Which Social Media Platform Fits Your Business?

For most marketing execs, it is important to stay in touch with your customers and engage new ones.   It is important to do so for many reasons but the two most important that seem to come to mind is for branding and customer service purposes.  The best way to do is through using your options via social media.  Social media networks are tremendous resources for all size businesses looking to enhance their image.

All of the social media platforms are free to use however, they also have a paid advertising function.  This becomes important for businesses that want to spread more awareness of their brand or are running a new marketing campaign that may or may not have some sort of discount or promotion attached to it. One important aspect that every marketing specialist should look into is what social media platform they should invest their time with.  It is not always the best idea to sacrifice your time and money in some social media platforms that will not get you the results that you are anticipating.  Therefore, in order to be successful you should become familiar with the social media platforms that are available to your company.  By understanding the medium, you can decide on whether the audience fits your company’s culture and whether you would like to proceed in spending time nurturing an online presence with the specific network.

You have to decide what type of exposure and how many clicks you will receive on the particular platforms.  At the end of the day, you are trying to reach the most amount of prospective customers with the least amount of advertising dollars.  The exposure you will potentially achieve will result in customer knowledge and retention.  This “branding” exposure will also lead to longevity of your company in the long run.

Once you have decided on the particular platforms that you will engage in, it is important to post at optimal times.  Let’s face it.  There is alot of content out there.  In order to get the most exposure it is important to post at the right time.  With a platform such as Facebook and its 1.8 billion followers, it can be easy to not stand out in the pack.  We have seen that posting between 1-3 p.m. is generally a good starting point.  It has also been researched that the most optimal time to post is Thursdays from 1 to 3 p.m.

Another consideration that should be taken into account is who you are targeting with your posts.  It is important that you are engaging with a targeted audience instead of a non-specific general audience. This is important because advertising to a targeted audience will allow your business to grow with customers who are more likely to purchase your product or service.  It is important that your marketing team has done research into the demographics of your clientele and then attempt to reach them.  Choosing the right platform is certainly part of the research that your team should do as different social networks cater towards certain demographics more than others.

If you are not sure where to start go to the ones that you are most familiar with.  In the event that you are in need of assistance, you should look for assistance by choosing a digital marketing agency that can fulfill your goals.  Falcon Consulting & Marketing is a digital marketing agency headquartered in New York City that can assist any business reach their full potential.  We work with one client at a time reach their revenue goals.

https://falconconsultingandmarketing.com/social-media-platform-fits-business/

NYU Professor States That Amazon Searches Are More Important Than Google

As has been previously reported last year based on the State of Amazon study by Bloomreach, 55% of consumers start their product searches using Amazon.  The survey based on 2000 U.S. consumers also found the following:

• 90% of consumers will check Amazon even if they’ve found their product elsewhere. 78% of these shoppers do this ‘often’ or ‘always’.
• It works both ways though, with 70% checking products they’ve found on Amazon on other ecommerce sites.
• 50% of mobile shoppers try Amazon first, compared to search engines on 34% and other retailers on 16%.

According to CNBC, an NYU Professor stated that Amazon may now become a more important search engine than Google.  NYU Stern School of Business professor Scott Galloway elaborated that “Amazon is becoming all of retail” and believes that people will only shop on Amazon.  He further believes that it could lead to continued growth in the company’s ad business and would put them in the league of Facebook and Google.

This is all important for the small business owners who have a limited budget to invest in ad space in the future.  Clearly this should be an option that must be considered going further and seeking advice from an expert in digital marketing may be advantageous in getting ahead of your competition.

If you are in need of assistance with your digital marketing campaign, including PPC or SEO then Falcon Consulting & Marketing may be of assistance to you.  We are a digital marketing agency located in NYC assisting small and medium sized businesses one client at a time.

https://falconconsultingandmarketing.com/nyu-reinforces-notion-amazon-searches-important-google/

Visit us at www.falconconsultingandmarketing.com

What is the Correct Amount of Times to Post on Social Media?

Many businesses decide early on that they want to develop their brand by themselves and want to post as much as possible online via social media.   Also, most are aware that your social media presence affects your ongoing SEO campaigns.   The ability to post at the right time and the frequency is important.  If you post too much, you may agitate some of your followers and you might lose them as a follower.  If you post sparingly, followers might believe that you are not engaged to your customers drawing a direct correlation from your posting frequency.

