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Basil Puglisi's Brand Blog #AIassisted

SmB Digital Trends: LivingSocial

March 29, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

LivingSocial offers a system similar to Groupon where users can jot in their local zip code and browse over offers that can be purchased online for personal use, or even sent to others as gifts. This social discovery and networking tool allows business owners to read and review what others are saying about their business, and cater their advertising and promotional ventures accordingly.

LivingSocial isn’t limited to any specific area of commerce. Commonly movie tickets, books and even pet store coupons appear on the LivingSocial site in chosen local areas. As of early 2011, LivingSocial may not have the coverage that larger sites like Groupon currently has, but they are definitely growing, sometimes with cities expanding coverage in just a matter of days.

LivingSocial.com claims to be the most comprehensive and interest-based community online that is helping over 6.4 million users to catalogue their interest. And where would they get such incredible numbers? It seems LivingSocial has been using Facebook.

Full Facebook integration makes LivingSocial easy to use and even easier to share with family and friends. As they also promise the bigger the crowd, the better the deal, this encourages all users to share and equally encourage others to participate. Top notch marketing ideas like this on LivingSocial.com may indeed make it far more widely recognized and used once the traffic starts to bring in more deals, with better coverage.

So What is the Encouragement to Share?

Really, doesn’t every site online these days encourage you to share? And sometimes, when you see a great deal, you may share it, and just as often, you may mean to but forget, or just have no intention of sharing what you think may interest only you. So how does LivingSocial.com succeed in nudging users into sharing?

Simple. Each day a new discount deal will be available, either by viewing the site or by signing up for their daily emails. If this deal interest you, click the Buy Now option. Once you have purchased the deal you will receive a unique link to share with friends, family and those coveted Facebook followers and if three people also purchase the deal using your link, your originally purchased deal is entirely free.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpVj6x6t5pE]

 

Who Likes LivingSocial.com?

Alexa says that LivingSocial.com has a global traffic ranking of 514 and a US traffic rank of 147. In comparison to race based internet statistics, LivingSocial.com’s users are disproportionately white, moderately college educated, and childless females over the age of 65, who earn over $30,000 per year and are most likely browsing from work. The sites regional traffic ranks actually show that 79% of its users are logging in from the United States. With a solid page ranking of 6 across multiple Google datacenters, over half of the daily page views are simple one page bounces.

Although the site is nearly four years old, trends in daily deal sites recently have certainly improved significantly since just after the beginning of 2011.

Sources:

  • Alexa
  • What is Living Social?
  • About LivingSocial.com

Filed Under: Basil's Blog #AIa, Branding & Marketing, Conferences & Education, Digital & Internet Marketing, Social Brand Visibility, Social Media Topics Tagged With: brand, coupons, deals, Location Based, Social Brand, Social Media, Visibility, Visibility Marketing

Brand Blogs: Mashable

March 28, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Considered an internet news blog, Mashable was launched from Pete Cashmore’s very own home in Aberdeen Scotland in 2005. Its primary purpose is to cover the latest news in social media, but it also covers any new news and developments in entertainment, online video, web development, technology, mobile and other gadget reviews and information.

The site has reported as many as 30 million viewers and users in one month and has a vast following on a variety of different social networking sites. With over a million Twitter followers and a great Alexa ranking it seems to be continually improving and proving itself in the eyes of the search engines.

Mashable’s provide straight to the source information, reviews, blogs and other sources of great informative content that keeps users coming to check it out, and previous users returning when they need to get to the root of just about any problem Mashable addresses. Mashable is also gaining a huge following through sources like Facebook and Twitter users, which is continuing to be an influential demographic.

Awards and Recognitions

Mashable began at the end of 2007 to host an International Open Web Award contest that would give recognition to the best online services and other communities. Voting was conducted online and not only by Mashable but also by its twenty four blog partnerships. In January of 2008 Mashable’s announced their Open Web Awards winners that included Facebook, YouTube. ESPN, Pandora, Google, Twitter and Digg.

