Six Social Media Trends For 2011

It was a banner year for social media growth and adoption. We witnessed Facebook overtake Google in most weekly site traffic, while some surveys reported nearly 95% of companies using LinkedIn to help in recruiting efforts. In my outlook for last year, I cited that mobile would become a lifeline to those looking for their social media fixes, and indeed the use of social media through mobile devices increased in the triple digits.

I also outlined how “social media would look less social” or more accurately exclusive, and indeed, we’ve seen the re-launch of Facebook groups, which focus on niche interactivity, and more recently, the emergence of Path, billed as “the social network for intimate friends” which limits your network to only 50 people. The past year also saw some brands go full throttle on Foursquare’s game-like geo-location platform, attempting to reward mayors and creating custom badges for the network’s power users.

In other areas, such as social media policy, I was less accurate. Conversations around the topic did begin to take place, But a global survey indicated that only 29 percent of companies even have a social media policy. That’s not as high as I expected.

via darmano.typepad.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’d get the 6 trends…

December 12, 2010 0

Consumers More Likely to Use Businesses Active on Social Media

: Image via CrunchBase

Seven out of 10 consumers are more likely to use a local business if it has information available on a social media site, says a new study.

The annual study, called Local Search Usage Study: Bridging The Caps, From Search to Sales, is a joint effort of comScore and TMP Directional Marketing, a local search marketing firm. It includes an online survey of some 4,000 consumers, plus data gleaned from observing one million consumers who agreed to have their online searches monitored anonymously.

Having a page on Facebook is a start, but it’s not a one-time effort: 81 percent of consumers using social media say it’s important for businesses to respond to questions and complaints. And for the record, you do need to worry about reviews and ratings – 78 percent said they’re important when deciding what to buy.

What else do you need to be doing with social media? Nearly four out of five (78 percent) of users want special offers, promotions, and information about events, 74 percent want regular posts about products, and 72 percent want posts about the company itself. (Wondering about posting those photos of the company office—or picnic? Two-thirds of those surveyed want to see them.)

If this all seems too daunting, the survey also suggests a simple starting place: make sure there is correct information about your business in as many places online as you can (Google, Yelp, Facebook, Twitter, etc.). Social networkers are 67 percent more likely to buy something than general searchers, but one in six searchers is frustrated by the lack of reliable information about small businesses on the Web – either it’s not there at all, it’s incorrect, or it’s confusing or disorderly. One third of searchers give up on a business when they can’t quickly find the information they’re looking for.

via inc.com

Wow. Just wow. You can follow the ‘via’ link if you’d like to read the rest of the article. Comment, call or use the contact form to connect and discuss how this applies to your business. Thanks to Dana VanDen Heuvel for tweeting this…

Study Shows Social Media Has More Impact Than Paid Media on Car and Technology Sales (ghdialogue.posterous.com)
Coupons and Trusted Friends Drive Users’ Social Media Brand Engagement (socialtimes.com)
Using Social Media and Online Surveys Together Leads to Engagement and Growth (blogs.constantcontact.com)

December 9, 2010 0

Now Cheryl Cole Fans Can Check-In To Billboards

: Image by shahid1618 via Flickr

Brands have moved quickly to incorporate Facebook Places into their advertising strategy, with the latest campaign urging people to “check-in” to billboards across the UK for singer Cheryl Cole.

TechCrunch reports that the campaign, designed by media agency MediaCom and Polydor Records, gives fans a chance to win two free tickets (plus travel and hotel) to one of her X Factor shows.

There has long been an alliance between mobile and outdoor in the advertising world. For several years many advertising posters and billboards have been built with QR codes or Bluetooth receptors to enable consumers to download more information. Location check-in is a natural evolution, as smart phones becoming increasingly widespread. The Cheryl Cole billboards are among the first for Facebook Places, but a similar concept was used earlier in the summer when Gowalla users were invited to “check-in” to a giant billboard for the New Jersey Nets in New York City.

Other innovative uses of Facebook Places since its launch in August include a marketing campaign for the University of Kentucky, singer James Blunt using Places check-ins to reward concert goers with free music downloads, and a scavenger hunt in San Francisco for Giants baseball player Tim Lincecum.

via allfacebook.com

Hmmm. Billboards and social media. Interesting combo…

November 17, 2010 0

Pew: 4% Of Americans Use Location Services

via techcrunch.com

November 4, 2010 0

The Future of Local Commerce = Facebook + Foursquare + Yelp + Groupon [+ Outdoor]

: Image via CrunchBase

Buy local? It’s more than just a tagline but if you want more than your fair share of drive by business, you have to consider what these tools can do for you…