Every social media platform is different and are should be handled accordingly.  One of the main focus of your postings should be to anticipate what your followers are looking for and post pursuant to that guideline.  With all that said, here is what we at Falcon Consulting & Marketinghave come up with the optimal amount of posts per day via several different social media platforms.:

Frequency of Facebook posts:  6- 10 times per week

Best Time: You should at least post once per day.  If you do not have the capability to do so or your business is of a technical nature than you should post at least twice per week.  The most advantageous days to post are Thursdays and Fridays between 1-3 p.m.

Frequency of Twitter tweets:  2-4 times per day

Best Time: From our research it appears that 2-4 times per day works the best for most companies.  It is always best to attempt to tweet at least once per day to show your audience that you are engaged if you do not have the time to invest in long thoughtful tweets during the day.  The most beneficial time to tweet like in Facebook is between 1-3 p.m.

Frequency of Instagram Posts: Once per day is sufficient

Best Time: We have found that once per day is sufficient in Instagram.  The only difference is the best time period to post is between 3-6 p.m.

Frequency of Pinterest Pins: 6-10 pins per day

Best Time: Some of our clients love Pinterest.  Enough that they pin 20-30 posts per day.  Although it is great to show the engage it is certainly not necessary.  Pins of between 6-10 per day we find to be the sweet spot.  The best period to post is between 5-10 p.m.

Here at Falcon Consulting & Marketing, we have come to these conclusions through trial and error with many businesses we have worked with over the years.  We have found that certain businesses need customization in their social media engagement more than others as well.  If you need help with your social media engagement and are looking to build your brand online we can help.  We are a NYC based digital marketing agency that assists businesses one at a time.  Contact us at 855-445-9530 for a free consultation.

http://falconconsultingandmarketing.com/efficient-number-times-post-social-media/

Visit us at www.falconconsultingandmarketing.com

Inbound Marketing For Doctors and Healthcare Practitioners

Let’s face it.  Obtaining new patients and the right price point has been difficult for the last 8 years more than anytime before.  Whether it be for urgent care centers or a reduction of choices due to buyouts of small healthcare practices it has become much harder to compete in the marketplace.  For some of the smarter savvy physicians, they are aware that internet marketing and inbound marketing in particular is a helpful tool in getting more potential patients.

To make it simple, inbound marketing is the opposite of traditional marketing has been. Think of the older strategies of marketing to include billboards, TV commercials, radio ads and direct-mail campaigns.  Inbound marketing, though, works by targeting a specific audience that’s already interested in your services. You bring this audience to your website, convert people within the audience into legitimate leads and thereafter make them patients.  Here are some great techniques we have noticed work well for healthcare practitioners to use in order to gain more patients

1.   Your website will be the foundation you need to implement a successful inbound marketing strategy. Having strong visual appeal and it being easily accessible are two main factors you must have on your website.  Also, we have seen that the consumer is going mobile.  According to new reports by 2017, 75% of internet usage will be through mobile and therefore you should have your website mobile friendly.   Remember, your website is the first impression to the patient.  The patient decides within the first second whether they want to purchase from you.  Therefore you must put your best foot forward.

2.  Putting up content on your website is critical.  Depending on where you are with your practice, you most likely have a website.  Although it is great to have the patient have a great first impression, you must have content to drive traffic to your website.  Your website is an organic aspect of your practice.  You have to treat it like that as you have to nurture you website with great content that is both informative and visually appealing.  Maintaining a blog helps with your SEO as Google crawls websites constantly looking for unique content to add to their database.  The more they find that you are a reliable authority, the faster your website will soar in the rankings leading to more leads.

3.  Using social media to increase your brand awareness-   Using social media is another important aspect that must be used by the practitioner these days.  Not only does using social media inform your patients and prospects on what is new with your practice but it is a tremendous tool in having your website rank higher with the search engines.  Google checks to see how many followers, likes, comments you have in your Facebook, Twitter etc sites and may increase rankings depending on it.  Social media can be about day-to-day interactions, as well as big ideas and awareness campaigns. You can create a Youtube channel which can focus on surgeries or have illustrations of how surgery can be performed.  Videos are amazing as they are sometimes used as illustration purposes by fellow physicians and that can assist you in becoming an authority in your field.

There are many other inbound marketing techniques that we have used to assist doctors and other healthcare practitioners that we have not covered, however we think the three above are the fastest to implement.  All our methods assisted with our clients achieve their goals of reaching more patients and generating more revenue and increasing brand awareness.  If you are a healthcare practitioner and need assistance with your inbound marketing needs, Falcon Consulting & Marketing can assist you with your needs.  We are a New York City based digital marketing agency that assists small and medium sized businesses one client at a time.

https://falconconsultingandmarketing.com/inbound-marketing-doctors-healthcare-practitioners/

Visit us at www.falconconsultingandmarketing.com