Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category

You may have been hearing about a new technology called QR codes. It’s a scannable barcode of sorts that can contain all sorts of information within the code. The codes can be scanned with a number of different applications on all major smartphone platforms, to pull information to the user’s phone. Recently, the code is most often used alongside print ads to lead the user to an online deal, or a mobile app of some kind that is associated with the print media. When a user scans the code, they can either view the contact information or the text within the code, or they have the option of following a link to an application for purchase on their phone, or a regular website.

The Advantages

According to Nielsen Wire, smartphones are 25% of the U.S. mobile market, and that number continues to grow. This means that mobile technology, as well as advertising through this form of medium is only going to grow over the coming years.  The codes are small, simple, and easy to create. They are simple black and white, and can be used very easily with all forms of print media, and even online. They are free to create, and the apps that smartphones use to scan are often free so it does not cost consumers to pull information from the codes.

How to Use Them

Make sure that whoever handles your online/social media and marketing is aware of this technology and will use it. Ensure that where it’s feasible, your print ads contain a QR code to your website, or an online deal. Don’t post the code without any explanation of what it is for. Most people don’t know what they’re for, and won’t know what to do with the image itself. It doesn’t have to be fancy, in fact even a bit of text as simple as “scan this code with your smartphone to visit our website” will work. Just so your consumers know what to do with it. Be prepared to answer some simple questions about the codes and what they’re used for. Have someone on hand who is knowledgeable with the technology to answer questions, and direct people in the right path.

Some Top Apps for Barcodes

ScanLife
ScanLife has a popular barcode scanner for all the major smartphone platforms, and is free.

RedLaser
RedLaser is predominately built for the popular iPhone platform by Apple.

Facebook users are represented on the social network as either a Page, Profile, or Group. The three options offer different opportunities and restrictions, which can impact what you are trying to accomplish on the social network. A little research can help you decide which format is best for your business.

Facebook Profile
A Facebook profile is the login mechanism representing an individual to connect with his or her friends via their profiles. This personal file affords the opportunity for individuals to share their interests, hobbies, links, videos, pictures and games. An easy way to share interests is by clicking the LIKE button on Facebook Pages. By its nature, a Facebook profile is to personally connect with friends that are also on Facebook.
Benefits:
• Security options may be edited to private, semi-private or public
• You can easily change your display name
• You can comment on others posts

Restrictions:
• Only one user per profile
• Tabs and Box items are no longer available

Facebook Page
A Facebook Page is a useful marketing tool within Facebook’s community. Acting as a brand profile, the Page offers many advantages to companies not afforded by the Profile. Pages are advertised, linked to, recommended or shared to friends in the hopes the friend will LIKE the page. When individuals LIKE a page they essentially opt in for real time updates to be shown in their Newsfeed.

Benefits:
• A Page may have multiple administrators to manage the content of the page
• Facebook Pages are now searchable by Google, Yahoo and Bing
• Pages can still have customizable tabs
• Pages may have programmed landing pages for coupons, promotions, or welcome messages
• Advertising on Facebook for Pages or external Websites rivals Google AdWords

Restrictions:
• Unable to revise your display name
• Login is required from a profile name
• A page cannot interact with individual profiles

What’s right for you?
We recommend every business subscribe to a Page vs. a Profile. In the economic environment of Do Not Call lists and Anti SPAM laws a Page offers businesses a marketing shield. The benefits of advertising, customizing tabs and pages is why many Franchisers and Corporations now rely on Facebook instead of their websites for sweepstakes, contests, and charity events. Finally, the HR headache of reassigning the passwords with each employee’s promotion, intern, or management change are relieved with the ability to allow and remove individual profiles from editing pages.

Here’s the weekend wrap with a few stories that business owners will find interesting when it comes to social media.

49% of Small Business Owners Use Smartphones [STATS]
Firstly, some interesting facts about smartphone usage of small business owners. More reasons to make sure that your business optimized for the mobile platform.

5 Common LinkedIn Fallacies and Why You Shouldn’t Believe Them
If you’re in the professional world at all, chances are you’re on Linked In. And if you are, here are some common pitfalls to avoid, and some helpful tips as well.

6 Ways to Optimize Your Blog for Search Engines
If you have a blog, whether it’s a personal blog or a professional one, here are six things that you should do, or make sure your webmaster is doing for you. It’s important for your online content to t be optimized for search engines.

Well social media folks, here comes the end of another week. Here’s a rundown of some important stuff that happened this past week in the world of social media.

Gap Asks Facebook Fans for Alternative Designs to Derided New Logo
Did anyone hear about this incident this past week? Popular clothing maker Gap decided to change their logo for what they called a “a more contemporary, modern expression.” Well, contemporary and modern aside, the social media community exploded with backlash over the new logo. When the company saw how terribly the new logo was received, they’ve opened up Facebook as a means for finding a new one. A great story on how social media affects businesses every day.

7 Resources for Handling Digital Life After Death
So you’ve got your Facebook page running smoothly as well as your Twitter, Linked In, and other social media sites. Well what happens when you die? Does the content simply sit… forever? These 7 tools aim to answer this question.

Build the Perfect Blog Audience for You
If you’re a business and you have a blog, you should be keeping it fresh, updated, and relevant to your clients/readers. Here’s some tips that are often easily forgotten when it comes to blogging.

Here’s some stuff from this past week you might have missed from this past week:

Foursquare had a big downtime this past week, providing the details, the Foursquare team tweeted that they worked most of the night to fix the errors.
Foursquare Explains Yesterday’s 11 Hour Outage: An Overloading Of Database Shards
via TechCrunch.

