Category : Social Media
Google+ Business Pages – What You Need to Know
In early September, Google+ opened up to the general public, inviting an influx of millions of users—eager to try out the newest feature from Google. However, many users noticed a distinct problem with the site right off the bat—where were the Google+ business pages?
Two months later, the pages have finally opened to the public, and social media managers are flooding the site, adding their businesses and trying to figure out how to use Google+ to their advantage. At this point it is difficult for small business to gain a following, because even though the numbers are large, it is still nowhere near Facebook in terms of active users.
Despite the lower amount of users though, Google+ has a lot of advantages. First of all—it’s a Google product. Therefore, Google+ business pages are going to be integrated into Google’s search engine results pages very quickly. As a matter of fact, many of the larger Google+ business pages have already been indexed and are showing up on SERPs.
Using a Google+ Business Page
If you still haven’t set up your Google+ business page, here are your goals this week:
- Set one up! Remember to do it from a company account that someone else has access to, as well. www.google.com/+/business will give you all the directions you need.
- Put together your scrapbook photos. This is the most noticeable part of your Google+ business profile, so make sure it represents your business well—and looks nice!
- Promote, promote, promote!
The third is the most important goal—because of the few active users on Google+, your small business isn’t going to get added to a lot of circles for a while… unless you promote it. Put a Google+ logo on your blog or website, tweet about it and share it on your own Google+ profile.
After your Google+ business page is up and running, post often on subjects your circlers will want to hear about! Let your circlers know that you’re there and provide them with content that’s worth sharing. Remember to track your traffic to see how you’re doing!
And while you’re at it—add Smart Solutions to your circles! See you on Google+.
Timing Twitter | Scheduling Tweets Ahead of Time
If you are in charge of managing a business Twitter account, you know how time consuming the service can be. Professionals suggested that you tweet several times a day, but every time you log into Twitter, you end up spending time that could be better spent elsewhere.
Frankly, you don’t have the time to stare at Twitter all day. The minutes that you spend on the site are taking away from other important projects, and even though it’s beneficial—it isn’t necessary.
Scheduling Twitter updates is an important aspect of social media marketing. If you don’t have a grasp on how to do it—or a service to help you, you are losing valuable time. We’ve listed a few of the basics below, to help you get started with scheduling Twitter.
Finding a Twitter Scheduler
If you don’t have a Twitter scheduler in use already, than it’s time to start looking into the different options available. There are several great services, and we’ve listed a couple of our favorites here:
This is the tweet scheduling service that we use, because you can simply log in with your Twitter account, and you’re ready to schedule. You don’t have to remember another password! It’s as simple as it gets, though, so you won’t have any other feature but the scheduling.
This is probably the most popular system for scheduling Twitter updates. It comes with a lot of other features other than scheduling though, so if you’re looking just to schedule, this service might overwhelm you. You can also monitor your other social networks on Hootsuite—so it isn’t strictly Twitter.
TweetDeck has actually been acquired by Twitter. It’s a program that you can download right to your desktop, program tweets, look at mentions and messages, and monitor other social media platforms, as well.
This service is a lot like Twuffer, but you can also use it for Facebook. We don’t recommend using a scheduling service for Facebook, but it’s an option you have with this website. You can log in straight through your Twitter profile—no extra password to remember—but it’s not the service we chose, because it isn’t as pleasant to look at as Twuffer is. If you’re scheduling tweets as much as we do, you need a site that’s easy on the eyes.
Scheduling Twitter Updates | Putting Together a Twitter Schedule
Once you’re set up with a Twitter scheduler, you’re going to want to figure out a plan:
- How many times will you tweet a day?
- How many links, mentions and hashtags?
- What time of day will you schedule Twitter updates for?
- How often will you load tweets into your Twitter scheduler?
You can save a lot of time by scheduling twitter updates, and it’s something we suggest for all of our clients. However, sometimes it’s still too overwhelming to put together a Twitter schedule and keep your business Twitter account updated. If you want to save some time and stress, give us a call about our Twitter monitoring services.
YouTube Video Marketing – Part 2
Google offers ‘AdWords,’ Facebook has ‘Facebook Ads,’ Twitter has ‘Promoted Tweets’ and Linkedin gives us ‘Ads by Linkedin Members.’ While we take advantage of these search and social media sites offering ad programs—why not look to YouTube for ad space as well?
