Erik Qualman's Blog, page 581

Get Your Game on with Social Media

Americans are typically thought of as over-consumers, and by the looks of their holiday spending, this is completely accurate.

According to Monthly Consumer Survey, holiday spending accounts for nearly 20 percent of total annual retail sales for retailers. To put a number on that, American consumers spend roughly $600 billion dollars on holidays, and that number is only rising.

Retailers know that roughly 65 percent of shoppers will shop online before making a purchase. Some people strictly limit their holiday shopping to online-only to avoid crowds, traffic and the general holiday mayhem that ensues.

Retailers are also aware that nearly everyone in America – including both individuals and businesses – use some form of social media.

Social media has become an incredible way for retailers to advertise their products, offer deals, make sales and gain customers.

How to shop for gifts using social media

As a consumer, you can use social media to your advantage to get your holiday shopping done quickly and efficiently while saving money.

A few ways you can use social media to meet your shopping needs include:

Get gift ideas – If you’re looking for a gift for your mom, dad, spouse or friend, head to their social media pages – specifically Facebook and Pinterest. See what groups they’re in on Facebook, check out what items they have pinned to their boards and get a feel for what types of products or services they would enjoy. Even if you think you know the person well, like your spouse, you could totally surprise them with a gift from their Pinterest board that they never mentioned.
Look for recommendations – After scouring your friends and family’s social media pages, look to your own friends for gift recommendations. Oftentimes, people post, Tweet and share their favorite gifts all season long throughout multiple social media platforms. Keep your eyes open for that perfect gift.
Participate in sweepstakes, giveaways and contests – Many retailers will host giveaways and contests throughout the holiday season. By following along and entering, you may get lucky and win a great gift or trip for you or a loved one.
Look for coupons – Retailers love providing their social media followers with coupons. If you aren’t already involved with Twitter, you could set up an account and follow all of your favorite stores. Check back daily for coupons so you can save money this year on holiday shopping.

Christmas gift ideas

Top gifts for Christmas include toys and games for kids, electronics and video games for young adults and men, clothing and books for women and music and movies for everyone.

Popular electronics gifts include the Kindle and even Nintendo, which can be found at major retailers such as Walmart. The number one game is Super Smash Brothers for Nintendo 3DS.

Other ideas include searching Etsy for handmade, personalized gifts, offering your services such as babysitting or lawn care, cooking and delivering the recipients favorite meal or giving them an “at-home movie night,” complete with their favorite movie, popcorn, candy and a cozy blanket.

It’s time to get in the holiday spirit – and luckily, social media is here to help!

Photo credit: Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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Social Media’s Role in Finding Birth Parents

How adoptees can use social media to find out about their birth parents

Almost all adoptees want to know some sort of information about their birth parents. Even if they don’t necessarily want to meet them (many adoptees do not go searching for their birth parents), knowing where you came from can provide insight into medical records and other information that adoptees may find of value.

For those that are interested in finding out about their birth parents, technology and social media have made it a tad bit easier. Think about it—people use social media daily to find old friends, long-distance relatives, former classmates and more, why not use this tool to try and find your biological parents?

According to the article “Should adoptees have access to information about their birth parents?“, some states are now considering legislation which would allow adoptees access to adoption records. Since adoption records and birth records are currently confidential and can only be accessed with a court order, the internet is the next best thing for finding information on ones’ relatives.

Using social media to find birth parents

So how exactly are adoptees reaching out through social media to find their birth parents?

Well, they’re doing anything and everything they can think of to get noticed. Facebook is currently the most popular means to connect, and with currently over 1.5 billion active members, it’s easy to see why.

Adoptees are posting their birth information, birth location, current location, photos, videos and more to social networks in hopes someone will recognize them and help connect them to their biological parents.

While posting a photo and your birth information may not seem like much, there’s a chance it will go viral and get seen by millions of people. Only one of those individuals needs to recognize you in order to get you where you want to be. By “liking” and “sharing” these stories of adoption, you can be of assistance in helping someone find out where they came from.

Other popular social networks that can help connect adoptees with their birth parents include Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Google+ and Instagram. Though it’s currently unknown exactly how many adoptees are going the social media route, there’s no denying the fact that it has indeed provided valuable information to many adoptees on where they came from.

