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Creating visually appealing graphics for your digital marketing is very important to get the results you’re looking for.

Are your digital marketing materials lacking visual appeal because you just don’t have the budget to have everything professionally designed? Whether it’s social media content, enewsletters, email blasts or infographics for your blog, it’s important to make your marketing materials look professional as they represent your brand.

The problem is that not everyone is a designer and creating visually appealing content can be a challenge. And, if you really wanted to design everything yourself, buying design software  can be very costly and you would have to learn how to use the complicated software.

The good news is that there are many free and easy-to-use tools out there to help you get the job done. A great post called 13 Free Design Tools for Visual Marketers on a Budget by HubSpot’s Inbound Internet Marketing Blog, breaks down some of their favorite sites to help you create visuals and images that make your marketing stand out.

From free color tools to free font, icon, image creation and editing tools, this resource will help you produce more visually pleasing and professional marketing materials that will get better results for you. Check out the post and let me know what you think or if you have your own free tools that you like to use.

If you think it’s time for your company to include social media in your marketing, get in touch with Hadfield Communications at www.hadfield.net. We’ll be glad to analyze your current social media strategy and give you feed back on how to improve on what you already have.

Small business owners wear a lot of hats and lately, they’ve added a new hat to their attire – the “social media” hat. And, as they are finding out slowly, social media can consume a lot of their time. Even though many spend more time on social media now than a year ago, they struggle with the added workload.

This infographic from the people at VerticalResponse highlights how small businesses are using social media, how much time and money they are spending, which social networks they are focusing on and much more.

For instance, 43% of small businesses are spending at least 6 hours per week on social media, focusing mainly on Facebook and Twitter. And, it’s interesting to find out that 55% of small businesses have a blog.

Some small businesses even find value in paying for social media tools to help them with publishing and analytics and 57.5% spend $26 or more per month on social medial related expenditures.

Small businesses have a lot to consider as they strive to grow and social media can be a great tool to help expand their brand if it’s done correctly and consistently. The challenge is figuring out when you can do everything yourself or when it’s time to bring in a professional to help you with your efforts.

If you think it’s time for your company to include social media in your marketing, get in touch with Hadfield Communications at www.hadfield.net. We’ll be glad to analyze your current social media strategy and give you feed back on how to improve on what you already have.

Social Medial plays a huge part in the future of marketing.

The future of the marketing industry is changing fast and companies are trying to adapt by introducing social media into their various marketing efforts. Marketers are increasingly using social media but they continue to struggle with integrating social media into the company’s overall strategy. More people are looking at ads on their mobile devices and responding to personalized email campaigns on their smart phones and the trend is rising.

There are no crystal balls to tell us the future of social media in marketing, but here are a few stats that can keep us informed of what’s going on and may help you decide which way to go:

– Personalized emails improve click-through rates by 14% and conversion rates by 10%. (Source: Aberdeen)

– 80% of mobile internet users would prefer ads relevant to them locally. (Source: JiWire)

– 75% of people prefer to receive offers over any other form of call-to-action. (Source: Text Marketer)

– 84% of B2B marketers use social media in some form. (Source: Aberdeen)

– Global mobile advertising revenue will expand by three and a half times its present level by 2016. (Source: Yankee Group)

– Mobile commerce will account for 24.4% of overall ecommerce revenues by the end of 2017. (Source: ABI Research)

– Email opens on smart phones and tablets have increased 80% over the last six months. (Source: Litmus)

Marketing is undergoing a powerful transformation with the introduction of smart phones and many social media channels. At the end of the day, marketing is not about blasting out messages into a black hole. It’s about finding a way to improve the targeting of your messages to make the user experience better while benefiting your business.

If you think it’s time for your company to optimize its Website for smartphone accessibility, get in touch with Hadfield Communications at www.hadfield.net. We’ll be glad to analyze your current mobile phone optimization efforts and give you feed back on how to improve on what you already have.

People will read your posts more if they have brief copy, better headlines and attractive visuals.

Did you know that the average shelf life of a Tweet is less than an hour? That doesn’t give you much time to make an impact on your customers. Breaking through all the clutter in all the social media sites and actually reaching your target reader is not an easy task. Whether you’re developing content for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, a blog or other social sites, you should strive to create engaging posts that people want to read and give them useful information they can actually use. Here are a few tips for creating posts with a punch:

Get to the Point

People scan pages rather than read them in their entirety, so be smart about your formatting and content. You can make a post more compelling just by numbering your main points since that makes it easier to read. Make your posts clear and don’t use a lot of marketing mambo jumbo. According to a report by Buddy Media, posts with 80 words or less have, on average, a 27% higher engagement rate.

