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  1. 5 Great Ways to Bring Social Media to Your Events

    December 28, 2011 by Blair Stover

    Any company, or individual for that matter, can leverage social media tools to bring more attendees to an event. For at least the last decade, social media tools of all kinds have been employed by small businesses to create buzz, ramp up

    Social Media Outposts
    Image by the tartanpodcast via Flickr

    attendance, and spread the word about company promotions and happenings. While there are countless mini-strategies for using social media, here are five common ways that the process can get you into the mix.

    There is no reason why you have to wait until the last minute to create excitement about your event. Allow for pre-registration with web utilities like Eventbrite. A tiny bit of planning will pay big dividends in terms of attendance.

    Let the event shape itself by asking registrants what they want to see. Many entertainment companies do this in order to build a show around one headliner. If potential audience members want juggling or dance shows, you can always sub-contract those functions and design an event around what your public desires. Think about using PollDaddy or TwtPoll for taking simple surveys.

    One of the trendiest, high tech ways to put on a fantastic presentation is with QR codes. You can create a QR code that smartphone users can scan. If your presentation is on Slideshare, phone users will be able to watch the formal presentation on their screens while you are conducting the outdoor event with no need for audio or visual materials onstage.

    Build an image inventory from the event by encouraging attendees to post their photos on Flickr. Consider offering some small reward or freebie to those who allow their personal pictures to be used.

    If you are short of seating or formal space for your event, think about allowing virtual attendance. Many large and small events sell virtual tickets to those who cannot attend the live portion of the presentation. There does not need to be a fee, but if you want to charge a nominal amount, try to keep the ticket price very low so as to boost attendance. At least initially, it is all about making connections, not making money on the events themselves.

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  2. Twitter Tips for Better Marketing

    November 15, 2011 by Blair Stover

    If you are looking to market like the pros, take these tips when marketing on Twitter. First, improve your tweets. In your own voice, share valuable content with a style which goes along with your brand.  Also, provide key words in your tweets. Use words that describe your industry and business best. Include many of these words when creating your 140 word posts.

     

    Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...

    Image via CrunchBase

    Share useful content by providing links. By doing so, you are effectively retaining and growing followers. This is a stronger tactic than actually engaging in a conversation with them. This is due to the fact that growing a fan base requires you to share more links than replies.

     

    Take advantage of customer search orders to learn what consumers want. Once you know what your clients want, you can
    work on providing it. Then, engage them in a conversation to  about the problem your business can solve.

     

    The most crucial part of a Twitter marketing strategy is to tweet with the right people after connecting with them.  Do not just follow anyone. Seek out relevant people who are willing to follow you. Having thousands of followers does you no good if none of them are interested in your content. Local businesses can even do this by finding potential followers who live in your region and have shown interest in your industry.

     

    Use icebreakers to make connections with the strangers who will follow you. Try to find a connection with them. Try sending them an @messaging and detail something that was insightful in their last blog post.
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  • Small Business and the New Facebook

    October 11, 2011 by Blair Stover

    Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...

    Image via CrunchBase

    You may not be surprised to learn that Facebook has changed again. These new changes affect brands and companies that utilize Facebook for marketing more than ever now. So what does this mean for small businesses?

    The first change involves privacy settings for sharing. Users now have  more control over who is able to see the content they post on their  wall, or home page. Facebook defaulted “Public” as a setting rather than “Everyone”. “Public” means that one’s updates, photos and additional user information can be viewed by anyone in the public. This is helpful as this will most likely result in less public-facing citations.

    If you were excited about Facebook Deals, you should know it is over. Facebook has discontinued the project. However, the company stated that it is looking into the best way to be of service to local businesses, as it learned much from this project. Another feature which will soon be phased out is location tagging. This is the feature Facebook members use with their cell phone to “check in” when at locations.

    Rather than targeting ads by precise interests and keywords, Facebook now allows those who advertise on their media network to target ads based on topic. This will simplify the list of keywords companies were managing. Now, a business can target the interests of their clientele.

