Facebook provide some helpful online lessons which will assist in promoting your business and gaining an online presence:

• Three reasons your business needs a Facebook page
• How Facebook can help businesses

Embedding Facebook plugins to your website:

There are a number of Facebook plugins that allow you to embed a button or widget on your website to make it easier for your clients to engage with your Facebook page and share your website pages with their own network – each with their own purpose or function.

• 'Page Plugin' Widget – lets you embed and promote your Facebook Page on your website. Your visitors can like and share the Page without leaving your site. 'Likes' can give your Facebook page more traction and reach a wider audience.
• 'Like Button' Widget – For this one you don't need your own Facebook page as this plugin lets visitors to your website share pages back to their Facebook profile with one click. When a Facebook user 'likes' a page or post on your site, this will appear in the user's friends' news feed with a link back to your website.
• 'Share Button' Widget – similar to the like button, however this option allows the user to add a personalised message before sharing it to their Facebook timeline, group or individual friend.

Driving Facebook traffic back to your website

It's important to give prospective clients on Facebook an easy passage to your website. Use prominent images and videos to ensure your posts gain attention and that your page gets lots of Facebook likes, shares and comments – and most importantly traffic back to your website.

A great method for this is to provide a snippet of content from one of your blog posts. Enough to engage the reader, a leading question or statement to get them thinking – then a click through back to your website for the full article.

How to create a Facebook page for your business

Pages are for businesses, brands, organizations and public figures to share their stories and connect with people. Like profiles, Pages can be customized with stories, events and more. People who like or follow a Page can get updates in News Feed.

To create a Page:

1. Go to https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.
2. Click to choose a Page type.
3. Fill out the required information.
4. Click Create Page.

Note: Anyone can create a Page, but only official representatives can create a Page for an organization, business, brand or public figure.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/help/104002523024878

How to Add Facebook Plugins to your website – To get the Facebook plugins mentioned above added to your Web Manager website visit Facebook's Developer site, choose the plugin from the left menu and fill out the information for your Facebook page.

When you have the settings how you want them to look, click Get Code button and you'll see two snippets of code, copy and paste the code into an email and send it to nz-webmanager@wolterskluwer.com

Disclaimer: The video content above represents general advice only and may not apply to all situations. The video content is not produced by or affiliated with Wolters Kluwer.

Another great place to engage with clients and prospects and share your blog articles to a wider audience is LinkedIn – a social networking site designed for business communities.

Be present and memorable – Having a good, well branded company profile on LinkedIn can be an important part of your marketing strategy. The 'about' section of your LinkedIn business page is a great a place to tell a brief story about your firm and what you have to offer, create interest with a brief description and link back to your website for more detail – be professional but memorable.

Engage with Your Network – To get the most out of LinkedIn you need to engage the reader. Try using a leading question or statement to get them thinking – then use a call-to-action to lead them back to your website for the full article.

LinkedIn Share Button – If you are using 'ShareThis' or 'AddThis' make sure you include LinkedIn as an option there too. Otherwise, visit the LinkedIn developer page to grab the code for a stand-alone share button. Share buttons make it easy for your visitors to share posts with their own network.

How to create a LinkedIn page for your business

To create a LinkedIn Page:

1. Click the Work icon in the top right corner of your LinkedIn homepage.
2. Click Create a Company Page. You'll also select this option to create a Page for a school.
3. Select the Page type you'd like to create from the following options:
• Small business
• Medium to large business
• Showcase page
• Educational institution (high school or university/college)
4. Enter your Page identity, Company or Institution details, and Profile details information.
5. Check the verification box to confirm you have the right to act on behalf of that company or school in the creation of the page.
6. Click Create page.
• If you receive a red error message, you may not meet the Page creation requirements or have reached the limit for Pages created.
7. Click Start building your page! to build out your Page.

We highly recommend reviewing our best practices outlined in the video below before creating a Page.

Source: https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/710/create-a-linkedin-page?lang=en, https://www.linkedin.com/help/lms/answer/100826/create-a-linkedin-page-best-practices?lang=en.

Disclaimer: The video content above represents general advice only and may not apply to all situations. The video content is not produced by or affiliated with Wolters Kluwer.

As the world's second largest search engine, YouTube can be a useful tool to drive targeted traffic back to your website or other social media platforms. Some tips for your YouTube content:

Keep your video concise – keeping your video content short and to the point (up to 2 minutes) is optimal for keeping your audience's attention and encouraging them to complete a call to action – like clicking through to your website, contacting you about a new service offering, or signing up to your mailing list.

Leave them wanting more – So, you have published a content page or blog post along the line of "Tax Time Tips" – during your YouTube video you can provide useful detail on 1 or 2 tips, and list out a short descriptor to give the audience a taste of another 3 or 4 – encouraging viewers to 'click the link below' to visit your website page for more useful "Tax Time Tips".

Link back to your website – Ensure you have provided a call to action within your video and include a link for easy connectivity back to your site.

YouTube is less competitive for key terms than Google, so this is a great opportunity to drive your Search Engine Optimisation strategy as Google ranks video content highly too.

Google shows you how to add annotations and links to your YouTube videos here: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/92710?hl=en

Embedding YouTube into your site – You can embed YouTube videos into your site in a couple of different ways – directly into a page by copying the embed code or pasting the URL into a custom database that can display multiple videos in a gallery layout.

How to create a YouTube channel for your business

To sign in to YouTube, you'll need to create a Google Account. With a Google Account, you can access many YouTube features, including liking, subscribing, Watch Later and your watch history. Once you have created a Google account and are able to sign in to YouTube, you will be able to create a channel to share your personalized videos.

