Now that you understand what social listening is, why you should implement it, and some of the key strategic points to consider, let’s look at some tools that can help.

After our most recent blog you should have a good insight into Social media marketing insight and the importance of social media listening. Now let see what tools are available to help you with your social media marketing and listening both free and paid versions.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite can be used to create social media streams that monitor conversations and keywords across multiple social networks.
If you then see an opportunity to appeal to potential customers, or simply  brand advocates, you can react accordingly or assign the responsibility to someone else in the social media management function.

Hootsuite Insights

Go further with sophisticated reports that allow you to monitor more than 25 social networks as well as news sites, blogs, forums, and other online spaces where people interact—and get real-time updates on unusual spikes or drops in activity. You can even  track sentiment broken down by location, language, and gender.

Talkwalker

Talkwalker offers sophisticated listening and analytics capabilities covering over 150 million sources including blogs, forums, videos, news, review sites, and social networks. Putting Talkwalker with Hootsuite allows business to define and categorise the conversations that matter using filters so they can make the right decision on how to appeal to customers.

Synthesio
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will allow you to monitor conversations on very specific topics within different audiences. Synthesio can tag mentions by language, location, demographics, sentiment, and influence, and the reports produced include a social reputation score. Very useful for comparison to competitors and to have a benchmark to work off.

ReviewTrackers

Social media networks are not the only place your business or brand is been spoken about. This is where review trackers can help as it makes it alot easier and less time consuming to find and respond to reviews from foursquare to Google reviews,TripAdvisor, Foursquare, Healthgrades, Facebook reviews, Google Maps, and so many others.
It integrates easily with Hoootsuite and other tools meaning you can spot emerging issues ( think online crises management) or likewise, discover exceptionally positive reviews to be shared across other platforms.

Audiense

A simpler tool to help Identify key audiences, monitor and evaluate social conversations by segment and then run reports providing information about how each audience is reporting online, as well as how they think (about your company) and behave.

Brandwatch

Track conversations on blogs, forums, social networks, and more, including sentiment and feelings of all mentions.

Mentionlytics

Track mentions, keywords, and phrases in multiple languages and most importantly potential influencers across social networks and other online sources, that you can then use to your advantage.

Don't forget Google alerts is free and simply to use, simply input the terms you wish to be alerted for and whether you wish to receive weekly or daily alerts for the search terms.

​What is the best social media marketing agency?
​So if you require help with social media marketing and SEO www.cosmos.ie
#socialmedia #socialmarketing #socialmediamarketing #digitalmarketing #contentmarketing 
​As one of the top social media marketing and SEO companies in Ireland  www.cosmos.ie has years of experience in social media management and search engine optimisation in Ireland

How to set up your social listening

With so many social media channels to monitor, you need quite a number of digital tools in your toolkit to help you with your social listening ear.
Before you choose a particular tool and get down and dirty with the ins and outs of social media listening, you need to understand exactly what you are actually listening out for.

The exact keywords and subjects you monitor will change and improve over time as you as you sharpen your listening skills: what type of language people use when they talk about your business and what kind of insights are most useful for the business.

We have put together a list of important keywords and subject matter to listen to right from the start:

• Your company brand name or sole trader details
• Any product names you sell
• Your competitors’ names, product names, and handles
• Industry buzzwords, or keywords.
• Your slogan and those of your competitors
• Names of people in your company and your competitors’ 
• Your hashtags and those of your competitors
• Unbranded hashtags related to your business
• Don't forget  also monitor common misspellings and abbreviations for all of these

Next blog we will cover the tools and best practices to achieve this.

What is the best social media marketing agency in Kildare?
​So if you require help with social media marketing and SEO www.cosmos.ie

#socialmedia #socialmarketing #socialmediamarketing #digitalmarketing #contentmarketing 
​As one of the top social media marketing and SEO companies in Ireland  www.cosmos.ie has years of experience in social media management and search engine optimisation in Ireland

Why your business should care about social listening
​
To put it bluntly: if you don't care about social listening then your business strategy will be all over the place:
You will be missing lots of actionable insights from the ground floor, or in this case the virtual shop floor. 
Why would you not listen to your customers? 
Business that give the deaf ear to feedback from customers, will quickly go to the wall.
If you don't listen to you customers you don't care about them, and that is just bad business.

