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Why Twitter is Better Than Facebook for Marketing Yourself as a Freelancer

March 27, 2012 by Basil Puglisi 5 Comments

Working as a freelance writer means a lot of self-promotion. Really, working as a freelance anything means a lot of self-promotion. It is up to yourself to get your name and work out there for the world to see. You are, in a sense, a business. Fortunately, in this day, social media gives you the perfect platform for all the free self-promoting you could ask for. I can’t imagine how hard it was to begin a freelance career before the Internet existed.
As a rule, I would say that I use Facebook more than Twitter for entertainment. When it comes to marketing myself, however, I find that Twitter is a far more valuable asset than Facebook. While it certainly is a matter of opinion, there are a few reasons why I believe this and stand firm in this belief.
One: Facebook is focused around friends and relationships with friends. Twitter is more focused around businesses, magazines, and marketing. I find it is now used more often and successfully as a marketing tool than a social tool. The group of people that you communicate with on Twitter is normally very different than the group of people on Facebook. Sure, there might be some common friends and relatives, but they are the outliers. People and businesses that you do not know can follow your tweets without asking permission, which makes you more accessible to the public; much more so than on Facebook.
Two: Hashtags. Using the most popular hashtags makes you very accessible. When any Twitter user searches for a certain #hashtag, your tweet can show up and gain you another #follower. Therefore, you are in control of how viewable you are by which hashtags you use. Facebook has no such function. You are mainly viewed only by your friends, which tend to be acquaintances and not owners of businesses that could use your freelance abilities.
Three: Twitter keeps you relevant. Rather than seeing a lot of updates about what was eaten for breakfast or how annoying The Bachelor was last night, the updates that are viewed on Twitter tend to be more relevant to professional life. For one, because you are following more businesses, magazines, and blogs that pertain to your field (most likely), you are keeping up-to-date on the news, which makes you more valuable. Second, when you tweet back to certain posts, it helps to build relationships with said tweeter. All in all, you are networking virtually; hence the term “Social Network”.
While I believe that both platforms (as well as many other social media platforms) should be utilized to market yourself, I think Twitter has the leg up in this domain. It makes you more accessible to potential employers, and it is easier to network with said potential employers. When it comes to freelancing, getting your name and work out there is what is important. Once it is out there, opportunities will roll in. Life really is all about connections.
Author:
Megan Campbell has a degree from Clemson University in Graphic Communications, and is currently living in Germany during a Gap Year abroad, working as an au pair and freelance writer. Her degree set her up for a great interest and knowledge of social media. You can find her on her blog, balancewithadashofcrazy, or contact her via email at meganecamp at gmail dot com. You can also find Megan on Twitter @abalancedcrazy
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The Path Less Taken: Google+

March 26, 2012 by Basil Puglisi 2 Comments

We’ve all heard about Google+; but to be quite honest, Google’s social network seemed to fizzle out after its release. It’s certainly no Facebook or Twitter, but that hasn’t stopped several major marketers from switching gears lately to focus on Google+. But why? Not only is Google+ no Twitter and Facebook, but February reports showed that the average Google+ user spends a total of 3 minutes on the site monthly. This compared to Facebook’s 405 minute average and Pinterest’s and Tumbler’s 100 minute average demonstrates Google+’s deceptive shortcoming . However, the reason marketers are turning their attention to this social networking platform is because Google+ is imperative in the world of social media and SEO, and here’ why.

Social Web Experience

Google+ is so much more than a social network as it gives users something new: a complete social web experience. Unlike Facebook and Twitter, Google+ implements all of the services of Google into its social network: we’re talking Google Voice, Google Shopping, location filtered Google Search Engine Results, Google Video, photo sharing, and the list goes on. Google+ isn’t just about connecting with friends, it’s about connecting with the world. And in that connection, users share their personal and commercial experiences with the world, offering market researchers huge opportunities. And because Google+ is more than a social network, it is attractive and convenient to users. According to Google-plus.com, this is evident by the fact that by January 2012 Google+ was boasting 90 million active users worldwide, making it the 4th largest social networking platform in the world; and of course, one must take into account that this success comes only 6 months after the social network’s beta version was released.

