28May

Advertising, Facebook, Marketing, Social Media, Uncategorized

Social media is a great tool to reach out to peers, clients, and potential customers. But where would it be without the websites and its advertising features? Whether it’s a good or bad thing, there isn’t a single website that drives the industry, no SocialMedia.com that every user has to use. In fact, that domain redirects to Living Social, which isn’t even a social media platform! That being said, social media tends to be synonymous with its biggest facilitator, Facebook. Most people know the name by now, but not many understand how powerful it can be for business. Turns out its advertising can make your brand go viral!

Originally, Facebook was only intended for college students. Now, their target demographic is… well, everybody. It has an estimated 1.65 billion users every month and is considered the easiest platform to establish a business page with. With that many users, you have ample opportunity to reach out to exactly who you want as a customer and Facebook’s advertising power can set your page up for success.

One thing that Facebook was always proud of was the lack of a price tag for its users. Yet they still make quite a profit by the amount of people that invest in advertising on their website. However, it’s worth every penny. Facebook has made it so your ads are targeted towards exactly the right person based on their likes and hobbies, but also for what they search for and post themselves. Have you ever searched for something and then you got hit with a barrage of advertisements about it later? That’s not a coincidence. They’ve worked tirelessly on the system and it really is effective. Their advertising has the strength to bring attention by doing the best thing Facebook knows how, putting it right in your customer’s line of sight.

Facebook has been around since 2004 and doesn’t seem to be fading any time soon. While many social media platforms have faded and others have risen, Zuckerberg’s creation continues to stand tall in the constantly changing winds of the internet. Because of this, it has become a staple for any business. They’ve provided resources for people to thrive using their pages, and their advertising is undoubtedly the most effective.

What do you think of Facebook advertising? Share your thoughts below!

Pinterest Gets Serious

By Christopher Tompkins

0

26May

Advertising, Marketing, Pinterest, Social Media, Uncategorized, Video

Let’s face it. When you think about the business side of social media, Pinterest isn’t really your first thought. Now, if you’re looking for an awesome recipe or cake topper, this is your site. However, it really can help expand your brand if implemented correctly. With its new update, the social media platform will be able to help businesses even more so.

Entrepreneur.com looks into this new social media news. Pinterest is now offering video advertisement for business users. While this may irk the average user, it will definitely help marketing efforts. With smartphone screens getting wider and larger, video is becoming more popular on all social media fronts. Snapchat’s incarnation and success is proof of this with Periscope and Facebook Live quickly following. This will open up new avenues for Pinterest’s versatility.

We’ve seen the potential Pinterest has on multiple fronts, and social media marketers should appreciate its reachability. We joke around saying it is more for arts and crafts than actual marketing, but the website can be really useful. We like just how”list centric” Pinterest is. Your content and products will be categorized by your customers. This allows its users the opportunity to search for things that pertain to their interests in a constantly growing stream of content.

No surprise, Millennials have flocked to Pinterest, It assists them in event planning, brainstorming, and overall connectivity to a larger world. Pinterest allows businesses and users alike to create boards of images that open up the floor to product showcasing. Like Instagram, Pinterest focuses on imagery. It can create a sort of “catalog” format so you can see multiple images at one time. This social media platform is a little more strict with how businesses use their allotted space. It can be beneficial to read their branding guidelines. Pinterest can stand tall as a social media platform along side Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Ready to start pinning?

For more information, check out Entrepreneur.com’s article here: http://ow.ly/XY0W300puPO

What are your thoughts on Pinterest’s video ad move? Let us know!

Free Bird: Twitter Changes the Rules

By Christopher Tompkins

0

Free-Bird-Twitter-Changes-The-Rules-200x300

25May

Social Media, Twitter, Uncategorized

Twitter allows many forms of communication and often times opens up a whole new world for its users. Many of us couldn’t go a day without expressing ourselves on the intuitive platform. However, it doesn’t allow you to write a long-winded novel of a post. For the most part, this is a great thing. Unless you just wrote an amazing post, utilizing all 140 characters, and then your heart drops when you forgot to add a link. Changing a whole post in order to conform to Twitter’s limits can make a writer go back to the drawing board. Even with Hootsuite, Google, and Twitter itself shortening links to 23 characters, that 140 character limit can be a real hassle at times. Well, chirping Twitter seems to be allowing for some longer bird calls with their new update, which will no longer count images and links as part of that 140.

For the most part, it seems to be a great idea. www.UNLESS-OF-COURSE-PEOPLE-START-DOING-THIS-TO-TAKE-ADVANTAGE-OF-TWITTERS-NEW-FOUND-FREEDOM.com As with most things in life, people tend to take advantage of a little leeway. It’ll be interesting to see how Twitter stops that from muddying up their currently clean and sleek layout.

