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Posts Tagged ‘social’

Big List of Social Media Sites

posted by Michael Garrity @ 1:00 PM

Friday, December 2, 2011

At this point, even the most inexperienced Web marketer is aware of the vital role that social media plays in promoting a brand on the Internet. Of course, almost everyone has a presence on at least one of the major social destinations, mainly Facebook and Twitter, but what many people seem to overlook are the seemingly endless amounts of smaller, alternative social networks at their disposal.

In addition to the "Big 5" social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Tumblr), there are a wide variety of different places that users can go to be social on the 'Net. Some of these sites are aimed at specific lifestyle markets, some provide specialized services like user reviews or checking in, and some are simply older or smaller takes on the social network platform that we all know and love.

There are obviously many ways for marketers to approach social media. It would certainly behoove everyone to make their presence felt on Facebook and Twitter, because the number of users and levels of engagment on those two sites are so astronomically high compared to their competitors, but beyond that, the sky is really the limit for companies trying to optimized their Web profiles.

This issue becomes more difficult to address when you consider the very broad defintion of "social media." For some, social networks are only those like Facebook or Myspace that are built around the idea of users having their own unique profiles, which are the focus of the site. Others define social much more loosely, referencing any site that gives users a chance to share and interact with content. Because of this, the opportunities for social media marketing are, in a way, limitless.

Local businesses probably want to seek out services like Yelp or Foursquare, which give users a chance to write reviews or check in to local shops, respectively. Companies that operate in more niche markets by offering products or services most useful to a specific group can seek out social networks that serve the interests of these unique customers. Other businesses have the opportunity to market themselves in unique ways, such as in pictures or video, by jumping on board with specialized social networks that focus on these types of content. Here's a list of some of the best social media sites on the Web today that covers all of these areas and more.

"The Big 5"

Athletes

As someone who runs (or, in my case, has befriended runners) will tell you, it is a very social activity. This website takes the communal nature of the sport to the next level, by allowing runners to share their experiences with like-minded athletes around the world.

Athlinks

Education

The first is a great site geared mostly towards college and high school students to work together and seek help in their schoolwork without having to plagiarize or turn to the unreliable Wikipedia for answers. The second provides a network for teachers to share and get ideas.

Cramster

Teachers Recess

Music Lovers

To many users, the Web and music go hand-in-hand. One of the most popular uses of the Internet for many people is to listen to, share and discuss music with others, making it a natural move to create social networks based around the idea of, surprise, listening to, sharing and discussing music with others.

Last.fm

iLike

Finance

Everyone's always seeking financial advice and/or business information, so why not turn to the Web?

Pet Lovers

People love pets, and for those people who really love their pets, these sites offer a place to turn to get advice and share stories about their favorite four-legged creatures.

Dogster

Catster

Gamers

The classic stereotype of "gamers" is that they're all very anti-social, but with the advent of online gaming over the last decade, it has become one of the more social hobbies in which one can particpate. These sites allow users to connect with other gamers while sharing their individual accomplishments online.

Raptr

gamerDNA

Food and Cooking

Yum! This is the digital-age equivalent to your grandma sharing recipe cards with her friends.

FoodPals

BigOven

Bakespace

Artists

This popular art-hosting site has become a haven for those wanting to share their original content with the world.

deviantART

Travel

Social networks based around travel allow users to seek out information about potential destinations based on actual user feedback, which provides practical information for trip planning.

TripIt

Dopplr

TripAdvisor

Avid Readers

Another group that isn't usually seen as the particularly social, readers now have a variety of places to visit online to share with like-minded individuals about what they're reading and what they've read, as well as get recommendations for new books.

GoodReads

Shelfari

Film Buffs

Like music fans and readers, those among us obsessed with movies also love to talk about them and share ideas and recommendations, and this site allows users to do just that.

Flixster

And more!

There are plenty of other great social destinations that offer a variety of options and services for users, as well as great opportunities for marketers to spread their message on the Web.

Tags: social

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Drive Higher Engagement with These Content Types

posted by Peter A. Prestipino @ 2:00 PM

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

A Web marketer's job can be made much easier when meaningful and valuable content is available to promote.

There is no shortage of platforms on which to promote content, or channels through which to promote your content, or ways to construct messages about your content.

But where many Web professionals fall short is in the assembling of the content itself. Too often, online workers will recycle dated material, tired messaging and straight-up boring content. On the other hand, when you have content that by its very nature leads to deeper levels of engagement, it will show in the volume of conversions.

So, what types of content drive engagement?

It is likely that they are already at your disposal and, if not, you should start creating it. There's actually quite a bit of content that you as a Web marketer and search engine optimization professional should have in your asset library. Videos, images, interviews, product manuals – just check out WM’s article on knowledge-base optimization. But many content types don’t really lead to high levels of engagement (return visits, more pageviews, additional downloads), so it's important to accurately know the value of your content assets.

Let’s look at a few vital content assets that all marketers should be regularly promoting on social networks and private forums, within email newsletters, on your own website, through display and search-based advertising and, of course, within the Google and Bing natural search results.

Product/Feature Releases: There seems to be a general feeling in our industry that it’s not wise to be overly self-promotional. I agree in some respects but disagree in many others. It’s hard to argue, particularly when it comes to those with an established audience, that there remains a need to notify users of advancements about your business. Case in point – product/feature releases.

Not only are they a powerful way to keep messaging fresh and compelling, it’s also worth mentioning and should be in your lineup of options to promote content when the aim is to drive engagement. People like “new” and recently added features, and products definitely fit the bill. The key to driving engagement with product release-focused content is to carefully select the platforms on which to promote that content. For example, product releases are ideal for social media followers but not great for cold prospects that can be reached elsewhere.

Webinars/White Papers: Marketers jump at the chance to promote a webinar or a white paper. The reason is simple: It’s easy – easier than nearly any other form of content promotion. Production of these content types aside, buyers are naturally drawn to webinars and white papers because they provide information, meaningful/valuable insights that can be immediately used.

