Category Archives: Social Media
Why You Need To Have A Social Business Strategy
When you hear the word ‘social’ in the business context, the first
thing that you will probably think about is the social media and
social media marketing. These are widely used by SEOs and businesses
in general to improve their scores and profits, and to reach their
customers more easily. Customers are everything in today’s world, and
showing them your inner workings and getting personal with them will
significantly improve the chances of them choosing your product.
However, social business strategy is something that you might call
completely different. Being in Australia, where the social aspects of
running a business are blooming exponentially year after year, I have
seen many people confuse these two. Social business strategy has
nothing to do with customers. It is primarily concerned with your
employees and their behavior on social networks. So, let’s answer the
first question that is on your mind.
What is social business strategy?
Social business strategy is, to say it plainly and in one sentence, a
strategy that helps your company and corporate thinking evolve,
improves the internal preparedness of your organization, bridges the
internal and the external social initiatives and creates a company
that is more collaborative and values that are shared by everyone
involved in the company (partners, customers and employees).
So, it is obvious that this strategy is concerned with the internal
workings of the company, instead of the external workings that are a
part of the social media marketing. Its primary concern is regulating
the way your employees use social media in order to promote the
company. It also regulates their training in social media
responsibilities and instructs them how to share knowledge and culture
that is related to your company. One of the major impacts that a
social business strategy has is that it helps minimize the mistakes
that your employees might make when engaging in social media for your
company.
As I have stated that I will provide some benefits of the social
business strategy, here are a few things that should make you think
about implementing a certain social strategy in your office.
Better content
Social content is the number one challenge for SEOs and brand managers
all around the globe. It is considered to be the most important thing
in marketing today among many people who are into marketing, myself
included. The main problem for SEOs is the quality and originality of
the content that is being put forward. It is getting harder to find
new sources and new ideas for original posts. Social business strategy
can solve this problem, because it will help locate better content
sources that are not available to everyone, such as the sources that
come from your employees, partners and customers who love the brand
and want to promote it further. Also, it will help streamline the said
content and unite it into a single, flowing story that will be told by
your company.
Customer relationships
Today, with the development of the Internet and social media,
relationship with your customers has been brought onto a whole new
level. You can now get more personal with them and should they have
any complaints, they will be able to access you at anytime. So, having
a social business strategy will help you form a better connection with
your customers, because there will be people who are assigned to do
just that, work in social media customer relations. As I said,
interaction with the customers is always something that you should
strive forward, and creating a strategy will allow the brand managers
and people working in customer service to get feedback and, generally,
interact with the customers in real-time. Responding to your
customer’s problems in real-time (immediately) will help increase
their loyalty and enables you to advocate your brand.
Better analytics
Because I’m working with social media marketing and search engine
optimization, analytics is something that interests me very much.
However, there are two problems with analytics in most social
businesses, and that is that either no one is paying attention to the
analytics, or everyone is paying attention to it, but according to
different standards. There is no unified standard for analyzing social
media activity and accomplishment, and everyone has their own theory.
With social business strategy, this is eliminated. The strategy will
create its own standards that everyone in the company will have to
use, while making it obligatory to analyze what is already done. This
is especially useful when a CMO of a company that works with a lot of
brands asks for a report on what is done, because it will highlight
all the engagement, community growth and share of voice achievement.
So, I can conclude that using a social business strategy is something
that is highly recommended for businesses that operate with brands. It
will help the SEOs and social media marketers to do their job better,
because they will have the help of all employees. Since SEO is the
primary form of marketing in Australia now, I can really say that
there is no time to waste in implementing such a strategy.
Victor Daily is a tech blogger with years of experience in contributing
valuable tips and latest news with his readers. His articles have been
published on a number of industry blogs. Useful info for this article
has kindly been shared by Ninefold from Australia.
Ways New Technologies Are Leveraging Social Media
Social media, as a major component of all modern internet use, has become deeply important to every actor that’s participating on or even off the web today. This applies to web using individuals, companies, media outlets organizations (activists, etc) and even government agencies.
And, just as this leveraging through social media is being done with the above players, so too is the same effect being seen with the varied web related technologies they (we) all use. In order to fully take advantage of social media’s communicative power, the remaining technologies of web connectivity have to integrate with social networks as well. With well over 1 billion social network users worldwide, failing to connect to this enormous contact medium would be a disaster for whoever doesn’t do it.
Let’s see some powerful examples of widely used web and communications technologies and their efforts to integrate with the social network landscape.
