@BasilPuglisi

Content & Strategy, Powered by Factics & AI, Since 2009

Visibility Marketing

Social Media Tools: ShoutOMatic

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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.

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Why Every Small Business Should Go Online

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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:

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

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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]

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Social Media & Brand Monitoring Part 1: Radian6, Scout Labs, FlipTop

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Social Media has, in many ways, taken the place of the generalized web search. Personal comments, posted by happy or disgruntled customers, can have a tremendous impact on the reputation of a brand. It doesn’t take long before a social comment creates a chain of complaints, and if it goes unanswered can damage any business. There is no vacuum in the world, scientists tell us, and if you are not present on social media, your competitors can take advantage of your absence.

With so many social media platforms, and new ones joining all the time, the amount of users and comments on social media platforms has overtaken the amount of search engine queries, and by doing so have turned social media into a prime target for advertisers. Where the clients are, that is where advertisement should be.

With that proliferation, business owners have faced a dilemma; devote many hours of the day to monitoring their brand name and engaging in personal advertising across many sites, or hire additional employees to deal with those issues. But help was not far behind. To make it easier to monitor and to use so many social media sites for reputation and advertising, a few companies have created tools to monitor social media presence and plan a quick response. These are tools that not only tell you who is talking about you, what he/she says, but give you tools to see it in one place and analyze the information.

Radian6

By far the most robust site and the most talked about it Radian6.  Formed in 2006, the site helps companies with social media monitoring that enables business owners listen to what is said about their business online, across a wide network of social site including Twitter and Facebook, through text, tweets, pictures (Flickr), Google Buzz, videos, forums and blog posts. Radian6 gathers all that information and gives the business tools to analyze, manage, track and respond in real time.

Users of the software can choose any number of topics and keywords they want to track and get information within seconds. They can even compare them against each other to see which keyword gets the most uses in the social media circles.

Radian6 is a desktop application built on Adobe AIR. This paid program (about $500 a month) is meant for marketing, communications and customer support professionals. It also allows assigning tasks to different team members, and planning engagement times. Users can customize the tracking grid and break down the information by broad or specific topics, by tagging customer lists or by media types.

Radian6 was originally marketed to ad agencies. When the agency works with many brands, it could offer social media monitoring services for their clients. From there it expended to businesses beyond advertising companies and PR firms. They are probably best suited for medium to large sized brands and businesses.

But by far the best feature of the site is its analytics; after some training, you can slice and dice the data you get any way you want; who is mentioning your brand, on what platform. You can get an “influencer report” – who is mentioning your brand and on what source. The workflow view of the site allows users to follow, assign and report on news in real time. You can even have it sent to you via instant messenger.  

Watch a video presentation:

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

Radian6 biggest customers include Dell, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Kellogg’s, Fujitsu and Sony Ericson.

Scout Labs

 

The company was founded in February 2009, after two years of testing and development. Priced at around between $99 and $250 a month, scout Labs will give the user, after an initial set up, charts and graphs for volume of mentions and compare it to the competition you have set up to track. An automated ‘sentiment report’ follows every search, so you know at first glance if the comments are good, bad or neutral. This aspect is manually scored on Radian6 and comes with the highest paid package. On Scout Labs it is presented right there and then. But, it requires you to trust the algorithms which are applied, to understand the nuances of the language.

Scouts lab allows you to quickly scan all the social media sites for specific keywords or terms. Experts say it turns in more results from pictures and video than Radian6, and the ‘sentiment’ scoring makes it quicker to deal with problems. For $99 a month, their basic program is enough to handle a single brand or small business, and monitor 3-4 competitors. For $249, you get the ability to do more searches for competitors and divisions of your business.

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

You get a better price point with Scout Labs but not as through analytics as you get with Radian6. The latter has internal project management software for quick response that the former has not. Whether you choose Radian6 or Scout Labs depends on the size of your company and the information you want to have. Both are useful and worth the time and money you’ll invest in learning how to work it properly. From there, it will enable you to see a clear picture where your business is, in the big scheme of things.

FlipTop

In its beta stage right now, this promising new Social Media Tool shows some amazing potential, while it offers analytical tools, Fliptop is setup to leverage relationships across the different platforms in such a way that tracking profile and demographic information from those platforms may make target marketing more effective both in, and outside of social media. This tool may not only have the pulse of the social media realm, it may have the pulse of each individual tool providing valuable insight to what is and isn’t working in each type of social media.  