According to an article from Bloomberg, this update can be implemented as quickly as the next few weeks. CEO Jack Dorsey says they’re trying to give users more flexibility on the site. This is certainly a positive step forward, adapting to the times when people can literally write a book on their smartphone of choice, as opposed to the early 2000’s when we were confined to 140 character texts with the assistance of T-9. Those were dark, dark days, but things are looking up in the technological and social media frontiers everyday. Businesses will benefit from this because now they’ll have even more room to express a message to their followers and attract potential clients and customers.

For more information, check out Bloomberg’s article here: http://ow.ly/tlfM300puSv

Do you think this update will do some good? www.OR-DO-YOU-THINK-IT-WILL-BACKFIRE.com? Let us know your thoughts!

Budgeting for Social Media

By Christopher Tompkins

0

24May

Facebook, LinkedIn, Marketing, Social Media, Twitter, Uncategorized

We’ve finally reached a point where big companies are recognizing social media and as such, a big question is raised. Just how much of a marketing budget should go towards social media prospects? For the casual social media user, cost is never usually an issue. However, businesses need to take cost into consideration, whether it pertains to social media managers, Facebook advertising, or boosted posts. Turns out social media success can cost a bit. According to The Next Web, a study from Duke University found that businesses spend an average of 9.4% of their marketing budget on social media and it’s predicted to only rise from there. The article projects that, at this time, 10% is the best amount to spend on social media campaigns. It might not seem like much, but it can be just enough to utilize the premium tools the popular platforms offer.

You might be wondering to yourself what exactly is there to pay for? After all, Facebook proudly proclaims that it’s free, as is Twitter, LinkedIn and even Google +. However, as we see with many online services, while the base is free, businesses can really shine when investing into things like Facebook advertising and boosted posts. We’ve seen these kind of tools make or break a social media campaign. These features allow you to maximize your “reachability”, which means you can be on more people’s screens and in their line of sight. You’ll have an advantage to those who don’t want to fork out the funding. It can require an investment, however it can be worth every penny if done correctly. You’ll find that when you really enter the professional side of social media, it might not be free. However, your money will not be wasted. Instead, it’ll be used toward this progressive marketing method.

For more info, check out The Next Web’s article here: http://ow.ly/9UoJ300pB6h

Does your business have room in the budget for social media? Should it be more or less? Share your thoughts!

Social Games: The Secret to Online Traffic?

By Christopher Tompkins

0

18Apr

Facebook, Social Media, Uncategorized

An interesting way to get people to visit your social media page, and return often, is to host contests. Now, these do not have to be extravagant tournaments or even have magnificent prizes. It just has to be enough to engage your followers and to participate in the community you’re trying to tap into. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are great platforms for this type of outreach, but LinkedIn, and GooglePlus have the potential to engage the audience in such a way as well. The best part of a contest is that you’ll have pretty much all positive feedback (unless they find out you rigged it) with little cost to your company, as long as you promote an enticing, but fairly inexpensive prize.

There’s tons of different ways to work the “Like/Share/Retweet” systems to turn it into a contest. One of the biggest question is how will your followers be eligible for the prize.

Here’s some common and simple ideas:

Have the followers like or retweet the post to be entered into the contest. This way is best if you want a random winner.

If your contest has a theme, have them comment with a related story for them to be eligible for the prize. You can choose your favorite to be the winner, in this case.

Upload a certain picture, video, or item to be considered for the prize.

Share the contest with three friends to be eligible. This one may be more time consuming for the customer, so its good to be sure the prize is worth it on this one.

As far as prizes go, you can chose one of your new products, a gift card to your company, or something related to your field. For instance, if you’re a garden shop, you can have a gift basket full of garden supplies.

You also want to make sure the contest sounds legitimate. You’re going to throw a pebble of truth into a sea of scams, so make sure it seems real and not too good to be true.

The contest method is an interactive way to really bring attention to your page, and with the promise of more contests to come, it could have people checking for more opportunities to win, as well as making so your posts come before all others so they’re ready for their next chance.

Do you have any contest ideas you’d like to share? Comment below!

The Robots are Coming to Social Media

By Christopher Tompkins

0

thinkstockphotos-518918015-100609780-primary.idge_-300x200

18Apr

Uncategorized

On April 12th, Facebook announced the next step in Social Media. Their innovate Messenger software just became compatible with chatbots, which means that customers of companies can interact with AI programs to answer their questions or concerns. One part of the social side of social media has been taken away. Keep in mind, that this will not be a person, it will be a program talking to you in a simulated There’s lots of pros and cons to consider with this groundbreaking development.