If you’ve ever watched a video on YouTube, you might have noticed the different types of YouTube ads on the site through your experience.
- Arrive at YouTube and you will see the masthead ad.
- Search for a YouTube video and you will see the featured videos along the side.
- Click through to the YouTube video you want and you might get the 15-second ad before the video with promoted videos on the right.
- After your video finally starts, you will get pop-ups throughout your time watching.
Although these advertisements can be intrusive at some times, they are also strategically placed. No matter where you go on the YouTube site, you are sure to find one business or another trying to get brand recognition and clicks.
While you’re deciding what aspect of YouTube advertising would be best for your business, it would be a good idea to keep in mind what we talked about in YouTube Video Marketing Part 1—knowing who you are advertising to. YouTube allows you to choose your target demographic—whether based on age, gender or both. You can also target by keyword, interests or individual channels. YouTube offers such a wide range of targeting techniques that will ensure your success in your YouTube video advertising.
As with Facebook, YouTube offers Insights as well. After you have started your YouTube advertising campaign, you will be able to track the data for every aspect of your promotion and improve on it, so that each subsequent one will be better than the last.
YouTube grows its viewers every day, and is only going to get more popular as time goes on. After all, YouTube is the second most popular search engine, after Google. Don’t hesitate to get started with marketing on YouTube, whether it is through your own channel or YouTube advertising.
For more social media tips and techniques, follow Smart Solutions on Twitter and Facebook!
Social Media Marketing for Business
People are social animals. We like to connect with people in a way that’s conversational and communal. This is the reason for the popularity of social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter—each of them is highly reliant on the social aspect, being able to communicate with your all of your friends in a single place. But it isn’t just friends in social media—it’s also businesses.
There is only one thing that stops businesses from using social media consistently; it isn’t that people don’t realize the significance of using social networking—it’s that they just don’t have the time.
The Smartz Social Pak – Social Media Packages
Smart Solutions has eliminated that barrier with the all-new SocialPak. This social media package comes in different varieties, depending on what your business requires for social networking.
We cover three different social media sites for our customers—Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. We chose these three because they are each the top in their own field. Facebook is the all-time largest social networking site; Twitter is the most popular micro-blogging platform; and Foursquare is the top location-based service provider.
Each of the websites offers its own value to a business, and that’s why we offer them both individually and as a group—not every business will need all three.
SocialPak – Social Media Monitoring and Social Media Set-Up
In our LocalPak, there are two different options for you to choose from: The Social Media Monitoring packages or the Social Media Set-Up packages. Again, the choice of which package to use depends on what you’re looking for in your business. We outline some ideas below:
You might want SocialPak Monitoring if…
- You need regular posting on your social media
- You don’t have enough human resources
- You want all your monitoring compiled in one place
- You want weekly reporting
You might want Set-Up SocialPak if…
- You don’t understand how to optimize keywords
- You need a headstart
- You want to stand out right away
- You need to remodel your social media accounts
Give us a call today, if you’re interested in learning more about the Smartz SocialPak. Don’t fall behind in social media marketing. Get Started Now!
Twitter Analytics Tools
For businesses using Twitter, it’s always been a hassle trying to track the impact of your tweets and links. Because Twitter has never offered Twitter business analytics or statistics, we’ve all had to use outside sources—Hootsuite, Tweet Counter and other Twitter analytics tools.
Twitter has Announced Twitter Web Analytics
This has now changed for Twitter users. Last week, the Twitter Developers announced Twitter Web Analytics—an analytics tool that you can access right inside of your Twitter account. No more using outside sources to track your reach, now you can do it straight from the source.
This new update is going to be a great tool for people using Twitter for business, and it’s certainly taken long enough for it to get here!
As you can read on the Twitter Developers blog post, the Twitter business analytics tool won’t be released to the general public for another couple of weeks, after the pilot group has tested it.
There isn’t any word yet whether or not this Twitter statistics update will be for a price, but it’s better than paying an outside source for things you can now get from the inside. This could be a hurt for Hootsuite and other Twitter analytics tools—we’ll have to see how it all pans out.
Let us know if you see the Twitter Web Analytics inside your Twitter account anytime soon, and follow us on Twitter for more updates like this!
