Erik Qualman's Blog, page 490

Social Media Quizzes: How You’re Doing Them Wrong (And How To Do Them Right)

There is a quickly widening gap between the social media marketing tactics of the past, and those of the future. Where small adoptions would usually keep you in the loop and allow you to remain relevant, now users are savvy enough to make the process of remaining on top a lot harder.

A great example is the use of quizzes on social media pages. These are most common on platforms like Facebook, but you may have noticed them widening to sites like Youtube. They can be an effective way to both gauge the opinion of your audience, and engage them directly. But while the tactic itself remains strong, there is a fair chance you aren’t utilizing the tool correctly.

Here is how you are (probably) using social media quizzes wrong, and the simple changes you can make to do them right.

Doing It Wrong: You Have No Goal

If the only reason you are posting quizzes is to post them, you aren’t going to have the results you hope for. You need to specify your goals in order to meet set milestones that you have set up to best fit your brand needs.

Doing It Right: You Establish Goals Prior To Posting

What is it you hope to accomplish? Do you want to engage your audience on certain topics in order to get their feedback? Are you attempting to improve your social media engagement? Fine tune your product line? Increase the usability of your site? Just get them talking and coming back to have a conversation?

By defining what you want to accomplish you can begin to tailor quizzes to better hit these targets. Start a list of goals and deadlines you wish to meet them in. Never attempt to accomplish more than one goal at a time, and instead focus all of your energy on each item before moving onto the next.

Doing It Wrong: You Ask Things No One Cares About

If you are posting quizzes that are getting little to no traction, there is a good chance no one cares about the question.

Why would someone want to take their time to answer you if what you want to know doesn’t align with their interests?

Doing It Right: Research Interests To Keep It Relevant

A little bit of research is critical here. Luckily, you have a certain amount of access to personal information thanks to your social media posting.

Take some time to go through profiles, demographic information, and even competitor pages. See what people who follow you like, care about, and post. Begin to gauge their responses, and narrow down their field of interest.

Some of this will be done through trial and error. Keep track of the posts that gather the most engagement, to those that gain the least. From there you can see what your social audience is willing to communicate about, and what they are extremely interested in.

From there, you will know what quizzes to publish in the future. Here are some great resources to inspire some unique and interesting quiz topics!

Doing It Wrong: Your Topic Is Old News

You might be interested in the study that was published last year on your industry. But for those who are on your page, it could likely be old news.

When it comes to quizzes, people will often expend their opinions and passions early on. If the topic is no longer relevant they may have spent all of the interest they have and moved on.

Doing It Right: Keep It Fresh

Addressing an old topic is possible, but you should try and keep it timely and fresh. So wait until something new about it has been published elsewhere.

Using the study example, if someone comes out with new research on something that was popular a year or more ago, it is a good time to bring it back up.

Otherwise, keep your eye on the news and see what is trending right now. Monitor hashtags and social news trends, as well. If you manage to capture your audience’s attention right when the peak of interest on any subject, you will see many more followers more than happy to answer your questions.

Example: How well do you know The X-Files? (The timing couldn’t have been better!)

Doing It Wrong: You Are Afraid To Push Boundaries

Sometimes an innocent and uncontroversial topic is a nice way to spark a conversation without any potential strife. But if you are always keeping things mild, it gets boring quickly.

No one cares what kind of Doritos they prefer, and most won’t bother answering a question based around it. There are exceptions, but they are certainly not the rule.

Doing It Right: You Push The Envelop

Don’t be afraid to get in there and ask about something people

disagree about. Even if it isn’t related to your industry, it can be a major source of engagement. It may even bring attention to your brand from those who have never before heard of it.

Example: What’s Your Political DNA?

People saw the quiz being answered on Facebook friend’s feeds, and they flocked over to give their own opinion.

Here are some resources to help you brainstorm some edgy topics:

First Site Guide offers some great tips on writing edgy and timely content here
Here are some ways to come up with and use edgy content
Demotivational posters: What are they? These can be great sources of interesting content inspiration.

Quizzes Are Great, But Only If Done Right

There is no point in posting quizzes if you aren’t utilizing them properly. When done right, a simple question can pack more punch than an entire essay. So start taking advantage!

