita. By the late 1800s the railroads established a temporary terminal in Santa Margarita, bringing in an even wider variety of people.

Since these early days, the town has seen many ups and downs, but has always managed to retain its small-town charm. It now prides itself on being a quiet family community that is rich in history and adventure. Even as a 10-year-old boy, it didn’t take me long to discover that life on a ranch can be a very good thing.

Santa Margarita Today

Life if Santa Margarita today is a combination of the old and the new. Visitors can spend the morning horseback riding and then go for a zip line adventure in the afternoon. It’s a unique corner of California that offers a quiet retreat and outdoor excitement.

The Seven Oaks Ranch continues to offer plenty of activities for guests. In addition to exploring the mission trail, other local attractions include:

Santa Margarita Lake: With thousands of acres of unspoiled open space, this is a nature lover’s retreat. The park is home to countless species of plants and wildlife, making it the perfect location for nature study, hiking, biking, camping, boating, and fishing.
Wine Tours: This is wine country: Explore over 200 local vineyards including Ancient Peaks Winery, Vintage Cowboy Winery, and Soaring Hawk Vineyards.
The Barn Antiques and Unique: Find great collectibles and antiques, and local artisan crafts.
Rinconada Mine: The San Luis Obispo area was once dotted with mines. Hiking around some of the abandoned areas makes for a fun day of exploration.
Margarita Adventures: Features zipline tours, aerial adventures and nature/wildlife tours.
Shangri-La Ranch Horseback Adventures: Enjoy horseback riding into some of the most beautiful country on the Central Coast. Ride through sun-dappled forests, pristine meadows, and ancient rock formations. Some wildlife that can be spotted on these tours includes deer, bear, cougars, bald eagles, and all kinds of beautiful birds.
Hearst Castle: This National/California Historic Landmark was conceived by William Randolph Hearst, the publishing tycoon, and his architect Julia Morgan, and was built between 1919 and 1947.
Dining: Enjoy dining to satisfy every taste including Pozo Saloon, The Range, The Porch Café, and Rosalina.

Visit the shops of artists of all kinds in Santa Margarita, or take off for the beaches at Cayucos, Morro Bay, Avila and Pismo, just about 45 minutes away.

Let Santa Margarita Teach You About Ranch Life

I live in Santa Barbara now, and still like being a city guy, but some days I can’t stop thinking about Santa Margarita. It certainly contributed a lot to who I am today. It is the story of people working hard to live a good life, in a setting that is peaceful and inspiring.

Seven Oaks Ranch is still owned by my parents, and is now a popular vacation rental destination for family gatherings and weddings. Rolling hills covered with many trees of different varieties surround four seasonal ponds, and streams provide the opportunity to picnic or read a book under an oak giant that has been shading that spot for over 500 years. Visit the website, subscribe to the newsletter, and find out if you will come to appreciate ranch life as much as I did.

Best Life Hacks | Web Marketing

10 Reasons Why Cloudways Web Hosting Is Better Than The Rest

6 January 2021 by Taylor Reaume

If you are a business owner you need to have certain software tools that ensure the efficient running of your enterprise. Managed cloud hosting is a process that allows your business to access and share databases, software and hardware tools using a remote network through multiple servers in a different location. The service provider who provides your business with managed cloud hosting will provide the cloud servers. Moreover, they will be responsible for the management of this cloud-hosting environment. We have reviewed Cloudways to help you understand how managed cloud hosting can improve your business strategy. Read on to find out what our verdict is on this platform.

Cloudways Overview

Cloudways is a platform that simplifies the facilitation process and performance of managed cloud hosting. It offers business owners expert support that allows them to focus on running the business instead of the software platform. This innovative software platform is designed to enhance business growth by eliminating the complexities of setting up marketing tools such as websites. A team of professionals manages and builds such essential tools so that they collaborate efficiently. This allows for ease of scalability over a highly secure infrared in the case of inadvertent traffic surges.

How Does Cloudways Work?

Cloudways strikes the ideal balance between affordability and seamless functionality if your business is looking for cloud-based managed hosting. The hosting resources can be scaled according to the growth of your website because the platform offers secured cloud servers. The easy-to-use infrastructure is optimized for security, performance and speed. Moreover, if you are skeptical about choosing Cloudways as your trusted managed host, you can sign up for the 3-day free trial that it offers prospective users on its platform.

Cloudways vs Traditional Hosting

Your website is stored on multiple server locations unlike with conventional hosting where it is stored in a single server that is usually backed up.
Your website can be migrated effortlessly in the case of unexpected events.
It can improve operating performance and times because it is much faster than traditional hosting. For instance, the server can detect various customer locations and transmit data from a server that is closest to a customer.
It uses Solid State Drives (SSDs) to enhance the performance of your website.
It provides prompt and efficient scalability in a highly secure cloud-based environment.
The pay-as-you-go pricing options give you more control over your hosting bill compared to monthly subscription service fees from traditional hosting.