Blogging Technology and Social Media
The technology that led to the widespread use of blogging by private individuals, reporters and large organizations such as corporations, governments and NGOs has no0w also become fully integrated with social media platforms.
Downloadable Blog Content management software packages such as WordPress are designed so that social media sharing buttons and icons can be placed on any item inside the pages designed by their software. Furthermore, numerous plugin and addon applications that can be quickly downloaded and attached to these blog platforms are also designed to maximize social media friendliness and leverage the power of social media by making it easy to mirror what’s in a given blog, to that blog owners social network accounts.
This trend will only continue and more likely than not, we’re going to see a heavy fusion between blogging platforms and social network platforms, leading to something new and even more robustly social while also being highly customizable in the way that blogs are.
Video Conferencing Technology
Video Conferencing Services are all about maximizing their clients’ capacity to communicate interactively (through video and audio) and share information in real time to both other individual callers or to whole groups during an open conference.
Given these product/service aims, it’s only natural that social media should also be integrated with video conferencing platforms for maximum sharing and instant, interactive communication capacity. Because of this, video conference tech service providers such as www.Intercall.com are developing video conference solutions whose functions also integrate with certain social networks and create even more connectivity options for their users.
From the social media side of the spectrum, partnerships between social networks and major video calling producers such as Skype and others are slowly going to create chat options that are even more robust and smooth than what already exists. This, coupled with the group based information sharing capacity that all social accounts give to their users, will lead to some interesting, more professionally oriented uses for sites like Facebook, Google+ and others that might not even exist yet.
Mobile Device Technology
There is probably no single technology platform that has more thoroughly integrated with the world’s social networks than mobile communications.
Consisting of smart phones, tablets and all of the connectivity systems that link them together (wifi, 3G 4G, etc) mobile technology has become the place where a majority of the worlds web users access the internet from.
Also, because many mobile device users are faced with expensive mobile communications charges for phone calls and text messaging, they are increasingly seeking cheaper substitute communication through the social networks that their phones let them access whenever they are connected to a wireless network. Since many modern mobile devices are in fact nothing less than tiny, slightly weaker versions of our laptops, their wireless network, video display and typing capacities make them ideal for communication through social networks.
In fact, in many cases, people buy a mobile device such as a tablet o0r smart phone specifically so that they can more easily stay in touch with friends cheaply and while on the move.
Major social media owners and other mobile app producers understand this and are adapting to the trend, thus we’re seeing a massive proliferation of mobile versions of social media sites and the associated apps that make them more entertaining. Some of these include video calling applications, social media based photo/information sharing apps and cloud storage applications that also let users move info to their social network accounts over their smart phones or tablets.
This integration of social media and mobile devices, each leveraging the other for its own growth, will be one of the biggest communications trends of the next few years, probably even longer than that.
About the author: Stephan Jukic is a freelance writer and covers a variety of subjects within the tech industry. When he’s not writing or consulting, you can find him enjoying life in Mexico, where he spends part of his year. Connect with Stephan on LinkedIn.
Branding with Social Media, Guest Blogging and YouTube Videos
Companies cannot rely on glamorous advertisements alone for brand building purposes. In this digital era, where most people spend hours on the Internet, businesses have to actively reach out to people via the Internet to help improve brand awareness and create unique and instantly recognizable brand identities. Being active on social media platforms, publishing videos on YouTube and guest-blogging are some of the most effective ways to get your message out there, to inform people about your brand and to open a dialogue with customers.
Although companies are aware of the fact that they need to be more active on social media sites and that they need to guest-blog more often, very few brands are actually doing it. Brand building is very important for small businesses and they can effectively improve brand awareness by being active on social channels. These content marketing methods are very cost-effective and perfect for small businesses that do not have large budgets.
Social media
It goes without saying that companies need to have visually appealing and active social media pages. Instead of focusing on just one social media platform, make sure your company is active on most of the popular social sites. Also, company information should be highlighted succinctly on company pages. One of the best ways to improve brand awareness is to have a consistent look across all social media pages and company websites. Take for example Google; they use the same basic color scheme for their Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and other social media accounts. Also, their profile pictures and cover images contain the company logo so that the company can be identified very easily when the logo is seen elsewhere.
Some companies are so good at it that people even associate some colors with their brands. Case in point – Target. They use the color red in almost all their social media campaigns, so much so that customers connect the brand Target with the color. In fact, it even helps if you use the same profile picture or image for different platforms. Make sure you even use the same style of artwork in your company’s social media pages.
Another way to improve brand awareness and to create a unique brand identity is to show the human side of the company. Big and well-known brands regularly put up pictures of their offices, their employees and even snapshots of fun company events.