Image sources: Quiz, List, Green grass, Envelope, Chile House

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Cancer Goggles Helping to Save Lives

What to Do When You Learn X-Ray Vision Exists…

Buy lead underwear. Cancer goggles have started to save lives. Doctors wear them while they remove cancer cells from patients. This technology allows for a more effective & efficient approach to fighting off cancer so it won’t try to crawl it’s way back in again. The tumors actually light up so doctors can see them in much more detail. Dr. Samuel Achilefu, Professor of Radiology at Washington University, invented the cancer goggles out of passion for the well-being of others. He wanted to make sure the goggles required as little education as possible to use them so doctors wouldn’t have to go through an extensive training process all over again. These ‘superman glasses’ are on their way to make history. (Source FOX 28)

Snapchat Becomes More Discoverable

Snapchat is trying to make its Discover platform more appealing to publishers. Think CNN, Buzzfeed, Mashable and others paying to get their content in front of Snapchat’s 200 million daily users. Snapchat will let their users subscribe to their favorite channels and be notified once new publications are posted. Why the change? Some publishers have opted out of the platform recently. Snapchat currently has about 20 publishers on the Discover platform which is crowded in the Snapchat world. The majority of publisher’s traffic already comes from the Snapchat’s Stories, the Discover platform is just another way for publishers to reach more eyeballs and Snapchat to monetize their user base.  (Source R/E Code)

What Rhymes with Search…

Birch. As in birch trees. Ecosia is a search engine that plants trees as you browse.. The money comes from it’s ad revenue and is used toward planting more trees around the world. As a reminder, Google has often been chastised for the carbon footprint produced from the billions of searches on their search engine.

Founder & CEO Christian Kroll came up with the idea after he traveled the world and found deforestation a major problem. So far, there have been over a million trees planted, and Ecosia’s next goal is to plant one billion trees by 2020. Want to start building your own forest? Then click here to start some tree-planting fun! (Source Ecosia)

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Tools to Create An Effective Social Media Strategy – Part 1 – Buffer

If you are leading (or part of) an organization, be it a business, nonprofit organization, at an institution, or a club, I’m guessing social media is a core responsibility and in the front of your mind daily.

Am I right?

However, I’m sure if you are like me you have questions like these:

Are we using the right tools?
Am I dedicating enough time?
Am I dedicating too much time?
How can I tell our story better while being more efficiently while remaining real and authentic?

First off, it’s common and ok to not have answers to these questions. Even though I eat, sleep, breathe social media and help organizations find the best way to tell their story, I battle with making sure I tell my own story and my company’s story while juggling multiple platforms (and responsibilities). Sound relatable?

So, I decided to share the tools I use day in and day out that can help you. This is part one in five-part series to help you level up your social media game.

As a professional digital storyteller and content creator, I understand how social media allows organizations to connect more effectively with their customers. And with a good social media strategy, these connections can turn into lasting relationships that turn into real marketing value. Especially long term, patience and trusting the process is key.

But a good strategy certainly does not have to be a difficult one. Therefore, in this series, I am going to introduce five apps that help – the organizations I work with, as well as my own professional brand – create a flawless social media strategy.

In this post, however, I will first present Buffer because it does such a good job creating and curating content – the key to a good social media strategy. You can learn why I switched from Hootsuite to Buffer back in 2011 in this post I wrote two years ago.

*This post is not sponsored. I truly believe in Buffer, their team, and how they are evolving their platform. It has been one tool that has stuck with me since I switched in 2011 and I have witness several organizations benefit from using it because of it’s customer service and fast learning curve. 

What It Does:

Ever wonder how large organizations such as Humans of New York, TED-Ed, and Forbes are always present on your News Feed with a different post every hour?

This is probably what you have in mind:

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However, no one would or even should be manning the computer all day and clicking the share and submit button whenever the clock strikes. That’s exactly what Buffer can help with. Simply put, Buffer is a social media scheduler which allows users to schedule (with several variations) ahead when a specific content should be released on their desired social media platform(s) (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn,…).

How It Helps:

With Buffer, all you need to do is create a custom schedule of promoting content, and Buffer will automatically release each content according to your ideal Buffer Schedule. In a one-day interval, Buffer permits users to create up to 25 time slots —enough to share one content every hour!

