Erik Qualman's Blog, page 523
August 21, 2015
Is The Cloud Secure?
Cloud securities issues can have drastic effects on a business since it can easily lead towards lawsuits and various other problems. We see so many companies these days that use cloud computing. There is no way to deny that we have huge advantages associated with the technology but we should also understand that security is not as easy to implement as you may think.
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There are various people that will tell you that cloud security is not at all what it should be. The latest iCloud account hacking incident is used as an example. If celebrity accounts at a huge company like Apple managed to get hacked, it is obvious that others can too. This can easily let us wonder how secure it is to actually use cloud technology systems.
Statistics show that around 80 percent of businesses are saving money by moving to the cloud or are in the process of implementing such a storage system. With such high numbers, it is important for the business community to be concerned with security. The day is soon when a majority of businesses, and all of our ensuing consumer data with those businesses, will be stored and managed in the cloud.
Securing servers and accounts requires a constant investment in order to avoid incidents like the iCloud account hack. Professional security systems that are especially created for the cloud systems, like AWS security, are necessary to keep your businesses’ information secure.
The U.S. government has also invested cloud technology in order to cut costs and offer more responsiveness. Since the government trusts cloud technology, it is obvious that there is a belief that security is really high.
What we have to understand is that a huge part of the security of the cloud accounts is the responsibility of the service provider. This is an advantage of using cloud technology and a huge part of why it does not cost a lot to take advantage of the technology. Most of the companies that are now using the cloud do not have a lot of knowledge about the technology so they just want some sort of guarantee that data will be secured.
At the present time, persistent encryption is applied to all the data that is added before it is actually transferred to the cloud server. This is the secret to how the information is protected. The problem is that user error can easily undo any other security safeguards. For example, because individuals involved in the iCloud hacking scandal did not use secure passwords, they were susceptible to a brute-force attack on their accounts. We also have to deal with systems that are not configured properly at a local level, shared account problems, and other difficulties that can be present. Keep in mind that the cloud computing company is responsible for the connections and the security of your data on their servers. You are responsible for what happens on your end.
On the whole, we can say that cloud computing technology is more secure than it ever was. However, end-user security issues are still an issue, no matter how secure your cloud is.
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How to Curate Content for Social Media Faster with Nifty Tools
Curating content for your brand’s social media accounts can sometimes be difficult. Traditional search methods and un-scheduled sharing will require you, as a marketer, to be online continuously to ensure that peak times are taken advantage of, which can be exhausting. Thankfully, there are several content curation ad sharing tools available for small businesses and independent marketers that are both cost effective and easy to use. Most of these tools are also device agnostic, and will work on smart phones or tablets as well, making it all the more convenient to manage your social media presence.
Let’s look at a couple of nifty tools to help you find and post content, either as a team or as an individual. Keep in mind that different tools offer different advantages, and you should pick the one that suits your marketing needs the best.
DrumUp is an easy-to-use content discovery tool that is perfect for individual use. The simple interface allows you to quickly review the content suggestions in your stream and post your stories on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. You can also schedule posts to multiple accounts, across multiple platforms with the tool. The best part about DrumUp is that it is available on the Android store as an app, making content curation easy even on the go.
One unique feature that DrumUp offers is Negative Keywords, which lets you refine your search results by eliminating stories that would be irrelevant to you. While most other content curation spaces have topic based or keyword based search, DrumUp allows you to define your search even more by allowing for crucial exclusions. The queue of articles that emerges from the search is then highly relevant, and you won’t waste any time going through content that may not actually fit your needs.
Klout is a particularly helpful tool because it has an easy to use “topics” search criteria that populates your suggestion bar. While not as accurate as keyword searches, topic searches sometimes unexpectedly show you articles that could be highly relevant. The topic-based approach allows for new search parameters which makes Klout a great tool to use in conjunction with a keyword based app to ensure maximum coverage.
Klout also allows you to post to a host of social media channels, which can be important if you’re looking to establish a wide reach across networks.
Spundge is a great content curation tool that works best when used by teams. Spundge allows you to create notebooks of relevant content, which can then be added to by other contributors. With the ability to have a group of people working on content curation, Spundge allows marketing teams to compile all of their content collaterals in one place, and line them up for posting on various platforms using the tool’s scheduler.
