If you’re struggling to come up with ideas of what to write about on your blog, Facebook page or newsletters, try using these seasonal ideas to get you started. You can use each one more than once, e.g. refer to Valentine’s Day before, during and after the day itself.

Here are some seasonal suggestions: New Year, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Easter, Spring, Father’s Day, Summer holidays, New school year, Halloween, Guy Fawkes, Christmas.

Some industries have their own seasonal topics, e.g. Financial institutions have the end of the tax year, the government budget, etc.

You can also use national days such as St Patricks or St George’s day, or awareness days like Earth Day, Fair Trade Fortnight or International Women’s Day. There are hundreds if you do a search for them, so chances are you’ll find at least a couple that you can use for your business.

Fashion, retail and the beauty industry will find it easy to associate various celebrations with their products, but even if the seasons don’t relate directly to your services, you can usually still find a way to build a discussion around them. For example recruitment agencies can use the New Year to talk about career goals, Valentine’s Day to discuss finding a job you love and Halloween to talk about facing your fears when job hunting.

You don’t need to be rigid about sticking to the themes, just take the ones that work for you, or use them when you’re stuck for other ideas.

Social media is increasingly important for the holiday industry.  In fact for most people this is probably their first experience of social media.  I'm talking about reviews, who doesn't check out what other people have been saying about the hotel or holiday company that they are looking to book with.  Websites like http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ and http://www.holidays-uncovered.co.uk/ have long been a point of reference for those looking to go away.  In fact if you are a provider in the holiday industry then you need to be looking to social media as a way of managing your company's reputation online pretty sharpish.  What better form of feedback than to find out what people are saying about you on these review sites or social networks like twitter.  People are expecting you to be monitoring these portals and taking this feedback and using it to improve your business.

This is relevant for any service provider in this industry, even those originally aimed at the older market such as cruise company's.  The over fifties is the largest demographic of online users so it would be foolish to assume that this age group are not internet savvy.  They are also one of the few age groups at the moment that have the kind of disposable income to allow them to travel when many others are tightening their belots, bringing up their families.


In fact booking a holiday couldn't be easier now, you can research, compare, book and then manage your booking very easily.  With the online sites that are now available people are given much more freedom and arean't reliant on purspose built package holidays like they once were.  If they want to change the flights, book a hire car, stay and extra night or book multiple hotels and travel, then the internet can offer all of this whilst offering the kind of cost saving that you often cannot get with your local high street travel agent.

As a service provider you are forced to become at the top of your game, offerin great service and value for money, because if you don't not only will it be plastered all over the web, but people will start to look to your competitors to make that booking, even if it is a slighly higher price.  

If you take the time to write a good article, there are plenty of things you can do with it to get the most out of your effort. Here are just some suggestions:

Add it to your website – if you have a section for articles you can add it there, otherwise you can add it as a content page anywhere on the website that makes sense.

Post it on your blog – you can either add it as a blog post or, if you have already added it elsewhere on your website, you can add a short introduction and link to it from your blog.

Get it published – your articles can be submitted to article directories and ezines where others can access them for publishing elsewhere (with a link back to your website of course). Bear in mind that you probably don’t want to publish exactly the same article on your website as you submit to article directories – if you’ve already added it to your website, rewrite it to make it a little different before allowing others to publish it.

Add it to your newsletter – whether you send out a printed or email newsletter, it’s a great idea to include an informative article in it, to encourage recipients to open and read it.

Use social media to promote it – post a link back to the article on your website or blog from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and whatever other social media you engage in. Add it to your RSS feed too.

Finally, once you’ve written a good number of articles you can put them together and publish them as an ebook, which you can offer as a free gift to newsletter subscribers, etc.

By making your article accessible from a number of different places, you can ensure that it gets read by as many people as possible, which after all is exactly what you wrote it for.

Internet Marketing is a combination of all of your marketing efforts using the online world.  The advent of the internet has changed the way that businesses market themselves, no longer do we need to rely on interruption or push based marketing.  Now, strangely enough people are actively looking for you at a point in time when they are in the buying process.  Because of this being visible in search engines for the right key phrases is essential.  If you are a vet in Gloucester for example, then you want to make sure that when someone types in 'vet in Gloucester' into a search engine that your business appears in the first handful of listings.  

What you also need to ensure however is that when those people searching then click onto your listing and take a look at your website that you have a solution that converts.  By that I mean a site constructed in such a way that when someone gets to a page they take the action that you want them to take, whether that be a phone call, make an online purchase, send an email etc...  If your website doesn't do that, then spending budget on search marketing is not going to help you get customers.

If you have a site that works well and have just embarked on a search marketing campaign you may want to do a combination of things.  Start with SEO and paid search to drive traffic to your website, what we often find works well it’s to start off with a higher budget in paid search and then as your SEO efforts start to work, you can reduce your PPC budget accordingly, or you may want to keep it the same to see even more sales!