Follow these instructions to create a channel that only you can manage using your Google Account:

1. Sign in to YouTube on a computer or using the mobile site.
2. Try any action that requires a channel, such as uploading a video, posting a comment, or creating a playlist.
3. If you don't yet have a channel, you'll see a prompt to create a channel.
4. Check the details (with your Google Account name and photo) and confirm to create your new channel.

Once you have created a personal YouTube channel, you can then create a Brand Account - an account specifically for your brand. You can use certain services with it, like YouTube, to create an online presence.

You can use a Brand Account to create a channel that has a different name but that's still managed from your Google Account. Learn more about Brand Accounts.

1. Sign in to YouTube on a computer or using the mobile site.
2. Go to your channel list.
3. Choose to create a new channel or use an existing Brand Account:
• Create a new channel by clicking Create a new channel.
• Create a YouTube channel for a Brand Account that you already manage by choosing the Brand Account from the list. If this Brand Account already has a channel, you can't create a new one-you'll just be switched over to that channel if you select the Brand Account from the list.
4. Fill out the details to name your new channel and verify your account. Then, click Done. This creates a new Brand Account.
5. To add a channel manager, follow the instructions to change channel owners and managers.

Learn more about using a channel with a business or other name on YouTube.

Disclaimer: The video content above represents general advice only and may not apply to all situations. The video content is not produced by or affiliated with Wolters Kluwer.

If you've been wondering 'Is blogging really worth the time and effort?' The answer is YES!

Some might argue that if you are only going to focus on one area of Digital Marketing  – it would be to blog. Why? Because publishing regular blog posts to your website helps to engage your existing clients, enhance inbound traffic, attract new clients and it means you are adding new content to your site containing key phrases (which will be indexed by google) – so not only can it be a critical tool for helping to improve your search engine rankings, but it is also easy to share across a variety of social media platforms.

Blogging for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Search engines will rank sites higher which have relevant content that is regularly updated and that have lots of inbound links from other sites. A great way to achieve this is to publish regular blog posts which you can link back to from social media platforms. This gives Google and other search engines new content to index and gives you opportunities to utilise key terms and phrases in relevant blog articles to improve your visibility on search engine results pages (SERPS).

Getting your post out there – Now that you have published your blog post to your website, it's important to promote your post to ensure you're getting traffic to your site. There are a number of ways you can go about promoting your blog including Newsletters to your clients and prospects, sharing via your own social media pages and providing readers with tools to easily share to their social media pages.

Automated cross platform sharing tools – Hootsuite is one example of a widely used platform for managing social media, scheduling posts and engaging with your audience all from one place. The user interface takes the form of a dashboard, and supports social network integrations for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and many more.

There are many other online tools for posting and sharing blogs plus social media to various networks quickly and effectively, each with their own qualities. Some other examples include 'Onlywire' – a tool for bookmarking your posts to nearly 30 sites simultaneously. And 'Dlvr.it' – link up your blog's RSS feed to your different social media accounts.

Adding blog posts in Web Manager

You can add a blog to your website from the 'Create New' drop-down menu above your site tree. If the blog item does not show in the 'Create New' menu, please contact us to enable this for you.

Visit our Help Centre for instructions on adding blog posts or watch the video from the 'Videos' tab.

Insert a share button on your website

You can add share buttons to your website for users to like or share your website with their friends. Rather than going to each of the social media developer websites and supplying us with several different scripts for all the share buttons, there are websites that have the ability to add several social media share buttons in one script. Some of these are customisable, so you can add the social media sites you think your target audience will have accounts with and remove any others. One we recommend is AddThis. AddThis can create "Share" & "Follow" button sets and allows you to customise what icons or buttons you want to display. It also lets you display them in several different formats from small/large icons, buttons and buttons with counters (see image below).

There are other sites available which do similar things, for example, ShareThis. However, we recommend and use AddThis as it can be incorporated into your Google account and tie in with Analytics to record/display data. You can just supply us the code without logging in by clicking the "Don't want analytics?" link.

Create a blog from CCH iFirm on Vimeo.

What Emarketing platform should I use?

There are many dedicated emarketing platforms available, with a variety of features and price points. Some of the more popular platforms include:

• Mailchimp
• Constant Contact
• Newsletter
• Crazy Domains
• Active Campaign

MailChimp can be used for free, depending on your audience size and offers a subscription and archive widget that can easily be added to your Web Manager website. Contact us if you would like to discuss this.

Disclaimer: The content above represents general advice only and may not apply to all situations. The content is not produced by or affiliated with Wolters Kluwer.

Getting Started with Mailchimp

Sending a monthly or quarterly newsletter to your customers is a great way to promote upcoming events, showcase the services you have to offer or introduce tax and accounting related topics. Creating newsletters with engaging and relevant content can also help drive traffic to your website and improve your search engine optimization (SEO).

If you would like to send newsletters to your clients we recommend you create a Mailchimp* account so you can capture their details through the newsletter sign up form on your website. When creating your account, choose a plan that best suits your needs.

*If you use an alternate E-Marketing platform, it may still be possible to embed or link to a subscription form and/or archive newsletter list. Please contact us to discuss.  

Connecting your Mailchimp account to your website

1. Click on your newsletter sign up form to bring up the settings window.
2. Select the 'Integration' tab under 'Contact form content'.
3. Select 'Mailchimp' from the list of third-party services.
4. Enter your Mailchimp account email address.
5. Select the Mailchimp mailing list that you want to add new contacts to (you would've created the mailing list (Audience) when setting up your Mailchimp account).
6. Link the fields in your newsletter sign up form to those in your mailing list.

Displaying your archived newsletters

When you send a newsletter from Mailchimp, a copy of the newsletter can be saved to the 'Newsletter Archives' section on your website using a simple piece of code. For instructions on generating the archive code, visit this page.