Erik Qualman's Blog, page 559

Improve Results With These 4 Social Media Marketing Tips

If you were to stop and think about where social media marketing ranks on your company’s list of marketing priorities, where would it fall? Be honest with yourself and take a genuine look at how much effort goes into it. Do you simply throw stuff out and hope it sticks, or is there a calculated approach that shows you truly understand the value of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter?

Why Social Media Marketing Matters

Few marketing channels allow for more engagement than social media. In fact, it would be safe to say that no other modern marketing channels are more interactive than social media. It allows you to speak directly to customers, gain valuable feedback, answer questions, solve disputes, and build excitement. It’s everything a marketer could ask for, yet few know how to truly unlock its value.

Specifically, social media marketing matters because it humanizes your brand and capitalizes on the most basic marketing principle in the history of business: word of mouth.  Social media gives you a voice, allows you to share your opinions and values with your target market, and then encourages them to share ideas with their followers. It’s this viral nature of social media that gives small businesses an even playing field when it comes to facing the giant corporations and billion dollar organizations.

Proven Social Media Marketing Tips

As Jakob Marketing always reminds clients, just because it’s free to set up a Facebook business profile, doesn’t mean your time is. You need a well-developed strategy with a refined focus and quantifiable goals. Otherwise you’ll end up throwing money down the drain and scraping up your competitors’ leftovers. Here are a few proven tips to jumpstart your strategic planning:

Focus on number one. A funny thing happens when you start to focus on your competition and what they’re doing on social media – you end up either mimicking their efforts or making poor decisions to try and keep up. While it may be useful to occasionally glance at your competition, your primary focus should be on your own efforts and strategy. You want to be the one your competitors are looking at, not the other way around.

Start using Twitter. Everyone uses Facebook, and while there’s nothing wrong with that, you need to expand your horizons. Twitter has an entirely different flavor and can connect you to a new group. As a side note, sharing images on Twitter is far more effective than simple text tweets. You can expect to see a significant uptick in clicks and retweets when you use an image.

Learn to curate. Regardless of the social networking platform, content curation is a key component of successful social media marketing. Nobody wants to see you continually push self-promotional content. Instead, mix up your posts by curating relevant industry information that adds value to your users and informs them about pressing issues. There is a science to content curation, though, so be sure to read up on the do’s and don’ts.

Have patience. Finally, you must have patience to be successful on social media. There will be weeks, maybe even months, before you see any return at all. In fact, you’ll feel like your talking to a wall most of the time. However, after putting in time and effort, you’ll eventually find that your target market is willing to engage; and that’s when everything will start to fall into place.

Taking Actionable Steps

In the coming months and years, social media will only become more powerful as a marketing channel. As a result, it should be moving up your priority list – not down. Are you ready to take action and make 2015 the year that you learn to integrate social media into your overall marketing strategy? Using these helpful tips, you can enhance your efforts and improve your results.

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Apple To Join Dow Jones Industrial Average

Apple’s stock will be listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, replacing telecom player AT&T, on March 18th according to the Wall Street Journal.

David M. Blitzee, managing director and chairman of the Index Committtee at S&P Dow Jones Indices told the WSJ that, “As the largest corporation in the world and a leader in technology, Apple is the clear choice for the Dow Jones industrial average, the most recognized stock market measure.”

With their recent performance in quarterly earnings, Apple has “pushed its stock value and market capitalization even higher, with a lot of analysts even making the argument that compared to other companies in its sector, its stock price is still actually undervalued” according to TechCrunch.

Apple is the largest publicly traded company in the world with a market capitalization of about $736 billion. AT&T has a market value of nearly $175 billion. Apple shares rose, while AT&T dropped more than 1 percent according to CNBC.

Alan Skrainka, chief investment officer at Cornerstone Wealth Management told USA TODAY that, “The Dow has to change from time to time in order to truly reflect the changing nature of our economy, that’s why we like the change. No company is a better reflection of the innovative spirit and dynamic nature of the U.S. economy.”

Thumbnail from Shutterstock.com

 

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Consumers More Social About Saving Money

With many consumers feeling the pinch of a challenged economy, finding ways to save money becomes all the more important.

