Networking | Social Media Marketing

Posts Tagged ‘networking’

Weekly Link Round Up – 04-22-11

Friday, April 22nd, 2011

Small Businesses Benefit Most From Social Media, Study Reveals (SocialMediaExaminer.com)

While large, established companies such as Old Spice and Benefit Cosmetics have been reaping the rewards of social media involvement, the true winners are small businesses. As a study reveals, these SMBs have been seeing amazing results from leveraging social media as a marketing tool.

Most Marketers Plan to Increase Social Media Spend This Year [STUDY] (Mashable.com)

Since an overwhelming number of marketers this year consider social media to be integral to their strategies, there appears to be a rise in social media spending. According to a poll by Mashable and Effie Worldwide, 70% of these marketers plan to increase their social media budgets by more than 10%.

Interview: ThinkGeek on joining online communities instead of building them from scratch (BazaarVoice.com)

ThinkGeek is well-known for earning a cult following for their “stuff for smart masses.” An interview with the company’s Public Relations Manager, Shane Peterman, reveals an interesting facet to how they interact with their demographic: by being part of existing communities instead of building a new one.

The ROI of Your Mother (DArmano.TypePad.com)

Business likes tangible results. While the ROI from using social media is hard to put down on paper, it is strong and it does have an impact on a business’ demographic. In business conversations though, it is possible to quantify the benefit of social media in terms of metrics, behaviors and financials.

5 Techniques to Create Raving Loyal Fans (ProBlogger.net)

Part of making a strong presence in social media is simply creating raving, loyal fans. With a few tips to refine your blog writing or blog posting style, you can go from being simply a dump of random information to becoming a trusted authority with a following.

Tags: Blogging, Business, community, Marketing, networking, online marketing, Social Media, social media marketing, Strategy
Posted in Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Weekly Link Round Up | 1 Comment »

Weekly Link Round Up – 04-15-11

Friday, April 15th, 2011

How Benefit Cosmetics gave their customers a voice on Facebook (and won a Shorty Award) (BazaarVoice.com)

Benefit Cosmetics successfully leverages social media by going beyond brand to customer interaction. Through its Facebook page, the company collects user-generated content such as customer reviews which are directly placed on the product page of their website. By leveraging this, it has taken the sharing from brand-to-customer to friend-to-friend.

B2B Social Media Gets Intimate (ScottMonty.com)

While most of social media marketing is geared towards consumers, networking with other businesses as in a B2B model calls for a more intimate conversation. Private social networks and services such as Path, Beluga and GroupMe are examples of those geared towards companies working with this particular business model.

Do Social Customers Really Want a Relationship with Your Brand? (CollectiveIntellect.com)

There’s a difference between the passive liking of a brand and the active “Co-Creation” which allows businesses to tailor and scale their efforts. While not all customers seek to become good friends with your brand, businesses can analyze their ties to get a clear view on how their customers want to be engaged.

Blogosphere Trends + Effective Calls to Action (ProBlogger.net)

Creating effective calls to action can do well not only to translate views into sales, but also to push for more engagement within the community. Read on to see how blogosphere trends have utilized these effective calls to action.

Beyond Engagement: How to Find & Build Brand Ambassadors (Soshable.com)

Brand ambassadors aren’t just people who actively support your brand. These people help in the whole concept of engaging your audience. Whether they are people within the organization or outside of it, brand ambassadors are characterized by their passion which gets others to appreciate your brand as well.

Tags: community, customer service, customers, Marketing, networking, relationships, Social Media, social networking, Strategy
Posted in Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Weekly Link Round Up | No Comments »

Weekly Link Round Up – 04-01-11

Friday, April 1st, 2011

What Google’s +1 Means for Facebook (Mashable.com)

Google’s +1 might very well be the answer to Facebook’s “Like” button. Through the +1 button, search becomes increasingly social. With a Google profile to keep information in and tailor search results to match each individual user, this new feature may very well bring social recommendation to a wider scope than Facebook can.

Content on Facebook: What Separates a Popular Fan Page from the Rest? (SocialMediaToday.com)

Knowing how to utilize a fan page for your brand can do much to boost your presence towards customers. Amusingly enough, a brand’s already established popularity doesn’t play a large part in how popular a fan page is. With a brief look at the various factors behind highly successful fan pages, you can get a good idea of how to boost the way you use yours.

3 More Trends in Idea Management (ReadWriteWeb.com)

Through social media, gathering ideas has turned outwards rather than kept inwards within the company. Even idea management companies that have historically been focused on internal innovation are now providing services to follow this trend.

How to Optimize Your Facebook Page for Visual Branding (SocialMediaExaminer.com)

Thanks to the new Facebook layout, brands get a whole lot more screen space to show off. Learning how to make the best of it will definitely give your brand identity the boost it deserves. It goes to show then that a good branding strategy and smart design still do go hand in hand in social media.

Why Automation Is Destroying Your Brand And Your Reputation (SocialMouths.com)

While automation tools may help maintain a campaign, it doesn’t help when it fails in the “social” aspect of marketing your brand. After all, the whole point of social media marketing is to build a relationship. Becoming a robot to your audience, in effect, can cripple your brand’s reputation.

Tags: community, Facebook, Google, networking, relationships, Social Media, social networking, Twitter
Posted in Social Media, Strategy, Weekly Link Round Up | No Comments »

Weekly Link Round Up – 03-25-11

Friday, March 25th, 2011

Andy’s Answers: How Toyota used social to build brand advocacy during a crisis (SmartBlogs.com)

In an emergency such as a recall crisis, social media can figure greatly in repairing a brand’s image. In the case of Toyota, the company realized that it wasn’t very good at talking about itself but needed to reach out to their consumers. By employing a few social media strategies, Toyota was not only able to reach out, but also give their image an added boost.