Also in the social media category, Facebook made some big changes in a press conference this week, including changes to privacy settings, and a revamp of Facebook’s “Groups.”
Facebook Tweaks Allow Friends To Sort Who They Really ‘Like’
via The Wall Street Journal

And finally, #NewTwitter get’s a new search engine.
New Twitter Gets New Search Engine
via Mashable

Remember the old saying, “Location, location, location?” The familiar adage reminds us that a location of an entity has so much to do with that entity, and how it is perceived. If you’re running your own business of any kind, having your location made known on Google Places is a must. Google Places is a tool for business users to publish their business information based on their location for free. Consider it a yellow pages of sorts, only categorized by location instead of alphanumerically.

When you Google something like “Pizza”, Google automatically assumes your zip code based on your ISP, and displays local results for businesses that pertain to your query. These listings are based on their address, and contain the location, as well as a phone number, website, business hours, a short description, as well as up to five categories and a business photo. As a business owner, it’s important that you have your business listed in these results. When you list your business with Google Places, Google uses the address you provide to relevantly display your business with search results, as well as it’s location in Google Maps, free of charge. As a business owner, using Google’s unique method of returning localized search results along with listings on it’s popular map service should definitely be a part of your online marketing plan.

Think that Facebook is a passing fad and there’s no need to be on it as an individual, let alone a business? Think again. Mashable cites new research data this morning putting Facebook in the number one spot when it comes to time spent online. Google and Yahoo are close followers, as well as YouTube.

In today’s content and connection-driven world, Facebook is more infiltrating into our lives than ever more. It’s important that as a business or even an individual you have a Facebook profile and that it’s kept updated.

Original article here via Mashable.

Here are some new interesting facts about Twitter from Mashable and Twitter, including how they’re getting 300k new users daily, and how they’re working to make Twitter more prolific and easier to use, as well as well as expanding on the mobile platform.

Twitter Surpasses 145 Million Registered Users. (Mashable)

The Evolving Ecosystem. (Twitter)

via Mashable, and Twitter.

Let’s face it; if you’re online, and live in today’s world, you’ve heard of, and probably use YouTube. Since Feb. 2005 when it was founded, YouTube has grown by leaps and bounds, adding new features, and more options. If you have an Apple iPhone or an Android-powered smartphone, YouTube can be found in the palm of your hand, 24/7. Aside from being the world’s largest online repository of video, businesses use YouTube to promote their products, run advertising campaigns and post commercials as well.

YouTube self proclaims that “people are watching 2 billion videos a day on YouTube and uploading hundreds of thousands of videos daily. In fact, every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube.” To think that your business cannot benefit from the grossly large demographic that YouTube has to offer  is absurd, and a mistake many businesses are making today. YouTube in many ways is saturating the population like color television did when it first came out.

For the business, it is essential that even if you don’t post videos, or don’t post videos regularly, that your business has a YouTube presence. As with any booming social media tool, it has an positive impact on your target demographic simply by having a presence.

Should you want to update and use the site for promotional purposes, make your updates meaningful. In a world where the next video out of billions to be viewed, what’s going to make yours stand out to your audience? Don’t forget to market your YouTube content outside of just YouTube. Herein lies the greatest potential for your business. Informational videos, promotions, and commercials that are uploaded by your company shouldn’t just sit on YouTube waiting for the random viewer. Include your videos in e-blasts, post the videos to your company’s Twitter and Facebook accounts. Doing so will help your channels viewers/subscribers to increase, and will help word about what your business has to offer move quicker in your market.

If you’re a business owner, or you simply work for a business, chances are you use email marketing to get things done almost daily. But what’s to ensure that your emails to clients/subscribers are perused and read, rather than simply deleted without even opening. Is your e-blast a benefit to the receiver, or a nuisance?

Make it Visual

Put some pictures in your email. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, and it certainly shouldn’t cost you any more. It can be as simple as a graph, or some colored diagrams to illustrate what the email is about. Consider a colored header or a footer to make things cleaner and more appealing to the eye. Lines, tables, and simple fonts can also help increase the readability of your email.

Make it Relevant

As with a newspaper, an article in a magazine, or even a Twitter account, the information presented must be relevant enough to the reader for them to continue reading. Relevance takes on a greater importance in the digital world where it is ten times easier to just click onto the next piece of information when one becomes disinterested. Information in your companies e-blast must be interesting enough for recipients to continue reading. Don’t include information that is redundant, or not relevant. Don’t send out an entire e-blast for a few lines of something new. Make your emails to-the-point, while containing relevant and useful information surrounding your topic. Links can and should be used, but they should not generate an entire newsletter.

Consider Your Audience

An e-blast should never go out to a particular audience based just on assuming that they want the information you have to present because they asked for other information about your company or its services. Always allow quick, easy, and visible opt-in and opt-out procedures. If a recipient is expecting an e-blast from your company say, monthly, and on a particular subject, they’ll be happy to receive it and eager to show it to their colleagues in the same field.

Consider Your Technology

Never send e-blasts from your personal email account. Always rely on your e-marketing people to handle your e-blast’s delivery. Sending e-blasts from your personal account looks very unprofessional and can also lead to your account being suspended.Email looks and feels more professional when sent from dedicated email-list software, which will in turn lead to greater readership, and growth of your subscribers.

Email is a powerful tool in the business world to deliver business-related content to your clients.  By following a few simply guidelines and letting the right people handle your email, you can successfully e-market your business. Use a company like Wilson Monnig Creative to handle your email and online marketing needs.