Just ask Blackberry, who thought better than when customers wanted smart phones, on second thoughts better not ask them as they may not be too pleased!

Here we list the ways social listening can benefit your business.

1. Free Market research and engaging your customers

Think you know everything about your customers? Think again..
In their book, Turned On, Roger Dow and Susan Cook describe the Marriott research done to identify which guests intended to stay at the Marriott again. They divided guest stays into 3 groups A, B, and C.

A = Nothing bad happened during their stay.
B = Something bad happened, but Marriott fixed the problem.
C = Something bad happened, but Marriott did not fix the problem.
The percentage of these three groups that said they would return to stay at the Marriott were as follows:

A = 89%
B = 94%
C = 69%
This corroborated the TARP studies that showed that a broken relationship that is “fixed” creates a more loyal customer than one that was never broken. The more a company is able to fix what is wrong, the more they build a positive reputation.

In a similar survey, customers reported that companies failing to listen to their needs was one of their top three customer service complaints.
Social listening gives you important insight into what your customers expectations are  and how well you’re delivering.

It also highlights moments when reaching out is required to engage in conversations (positive or negative) that are  happening about your brand, for example Ratings on Google for your business, Reviews on Facebook whether that  customer is singing your praises, a customer service problem(which can be turned into an opportunity).

2. Identify Wins and Losses in Realtime.

Which of your posts are getting the highest engagement combined with the most positive social reactions?

If social reaction about your firm suddenly changes you can look into individual posts to get a sense of what you’ve done so well or indeed badly..

If you’ve got a hugely successful posting, take notes about elements of the campaign or strategy that you could carry forward and apply to future efforts.

If things have gone wrong, review the social lessons that could prevent a similar problem in the future.

And of course if a post has gone terribly wrong, pull the post altogether and apologise, put your hands up immediately without delay.
This is good online crises management practice.

3. Find out how you compare to competitors.

Not only will you be listening to your own customers but carefully listening what they are saying about competitors, this way you are getting real time information and gives you the time and space to respond to online threats and opportunities e.g. if the competition let their black Friday online start early, you can respond in real-time.

It can be extraordinarily informative but sometimes quite humbling if they are talking negatively about your business compared to the competition.

4. Uncover pain points in your industry that you can be the first to address

By monitoring and staying alert to keywords being used in your industry you can identify stress areas for customers or problems with existing services and with inforation feedback to the product development team areas to incorporate in future renderings of the service or product to improve customer experience for them.

Or even you may find that customers are frustrated , and you already have a service which can address the issue, you need to tweek your next marketing campaign to raise awareness of a solution you already have available to them.

5. Leads that  can develop into relationships.

Don't do the hard sell when you see a potential customer with a query: but if you are able to point them in the right direction or offer some good advice, it establishes you as the' go to guy' for that issue and this is how relationship selling starts.

6. Identify Influencers 

Nielsen found that 83 percent of people trust online recommendations from friends and family, making recommendations from people we know and trust the most credible form of advertising in their study.

Having an overview of the key people in your industry ( those with a lot of social media influence) means you are in an informed position to try and connect with them where possible.
Ideally you find key brand advocates—people who already love your company/brand and are singing your praises on social media. Reward these where possible and you will be paid back tenfold.

Next time : How to set up Social Media Listening
​
What is the best social media marketing agency in Kildare?
​So if you require help with social media marketing and SEO www.cosmos.ie

#socialmedia #socialmarketing #socialmediamarketing #digitalmarketing #contentmarketing 
​As one of the top social media marketing and SEO companies in Kildare  www.cosmos.ie has years of experience in social media management and search engine optimisation in Ireland

What is Content Curation in Social Media marketing all about?

We are curating content without even knowing about it.

We’re sharing that odd Thejournal.ie article on Facebook or Google+ We’re quoting GAA tweets and making funny jokes and Memes on Twitter about Irish Rail.

Content curation is essentially exploring the internet for postings and content that can be shared on your social media channels.
It’s about discovery: finding original content and showing it to your social media followers in a way that’s organised and useful to them.
The problem is, or should I say the opportunity lies, in having a Content curation strategy
Strategy is a must in any marketing activity and content curation is no different:
having a strategy means thinking about ultimately where you are leading your target audience.

