On October 17, 2014 Snapchat made the announcement: advertising was coming to Snapchat. Snapchat has been rapidly growing and changing to keep the attention of its audience. It was only a day or two later that the first Snapchat ad was seen by Snapchat users. And while it is not a regular thing as of yet, over the next few weeks we will begin to see it take off. For businesses, this is another platform that allows them to reach and engage customers. And it is definitely very different from … [Read more...]
Top Social Media Marketing Trends for 2015
October 29, 2014 by
Since social media is always evolving and what was hot yesterday could be ice cold tomorrow, you need to be flexible and ready to adopt new technologies quickly in order to keep your business on the leading edge of social media. With so much going on right now in social media, this is the ideal time to create your social media strategy for next year. Here are three trends to keep in mind: Paid placements aren’t going away. Does buying sponsored posts, promoted tweets and other paid social … [Read more...]
Twitter As a News Source: How It Shapes Business Marketing
October 24, 2014 by
Social media is a very powerful tool for spreading information. It can have a role in every aspects of a person life, if one lets it. And companies struggle to truly generate information through social media that is worthy of sharing and spreading: something newsworthy. Twitter is exceptionally well suited for spreading news. But for many businesses Twitter is uncharted territory and can be hard to understand. Defining Terms Jack Dorsey, one of the co-founders of Twitter, explains in an … [Read more...]
Make Pinterest Part of Your Holiday Marketing Plans
October 22, 2014 by
Every small business wants their companies to be the ones consumers turn to when they need to make a special purchase or planning a special event. The holiday shopping season offers the best opportunities for retailers and service providers to make it to the top of shoppers’ lists. Luckily, the holiday sales predictions are bright. The National Retail Federation forecasts sales to increase a healthy 4.1 percent this year, to $616.9 billion. Is it a holiday miracle, or are marketers just getting … [Read more...]
How To Use #Hashtag Marketing for Your Business
September 26, 2014 by
As social media continues to be a driving force in customer relationships and even contributes to your companies overall sales, it is important to learn to use it correctly and effectively to gain the largest audience possible and to make the most of your valuable time that is dedicated to this marketing platform. If you have decided that Twitter is the social media platform your business should focus on, then it is time to understand how to use the hashtag. This is one of the most important … [Read more...]
How To Choose a Social Media Platform For Your Business
September 5, 2014 by
Reaching the right social media audience is vital to your online marketing campaign, but when you look at all the choices, making a decision on which social media platform to use can be overwhelming. Not only are these platforms very different, and require extremely varied techniques, but they are often very time and resource consuming which can be a problem for a small business. But social media really does matter, and while it may feel like social media isn’t for your business, … [Read more...]
Looks Count: LinkedIn Adds Header Images
September 4, 2014 by
Everyone is doing it, and now LinkedIn has joined the club. You can now (if you’re a paid user) add header images to your LinkedIn business profile. Although, that may not seem like a big deal, it can make a big difference to your business image. Research shows social posts with images get more shares, so it follows that adding images on LinkedIn can only help spur engagement with your followers. Header images were first offered as an option this past summer. For now, the images do not appear on … [Read more...]
Twitter’s Analytics is Now Accessible to Everyone
August 29, 2014 by
Twitter has finally made analytics available to everyone! In June a few select users were given access, but now anyone who want to see their analytics can. This means that no matter who holds a Twitter account (a business, individual, or character like Voldemort, Don Draper, or Grumpy Cat) can now see a variety of wonderful data based on their tweets and followers in Twitter's analytics. The layout of this new analytics tool is highly user friendly and simply requires you login to your … [Read more...]
Staying Positive on Social Media
August 20, 2014 by
“If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Wasn’t that one of the first good manners rules you were taught as a child? The same could be said for branding on social media, and the good news is your customers may agree. According to a Q1 2014 study by Converseon, 55 percent of customer interactions with leading brands on Twitter were positive and 25 percent neutral. Facebook and Google+ also fared well with most of their interactions positive or neutral. Lucky thing … [Read more...]
Getting Personal With CRM
August 13, 2014 by
Your customer service strategy needs to include more than a policy that “the customer is always right.” Instead of being reactive, your CRM (customer relationship management) strategy should be proactive, which includes constantly creating new ways to make customer relationship interactions more personal. One way to personalize interactions is to base them on how your customers want to communicate with your business—and for many consumers today, that’s social media. A study by J.D. Power and … [Read more...]
