1. The average Twitter user follows at least 5 businesses or brands.
2. 80% of active Twitter users access the platform via mobile apps.
3. 36% of online Americans aged between 18 and 29 are regular Twitter users.
4. As of September 2017, there were 328 million active Twitter users worldwide.
5. 8% of American companies use Twitter for marketing purposes.
6. Twitter ad engagements rose a full 99% between 2016 and 2017.
7. 500 million internet users visit Twitter monthly without logging in to an account.
8. Twitter brand engagement is 17% higher on weekends, but only 19% of brands tweet on weekends.If Twitter were a country, it would be the 12th most populated country in the world.
9. If Twitter were a country, it would be the 12th most populated country in the world.
10. 82% of active users actively engage with brands using Twitter.

I personally use and recommend Infusionsoft. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’re well aware of all my Infusionsoft blog posts. Just to be clear and upfront, I don’t work for Infusionsoft but I am a referral partner for them and I do earn commission anytime I refer someone their way. Infusionsoft is one of the very few web marketing software tools I heartily recommend because I honestly and sincerely believe it has the power & potential to transform a small business. But that doesn’t mean it’s all “peaches & cream.” Here are 7 things you should know about Infusionsoft before you take the plunge…

1. It’s much more than just email marketing.
This is by far the greatest misconception about Infusionsoft. Email Marketing is definitely one of its strong suits, but Infusionsoft does A LOT more than just send out emails. It’s a fully functioning all-in-one CRM (customer relationship management) tool. If you’re not familiar with CRMs, you should read this overview. I mention this point because I see 2 types of mistakes being made with the misconception that Infusionsoft is just an email marketing tool: (1) people who don’t fully understand what they’re getting into when they buy Infusionsoft and (2) people who don’t get the big picture of Content Marketing.

2. It’s most appropriate for small business.
If you’re a huge corporation, you should just hire a team of programmers to build a custom system for you. But if you’re a small business, you need something that’s a bit more cookie-cutter at a much lower pricing tier. This is the major advantage of Infusionsoft — you’re buying into a system that thousands of other people are using so you don’t have to pay for (or manage) your own custom system. Now, there are drawbacks to this of course but that’s the nature of software.

3. It has a steep learning curve.
Speaking of drawbacks, this is probably the biggest complaint I hear from fellow Infusionsoft users. It truly is a complex, powerful, sophisticated machine. That means if you learn how to harness its power, you can do amazing things for your marketing and for your bottom-line. But that also means you need to invest time, energy, & patience to learn how to use it. If you’re not willing to invest the time to learn how to use it yourself, you need to invest the money to pay someone who can do that for you. Those are the only two options.

4. It has bugs, quirks, & issues.
Like all software out there, Infusionsoft is not bug-free or error-free. Believe me, I pull my hair out sometimes when I see that a marketing campaign that once was published is suddenly not published, etc etc. But I will say that Infusionsoft is constantly tweaking & updating their systems to improve it. Just about every month or two, they’re rolling out new updates. What more can you expect from such a complex piece of software?

5. It’s not the only marketing tool you’ll need.
Read that again: It’s NOT the only marketing tool you’ll need. If you expect to drive your entire business with only Infusionsoft, you’re kidding yourself. We live in the age of software and technology. You’re going to have to roll up your sleeves and learn how to use a wide range of tools besides Infusionsoft. Be open & willing to learn, and you’ll have no trouble with this reality. Resist it and you’ll surely be lost at sea. Again, all of this boils down to money & time. If you don’t have the money to pay someone to setup & manage all of these tools for you, you need to invest the time to learn how to use them yourself.

6. It’s not cheap (but actually it is).
To get started with Infusionsoft, you’ll need to pay about $200-$300+ per month AND an initial fee of about $2000 (check out full Infusionsoft pricing here). Some people are devastated when I reveal the pricing details. A monthly bill of that size can be a tough pill for a young small business to swallow, but we’re talking about investing in an entire CRM Marketing Automation system here. The golden rule is you should be investing about 30% of your profits into marketing. Even if we stretch that thin down to just 10%, I’m sure your business is making $3000 in profits right? If not, you’re definitely not ready for Infusionsoft anyway.