One of the ways consumes can tap into better savings at the cash register is by linking up with social media, especially the more popular sites. By simply going to some of their favorite customer’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram pages and more, the potential is there for sizable savings.

With that said, what in turn are companies doing to spread the word about specials and rewards programs for customers, allowing them to socialize the process of buying and selling products and services.

Company Prospective

For businesses, the key is to consistently and efficiently use social media, but do all of them do it?

Of course the answer to that is no, but that does not mean your company can’t or shouldn’t be doing it.

Some ways to be an effective company social player include:

Plan – Start things off with a solid social plan. Avoid spreading yourself too thin, instead focusing on a few social sites (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc);
Consistency – You can’t just tweet or share occasionally and expect to get solid results. Make sure you are consistent in posting to sites, thereby allowing consumers to get regular updates from you;
Interested – When consumers come to your social sites with questions and/or issues, make sure you respond in a timely manner. Not doing so leaves you open to questions from consumers, the most notable one being how good is your customer service? If consumers see you not responding on social media, can they expect much better with your overall customer service intentions? Take an interest in consumers, especially your valued customers.

Consumer Prospective

From the consumer side of things, shoppers should go to company social pages and look for updates on products and services, specials and rewards for longtime customers, and interaction with other consumers.

Some ways to be an effective consumer social player include:

Search – Start things off with a search of the companies you use and/or are interested in and view their social networks. More and more companies are aware that they need to be social in this day and age to grab more consumer attention;
Contribute – Whether you are a consumer looking for Vonage in my area or seeking the best deals on cell phones, use specific keywords to zero-in on information on what you need most. By doing so, you can find out when your favorite companies are going social with plans to offer products and services, deals and more;
Share – It is also important to be interactive with other consumers who are tweeting, sharing, pinning etc. In doing so, you can find out about deals and other consumer-related news which could benefit you and save you money over time.

From all indications, consumers are using social media to learn more about the companies, products and services they are interested in.

Given that fact, companies and consumers can be of benefit to one another when they get more social.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Google Introduces Auto Insurance Shopping Site

Google announced on their blog today that they are launching Google Compare. Google Compare acts as a search engine for auto insurance quotes. The site will be starting in California and later expanding to more states.

Conor Dougherty from The New York Times said, “Customers enter information like their name and driver’s license number, and the site provides quotes in a few minutes. If and when a customer buys, Google will collect a referral fee from insurers.” Google said that as Google Compare rolls out to more states it will introduce ratings, reviews and local agent support.

Dougherty also said, “Google has signed up major insurers like MetLife and Mercury Insurance, but many major carriers, which spend billions of dollars a year on advertising directly to consumers, remain wary of Google. This helps to explain the company’s partnership with CompareNow, which gives Google access to insurers in the company’s network.

One group that is particularly worried about Google’s move into insurance are the about 40,000 insurance brokers who have for decades been the backbone of the insurance trade. Comparison sites like Google’s allow customers to buy directly from insurers, giving them a discount by cutting out agents and their commissions.”

Check out the site here.

 

Image from adwords.blogspot.com

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How Twitter’s New Deal With Google Could Benefit Your Business

In case you haven’t heard already, Twitter and Google have renewed their pre-2011 deal, which will allow Google direct access to Twitter’s ‘firehose’ (i.e. the constant data stream of 140 character statuses).

Tweets will become available for indexing as soon as they are posted, and the new marketing move could well become an SEO boon for businesses on Twitter.

But why does Google want our tweets in the first place?

Twitter as a lucrative audience

Google once already had access to tweets four years ago, which it later scrapped along with its Google Search Realtime feature. However, this time Google will have access to all tweets (as opposed to just a select few), in order to help it provide more relevant results for users.

The search engine is already crawling Twitter on a regular basis, but cannot possibly crawl each and every tweet without overloading the site. Therefore, it needs Twitter to give it direct access, as Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land explains.

So what’s Twitter got to gain from all of this? Well, the social network obviously wants to improve its service for logged-out users, showing investors that such people are part of their audience (and that the voice of its users is valuable). A 2014 decision to allow Google to crawl its top 50,000 hashtags worked out very well indeed, bringing 10 times more logged-out users to the platform and creating a huge opportunity for businesses and advertisers.

