Archive for twitter
Geo-targeted Location Listings – More than Just Getting Listed on Mobile Apps
Posted by: | CommentsA terrific recent post on Mashables addresses the rapid expansion and explosion of location based mobile apps and the importance of businesses taking advantage of getting listed on them. While that is a critical element in any business’ online presence the article omitted two pieces that are just as important and relevant to mobile and hyper-local marketing: Local Search Listings and Listing Optimization.
Huh? Seems like mobile local app listings and local search are one and the same?! Yes and no. Twitter, Brightkite, FourSquare, and others all have a geographic location tagging ability but they don’t get you correctly listed in Google Maps or Bing Local or Yahoo or any of the other city search tools necessarily. For a brick and mortar business, exact location on local search listings is really important! Getting listed on the first page of local search listing is even more important! If your customers can’t find you, you won’t be in business long.
So how do you land on that first page of local search? Google is the first place to start creating a local business presence on line. It’s free, easy create, and is posted immediately upon phone verification (some instances it requires a pin code sent via the US Mail). What’s not to love? Your business does not even have to have a website to be included, only a telephone number and a physical street address. Optimization for first page results requires a bit of effort in some service industries but for the most part this is an untapped arena for competition. There are many free local search listings (some with an up-sell version) so there is no need to pay to be included when the Big Boys (Google, Bing, Yahoo, City Search, Info USA, etc) all have free local listing centers. It only costs your time. Get Found Now – Local Search Secrets Exposed is a useful prescriptive book for walking you through the process of creating a highly optimized listing on each of these sites and more.
Another interesting piece of the Google local search puzzle is the new unique bar code sticker business’ can now apply for and get with a Google Local Business listing to display in their store front (whatever it might be).
To take advantage of this program customers with a camera with the ability to scan a bar code are are taken to the business’ Google Places listing to view coupons or other offers the business may make available currently.
There are additional elements to consider when creating a plan for local listing inclusions. One that is often overlooked by businesses is getting placed accurately as a ‘point of interest’ (POI) on GPS listings. Most businesses are not aware of this simple but growing element of search. With more and more GPS based apps appearing, now more than ever this is growing market share to dominate easily. NAVTEQ and TeleAtlas are free GPS mobile locator services. Mobile search capabilities are only going to get more powerful so businesses should have an optimized local search profile and maintain it fairly regularly.
Having a Web presence that you can control to some extent is becoming a larger part of business success. Getting found is the first part of search but then keeping the conversation going is about you and your products and services is just as critical now, more than ever. Create the local presence then continue feeding and nurturing a Web presence with Twitter, Four Square, et al.
Differentiation is what makes it easy to like you and want to do business with you…but first they have to find you! Create a local presence and watch your business grow.
Flowtown – Where Social Meets Email Marketing
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I recently co-authored a book on Local Search called Get Found Now Local Search Secrets Exposed and became fascinated with how local search was adding social elements. With the advent of user reviews directly on the local search site as well as aggregating reviews from other sites like Yelp and Judy’s book. Social has now become a critical element of optimizing your business for Local SEO. Suffice it to say I am looking at all things related to Geo-data as they relate to local search optimization.
Recently I discovered a really interesting tool from Flowtown that examines business communication channels with their consumer audience and then translates that information to identify not on their email address but their name, age group, gender, occupation, location, influence, and every social network they belong to (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN, Amazon, Flickr, Stumbleupon, and Myspace) and participate in personally or professionally. Essentially, they have harnessed social networking and turned it into social email. The endless possibilities of social media marketing make it possible for a business to make just about anything happen on line when it comes to identifying consumers and their personal preferences in the market place converting them into social marketing dollars.
Flowtown is an incredibly innovative tool that allows B2B’s and B2C’s to target email campaigns via Mail Chimp to clients with the firm knowledge of their social behaviors and influences as well as their IP address (which reveals their current geolocation). This knowledge gives a business a ton of specific information for crafting a more targeted highly focused campaign based on demographic and social information of users that provide enhanced social email marketing.
With Flowtown’s use of Klout’s influence calculator, a user will know exactly who you as a business need to reach out and touch to get noticed and get people talking about your brand and your products/services. You can target particular customers by geographics, by which social networking site they hang out on, and by the level of influence they have on others where ever it is they hang out.
To test Flowtown the first 50 or so imports cost nothing as do the first 250 emails per month. To maximize your contacts is quite reasonable ($14.99 for unlimited contacts and up to 10,000 emails/month). With a minimal investment now you have not only a useful email marketing channel but an influence tracking device for everyone in your network. You can analyze their social profile, find out who chats with whom where as well as their other favorite social network channels. Real customer intelligence is now at your fingertips for a song!
Buzz on in to Gmail and See Where the Wave Went
Posted by: | CommentsGoogle announced a new service, Google Buzz that brings elements of social networking into your Gmail account…in theory! Buzz has several features that work similar to other social networking sites and is reminiscent of FriendFeed (if you remember them). You can:
- Automatically add new “friends” you email on Gmail
- Allow combined “sharing” of sources (like your Picasa photos, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube videos, links, your blog, etc)
- In theory lets you share information publicly and privately
- Integrate your Gmail updates into the Buzz thread
Now here is the feature that is fuzzy in their explanation – you get recommended Buzz friends’ content into your ‘stream’ even if you do not know each other but who know what or who you know…I think? It all is automatically integrated into your Gmail account with your ‘regular’ contacts (whatever that means!). It also adds your Buzz post to your Google Profile page.
