Like it or not, Instagram is pretty big right now. It’s cool. It’s cross-platform (available for Apple and Android devices). It has a lot of users (about 30 million – and growing). It takes beautiful pictures no matter what your level or experience in photography is. Let’s not forget, too, the fact that the photo sharing app was acquired recently by social networking giant Facebook for approximately $1 billion in cash. If you’re managing or marketing a business, it makes perfect sense to use Instagram as a marketing channel of sorts. The only question is: how? To answer that, Lakeshore Branding came up with this quick guide on how to use Instagram for your business – and enhance your visibility on the Web. If you’ve only gotten started with the app, we hope you find these tips useful; if you’ve been at it for awhile now, let us know in the comment section below how you think Instagram supports your – Read the full article
There’s a new social media darling in town. And – like Facebook and Twitter – it’s bringing in tons of buzz and millions of new users. (Around 11.7 million users so far, in fact.) Pinterest is what it’s called, and, as the name implies, it’s a pinboard-style social photo sharing website, which, since its launch in March 2010, has taken the Web by storm. We wouldn’t be surprised if you decided to integrate Pinterest as part of your search engine optimization and social media marketing efforts. After all, where the people go to is where the business is. We do hope you do it right, though! That’s why we came up with a list of best practices and fantastic tips for using Pinterest to improve your SEO performance. Enjoy! Using Pinterest for SEO Post fresh, repin-worthy stuff. It doesn’t matter if it’s on Pinterest, Facebook, or Twitter: people will only share your stuff if they think it’s cool and fresh – Read the full article
Somewhere out there, a person is talking about you. Your business. Your brand. Of course, you’ll want to listen and join the conversation. You have to, right? The Internet, though, is a pretty big place. If before, the reviews and comments of your customers only came in literally by word of mouth – well, today that’s no longer the case. A bad review on a site like Yelp or Google Places, a nasty blog entry by a vindictive, loud-mouthed critic, an unflattering picture of your establishment posted online, or even just a single unfavorable tweet: it can undo your life’s work. It can offset all the great things that you, your employees, your brand managers, your publicist, and your ad agency have been doing. And it can keep tons of potential customers from walking through your door. (One study even says that a single bad review can cost you 30 customers!) No matter how big the Internet is – and – Read the full article
Ever heard of Kickstarter? If not, well – you ought to try it out some time. Especially if you’re planning on raising funds for a cause, a project, a product, a service, or a business. Kickstarter, after all, is currently the world’s largest online crowdfunding platform. It has successfully raised funds for endeavors that include indie films, music albums, books, food-related projects, and even solar energy technology. Kickstarter was launched in 2008 and it facilitates crowdfunding based on a “provision point mechanism”. This means that a Kickstarter project owner (“creator”) either gets the funding he has set to raise – or he gets nothing at all. If he meets the target on or before the deadline, he’ll get paid. And those who pledged money will receive prizes, freebies, and goodies from the creator (whatever he offered to entice people to contribute or pledge). If the creator doesn’t meet the target – well, no money changes hands. That’s right: if the – Read the full article
UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who participated in the Lakeshore Branding Happy New Year 2012 Giveaway that we organized with UPrinting.com. You all posted awesome responses! Unfortunately, there can only be one winner. And we’ve chosen Andi Luther-Philippe of WeLoveSoap.com as the recipient of a custom set of 250 business cards from UPrinting. Congratulations, Andi! We certainly hope that the cards help you jumpstart your new handmade artisan soap company. (Hey, we might order ourselves some, too.) Again, thank you so much to everyone who participated. We’re liekly going to run more promos soon, so stay in touch and please do keep visiting our blog regularly for updates. *** We here at Lakeshore Branding would like to thank our clients and readers for a great year. Thank you! The year 2011 was an absolute blast, but 2012 is going to be even more fun. To celebrate the transition, we’re going to do something cool here. We’re going to run a contest – Read the full article
Twitter helps companies build their brand by introducing a new method of audience communication. Engaging, brief messages build interest and customer loyalty. In 140 characters or less, a company can inform their audience of their latest products or trivia knowledge. Any useful information will propel companies towards this goal. Tweeting and Marketing Companies can write Tweets that are automatically posted three to five times per day. Experts recommend frequency to keep customers interested. From a single article, companies can probably extract 10 or more tweets that represent the main points of the article. Only 25 to 30 minutes a week is required to generate daily Tweets for an entire week. Successful companies engage in a concept called mutual branding. This concept engages both employees and the company on a mutual page. The employee’s photograph and the corporate logo both exist on the page. The better the employee performs, the better the company looks. Feeds and Retweets Retweets and feeds will – Read the full article
These days, you can’t call yourself an entrepreneur or a marketer without any knowledge of how to use the Internet to drive your business. That’s why we here at Lakeshore Branding keep pushing WordPress – because it’s an awesome tool for anyone wanting to establish themselves online. It’s a semantic personal publishing platform with focus on aesthetics, Web standards, and usability. So, whatever your title is – small business owner, online retailer, Internet startup founder, online marketer, social media guru, new media advertiser, affiliate marketer – you’ll find something valuable and unique in the way WordPress works. But to change the way WordPress looks? That’s what this list of WordPress themes is for. We picked out a number of the best business and marketing WordPress themes so that you won’t have to. With this list, we also hope you’ll be able to enhance the ease and efficiency of your WordPress experience. If you find a favorite business or marketing WordPress – Read the full article
Last week we published a guide on how to monitor Google Places reviews, Web updates, and content changes. It was well-received by our readers, so we’d like to build on the post and share info this time on tools for online reviews monitoring and management. Hopefully, this list will help you track online reviews of your brand, product, establishment, service, or business – and enhance your reputation as more customers talk about you on Google Places, Yelp, online directories, local business listings, and social media sites. Or, if you’ve used any of the online reputation management tools below, do let us know by leaving a comment below and sharing with us your experience. Review Trackers Best value review monitoring solution: Launched early this year, Review Trackers is widely considered as today’s leading online review monitoring solution. It’s designed for businesses of all kinds and sizes, including mom-and-pops, SMEs, and enterprise-level organizations and companies. A Web-based application that’s simple, fast, and easy – Read the full article