Headlines Are Key

Your headline is the first impression you make on your readers. Make your headlines pop and use numbers whenever possible. Numbers are an effective way to capture your reader’s attention. But always remember, the title is what’s going to bring a reader in by catching their eye. Once you hook them, it’s more likely that they’ll click on the link to read more.

Insert Visuals in Your Posts

People are drawn to stimulating, informational visuals more than text, so by all means, insert them in your posts. Create a great infographic, add a diagram or find a beautiful picture of what you’re saying. Pictures are indeed worth a…well, you know.

Measure Your Results

See when something is working or not working. By using Google Analytics you can see the search terms people are using to get to your posts. By using this data you will get new post ideas and better rankings by using key words.

There are many social media platforms out there and it’s hard to get reader’s attention. If you use the above tips, you’re sure to get better results when posting. And remember, consistency is key, so post frequently so your readers know you’re out there.

If you think it’s time for your company to get more involved with Social Media, get in touch with Hadfield Communications at www.hadfield.net. We’ll be glad to analyze your current Social Media efforts and give you feed back on how to improve on what you already have.

Infographics have become extremely popular but a lot of people still don’t know what they are, how they are created or why they are so important. In a nutshell, people are attracted to visuals more than text and an infographic is an interesting way to visualize data. In an age of big data, we need to both make sense of the information and be able to easily tell the story of what the information tells.

If you create a visually pleasing, informative infographic, it can do wonders for your marketing because people are drawn to those stimulating, informational visuals. But what better way to explain infographics than with an infographic, right? The infographic below by Infographic Labs will help you understand the steps required to create an infographic. It will explain what it is, why it can benefit your marketing and the basics behind creating one on your own.

Click infographic to enlarge.

But as we all know, just because you may have the right information to create an infographic or you know how to create one, it doesn’t mean yours is going to be good or effective. With so many people trying to create inforgraphics out there, there is certainly no shortage of downright awful ones bouncing around on the Web. Needless to say, information design displays the information efficiently and effectively and it encompasses many design disciplines that are better left to designers. There’s nothing better than using design to communicate a message that is both clear and universal.

An infographic should use innovation and imagination to provide clarity. It channels information in a visually pleasing, instantly communicable way, making it not only powerful, but beautiful as well.

If you think it’s time for your company to get more involved with Social Media, get in touch with Hadfield Communications at www.hadfield.net. We’ll be glad to analyze your current Social Media efforts and give you feed back on how to improve on what you already have.

Click here to enlarge infographic.

Are you using Facebook to its fullest potential to generate leads? Do you know what makes people follow a brand on Facebook? In the Infographic to the right, What Makes People Want to Follow a Brand? by getsatisfaction, a blog about how to succeed in social business, you can see what are the top reasons for people to follow a brand. Since there’s so many people on Facebook, you can bet your current customers are spending time there and you should be reaching them. Below are a few things you can do to convert fans into solid leads.

Set Up Specific Goals

Unless you set up specific goals, you will spend endless hours on Facebook with no results. Do you want to get more fans, get more leads, get new customers? All these are specific goals you need to think about before you embark on a Facebook campaign.

Are You Targeting the Right People?

You need to establish a demographic and Facebook can help you with that since they have demographic details about your audience. Facebook gives you data and targeting capabilities so you don’t have to guess at targeting a segment. Some of the key questions marketers ask and Facebook provides are: What age is your target audience?, What is their education level?, What gender are they?, What’s their occupation?, What is their geographic location? So you can segment the market to reach the people that you are interested in. Once you have a target audience, you can start promoting content based on your target.

Build Relationships Once They Become Fans

By using customized communication, you can nurture leads on Facebook and get your fans to trust you. Frequency in communication is also expected by your fans and you should deliver this. Make sure you recognize your customers’ wants and needs and provide them with solutions to their problems. You can get an insight in their behavior by looking at your Website analytics and figuring out their browsing history, clicks, downloads, pages visited, etc.

Post Content that Will Get You Fans

So you don’t know what to post? The main idea is to engage with your users and have content that is useful, educational and fun. You could run contests, polls, post new product or service information, post events you want them to register to, post links to your blog, industry news and much more. But, don’t advertise too much or post gimmicky content. People will notice and unfollow you quickly.

Facebook can be a great lead generating source. But the key is to have goals and a plan of action before launching a new campaign. You also have to use reliable market analytics to see what’s working and what’s not. And don’t be surprised if you have to shift your strategy a little after consulting your analytics. Make your Facebook page engaging and vary the content so your fans want to be a part of your community without getting bored.

If you think it’s time for your company to get more involved with Social Media, get in touch with Hadfield Communications at www.hadfield.net. We’ll be glad to analyze your current Social Media efforts and give you feed back on how to improve on what you already have.

This great infographic by Modea illustrates who is using Pinterest.

