Why?

 

Well, it is frequently said that social media marketing has been a great added quality to traditional SEO done on your web site. Yet, it does not replace a good SEO work.

 

Knowing a few secrets about social media and social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace, you will have the opportunity to take advantage of including your web site in a viral market through the “buzz” that can be created. Additionally, you can actually create a conversation with your target audience.

 

But, first you have to define who your target audience exactly is, then you have to look into what is being looked up in search engines, and finally plan how your website can provide your target market the useful information they need.

 

Now, generate some buzz and traffic!

 

It can help you to build credibility and improve your reputation or image in the market. In addition, through your participation in social media marketing and your social networks it may increase the sales of your products and services directly or indirectly.

 

But, of course, it’s not the same for every kind of business model! The more dependent you are on the traffic or ad impressions your site has, social media marketing could be more important and powerful for your business.

This possibility of having the world in our hands calls millions of users to the web all the time. All we have to do is catch their attention with an effective social media strategy.

• Be present. Have an attractive blog with useful information for your costumers. Update it constantly, divide it by sections, have a news supplier with everything it has to do with your business. Have diverse social networks accounts (like Facebook or MySpace), and never let them rust. Be aware and participate on micro-blogging applications like Twitter, where you can make quick advertisements about you and learn about others.

• Be promoter. Make your audience comment and participate. That’s what social media is about. Create discussion boards; give your customers the opportunity to express themselves.

• Be creative. According to your brand concept organize original expression forums with video, photo and audiovisual material sharing. Surprise your users anytime!

• Be thorough. Tag everything; you never know what about your firm and philosophy can call someone’s attention. Use social bookmarking!

• Be innovative. Look for the new possibilities of advertisement that social media offers and use the best ones for your brand concept. Choose something your competitors haven’t even imagined. Mix digital potential with brand awareness.

• Be fun. Remember users are just a click away. You can lose them as easy as you got them if you’re not interesting enough. Get to know your costumers’ likings and combine them with information about your firm to make your strategy attractive to your target. Remember social media is primarily about friends and community; align your business plan with your people and your social media ideas. (Collings, 2009)

But the most important thing about an effective social media strategy is to really want to do it and dare! If you don’t know how or where to start, we are the experts. Call us today at 1-800-932-2580 and we’ll be pleased to make your strategy a hit!

Sources:

• OREILLY, T. (2007, First Quarter). What is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software. Communications & Strategies, No. 1, p. 17.
• COLLINGS, O. (2009, March 6). All that Twitters… B&T Magazine, 59(2686), 8-8. Retrieved June 18, 2009, from Business Source Premier database.

Since its launch in 2006, it’s become a global phenomenon with celebrities, athletes, politicians and common people using it to share out updates on their status. Even Barack Obama took advantage of it including Twitter as part of the social media strategy in his presidential campaign. No wonder why companies are now turning to it as the latest way to promote their firms.

Twitter rough numbers display the network as a growing company. On February 2009, it exceeded seven million visitors; while a year earlier, that number barely reached up to 475.000. The hottest media platform is causing that much expectation that there’s even an auction place where bets are made guessing which Web giant will first buy Twitter.

Why any brand should tweet?

Web users usually get so waterlogged by digital information they just stop paying attention to advertising. Twitter forces us to say no more than the essential, so twitters are much more opened to receive messages, they’re certain it will be quick and painless. The secret for a firm to succeed twitting is to have interesting posts.

This social networking and micro-blogging service can be used by companies to post their updates such as promotions, discount codes, new product launches, sales, corporate information, links to other kinds of media.

Due to its real-time running, Twitter is also appropriate to spread an idea or collect fresh information about the consumers’ interests, expectations and thoughts.

In spite of all the good reasons to use Twitter for advertising, it is extremely important to set it in a clear social media strategy framework. This social networking site offers a chance to reach consumers easily and quickly, but the tricky thing is to engage them. If you’re already thinking how to do so, call us today and get the twitting started!

Also check us out on Twitter!

Sources

McCARTHY, C. (2009, March 19). Nielsen: Twitter’s growing really, really, really, really fast. Cnet News.

COLLINGS, O. (2009, March 6). All that Twitters… B&T Magazine, 59(2686), 8-8. Retrieved June 18, 2009, from Business Source Premier database.