Mashable acquired Blippr, a micro review service website, in March of 2009 and has only continued to rise in popularity among those who rely on blogs, news sites and reviews of technology to do their own related jobs. This process helps to keep a continual flow of updated materials that Mashable users know they will find when they head to their site for answers.

In 2011 Mashable CEO and founder Pete Cashmore was named one of the Young Global Leaders by the World Economic Fourum. The World Economic Forum, based in Geneva, Switzerland, is an independent international organization that aims to improve the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas.

Sources:

  • Forbes: Mashable
  • Mashable: About
  • Mashable: Pete Cashmore Young Global Leader
  • MeetUp: Mashable
  • World Economic Forum

Filed Under: Basil's Blog #AIa, Branding & Marketing, Conferences & Education, Digital & Internet Marketing, Social Brand Visibility, Social Media Topics Tagged With: blog, blogger, brand, Social Brand, Social Media, Visibility, Visibility Marketing

Google Analytics and Greasemonkey

March 25, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Google Analytics is a free service offered by Google that generates statistical information about the visitors to your site. It is aimed at marketers, small business and website owners. It is considered to be the most often used statistic tool, currently used by 57% of the 10,000 most popular websites.

Google Analytics tracks visitors to your site from search engines, display advertising, PCP networks, e mail marketing, and even links within PDF documents. Users can track landing page quality and conversions. By using the Analytics users can determine which ads are performing and which don’t.

Greasemonkey is a Mozilla Firefox extension that allows users to install scripts that make changes to the way a web page displays or behaves by using small bits of JavaScript. The changes made to the web pages are executed every time the page is opened, making them permanent for the user. Greasemonkey can be used for adding new functions to web pages, such as embedding price comparisons, or changes to the way the site appears. There are many scripts for various functions such as providing information within shopping sites, fixing bugs and combining data from multiple pages.

To help Google Analytics users with insights into their website’s traffic and marketing effectiveness, various Greasemonkey scripts are available for free and can be used to enhance Google Analytics. They have different functions; some are aimed to enhance cleaner profile switching, others for quick content search, exporting to Google Docs and more.

Here are some of the most interesting scripts:

  • Social Media Metrics – this plugin allows users to observe social media, and link statistics to your specific pages.
  • Twitter and Google Analytics campaign tracking variables. Adds Campaign Source,
  • Campaign Medium and Campaign Name to your links for easy tracking of the traffic they drive to your site.
  • Enhanced Google Analytics. This script allows users to get up-to-date information on new referring sites or those who have had a substantial boost in traffic.
  • Profile Switching. A cleaner way to switch between profiles.
  • Insights for Analytics. Helps perform Google Insight searches on keywords in the report. Select up to 5 keywords in Google Analytics and view traffic patterns for these keywords on Insight.

It is important to note that on March 17, 2011, in a conference in San Francisco, Google Analytics unveiled a new version in beta trials. In order to make it easier and faster to get information and to enhance the Google Analytics platform, it is rumored to have an updated look and feel. Many of the changes in the new version are the result of user feedback, Goggle Analytics people say, including multiple dashboards, new links for specific reports and new names for reports. It is available for a small group of users for testing. The launch date is yet known.

Sources:

  • Analytics Blog
  • Blog Anol
  • Tyson Kirksey
  • UserScripts
  • WebProNews
  • Wikipedia: Google Analytics
  • Wikipedia: Greasemonkey

Filed Under: Basil's Blog #AIa, Branding & Marketing, Conferences & Education, Digital & Internet Marketing, SEO Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Topics Tagged With: analytics, brand, SEO, Social Media, Visibility, Visibility Marketing

Social Media & Brand Monitoring Part 4: Techrigy, Seesmic

March 24, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

SM2 – Techrigy

When Techrigy, a Pittsford, N.Y Company, reached 1 Billion conversations, in Feb. 2009, it was posted all over the internet. In July of that same year, the company was acquired by Alterian, a British integrated marketing software platform and a leading marketing service company. Their product was labeled SM2.