Impact on the World of SEO

Two things make Google+ more important in the world of SEO than any other social network. First, because sharing and endorsing commercial items is both convenient and appealing to users, they are driven to participate; they this by utilizing Google+’s “+1” button. Through this utilization, users not only share public endorsement of products, services, websites, and the like on Google+ and websites, but through Google’s search engine; user’s Google+ friend’s +1 recommendations, if relevant, show up in their Google searches. Not to mention that the +1 button has been implemented into all results on Google’s search engine result pages; this is a big deal considering that Google holds more than 66 percent of the search engine market share, according to searchengineland.com.
Second, because everywhere we look features the +1 button, this means something big to SEO. Think about it. Google operates the majority of the search engine market. Millions of people flock to Google to query searches every day. Google+ and Google+1s directly affect SEO. Google owns Google+. Therefore it isn’t a far leap to assume that Google will give Google+ more weight in its algorithms than other social networks. So, put quite bluntly, anyone hoping to utilize SEO is completely and hopelessly dependent on Google and its secret algorithms.
Author:
Amber Paley is a guest post and article writer bringing to us information on why many marketers are turning their attention to Google+. Outraged by the prevalence of elder abuse in the U.S., Amber spends much of her professional life writing educational articles to help those affected by elder abuse find a good nursing home abuse lawyer. Amber’s social profile can be found at http://about.me/amberpaley
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Is Marketing over Facebook a Battle for Likes/Followers?

March 22, 2012 by Basil Puglisi 14 Comments

Marketing over Facebook has convulsed. It is now a battle for likes/followers. Firms are waging cold wars, wherein the highest number of followers is considered the winner without an assertion. This picturesque is very well known to us and yet marketers follow the path blindfolded.
Let us analyze the common mistakes committed by most of the marketers.
Fan Page is not a Petri Dish
‘Create a fan page; buy thousands of likes and update the status with fluffy contents’ seems to be the motto of new firms. No wonder, results fail to show. Fan page is not a Petri dish where you grow your fans like organisms. In relation, fan page is just another portal where your customers arrive to see what you have to offer. Unless you give them something worth their time and money they will walk off with contempt.
First Impression is the Best Impression
Impress your customers with your fan page. Facebook has been very generous with providing various tools for designing your fan page. Though FBML is being deprecated HTML, CSS and JavaScript are there as your savior. Make sure to create a stunning landing page for your customers. Now, with the recent intrusion of Timeline it has been easier than ever. Just upload a cover photo of your firm or the latest product which is about to be launched and you are done.
Note how Apple has taken advantage of Timeline over their page.

After you are done with the impression work, the product you should offer should be worth their time. This brings to our next question.
Why should Customers stay on your Fan Page?
People log into their Facebook account for relaxation and entertainment. Unless you are the big player in the market you will have a hard time in convincing your customers. However, the good news is you do not have to convince them at all. Satiate their thirst for entertainment by throwing up a contest. Again, another mistake committed by marketers is to announce the contest through the status update. Creating a separate page for contests creates a better impression and appears to be professional, not to mention the increase in engagement. Below is a screenshot of how Blackberry engages their customers to a challenge.

Provide Discounts on Products & Freebies
There is nothing that sounds as good as freebies and discounts. Give away discount offer on your products and if possible provide some freebies. Customers will be attracted in hundreds and thousands to your fan page and you will reap success within no time. Personally discount on London pass coupons world soccer shop showed greater sales when sold through our page.
Should you buy Fans?
Before winding up we need to discuss the much debated topic of whether purchasing fans is ethical or not. Of course it is not ethical but apart from that purchasing fan has very less benefits. In fact there is hardly any benefit by purchasing fans. Some of the reason not to purchase fans is mentioned below:
1. Most of the fans sold are sham. Fake profiles are created on a larger scale and these are used to provide ‘likes’. Once the job is done through these fake profiles they longer serve any purpose.
2. The cost of a like goes anywhere from $1 to $1.33. Yearly budget for a small business might range from $500 to $6000. If this budget is used for marketing, you will not only achieve organic likes but an increased conversion rate.
3. After purchasing thousands of fans, fan page remains desolated. No engagement is found and rarely a share and few likes can be seen. This scenario is just the result of misleading people to like your page by false promises. ‘Joshua likes XXXX (name of the brand). Like us’, this sort of gaining likes is a lame one. Likes will be accrued but what are you looking for, likes or engagement? Instead write a short description with excellent copy. Likes gain through this tactic will provide better engagement as every like is really interested in what your brand does; not in what their friends have done.
Author:
Richie Richardson loves to write about Social Media Marketing, SEO and Internet marketing. He also writes about london pass code and world soccer shop code. They have some discount and various promo coupons which can prove beneficial.
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Bottlenose Surfs the Stream for You

