Posts By: Chris Wielinski

Social Media Marketing 101: Tackling Facebook

Posted by & filed under Social Media.

social media marketing benefitsFacebook has continued to dominate other social media platforms, and marketers have taken note: practically two-thirds of marketers believe that Facebook is the most beneficial social platform to boost your business. Of course, Facebook marketing has undergone some major changes in recent years, which can be confusing for newcomers to the platform’s business side. Here are some quick and easy tips to improve your online presence on Facebook.

Market on your page

Social media marketing benefits begin as soon as you create a Facebook page for your business. Not only is this a great way to keep your fans up to date with reminders, you can use your cover photo and profile photo or video to advertise new features or events for your business. Often, your business’s Facebook page is one of the top search results when people search for your business. Schedule regularly posts so that your page stays fresh for new visitors. If you don’t have an in-house marketing branch for your business, choosing a digital marketing firm that fits your business is a must.

Unfortunately, you may notice that your business’s Facebook page doesn’t get much interaction from followers. Recently, Facebook updated their news feed so that business posts no longer appear in their followers’ feeds. Unless you pay to boost a post, people won’t see them unless they specifically choose to visit your page. As a result, most companies have scaled back the amount of content they post.

Keep up with the new features

Over the last couple of years, Facebook has released new features to give their users more ways to share their lives online. Facebook stories, profile videos, temporary profile pictures, you name it: Facebook adds it. Whether you like it or not, staying on top of Facebook’s new updates is the best way to reign in the most users. If you’re not interested in keeping up with the new features Facebook has to offer, try choosing an advertising agency for your social media marketing.

Paid Facebook Advertising

With over one billion active users, Facebook is the world’s largest social media outlet, and thus a powerful platform for advertising. And because your page’s posts are all but invisible to most users, many businesses instead opt for paid Facebook advertising. Fortunately, Facebook is generally cheaper than other advertising platforms, and there are two ways to reach users through paid ads. You can either “Boost” content from your page, or you can create visual ads that appear in the news feed. As an added bonus, you can even serve these ads on Instagram, Facebook’s sister social media outlet.

Hold giveaways and events

By encouraging your followers to talk about your business, you’re amplifying your presence to more people across the web. Holding simple giveaways through “sharing” contests and selfie contests will cost you next to nothing and will get a wide range of people involved. Make your contestants tag you in a post to reach a whole new audience for peak levels of social media marketing benefits.

Hire a digital marketing company

Let’s be honest: social media marketing isn’t easy. If you don’t have the funds, energy, or time to do it yourself, relying on a professional SEO company or advertising agency is the best way to boost your online presence. They’re trained to navigate the ins and outs of Facebook and they’re prepared to research the new trends, updates, and events that you can utilize for your business.

Social media marketing can offer an extremely high ROI, and Facebook is the best way to reach a massive audience. Consider these tips before you venture on your new social media marketing plan.

6 Clutch Mobile Website Design Techniques Pros are Using in 2018

Posted by & filed under Website Design.

website design companyWeb design services are among the most important aspects of a successful digital marketing campaign. In this blossoming field, mobile website design is the most important niche. According to Statista, mobile internet penetration is poised to grow 62.3% globally in 2018. That means your company will need a website design company well versed in designing mobile-friendly pages. Here are some of the features a top-notch website design company will be able to provide.

  1. Automatic Formatting
    Everyone has a vaguely different smartphone these days. Whether your customer uses an iOs or Android device, and whether the screen is large or small, the website absolutely must fit the display perfectly. If it doesn’t, you run the risk of losing leads.

  2. Interactive Graphic Menu Functionality
    Your menu tab should be easy to find and even easier to use. A new industry standard logo is emerging to represent the site’s menu in an aesthetic way. Three parallel and horizontal lines are nearly universally recognized as the menu button. Of course, your business is free to use any type of decoration or flair that you want, just make sure people know where to find your drop-down menu. Just as importantly, make the menu as simple as possible.

