Social Media Topics

How to Use social Media to Spread the Word – YouTube

November 23, 2010 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

Many small and medium businesses try to engage their customers through Facebook and twitter. Another venue you might want to look into is YouTube.

Here are some examples of small and medium businesses who took advantage of YouTube and the results that effort generated.

Case Study # 1:

A hair care product company, operated by the owner a woman from Los Angeles, decided to increase her visibility by going on YouTube. While pocking around in the site, she notices a few questions posted by users of products in her niche. She offered support, advice and suggested trying her products. She urged the users to tell her if it worked for them.

The result? 2 years later there are over 5,000 videos showing people using her product. The attention has helped raise her sales by 40% and pushed her 7 year old company into profitability. The products are now sold in Whole Foods and Target as well.

And she didn’t post one video of her own. She waited for the video bloggers (vloggers) to do that: “When dozens of different vloggers with their own unique hair types actually video themselves applying the product in the shower in one continuous take, it’s hard to dispute how it ends up looking” She says.

Recently she hired some of the vloggers to help her in her YouTube campaign.

The push shouldn’t be a hard sale. Forum posters can smell those a mile away, she says. Companies have to establish themselves as being helpful so their recommendation will be taken seriously.

Case Study # 2:

A knife company used the same tactic. They didn’t start a conversation about their knives, but they reacted to questions and offered suggestions. They interacted with the posters by sometime offering them to try a knife for free or for a limited time.

Today, there are almost 4,000 video blogs about their company. They make sure to stay on top what is being said. To provide good customer support, the company employees (all 5 of them) are alerted every time a comment comes in and they answer, sometimes from home and in the middle of the night.

Being accessible promotes loyalty to the brand, says their marketing director. Forums reflect that.

Case Study # 3:

Makers of a new, very small, digital camera learned the hard way how important it is not to hard sell. Their efforts to brand the camera on bike riding forums backfired. People were annoyed with them and pointed out foreseeable problems even without seeing the camera up close.

The company listened to the complaints and laid back. The result? 7,500 videos about their camera, done with their camera are currently posted on YouTube. More than 15% of their business comes from YouTube.

Listening to Vloggers helped the company to further develop their equipment into niches they have not thought of. When people talked about mounting their small camera on remote control cars and planes, they manufactured a kit for that purpose. It is one of their best sellers.

You can use YouTube for more than just posting videos. Using their channel system is a good way to find out what people are talking about, what they want and what they suggest. Then you can assess how it pertains to your business.

Word of Mouth Goes a Long Way

November 22, 2010 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

What is social media, really? It is a way for people to connect without taking into consideration physical distances and limitations. It is a way for people to ‘hang out’ together without leaving their homes.

It is also a way to broadcast to the world, in 140 characters or less, how you think and feel at the moment and what are doing or about to do.

Social media can be also used to wade through all the sea of information that is at our fingertips. Peer recommendation narrows the playing fields. People can share things they have discovered, create lists which can be exchanged and used as a specialized search engine. Social media enables people talk about the events of the day, news or gossip, and share their expertise with other people.

That is where social media and small business interact. A good word of mouth can go a long way.

To be affective in a social media campaign there are few things you should know before jumping in:

Be relevant to your audience. If you are creating campaigns that are meant to be seen around the world, make sure it will be understood by the market you aim to engage. Look at the twitter campaign of a company like Dell, for example.

Build credibility and trust. Let people know you on those social circles, forums, blogs and groups in your niche before you jump into selling. Establish yourself as an expert in your field. Be consistent and answer questions in a timely manner.

Listen to what people have to say, adjust and improve. That is one of the great benefits of social media. You can hear loud and clear what your target audience wants and talks about. Whole Foods has a Twitter account that is very active and used to post actionable advice. (i.e. “Bring it back to the store and we will…”)

Be visual and fun on your social media pages, if it fits your brand. Look at what McDonald did on their Facebook pages or what Carl Jr. does on their YouTube channel.

Show your customers you care about them and about your product. Convince them you are there to improve their lives. Provide tips, Q&A and advice. Look what Nike does on their blog as an example.

Transparency. Show people that you take their advice seriously. There might be ideas in those posts you haven’t thought of. Starbucks, for example, has a website for ideas and they show where this idea is at the moment; under review, reviewed, coming soon etc. People know they are not wasting their time posting. This is a way to build a community.

Consistency. You have to keep the brand alive and create familiarity. You’ll have to be active and update regularly.