March 20, 2012 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

For many with large social networks, reading through social feeds can begin to require the same time and energy as any other full-time job. This social media overload can be frustrating to those who are dependent upon their social networks for industry news, communication with friends and colleagues, or research purposes. How do you separate the videos from the web links? How do you filter through the spam, jokes, and memes to find the information you need.

Bottlenose may be a serious competitor in an industry that is filled with similar tools. Bottlenose allows you to filter your Facebook and Twitter streams by a specific set of criteria.

Bottlenose Custom Stream Filtering

bottlenose-beta-2-single-column — c/o http://www.vexite.com/

Bottlenose allows users to create their own custom streams by:

Media Types – Videos, Web links, Images
Mentions – Messages and their relevance to you and your industry
Popularity – Topics that have been made popular by user aggregation, retweets, and shares

Users can also select actions to add such as apps that will play sounds when the stream updates. Although actions are a bit limited at the moment, Bottlenose relays that they have many more action options coming soon.

Sonar Term Clouds

This may be one element that sets Bottlenose above and beyond its competition. When you use the single column view tab, you can click on or observe any stream topic and the Bottlenose sonar will display a term cloud. You can control your term cloud in a variety of ways.

Changing Time Periods
Changing Term Density
Toggling People, Messages, Hashtags, and Topics

Users can zoom on their term clouds to open it in a feed. Clicking on the users relative to your account can also show you terms that are associated with that person, or even just let you view their feed.

Although Bottlenose is clearly in its relatively early stages, it seems to be growing up to be a very functional and useful stream aggregation tool.

Author:

@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.

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Google Started Changing the Way Search Results are Shown

March 19, 2012 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc... — Image via CrunchBase

Every time Google changes the algorithms of its search engine, it sends shivers down the spines of many who rely on that calculation to get a better placement on the search engine’s result page (SERP).

That is why Google is very careful and secretive when a change like that is coming. But Amit Singhal, the top Google Search executive, confirmed recently they are working on something big.

What they are trying to do, Amit said, is for the search to work more like we humans understand the world. By cross referencing millions of entities that Google has been collecting in the past few years, the new search engine algorithms will attempt to understand the context of the query and give direct answers instead of sending you to a website to find out by yourself.

For example: If you ask what the deepest 10 lakes in the US are? Today, you are getting results based on the keywords and a list of websites talking about lakes, but not the exact answer to your question. In the future the first thing that will appear is a direct answer to your query. You can see it already happening with the “best guess” results. Type in “who is the chancellor of Germany” and see what you get.

Another example: If you ask information about a place, Lake Eerie for instance. Today you get all the websites that have anything to do with the lake. In the future, first you will get all the information Google has collected about the lake: depth, location, altitude, average temp and so on.

Image representing Metaweb Technologies as dep... — Image via CrunchBase

A little more than a year ago Google purchased a start-up company called Metaweb Technologies. The company had an index of 12 million entities; movies, books, companies and celebrities. (For the sake of comparison, Wikipedia has 3.5 million English entries.) Amit Singhal said that since this acquisition they have expended the index to 200 million by developing “extraction algorithms” that can organize data in a semantic way from around the web.

What would it do to the listings on the first page if a large amount of information will appear first? A person who was briefed on Google’s change says it may impact directly the results of 10%-20% of the queries. There are billions of queries performed each day.