Early Estimates show that it may enter the market at a price point of $99 a month, which should make it very competitive with the existing market. However, don’t expect that price point to last long once they go public, as the suite of tools it seems to have in the beta are likely to get a lot of attention.

I going to stay vague for now, as my beta to this tool was a leap of faith and I want to finishing using it for a little while. I also want to let my contact work with me on  this, but I promise you from what I have seen and heard from the FlipTop rep this is a very promising tool.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JYkqwsQfiA]

This is Part 1 of Social Media Monitoring Tools, Part 2 will be later this week.

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Facebook Marketing Tool: Involver.com

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Noah Horton and Rahim Fazal founded Involver.com in 2007 in efforts to provide a startup that can help brands begin to get a grip on managing their social media channels. Having grown from a company of a dozen employees to over sixty with many offices in areas such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Austin, and with more coming soon, it looks like Involver, is in fact, fully involved, with no plans of leaving any time soon.

Involver has four main ways in which they help companies and organizations create rich and helpful experiences all across the social web.

  1. Involver helps to generate earned media by attracting attention from influential sources.
  2. Involver helps to get prospective customers engaged with your products and services through social networks.
  3. Involver can help to reduce marketing cost through a series of fully automated social networking services.
  4. Involver helps to maintain constant and consistent branding and advertisement for your products and services.

This kind of brand management can be critical to a company and its ultimate success online. Those who use Involver will also want to take advantage of the features offered in the applications area.

Flickr

You can bring all of your Flickr photos to Facebook with the Flickr App from Involver. This will allow users to stream their Flickr photos displaying their entire album, or allows users to choose sub albums to categorize their photo streams.

YouTube Channels

You can set your video to directly deliver to your social networks upon uploading. This will help incorporate your YouTube videos into your active marketing campaigns.

With so many more applications available there are bound to be at least a handful of ways to improve your social media interactions in Involvers many apps.

  • Facebook Stories
  • Social Catalog
  • RSS Feed
  • Promotion Galleries
  • Music Player
  • Polls
  • Coupons
  • Static HTML for Pages

Many more apps available make this attractive and professional option in social media marketing and product or service branding an invaluable tool in the likely already full bag of marketers tricks of the trade.

Get 10,000 Fans on Facebook

“It was in November of 2010 that my train baseball fan page had reached 10,000 fans and I decided that I would finally start a business that aimed at helping other small businesses like you get off the ground using tools like Facebook. So this is where things sit today. I’m 24 years old, and get a pretty neat opportunity to help out small businesses make better use of facebook.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mFBa3QVD2Q]

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Location Trends: Checkpoints

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“When was the last time you got a reward for just showing up? When did you get a prize for something you do every day? Now you can, with Checkpoints” is the catch-phrase of a new mobile app called Checkpoints.

Founded by brothers/ entrepreneurs Mark and Todd DiPaola, who put $1 million of their own money into forming a company in April 2010, the new product was launched about 3 months ago.

What Checkpoints offers is product integration, a way to introduce new clients to products in a fun and interactive way.

An example will illustrate it the best: You are about to go shopping for groceries. Opening the app on your cellular phone will show you which markets in your area are participating in the program. By going in and checking in there –pointing your cell phone camera at a bar code and taking a picture – you get some points.

The app will also show you which products in the store they are recommending. By picking a product up and scanning it (again with the camera) you will also get points. You can do the same with any other establishment, and Checkpoints is a universal currency, meaning it is not tied to a brand or to a currency. The points you accumulate can be redeemed for products; from gift cards to new electronic gadgets and airline miles.

For shoppers this app, available for all camera-equipped cell phones, is a fun way to interact with new products and get something in return.

For manufacturers and advertisers, which have been tied to a specific location in their advertisements, Checkpoints offers the ability to expend to the product level and drive customers to pick it up and really look at it, in an interactively engaging way.

Several brands have joined the program immediately; Belkin, Energizer, Seventh Generation, Tyson foods, 24/7 fitness center, and more. Just recently, Lionsgate, the movie production and distribution company has added Checkpoints to all their DVDs and Blu-rays. Customers are able to watch trailers and receive checkpoints for interaction with new movies. They will also have access to movie reviews and exclusive offers. “We know this technology increases the likelihood of purchase and we’re also excited by the sheer power of the experience and the brand engagement it creates” says Anne Parducci, Lionsgate Executive Vice President of Marketing and Family Entertainment.