What’s in it for Google?

Google wants to be able to index tweets for a number of reasons, including:

Tweets are often filled with useful and timely content that can be relevant to the users’ search queries
Data associated with tweets could help Google to spot and organise content outside Twitter.

And for Twitter?

The perks on offer for Twitter, once revealed, are fairly obvious. Allowing tweets to be indexed has the potential to:

Attract a bigger audience for Twitter to place ads in front of (its next goal)
Bring tons of free traffic from Google
Encourage more signups to the platform.

So that’s how Google and Twitter are benefitting. But what about us?

How to benefit from the Twitter-Google changes

A study carried out by Stone Temple attempted to find out just what sort of tweets Google might prioritise, when it begins to index them later this year. The team analysed thousands of tweets over several weeks, sent during Google and Twitter’s initial agreement, and looked for patterns to try and determine what increased a tweet’s chance of ranking.

Tweets most valuable to Google

The tweets that appeared to be the most valuable to Google included:

Those posted by users with a higher follower count
The age of the tweet (the highest percentage of indexed tweets were of those seven days old or more)
The authority of the user (more ‘high-end’ users on the Twittersphere had their tweets indexed).


Tweet content that Google prefers



Images and/or hashtags (these types of tweets had the highest indexation rate)
Mentions appear to be a negative (95% of these tweets were not indexed)
Tweets with inbound links to useful sites outside of Twitter had a 26% indexation rate (four times the overall average indexation rate). Note that these links had to be quality links, leading to something of genuine benefit to the follower.

Although the data gathered by Stone Temple could just be mere correlations (and not direct influences), it’s the closest thing marketers have yet to working out how tweet indexation works.

How the new deal can impact your business

This new shift might sound quite drastic, but it actually all makes perfect sense. And the best bit is that this could bring some major benefits to businesses. Bear in mind that:

Google may use the quality of your brand tweets to determine the authority of your content overall
Tweets that rank can help drive more traffic to your profile, and (if they contain inbound links), to your own site or content as well.

Remember though that the effects of your tweets being indexed could also be negative, were you to experience a PR disaster. For example, insensitive tweets could take a while to disappear from Google’s SERPs, even if they were later removed.

All in all, Google ranking tweets is something we should be grateful for – both as publishers of content, and as general users. To make sure you get the most out of this change, make sure you:

Create link-worthy content within your tweets (don’t worry – this won’t be every tweet you write)
Consider the use of high-impact images for your most important announcements/updates
Take advantage of hashtag use for more tweet exposure (but DON’T overdo it – make sure you’re aware of hashtag etiquette)
Don’t ditch mentions simply because they don’t (for the time being) appear to directly promote indexation. Interaction and engagement is still crucial to building trust with your followers, especially when it comes to customer service.




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Instagram introduces clickable ads

TechCrunch - Instagram never allowed URLs to open until now. It wanted people browsing photos, not the web. But Instagram says its advertisers demanded more vivid ways to influence people who “lead to meaningful results for their businesses.”

Brands want measurable impact, not to be breezed by. Meanwhile, Instagram new ads court e-commerce companies that need people to click-through and buy, and big-ticket advertisers like car companies that require more than a single image to show off their product.

So for the first time, Instagram will start showing clickable links, but only in its new multi-photo carousel ads that can tell a story by letting you swipe through four branded images in sequence. The new “Learn More” button that houses these links will open a URL in an internal browser within Instagram that allows you to quickly jump back to the feed with a tap of the top bar.

Images from TechCrunch 

Some people might be groaning about ads getting more powerful on Instagram, but it’s the revenue they generate that make the app free.

Instagram first began showing ads in October 2013. It endured a temporary backlash from users, but the complaints eventually died down. About four months ago Instagram introduced video ads, to the delight of companies like Disney.

However, until now, Instagram’s ads have been primarily for institutional advertisers looking for influence, but not necessarily immediate sales. Think Coca-Cola or fashion brands like Michael Kors. Clickable carousels will make Instagram’s ads work for a much wider range of companies, which could quickly ramp up its revenue.

