A big part of running a successful business is making sure that everyone knows about it. Unfortunately, though, that can be a lot easier said than done! If you want to make your business more visible, tap into the power of social media marketing and take advantage of these expert tips: Offer specials to your social media contacts If people know that they’re going to get extra discounts and perks by “liking” you on Facebook or following you on Twitter, they’re going to do it! And, in return, they’ll give you things that you would have a real hard time getting otherwise, like solid word-of-mouth advertising and repeat business. Show people that you’re genuinely excited A big problem that people have in social media marketing is posting something because they feel like they “have to”. Guess what? That lack of enthusiasm shines through, and it’s not a good way to get people talking about your business. Instead, make sure that – Read the full article
Link building is a great tool to help the popularity of your blog or website (in the eyes of your audience) and gain authority (in the eyes of search engines). This is all assuming you go about it the right way, though – buying links will only work so far, and if you always go for the low-hanging fruit of spammy blogs that automatically accept your articles, you’re more likely to be penalized than helped. Relevancy While it is definitely possibly for you to post on a completely irrelevant blog and link back to your website in your author bio – it is ultimately best to focus on the relevancy of the topic of the blog – writing about your green products on a green lifestyle blog. More often than not, unfortunately, that kind of serendipity doesn’t happen too often. Most people will focus on niches that are more tangentially related – for example, if you maintain a guide to – Read the full article
Delicious. That’s one word to describe this list of WordPress themes for restaurants. And that one word is all we need. If you’re a restaurant owner, hotel manager, food and beverage professional, master chef, Internet marketer, or Web designer looking to establish your presence online, please do spend some time checking out the latest addition to our lists of WordPress themes. Because this one’s for you. Looking to attract more guests, customers, patrons, fans, and followers by way of a mouth-watering website? Excited to showcase your delightful menu of specialties, best-sellers, and packages to the rest of the world? Ready to win over people with a well-designed restaurant WordPress theme that reflects your establishment’s identity and culinary style? Just scroll down to check out the list. Well, hopefully, with this list, you’ll find a WordPress theme that’s suitable for you. If you have a favorite, do let us know by leaving your comment below. And be sure to share the – Read the full article
From both a marketing and consumer perspective, Facebook is king. Few can deny the power of Facebook to pull and aggregate social data on a massive scale. According to an eMarketer report, Facebook has overtaken Google in “social sign-ins.” In Q1 2011, Facebook was the top network ID used to sign in to a website to share content, at around 35% of the user social login market share. The social sign-in is a new feature that online publishers love. Website registration is often times a daunting task and is attributed to high exit rates. Social sign-ins use pre-existing identities to login to a website, bypassing annoying registration forms. The most important benefit of social logins is to increase engagement and access more profile data. From a marketing standpoint, social sign-in allows marketers to aggregate crucial demographic data that was previously unknown. Marketers are able to understand what gender and age groups are accessing their materials, in addition to potentially rare – Read the full article
The E-commerce industry hasn’t only grown bigger than ever. It has also become more social than ever. Thanks to the constant evolution of the Web – and to the popularity of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter – businesses and retailers are now doing more than just catering to individual Internet users and online shoppers. They’re also marketing to the people’s friends, inner circles, and communities, with the aim of bringing in more fans, followers, and dollars. Yes, dollars. In a recent story by Mashable, Jason Taylor, vice president of Platform Strategy at Usablenet, wrote that, when it comes to marketing, it’s “no longer just about ‘liking’ brands.” With a social network like Facebook giving way to new sales opportunities, businesses and online retailers are maximizing their social presence to drive not just marketing and branding campaigns, but also additional revenue. “By integrating purchasing into their branded pages,” Taylor said, “businesses can effectively take advantage of Facebook as a – Read the full article
Forgive us? We’re feeling kind of guilty that we’ve written a number of Twitter articles that provide a lot of tips on how to use the popular social media site – without providing an equal number of examples. So let us make it up to you with these great examples of how today’s biggest brands and businesses are using Twitter. Starbucks (@Starbucks): The Seattle-based coffee giant offers “freshly brewed tweets” to a loyal following of over 1 million Twitter users. Check the brand’s profile out, and you’ll be surprised by the number of @replies/mentions they tweet in a day. That’s what engagement is all about. All too often, companies misuse Twitter by spamming their followers with relentless sales talk and ads – without caring to respond to mentions or direct messages. Sure, while Starbucks does post the occasional promo or new offer, the brand’s use of Twitter is mainly to connect intimately with fans and customers. It listens, and as – Read the full article
We’re sure you’ve heard of The Social Network, this new movie about the founders of Facebook. It opened earlier this month and so far, from what we’ve been hearing, it sounds like this 120-minute thriller-docudrama-comedy will be making plenty of noise at next year’s Oscars. You should see The Social Network if you haven’t done so yet. Not only is it a thrilling closer look at what went on behind the creation of today’s biggest social networking site; it’s also a really, really good movie. You don’t even have to be a Facebook fan to enjoy it. Directed by David Fincher (Seven, Fight Club), written by Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing, A Few Good Men), and starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Brenda Song, Rooney Mara, and huge pop musician Justin Timberlake, The Social Network – as Rolling Stone describes it – “brilliantly defines the decade”. Of course, if you’re a startup, small business owner, or marketer, you also might want – Read the full article
A viral marketing campaign is one of today’s best (and most cost-effective) ways to let people know about your business. It can take on many forms, like videos, pictures, interactive Flash games, e-books, and even text messages. If done properly and executed creatively, your viral marketing campaign can excite immediate word-of-mouth enthusiasm from people. It can be viewed, read, “liked”, and bookmarked countless times, spark memes, remixes, and spoofs, generate tons of links, and shared on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Digg, etc. With viral marketing, your campaigns will suddenly get a life of its own – and you won’t have to spend so much money for advertising placements. But how do you do it properly? Is there a formula to achieving a million hits on YouTube? How do you make sure your viral content gets passed around by friends and strangers on Facebook? Because of the wide variety of viral campaigns found on the Internet these days, – Read the full article
