Improve your online efficiency

Social Media calendars help you to avoid scrambling. Sit back & relax knowing you have heaps of content planned on your accounts. This will also free up time to focus on other aspects of your businesses Marketing strategy.

Plan for multiple platforms in one place

A calendar allows you to plan for individual platforms instead of the same post on every Social Media account. Craft different messages for different platforms to improve engagement. The most obvious one is LinkedIn; ensure you post more curated thought leadership content instead of a generic post.

Track, plan, monitor & manage your strategy

Calendars allow you to track, plan and monitor what is working, what is not working, and you can tweak it accordingly as you are going along.

Reach more people

Using a calendar helps you reach a wider audience, plan content around events & holidays. Using these in the posts will help you reach a wider audience than a standard post.

One last thought...

It is great for businesses to be efficient and ensure they are on top of their Social Media strategy but there is still room for spontaneity. 

For those things that you never know may pop up that may be relevant to your business, customers and trends you can engage with keep a balance between planned and real. Customers want a business with a personality not just post after post.

This allows users to organise work as well as generate ideas. Simple to use, visually pleasing and ideal for growing ideas Trello is an easy to manage and maintain project management tool for SMEs.

Slack

One of the most recognised communication programmes Slack makes communicating to your team simple. Slack integrates with Dropbox, Salesforce and many more pieces of software and allows users to share files, ideas and conversations all in one place.

Join.me

Like GoToMeeting this allows users to set up meetings remotely wherever they are working and on any device. But Join.me also allows users to collaborate and share ideas with a whiteboard feature which can be used communally.

Asana

An all in one project management tool Asana is ideal tool to streamline your business. The software allows users to track, organise and manage work in one place. Focusing on productivity, Asana also can set up to do lists, targets, summaries and set reminders for any ongoing projects plus offering handy integrations with the previously mentioned Slack, Dropbox and many other integrations.

Ryver

This web-based app is identical to Slack in that it provides an easy way for your team to communicate and share files. Different teams with different viewing permissions can also be set up so users only see what is relevant to their project or role but what makes it stand out is it is in fact FREE of charge to sign up and use. Of course, it’s a Lite version and has it limitations but offers customers a cos- effective way to increase productivity.

ProWorkflow

Available both on the web and through a smartphone/tablet ProWorkflow offers flexibility and versatility in its software which makes it popular across many industries. Task management, time sheets, alerts are available alongside sharing and communicating tools for colleagues. What separates this from others is the interface is that it offers resource management as well as managing the workflows users plus it offers a GANT chart type display looking at project progress to ensure users hit any deadlines.

In Summary...

While there are lots of pieces of software out there, the majority offer free trials and live demonstrations which outline how they can be used alongside your business. 

Before you make any decisions, do your research, take your time and arrange for some of these to see which collaboration programme works best for your budget, its requirement and its specification.

1. Create/claim a Google my Business listing: Creating a listing for your business helps your business get found for local searches with minimum fuss. Google my Business provides customers a whole host of information including opening times, customer reviews, products and services you provide.

2. Add your business to credible online directories: Adding your business to relevant online directories such as Yell, Yelp etc is a straightforward way to ensure your business gets found online locally. Ensure these are kept, valid and up to date.

3. Ensure your website is indexed: Use Google Search Console to index your sitemap and ensure that Google bots scan your website. To check how many pages are indexed type site:yourwebsite.co.uk into Google.

4. Test your mobile site speed: There is a growing importance on  how websites perform on mobiles/smart devices. Speed is playing a larger part in determining how your site ranks, use Google Test My Site to check how your site performs, it will identify performance, areas to improve etc.

5. Make sure these is a page title in place: Ensure all your webpages have page titles in place describing what you do, these are the first thing Google bots scan on your page.

6. Use long tailed keywords: It would take a lot of time/effort to get found for terms like workwear, shirts, polo shirts etc so use longer keywords in your on-site content. For example, branded polo shirts, personalised workwear London etc.

7. Build content for people, not robots: You are garment decorators, print and embroidery enthusiasts. Write about your passion, your business, its products and services then hopefully it will naturally get picked up for many key terms. Often people write ‘out of shape’ content focusing on keywords which is not entirely customer friendly.

8. Create quality links: Inbound links are another thing to consider helping your page rank in search engines. Collaborate with customers, local schools, sports clubs, businesses and link back and forth to each other, creating an online shop/testimonials page is always a common method employed by garment decorators.

9. Start a blog: Create a blog for your customers sake, not for SEO purposes. Content Marketing at its finest, produce quality, relevant content frequently and Google will reward you. This can include things like latest news, case studies, latest news etc.

10. Encourage reviews: Ask customers to use Google reviews, this will help give your results more prominence in the search results.