Spundge also allows you to use a bookmarked button to add pages to notebooks while you are browsing the web (and not necessarily through the in-service search tools), which can help by adding relevant content to notebooks. With a team interface, this feature becomes useful as many people will be able to add articles this way to different notebooks.
If you thought that curating content, especially good content, can take a massive time commitment, think again. With the tools discussed here, and some of the others you may find, content curation is no longer frustrating or time-consuming. With large repositories of relevant articles and content, these content curation platforms allow marketers to find and deploy content easily and effectively.
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August 20, 2015
Market Your Brand Effectively with Social Media
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As most business owners know, getting their brand out in front of the public is one of the most important tasks at hand.
Sure, hiring the right talent, staying on budget, and making sure clients receive stellar customer service is critical too, but properly marketing your products and/or services is nothing to take for granted. Without the right mix of marketing and advertising, your brand and your business for that matter can go by the wayside rather quickly.
So, what are you doing to spread the word about your brand? If the answer is I’m not sure or not much, pay attention.
Take Stock in Collateral
When you hear the term “marketing collateral” your first thought might be that this is somehow tied into marketing and finances.
To set the record straight, marketing collateral when heard by many people refers to the gathering of media in support of selling products and/or services.
Your marketing collateral can be a host of things, including:
Sales brochures , flyers etc.
Company fact sheets (including top management in the company)
Client list (this can include customer testimonials)
Content strictly intended for the web
White papers
With those ideas in mind, do they all strike a note with you and why they’re important?
One of those items is content strictly intended for the web. Wait, your company is not very active on the web? If that’s the case, this needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.
While there are still some companies existing in 2015 without an Internet presence, they are few and far between. Even many companies that are not all that interested and/or skilled in maneuvering around the web know that some Internet presence is better than none at all.
Activity Must Involve a Plan
As part of being active on the Internet, social media plays a large role. In fact, the more social your company is, the better its chances of landing new clientele.
So, what are some tips for being socially active and marketing the most out of social networking for your brand?
They include:
Planning – If you’re relatively new to social media, don’t try to jump in all gangbusters at once. Ultimately, this will lead to failure, something you likely can’t afford in today’s competitive business world. Go for one site (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram) to start with. As you build up traffic, you can then consider branching out to a second site and so on. Also determine whether your social activities will be done in-house or through outsourcing.
Feedback – Getting feedback via social media from current and potential clients is great; always keep it positive. One of the quickest ways to burn bridges is allowing your brand to be dragged into a verbal confrontation on social media. If a current or potential customer has a beef with you, take it private. Just as importantly, look to solve it as quickly as possible.
Motivation – Finally, be sure that you or those you’ve charged with keeping your brand socially active do just that. Hit-and-miss runs on social media do nothing for your brand other than ultimately lead to frustration with consumers. If you have a regular social presence, address consumer feedback quickly and professionally and always look to grow your social media efforts, the sky is literally the limit.
When you take the time to review and tweak your marketing collateral, always note that its customization, production, and ultimately its delivery are key pieces to an effective marketing puzzle.
The same holds true for your social presence.
Make sure your brand is actively and efficiently promoted via social networks, something that in today’s business world is all but a necessity if you want to compete.
Photo credit: BigStockPhoto.com
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3 Social Media Books that Will Help Your Online Marketing Efforts
Looking to kick-start your social media efforts for your business?
Do you need a road map to find your way around or a manual that tells you exactly how to get to where you’re going and succeed at what you’re doing? Let’s take a look at some of the top rated Amazon bestsellers on social media marketing and how they might be helpful:
1. 500 Social Media Marketing Tips: Essential Advice, Hints and Strategy for Business, by Andrew Macarthy
If you don’t know what a tweet is or what to blog about, or have neither the time nor the patience to go through volumes of copy and are in a hurry to get something done fast on the internet, this book is for you.
It serves as an excellent introductory manual and reference guide for people who are just beginning to learn about social media and how it can be used to achieve their business objectives. It provides comprehensive information that both beginners and veterans can use to improve their social media skills and presence.