Combine the more traditional search marketing techniques with social media and content marketing, make sure you have a blog as it's the easiest way to engage with your audience and also keep your website up to date with information and as a bonus you will be adding additional content.  We all know how much search engines love new content!  Use articles, social blogging and social networks to get your business in front of a as large an audience as possible, this way you will help to become known as the expert in your field, drive traffic to your website and hopefully also gain some referrals too.

Once you have your clients, you need to keep in touch with them.  What better way than email marketing, I’m talking about permission based emails here and not spam - we HATE spam!!  Keep your clients informed on what is happening in your business, how you can benefit them, up sell your products and services and again drive traffic to your website.

Lastly, measure, measure, measure, the boring bit for some of you but understanding the results of your marketing efforts will help you make better decisions about how to move it forwards.  If you are making no profit from PPC and you are performing well organically, don't waste your money.  But how can you tell unless you analyse what is happening.  How can you improve if you don't understand how people engage with your business online?  

This, my friends is an incredibly brief overview of what an internet marketing campaign should look like, deep breath and relax.  Please, please, please email through any questions.

When it comes to writing articles, blog posts or any type of content that involves sitting down and putting pen to paper for more than a few minutes, it’s easy to put it off and leave it for ‘later’. We make all sorts of excuses why we can’t do it now, and it ends up never getting done. Here are the top three excuses we tend to make, and the reasons why they aren’t valid:

1.    I don’t have time to write

Time is always the number one excuse made for not doing something, but quite often we overestimate how much time we actually need to write an article or blog post. Provided you don’t need to do too much research you can probably allocate roughly 30 minutes to write 300 words, which isn’t excessive. Most of us waste that amount of time just making coffees!

Even if you find it takes you double this long, just schedule an hour into your day and get on with it. Allocating a specific time and day on your calendar will help you to stop procrastinating and you can feel wonderfully smug when it’s done.

2.    I don’t know what to write about

It can be difficult coming up with new and interesting topics to write about over and over again, but there are ways to make it easier. Rather than trying to come up with a new topic each time you write, why not set aside an hour one day just to brainstorm topics? Experiment with different ways to search and browse the internet, like StumbleUpon or Google’s Wonder wheel, to generate ideas. If you’re worried about wasting too much time, set a timer to buzz when your hour is up and see how many ideas you can come up with in that time.

I keep a list in Word with a variety of possible topics, so when I sit down to write I can just pick one and start writing. Some of these are from brainstorming sessions, and others are just new ideas that came to me when I was out and about or surfing the internet.

3.   I've got more important things to do

All the other excuses we make are probably based on this one. If you’re not convinced that writing regular blog posts, articles or website content is important, then it’s unlikely you’ll ever make it a priority. Perhaps write yourself a list to stick on your pin board to remind you why you need to do this. If you don’t know why, then perhaps you need to find out more about it. Once you realise the benefits of content marketing and blogging, there should be no stopping you!

When it comes to marketing our business or products we want everyone to hear our message, and usually we do everything we can to get it out there. Sometimes, though, it’s more important to listen first.

If there’s one thing that the social media explosion has taught us, it’s that people like to interact and to be heard. Everyone is sharing everything, from what they had for breakfast, to their plans for the weekend and of course any good or bad experiences they’ve had. Suddenly there’s a place for them to vent their frustration with awful customer service, or let their friends know about the great new product they’ve just bought.

This is why businesses need to get into the habit of listening. Social media offers us a great opportunity to get the sort of customer feedback and opinions that would usually cost a lot of money to gather up. Make sure you’re monitoring what people are saying about your business, or figure out why they’re not saying anything at all.

Even if what you hear isn’t positive, you still have the perfect opportunity to respond in a sympathetic and personal way. Sometimes it’s enough just for a customer to get an apology, but if not, at least you’ll have the chance to put things right, and others will see how you respond too. Every business makes mistakes, but it’s how you deal with them that makes the difference, and keeping abreast of what people are saying about you helps you do that in the right way.

So next time you’re on Facebook, Twitter, your blog or even a forum, make sure you’re taking the time to listen to what current and potential customers are saying and then use that information to build a better business. Social media marketing is as much about listening as it is about promotion.

A number of television stations including the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 have set up ‘Project Canvas’ to discuss Internet TV.  The service will allow consumers to access on demand TV by using set top boxes. 

This will allow consumers to get TV without having to subscribe to more costly solutions such as Sky or Top Up TV.  On demand TV is definitely where the future of television is, with many already ‘recording’ their favourite TV programmes through Freeview and Sky + and watching them at their leisure.  This movement is just an extension of that, enabling people to choose when they watch TV.

The impact this will have to TV advertising is going to be interesting, as many are able to fast forward through adverts now or choose to use this time to make a cuppa, the future of traditional TV advertising hangs in the balance.

Advertisers are going to have to look at new ways to get their marketing messages across, we already know that many are boycotting more traditional forms of advertising in preference to the digital world, this step will further shake up many companies marketing efforts.