Cloudways Pros

Cloudways offers a no strings attached free trial period.
There is no limit on the number of websites that you host. So, you only pay for the resources that you utilize.
The pay-as-you-go pricing system allows you to only pay for the resource that you use.
The content management systems and apps are easy to install. It also provides you with an array of app integrations that you can use.
The free automatic updates allow you to recover your website with just a single click.
The server migration process is free unlike competitor hosting platforms.

Cloudways Cons

It requires some technical knowledge to understand how to use it.
There is no email or domain registration. As a result, you have to find a separate domain registrar to create a domain name for your website.
You have to pay more to get a bigger server if you want to upgrade.

What are the best features of Cloudways?

Cloudways is commonly known as a WordPress hosting platform. Below is a detailed list of its key features.

Do they have Server Monitoring / Management?

This is one of the most practical features. It allows you to assess variables such as your CPU, traffic data and the number of reads per second from a simple drop down menu. You can control the services that are running on your server at any time, configure all the server-level settings and block conspicuous IP addresses from accessing your resources.

Can Cloudways stage websites easily?

This is ideal for making flexible changes without making them permanent on your website. You can test the changes in the designation staging area. With cloning, you can create various clone sites to change to new servers or present your website to potential clients.

Do they have advanced caching?

There are several caching methods that optimize servers. Cloudways uses an in-house caching plug-in that is easily set-up and enabled or disabled. This plug-in supports a unique content delivery network called CloudwaysCDN. The network is responsible for increasing speed and reliability by caching web pages on multiple servers across the world. You can only access this feature through the affordable pain plan on the platform.

What about Vertical Scaling?

This feature allows you to add or remove server resources at any time. So, if you need to upgrade your servers due to expected higher traffic surges, you can upgrade your plan accordingly without paying for extra resources that you don’t need.

Tell me about their customer support?

The 24/7 live support feature is similar to that of any other company. You can submit help desk tickets, send an email, call or use the live chat option to speak to a support team member. The CloudwaysBot monitors the servers to provide real-time notifications on any updates or issues with the servers.

What’s the Verdict on Cloudways?

Ease of use
Value for money
Exceptional customer support

Cloudways offers well-equipped, cloud-based web hosting services. The plans are very flexible costs, so it is easy to make a qualified choice based on the demands of your business. If you are a small-scale business owner, and you have a limited budget, the pay-as-you-go pricing option offers you the right kind of balance between price and resource availability. It gives you the freedom from a complex, lengthy and costly subscription plan.

The key features ensure that it is easy to use for someone who is new to website building. Even though there are cons such as the lack of email or domain registration, there are more pros to try it out for your hosting needs. A business owner who is skeptical or lacks the basic knowledge required to use cloud hosting can test out the 3-day free trial to understand the technical details.

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BOOK REVIEW: Are You My Type Or Am I Yours?

3 January 2021 by Taylor Reaume

Searching for the perfect mate? Want to understand your loved ones and yourself better? Need some parenting help?

ENTER >> The Enneagram.

An “Enneagram” is a model of the human psyche, which is taught and understood as a classification of nine interconnected personality types. If you have always been intrigued and fascinated by the psychology of personality, this book will amaze you and quickly become one of your favorites.

If you explore the nine personality types, you can become more self-aware and understand family members, co-workers, friends, and others you encounter more completely.

Are You My Type, Am I Yours is a psychology book that details each personality type’s best and worst attributes and discusses social and relational characteristics and an in-depth personality description of each.

This fun and interesting book takes a witty approach to relationships using the Enneagram types and how they relate to one another. This personality typing system has become extremely popular by explaining why we act as we do while providing an essential tool for insight and self-discovery.

Are You My Type, Am I Yours discusses the nine personality types and how they interact in work, love, friendships, and family. Each chapter is filled with intriguing facts, witty cartoons, easy personality tests, and famous couples of each type to aid in discovering and appreciating your own personality type and those of people you are involved with — or would like to be.

Take one of the personality tests to determine the number and wing you are on the Enneagram to understand better what motivates you. Knowing both the healthy and unhealthy sides of your “type” can be a clear path for emotional growth.

Shadow number in personal development refers to the opposite side of our highest or core values, or those things that are of the greatest importance to us. When we choose to do an activity that is fulfilling to us, our core values and shadow values are being fulfilled.

Most people are unaware of what their shadow values are and how they are influencing their behavior.

Here are the shadow values that everyone possesses on some level.

Attention
- Being unique, special, or different
Belonging
- Being accepted by, connected to, or feeling a part of something
Control
- Being able to influence your situation, surroundings, yourself, and others
Money
- Being wealthy and having the power to do or have whatever you desire
Sexuality
- Being able to express your sexual desires or preferences without shame
Superiority
- Being right, being better than yourself and others
Validation
- Being important, worthy, or good enough

Many books discussing the Enneagram personality types focus on personal growth and self-understanding, but few focus on how the Enneagram helps people with different personality types get along.