What is Pinterest? As their Web site states, Pinterest is a Virtual Pinboard. It lets you organize and share all the beautiful and interesting things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan many facets of their lives like weddings, home decoration, recipes or menu organization and more. And one of the best features is that you can browse pinboards created by other people to get inspired about your own interests. This lets you discover new things and get very creative.

But in order to really understand Pinterest, what better way to explain this highly visual platform than through visual content? HobSpot’s Blog 10 Pinterest Infographics: Visual Explanations for a Visual Social Network, tells the story in pictures, not words. They have posted easy to understand infographics illustrating who uses Pinterest, why is Pinterest so addictive, how to get more pins and repins and lots more.

Pinterest is a great platform for B2C retailers offering visual product lines and there are many retail brands already participating in a big way with pin boards like Nordstrom, Kate Spade, Real Simple and Whole Foods. It’s easy to understand how these retailers can showcase their product in a creative way by pinning boards such as “recipes for the week” a “bathroom renovation”  “how to put an outfit together” and more. So if your business mainly markets to consumers, there are many creative ways you could show your product to people in an educational and fun way and your business can use this platform as a way for people to find ideas and inspiration.

But, not all the content on Pinterest points to a products or retailers; blog posts and infographics are also big destinations. A B2B marketer can use this to their advantage by using Pinterest to draw traffic to content  that engages customers and prospects through visual content. By using infographics or compelling images on blog posts, you could post the image on Pinterest with a link to your content. This will give you a chance to share knowledge of your industry in a visually appealing way. By linking the image to a page that goes into detail about the image, you can have great success with increased traffic to your Website or blog.

Another way you could use Pinterest for your business is to share an image of your product or service linking it to a case study or write up to you Website. The key is to always use visually appealing imagery as Pinterest users thrive on visually capturing imagery.

It may take a little more imagination for B2B marketers to find content that’s right for Pinterest, but as long as you provide value, there’s a good chance you may get many qualified leads from it.

Social media marketing is constantly evolving and companies are going to have to get creative in the way they approach the different platforms. They will have to adjust to the formats and provide exceptional user value. With Pinterest, the main focus is to provide compelling visual content. If you’re willing to get a little creative with how you share your content, you can use Pinterest to get access to a new set of customers.

If you think it’s time for your company to get more involved with Social Media, get in touch with Hadfield Communications at www.hadfield.net. We’ll be glad to analyze your current Social Media efforts and give you feed back on how to improve on what you already have.

Sometimes you need a little help to create good content that your readers will like.

The only way you’re going to be successful with your social media efforts is if you give your readers the content they want to read. If you have good content, people will be inclined to share it on their social media networks. And, if people share your content, your social media rankings will improve. Below are five ways for you to find out what your readers really want to read.

Here’s the Obvious One: Ask Them!

Don’t assume you know what content your online community wants to read about. Reach out to your audience and ask them what they want. Do a survey by using SurveyMonkey, Free Online Surveys or Zoomerang. Create a list of topics and ask them to vote “yes” or “no” for each topic or have them rank them in order of interest. Add your survey to your Web site, email newsletters and promote it on Twitter and Facebook to get results.

Check Your Blogs Comments

When you write a post that gets lots of comments, you know that’s a topic people want to hear about. Look at all the comments and see what they liked about the post. Consider doing a series of similar posts and educate yourself on the topic to see where you can expand on it.

Check Websites that Rank Content

There are Websites such as Topsy and Inbound.org that are real time search engines and they rank the most popular content by the hour, day or week. You can find a site that focuses on content relevant to you and check it daily to get ideas. There are sites for relevant news for small businesses ranging from marketing to finance or others with content for SEO, Mobile, Social Media, Analytics and many more.

Check Your Retweets and Facebook

People usually retweet posts they believe are useful and interesting. When you post links or articles people retweet a lot, turn them into articles that you can post. The key is to find a topic people are interested in. Once you know that, creating content about that topic is only a matter or research.

Hire a Ghost Writer

Sometimes even the best of us either run out of time or run out of steam and  need a fresh take on our content. Hiring a ghost writer will give you an influx of fresh ideas and your readers may enjoy the variety in writing styles and topics.

Your take away from this post should be that in order to get people interested in what you post, you have to give them what they want. Don’t assume you know what they want to read. Get engaged and ask them what their interests are. You may be surprised at the response.

If you think it’s time for your company to change gears when it comes to content creation, get in touch with Hadfield Communications at www.hadfield.net. We’ll be glad to analyze your current content and social media efforts and give you feed back on how to improve on what you already have.

Twitter for Business says if you aren’t using Twitter for your business, you are missing out. Twitter can help you increase brand awareness, connect with customers, increase customer loyalty, increase sales and much more.