Checkpoints hit the million check-ins and 600,000 bar code scans in January 2011, about 2 and half months after its launch. The brothers are now contemplating whether to continue in their boot-strapping operation with 13 employees or start a round of financing.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXwHkpGlQ00]

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Social Media Club

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In March of 2006, Chris Heuer and Kristie Wells began Social Media Club. Their intentions were to provide a format in which to explore and offer solutions to common issues facing our society as technological advancements continued to shape the way we connected socially on many levels.Benefits of Social Media Club

The global conversation on these issues has continued on to help build an organization and central location where a largely diverse group of people can continue to come together to discuss Social Media. SocialMediaClub.org can be beneficial to users in many ways.

  • All members will be able to sign up on Social Media Club’s email lists and social networks to connect with those who have similar needs and interest. This can also be based on geography if that benefits the member.
  • Members have access to publish in the Social Media Club Observer.
  • Members can receive discounts to the events organized by Social Media Club and its partner organizations and companies.
  • Members have the opportunity to be listed under the Speakers Directory and to receive invitations to members-only events.
  • Jobs in social media industries are also listed on the Social Media Club members section of the website.

Perhaps most vitally, members will have the chance to meet with people just as themselves who are looking for an edge in managing their businesses or personal social medias. Members who are unfamiliar with all of the common aspects of social media will learn to confidently utilize and apply these technological advancements in communication to their everyday businesses.

Members who have advanced knowledge of social media marketing will have many others to bounce their new and innovative ideas off of, those of whom already know their language and can respond in kind.

Social Media Statistics

It is a fact that we will likely never return to our parents, and their parents generations that flocked to radio and daily print to absorb our local or global news and information. Statistics regularly monitored in social medias only continue to grow in unfathomable numbers.

In 2010, during the average twenty minute excerpt of time, there were 1,5870,000 posts to Facebook walls and 2,716,000 photos uploaded. 10,208,000 comments were also posted.

Since April 2010, Twitter has increased their user list by 40,000,000 and have had a 62% increase in the use of mobile platforms.

The average U.S. user will watch at least thirty minutes of video online each day, compared to around five hours of T.V. per day.

Social Media Club Goals

Ultimately, the goal of Social Media Club is to continue to provide a forum where individuals can work together for a universal common good. Part of that goal means to continue to build up and build on more local chapters for all members.

Additionally, Social Media Club stresses that education, management and helpful tools and services are not limited to online availability and that offline events, meets and other knowledgeable networking functions are just as important as the time you spend utilizing them online daily.

Social Media Club Long Island

Founded in 2010 by Hillary Topper, Social Media Club Long Island has developed a following rather quickly in just under a year. The group received its official charter in early 2011 and features guest speakers at every meeting. Much like a Chamber of Commerce, the group gathers business owners and entrepreneurs alike.

The last SMCLI meeting took place on March 4, 2010. I had the pleasure to attend as I recently joined the SMC as a professional member.

The March 4 meeting featured speaker Steve Poppe, Managing Partner of What’s The Idea? (slideshare posted below). Sueanne Shirzay of SMCLI wrote in a follow up SMCLI  internal blog “Importance was put on the tremendous value of creating original content in blogs and websites, as only a paltry 8% of social media users currently do this. He described the creators or original content as “posters” and those who retweet the content or copy it as “pasters”.

In addition to the poster and paster comparison, Steve also brought our attention to the format or content type we use in our posts when we do post. As Steve pointed out that we have all become heavy text based posters, this gave pause to the entire room with a moment of silence to ponder the possibility that even those of us that are creating original content or “posters” have mostly become text based. I took a bit of pride in realizing that I had caught this in my blogs and made the adjustment back at the end of Dec 2010. Yet somehow most of my other social media activities are still overwhelmingly text based.

Social Media Week 2011: Social Media Camp NYC presented by Social Media Club

SMC has networked itself right into the heart of Social Media activities, I recently presented at Social Media Week 2011 and Social Media Club was the organizing sponsor of the event. Clearly this organization warrants keeping an eye on, but clearly it’s something any social media professional will want to join.