This easy-to-read, illustrated book goes into detail about the likes and dislikes of each personality type, which types are most likely to pair up romantically, how partners, friends, and co-workers can best support people with different personality types.

Let’s discuss the nine different personality types — see if you can pick out the one that most closely resembles you!

The Achiever
- Motivated by the need to achieve success, be productive, and avoid failure.
- These personalities are driven, success-oriented, pragmatic, and image-conscious.
- Their major goal is to feel worthwhile and valuable.
- Achievers believe in themselves and strive to become “somebody” by developing their capabilities and talents.
The Adventurer
- Motivated by the desire to be happy, engage in fun things, contribute to the world, and avoid suffering and pain.
- This person is introverted, observant, and feeling.
- They tend to have open minds and approach life, new experiences, and people with grounded warmth.
The Asserter
- Motivated by the desire to be strong and self-reliant, make an impact on the world, avoid appearing weak.
- Powerful, protective, and resourceful
- Their temperament is inspiring to others.
- Their personal strengths definitely improve others’ lives.
The Helper
- Motivated by a need to be appreciated and loved and expresses positive feelings towards others.
- Kind, generous, warm-hearted, and loving
- In times of unhealth, can be codependent, manipulative, or people-pleasing.
The Observer
- Motivated by the need to know everything, understand the universe, be self-sufficient and left alone, avoid not answering or looking foolish.
- Insightful, independent, and innovative
- Typically ahead of their time, they see things in new and unique ways, concentrate on complex issues with laser-like focus.
The Peacemaker
- Motivated by the wish to keep the peace, avoid conflict and merge with others
- People-pleaser, friendly, agreeable, cooperative, adaptable, trusting, empathetic, and easy-going
- They go with the flow and desire peace and harmony
- Are afraid of chaos, separation, and conflict.
The Perfectionist
- This type is driven to live life the correct way, to improve himself/herself and others, and avoids anger.
- They are rational and principled, purposeful, and self-controlled, often to the point of being overly critical of others and themselves.
- Advocates of change, have a desire to be useful and strive to improve.
The Questioner
- Motivated by the desire for security, to feel taken care of, and confront their fears
- Hard-working, reliable, committed, yet haunted by self-doubt
- Very faithful to people who matter
- Excellent at troubleshooting and anticipating challenges
- Fanatically loyal to their ideas, systems, and beliefs.
The Romantic
- Motivated by the need to understand the feelings of others and the meaning of life and avoid being ordinary.
- They believe they can find the love or situation that is special, unique, and fulfilling.
- Idealistic, feels things deeply, empathetic, and authentic.
- Dramatic, moody, occasionally self-absorbed

Some of my best memes on the enneagram:

If you want a greater understanding of yourself and your relationships, this book can help. It teaches how to communicate with others and helps to build an effective system to build or enhance your business or personal relationships.

A discussion of what each personality type is looking for in a relationship and how they interact together. Also, there is a discussion on how the Enneagram correlates to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which is a questionnaire designed to make psychological types useful and understandable.

The authors of this terrific book are experts in the Enneagram.

For over 25 years, Renee Baron has been in private practice. She has taught countless seminars and workshops on the value of understanding your personality type. She uses the Enneagram and Myers-Briggs Indicator personality assessments to give readers a practical yet powerful tool to understand their own behavior and the behavior of others. Her books have been published in 17 countries.

Elizabeth Wagele is a leading expert and one of the most popular authors on the Enneagram. She is a graduate of Berkeley at the University of California and continuously blogs about personalities and other interesting subjects.

Enneagram psychology is both a fascinating and accurate view of human behavior, personality, and motivation. This book discusses these things with knowledge, humor, and insight. Become more self-aware, build self-esteem, and learn to accept yourself by gaining insight into your personality type this book will provide.

I recommend this book to all my friends and family to help improve current relationships with loved ones, friends, and co-workers while providing knowledge about relationships yet to be developed.

You can take the Enneagram Test online here.

There are many fascinating elements of the Enneagram to consider that can affect the expression of a person’s personality. Start with questions like: Who is this person? What do they want? What will they do to get it? What will they do if they don’t get it? How do they see the world? And most importantly: who will this person become through the journey?

BUY THE BOOK ON AMAZON HERE

Below is the best video I found on the enneagram, enjoy:

Blog Marketing | SEO Marketing | Web Marketing

How To Automate Your SEO Strategy

3 January 2021 by Taylor Reaume

To run a business successfully in the 21^st century, you must develop a sound online marketing campaign. Search engine optimization should be at the center of it.

SEO is the practice of using algorithms to drive people to your website. It involves a complex array of virtual systems and structures that have a single aim: clicks on websites owned by your company.