Why? Thanks to social media is much easier to promote your start-up with a low budget for advertising.

Do you think that social media is important for your business? What you can do to be more visible, but you don’t have time for this?

There are a lot of aspects of social media. If you want to become social and get exposure, you can blog, post a video on YouTube, have a podcast or just start connecting with your peers on LinkedIn. Doing so, you can:

• Connect with people, build a dialogue and new business opportunities
• look for investors and attract them
• promote your business and increase your sales
• Build brand awareness
• Increase loyalty and trust with your stakeholders
• Create inbound links to raise your search engine ranking
• Build a transparent online personality that reflects who you are
• You can even find:
  • interest-focused groups
  • potential collaborators
  • valuable employees
  • more customers and clients

In addition, when companies utilize social media during the construction process of their Web sites, they are likely to find it easier to engage visitors.

One more idea. Start-ups are using not only video and blogs, but also Twitter and Facebook. When using social networking sites or micro-blogging, try connecting with quality audiences. Do not only connect with Facebook and Tweeter users that have a lot of friends or followers, respectively.

Then, don’t forget to listen to your customers and respond quickly to them. Social media has a lot of opportunities that you can’t get anywhere else.

Sources

Social media will change your business

Social Media for Business: The Dos & Don’ts of Sharing

Is social media important for Startups?

Too Busy for Social Media Marketing?

How will this union get in the following times? Here are some trends that will be likely to become our daily bread tomorrow:

Mobility

Until now, the most common way of Internet surfing was sitting in front of a computer. A laptop with Wi-Fi, a BlackBerry or an iPhone; were the closest hardware accessories to a mobile Web. Nevertheless, a new Web is about to born, a Web conceived for mobility where everything has to do with location.

Brandon Mendelson, who define himself as one of the most followed people on Twitter, uses mobile technology to mobilize and empower people to help others! He states that “the future of the web is mobile” [we agree!]. In addition, Rahul Sonnad, founder and CEO of Santa Monica-based tech start-up Geodelic Systems, presents this new Web as a combination of mobile devices with web browsing along with accurate location awareness. A Web who knows where you’re at and provides you all the pertinent data, from the coffee shop promos around the corner to historic curiosities about the spot you’re standing on. It will be like browsing the real world itself, not just the digital one.

The proliferation of location enabled devices like GPS or smart phones provides an opportunity for brands to improve the quality of the consumer’s experience by changing the way their information is created according to the real world’s space possibilities; says Sonnad.

Sharing

Human’s urge to communicate and share thoughts, experiences and ideas through posts, photos, videos or any online expression format have positioned social networks as the place to be in the cyberworld.

The future may be about a new platform for people to save and share their life’s moment. In this sense, ThisMomentis no longer focused in sharing lives, but in specific special instants through a computer or a mobile device. ThisMoment creates a holistic experience and is already in sight of leading media companies.

Bill French, an information architect specializing in Internet applications and Co-founder of MyST Technology Partners, Inc. says that “in the next 24 months, any business that hasn’t transformed their Web site into a social media core for all marketing content and conversational activities will be considered irrelevant by people and machines (i.e., search engines, flow engines, etc.)”. So, sharing seems to be the key!

Cybernetics

What’s wrong about dreaming in a supersonic’s life? With the technological advances mixed to natural sciences, a whole new lifestyle could be a click away. Graham Jones, an Internet Psychologist, assures us that it will relatively soon be possible to connect biological systems with computerized ones; it has been already possible to control a robot using the brain of a mouse and transmit information from one person to another’s nervous system through Internet. According to him, we will be able to get rid of keyboards and transmit information by thinking and swap data from the brain to a web-based store; a place to file copies of the information in our brain. That is just amazing!

Interactivity: The communication experience

We all love interactivity! Online TV, Video, Advertising… they are taking advantage of this trend. Emily Gannett, co-founder of an interactive video platform called KlickableTV, believes that their technology is what’s new and what’s coming soon!  This interactive video platform is a good example of how to create a comprehensive viewing experience and provides unique insights into viewer behavior.

Probably in the future, intelligent Web design will get so aware of users’ profiles that the Web will know us better than our mother, in order to talk to each user in his or her very personal language. As we take information from the Web, it will take information from us though our online activity; who said that wasn’t a dialogue?

