Are you thinking about starting a business in Port Coquitlam? We’ve gathered some resources to help you get started.

Visit the City of Port Coquitlam Website

The City of Port Coquitlam website is a great place to begin when thinking about starting a business in Port Coquitlam. The website has many resources that will help you, prior to ‘opening your doors’. Click here to visit the City of Port Coquitlam’s Starting a Business page.

Get to know the area… and your competition

If you don’t already live in Port Coquitlam or the Tri-Cities area, it is a good idea to spend some time in the city. This will allow you to get a sense of the successful businesses that are currently operating in the area – including businesses that you will be in competition with. If your business is going to have a store front, you can use this time to search out potential areas for your business to operate.

Create a Website and Social Media Pages

If you’re thinking about starting a business in 2016 – you MUST have a website and social media pages. There is a vast amount of competing businesses in Port Coquitlam and the surrounding areas.

In order to be discovered by potential customers online, you must have an experienced, knowledgeable online marketing company who will be able to optimize your website and social media pages for optimal rankings.

Your online marketing company should be able to:

Help your website gain top position in search result lists
Perform keyword research to discover vital search combinations for your business
Perform meta and title tag development
Establish HTML code optimization
Perform inbound link building

If this sounds like something that you will need help with, contact Longevity Graphics for a FREE 1-Hour Consultation. We specialize in working with local clients and helping them rank for their industry specific keywords.

Are you considering outsourcing your website design?

Below are some Pro’s and Con’s of hiring a local web designer vs. outsourcing your web design.

Pro’s of hiring a local web designer:

Personalized, one-on-one service
It’s easy to get in contact with your web designer if you have any questions
You know exactly who will be working on the design of your website and social media pages

Con’s of hiring a local web designer:

Well, we sure can’t think of any con’s!

Additional Resources

Sign up your business on the Shop PoCo BIZ Directory; Click Here
Join the Port Coquitlam Business Improvement Association (BIA); Click Here
Join the Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce; Click Here
Contact Longevity Graphics for a FREE 1-Hour Consultation to learn about the online marketing services they offer; Click Here

Social Media Marketing Summer Promotion from Longevity Graphics

Receive a FREE Social Media Audit and learn more about our Summer Social Media Marketing promotion.

Choose 5 Social Media Marketing Platforms and we will:

Setup
Optimize
Manage

your account.

$1250 $995/month

ACT NOW! Limited Availability

CALL: 604-505-8552 or EMAIL: [email protected]

Platform options: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, Google+, YELP, Trip Advisor, Just Eat, Zomato (Formally Urban Spoon)

Social Media Marketing Services:

Social Media Marketing Setup

We will setup and optimize 5 social media platforms of your choice. By implementing engaging visuals and optimizing all the tools available through the platforms, we will achieve results. A strategy will be developed to ensure a consistent follower growth and engagement with your audience.

Social Media Marketing Content Management

First and foremost, we will perform an analysis of your industry, competition and clientele base. From there, we will make recommendations for the best content, visuals, and times to reach your audience. We will implement these recommendations, which will maximize your influence and generate relevant leads.

Social Media Marketing Reporting

On an ongoing basis, our team will analyze the results and provide a report on a monthly basis. Upon analysis, we will create a summary of our findings, make necessary adjustments and recommendations to ensure optimal results on all platforms.

Don’t delay, take advantage of our social media marketing summer promotion and get started right away. Our team of local experts will work with you and help you deliver your message loud and clear. Get your FREE social media marketing audit today.

Longevity Graphics is located in Coquitlam, BC. We specialize in online marketing services as well as web design and web development. For a list of our services or customer testimonials, visit our website today. We offer a FREE one hour consultation.

In the last post “Pinterest…Pin Your Interests” emphasized on the importance of being visually stimulated. Once again we are going to continue to emphasize how important images are to every business, because we all know we like being visually stimulated.

This time, I am calling out all Iphone and Android owners to download Instagram if you have not already. Instagram has over 27 million users and have been purchased for 1 billion from Facebook. Instagram is a downloadable app and a social network that allows the users to take pictures, edit photos with different filters, and share it through Instagram. You can also share your pictures through Facebook or Twitter. Instagram works similar to Twitter, where you can use hash tags (#) so people can find your photos. In order to create conversations with people you can always use the ‘@username’ to directly create a conversation with someone.

