Tag Archives: Media

The Importance of Social Media Training

January 2, 2011

With the rapid growth of social media and Web 2.0 websites, the need for social media training is more important than ever. It seems that people, especially business owners find social media to be an easy way to reach their markets and find new customers, but they utilize it incorrectly, often flooding the market in the wrong direction. It is necessary to determine which social media site is best to get a message across.

Social media can be utilized both on a B2C (Business to Customer) and B2B (Business To Business) level. Some social networks contain groups. Businesses that cater to members in those groups can find potential customers. For instance, one popular social network has a group for women planning weddings. Companies who cater to the wedding market can find new customers by posting news to the group announcing new products and services.

Social media training helps businesspeople learn how to use social media effectively without scaring away valuable members of a target market. Also, since there are different types of social networks, businesspeople can learn how to utilize their most valuable time when communicating without wasting it.

Social media training also differentiates the types of networks which include the following:

1. Community websites which involve consumers and involve photo uploading, profile building, video embedding, and a network of friends

2. Microblogging sites includes short statements called statuses and allow members to make announcements without the pressure of writing large blog posts. These site have followers.

3. Media sharing networks allow members to upload videos and photos.

4. Blogs are also considered social media, because they allow readers to add comments.

If you are having trouble deciding which social network to use for business or personal reasons, social media training is definitely one valuable way of learning how to use it.

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Social Media Optimization and Your Target Audience

December 30, 2010

The popularity graph of Social media has been increasing rapidly since 2006. It has evolved latest technology that includes text, audio, video and images. All these things provide users a platform to better promote their business and can gives an open forum to interact with their friends and family by communicating them. It also enhances the interaction and communication among business professionals and their target audience. With few disadvantages there are many advantages in the social media. It provides a vast opportunity to connect with a million of people on the internet. While on the other hand, it gives the control of company’s product in the hand of users. This can lead to a negative impact of the brand by having a high chance to loose image.

Webmasters uses various techniques to maximize their opportunities on internet. Conversion Rate Optimization and search engine Optimization are among the most common techniques. But Social Media Optimization is the most powerful and useful technique which provides lot of user friendly features and offers a better medium for customers and business professionals to interact with each another.

The main thing which social Media provides is the participation and interaction. Here are some components that enhance the interaction in a most successful way.

1. Bookmarking and Tagging

It gives a facility to visitor of your site to bookmark the page or content which they like on your site for the next look. It gives a surety to user that he can connect again with the particular site or page by tagging and bookmarking.

2. Blogging

It features a simple way by allowing the user to give a feedback or response to a particular website. For example if a blog contains an article than it allows the visitor to give a response after reading it. Blog can also be updated regularly to provide latest news and updates to customer and visitors.

3. RSS Feeds

When you made some addition on your website content then RSS feeds provides the opportunity of receiving immediate updates to the subscribers.

4. Discussion forum

This develops a better communication and interaction between user and the company.

5. Images and videos

Social media optimization provides facility to embed videos on their social networking sites. You can make your Website more interesting by adding relevant videos on it. It can be possible by video podcasts.

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7 Questions for Integrating Social Media in Marketing Strategy for Non-Profits

December 30, 2010
7 Questions for Integrating Social Media in Marketing Strategy for Non-Profits

Social media can be defined as all Internet and web based technologies that allow mass scale communications among people. As oppose to broadcasts that went from one to many, this reflects a many to many format where there can be a dialog among many people. Social media (SM) is definitely not a fad and is here to stay. Especially, if you are a non-profit or a small business with a purpose, SM can be used very effectively to mobilize your cause, volunteers, and even funds to support your work.

You can continue to create ripples by engaging people in online communities. But many people are using it because everyone else is using it. Even though social media can be a powerful tool, it can also be a waste of resources and ineffective if not integrated into the over all marketing strategy. Here is a list of questions that you should ask yourself when you are developing your social media strategy.

1) What is the organization’s purpose?
Every marketing plan needs to start with the company’s main purpose or the corporate mission. If you do not have a clear purpose or corporate mission, there is a lot written on the subject, including suggestions in my article – translating inner purpose into a mission statement.

2) What is the purpose of Social Media?
The next question to ask is how SM can further the organization’s goals? What are the specific goals and objectives of the SM plan in order to support the overall company plan? Goals refer to the broader purpose of SM, which is typically ongoing and cannot be measured. Objectives are the measurable and specific outcomes you would like to achieve within the specified period.

