Five Marketing Myths

Marketing is a critical component of any business’s strategy. When executed well, the right concepts can increase brand awareness, customer acquisition and retention, engagement, and sales. Even with these proven benefits, some businesses hesitate to invest in marketing.

Our team at Green Apple Strategy has compiled a list of the most common marketing myths and misconceptions we encounter as marketing professionals. We hope it helps you advocate for your marketing budget!

Marketing Myths and Misconceptions 

MYTH 1: Marketing, advertising, and public relations are all the same. 

One common marketing myth is that if your business invests in advertising or public relations, you do not need to spend additional resources on marketing. While the three components work beautifully together and can overlap, they serve different purposes.

Public relations builds positive relationships with your audience, while advertising turns them into new or repeat customers. Marketing bridges the gap by taking your audience from awareness to solid business leads primed to make a purchase.

MYTH 2: Small businesses can’t afford marketing. 

Small businesses may have smaller budgets, especially when just starting. It can be tempting to forgo marketing efforts to conserve cash flow. But, without an intentional plan to grow your customer base, your bottom line will eventually become stagnant.  

The right marketing strategies are proven to gain new and repeat customers, resulting in a positive, long-term return on your investment.

MYTH 3: My customers will not respond to today’s marketing channels. 

Modern marketing channels rely heavily on producing a high volume of quality digital content. This can include web, email, blogs, videos, podcasts, and multiple social media channels. Depending on your industry and customer demographics, it can be tempting to think that today’s best practices will not work for you. It could even be intimidating to tackle new approaches, like the ever-changing landscape of social media. In our experience, every business can form the right mix of digital marketing products. You are a subject matter expert with valuable insights to share with customers. With more than 3.7 billion people on social media and 85% of the U.S. population having a smartphone, your audience is already online – your business can meet them there too.
 

MYTH 4: Anyone can do marketing. 

While it’s true that any business can benefit from a marketing plan, not just anyone should create it. When it comes to popular tactics like content creation, you may be able to tackle the more straightforward aspects on your own – things like an occasional blog post, email, or mastering one social media channel. For maximum reach and engagement, you’ll want to increase your content creation to a level that keeps you top of mind with your audience.

Hiring a staff member to keep up with the content demand empowers business owners to focus on other growth aspects. If a full-time staff member is outside the budget, an experienced freelancer or marketing agency can be an excellent strategic partner.

MYTH 5: Marketing efforts should pay off quickly.  

Investing in marketing is like investing in the stock market –a long game. Create a strategy, do the work, and stay consistent, and you will see results. With many of today’s marketing practices taking place in the digital landscape, it will take time for your online efforts to pay off. Continue creating, posting, sharing, and optimizing for SEO. Over time, your content will move up the search engine results page, you’ll become recognized as a leader in your industry, and you’ll see results.

A Partner in Marketing Strategy

Green Apple is here to assist in developing a marketing strategy that works for your business. Our team would be happy to discuss your needs. Contact us to learn more about our effective approach to marketing and get started on a strategic plan that can work for you

A Guide to Alt Text for SEO

According to HubSpot, nearly 38 percent of results that appear on Google’s search engine results pages (SERP) are images. Essentially, when users search the web page for answers, they are met with many images in addition to the standard text results we’ve come to expect. Initially, images were identified by the file name and tags associated with them. With the rise of AI, images can now be identified and categorized using deep learning networks. As part of a healthy blogging strategy, tagging images is essential in order to make them searchable.   

This is where alt text, short for alternative text, comes into play. In this blog post, we’ll explore the purpose of alt text and how your brand can use it to optimize your ranking in a search engine algorithm.
 

What is Alt Text? 

Alt text, also called alt description, alt tag, or alt attribute, is a brief sentence containing detailed information describing a webpage’s pictures. The concept was originally created to improve web accessibility for people who use a screen reader online. For example, those with visual impairments cannot see the images on a webpage, but the screen reader can relay the image description, resulting in a better user experience. Alt text is also helpful in filling in the blanks when images do not display because a webpage does not load properly.
 