So what makes photos such an important tool for marketing? Photos can be utilized within story telling. Story telling is the foundational strategy to developing and strengthening your brand. If you can tell a great story about your business through text, you can also create a story through images. Since taking photos are easy and instant, it is easier to share it with many people. HubSpot simply states it as “a great way for people to experience brands in a different way, and it elicits emotions that may not have been experienced through text alone.” Some big companies that are using Instagram to build their brand are: Starbucks, RedBull, Marc Jacobs, Tiffany & Co etc. When the big companies are using it, you know there is value to Instagram.

Instagram may or may not be your desired way to market your business, but depending on your business it can be very handy.

Ways to Instagram your Business:

1.) Day in the life of your company: Fans and customers are always curious what you do at work. They want to know what it’s like to work where you work.

2.) Company News: You can promote and advertise new blog posts, services and events on Instagram by taking a pictures of your new blog, or already made campaigns.

3.) Contests: There are fun ways to create contests on Instagram. You can always ask your fans to take a picture with your product and use a hash tag (#) on Instagram to get fans to participate in your contest.

4.) Events: If you create a hash tag (#) with your event. This can encourage people to take pictures and use that hash tag to spread the event pictures around.

So do some social media touch ups and use Instagram to strengthen your brand! Have fun Instagraming!

If you are all about visuals, Pinterest is the social media site to be on. It is a large social media platform that gathers everyone’s interests in one place. This is the perfect place to be if you want to know the current and up and coming trends. Their mission is to “connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting.”

Pinterest is beautifully organized by its pin-board/grid type layout which makes it visually stimulating.

Pinterest home page

It is easy to use and allows you to share your hobbies, interest, events and more. Pinterest provides you with a ‘pin it’ button to add to your bookmarks. This allows you to ‘pin’ any image, blog, or website directly onto Pinterest. You can also create different categories that suit your interests, plus you also have the option to share your ‘pins’ on Twitter or Facebook. Another cool and handy thing about Pinterest is that the images are a direct link to the original source.

Pin Board Categories

My experience with Pinterest has been more than awesome. I must say I’m pretty much addicted to it because I can find everything that I like on one site. What’s even better is that people are very active and supportive on Pinterest. My first ‘pin’ ended up getting more than 140 repins within less than an hour, 84 likes with more than 30 follows, in one day. I must say, it’s pretty liberating to see that people ‘repin,’ like and follow you because they also have the same interest.

Here are a few reason why you should use Pinterest?

Most people use it on a personal level. It is an archive for all your interests. It’s also a really good source for inspiration.
Businesses are now getting a hold of Pinterest and its social media marketing and SEO value

It’s great for crowd sourcing – encouraging your fans to create pins revolving around your products/brand
Great to promote certain giveaways or contests
Ability to drive traffic to your website by adding keywords and links in your description
By adding ‘pin it’ buttons on your website allows Pinterest users to automatically pin your website onto their Pinterest pin boards.

So, I suggest you get yourself started with Pinterest, explore and connect with people who are interested in the same things as you. For businesses, I suggest you to experiment with different strategies that can drive in new customers or traffic to your website. Pinterest allows room for you to be creative with your branding approach. Until next time, Go and PIN your INTEREST.

Maintaining your brand is important for every company. There are many social media platforms out there that give you the ability to connect with your target audience/customers. Your engagement is important to produce happy, stimulated, loyal and engaged customers.

When you begin to establish your social media presence, first thing first:

Community is important

Think about your community. Many big execs will always suggest keeping in touch with your community.
By knowing your community, you will know how to create an agenda that will be competitive and effective.
You can maintain your relationship with your customers by knowing what they want, what are the newest trends or what changes might be needed
Community is all about dialogue. Social media allows you to create dialogue through, sharing commenting, and discussing
A community needs authenticity. Social media users can notice inauthenticity. Create fun, meaningful conversations that will impact your customers

Second thing:

Content

Most important thing is to have fun and mean what you write. Don’t write something because you have to, but because you want to
Do not write something that isn’t relevant in your industry
Post relevant links. Readers are curious and always looking for new knowledge.
Incorporate fun contests that encourages participation

Some Social Media Sites to get your hands on:

Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
4Square
Instagram
Storify
Google +

There are other options, such as, SEO which will help expose your company, but imagine having both SEO and a strong social media presence together. Your brand and company will increasingly experience

For more check out: Check out 10 top Execs share their social media secrets

For all you social media addicts out there, Storify is another social media platform to add to your list. Storify is similar to Hoot Suite where you can organize all your social media, but Storify has one extra element than Hoot Suite. In Storify, you can create a story that will organize all of your social media platforms. How do you exactly create a story in Storify? Well, Storify is essentially like blogging but you have access to all your social media where you can implement certain Facebook comments, tweets, videos etc, into your blog directly.