Especially useful on Twitter considering the speed and “shelf-life” content has. But be careful, make sure you read the new Twitter algorithm update and how it will affect users timelines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If your goal is to maximize post views, the Optimal Timing Tool available on Buffer can identify when the audience in your targeted geographic destination is more likely to engage with the content, thereby helps you to come up with a better schedule.

The Analytics option in Buffer also shows how many clicks, retweets, reach, and potential reach each post receives. These charts and graphs can easily be exported, providing great data for your business or your boss/client.

What’s best is that having Buffer, all these tasks don’t have to be a one-person job. Buffer Schedule can be shared among users which makes the work more collaborative. Members of a team can directly add content and change schedule anytime. This function eliminates sending emails back and forth between co-workers and provides a separate platform focusing solely on creating and curating content.

There is also one added convenience where users can save Buffer on their toolbar to bookmark pages and posts they come across elsewhere–without opening a separate browser for Buffer. These contents will then be added directly to the app. And on Buffer Feed (my favorite), users can automatically see new posts from the websites they’re interested in which cuts down the time searching for content considerably.

My Personal #ProTip:

You want to get the most life out of your content whether it be an article, video, or image. Therefore, if a piece of content is especially important, sharing it multiple times throughout the week (on Twitter), the month (on Facebook & Linkedin) preferably with different imagery, will target more viewers. Remember though, just because you can automate your content distribution, don’t become a robot. Spend the extra few minutes on creative – try using a different image, quote, and especially mix up the post copy. A good rule of thumb I use is that no more than 60-75% of content should be automated. This is especially true on Twitter and Instagram because posting in real-time is key.

Creating and curating content connects with your audience and helps paint the picture about your organization. Therefore, a tool like Buffer is so important; it keeps the task clean and efficient with more cost effective and much less time consuming.

Stay tuned in the next few weeks for part two-five in this series to help you develop a consistent and effective social media strategy that works.

About me:

I am entrepreneur, digital storyteller, and founder of The Niche Movement a community of young professionals helping others find the work they love. I currently run my own digital storytelling agency helping organizations who are passionate about what they do tell their story. We are based out of Washington, DC helping clients big and small from every corner of the world. Previously to taking a leap of faith and launching two businesses full-time, I spent 8+ years working in several student affairs functions from student leadership to marketing and before I took the leap of faith to go out on my own I worked at Rutgers University as the Marketing and Social Media Director for the recreation department. Follow me on Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter at @koco83.

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9 Reasons Why You Should Share Your News On Social Media And 4 Simple Ways To Do It

One of the most important things you need to keep in mind right of the bat is a press release is a branding and credibility tool, not an SEO tool. You can use press releases to get the word out about the recent developments in your company, new or improved products and services, and effectively brand your company. An engaging release will most certainly generate social signals, social sharing, direct and organic traffic back to your website and create journalistic interest.

In order to achieve all of these, you need to learn to work by the rules of press releases. The most important being you should think or every press releases as a coverage for your business in a tier-one newspaper.

What is a press release?

The most basic definition of a press release is a piece of content that you use to spread the word about your company and its activities in an ethical and journalistic manner that makes it news worthy and useful to your brand.

Social media

Social media has brought a lot of change to business branding strategies today. Before social media, the only goal for a press release would be to get media attention. Social networks today have up to millions of users in some social media pages, totaling up to billions of people all over the world using various social networks. It is almost difficult to remember a time without social media today. Social media has expanded the possibilities of press releases far beyond what media coverage could do for your business. Some of the advantages of social media press release distribution include:

Increased brand awareness: social media is a channel for your prospective clients to hear your brand voice. It gives your multiple opportunities to syndicate your content and increase visibility. Social media is important because it makes you easily accessible to new customers and familiar to existing customers.


Increased brand loyalty: Studies have shown that engaging in social media channels increases loyalty among customers. Social media has so many tools that you can use to connect with the audience.


Conversion opportunities: Every social media post from your business is an opportunity to convert customers. This is why it is important to build a following so you can have access to new customers and renew relationships with the old ones. Everything your share is an opportunity to get a reaction and from every reaction, you can get a visit to your website and hopefully a buying customer.


Higher conversion rates: your brand becomes more humanized when you use social media marketing and interact with consumers through social channels. It is a place where your brand can act like people do, which is a crucial element when conducting business with people. Social media has a 100 percent higher lead-to-close rate than other marketing strategies since social media find credibility in your brand.