Google hopes that with the new search results, people will spend more time on their page and see more relevant ads, but it is still unclear how it would impact the ads which appear beside the search results.

People familiar with the project say the changes will appear in the next few months. Amit Singhal says it will be rolled out slowly and will be a year-long process.

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What a Successful Company Blog Says about Your Business

March 18, 2012 by Basil Puglisi 7 Comments

We’ve all seen them – the company blog that is buried within the site map, with a single “Welcome” post that is three years old. Or the blog that is littered with bad grammar, typos or business jargon. A bad company blog can give off the impression that you’re lazy, technology-challenged, or you think you’re smarter than your readers. No blog at all is better than a bad blog.
Writing a successful company blog takes time and effort. It’s a way to start, continue and strengthen a meaningful conversation about your business and your brand.
So what does a great company blog say about your business?
You care about your customers.
The blog is your opportunity to reach out to your customers and provide them with in-depth, valuable information that they can’t find on your website. It allows you to connect and engage with them daily – answering questions, providing feedback and responding to comments. This interaction shows your commitment to building a community that benefits your business and your customers.
You know what you’re talking about.
When you write comprehensively about industry-related topics, you can establish your company as a leading authority in your field. Let readers know that they can rely on you for sound advice, useful information and knowledgeable opinions – and they can count on your products and services, as well.
You’re not a dinosaur.
You should be sharing your blog through Twitter and Facebook. Being active through social media channels can help you connect even further with your audience, and lets readers know you’re up-to-date with current trends and always thinking forward.
You’re well-known and respected in the industry.
Networking with other bloggers in your niche can increase blog traffic and in turn, increase leads. Engage other industry thought leaders in the conversation – contributing guest posts for other prominent blogs, for example, can help you expand your blog’s reach even further.
You have the resources to create quality content and designs.
Readers can tell if you’ve created a company blog with no knowledge of Web design or copywriting. A well-designed, well-written blog is crucial to drawing attention to your blog and keeping it there, and demonstrates the ability and talent behind the scenes – whether you have a staff of designers and writers maintaining the site, or you have taken the time to learn these skills yourself.
You’re friendly.
Blogs allow for a more casual, personal tone than your company website. Your blog has a voice – your voice – to give readers a sense of the people behind the business. Don’t fill your posts with industry jargon or make your readers feel inferior; this will only repel readers from your blog and your business. A blog that reads like a friendly chat over coffee, containing stories with which readers can relate, makes your company seem more approachable.
Do you know what your company blog says about your business?
Author:
Jacqui MacKenzie is a writer for Straight North, one of the leading Internet marketing companies in Chicago. She writes for a wide range of clients, from merchant account providers for credit card processing restaurants to manufacturers of electrical gloves. Check out the Straight North blog, or follow @StraightNorth on Twitter.
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Reference.me – A Unique Business Social Site

March 15, 2012 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Since almost every social site claims to be unique, yet there are several floating around that seem to mirror each other, we have come to understand that often ‘unique social site’ in reality means, social site with a unique name. So when I came across Reference.me, I gave it a shot, but without any genuine expectations for uncommon features.

referenceme_1naslovna — c/o www.domain.me

Trusted Networks

We have other social sites that rely on trusted networks. LinkedIn immediately comes to mind. Currently the largest business social network online, LinkedIn has over 120 million users. Many people use it to connect to business partners and other colleagues, or even employees and customers.

While most of us likely have a LinkedIn account and profile, accept or decline contacts on a daily basis, and even update our profiles when business opportunities change, we usually stop just short of using our LinkedIn profiles outside of a social bookmark on our website or link on our email signatures unless we are in the process of actively building on that network.

How Does Reference.Me Work?

Your trusted network on Reference.me actually comes with a very impressive visual reference of who your trusted network represents. It differs immediately from other social networks in one specific way. Log in is only integrated with Google + currently. However, once signed up, and logged in, you can still easily integrate your Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. Integration with LinkedIn will also fill out many of the details, work references, education, and skills on the Reference.me details tab.

