Facebook’s Little Advertising Shell Game: Why You Should Do More Than Boost Post

By on   /   Blog, Education and Training, Industry News, Interactive Media, Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Strategy  
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It’s tempting. There it is, click it. “Boost Post.” – C’mon, BOOOOOOOST IT…  Everyone is doing it. I triple-dog dare you! Or… should you take the leap with bigger Facebook Advertising strategies? Yes, it’s the Facebook Advertising one-click answer – like peer-pressure. In one simple click, you purportedly get a “boost” to your business post; promising more eyes, more action, and more customers.  But if you’d paid attention to recent changes on Facebook, you would have witnessed the “Business Management” interface updates as well as the focus put on actual Facebook Advertising through the platform. Considering the abundance of recent

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VIDEO: Quick SEO Tips for Speedy Ranking Success

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Are there SEO tips for better search rank that actually work? For a lot of marketers, search engine optimization (SEO) is a mystery. From small businesses looking to make a bigger impact through SEO to mega-corporations doing their best to dominate search position, just HOW to achieve better search rank in Google, Bing and other search engines is often a challenge. SPOKE Communications works with clients to achieve the best success possible through content marketing strategies and organic search engine optimization. We’ve seen some tremendous successes as well as experienced the challenges mentioned above, but through some tried-and-true SEO practices,

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3 Simple Tips for Making Your Email Marketing Campaigns Better

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‘Tis the season for pointless Email … Email Marketing! Email, email everywhere, but not a click to link… Okay that sounded better in my head… We have a love/hate relationship with email. Marketers love it for it’s economy, it’s simplicity and it’s tracking potential. Consumers love it for about a day and then get irritated when their in-boxes are swamped with “Awesome Offers” and “Amazing Deals!”  Marketers and business owners also wring their hands and fret over each and every email they send, wondering, “What do I write about next?” or “Does it say the right thing,” or “…make the

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Website Redesign – Finding Opportunities Where You Least Expect Them

By on   /   Blog, Brand Marketing, Branding, Design, Interactive Media, Marketing, SEO, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, SPOKE News, Spoke Portfolio, Strategy  
website redesign west des moines

We normally don’t feature client work in the blog, but we’re really excited for the Website redesign we just finished, and we consider the process we took for this client one of the most important learning experiences we’ve had in a long time.  When it comes to Website Design, you may find opportunities where you least expected. {The Client} hadn’t asked for the site updates nor did we expect to just walk in with a project and have the client say “Sure, we’ll spend some money with you! What the hell?” Canine Craze Performance Center, a professional dog training and

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Facebook’s Graph Search Just Made Content Marketing More Powerful

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If you missed the announcement, today, Mark Zuckerberg of FaceBook introduced a new search query function for Facebook called Graph Search. In a nutshell, Graph Search gives the search option in Facebook more of an honest “query-style” approach – wherein it will search for your specific terms as usual, but also suggest related results based on varying degrees of separation between your query and the related returns. So, from a content marketing standpoint, if you have been strategically building relevant content through your posts on and to Facebook, Facebook’s Graph Search just made your content marketing more powerful! From NBCNews.com:

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How to Control Your Facebook Page Feed

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So, we’ve been asked about the news feed on Facebook and how to assure that the pages you “Like” are showing on your wall. While it’s a simple fix, Facebook has certainly gone through some extensive efforts to make it confusing to the “general” user… Once you “Like” the page, you’ll see their posts on your wall for a short time, but if you do not engage for a period of time, Facebook’s programming assumes you’re no longer interested and takes it from your wall. This DOES NOT mean you no longer “Like” the page, but that Facebook thinks the

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Use Video To Generate Interest In Your Brand

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A client asked me the other day, because I work quite a bit in video, if I encouraged others to use video to generate stronger interest in their brand.  Generally… YES.  But why? At the time, I couldn’t give him a definitive answer. I use many sources to create interest in the brands I manage, so to single out video made it difficult to communicate the sole benefit to their brand. Eventually, the conversation diverted to other topics, but I just couldn’t forget the question. So, out of curiosity, I clicked on the YouTube link on one of that customer’s

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Leadership & Parenting: “Just Do Your Best?”

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My parents told me, from kindergarten through college as well as all of my years in competitive sports, “Just do your best,” and with that, I went on into the world a “fairly well-adjusted, happy kid.” I never quite excelled in school. I never quite excelled in sports. Sure, I was a good student and student-athlete, but was “good” really my best? Just do your best? While I love my parents, I have to say it was a mistake to tell me (an incredibly insecure, sensitive, creative child) to “Just do your best.” Think about it.  What are the benchmarks?

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VIDEO: What Are You Willing To Give Away?

By on   /   Blog, Brand Marketing  

What is it that you’re willing to GIVE AWAY to help build your brand? Branding isn’t necessarily about you, nor is it even about making money (although that helps). Sometimes building a brand less about what you get and more about what you give. Giving part of your brand is a piece of the marketing puzzle that Michael Hyatt talks about in his book, “Platform” and he illustrates this technique wonderfully at his blog, www.MichaelHyatt.com.  Here is a prime example: “7 Reasons To Buy My New Book” From my perspective, if you receive permission from your target audience to GIVE

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