More inbound traffic: social media expands your limitations beyond those people who are familiar with your brand or those searching for keywords that your website is ranked for. You social media profile is a path leading back to your website that almost anyone can access whether they know your business or not


Cheaper marketing: Just one hour a day on social media can lead to amazing results for your business. Most of the paid advertising on social networks is quite cheap yet has amazing impact on business. You never have to worry about going over budget when marketing on social media.

There are so many other reasons why you should use social networks as a distribution channel. If you still need convincing, you should consider the following:

Your competition is already using social media and fast taking up the attention of your target audience. They are literally poaching your traffic and conversions, reaping all the benefits while you stand by wondering whether to join social networks. Better still if your competition is not involved in social media, this is the best time to get started and dominate the networks.


Social media is about building relationships, which takes time. The sooner you start growing your followers and interacting with prospective clients on social networks, the sooner you can reap the benefits. You social media fan base can grow exponentially when your followers share your business to their followers and so on.


There is nothing to lose by joining social media. It takes a very little amount of time and money so the potential losses are quite insignificant.

Sharing a press release on social media

Press releases are shared on social media all the time. Public relations companies such as FineMan PR can help you boost the visibility of your news in social platforms by attracting additional audiences and on-line searches to your press release. Releasing news on social media engages readers in conversations about this new information; this further inspires sharing, likes, comments and re-tweets among other social media activities. To share your posts successful on social media you should consider:

Timing

You should release news on social media when your followers and influencers are most active. Based on previous social media activity, you can notice when social media followers engage most with you and this is the best time to publish your release. Test and track every new release to know if your timing is effective.

Easily digestible information

The press release should be catchy, engaging, and easy to understand and inspires sharing on social media. Including social media buttons on the press release and inviting people to connect with you on social media could also help.

Includes images and videos

Content becomes more interesting when you include videos or image; it often leads to more engagement on social media. Info graphics and informational videos work great on social media press releases.

Use a press release distribution services

The press release distribution service will help you release the news to media outlets. It can also help you build up a social media release that gets a lot of attention and a high level of engagement.

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6 Smart Home Trends and Predictions Worth Understanding

As we launch a new year, it’s becoming increasingly clear that smart home technology wasn’t just a fad. It’s a promising industry with lots of anticipated growth in the coming months and years. With that being said, some trends are more important than others. Let’s take a look at some of the more promising trends and predictions in the smart home technology space so that you can decipher where things are headed in 2016 and beyond.

1. Rapid Adoption by Millennials

According to one study, 79 percent of millennials are interested in using smart home technology. While older generations are slowly becoming more and more comfortable with new technologies, the future of smart home adoption lies with millenials. This generation is the first to be utterly immersed in technology and has come to expect “smart” features in every aspect of their lives.

2. Bluetooth Lights are the Future

If you look at practical smart home technology that’s available to homeowners and renters regardless of budget, Bluetooth enabled light bulbs top the list. These products are extremely cost effective and allow people to customize their lighting with the click of a button. Even better is that many of these bulbs are guaranteed to last for years at a time. That means no more climbing ladders and replacing those hard to reach lights.

3. The Home Security Game is Changing

In the coming months, you can expect a lot of growth in the security portion of the smart home industry. People are always looking for superior security solutions to protect their families, and smart home technology offers advantages that standard systems and solutions do not. From automated door locks that can be remotely controlled to video cameras with facial recognition, the future of security is certainly bright.

4. Prepare for Rapid Growth

The global smart home market was valued at $20.38 billion in 2014, and is expected to reach an impressive $58.68 billion by 2020. Between 2015 and 2020, the estimated compound annual growth rate is 17 percent. As this growth occurs, consumers can expect prices to drop. Manufacturers will begin to develop economies of scale and competitors will engage in price wars. This will further increase adoption among budget conscious consumers.

5. Décor Friendly Gadgets the Focal Point

Up until now, functionality has been the main goal. If smart home technology increases efficiency and works well, then it’s considered a good thing. Moving forward, the criteria for new products and devices will become much stricter. In addition to developing functional products, brands will have to invest in designing aesthetically pleasing solutions that look good in the home. If these products can be successfully designed, the industry will grow at an even faster rate.