    Restrictions on types of advertising have been eased by Facebook. So long as ads are properly targeted, Facebook now allows legal gambling operations to be promoted. This includes offline casinos. Furthermore, ads for herbal and dietary supplements are now allowable, as long as they do not include banned ingredients such as, ephedra, anabolic steroids or human growth hormones.

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  • How Smartphones Affect Employees

    September 16, 2011 by Blair Stover

    au SmartPhone IS01

    Image via Wikipedia

    It has been mentioned before, in the day and age of technology, that we are more accessible than the human being has ever been before. Being unable to reach someone in your time of need is no longer an occurence with everyone owning a portable phone.

    An amazing one-third of adults in America own a smartphone. Of these smartphone owners, email or the Internet is used by 87%, 68% of owners go online in a common day, and 25% favor their phone for gaining access to the Internet. How many of these phones are utilized for work purposes each week? This is the question of business owners.

    Employees who own smartphones are able to increase productivity. This is due to the ease of accessing work on the go and squeezing in a few things here and there between family life. Employees can check in at work before they arrive to prioritize before they even arrive in the office. Additionally, employees are, more than ever, expected to be reachable at most anytime.

    However, this is a two-sided sword. Because the smartphone offers so much, a decrease in productivity is also a consideration employers must make. It is easy for employees to become distracted with personal texting, social networks and leisure reading. These issues can even become problematic during a work-related meeting in the office.

    All in all, people become one with their smartphone, it seems. It has been reported that 61% of people have their phone in their bedrooms at night and 41% of those people keep it in arm’s reach while sleeping. Employers even find that they receive quicker responses to work related emails and off hour working with employees who own a smartphone.

    Each case is different, however, and employers must ultimately determine if these phones are causing stress or alleviating stress in their employees. So what have you found – does your smartphone help you or hinder you at work?

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  • Maximising Your YouTube Marketing

    August 17, 2011 by Blair Stover

     

    Image representing YouTube as depicted in Crun...

    Image via CrunchBase

    If you are not getting desired results with your YouTubemarketing, take action. According to Nielson, both mobile and Internet viewing have increased 20 to 35 percent over last year while traditional television viewing increased only fractionally over last year. This alone is an important reason to focus on your YouTube marketing. Try the following tips to maximize this marketing.Be aware that each minute, thirty-five hours of new video are uploaded into YouTube. This offers a huge amount of competition. This is exactly why you want to make the most of your YouTube marketing efforts. Firstly, create compelling videos. Your videos should address the needs of your intended audience. Consider what will be compelling, valuable and helpful to your prospective customers. Have your videos focus on slide shows, expert interviews, frequently asked questions, how-to’s, etc.

    Next, make your videos easy to find from within YouTube and outside of YouTube. Remember that Google owns YouTube. Videos frequently appear as first page results on search engines. You can essentially skip over your competition to the top of the results of a search page in this way. To make your video findable focus on the title, adding a colon after the initial key words, make your description as keyword-rich and descriptive as possible and tag all and any related keywords in the tags field.

    Create a branded experience. You can do this on YouTube without becoming a partner or paying out for a brand channel. By turning your channel into a destination, your YouTube channel can become a second home. Choose background colors that coincide with your branding. Make your layout in “Player View” and set your featured video to autoplay. Add a playlist of the videos that represent your products and services.

     

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  • How to Use Social Media While on Vacation

    July 22, 2011 by Blair Stover

    Whether you’re an entrepreneur or simply someone who can’t disconnect from technology and social media, even when on vacation, you can put your obsession to good use. We caution you to take time away from the computer screens, Smartphones and from social media because being “constantly connected” online keeps you “disconnected” while you’re with your family and friends.

    If you simply can’t bring yourself to disconnect from social media, however, you should find a way to use it to enhance your vacation experience with some of the apps that are available. When you’re new to an area use apps that are location-based, like Foursquare, to find attractions, restaurants, coffee shops and more that are close to where you are. You can search out the sites, read what previous visitors have said and make up your mind as to whether you’d like to visit. If you are using Foursquare, simply tap the Explore Tab and ask for recommendations on everything from shopping to nightlife to museum suggestions.