It’s important to remember, too, that some biological parents just don’t want to be found.

No matter how many Facebook posts, Tweets or Instagram photos you send out, there are some parents who do not want to be reconnected with their birth child. If the parents do want to be found, though, then social media can be a great starting point.

Of course, social media won’t provide all the answers to your biological family, but it may just provide that glimmer of hope that adoptees need in order to have the possibility of being reconnected with their birth parents.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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4 Reasons Social Media Is Here to Stay

You’ll hear it from time to time: “social media is a passing fad.” While it sounds like a hip and cool judgment, it’s actually a pretty ignorant comment offered by individuals who probably haven’t studied the subject very closely.

You only need to spend a few moments researching the value of social media marketing and its service to businesses of all types and sizes, and you’ll quickly recognize that social media is destined for additional growth — not decline.

The proof is in the numbers

As a business-minded individual, you likely appreciate hard facts and numbers, so let’s take a look at some of the statistical evidence that social media is thriving:

According to SocialTimes, social media marketing budgets are set to double within the next five years.

An incredible 83% of B2B marketers are investing in social media as a way to increase their brand exposure, 69% to get more clicks, and 65% to gain additional market insights.

Google+ and Facebook receive an incredible 2 billion combined visits every month.

Nearly two-thirds of global Internet users research products online prior to purchase, and much of that traffic moves through social media channels.

Approximately 83% of marketers believe their social media profiles are important to their business; and 42% assert that Facebook is critical to their success.

Reasons social media is here to stay

While the numbers firmly indicate that social media marketing is alive and well, numbers don’t tell the whole story. To get the clearest picture of the value, it’s necessary to uncover the bigger ideas.

Here are a few specific reasons that social media — and therefore, social media marketing — is in it for the long haul.

The mobile movement. It’s unbelievable to take a step back and study the growth of the mobile movement over the past five, ten, and fifteen years. What started with huge phones and clunky PDAs has turned into sleek, smart, sophisticated devices that are capable of doing anything a computer can do and more.

As a result, an increasing number of people are transitioning from wired desktop technology to mobile devices. Along with this shift comes the increase in social media activity and on-the-go connectivity. Unless you assume mobile devices are a fad, it’s difficult to believe social media is apt to disappear any time soon.

Social media’s reach. If social media were only popular in certain geographical regions, or among people of a particular ideology, it would be more reasonable to assert its value would fade over time. However, it’s statistically established that social networking engagement transcends regional, political, and religious beliefs. In fact, it accounts for 19 percent of all online activity, which makes it the most popular online activity in the world.

Ability to target. One of the reasons social media marketing will not likely go away is its unique ability to target particular customers through sophisticated segmentation capabilities … which is the goal of any marketing efforts.

According to Magicdust, a full-service web design and marketing agency, “In today’s ever evolving world, where we’re more connected to our devices than ever before, it’s never been more important for businesses to devise smart marketing strategies that are able to cut through to a targeted audience.” The folks as Magicdust, like so many others, believe social media offers the best chance to do that.

Word of mouth. People love and trust other people; it’s that simple. While the Internet is useful for researching information, reading news stories, and learning new trades, it’s best at bringing people together. That’s especially what social media does. When it comes to purchasing goods and services, social media empowers brands to spread positive word of mouth.

So let the uninformed claim that social media will soon be a thing of the past. You can smile, knowing your business understands the incredible value social media brings to the table.

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10 Awesome Tools for Creating Shareable Images for Your Blog

Images make the blog. No matter how exceptional your words are, what people tend to be attracted to are visual reminders. Whether you choose photos or drawings of objects or people or pull-quotes from your story that have been turned into image boxes, you need those shareable pics in order to boost your posts’ stickiness. In some cases, you could even more than double the number of retweets, likes or shares a single blog posts receives.

The problem, of course, is that we don’t all have the financial means to purchase high-end stock images on a regular basis. That means we have to get a bit creative, which is why 10 awesome tools for changing up your images are noted below. They’ll allow you to take pictures and/or text and turn them into memorable images that resonate with your audience members. Although some of the platforms charge a nominal fee, all fit into a limited marketing budget plan.