YouTube Video Marketing – Part 1
YouTube is a website that allows people to share videos, including user-created video content, movie clips, music videos and more. In October 2006, YouTube was bought by Google for US$1.65 billion. YouTube was founded February 14, 2005 and has since come a long way. We have the following impressive statistics:
- YouTube now averages over 2 billion video views per day globally
- 35 hours worth of videos are uploaded every minute
- 5% of the time spent on the internet is on YouTube
- Over 13 million hours of footage was uploaded in 2010 alone
How do these figures translate into revenue for business? There are two ways you can use YouTube for business marketing. The first is simple video marketing, which we’ll cover in this blog post. The second is advertising with YouTube, which will be covered in YouTube Video Marketing – Part 2, which will be coming up in a few weeks.
Using YouTube for Business Marketing
One of the hardest statistics about YouTube for business owners to swallow is the second on the statistic list above—35 hours worth of videos are uploaded every minute. While the fact that 2 billion videos are watched every day may inspire you to start thinking about YouTube video marketing, the fact that 35 hours worth of video are uploaded every minute is enough to make a person think twice about using the site. That kind of competition is simply overwhelming.
There is one way to get over that figure, and that is to start working. The number of videos uploaded is only going to rise as time goes on, so now is the best time to get started with your YouTube video marketing.
Your YouTube Video Marketing Plan
One of the most important things to have when starting any online marketing is a YouTube video marketing plan. In creating your plan, you will need to keep in mind what you want to get out of this endeavor. Are you looking for increased sales? Brand recognition? Community building? Choose a specific focus and don’t deviate from it.
The second thing to decide on is who you’re advertising to—your target audience. The age, gender or business you are advertising to should determine the style and tone of each of your videos.
With those parameters in place, it’s up to you to start building videos. There are several easy and free tools that can be used for video editing. Start out small and inexpensive, and once you’ve grown your user base, move on to more quality editing programs.
When people start on their YouTube video marketing and can’t get high numbers for their user base, video views and subscriptions, they will often quit before they really had a chance. If there is one thing that we can warn you against, it’s exactly that. The only way to truly gain a following on YouTube is to be consistent.
The History of Twitter
We all know the story of Facebook. If we haven’t read about it online, we’ve watched the movie or at least read one of the many books on the subject. Zuckerberg, the twins, a Harvard dorm room, we know it all!
But what about Twitter? It’s the eighth most visited site in America, according to Alexa today. Those 140 character posts have become a part of our daily lives, but how did it begin? Our goal is to inform you on the history of Twitter—the website that has crept into our computers, phones, language and lives.
Twitter’s history began on March 21,2006—the first tweet was sent. Jack Dorsey (@jack) typed out the tweet heard round the world: “just setting up my twttr.”
Jack Dorsey (@jack), Evan Williams (@ev) and Biz Stone (@biz) were the masterminds behind Twitter, with help from Odeo co-founder Noah Glass. The name started as simply ‘twittr,’ but graduated to ‘twitter.’ The dictionary definition of Twitter is “a short burst of inconsequential information.” There’s no better way to define Twitter than that short sentence.
Twitter Today
In the five years since then, Twitter has moved up in ranks on the web. If you read through the statistics, you’ll find a trend not unlike the rise of Facebook or Myspace:
- It took 18 months to get up to the first 500,000 Twitter accounts. Now 500,000 Twitter accounts are created each day.
- It took more than 3 years to reach one billion total tweets. As of July 2011, Twitter delivers 350 billion Tweets a day.
- In January 2008, Twitter had 8 employees. As of May 2011, Twitter has over 400.
- In April 2010, 50 million tweets were sent per day. As of April 2011, 140 million tweets are sent per day.
- On June 25, 2009, Michael Jackson’s death, the number of tweets per second (TPS) was 456.
- On New Year’s Day, 2011, in Japan alone, the number of TPS was topped at 6,939.
- On May 2nd, 2011, the announcement of the death of Osama Bin Laden, we set the record for the highest sustained rate of Tweets ever at an average of 3,000 TPS for over three and a half hours. If you do the math, that hits over 37 million tweets in 3.5 hours.
Twitter is growing, and it doesn’t show any signs of stopping anytime soon. Who knows? Maybe it will run its course and die out like Myspace. Maybe it will grow even more and reach Facebook proportions. The life of a social media website is always unpredictable—but while it’s here and popular, enjoy it! Use it for business, or tweet about your cereal—that’s what it’s here for.