It is invaluable for anyone using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, You Tube and other top social media platforms. Its simple but functional layout and brief but comprehensive instructions make it easy for readers to read and learn according to their own pace and schedule.
In it, Macarthy explores the world of social media from the points of view of both customers and businesses with tips such as “post consistently and often” and “launch a competition on Twitter.” He urges businesses to use social media as a springboard for a dialogue that build “strong and long-lasting relationships with customers and professional contacts” and as a means to share “the type of content and expertise that they [customers and professional contacts] will want to pass on to their friends, family and colleagues.” This approach, says Macarthy, will “help to attract and keep loyal customers and connections and encourage brand ambassadors to sell your business for you.”
Macarthy also urges businesses to adopt a planned approach to using social media that takes into consideration the need to, among others, decide which social networks are best suited for them, define and assess their goals, perform an audit to help shape their content strategy, speak to their customers in a personable manner and listen with intent, humanize their brand and be emotive, build relationships and provide value, and consistently post high quality content.
2. Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business
Another gem from Erik Qualman, it is an essential book for any business owner and entrepreneurs who want to understand the implications of social media on our daily lives as well as how businesses can tap the power of social media to increase their sales, cut their marketing costs, and reach consumers directly.
Qualman helps you understand the digital environment and offers insightful ideas on how others have leveraged social media to their advantage and how these principles could be applied directly for your business.
3. The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users, by Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick
Kawasaki, chief evangelist of the online design service Canva, teams up with social media strategist Fitzpatrick in creating a manual that takes the reader from the basics of becoming more visible on the internet to the next level.
According to the authors, the book aims “to enable you to rock social media. We assume that you are familiar with the basics and that you want to use social media for business, either for yourself or for an organization.”
The purpose behind all social media marketing, they add, is to make money, and to achieve that, marketers must find out the kind of people they need to attract and what these people really want to read. What they want to read, according to the two, is “probably different from what you want them to read.”
Kawasaki and Fitzpatrick further argue that no one really understands how to effectively use social media, and the best one can do is understand how the various social media tools work, apply some common sense and keep learning.
These are just some of the most interesting books that will help you navigate through the almost daunting digital media world and how to best utilize these tools for your business advantage.
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The 10 Commandments of Social Media and Content Marketing
The advent of internet technology has changed how people do things. Online shopping is one of the most popular activities nowadays. However, online marketing is even more widespread. Marketers are employing all sorts of online marketing to get products and services out there to prospective customers. The use of social media is not new, but it is really tricky even for the most seasoned marketing agents. If you have never used social media for marketing, then you are bound to have some problem at first.
It is a common assumption that social media is just about socializing. You get to make new friends, share fun moments and sad ones, plus so much more. While you are in the business of doing all of this, you can let your network know about certain products that you have available. Information usually spreads very fast through social media and this is why people are opting to market their products using this platform. The costs are significantly lower than advertising on broadcast media like television and radio. At the same time, social media spans a large population.
Even so, terms and conditions apply. There are several things that you have to get done in order to make certain that your social media advertising campaign is successful. These are the so-called ‘laws of social media marketing’. They are really simple to follow and anyone can use them.
Listening
Listen more and speak less. This is an important law and that is why it ranks at number one. Take some time and read your target audience’s online content, and even join in on the discussions to learn what they hold important to them. It is only then that you will be able to create content that captures people’s attention and even start conversations that add value, instead of cluttering people’s lives.
Focus
This law states that it is more beneficial to focus on one thing than to be a jack-of-all-trades who does not get anything done. A social media and content marketing strategy that is highly focused will always have better chances for success than one which states the issue at hand generally. You are not targeting all the users of Facebook or whichever platform you are using. You are not offering all services under the sun. Focus on one thing and on a particular group of people and you will be successful.
Quality at its best
Another popular saying is quality is better than quantity. This cannot be more valid in the case of social media marketing and generally in online marketing. The content that you post online should be able to get people talking and sharing without even your asking. High quality content will never have a problem spreading. Everyone will want to read about it.
Be patient
Also a very important rule, being patient when marketing online will see to it that you achieve the end goal. You should not expect to see wonders happening overnight. It takes some time for people to catch your line of thought. Successful social media and content marketing is based on commitment and devotion to ensuring quality.