Content marketing vs. Content curation in a Social media marketing company.

Content marketing is  about getting postings out that helps strengthen your brand in some form or another.
It could be blog posts, Vloging, or Snapchatting behind the scenes Stories.

But it can become very difficult to constantly come up with new original and relevant content, whilst also doing the everyday marketing activities, and this is where Cosmos.ie & content curation comes in.

We help you find material that stands out online: instead of constantly trying to create something new every month.

Why should brands curate content with Cosmos.ie

1. It alleviates the time pressures to be Online All the time

If you have plenty of time to spend online, all day, everyday posting and engaging on Social Media and thinking of fresh content, Good for you, most marketing & commercial personnel don't have time to keep the conversation going on social media. Cosmos.ie helps fill that gap.

2. We lessen the look at ‘me, me, me’ factor that switches people off following the Social Media channel of the business.

When you are deeply involved in a business all the time, and talking specifically about it and not around it, it gets old real quick. At Cosmos.ie we follow the 80/20 Social media marketing rule: 80% Around the business and 20% self promotion eg 'Here is an interesting article about XXX and only 20% Self promotion.

3. Online networking opportunities

Sharing curated content will help you make connections with Social Media Influencers in your industry. People think it is important to have thousands of followers, but it just isn't, it is more important to have the right followers who will share your curated content to the target audience which of course is much more valuable.
It also sparks conversations with your social media audience in general.

4. Your business becomes seen as a leading light in the field.

If you’re sharing postings about the latest trends and directions in your field, it shows that you’re ahead of the curve.

5. It of course helps Grow your business..using social media marketing

If you are running a an eCommerce business say focused around tailored novelty socks 
and you are constantly curating content about novelty socks it of course helps grow your email list and define your brand and business online.

So if you require help with social media marketing and SEO www.cosmos.ie

 Next Month : How to Curate Content Online & the importance of social listening.
#socialmedia #socialmarketing #socialmediamarketing #digitalmarketing #contentmarketing 
​As one of the top social media marketing and SEO companies in Ireland www.cosmos.ie has years of experience in social media management and search engine optimisation in Ireland

Managing social media marketing, we have all been here, stuck in a rut looking for fresh content ideas to get started, you have already done the piece about SEO, Website design, or general Social media marketing .

You know you should post something but are out of quality content ideas. What will my followers be interested in?
Indeed more urgent the need the harder it gets to find relevant social media marketing ideas.
As one of the top social media marketing companies in Ireland we have had this problem in-house all the time, so time to share a little bit of our cheat sheet!
It helps fill that canvass and jump over that writers block!
​
What is good content for social media?

Ask relevant questions:

If you want to win friends and influence people, author Dale Carnegie suggests real interest in them.
Ask opinions and thoughts about relevant industry topics

Eg., if you are a electrician, you might ask “What are your must-have tools essential for the latest safety compliance rules? Put in the comments below!” instead of just “what tools to you use?”
You will garner a much better response by truly asking really relevant questions to the audience and thus create better social media engagement.

Important dates and topical conversations
Looking blankly into space is not going to help your social media marketing content;
stare at the calendar instead; are there upcoming holidays/notable dates? These are perfect opportunities for creating timely social content.
Its October: Halloween, you could run a “customer haunt” campaign to show appreciation with a bit of humour . This might be as simple as creating some Ghostly content, or some frightfully good deal!

How do I create good social media postings?

Go for behind-the-scenes action.
Next time you want to go Facebook live stream or looking for fresh content for the Instagram account or indeed Snapchat have a look around the office , it may seem mundane to you because you see it all day but your customer might love to understand the people and processes behind the seen. Indeed a Dublin client recently shared the printing process and got thousands of likes and shares for his social media content and of course it helped his SEO too.

Are there any internal activities? something like as a worker’s birthday or retirement can offer opportunities to showcase your work culture, and of course create an affiliation to you company
Hows about?

• Employee profiles, event the MD!
• Workplace tours showing where and how your products are made
• Office pet ? everyone loves these!
• Action shots of employees and team members at work
• Photos and live videos from events that you are at.