The benefits to the consumer are enormous, I mean, who wouldn’t prefer to watch their favourite programmes when it suits them.  Personally, I often record programmes just so that I don’t have to sit through the adverts and I’m sure I’m not the only one.  There is talk of increasing sponsorship of TV programmes and although this has become more popular, they will have to be cleverer with regards to when they display the sponsorship messages as often they are just before and after an advert break. 

You know you need to get an article written this week as well as a blog post, not to mention remembering to update your Facebook page and do some tweeting, but just thinking about getting it all done (again) makes you want to run away screaming. Before you do that, try some of these tips for being more efficient in your content and social media marketing.

Firstly, keep a list of potential article and blog ideas handy. Whenever a topic occurs to you, or you receive an interesting email or link worth discussing, make a note of it. That way, when you sit down to write you can just pick up one of the ideas and get going right away, rather than wasting half of your time trying to think of something to write about.

I’d also recommend writing several blog posts or articles in a row. Getting started writing is often the hardest part, but once you’re on a roll it’s easier to keep going. Don’t just publish them all at once though. If your software permits you can add the articles or blogs all at once, but schedule them to go out at regular intervals; otherwise just keep them typed up ready to add when they’re due.

You can apply the same principles to your social media updates. Provided the subjects aren’t time sensitive you can keep a list of ideas and links to share when you have time. Also make use of services like ping.fm that allow you to send the same update to several different places, so for example you can post to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn simultaneously.

Doing things in ‘chunks’ does make you a lot more efficient. If you schedule separate time for research, time for writing and time for actually adding the content, you’ll find you spend a lot less time on it than if you start from scratch for each post.

Brand Management Online Matters

The growth of social media has meant that managing your reputation online has become more complicated. Gone are the days when you went for a meal, had bad service and told a few friends, who in turn might think twice about visiting that particular restaurant.

Nowadays, same restaurant, same meal and then have a good old moan on Facebook or Twitter and let your 100’s of friends / 1000’s of followers know about it.

Add to this that in many cases your view of that meal in that restaurant becomes a permanent online review of that particular restaurant. This of course all means that I’m likely to come across that ‘review’ of the restaurant if I am searching for somewhere to eat and use the right search terms e.g. name, location etc.

So what should you do if you come across negative views of your business in social media?

Simple steps to repair your image online

React – Don’t wait for the complaints and negative comments to build up. When you come across some negative comments about your business, do something about it immediately. The reality is that if someone can see that your response to a ‘complaint e.g. on a forum was posted the same day, it gives the message that a) you care, and b) you are on the ball when it comes to customer service. It is important to you. If the issue is an ongoing issue, then at the very least give an update explaining the status, even if there is no progress

Apologise – Whether you think you have made the error or not, your customer felt strongly enough about ‘something’ to say what they said.  If you take the tension out of the situation from the start by offering an apology then the way is clear to start repairing the relationship.

Make up for it – If you got it wrong and you find out about it online, you react, you apologise and then you make amends. You need customers. In the same way the unhappy customer tweets and posts to say you were awful, so they will when you are exceptional and put things right.

Finally practice what you preach. If you make a big deal on your site of ‘great customer service’, ‘best in class product’, ‘fantastic prices’, as do 99% of websites out there, then live up to your promise.

It really is as simple as that to manage your reputation online.

A website designer traditionally was someone that can up with a nice looking website that fitted in with your corporate branding.  Usually with a design background and often a design agency that has spread it’s wings to leverage the advent of digital media.  The only problem with this is that they often do not understand internet marketing and if you do not know how to market businesses online then you will ultimately end up with a pretty website that does nothing for your business.

You have to go back to basics and think about your ultimate aim for your website, is it lead generation, do you want someone to buy a product online, do you want to provide information to existing clients?  Once you understand your overall strategy you can start to understand why your website needs to be designed to convert your visitors rather than just look nice.  By conversion I mean make them do the things that you want them to do when they visit your website.

Once you have a website that delivers, next you need to make sure that you get as many visitors to your site as you can.  A website designer is not necessarily going to have the skills or experience to help you in this area.  You need to work with someone that understands how search engines work and can work towards getting your website high rankings for those things that your target market are looking for.  Whether this be through organic rankings or through PPC is something you can work out with an internet marketing consultant as every market is different.

You also need to embark into the world of social media, whether you want to or not, it’s no longer something you can ignore.  Social media is a large and complex subjects and one which I am not going to detail here, but the aim of it is to enhance your SEO program, increase brand awareness, build relationships and gain referrals.  Ultimately you want to be seen as the expert in your field so that when someone visits your website, they already have trust in what you do.

So if you still think you need a website designer rather than and internet marketing consultant, then good luck to you.  You will get exactly what you paid for and end up with a lovely looking site that’s about as useful as a fly (I mean, what are flies for anyway? Does anyone know?)