    If you’re the kind who is always wanting to meet up with new people, check out some of the new group messaging services such as GroupMe or Fast Society. With these apps you can communicate with other people who are in the vicinity, message them and make plans to meet up. These apps are also useful if you’re traveling with a group and you’ve gone your separate ways for the afternoon but plan to meet up later – simply plug the information in and voila, everyone in the group message knows what’s going on.

    Use social media to check out the hotels before you make a reservation. YouTube offers information and virtual tours of hotels. There is also a concierge service you can sign up for through Twitter. Check the hotel you plan to stay in and see if they offer Twitter concierge services; many Hyatt and Intercontinental Hotels participate. Followers of these hotels can also be privy to special “follower only” deals.

    Use status updates and post photos sparingly to your social media sites, i.e. Facebook and LinkedIn or even Twitter. Individuals have been known to scour the social media sites for those individuals who are vacationing because they assume the traveler’s home is vacant. Don’t make yourself a victim of a potential crime by announcing, “The Smith family is going on vacation for two weeks!” Save the family vacation photos for when you return and share them with your friends and family once you’re back in your house.

    Used wisely, social media can enhance your vacation experience.

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  • Facebook and Why It Won’t Go Public

    June 16, 2011 by Blair Stover

    When a company is worth near 50 billion dollars you would think people would want to have their hands in all that wealth, and they do.  But Facebook is yet to go public and people looking to invest in the ever-growing corporation are being left out of one of the most successful businesses of the decade.  The question is why, why hasn’t Mark Zuckerberg gone public with Facebook?

    The truth is that Zuckerberg is very likely to fight going public for as long as he can.  This may be telling us something about the financial situation Facebook is in at the moment.  While the corporation doesn’t have to disclose financial information, as they currently are not over the 500 shareholders mark, many believe that Facebook should be ordered to disclose their financial information now.

    Zuckerberg is simply waiting for the right time.  There will come a time when Zuckerberg wants to cash in on the billions waiting for him.  Should we take into consideration that in a very successful film release this year, The Social Network, audiences were led to believe that Zuckerberg doesn’t care too much about money?  If anything truthful can be taken from the movie as truth it may be that Zuckerberg likes having control of his company.  Once Facebook goes public he will have to relinquish some of that control.

    We know that Facebook is growing into a money-making powerhouse simply because of the latest deal that the company has been involved in.  Goldman Sachs has apparently paid Facebook roughly 450 million dollars and has promised to invest a billion dollars in the company in the future.  That is a lot of money.  Now think about if Facebook gets ten offers this year to do the same thing.  That’s over 10 billion dollars in growth over the next year.  If Facebook is currently worth 50 billion dollars then that equates to a 20% growth in one year, which is mind blowing in the business community.

    To Mark Zuckerberg’s credit there are some problems within the stock exchange.  The regulation system was set up in the 1930′s so we can’t expect it to be prepared to handle a company as large as Facebook has become very smoothly.  Facebook may also be worried by the fact the stock market isn’t necessarily run by investors but computers looking for patterns.  The bottom line is that Zuckerberg is resisting the pull to go public; so we know that Facebook won’t be going public until the man behind the Facebook curtain is ready to.

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  • Twitter Tips for Small Businesses

    May 24, 2011 by Blair Stover

    Every year Merriam-Webster issues a list of new words they are adding to the English dictionary. One of the words they included on that list for 2010 was the word tweet. Despite the reality that many small business owners want to hide under a rock when it comes to technology, its clear that Twitter is here to stay for awhile. That reality has proven that small business simply cannot afford to be without a Twitter account. By being on Twitter, you are where your consumers are, which helps to increase name recognition within a business and helps open a dialog with you and your customer.

    However what many small businesses have found is that Twitter can be confusing, and having one done wrong could be catastrophic to a company’s future. So to save you a headache, we’ve created the top five tips any small business can – and should – take to reap the benefits of the digital age.

    1. Get a Twitter Yourself

    The first, and probably, most important thing is to have a personal Twitter account where you can build relationships, get followers, and learn how to use the program, all before you put your small business  – and possibly your very livelihood – on the cutting block. Find not only friends you know personally, but those who might be interested in you and eventually your small business.

