Business Growth Time

Dan Mazzini - Founder: Hashtagify.me Dan is  the founder of CyBranding Ltd. He started this to follow up on the success of his website hashtagify.me. His goal is to make it easier for real innovators to get noticed - and create a valuable brand - without needing tons of money or having to resort to black-hat tactics. After a few months of working on CyBranding part time, since September 2013 he is now working on it full time. In this interview we get a full demo of how hashtagify.com works.  Being that the demo is visual, you may want to choose to watch via video over listening on podcast.

Here's what Dan discussed with us in this interview:

• Started Hashtagify while still in day job and now is full time in this business
• What if you are not familiar with hashtags? How to understand hashtags?
• Hashtags originally came from chat rooms
• Hashtagify is a hashtag search tool
• Full detailed demo of how to use Hashtagify

Dan's tip to take action in the next 24 hours:

1st: Make a list of the top keywords related to your subject

2nd: Start searching for the hashtags for these words on Hashtagify.me.

3rd: Find top hashtags in your field. Find the top rated ones and make a list of these from specific to less specific.

4th: Use one or two of the top hashtags you found the next time you tweet, G+, Instagram, etc.

5th: Find top influencers using the same hashtags. Create connection with them.

Points we discussed in this interview with Tim: Tim started his career back in the Army Major changes with video in the past 20 years Importance of video in social media Social media is rocket fuel for more views on your videos A sample video content marketing strategy - What assets do you have already? Tell your story and define your audience Titles to videos in the way customers would ask the question (how-to) Remember, YouTube is a search engine Measure video effectiveness with analytics tools: Brightcove, Wistia Small businesses need to just make sure the quality is good Types of cameras: Smartphones can work. Sound is what is so important. Title and Description of video on YouTube is critical! First thing is description should be website. Add captions to with keywords to your videos Add annotations (clickable hot links) Facebook videos vs YouTube videos - how to post You can turn off videos at end of yours that pop up When embed, use right aspect ratio Pin each video to Pinterest Action Step you should take in the next 24 hours: Testimonial - Interview your best client. Get them talking about your business!

Here's what we discuss with Ravi in this interview: 

• Why a business should use Facebook?
• Advice on Facebook. It does work, but it is not something that happens overnight. It is a long-term plan.
• How to keep the reach up. #1 way is CONTENT.
• Showcase/Spotlight your customers
• What you can learn using your Facebook Insights
• Following Trends - Finding 'trending topics' on Facebook - How to use and why to use it
• Visual content in the form of images and videos is growing - Practical tips on how to do this
• Mobile and Apps
• Importance of website being mobile-optimized
• Facebook ads on mobile - using for targeting
• Using graph search to target ads - why and how to do this

Gary Kissel primarily focuses on using Linkedin to build his business and coaches others on how to use it too.