How Does it Improve SEO?  

Alt text has quickly become a best practice when it comes to SEO. In addition to improving the user experience, alt text improves search engine optimization. When a user searches a topic on Google, web crawlers scan the internet for the most relevant information to display in search results. Web crawlers also scan text descriptions of photos—and skip over those without alt text. 

Including relevant descriptions of your photographs, images, buttons, and other visual elements means search engines will index this content when populating results pages.
 

Writing Alt Text for SEO

To write effective alt text for SEO, keep the original intent in mind: user accessibility. Although it can be tempting to use this real estate primarily for keywords, you want to be sure that your image description will make sense to someone who may not see your photo. 

For this reason, write alt text in sentence form to keep it sounding natural. The text should also be as descriptive as possible, linking the image to the context of the article. For example, for a photo of a charcuterie board, you could describe it as “a tray with meat and cheese,” but a better description might be “a round wooden board filled with assorted meats, cheese, vegetables, and fruit.” The goal is to communicate the entire visual content of a photo, picture, or illustration.

Additional best practices for writing alt text include keeping phrases to 125 characters or less. Any longer, and you risk screen readers cutting off the description mid-sentence, resulting in a frustrating user experience.
       

Benefits of Using Alt Text for SEO

Using alt text as part of a greater digital marketing strategy for SEO and accessibility can also increase website traffic. As stated in the opening of this post, nearly 38 percent of Google’s search engine results are images—images that appear on the main results page! 

Because your images now have text descriptions, web crawlers can read them and include them in SERPs. As such, your content may appear in both image and text results, creating multiple avenues for visitors to find your page. 

Improving SEO means making all your content work for you, including content you have already created. If you have images on your site that do not have alt text, set aside some time to add them. Doing so could be an effective and efficient way to maximize your website’s current content and move the needle on your SEO.
 

Let’s Optimize Your SEO

Green Apple Strategy offers a unique approach to helping small businesses optimize their SEO efforts. Our team would love to collaborate with you on finding goal-driven solutions that reach your audience. Contact us today to learn more.

What Marketers and Small Businesses Should Know About ChatGPT

Since its launch in November 2022, ChatGPT has produced a lot of chatter among marketers and small business owners. Social media conversations, web articles, and meetings are filled with curiosity, excitement and apprehension around this new, state-of-the-art technology.

 

At Green Apple, we’re here to solve your problems through marketing strategies and tactics, and we want you to feel empowered when it comes to new trends that could impact your business. We want to equip you with knowledge around this new language processing tool, and its impact for business so that you can access and use this innovative technology. 

 

What is ChatGPT? 

ChatGPT is the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot that was released by OpenAI, an AI research and deployment company based in San Francisco, CA. Since its launch in November 2022, the chatbot has taken the technology world by storm. 

 

ChatGPT is powered by cutting-edge language processing AI models—called generative pretrained transformers—that are capable of producing human-like, conversational interactions. Because the bot was trained on a diverse array of websites, books and more, it can provide text responses to a wide range of questions and prompts. 

 

While other tech companies like Google and Meta have successfully produced their own large language models, ChatGPT is the first of its kind that allows the general public to experiment with it directly. ChatGPT can write resumes, poetry, stories, and essays. It can also solve math problems and even code an entire website based on a simple, hand-drawn sketch. 

 

ChatGPT’s Impact on Business

As with any new technology, there has been a lot of discussion surrounding how ChatGPT could impact the business world. And it can be challenging to explain this complex tool  to your colleagues in a meaningful way. Will the bot replace jobs? Should content creators be concerned? Or is it simply a new tool that can be used to streamline and simplify tasks? 

 

According to Martech Series, “ChatGPT has demonstrated the ability to build complex Python code and compose college-level essays in response to a prompt, raising concerns that such technology may probably replace human workers like journalists or programmers.”