That’s one of the things that the three content types featured here all provide – valuable information. Webinars and white papers are perfect for nearly any channel (social media and search) but can be most effectively used in advertising, when the challenge is to educate, entertain and inform in a matter of seconds. When you show up with something as valuable as free information, the likelihood you will generate more clicks than the competition is all but guaranteed.

Feature Articles: The term "content marketing" is poorly defined. With so many opportunities to promote content and so many formats, it’s not uncommon that marketers opt for the fastest solution, and that is rarely the feature article. If you’re staffing a team of writers, or are skilled at producing/publishing content, then it would be a shame not to leverage feature-ready, long-form articles (starting at 800-1,000 words).

Search engines give preferential treatment to long-form content over short-form – at least in my experience – so dedicating yourself to regularly producing information in this manner will serve you well. Long-form, insight-rich content increases the time on site (and even page views) and drives sharing and additional on-site activity, particularly when linking to your own content. With the exception of advertising, features articles can be used within any promotional channel – particularly in search and social media.

Content is king and the level of quality does matter a lot, but marketers can give themselves a leg up by focusing on the types of content that have proved they can deepen engagement and increase conversions.

Tags: content, marketing, SEO, social

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Would Jesus have tweeted?

posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM

Monday, July 25, 2011

Would Jesus have tweeted?

With all this social media around I have asked myself if Jesus would have tweeted: “Performed miracle at Cana wedding. Guests thirsty and restless. Asked mum to fetch more water”, or “Cranking out a few parables after lunch with Stephen Fry”?

Recently, the Pope was in Britain and warned of “aggressive secularism. Meanwhile, the Vatican has launched www.pope2you.net, linked to Facebook and an iPhone App. Recently I have become extremely bored with Mashable and TechCruch stories on iPhone apps and decided to turn my attention to the effects social media, in particular, and the internet in general are having on our lives

One such article suggested that humankind is in the midst of a radical and unprecedented transmutation of its collective society, such as in debilitating disparity between rich and poor, globalised economic insecurity and a species-threatening ecological crisis. Perhaps.

Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry on The Ten Commandments in the televised Intelligence Squared debate asked how “the Galilean carpenter” would feel about the wealth of the church, attacked its hierarchy and the “twisted, neurotic and hysterical way its leaders are chosen”, while Ann Widdecombe led to the familiar story of Moses and how he came to write down the ten basic rules passed to him by God. With social media so dominant in our society, would that have been posted on Facebook, one wonders.

A friend of a friend, Simon Critchley, recounts in his book The Book of Dead Philosophers that Voltaire, after decades of denouncing the Roman Catholic Church, announced on his deathbed that he wanted to die a catholic, while Heraclitus, who believed that everything was in a state of flux, died, according to one account, of drowning in cow dung.

He goes further to suggest that philosopher Francis Bacon, the great champion of empirical method, died of his own philosophy: in an effort to observe the effects of refrigeration on a freezing cold day, he stuffed a chicken with snow and caught pneumonia. Then we have Julien Offray de La Mettrie, atheist and hedonist, who died after eating large amounts of truffled pâté and Ludwig Wittgenstein, who saw life and death as part of the same timelessness, died the day after his birthday after a friend had given him an electric blanket as a present. “Many happy returns,” the friend said. “There will be no returns,” Wittgenstein gaily replied.

Our consciousness seems to have manifested itself, almost exclusively, on the narrowed values of competition, individualism and externalised success, and the West’s collective rationale has now been set on individualism and materialism that has been grossly overemphasised and reinforced.

When you look at the casino culture of our ruthlessly unregulated financial institutions, they remain tied to our paradigms of separation and competition. Politically and economically, these values stretch institutional ambition beyond traditional borders as we are now witnessing with the emergence of China and India.

But back to basics: Copernicus was credited with contributing the first comprehensive cosmology that replaced the Earth with the Sun as the centre of our system of revolving planetary bodies; Galileo furthered the popularity of Copernican astronomy with observable proof via telescopic advances; Kepler began constructing a bridge between astronomy and the laws of physics that was completed by the work of Newton. Their proven assumptions required cultural adaptation of religious ideology.

However, the once mighty Catholic Church shunned and silenced such discoveries; and these days the religious seem to have taken it upon themselves to have a mightier voice than that of Darwinian biology, and other geneticists, at a time when these ideas were instrumental in bridging a material view of the cosmos with a secular view of nature and evolution.

Maybe Jesus’ followers would, beyond doubt, have retweeted the words, “He’s the one who made it possible to have direct contact with God. We don’t need a middle man,” and restricted the last part of the phrase for lack of character space. Well, the bankers may have come out in revolt over that but I’m sure history has shown us that we only reorient institutions and practices that mirror our assumptions and shifting values of the interconnectedness of digital cooperation.

Postmodernism tends to be a loose composite in all this and is influenced by scientific studies and personal observations that seem to suggest experience is subjective. Similarly, deconstructionists point out the fallacies of objectified or rational truth and the limitations of reductionism.

Or, to use Mr Critchley’s account in On Heidegger’s Being and Time, we should see this as a radicalisation of Husserl’s phenomenology, particularly his theories of intentionality, categorial intuition and the phenomenological concept of the a priori, if you get my drift. Philosophers do indeed die in the strangest of circumstances, as the entire idea of searching for “truth” is in itself now an existential.

But to get back to the point, “Would Jesus have tweeted?” I rather suspect he would have or Barack Obama would have been tweeted beforehand: “Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time.”

Tags: networks, social, Would Jesus have tweeted?

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SEO & Social Media Marketing To The Rescue

posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM

Saturday, October 16, 2010

SEO & Social Media Marketing To The Rescue

Now that the website is live, we just sit back, celebrate at the launch party with a bottle of bubbly and wait for all that traffic and recognition, right? Dream on!

Internet marketing and online promotion require ongoing attention and acute care. The good news is that this part of the “web-dev” process can be the most fun and bring the most joy – both emotionally and financially. Checking your website stats and seeing that you have ten times the traffic increase when compared to last month, and having to hire additional help to respond to all of the contact form submissions can be very exciting times for any online business. (Yay! #success) Where do I start then?

A properly crafted website well on it’s way with this.

