You know how important it is to update your website regularly and how maintaining your social media accounts can help draw in new customers but adding a blog to your website will also help drive traffic and boost your business.

So why should you blog?

1. Advertise your skills. You know your business better than anybody else so what better way to share your knowledge and skills than by engaging your customers and potential customers through your blog. Your customers may not know all the skills you have to offer and the blog is a great way of advertising this.
2. Connect with new customers. Your blog will drive new customers your way. Every time you add a new blog post it has the potential to be shared on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook and could introduce you to a whole new audience. Also, every new post you write will boost the chances of your website showing up in a search engine which, in turn, can drive more customers your way.
3. Help your customers solve a problem. When you write your blog you should use it to answer the questions you think your customers will have. By doing this you will establish yourself as knowledgeable and an expert in your field and could help build trust in you and your services.
4. Give you content to post on social media. When you write your blogs they should be interesting and informative. This will ensure you have relevant, engaging content to post on your social media platforms which will then, get shared by your followers, and even their followers.

Business blogging should be seen as another essential marketing tool that can help you grow your business. By aiming for a regular blog post you can make sure you are engaging with new and existing customers on a regular basis, increasing your online presence and promoting yourself as an industry leader (it also helps with search engine optimisation!).

If you’ve not got a blog up and running yet, now is the time to start!
Need some advice or ideas on what to post? Get in touch here: [email protected]

It’s professional and gives you the opportunity to connect with people who have an interest in your products or services. You can set up a company page which will help you build your business brand on LinkedIn, individual profiles can then be created to introduce skills, experience and act as ambassadors for the company.

If you’re new to LinkedIn you might find it hard to know how to get the best out of this online tool, so we’ve put together some handy tips to make sure you can get the most out of LinkedIn.

• Keep your profile up to date Ensure to update skills, expertise, products and services.
• Customise public profile URL It makes it much easier to share your personal profile and looks much better than a load of numbers at the end. Details on how to do this here.
• Set a profile picture It makes it much easier for people to recognise you when searching for you and your posts.
• Connect with new contacts When given a business card from a new contact be sure to ask permission to connect with them on LinkedIn - this helps build your network of contacts.
• Reciprocate Endorsements When a contact visits your profile they can endorse one of your areas of expertise or suggest a new skill to add to your profile. This is important as people with at least 5 skills listed on their profile receive more views.
• Use the search function The search box allows you to look for posts, people to connect with, jobs etc and with the filter option you can find exactly what you’re looking for.
• Connect with others Like their posts and share news that might be of interest to others in your network.
• File Business cards digitally If you have Evernote Premium it will automatically find the contact’s LinkedIn profile and add it to the contact details.
• Give recommendations to others This might lead to them giving you recommendations in return. Be sure to ask previous employers and business partners for recommendations for previous work.
• Join groups and communities related to your industry You can connect and participate in trending topics. It also gives you the opportunity to make new contacts.

If you’ve still not set up a LinkedIn profile or company page, now is the time to do it. It’s simple to get started and you could be missing out on many business opportunities and contacts. Make it part of your daily networking tasks.

Instagram doesn’t have lots of things going on at the same time, such as in Facebook and it is much easier to navigate. It’s all about photos and short videos, no memes etc. There are limitations with how you can interact with other accounts but engagement tends to be higher than that of other social media apps.

If you’re not using Instagram for your small business yet then you’re potentially missing out on a lot of opportunities.

1. Make sure you have an account specifically for your business. Keep your family pictures and videos for your personal account. Use your business account to create and build engagement among your followers. Instagram is a great way to build and extend your brand.
   
   
2. Be Active. This doesn’t mean constantly posting random photos but instead posting photos and videos that are relevant to your brand and that your followers will be interested in. The best posting frequency is one that you will be able to keep up with consistently, whether that’s 4 times a day or once a day.
   
   
3. Hashtags. It’s now possible to follow hashtags so your posts could now show up in the feeds of potential new followers. Use hashtags that are relevant to your business/ brand and audience and avoid hashtags that are solely trying to gain followers such as #followme as these attract spammers, bots and users who are not looking to engage with you. Research what hashtags your competitors are using, it may give you ideas of hashtags to use for yourself. Make a list of ideas and think about what you are trying to achieve.
   
   
4. Try Short Video Clips. Video will help personalise your brand which in turn will increase engagement. Short video clips can be created easily using apps such as Boomerang. There are loads of things you can video to promote your brand and increase engagement; filming messages to your followers, announcing any promotions or special offers, testimonials from customers, videos of you working in your office etc.
   
   
5. Share your Instagram filtered pictures on other networks. It makes sense to share your pictures and videos to your other social network accounts and Instagram allows you to configure your account so that your photos are posted to Facebook and other networks.
   
   

Once you’ve got your Instagram account up and running you should make sure to set up notifications on your app so you don’t miss any interactions. Using Instagram can introduce you to potential new customers and promote your brand in a way that is not pushy or sales focussed. It’s different to Pinterest because the photos and videos you share should give a more personal and authentic impression of your business where Pinterest is more about curating pictures. Make your Instagram account part of your daily marketing checklist!

Follow Creative Remedy on Instagram here: Creative Remedy ​

1. Social Media
Pick a new social platform that you have never tried and make it your new year goal to become a digital guru for that network and add another string to your bow.

2. Video
If a picture paints 1000 words what does a moving image do? Create one piece of moving digital media to promote your business. It could be a slideshow, animation, interview, or panoramic video. This can be delivered on your website or shared on social media. Don’t forget to measure the response.

3. Landing Pages
We are all knowledgeable about your products or services, give away some FREE information via a landing page which asks for a potential customers details in exchange for this FREE helpful information.

4. Email Marketing
Be brave and try something you have never done before. Add that video you created, start a referral program, run a competition or celebrate a milestone. Contacting potential customers even once a month may just be enough put you in the forefront of their mind.

5. Existing Customers
We all know it’s easier to get more business from an existing customer rather than finding a new customer. Go through your contact list and find one reason to contact each customer, nothing sales based… ask them how your existing service is working for them, or maybe just to see how their Christmas and new year went and see where the conversation leads.

Tip 1
Don’t forget to use #hashtags in your tweets. For example, if your tweet is about jewellery, consider hash tagging that keyword (#jewellery or the @brand) in the tweet to make it searchable.

Tip 2
Retweet, participate and start conversations with people and businesses by asking simple questions. See where it takes you!

Tip 3
Shrink your URLs to create more space to have your say, you can now have slightly more than 140 characters. More here > Twitter now lets you post longer tweets after 140-character limit relaxed (Google URL Shortener)

Tip 4
Use @companyname or @personsname to tweet someone directly. This is public and alerts them you have mentioned them in a tweet.

Tip 5
On Friday, people like to thank special followers for that week and you can do that by using #FF or #FollowFriday then the name(s) of your followers you want to mention. It's also good to say a reason to follow that person too.

If you are new to Twitter… don’t be bogged down with buzz words like strategy, engagement, ROI… give it a try and see where your strengths lie.

Are you on Twitter? Is there anything you struggle with or need to know? Tweet us here > @Creativeremedy