You can define several goals that are consistent with the corporate mission. For example, MotherWoman, a non profit with the mission of empowering mothers to bring positive personal and social change, can use SM to create a social network to support mothers by sharing experiences, resources, and information to empower mothers and build a strong social presence using social media tools. Another goal can be to stay informed about changes in the environments in terms of new grants, new technologies, new research, etc.

The more specific objectives can be to connect with specific number of mothers during specified periods who can benefit from this program, to connect with new donors, increase website and Blog traffic, increase participation of workshop mothers in online sharing, etc.

3) How will Social Media reach its goals?

I recommend what I call the L.I.P. Approach – Listen, Inform, and Participate.
a. Listen: Social media is a powerful tool because it allows a dialog among many people. An essential aspect of dialog is listening. While traditional market research methods like focus groups, surveys, and interviews are still important ways to listen, a more active and continuous form of listening is possible using social media tools like Google Alerts, Facebook, and Twitter. You can now listen to what your customers are saying, people who believe in your cause are saying, learn from other organizations, and learn about changes in your environment. Make a list of people and organizations as well as topics of interest that you should be following and then figure out the channels you will use to follow.

b. Inform: The second powerful use of social media is with respect to informing the relevant stakeholders – like your benefactors, donors, and other organizations – about your services, ideas, and beliefs. Instead of paying millions of dollars to celebrities who have no interest in your product, to be in a ad that is very often blocked out by people, you can now speak from a place of passion and authenticity to people who care. Tools like Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, and YouTube are becoming very popular to get your message across to people in fun, creative, and yet meaningful ways. Make a list of things you need to get across to the relevant audiences, such as events, new service announcements, any media coverage, new ideas, and volunteering opportunities. And then identify the right channels to communicate the same. This will involve decisions like should you use Facebook Pages or Facebook Groups. Should you be on LinkedIn or MySpace or both?

c. Participate: The third aspect of a good SM plan is to create effective ways to participate. An important aspect of dialog is to reciprocate. If you find an interesting Blog, make comments. If you find an interesting Tweet, make sure to Re-tweet giving credit to the original tweeter. These are ways of recognizing and appreciating the contribution of people in your social network.

4) To whom is it targeted?
The choice of social media channels will depend upon where you think your target audience will be. Where do you think your customers go to connect or learn about the kind of product or service that you provide? Your choice of social media channels will depend upon where you can find potential donors, benefactors/customers, collaborators, and information to help you move towards your goals.

5) Who is responsible for implementing your Social Media strategy?
SM is time consuming but it can be integrated into your marketing strategy in a way that it feels more organic and natural to the people involved. While they may be one person overseeing SM, there are ways to integrate other employees, guest bloggers, customers, community members, and other people passionate about the product, cause, or service that your organization is promoting. Just ensure that you have clear rules around who and in what way each person will be involved.

6. Measuring impact periodically
The good news about many of the social media tools is that you can track some aspects of the impact you are making very easily. For example, in quantitative terms Twitter gives you statistics related to your Tweets on certain applications; Facebook pages gives you statistics; and the sheer number of followers and fans helps to some degree in telling about the response to your efforts. Some applications like stats counter can be added to Blogs to assess visitors. It is good to pay attention to the qualitative data related to your organization in terms of what people are saying about you. Over longer periods of time you can correlate the increase in SM statistics with increase in sales and traffic to better understand which channel is most productive for your goals. Very often, it is a combination of SM tools that will promote your goals and it may be hard to separate the effects of each.

7. What is the opportunity cost?
SM does take time and perhaps money away from what you could be doing with those resources instead. Make sure that your benefits in the long run exceed your costs before adopting a social media strategy. The key is to think long term.

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What Is Social Media Marketing?

December 24, 2010

Social media marketing is the process of connecting with communities online to get exposure, new opportunities, and sales. Many marketers use social media marketing successfully either by PPC or actively being a part of the online community. If you enjoy social media communities then this can be a lot fun for you.

The larger online social media communities have over a million members. The point of these places to have an area family members and friends can all come together to communicate. You can chat, play games, keep up to date with what your friends and family are doing, the list goes on and on.

If you choose to use free social media marketing it can be a lot of fun if you actively participate in the community. If you are not already a member of a social media community then you will need to become a member at one of your choice. Set up your profile the way you want it. Then you will need to add friends or followers depending on where you decide to join.

Most of them will allow you to look by name if you are looking for particular people. You may also get the choice of using your email contacts to look for people you know. I like this as I did not have to search for my family and friends one at a time.

After this is all set up you will want to be active in the community. Make posts about what you are doing where you are going, how your day is, say good morning whatever just be an active member. People will trust you more if you are active.