According to a recent survey, less than 15% of users have received replies to posts about negative experiences from the company on social media platforms. Even though social media is a great platform for conversing with customers, most companies refuse to react to complaints and customers’ issues on public platforms. This can be very harmful for the brand as people appreciate it when companies are willing to have open and honest conversations with them and are willing to listen to their criticisms.
Guest-blogging
Blogs that accept guest posts have a large audience who can be informed about your brand through the content that you publish on these blogs. Guest-blogging can also direct a lot of traffic towards your company’s website and social media pages and it is one of the best and safest ways to build backlinks. When submitting articles to a blog, you need to make sure that the blog is famous in your industry and is known for their industry-related articles. You can’t possibly submit an article about marketing on a blog that is known for its cooking articles. If your post is accepted and published by a blog that is known in your industry, readers could view your company as an authority source of information, which is always good for brand building.
When you are looking for guest-blogging platforms, always make sure that the site is well-designed, is updated regularly and that there are a lot of comments from readers on other posts. You should always submit articles to a guest-blogging platform that gives full credit to authors. Author Rank is now an important factor in deciding search rankings, so you should make sure that guest blogging platforms are using the rel=author tag when posting your article. Having a simple, informative and humorous author bio is a great way to improve brand awareness among readers.
YouTube videos
Companies often forget that YouTube is also one of the biggest social media platforms. Having content go viral is what most companies are looking for as it can make any company a household name in a matter of days. Videos and images are the kinds of content that go viral more often and companies often reap the benefits of a viral video years after the video went viral.
Firstly, your company should have a YouTube channel with the name of the company as the name of the channel. Set-up your YouTube profile to look like all your other social media profiles to maintain consistency and make sure to create a Guru account on YouTube that allows users to add links and custom logos to the profile. Industry experts create Guru accounts and if your company is able to produce and upload high-quality videos then you should definitely create a Guru account for your company. Place appropriate words in the channel title and tags that can make it easier for people to find your channel on YouTube.
Your company must create high-quality videos, so spend some money purchasing good video recording and manipulation equipment and always add some humor in your videos. Introverted and sullen never works in videos so your presenter should be upbeat, lively and excited. Keep in mind that sound quality also matters so use professional equipment while recording sound for videos. Lastly, always promote your videos on social media platforms and via your company blogs and website.
About the author
Jessica Davis is the Content Director at Godot Media – a leading Content Marketing firm. She has extensive experience creating great content for businesses and individuals. She has also worked with several writers, helping businesses market their product, and boost traffic.
Provide New Heights to your Business through Twitter
Twitter needs no introduction. It’s a real-time messaging service, which is widely used by many businesses and people around the globe to post and share their views and ideas about the current affairs or latest trends and techniques prevailing in different markets. However, all are not aware of the fact that one could actually use this powerful medium to target hundreds of twitter users and other traffic to your website? On this social media day, we give you some tips on how you could use this medium to generate customers and grow your business. Let us take a quick look on the same.
Image Credit: Blurbpoint
Why Twitter rocks your Internet Marketing Campaign?
- Connecting with customers – This is one of the reasons for using this community site for your business. You will be able to connect with your customers directly regarding your company and products and services that you have to offer. In addition to that, you could also keep a link to your website on the twitter profile page. Twitter also provides an excellent platform for targeting easy and relevant conversation. (Hash tags and streaming).
- Valuable Customers’feedback – Once you are connected with your customers, you will get their valuable feedback and suggestions on various aspects like improving your product, your services and maybe even improving your customer service. Following their suggestions will give your campaign an added advantage, which would also help you to add more loyal customers.
- A faster way to make your messages loud and clear – This community site also helps to expose your excellent business potential. You can instantly announce your new products, your upcoming updates, changes, news, deals, etc, to your existing customers who are connected with you through this social site.
- Using Twitter for business can be a lot of fun – It doesn’t mean that it is so easy. Figuring out what to Tweet could be mind boggling, and people easily to fall into the trap of just re-tweeting what other people are saying.
- Monitor public sentiment – Always keep an eye upon the valuable comments posted about your brand on Twitter. Share positive feedback strategically with your followers and work to work out on a remedy for the negative comments on your brand.
- Providing Better Interface- People often turn to Twitter to find discussions about your business and your industry niche. This gives you a powerful platform and an astounding interface to connect directly with present and future customers in real time.