1. Canva

Canva is a free resource that often leads the pack in terms of image enhancers. Though you can pay to use the stock images they offer on their site – they’re only a dollar each – there’s no reason to if you have a few photo sources of your own. Best of all, Canva is really easy to use. Ceramcor uses Canva to create images for their cookware promotions, and you could just as easily use it for your projects.

2. Coggle

Trying to get your point across in a blog post and just failing miserably? Use this mind-mapping tool to generate cool images of what’s going on in your gray matter. It’s a fun, unique way to show your readers how you think.

3. Easel.ly

Infographics have hit the Internet with a huge splash, and they’ve transformed the way we transmit information in some cases. If you’ve always wanted to try your hand at making one for your own site, use Easel.ly. As the double-entendre name implies, it’s an easy, web-based easel. If you want to take it to the next level, you can always upgrade to premium options.

4. Phoster

Making posters to accompany your blog posts or social media posts is a breeze with Phoster. Although this iOS app will set you back just shy of two dollars, it’s a tool that many users say allows them to stand out from the online noise.

5. PicMonkey

Edit your images like you’ve been doing it all your life with the free PicMoney tool. There’s a huge font library from which to choose, and if you want to spend a little dough, you can get more fonts and layouts.

6. Pinstamatic

Found the ideal quote to express your thoughts? Turn it into an image for use on Pinterest, Instagram or Facebook with Pinstamatic. It’s fast and pretty doggone simple to use.

7. Pixlr Editor

Not quite ready to take the financial plunge and purchase Photoshop? We can’t say we blame you, especially when this browser-based platform is available. While Pixlr Editor won’t allow you to do everything you could do with more expensive software, it’s still worth trying.

8. Quozio

This uncomplicated in-browser tool is another way to turn your quotes into fun-to-share images. No fuss, no muss… just a shareable result.

9. Skitch

Do you take screenshots? Would you use them if you could add annotations? Try Skitch, an Evernote tool that gives you a new use for old screenshots and more.

10. WordSwag

Rounding out our list of 10 tools is WordSwag. It’s much like Phoster, although it’s a dollar more. Still, between the two of them, you can whip up some awesome posters!

The key, of course, is to have a purpose to your blog or your social media page. Never just create images in a vacuum. Take some time, and you’ll be more likely to get some serious positive payback from your followers.

Images: Will Gurley | Gabriella

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The New Book that Plays Moneyball with Real-Time Marketing

Over the past few years, there’s been a lot of talk about real-time marketing—the practice where brands jump on social trends to join a popular conversation. Some have said it’s the next big thing. Some have said it’s a flash-in-the-pan that will be gone before we know it. Many have said that real-time success only works for one brand per big event, and that RTM is a winner-take-all game. A lottery ticket. A lot of talk, and a lot of opinion.

But how do you, as a marketer, decide if this is a strategy that is good for your business and your brand? How do agencies answer the growing question from clients asking “Shouldn’t we be doing RTM?”

About a year ago, I began researching real-time marketing. I wasn’t necessarily interested in seeing if certain social posts were funny or on-brand or clever—I wanted to find out if RTM worked.

It’s Time to Bring Data to the RTM Discussion

The best way to figure out if real-time drives results is to use good, old fashioned data. To get a good sample of RTM performance, I pulled the past few years of Twitter data for over 100 of the top brands in the world. How does the audience respond when brands go outside of their campaigns and join conversations on relevant topics? Do certain types of real-time engagement work better than others?

The result of this research is my new book Trendology, which is now available in bookstores everywhere. It’s a movement to change the discussion and opinions around real-time marketing using analytics and a data-driven approach.

As I dove into the vast amounts of social data from the world’s top brands, I was surprised at what the data was showing. In most cases, when brands are doing real-time marketing correctly, the data shows that the audience absolutely loves it when brands speak to them about relevant topics. And not just for big events, but for smaller events and everyday trends as well. Who knew?

