Blog Articles from Fawkes Digital Marketing

In the fast-paced world of social media marketing, businesses often believe that more is better — that posting multiple times a day is the key to rapid growth. However, this approach can sometimes backfire, especially for small or growing businesses with limited audience engagement.

Just getting a website doesn't mean you're done doing your marketing. Your work has ultimately just begun. We all want the "Field of Dreams" where you build it, and they come. That's not the case. Below is an outline of what you should do to get found and start seeing results. It may be work, but it's work that will pay off. Everything below is the "light version" of what we do every month and is something everyone can do. We've made this much less intensive so that it's not as overwhelming for you.

It's time to learn from the past, move forward, and start increasing your engagement and adding to your bottom line with these ten steps (you can always watch the video!)

We feel it is great that companies in Northwest Indiana and really all over the United States are looking to streamline and save money. The question comes to where do you automate and have truly in-personal communication and where do you have that personal touch we all enjoy? Technology has a place to help cut costs. No longer do you need to pay $500-$1,000+ for social media digital marketing management. Technology can help keep costs low and increase your brands reach. Let the computer do the heavy lifting that used to take hours to gather information so that you can focus on what matters; the customer. Let's look at where technology can (and should) be used, where it can (and shouldn't be), and where you need to still use that 100% personal touch.

Politics and social media have changed forever due to a recent decision that changes how political accounts function and engage with others online. The questions is, are you ready to deal with the changes?

Despite a business's best intentions, sometimes you will end up with a client or employee who does not leave on a good note. A situation like this usually doesn't go beyond hurt feelings but in some cases, the level of angst may go beyond a few choice words and turn into a situation where one angry person can threaten your online business presence. Are there steps that can be taken in situations like this? Yes, there are. Let's discuss them.

Many of our clients, friends, and even local competitors we've been talking to over the past several weeks and they say we seem to be busy. We are and we know why and are going to tell you how we're doing in one area. That area is search engine optimization and social media. It's actually technology that gives us our edge. As software developers we think analytically to grow business. We have spent tens of thousands of dollars on tools to help our small business clients rock it. We get tools that work together that give us insights into what the internet is doing. With that information we can dig deeper than most and spot trends months before others start reacting.

Back before 2010, and even today some people have too much social media. One might wonder how you can have too much social as social is getting out there, talking, and getting your good word out to the masses. Well, it can happen to everyone, including you. You can have too much social and when you do you will actually set your social media back. Social media is as important to have a website with great content and optimized for not only your readers but the search engines.

Today's team challenge is to talk about the pain points and top challenges many make in social media when they are beginning. We started this as only a top 10 list. That became eleven, then twelve, and we ended up with nineteen ways new users mess up when they start with social media. We actually had another but everyone does 19 lists and we wanted to be just a bit different. As Facebook and other social media outlets continue to change the rules you definitely want to make certain you do the right thing on each platform to reach the largest audience. We have all been in the beginning stages of social media marketing – even experts had no knowledge and grew over time. Over time we have seen some pretty horrific mistakes and these are what we are calling the top 19 social media mistakes any new user will make.

We've heard of Facebook removing our organic reach for small and growing businesses. A key takeaway we've already taken is the importance of your own website. Facebook cannot control your business outside of Facebook. Your website is your voice, your products, and your brand messages all the time. Your website will use your sales funnel, marketing techniques, and lead generation to improve your bottom line. Facebook going back to its roots and it has upset many people that manage social media sites. We find this as a new opportunity to not only double down on the true marketing aspects of the business but grow it. This is where Facebook started and has grown from. Businesses, such as ourselves, have overtaken and enjoyed the ride of free promotion. That time has changed and it is now time we business owners have to "pay to play". Let's take a look at the core items that are happening with this change and how the business owner can take advantage of them.

We are JM2 (JM Squared) Webdesigners & Marketing from Valparaiso Indiana but that is not what we are talking about today. We are going to talk about the power of two great digital marketing products that separate are good but together can be great. We hear many social media marketers say you need social media and a website is a waste of your dollars and marketing time. We hear the opposite from those that do websites but not social media in that you only need a website and social media is a waste. Both thought processes are the furthest from the truth. Quality marketing requires you to use both and use both effectively! They should work together, complement each other, and help drive traffic to each other. Why you need both we will describe in this article and this will certainly not be a complete list, but it surely will show you why you need both.

Some people are stat crazy when given the option. The numbers, charts, and comparisons can give a wealth of information for people to analyze and formulate their next move with.

You might have noticed some changes with your business's Facebook page recently, specifically with the cover photo. Facebook business pages will now have a series of wording that goes across the front of the image or video (more on that later) that serves as a brief description of what your business is about.