Some Useful Twitter Statistics
- 34% of marketers have generated leads using twitter
- 20 % have closed their deals using twitter
- 55% of twitter users access it via their mobile phones
Understanding the Power of Twitter: Facts And Figures
Five years ago Twitter was just an idea with three people working on it. More interesting realities were revealed around 2011 with some amazing facts & figures. If the rumours are to be believed, Google and Facebook are interested in having their stakes in Twitter and are willing to pay up to $8 to $10 billion.
Below are some more surprising facts:
- 43% of people follow a brand for special offers/deals
- 67% of users are likely to recommend the brand they follow
- 75% of users are more likely to buy from the brand they follow
- 80% of customer service tweets are negative and critical
- 86 % of the companies are now using Twitter as a part of their recruitment process
- 65% of all questions asked on Twitter have some commercial intent
- 1,000,000 people view tweets about customer service each week
Some more!!!!
- Twitter’s projected ad revenue in 2012 was $260 million
- Twitter’s projected ad revenue by 2014 is $540 million
- 11 new Twitter accounts are created every second
- 1million new Twitter accounts are created every day
How to Go For It?
Just follow these easy steps and you are all through-
- Connect with high quality powerful people : They will initiate you to the platform
- Don’t start promoting your business right away, but always take the opportunity when asked!
- Concentrate on acquiring high quality followers, by tweeting valuable quality content. Take time to connect with your followers. Ask questions, respond to feedback, share industry related news and hold promotions.
- Think of your content in terms of what will get shared by the community. Your tweets should boost the brand reputation and encourage your followers to share and comment in order to establish a reputation.
- The trivial marketing budgets of many small businesses compel them to opt for the better alternatives implementing unique methods for the promotion of their services as well as their products.Twitter is one of the prominent social networks which provide an extensive platform to take your business to new heights.
So, what do you think about Twitter? Are you going to use it for your campaign? After completing 7 years, Twitter is focusing on the business part. On the Twitter Business Website, no matter if you are a beginner or an expert, you will get all the information you need, including some business examples like: Hubspot or Porsche.
Author Bio:
Myself Sanket Patel the Founder of Blurbpoint.com, a leading SEO Company since 2006. I am a good researcher of Internet Marketing, Brand Development, Online Reputation Management & Search Engine Optimization Techniques.
Why B2B doesn’t have to be afraid of social media
From the beginning, the idea of social media and B2B marketing working together in blissful harmony has been a distant dream of marketers everywhere. It was originally thought that mixing B2B and social media would only leave companies with a lot of hard work and empty results… and that has been the decided fate of B2B social media marketing for many misguided B2B marketers.
The idea that social media and B2B marketing are unable to work together originated from the idea that social media marketing was strictly about conversions amongst consumers. However, no one truly converts from social media – not even in B2C markets. Social media is a tool that allows marketers to create conversations with the public, and those conversations lead to conversions. Using social media as a tool for better communication can work in any market, and B2B markets are no exception.
With the understanding that the sales cycle in a B2B market is becoming more significant in size, B2B markets shouldn’t be planning to convert through social media. However, evidence shows that social media might have the capability of speeding up sales.
Tips for using better B2B social media marketing
- Determine the right social platforms for the target industry – Social networks span the globe and business industries alike with their diverse fan-bases. Research popular social networks to determine which networks would be best for specific industries. For example, Pinterest probably won’t draw the same crowd as Linkedin would for the IT industry. Learn about what marketing methods work best for each social network (photos, personal stories, trending topics, group discussions) and develop a marketing plan from there.
- Talk with your industry – Now that the best social networks have been selected, content must be created to get people talking. Use social media to understand what followers are looking for and create content based on their needs. Quora is a great tool to quickly find what people are asking about in any industry. Once the content is created, promote the content on social media platforms to generate traffic. If you primarily use Linkedin, post your content to a group and promote the post via Twitter, Facebook, Quora or any other appropriate network. Remember to educate your readers with valuable content to ease them into the lengthy sales process.
- Measure social media by conversations, not conversions – B2B marketers should look at using social media like they would a trade show or a meeting. Social media is a place to learn about prospects and have a conversation with them with a goal to convert later on. Social media should not be measured by conversions alone.
Why influencers should be targeted
Having a conversation with people in a specific industry is just one part of a B2B social media strategy. Influencers in the target industry are just as important because of their large following. The only way they have developed a large following is by producing cutting-edge content and educating readers through their own knowledge base.
B2B businesses should make it a priority to track influencers and understand where they are based around the Internet. A powerful content delivery team should provide content based on targeting influencers for significant results in their target industry.
B2B businesses should be involved on social media platforms regardless of any excuse. B2B marketers might argue that social media is simply for a consumer-based market, but they fail to realize the people running B2B companies are consumers themselves. Appearing to businesses on an even-ground such as social networks will make a world of difference in a B2B marketing strategy.