The pros about Storify are:

You have all your content in one platform
You can develop a strong story and dialogue from your social media
Simple Editing tools similar to other blogging sites
Great for branding your company

The Cons:

There is a bit of lag time
It will take time to learn how to navigate

(but that’s not any different than learning the new Facebook timeline)

If you love to write and your social media seems a bit cluttered or unorganized, then Storify will help. I believe having a strong story attached to your 140 tweet or your Facebook statuses will have a bigger impact to your readers and followers.

Seeing hash tags (#), re tweets (RT) and a whole bunch of @usernames within twitter may seem confusing, so why is it there? It is there to create conversations on twitter. Here are tips and reasons why it is important to create a conversation on Twitter.

Research Hash Tags – You want to make sure you are targeting the right audience. Those who use the same hash tags are users who tweet about similar things. There is a possibility that these users can be your new followers.
Avoid Hash Tagging every word – It is hard to read and it doesn’t look aesthetically pleasing to users who are reading your tweet.
Read tweets from people you are following – This gives you the opportunity to re tweet users you are following to show that you are an active follower. They will appreciate your re tweet and will return the favour.
Read Tweets from your followers – By re tweeting your follower’s shows you’re an active user. They will continue to visit your twitter and will also return the favour.
Post interesting news or events – If you post interesting and relevant news, users will then re tweet you.
Add keywords to your tweets – Users use key words to search through twitter. If a user searches your relevant key word, you will show up in the searches.

Social media can help you with search engine optimization(SEO) because it creates exposure and can direct traffic to your website, although, it seems like a lot of work and dedication. Don’t feel discouraged if you don’t have the time. There are experts out there that can provide social media services and other SEO services so that will increase your companies exposure.

Twitter may seem like a sea of endless messages of only a 140 characters from millions of users however, if you can use it efficiently and strategically your tweets will be able to stand out. Twitter 101 will teach you the basics of the importance and the basic strategies to get you started on your twitter endeavours.

Twitter is a necessity for any business because it strengthens your brand. A strong brand will immediately draw your audience to your company. With twitter it increases the credibility and awareness of your business which will increase traffic and create new leads. All in all, it is a great tool to show off and promote your business. Although, in order to receive results it is important you are active. Your target audience wants to see that you are just as active as them. If you’re engaging with your audience, the connection will be stronger resulting into potential new clients.

So a few tips and tricks to start you off:

Do not recklessly add whoever you want on Twitter. Make sure you are following your target audience and build a network that will be interested in your business.
Try to keep your followers and people you are following a close enough ratio to each other. For example, if you are following 1900 people and your followers are only 700 you won’t be able to add people.
Create a catchy tag line for yourself and add your logo for your profile picture
Hash Tags are used to describe what your tweet is about. Eg. #word
Re Tweet aka RT @username. This is one way to engage with your audience, by starting a conversation
Implement your Twitter on your website

Alright, this seems like a lot of dedication and work for one person to do. Therefore you can hire people to do it for you. This is called Twitter Management. For example, here at Longevity Graphics we offer Twitter Management services. We monitor and maintain your Twitter account while you are free to concentrate on your business. So, don’t be afraid of Twitter, instead take the challenge and use Twitter to create a strong business.

Gaining Facebook Fans

If you build a Facebook Page, will fans come? This is the great hope for many businesses. However, fans do not magically appear from the Facebook mist.

Gaining Valuable Fans vs Fan Count

1.    Embed Widgets on Your Website
2.    Add to Your Email Signature
3.    Facebook Ads
4.    Run a contest
5.    Link to twitter
6.    Display at your store or business to encourage customers to checkin
7.    Add a link from your personal profile
8.    From time to time it’s okay to link your page from your personal profile with an @ symbol
9.    Make a compelling facebook welcome video
10. Upload lots of pictures (make sure to tag these pictures)
11.   Load Videos and embed them on your page

Converting Fans into Customers (understanding your fanbase)

Why are they a fan?
What are they looking for?
What are they expecting?
Solve customers’ problems
Funnel traffic to your website
Contests and coupon codes

Getting More Twitter Followers

Follow your competitors followers
Follow other experts in your industry
Follow people with lots of followers (trend setters)
Mention your new followers
Share exclusive deals
Retweet like mad
Include a follow me icon on your website
include your twitter account details in your email signature

Houtsuite

Setup multiple networks (facebook, twitter, linkedIn)
Team collaboration
Scheduled messages
Mobile apps
Custom analytics

Social Media News

Facebook Eye Tracking (profile pics, job titles)
Facebook Timeline