6. Big Savings with Smart Thermostats

While a certain segment of the market will purchase smart home technology for the “cool” factor, most people want to see tangible value. What better way to provide tangible value than to see financial savings? This is exactly what smart thermostats afford buyers. For example, while the Nest thermostat costs $249, it can provide up to $172 in annual savings. That means it can pay for itself in less than two years. Look for big savings to drive sales.

The Future of the Smart Home

As a homeowner, smart home technology is extremely exciting. The idea that you can streamline processes and chores in the home, while simultaneously reducing costs and eliminating inefficiencies that deplete your time and energy is invigorating. As we move forward, keep an eye on the trends referenced in this article and don’t be afraid of investing in some of them yourself.

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UnZip the Power of Real Spying, NSA vs Spy Apps

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UnZip the Power of Real Spying

A comparison between NSA and TheOneSpy

What information do they collect?

NSA:

A record of almost every call made in America
Emails, Facebook posts, text messages
Random internet traffic
Unknown phone calls

TheOneSpy: Only those phone calls, chat logs or browser history that you want

When do they spy on us?

NSA: 24/7

TheOneSpy: Only when you want to

What do they find out about the target?

NSA: From your address to your habits, absolutely anything and everything

TheOneSpy: Only the stats that the user is targeting

How long do they keep the information?

NSA: Up to 5 years

TheOneSpy: Till the user deletes the information from the control panel

Is there any nationalistic discrimination?

NSA: Oh yes! There are no legal restrictions on what NSA can do with the data of non-US persons

TheOneSpy: There is no kind of racial or nationalistic discrimination at all.

Does it help your kids?

NSA: It just gathers lots and lots of data. Not much focus on protection.

TheOneSpy: It can help parents shield their children from unwarranted cyberbullying among other things.

Will it tell you if your partner is cheating on you?

NSA: Even if it has the needed data, it won’t help you sort out your personal life

TheOneSpy: It can help strengthen relationships by creating undoubted trust

Would it tell you anything about your employees?

NSA: Helping your workplace isn’t really NSA’s concern at all

TheOneSpy: Helps you enhance your business’s productivity by keeping an eye on your employees

Is it legal?

NSA: Yes, but they still need warrants to pull off some of their spying

TheOneSpy: Totally and completely

Is it moral?

NSA: It’s blatant invasion of privacy

TheOneSpy: It allows you to protect your loved ones and keep a check on work ethics

Benefits of TOS:

Ever wondered what your spouse is up to when they’re not around? Or what your employees are doing at work? Or whether your children are safe from all the online troubles? With TheOneSpy you can soothe your nerves and make sure that you don’t have to worry about all the things that you can’t control. Here are some of the magical features of TheOneSpy:

It allows you to keep an eye on your spouse, monitor their calls and text messages and find out what they might be doing behind your back
It helps your business’s profits by keeping tabs on what your employees are doing on their devices; whether they’re simply wasting time and your resources
It ensures the safety of your children by monitoring their online activity
It gives you all your monitoring data on one single control panel, which is accessible from anywhere and on any device
It allows you to track the location of your loved one to make sure that they are safe
It is available on all operating software to make sure that you cover all your bases in protecting your family or business and most importantly it gives you the peace of mind that you need.

Infographic source: TheOneSpy Blog

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Ease the workload – Use social media for task management

Managing your daily tasks needs not be a difficult process when you have social media. The advancement in technology should make things easier for you. Whether you are managing a large business or macro ones, you can always find simpler ways of doing it. One of the biggest problems that task managers face is that they sometimes find themselves with too much to do. There are times when the stress associated with your work can take a toll on your health and this will not be a good thing. Think about the following:

The trends are changing and so, you need better ways to manage your tasks


Your contacts are ever increasing and therefore, unless you find new approaches, you might not effectively communicate with them


You want to take your business into the future meaning that you are always looking for better ways of doing so


If you are in business, the competition will probably be too much for you to handle if you are not innovative enough


There are times when the traditional communication methods cannot just work especially if you are selling digital products and managing a large project

Everyone is looking for ways through which they can overcome all the challenges that they go through when managing tasks. They are looking for solutions that can assure them of smooth sailing into the future. Unfortunately, not all the options available out there can assure you of this. There are those that were so popular several years ago but nobody even talks of them anymore. If you build your business based on such solutions, you can only expect that before too long, you will be looking for something else. Here are some of the reasons why you should think about using social media platforms.