So are your posts public or private? Can you protect them like you can with Facebook? Yes, you can if you set up groups and then remember to choose the group you want to share your posts. If you thought you had too many folders to manage and keep up with in Gmail Buzz has just added a new layer of complexity to your email overload! Buzz content lands in your inbox when someone comments on your posts or add onto a previous conversation, or if someone @’s (mentions) you in their Buzz stream (like Twitter).
Recommended Buzz is Google’s attempt to ‘suggest’ friends based on the similarity in content and keywords in their conversations that mirror yours. So a Facebook friend recommend meets Tweeple. You can tweak the suggestion a bit so the returned results are a better fit for you…and if your friends start posting boring mundane content Buzz collapses the stream to suppress the ‘bad buzz.’ Yay! No more FarmVille, Mafia Wars, and Vampire updates!
But what about employers who block sites like Twitter and Facebook for productivity and IP reasons. They don’t yet block access to Gmail but this could change that. What impact will Buzz have on the use of personal email accounts in the workplace? This could conceivably force people to have special social networking Gmail accounts for using Buzz.
I hope it can be turned off and you can have just straight email…just like its redheaded stepsister Google Wave, I am not sure if I really know what to do with this form of sharing. Do you?
Celebrity Twitter Overkill: SuperNews!
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Twitter’s blowing up, in this sequel to Twouble with Twitters, when celebrities take over the twittersphere. Starring Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore, Perez Hilton, and P. Diddy as themselves. Watch more supernews! on Current TV, Thursdays 11/10c www.current.com www.facebook.com twitter.com VIEW more supernews! clips & SUBSCRIBE to the youtube Playlist here… www.youtube.com
Common Sense Social Media Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses
Posted by: | CommentsWith the death of the local newspaper and the explosion of social media websites, people are changing how they seek information, share opinions, and research products/goods/services before they buy.
On the internet are tools that allow consumers to share content and information as well as to exchange views and recommendations of those products and services they are buying. They can give starts, digs, and thumbs ups or downs on vendors and service providers that can be read by millions of people instantly. Social media sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, Yelp, Jane’s Book, and Angie’s list are the new “word of mouth” that promote or disparage products and services online.
Social media marketing strategies have the potential to make a company’s products and services go viral if businesses are able to grasp the effectiveness of establishing a brand and a brand reputation online. Social media marketing strategies are a great method of branding who and what a business is and helping that business build relationships and build a sense of community with their target audience of consumers.
So how do you build that sense of community and brand familiarity? How do you build a credible online presence that goes beyond your website? How do you use social media in a way that is inviting for consumers that sells your brand and your product without selling? By employing a few simple basic business strategies online you can create a credible and effective user-friendly web presence for your brand and your business.
How Social Networking Sites Benefit Your Business
LinkedIn, Twitter, Biznik, and Facebook are communities of people who have gathered together online to discuss similar topics or to share similar interests. Solidifying your social media community is a no brainer! The best part about social networking sites is that you don’t have to be online 24/7 to market and deliver your business to your audience anytime on time. Social networking sites let you build a business centered around a particular purpose: building brand credibility and creating zealots who will talk about your company and its products.
The first step in building a credible social networking presence is to build a credible profile that is associated with your brand. By creating a profile that represents your brand you are creating a credible presence in that social networking community. They will love the fact that you are reaching out to your audience where they “hang out” rather than waiting for them to come to you. Developing warm ‘fuzzies’ for your crowd is how you develop the ideal client.
If your avatar (photo or brand symbol) is not clear or is of you in 1974 when you were a lot younger, thinner, and had more hair, then you suggest that you are hiding something or not very authentic and perhaps a person/company not worth knowing. If you are using social marketing as a component of your marketing strategy you want to give some thoughts to the photo or “avatar” that you use. Think about them as branding images that reside right beside your name, your latest entry, or your comments.
Besides using Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, there are a myriad of other searchable social media sites. Flickr, Digg, YouTube, Viddler, etc are great for depositing search engine geo-targeted images, video, and rich content that can drive your business to the top of the search results. Social bookmarks (Magnolia, Delicious, Diigo,StumbleUpon), niche social networks (CrowdVine, Naymz, ClaimID,Gooruze), location networks (Upcoming, Eventful, BarCamp,Meetup, Evite), and customer service networks (Yelp, JanesBook,Angie’s List, Google Local) all build search engine go juice for your business presence on the web.
Community Building is the Corner Stone of Business Success
The web’s social applications are growing rapidly and with a little effort you can pick two or three strategies to carve out your niche presence on it. By anchoring social media links on your business website you can engage your customers and create an atmosphere of “community” and begin to develop contacts with new and potential customers that encourage them to come back to your site and your business again and again.
Post your profile on the social media sites that are appropriate for your business and where your potential audience is hanging out. Go in and foster community building through the exchange of information and knowledge while building business contacts and connections without selling. Remember, it is about developing a niche audience that is interested in your company and your goods and services. If you just start the conversation, the community will build the enthusiasm and drive the need for acquiring your products or services. Establishing your company and your brand as the leading “go to” authority in your industry will promote your website, set you apart from your competition, and ultimately increase your sales.