Real money in online business

Free or Paid? That’s the big question on the future of online business. It’s usually said that the future of online business is free of charge. But; we believe that it’s A future of business, not THE, right?

Why can’t micropayments be the future of the web? Troy O’Bryan, President & CEO of Response Capture, Inc.says that “hefty subscriptions and licenses will be a thing of the past.  Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) were of the first to prove the model”.  At Response Capture, they believe that “marketers should only have to pay for what they use or more importantly what their target responder uses.  Paying for more is a waste”.

Even though it’s true that the majority of people don’t like to pay for material they actually can get for free, it doesn’t mean that everything online must be that way. There are several ways to do business online and combine ways of shopping; and, there will definitely be new ones! We will be witnesses of the proliferation of social networking/ecommerce sites where you can offer your products or services, or even social networking/shopping sites where you can shop and get cash back! For instance, GreenBackStreet.com provides Cash Back rebates for shopping at more than 1,100 national and local stores. According to National Marketing Director, Eric Brisgel “Whether you’re looking for the best price on the latest tech gadgets or everyday items, if you have  an interest in providing for your non-profit organization, religious group, association, employees or just enjoy the social networking aspects, GreenBackStreet.com provides an ultra-convenient, FREE method of saving thousands of dollars”.

In addition, the pay per result model will have more presence online and e-commerce features will keep improving and providing security and privacy [at least, we hope so].

Finally, Brandon Muth says “that the biggest move we’re going to see over the next 10 years is focus and quality”. Absolutely, YES! We also believe that we have a lot of things to do to improve quality, ‘cause like in the evolution of species, only the best qualified will last! We invite you all to be part of that great future!

Before the future comes upon us, we’d like to thank all the comments that made this article possible. About tomorrow we don’t know that much, but what is sure by now is we’ll keep on touch online; after all, we all live in this yellow submarine.

A Forrester Consulting study commissioned by ExactTarget found that only 37% of marketers said that they actually do.

But, do you?

There are a few things that you should know before sending marketing messages.

• Adapt the message to your customers. Ensure that you are sending the right message to them!
• Use the right channel. How to choose it? Customers’ opinions about permission marketing are constantly changing. Nowadays they prefer either e-mails or text messages. But, not direct mail.
• Ask your customers how they would rather be contacted! Everybody doesn’t think the same way.
• Provide an explicit opt-ins. Do not include customers to your mailing list unless an explicit step is taken.
• Unsolicited messages are unacceptable for the majority of customers.
• The majority of Facebook users who are fans of a brand don’t allow companies to send them information through this channel.
• Even though Internet users’ are using social networking sites for written communication, they aren’t very open to receive marketing messages through them.

You’ll be more successful if you are aware of your consumer preferences and behaviors. Remember that their permission is crucial!

Speed is the key to social media understanding. One tweet can be enough to launch a huge gossip and generate negative buzz on the Net. And at the day of today; what happens online, happens on real life.

Traditional media has no longer the information monopoly; that means the brands have less control on their image and if we add the real-time issue of powerful Web 2.0, this is a warning that every company should consider.

Last days, the multinational Swiss giant Nestle got involved in a serious problem due to contaminated cookie dough it recalled from the market. Even if that expensive operation was the right thing to do, it wasn’t enough. Nestle completely ignored the social media impact unleashed by its crisis.

Real crisis in the cyberspace are abrupt, unexpected and hard to control. The only way is to fight fire with fire.

Planning

A Crisis management plan is the way to successfully respond to an eventuality. Companies usually have crisis manuals and what-to-do forms in order to act properly and cause the less possible damage. Those measures are clearly insufficient when they lack a social media component.

Response

Hundreds of Web links easily take the users to blog posts. In addition, tweets, YouTube videos and random forum comments about the Nestle issue are constantly damaging the brand’s image. An eye-to-eye response from the firm is not just likely, but necessary to protect all prestige building efforts Nestle has done over time. Think through what you would prefer users to find if they looked at keywords about your Company and your issues. Do something about it. Take action before it’s too late!

Recovery

The two-way communications aspect of social media works as a mediator in any digital crisis. Monitoring what people say helps to notice how the response strategy is functioning and help the company as a guide for further action decisions until the brand is completely recovered.

