As entrepreneurs we evaluate our past wins and re-evaluate our losses.  We determine what worked and what didn’t work in previous years, who helped us and who didn’t, and we review budgets and schedules to help us make intelligent decisions moving forward. This juggling involves ALL aspects of our lives -both business and personal.  You can’t effectively be happy in one area, if the other is out of balance. Many people try but most do not succeed to have a REAL work/life balance.  It is hard to do. So, what can you do differently right now to help get that balance that most of us want and need?

#entrepreneurs, #work, #lifebalance, #entrepreneurbusiness, #insperation
                                                                                            
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When I first started my business in the Mississauga Ontario community,I concentrated marketing my business solely online. Since I'm an online business coach and virtual services provider, it made perfect sense. However, it didn't take long for me to realize that I had overlooked another very effective option to market my business which provided a even faster and more profitable way to advertise my services and make new business connections right here in my local community. When you make connections with your local community, you get to be the expert in your community. You are that face that people feel they know because you live right down the street. You get to be the person in town that offers online services, training, and programs. People feel a connection to you because you come from the same place they do.
Local brands and businesses will be more likely to work with you – someone that knows their town and someone they can actually meet face-to-face. You don’t need to compete with the BIG names online because you have something they don’t – you live in the home town! You will start to make deeper connections and generate money quicker by targeting your local community than you can online.  Now I'm not saying that you shouldn't have an online presence. In this day and age you need an online presence to be legit.
Here are a few tips on what you should do to connect with your local community

• Carry some business cards with you at all times. You never know who you're going to meet!
• Make sure that your social media profiles list where you live and that they say you offer local and online services. If you're on Instagram, add your location to your posts so people an see that you are local. In Instagram Stories, add geotag with your town so people who watch local stories will see where you are located.
• Research your niche. Google local businesses and make sure you look at their ratings and reviews so you're partnering with reputable businesses! For example, if you're a personal trainer, look up local gyms,  training studios,  Barre studios, yoga studios, health food stores, etc. in your local area. 

Once you have a list, brainstorm some things you could do to partner with them. Could you lead a workout at a local athletic clothing store? Lead a healthy eating workshop for a local gym? Then connect with the businesses on social media! Leave meaningful comments.

#Mississaugabusinesscoach, #localbusinessmississauga, #businessconnections, #localcommunity, #training, #fitness, #brands, #localbusiness, #onlineservices, #localtraining, #personaltrainer
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Did you know that having a logo could actually boost your social media campaign?
How you wonder, right?
I also didn’t think that having a logo could mean much for my small freelance business until I thought of getting one and so I decided to look for the best logo designer that was within my budget.
A logo especially on your website helps site visitors to identify your business. A logo will also increase your online presence. This has made well-designed logos important components of an online marketing strategy.
Still wondering why a logo is important to your social media campaign? Let’s find out!

1. It will Give your Social Media Campaign a Visual Representation
If you have a well-designed logo, you need not explain to people what your brand is. The logo speaks for itself and your brand.

Why is this important for your social media campaign? 
When people see your logo on social media they want to see something that tells them about your brand. If it’s creative enough they will remember it which means they will remember your brand.

2. It will Attract Clicks
A logo is your sense of identity. Is your sense of identity attractive to your audience? If your answer is yes and your logo effectively communicates who you are and what you’re about, it might just be the visual in your campaign that attracts you a new click, a lick, a re-share or a re-tweet. This definitely gets your campaigns more visibility raising their effectiveness. Have a logo that is attractive enough to make more people curious and fascinated enough to want to know more about your brand and what it has to offer.

3. It will Build Trust
A logo is a stamp of professionalism and authority. People are more likely to trust a company that has a logo than one without. When running your campaigns, your logo will earn your trust. People will want to keep reading your content because they believe you’re a genuine entity and not spam.
A logo that is prominent on your social media campaign content will make your brand stand out and will be enough to make your target audience want to build a relationship with you. Isn’t that one of your social media campaign goals?

"Design is the silent ambassador of your brand." ~ Paul Rand.

4. It will Drive your Web Traffic
Your logo is the first representation of who and what you are. People will see your logo and try to guess what you’re all about even before you give them any details. They will be curious to find out if indeed they are right about you.
Place your logo prominently in your campaigns and add a link directing your audience to your website where they can find all the information they need.

5. It will Improve Your ROI
As people continue to see your logo, click your links to find out about you, they will start to like and trust you. Once trust has been established, they will start getting interested in your products and they might even convert to repeat. A good logo will put you at the top of your audiences’ minds which in turn increases your conversion rates. If someone is looking for a product category that you offer and they see your logo in the search results they will recognize you instantly and go to your page. This can potentially lead to increased sales.

A good memorable logo is extremely important when it comes to the overall success of your social media campaign. It is the one thing that identifies you and your brand to other people making them want to become your loyal customers.

If you don’t have a business logo yet, it’s time to find a good logo designer and get a logo designed for your business and add it to your social media campaigns!

Do you already have a logo for your business? What has been the reaction to it so far? Let us know in the comments section. 