There is no messaging on Reference.me, no activity streams, groups, or anything else you may be called to join in, or at least not yet. That doesn’t mean that Reference.me doesn’t have a shining quality or two at this stage in its development game.

Reference.me Pros

The site already has a great setup when it comes to a quick list and profile viewing opportunity with a few different filter options. Arranging your network by skills, location, companies, strongest connection, or even alphabetically supplies users with the ability to quickly locate members in their network that may not be so readily available on the top of your network. This layering feature is absolutely unique from any other social business network available on the net currently. It provides a more in-depth look at how the rest of your network functions with their own, giving potentially more elaborate insight if browsing the networks of perspective new hires, new colleagues, or even consumers.

The references system on Reference.me is impressive, as well it should be on a social site with such a URL. Grabbing a reference from their system is as easy as clicking on a name and choosing the big tab that pops up. Under the tab you may also see that the source is already a trusted one for you, or that you may need to request them to join your network so that they too receive trusted status on your Reference.me account.

online_business_networking — c/o www.growyourbusinessnetwork.com

Reference.me Cons

Reference.me cons are as mostly as listed above. There is no messaging on Reference.me, no activity streams, groups, or anything else you may be called to join in, and for this reason Reference.me may not be seen as a full-bodied network that promotes major interactivity.

Fortunately, this doesn’t seem to be what the team at Reference.me is going for. Reference.me seems like a great place to send a prospective client, employee, or consumer when they ask for references, whole references, and nothing but your references.

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1st Dibs – An Online Luxury Flea Marketplace

March 14, 2012 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

A relatively new dynamic marketplace online, 1stDibs has shoppers covered on many items not so commonly found on other luxury or boutique websites. Covering everything from antique furniture to vintage fashions, 1stDibs items come straight from the Paris flea market, as well as American and European dealers. This is an incredible resource helping consumers to find tons of unique items from all over the globe, all on one friendly site.

Interior Design

1stDibs has fast become the Etsy, Ebay, or flea market for many interior designers of the amateur and professional type. Although this remote form of design may have some cons when it comes to matching colors or fabrics, or even high shipping cost on heavy items such as furniture, the sellers on 1stDibs seem to make up for any excessive cost with sometimes incredibly affordable prices. However, one noticeable con for many is that very pricing. Because 1stDibs is a luxury online boutique, they do have specialty items that are rather costly, bringing the average cost of items on site higher than those you are likely to find on Etsy or Artfire.

True Specialty Shopping

While there may be many boutique shopping websites available, not many of them will have the uncommon listings like those at 1stDibs.

Furniture & Lighting
Fine Art
Jewelry, Watches, & Silver
Fine Homes
Fashion

It seems like many top designers, artists, and dealers have already embraced 1stDibs. 1stDibs is helping them to make the full transition from local foot sales to online entrepreneurship. Currently there are over 1,200 dealers and designers on site and 1stDibs is selling well over 6,000 items each month. There are many dealers queued on the waiting list who want to join.

Aside from the obvious convenience this can offer to those in the interior design industry, other industries that have begun to benefit from 1stDibs include:

High-End Realty
Fashion Designers
Arts Dealers
Fine Jewelers

Matt Cohler, the general partner at Benchmark Capital stated that,

” Both literally and figuratively, 1stdibs has the goods to significantly extend their leadership position in the online luxury category.”

According to a study conducted by Bain & Co.’s on Luxury Goods Worldwide Market, the luxury goods market grew over 14% globally in 2012 allowing it to reach an astounding $256.6 billion dollars as an industry.

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How to Make Your Event Successful

March 13, 2012 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Those who organize events know that the success of the event depends on many things, least of them the weather. The amount of options and the connections the attendees create in an event will dictate if they will join you next time or not. In other words “What would I get out of it?”

Even in our connected and social media rich world, business is still done face to face. The biggest hurdles business people have to overcome are psychological; how to introduce themselves to strangers, how to portray themselves without seeming cocky and how to make the most of the time in the event.

Pathable.com is a new program that aims to create a virtual gathering place before the start of the event. It is a private online community which aims to facilitate introductions and highlight common interests. They provide an interactive space for the attendees to gather and share information.