Childrens Hospital of Boston: A Successful Hospital Social Media Example (IgniteSocialMedia.com)

While businesses in the healthcare sector may be bound by the HIPPA and will need to monitor their social media platforms to adhere to this, some institutions such as the Childrens Hospital of Boston have done a great job leveraging social media. Through its Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages, the hospital connects with all its patients.

Is there profit in a kinder, gentler business? (SocialMediaExplorer.com)

The answer? Yes. While efficiency is perceived to be at the heart of business, what it does in turn is take away the soul from the act. In an age where consumers have grown accustomed to soulless selling, it pays to actually show some heart. After all, this will be noticed regularly by customers and in time, you can create a better brand image that goes beyond “outstanding products”.

Search + Social = Authority x Influence (DArmano.TypePad.com)

Search & social do not exist independently, but co-exist in a dependent fashion. After all, when social influence goes around, it is bound to affect what shows up on the first page of search engine results. This is something important to consider when results are ranked according to authority and quality.

Facebook fine-tunes its Questions product (News.CNET.com)

While Facebook Questions was once suspected to be a rival to Quora, the new update gives the feature some distinction, fine-tuned to the needs of Facebook’s users. With short, poll-like answers in addition to long form responses, Facebook Questions becomes more relevant to everyday users seeking quick answers.

Tags: Business, community, companies, Facebook, Marketing, networking, relationships, seo, Strategy, trust
Posted in Social Media, Strategy, Weekly Link Round Up | 2 Comments »

Weekly Link Round Up – 03-04-11

Friday, March 4th, 2011

If You Love a Good Conversation, Set It Free (SocialMediaToday.com)

TED Conversations takes on the mission of broadening TED to a wider audience looking for great thinking at any time. With its Quora-like platform, this twist on the Q&A platform has caught the interest of large brands such as GE, getting them to sponsor the conversation and gain from it as well.

Ditto: Jaiku Founder Leaves Google, Aims to Beat it With Structured Recommendations (ReadWriteWeb.com)

According to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, people want Google to tell them what they should be doing next. Ditto, developed by Jaiku founder Jyri Engeström, addresses this with social suggestions and sourcing data from existing Twitter and Facebook social graphs to recommend places and activities.

SocialEyes: The intersection of video and the social graph (Building43.com)

Although video conferencing through the web has been around for more than a decade, the concept hasn’t really integrated well enough with the latest developments in social connectivity. SocialEyes changes this with a tool that introduces video into the Facebook experience.

How to Turn Your Email Into a Social Media Hub With Posterous (SocialMediaExaminer.com)

Feeling overwhelmed by too many social networks to manage? Check out how Posterous simplifies things by letting you post to 20 or so social media platforms through your email. Paired with a smartphone’s capabilities, Posterous can be a powerful partner for anyone who enjoys keeping in touch.

Bing, NYT And Everybody Else Wants A Piece Of Groupon’s Success (TechCrunch.com)

Thanks to Groupon’s success, other companies such as Bing and even the New York Times have been picking up on the trend of offering deals. As the concept is now one of the hottest revenue-making trends on the net, more players have come on to the field, bring in more deals and even offering services to aggregate all daily deals in an area.

Tags: applications, Blogging, community, networking, News, recommendation, Social Media, social networks
Posted in iPhone Apps, Marketing, Social Media, Technology, Weekly Link Round Up | No Comments »

Weekly Link Round Up – 02-18-11

Friday, February 18th, 2011

Is your brand coming on too strong in social media? (BazaarVoice.com)

New research from ExactTarget and CoTweet examines an important event in online brand-consumer relationships: “The Social Break-Up.” As social networks are a different ballgame from traditional marketing, brands need a way to keep the flame alive with their audience.

The secret to following lots of people on Twitter (TomRaftery.com)

In keeping social media relationships afloat, there’s always the need to pay attention to the other side of the conversation. While following a large number can get you a lot of great information, it is also important to know how to manage your Twitter so you enjoy the feed you get.

Do Purchased Twitter Followers Provide Real Value? (SocialMediaToday.com)

Sadly, money can’t buy true love. Nor can it purchase real followers that add to the conversation. Elliot Volkman shares more about how numbers don’t really matter when it comes to social media.

Is Mean Blogging The Writing Style Of The Future? (Successful-Blog.com)

On the other side of fostering relationships through social media, is it a good idea to step away from “nice writing” for once? In a sea of information filled with mostly nice, helpful content, what good does a “mean” writing style do? By creating “mean” blogs in the right way, you may just attract more followers who desire something more “real”.

Think the Old Spice Guy Is So 2010? Think Again (AdAge.com)

Look at your social media, now back to the Old Spice Guy. With a new viral ad campaign over on YouTube, the Old Spice Guy hasn’t lost his charm at all. In fact, he may have gotten better, garnering more views than past videos. His popularity continues to stay strong as well, through retweets and reposts all over the social web.

Tags: community, networking, News, relationships, Social Media, social networking, Strategy, Twitter, youtube
Posted in Social Media, Strategy, Weekly Link Round Up | 1 Comment »

Tips for forging relationships online

Wednesday, October 27th, 2010

Image by soopahgrover

Thanks to big-name entities like Starbucks, Skittles and Old Spice showing much success in the online marketing segment, more and more brands are jumping aboard the social media engine. Some simply ride the networking rails and reach out to their demographic through social networking sites; while others take the holistic approach, establishing their roots on multiple social networks, messaging services and multimedia platforms.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Brand Development, content creation, followers, Internet, networking, relationships, social media marketing
Posted in Marketing, Social Media, Strategy | 1 Comment »