During the website development phase great care and attention was taken to lay the ground work for a sound SEO (search engine optimization) foundation. Well thought out page titles, meta tags, keyword sensitive copy-writing and a solid interlinking system should have all been in place. Having these items in place will greatly help in increasing your relevance in the eyes of major search engines. Web directories and Search engine submission

One of the first steps after launching the website should be submitting your site to the top web directories and search engines. Getting listed can sometimes cost a nominal fee and at times can be a long process, so it’s important to get the ball rolling.

Getting your site known and listed on directories can help in numerous ways:

People who use these directories can find your site

Lets the search engines know that your website exists

Provides links back to your site from some top page ranked sources

Link building

Link building is another important step in promoting your website. Having in-bound links listed on highly reputable and relevant websites is probably at the top of Google’s long list of criteria for determining your pages rank. Make sure that your approach with link building is ethical.
(Not-so-good practices such as using link farming services can quickly make your site disappear in the eyes of the major search engines.) The Best practices of getting your links listed on websites that are relevant to yours can direct visitors to you as well as making search engines say: “Hey if that top ranking website thinks that your site has reputable and relevant information then it must be so.”

Best practices for link building include (but are not limited to) the following:

Writing articles for websites or blogs and including a link back to your site in your authors bio

Writing articles and submitting them to article publication services

Adding a link on your site to a website you hope to get your name on, contacting them and asking for a reciprocal link in return

Having content on your website that is actually inbound link worthy

Keeping your content fresh

A very large mistake many people make after launching their website is never adding new content or updating existing pages. This hurts your visibility in numerous ways. If there is never anything new to see visitors will never feel the need to return. The same is true for search engine spiders – they want to eat up and index all of your new content.

Top experts also feel that search engines give more importance to sites with frequently updated content as the info must be time relevant. Spiders keep track of how often new content is added to your site and determine the frequency of their trips back to you based on this data.
The more content you produce, the more visits you’ll have from all your friendly neighbors on the net. Harnessing social media.

Using social media channels like Facebook and Twitter can help keep you in touch with your fans, tribe and client base. Social Media is a great avenue for building upon old relations and creating new ones as well. The viral nature of social media marketing also provides huge potential for exposing your website to an exponential number of people, friends of theirs and their friends’ friends, and so on ad infinitum.

There are many ways to market your website and get your name out there so that your people find you.

Tags: marketing, media, Rescue, SEO, social, Web University

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Automate Marketing In Social Media Through TweetAdder

posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Automate Marketing In Social Media Through TweetAdder

There is little doubt that most believe that one of the most effective forms of marketing today is through Social Media. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn normally provide opportunities that you will not be able to take advantage of any other way. Primarily, that is in getting the word out to people who are reading your messages. Social media is almost entirely ‘instinct’ based, if you post something of quality, chances are that people are going to be curious enough to take a look as soon as they see it. However, one of the downsides of social media marketing is the problem that many people encounter with the amount of time that it takes to post updates, manage followers, retweet messages and send out messages. In these cases, it might be helpful to take a look at some of the automation tools that are available to automate your social media marketing One such tool is TweetAdder.

TweetAdder is maybe one of the most cheap automation tools that is available. They are one of the few paid tools that do not require you to pay a monthly fee. You pay a one time fee (money back guaranteed) and you will be able to set up your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn account and update them using your existing files. This isn’t to say that TweetAdder isn’t without it’s faults, it definitely has some problems. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of TweetAdder.

Pros

The biggest benefit of using TweetAdder is that you only pay a fee one time. It does not have a requirement that includes payment each month to continue using the software. Most other programs charge between $25 and $50 per month (or more) to use the software. The one time fee is $55 for a single user license. This includes lifetime updates for the software.

TweetAdder is also very simple to learn to use. Unlike some other programs that require a lengthy learning curve, TweetAdder is very straightforward, and you can learn how to use it very easily. One of the downsides however is that when updates are made to the program, they can be all encompassing. A recent article “Using Tweetadder” for automation which was published on May 17, 2010 is no longer valid, at least for multiple accounts. The changes that were made in Version 10 of Tweet Adder were sweeping, changing many of the features. The upside is that many of the previous database errors have been corrected in this version.

Cons

There are two primary downsides to TweetAdder. The primary one being that your computer must be running in order for it to operate properly. This means that if you are prone to shutting your computer off at night, your version of TweetAdder will close down with it. This isn’t an issue if you intend to only run TweetAdder during working hours.

The other “downside” of TweetAdder is that there is no way for you to view your time-line within the program. For most users that means they must have another program such as TweetDeck, HootSuite or log into their Twitter accounts to re-tweet or to read messages.

Summary

For what it will accomplish successfully, TweetAdder is a great program. It is even better if you are only managing one Twitter account. The low cost of TweetAdder makes it ideal for someone who is just getting started with automating their Twitter and other social media accounts.

Tags: Automate, marketing, media, social, Through, TweetAdder, Web University

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How to Select a Social Media Monitoring Service

posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

How to Select a Social Media Monitoring Service

The focus is on social media monitoring in this final articlein the series on Selecting a Media Monitoring Service.

In earlier articles, Determining Your Media Monitoring Needs, Print News Monitoring vs. Online News Monitoring, and Broadcast Monitoring for TV and Radio News, I describe the various approaches to news monitoring.

Definition: Social Media Monitoring

The social web is a fast-growing and fast-changing “platform” for consumers to discuss companies and products.

Social media monitoring is the process of listening to online consumer reviews and conversations about your company, its brands and services.

The overarching goal of social media monitoring is to learn from listening – better understand consumer concerns about your organization, and then employ that knowledge to enhance your products and services.

Social Media Monitoring Services

Your social media listening strategy should encompass all forms of word of mouth media and consumer discussion including but not limited to blogs, “complaint” sites, message boards, forums, Usenet news groups, and video sharing sites such as YouTube. You should also monitor
social community sites like Facebook, MySpace and Linked-In, along with Twitter, the microblog.

Social media monitoring services monitor all forms of social media – but not all services monitor all media. The services use specialized software to aggregate social media postings from multiple sources, index all the content on a near-continuous basis, query the index using the client’s key words and identify consumer posts of interest, and then deliver the relevant posts to the client.