For a company, this mans they can save money on cutting their tech support systems. Not so good for their employees, however. This will cut longterm expenses and their customers will, in theory, be able to have fast results. However, how accurate will the chatbots be? If they continuously falter, customers will become frustrated, not at the chat program, but at the company that put it into motion.

For a customer, this could mean one of two things. This could be an amazingly fast and gratifying experience if its done and implemented correctly. On the other end, as mentioned for the company’s side of things, this could turn into a real headache.

The chatbots will be customizable so a company can make it do a wide variety of different tasks and have a plethora of customizable changes. It will also have the ability to keep customer’s identity and other specifics due to their Facebook profile.

Overall, this can be an innovative and convenient solution, albeit a cold one without human interaction.

For the full details on Zuckerberg’s significant press release, click here: http://ow.ly/10ABiN

What are your thoughts on all this chatbot business? Do you think it’ll make the positive impact they’re all hoping for? Comment below!

Social Media Maintenance…Are You Maintaining?

By Christopher Tompkins

0

18Apr

Social Media, Uncategorized

Life changes drastically, even more so when you run a business. Policies, employees, branding, and pricing can change so quickly, it can hard to keep up. Sometimes, some marketing becomes a little outdated. Unfortunately, the internet is pretty unforgiving when it comes to obsolete or old information, and the social media landscape could be the worse. Small Business Trends has a great list that can help people and companies alike keep their accounts tidy and efficient:

Go through your profiles and make sure that every piece of information is up to date. LinkedIn is one of the more important websites to keep recent, seeing as how portfolios, resumes, and employee information is prevalent. You don’t want an employee who left three years ago to still be one of the forefronts of your social media profiles. This also is applicable to photo albums. Make sure what is in the photo, whether it be products or pictures of employees, is an accurate depiction of today.

While you want as many followers as possible, dead profiles are not exactly the best thing and neither is spam, which can fill your news feed with irrelevant advertisements. Make sure that the people you interact with are active and beneficial.

As a business, it’s important to see what people perceive your brand as. The online frontier is not a place for bashfulness and if people have a problem with your company, there’s a good chance they’re making it known. Google yourself, or search for your brand to see what people are saying or what they’re connecting your brand with. Sometimes you’ll be happily surprised, other times you’ll be a bit upset, especially is an unsatisfied customer made their way to a keyboard. There’s only so much you can do about negative talk online, unless its really offensive or harmful, but you can try you best to get customers to have positive reviews to outweigh the bad.

Of course, security is always important. Make sure you change your passwords often. Make sure they’re different from one another, and make sure they’re unique. A helpful tool some tech gurus use is to replace numbers for similar letters, like 3’s for E’s or 1’s for I’s. It might seem unnecessary, but it can help significantly strengthen your password. Be sure to keep track of all your different passwords. There are tons of various ways to do this, from simply keeping a password-protected PDF on your desktop, to using a nifty app. Just make sure you don’t lose the list!

As important social media can be to your enterprise, it’s just as important to perform so regular maintenance on your profiles. It will keep things fresh, current, and perhaps most importantly, secure.

Small Business Trends sheds more light on some great social media tips here: http://ow.ly/10AvmS

What do you think?

Your Website’s Relationship with Social Media

By Christopher Tompkins

0

18Apr

Social Media, Uncategorized

When running a business, it’s essential to have both a website and social media accounts so you can maximize your reachability. One cannot simply replace the other. In fact, the way social media has expanded, they can now compliment and promote each other!

For your website, it is important to have all your social media links proudly visible. If you’re not the one running your website, your designer should have this already in place. If not, from a webmaster’s side of things, it’s not hard to have ready. Facebook, Twitter, and the rest of the big boys also offer free image files of their websites so you can utilize it on your website and on other marketing material as well. By going to the source, you’ll have the most recent design of their logos, and you can be sure of the image file’s quality. Be careful though, those suckers can be huge files.

Promote your social media through the content you have posted on your website. Again, don’t forget to have those links in the reader’s line of sight as much as possible, but don’t make your website like a giant pop-up ad.

In addition to the direct links to your social media accounts, you should also have the ability to “Like”, share, “Tweet”, etc. straight from the article or page. This way they don’t have to leave your website, and the customer will now double as a sounding board, proclaiming how awesome your website is. There you go, now your customer is a member of your marketing department.

One of the more popular ways of integrating your social media accounts and your website is to allow them to login via their already existing social media accounts. You might’ve already seen this in place on a lot of retail websites. It allows the customer to bypass filling out forms, and will put them on a one way ticket to that payment screen.

You can also have YouTube videos and social media reviews imbedded right on your page. YouTube can double as another way to push your content and allow the reader or customer to promote for you.