The company provides brand monitoring solutions for social media. It provides tools to monitor and measure social media sentiment analysis, trend comparisons, geographic analysis, theme detection, authority measurement, demographic and classifications.

SM2 helps brand managers see what people are saying about their brand, who is saying what, how the competition is doing and what is said about them. It is an essential tool in market research and shows, analytically, how a campaign or new product launch is performing.

SM2 follows what was said on blogs, message boards, forums, micro blogs (like Twitter, Plurk, Indeti.ca), Wikis (user generated information sites), video and photo sharing sites (You Tube, Flickr) social network sites (Facebook, Ning, LinkedIn), classified sites and review sites.

All this vast information, categorized by topics, is delivered to their customers, aggregated and diced into graphs and pie charts so you can dig out the information you need and adjust your search to make it more accurate.

In comparison to Radian6, SM2 showed almost the same search results. The sentiment result was much better in SM2, but the interface is not user friendly. The initial set up time for each search also takes too much time. 

SM2 serves advertising agencies and PR firms like Abraham & Harrison ( working with Kimberly-Clark Healthcare, Lowe Worldwide, Sharp Electronics), Bader Rutter (GE healthcare, Pfizer) and Yamego (MTV, Durex, BBC).

Their pricing is compatible to Radian6 – plans starting at $500 a month.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC3L8XlMoCQ]

Seesmic

Seesmic, founded in 2007 by French investor Loic Le Meur, still operates out of San Francisco. It offers tools to monitor the activity on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites, and respond in a timely manner from one centralized place.

In 2009 the company went through a re-launch from being mainly a video uploading site to aggregating content from other social networks. They have a few programs:

Seesmic Desktop – which allows you to manage several Twitter accounts, build groups and “Build your community”.

Seesmic Web – A web based version that allows you to manage a few Twitter accounts, on any web platform. The information is being stored in a cloud, not on your computer.

Seesmic aim is to be the gateway to all your social services needs on any platform you are on, local apps and mobile phones. The nicely designed app, allows you to link your Twitter and Facebook accounts, you can add a Ping.fm account and automatically update all of them together with one post, or each of them separately.

In January 2010, Seesmic acquaired Ping.fm, a company that allows users to publish updates on many social media sites with a single click, and its ranged grew to over 50 social networks.

Users range from individuals looking to interact with their following, to big brand managers and social media experts. They do not offer analytics.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHoAcEAGsKQ]

SalesForce Chatter with: Android, iPhone, BlackBerry and Windows Devices

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNsVqB_V4S4]

Sources:

  • Alterian
  • Alterian: Customers
  • Alterian: Products
  • Crunchbase: Seesmic
  • Crunchbase: Techrigy
  • Jeff Espotito Blog: Picking a New Social Media Monitoring Service
  • MacWorld
  • Mashable: Seesmic for Enterprise
  • Seesmic: About
  • TechCrunchIt: Techridgy indexes 1 million…
  • Web Metrics Guru: SM2 Techrigy
  • Web Metrics Guru
  • Wikipedia: Seesmic

Filed Under: Basil's Blog #AIa, Branding & Marketing, Conferences & Education, Digital & Internet Marketing, Social Brand Visibility, Social Media Topics Tagged With: analytics, brand, Social Brand, Social Media, social media analytics, Visibility, Visibility Marketing

Press Release: Submission Software & Easy Self Serve Sites

March 23, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

One aspect of online business marketing may require the distribution of press releases for special events, products or even discounts or other coupon or seasonal promotions. And although drawing up a press release may not be that difficult or time consuming, submitting it to the many directories available can be a definite time-killer.

Many have heard of article submitters or even article directory software, however, this is not the same as press release submission. While article or content farms are a dime a dozen, legitimate press release sites are not as abundant. This is a good thing as with less available sites to choose from, comes more coverage and hopefully views, for the content submitted to the quality press release websites available.