Since it’s impossible to predict where or when important market intelligence will “pop up” on the Web; or where it will be repeated or “go viral”, it’s best to monitor the widest possible range of social media.

Market Intelligence vs. Worthless Chatter

Social media overflows with inane chatter. If the Chipotle restaurant chain monitors social media, the overwhelming majority of mentions will be about “going to” the restaurant or “meeting (name)” at the restaurant – not very useful for market intelligence purposes.

Well-constructed search queries help minimize extraneous chatter. As an example, McDonald’s could focus social media monitoring on specific product names (brands) instead of the corporate name. Or it could use an “and not” operator in the Boolean query on common phrases like “going to” or “meet”. That type of clip avoidance strategy will likely delete a bit of worthwhile conversation, but will certainly minimize useless chatter to be reviewed.

In using social media monitoring as a customer service tool, it’s important to review all mentions of company and brand names to identify and act on complaints (and compliments).

What should you be listening for?

As a starting point, monitor for your corporate name, your brands, the services you offer, and the names of key executives.

Initially, just start looking for complaints, compliments and questions about your company. Look for any serious issues that need to be corrected. Look for patterns or trends that are emerging – positive or negative. Initially, measurement of social media is not necessary, especially for small and mid-size companies. Later, you may want to expand your listening to encompass competitors and industry-specific issues – and also do some formal measurement of social media conversation.

Who in the organization should coordinate the listening?

The answer to “who should listen?will emerge from the reasons your organization wants to monitor social media. Is it to find service complaints and rectify them? Then “customer service” should listen and react – often called “engagement” in social media circles.

Is the reason to identify issues with product performance? Then marketing or product development should be listening.

Is it to monitor corporate reputation? Then the public relations department should be listening.

In large corporations, multiple departments should be involved in the listening process.

How to listen?

Using free social media search engines can provide quite a good cross-section of word-of-mouth commentary by consumers on the Web. For blogs, try Technorati, Google Blogs and Ice Rocket. Searching multiple services causes a problem of duplicate content that you’ll need to filter out – something that commercial media monitoring services do automatically.

For message boards and forums (which may be even more important to monitor than blogs), try BoardReader which covers about 50,000 different online consumer discussion sites. The best way to start monitoring Facebook and Linked-In is to simply sign up as a member and enter search queries into each service’s search engine.

The downside of free search services is the time required to conduct the searches. It may not be the most productive use of in-house staff. Staff time is better used for analyzing, not searching. If there are a limited number of new posts each day, it may be acceptable to monitor less frequently. But at least occasional monitoring of social media is crucial to gain a better understanding of consumer issues and to protect your corporate reputation.

Bottom Line: free social media search engines may well meet your needs if you have just a few search terms, typically receive only a few new postings each day, are willing to invest the time to conduct searches on a regular schedule using multiple free services, and have no need for advanced services to measure the quantity, reach, and tone of the social media postings. Using free media monitoring tools, though not perfect, may be “good enough”. “Free”, however, is not truly free. The staff time investment must have an adequate return.

Commercial Social Media Monitoring Services

The paid subscription services for social media monitoring provide more comprehensive coverage, save staff time, and provide many bells & whistles including online clip archives to manage the social media posts, and automated quantitative and qualitative measurement of the posts.

Prominent social media monitoring services include Radian6, Alterian M2, Trackur, and Scout Labs. Presently, more than 50 companies compete in the social media monitoring and measurement space. There is a “wiki” of social media monitoring solutions at wiki.kenburbary.com that continually updates the growing number of social media monitoring services. The Yahoo! Directory also contains a comprehensive list of social media monitoring services.

Many of the well-established news monitoring services provide integrated social media monitoring. CyberAlert, for instance, in addition to its online news monitoring service, provides comprehensive daily coverage of 50+ million blogs; 100,000+ message boards, forums, complaint sites, and Usenet news groups; 200+ video sharing sites like YouTube; and all Twitter postings for the previous 24 hours.

Social media monitoring services vary considerably in their mission and in their deliverables. In screening the companies, it’s vital to match their market niche with your need. Doing your homework in advance to narrow down your vendor list is absolutely essential.

Assessing Social Media Monitoring Services

Questions to ask in assessing social media monitoring services:

What is the core goal of your service?

Who are your key customers? What internal department is the primary client contact point for your service?

What’s your service best at doing? Exactly what social media do you cover? How do you aggregate content? May I add social media of special interest to our company to those your company already monitors?

Do you cover “complaint” sites? Which ones? Do you monitor Twitter?

Do you cover and exactly what content do you harvest from Facebook, MySpace, and Linked-In? Is your search engine capable of performing Boolean queries? What Boolean operators does your search engine use? Is it capable of using regular expressions? How many keywords may I use in my queries?

Does your service include a searchable archive of social media posts? What are its features? Ask for a demo of the archive.

How do you differ from (another service you are evaluating)?

Who is your best competitor? Why is your service superior to theirs?

What enhancements do you plan to your service in the next 60 days? Six months? One year?

Many of the services offer a comprehensive demo or, even better, a “test drive” of the service. That’s unquestionably the best way to sort through the features and benefits of the various vendors.

Summary: Social Media Monitoring

As a new and rapidly evolving media, online consumer discussion and social communities form the “wild west” of monitoring. No solution is perfect. But some social media monitoring is essential for most every company. The temptation is to leap into social media at full speed. But,
the “full service” solution of listening, measuring and engagement may not be the best solution to meet your needs. Determining your needs before contacting or meeting with vendors is the most effective way to start the process. With a better idea of what you need, you’re far more able to assess and evaluate media monitoring services – and not buy more than you need.

Tags: how, media, Monitoring, Select, Service, social, Web University

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The Color of Branding

posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Web video is a communication technique that provides a viewer-experience that delivers several big advantages over broadcast: first, the length of your presentation is for the most part a non issue other than the degree to which your content and delivery holds your audience’s attention; second, the cost to produce and present professional online video is far more affordable than broadcast; and third, Web video provides the chance to intellectually and emotionally engage your audience with a memorable viewing experience, and involve them physically by prompting direct-response action. On the other hand, broadcast does provide a mass audience, but not necessarily an attentive one like your website.

