LionShark Digital Marketing Blog

Developing a Social Media Policy for Employees

6/29/2017

Most big companies have social media policies laid out for their employees, but businesses of any size can benefit from having structured programs to guide employees’ social media usage. In fact, it might be even more important for small businesses to have these sorts of policies in place to protect themselves. Telling employees what you do and don’t want them posting ahead of time helps to avoid social media disasters down the road. And, despite what you may think, most employees are happy to have some boundaries in place upfront so that they don’t have to worry that what they’re posting or doing online is acceptable to their employers.

A thorough social media policy for employees needs these four components to succeed:

The Lineup – Your Favorite Blog Posts

6/27/2017

Want to know what your colleagues and competitors are reading? Great! We combed through our analytics and found the can’t miss posts from the last three years. Here’s a list of our most read blog posts across our most popular categories. Enjoy!

15 Social Media Faux Pas

4/18/2017

These days most people understand how important a strong social media presence is for businesses of all sizes. However, understanding that you need social media is completely different than understanding how to do social media well. If your business is making any of these common social media mistakes, you need to rethink your strategy:

Will Your SEO Strategy Hold Up in 2017?

12/20/2016

With the new year rapidly approaching many business owners are wondering what 2017 will have in store for their websites. Will next year usher in sweeping changes from Google that will negatively affect their rankings? Will their sites be penalized for using outdated practices that are no longer in favor? Will they be able to adapt to the latest SEO trends to stay competitive? These are all valid questions!

The good news is that if you’re concerned about these things, then you’re probably already on the right track! However, it never hurts to analyze what you’re already doing and where you can improve. For your SEO strategy to have sticking power next year, it needs three crucial elements:

5 Lessons We Learned from Halloween Marketing

11/1/2016

Was your Halloween sweet or scary? Well, that probably depends on how your marketing strategy played out!

Most business owners and marketing professionals spend a portion of their time doing strategic planning and forecasting, but for businesses that have a strong seasonal focus, that often takes up the bulk of their time. Why? For seasonal businesses there’s no room for error when it comes to planning and forecasting because they don’t get do-overs. A typical business can afford a failure one month or one quarter, because there’s another one coming right around the corner to let them redeem themselves. But a costume shop can’t afford to have a bad October and a Christmas tree business can’t weather a December flop – that’s just the nature of their industries. This vulnerability means that their marketing must be on-point for them to succeed, which means that you can learn a lot from these types of businesses!

So, what did Halloween 2016 teach us? Here are the top 5 lessons that we learned this year:

5 Fast Ways to Lose Followers on Social Media

5/17/2016

There’s an art to garnering a social media following. You need a delicate balance of being interesting enough to stand out from the crowd without being so far out there that you alienate potential followers. You need to engage existing followers to keep them around without making them feel like they’re being badgered. Basically you want to be that cool best friend and not that overbearing mom – not an easy feat. So how do you walk this tight rope without losing would-be and current followers? Basically, you avoid all of these common pitfalls:

What Facebook Reactions Mean for your Business

4/7/2016

If you routinely use Facebook on a desktop or laptop, you’ve likely noticed that Facebook has undergone a big change. The humble “like” button now has a few friends – emojis for “love,” “haha”, “wow,” “sad,” and “angry.” Many mobile users are still simply seeing the old “like” option, but as Facebook apps across all mobile devices catch on, expect to see much more varied responses to your friends’ posts in your Facebook timeline.

Facebook rolled out this change at the end of February after years of feedback that people wanted the ability to dislike posts in the same way that they could “like” them. After a lot of analysis to determine how people wanted to be able to respond to posts, and what those response emojis should look like to convey their respective emotions appropriately, Facebook released five new reaction options.

These reactions allow Facebook users to convey much more nuanced emotions in response to a post rather than the simple binary like or dislike. So what do Facebook reactions mean for your business and how can you use them to develop content? Using our social media expert opinion, we’re here to help break it down for you!

Fall in Love with Online Marketing this Valentine’s Day

2/11/2016

It’s February and love is in the air, but this Valentine’s Day instead of indulging in long stem roses and eating a whole box of chocolates from your special someone (or yourself – I’m not judging!), why not fall in love with online marketing instead? Here are four online marketing suitors for you to choose from:

How to Be Really Likeable, and Why You Should Care in The First Place

2/9/2016

You know how growing up your Mom always told you that if someone doesn’t like you, then it’s their loss? That may work on the playground, but that sure isn’t true in the business world! When it comes to business, if people don’t like your brand, that’s definitely your loss! So how exactly you go about being likeable, and why should you care anyways?

Creating a Social Community around Products/Services That Aren’t Typically Social

2/4/2016

Running an online marketing company I often hear business owners or marketing managers tell me “Oh yeah, social media definitely isn’t for us!” And while it’s sometimes difficult (or downright impossible) to dissuade them from this belief, it’s never true. Any business, no matter the size or industry or audience, can benefit from social media in some capacity!

Social channels are used most commonly for customer service, education, brand awareness, and selling, which really covers a wide range of marketing goals. In that list is at least one focus area that every business needs in order to succeed. Don’t believe me? Consider this – there are local and national brands with thriving social media communities around offerings like toilet paper, tampons, deodorant, household cleaners, condiments, porta potty rentals, allergy medications, athlete’s foot remedies, dog food, kitty litter, bug removal, and probably a million other odd products/services that don’t strike you immediately as being particularly social in nature.

So how can your business build a social community around products/services that aren’t typically social? These three tips will help you create a winning strategy:

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