What Tools Are Available?

Although there are tons of article submission tools, there are only a couple of press release targeted submitters.

Traffic Mania Pressbot

Traffic Mania Pressbot is also known as Press Release Submitter. Released by Incansoft, this press release submission tool is available under a couple of different titles. The most valuable package it is bundled in includes many different tools available by this developer. Though it is also listed sold individually, with a different cover, but at the same price.

It is hard to find a bad review on this product. Most who use it seem incredibly satisfied with its capabilities and ease of use. The fact that this tool comes with a one-time cost and offering solid technical support and lifelong free updates may make it well worth it.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mn6dGCuHq8]

Submit Like Magic

 

This is a heavy duty marketing tool. It allows users to create and submit articles and press releases, upload videos and even one-click social media bookmark to hundreds of sites. Although this tool is a literal powerhouse, some user reviews suggest that it hasn’t quite worked out all of its initial kinks. Overall, the kinks that Submit Like Magic does have are seriously overshadowed by its capabilities.

This tool will also come with a hefty price at $67 USD per month. They do allow a quick trial period of thirty days for a small fee of $4.95 to test out the software as well. Although this may not be the right tool for those who dabble in marketing, this is definitely the perfect tool for powerhouse marketers. There is little that you cannot do as far as social bookmarking, article directory submission, video uploading, RSS feed submissions and captcha support is concerned.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrNih3yAboQ]

Easy Self Submit Sites:

If your looking to just do a little self promotion and want to create a nice simple Press Release then PRLog and FreePressReleases are great sites that will allow you to create a single press release that will be added to the digital world with all the formatting done for you. This is great for small businesses that want to just create or pitch a story from time to time to their local media. Both Sites have the ability to email or send once the Press Release is live.

  1. PRLog
  2. Free Press Releases
  3. Idea Marketers
  4. Information Online
  5. Press Release Here

What Can Press Release Submission Software Do for Small Business?

It can absolutely save a small business owner loads of time and money. By utilizing PR submission software, users are able to eliminate the hours of manual submission and complete their PR submissions to many sites with a few entries and the click of a submit button.

For the minor marketer, Traffic Mania Pressbot is plenty of software, but for the power marketer, Submit Like Magic may be a multimedia marketers dream.

Sources:

  • IM Guru: Press Release Submitter
  • Help and Info: Submit Like Magic
  • Web Toll Softwares: Traffic Mania Pressbot

Filed Under: Basil's Blog #AIa, Branding & Marketing, Conferences & Education, Digital & Internet Marketing, Mobile & Technology Tagged With: brand, PR, Press Releases, publishing, Visibility, Visibility Marketing

Social Media & Brand Monitoring Part 3: Sysomos, TruCast

March 22, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Social Media has given every one of us an equal voice in what is being said on the internet about a brand, and with that changed the way our entire world works.

The more saturated the world wide web becomes, with information geared towards making money, not always in an honest way, more and more searches are conducted through social media sites that can give a firsthand, personal experience testimonials using the brand.

That, in turn, changes the way companies are advertising and handling consumer’s complaints. It changed launching campaigns, and reshaped the way advertisers are learning what works and what doesn’t.

There are online tools to help brand managers and small business owners track, analyze and react to what is being said about them on the World Wide Web. They help control the visibility, what is being said and where, and enables real time reaction.

Sysomos

“Business Intelligence and Social Media” – that is how Sysomos labels itself. What’s happening online, what it means for your products or brands, and how to engage in the conversation, are some of the areas their software enable their customers to do from one centralized place.

They provide Social media analytics that gives you the tools to make the right decisions. Their database has an archive of data collected from forums, micro-blogging, videos, blogs and other social sites.

The company, in existence since 2005, employs logarithms to scan information in the form of crawlers (similar to what Google does when new pages are uploaded) and categorizes, breaks down and aggregates that information from all over the world. That includes sites that are not in English, with the help of a translating tool.