As we have seen in previous installments of Killer Campaigns, the commercial broadcast industry, despite its economic and time constraints, has plenty of good examples of techniques that can be used effectively in Web video campaigns, if you understand how certain elements affect an audience.

It’s easy to misread a commercial’s true marketing effectiveness and assume the big flashy special effects and grandiose production stunts are what makes a commercial work, but in fact those kinds of things generally only make a commercial more expensive. True the big-deal aspects of a production may attract attention, but it’s the small things that are the most important, the most effective and the most affordable. It’s the things you hardly notice like writing, casting, music, performance, and campaign consistency that have the most impact on a presentation’s ability to communicate, influence and persuade. It’s the production techniques to which the audience pays little attention that maximizes sale-conversions and increases the bottom-line. Take nuts for example.

Color Me Nuts

Nuts, the edible kind, not the irritating relative kind, are about as generic as you can get. So how do you go about creating a marketing campaign for something as mundane as nuts?

The Wonderful Pistachio “Get Crackin” video campaign and micro site got a lot of things right. This series of videos use the same format, style, message, and color in order to turn a nondescript, seemingly unbrandable generic product into a hip, sexy brand. Each element of the presentation re-enforces the other leaving a lasting brand impression without blowing anything up, or spending a fortune creating animated baby skateboarders.

One element that turns this campaign into a great campaign rather than just a very good one is its use of color. What could be simpler?
Watch the: Pistachios Newly Weds Do It Video

The campaign’s consistent use of a signature color palette, green and black, combined with a great tagline and a series of clever sketches deliver the kind of memorable impression that prompts instant recognition and impulse-purchasing when seen on store shelves.

Watch the: Pistachios Dominatrix Do It Video

One video is not a campaign, so Paramount Farms had seven different videos created, all following the same formula so the audience’s recognition and retention was enhanced and re-enforced every time they watched a new video segment.

Watch the: Pistachios Mobsters Do It Video

This technique is not new; in particular Danone uses color co-ordination effectively in their television commercials to distinguish their various brands of yogurt: Activa uses a green color palette, DanActive uses yellow, and Silhouette uses purple. The Danone commercials don’t have the edginess of the pistachio campaign but their use of color is well thought-out and effective even though the messaging is pretty standard.

The edgy style, consistent format, and color branding definitely qualifies the “Get Crackin” videos as a Killer Campaign.

The Color of Money

Another campaign that makes an impression by means of its clever use of color is the Edward Jones “Join Us” campaign. If you’re not familiar with the commercials they are available on YouTube but unfortunately the embed option for them has been disabled.

These commercials were shot on a white background in black-and-white, a technique that draws special visual attention to the yellow-and-black Edward Jones logo. The whole package is very clever from the way the videos are shot, to the dialog, the music, and of course the clever use of color, or lack-there-of.

The same visual style was repurposed for a companion print ad campaign further establishing and enhancing the brand image in the minds of the audience.

Edward Jones Companion Print Ads

The Audacity to Believe

Is on Board With the Crazy Idea

Signature Color Branding

Colorcom is a color consultancy located in Hawaii and New York. According to their website, color branding increases recognition by up to eighty percent; it aids memory processing and storage; and it attracts attention, increases comprehension and mentally engages the viewer. That’s pretty powerful stuff, and you don’t have to be a mega corporation with deep pockets to implement color effectively.

Color Affects, a London-based color consultancy, explains how color affects perception on a physiological level through the electrical impulses that pass from the retina to the hypothalamus area of the brain that controls our hormones and endocrine system. The hypothalamus controls behavior patterns, sex and reproductive functions, metabolism and appetite among others.

Color By Association

Color by itself is not enough to get the job done. The pistachio campaign added the format, style, messaging and performance elements in a consistent campaign that re-enforced the message and the brand.

In the end, Web videos are not as much about making a sale as they are about making contact: contact in the sense of connecting to an audience on an intellectual and emotional level. Web videos designed merely to flog some product or service have built-in limitations, and an abbreviated shelf-life, whereas video presentations designed to engage can become eternal

Tags: advertising, brand, branding, marketing, media, social, video, web, Web University

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Search Engine Marketing: A Perfect Blend Of Social Media, SEO and SEM PR

posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Search Engine Marketing: A Perfect Blend Of Social Media, SEO and SEM PR

Search engine marketing (SEM) has evolved to become the most reliable strategy for reaching your target audience and driving conversions on the internet. It compels your market to visit your website; it boosts your company’s exposure within your space; it positions your product as the solution to their problems. As a result, your sales go up. Your revenue and profit swell. Your ROI rises. And your business enjoys stronger branding and customer loyalty in the process.

Many of your competitors are already using SEM in an attempt to capture a larger portion of your market. There hasn’t ever been a better time to protect and expand your territory. This article will explain why search engine marketing should be a critical piece of your online marketing strategy. You’ll discover the value of hiring an SEM expert versus forging a path yourself. We’ll also describe how SEM PR and SEM social media tactics converge with SEO and PPC to produce a groundswell of momentum.

Why Search Engine Marketing Is Critical

Search engine marketing blends SEO, pay-per-click advertising, and social media strategies to give your company a higher level of visibility within the search engines’ listings. However, visibility without sales defeats the purpose. And therein lies the true value of SEM.

Your marketing efforts must generate conversions in order to justify the investment. Conversions might include a prospect buying your product, signing up for your newsletter, or becoming your affiliate. It might include subscribing to a continuity program that generates monthly revenue. Search engine marketing not only allows your company to approach your audience, but it engages the conversation that is already occurring in their mind. It compels action, which lifts your conversion rate.

Is Hiring A Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Expert Necessary?

Every tactic that is leveraged within a comprehensive search engine marketing deployment can be learned. The problem is, doing so is incredibly time-consuming. The algorithms that govern the search engine’s organic rankings change constantly. The major PPC platforms endure a seemingly endless string of upheavals. Social media sites are still in their infancy; as they mature, so too, will the tactics required to leverage them. Developing proficiency in each area of search engine marketing takes an enormous amount of time.