This post is contributed by Dawn Altnam.
5 Great Social Media Campaigns that Have Worked!
Social media is used by millions of people around the world every day. Social media is a great way to connect with those who you know, and those who you don’t. In addition, wherever you are, near or far, you can stay informed on what is happening with your family and friends. Not only is social media used for contacting others, but from a business standpoint it is a great way to inform a business’s target market of new products and campaigns. There have been quite a few social media campaigns since the start of social media, but below are five great social media campaigns that have worked better than most.
1. Oreo
The first successful social media campaign is from Oreo. Oreo recently turned 100, and because of this they wanted to celebrate with Oreo cookie lovers from around the world. To do this they released an image a day for 100 days. Each of these images had to do with a pop culture event, all made out of Oreo cookies. Using such a wide variety of photos helped them connect with a wide variety of individuals. To start off the photos they showed an Oreo with 6 layers, one for each color of the rainbow. This Oreo signified LGBT rights. This caused a storm of comments and even recognition outside of social media. The website for this campaign, the daily twist, added to the event with games and fun extras.
2. Red Bull
The second campaign was by Red Bull. They used Facebook’s new timeline layout to lead users on a scavenger hunt. The whole campaign used a Facebook application made by Red Bull alongside the timeline layout. Red Bull fans used the application to look at pictures that had clues in them. These clues then sent them to Red Bull’s Facebook page to find events in their history. Some of these clues were quite difficult, which brought Red Bull fans together in the effort to figure them out. Red Bull not only showed fans about their history, but also introduced them to many different events that they sponsored.
3. Grey Poupon
Grey Poupon is another company that has used social media to its advantage. They created a Facebook society which you had to apply to be involved in. This society is called the Society of Good Taste. Many people applied, but only a select few got in. The exclusiveness of the Society of Good Taste alone, helped Grey Poupon draw attention to themselves. Everyone wanted to know if they would be accepted into the Society of Good Taste. We as humans want to know how we rank among other humans; social media is a good example of this. We want to know if we can out rank our friends and family. If we got into the society, we would be higher on the social media totem pole.
4. Lays
Lay’s is another company that used social media to draw attention to their brand successfully. As with some of the previous examples, Facebook was their website of choice. Their campaign was named “do us a flavor”, and was part of their celebration of Lay’s 75th Anniversary. Lay’s asked their fans to come up with new flavors for their potato chips. Eva Longoria and Michael Symon were Lay’s celebrity judges. The winner of the competition would win one million dollars or 1% of 2013’s net sales, whichever was greater. The possibility of winning such a large prize brought people from all over the internet to their page.
5. Evian
Unlike all of the companies above, Evian used Instagram to advertise their brand. It all started when they sponsored a US Open tennis event. To draw Instagram users in, Evian handpicked individuals with a high number of followers on the site to come behind the scenes of the event. The chosen individuals would be able to take pictures of anything they liked around the event. This included the player’s lounge, underground tunnels, the racquet stringing center, the ball-person and umpire lounges and even the roof, where they could find stunning panoramic views. Each person’s favorite photo would end up on the Jumbotron during important matches. Although the individuals were not asked to include Evian products in the photos, many of them chose to do so anyway. Popular online sports personalities even became interested in the content, further increasing the number of people who would be exposed to the photos.
The social media world influences its users every day. This influence has caused many companies to placed ads on popular social media sites to create an online presence. By creating a place where thousands of people worldwide can instantly interact with your company, you have the potential to gain a very large audience very quickly. If a social media campaign is managed correctly this should result in a larger consumer base for the company, and in turn higher sales.
About the Author: Justin is a passionate blogger currently working with Monetise, a leading affiliate marketing network that puts affiliates at no.1
Pinterest for Dudes
A lot of people have dismissed the social site Pinterest as a girl thing; something that’s only limited to hairstyles, sky high heels, sappy love quotes, and bedazzled craft ideas. For this reason alone, it seems that only a handful of members of the XY Chromosome Club troop to the chick-y and obviously feminine site to share images, links, and other forms of information.