There are many examples of successful social media campaigns done by big companies. American express, for example, did a short campaign to win a few VIP Glee Experience Tour tickets and got 250,000 requests. Papa Jones is working with Facebook, creating competition for creating a new pizza that will eventually be sold at it stores. Pepsi Co. created a campaign to name their new Mountain Dew drink through Facebook. Virgin America offers promotions through their Twitter account (They offered 50% off tickets to the 500 first clickers). It sold out within 3 hours.

Easy for them, you say. They have PR departments and people devotes solely to social media. How can I, the small business owner do all this and still run a business?

Even though those campaigns are called “free”, you still need to invest in them – your time. There are ways to make it easier:

Your campaign is not as big as theirs. You will not have that amazing response the first time you try.
Delegate, if you can. Don’t try to do it all by yourself. Create a separate account for every employee, and share in the responsibility.
If you do not have employees, you can hire an off-site specialist who can help you set it up and update it, with your personal collaboration of course. A couple of hours a day should be enough.
There are programs which allow you to get all your social media alerts on one page, for easier navigation.
The next step can be to have software that will alert you every time your niche is mentioned in social media sites. It is a way to get early leads and establish yourself as an expert.

It is not all-or-nothing proposition. You have to put your toes in the water if you want to learn to swim. A good word of mouth can go a very long way.

Social Brand Visibility: Newsvine

November 17, 2010 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

Newsvine is a mix of news gathering agency and social media. It allows its members to see the latest news from the Associated Press and ESPN, post comments on them, share and discus items, and interact with other members.

The content is updated continuously and the site gives a reflection of what people are talking about at that moment. This side of their service is called “The Wire”.

Their user generated stream, called “The Vine”, allows members of the community to post links to interesting stories they found on the web, called “seeds”. It takes some time for any users “seeds” to be accepted. There is a period of germination in what they call ‘the Greenhouse’ before a posting source is considered reliable. That is done to ward off self-promotion.

Newsvine allows its members to post original articles as well, and even shares in the revenue when those articles are read.

Members can create private groups to share the news and discussions between them or public group where all the members can see what the group members are saying.

Newsvine says its members will receive 90% of revenue from advertisements that appears on their personal pages. These earnings are based on traffic to the articles and seeds, and have a complicated formula which is calculated based on 1000 page views. Getting rich off publishing articles on the site is not guaranteed by any means. The writer usually gets a few dollars a month for his/her most popular articles. Users who invest time in writing many articles can see as much as a few tens of dollars per month.

In the US, Newsvine has 1.2 million registered members.

Since 2007, Newsvine is now owned by MSNBC.com, but operates independently.

Online Resources For Your Upcoming Business

November 16, 2010 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

There are quite a few places on the internet that you can use to your advantage when trying to promote your new small business. With such a vast quantity of websites available, you are bound to find a bunch of strong outlets to let people know just what you intend to sell in a detailed and specific manner. Some of these websites are very easy to latch onto and will give you the right amount of exposure that you desire.

Facebook

One of the better options to start promoting your company is the website FaceBook. With the millions upon millions of users each and every day on that site, you are bound to have quite a few hits and inquiries about your services. The fact that you are able to create a free profile on there and also use your account as a business profile is enough to inspire people to join.

Google Places

Another great place to advertise for your small business is Google Places. Google is already well known throughout the world as being a leader in website searches and free advertising. Google Places actually takes it a few steps forward for your business as it allows you to post details about your business as well as listing it in a way that it looks like the Yellowpages. This is a very familiar and attractive way for you to get things up and running for your company and not have to spend a lot of money doing so.

Audio & Video

You are now able to integrate such things as audio and video through the Google sites that will allow you to have a more personal connection to the people that are interested in your company. This is truly state of the art and will only help in assisting those who are the driving force behind the success of your small business. Having the ability to let someone have a face to face conversation with you or one of your associates while they are in another state or even country is an amazing new tool to have for any company out there.

My advice would be to definitely take full advantage of these new and improved resources that the internet has allowed us to partake in. These new and innovative ways to show people what they need to see regarding your new company will really pay off in the long run. Even if you have a small budget for marketing, the internet will definitely fit into that budget.

Facebook Places- Where Are you?

November 12, 2010 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

For years, since the beginning of the World Wide Web, its mission has been to globalize, to connect, to turn us into a global village. Geography did not matter much anymore.

These days the trend seems to turn inward, to localization. Google places shows businesses listings first when the query includes a specific place. Different mobile Social Media tools like Foursquare and Gowalla appeared, aiming to help friends tell other friends where they and connect with them physically.

There is no one bigger than Facebook in the Social Media world. With over 500,000,000 users and growing, it is the king supreme of virtual friendship. How ironic it is that now they are trying to help you connect locally and physically.

