M3L08: Other tools for external communication

  1. Programming of publications

To be able to create a digital strategy, my strategy has to be integrated and coherent and above all digital. 

The strategy is the steps that will take me to a certain objective.

Once I have defined my objective: “Disseminate my candidacy for jobs related to the sector that interests me to get hidden offers” the recommended steps to follow in my strategy will be:

  • Sunday– Write my blog or video content. Write two posts in approximately 30 minutes.
  • Monday-Search Twitter for hashtags from my sector and the like and follow them. Find things on Pinterest that I like in my industry and “pin” them on my board. Read articles of interest or blogs relevant to my activity. Jot down ideas, things I like, etc.
  • Tuesday– Post yesterday’s blog post on Linkedin about my video on the YouTube channel “My know-how” and share on twitter.
  • Wednesday– Publish an article on a trend or professional of interest in my sector on my blog. Tweet it and share it on Linkedin.
  • Thursday– Make a promotion on Facebook or a contest to generate community, tweet it and share it on Linkedin.
  • Friday– Comments on blogs, forums, follow followers, retweet, respond to mentions or private messages via networks. Once a month, highlight or promote a follower for something.

Google Calendar is integrated with my Gmail email and is available as an app. In addition, the Google calendar is one of the most used tools due to its simplicity and its integration into all operating systems, including iOS, and of course it can be used in its desktop version or in the client for Windows and macOS.

As you will see, the work is constant and periodic, you should not leave anything aside. Social networks allow you to schedule messages and publish them on a certain day, in order to save time, you can schedule all messages at once on the same day.

If you haven’t gotten overwhelmed yet and keep reading, we have good news. Everything (or almost) can be automated through your blog and your social networks, using this no code tool like IFTT.

This tool, for example, allows you to schedule posts on social networks automatically. For example, if you publish a new entry on your blog, it can be automatically published on your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc… It has many other advanced features, especially if you have a blog and want to interconnect absolutely everything.

  1. Meta Ad Manager 

Meta Ads Manager is great for: 

  • Setting up Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns
  • Creating new ad sets.
  • Manage Facebook ad bids. and Instagram
  • target many different audiences.
  • Optimize your advertising campaigns.
  • Keep track of the performance of your campaigns.

Do you want to learn how to use ads in your digital marketing? Learn how to use Meta Ad Manager in the following tutorial:

VIDEO TUTORIAL

Now you…

Activity: Before posting an ad, reflect on the following questions:

  • Identity: Does it relate to your brand and does it effectively showcase your product/service? Are the logo and business colors displayed correctly?
  • Reward: What does your audience get from it? Is it a promotion, an offer code, a downloadable document…?
  • Tone– Does your content maintain the same tone throughout your Facebook Page or business in general?
  • Action: What is your call to action? What do you expect your audience to do and how does it relate to your goals? 
  1. email marketing 

If you create a website or a blog, you need to create a database of emails from your followers, to send them periodic notices of your latest publications, your new services, etc. WordPress has plugins that you can install on your website, but we recommend that you start with MailChimp

It is an application to manage email marketing and send newsletters. It is free for up to 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 shipments/month. 

VIDEO TUTORIAL:

  1. SEO and SEM: Keywords for my website

Recovered from: Social Mirror

This part is known as SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and it is a whole world to discover and to which you have to be very attentive to focus your website well. Using SEO techniques, tools and strategies helps them find your website more easily. You already know that if you don’t appear on the first page of Google you don’t exist. Without going too deep, we recommend these tools:

  • Google Adsis Google’s advertising platform. Within it, there is a tool called “Keyword Planner” where you can explore the most searched words on the internet and put filters on them.
  • Google Trendsis a tool that allows you to search for words and compare them with each other, especially highly searched terms. It does not work for very specific keywords of specific market niches.
  • WooRank allows you to analyze your web page and advise you on aspects of SEO improvement.
  1. Create a blog/ WordPress

VIDEO Tutorial (please activate the English subtitles)

Depending on your project, it will be interesting to host the content in a blog-type web site.

A blog is a free website where you can periodically post content in the form of short articles called posts. Posts are sorted by publication date. Your most recent article will appear first. A blog can become a website and a website can also have a blog section. The difference will be in how you organize the information.

Opening a blog allows you to create “post” in which I can tell how I do my profession, describing my “know-how” with videos, trends in my sector, or even “linking” to other blogs of interest in the sector. The blog can be thematic or professional, there are also personal ones but in this pill, that is not our mission.

For example, if your profession is related to trades (building maintenance and renovations, hairdressing and aesthetics, gardening, cooking, etc…), this is a very interesting way to tell at a professional level how you do a job, what your style is and that your followers can consult what you do or think.