You can then post about your site every once in awhile so people can go take a look at it. DO NOT post your site all the time. You can also set up fanpages. Fanpages are made to promote without promoting if you know what I mean. With fanpages you tell people about your site and people can comment and hold small short conversations about it. If you get people to like your page they will vote for it such as like it or a thumbs up.

If you play a lot of games people will ask to be your friend so they can get and send “gifts” to their games friends. Then you can send them your link to your fanpage. They will either join as a fan or ignore the request. If the join as a fan great if not no biggie just try again a ways down the road after you have some fans.

Now you know what social media marketing is so go get connected with social media marketing sites. Get the most popular what social media marketing sites here. See you on the other side!

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Traffic Generation Beginner Guide No 8: How to Use Social Media to Generate Consistent Traffic for Your Internet Marketing Online Business

December 16, 2010

Social media is one of the most powerful and significant sources of traffic for bloggers. However, it is a fact that social media traffic is very inconsistent and you cannot rely too much on it for your online business. One moment, you experience thousands of visitors; the next, the site could be dry as a desert. It is for this reason that a lot of bloggers dismiss social media as a reliable source of traffic, and end up focusing their time and effort into learning something else instead.

Fortunately, as a blogger, there are a number of things that you can do to improve the consistency of the traffic of your social media. Of course, this does not guarantee that it will be effective all the time, but in this way, you can at least minimize the times when traffic is nearly non-existent. Here is a guide that can help you keep the traffic flowing more consistently:

1. Post Frequently – You will notice that new posts are what draw higher traffic by social media. However, it will die down eventually after a few days. The key here is to post frequently, and you will find that more traffic is drawn to your website. Of course, your posts will not draw the same amount all the time, but at least it will help you maintain the consistency of the traffic.

2. Try to post only quality articles – Of course, posting frequently will help draw attention to your website. But it doesn’t mean that you can just post everything and anything at once while sacrificing the content of your article. It is not all the time that you are able to write meaningful and interesting articles, so it’ll be best to post only those which you think might pique the interest of your readers. In this way, comments from satisfied bloggers might help you draw more readers to your site.

3. Develop relationships with the people who frequent your site – A nice and amiable owner of a website brings life to the overall atmosphere of the site. It is best to you thank the people who vouch for your site and maintain a friendly relationship with them.

4. Use Buttons on your posts – This is helpful as it reminds your readers to vote for your page and posts. Some readers find it troubling to visit another page just to vote for you. Providing buttons assist your readers to conveniently vote for you. Though not all may vote for you, at least you maintain some form of connection to follow-up with your loyal bloggers.

5. Follow-up posts that have generated good results – You may want to visit the posts you have made that have allowed a good number of traffic. In this way, you get an idea about the type of posts that your readers are looking for and consequently use that idea to write similar posts.

Are you ready to discover other Traffic Generation Methods? I invite you CLICK HERE to examine a FREE report now for more information!

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Social Media: It’s All Fun and Games Until Someone Steals Your Identity

December 10, 2010

It’s a fun and easy way to upload pictures for your friends and followers to see, or send a quick update on what you’re doing right at this moment. It all seems harmless until you realize that almost 10 million Americans were victims of identity fraud in 2008, which is over a 20 percent increase since 2007. With over 250 million personal data records breached since 2005, millions of people have been exposed to the ill effects that being a victim of identity theft can quickly have – all because personal information got into the wrong hands.

This is the bad news.

The good news is that there are ways you can still enjoy being a social media maven AND protect your privacy to avoid becoming an identity theft victim.

The Best Ways to Secure Your Identity from Stealers

There are several privacy options available to help protect your information from getting into the wrong hands. You should always avoid sharing personal contact information. Parents always warn us, “Don’t write down what you don’t want others to read.” This includes an address, birth date, social security number, etc.

Categorize your friends. You can create groups to categorize your friends. This allows you to share certain updates with certain groups rather than anyone and everyone that lands on your page or is one of your “friends.”

Be unsearchable. There are privacy settings such as “Friends Only” or “Network and Friends Only” that makes it possible for only your friends to view your page.

De-Google. Social media sites are very search engine friendly, which means your information is ranked by the search engines. Uncheck the option to be indexed by the search engines in your privacy settings as added security.

Don’t forget your albums. Even if you set your photos to be private, your albums may still be open to the public. So, don’t forget to set the privacy option on your albums too.

Keep relationships private. There are two options here. You can control who sees basic information such as your relationship status or remove the newsfeed on items like this to avoid it being blasted out to your friends. Some sites allow you to share who you’re in a relationship with, which can put you and your partner at an even greater risk to identity theft.