Relevant Topics Drive Follower Engagement

Here’s a quick example—the announcement of the iPhone 6 and Apple Watch just a few weeks ago. During the announcement, I saw 15 brands create real-time content around the event, including this Tweet from Chili’s:

If we believe what we’ve heard from the critics, RTM will work for maybe 1 of those 15 brands, and the rest will look silly trying to jump on a conversation where they’re “unwanted.” But when we look at the data, we see something very, very different happening.

 

Of the 15 brands that jumped in on the iPhone conversation, 13 of them saw increased engagement (both in retweets and favorites) vs. their own historical engagement rates. THIRTEEN! And not only that, the increases in engagement and sharing were ridiculously big. The average increase in retweets was more than +1,300%, the increase in favorites came in at around +950%. Sure, there were a few brands that did better than others, but 87% of brands saw a positive result with big numbers to back up their efforts. I’m seeing this same pattern of success across a diverse set of events and topics, from big events (like the Oscars, Grammys, and Super Bowl) to everyday trending topics.

Suddenly, RTM doesn’t look like a lottery ticket any more, does it?

RTM is Different and Strange and It Works

Real-time marketing isn’t what we’re used to seeing or building as marketers, and the resulting quick-turn creative results can be easy to poke fun at. The practice is new and it’s different and yes, it’s kind of weird. This leads many marketers to label real-time marketing as a gimmick, but the data shows that’s not what’s really happening here.

Social networks are enabling a new method of communication with our audience— conversations—and relevance is one of the most important factors when brands are looking to join a discussion. To take advantage of this new reality, marketers need to build out a data-driven process and team to balance the risk and reward of acting in the moment. With a good framework, RTM can work for any business.

As you will see in Trendology, the data shows that social marketing is evolving, and audience is welcoming this shift with enthusiasm. The main question is: are you ready for the move to real-time?

 

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Should You Outsource Payroll?

Every business that has at least one employee needs to manage payroll. It’s not a choice, but a necessity. A well-managed payroll system ensures that all employees are paid when promised and all tax regulations are addressed. For an extroverted business owner bent on fulfilling a vision and making a dent in the marketplace, it can be a mind-numbing weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly task.

Payroll is not simply entering numbers into a software program. A lot of thinking has to go into finding the right numbers. For example, since you have to handle multiple tax rule issues, you will have to properly apply the Duff & Phelps equity risk premium (ERP) adjustment rule.

Moreover, doing payroll is not like learning to drive a car. You don’t just learn how to do it once and then can do it the same way repeatedly. With payroll, you need to stay abreast of changing governmental employment rules and tax regulations.

What a Payroll Service Can Do For You

Although you may actually be fairly competent at doing your own payroll, you may want to consider the many benefits of hiring out the work to a payroll service. What’s more, if you are not very good at doing payroll–or good at it, but consider it a tedious chore–then you are relieving yourself of a lot of angst by hiring the work out.

In essence, outsourcing  payroll management converts it from a time-consuming process into an automated process.

Moreover, payroll management services adeptly work with all kinds of employees—hourly, salaried, or independent contractors. Everyone is paid the right amount at the right time. In addition, payroll companies also take care of business tax filing at the end of the year.

The primary benefit of outsourcing payroll is that the work gets done without your having to do it. It also gets done by seasoned professionals who are well-educated on changing employment laws and tax regulations. The reason the work gets done quickly and expertly is because it is done by a professional team that uses the latest HR software. For instance, at ADP.com, an online payroll processing company, after all equity risk premium (ERP) adjustments are made and the compliance regulations followed, employees receive an electronic payment and an online statement through a pay card.

Finally, by outsourcing payroll, you not only free up your own personal resources of time so that you can focus on bringing in revenue, but you also free up system resources on your computer systems so that it is not slowed down with resource intensive applications.

To Outsource or Not to Outsource?

Ultimately, there is no right way to do payroll. It’s all about weighing efficiency factors like time, money, knowledge and skills. If your business has plenty of time but little money, as well plenty of knowledge and skills to do the work efficiently, then payroll in-house will work best. If you have more money than time, as well as insufficient knowledge and skills to do the work efficiently, then outsourcing payroll will work best. Like most business decisions deciding whether or not to outsource payroll is all about weighing pros and cons, evaluating risks and rewards, and deciding what action will give you the winning edge.