Perhaps your hands have been itching to click on the “Pin it!” button upon seeing that Harley Davidson bike or that sexy Sports Illustrated spread you scanned the other night. But of course you don’t want to lose your reputation as a tech toy-toting, hotrod-driving stud by, well, succumbing to your cursory perception. Well, don’t lose hope. There are a lot of new Pinterest clones that have been making waves online, sans the pins and hearts. Take a good look:
Manteresting
A new site called Manteresting is already making waves among guys, marketing itself as a clever Pinterest spoof. From looks and domain name alone, one can easily see that it’s geared toward the male demographic – it uses “nails” instead of pins and “bumps” instead of hearts. Some of the notable posts on the side include baked bacon strips and hotdogs resembling a tortoise (manly food) and Jack Daniels-labeled milk cartons (manly breakfast). If girls have Ryan Gosling as their Pinterest poster boy, the guys over at Manteresting has semi-nude, heavily tattooed chicks as theirs. To top it all off, the site has the tagline “Interesting. Man. Things.”
Gentlemint
Another site that caters to men’s Pinterest-ic tendencies is Gentlemint. A result of a 12-hour hack day in Kansas, the site founded in 2011 has quickly grown into the premier site for manly Internet content and ended up featured in large publications for both print and online such as TIME, Mashable, FOX News, and Forbes. It features topics ranging from cars, alcohol (and other vices), architecture, world news, popular culture, food, fitness, and more. Instead of pins, you get “tacks” to add to the masculine vibe.
Dart It Up
Dart It Up is a Chewbacca-obsessed Pinterest clone that has a more streamlined, minimalistic design compared to its contemporaries. It offers all the functions that allow users to organize and collect cool stuff online without the free estrogen that Pinterest seems to emit. Plus, it also features a leaderboard that tallies each member’s “darts,” much like what works on the Reddit rankings. The site even says, “it doesn’t have to be beautiful, make people smile, or create world peace – it just has to be awesome.” Although the creators make this claim, they have categorically stated that ladies are welcome, too, to contribute to the growing website.
Go ahead, don’t be afraid to pin stuff – guy-style! These Pinterest clones won’t diminish even an inch of your manly sensibilities. Besides, aren’t men naturally visual creatures? Perhaps these suggested sites will provide means to strengthen that reputation.
Home Sweet Home: How Facebook’s New Launcher will Impact the Android Experience
Facebook recently unveiled its social-centric Home software for the Android ecosystem, with Mark Zuckerberg promising to turn smartphones into devices that are “all about people” instead of apps. According to the social network’s co-founder and CEO, they went deep into the Android OS in order to integrate key Facebook features and, from initial looks, that really seems to be the case.
If you want to evaluate Facebook Home, you would have to think hard about who it’s for. It’s for people who spend a considerable chunk of their time immersed in their online social network, people who never want to be left out on the tiniest updates from even their most distant friends. Those are the people for whom this new piece of software is most beneficial. If you don’t really care all that much for Mark Zuckerberg’s multi-billion-dollar brainchild, then you can be content with the Facebook app on your Android device—if you use it at all.
Immediate Impact
What you can be sure of, though, is that it will greatly impact your Android experience if you do decide to download and install it. For starters, you have Cover Feed, which instantly transforms the lock screen into a compact news feed. Besides that, the whole point of Home is to shift your focus to Facebook’s services, and the app launcher that comes with it is substantially different from others. Simply put, it brings Facebook functionality (and related properties like Instagram) front and center.
Chat Heads is also a good point of integration, as it puts your text messages with your Facebook messages. In addition, some pundits say that VoIP service (read more) integration could also be added in the future, along with some other supplementary functions.
Refined Look and Feel
The minimalist UI of Facebook Home holds a lot of promise and oozes with beauty, not unlike the experience of simplicity one can enjoy through Path. The whole look is clean, although (as we’ll point out later) the look of the interface will depend largely on your Facebook friends and the content they publish.
You can move key elements around; it shouldn’t be too different from other launchers in that you can customize the interface to a certain extent so that you can become more comfortable with it and so Home can truly be an improvement on each person’s Android experience.
One area that might detract from the interface is the looming threat of ads. For sure, Facebook can serve them up in some creative way to be as unobtrusive as possible, but ads are still ads.
The Rest of the Android OS
There is no loss of functionality as far as the rest of the OS is concerned, although non-Facebook or non-social apps tend to get pushed to the side a bit. That’s the whole point of it being ‘designed around people’. In any case, Home looks like something that caters to the needs of the Facebook addict, that one who can’t stop clicking refresh on his news feed or who checks Facebook every chance he gets. There might even be enough promise in the design and functionality of the software, so much so that it can be useful even for those who aren’t so dependent on the social network.
As some have pointed out, Facebook Home is sure to get plenty of downloads off the Google Play store, simply because it’s Facebook. What’s more, users don’t really have anything to lose by trying out a new app that promises social integration. In case they don’t like Home for whatever reason, they can just as easily uninstall it and go back to their phones’ stock launcher or one of the old reliable third-party launchers. There’s no risk, so why not try it? Then, once you try it, you might get to like it.