You can never outgrow social media

If you are looking for a platform that you can never outgrow, you should be thinking about the power of social media. Managing your tasks when using software such as Job Progress means that everything going forward is well taken care of. The fact that you can always upgrade to any new version makes it even better. You will never have to worry about replacing your software or your hardware every time there is something new if you choose to go with social media.

It is easy-to-use

You do not need anyone to teach you how to use these platforms when managing your tasks. They come with preinstalled and preprogrammed features. All you need to do is to integrate it with your workstation and everything will be fine. In fact, you do not even need to be a computer expert. As long as you can communicate with your contacts using one of these platforms, you are ready to go. You will be surprised of how much less you have to do because the software does the hard part for you.

It is compatible with lots of software

Don’t you just like it when you have everything that you need in one place? Traditionally, and to some extent with some of the modern software, you would have to look for a new tool for every task. You would end up having to use too many software just to manage every task. It is different when you discover the power of social media. These platforms have been designed in such a way that you can integrate them with whatever you want. Whether you want to share pictures, videos, send out messages or keep track of your dealings, you can do them all from the same screen.

You can use it anywhere

You must be tired of having to be in a particular location so as to manage your work. Whether you want to follow up on your orders or just give instructions to your employees, social media will help you to do it from anywhere. In fact, if you have the best devices and a reliable internet connection, you can do it when traveling, when on holiday, when having a family gathering or even from your bedroom when you do not feel like leaving the house. The best part is that none of the people that you are managing will even know your exact location unless you set it up to indicate your location.

Actually, there is so much that you can do if you learn how to use the right tools to manage your daily activities. What makes it even better is the fact that you have various options to choose from. Even when you are using certain software, you will always notice that there are several variations. You can choose the basic version if your business is a small one. As it grows, you can upgrade to the other versions that have more enhanced features to suit your needs. Just ensure that you get the right software.

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Twitter Considering 10,000 Character Limit for Tweets – CEO Jack Dorsey

I have a question for you…!

Do you want Twitter to increase the Tweet character limit from 140 characters?

Now here is the solution for you. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey explains why his company wants to move beyond 140-characters. The reasons may be Twitter needs to compete with other social channel platforms or it needs more users. Now, CEO Jack Dorsey sheds a little light on why the company is entertaining larger tweets.

According to the new report, Twitter may allow 10,000-character tweets within the next three months or release the feature sometime in the first quarter of 2016. These long tweets would appear on your timeline just as you see them now, along with a call-to-action button which will help you read the tweet in an elaborated manner.

Such a move suggests Twitter is looking to engage more users, it’s trying to take on the likes of tumblr and medium. Previously, the company took on Instagram with photo editing features, reportedly unpromising celebrities and other popular accounts to stop posting instagram links via Twitter. Also, it switched from ‘Favourites’ to ‘Likes’. Of course, we’ve heard twitter was moving past its 140-character limit before, so let’s not get too excited.

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Uber Proposes $28.5 Million Settlement

That’ll be $28.5 Million…

Oh. Uber could be in trouble with a class action settlement proposal. The proposal comes from lawsuits saying the “Safe Ride Fee” is false advertising. Complaints say that “Safe Ride Fee” is misleading because background checks on drivers are not ‘industry leading’. So, Uber is going to change this to “Booking Fee”. First a rebranding and now a lawsuit, it’s been an exciting month over at Uber.

Don’t get too excited if you think you are going to make bank from Uber, $28.5 million is to be split among 25 million people which turns out to be $1.14 before attorney fees. Womp womp. (Source TechCrunch)

What To Say When No One Knows What To Do…

Guess I’ll fix it. That’s what Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is saying after Twitter user growth stalled in the fourth quarter. Twitter’s users stayed at a reported 320 million users.. So the growth story is Zip, Nada. Shares are trading below $15, down from a high of $74. #TBD on Dorsey’s changes and more importantly #TBD on if it will change Twitter’s fortunes.  (Source USA Today)

