So you want to run a facebook contest?
You can’t look at your news feed on Facebook nowadays without running into someone giving away a free iPad or a $100 gift card. Contests and promotions are everywhere. Third-party contesting applications are making it easy to run promotions on your Facebook pages. Be careful, though, because even though setting up a Facebook contest may be simple, not all promotions are going to be effective. You can increase your chances of success by following some simple Facebook contest creation guidelines.
Read the rest of this entry »
How to get them to talk back
One of the hardest parts about trying to be social is overhearing others talking about how much fun they are having. Creating questions, discussions and sparking engagement is at the root of social success. It’s not about sharing content anymore — it’s about shaping and moving communities of people.
However, if your company is trying to create relationships with its customers via social channels, you may find it’s near impossible to get the ball rolling.
Read the rest of this entry »
Delivering online satisfaction – A brand managers guide
The number of people spending time online is rapidly increasing — a brand advertiser’s dream, right? But the brand dollars spent offline haven’t really translated to online spend at the same rate as direct response dollars. While brand marketers have tried with banners and other forms of display ads, users aren’t taking to it. Why? Simple: Display ads don’t focus on users.
Read the rest of this entry »
Keys to leveraging social recommendations
Retailers and brands are increasingly recognizing the value of social marketing and are integrating this channel into their overall marketing efforts. Three-quarters of those polled in a recent Alterian study said they plan to increase spending on social and digital media this year. Marketers focusing on social recommendations, empowering customers to advocate for the brand, are the ones seeing measurable results. Recommendation marketing is driving an increase in transactional activity, such as lead generation and sales, and strategic assets, such as brand equity and customer loyalty.
Read the rest of this entry »
Using Twitter to Promote a Cause
How would you like to end the debate that ‘Twitter is just for sharing what you had for lunch’ once and for all? This post is about how to use Twitter for a common good, much like I’m doing with the help of my Tweeps in Burlington, VT.
The whole project started with a simple idea, my Twitter handle, and a few hundred interested followers… Let me back up to share what we’re up to. The Vermont Video Resume Project is dedicated to helping every unemployed Vermonter who wants one get a free Web video resume. We’re shooting our first round of resumes August 29th to help people find jobs using the social Web.
Read the rest of this entry »
Turn off potential customers with one email
There are a lot of sites out there offering links for free products. I receive emails from one such site womensfreebies.com which provided a link to try a free sample of arthritis cream.
Read the rest of this entry »
Are You Enchanting?
One of the challenges in working with start-ups is to convince them of the value of the personal story. Most entrepreneurs want to talk only about the service or product they are offering. No matter how wonderful the product is in order to capture attention you must give people a reason to listen. You must be enchanting. Not sure how? Then you will want to hear Guy Kawasaki’s talk on his new book Enchantment.
College Admissions and Facebook
Are colleges using social media as part of the student admissions process? Schools.com explored this topic with the Reading Students like an Open Facebook infographic. It’s hard enough to get teenagers to understand that online photos and status updates will be a permanent record of their behavior for the rest of their life, but even more immediately it could impact their entrance into college!
As Facebook has become more and more popular—if it were a country, it would be the third largest in the world—its use in the field of education has expanded, too. In fact, more than 80% of college admissions officers report using Facebook as part of their recruiting process.
Are admissions officers really looking at the Facebook profiles of prospective students? And if so, are they making admissions decisions based on these profiles? Below is an infographic that highlights the answers to these questions and more—which might surprise you.
Courtesy of: Schools.com
Google Algotithms Explained
I get really tired of less than forthcoming geeks trying to make this sound more complicated than it is in order to make themselves sound intelligent while keep all of you in the dark.
Google Algorithms use very simple logic: easy for a human to understand, albeit difficult to to get a machine to do.
Google, simply put, serves us.
Just as the newspaper that we used to get on our doorstep was free – the quarter paid the paper boy.
Read the rest of this entry »
Building A Community Around Your Brand
Every business needs a base of loyalists to build it up — a community, a fan club, a tribe. At the recent South by Southwest Interactive Festival, Andrew Warner, the founder of Mixergy.com, and Timothy Sykes, the CEO of TLC Media, shared some tips that can help businesses that are unsure how to build a following and keep it strong.
Read the rest of this entry »
