Since different platforms require different ways of thinking—Facebook posts are longer than those for Twitter, which have a different voice than LinkedIn status updates —there’s no real cut and paste. We have, however, put together this toolkit to help you create better content, faster. Bookmark this Online Marketing Toolkit for templates, tips and tools that you can use over and over again to enrich your social media accounts, your business blog and even your company website.

Building an Editorial Calendar

Where are you in your business blogging journey? Whether you’ve just started or have been blogging for years, it’s helpful to create and refer to a well-thought out editorial calendar. However, there’s no need to re-invent the wheel – check out the Blog Content Planning Guides and Editorial Calendar Templates by B2BInbound to get you started.

Creating the Title for Your Blog

Need help filling that calendar with ideas? While the content is up to you, there are many scientifically proven ways in which to effectively present your ideas. Are you going to be doing a case study this week or just covering the basics? This list, brought to you by Freelance Writing Solutions gives you great templates for possible blog titles that will catch a reader’s eye. No muss, no fuss.

Writing a Blog Post

As important as your business blog is, the more time you can save while still creating quality content, the better. B2Binbound suggests using their blog template that takes you through a checklist for creating valuable but concise articles, consistently. Creating your own template can be a great way to maintain your voice when inviting informed colleagues or guest bloggers to write a piece.

Downloading Images Quickly and Legally

We’ve talked in the past about the importance of images in breaking up wordy text and visually representing ideas. There are tons of places online such as Free Images and Google Image Search that allow you to search a single keyword and receive great quality images for free. Google Image Search now has the option to search images by usage rights and is a leading site to find free stock photos for your blog.

Resizing Images Without Photoshop

In order to maximize space, it’s important to be familiar with the image sizing guidelines pertaining to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and other platforms. Socially Stacked’s The Ultimate Social Media Template Guide offers interesting tips and tricks and lays out the recommended dimensions for a wide range of social networks.

Now that you know the right sizes, upload your image into iPiccy and either resize or crop the photo. You can also apply beautiful photo effects and filters, all within seconds and completely free.

Sending Your Content to Different Channels

Now that your blog post is done, marketing it through your different channels will be a breeze with these helpful social media templates that offer effective options for building your statuses faster.

The Next Web’s templates will help grow your Facebook Page, while HubSpot is ever helpful on Twitter and all other social media sites.

Recycling Old Content

You don’t need a skilled graphic designer to recycle existing content into something exciting and new. When the time comes, Simple Booklet lets you turn your existing marketing collateral into web-based booklets that you can then post across social networks, email and embed on your website.

Checking for Spelling and Grammar

Even the work of the best copywriters and content creators requires a second look. Save time by slipping your content—whether it be a lengthy blog post or a short Facebook status—into Online-Spellcheck.com to ensure it is polished and typo-free.

Voilà!

Instead of re-inventing the wheel, visit these resources for help creating an editorial calendar outline, writing blog and social media posts, downloading and resizing images, breathing new life into old content and proofreading. Save time and enrich your content with this Professional Online Marketing Toolkit and send it to your friends!

What are your favourite tools to use? Let us know in the comments or on Facebook.

While some would tell you that mixing business with personal isn’t recommended, social management is a different beast: Since your SMM is hired to speak under your company’s voice, its important for him/her to understand exactly what your business is about from an ethos/pathos perspective. Don’t be afraid to reach out and ask your liaison for a casual meeting over coffee, or to add him/her personally on Facebook for the sake of building a relationship. You’ll find that as you get to know the person better, he/she will begin to understand your business through your eyes and post things that are more likely to be in tune with your own corporate ethics and beliefs.

Send Collateral On A Regular Basis

Though a competent SMM can discover and post information about your business on their own, its very important that you regularly update them with the latest information about your company that they might not be privy to without having an inside track. If you have access to internal collateral (product lists, new promotions, competition statistics etc.) that hasn’t been made public yet, forward it to them on a consistent basis either via email or through a cloud sharing service such as Dropbox. Even if you’re not sure how the content should be scheduled, send it anyway: its an SMM’s job to disseminate information about your business and disperse it to the public in a way that will drive engagement. Your SMM is essentially your internet public relations coordinator, and should be treated as such.

Specify Your Advertising Budget

Since most social media platforms have paid advertising options, many agency-proposed management plans will include an allocated ad budget within your monthly rate. If your SMM doesn’t offer this convenience, however, its recommended that you decide on a maximum monthly ad budget beforehand and take it into consideration alongside the proposed management fee. Most social ads run on what’s known as a “maximum cost-per-click” basis, meaning that you’ll only pay if and when someone actually clicks through to your website or respective social environment. SMMs are experts and maximizing the strength and reach of your budget, even if its a modest one, so don’t be afraid to play with different amounts on a month-to-month basis to see what works and what doesn’t.