 

But even with all of its encyclopedic knowledge, ChatGPT is limited to the information used to train its neural network. It has also produced incorrect or nonsensical—albeit convincing—answers to user prompts. This has spelled bad news for businesses who have tried to use the bot to interact with customers in real time. Additionally, the bot lacks the ability to empathize, think critically, give personalized advice or speak to future events—all key traits necessary for successful marketing professionals. 

 

Best Practices for Using ChatGPT 

Given the strides made by AI companies in recent years, ChatGPT is likely here to stay. As marketers and small business owners, there are multiple ways to embrace this tool and use it to your advantage. 

 

ChatGPT makes an efficient search engine. Content creators can ask for information on a certain event or subject matter and receive paragraphs of data within seconds. This can replace hours otherwise spent scouring various websites to find the information you need. The cost of time saved on research and outlining can be passed on to clients.

 

Similar to its use as a search engine, ChatGPT can explain complicated topics in a brief, easy-to-understand format. If you’re looking for in-depth information on specific events or subjects, the bot can help as long as the information you need was collected before 2020. 

 

ChatGPT can be a helpful starting point for writing assignments. Give it a try the next time you experience writer’s block. While ethical issues and the possibility of plagiarism prevent you from using the content “as is,” it can certainly help get your creative wheels turning. 

 

Users have also had success getting ChatGPT to produce websites, write code, and gather statistics for presentations. Working late? ChatGPT can save you a trip to the grocery store by suggesting step-by-step recipes if given a picture of what’s in your fridge, among other creative uses. 

 

How to Access ChatGPT 

OpenAI allows users to try ChatGPT for free via the company’s website. Each user helps provide valuable feedback that will enhance the bot’s performance. 

 

New users receive $5 worth of free tokens to use during a three month trial. All prompts and responses require the use of tokens. Different versions of the language model require a different number of tokens. Fees are also involved when using OpenAI for business purposes. Fortunately, fees are only charged by usage, and you will only pay for the version of the language model you choose and for the number of tokens, or short paragraphs, resulting from the interaction. 

 

Green Apple Can Help You Embrace New Trends

Sometimes new technology can push us out of our comfort zone. If you’re looking for an innovative way to take your marketing to the next level or simply need help managing everything that is required for reaching your goals, our team can help. Contact us to learn more about our unique approach and schedule a discovery call with our team.

5 Current Digital Marketing Trends You Should Know

Man holding an iPhone

We’re only a few months into 2023, and we’ve already seen massive shifts in the tools and trends that are shaping digital marketing. After the launch of ChatGPT and Google’s new AI program, Bard, many business leaders and marketers are wondering if we are on the precipice of a seismic shift in how we work. But artificial intelligence tools from big companies aren’t the only trends that are shaping the digital landscape in 2023. Evolving consumer preferences, influencer marketing, and social media platform updates are also making a difference. 

That’s why we asked our digital marketing team to highlight a few of the current digital marketing trends that are shaping our industry today. 

 
1. The impact of AI is just beginning. 

As we mentioned earlier, artificial intelligence tools have been the hottest topic amongst business leaders and marketers. But really, this is just the beginning of the way AI will influence the way we work and interact. For example, Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that Meta is looking to add AI tools to Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram soon. 

It will be interesting to see how AI continues to impact our work. Right now, these tools provide ways that marketers can work smarter. But the need for intuition and understanding what your customers think and feel is still a fundamental skill that AI can’t finesse.  

 
2. “Deinfluencing” on TikTok has become the latest influencer trend. 

Influencer marketing has become an increasingly important tactic for businesses in every industry. Platforms like TikTok have provided brands with a way to reach their audience with products or solutions, especially for Millennials and Gen Z customers. Recently, these influencers have taken a different approach by telling their followers which products they shouldn’t buy. This TikTok trend has become a marketing tactic in itself.

While you may not use TikTok or influencer marketing as part of your strategy, we believe this trend speaks to the way younger generations value authenticity and honesty as they consider your products and services. 