Compounding
Quality followers are only attracted to quality content and work. These are people who will never have a problem sharing your content with their audiences on various platforms from Twitter and Facebook to Google Plus and LinkedIn. It is this sharing and discussing of your content that captures that attention of search engines like Bing and Google. New entry points will be created so that your content is discoverable through keyword searches. Quality content will always have this ripple effect. Still remember rule number 4 above– patience is crucial.
Influence
Find out who are the online influencers in your market, and are they likely to be interested in the products and services that you have to offer? Connect and build a relationship with these individuals. The moment that you get on their radar as an authoritative source of information they might potentially share your content with their followers as well. This in turn brings your business to the attention of a larger audience.
Acknowledge other people
Being a snob will not serve you any benefit when marketing online. Never ignore someone who reaches out to you personally, even if it is online. This is one of the best ways to create relationships and boost the success of your social media marketing. Try as much as possible to acknowledge every person who reaches out to you.
Reciprocate
When other people are sharing your content and you do not bother do the same for them, it sends out a message to them. It is not a good message at all. Take some time and share content that is published by others and talk about it as well.
Value
Do not focus too much of your attention on conversions but rather on creating fantastic quality content. Conversions might not last, but the content will last for a long time unless you delete it. People will read the content in future, but the conversions might be of benefit at that moment.
Accessibility
Always be accessible. Post frequently and be available for conversations. There are people who are notorious for disappearing weeks in a row. They go away for several weeks and do not post anything or reply to their audience’s messages.
Conclusion:
These are 10simple ways to run a very successful social media marketing campaign. It is all about quality content and creating a network of people who will be interested in what you have to offer. Set your focus on a certain goal and strive to achieve it.
Author Bio
Jack Dawson is a web developer and UI/UX specialist at BigDropInc.com . He works at a design, branding and marketing firm, having founded the same firm 9 years ago. He likes to share knowledge and points of view with other developers and consumers on platforms.
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August 19, 2015
Today’s Biz and Buzz
THE STORY: Amazon > Walmart
Forget about the days when Walmart was the retailer everyone wanted to be. Those days are long gone as Amazon is taking over (Source: CNN).
But isn’t Amazon mean…
Despite what The New York Times released about the work culture at Amazon, it doesn’t seem to be hurting them too much. The e-commerce giant’s stock is up 70% this year (Source: CNN).
DA SKIM
Walmart has been spending a lot. Like a lot to try and catch up with Amazon on the e-commerce front. But all this spending is not helping them catch up with the competition, instead it is bringing down their profits. Yikes. Walmart isn’t going to give up here though, they are planning to open up 160-170 Neighborhood Markets and 60-70 Supercenters in the next year (Source: Reuters).
ASHLEY MADISON
Last month 40 million cheaters on the infidelity website, AshleyMadison.com, panicked when it was announced the site had been hacked. No information had been released until yesterday…Wired reported that hackers had dumped all the information from login information to credit cards onto the Dark Web. Uh oh.
Quote of the Day: You’re gonna hear about this on Yelp!!
Yelp announced today that users will now be able to review federal agencies on the site. And the agencies will be able to respond. Yelp and the agencies are hoping that this will create a two way dialogue and create some change where it is needed. So now you can tell TSA how you really feel about missing your flight while waiting in their line.
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How Twitter is Trying to Broaden its Appeal with Changes to Direct Messaging
Twitter has long been one of the giants of the social media world, but it has also been the social network that causes the most confusion for non-users. Widely used for both personal and business accounts, and an important factor in the relationship between social media and SEO, it pays to use and understand Twitter, but the concept could always take some grasping. While on Facebook it is clear what the idea of using it is, whether as a normal user with a network of friends or as a business, Twitter can be a little more mystifying.
For one thing, on Twitter you have one to many relationships rather than one to one – you can connect with people who don’t know who you are like celebrities or the official accounts of brands. For another, almost nothing on Twitter is private – the idea is to broadcast and interact on a mass level rather than to have personal conversations with people.
Messaging
What has always felt a little at odds with the way most people use Twitter – to broadcast and receive information across a huge network of people – is the direct messaging capability (known as ‘DM-ing’ in the Twittersphere). For years you have been able to send a direct message that is private, but only to people you follow who also follow you back, and you still would have to stick to the 140 character limit as you do with public tweets.