  3. Two-Click Navigation
    Speaking of menus and navigation, here’s an excellent rule of thumb: users should be able to get to the page they are looking for in two clicks. If someone has to click more than two or three times to find the product or info they need, they’re going to end up clicking away.

  4. Accurate Touch Screen Inputs
    There’s nothing more frustrating than touching a link on your smartphone and having it not respond. If you have a link or a button on your web page, make sure it is responsive. This is true across all web design, but it is especially important for mobile users.

  5. Load Time
    Another thing that is universally important amongst all websites is that your landing page doesn’t take a long time to load. If it does, people will become impatient and ‘bounce’ elsewhere. If your site is bogged down with slow loading times, trim away excess graphics, animations, complicated menus, and other forms of digital distraction.

  6. Simplicity
    Simplicity is important when presenting anything. You want people to be able to use your site without any problems. Intuitive, simple navigation and clean design should be a top priority for mobile websites.

When hiring a website design company, ask to see some of the sites in their portfolio. This will give you a feel for what to expect when your site is completed. If they can check all of the boxes listed above, you are in good hands.

The Rise of Digital Marketing and What it Means for Your Company

Posted by & filed under Display Advertising.

advertising agencyWhen it comes to choosing an advertising agency that will meet your needs, you need to consider several factors. Possibly the most important of all is this: the 2017/18 Global Digital Outlook Study showed that 43% of all marketers worldwide are increasing their investment in the digital marketing sector. Additionally, almost 50% are already spending half or more of their total marketing budget on digital.

The importance of choosing a digital marketing firm, then, is growing ever stronger. Why?

The right advertising agency will know how to put your business in front of your customers, and increasingly your customers are spending their time online.

The Evolved Advertising Agency
Brick and mortar business owners know that they have to adapt or die. Already, countless small businesses — not to mention some unfortunate Fortune 500 companies — have failed to adapt to the changing digital tides. So, in this fast-paced digital world, what are some of the best ways to reach new customers?

  1. Social Media
    Having an online presence is everything in the modern business world, and there’s no better tool than social media to accomplish it. You are immediately able to talk to customers directly over social media platforms. Whether you use social media for customer service, general branding, or through social advertisements, you can’t afford to ignore social media.

  2. Content Marketing
    Providing useful information about your products and how best to use them will go a long way toward establishing trust. Even better, content is essential if you want your website to rank well in search engines and convert leads.

  3. Email Outreach
    Connecting with regular customers can be tricky, but you have the magical tool of email at your disposal. Reaching out to both potential leads and return customers at once could be the secret to sustainable success. Today, businesses of all sizes build email lists so they can keep customers informed of special discounts and seasonal promotions. It’s a low cost, high impact form of digital advertising.

 
The evolved advertising agency also looks at the reason why they do what they do. They want to know that they are helping their clients achieve their dreams and aspirations. When choosing a digital marketing firm, you need to know that they are in this for the right reasons. That is how genuine partnerships are formed. In order to help everyone see their goals achieved, that is what you need to look for in an advertising agency.

As for traditional marketing, there is still a place for it in any long-term strategy. Establishing a strong web presence, though, is more crucial than ever. If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our digital marketing agency in Fort Worth for more information.

3 Social Media Sites and How to Leverage Them for Marketing

Posted by & filed under Social Media.

social media marketingSocial media could have been dreamed up by marketers as the ultimate source of leads. Millions of consumers all centralize in one place to share things that relate to their lives. Not only does this give marketing firms a lot of data to better target their audience, it also gives them a place to advertise. With a number of excellent social media platforms to choose from, which should your company use, and how should you use them?

  1. LinkedIn
    Nearly all business to business marketers (94%) use LinkedIn as a component of their content strategy. A great strategy for marketing on LinkedIn involves providing valuable information in articles. This demonstrates intelligence and knowledge about your field to an action-oriented professional audience. Bonus points if you can keyword optimize your content according to search engine optimization best practices.