I’ll Be In The Instapit…

Imagine a space designed for Instagrammers to snap pics for their Instagrams. Well, it’s real. Tommy Hilfiger is hosting the first “Instapit” at his New York Fashion Week show next week. The idea of Instapit is for bloggers and Instagrammers to capture runway photography that reflects the brand’s vision. Tall people only on the runway please we don’t want you blocking our photography angles. #InstagrammersUnite (Source Women’s Wear Daily)

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How Social Media Marketing, Data Mining and Database Administration Help Your Business

There are so many places that companies can gain information concerning their prospective customers, and generally, the markets. The social media sites are among these places. As a matter of fact, these social media sites have become the go-to location for customer insight. You want to know what your customers are saying about you online; social media will help you out here. Increasing your customer base will also be easier when you tap into the power of social media. All that you need is the right tools for the job – and a database is one of these tools.

It helps to have an excellently designed database. This will make capturing content and utilizing it easier. At this point, it is wise to introduce data mining. How do you mine for data? What is data mining in the first place? There are just so many people who are benefiting from this practice nowadays. Data mining is one of the many forms of data analysis. The goal is to always get new information using the existing data that has been fetched over a period of time.

Collecting data from your social media interactions is going to be of great help in growing your business. It is one thing to collect data, but then making use of it can be quite a challenge. You will have lots of data flowing from various social media sites into your database. This is all good because big data is an asset that will help you grow the business. In order for the business to grow, you will have to make use of the insight that are drawn from this data. This is where the database administrators come into the equation.

Mining for data

A huge number of companies sit upon large amounts of great customer data and they do nothing with it. This is just like sitting on a gold mine, with the only difference being that this is a gold mine of insight. With data mining you can get to understand customer loyalty, customer churn and the untapped potential of profitability for your business. This might sound a little bit all too simple for many people but then it cannot be further from the truth.

Let’s talk about customer loyalty for a moment. Now, you have these customers who you have been tracking online. They share details about your company’s products and all. They invest a lot of their time talking about your products on social media. With data mining you can figure out who these customers are and come up with ways to reward their loyalty. This of course reduces customer churn whereby you lose customers over time.

There are those customers who really do not have time to share your content online but they are still loyal. When you find out who these customers are, you can also develop a strategy that will help them market your brand for you. The best way to build a brand is to make use of the customers that you already have. It is better for prospective customers to hear from other customers who have already enjoyed your services rather than from your marketing team. Somehow it gives the brand a personal touch.

In short, data mining is excellent for database marketing. You can explore the customer purchasing patterns and take a look at the demographics and psychographics of the customers in order to build relationships with them. Making use of your database is going to help build a focused campaign effortlessly.

As a marketer, in order to get value from a database, it must grow and evolve over time. This means feeding the database with information from sales, subscriptions, surveys and such things. As it grows, you will need a database administrator and experts in data analytics to help you make sense of the numbers that are coming in. It will help you to target customers more intelligently. The details that are in your database will depend on the targets that you have set for your database marketing campaigns.

Managing a database

Database management is a mandatory activity. There are just so many things that need to be done in a bid to keep the database performing at its best. This includes maintaining the security of your database. There are people who will want to hack into your database to fetch customer information for malicious purposes. You need to protect your database from such individuals.

Secondly, you should also keep track of the data that is flowing into your databases. Always ensure that the data that is coming in is going to help your marketing efforts. This is why you should invest in a good database administrator. DBA services have become extremely common nowadays and they are even remote. This makes it possible for you to access the services with more ease. You do not have to create space in your office for a database administrator because you can have someone watching over your database from some place away from your office.

Database administrators are very instrumental in the data mining and marketing activities. They are the ones who will help you retrieve the relevant information that you require for the database marketing. A good number of DBAs nowadays are getting training on data analysis in a bid to help them become more helpful in the mining process.

As aforesaid you will need someone who will make sense of the data that you have been collecting. This is where the database experts come in to save the day. They will be helpful by providing your social media officers with the content that they need to create for social media. They will also help them figure out what kind of data that they should collect as they are doing their work.

Conclusion

To make the most of your database and social media presence, the best thing that you can do is to get in touch with database experts. They will help you give your social media marketing campaigns more focus. This they do by getting insights through the process of data mining. Data mining can help you get lot of information regarding your business’ performance in the markets and the general perception of people concerning your brand.

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