When one registers an event, all the attendees are asked to fill a profile. Those profiles are personalized with photos and links to other sites and all other web representations in social media; Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and more.

This has the potential of introducing the attendees to each other before the event starts. People can see who they would like to meet personally at the event and start a conversation beforehand. The program even makes it easier to spot them; people with common interests are highlighted.

Starting a discussion in forums is encouraged, and because people can converse, they can also set meeting to take place during the event. The software enables mailing schedules that will appear on all the chosen attendees’ schedules at the same time.

A personalized conference calendar is available for each attendee, so they can easily build their own schedules as well. The program enables attendees to save space for private meetings and has a diagram of the conference, including all the booths and private rooms to make navigating the event very easy.

Event sponsors can create their own pages and sponsorship tools that target specific channels. They can participate in the conversation and communicate with the attendees in a non-intrusive way. It provides another place for targeted advertisement.

All those features are available in a mobile app for iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Windows and Android as well. Easy to use and quick to respond.

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Sources:

http://www.pathable.com/tour/

http://www.crunchbase.com/company/pathable

http://www.geekwire.com/2011/profitable-growing-pathable-raises-cash-events-social

Inbound Marketing Summit NYC 2012 – 3 Important Tips to Take Home

March 12, 2012 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

new-home-feature-111 — Image c/o http://inboundmarketingsummit.com/event/new-york/

If you had the opportunity to sit in on the panels at the Inbound Marketing Summit in New York this year, you likely took away a few vital lessons that you can carry to your business. The conference itself has evolved over the last few years. It has held a focus on social marketing strategies, but has also begun a swift evolution to cover other vital elements such as social TV, touch screen devices, and mobile marketing, as well as defining what these technological shifts really mean for professionals utilizing engagement skills and strategies.

While many interesting points were made, there were absolutely three great highlights that every small business owner should consider when focusing on social media and fan engagement.

Social Media Advertising

Most social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and even LinkedIn have opportunities for advertising at relatively affordable prices. While businesses are building and managing their content in order to break through valuable channels to achieve better engagement, they are finding that advertising can be easy when it is placed where people are hanging around the most. With the many Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn stats we are familiar with when it comes to time spent on social networks these days, there is no doubt that although more affordable than many other types of digital or traditional advertising, they are still highly effective. The IMS panels recommended trying this out on your Facebook Fan page since it is significantly easier to build an audience there.

Responding and Engaging

IMS2012 — Image c/o http://socialmarketingfella.com/

You have heard it before here at DBMEI, it is not enough to simply create formats for your consumers to interact with, you actually have to be responsive, and in a relatively short period of time for maximum engagement opportunities. Business owners can either use a team to ensure engagement in a timely manner, or they can use alerts and other monitoring programs to ensure their consumers or prospective customers are given responses before too much time has passed. They should also not wait until there is an issue to engage, even if a visitor just stops by to post or praise your products and services, give them a swift thanks a Like, and a special coupon code when at all possible. Make interactivity on your social media platforms a source of mutual positive reinforcement when at all possible.

Have a Plan

Business owners need to have a plan. You shouldn’t be rolling over, firing up the computer, and tapping your fingers until the content idea comes to you. You need a lot more of a forecasted plan than that. Using a social media editorial calendar can be a helpful way to pre-plan and map out topics so that they are optimized for distribution, coverage, and of course engagement. You should know ahead of time, aside from breaking or important trending news, what type of content will be created and when it will be set for distribution. Knowing your audience and what type of content they can appreciate, combined with a social media editorial calendar will help business owners to better manage engagement with current or potential consumers.

Many other vital points arose that are also swiftly becoming crucial elements in business marketing such as tablets and social TV and their respective places in a full-bodied marketing campaign. Since Americans still watch around 35 hours of TV per week, many now on touch screen devices and tablets, marketing professionals now need to begin to consider how to capture an audience’s attention across multiple devices simultaneously.

However, it is also important to recall that another lesson from IMS included understanding user behavior over in-depth knowledge about emerging technologies.

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