The Issues
Considering that if I, and another person, are both following each other, and have a reason to message each other in private, you’d assume we had some kind of relationship already. So why would I choose to talk to them over Twitter in annoyingly short messages, when I could use Facebook messenger, WhatsApp, Skype or some other more practical means? Twitter never really got widely used as a private messaging option between connected people, and instead DMs became used more for promotional purposes, or for things like customer service issues – you could DM someone from the support team of a company for instance, after tweeting them to say you had a problem to discuss and them adding you.
Making Twitter Direct Messages Better
Twitter has changed two things about DM-ing – the first earlier in the year and the second this week. The first change was to offer a setting that allowed you to receive DMs from any Twitter user, not just those you follow. The second, very welcome change, removed the 140 character limit on direct messages.
While these changes are unlikely to make people switch to thinking of Twitter as a viable private chat platform, it will make it easier for things like customer service conversations, or to enable any other kind of chat between brands and customers. It may also encourage people to actually engage their Twitter followers in conversation more, knowing the chat won’t be frustrated by the character limit.
The character limit will, of course, remain on public tweets.
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How To Use Social Media Marketing Techniques To Reach Offline Leads
I am in a unique position where I have learned extensively about things like internet marketing and social media and yet work in a space where my customers are not very tech savvy. For a few years now, I have been operating a carpet cleaning company in Perth that caters to both domestic and commercial clients. As anyone in this industry will tell you, a lot of business in these industries come from word of mouth marketing – if you are doing a good job, you will continue to get new references from existing customers. That is how the business has worked for a while now.
As the owner of Priority Floor Care, a company that dealt with domestic and commercial establishments in specific suburbs of Perth in Australia, I mostly dealt with an audience that was not tech-savvy enough to respond to my social marketing campaigns. Email marketing worked but I noticed that a lot of my audience only checked their emails every few weeks or so. Restricting my campaign to just those who had better tech-access would mean I would be missing out on a huge chunk of paying customers.
But recently I realized that I could make a difference by translating my knowledge in social media marketing into a strategy to draw more customers offline. In the internet marketing world, the strategy I used has a very specific name : sales funnel. This is basically baiting your prospects by offering them something useful, and once you establish contact with them, you engage your prospects to convert them into leads and eventually into paying customers. This channel works the best over email or through networks like Twitter. But I was successful in translating this strategy over a medium that my customers used more frequently – text messages.
Step 1 : Lead Magnet
The first step in creating a sales channel is crafting the right lead magnet. These are mostly informational products (like ebooks), giveaways or software products that businesses offer their subscribers in exchange for providing them with a marketing touch-point (email, phone number, etc.). Since I dealt with a very specific geography, I tied up with local grocery stores to put up a bunch of free booklets about carpet cleaning at the point of sale. People who picked up a copy were ‘charged’ zero dollars in the bill and the contact details of these customers (from the retail database) were shared with me. In order to ensure customers knew what they were getting into, this information was printed broadly on the front cover of these booklets.
Step 2 : Establishing Contact
In a typical email marketing campaign, the sender has the luxury of setting up an elaborate content strategy where they establish trust and over time sell their product to their subscribers. With SMS marketing, we did not have this luxury for two reasons : one, SMS is quite intrusive and would be an annoyance if the contact was done multiple times; and two, sending an SMS costs money and we were quite bootstrapped as a business. In order to get around this, we only sent one message to every subscriber after they were added to our list. We used a service called Gupshup to help us with our SMS campaign. In the message, we wrote something like this:
‘Thank you for picking up our carpet cleaning guide today. I’m Jay Barnett, your neighborhood carpet cleaner. For any questions, please reply or call this number’.
Step 3 : Sales Pitch
Unlike traditional email marketing, we did not touch-base with our subscribers too frequently. What we however did was divide the subscriber-base into 30 equal parts and sent a discount offer to one of these bunches every day. Our marketing campaign also included an option to unsubscribe. Also, we stopped sending out messages to customers who did not respond after three touch-points. This way, we ensured that our marketing budget was being spent on the most relevant subscribers.
