Looking to get ahead of the social media marketing game? Sure, Facebook and Twitter are still the king and queen of this kingdom – just as reported in a recent StrongMail survey of online marketing budgets in 2011 – but the New Year also heralds a number of new social media darlings that are certainly worth keeping an eye on. Last year, it was Foursquare and Posterous leading the pack. This year is just as promising – if not more promising, thanks in large part to the continued expansion of social media and to the crazy range of new sites, apps, and startups out there. Here are our picks for social media websites to watch in 2011. Quora Last March 2010, Quora reportedly received $86 million in funding from Benchmark Capital (also a Twitter investor). It didn’t make any million-dollar noise the rest of the year, but this 2011 just might be the year Quora really makes waves. As a – Read the full article
Christmas is fast approaching. It’s time to start making those wish lists. Sure, family and friends will have their usual go at giving and receiving, but small business owners, Internet marketers, technology professionals, and entrepreneurs are entitled to have their own holiday fun, too. So, in lieu of technology and Internet marketing coming together in the most wonderful time of the year, Lakeshore Branding presents its Holiday Gift Guide 2010 – Small Business edition. An Android mobile device: If you’re tired of hearing how awesome the iPhone is, but still want to experience what it’s like to be part of the ongoing smartphone revolution, then an Android-powered mobile device is an equally viable alternative. The Android app marketplace has over 100,000 apps, so you’re not really going to miss out on a lot should you decide to shun Apple. Android phones, moreover, are available on most major U.S. carriers. Check out our top picks: HTC Droid Incredible: Launched last spring, – Read the full article
Google-Groupon Deal? Search giant Google is reported to be offering as much as $6 billion for leading e-Commerce coupon site, Groupon. According to a number of media sources, the deal’s initial payment will be worth about $5.3 billion, with the remaining $700 million to be used as an incentive for keeping Groupon’s employees. The deal, if it happens, is going to be Google’s largest acquisition yet, much bigger than its successful $3.1 billion bid for DoubleClick and the $1.65 billion price tag of the company’s YouTube deal. Launched in November 2008 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Groupon is a social shopping network that delivers daily deals to users in cities across the U.S., Canada, and Europe. While the price of the rumoured acquisition seems high – Groupon only has an estimated $600 million in revenue – industry observers say that the coupon site is the clear leader in a rapidly growing new category on the Internet. Its overwhelming success in – Read the full article
There’s a high-potential marketing platform that’s slowly and surely attracting corporations, small business owners, advertisers, and marketers alike. Observers say that this is a big one – an avenue through which one can reach a good portion of billions of consumers. It’s called SMS. You know: text messaging. No, you’re not reading an article from our 1998 archives. This is 2010 all right, but you know what? In the age of tablet computers, flashy apps, smartphones, and social media, SMS marketing has indeed become one of the most viable and important platforms for businesses today. Here are some numbers: An estimated 3.5 billion text messages are sent and received every day. 57 percent of all cell phone subscribers use SMS on a regular basis. According to the New York Times, 97 percent of text messages are opened, and 83 percent of these are opened in less than an hour. Despite the explosive growth of smartphones and mobile technologies like the – Read the full article
Facebook, the world’s largest networking site with over 500 million members, launched a new messaging system Monday, taking various communication platforms like E-mail, SMS, instant messaging, and chat and integrating them into what is called Facebook Messages. The system is a result of a 15-month engineering project, considered by many as the largest Facebook has undertaken. Facebook Messages is actually a revitalization of its current messaging system, and – despite industry observers and news media hyping the new feature as an “E-mail killer”, intended to rival Google’s highly popular Gmail – it isn’t technically a new E-mail platform. “This is not an E-mail killer,” said Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “We don’t expect anyone to wake up tomorrow and say they are going to shut down their current E-mail accounts.” What Facebook Messages does provide are three unique communication features, which served as the highlights of Zuckerberg’s Monday announcement. Seamless messaging: Facebook users will be able to send and – Read the full article
Developing an e-Commerce site is an altogether different challenge from coming up with an official website or company blog. While the latter two are meant – in one way or another – to serve as means of communication and engagement, an e-Commerce site should be built to sell. And sell lots. Anyone who has ever shopped online will know that it takes more than just a piece of shopping cart software to be able to succeed in the online retail game. It also takes more than eye-catching web design or an impressive collection of product shots. Are you an online retailer or a small business owner looking to boost your online sales? To help you understand selling on the Internet, we present this list of traits that every e-Commerce site should have. Easy accessibility and navigation This is an absolute necessity. Your e-Commerce site should be accessible from various types of web browsers – Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari, – Read the full article
It’s one thing to get a lot of followers on Twitter; it’s another to be able to retain them and keep them engaged and interested. To be followed is not enough, especially if you’re a small business owner looking to maximize the long-term value of the social microblogging site for your company or brand. You’ll want people to eagerly await your tweets, and to have them “retweet” whatever you have to say. You’ll want them to keep asking you for more. Of course, this doesn’t mean you should suffer from tiny little panic attacks whenever someone decides to un-follow you. But retaining followers on Twitter can be one of the most crucial parts of your social media strategy. So here are the top 7 tips on how to keep them once you have them: 1. Quality over quantity Twitter users follow you not because they want their home page cluttered with meaningless minute-by-minute updates, but because they assume they’re going – Read the full article
Do you know that 54% of CIOs ban the use of social media in the workplace? “Wow” was our first reaction, too. A bunch of Web 2.0 marketers are of course prone to advocate the merits of using blogs and sites like Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, and YouTube in efforts to help businesses grow. But like with many things, social media can be a double-edged sword. A secretary will tweet about the laughable fashion sense of her boss. An employee will write an eloquent blog about how the routine Monday meetings are a total waste of time. And then another staffer will post status updates about how nothing here – certainly not promotion up the corporate ladder – is based on meritocracy. Don’t think social media can be stopped, though. While this new digital sandpit is highly interactive and engaging, it can also be extremely hard to control. There are varying approaches taken by companies to either ban or limit it, – Read the full article