 
3. Twitter is planning to expand its character limit to 10,000.

The platform that started with short-form content is now getting into the long-form content game for its Twitter Blue subscribers. For Twitter, the vision for long-form content in the app is that creators won’t have to redirect their audiences to other platforms to view their content.

We’ll be interested to see if this move enhances the experience for Twitter users or if people decide to abandon the platform and continue to look for short-form social content that’s easy to consume.

 
4. Brands are turning to user-generated content more than ever and encouraging customers to post content about their brand.  

User-generated content continues to be one of the most popular B2B social media trends for 2023. Now, brands are finding creative ways to encourage their customers to post. For example, our team member Katie recently ordered OliPop from the brand’s website. After her order, she received a promotion saying that OliPop will pay customers $1 for every 50 views on their content and potentially even pay customers to create content for the brand.

 
5. Brands are going “unhinged” on social media to stand out.

Let’s face it: standing out on social media has become increasingly difficult. One way brands are trying to rise above the noise is by embracing a social media strategy that subverts their audience’s expectations. Whether it’s a snarky tweet or unusual Instagram images, brands like Duolingo, Parachute, and Sweetgreen are incorporating content that moves away from the highly-curated images and content we’re used to seeing from most brands. 

 

Want to Stay Up-to-Date on all the Latest Trends?

If there’s one lesson we’ve learned in the past three months, it’s that digital marketing seems to be shifting faster than ever. If you’re interested in staying informed about the latest trends (and how they impact your business), our team is here to help. You can sign up for The Core, our monthly newsletter, to get the latest marketing insights and inspiration delivered directly to your inbox.

How Businesses Can Use TikTok for Marketing

Photo of a phone on TikTok's TikTok profile on the screen

There’s no denying that TikTok has become the social media platform that’s garnished the most attention within the past couple of years. And it looks like it will continue to be one of the B2B social media trends in 2023 that businesses should consider. Whether you personally love it or hate it, business leaders and marketers are wrestling with the question, “Does our company need to be on TikTok?” 

As with any social media platform, investing in TikTok for marketing really comes down to whether it can help you reach and cultivate relationships with your potential customers. It’s also important to note that TikTok will continue to change and evolve as more innovations roll out, so you’ll have to stay updated on the changes to this platform.

4 Ways Businesses Can Use TikTok for Marketing

As we’ve worked alongside clients to determine how they can use TikTok for marketing, we’ve found a few helpful tactics that seem to work best for businesses. If you’re looking for a way to leverage TikTok for your brand, here are a few ideas to consider based on the latest trends: 

1. Post Educational Content 

TikTok can be a great way to educate current and potential customers with helpful insights about your products, services, or industry. According to Vidyard’s 2021 Video Benchmarks report, the most common types of business videos are product demos, followed by how-tos and explainers. Because of its visual nature, TikTok provides a way for you to create informational videos at a relatively low cost. You don’t have to invest in expensive cameras or editing software if you have someone with an engaging personality who is good at keeping people’s attention and teaching your audience. 

2. Find Your Target Audience 

One of the unique features of TikTok is the subcultures and threads that have been created around specific industries and areas of interest. For example, #BookTok and #MoneyTok are two distinct subcultures that make it easy for users to connect with like-minded people who share their interests and passions. One of the best ways to reach new customers on TikTok might be to invest time in developing a presence in a particular subculture that aligns with your business or industry. 

3. Invest in Influencer Marketing 

Sometimes the best TikTok strategy isn’t creating your own content but instead partnering with influencers who have already built an audience. The platform has proven to be a creative incubator for rising thought leaders and industry influencers. If you recognize that there is potential in reaching your target audience on TikTok, but you don’t have the time or resources to launch your own channel, it’s worth exploring how to identify and connect with influencers to promote your brand.  

4. Share “Behind-the-Scenes” Content 

In addition to providing the opportunity to educate customers, TikTok is also a social media platform that can humanize your brand. While every social media platform was created to help humans connect with one another, content that businesses create for Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter can still feel very corporate and sterile. In many ways, TikTok opens the door to reconnecting with your audience in a way that feels authentic and not overly formal. You might consider sharing “behind the scenes” content for your brand or creating a “day in the life” video that features an employee. You can also collaborate with current customers or community members to feature their videos on your profile.