Sysomos prides itself for having a 4 tire security against spam, which is meant to produce a spam-free and true report, for being able to produce results in real time and for enabling you to reach and react to the information in a timely manner, any time of day or night.  It also has an automated sentiment report to make it easier to navigate through the information.

The site will give you analytics; who is talking about your brand and where they are located. You can compare the information to those of your competitors. You can choose to identify the influencers who are talking about your brand and start a conversation. All this can be done with the same platform and you can share information and assign responsibilities to other team members.

A spinoff of the University of Toronto research project, this Canadian company’s flagship offering –  “MAP” (Media Analysis Platform) was launched in 2007, and was aimed to serve corporations, marketers, public relations agencies and advertisers. Another program called “Heartbeat” was launched in 2009, and is a cost effective version of the program. In 2010 the company announced the third major product, “Audience”, in beta testing for social media ROI (Return On Investment).

In 2010, Sysomos was acquired by Marketwire, a press release distribution company. The company holds webinars to explain the benefits of their system. Their pricings start at $500 a month and go up to $1,000.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agVOpF1VtV8]

Facebook Page Central:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjJA5CWyFfg]

Trucast

The newcomer to the social media monitoring is Trucast from Visible Technologies. It launched in August 2010, and offers the ability to track, analyze and participate in forums, social networks, blogs and online communities.

It is aimed at advertisers, brand managers, market researchers and corporate customer service, public relations and communication professionals. It is built to handle massive amounts of information (they say it handles up to 70% more than competing companies) and you can follow up to 40 different topics. The company will categorize it and transform it to actionable business insights which show the purchase behavior of clients, which areas of customer relations needs to be improved and how to build brand loyalty. They say they dig deep into social media data as well as other industries and third party data sources like newsgroups, bulletin boards and online news sites.

Their clients include Microsoft, Panasonic, Hormel and Dell. Their statistics has shown that using their software, Dell managed to reduce the negative sentiment about them by 50%.

They do not publish their prices.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmaiZNRO884]

Sources:

  • CrunchBase: Sysomos
  • Read Write Web
  • Sysomos: Products
  • Sysomos: Blog
  • TruCast.net
  • Visible Technologies
  • Wikipedia: Sysomos

Filed Under: Basil's Blog #AIa, Branding & Marketing, Conferences & Education, Digital & Internet Marketing, Social Brand Visibility, Social Media Topics Tagged With: analytics, brand, Social Brand, Social Media, social media analytics, Visibility, Visibility Marketing

YouTube Advertising & Channels

March 21, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Having a custom YouTube channel is kind of like having your own television channel. It will allow the user to upload their personal videos and to promote their own products or services via their video as well as URL linking on the custom YouTube channel page.

To begin you would simply need to sign up for a YouTube account and begin uploading your videos to their site. Once uploaded, users should than plan to ‘market’ their videos in various places online such as social medias, blogs, news articles and website content.

Once you have an account you will find many options for customizing your personal channel. However, if you want more than just a custom channel for private use and have a good history of having great views on your YouTube content, you may need to apply for  a YouTube Partner account.

YouTube Partners

Becoming a YouTube partner will make you privy to specialized tools and customization options, including page analytics. This will absolutely help to generate far more revenue than simply using the regular methods of ‘getting the word out’ via social medias and bookmarking.

How Does YouTube Advertising Help?

When you use the phrase YouTube advertising this can mean two different things. YouTube does offer their own method for advertising your products or services via Ad campaigns through their web site similar to Facebook ad campaigns, where a user pays for a certain amount of views or clicks.

YouTube advertising can also mean the method where business owners or those promoting their personal services use YouTube videos as a means to help drive more traffic to their own website. Providing helpful YouTube video ‘How-to’s’, Tutorials and walkthroughs on products, services, internet tools and a vast variety of other things that can help bring one more viewer to a users site via providing helpful content in hopes that it will encourage the user to get help from the ‘pro’s’, which is hopefully what your YouTube video will make you appear as.