Visit wisely. These sites have thousands of applications users can use and visit. When you use these applications, it automatically updates your status on your page. Harmless: “Tim is playing Word Challenge.” Harmful: “Tim is having sex,” which occurs when you visit a certain section of Facebook that will go unnamed here.

Privatize contact information. Private contact information should only be visible to people you trust. Organizing your contact lists to control whom sees this information adds further protection.

Control friends’ actions. To avoid embarrassing, defaming, or personal information from being listed on your page, visit the profile page of the site and choose who can post on your page, or avoid allowing updates to show publicly at all.

Make friends private. Exposing your friends can expose you too. Make your friendships private to have better control over who can access your personal information, which can help to avoid becoming a victim of identity theft.

Don’t show your age. Thieves can track you with your birth date and year of birth. Keep your date public so your friends can express their best wishes but don’t post your year of birth.

Social media is fun and exciting. It allows you to reconnect with old friends and make new ones. It can also make you vulnerable to identity thieves, which takes all of the fun and games out of your social media networking. Practice safe social media by implementing these ten tips and continue to enjoy the benefits of this online phenomenon.

About:

Identity Finder, LLC was founded in 2001 by innovative security experts. The company has quickly grown to become a leader in identity theft prevention by helping millions of consumers, small businesses, and enterprises in over fifty countries.

Identity Finder searches and secures personal information. Using the company’s proprietary AnyFind technology, Identity Finder intelligently locates social security numbers, credit card numbers, passwords, and other sensitive data inside documents, spreadsheets, e-mails, web browsers, and other system areas. Beyond identification, our technology helps securely shred or encrypt information. Install Identity Finder today to stay steps ahead of the criminals.

To learn more or download a free edition, go to http://www.identityfinder.com/free.

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Why social media optimization is required for your business?

December 6, 2010

Why social media optimization is required for your business?

SE Optimization Articles | November 19, 2010

There cannot be a simple answer to the question why social media optimization is required for your business. The reason for this is that it helps a business in many ways to flourish in an authentic manner. A few of the many reasons why social media optimization has become so popular among the old and the young are explained down under.

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Most of the
business houses big or small have got an answer to the question why social
media optimization is required for your business. They know that it is the best
way to pull more and more traffic towards their website. Not only this, it is a
way to help your business with many things in the long run. A few of the many
things are discussed below in short.

 

Social media optimization is required for
your business as in the very first place it makes you visible. Using the
various kinds of social media that are happening these days will give you
visibility to establish your brand name. There is no point in having a business
website and not having visitors for the site. That is why you need to trust the
credibility of these social media websites that will cater to your needs as
well as to the needs of potentials.

 

The second
factor that makes it important for any line of business is the popularity it
gives you business. It has to be mentioned that visibility and popularity are
two different aspects of this tool. However they are both interlinked as if
your site is visible only then it will become popular among the masses. In
other words it can be said that social media optimization can build reputation
of your businesses. For this you need to make use of the hottest social media
that are in major use and get going with the flow.

 

Thirdly, in
addition to all this, social media optimization is a cost-effective internet
marketing strategy like SEO optimization. In fact most
of the social media have an atmosphere of word of mouth technique as they are
not yet commercialized. This makes it more personal and can budget your
marketing expenses as they are free of cost. In case you think of hiring a
professional also it will not cost you much.

 

Fourthly, the
only thing that you need is to research about certain sites and increase your
knowledge about various other sites. This will help you in building relationships
with many customers and other business houses at the same time. Your dexterity
will only make pave your way towards success and make you the king of the
world.

 

So why promotion of
your website in various social media is required for your business must have
been clear to you by now. This is an authentic way of marketing for your
business without the use of any black hat techniques. It is a genuine and
straight procedure that can be followed by anyone and everyone. You can promote
your products and services in a genuine way. Again you get a bigger platform to
do soHealth Fitness Articles, which makes social media promotion the best of both worlds.

Article Tags:
Social Media Optimization, Social Media, Media Optimization

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Social Media Remains Elusive As Sales Driver

November 24, 2010

The numbers don’t lie. Since 2008, social media has overtaken porn as the largest activity on the internet. Generation Y will overtake baby-boomers this year as the largest generation. And 96% are on an online social network. Whether or not you can tell a twit from a tweet doesn’t change the fact that social media is the future of communication. So why isn’t it driving sales?