Social Media Best Practices when Using TikTok for Marketing

As with any social media platform, it’s important to understand what makes marketing on TikTok effective. Here are a few basic best practices to follow when creating videos for TikTok: 

1. Make sure your content is authentic and represents your brand.

Becoming a thought leader in your industry requires authenticity and approachability, but don’t take yourself too seriously. Humorous, light, fun content works really well on TikTok. 

2. Engage with your followers so they feel valued. 

One way to increase engagement is to interact with your audience directly on the platform. People love to feel valued and heard.

3. Use data to consistently evaluate your investment. 

While you may not experience instant success, it’s important to always ask yourself, “Is this helping us work towards our larger marketing goals and objectives?” Asking the right questions to evaluate your social media content is an important way to make sure you’re maximizing your ROI.  

4. Test often to see what works and what doesn’t. 

You may be surprised by which ideas work and which ones fall flat. Don’t be afraid to experiment. 

While we don’t recommend TikTok to every client, it might be the best way for your business to get outside of your comfort zone this year. Once you’re ready to dive in, don’t forget to use TikTok Analytics to evaluate the success of your social media strategy and identify the type of content that can get you the greatest results.

Trends & Insights to Optimize Your Digital Marketing Strategy

A view of someone's hands at a desk applying post-it notes to a planning board.


Marketing is constantly evolving and changing. Nowhere is that more true than in the world of digital marketing. What worked in the past becomes antiquated just a few years later. Even a tactic that worked last month might not be as effective. That’s why businesses in every industry need to stay informed on the trends and insights to develop an effective digital marketing strategy to reach their target audience. 

We recently asked Digital Marketing Strategist, Amanda Bihun, to highlight a few of the most important trends you should know. Amanda and her team do an incredible job of translating the latest digital marketing trends into strategies for clients in a variety of industries. 

Trends and Insights to Optimize Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Here are a few of the most important trends and insights you should know in order to optimize your digital marketing strategy. 

1. Know that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing digital platforms. 

Today, AI is used in almost every area of digital marketing. Reaching your audience through digital channels is all about leveraging the algorithms they use. The challenging part is that every digital platform has its own algorithm and every algorithm is constantly changing. For example, Google is in the middle of the biggest change to the analytics platform the company has ever conducted. In order to reach people in today’s digital world, you must be proactive in keeping up with, or even ahead of, these algorithm changes.

 

2. Effective digital marketing requires a long-term approach.

One of the biggest misconceptions people have about digital marketing is that it will create immediate results. Just like any other form of marketing, digital marketing requires a long-game mindset. It also requires you to test and optimize different strategies. Increasing important metrics such as leads and sales takes time to gain momentum. For example, investing in digital advertising on social media or Google does not guarantee you more leads on day one. It puts your brand in front of new people, but you have to build trust with that new audience over time. Digital marketing requires you to take the entire journey into consideration as you develop your strategy. Ultimately all of your digital marketing efforts work together to build the brand and reach your audience, but none of them will double your profits on day one.

3. Don’t ignore the basic foundation of digital marketing.

A house is only as good as its bones. If you hang curtains or plant pretty flowers out front, it will look good in the short run, but it will not keep your house from falling down if the support beams are cracked. Digital marketing is similar. You need to put in the time to make sure your foundation is solid. The support beams of digital marketing are your website, your social channels, and your email engagement strategy. Investing in these areas will help future-proof your marketing and help you create a strong foundation that works even as things change.

4. Consider your target audience’s perspective in everything you do. 

When it comes to creating your digital marketing strategy, it’s important to look at everything you do from the user’s perspective. Oftentimes, businesses can be so close to their products or services that they forget how to view their brand from a  potential customer’s point of view. If you want to reach new people, it’s important to create a customer-centric culture, figure out your buyer personas and the questions they have, and how you can help them. It is important to reach potential customers where they are to nurture qualified leads into becoming repeat customers and, eventually, brand enthusiasts.

