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Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category

Hey Guy’s and Gal’s,

In a recent article by JENNA WORTHAM of the New York Times, she wrote about the new feature that Facebook has launched recently called “Places.”

In brief, this is what the new application is supposed to do. Read the rest of this entry »

Hey Guy’s & Gal’s,

Lately I’ve been hearing a lot about the opportunity to advertise on Facebook. Though I personally do not use Facebook, and I think mainly do to a time constraint on mt part, I’d like to know if you my followers from twitter and readers actually use Facebook for advertising and how you think it has either helped your business or not.

In a recent article on EzineArticles by Louise Steiner on the 12 Golden Rules, and How to Create Effective Facebook ads, I though Louise hit the nail on the head, even for advertising in general. Read the rest of this entry »

Coatney Shift’s Focus to Tumblr,

Hey Guy’s and Gal’s,

In a recent article posted on Newsweek in regards to a new rival up against the likes of Facebook and Twitter Mr. Mark Coatney has shifted gears and now works for Tumblr. The article also states that until last month Mr. Coatney was the Senior Editor at Newsweek. He states:

Until last month, Mr. Coatney was a senior editor at Newsweek, where as a side project he headed up the magazine’s social efforts on Twitter and Facebook. Last year he decided to add Tumblr to his repertoire.

“I saw it as an opportunity to talk to our audience in a new way,” he said. On Twitter, he said, “the main feedback comes mostly from retweeting,” or retransmitting an interesting message. On Tumblr, “the tone is a lot more conversational.”

Many big name companies are also joining in on the Tumblr Platform because they believe it is more conversational, and traffic generated from the site is a far better option, in terms of customer loyalty, even though they all get a sizable amount of traffic from both Facebook and Twitter.

I don’t use Tumblr myself, but in light of it being more conversational, I may give it a try. Because if we are to build relationships and provide value to our readers and future customers then we must first and foremost build a relationship with. Simply retweeting, or updating your status really doesn’t allow you to convey a message of sincerity or value.

I’m not sure if you can really call that building a relationship or not, even though I’ve built many a lasting friendship on Twitter.

How many of you actually use Tumblr? And have you found that it has helped in your marketing efforts? I’d love to hear what you have to say.

And just for posting your thoughts about the topic I’ll design a free custom twitter background for you. Just make sure that you give me a shout on my contact form so I don’t forget you.

Tumblr, Twitter or Facebook, what’s your preference?
Have a wonderful day
Tim

Is Social Networking a Successful Marketing Tool?

Social networking seems to be a major part of the average business owners marketing plan. People are spending several hours per week (or day) updating their profiles, looking for connections tweeting, and more in the hopes of building their business.

While many businesses declare that most of their marketing success is due to social networking efforts, I am skeptical about the value found in these claims. Yes, I am extremely positive that there are a lucky few that have landed a great sale based on a connection they made through LinkedIn, or someone they “friended” on Facebook or something they tweeted about on Twitter. Nevertheless, the majority of us have not had this type of success.

Working with clients on their marketing plan, I have heard claims of great social networking success. When we drill down into the statistics of what was achieved, however, more often than not, the greatest success from these networking sites lies in the number of connections, friends and followers that have been collected. Generally speaking, no actual personal contact with these people has been achieved – in fact, most of the people on these lists are completely unknown to the account holder. We are making “friends” with people that we have never met, don’t know, and will, in all likelihood never meet. In some cases, we will never even know their real name!

If one of your marketing goals is to grow your social networking fan base, then by all means, count this type of activity as a win. If, however, you are interested in more traditional business growth as defined by increased sales, customer loyalty, an expanded customer base and better branding, then perhaps more effort needs to be put into other marketing outlets. After all, you may have tens of thousands of people following you on Twitter, but if your business doesn’t turn a profit, can you really say that this is a successful marketing tool for you?

Don’t misunderstand, I do believe that social networking sites have a place within a comprehensive, well-thought out, integrated marketing plan.

Active participation with people linking back to you and/or your posts are a great boost to your website rankings. These sites also give you the opportunity to brand your business at no cost to you. They can also be used to drive traffic to other marketing media in your arsenal (e.g. your website, a promotional event, a TV/radio/newspaper advertisement).

If social networking is a part of your overall marketing plan and your branding and message are consistent and professional within the parameters of those sites, then you can certainly glean some type of success from them. If, however, you just sit at your computer updating your sites and letting people know of your latest adventures in anticipation of your thousands of connections, friends, and followers to start doing business with you, then you may be in for a very long wait.

I’d love to hear your comments and your thoughts on how you use social media and what steps you take to make sure that it returns a positive ROI.

Have a wonderful day.

Hey Guy’s and Gal’s,

I recent read an article on the New York Times that was entitled “The Web Means the End of Forgetting”

And one paragraph in-particular talked about “The Library of Congress” where it stated:

There are more than 100 million registered Twitter users, and the Library of Congress recently announced that it will be acquiring — and permanently storing — the entire archive of public Twitter posts since 2006.

Now, not only the Library of Congress but, more and more employers are looking to the internet as a part of there search for new employees. In some cases this is a good thing, but then again maybe not.

If you have posted something in a negative light, that could be used against you as stated in the above article by JEFFREY ROSEN Published: July 19, 2010

So in leiu of all of this, does thing change your perception of social media? Does it change how you look at social media?

If you are outsourcing your social media tasks to a third party I would clearly define what they can or can not do, and if your doing it yourself I would be very careful how you portray yourself online.

What are your thoughts? I encourage you to be careful in your social media usage.

Have a wonderful day
Timothy

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