The mind is everything. What you think you become. – Buddha

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Some Fun Ways to Boost Your Marketing

Creating a marketing strategy for your small business can be complicated and time-consuming. There are a few fun and playful methods to boost your current marketing plan.

Promotional items

Chotchkies with your company’s logo on them are just for trade shows. They can be a powerful marketing tool that can spread the word about your products and services. Give your current customers something they can and will use that will promote your business. Think about what you do and what your customers would like to use, then pick from the multitude of products available.

At Blue Dog Marketing, we have small Post It note pads with our Blue Dog logo on them along with our website. What business owner doesn’t need more sticky notes? This type of promotional item keeps us top of mind with our client because we’re on their desk top and they’re using our ‘gift.’

Branded cars

You’ve seen them around town and they do catch your eye. Some companies just have their business logo, name and phone number on the side of the vehicle. If you’re a plumber or handyman, this can be a great way to promote your business.

Some small businesses have their vehicles wrapped. This can be an awesome way to grab attention while you’re driving. One of our clients, Rochester Travel Group, has her car wrapped in a Sandal’s Resorts wrap. All you see is palm trees, sunny beaches, the Sandal’s logo and, of course, the Rochester Travel Group logo. You can’t miss her car!

If you drive your car a lot for your business, consider branding your vehicle. People stuck in traffic or parking next to you will see your message. Small businesses with branded vehicles often notice a spike in web searches and social media likes wherever their car is.

Blogging

Having a blog is one of the best ways a small business can boost their marketing. Blogging establishes you as an expert in your field. Blogging can be conversational and fun too.

Being consistent with your blogging schedule is important because your readers will expect to see a new post from you on a regular basis.

If you need help writing your blog, a marketing firm like Blue Dog Marketing, can help you create a blogging schedule and write some pretty amazing posts for your small business.

Have fun with your marketing. Yes, sometimes marketing can be dry and boring when you’re looking an analytics or writing your marketing plan for next year, but try to add some fun components to it and both you and your customers will enjoy it!

Do You Have a Social Media Calendar?

You have created your marketing plan and social media is a large component of that plan. You know that stellar content is important. Creating and publishing great content can get overwhelming.

You need to get organized and determine a schedule that works for your small business. Once you’ve created a social media content calendar, your social media marketing becomes a lot less intimidating.

The calendar

What does a social media marketing calendar look like? This calendar can be an actual calendar or a spreadsheet…whatever works best for you. The social media calendar should organize your content and help you develop and editorial strategy.

Your calendar should note which social media channels you are publishing which posts to. You can have a separate sheet for each month or day, depending on the volume of content you plan to publish. 

Track topic ideas

Use your social media calendar to plug in topic ideas that you want to write about. When you have an idea, post it on your calendar so it’s there when you take the time to write the content. This is one way you can avoid ‘writer’s block’ and have a list of topics that are relevant to write about.

Don’t miss important dates

When you have your social media calendar completed, you won’t miss important holidays that could affect your business. Just like your personal calendar, you’ll be able to see what dates are important and post appropriately.

6 Instagram Best Practices

Have you tried Instagram yet? If you products or services are image-based, having a presence on Instagram is a great idea.

Instagram has more than 400 million members and consumers are open to following businesses on Instagram.

If your small business is looking to get started with or step up its Instagram efforts, here are six best practices for you to incorporate.

Use a recognizable icon

Branding is key to your business identity. While it can be fun to get creative with different icons on social media, stick to your logo for your icon on Instagram and any of your social media platforms.

Fill the bio space thoughtfully

Instagram gives every user a small space for a bio. Use this space sensibly. Provide a short description of your brand and add a link back to your website. Instagram posts do not allow for link sharing but the bio space does support it. When you post to the news feed, you can include a ‘link in the bio’ caption to encourage followers to take action.

Use hashtags and emojis

In other social media platforms, you need to limit the amount of hashtags and emojis you use, but on Instagram, you can be a bit more liberal in their use.  Since Instagram is a mobile platform, hashtags can help your followers discover content easily and emojis are displayed correctly.

Posts with no hashtags tend to generate less engagement and posts with four or more hashtags can be seen as spammy. The sweet spot for the number of hashtags to use is two per post.

How do you look?

Instagram is strictly a visual social network, so looks matter… a lot. Be creative with your images and you will increase your follows.

Make is social

Remember Instagram is a social media platform so be social with your followers. Engage in conversations and foster those relationships.

It’s not all about you

Do more than just promote your products. Your followers want to get to know you. Yes, you want to post pictures of your products but be sure to switch it up and post about other things. Examples of other posts can be highlighting your employees and pictures of events you are holding or attending.

Happy Grandparents Day!