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How to Improve Your Business via POS

The shop is only as good as its service is. Even the most wonderful assortment of goods, advantageous location and brilliant advertising won’t help you if employees are rude and unhelpful and checkout doesn’t work as it is supposed to. And one of the best ways to improve your service is to introduce a high-quality, convenient and modern POS.

Here are some ways your customer experience may be improved this way.

1.     Integration

A cleverly organized POS allows you to achieve full integration of online and offline segments of your business. For example, Shopify offers an iPod-based POS that allows you to control your entire business using one and the same platform: your online and offline shops will have the same product inventory, the same account, you will be able to accept credit and debit card and immediately get unified analytics helping you to further optimize your business, and a wide choice of different apps for fine-tuning the entire thing. In other words, a correctly chosen POS eliminates a lot of boring and unproductive micromanagement, giving you an opportunity to concentrate your attention on bigger things.

2.     Customer Retention

In recent years more and more marketers reroute their efforts from acquiring new customers to retaining old ones – statistics say that acquiring a new customer is 6-7 times costlier than keeping an old one. It is much easier to persuade an existing client to make a new purchase, for he already knows that your business can be trusted. So organize your POS in a way that motivates clients to come back to you. For example, create a client loyalty program and make sure it is as easy to claim rewards as possible. You won’t believe how many people are ready to spend an extra hundred to get this 5-dollar discount.

3.     Highlighting Popular Products

Human is a social animal, which means that social proof plays an important role in deciding whether he is going to buy something or not. For good or bad, the majority is more likely to buy an item simply because a lot of other people buy it – which means that you should use your POS to highlight the hottest items on sale to make other clients want to buy them as well. Or you can make this or that item look especially desirable by mentioning that there are only 5 more in stock – statistics show that people are likely to buy even the things they don’t want if faced by a possibility of losing an opportunity to get them forever.

4.     Present All Your Stores as an Organic Whole

Among other advantages of having a POS, if you don’t have a particular item in stock in a particular store, you should refer your client to another of your stores where he can buy it, especially if there is one in close vicinity. Or, in case you own just one shop, you should at least give your client an opportunity to seamlessly place an order in your online shop so that he is less tempted to try his luck somewhere else.

5.     Make Clients Feel Special

When clients feel that you treat them as individuals and not as insignificant and faceless moneybags, they are more likely to come back to you. With the help of POS you may track previous purchase info of a particular customer to tailor his shopping experience to his needs. For example, if he buys a lot of white shirts for a long period of time, you may give him a discount coupon for a white shirt and be sure that he will be attracted by it.

A lot of shops use POS without putting real thought into it; use it as your chance to acquire competitive advantage over them.

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5 Best Marketing Strategies with Examples

It is not enough to have an excellent product – in order to be successful one has to be able to find people who are interested in it and sell it to them in such a way that they would be happy to give him their money even if they didn’t know about the existence of the product beforehand. In other words, the product should be so skilfully presented that a potential buyer should start feeling a kind of product-shaped hole in his existence, understand that up to this moment his life wasn’t complete and only now he received a possibility to make it all whole.

And it is not poetry – here are some examples of products that pull this trick off.

1.     Knowing where Your Customers Gather

Dodocase is a company that sells cases for electronic devices, mostly for iPads and iPhones. When they started out they didn’t even have a product to sell, only an idea and a marketing gimmick to sell it – on the first iPad was released they hired people via Craigslist to hand out their discount coupons in queues that invariably accumulated near Apple stores in large cities across the United States. They didn’t even pay them – they did their work for the percentage from the sales resulting from the coupons handed out by each particular person.

2.     Knowing Who Your Customers Are

Nootropics, also known as smart drugs or cognitive enhancers, are medicinal supplies or supplements which are aimed at improving memory, both short- and long-term, increasing alertness, enhancing cognitive function and causing overall positive effects on brain activity.

Of course there is a wide variety of people who can benefit from a product with such description, but there is one category of people who are really desperate: students. In other words, it is enough to answer the question “How do smart drugs work?” in a place where they gather online to ensure that a large amount of people will get interested to get their hands on them.

