Archive for the ‘Online Social Media Marketing’ Category

Who’s taking down more small businesses…

…The economy or Yelp?

 

More bad stories about the Yelp experience. Read the rest of this entry »

Bay Area Web Design and Online Marketing

What is a Blog?

A blog is basically an online journal.  A resource for communicating with mass amounts of potential customers.

How to create a blog?

3 steps:

Read the rest of this entry »

LinkedIn- Why bother? Don’t be silly, read on…

You know all about Facebook and Twitter and how those social webites can help you make more money online. Yet, LinkedIn, a very powerful tool to target business professionals (B2B) remains under used.

If you are looking to get your products and services in front of the general mass audience, then Facebook and Twitter are good solutions. But if you want to attract wealthy, influential professionals then you need a LinkedIn presence.

Neilson Online called LinkedIn, “The world’s largest audience of affluent, influential professionals.”
In fact, you will find more than 80 million of them from more than 200 countries. LinkedIn’s population is highly educated; more than 80 percent have bachelor or graduate degrees. The average household income of a LinkedIn user is about $108,000 per year, and more than 20 percent of LinkedIn users are senior-level executives and managers.

What’s more, over 60 percent of users are decision makers in their companies or have direct influence over key decisions related to product or service purchases. This is something your competition likely does not know.
It’s plain to see that LinkedIn offers its own value proposition. Here’s how to take advantage of it: Don’t wait for prospects to come to you — go get them

Out of the 80 million professionals on LinkedIn, only a few consistently gain clients from the website. Most people have a LinkedIn profile and only a few connections. They are not actively seeking prospects, joint venture partners and referral sources. Instead they spend their time asking: Why should I be on this website?

As a small business owner, one of your top priorities is always to get new clients. The only way to do this is to go out and search for those who can be your best customers and refer future business. Notice I used the word “best” — LinkedIn allows you to target potential customers in a way that Facebook and Twitter does not.

As mentioned previously, LinkedIn can help you network with the best and brightest; the decision makers. Build connections with powerful people and a trickle-down effect can bring new connections and new business.

Engage with others on LinkedIn
If you want a prospect to take the next step and actually do business with you, you need to prove that you are worthy. The best way to accomplish that is to get prospects engaged and show them that you are a leader in your industry.

Here are a few ways to easily engage with others on LinkedIn:

• Update your status message daily. I don’t mean “Going out to eat at that new restaurant downtown.” Provide real, informative content that can help your prospects. Show them that you have solutions for their problems.

• Start debates within LinkedIn groups. For example, one of my clients likes to create article topics such as, “Article Marketing Debate: Is Article Marketing Just an SEO Link-building Tool?” These discussions have helped him gain social proof from those who support his ideas. For the opposition, it has provided a great discussion panel — where my client can provide his expertise and even display case studies to support his views.

• Consistently provide tips, tools, resources, video and articles, and distribute them through your LinkedIn network, including the groups to which you belong.

• Answer questions on the Q & A Boards and within the different groups. This will demonstrate your experience and help you become established as an expert.

• Host monthly training teleseminars in your industry and add them to LinkedIn events. Promote your teleseminars to your contacts and groups, and those groups in which you participate. Another effective way to promote a teleseminar on LinkedIn is to create and distribute articles that provide a sneak preview of what you will be discussing. At the end of the article, provide a call-to-action to register for the teleseminar. This will get people from your LinkedIn list to join your business email list. Remember, the whole point of LinkedIn marketing is to get your connections to take the next step in building a relationship with you and becoming a customer.

• Have a complete profile that includes polls, videos, your blog feed and PowerPoint presentations. Using the new publications application, post your e-books, books, articles and other publications.

1. Take advantage of LinkedIn groups
2. Did you know that LinkedIn allows you to join up to 50 groups? In these groups you can network, join conversations and show prospects that you have the answers to their problems. Unfortunately, most entrepreneurs do not utilize this tool in order to reach prospective clients.
3. LINKed-IN: Why do it?

Don’t do this on LinkedIn:

1. You become a member of a group but fail to actually participate. How can you expect prospects to come to you for their needs if you do not take the time to make yourself heard?

2. Join groups where there are similar members. Which makes more sense; to belong to a group that is full of your competition or full of potential clients? It is obvious to me that you would want to be in the same place as your prospects. But many entrepreneurs fail to think outside the box and strictly join groups based on their field of expertise. You might not be an expert in auto repair but I bet those who are need tools.

Create a community on LinkedIn
Another way to take advantage of LinkedIn groups is to create your own, thereby creating your own community of followers. As you are the one in charge of the content that is posted, you can make sure that your message is heard. However, be sure to foster open and fair discourse.

From my experience, many group members religiously check what is being discussed in their groups. Why can’t your group be one of them?

Consistently create and distribute content
Eric Gruber (my partner at GetLinkedInHelp.com and founder of Article Marketing Experts) belongs to 50 different LinkedIn groups. Imagine how many people he can reach if each of those groups has 1,000 members. That’s 50,000 potential clients he can possibly connect with just by spending a few minutes posting content, as often as he likes. That’s one reason his website traffic soared 34 percent in the last month alone.

Are you ready to start taking advantage of all the networking, relationship-building and profit-producing opportunities that LinkedIn has to offer?

Most of this content was stripped from- GetLinkedInHelp.com. For more social networking media marketing and information on SEO information, contact KO

MySpace says Sale of social marketing company is probable. MySpace is confirming with KO NEWS that their parent company News Corp. is looking for a way to unload its poor performing social media web property after unloading nearly half of its staff this week.