In August 2010, Facebook started operating its Facebook Places, an application that with the help of GPS, lets users check in on their mobile phones and show their location, in hope that if you are close, you might swing by and spend time together. That put businesses in the middle of the social game.

You can leave comments on Facebook about the places you’ve frequented. Cheers and jeers alike. You can recommend a certain dish, complain about the service or by leaving a recommendation you can introduce people to a new place.

About a week ago, on November 3, 2010, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerman unveiled new features on their mobile app for iPhones and Androids, and this addition makes it much more interesting to business owners.

The new applications are called “Deals” and “Single Sign-On” and they aims to change the way customers and businesses interact.

Deals – this app allows business owners deliver information about specials and discounts to their customers, which are redeemable when the user ‘checks in’ at the place. It also allows customers to posts deals they have found, and when friends use the establishment they also get a discount.

Business owners can turn their customers into an extended sale force by peer recommendation on Facebook.

Businesses can also offer deeper discounts to friends who bring friends with them, or friends who heard about the deal through the first source. Each customer becomes a potential sales agent.

‘Deals’ has three different types of rewards a business can offer. It can be based on “loyalty,” on being “friends” or for “charity.”

The app tracks each time a specific person visits a store and takes advantage of a deal. This way, businesses can offer incentives to their most loyal customers.

The “Single Sign-On” app brings benefits to users and business owners and provides more connectivity. This feature allows Facebook users to log in and access other social media sites like Groupon and Yelp without having to log in separately. Those companies have now a new marketing tool and the ability to get to thousands of new customers.

Location-based technology has become an essential part of building solid, lasting relationships with the customers, say representatives of Facebook. If before business owners did not know why they have to be on the social network sites, now they have a definite reason to do so.

And it might be a game changers when it comes to e commerce and business advertising.

Can You Get Free PR?

November 12, 2010 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

How to make the most of your internet presence and increase your visibility is a subject many small business owners are grappling with. With the enormous speed in which social media is evolving, you probably have this question reverberate in your brain: am I doing all that I can do to advertise my business?

Even if you don’t have a big advertising budget, there are some things you can do to get free – or almost free – PR. But you have to know how to do it.

– Do your homework – know what is happening in your niche, what makes you different and better. Identify local publications and trade magazines. See which writer writes about your area of business and what is he writing about (personal story, facts, sales?)

– Build your story. It has to be compelling, short and to the point. It has to entice the writer to look into your new venture.

– Choose the date carefully. Does your business have something to do with dates? Holidays? Writers are looking for things to write about which are relevant to the date of publication. They are more likely to look into your business if it has something to do with the date of the next issue.

– There are few site you can go to which will cost relatively very little but will start you up on the road to a PR campaign:

PRWeb is one of them. Their site helps you create a press release and they will send to search engines, news sites, geographic location sites and 5 industry sites. Press releases start at $80 and go up to $360 if you want your release to appear in big newspapers like New York Times or USA today.

1888 Press Release – a similar service to PRWeb but more variety in pricing and more control over the message. They also have editors going over your press release to check for grammar mistakes and appropriate content.

MediaSync. A site that aggregates material according to subject or market and allows you to see who writes about your kind of business. It also lets you contact the writers or bloggers to offer them new information to write about. Their service is free. In the future they will introduce a paid subscription for going deeper in measuring the influence the writer has had.

Handle Your Own PR. A service designed for medium and small businesses, it offers PR tips, media lists and press release writing assistance.

These are but a few initial steps to increase the visibility of your small business, but these steps cost you – in time, not money. It has been said that the most expensive element a small business owner has is his time. If time is an issue, contracting a consulting firm that knows all the ins and outs of online advertising world and social media websites. There is much more that can be done to increase your business visibility.

Social Brand Visibility: Are You LinkedIn?

November 11, 2010 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

LinkedIn is a business based social networking site which connects you to your business contacts and helps you exchange knowledge, ideas, and opportunities. It helps you expend the network of professionals in your field.

The site allows users to maintain a list of contacts with people related to their business. It connects users to friends of professional friends and increases their professional circle.

Through LinkedIn you can develop a professional profile which is posted on the web so you can establish an authoritative resource that allows people to find you.

Employers searching for workers can use their LinkedIn network to get first hand recommendation. It also allows job seekers to see if anyone needs their expertise.

Being free, open and friendly, it encourages people to approach you. When your contacts change jobs or change their e mail address you are still connected to them through LinkedIn.

This familiarity and wider circle of business ‘friends’ enables you to reach out to members of your group for direct introductions and recommendations.

You can upload your address book, develop relationships and maintain them. You can join a group and see experts talk about a common issue and solve problems.