Social Media Promotion and Video Marketing!
Social media promotion is a process to gain traffic for your website — most of us are aware of this. But have you ever wondered why you should opt for social media promotions for boosting your brand image! Well the answer is simple. Social media is the only place where you can connect to people from all walks of life and from different parts of the world. If you love people and interacting with them, social media is the apt platform for you to promote your brand. However, it must be remembered that a standard technique might not work for all kinds of businesses. Hence when you are putting your foot forward for social media promotions know about the various techniques and which of those steps will be actually suitable for you.
Techniques for Social Media Promotion:
If followed properly social media can prove to be a major force behind brand promotion and management. This is your first step towards social media promotion. Brand management technique is the finest way to do so. You might begin by creating a company page on Facebook and you need to keep it alive. It is an interesting part when you are directly interacting with the visitors and making friends with them and, in turn, also creating a value for yourself. If you can really engage with your target audience then you have your first step cleared for social media promotions. This goes a long way in spelling your popularity.
Secondly, you can opt for social media targeting where you find your target audience, one by one and interact with them. This is a more direct form of promoting yourself online and the results are swifter and immediate. For meeting this purpose, you can utilize Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc. This process needs to be carried out carefully or might end up being branded a spammer. Also whilst adopting to these steps it must be remembered that different companies have different aims. As a result, the strategies and the way you interact with your audience will also differ. The third step might be the Marketing Gamification. In this process you have to develop your own content to promote your business. This includes making unique blog posts, creating an exclusive website or making a video is bound to turn heads.
Talking of video hosting brings us to one of the most effective ways of promotion on social media and that is the Video Marketing.
What is Video Marketing?
Well you might just ask what is Video is marketing? Well, it is one of the most popular marketing strategies online o interact with your target audience. Statistics have proved that visual impact is more, at any given point of time, than the audio medium. People respond more to moving images than audio instructions. For instance, Google has adopted this technique o promote its latest tools and strategies. And so has Facebook when it needs to communicate about its latest Apps to its audience. And the first name that appears in our minds whilst discussing online videos is YouTube. Yes, you guessed its right YouTube is widely used now to promote big and small businesses across the globe. Besides, there is Unruly Media, Revision3, Pop tent, Full screen, and others that are popular mediums of video marketing. All you need is an attention grabbing content to go with it.
In fact, nowadays when you search for certain topics, the very first search generated on Google if of YouTube. It shows how Video Marketing has gradually grown to capture the social media promotional arena.
Importance of Video Marketing in Social Media Promotion:
Now, this is the most dynamic way to promote on social media. Creating social videos with interesting content is imperative. Social media stands for interaction and video marketing does exactly that. To turn your followers to clients is to interact with tem via mail. But to reach that level you have to attract them. A visual impact is far more than an audible one. In this case a short engaging video can do the trick. It is very important to keep your watchers hooked. Be innovative and execute it well.
Video marketing also shows your genuine side to the buyers and prospective clients. Introduce them to your attractive offers and finish off in style with an apt call to action.
With the growing usage of video, this kind of marketing is finding its roots. Watching moving images is much more fun than reading online. Moreover with the kind of lifestyle that we have, you might not even find time to read. So video marketing comes in handy where you can get accustomed to product or brand in just two minutes. Moreover, with the kinds of gadgets available you can watch a video anywhere.
Video marketing might not be the final step to success in social media promotion but surely, as of now. It is the most happening thing.
Author’s Bio: Erin Todd is a media marketing expert, writer cum consistent blogger on web in this subject. She is now connected with corporate video London and focus on her experiences there.
9 Essential Social Media Apps for Increasing Profits in a Small Business
Social media apps can increase a small business’s profitability and audience reach. If you could benefit from stronger communication with your fans, consider the following 5 apps for your small business.
9. Brandify
PRICE: Free
Via Brandify.com
Get a comprehensive insight into the successes and failures of your online branding attempts. Are you white noise on Twitter, but you’re doing very well with key demographics on Facebook? Brandify will find these issues and point them out, so you can success as a small business.
Here are all of the sites that Brandify monitors for free:
- Bing
- Yelp
- YouTube
- Yahoo
- Foursquare
Not every small business has the time to monitor all of these sites everyday. With Brandify you don’t have to worry: it lets you know when attention is required.