5. Always be testing and analyzing.

Just because something worked last week does not mean it will work this week. Just because your audience is on Instagram this year does not mean they will still be there next year. Brands must constantly test new strategies and watch the analytics to see where and how their audience is engaging. At Green Apple, we analyzing digital marketing trends for our clients every month. We’ve found that constantly analyzing your efforts is also helpful because it allows you to pivot your marketing efforts without abandoning your entire strategy.

Here’s the bottom line: Long-term planning and short-term course corrections are both essential when it comes to developing an effective digital marketing strategy. If you want to stay ahead of the latest trends, sign up for our monthly e-newsletter. It’s one of the primary ways we keep clients informed on the latest trends they should know.

Why is Your LinkedIn Page Underperforming? (and How to Improve It)

A man checking his social media on a tablet

While social media trends have evolved over the past few years, LinkedIn is still the essential platform for marketing and business development growth, especially for B2B brands. Every marketing department and business development professional should take time to consider how to use the platform, especially if you’re concerned that your LinkedIn page is underperforming.

There are a few good reasons why a strong LinkedIn Page is absolutely essential. According to an article from Hubspot:

  • 4 out of 5 people on LinkedIn “drive business decisions”
  • Companies that post weekly on LinkedIn see a 2x higher engagement rate
  • 40% of B2B marketers surveyed indicated LinkedIn as the most effective channel for driving high-quality leads

Improving Your LinkedIn Presence Can Go a Long Way


Investing a little attention and effort into transforming an underperforming LinkedIn profile can make a tremendous difference for your brand. Not only do the statistics prove it, we know it from our own personal experience. Last year, our team at Green Apple decided to collaborate on a strategy that would enhance our LinkedIn company page.  

A year into our strategy, we’ve seen exponential growth:

  • Increasing our number of followers 5x in six months. 
  • Increasing our reactions by 4,872%.
  • Increasing the number of times someone shared our content  by 2,566% 

While we are constantly looking for new ways to improve our strategy, we’ve learned some valuable insights so far. Here are a few takeaways we discovered when it came to transforming an underperforming LinkedIn presence.

Common Reasons Your LinkedIn is Underperforming 

Here are a few common reasons a company might struggle to create results from their LinkedIn activity: 

  1. You haven’t identified your target audience and their daily challenges and obstacles.

One of the most common reasons a business doesn’t get a lot of traction on LinkedIn is because the content they’re creating doesn’t resonate with their audience. It’s important to consider how you want to add value to your audience when determining if you should be on any social platform — including LinkedIn. Without taking time to identify who you’re trying to reach and understand the challenges they face on a daily basis, you’ll likely waste a lot of time creating content no one cares to read. 

  1. You lack a plan that helps you create a consistent presence. 

It’s important to have a consistent presence for your brand on LinkedIn. We’ve all had the experience of stumbling upon a company LinkedIn profile that’s updated once a month or, worse, hasn’t been updated in months. Creating a LinkedIn presence but not maintaining it is often worse than not having one at all.

  1. You are taking a “hard sell” approach that isn’t working.

There are plenty of people who take a hard sell approach on LinkedIn. These are the people who are often pushy with their tactics or are only sharing sales-oriented content on their company page. While these efforts occasionally work, most of the time they do not.  As with most social networks, it’s important to embrace the motto, “always be helpful,” rather than overwhelming your followers with self-promotional content.   

  1. You are posting content, but you aren’t engaging with others.

LinkedIn serves as a platform to help business professionals connect and engage with one another. As such, it works best when you invest time interacting with others. If you’re posting regularly, but you aren’t getting the most out of your LinkedIn presence, it’s likely because you’re missing an opportunity to create more meaningful connections with your audience by engaging with their content as well. 