“There’s been much hype, crazy valuations, and overall market excitement about businesses that promise to unleash the power of the social graph, location, recommendations and group buying. Facebook’s latest valuation according to SecondMarket is now about $30 billion, Foursquare raised $20 million at a post-money valuation of $115 million while still at a pre-revenue stage, Yelp, short of selling for $550 million to Google, raised over $25 million at an undisclosed but very high valuation, and finally Groupon raised $135 million at a whopping $1.35 billion valuation. So besides their huge success with the investment community, and their users, what do these companies have in common, and what does all this have to do with disrupting Local Commerce?” Source: The Future of Local Commerce = Facebook + Foursquare + Yelp + Groupon

imho, you if you want maximum impact, you also have to consider what these tools will do for you when combined with old media like outdoor advertising as well, but not everyone has the ability to help you integrate outdoor like e1evation does…

What do each of these tools do? Here’s your primer and why you should care…

“Let’s focus on the main function each of these different startups provide to understand how bringing them together will ultimately disrupt multiple trillion dollar industries:

Facebook: provides the Social Graph, which is fast becoming a utility. Through its open platform, and APIs, we share more about our lives and our interactions online and on mobile every day.

Foursquare and Gowalla: provide location services and check-ins, along with game mechanics that motivate users to unlock badges, earn mayorships, and get discounts at local stores in the process.

Yelp: provides crowdsourced reviews of local businesses. Now also provides check-ins, and offers.

Groupon: provides discounted offers against a promise to increase sales and bring in brand new customers to local businesses.

The interesting thing here is that there’s a lot of overlap between the features offered by these companies. Recently, Facebook launched Places, a mobile geo-location service that mimics Foursquare local check-ins. Yelp also added check-ins, and recently rolled out Yelp Deals, a Groupon clone.” Source: The Future of Local Commerce = Facebook + Foursquare + Yelp + Groupon

My advice? Find someone who can help you get launched and get moving, but I’m in that business so what would you expect me to say? Really! Comment, call or use the contact form to connect so we can talk about how this applies to your business…

via ScribeFire

October 31, 2010 3

Download the Facebook Places Guide for Businesses And Nonprofits

via johnhaydon.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source to read the rest of the article…

October 5, 2010 0

Repurposing Content for Maximum Impact

: Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr

The gospel is to be communicated. This is evangelism. By what means should this communication happen? I get the feeling from the Apostle Paul that it’s “by all means” (1 Corinthians 9:22).

Paul preached and spoke as he traveled the Roman roads from city to city. He wrote and utilized the volunteer help of messengers to spread his ideas. He hit the synagogues, the marketplaces and even the prisons to share the gospel. Yet the tools at Paul’s disposal were quite limited compared to our arsenal today.

By enlarging your congregation’s collection of tools, you can stretch the value of your communications strategy and talk to new audiences in new places via new mediums never possible in the early apostolic era. Consider this:

The pastor’s message can be re-distributed by media through the mail.

It can be printed in periodicals and publications.

It can be offered in a media player on a website.

It can become part of a podcast, updating weekly with very little effort or financial cost.

Pieces of that message can become blog posts when re-worked for an online reading audience.

More pieces can be sent out as a daily devotional email.

Nuggets from that message can be tweeted and retweeted, or shared on Facebook.

Discussion arising from all of these distributions can create opportunities to converse with people previously out of reach.

Those conversations can become the beginnings of new content as the message takes on a life of its own by its listening audience.

A short clip from the message (if recorded on video) can land on YouTube.

Church members can share the clip on their Facebook wall.

The slideshow from the message can be shared online.

The slideshow, transcript, and audio and/or video can be packaged together and distributed by download, CD or even custom-imprinted thumb drives for other churches to benefit from.

Should we be creating new messages? Absolutely. But we can also take what God has given already and put it to its fullest possible use, spreading it around in the cloud of content we’re all breathing and then fielding the questions that arise.

The mission has never changed: Get the gospel to the world. But the tools have multiplied many times over, allowing us to do it more efficiently than ever before. Which means we can spend less time fighting to create more content at all costs and spend more time simplifying our message and distributing it effectively.

via churchmarketingsucks.com

It’s all about churches this morning @ on the ‘elevation blog’ — due in part to rediscovering ‘Church Marketing Sucks’, subscribing to their feed, and being reminded of their great content…

I want to put a really fine point on this post by saying imho — it’s all about using a blog as a homebase that automatically re-expresses or redelivers content to multiple points without additional burden on the church staff [same principle applies to business, btw!]. For example, the author puts podcasts above blogs, but a podcast is nothing more than an ‘audio’ category in a blog. Here’s an example — get it?