Social media sites like Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Twitter are a popular way to share content and get involved with the online community. They are free to use and they give the public a place to create a profile and keep in touch with their local and global community. For businesses, not only does this give the public a way to connect with your business more personally and stay up to date with your products and sales, it also helps your search engine optimization (SEO).

Social media is a necessity for every size business today. You need a plan and not a shotgun approach when using it to have a positive part and gain from the benefits of social media. You need to be consistent in your message, target your messages based on the social platform being used, know when to respond, how to respond, and how to engage with your target audience. Like all marketing and branding efforts for your company you need a plan of attack so that your business is shown always in the best possible light. Today we will cover twelve items that should be in your social media plan whether you are in a small town in Indiana or a larger city like Chicago Illinois.

We all can't have the most exciting of company brands or huge budgets to make it exciting. You may provide one of the services that truly isn't super exciting to talk about but necessary to everyone in one way or another. You provide products and services that are used either daily or occasionally. Big business is known for their exciting and ever engaging social media marketing campaigns due to the huge budgets that they can get overly creative and take boring into exciting. This doesn't mean if you are a bank, credit union, funeral home, pawn shop, dry cleaner, lawyer, restaurant, etc. without a big budget that you can't have an engaging social media strategy that people will enjoy. In fact, there are ways you can start to engage your audience to make your brand more fun. Let's look at some ways you can go from boring to engaging using social media.

The best marketing plans whether written for digital or in the real-world can go bad. Those that maintain social media accounts always dread and even fear when news gets out and goes viral that is negative (we never complain when it is a positive interactions). What if that information goes beyond online and into the real-world? We are going to cover many of the high-level items that need to happen when something bad happens. It could be solely online, offline (print, television, radio, or even verbal), or a combination of the two. We are going to cover some of the higher level the dos and don'ts that you need to be cognizant of when dealing with these types of problems.

Business owners are the ones who truly understand the time-tested concepts of time and money. Businesses cannot afford any wasted time, as this misused time leads to a loss of revenue, something that all businesses, no matter their size, will suffer from.

A top question about managing a social media account with current and potential clients social media companies here is what is a social media management, what do you do, why do I need one, and what doesn't it do. The conversations then always turn to how can having another company help my business grow and how much control do I still have in my own company's destiny if someone else is running my online social media campaigns? Today we are going to delve into these common social media questions and answer them for you. Whether you are in Northwest Indiana, Tucson Arizona, or in Dallas Texas the management of a social media accounts at the high-level is the same.

For many people and businesses, 2017 is a year to start fresh and work on new possibilities and functions designed to help your company grow. At JM2. we're also excited to start 2017 on the right foot as we are always looking at new ways to bring more to our clients and work on new ways to help them and their business grow.For me, 2017 presents an opportunity to engage with our clients even more as we help them achieve their goals for the year. As someone who's job is to speak with clients both old and new, this direction is something that fills me with endless possibilities of what we can do together. Out of all the things we are doing in 2017, here is what I'm most excited about.

We talk with several businesses every week about increasing their business either through search engines or through social media channels. Many of these businesses do not need social media as it is not a good fit for them. Social media used correctly, and for the right type of business, can increase your brand awareness, increase customer loyalty, and build a trust through an active community of loyal followers. When used correctly social media is a powerful tool for those businesses that can benefit from it and a complete waste of time, resources, and money for those that use it incorrectly. We are going to delve into the most common social media myths that we have brought up to us.

When it comes to getting your business online having a strategic plan that is optimized to grow your business is crucial. With a maintenance plan, you can take care of not only your website, search engine optimization (SEO), and social media needs but take it to a level never thought of. There are many companies that have solutions that do one and not the other. We're going to outline our "Web + Social" plan. This is our most popular plan as it takes your business to the next level.

With elections quickly coming to an end for a short period there are a few things you need to think about whether you win or lose your political office. There are certain things you need to do to be a responsible politician no matter your election outcome. Although we are talking about your website your social media needs to be thought of as well.

We are always looking months out for preparing. We are typically scheduled out 4, 6, even 8 weeks out for our clients. The reason for this is that we want to make certain we are thinking of holidays, promotion ideas, blog ideas, social media ideas, and the individual items that are happening in the weeks ahead (e.g. New Year's Day, Trivia Day, etc.). Since content creation is a core part of what we provide to our clients with not only unique and high-quality content but aggregated content that showcases a client's unique traits we need to be thinking ahead rather than after the fact. Therefore, we are already planning for 2017. To give you an idea of what we look at we're going to look at the major items we wrote down for January 2017.