Bing and Google Get Social
Both Bing and Google have taken their search capabilities to a new level—with social search. Social search takes advantage of the growing importance and reliance on social media by bringing the opinions of one’s social circle into their search experience.
For example, search results now can link relevant pages that friends and colleagues have created or track down their tweets shared on Twitter and photos shared on Flickr. Information can include anything…how to purchase best video camera for work-related footage or learn about the best Yosemite hikes for those less in shape.
It started with Bing…then Google followed
Bing first announced integration with social media giant, Facebook in October 2010, when it launched a new feature called “Liked Results,” allowing one to see websites “liked by your friends” within the actual search engine results page (SERP).
Google then followed suit and announced it would also include the opinions of people one cares about by linking to friends on Google Profile. Both companies say that the opinions of family and friends can play a big role in one’s decision-making process. And that both services provide a more personalized search experience. See for yourself:
Quick Bing Social Search video
Quick Google Social Search video
What about Privacy?
- Google says the information that your family and friends can see is already publicly available data. What Google Social Search does is make it easier to find it. More here.
- With Bing, your Facebook settings are key to how results will be shown. For example, if you shared a link where only Friends can see, your Friends of Friends will not be able to see the shared link. Learn more.
Free Marketing For Businesses Through Foursquare
Social Media has advanced a lot during the past ten years, but never so much as when location-based reviews entered the scene—Yelp in 2004, and Foursquare more recently in 2009. In this blog post, we highlight Foursquare’s new platform that is revolutionizing the way businesses use location-based advertising.
On Foursquare, users suggest tips. Instead of offering a review of time spent at a location, something that Yelp provides, customers can offer 200 character tips about what new patrons should try out. It’s all about community on Foursquare, and that’s the draw of the website.
Because Foursquare is a location-based mobile platform, the most important thing that a business owner can do is get their clientele to “check-in” when they walk into the shop. This is free advertising for businesses, because “checking-in” often automatically posts to the consumers’ Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare pages.
Since the “check-in” is the ultimate goal for businesses, you need to offer your customers incentives: as a business owner, you know that patrons won’t stop by unless they have a reason. The new Foursquare platform gives them a reason. To better understand how it can, we offer this step-by-step guide for your business.
1. Sign Up
If you aren’t on Foursquare yet, you will need an account in order to continue.
2. Claim Your Venue
We’ll assume you already have a presence on Foursquare, because most businesses do without knowing it. Find your business on the site, and click “Claim Here” in the upper right hand corner. You will have to verify your business through a phone call.
3. Choose a “Special”
This is how you will get your check-ins. On the Foursquare homepage, in the bottom right hand corner, you’ll see a button that says “merchants.” The second tab is where you can select a “special” to pull in your customers. Passersby will notice the “special” that you’re offering, and stop in to see.
Next, think about your marketing strategy. If you’re going for new customers, you’ll definitely want to use the Newbie Special. Want to keep them coming back? The Check-in Special would be a good choice. The Mayor Special is a fun one, because it not only rewards your most loyal customers, but it creates competition for your other customers to try to gain Mayor status! Be sure to read through all the specials available to pick the perfect one.
4. Tell Your Employees
Make sure that your employees know about the new specials as you add them. You have the option of placing a code into the special, which will let your employees track it correctly.
5. Promote!
Let people know about your new Foursquare specials! Customers will see them if they’re near your shop, but what if they’re at home, browsing Facebook? Let your loyal patrons know that you’ve got something special for Foursquare users through your Facebook, Twitter and any other online marketing vehicle you use.
Another suggestion is to market your Foursquare presence inside your shop. Foursquare sends business owners stickers to put on doors or cash registers, but you can also hang up a sign in your window or even reserve a special seat for the Mayor, as well! The possibilities on how to promote your business within the Foursquare community are endless.
Don’t miss this new opportunity for free online marketing and increased sales—claim your business on Foursquare today!
Five Top Social Media Campaigns to Learn From
1. Gap
The Campaign: Gap teamed up with popular group-buying site, Groupon, to offer a nation-wide deal: $50 worth of apparel for just $25. By the end of the day, 441,000 groupons were sold bringing in a little more than $11 million.
What Worked: This was Groupon’s first nation-wide deal with a major brand. For Gap, the deal brought in a ton of cash and, hopefully, new customers.