I quoted the whole post above for busy people — pasters, ceo’s, thought leaders — who wouldn’t normally take the time to click through to the source. Comment, call or use the contact form to connect so we can talk about how this applies to your ministry…

Adding Value to Your Blog: Layers of Content (shoutmeloud.com)
Six @ Six: Six Tips to Maximize Your Social Media Efforts (bulletproofblog.com)
Content Is King, But Only When Optimized! Tips From #SESSF (aimclearblog.com)

October 3, 2010 0

Survey Reveals 5 Opportunities for Churches on Facebook

: Image via CrunchBase

Most respondents indicated they don’t think their church is doing a particularly good job with Facebook. While those results could be perceived as negative, a closer look reveals some big opportunities for those churches willing to embrace the world’s largest social network.

Communicate More – Clearly people would like to see their church do more on Facebook.

Ministry Pages – A second opportunity for churches is for individual ministries to engage with people through Facebook pages.

Facilitate Connections – A third opportunity for churches is to help their people connect with one another.

Evangelism – A fourth opportunity for churches is to encourage and train their people to develop relationships with those who are not Christians and show God’s grace and love to them.

Facebook Ads – A fifth opportunity for churches is to use Facebook ads to reach out to people in their community.

A detailed report on the survey results including lots of pretty charts and additional analysis is available at OurChurch.com.

via churchmarketingsucks.com

Happy Sunday! I’m blessed to be bringing a new client on board — Q90 FM in Green Bay. Here’s a great post from a great resource I found; Church Marketing Sucks! :-D

How SMBs Can Start Using Facebook Places Now (mashable.com)
Religious Groups Build Communities on Facebook (insidefacebook.com)

October 3, 2010 0

Marketing Experiments Emerge Using Facebook Places

via insidefacebook.com

September 27, 2010 0

This Week in Review: Must-Know Tech News For SMBs

Keeping up with all of the important technology news in a given week is a challenge for anyone, let alone busy professionals and people trying to run businesses.

While there’s not yet a known cure, ReadWriteBiz can help alleviate your information overload by bringing you a rundown of some of the most important tech news and product reviews for small to medium-sized businesses.

In an excellent post published early in the week, Mashable writer Jolie O’Dell discussed how SMBs can take advantage of Facebook Places, and walked us through setting up a Facebook Page, connecting it to a Place, building a community and getting started with advertising on Facebook.

On Tuesday, Google announced that Google Docs will finally support mobile document editing, at least on iPad and Android-powered devices (sorry, iPhone users). Until now, loading up docs.google.com on an iPad or smart phone would bring up one’s documents in a read-only format, and any editing had to be done through a third-party app. The change was welcome, especially to users of the iPad, whose large screen isn’t as limiting as that of a phone.

via readwriteweb.com

Good info and a great new resource to track in Google Reader. You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’re interested in learning more…

September 27, 2010 0

Want a Raise? Find Out What Your Job is Worth

As a blogger, I get paid in bags of stale Tootsie Rolls. Is that good? I have no idea. Actually, I am getting a better idea of what my job is worth now that I have checked out some salary comparison sites. Specifically, I I’ve found out that there are places you can blog where you’re paid in fresh Tootsie Rolls.

If you want to see how your salary compares to the industry at large, be sure to visit MySalary, a site where you can find salary ranges for virtually any career. There’s a lot of stuff on the site — job search and education information in particular — but be sure to click the Salary tab and enter your job title and zip code. You’ll instantly get access to a slew of job titles that are similar to what you searched for.

The resulting histogram shows national averages for salary ranges, like this one for speech writers (I always wanted to know what Ben Stein used to make).

via bnet.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’d like to dig a little deeper…

Show Me the Money: How to Ask for a Raise (lifescript.com)
What happens if I embellish my salary history? (cnn.com)
Ask HN: Is this the right paid? (news.ycombinator.com)

September 20, 2010 0

Sorry, But McDonald’s Did Not See a 33% Increase in Foot Traffic Because of Foursquare

A McDonalds in a Toronto, Ontario, Canada Wal-... — Image via Wikipedia

According to a current headline on TechMeme, McDonalds saw a 33% increase in foot traffic to its stores when it ran a promotion during Foursquare Day earlier this year. At that time, the fast food chain offered users who checked into McDonald’s a chance to win $5 and $10 gift cards. On the Econsultancy blog, Meghan Keane reports that McDonald’s head of social media Rick Wion claims that, “with this one little effort [$1000 in gift cards], we were able to get a 33% increase in foot traffic to the stores.” These numbers, however, simply don’t add up.