Overall, this marketing campaign helped us bring over 150 enquiries (and repeat orders) over a five month period. As in any other form of marketing, the trick to succeed in the campaign is to ensure that you are not being spammy and you treat your subscribers the way you would want to be treated yourself. This is the best long-term strategy for not just SMS campaign, but for every other form of marketing out there.
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August 18, 2015
Social Media: An Effective Marketing Tool for Real Estate Businesses
The internet has changed the way that we communicate with each other, the way that we consume entertainment and information, and of course it has changed the way that we buy and sell. There are some industries that have benefitted from the internet in particular, and Real Estate is one of those. With the Social Media revolution, real estate is again reaping the rewards of an ‘always open’ marketplace, and an audience that is more engaged than ever before.
Real estate companies like Rocky Real Estate in Dubai, and even real estate aggregate listing sites like Zillow in the US, are just two examples of the thousands of real estate businesses that are placing an increasing emphasis on online marketing, especially social media. Social media is a clear upgrade to the traditional static advertisements that characterized the first wave of real estate listings on the web. Social media is ultimately more engaging, but also more familiar for consumers. This means that as businesses utilize large networks like Facebook, Google +, Pinterest, and others, they are connecting with potential buyers on networks that are hugely meaningful and influential on their lives.
Perhaps the biggest advantage for real estate agents who use social media to market their business and listings, is the exposure that they can get through the power of sharing. A simple post at the right time, and shared to the right people, could result in thousands, and sometimes even millions of views. Creative advertisers who use videos, competitions, or other unique selling points, could find that their listings can even go viral, which can generate massive interest for high value listings that might otherwise stagnate when promoted through traditional channels.
It is clear that social media has made it easier for real estate businesses to interact with customers, advertise listings, and ultimately drive revenue, but it is not just the sellers who benefit. Those in the market for a new home end up with a better experience as they are able to easily browse listings, communicate with agents, and potentially find the home of their dreams, all thanks to real estate marketing on social media.
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Simple Social Media Practices That Will Improve SEO
Nowadays, SEO and social media marketing are interwoven. They are inbound organic strategies that are mainly focused on building an identity that is appealing and that would naturally attract site visitors. Social media is reliant on a visible, strong and high quality brand presence. Because of this, better SEO automatically means a better social media presence while a better social media presence offers better SEO.
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While there are dozens of articles that talk about SEO, it will be difficult to find a good social media SEO specialist. Most small to medium sized companies do the work themselves. With this in mind, here are some practices that are simple and that can be considered.
Growing Follower Numbers
Companies that have 100 followers on social media will not get a large boost but those with thousands will. This does not mean you should buy some proxy followers on Twitter since that can easily be detected by Google. Building followers in an organic way is what you have to be focused one. It is definitely a slow process. However, if you are consistent, it is really effective. Always try to engage in conversations to grow follower amounts so that you can actually take advantage of the added SEO benefit.
External Inbound Link Encouragement
Social media is highly useful for SEO because it can encourage external links to content you have on your sites. Diverse external links count as you gain authority. The only catch is that the content you promote needs to be of a really high quality and authoritative.
Social media is basically a broadcasting channel. The content is broadcasted and will serve as link bait. Hashtags should be utilized since it helps gain visibility on that initial syndication round. Do bring content into discussions and threads so that your social reputation can be increased.
Search Optimization Of Posts
Google does favour the really popular social media updates when looking at SERP. The position that is gained is temporary but extremely valuable since it can lead towards more backlinks. The problem is that you can only do that when properly optimizing the posts, which is something that most account owners never do. Use strong anchors, an accurate title and opt for interaction since this is always going to be preferred by virtually everyone.
Influencing Sharing On Social Channels
The authority of your brand will be influenced by social sharing, just as the external links tend to do. When looking at Google, the search engine giant sees sharing as a sign of domain authority. Think about it! In the event that 5 people will share your content, it is definitely great. However, if there are 1000 people that share the content, it is a clear example that the content is of a higher quality.
On the whole, developing your social media presence in a proper way is what you have to do at the end of the day. If you do this, you will gain various SEO advantages, which is definitely what you want for your sites.
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