1. It Gets You Found 

Simply put, SEO is a great way to get your business found on the world wide Web. Your website is often your first point of contact with users but, if no one knows you exist, it’s difficult for them to find you in the first place. Why wouldn’t you want to rank high in the search results? Simply being visible on Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines gets your name out there, contributes positively to traffic and lead generation, and attracts potential business of all kinds.

2. It Offers a Measurable Return on Investment

Proper SEO is an investment. It may seem costly and complicated right off the bat, and it doesn’t happen overnight, but the ROI is more than worth it. The higher your company appears in the search results, the more likely users are to click on the link that takes them to your website. The higher the number of visitors, the higher the number of conversions – which means more business for you. Good things come to those who wait.

3. On-Page is Great Advertising

Title tags and meta descriptions are the blurbs that accompany your website link in search engine results. Can’t picture it in your head? Type Yabsta Digital, or another company name, into Google and hit enter. The title tag is situated directly above the link itself and reads “Yabsta Digital: Digital Solutions, Web Marketing & Design.” The meta description below reads “Yabsta is a full digital marketing agency offering needs-based web presence solutions for individuals, businesses and organizations of any size.” SEO allows you to strategically craft this information to not only advertise what your business offers but also include relevant, important keywords. This lets users know what you’re all about before they click and, even if they don’t, they might remember you next time.

4. It Builds Trust and Authority

Take a second to think about the links that appear in the pages of search results. While it stands to reason that there are thousands of great companies online for any given industry, the ones that appear in the first few pages of results are viewed as more authoritative, credible and trustworthy. Not only that but, done right, the title tags and meta descriptions mentioned in number 3 communicate your brand and marketing concept directly to users searching for products, services and information related to your industry niche. Not convinced? According to Search Engine Watch, when it comes to the average search, the top position in Google gets 33% of all search traffic, with the first page of results getting 92% of all traffic. That right there is reason enough to embark on the SEO journey.

So if you’ve been wondering why SEO is beneficial, the proof’s in the pudding. A crucial component of online marketing, it allows Google to understand and work with your business. Search engine optimization offers an incredible ROI, which includes driving traffic, advertising your goods to potential customers and boosting your brand via measures of trust and authority. With Google seeing over 100 billion searches per month, 12 billion of which are local, you simply can’t afford to ignore it.

Image Credits: Hi 5 Web Designs & Website Garage

1. Consider Your Visual Collateral

Images and video drive the web. If your business is image-oriented (eg. a wedding photographer, a fancy cake shop), you’ll want to choose web platforms that accentuate your visual collateral to sell products or services. Your website should act as a central hub, while your various social media and blog posts should be strategically peppered with bold imagery that draws people back to the site. If you’re in a more traditionally “boring” non-visual field (eg. oil refinement, stock trading), this won’t be as big as an issue. Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram are 3 examples of social platforms that heavily accentuate the visual, whereas others like Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ tend to play it down in favour of putting the focus on written content.

2. Choose Your Social Media Accounts Wisely

Some businesses who embrace social media, particularly smaller ones, make the mistake of starting too many different accounts across multiple platforms without properly maintaining them. Sure, it’s great to have active, regularly-updated presences on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest, but if you aren’t in a position to put the time and effort into maintaining them on a scheduled basis, they’ll remain stagnant and give the impression that your business is lazy and inconsistent. Unless you have a dedicated full-time social media manager, stick to the one or two social platforms (in addition to your website) that you’re most comfortable with and commit to a few posts per week on each.

3. Cross-Post Strategically

Once you’ve settled on the web environments that suit your business best, develop a plan for how best to spread your message across all of them without sounding appearing overly repetitive or self-promotional. For example, if you’re working with Facebook, Twitter and a Blog, segment your content accordingly to appear constantly fresh: maybe a blog post one day, a Facebook post the next day and a series of Tweets linking to your blog post and websit the next. Keep the messaging consistent so that there’s no confusion, and ensure that your branding/logo is uniform. You can even promote your Facebook posts on Twitter and vice versa.

If you feel that all this is over your head, there’s no shame in hiring a professional to manage your web presence, but ensure that you enlist the services of a reputable organization. There are thousands of supposed “web marketing professionals” out there who are quick take your money, yet will offer very little support once they’ve closed the sale. A successful online marketing campaign plan requires consistent, ongoing support to come to fruition, and at the end of the day, your business deserves the best online representation it can afford.

Image Credit: Daily Mobile