    2. Set Up Account, Get Followers (Employees Are A Great Start)

    Once your account is set up, the next task, and probably the most important, is building a community who reads your tweets. This means you need to get followers. Those following you as a person can only go so far, so encourage your employees to follow your as well, and to re-tweet your postings so their friends can join too. It’s all about networking here, and building that network cannot be left on your shoulder alone. (Bonus tip: Eye your competitors followers and invite those who have expressed they aren’t satisfied as consumers to also follow you).

    3. Be Complete

    Not filling out a complete profile is just creepy. You’re a business and in order for people to want to follow you, you need their trust, so you must completely fill out profile.  This includes a profile picture!

    4. Add the Twitter Account
    No point in having an account to get more people interested in your small business if you aren’t going to promote it with those who are already interested. This means add the twitter account to business cards and websites.

    5. Use It

    Having an account that isn’t updated at least 3-5 times a week, if not everyday, is a waste. Be sure to update often enough to keep your name and logo easily out there. But not too often. Find a balance, and use it wisely – this should come naturally. (Another bonus tip: Don’t be boring while updating, be human. Technology has already decreased face-to-face human interaction, your consumers need to know you’ve got a heart.)

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  • Five Alternatives to Hootsuite

    April 18, 2011 by Blair Stover

    HootsuiteIn today’s society, social networking has become a staple as a normal means of communication.  People want other people to know where they are and what they are doing.  Then along came HootSuite, a social media dashboard that allows you to update several of you networking sites all at once.  But now that HootSuite is becoming a paid luxury, what are some new alternatives for your new social media dashboard?

    The first we are going to look at is Buzzom.  Buzzom is almost identical to HootSuite in reference to the features that it offers its members.  Buzzom chooses to mostly focus on the feed and stream aspect of social networking and has a fairly good filtering system and easy account management.

    If you are a fan of the Facebook interface then you will be a fan of this next option.  Brizzly offers an experience much like the king of social networks.  You have options to check your inbox and view replies that have been sent to you.  They have recently released a new concept called Picnic which focuses on your Twitter activity.

    Cotweet is very similar to HootSuite and was the first social media dashboard to become a paid site.  It does offer a free version, but it is nothing compared to what you can do with its paid service.

    One of the first media dashboards on the market was Seesmic.  It shares many of the same features as HootSuite.  Its account management features are very easy to use and it also partnered with Microsoft to develop a desktop application, but the application has failed to pick up any steam in the social networking world.

    The number one alternative to HootSuite is a desktop application known as Tweetdeck.  The application allows you to connect all your social networking sites together and was the first to introduce the popular column view to social media dashboards.  It is currently viewed as the pioneer in the social media dashboard scene.

    So do not fret about HootSuite becoming a paid site because there are plenty of great alternatives at your disposal.  Your choice will come down to what features you want in your social media dashboard and which one will fit those personal preferences.

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  • How to Make Your Company Facebook Fan Page Better

    March 17, 2011 by Blair Stover

    For small business owners, the popular social networking site Facebook is a good way to create a social media and brand presence, promote your business, and learn more about your customers. By using Facebook, you can communicate with your customers, know what they want, and use them to help promote your business. This is done when people add themselves as a fan, write on your Wall, upload photos, and interact with other fans.

    To make your company fan page better, start by checking out other fan pages on Facebook. See how the page is structured, take note of the photos, read the articles and other bits of information you find there. This will give you a good idea of what to put in your fan page. In creating your own fan page, don’t forget to add basic information like a website, company profile, mission/vision and products. Add your unique logo or a picture that represents your business as your profile picture.

    Next, see if your existing customers are already on Facebook and become friends with them. Then invite them to become fans. You can also tell your customers about your fan page and ask them to show their support by joining Facebook and becoming fans. The moment you have some fans, it’s a cinch to get more.

    Keep your fans engaged by giving them useful and relevant info. Share quality content with them to incite comments and send updates at least twice a month. The more users interact with your page, the more publicity you get that helps increase awareness about your products and services.

    For more helpful advice, consult the Facebook guidelines on promoting your page both inside and outside of Facebook. You can also download a Facebook Page Badge graphic that you can use on your own site that says “Find Us on Facebook.”

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