Need another reason to explain to your boss why you must be on Face Book all day? Facebook now has AMBER Alerts! Yes, that’s right. The social networking web site Facebook will now get AMBER Alerts if they want them. AMBER Alerts are the notifications of a child is abduction.

San Francisco News paper does not give up
Examiner.com has inked a deal with Foursquare to offer ratings and other things? on the 4Sq. Visitors who login to Foursquare will get access to content from all the Eexaminer news products.

Social Gaming Will Generate $1 Billion This Year
Social gaming is poised to become a billion-dollar industry this year, according to new research from eMarketer. Approximately 62 million American internet user will play at least one game on a social network on a monthly basis in 2011. I should had gone into gaming rather than web marketing I guess

My theory is…Coming soon will be gaming advertising. It’s sort of happening already at the cooperate level (Coke, etc), but wouldn’t it be cool to have your company buildboard on turn 9 at XYZ race track on the next hot driving game? Or a spray paint (Viral marketing) of your logo on a wall on the next big shootem-up game?

Participation in Real-Time Social Media Increased 20% in 2010

According to Trendstream, users are increasingly engaging in real-time social media conversations via social networking and media web sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Social media transforms from just a place to post your personal chatter to a place to that’s smart to marketet your professional content in real time.

An ongoing web study called the Global Web Index, which surveyed a total of 51,000 consumers between July 2009 and September 2010. The results? Participation in real-time social networks and microblogs (personal blogs) both grew by 20%. Participation in major Blogs decreased by 4%, and forum participation declined by over 10%.

Social media networks like Twitter and social networks like Facebook offer real-time social media and are growing at a similar rate, social networks still dominate the real-time social web. The people who said they updated their social accounts daily was twice that who said they updated their microblog. 29% reported of those surveyed said they use microblogs.

A relatively new social marketing technique is the use of small, localy owned and opperated blogs hosted on your own website (aka. Microbloggings). Why- because they know the source of the information. OK, they may not KNOW you, but at least they know who is wrinting it.* Blog content is becoming more about sharing professional advice and useful content. It use to be about personal content. Use of these company blogs have increased by 10% last year (2010).
*Many companies hire content writers to keep their blog up to date. The SEOPRO’s at KO Websites offer this service.

Twitter now asks “How are you doing? instead of “What’s happening?” Facebook which has become more microblog-like with every new redesign What’s this all mean? I don’t know. More probing questions I guess.

The potential for social media — The surveys found 50% participation and engagement. If social media continues to grow at this rate, it could become a more powerful distribution channel than print, television, radio or static web pages ever were.

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Google admits today, that they do indeed give credit for social activity

Watch this video for more information.

The “New Thing” in marketing the second half of this decade has been social media marketing and brand management. If you have avoided it thinking it was a useless trend that was all hype, you want to continue reading this post and think again…

From TV, radio, Internet, cellular technology, to print media, the exchange and delivery of information broadens our knowledge base and enhances our decision-making ability. Marketers are keenly aware of this inasmuch as they soberly realize that not all avenues of communication provide the same measure of control when it comes to brand exposure and consumer perceptions. Indeed, there is some valid concern over product-related discussions occurring on a mass scale via social media outlets. But there is good news.

According to a study conducted by Keller Fay Group, a firm dedicated to researching word-of-mouth marketing by sampling thousands of online and offline conversations, brand references are largely “positive.” If this isn’t cause for encouragement, two-thirds of those surveyed believed that positive word-of-mouth reviews were credible, whereas less than half were influenced by negative buzz. Obviously word-of-mouth is powerful, but apparently when positive, all the more persuasive. This kind of advertising carries considerable weight. Not only is it free, but based on the study favorable brand reviews appear to have a much more pervasive effect, resulting in consumers being twice as likely to engage in further brand research, and nearly four times as likely to make a purchase.

Thanks Keller Fay. The word is in- word-of-mouth advertising has a profound impact in driving brand growth.

Social Media in Marketing- Why you need in.

The practical purpose of so-called “studies” touting statistics favorable to advertising, whether directly or indirectly, in social networks is little more than a marketing tool designed to obtain feedback, ideally in the form of sales.  Such reports however have a tendency to overemphasize what may in fact already be quite obvious to the savvy entrepreneur regardless their level of computer literacy.  For, much like real world commerce, in near every aspect of e-commerce there are cooperative and competing entities all vying for solid position and tangible results.  But whereas in the real world saturation marketing gave way to targeted marketing as a more cost-effective means of increasing business among audiences peculiar to any given industry, the very opposite appears true for the virtual or digital world.  Thus, penetrating the realm of social networks is becoming a key factor in advertisers reaching their objectives.  Think of it this way:  the axiom arguably most applicable to the proliferation of business is “word of mouth” advertising.  And social networks by definition are open arenas where communication abounds.  Studies and statistics may add weight to this concept, but common business sense ultimately prevails.  Hence, if you’re an advertiser whose product or service is in need of exposure, it would be a good idea to seize the initiative and begin to realize the benefits afforded by these avenues.

Embracing social media- Do you need too?

If you own a business, you may have no choice. You may have to learn to embrace social media or get left behind. Businesses have encountered and adjusted to many changes in communication over time. Although social media is one of the biggest shifts in communication, businesses are having a harder time implementing it. According to Amber Naslund, businesses have integrated the telephone, fax machine, and email, but have yet to fully embrace social media. Here is a video on the subject of social media and how companies are and are not using social media.

If you liked that video, you’ll like this one below too.