On your social media accounts, always be sure to fill out every applicable field. Most websites will allow you to add URLs to your website, oftentimes to various pages. This way the customer doesn’t have to waste time trying to search for your website on a search engine website. You are in control of where they go to get more information.

Of course, one of the most important parts of social media is posting. When you’re making your updates, and you should be making a lot of them, make sure a good amount of them have a shortened URL that will take them to your website. A post can showcase what you have on your website. You can get some of you more unpopular pages some extra clicks by just showing it off on one of your social media accounts.

As you can see, its more a symbiotic relationship, rather than one replacing the other. They both can help each other, and in the same respect increase your views all around.
For even more interesting ways to integrate your website and social media accounts, check out this great article from Memeburn: http://ow.ly/10AkQi

What are your thoughts? Comment and discuss below!

What Not To Do On Social Media

By Christopher Tompkins

0

18Apr

Uncategorized

Social media is one of those movements that really only work if the user is, well, using it correctly. It might seem overly simple, but there are certain unspoken rules and etiquette that should be abided by in order to have success. And, like the people that use it, the internet landscape, specifically social media, can be a tad fickle. Here are some good rules to abide by when presenting yourself to the world wide web and the many eyes that are watching you. Michael Morelli of Morellifit and Instagram giant (5 million followers going strong) has some suggestions on what to steer clear from.

Make sure you come off honest, true, and not like a scam artist. Nobody wants to question if you are who you say you are. There’s already enough of that on the internet. It’s important to show that you know that you’re a credible source of information for your field of specialty. Make sure the facts are actually true and that you’re posting credible information. If it’s your opinion, make sure you don’t push it too much, nor do you want to present it as fact.
Once you’ve built a decent following, they’re going to expect a consistent flow of new content and posts. Congrats, on your quest to reach out, you’ve become somewhat of an entertainer and news source, which you’ll have to keep up with. Be aware that internet silence can be deadly. You don’t want to be one of the mute screen names that eventually get deleted.
Do not push the sales side of your social media campaigns too much. This one is important because if you seem too much like a used-car salesmen (no offense to the automotive industry) you’re going to lose followers, and fast. Be sure to water down your pitchy posts with interesting news articles, contests, questionnaires, quizzes, whatever is engaging and relatable to your field.

It’s important to understand that, when using social media, you’re not speaking to an empty room. There is audience, and they’re expecting quality posts. Make sure you can deliver while still trying to push your brand in a subtle but effective way.

For more info about these helpful steps, Michael Morelli’s insightful article: http://ow.ly/10A9Up

Comment your thoughts below!

The Permanence of Social Media

By Christopher Tompkins

0

c154a9_5459fd84da8712d9ccbf1f8c7369aa75-300x300

18Apr

Social Media, Uncategorized

Let’s face it. The internet has not only reshaped how we conduct pretty much everything in life, it’s defined this age. With something so significant, people are sure to question its legitimacy and if its going to stick around. Especially with one of the internet’s biggest strengths, the way to communicate with one another. This is where social media comes in. How strong is it? Will we look back at social media with a nostalgic sense and think about it the same time we think about VHS tapes and Beanie Babies?

Anurag Harsh, writer for The Huffington Post, tries to answer this question in an article which tests our memory of one of 2015’s biggest hashtags, #TheDress. Do you remember when this odd piece of clothing was such a sensation? Some people swore that it was black and blue, while others proclaimed it was white and gold. Eventually, it turned into more of a social statement for spousal abuse awareness. Regardless of how much you remember the story, Harsh bets you at least are familiar with it thanks to the firepower of social media. He states that this is a prime example of why we wont be thinking about social media on Throwback Thursdays ten, twenty, or thirty years from now. This thing is here to stay.

Of course, many people love to say that about something they have a stake in, which Harsh definitely does. But even an objective pair of eyes can reason that social media has made a strong enough impact to exist perpetually, in some form or another. This doesn’t mean that social media as we see it now will always be around. For all we know, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram will join the ranks of abandoned websites, leaving their homepage as empty as Chernobyl. But you can be sure something will pop up in their places.

One thing that makes social media seemingly timeless is the fact that it has risen above a message board for selfies and pictures of what you’ve had for dinner (although there’s still plenty of that around). Instead, its made room for the serious side of communication, becoming innovative outlets for news, business solutions, and a way to get one’s message out, whether it be a political movement, or a hashtag representing something they truly believe in. It’s become our generation’s version of the newspaper, and with it, were reaching new heights that were once thought impossible.

For more information, check out Anurag Harsh’s Huff Post article here: http://ow.ly/10zAjt

Where do you think social media will be in ten years? Comment Below!

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