You can share tweets and use their mobile application to stay connected on the road. It keeps you in touch with people that might matter to your career.

LinkedIn offers users the ability to research companies with which they are interested in working. When searching a specific company what is shown as a result are different statistics about the company; the ratio of female to male employees, what are the most common titles given by the company to their workers, the location of the company’s headquarters and a list of present and former employees.

LinkedIn has more than 80 million registered users in over 200 countries worldwide. It operates in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. LinkedIn has 21.4 million monthly unique U.S. visitors and 47.6 million visitors globally.

Since 2008 LinkedIn launched DirectAds as a form of sponsored advertising.

In November, 2010, LinkedIn started allowing businesses to list products and services on company profile pages. It allows members recommend certain products they liked and write reviews about their finds.

If you are interested in expending your circle of business connections, talk to like-minded people, help and be helped in solving professional problems, LinkedIn is a site which will allow you do all that for free.

So You Want to Start a Business Blog….

November 9, 2010 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

A paradigm shift (shift in habits) has been happening in the last year as far as blogging is concerned. It was not surprising to find that according to a research done by Hubspot, blogs are the most critical platform for businesses, more than social media.

75% of the respondents said they consider blogs ‘useful’ and 31% said it is ‘critical’ to their business.

According to the survey businesses with corporate blog generate more leads than businesses which don’t have one. And it is true not only for business to customer relations but also for business to business.

As long as you post quality content which addresses your specific target audience, business leads are almost guaranteed.

The quality of the content, posting frequency and having an interesting and easy to read design, have to be consistent to ensure effectiveness.

Before you embark on a blogging adventure you have to ask yourself several questions:

– What are your strategies? Experts have found 4 different kinds of blogs that are used for businesses advantage:

Building brand awareness through leadership. It requires businesses to share their thoughts and opinions regarding their industry. The aim is to be a trusted source, to be considered an expert in the field and come up with blogs about new developments, opinions about old ones and guidelines. (For example: http://edelmandigital.com/page/1/)

Another kind of blog deals with the corporate culture – helping others understand the company and what motivates it. (http://blogs.zappos.com/blogs/inside-zappos)

Connecting with leaders – is another kind of blog written by the CEO or another head of company. It helps connect the leaders of the company with its employees and the customers. It creates familiarity that has disappeared from the corporate culture as companies grow bigger. (http://www.blogs.marriott.com/)

Branding – a blog that establishes a brand image. (http://www.openforum.com/)

The content must reflect the reason for the blog.

– Set Goals – Think what you want to achieve with the blog and how are you going to be able to see if you accomplished that goal.

– Management – Someone in the company has to be responsible for the blog. If you don’t have an IT to build the blog for you, you can go to hosted blogging services such as WordPress. That is for the look of the blog and the ability to upload it quickly, but managing the content is another issue. Have an “editor” designated to working on the blog and generating and evaluating the information that comes in. Have more than one person post blogs especially if you want to publish on a daily basis.

– Post interesting blogs. Make them easy to read and informative. You’d want people to spread the word through Tweets and the readers own social networks.

Social Brand Visibility: Identi.ca

October 28, 2010 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

Twitter or Identi.ca?

Micro-blogging has become a big thing when it comes to promoting your sites, network or keep in touch with your friends.

But which host do you prefer?

Identi.ca is a microblogging service where users post short (140 character) messages which are broadcast to their friends using the Web, RSS, or instant messages. While similar than Twitter in both concept and operation, Identi.ca provides many features not currently implemented by Twitter, including XMPP support and personal tag clouds.

Identi.ca allows free export and exchange of personal and friend’s data based on the FOAF standard; therefore, notices can be fed into a Twitter account or other service.

Identi.ca is an Open Network Service. Their goal is to provide a fair and transparent service that preserves users’ autonomy. You deserve the right to manage your own on-line presence, they say. The service reached 1 million postings on November 4, 2008.

Users say it trumps Twitter by leaps and bounds in terms of features. But with these features comes an uncharted territory, much of which is sometimes getting abused.

Identi.ca is as close to Twitter as you can get. Instead of Tweets they call their massages ‘dents’. In fact it’s almost identical to Twitter….”almost” because Identi.ca was built with OpenMicroblogging in mind. This means that it is built on an open platform that can be shared with anyone who wants to host their own federated version of the software. So unlike Twitter, which hopes to monetize the service in order to turn a profit, you can host a Laconi.ca server, sharing ‘dents’ with any identi.ca accounts as well as with anyone else running the same software. This means no more down-time.

Twitter is close, and more popular, but identi.ca is robust, more reliable, and simply an ALTERNATIVE and a CHOICE.