  2. Facebook
    When you think about leveraging social media, it pays to consider the typical successful post on that site. For Facebook, videos and viral content are the go-to power posts. Try to tailor your marketing strategy in a way that’s conducive to likes and shares in order to get your ads in front of as many people as possible.

  3. Twitter
    Twitter is a bit sassy. Pay attention to some of the more regularly retweeted posts. You might notice the ones going viral having a hint of sarcasm involved. This is easy to overdo, so be mindful of the line in the sand between playfully humorous and rude. Another twitter strategy for the long term is to use the platform for announcements and major company news. Just learn how to keep your character count below the limit. Twitter is about brevity and wit.

 
All of these social media marketing platforms are all but essential for growing your business. If you are in the process of choosing a digital marketing firm, make sure to ask about their various social media marketing strategies in more depth. Social media can be a marketers dream when used correctly, or a total nightmare if your company isn’t up to speed. If your goal is to leverage these sites for leads, do so prudently and with a deeper understanding of the popular media on the platform.

How Search Engine Optimization Experts Use Blog Posts

Posted by & filed under Search Engine Optimization.

seo companies near meIn digital marketing circles, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a pretty big deal. It even gets some press outside of the marketing world, and it’s been piquing the interest of budding businesses everywhere. The questions on everyone’s mind are: what is SEO and how can I use it to help my small business grow?

What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization is the process of utilizing knowledge about search engine ranking algorithms to place content as close to the top of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) as possible. Before any optimization or content creation takes place, your business needs to know which keywords to try and rank on. Find specific phrases that potential customers of your business would search on Google. When they search those words, the goal is to have the first result they see be a link to your website.

Of course, it is much more complicated than this, but keyword selection and research is the ultimate starting point.

How Can I Use It?
Practically everyone uses Google for research and making purchase decisions. If you want people to visit your website, you need to somehow make it visible. There are other strategies to accomplish this goal, but SEO is among the most cost-effective.

There’s a reason roughly 53% of marketers cite creating blog content as their top inbound marketing priority. Posting blogs regularly is a great way to integrate your chosen keywords and create linkable content. This strategy is a staple for ranking improvement, traffic generation, and becoming a more visible website. These blogs will also play another important role.

Which SEO Companies Near Me Should I Use?
You might be wondering do I even need to look for SEO companies near me? If you are, the answer is both yes and no. You can certainly create and post basic blog posts on your own, but getting links from other websites is another story entirely.

Great SEO companies are able to use your linkable content as the source for other factual articles written on sites that rank better than yours. Links from high-quality sites give your site more credibility. Backlinks and offsite SEO are important ranking factors that cannot be easily done by individuals without a large network.

All in all, SEO is much more layered and complicated than simply writing a huge volume of articles. That is, however, the best place to start for any SEO beginners.

4 Must-Have Service Areas of the Best Digital Marketing Firms

Posted by & filed under Branding.

marketing firms near meWhen choosing a digital marketing firm, there are a number of services you need to consider. Not only do you want to spread the word about your company, but you want to do so in an impactful and positive way. That’s why, when looking for ‘marketing firms near me‘, you must find an agency that has capacities not just geared toward generating leads, but towards creating a desirable identity for your business.

Criteria for Choosing Marketing Firms Near Me

When picking the right digital marketing agency, there are four key service areas you should look for:

  1. Branding
    It all starts here. Branding is identity. It is your public appearance. Your image. And when it comes to branding, graphic design is key. Think of any brand in the world. The first thing that pops into your head will likely not be the exact product they sell, but the design of their logo and what the company stands for. Any major player in a market will have a huge branding presence that helps them achieve further visibility and greater customer interaction.
  2. Web Design, Web App Design, and Web Development
    You need an online presence even if your business is not based on the internet, but for e-commerce companies, custom web development is essential. Having a nicely designed, mobile-friendly website can also make a massive difference in earning the trust of potential customers. Like with branding, before you start marketing your products, you want to make sure people will like what they see.
  3. Social Media
    Now that you’ve built your brand, it is time to go for leads that will convert. Social media marketing is a great source of both lead generation and community cultivation. Get people invested in the outcome of your business by socializing your brand and you will find communities that are supportive and helpful.
  4. Search Engine Optimization
    Search Engine Optimization (SEO) leads are a type of inbound lead. This type of lead has an average 14.6% close rate, whereas outbound leads like print advertising only have a 1.7% close rate. SEO also tends to be less expensive and can continue building your brand’s reputation through rigorously written content.