A fashion brand could show a model wearing a complete look, or outfit, on their first slide. Swiping though, you could see close-ups of the dress, handbag, and sunglasses, with a link out to buy these items at the end. Or a car company could show the exterior in its first image, the interior features in the second, and then an action shot of the car driving with a link to find out more about pricing and local dealerships.

Quarles insists “This initial launch will have a brand emphasis”, explaining the ads are meant to let people learn more about a company, not necessarily purchases its products or sign-up for something immediately. But as Pinterest has shown with early interest in its ads, retailers are dying for ways to turn visual social networks into catalogues people can buy from too.

For now, these ads will just include photos, but Instagram is considering whether to allow videos in carousels too. It will also watch user reactions to the multi-shot format to determine whether users should get the option to share carousels as well.

But too many links and carousels could dilute the Instagram scrolling flow. It’s the same reason Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom give final approval on all ads allowed on the platform. It hopes to keep things tidy. If Instagram really wanted to be respectful of the culture it built, it would decide to only allow links on subsequent slides of carousels so they’re only visible if people engage with an ad.

Now Instagram’s advertisers will know not only if someone saw, liked, or commented on their ad, but also if people swiped through multiple photos and clicked through to their site. With this kind of measurement comes confidence, and with confidence comes ad spend. Instagram stands to get a lot richer.

 

Article by Josh Constine from techcrunch.com

Image from shutterstock.com

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Top 5 Tips on How to Pick a Reliable Web Host

What are the aspects you must take into account when picking a reliable web hosting and why choosing reliable web hosting company is crucial? The criteria for choosing the right web host may vary depending on the type of hosting your are in need of – be it free or commercial one. However, there are general guidelines that may be applied when choosing each of these types. Make sure to read on!

1. Define Clear Requirements

Whether you are on the lookout for a web host for the site that already exists or you need to pick it for a new project, make certain to know what your requirements are to ensure you will eventually find what you’re looking for.

To point out the basic hosting needs, ask yourself the following questions:

-     What kind of platform are you using?

-     What type of content (videos/photos) are you publishing?

-     How many visitors do you have?

-     Where is your target audience based?

-     Are you in need of server in a particular location?

-     What kind of support channels you require?

2. Search for Meaningful Reviews

If you surf the web, you’ll see that a lot of web host reviews are posted by the grateful customers. When searching for online web host reviews, make sure to give preference to the ones that compare various services on the basis of relevant tests with solid data as the evidence for their findings, results and viewpoints. Thus, you will ensure to make the right web hosting choice!

3. Stay Away from the “Celebs” Endorsement

While Benedict Cumberbatch may enjoy his Starbucks coffee, and your favorite blogger may actually use a well-known web hosting resource for her site, it does not mean that you must do the same immediately. Who knows, maybe your favorite celeb really worships the service he uses. However, in the worst case, he or she may just be doing it to make fast buck. And your task is to think about your target audience! If the endorsement really suits your needs, get in contact with the author and ask him to provide you with more details regarding the experience with the web host.

4. Conduct Your Own Investigations

The experts at www.hostoople.com are sure that even though the following the other people’s recommendations is a good thing, running your own tests is definitely more useful especially if there’s no one to benchmark the web host you select. Moreover, this process is absolutely worth your funds and time!

5. Price

This is the matter that not everyone is willing to talk about, however, it is important to mention. Price is always the factor that all of us are concerned about. Although we used to think that one gets what he is paying for, it is not necessarily that the sky high prices guarantee the hosts of the best quality.

Choosing the web host can be both – tiresome and simple process – everything depends on how you want it to be. The golden rule is to weigh up all the pros and cons in order to prevent hasty and uninformed decisions being made. And finally, always remember that a few bucks saved when picking the wrong web host will later cost you a lot more in funds and frustration in the process of work.

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The Beauty of Using Social Media in the Job Hunt

You’ve decided on a career in cosmetology – whether it’s hair, nails, makeup or maybe all of them, it’s where your passion lies.

Cosmetology can be a great career … you can work almost anywhere geographically, the hours are often flexible, you can grow a loyal clientele and the tips can be pretty nice. People are always going to want to look their best, so the demand will remain high. A good cosmetologist can earn a pretty penny.

Where Do You Want to Work?