It would be costly and inefficient for members of your workforce or even an independent firm to monitor and manage your SEO operations. You should instead automate as many SEO tasks as you can.

If applied effectively, SEO automation software can significantly improve the efficiency of your SEO process.

What You Can Automate in SEO

You cannot automate everything. But you don’t need to. You just need to automate the most tedious and time-consuming tasks and process. Here are some of the parts you should focus on:

1. Site monitoring

After you launch your new SEO campaign, you will need to monitor it to keep track of how it performs. You will need to figure out ways to improve the site and carry out any maintenance required. It is essential to assess page load time, broken links, site downtime, and other basic housekeeping issues.

This kind of monitoring can be automated. There is software that allows you to set up alerts if something goes wrong with your site. Automation will also help you collect data on your site quickly so that you can put it into action straightaway.

2. Rank tracking

The main reason for developing and implementing SEO algorithms is for your website to rank high when key words and phrases are used in search engines. You will need a way to track this ranking process. But when you have a multitude of sites and hundreds of pages with keywords in them, it is difficult to track each page’s ranking manually. The better option is to automate. Automation software will make it easy for you to see how your pages are doing is search engine rankings. It will also show how your rankings change and improve over time.

3. Backlink analysis

Backlinks are fundamental to your SEO campaign. Backlinks demonstrate the soundness of the content you have published on your sites. They enhance the authority of your brand and boost confidence and trust in your company over time, which leads to an increase in rankings.

You will want the best backlinks for your page. However, you will need to monitor them to ensure their quality. SEO automation simplifies this process. The software you use will make it easier for you to see who is linking to your websites.

4. Competitor monitoring

You are in the most intense competition with other businesses for search engine rankings. The more information you have on your rivals the easier it will be to create SEO algorithms and strategies to outdo them—that is, outrank them.

You may have more competitors than you think. The web is a kind of equalizer when it comes to business. You can be sure that your rivals for search engine rankings go beyond those you are already familiar with. There are probably hundreds of companies that you must contend with. Automating the competitor monitoring process allows you to see the biggest threats to your ranking and develop strategies to keep your business at the top.

5. Site audit

There may be a number of technical issues that prevent your sites from ranking as high as they should. While it is possible to identify such issues through a crawl, this takes a great deal of time. You should instead automate the process. You can set up a crawl program that will do most of the work for you and present the problems that may be holding you back. You can then focus on fixing the issues rather than uncovering them.

6. Reports

Creating and presenting reports is part of managing your business. Financial stakeholders, employees, clients, and prospective clients will all want to know how your business is doing. They will want to know the areas in which your company is strong and those places that need improvement.

Generating reports helps you get the financing and investment you need to operate and expand. It also helps you develop a strategy that will help you meet your business goals. If your company is based entirely online or is heavily dependent on the virtual sphere, your reports will focus mostly on SEO operations. The trouble is that creating these reports is time-consuming. Your executive team cannot spare the time to carry out this task.

Fortunately, report generation is a SEO task that can be automated. You can create a range of different reports, including those covering monthly SEO status, organic search positions, site audits, backlinks, and competitor analysis.

7. Log file analyzer

One of the best ways to assess how search engines interact with your sites is to analyze the log files of your sites. This is a little-known method of figuring out which of your pages are being crawled and which of your pages is the most crawled. It will also help you determine whether your crawl budget is being well-spent.

Use SEO Automation Plugin

When choosing an SEO automation plugin, choose a company that has a strong track record of delivering proven results. The SEO plugin you choose is a crucial decision because it will help streamline SEO tasks. The one we use is called “SEO Press” and is among the top names in the industry.

With SEO Press, you get all the SEO and optimization bells and whistles you need in one plugin. Special features include the ability to manage your titles and to create meta descriptions and meta robots for every post and page.

SEO Press can also improve your search engine crawling by providing XML sitemaps of your posts, pages, and custom post types. And it offers software such as Open Graph tags, Twitter Card, and Google Knowledge Graph to enhance social network sharing.

SEO automation can help you be a better manager, organizer, and entrepreneur—whether you run a growing independent company or you are part of a large and well-established firm.

I hope this post was helpful to you. I’d love to hear your thoughts about your favorite SEO automation tools and which ones you’ve had the most success with? Drop a comment in the box below and let me know!

Local Marketing | Web Marketing

How To Capture Emails From Restaurant Customers

2 December 2020 by Taylor Reaume

You know you need to market your restaurant.

After more than a year of the COVID-19 pandemic, your restaurant likely struggling to stay in business.

>> Sometimes a bit of humor helps in times like these.

Across the country, businesses closed temporarily. Now, as the country re-opens, you probably want to leverage every available marketing technology and strategy to herd as many customers as the law will allow you to into your doors.

To get more people into your restaurant and keep them coming back, you need to market your restaurant. One unique method of doing that is email marketing.

