My name is Alex Dartt, and I’m a rising senior at Grand Valley State University studying international business and marketing. During this past summer, I was so excited to have the opportunity to work and learn at InVerve Marketing & Web as a marketing intern.

Have you ever googled something and seen an overview of information about the topic show up next to or above the standard search results? If so, you’ve seen a knowledge graph. These graphs are Google’s way of answering searchers’ questions directly so no one needs to surf the web for answers. These graphs, when they’re about businesses, can contain contact information like location, hours, phone number, and web address, reviews, menus, and more. So how can you make sure you’re showing up when people are searching, and when your knowledge graph does appear, that it’s showing the correct information?

In today’s digital world, online reviews spread like wildfire and are acting as word-of-mouth marketing. Other than rapid growth, why are these reviews so crucial to your business?

Do you know how your business appears to people searching on Google? Google My Business can help you put your best foot forward for potential customers. With this service, you can ensure that your correct contact information is listed, see helpful reviews, and answer potential customers’ questions. You can also post interesting featured pictures and topics that will be prominently displayed where people are looking for them. Here’s some beginning steps to using your Google My Business listing most effectively.

You have an incredible website, totally maximized to serve your customers’ every need, and it looks amazing too! Not surprising for all the work that went into it. But even as your website shines like a beacon of truth, dozens of other websites and apps may be offering out-of-date or just plain wrong information about your business.

Social media use for C-suite dwellers can be tough, kind of a “can’t live with it, can’t live without it,” conundrum. According to a 2016 report from Domo and CEO.com, which looked at social media profiles of every CEO on the Fortune 500® list on the six top social media networks, “60 percent had no social media presence at all.” While some CEOs may feel that statistic vindicates their own lack of social media use, here are two great reasons to make social media work for you — albeit with care and consideration.

We all have grown to ❤️ and use emojis in our everyday life. Which is why a lot of brands and marketers have begun to use them in email marketing. Just like in messaging formats, emojis are used to replace words and express emotions. They add a little humor and jazz to any conversation or text. Why type out all that text when you can use an emoji to sum it all up? And that’s all brands aim to do: capture attention with simple yet catchy content.

Creating social media with enough value to share might seem complicated, but it’s not that hard to do if you have some excellent ideas. After taking a look around some of the most shared posts of 2017, several things became apparent. Here’s a rundown to get you going.