What specifically works best for you in social media marketing ?
Comments below

As one of the top social media marketing and SEO companies in Ireland www.cosmos.ie has years of experience in social media management and search engine optimisation in Ireland

What do you mean?

Good communication is about making sure your message is clear and easy to understand.
Unfortunately, the use of  jargon, buzzwords, or vague business terms on social media is prevalent. Its a great disservice to your messaging efforts as it alienates the audience and they quickly move on.
 I see jargon as being overused, such vocabulary, your words and therefore your content ceases to convey any actual information. Its not going to create real engagement with your audience unless you can explain the topic in plain English AND make it of interest to them.

Examples of overused jargon to avoid:

• Viral: While this refers to the very real phenomenon where online content organically receives an extremely large amount of engagement across social media networks, social media managers and marketers have begun using the term “viral” to describe their content goals. Instead of saying that your goal is for your post to go “viral,” it’s better (and easier!) to establish measurable goals. eg we would like to hit 60 shares and 20 likes.
• Synergy: Simply referring to the interaction between two things that creates a better   result, “synergy” is a term that can often leave your audience scratching their head. It’s one of those terms that gets thrown around so often that it’s meaning has been lost.
• Optimise: This just means to make something as efficient as it can be through constant reworking, but the word ‘optimise’ has now become a catch-all for simply creating content.AVOID.
• Millennial: Used so commonly by marketers to “describe people born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s,” the term “millennial” has become meaningless. While it may be helpful when your brand is trying to connect with a more mature audience who are trying to understand a younger generation, no millennial will self-identify as such. When marketers use the word “millennial” as an all-encompassing descriptor, they are missing the mark when it comes to authentically targeting their social media content.

You won’t believe what happens next!

If this heading seems familiar, its because its clickbait-type articles shared online have some form of sensational dramatic title meant specifically to draw in the curious.

Titles like this are tabloid trash.

exaggeration is the official language of the Internet,

Its unsustainable for any business and comes off as inauthentic. If you want your firms authority and clout to remain intact, using hyperboles or overly exaggerated words in your social media content is something to avoid.

Always ask yourself whether the claim you’re making is really true, some common terms to stay away from include:

• Worst: While used in the same way as the above-mentioned “best,” saying “worst” has become a kind of way amongst young social media users to just describe something that’s bad. For example, if someone posts a photo on Instagram of a sandwich that didn’t come with the extra cheese that was paid for, it'll be tagged “WORST.” Because this has become a trendy and overly dramatic term to use on social media, using it may not be in your company's best interest.

 

• Need: Again, ask yourself if this is the best word to use in your social media content. Does somebody “absolutely need to see this,” when “this” is a video of a production line? Definitely debatable a kind of “boy who cried wolf” situation, and your audience members will catch on quickly.

 

• Only: While it’s tempting to declare your post is the “only guide to Social media marketing you need,” the truth is that there are other posts along the same lines out there. Using this kind of language you again give your audience a chance to challenge your claims, which discredits your work.

What do you do again?

Described jobs in the marketing and social media marketing scene. Some of these that I have come across include:

• Social Media Ninja
• Marketing Rock Star
• Content Guru

​

These pseudo job titles which admittedly seem fun, can actually have detrimental effects on your professional experience.
​
When Jeff Barrett asked his Twitter community what they thought of these self-made job titles, he found that 9 out of 10 people felt that they devalue the person and cause others to take them less seriously. As Christa Freeland, marketing specialist for Powershift Group in Austin, Texas, explains to Entrepreneur, “When someone works to showcase themselves as an expert, and then resorts to a self-declared tacky title, there’s something weird. A lot of the time I see the marketing and social media types using this terminology, and it doesn’t help their case.”
Think carefully about your social media marketing to be taken seriously.

Social media marketing content ideas to get you started

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Mobile phones are everywhere! There are even waterproof versions for that odd dip in the Forty Foot...but the more that they integrate into every aspect of our lives the greater the way they change to the way we search, in the past you laboriously typed in what you were looking for carefully selecting what you thought were the correct keyword to find exactly what it is you were looking for.
But no longer: we simply ask out loud with conversational search and it is found, and this of course affects how we build and deliver websites and effects a significant amount of search engine optimisation work we do.
Let's have a closer look at how voice search will change the digital landscape for Irish Businesses and impact their SEO strategies. We will also give some pointers on how to adapt your website to be more Voice Search friendly.
Let’s get some learning in with the top Seo company in Ireland
3 Ways Voice Search Will change Search Engine OptimizationIn the majority of cases when we refer to voice search we mean mobile devices such as watches and phones or phablets. However it is incorrect to assume that voice based excludes all Laptops and PC’s, bear this in mind whilst we examine the impact of Voice search.
 
