In order to increase interest in its paid post initiative, Facebook continues to find ways to decrease the reach of organic posts. One of its most successful efforts has been the Facebook Edge Rank system.

The number of likes on your Facebook page used to determine the amount of reach that you had. This is no longer the case. In order to have any kind of reach, your audience must interact with your posts on a consistent basis. The Facebook Edge Rank system is a sophisticated way for Facebook to downplay the posts that get no interaction from your audience. For the most part, these are hard-sell posts, limiting the amount of business that any company can do using the Facebook platform.

At one time, businesses could thrive and exist without utilizing social media. While some may still operate without it, those days are long gone. Social media integration is vital for strategic marketing plans and for increasing the bottom line. The more eyes are on the company, the better. As a result, there are a few different ways healthcare companies can include social media into their marketing plans. Healthcare companies aren’t known to have the most engagement on social media platforms. These tips should be used cohesively for maximum results and can change the way people interact with healthcare companies. Social Media integration is a now a prominent component to any Healthcare PR Strategy.

Anyone can create high quality content. As a result, it is expected. To run with the big dogs, the least a company can do is provide compelling and relevant content to a target audience. In order to market to the crowds on Pinterest, Facebook or Instagram, utilize infographics or interesting photographs to gain attention. Cover a variety of topics in the health field to bring awareness and attach the company name to it all. For example, highlight the leading causes of heart disease in women in a captivating infographic. In addition, give tips on how to prevent heart disease. Run a series of these graphics during February (February is American Heart Month). Incorporate the company name through the sections that talk about solutions. Anything that can place the name in the minds of consumers is best. 

Public relations is crucial for all businesses, large and small. You don’t necessarily have to hire a PR firm to handle this for you. Everyone, including solo entrepreneurs, must find ways to generate positive publicity in today’s competitive marketplace. Learning how to effectively brand yourself as well as handle a basic personal public relations strategy is crucial to your success.

It’s important to brand yourself as well as your products. The way you go about this depends on the type of business you have, of course. Individuals and small businesses can take advantage of the opportunity to make their branding very personal. Yet even larger companies must not lose the personal touch.

Countless articles have been written on the importance of sites like Twitter and Facebook to bring customers to your business, but one of the most often neglected is also one of the highest trafficked website on the Internet. Pinterest is growing by the day and drives more traffic than staples like Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Reddit manage combined. With numbers that top many of the traditional social media sites, if your company doesn’t have a Pinterest page, you are missing out on a massive opportunity.

Unlike Twitter or even Facebook and Google+, Pinterest is driven by pictures. People will share the content you create if it is visually interesting, and that also means making your pictures large and high quality. Small icons will not cut it on Pinterest. The more attention your images receive, the more likely they will be shared by others.

As any true child of the 80s knows, Gargamel is far from a friendly face. Bent on capturing Smurfs to turn them into gold, eat them for lunch, or just destroy them, Gargamel is enough to terrify any Smurf… and likely the 80’s child that still lives within many of us.

It thus goes without saying that, as a marketer, you don’t want to scare your audience away like Gargamel. Papa Smurf is a preferable role model (if you’re set on an 80s cartoon star as your social media analogy, like we are here).

The technology revolution has turned the marketing and public relations world upside-down. In today’s world, traditional PR strategies and models no longer gain the traction they once did. However, this is not a bad thing for those businesses and PR firms that are able to think laterally and re-adjust their approach. When you consider the fact that many of the more modern approaches, such as social media, blogger influence and PPC campaigns, are efficient and cost-effective tactics, it is easy to understand why so many companies are integrating these services into their approach to PR.

The rapid advance in communications technology has created a situation in which news travels at nearly the speed of light. Where once there was a time in which the traditional media was able to control what went out on the wire and when, today’s news often reaches the public at the same time, or sooner, than it reaches mainstream media. This creates the opportunity for “real-time” engagement. Meaning that, during or within minutes of an event occurring, a company can literally engage their customer base or target audience on the subject. By adding modern PR tactics like social media to their communications strategy, a business can send out a relevant and responsive tweet in a matter of seconds after a relevant event has taken place.