This method is unique for restaurants because it is a challenge to obtain an email address while the customer sits in your café. They have their mobile phone with them and in the relaxed environment of a meal out, rarely will they want to stop their meal to load your website on a browser. You might get their cell phone number pretty easily, but emails present a challenge.

How can you capture your restaurant customers’ email addresses?

A few options exist for collecting email addresses. When we say “automatically,” we do not mean illicitly. Collecting email addresses always requires an ask. You can ask online or offline. Here are a few ideas for getting the important information surrounding the “@”.

Place an empty fishbowl next to the cash register.

Label the bowl as a collector spot for business cards. If you want to encourage many business cards, offer to draw for a free lunch once per week. You will only be out the cost of one meal, but you will encourage many business cards to get dumped into the bowl. At the end of each week, draw the card that wins and contact that person with their gift certificate. Then, empty the bowl and enter all of the names, addresses, emails, and phone numbers into a database or Excel spreadsheet. Post the name of the week’s winner on the front of the bowl, so people can see why they would want to drop their business card into the bowl. When your winner comes in, take a picture of them dining and post it, too. This could be your first email newsletter.

Ask your customers to text their email addresses.

Customers more freely share their email addresses when sitting at their computer, but pretty rarely have a computer with them when dining out. Some restaurants have had luck asking customers to text their email addresses to the establishment. For example, Elephant Bar set up a short code of 73757 to make it quicker to dial them. Customers can text their shortcode with the word “rewards” followed by their email address to join their rewards program. This method gets the restaurant two important pieces of data — the email address and the cell phone number.

Ask on your website via a reservations form.

You might doubt that restaurant patrons visit websites, but they do. You can encourage them to visit yours more often by offering specials or coupons that you only post there or by setting up an automated reservation system. The latter frees up your personnel from needing to answer the phones to make reservations. Patrons can visit the website to make reservations. You solve the problems of overbooking and bad handwriting, too. The reservation system only offers as many tables as you have, and you can set the reservation times. Your form prompts the patron for their email address to send a confirmation email. You can also offer to send a reminder of the reservation on the day of the meal.

Collect emails from your Facebook page.

Set up a Facebook page and advertise it using the quite reasonably priced Facebook ads. Offer an app for ordering through the Facebook page and prompt your visitors to share their email. You can send a confirmation of the order immediately and use the email in perpetuity, or until they opt out. Once you build your email list, you can improve your ad reach by using custom audiences.

Use a website email collector form.

Regardless of all the fancy stuff, you do with apps and reservation systems, you also need the straightforward method of a simple form. Using a company like JotForm lets you easily set up a responsive design form that collects just the customers’ names and email addresses. You can handily serve this up when customers visit you by offering free Wi-Fi.

Use ZenReach to serve an ad featuring the email collector form.

Programs like ZenReach let you market via WiFi. When a customer enters your Wi-Fi zone and signs on, you get the opportunity to serve them a sign-on page. Request their email address as part of the sign-on or ask for it as “payment” for using the free Wi-Fi. You can also use ZenReach to serve ads and capture leads using an email prompt. This program uses your Wi-Fi and the consumer’s device ID similar to the way a website uses a cookie. When the customer returns to your restaurant and signs on again, ZenReach recognizes them.

Using Your New Email List

Building your list just gets you started. Once you have it put together, you also need to use it. Put it to good use by sending a once per week newsletter that offers helpful content. You might include a recipe or contest news. Featuring biographies on your staff lets customers get to know the chef, bartender, servers, etc. You can personalize your ads and promotions via email, too. While radio, TV, and even direct mail cost money, you can put together an email list for free and use it for the same zero cost.

Remember to segment your email marketing on top of personalizing the emails. Business diners have different needs than date night diners. Those who order online should get different offers than those who come in to dine.

Offer a coupon for something free on their birthday. Now that you have their emails, you can build a real professional relationship with your customers and that gets you valuable word of mouth advertising.

Analytics Marketing | PPC Marketing | Web Marketing | Youtube Marketing

Ways to Make Remarketing Work for Your Small Business

22 November 2020 by Taylor Reaume

When it comes to a marketing budget, every dollar is precious, especially for small businesses, and you need to squeeze as much mileage out of each marketing tactic as possible. That is why the concept of remarketing makes so much sense.

Although marketers would love to be able to just drive prospects to a website or retail location, where they make an immediate purchase, the real outcome is that this scenario seldom comes true. Some people do use their mobile devices to make immediate purchases (think food or gasoline), but most must be nurtured and communicated to several times to make the impression that tilts the buying scale in your favor.

Let’s say you spend a considerable amount of money on your online marketing strategy, and meet with a certain amount of success. Remarketing is a way to connect with those people who ALREADY took notice of your business, interacted in some way, or possibly even visited your website. This marketing tactic allows you to strategically position follow up advertisements in front of these audiences, reminding them of your brand.