Digital marketing, and indeed marketing as a whole, is all about creating an image for your business, then delivering upon that image within a certain market. Once you can do that, there’s no telling how far your business may go.

Think Cre8tive Receives Best Advertising Agency 3 Consecutive Years

Posted by & filed under Branding, Development, Display Advertising, Inbound Marketing, Pay Per Click, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Traditional Advertising, Website Design.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Think Cre8tive Receives 2018 Best of Keller Award

Keller Award Program Honors the Achievement

KELLER March 30, 2018 — Think Cre8tive has been selected for the 2018 Best of Keller Award in the Advertising Agency category by the Keller Award Program.

Each year, the Keller Award Program identifies companies that we believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and our community. These exceptional companies help make the Keller area a great place to live, work and play.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2018 Keller Award Program focuses on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the Keller Award Program and data provided by third parties.

About Keller Award Program

The Keller Award Program is an annual awards program honoring the achievements and accomplishments of local businesses throughout the Keller area. Recognition is given to those companies that have shown the ability to use their best practices and implemented programs to generate competitive advantages and long-term value.

The Keller Award Program was established to recognize the best of local businesses in our community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission is to recognize the small business community’s contributions to the U.S. economy.

SOURCE: Keller Award Program

CONTACT:
Keller Award Program
Email: PublicRelations@awards-online.org
URL: httpss://www.awards-online.org

###

 

Copied from original release: httpss://keller.keller.awards-online.org/PressReleaseub.aspx?cc=DKL3-UBF7-S755

What’s the Difference Between SEO and SEM?

Posted by & filed under Uncategorized.

A while back Search Engine Marketing (SEM) was used as an all-encompassing term that included both paid search marketing and Search Engine Optimization. Today, more and more search marketing experts are referring to the two terms with an increasing degree of separation. So, what does SEM mean now?

Search Engine Marketing

Today, experts in the field have adopted SEM as shorthand for ‘paid search’. This encompasses the following advertising terminology:

Pay Per Click (PPC): This is a type of advertisement that charges the company placing the ad based on the total number of clicks on that ad. Each click costs a pre-ordained amount of money.

CPM: Also known as cost per thousand impressions, relies on a slightly different strategy. Instead of paying per click, companies pay the search engine a set rate based on how many people (measured in thousands) have seen the ad.

Google AdWords: This is a platform that allows advertisers to access Google real estate with their ads. Marketers decide which keywords to target their ads for, then Google places them in the appropriate results pages.

How does this differ from SEO?

Search Engine Optimization

This category involves an organic marketing approach. When people think of SEO, they tend to gravitate toward the following ideas:

Content: Companies publishing 16 or more articles to their blog each month receive 3.5 the amount of traffic as companies that post zero to four blogs each month. Content marketing is a staple of SEO.

Keywords: The content also needs to indicate what the website is about. There’s a lot more than meets the eye involved with choosing keywords for an online business, but suffice it to say that keywords are integrated into content to point Google toward a website.

Links: Links also point to web pages, indicating how relevant they are. A link to your site from another reputable site will tell Google that your site is probably important.

The difference between SEO and SEM is different than what it was in the past, yet they share a close relationship. Both tactics, paid and organic, are executed on the same platform. The goal for a digital marketing company is to capitalize on the vast amount of search engine traffic that occurs every day.