According to a recent SeriusDecisions study, 40% of companies in the U.S. use social media to market their products. But half of these companies can’t show a direct impact between social media efforts and their bottom line. The fact is, while social media may be the future, connecting engagement with sales still seems to elude well-meaning business owners.

As social media continues to reveal its value as a sales tool, another web-based method keeps business owners connected to their more net-savvy clients. E-mail marketing, while often perceived as expensive spam messaging, is a billion-dollar-a-year industry. $13.4 billion were spent on direct e-mail marketing in 2009. The return from that investment, if you use DMA figures on email marketing ROI, comes up to $583 billion.

But as with most technological advancements, the devil is in the details. As e-mail marketing has become a profitable tool, information gathering has become more and more detailed. To circumvent spam blockers while not offending clients is a finesse game. So marketers need to be sure they are targeting just the right demographic.

Fortunately, many companies have the expertise to help your business put the hype in hyperlink like never before. Constant Contact, an e-mail marketing firm specializing in helping small business owners design e-mails, sells a line of templates tailor-made for each customer. Their e-mail solutions have made them an industry leader, creating e-mail newsletters that can circumvent spam filters.

Some companies focus less on design and more on targeted leads. U.S. Data Corporation has a 30-year history of compiling mailing lists, sales leads, B2B mailing lists and direct marketing lists that pair down consumers not only by normal variables but down to cross-sectioned interests like Brides-To-Be and Future Millionaires. This level of personalization is necessary when attracting web-savvy consumers used to having everything at the touch of a button.

While social media remains unproven, e-mail marketing is no fad. And as the tech-obsessed masses continue to connect with business owners, e-mail will continue to bridge the gap.

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Are You Following Your Dentist on Social Media?

November 21, 2010

Social media is how more and more people and businesses are connecting, and cosmetic dentists are no exception. The best dental web design companies are helping their clients get set up on social media and use it to connect with their patients. How does this help you, the patient?

Recent studies show that consumers trust word of mouth more than advertising- and that’s a good thing! Social media sites, such as Facebook, Digg, LinkedIn and Twitter, and becoming the standard method for products and services to be recommended.

If you’re already using social media, you probably already follow brands you like or use often. Being connected with those brands allows you to stay current on their products and special offers. It also allows for easy recommendations and reviews so that your peers can know what to expect. Social media also builds trust between the consumers and the brand.

You have the same- and better- reasons for connecting with your dentist via twitter. You can stay abreast of any special offers they might have, especially for simple services like teeth whitening or cleaning. Many dentists offer special discounts when you follow or recommend them via Twitter or other social media.

You can also find out about any new services or training they’ve completed. In the dental field, ongoing education is key to their ongoing success, and they want you to know about it. And as a patient, it helps you to see who is dedicated to being on the cutting edge of their field.

Finally, but best of all, you establish a connection with them. Most dentists work hard to make you feel more comfortable and confident in them. They want your visit to be stress-free and by having a personal connection with them, you can feel more relaxed when you go in.

So if you haven’t found your dentist on Twitter or any of the other social media sites, look for them or ask the next time you’re in the office. In our connected world, don’t you want to stay in touch with the people who are responsible for your helping you stay healthy?

Dean Richard is a SEO and social media specialist for dental website designer Roadside Multimedia.

Roadside Multimedia
Dental Website Design
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Why is Everyone Talking about Social Media?

November 11, 2010

Social Media is about increasing traffic to your website and generating backlinks to help with a search engine optimisation campaign, as well as increasing brand awareness generally by spreading information of your company across the internet. Once you have setup a website and it contains good quality content, you can start submitting that content to social bookmarking websites and begin your project.

One of the best reasons for doing social media optimisation is because it’s free! When it comes to SEO, an opportunity that’s free and is so beneficial should not be missed. The power of it really can’t be ignored, absolutely everyone seems to be jumping on the social media band wagon as the more people that are doing it, the more traffic websites will receive. Submitting your webpages or links to those pages on social networking sites helps your content to travel, to attract users and makes the end website relevant and up-to-date with search engines.

There is huge competition between all of the social media websites as each one fights to be the best and obtain the most user traffic, and there are still arguments about which are the most beneficial for SEO. At SEO Junkies we use social bookmarking websites to post our articles as well as updating a Twitter account with new blogs. Blogs are a great way of adding content directed at SMO because you can cover such a wide range of topics and attract users many different areas.

We incorporate SMO into all of our SEO strategic projects to make sure that our clients receive the benefits and don’t miss out on any of the latest SEO factors. We have a highly skilled, SEO specialist team at SEO Junkies purely concentrating on search engine optimisation to push our clients up the search engine results pages.

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