An SEM expert will design a search engine optimization campaign that pushes your website to the top rankings for your chosen keywords. They can also launch a pay-per-click, PPC, advertising campaign that further improves your exposure. Social media marketing tactics can be integrated to dovetail with the rest of your search engine marketing deployment. Even though you could launch these strategies yourself, do you have the time to learn and apply them?

SEM PR: Melding Search Engine Marketing With Public Relations

SEM PR has its roots in search engine optimization. Years ago, online public relations was managed largely through the creation and distribution of online press releases. This is still effective today. These press releases gain traction in the search engines’ organic listings. That builds your company’s brand while helping to push negative publicity off the first page of results.

Today, online public relations has been incorporated within a broader search engine marketing context that includes PPC, SEO and online reputation management (ORM). For example, a press release can be distributed online in order to gain traction within the natural listings. Then, a PPC campaign can be launched to direct your audience to the press release on your website. Links can be placed throughout the page to other positive coverage. The more points of exposure, the less likely negative press will penetrate the top rankings in the search engines. This is a core element of ORM and by extension, search engine marketing.

Leveraging SEM Social Media Optimization For A Competitive Edge

Social media sites began to enjoy ranking authority in the major search engines a few years ago. That authority has only increased over time, making social media an important cog in search engine marketing. This is the reason SEM social media optimization has become critical for companies that need to reach niche markets.

By establishing a presence on the top social media sites, a search engine marketing agency can develop multiple entry points in the organic listings. That increases your audience’s exposure. It also prevents bad press from infiltrating the top listings for your keywords. These advantages converge to deliver a competitive edge for your company.

The Value Of Hiring A Professional SEO Marketing Consultant

Time is the most valuable commodity of all. Once it expires, it cannot be retrieved. This is why a growing number of companies – including your competitors – are opting to hire a professional SEO marketing consultant. They realize that search engine marketing strategies are complex. The learning curve is steep. What’s more, deploying PPC, SMO and SEO tactics poorly can do more harm than good. Precision in execution is critical.

If you have already mastered each of the strategies that make up search engine marketing, and have a refined the systems through which to deploy them, you may not need an SEM expert. Otherwise, you might be fighting an uphill struggle. Consider contacting a search engine marketing specialist today.

Tags: Blend, Engine, marketing, media, Optimization, Perfect, Search, SEM, SEO, social

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Promoting Brands in Social Media

posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:58 AM

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

You Must Use Social Media to Promote Your Brand

If you think Twitter, Facebook, and other online social media communities are only for teens, you’re missing out on valuable and free marketing platforms for your brand (book, business or product).

Further, if you’re not on social media, you’re risking losing your own potential clients/customers to those smart business people who are utilizing social media.

Which social media platforms you focus on depends a great deal on what your brand is. Here are seven excellent reasons why you must use social media no matter what you are promoting:

Reason 1: It’s the Most Cost-Effective Online Advertising.

The current most popular social media platforms being used for business are free: Twitter.com, Facebook.com and LinkedIn.com. (LinkedIn does have an upgrade that costs, but it’s not necessary to get this upgrade.) And this is “relationship” marketing to targeted markets. “Free” is definitely more cost-effective than spending money on online advertising techniques such as Pay Per Click or banner ads.

Reason 2: You Can Have Global Reach With Social Media.

The world is now a global marketplace. Why not reach this global market? Many of the most popular social media platforms have this global reach, and you can see this clearly illustrated on Twitter. At any time of day or night you can see real-time “tweets” from people in Japan, England, the U.S., India and many other countries.

For example, if you have a book that might appeal to anyone in the world who reads in English, why limit yourself to just promoting in the U.S.? Thanks to Amazon people outside the U.S. can buy your book even if it is only available in U.S. stores.

Reason 3: You Can Attract Targeted Groups of People as Potential Clients/Customers for Your Brand.

Social media enables you to join groups of people with the same interests and goals. On LinkedIn and Facebook you can join groups as varied as Children’s Book Writers to eMarketing. If you choose groups to join based on your brand, you’ll be putting yourself in front of the exact groups of people you want to reach as potential clients/customers. This can pay off in increased sales for you.

Reason 4: You Can Form Your Own Community by Using the Community Aspect of Social Media.

Once you are active on social media platforms and have people who are your followers (Twitter), your friends (Facebook) and/or your connections (LinkedIn), you can start your own groups of highly targeted interests. You can create a niche market in your brand, book or business and share your knowledge with others who join your community.

These people can become your loyal followers, friends and connections – and they can help spread your marketing message to their followers, friends and connections.

Reason 5: You Can Use Social Media to Establish Your Expertise.

People like to do business with people they know, like and trust. By sharing your knowledge for free online with the people in the social media groups you belong to, you can establish yourself as an expert. This can pay off in increasing potential clients/customers’ trust in you.

And you can also receive invitations for blog “interviews” or BlogTalkRadio show interviews or podcasts. And these interviews lead to more free exposure for your brand and more free promotion for your expertise.

Reason 6: You Can Use Social Media to Find Cross-Promotional Partners.

Amazingly in the world of social media, people who would be considered competitors in the off-line world are teaming up to provide products and services to their combined clients/customers.

And these clients/customers are very responsive to these cross-promotions (often called joint ventures) – especially when introduced to a second expert by a first expert they already know, like and trust.

You and your cross-promotion partner can each get access to the other person’s “list” (the names of interested clients/customers collected at a website) and thus you’ve greatly expanded your potential client/customer pool.

Reason 7: With a Few Keystrokes You Can Announce New Updates of Your Activities.

Your updates on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn take seconds – and you’ve announced to your followers, friends and connections what you’re doing or what you’re offering or what you’re speaking on. And there are even online applications that allow you to update your status across several of your social media accounts at one time. So it is as easy as 1-2-3 to keep in front of your potential clients/customers.

In conclusion, once you become active yourself on social media platforms, you’ll find many more reasons to promote your brand, book or business on social media in order to attract targeted potential clients/customers. And you’ll look back at your pre-social media days and wonder how you ever did marketing without using online social media.