There is clearly some confusion here about the numbers that Wion was talking about. Keane reports that McDonalds saw a 33% increase in check-ins from the day prior to Foursquare day and a 40% increase in check-ins for the week the special ran. Then, however, she goes on to quote Wion as saying that he “was able to go to some of our marketing people — some of whom had never heard of Foursquare — and say, ‘Guess what. With this one little effort, we were able to get a 33% increase in foot traffic to the stores.'” It seems clear that Wion was talking about check-ins here and misspoke when he claimed that this campaign increased foot traffic by 33%.

Some of our colleagues, however, then took this number and ran with it – after all, a 33% increase in foot traffic to one of the world’s largest brands because of one of the most over-hyped social media companies sure sounds like a good story.

via readwriteweb.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’d like to dig a little deeper…

McDonald’s Foursquare Day Campaign Brought in 33% More Foot Traffic (mashable.com)
Sorry, But McDonald’s Did Not See a 33% Increase in Foot Traffic Because of Foursquare (readwriteweb.com)
Sorry, But McDonald’s Did Not See a 33% Increase in Foot Traffic Because of Foursquare (nytimes.com)
Case Study: McDonald’s ups foot traffic 33% on Foursquare Day (econsultancy.com)

September 19, 2010 0

Think ‘location’ -based social media is silly?

A couple of weeks ago, I was at our local frozen custard store and I told the girl behind the counter that I was the ‘mayor’ of said store in Foursquare. I asked if there was any benefit to this elevated status. Here response? WHATEVER as only a teenage girl can deliver it. Vendors need to think different…

“With so many brands trying their hand at location-based marketing campaigns, one has to wonder: is Foursquare really effective as a platform for bringing in new business? McDonald’s seems to think so; the company’s head of social media Rick Wion recently spoke of the fast food giant’s big wins from a spring pilot program using Foursquare.

At the Mobile Social Communications conference yesterday, Wion shared that McDonald’s was able to increase foot traffic to stores by 33% in one day with a little Foursquare (Foursquare) ingenuity. McDonald’s total cost for the successful campaign was a measly $1,000.

Econsultanty reports that McDonald’s, with Wion driving campaign direction and strategy, opted to try and take advantage of Foursquare Day (4/16) to bring in more business. The company used 100 randomly awarded $5 and $10 giftcards as checkin bait to lure in potential diners. The bait also worked to attract the media’s attention and resulted in more than 50 articles covering McDonald’s Foursquare special.

The campaign worked in both digital and real world capacities. Patrons flocked to McDonald’s restaurants for the chance to win giftcards in exchange for checkins, and 600,000 online denizens opted to follow and fan the brand on social media sites.

“I was able to go to some of our marketing people — some of whom had never heard of Foursquare — and say, ‘Guess what. With this one little effort, we were able to get a 33% increase in foot traffic to the stores’,” Wion explained to conference attendees.” Source: McDonald’s Foursquare Day Campaign Brought in 33% More Foot Traffic

Comment, call or use the contact form to discuss how this applies to your business…

via ScribeFire

September 17, 2010 1

How to Make Your Location-Based App a Success: Reward People for Their Activities

Location-based mobile applications, also now being called “check-in services” to differentiate themselves from other geo-aware apps like Google Maps, are the hottest new social applications on the mobile scene today. The lineup includes game-based applications like Foursquare and MyTown, which each provide points, credits and/or badges for “checking in” (registering your physical presence) with a particular venue. There are also dedicated shopping-related check-in services like Shopkick, which rewards retail customers with discounts and deals for patronizing select establishments.

But almost all of the check-in apps integrate some form of mobile advertising. After months of experimentation with various formats, marketers are starting to discover what strategies actually work.

Despite the media craze for apps like these, some analysts are rationally advising caution to marketers who are tempted to jump on this latest bandwagon – after all, only 4% of U.S. adults have ever used location-based check-in services and only 1% out of those that use them do so more than once per week. But businesses, hopeful of reaching their most engaged customers, see check-in apps as a big opportunity for marketing initiatives, not to mention a rich resource of consumer data ripe for mining.

Case in point: analyst firm ABI Research has just released a new study that finds businesses are primed to spend $1.8 billion on location-based ads in 2015, a somewhat surprising number given the small crowd of early adopters currently using check-in apps.

According to ABI Research’s Neil Strother, check-in apps may raise privacy concerns among some users today, but those issues can be overcome by offering consumers deals, discounts and rewards. The “value-exchange” of receiving these rewards will be high enough that consumers won’t mind giving up privacy in order to take advantage of the benefits. “If you care about getting discounts or being rewarded for shopping,” he explains, “you’ll accept having your whereabouts known.”