By bbr

by Kelly Googe Lucas, marketing and social media manager

This past week I attended the second annual Digital Summit here in Atlanta. The event played host to nerds professionals of all types and offered workshops and panels that touched on the latest and greatest in digital marketing. I gleaned some great information and have listed below some of the key takeaways. Enjoy!

Marketing is not a cost; it’s an investment. I’ve stated this many times and will continue to do so but it still amazes me how many decision makers don’t understand this. If you want your business to grow, you must invest in it and marketing is part of that investment. With so many people vying for the attention of your clients, you should be investing in ways that keep you top of mind so that the competition is just background noise.

Use Google Analytics. Even your huge, massive Fortune 100 corporations use free Google Analytics to track activity on their websites, so why shouldn’t your business? It’s a free tool and it’s important, sharing information that you can use to hone and refine your messaging and marketing.

A tweet is an invitation to something more. With only 140 characters, you can only say so much on Twitter. Tweets invite followers to read further and learn more. Use those limited characters to engage others and invite them to learn more about you and your services.

A hash tag (#) is a campfire around which people gather. I personally love this statement and find it to be so true. Using # creates an idea, sentiment or conversation in which anyone and everyone can join and comment. Find topics where you are a thought leader and join in the discussion or create your own.

Kittens can be polarizing. I’ll be honest, I’m still not 100% sure how this comment came about at the conference, but it was said during a presentation and it stuck with me, so maybe there’s a lesson in that.

Add a newsletter registration to your Facebook page. If you have a Facebook business page and a newsletter program, you should look to see if there is a way to connect the two. The goal is to make it as easy as possible for potential clients to connect with you. I can’t vouch for others, but I know MailChimp has a plugin for Facebook that allows you to integrate the two easily.

Add a Google+ button to your blog posts. Even if you aren’t active on Google+ (or on it at all, for that matter), you should still have a +1 button and a Google+ sharing button on every blog post. Google runs the largest online search engine and while this won’t be a magic bullet for your search engine results, it can only benefit you if your posts are shared on Google+. Google tends to smile on those that use its products and I imagine this is no different.

There was a great deal more that I learned and I will be creating separate posts on those topics. In the meantime, if you attended Digital Summit and have your own favorite nuggets of marketing wisdom, please share them in the comments below.