As the following article looks at, after you’ve earned your degree in cosmetology whether through a brick and mortar school or even through online cosmetology continuing education, you’re on your way to finding a job.

Consider a few things – where do you want to live and work? What kind of establishment? A big salon or maybe a privately owned one? Do you want to set up your own station in a bigger place and work for yourself?

You’ve got a lot of options; it’s up to you to narrow them down.

Once that you’ve decided that – you need to find the job!

Sure, it’s great to look around your area and find out information on openings, but don’t forget about taking a look on your computer.

Go the Online Route

Finding online cosmetology jobs is a great way to nail down the perfect job. You can use social media and you may be surprised at what you can find.

Here are some helpful tips to get you started:

• If you’ve got a certain salon in mind, follow them on social media. They will probably post job openings, and you’ll also get a feel for their atmosphere so you’ll know if you fit the bill.

• Follow other cosmetologists and learn how they landed the perfect job. You never know what great Twitter tips you may find or leads on other social media.

• Improve your skills. You can learn a lot through social media. Follow some high-end cosmetologists on Instagram and see what they do to make themselves so successful. You’ll also keep yourself abreast of hot trends and what’s new.

• Use social media to find job openings. Sites like monster.com and indeed.com list jobs specific to field so you can use these social job sites to find openings.

• Sites like Mysocialbeauty.com focuses on jobs specific to the cosmetology field. Here you can connect with others, find tips from experts and browse jobs.

Once you find your job, don’t forget about social media.

• Use your own social media to promote yourself.

• Let your friends know about your new job and where you are and what you specialize in.

• If you happen to be working for yourself, offer deals and discounts on social media. It’s a great marketing strategy.

• Keep following other cosmetologists to continue to stay current.

Cosmetology is a happening field.

Full of trends and hot topics, you’ll want to stay on social media so you don’t fall behind.

Plus, social media offers great scoop to discuss with your clients!

Photo credit: Image courtesy of shutterstock.com

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Retail Reality Check: The State of Customer Experience [Infographic]

With so much information at their fingertips, you’d think shoppers would know exactly what they wanted before stepping foot in a store. But when TimeTrade surveyed 1,000 consumers, at least half of them go shopping before they’ve made up their minds. And that detail was only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to consumer behavior and preferences. It turns out that consumers had a lot to say about the state of customer experience in retail and here’s what they revealed – the good, the bad and the ugly – and what it means for retailers today.

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Pebble Time has been the most successful Kickstarter campaign

Brett Molina from USA TODAY reported that less than one week after its reveal, Pebble Time is now the most funded project ever on Kickstarter.

The new smartwatch announced by startup Pebble has netted close to $14 million, and will remain open to accept additional funds for the next 24 days. Pebble Time bumps The Coolest Cooler, which had held the previous record of $13.3 million.

Image from Pebble

Pebble Time includes a color e-paper screen and built-in microphone for short voice messages. Pebble announced Tuesday it is also adding smart watchstraps with sensors developers can leverage for additional features. The Kickstarter models were available for $159, while retail versions will go for $199 when they arrive in May.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Pebble unveiled another version of its new smartwatch called Pebble Time Steel. The device is made of “premium materials” and boasts a battery life of 10 days.

Pebble Time Steel will ship this summer for $299 at retail. Kickstarter versions will go for $250, and include two watch straps.

The Verge said Pebble Time has overtaken the top slot with a current (and quickly rising) total at $13,426,936 and still has 24 days left to go, so the next product aiming for that top slot will likely have to earn millions more by the time everything’s all said and done. The Verge shared this list of the top 10 Kickstarter campaigns:

1. Pebble Time $13,426,936

2. Coolest Cooler $13,285,226

3. Original Pebble $10,266,845

4. Exploding Kittens card game $8,782,571

5. Ouya $8,596,474

6. Pono high-fidelity music player $6,225,354

7. The Veronica Mars movie project $5,702,153

8. Reading Rainbow $5,408,916

9. Torment: Tides of Numenera (video game) $4,188,927

10. Project Eternity (video game) $3,986,929

 

Article by Brett Molina from usatoday.com and Chris Welch from theverge.com 

Thumbnail courtesy of shutterstock.com

 

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