You might have experienced remarketing when you searched for something online, and saw a promotion for that very same product come up in your Facebook feed or Google results.

If you need some convincing statistics about the power of remarketing, consider the following:

One ad is not enough: Only 2% of visitors make a purchase on their first visit to a website. Cart abandonment rates are incredibly high, especially on mobile devices. Remarketing offers the possibility of getting a second chance with that other 98%.
Conversion rates increase over time: WordStream reveals that the more prospects see an ad, the more likely they are to buy. Sometimes they might not really notice your ad, or your timing could be off. But, the more they see what you offer, the more likely you are to catch their attention.
People ENJOY reminders: Would you be surprised to find out that 25% of visitors actually enjoy seeing a remarketing reminder? If they liked something enough to research it once, the chances are they had interest, but were not yet fully motivated to buy.

Common Remarketing Mistakes and How to Correct Them

Although it might seem easy enough to just say that you want to remarket to people who have interacted in some way with your business online, setting up remarketing is not easy. It requires following several holy grails of technical manuals, and there are dozens of ways to make mistakes which compound quickly.

Here are some of the biggest missteps, and tips to make your remarketing more effective:

Set Up Your Remarketing: If you have ever heard that “there is never enough time to do something right the first time, but always enough time to do it over,” you have already learned an important lesson about remarketing – set it up right! Google takes you through a step-by-step remarketing set-up process. Set up an audience source, tag your website for remarketing, create a data source, and use Tag Manager to confirm that a global site tag has been placed on every page of your website.
Choose Your Audience Wisely: Setting up your audience lists will help you define which audiences see your ads across Gmail, YouTube, Google Search, and the Google Display Network through remarketing campaigns. Choose website visitors, your customer list, similar audience, app users, and callers, or a custom combination to specify who you want to see your ads. The audience you choose depends on the type of ad you will run. Don’t try to accomplish too much with one ad. It can be confusing to your audience, and will be next to impossible to track. On the other hand, though, you do need an audience that is large enough to generate trackable results, so don’t exclude every possible demographic just to save a few dollars.
Remarket to Those You Already Know: You only have a passing acquaintance with some people – they visited your website once, or clicked on a YouTube video. But, with others there is a more “intimate” relationship. They are on your e-newsletter list, gave you an email address to download an e-book or white paper, or maybe even made a purchase. Perhaps they got all the way to the shopping cart stage, without taking the final buying action. These are people that are not what you might consider “regular” customers yet. You want to have specific remarketing efforts for this audience to remind them of why they like your business, and motivate them to take another action. This is also where the concept of the “similar” audience is useful – if it works well for your current associations, then it will probably work for those who are in similar demographic groups, too.
Think About the Length of Your Remarketing Campaign. You could believe you want a particular remarketing campaign to last about 30 days, but some buying decisions need longer periods of time than that. You might want a sales promotion to run a week or two, and a restaurant can probably get by with a shorter timeframe, but a car dealership might have to go out to two months to meet their buyers’ thought process. You want to have enough visibility during the timeframe when a prospect is most likely to revisit their purchase options.
Don’t Go Overboard: There is a limit to how much any prospect, even a very interested one, wants to hear from you. Use frequency capping to limit the number of times your remarketing ads appear to the same person over a given time period.
Pay Attention to All Your Online Marketing: Although it might feel like your remarketing strategy should be able to practically run itself, you do want to check on it regularly to make sure it is generating the results you expect. Look for areas you can improve on, and also those that might need to be rethought completely. Keep an eye on those people who do convert, to determine how you want to reach out to them in upcoming remarketing efforts. And don’t focus so much on the remarketing that you forget to revisit your primary online marketing strategy, as that is what is driving the initial results you count on for remarketing.
Watch the Audience Overlap: You want to try to maintain control over the amount of information each of your specific audiences will receive from you. Too much and they might get annoyed; too little and they could lose interest. Think about what you are saying to each audience, how long your campaign will last, and figure out whether they are getting other overlapping remarketing messages from your business.
Measure and Measure Again: You want to get a good ROI with any marketing strategy, and that includes your remarketing efforts. Take advantage of Google Analytics to gain insights on pages visited, session length, and traffic sources, in order to improve results.

Finally – BE INTERESTING! You might have made it perfectly through the set-up and audience selection parts, but you still need to have an ad that is interesting. Use quality images and captivating content to grab your audience’s attention and make them give your business a second thought. You’ll want to do some testing of various versions of your ad, to make sure you hit on the exact combination that works.

This focused on the concept of remarketing with Google, but Facebook also has a very similar process (they call it re-targeting) for helping people rediscover what they really love about your business. The point is that you want your online marketing to work its very best for your small business. Building on strategies you already have in place through remarketing can help take those efforts to the next level.