[slideshare id=7151078&doc=psomelisomeclub0304-110304112129-phpapp02]

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Digital Marketing Trend: Microsoft Tag

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Microsoft Tag is a new experience in connecting the digital world with the real world.  By scanning a tag – a new kind of bar code – with your cellular phone, you can have immediate access to information, websites, videos, reviews and more.

 

When you scan a Tag displayed on an establishment or product, it will automatically open a web page and give you all the pertinent information.

  • What was said about the coffee shop you are looking at?
  • Who is the owner?
  • What other users said?
  • You can also see if the place is offering special deals.

Scan a Tag on a concert poster and you will get the dates of their next performance in your city, you could buy tickets or sample a song.  The Tag will display a massage, dial a number or add the contact to your address book.

Shopping, Microsoft says, has become a lot smarter and fun; Tags lets you discover interesting new places, it can give access to the things consumers love and then bring them together.

Tags are free to create and use. They can be added to ads, posters, websites, packages, billboards and clothing. And this is but a part of the list. Adding the Tag to your business card will enable the user to add your contact information immediately into their address book.

For merchants, using the Tag not only give them access to customers they never had before, it also enables them to create media campaigns and have advanced analytics to measure campaign effectiveness. This can give you detailed information where the Tag was scanned and what was your most popular ad location.

The Tag reader is a downloadable application from a single website (to eliminate confusion) and can be as small as you want it to be so it won’t interfere with the design. Tags can be customized to your brand’s specific look and feel.

Microsoft is using a cloud based technology that provides access to data that isn’t possible with other bar-code systems because of the amount of information a cloud can store. Unlike other 2D codes that have permanent information and are associated with a single URL, Tags allows you to change the data in its source, update is as frequently as you want, allowing you to reuse campaign materials.

You can create a Tag by going to their website at tag.microsoft.com and sign in. Since May 2010, Tags has graduated from the beta trials and is now available everywhere. For some reason it caught on much quicker in Europe than in the US. In Amsterdam, for example, they are using the Microsoft Tag to advertise accurate bus schedules.

Since the beginning of its Beta trials and until May 2010, over 1 billion tags have been printed all over the world.

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Special Thanks to David Tesser for presenting this technology and subject to me for the blog.

Blog Tag: URL 2D

SmB Digital Trends: Groupon, Google Offers & Facebook Deals

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Small Business Trends: Groupon, Google Offers & Facebook Deals

Groupon burst into the scene of business client relationship in 2008, and changed the advertising model. It’s mindboggling rise in 2010 is proof they’ve hit the jackpot – an uncharted territory of local businesses and internet users. The virtual world and the physical world intersecting with each other.

A deal-a-day website, Groupon focuses its attention on the buying power of the surge. Every day a new deal in a specific area is advertised, announced by e mail to users by geographic location. The deal offers deep discounts – between 50%-90% off the regular price, and it can be made on merchandise or services (diving lessons for example). For businesses, even though the margin of profit shrinks, the deal has the potential of brining in many new customers and creating repeat business. For the customers it is an opportunity to buy something at a drastically reduced price.

Groupon’s scouts reach out to local businesses they deem worthy and offer to make a deal. Today, Groupon has scouts in over 300 markets in 35 countries, looking for businesses that meet their standards. There are some businesses they stay away from; shooting ranges, abortion clinics, plastic surgeons and strip clubs to mention some. Groupon has a subscriber base of 50 million members.

Forbes Magazine said about Groupon, as was quoted in The Wall Street Journal “We are projecting that the company is on pace to make $1 Billion in deals faster than any other business, ever.”

With the success came attempts by bigger companies to buy them out. Yahoo was rumored to make an offer, which was rejected, then, at the end of 2010, Google offered to buy Groupon for $6 billion. The offer was rejected in December 2010. It is rumored they are preparing for an IPO that can bring in as much as $16 billion.

Google didn’t wait long. At the end of January 2011, Google announced a new product which is in its testing stages. It is called Google Offers.

Google Offers

On January 20, 2011, Google announced on their blog “… a new product to help potential customers and clientele find deals in their area through a daily e mail”.

On the surface it seems to be the same deal as Groupon, but those who saw the program say it is a different model.