 There is no doubt that both of these forms of YouTube advertising can be effective. Even the smallest bloggers have had great results by utilizing links to and from their YouTube videos. The more videos a user uploads the better their chances of bringing more users to their channel.

Most YouTube advertisers also understand the what’s and why’s of why others are utilizing its capabilities as well, so are commonly known to help promote good content by sharing it on their own social medias, or by joining your channel or choosing to ‘favorite’ your videos. This type of ‘word-by-digital-design’ is just as helpful if not more so than traditional methods of advertising such as banner ads or affiliate linking.

Sources:

  • Aileena Polo at Work Blog
  • Google: YouTube
  • Google: YouTube Ads
  • My Success Mantra Blog
  • Rob Fore: YouTube Advertising Video
  • YouTube: Advertising
  • YouTube: Partners

 

    Filed Under: Basil's Blog #AIa, Branding & Marketing, Conferences & Education, Digital & Internet Marketing, Social Brand Visibility, Social Media Topics Tagged With: brand, google, Social Brand, Social Media, video, Video Marketing, Video Visibility, Visibility, Visibility Marketing, YouTube

    Social Media Tools: ShoutOMatic

    March 18, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

    What is Shout-O-Matic? First it is the newly created product of Norm Levy, Michael Levy, Jim Robert and Chris Lawlor. This young team of developers learned a great technique for aggregating digital photos, videos, music and text with their LifeGoRound platform. Just over seven months old, ShoutOMatic it is already making a few waves on the net. ShoutOMatic is a collaborative collection of several web-based applications.

    ShoutOMatic enables users to send out audible ‘shouts’ or status updates in audio form. Much like a Tweet, users can record a quick greeting or message and send it out over the ShoutOMatic network, which can also be forwarded to your social medias.

    How to Use ShoutOMatic

    ShoutOMatic is incredibly easy to use and has many automated features that any social media user can truly appreciate.

    First you need to sign up. Once signed in check out your settings and be certain to connect your social medias, such as Facebook and Twitter, to your account. This way, when you send out messages, they can be ‘heard’ by anyone who clicks your ShoutOMatic link on your broadcasts.

    Not only will the program easily attach itself to your social medias, but it will also automatically attempt to detect your microphone and its settings to users’ great relief.

    This unique option in digital messaging has already involved some big names such as Chuck D, from Public Enemy and Danny Bonaduce from The Partridge Family, who are now selling their voice-over services to those who want to include the stars audio messages as a part of their marketing plans. Artists, Athletes, Celebrities, Comedians and other personalities are encouraged to offer their fans the ability to buy personal shouts from them.

    How Can ShoutOMatic Benefit Your Business

    Dependant on your products or services of course, you can attempt to find a popular representative willing to sell you a great Shout in promotion of your product. Additionally, ShoutOMatic is also likely to take on the niche of allowing many disabled users to create their own Shouts, with far more simplicity than even Twitters simple interface offers.

    *Special Thanks to Jennifer Tinghitella for brining ShoutOMatic to my attention for the blog.

    Sources:

    • Adage
    • Discovering Startups
    • ShoutOMatic

    Filed Under: Basil's Blog #AIa, Branding & Marketing, Conferences & Education, Digital & Internet Marketing, Social Brand Visibility, Social Media Topics Tagged With: brand, Social Brand, Social Media, twitter, Visibility, Visibility Marketing

    Why Every Small Business Should Go Online

    March 17, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

    Why a Small Business should go Online: Ways Your Offline Business Can Benefit from an Online Presence

    Although it may be hard for some of the ‘old timers’ regardless of age, to understand how much it can be of benefit, there is no doubt that it would be a very rare offline business that could not benefit from an online web presence.

    Here are a few ways a business owner could benefit immediately.

    Broader Target Market

    Obviously, advertising on the internet is going to bring in a much larger geographical market than remaining offline and using offline advertising methods such as billboards, newspapers and local discount promotions. Custom product orders online can rake in big money for businesses in most any niche.