Blog Marketing | Email Marketing | Web Marketing

Top 10 Reasons To Use Google Workspace For Email

5 November 2020 by Taylor Reaume

It is estimated that Google has a solid lock on the market share of email open rates with a whopping open email rate of 26 percent. This might have something to do with the element of Google’s longevity, having been around since 2004 and home to 1.2 billion users. It also has a lot to do with the product that they offer.

Today, Google is no longer just a free gmail account that you can check from anywhere. It’s a solution for business that has outperformed any other free email or suite solution on the market.

One tool that Google offers now is Google Workspace.

Learn the top 10 benefits of using Google Workspace right here, and streamline your business today.

1. Customized Workspace

Google Workspace is so appealing to so many businesses today because it completely customizes your work life and the life of everyone that you work with, in minutes. Google Workspace allows you to create an instant brand. Gone are the days of sending pitches, bids, or sales calls under the email@gmail.com look. That just doesn’t feel professional, does it?

Google has recognized this need for an easy to use fully integrated and fully customized workspace. So they have developed this tool that allows you to create your own brand using email, without having to work with a dedicated server company. An email domain that corresponds with the name of your company or organization allows you to look more professional in minutes.

2. Increases Productivity

Productivity improves when you are on email. Google Workspace puts everything you need at your fingertips. You don’t need to keep 25 windows from different apps and software suites open at the same time. Open up Google, access your Drive, your Images, your Sheets, everything, with just a few clicks. Share, plan, produce, with one Workspace at your fingertips.

3. Store it All Here

Google Workspace not only offers a customized brand for your email domain, but it offers you the opportunity to use a completely scalable interface. This allows you to tailor your own storage space to exactly what you need. You can do this using general Gmail, but with a branded domain on your email account, you will never be scrolling through emails looking for that work document in between your pet food order again. Everything is stored in one place. Keep your business here, and the rest of your life elsewhere.

4. Log in Anywhere

One of the reasons Google has amassed billions of users is that it has made itself available as a web-based email that can be checked anywhere. If you are in Florida one day and Florence the next, you can check your email using a device in any country in the world. Google makes logging in simple and fast with one sign-in.

5. Never Miss a Thing

Along with having a branded email, Google Workspace will sync everything you need with your branded domain to ensure you never miss a thing. Google Workspace allows you to both sync your gmail.com email with your Workspace email so that you don’t have to check multiple accounts multiple times. At the same time, sync your Calendar to make sure that you never miss a thing. You won’t miss anything, and your employees won’t either. When they submit a personal day request, for example, you’ll get it instantly. Not only will you get that benefit, but so will they.

6. Communicate to Everyone Seamlessly

Communicating to the team simultaneously is something you can do with gmail.com, but it will just take more time. If you need to tell people that you are out of the office or are arranging a meeting, you can do so in just a few clicks and the time it takes you to set up the meeting or send the email.

7. Instant Access to Business Solutions

Using Google Workspace allows you to seamlessly integrate branded business needs, but it also provides you with a few more business solutions than the gmail.com service does. Along with Google Workspace and a branded email solution, you get Google Meet, Google Chat, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Keep, a notes application that can handle almost any file you sent it to.

Google Workspace gives you instant access. While you may get most of these features using gmail.com, you won’t get them all. If you have a business need, Google has developed a business solution in Google Workspace.

8. It’s Affordable

Google Workspace plans begin at approximately $6 a month per user, which is one of the biggest reasons that it is so popular today. You won’t get an email on a dedicated server for less money than that. The higher-tier programs run at $12 a month and that gives you more storage. Still more affordable than a dedicated server.

9. No Ads Email

The one disadvantage of a free email server is the constant ads. When you pay a few dollars a month for an email server, you lose that entirely. Gone are the days where you see ads showing up in your emails that match something you typed about yesterday. You are now working from a branded Workspace without the distractions of ads.

10. Supported by Every Operating System

When you have a dedicated server hosting your emails, you still need to be sure your employees can meet succinctly in a remote space, or collaborate in a way that is seamless. This gets clunky when you have both PC and Mac employees. You don’t need to worry if your Google-based applications are going to be supported by your employees. You’re all working on the same cloud now, and Google Docs or Google Sheets in a Google Meet can all be viewed easily without a single complaint from anybody.

Switch to Google Workspace Today

For just a few dollars a month you can switch to Google Workspace and help everybody improve their productivity today. You’ll get instant access to fully integrated and fully scalable solutions that offer more of everything, for very little.

Switch today and see the difference. It’s not a solution you have to stick with if you don’t like it.

Blog Marketing | Social Media Marketing | Web Marketing

10 Best Facebook Marketing Ideas

3 October 2020 by Taylor Reaume

Great Facebook marketing is not a one size fits all approach, but one piece of strategy advice I give all my clients is that social media marketing must be an integral component of your web marketing campaign.