How to Enhance Your LinkedIn Presence to Achieve Results

If you’re looking to take your LinkedIn presence to the next level, here are a few keys we learned from our experience: 

  1. Optimize your profile

According to Hubspot, companies with an active LinkedIn page see 5x more page views than those with inactive pages. Any given LinkedIn page contains a series of subsections. Businesses should ideally fill all of these sections out completely, with the exception of the “Jobs” section if you aren’t hiring.

  1. Get your team involved in content creation.

Because LinkedIn is primarily a platform for business connections, your employees can play a critical role in broadening your reach and strengthening your network on the platform. Your LinkedIn marketing strategy should include involvement from your employees. For our team, that meant collaborating on content creation and being strategic in how we worked together to promote the posts Green Apple was sharing. Taking the time to develop a strategy for employee advocacy is an easy way for your organization to expand its reach on Linkedin. 

  1. Use a variety of videos and images to create higher visibility.

Adding custom images can get you twice as many comments on your posts. Additionally, sharing a video drives up your engagement rate by five times. Both highlight the fact that varying the type of content you post is a critical part of your LinkedIn marketing strategy.

  1. Constantly test ideas and analyze your efforts 

As with any marketing strategy, it’s important to test and optimize your efforts along the way. The native LinkedIn analytics data gives you an in-depth look at how your posts are performing. Schedule a time to check your performance data regularly and formulate strategies for improvement.

Turning Around Your Underperforming LinkedIn Page is Easier Than You Think

It doesn’t take magic to transform your LinkedIn presence. There are simple techniques you can use to optimize the power of LinkedIn. All it takes is a little attention and effort on the front end and a commitment to evaluate your efforts along the way. If you need guidance on turning LinkedIn into a lead generation tool, Green Apple can help. Let Green Apple Strategy craft an innovative approach to your social media channels so that you can start targeting and attracting new team members. Reach out to us today for a consultation.

B2B Companies: How to Get the Most Out of Your LinkedIn Presence

man-using-linkedin-on-ipad
Are you struggling to get engagement or reach on LinkedIn?  Social media strategies aren’t what they once were. The formula for success is no longer simply “post more often,” or “interact with your content,” which we’re sure you’ve heard countless times. Especially for B2B companies, social media is a different animal—it doesn’t play by the same rules as its B2C counterparts. Not to worry, though. With a well-planned LinkedIn strategy, you can increase your following, engagement, brand awareness, and even encourage teamwork among your employees.   Here’s what you’ll need to get the most out of your LinkedIn presence: 
  1. A current and engaging business page
  2. Digestible content that speaks to your audience’s pain points
  3. Diligent and proactive engagement with your audience
  4. An employee-centric content and engagement strategy
  5. A budget for strategic paid ads