    No Need to Rely on Foot Traffic

    One of the biggest killers of business can be the lack of foot traffic on location. A bad location even for the best business can sometimes spell big trouble. Opening up your digital foot traffic is the same as opening any other flood gate, you never know exactly how much is going to flow in, but it will definitely be a lot more than simple location traffic generates.

    This can be an incredible benefit for seasonal businesses. Does your business sell pool accessories in middle America? If so your foot traffic likely grinds to a halt in the winter months. Fortunately, people in Florida and other southern states as well as the lower west coast can still enjoy summer-like temperatures year round. This means putting your business online will turn your company from a seasonal entity, to a year-round production.

    Affiliate Marketing

    The best way to understand affiliate marketing for those who are entirely unfamiliar is to imagine having a full-time salesperson to sell your products for you, 24/7/365. Although these affiliates will likely work on a commission basis, you should also have the option to choose a flat rate per sale that should meet your profit-loss requirement needs.

    Ease of Communication

    Although some who do not use computers often may be intimidated by communications with users via online methods there is nothing to fill. Regardless of the rumors, the internet is not full of ranting loonies anymore than anywhere else is, and you are likely to have good communications with your online users, since they are going to be coming to you, for the product or service you have to offer. Not to mention that this eliminates loads of sales pressure as well.

    Permanent Business Card

    Your website will serve as a permanent business card. Permanent in the fact that it is there, once set up, forever. However, your website can always be updated or upgraded at will and the only limitations you are likely to deal with are those of your own imagination.

    A business owner can also provide much of their products and services information on their web site which will greatly reduce their need to continually repeat the same product pricing or services options.

    Paperless

    This should be enough said. It is paperless. Forget the rainforests if you like, but removing your paper needs from your business will save more money per year than you may think. Many customers are now satisfied with paper billing. This also gives you an additional option of paperless advertising in such forms as email campaigns.

    Automatic Statistics

    One of the greatest things about getting a new website is the ability to set it up to track any and all of your traffic. This can give business owners a whole new perspective on who is browsing their wares and from where.

    Optional Revenue

    Once you have a site that generates traffic, you may have other options to increase your income outside of selling your products or services. Selling banners and other links on websites are common methods for networking as well as generating money simply for owning a well traveled site.

    Related Past Blogs:

    • How to Get Your Small Bussiness on the Virtual Map
    • Some Knowledge for Creating a Business Website
    • Promoting a Small Business without Breaking the Bank
    • How to Make Your Small Business Grow

    Sources:

    • Article Directory: How a Website Will Benefit Your Offline Business
    • Internet Based Business Model: How Small Business owners can benefit from online and offline marketing
    • Offline Business Online Wealth
    • Work On Internet

    Filed Under: Basil's Blog #AIa, Branding & Marketing, Conferences & Education, Digital & Internet Marketing, Traditional Marketing Tagged With: brand, Business Coach, Business Consulting, small business, Visibility, Visibility Marketing, website

    Social Media & Brand Monitoring Part 2: CoTweet, HootSuite, TweetDeck, TweetAdder

    March 16, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

    Being able to monitor what is said about your brand on the internet has become a very important part of doing business these days. Social Media has the power to make or break brand names, and web visibility should be monitored.

    Hand in hand with finding out who is talking about you and why, there is the possibility of actively engaging in the conversation. Advertising on the internet have become advertising on social media platforms as well, and keeping track of all those, especially if you have more than one brand, has become very time consuming. However, some web programs are designed to help you monitor and be active on social media platforms from one central location.

    CoTweet

    CoTweet is a social media engagement, management and reporting site, which aims to help companies of all sizes track and analyze what is being said about them on the two most popular social media sites: Facebook and Twitter.

    Built with an emphasis on the needs of businesses, their Standard edition and Enterprise edition, help customer support and marketers manage the daily social media conversations from one place, solve customer service issues, manage marketing campaigns and maximize brand visibility. It enables businesses to engage in proactive marketing and other customer service activities.