Social media is the better, faster way to reach customers because social media sites have become the newspapers, backyard fences, and water coolers of our daily life.

At the top of our social media communication list is Facebook marketing.

Here are few shocking Facebook marketing statistics to illustrate the importance of including Facebook in your marketing mix:

Facebook Monthly Active Users: Facebook monthly active users totaled 2.80 billion as of December 31, 2020. This represents an increase of 12% year-over-year.
Leading Social Media Engagement Platform: eMarketer reports that Facebook is the leading social platform and business marketplace. It reaches 59% of social media users, and is projected to continue its domination at least through 2024. Interestingly enough, the pandemic renewed curiosity about Facebook’s outreach capabilities.
Great for Small Business Marketing: There must be some pretty strong reasons over 200 million small businesses from around the world include Facebook tools as part of their marketing strategy.

What this means is that your business needs top-notch Facebook marketing to achieve its goals in this highly-competitive, attention-grabbing medium. You can use Facebook marketing to share business information, increase your online presence, build your audience, and connect with prospects and customers.

I created an easy-to-understand Facebook marketing infographic which you can download here.

What is Facebook Marketing?

Facebook marketing offers a variety of highly targeted paid advertisements and organic posts which help your business put its products and services in front of a targeted audience.

A slew of ad formats is available, including video, image, carousel, collection, slideshow and lead generation.

Start by establishing a goal, then define your target audience, upload your images and content, set a duration, and set your budget.

If needed, Facebook will create a personalized ad plan focused on your goal.

Below are some useful ideas for your next Facebook marketing campaign:

Target an Insanely Specific Audience: You might think you know your audience but is “people over 35 who live within 25 miles of my business” really helpful? Hone in and drill down to those people who have the best opportunity of becoming customers. Would you be shocked to find out that about 85% of Facebook advertisements are targeted by country instead of a specific location? And only about 45% of these advertisements use Interest Targeting! Facebook has targeting options for location, behavior, demographics, connections and interests that deliver your ads to people who will love your business.
Run a Simple Contest to Boost Engagement: A contest is a great way to attract attention and introduce your business to potential new customers. In one example a start-up with no marketing budget generated some 30,000 new likes over six weeks using a simple Facebook contest. Align the prize with your brand, follow all of Facebook’s rules for promotions, and make sure it is a true, legal contest.
Create Short, Enticing Video Posts: Videos get all the attention these days. In 2018, 54% of consumers said they wanted more video content from brands or businesses they support. And that was before COVID kept everybody inside using social media for a year! Video ads have high click-through rates, and Facebook helps you reach your audience with videos created using photos and footage you already have, or with a selection of free stock images.
Use Eye Contact in Your Images to Direct Attention: Eye contact draws viewers into your photo and creates a bond. It demonstrates that your brand is open and willing to look viewers “in the eye.” Cornell University research showed that eye contact, even with an inanimate object such as the Trix cereal rabbit, produces a powerful, subconscious sense of connection.
Post Adorable Images of Puppies: Puppies just make people feel good – who can resist those adorable puppy eyes? Android’s “Friends Furever” commercial showing unlikely animal pairings has been watched and shared more than 22 million times. Heck, even the gecko commercials have been watched over 25 million times, more than any other car insurance company!
Target the Leads You Already Have on Facebook: Use lead ads to encourage people to contact your business for more information. Make it easy and user-friendly, especially for your mobile-savvy prospects. Lead ads allow viewers to request specific information, and they help you capture customer details for later targeting. Facebook lead ads can be used to collect newsletter sign-ups, follow-up calls, price estimates, and other business information.
Clone Your Main Revenue-Generating Audience: If you really know your customer base, and simply want to expand it, find more people exactly like them by creating a lookalike audience. Here Facebook works to match the people in your existing audience to profiles of potential prospects from its database of over 1.1 billion people.
Humanize Your Brand with Fun Employee Photos: If you want to make an instant connection, employee photos can add a nice “face” to your business. Don’t just use headshots of smiling people standing in front of your building or logo, though. Use fun photos of your team in action, helping customers, or just running a good business others want to know, but make sure you have signed permission to do so.
Only Pay to Promote Your Best Content: You can use your Facebook stream to share different information about your business to an existing audience at no cost, but you should only pay to promote your best content to a bigger audience. Use the metrics at your disposal to identify your top-performing content, and then take advantage of Facebook’s highly specific audience-targeting to boost your top posts with a paid promotion.
Use Emojis in Your Facebook Marketing: Have a little fun, and add some of today’s quirky emojis to your Facebook marketing. Most millennials believe emojis communicate thoughts and feelings better than words do. You will even see better engagement and a higher click-through rate on the same ads with and without them.

Energize your Facebook marketing results with Search Engine Pros, a full-service, multi-touch online marketing services agency. Call 800-605-4988 or schedule a consultation and learn how the experts at SEP can incorporate these ideas into your marketing strategy!

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