Credit: Thank you to our Guest Blogger - Stella Mwangi - A Stella Moment
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Whether you want to drive leads to your homepage or encourage customer engagement, Instagram is the perfect platform. Here are the five top reasons your brand should extend its marketing strategy to include Instagram:

1. People spend more time on Instagram than any other social platform except Facebook

If you’re looking for a social platform with a high level of traffic and engagement, Instagram is the ideal fit.
According to comScore, global users spend a monthly average of 12 billion minutes on Instagram, which translates to massive opportunity for businesses who want to dominate their niches.

2. Instagram makes it easy to get noticed
While it’s becoming harder and harder to get noticed on Facebook and Twitter, only 9% of small businesses currently use Instagram, which means there is plenty of space to build a robust online presence.

3. Visual content is the future of marketing, and Instagram specializes in it
According to recent research from MIT, the human brain processes images in only 13 milliseconds. What’s more, people retain more than 80% of what they see and only 20% of what they read.
Because of these things, marketers around the globe are predicting that visual content will be the future of online marketing, and Instagram is positioned to be on the bleeding edge of the shift toward image-based brand stories.

4. The content you post on Instagram reaches all of your followers
While the content you post on Facebook reaches only a fraction of your audience, Instagram’s non-filtered feed means every post you make reaches your entire audience. This has the potential to boost engagement and improve your conversion rates.

5. Instagram caters to the mobile revolution
2015 was the first year that mobile search overtook desktop search, and Instagram, more than virtually any other platform, caters to the rise of mobile users. Sharing on mobile platforms is quick and easy, and the app makes it seamless to navigate a brand’s content.

Instagram Marketing: A Powerful Tool for Your Company
Regardless of which industry you specialize in, Instagram is an essential tool that can overhaul the success and engagement of your marketing strategy. Simple, streamlined, and user-friendly, Instagram is the future of digital marketing.

The SEO field has evolved over the past few years as companies try to keep up with Google’s ever-changing algorithm updates. One thing has become clear with the changes, social media marketing goes hand in hand with SEO. According to the State of Search Marketing Report 2013, 74% of companies and 82% of agencies have either somewhat or highly integrated social media marketing into their SEO strategy.
Neil Patel, a digital marketing guru, believes that social is the new SEO.  So how exactly does social media marketing help improve SEO? Here are 6 social media tips to improve your SEO.

1. Social Media Promotes Social Sharing: Social media platforms are great for increasing social shares, especially if you want your content to go viral.
The more your content is shared, the greater your chances of having a higher ranking on search engines. People will get interested in what is being shared and search for it increasing your ranking.  
Keep in mind, however, that the only way people will actually share your content is if it resonates with them and if it’s appealing and attractive.

2. Social Media Turns Followers to Website. Traffic Sharing your web/blog content on your social media platforms is a great way of driving traffic to your website.
To branch out your traffic base and grow the number of website visitors you receive from social media networks, consider the following actions:

• Add a direct call to action to your audience at the end of each blog post or email newsletter to encourage them to share your content on their social media networking profiles if they’ve found them useful.
• Brand yourself using social media as an authority figure within your industry.
• Include prominent social sharing buttons at both the top and bottom of each blog post on your website. You could also use a scrolling option that moves the page down alongside your readers.
  
  

3. Social Media Marketing Encourages Back links Building High-quality back links are one of the factors that social engines consider when ranking your website. Social networking platforms are a great place to form back links to your website.
Try the following actions if you frequently use Facebook and Twitter to encourage the creation of these valuable links and increase the value of your social media marketing:

• Build your networks on Facebook and Twitter, as more users result in more possibilities for link shares.
• Tie your blog to your Facebook and Twitter accounts to get a link to each of your new posts automatically created on your profile.
• To reach users who are active on social media at different times, use an update scheduling tool like Buffer to create repeat announcements of new blog posts.
  
  

4. Social Media Networks are Search Engines Too. Almost every social media platform from Facebook to Twitter to Instagram has the search button. People use these to look for people, things or brands. Companies should, therefore, expand their concept of SEO to include not just the traditional search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo, but also social media search engines.
Uniquely identify yourself on the platforms to avoid people being confused by duplicate accounts and have social media marketing for your company a success.

5. Social Media Promotes Local SEO. One of the main reasons why you want to get started with content marketing, I believe, is because you want to reach out to your local market. Local SEO helps you target your local community effectively.
When it comes to social media marketing, your major fans are more likely to be your local community. Having updates on social media that appeal to your local audience will go a long way in improving local SEO. 

6. Social Media Profiles Rank in Search Engines. Your social media profiles matter to those who are looking for you online and definitely affect  search results. Have your social media profiles tell your story in a fun and interesting way. 
Keep your social media profile with up-to-date information and engaging content to make it easier for you to be found online, to make it easier for those searching for you and to ease social media marketing for your company.
Succeeding in SEO is a big step in increasing your online presence making it easy for your perfect customer to find you, which then translates to increased sales. Every effort you put in improving search engine ranking will be well worth it.
Credit: Guest blogger - A Stella Moment

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