    In March 2010, CoTweet was purchased by ExactTarget, a global provider of on demand e mail marketing solutions, and CoTweet now includes monitoring of multiple channels including e mails and mobile phones.

    It is ideal for multiple account management and multiple users. An application which allows you to invite other people to manage the account with you, and delegate assignments also exists.

    Users of CoTweet include Starbucks, Microsoft, Sprint, Coca-Cola and even Tweeter itself.

    HootSuite

    HootSuite allows users to organize the use of social media tools, launch marketing campaigns and distribute messages across multiple channels in a targeted fashion.

    It scans the activity on Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, WordPress and other social media platforms and is accessible via web on desktop applications or mobile platforms.

    But HootSuite is more than just a monitoring tool; it is an account management software as well. Users have the ability to optimize delivery by choosing the best time and date to reach their target audience, fine tune the response team by assigning responsibility to a team member and monitoring responses and progress. It enables the user to effectively join in the conversation, in real time.

    Users can update their profile from one place, track click-troughs, deploy timed updates etc. and its mobile version is available on iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Windows Mobile as well. You will never be out of touch with your customers.

    Launched in 2008 by Invoke Media, it is growing in popularity and is used by government (The White House), Martha Stewart Media and Zappos for example.

    TweetDeck

    Tweetdeck is a real-time browser that can help connect a user to Google Buzz, Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, Foursquare and other social networking sites. This helps users to keep in touch with what is happening now, all across the board. Users can customize their TweetDeck experience by creating columns or groups as well as saving searches so that users can stay up-to-date as effortlessly as possible.

    Responding to what Twitter users or Facebook fans are saying about you and your product or service is easy and real-time management no longer requires incredible multi-tasking skills to accomplish.  Sharing your photos, videos and links across the board also becomes a whole lot more simplistic.

    With support for desktop computers as well as Google Chrome and Android means this is one extremely versatile tool. It will also soon support iPhone and iPad.

    TweetAdder

    TwitterAdder is available on Linux, Windows and Mac OSX. Its Automated Tweet Search feature searches out specific keywords previously tweeted which helps a Twitter user to find those fellow Tweeters who are interested in, or marketing, in the same niche. This takes the guesswork and the time sink out of building a legion of Twitter followers who already have an interest in the product or service you market. Profile data and location searches get you one step closer to mass marketing locally if your business is based largely in your own community.

    TweetAdder also supports multiple Twitter account management and a wide variety of support options for Follow and Unfollow configurations. Automated Tweeting and direct messaging wraps up this all-in-one tool. With a healthy dose of current and historical trend research, you really can’t ask for much more in one single program that can manage your Twitter account from day to day, all by itself.

    Video Resource: This was the best video I could find that covered an array of tools. If you like it please share your thoughts with @ErinBlaskie or email Erin at erin@bsetc.ca or erin.blaskie@gmail.com, I personally was very impressed with her coverage of such a variety of tools, perhaps we can get her to do short tutorials for each one individually in the future.

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ifuq4XZssU&hd=1]

    Sources:

    • CoTweet: Move at the Speed of Real Time
    • Crunchbase: CoTweet
    • Crunchbase: Hootsuite
    • Crunchbase: TweetDeck
    • Hootsuite
    • Mashable: CoTweet Public Launch
    • OneForty: CoTweet
    • OneForty: HootSuite
    • Read Write Web: Hands on with Hootsuite social analytics
    • SixRevisions: 12 Social Media Monitoring Tools Reviewed
    • TweetAdder
    • TweetDeck

    Filed Under: Basil's Blog #AIa, Branding & Marketing, Conferences & Education, Digital & Internet Marketing, Mobile & Technology, Social Brand Visibility, Social Media Topics Tagged With: brand, cotweet, hootsuite, Social Brand, Social Media, tweetadder, twitter, Visibility, Visibility Marketing

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