Many brands are now also using social media sites to encourage people to engage with their brand and buy from their sites. Video content shared on the social networks is great for internet marketing and many businesses are now using videos to directly sell products.

The video sharing social site YouTube is being utilised by some leading brands. ‘Shoppable videos’ are being created, which are basically promotional videos containing products that you can also click on and instantly buy.

E-commerce or online shopping is a very popular activity and if people watch a really great video for a consumer brand they often want to buy that brand’s products straight away. This is how shoppable videos can capture customers instantly.

Leading online fashion brands like Asos have started using these videos as the latest internet marketing tool to sell their products. It is a great way to sell fashion items because the user can see a product in a catwalk video that gives them a full 360 degree view of how the garment looks on a model.

However shoppable video technology had been rather clunky in the past, with it taking many clicks to purchase a product. Sometimes purchasing was also disturbed by the video play, but a new generation of shoppable videos are being created where a separate purchasing page pops up and the video content pauses whilst the transaction is made.

Brands can market their shoppable video products via other social sites like Twitter, which can be used to direct people to a brand’s shoppable video content on YouTube. In turn the video content can also be used to direct people to the brand’s main website, so it is a great internet marketing tool.

YouTube is currently offering this technology for free but many brands using it are starting to buy ads on the video sharing site to promote their videos, enabling YouTube to also create a revenue stream from shoppable videos. This content is quickly becoming the latest way to make e-commerce revenue online.

Links in social media posts can be a great way to engage people with your social content and, from a business point of view, lead them onto looking at your website.

Because social media posts are generally fairly short it can look strange to include a long URL. Of course with Twitter you don’t really have a choice but to shorten your links because each Tweet has a limit of 140 characters.

This means you want the majority of the space in your Tweet to be taken up by what you are saying and not by overly long links. URLs can be shortened for Twitter via a really great website called Bitly.

Here you can shorten links and collect data on them. Although Bitly is great for use with Twitter, you do not necessarily need to shorten links for the other social media sites.

In fact it has been found that engagement rates are three times higher with social media posts that use full length URLS, rather ones generated by link condensers.

It seems that those who are poised to click links in social media posts want to know where they are being taken. This is understandable of course, as most people are wary about clicking on a link they don’t recognise.

However, sites like Bitly are becoming more well known and many people will now recognise a Bitly link as being something legitimate.

This does not mean that it is good to use these short links in sites like Facebook and Google+ however. Because there is no limit on length in these sites, a full URL does look better and should attract more clickers.

Remember that posts should be fairly succinct in any social site if they are going to engage mobile users, but the URL should still be clear and recognisable.

If a really long link needs shortening the best thing to do is to use a brand-specific URL shortener to keep the identifying element of the URL.

The fact that social networking users are increasingly logging onto the site via their mobiles also affects link engagement. Up to 20% of users check Facebook on their mobiles and shortened URLS can be off putting because users want to know what they are clicking on.

So even though there are great link shortening sites out there that can help condense your URLs for Twitter use, the majority view is that social posts on other sites should still contain recognisable yet succinct links. This way you are more likely to encourage clicks, engagement with your website and ultimately generate new customers.

To get more advice on social media and how to make it work for your business contact eXtraSearch today.

Although SEO is a great internet marketing tool, many people believe it can be difficult to integrate with traditional offline marketing efforts.

In fact SEO can be combined with traditional marketing such as PR and event marketing in clever ways.

Traditionally PR involves writing offline press releases and articles that promote clients which are sent to publications. These press releases can also be put on your website and then optimised for SEO.

The best way to do this is to incorporate keywords into the headline of your press release and throughout your article body. However, don’t overdo keywords and make sure they are lower down in your press release – in order to make sure it isn’t keyword stuffed.

Press releases usually have a boiler plate – a piece of repeated text at the end about the company or product – that is used in every press release. It can be difficult to vary the keyword links in this so it may be best to use alternative boiler plates to avoid continually linking on the same keywords in all your press releases.

SEO can also be used to help maximise your success at trade shows and local events. Firstly, if you are an exhibitor, the easiest way to promote your website is by getting a link to it on the trade show website.

Also find out if you can contribute to the show’s blog and send out an optimised press release to online publications beforehand. Make the most of your time exhibiting my taking video content that could go on social media sites like You Tube after the show.

You can also boost your SEO by getting involved in local events. For instance you could become a sponsor and this might get you in the local news. You could ask attendees to upload their photos of the event to a site like Facebook, perhaps giving them an incentive like a discount off your products.

So there are many ways to incorporate SEO as part of your general marketing activities. Just think creatively and you could turn traditional marketing into a great way of search engine optimising your online business.

Many businesses set up social media pages in order to promote their company and communicate with customers. However, social networking has to be used in the right way if it is going to be a platform for good customer service.

In many retail businesses for instance, followers on Twitter or Facebook may comment on products, make inquiries or even complain if they feel they have got a bad service. This means the company has to be constantly vigilant with their Twitter or Facebook page, ensuring that they respond appropriately.

It is not very appropriate to delete or ignore a negative response, instead the company should respond in a positive way offering a reason for the issue or an incentive for the customer to stay loyal.

Posts on Twitter or Facebook from customers need to be responded to as rapidly as possible. This is not always easy if you have business to run but there should be a person or persons given the responsibility of regularly checking social media for comments from customers.

If a business has an issue come up that is getting a lot of response on Twitter, which may be too much to reply to individually, then they should put out a Tweet explaining the situation so that people can be clear what is going on. For instance, if a company’s website is running slow then they can tell people why and when it is going to be fixed on their social media page.

It is also a good idea to personalise your Twitter or Facebook pages. You can do this by adding names and photos of people within your company biography or as a profile picture instead of or perhaps incorporated with your logo (if company rules allow).

Your bio doesn’t just have to describe your company, it can contain names of employees who have individual Twitter profiles. This way there are lots of people to contact if the customer wants a rapid, tailored response.

Personalising social media pages also means the customer feels like it is more of a real company with names behind the corporate face! Posts can also be ended with names, especially if the message has come from a particular department or specialist within the company.

Social media is also a great way to maximise customer conversions. For instance if a person who is not yet a customer asks a question on your Twitter or Facebook page, if you respond helpfully and quickly they are more likely to then use you for future information and perhaps go on to be a loyal customer.

So social media can be used for customer service and there are many ways to make sure it is a tool to aid good customer relations. Because social networking is becoming ever more popular, many companies can’t afford to ignore it and so should turn this easy and direct way to communicate with customers to their advantage.