3.     Using the Product/Service to Promote Itself

Everybody knows what Dropbox is now; it was different immediately after its launch. Its creators were desperate to increase the client base as quickly as possible, and they did it easily and brilliantly: by motivating the existing users to bring them the new ones, providing them with additional space for each new referred client – it is an excellent example of so-called growth marketing campaign.

4.     Employing Content Marketing to the Fullest

Luxy Hair is an online shop that sells only one type of goods: hair extensions. In addition to being highly specialized, which is almost always an advantage, it beats its competitors by extensively using content marketing: their YouTube channel has two million subscribers, more than 250 million views in total, and the shop itself can boast of having 7-digit revenues. The reason? Videos on their channel not only deal with what they sell, but provide high-quality and highly sought-after advice on hair care and similar subjects, which is so useful that people coming to just view these videos often end up buying their hair extensions.

5.     Social Network Presence

And we don’t simply mean having an account in Facebook. You can use different social networks depending on the type of business you have, for example, clothing shops can greatly benefit from using customers’ photos of their products on its Instagram page, like Free People does.

The information age provides great opportunities for marketing, opening whole new avenues of human interaction and meeting. Just think outside the box and be on the lookout for new trends and you will hit the jackpot!

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6 Best Jobs According to the Internet

Career change or the choice of your first job are both crucial steps, and they shouldn’t be approached lightly. It pays to be prepared and know the current job market situation – what was a viable career choice just five years ago may be disastrous now, so it is no use listening to people who have been looking for vacancies then. According to the resume writing services, about 85% of people don’t know what are the most payable and demanded jobs are now and  what sphere they should apply for.

So which professions are the best according to the Internet right now?

1.     Software Developer

A lot of people are already too accustomed to living in the information age and don’t give a lot of thought to the fact that every slightly complex electronic device in this or that way is based on the work of software developers. We don’t talk computers or smartphones here, we mean everything from alarm clocks to kitchen appliances. And all this host of work has to be done by someone – so the best job you may find for yourself in today’s world is, without a doubt, that of a software developer. That is, if you are up to the task.

2.     Computer Systems Analyst

OK, so after the software is created there should be someone who knows how it works, which software is better for this or that task, how to make sure that all elements of a computer network work as a whole entity, how to teach people to operate it and how to use this network to the maximum benefit of the company. This falls within the jurisdiction of a computer systems analyst, another position created by the information age, and another position that is going to become more and more prominent as the number of businesses as well as their reliance on computer technology grow.

3.     Licensed Practical Nurse

It may sound rather unassuming when compared to some other career opportunities, but don’t let this fool you – the demand for licensed practical nurses is on the increase and is going to stay that way, their salaries are not all that humble, this job is more available than some others, and there are numerous programs allowing you to acquire the necessary training and license in a short time. So, if you are interested, you may look at a LPN programs guide to learn more.

4.     Physician

Just like all the other jobs in healthcare industry, physicians are going to grow in demand and prosperity. Although a rather hard profession to enter (as it requires years of extensive and expensive training), physicians’ salaries are among the highest, and unemployment rates are the lowest – namely, it is possible to be an unemployed physician either if you are a very bad or a very lazy one.

5.     Dental Hygienist

Dental hygienist is about as different from a dentist as a nutritionist is different from a surgeon – he or she is more concerned about preventing the disease than about treating it, educating patients on the correct ways of keeping the health of their teeth and providing cleaning procedures eliminating the less-easily removable stains from them. Although most work part-time, their incomes are quite high, and the demand for their services is growing steadily.

6.     Information Security Specialist

As more and more information, both private and business, is kept and transferred in digital form, the number of risks attached to it grows as well. As a result, information security is a burgeoning field that is going to develop at breakneck speed in the next decade or so.

The world is changing with every passing day; the information you received last year may be out of touch with reality. So perhaps it’s time to look at your life and think of a possible change, taking into account the recent developments?

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The Evolution of Optimization

Check out this infographic about The Evolution of Optimization. Search engine optimization has changed so much during the past few years that some tactics that were once promoted and encouraged may now be considered harmful. Focus on these on-site and off-site elements to keep up with the latest trends in search optimization.

 

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