7. It’s not the Wizard Of Oz.
I met a fellow Infusionsoft user once who made a comment to me about how he expected Infusionsoft to “just make it happen” for him. He was immensely frustrated by the fact that it seemed like so many other people were using the software and getting so much out of it but, as he put it, “it just isn’t working for me and I don’t understand why.” My response to him summed it all up in one go: “Well it’s not the Wizard of Oz.” You shouldn’t expect it to be a wizard for you either. That is, until you’ve invested the time & energy to make it work the way it should. 🙂

1. Snapchat’s percentage of daily reach to the 18­34 demographic is 41%.
2. 71% of Snapchat users are under 35 years old.
3. 54% of Snapchat users log in to the platform every day.
4. 81% of college students using Snapchat do so most frequently during the late afternoon into the night.
5. 178 million people are daily average Snapchat users.
6. Snapchat ads are viewed up to a million times in a single day.
7. Snapchat is growing more popular with American teens than Facebook, with 19% claiming Snapchat is the more important platform.
8. Snapchat has grown to have more active users than Twitter or Pinterest.
9. 70% of snapchat users are female.
10. Snapchat’s video views have grown to overtake that of Facebook.

1. Almost 1/3 of all people on the internet use YouTube.
2. On average, a user will spend 40 minutes on YouTube using a mobile device each day.
3. 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute.
4. Over 500 million hours of video are watched on YouTube every day.
5. YouTube has 1.5 billion logged in monthly users each month.
6. YouTube was available in 88 countries and 76 languages as of 2017.
7. Advertisers don’t have to have video inventory to advertise on YouTube.
8. 40% of total YouTube views come from mobile devices.
9. YouTube reaches more 18 to 49 year olds than any US cable network.
10. More than 88 countries have their own local version of YouTube.

Marketing is the single most impactful thing you can do for your business. I’ve yet to meet a business that can’t be improved (or even saved) by a good marketing campaign. So if marketing is so powerful, what could possibly have an even greater impact on your business and your bottom-line? The answer of course is AUTOMATED marketing. Here’s why…

Follow-up, Follow-up, Follow-up
When you automate your marketing campaigns, you implement an automatic system to do one of the most important jobs in your business — following up with your prospects & customers. Today, a large part of Web Marketing consists of simply staying “in front of” your list. With automated marketing systems, you can sit back & relax while your marketing machines do the tough work of emailing, mailing, texting, and even calling your list.

I once heard the CEO of Infusionsoft Clate Mask say that he believed so much in follow-up as a marketing principle that he actually wanted those two powerful words engraved on his tombstone. It really is that critical and that game-changing.

Build, Automate, Test, & Improve
Marketing Automation definitely handles the all-too-important task of follow-up, but it also allows you to remove the human element so you can accurately and thoroughly TEST and improve your results.

Think about it: When you have an automated marketing campaign in place — let’s use a sequence of emails as an example — you can reliably put ALL of your contacts through the same funnel. Then, you can observe the results, tweak, and improve.

Without some form of Marketing Automation, it’s very difficult to gauge the effectiveness of your marketing since you never do it quite the same way twice if a human being is actually running the step-by-step operation.

How To Automate Your Marketing
A full “how to” on Marketing Automation is out of the scope of this post, but I wanted to touch upon it briefly in case you’re completely new to this idea. There are lots of ways to automate your online marketing but the approach I recommend is to start with a powerful piece of software like Infusionsoft. You can also create very basic automated marketing using tools like Aweber or MailChimp but for the very best long-term results, Infusionsoft is the absolute best.

Automating your marketing funnels is a process you’ll never truly finish, but you can start by building a handful of key marketing campaigns. I recommend the following:

1. Initial Marketing Sequence
-You need something to put ALL new prospects through before moving onto specific campaigns. This “initial sequence” should offer lots of value, education, and information and THEN go for that first important sale.

2. Targeted Product Or Service Sequences
-Then you can begin building specific campaigns for specific products & services. These campaigns should trigger only for the targeted contacts on your list.

3. On Going Follow Up Sequences
-You should also have marketing sequences that are much more long-term and on-going with the sole purpose of staying in front of your list.

These are just a few ideas to get you started. What other questions do you have about Marketing Automation? Please leave your comment below.

1. Instagram is home to over 500 million monthly active users.
2. 6 out of every 10 online adults has an Instagram account.
3. The 18 to 29 year old demographic is the largest on Instagram.
4. More than 1 million advertisers use Instagram to market their products.
5. Engagement rates on Instagram are 15 times higher than Facebook and 20 times higher than Twitter.
6. 56% of Instagram users make $50,000 per year or more.
7. 7 out of every 10 Instagram hashtags are branded.
8. Over 50% of businesses on Instagram have produced an Instagram story.
9. As of 2017, 70.7% of US businesses are on Instagram.
10. Instagram experiences over 4.2 billion likes every day.