The cookie dough crisis is just an example. Lots of all sized companies have been taken by surprise by social media. It can happen to anyone, and never is too early to plan. So, what would you do?

Sources

The Associated Press. (2009, June 20). E. Coli Fears Prompt Cookie Dough Recall.

United Press International (2009, June 20). Recalled Nestle products leave 66 sick.

Fulhaber, P. (2009, June 3). Social Media and Crisis Management.

The most widespread implemented tactics by small businesses were professional social media networking sites such as LinkedIn (51%), followed by general social networking such as Facebook (44%) and niche or industry communities (38%). On the other hand, the less popular tactics were forums, wikis and social bookmarking applications.

The causes for using social networking for a small biz are diverse. With these tools, you can:

• Enhance your network, listen and answer to your customers’ questions.
• Implement and advertising and promoting a business strategy.
• Offer alternatives communication channels.
• “Crowdsource” your new products or services.
• Use them for blogging, messaging, commenting and tweeting.
• For education purposes.
• Build link popularity and attract more traffic.
• Measure results online.
• Others!

Which is your purpose?

Whichever it is, know that our Los Angeles Web design company can offers web design and help you implement web 2.0 tactics. Our belief that our customers should have reliable support from us, is taking us to the next level of reliability in result-oriented service. If you don’t know how to start, or you are not getting the results that you expected, just contact us today at 1-800-932-2580.

Sources:
Small Business and Social Media: Who and How?

Small Biz Going With Social Media

Social Media and Small Business Getting Acquainted Slowly

• 79% of top companies has a profile on Facebook

• 69% has a profile on Twitter

• 59% has a profile on both

Still, their profiles are not being enthusiastically promoted. For instance, the majority of them didn’t include their profile’s links in their Web sites or didn’t provide their social media profiles’ link in their e-mail campaigns. Can you believe that?… Yes?… Are you in the same situation?

TIPS: What can you do if this is your situation too?

• Say… ‘Shoulders to the wheel!’ as soon as you can!

• Just include social media marketing links in your e-mail campaigns or even as part of your e-mail signature.

• Keep always in mind that although it’s hard for you to increase the level of social features in your email campaigns, increasing these types of practices is essential in order to become more popular.

• If the goals of your e-mail campaigns are to raise your sales, increase your popularity and reach current customers and prospects; just include links to your Social Network profiles in your Web site, your Newsletter, your blog, your e-mails, etc. Yes! It’s a simple way to achieve those goals.

• Make it visible! Obviously, you can do it manually with some basic HTML. But, there are also some useful WordPress plugins to help you keep your profile information up-to-date. Some examples include: Retaggr, Social Profiles, Social Media Page, TweetMeme, WP Twitip ID, Lifestream.fm, Add to any,  among others.

• Participate, participate and keep participating in social media!

• Jump onto the Social media bandwagon and your success is guaranteed!

Sources:

• What’s in a Retail E-Mail?
• Top 10 WordPress Plugins to Promote Your Social Media Profiles

Why? Thanks to social media is much easier to promote your start-up with a low budget for advertising.

Do you think that social media is important for your business? What you can do to be more visible, but you don’t have time for this?

There are a lot of aspects of social media. If you want to become social and get exposure, you can blog, post a video on YouTube, have a podcast or just start connecting with your peers on LinkedIn. Doing so, you can:

• Connect with people, build a dialogue and new business opportunities
• look for investors and attract them
• promote your business and increase your sales
• Build brand awareness
• Increase loyalty and trust with your stakeholders
• Create inbound links to raise your search engine ranking
• Build a transparent online personality that reflects who you are
• You can even find:
  • interest-focused groups
  • potential collaborators
  • valuable employees
  • more customers and clients

In addition, when companies utilize social media during the construction process of their Web sites, they are likely to find it easier to engage visitors.

One more idea. Start-ups are using not only video and blogs, but also Twitter and Facebook. When using social networking sites or micro-blogging, try connecting with quality audiences. Do not only connect with Facebook and Tweeter users that have a lot of friends or followers, respectively.

Then, don’t forget to listen to your customers and respond quickly to them. Social media has a lot of opportunities that you can’t get anywhere else.

Sources

Social media will change your business

Social Media for Business: The Dos & Don’ts of Sharing

Is social media important for Startups?

Too Busy for Social Media Marketing?