8. Hootsuite
PRICE: Free
This awesome tool allows business owners to monitor their social presence without lifting a finger. When you publish new content, you’ll hear the frequent sound of people liking it, sharing, and writing comments about it. People love to use Hootsuite for small businesses because it saves so much time: enter all of your passwords once and Hootsuite keeps you logged into all of them in one easy to use location.
Hootsuite users quickly become addicted to the sound of incoming messages. When the sounds slow down, you will know it’s time to get more involved in social media again: this is one great side-effect of Hootsuite. It’s rumored that Hootsuite will soon be releasing a version for Blackberry phones, so this app is essentially ambiguous for every mobile OS.
7. Flipboard
PRICE: Free
Via Flipboard.com
Similar to Google Currents, Flipboard allows users to find interesting content to curate. Stop delivering unclickable links to your audience: use Flipboard to filter through the masses and find smart, interesting stuff.
Flipboard allows you to do things that Google Currents still hasn’t thought of: you can interact with your own blogs and several other sites. Look at all the sites you could manage from Flipboard:
- Tumblr
- Google+
Stop browsing through feeds and flip through this glossy virtual magazine of smart topics. It’s fun and easy.
6. Plume
PRICE: Free
Plume allows small business owners to organize tweets by color, create short links (like Bit.ly), and manage Twitter while on the go. People who have a hard time following conversations on Twitter will find it made much easier by the Plume app, which creates a fascinating dialogue-reader. Here are a few of the other great features:
- Multiple Account Support
- Photo Previews
- Trending Topic Monitoring
- Swipe Scrolling
With so many options out there to manage Twitter, it’s really a matter of taste. But for busy business people, Plume is an easy choice.
5. Klout
PRICE: Free
Via Klout.com
Do you know how important you are to the industry? Do you have any idea how far your posts are reaching? If not, then Klout is the right tool for your small business. It gives you a score that correlates to your influence level on the Internet. It even outlines which users are helping spread your company’s word, and which thought leaders in your industry you should connect to soon.
Klout is also a great source of freebies. Once you reach a high enough Klout level, you get related freebies and offers that no one else is getting. It’s like being rewarded just for being awesome.
4. Polaris Office
PRICE: $12.99
Well worth the investment, Polaris Office has a lot of great features. Small business owners will love the ability to use Excel on their phones or tablets, to open up Word documents from their iPhones, and to preview presentation files before entering a business meeting. Polaris Office provides phone users everything they need to conduct business on the go.
Similar to Apple’s iWork app, Polaris is much more affordable and flexible. You won’t feel stuck to one format with Polaris.
3. Postling
PRICE: Free
Via Postling.com
Create content in this easy-to-use app and post it directly to your blog. Sound easy? That’s because it is. Postling takes the leg-work out of blogging for those people who are constantly on the go.
You can manage your blog, reviews, and comments from your phone while connecting to a flight at JFK, or you could write responses on the Metro in DC. Postling makes your business mobile in a way you only dreamed it could be. Sadly, this app is only available for Apple users: Androids need not apply.
2. Microsoft Skydrive
PRICE: Free
The developers weren’t stingy with the Skydrive features, even though this app is free. You’ll be amazed at all the available functions. Here are just a few of the most remarkable free options:
- Remotely Access Files
- Fetch Documents From Your Cloud
- Sync Folders With Multiple Computers
- Backup Settings
- Preview Photos Before Downloading
Once you get this app, you will find business easier to conduct, especially if your employees are networked. You can instantly share a file or folder during a meeting, or preview a photo together before conferencing calling a designer.
1. Buffer
PRICE: Free
Via BufferApp.com
This great app will make you feel like the czar of the Interwebs: it ties all of your networks together and makes it simple to share content. Send friends quick quips, email business partners, and post a viral video all over lunch (and without a laptop).
This app is a revolution for small business owners who need to make the most of their time. With the free version small businesses can post up to ten times a day, whereas the paid version is unlimited.
Choosing the right small business apps is a matter of your needs as much as it is one of your budget. Most apps have free versions for emerging businesses that just need a little access. However, the listed essential social media apps should help your small business to increase profits enough to pay for the paid service by the time you need it.
Sources
http://bigideasblog.infusionsoft.com/5-must-have-social-media-apps-for-small-businesses/
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/mobile-apps-for-social-media-marketing/
http://beforeitsnews.com/business/2013/03/essential-social-media-apps-for-small-businesses-2498440.html
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=flipboard.app&referrer=utm_source%3Dflipweb%26utm_medium%3Dweb_button%26utm_term%3Dandroid%26utm_campaign%3Ddownload_button_android
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2399156,00.asp
This article is contributed by Michael Erin
