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iMi Associates wishes you a very merry (and optimized) Christmas to you and your family!

I did a little digging in the archives to come up with an interesting infographic from Mashable.com about Facebook usage. This image and the stats quoted on it are from 2009, so the numbers quoted would be higher now. What astounds me is how local businesses have taken to using Facebook. As of the time of this infographic around 700 thousand pages for business had been created. Is your business represented in that statistic?

Most small business owners I have ever met are very generous people. They are good to their employees and that goodness manifests itself particularly at Christmas. It is rare for small business employees not to get something from their employers even if its only a modest gift card or a ham. In demonstrating their kindness to their employees, however, some small business owners fail to give something to themselves. This may sound a little selfish but there is absolutely nothing wrong with giving yourself a gift especially if that gift will greatly improve the future of your business. So in the spirit of giving I propose that there are three really crucial gifts that every small business owner should give themselves if they haven’t done so already.

Maybe there are a few of you out there who have tons of cash that you need to dispose of quickly. If that is your situation, then do exactly what I am about to tell you and you will find quick relief. If, however, you have tight budgets like the rest of us then make sure you avoid the following cash intensive and very inefficient marketing methods.

It is amazing how site owners and site visitors differ on how they judge the quality of a site. Without fail many site owners have a much higher opinion of the design of their site than the poor folks who have to visit it. As a site owner, you may think your site is saying “welcome, come on in,” when in fact it may be saying, “whatever you do, don’t visit our site.”

Internet marketers have known for a while that social media is a force to be harnessed and applied. What may not be as commonly known are the psychological factors that propel social media especially in respects to social commerce. The folks at tabjuice have created an infographic that explains social commerce psychology and how social media empowers satisfied customers to be influential sales channels. Armed with the following information, you can begin to see how using social media to generate leads is crucial.

At iMi, we are driven by our core values. They are not just a plaque on the wall. One of those 5 core values states that at iMi we are obsessed with getting talented and inquisitive employees and positioning them to be successful professionally. An example of our commitment to this value is the recent completion of the Inbound Marketing Certification by two of our key employees.

One of the most common questions and internet marketing company gets asked is how high can you get my page ranked? Understandably, rankings and the pursuit of them generate a lot of heat but not nearly enough light. It’s like we have been sold a bill of goods that if your site ranks in the top 10 results for a hot search term that cash is going to come flooding into your business. The reality is that ranking is only one piece of a much larger puzzle.

Cleaning up the house and putting out a welcome mat may suffice for an open house but making site visitors feel welcome requires more effort. The average time on site even for very engaging websites is measured in seconds. That means your window of opportunity for engagement is very narrow.

Marketing over the internet can at times be labor intensive. There are some internet marketing best practices, however, that can be set-up to be done automatically. The process of setting up marketing tasks to be done automatically is called “Marketing Automation”. The good folks over at Hubspot have put together the following infographic that breaks down how to do marketing automation effectively.