How to Get the Most Out of Your LinkedIn Presence

1. A Current and Engaging Business Page
When was the last time you revisited your LinkedIn business page? Chances are, a lot has happened in your business since you first created the page. On top of that, standards for what makes a good business page have changed. Review your page to ensure that all your information is up to date.  You may also consider switching up your “About” content to speak directly to your audience. Rather than a simple description of what your business does, capture your audience’s attention by telling them how you can solve their problem specifically. Tell them who you help, what you do, and what your differentiators are. This allows your audience to quickly identify that you’re the right fit. Tip: LinkedIn only shows the first two lines of your description without the user having to click to read more. Make those two sentences count!
2. Digestible Content that Speaks to Your Audience’s Pain Points
This is always the tricky one, right? Engaging your audience through eye-catching content. You must find a way to speak to your audience’s needs, while also giving them content that they can quickly digest. That may include graphics, original blog content, thoughtful insights, or shared content from other reputable sources. Try to create (or find and share) content that your audience can learn something from very quickly as they scroll through their feed.  Tip: Always tag any relevant people or businesses in your posts. Also, make good use of your hashtags to help users find your content.
3. Diligent and Proactive Engagement with Your Audience
We know you’re busy and have very little time to watch over your social accounts. But, engagement is one of the most important elements of your LinkedIn strategy. Ensure that you always answer comments or proactively engage your audience in conversation by asking a question in the first comment on your post. To further encourage engagement, you may also consider tagging someone in the comment who you feel may have particularly good insight on the subject.   Tip: Set a calendar reminder to help you remember to check your LinkedIn and engage at least twice per day. 
4. An Employee-Centric Content and Engagement Strategy
Involving your employees is a great way to build teamwork, making your team feel more connected to your audience and to each other. Here are a few of the ways you can encourage your team’s help with your LinkedIn strategy: 
  • Request that each team member spends ten minutes per day engaging on LinkedIn
  • Tag team members in content they helped create or contributed to
  • Create branded cover photos for your team’s profiles 
  • Share content congratulating team members on their accomplishments
  • Tag team members to ask insightful questions 
Tip: Ask team members to create content of their own that they would be proud to share with their LinkedIn connections. 
5. A Budget for Strategic Paid Ads
Organic reach is always the goal, but in today’s social media environment, you often have to pay to play. Consider your business’s primary goals, and set a budget for each that you can use for paid LinkedIn ads. If that’s hiring, for example, you may boost a job advertisement. If it’s brand awareness, you may put your money behind case studies. Whatever you choose, make sure that your ad spend correlates with your team’s goals. Tip: To get the most out of your ad spend, you may prefer to hire someone to help you with this area of your strategy.

Ready to Build a Lead-Generating LinkedIn Strategy? 

Your LinkedIn content has the power to paint a picture for your clients, prospective employees, and anyone coming in contact with your brand. Let’s make it count. Contact Green Apple Strategy today to schedule a consultation. Our team is happy to sit down with you to discuss your goals and how we can help you achieve each and every one of them.

5 Benefits of Working with a Marketing Agency

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Every company has to decide at some point: should you do marketing in-house or partner with a marketing agency? While there are benefits to both, a marketing agency will most often give you the highest return on investment and take the most work off your plate. To help you make this decision, here are five benefits of working with a marketing agency that may change the way you think about external marketing. 

1. You Have Access to a Full Team of Professionals

Possibly the most significant benefit of working with a marketing agency is the opportunity to work with a full-service team of professionals. You have access to professional strategists, designers, photographers, writers, project managers, and a variety of others. With this multifaceted team, you have a team of experienced professionals working together, under one umbrella, to reach your business’ loftiest goals.

2. You Can Easily Identify (and Achieve) Your Business Goals

Marketing agencies have set processes that we use to identify your goals and needs. We thoroughly research your company, industry, competitors, and customers before we ever begin building a strategy. The team then uses that information to think creatively and strategically about how to reach the identified goals and how to find the ideal customer. You can engage with an agency knowing that they are doing the due diligence to take your business several steps further.

3. You No Longer Need to Train and Manage a Team

When working with an internal marketing team, there is a severe amount of overhead that goes into hiring, training, and developing the people on that team. Working with a marketing agency, on the other hand, eliminates the time and resources you would have spent managing internal employees. You, instead, have more capacity to focus on your core business.

4. You Have Insight from a Marketer’s Perspective

You’re working in your business day in and day out. So, it can often be challenging to see new avenues to venture into, especially in marketing. By bringing in an outside team’s perspective, you are introduced to different thought patterns and ideas that you may not have otherwise thought of. 

5. You Gain the Ability to Stay Ahead of New Technologies and Trends

Your marketing agency lives and breathes marketing. Because they’re spending time staying ahead of trends and technologies, you will, too, effortlessly. You will find that your agency will introduce you to tools that you didn’t know you needed—and those are often the ones that accelerate your marketing efforts. 

Are You Thinking of Engaging with a Marketing Agency?

Green Apple works hard to become a part of our clients’ teams. We take the time to identify their goals and needs before building a strategy to help them get there. It’s a tireless effort that we love to our cores, and we are always rooting for our clients’ overall success—inside and outside of marketing. Want us to join your team? Contact Green Apple Strategy today to schedule a consultation.