It will be an extension of their Google Coupons. You can see it if you google: coupons site:maps.google.com intitle:Google Offers. There you’ll find a list of coupons for businesses according to the geographical location. As you can see on the page, it is not very attractive and it is not easy to find deals in your area. But, if Google will let you know the deal in a daily e mail, incorporating their Gmail service, their potential customer base is enormous.

Opportunity? – With google shifting to local search results in Nov 2010, it might set the stage for a local offer to be ties into the search results in a big (or popup) way! Currently for as little as $25 a month Google places lets business owners produce a deal or coupon special, but this is likley just the begining.

Nate Tyler, Google spokesman, sent this statement a few days later:

“Google is communicating with small businesses to enlist their support and participation in a test of a pre-paid offers/vouchers program. This initiative is part of an ongoing effort at Google to make new products, such as the recent Offer Ads beta, that connect businesses with customers in new ways. We do not have more details to share at this time, but will keep you posted.”

And they are not alone. Where Google goes, so does Facebook (or vice versa).

Facebook Deals

Millions of people use Facebook Places to tell their friends where they are at a certain moment. Now Facebook is going a step further and launching an additional program for smartphone users called Facebook Deals.

We all like to feel we got the best deal possible, especially when it is shared with friends. Starting in November 2010, when you ‘check in’ to a business page on Facebook on your computer or mobile phone, you will see notations if the business is offering a deal. Clicking on it will show you the type of deal this business is offering.

Facebook Places lets you share where you are with your friends and see where they are. With Deals you can also see which businesses offer discounts in the area you are and share that information with your friends. When you go to the establishment, all you have to do is show your phone to the cashier to get your discount or gift.

There are 4 kinds of deals Facebook Deals is offering: Individual, friend, loyalty and charity.

  • Individual deals offer discounts or rewards for you, like a free cup of coffee, a free entrée etc. When you check in you get the offer for yourself.
  • Friend – You have to bring your friends with you. Tagging a number of friends to a business will get all of you a discount or free stuff (like a free T shirt in a rock concert). But you have to be in the company of all those you tagged.
  • Loyalty deals – a local establishment can offers deals that are similar to the punch-in cards, in the vein of buy 5 and get the 6th one free.
  • Charity deals – The establishment will donate money to charity when you use their services.

Since the end of January 2011, Deals is available in the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.

Which system is best for your business? It depends on your niche, what a surge on clients can bring, or whether you want it to be a one-time deal or an ongoing discount for repeat customers. But one thing is certain – all those offers open a new way for businesses to advertise themselves to customers in their physical area.

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Google’s New Algorithm

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Do you stay glued to financial news for the biggest trends, or failing ones, to keep your business thriving and productive? If so, you may want to take a seat for this one. Designed to improve search results, Google has initiated a new algorithm.

For those who have made a habit of providing the highest quality content, you are about to be rewarded. However, low ranking sites that regularly copy content or provide low quality information, should expect to take a bit of a beat down.

The new algorithm will target a few key issues about the way content is promoted by their search engine. Content that is rich in helpful informative information, charts and graphs,  properly key worded and updated regularly, will get high priority by the new implementation, while those with second hand content and low quality outlines will be bumped further down on the search results regardless of their current page rank or unique visitors. In fact, the new algorithm is likely to change the latter aspects for those fluffy sites altogether.

Google’s Goal

Google says their goal is to provide users with the most relevant answers to their search engine queries, and as fast as possible. They intend to achieve this while also reducing the search engine rankings of things like content farms and over advertised spam ad.  Considering the user ship of Google, it is fair to say that when we refer to us, we really do mean, the huge collective US, that will be greatly affected by these changes. This could literally make or break some online businesses.

Although an algorithm change such as this may likely turn the search engine world as we know it upside down, the service it should begin providing, with the changes having taken place immediately, should definitely be a positive one.

Positive for the effectiveness of the search engine users that is. For sites who may have raised their page rankings and traffic with less than notability informative content, they may have already noticed a significant loss of traffic due to their new rankings on this algorithm system.

Some Win, Some Lose

Google also acknowledges that any changes to their algorithms, including the most recent ones, can cause some websites to achieve much greater results in readers or consumers, it can also cause previous winners on this path to suddenly be set back greatly.

However, take note also that if your rankings have dropped you may either be the false positive, or a unfortunate casualty of Google’s new algorithm, or you may need to sit back and take a longer look at your site and determine the best course of action to ensure that it provides helpful and informative content, not spun or copied content.

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