Lately here at Half a Bubble Out, we have crossed paths with a number of small business owners who are Baby Boomers or just becoming grandparents, asking about the validity and tangible benefits of using social media in their small business - specifically in using lead generation techniques to get new customers.

Do you have a mantra that you live by? A word or phrase that you repeatedly say over and over to yourself to encourage you in tough situations or remind you about what’s really important in life?

Welcome business owners! Are you asking yourself, why is social media important to my internet marketing strategy? If so, stick around for this blog!

Today we’re talking about LinkedIn and focusing on the role it plays in social media. By the end of this blog you will learn what the best and worst times are to post on LinkedIn during the day and week.

LinkedIn is best known for its powerful business to business platform. Although it is not the largest social media platform companies are able to communicate with other professionals in different fields of business. One of the reasons why social media is important when it comes to LinkedIn is because it’s probably one of the best platforms for B2B marketing for a couple of reasons:

Natasha, one of our amazing bubblers, got engaged this week to Johnny, her sweetheart sheriff. A lawman with great taste in rings! Well done Johnny! Along with that, she turned 25, which she insisted feels old. As someone who is old enough to be her mother I take offense to that statement, but decided we would celebrate with her anyway. Engagements, birthdays, anniversaries, parties…events are worth promoting and getting excited about.

The other day at our staff barbecue the topic of memes came up. Yes, we’re internet marketing geeks and talk about things like memes at our get-togethers. The question was posed: what is a meme? You know what? I'm ashamed to admit that I couldn’t really define it, at least not clearly and neither could anyone else! So of course I had to do a little research to find out exactly what does qualify as a meme. If you’re in the habit of reading our internet marketing tips, or you aren’t at all and just want to know what a meme is, I am passing my new-found knowledge onto you.

You’re crazy to ask the question, Why Blog because the statistics are overwhelming.  Blogging, when done as part of an inbound marketing campaign, produces 4 major results for you and your company.

Chances are you haven’t thought about the similarities between the duties of an email marketing consultant and the process of dating someone. In this blog you will learn a valuable lesson, just as dating often teaches us. We will walk through a sample email lead nurturing campaign that can have you “going steady” with your leads and conversions in no time, or eating a pint of ice cream after a breakup.

Sitting at your desk, writing another email, a friend pops in and gives you a gift. You open it, and see your favorite type of candy.

Your heart sings, there is a huge smile on your face and you thank her.

You not only thank her, but you acknowledge her thoughtfulness--How did she know you love {insert your favorite candy here}?!

It was so nice of her to think of you, and take the time to give you a gift. How thoughtful and considerate!

Now, think about the question, what makes a good website?

When you consider how to add keywords to a website, you have to ask the question, who are the keywords for? Adding keywords to a website is all about optimization. That’s a big word that’s used all over the internet marketing world and almost always is preceded by the words “Search Engine” so that when we hear about optimization, we regularly think about Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. But what is optimization and is there more to it than just optimizing for Google, Bing and Yahoo?  When we consider how to add keywords to a website, I think we have to pull back a little to see a larger picture.

When you hear the words “press release” what do you think of? Many of us probably still think of the old school kind of press releases that involved writing up an announcement for your company, sending it out via newswire, and calling up your journalist friends to give them the pitch aka beg them to give you prime newspaper real estate. It doesn’t work that way anymore; at least not in the realm of internet marketing. The online press release in today’s world is just the tip of the iceberg for getting your business noticed online. The key is knowing how to write a press release for an event and what qualifies as an event in the online world.