It is also interesting if you are a teacher, or a free time entertainer, facilitator, caregivers, in order to be able to nurture your blog with your personal brand.

We recommend creating it in WordPress. The first step is to create a WordPress account (https://wordpress.com/es/)

You can choose between blog (to express options, share creations) or professional portfolio (web type) You

  • choose the category of the blog or include a new example : shoe shop
  • A screen will open as a Preview of your blog in web format or for mobile/Tablet (then you can continue customizing it)
  • Give your blog a name that is easy to remember, that has a hook.
  • Choose the free mode in the plan offer. You’re always in time to upgrade to Premium when you’re interested.
  • To create the content of the blog we will start by updating the home page (20 minutes approx) and we will follow the steps that are indicated, making a short description (2 minutes) and confirming the email address.

In the menu on the right we can choose:

  • Pages. Here we will see our activity: published, deleted in draft, etc.
  • Entries: here we will include each of the posts that we want to publish. To make an entry, click on “add new entry” the entry can be a short text or include videos or photos or images, with a title that summarizes the publication. Once you have all this content prepared, you can upload it and comment on it or describe it in your blog posts. The images, audios, videos and documents are uploaded to the Media section.
  • Feedback– You can engage with your potential customers or vendors. Enable comments and seek to give the most convincing professional answer.
  • Design tools: You can customize the home page and posts with free templates. 

You have other alternative tools to create a website, although for us the best is WordPress, because if your web project is going to grow, the alternatives that we are going to mention are going to be too small right away:

  • Google Sites: From your own Gmail account you can create a web page, very easy to use and with a template even to post your CV online.
  • Wix: is another platform with templates to create websites very easily.
  1. Design tools 
  • Canva: Canva is the simplest and most intuitive tool that you can use to design your blog, insert images, infographics, design the header, etc… It offers numerous templates and formats for each type of communication you want to carry out. Here is a tutorial: 

VIDEO TUTORIAL (please activate the subtitles in English)

  • Adobe Photoshop: tool used to edit photography as well as create images. You can add lights and special effects, use filters on your photos and even generate 3D images. It is a paid tool, but it can be profitable if you integrate it into your digital marketing.
  • ProCreate: also paid, ProCreate the artist’s tool par excellence. With ProCreate you can illustrate with your ipad using more than 200 types of brushes, with a multitude of different textures, using a layer system. This application saves the sequences of each stroke, so that a timelapse can be made with all the steps. In addition, it has a function to make animations (GIF type), among other things. Do you dare to unleash your creativity?
  • Adobe Illustrator: like the previous tools, Adobe Illustrator is also paid. The main difference with ProCreate is that Adobe Illustrator allows you to generate vector drawings without many designs by hand.
  • High quality icon finder Iconfinder.com
  • To reduce the weight of photos imagecompressor.com
  • QRHacker: Creation and customization of QR codes or Bidi codes.
  • Free image banks: Pexels.com
  • Make silhouettes of photos, very useful if you want to remove the background of your CV photo or edit it: Remove.bg 

Create a YouTube account

channel A YouTube channel is a type of television on the Internet where videos made by people from all over the world on a personal, professional or thematic basis are hosted. It includes live broadcasts and the possibility of conducting Google+ Hangouts live.

It is the second most visited website in the world, after Facebook. It is the second most used search engine after google. It is the new source of learning among the new millennial-type generations.

Like the blog, the video channel can make us gain visibility in our personal brand. We can create videos on different platforms such as YouTube (the best known), Vimeo, etc.

The professional videos of interest for our job search application can be:

  • to expose our professional portfolio (videos of how we do our work) 
  • videos about interviews with professionals 
  • video presentations about our candidacy or
  • video tutorials on topics to learn in our profession (skills, tools to use).

For the reasons stated above, we will focus on YouTube. To create a YouTube channel, we need to register an account in Gmail.

Once created, a menu will appear on the left with different options.

  • I go to the right to My profile and click on Creator Studio I
  • click on Create a channel (to be able to upload the videos)
  • I give the channel a “name” and I can create a commercial or brand name.
  • We already have the channel created by clicking on Create.
  • I go to “Videos” in the menu on the left and there are no videos uploaded.
  • In Panel, all the entries, comments, suggestions, etc…
  • I click on Add design to channel: I can modify the design of my channel, including an image or icon and personalizing it by clicking on the edit pencil.
  • In the menu on the right above, click on the “Download” icon to upload the videos.
  • I select the multimedia files to upload (Import videos either from my PC or from my drive, etc.) in public or private mode.
  • Or I can directly make a live broadcast by clicking on Live Broadcast.

Finally, it is also convenient here that you use Canva to lay out a bit of the channel, the header, the thumbnails of the videos, etc.