1. Questions will be phrased differently.You may be the type of person who runs a lot of search queries per day. This will often involve sitting down at the computer and typing keywords to find what you’re looking for. For example, if you were searching for a similar article to this one, you could type ‘voice interaction SEO’. It’s concise, and very likely to return exactly what you’re looking for.
 
Perhaps you do a lot of querying which will involve sitting down and typing the keywords of whatever it is you are looking for eg. Social media marketing company Ireland. It is concise and succinct.
 
Voice search will appear quite differently, voice searching will be phrased as a full search query.
Taking an example to illustrate:
Typed Search: Social media marketing company Ireland.
Voice Search: What is the best social media marketing company in Ireland?
 
Test it out now and see what the results are:
Typed Search:

In the last 18 months search engine marketing and SEO got married!
​
Not just in Kildare but just about everywhere in Ireland, the two are now so closely in intertwined there there is no separating the two, now if you thought that SEO was just some special trick to rank well in Google, you are years out of date.

Some SEOs experts and and traditional marketers seem to be unaware that brand advertising and creative campaigns are very much alive and well, just on digital channels and should be part of an  integrated marketing communications.

Getting found in Google search results is more important than ever and as the top SEO company in Kildare and the leading Social media marketing company in Ireland we have experienced first hand the importance of integrating both the social media and seo into any campaign
​Time to fix your promotion mix by adding search engine optimisation particularly local seo to that toolkit because appearing in search engine results is one of the most important method that can extend the reach of your company’s marketing efforts.

Why is SEO so important in Kildare, Ireland?

Looking at a keyword report from marketing intelligence platform SEMrush will give you and idea.

People in the Ireland search Google roughly 2,400 times each month for “seo company” If you offer SEO services in Dublin, then you want your website to appear in those search results.

SEO tools compare how much people are searching for specific words: and the numbers give you an idea for the amount of demand.

SEO research often reveals that thousands of people are checking Google for specific information  that relate to your products, services and solutions to problems.
In the early- and mid-2000s, some SEO experts would stuff websites with keywords and links to manipulate Google’s early algorithm’s searches.

If you could scam Google, you could get a lot of website traffic quickly: it became known as Black techniques.

It worked for a short time until Google introduced its Panda algorithm and killed it off.

Technical SEO a brief explainer

Google sends out 'bots' that crawl websites. The bots read everything on the website and attempt to understand what the text, graphics, files and code all mean. Google then saves that information and can choose to display it later in search results for relevant keyword queries
Through items such as XML sitemaps and robots.txt files, SEO company Kildare www.cosmos.ie/ can help Google to find and crawl new and updated website pages as well as possible and if necessary block the search engine from accessing private pages that should not be displayed publicly.

There is more work to do on a html coding level.


Actual Kildare stores or Dublin businesses with a few branches can do local SEO to 'get found' in Google Maps.
Local Kildare Cake shops and e-commerce websites for example can put on  'rich snippets' to display product images, pricing, availability and reviews directly in search results.

So how do SEO & Social media get engaged ?
You see, social media tags can be used to show many different types of information in search engine results and social media shares.
As I spoke about at the social media conference in Dublin, Google sees how people and search engines are using a website. Company blogs can also get included in Google News. Mobile websites need to be optimised differently than desktop websites. Fast page-load time is vital.

There are many other technical SEO  that a website needs to address.
Carrying out an SEO Audit and then optimising a website for SEO is stage one. Helping Google to crawl and understand a website generally leads to an initial and sustained boost in search engine traffic.

The reason?
Today, Google is smart, the search engine is understanding and displaying a variety of information in different ways.
It's become  'search experience optimisation'.

It’s not only about ranking highly. It’s also about maximising your overall presence throughout Google: Google plus, YouTube, Blogs, Google maps, Google my business, twitter etc.
 