Tags: marketing, media, social, web

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Is Social Media Worth Your Time?

posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 12:31 PM

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Is Social Media Worth Your Time?

Everyone – from politicians, businesses, musicians, celebrities and many other groups of people – uses social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or other social networking outlets to spread their message, build their businesses and connect with others.

Do they know something we don’t?

Networking, whether online or offline, is a great use of time when done properly. As with anywhere you spend your time, knowing why you are doing it, how you will measure success and having a plan is the best approach.

With that said, I jumped in with both feet last year with the guidance of a social media expert, and I have found clients, joint venture partners, speaking engagements and other great connections through various social media outlets. I am a member of more social media outlets than I can count, but I currently focus on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. While I am not an expert in social media, here are five reasons to take some time to learn the benefits of social media.

1. There Is No Cost

There is no direct cost unless you opt for an upgrade, if one is offered. I haven’t paid for an upgrade and have steadily increased my list to include over 1000 followers between just three social media outlets, and without much effort.

2. Build Your Business by Connecting With Peers

Are you interested in finding joint ventures, affiliates, guest experts or other peers you can bounce ideas off of? In the last few weeks alone, I have located one large joint venture partner and have had several other partnership opportunities cross my desk. Business owners just like you are using social media to connect with others who are interested in using your articles, hosting you as a guest expert on teleseminars, webinars and live events, and even creating projects together!

3. Build Your Business by Following Reporters You Are Targeting

Would an article written by a certain reporter make your year? Follow them on Twitter or Facebook and see what is of interest to them and what they are writing about. You never know what golden nugget you’ll find by following them online that may open the door at the right time. Follow them and invite them to follow you as well! Or with LinkedIn you can find out how many degrees you are from them. You may surprise yourself by being only one or two degrees away from your target!

4. Showcase Your Expertise, Build Your Platform and Attract New

Clients

Social media is an interesting animal. While many people use it to increase their businesses, you must be mindful about outright promotions. Generally speaking, heavy marketing of your products and services on these sites is a big no-no. Here’s how I do it. I’ll post something like this: “Just got off the phone with social networking guru Nancy Marmolejo. Now I’m off to finish writing my sales page for the Business Breakthrough Series.” People who are intrigued will check you out and may end up deciding to follow you and … bingo! They have just entered your world!

5. Reach Large Audiences

The world is your oyster in social media. There are only a few businesses that are truly limited by geographic boundaries, especially if you are in the information marketing business. Being active on social networking sites eliminates geographic boundaries and allows you to reach a vast number of people from all over the world. If you have products and services that can be purchased by anyone in the world, being active in social media is an absolute must for you. I recently held a teleseminar with people from over 10 countries in attendance, all from the comfort of my home office! And my sweat pants!

So, is social media worth the time? It depends. Social media is absolutely the wave of the future, and you will need to know something about it at some point. However, whether you work it into your plan for 2009 depends on your goals. If you have a goal of increasing your reach to prospects either locally or internationally, you can do that quite effectively through social media. However, if you can cannot and will not commit to learning how to “tweet” on Twitter or communicate on Facebook or use your connections on LinkedIn, it will not be worth your time.

My advice to clients when they are just starting out is to select one social media outlet, whether it’s Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, and master it before jumping into every outlet possible. You obviously need to schedule time for connecting, so select the social networking outlets that will benefit you the

most.

Now that I am experiencing the financial results of my online efforts, I understand why this is such a great use of my time and I’m hooked!

Tags: media, social

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Simple Twitter Tips that Attract Clients and Partners

posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 10:35 AM

Monday, September 21, 2009

Simple Twitter Tips that Attract Clients and Partners

According to Mashable.com, a leading authority on social media, there are currently over 12 million users on Twitter. Another resource called istrategylabs.com reports that 46% of Twitter users are college grads, and another 17% have post graduate degrees. Furthermore, 47% are between age 18 and 34, and another 31% are between 35 and 49. Males and females are evenly ranked, with women accounting for 53% of users and men 47%. If your target market falls within these demographics, actively participating on Twitter is probably worth your while.

Twitter is simply a micro blogging service. What does that mean? It means that you write short updates (140 characters maximum) called “tweets” and send them out to your followers. And it is a marketer’s dream come true – it’s an easy way to stay in front of your target market and showcase your authority at no charge!

The myth around Twitter is that Twitter users (called tweeple or tweeps) tweet about useless information such as what kind of coffee they had with breakfast. Yes, some of that exists and it is actually important as you’ll see below, but once you understand the power of connecting on Twitter, you may become a Twitter convert, just like me.

So, if you’re on Twitter or considering starting, the question becomes, “what do I tweet about that will make this a useful tool for me?” Here are some categories you can consider for your tweets. There are others but these will get you started:

Industry Tips

This is a big one. You are on Twitter to showcase your expertise, so industry tips act as your credibility builders. Here’s how to do it: Create a list of high value tips (remember – no more than 140 characters long) and send one or two out every day. If you don’t want to have to manually do this yourself every day, consider a free tool called TweetLater.com to set up your tweets in advance. If your tweets are really good, others will send them out to their lists as well. This is called a “re-tweet,” and it’s a super way to quickly build your list of targeted followers.

Here is one of my recent tweets that had a great response:

Connect Others: Be willing to connect others even if it has nothing to do with your business. What goes around, comes around.

About Your Business

Use this category sparingly. In other words, if you use Twitter as a place to advertise your products and services too much, people will stop following you. This is not what Twitter is about. It is really about raising awareness of you and your business and impacting others. Use the 80/20 rule here. For every eight tweets about things other than your business, you can post two things about your business.

Here is an example:

Hey Columbus: I’ll be on Fox tomorrow at 7:45 where you can see me interviewed about my new book, Flourish!

Re-Tweets

When someone re-tweets you, they are giving you the highest compliment you can get on Twitter! It means that the person who re-tweeted you thinks that what you said is worth sharing with their own list of followers. This is like having someone ask you to a meeting so they can introduce you their entire list of contacts. When you get a re-tweet, send them a short tweet thanking them! Re-tweet others who are tweeting things that you agree with or want your

followers to read.