What Flopped: Some people commented that the Groupon deal was a bust because Gap doesn’t “need” more word of mouth. He saw it in terms of revenue loss rather than customer gain.
2. Toy Story 3
The Campaign: Pixar and Disney let out a barrage of videos, tie-ins, and ads to promote Toy Story 3. Aside from traditional banner ads and billboards, Disney created viral videos including fake, vintage-style ads featuring the new characters, an iAd featured on the IPhone 4, and a Facebook page complete with a built-in ticket-buying app.
What Worked: The video successfully played on the nostalgia of their entire demographic. Kids could appreciate the fake toy commercials while their parents could reminisce about their own childhood toys; a sentiment entirely in line with the Toy Story brand. The Facebook app was connected to news streams such that you could share when you bought tickets to the movie.
What Flopped: The social media campaign was pretty solid on most counts. The danger of associating with major brands (like the iAd) is that your product can appear too polished or too corporate. It all comes down to knowing your product and knowing your brand. In this case, Disney-Pixar hit a home run.
3. AOL
The Campaign: AOL set out to hire an ambassador for its social aggregation site Lifestream. More than just a mascot, the ambassador position was known as “the best job ever” with bonuses like a cushy apartment and VIP access to concerts and events across the country. The hiring process was a mix of traditional “resume and interview” applications and an extensive social media voting process headed up by the hopeful employees. The eventual ambassador was asked to reach out to their fans with regular updates.
What Worked: AOL is trying to reboot as a “cool” brand. Rather than spend a fortune on commercials with hip people using the product, AOL offered a service that its desired demographic would actually want; namely, a sweet job. Having the position decided by fan vote helped organically spread the word and create a supportive community that was invested in their product.
What Flopped: One let down was the inevitable decrease in hype. The buzz around AOL’s new dream job died down once the spot was filled. No amount of celebrity spottings or updates from the winning ambassador could compete with the initial creativity of the campaign. Planned follow-up campaigns are also suffering from this.
4. Starbucks
The Campaign: Starbucks has been busy with a bunch of successful social media campaigns across a range of networks. The coffee giant offered mayorship deals on foursquare, free goodies for Tax Day via Twitter’s then-new promoted Tweets, and a free pastry day promoted through Twitter and Facebook.
What Worked: If you’re going to offer discounts, make sure they’re on products you want to feature. Rather than setting up blanket deals, Starbucks focused on areas where they wanted to improve sales. Free pastry day got publicity for their non-coffee offerings, the mayor deals often provide discounts on new products, tax day’s free coffee promoted recycling — part of the brand’s greener image. Jumping on Twitter’s promoted tweets early also garnered Starbucks a lot of publicity in the tech and social media worlds — a demographic that generally has money to spend on premium coffee. Essentially, if a news organization wanted to cover promoted tweets as they launched, Starbucks was a major go-to example.
What Flopped: Starbucks is good at promoting things — its social media campaigns seem less concerned, however, with building a vibrant community. Starbucks already has near-religious levels of customer loyalty, so this may be a smart resource allocation rather than oversight.
5. Mountain Dew
The Campaign: When Mountain Dew wanted to create a new flavor, they did it the social media way. DEWmocracy was a multi-part, long-term project aimed at creating a new soda flavor through fan voting. The campaign started by narrowing down a series of fan-made flavors with home-tasting packs. The three were chosen through a country-wide tour complete with voting and video booths. Mountain Dew then created “Flavor Nations” composed of fans, experts, and professional ad agencies. Each flavor nation was responsible for the packaging, graphics, and social marketing of their flavor including viral videos, promotion on Twitter, and professional commercials. The winner was chosen by mass vote.
What Worked: Like AOL, Mountain Dew gained a ton of exposure and loyalty by mobilizing its customers to help grow the brand. The largely grassroots movement built natural buzz around the new flavors with a huge net of social media exposure. Mountain Dew was also able to keep the projects on-brand. Despite having disparate communities working on the flavor nations, the ad agencies and experts helped guide the discussion and create a polished finished product while allowing fans to have a real say on the company’s marketing direction.
What Flopped: The nature of the campaign means that two of the flavors won’t get made. Assuming the voting was close; this means Mountain Dew could alienate a relatively large portion of its fans who worked on the losing, discontinued flavors. This also assumes that Mountain Dew’s fans took the campaign to heart and would be more frustrated at losing the competition rather than excited to be shaping their brand’s future.
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