So as a top SEO company in Kildare and Social media marketing company in Dublin we can provide SEO audits and helps you build your presence in Google.
Here is our homepage so for seo results and social media marketing solutions reach out to us www.cosmos.ie/

First to clarify What are landing pages exactly? A landing page is the webpage a visitor lands on your website after clicking an ad (eg., Google ad or display ad).

Inexperienced/Digital SEO marketing staff oftentimes direct all of their Pay per click traffic to their homepage, but this is a big mistake. Specific landing pages tailored to different services/products or offers are essential to provide a quality experience for the visitor and driving sales with a targeted message that matches each visitors specific needs or wants.
Implement landing page best practices. What makes a really good landing page? How can you create fabulous landing pages? Ask yourself these questions to make it happen..


When building a Landing Page
1. What is the goal/purpose? Exactly what would visitors do upon reaching your landing page?
Would they buy something? 
Fill out a contact form?
Sign up for a newsletter?
Download an ebook?
e.g.
As a top seo company in Ireland we want them to contact us...

The first step for any strategy is determining goals. (You have to define what a conversions is before you can them)

2. Who are my competitors? 
Whom am I competing against?
What has worked for them? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so if your competitors are doing something that works, why not?

3. Who is the target audience? And what are their needs and wants? As simple as that sounds, – the better you understand your target, the more you can cater to their wants and needs. Unless you know who your ideal customers are, it will be very difficult to step into their shoes.
So get in your audience’s mindset as much as possible..
e.g Do they require social media outsourcing or simply SEO advice

4. How did they get to the landing page?
Look at changing the message depending on where the potential customers come from a different message for users who arrived at your landing page coming from Google vs. from Twitter or Facebook queries

Firms with specific landing pages (30+) can garner up to 7 times more leads than those with only a few, so there’s no denying their need.
Really you need a tailored landing page for each google ad group, admittedly this is a lot of work, but once you see the conversion rate in one ad group increase you can move onto the next...
 Begin with one custom landing page per campaign, and take one piece at a time rather than trying to tackle the elephant close up in the room.
Cosmos is now one of the Top SEO advice companies in Ireland and provide social media marketing services to companies all over the country.

I came across a post on Social media recently being used by a large German automotive manufacturer praising and highlighting the marketing efforts of a Competitive brand..

Naturally enough it had me very curious..

Why would anyone be promoting a competitors product range on their Social media marketing pages?

So I delved in a little bit deeper to discover that they had left the entirety of the Social Media marketing efforts of their brand to a short term Intern, it happens frequently, the Marketing Director or Manager has neither the time, expertise or resources to manage all the social media channels, Facebook, Google+, Snapchat, Linked-in, etc to name but a few.

But is it wise to leave the brand in the hands of someone with little or no experience on Social Media?
In this particular case the post was quickly removed but not before it had spread like wild fire, to make matters worse the marketing manager had instinctively 'liked' the post, without carefully examining it thus spreading it across a much larger network.
For firms like this it would make much effective use of their resources to outsource their Social Media marketing and Social Media monitoring to companies who have lengthy experience in managing both inbound and outbound social media campaigns particular if time/resources are limited and they place high value on their online brand reputation.

The costs of carrying out such Social Media activities in house can be prohibitive. Often the firm does not wish to invest in the semi-fixed infrastructure needed or lacks the required expertise in house to do so. Developing the different skills and core competencies required diverts management and operating resources from their primary duties. This is where Cosmos.ie comes in. Once a campaign is designed we implement it for our clients. We work closely with our clients in the creation of the campaign's goals, scope, length, and costs to create as close a fit between the client needs and our capabilities.
We offer outsourced social media solutions to those companies who otherwise would not be able to invest time or resources specifically in Social Media.
WE

• Respond to all Social media questions and queries about the company or service, we are the best Social Media company to manage your Social media marketing
• Post regular Social media updates on behalf of the client using social media management tools to create the compelling and customer engaging postings
• As a top SEO company the correct and most relevant keywords are used in customers postings  to help improve SEO and thus improve search engine results for the client. www.cosmos.ie/blog-on-cosmos-seo-tips-social-media-marketing

​#socialmedia #seo #digitalmarketing #bestseotechniques