Top 5 Characteristics To Look For When Choosing An SEO Firm

Posted by & filed under Search Engine Optimization.

choosing an seo firmAs always, there are a number of different online marketing strategies that can help generate leads. One of the most important of all, however, is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Over half (53%) of marketers say content creation for blogs is the most important inbound marketing priority. When choosing an SEO firm for your business’s blog, you should make sure they can do the following.

  1. Keyword Research
    A good SEO company will do thorough research to identify the most effective keywords for their client’s product. While ‘fast cars’ might be what your company sells, that keyword is highly competitive. Keyword research will reveal the intersection of what your company sells and what keywords are more accessible to rank on. This could include local SEO terminology like ‘fast cars near me’ or particular brands or specification.

  2. Backlinks
    One of the biggest ranking factors for a website on Google is the number of other websites that link back to it. When choosing an SEO firm, you must make sure they have a strategy to generate these links. A while back this was fairly easy to accomplish by building a bunch of dummy websites and spam linking to clients. Today, Google’s algorithm is much more sophisticated, making this technique obsolete. Backlinks need to come from trusted, well-ranked websites to be helpful.

  3. Data Tracking
    In order to know if the content marketing is effective, the SEO firm you choose must provide data tracking tools. This can include organic clicks per week, backlinks generated, conversion metrics, and specific keyword efficacy.

  4. Frequency
    Any good SEO firm knows that you must consistently and frequently update a blog for these strategies to be effective. Make sure to choose one that is capable of regular posting at a volume commensurate with your SEO goals.

  5. Content Length
    Studies have shown that long-form content consistently ranks higher than short form content. You can test this by simply Googling anything at all. Open the first three links on the results page, and do a visual assessment of their length. Then go to page two and do the same thing. You will more than likely find that top page rankings are much longer than those on page two.

 
These are not the only things to look for when choosing an SEO firm, but they certainly make up a huge chunk of the important ranking factors. Search Engine Optimization is far from an exact science since it is an ever-changing landscape. Perhaps after you know that an SEO firm is capable of the above practices, the next most important quality is adaptability. Google changes its algorithm so frequently that the ability to adapt in the SEO space is the x-factor that can give one digital marketing company the edge.

5 Biggest Web Design Mistakes You MUST Avoid This Year

Posted by & filed under Website Design.

web designThe 2017/18 Global Digital Outlook Study found that 43% of marketers across the world are upping their investment in digital marketing. Almost half are spending 50% or more of their marketing budget on digital marketing alone. The importance companies place on having a solid online marketing game is huge. Everything from search engine optimization to pay per click advertising plays a pivotal role in a successful marketing campaign, but one thing needs to happen first.

Website design can be likened to how a physical store looks. Is it clean? Are things where you’d expect them to be? Do people like being there? These are all important questions for store owners, and now website owners must ask them as wel. Sometimes, however, a website is a total mess. In fact, this is fairly common. So, here are some common web design mistakes to avoid at all costs.

  1. Unresponsive Design
    A responsive web design is a site designed so that its presentation adapts to the size of screen that it is being accessed from. If, say, a visitor is using a phone to access your site, but when it loads they are only able to see the top left corner of your site, they will likely find another website to browse.

  2. Under or Over Designing
    Too little design being put into a page is one way to make your website look like everyone else’s’. Too much design and your website could end up looking cluttered, distracted, and all over the place.

  3. Missing Leads
    If you employ Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click, and other lead generation techniques, but fail to capture user emails and contact information when they are directed to your site, you will lose those people as leads. Not every visitor will convert on their first visit, which is why remarketing campaigns, contact forms, and email lists are such valuable lead capture tools.

  4. Buried Essential Information
    If potential customers have to click through 17 different pages of nonsense to find the product information they’re after… Well, they won’t click through that many pages, will they? Make any important information relating to purchases readily available and easy to locate, or risk losing lots of leads.

  5. 404s
    Error: List item not found.

 
If you wish to avoid these issues and make a masterful website, contact a professional website design company that offers a wide array of web design services. Building a beautiful and high functioning website is no small chore. If you need a hand, contact us today.