If you are not familiar with Twitter, the example below probably won’t make a lot of sense because of all of the abbreviations, but they are necessary given that you only have 140 characters. Abbreviations are outside the scope of this article, but just know that it’s really not as scary as it looks!

RT @getgreatcopy: New blog post: The Sixth Habit of Highly Effective Communicators http://bit.ly/ 175XGS Gr8 stuff Jan, as usual.

Quotes

Tweeps seem to love quotes. If you are also a fan of quotes, compile a list and send one or two out every day. Again, you can use tweetlater.com to set these up in advance so you don’t have to manually enter them every day. Simply set up these tweets for a month and then watch your re-tweets happen!

Here’s an example of one that I recently posted:

“The pursuit of pleasure must be the goal of every rational person.” Voltaire

Invitations

Invite tweeps to your free events. No-cost events like teleseminars are great to tweet about because people love to share high-value, low-cost information with their lists. When you offer something without a cost – a workshop, teleseminar or report, your tweets about it are likely to get re-tweeted, which provides you with greater exposure to your target market.

Here’s an example of one of my recent posts:

How 2 write your book in a weekend – free telesemimar w/ @donnakozik. http://bit.ly/ 127GtU

Personal

Include some personal things that are going on with your life. What you choose to include is entirely up to you; however, be sure to be relatable. You don’t have to share your deepest inner thoughts or too much detail about your family, but sharing something about what you did over the weekend makes you more relatatable. Remember, Twitter is about connecting with people. Other people on Twitter want to connect with people – not stale businesses. People often connect on a personal level over food, pets or hobbies. This is why these seemingly unimportant tweets are actually very fruitful. These are pretty safe personal topics.

General things about kids are another hot topic under this category. Just be aware that anything you say is out there for the world to read.

Here’s an example I tweeted recently:

Interesting pop culture moment: Told a story to my sister, who lives in Vietnam & realized she doesn’t know who Sara Jessica Parker is!

As you can see, Twitter is simply an online forum for connecting with others in 140 characters or less. Big and small brands are using Twitter to connect and impact their target markets and locate joint ventures. Can you, too?

Tags: network, social, tips, twitter

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12 Ways to Use Twitter for Social Media Marketing

posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 9:58 AM

Monday, September 14, 2009

12 Ways to Use Twitter for Social Media Marketing

Twitter is a wildly popular microblogging service. It involves writing Tweets, which are short updates of a maximum of 140 characters that tell your followers what you are up to. Although your Tweets are technically supposed to answer the question, “What are you doing?” Twitter has moved far beyond that. Tweets are used to share stories, link to photos, promote content, break news, and a whole lot more. Twitter has also become an incredibly important tool for social media marketing professionals. Here are 12 ways in which Twitter can be used in your social media marketing campaign.

1. Sharing Links to Items of Interest

As soon as you read something online that you think is interesting, it is easy to share it on Twitter with all of your followers. Twitter is highly effective in this manner because it is such a quick way to be able to reach a large group of people. You can also get a lot of great ideas for blog posts from Twitter since many new ideas and stories are floating around that haven�t even made it to the blogosphere and definitely not to mainstream media.

2. Building Your Network

Using Twitter is a great way to build your network because it allows you to find and follow people with similar interests. You can use Steeple to find people who live in your geographical area. You can also use other tools that help you find new people to follow based upon who your Twitter friends follow.

3. Build Relationships within Your Current Network

People in different networks often use Twitter to connect with their contacts instantly rather than using instant messaging for that purpose. Furthermore, many people use Twitter to connect with their network during events like conferences.

4. Re-Distributing Content from Your Blog or Website

Twitter can be used to redistribute content from your blog or website. However, you should take care to do this thoughtfully since many of your Twitter followers may already read your blog. For that reason, you may want to avoid using a blog plug-in that automatically Tweets your posts. Your best bet is to Tweet your content manually and customize each Tweet so it doesn’t get old.

5. Get Involved in Live Tweeting Events

Twitter launched at SXSW last year, catapulting microblogging conferences to fame. Live Tweeting events are great because they are a form of citizen journalism that allow you to connect with several new people in your niche while making active and valuable contributions to current discussions in your community.

6. Pitching Stories to Journalists on Twitter

You can send a direct message to a journalist who is following you on Twitter to pitch a story idea.

7. Communicating with Your Team

You can use Twitter as a company intranet that connects all of your employees. Twitter can be particularly useful in this regard if you have a virtual business with employees in different geographical locations. You can set your updates to private for security reasons. Anytime you are working on group projects, you can stay in touch with your team members using Twitter.

8. Brand Monitoring

Stay up to date with any mentions of your business on Twitter. If there is anything negative, you will be able to counter it quickly. You can also use Twitter as a way to receive feedback from your customers and improve your business. Just ask your followers to give their opinion on something. For example, if you designed a new website, ask your followers what they think about it and get their constructive criticisms so you can make your site design even better.

9. Acquire More Votes on Social Media Websites

If you have submitted a story to Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, or any other social voting website, tweet a link to that submission to try to score more votes from your followers. If your followers like what they see, they are sure to vote for your content.

10. Hiring People

Looking for a programmer, designer, or writer? Whatever type of professional you seek, try finding them on Twitter. Simply send your followers a tweet telling them you are looking for someone for a job. They can either recommend someone to you or offer themselves for the job. Using Twitter in this way is ideal for finding qualified freelancers. It is much more convenient than putting out a classified ad.

11. Build Your Personal Brand

When you use Twitter to talk about things as mundane as what you ate for breakfast or how you are going to sleep early tonight, you make your followers feel like you are casual and approachable. Even those running a company that has a cold, corporate brand image could create more appeal and build a unique personal brand using Twitter.

12. Streamline Electronic Communications

When you use Twitter, you�re likely to find yourself using IM, email, and other electronic communication methods less. Twitter not only provides public chatting through Tweets, it also allows you to send direct messages. Twitter will help you streamline your electronic communications, allowing you to scale back online.

Tags: marketing, media, network, networking, social, twitter, web

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