On the Ebook Twitter for Business by Shawna Fennell, there are some great tips and resources for businesses that are just starting out. The Ebook walks you through the steps of setting up a Twitter account to customizing your background and setting up some of your preferences. The author goes into detail about what businesses should Tweet about and strategies that have worked for her. If you aren’t really sure what to Tweet about, here are 5 of her top Tweet tips. Be sure to download her Ebook to get the complete list.

1. Link To Blogs - Follow some blogs that you are interested in via an RSS feed to a feed reader such as Google. Start by posting links to interesting posts that you like. If you found it interesting, you can bet other people will like it as well.

2. Quotes – Post inspirational quotes that may help someone or brighten their day. Personal development quotes and quotes by famous people are great. Quotes are frequently retweeted and will help you get more followers. You can find some good quotes at www.brainyquote.com.

3. Coupons – Don’t just be a sales person on Twitter. People don’t want to be sold to, they want engagement, value and a social experience. You can post links to your products or sites, but keep them to a minimum (maybe 5% of your Tweets). In fact, use TwtQpon to help you create coupons for Twitter.

4. Ask Questions - Start conversations by asking simple questions. Ask anything from what they want to accomplish today to what the best tip they have in the market you are in. Also ask them what they think of a new product or service or ask fun questions about their animals, kids, or life as a conversation starter. Get creative and make it fun.

5. Hold Contests - You can gain lots of new followers and customers by holding contests. TwiveAway can help you organize your contest and make sure people are following the rules of your Giveaway to be entered.

The purpose of Tweeting for your business is to remind your customers that you are here and open a dialogue with them so they can get to know you and your brand better. Once people trust you and you give them information that’s useful to them, they will follow you and you will see your list of followers grow. But always remember, Tweeting, like any other social media outlet, takes time and effort in order for you to be successful at it and see results.

If you think it’s time for your company to get started with a Social Media presence, get in touch with Hadfield Communications at www.hadfield.net. We’ll be glad to analyze your current efforts and give you feed back on how to make your Social Media work for you.

There are too many things on a daily basis you have to keep up with. Don’t start your Social Media presence without a Plan.

Having a Social Media Plan is crucial if your business is going to be successful with your online presence. Businesses often fail in their social media efforts because there’s no structure or commitment from the start, leading to poor or no results and frustration.

If this has happened to your business, you’re not alone. That’s the reason you need a Social Media Plan that will help you stay on track with daily maintenance, recurring posts and projects you may want to initiate. Following are five helpful tips for creating a social media plan that will keep you on track.

Create Goals for Your Business

Your social media strategy should be molded by your goals. Are you looking for new sales leads? Are you trying to increase your Web traffic?

Are you trying to raise brand awareness? You can’t do everything at once, so you’ll have to set goals that are attainable and invest time, energy and resources into achieving those goals.

Find Out Where Your Customers Spend Their Time

Recent research has shown that internet users spend anywhere from 16% to 25% of their online time on social newtworks. In comScore’s 2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus Report, researchers found that customers are spending 1 out of every 6 minutes online on social networks. This is good news if you’re trying to reach customers and start a dialogue with them through social networking sites.

Stay Engaged on a Consistent Basis

You need to think about the ways and frequency which you’re going to engage with your customers. It’s better to have a steady stream of engagement in order to reach your goals. Respond to comments, tweets and posts on a daily basis as this should be part of your maintenance. Do not let this go by the wayside or people are going to think your not interested.

Create Useful Content

Post relevant and current information that your clients will find useful and they will start to see you as the authority on a subject. Your followers don’t want a sales pitch, they already like you. They want conversation that will be useful to them and not just talk about how great your company is. Don’t go more than a couple of days without posting something or you’ll look disengaged.

Delegate Tasks

Once you start growing and your social medial presence is established, you’re going to want to broaden your horizons and keep up the activity by posting videos on YouTube, interacting more frequently on Twitter or creating and installing some custom apps on your Facebook page. To accomplish all this you may need some help. If you become overwhelmed by all the activity, look into adding a team member to help you out. Graphic artists can create impressive infographics, writers can keep your blogs updated and write white papers or you could even consider bringing in an intern to help with the day-to-day conversations and gathering information. A talented team can help you achieve your goals much faster than you could on your own.

Positioning your business for success in social media takes strategizing and time dedication. Monitor your analytics to see where you’re being successful and where you need to make adjustments to your plan. Starting a social media marketing campaign is exciting but it should not be taken lightly. Go into it knowing that it will take time and dedication. You’ll get much better results if you have a well planned social media strategy from the beginning.

If you think it’s time for your company to get a social media plan, get in touch with Hadfield Communications at www.hadfield.net. We’ll be glad to analyze your current social media efforts and give you feed back on how to make it work for your company.