Free Photos, if you send their ad. The New World of Digital Media!

Such a clever idea!  Whenever I think I have a handle of what we can all do with web based marketing, someone comes up with an ingenious idea and my brain starts wheeling in a whole 'nother direction again!!  This would work sooooo well for a resort town like ours in Myrtle Beach!

 

 

Free love is always a great way to get consumers' attention, but if it can be branded and shared virally, it becomes a killer promotional tool. Enter PhotoBoxi, a device that turns the traditional photo booth into an advertiser's best friend.

PhotoBoxi is a sleek, portable and interactive digital photo booth that dispenses free love while capturing consumer data, generating leads and facilitating social network marketing. How it works? Consumers pose for free digital photos using the rented self-serve booth at a venue or event. Those photos then get instantly delivered to their email account, mobile phone and social networking sites along with the advertiser’s logo or message in an accompanying frame. From there, the photos spread virally as they're shared across myriad social networks — as does the brand's message. Advertisers even receive a Proof of Performance report indicating the number of photos taken; they also get users' email data in Microsoft Excel format and social photo analytics tracking where photos have been shared. A basic rental fee of USD 795 includes four hours of rental; local delivery, set-up and on-site tech; unlimited instant photo capture; 90-day online photo storage; and photos sent to customers after the event. Clients so far have included FIJI Water, Saks Fifth Avenue, Madam Tussauds, Procter & Gamble, Chivas, Heineken, Coca-Cola and National Geographic.

More at: - http://springwise.com/weekly/2010-12-08.htm#photoboxi

Attention, all Myrtle Beach SEO Marketing Consultants -- we got to get ourselves one of these in town.  The possibilities are infinite!!!!!

 

26 Tips to Snazz Up Your Facebook Page

A fab list of activities to engage your fans of your Facebook page (one of the most often used online visibility tactics around today) from the Social Media Examiner today, that I am sharing with you all, simply so that I have a record of it other than in my HUGE bookmarks folder!!

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/26-tips-for-enhancing-your-facebook-page/

 

 

TLC Makes An Old Social Media Tactic Look New and Uber-Snazzy!

Michael Stelzner, of Social Media Examiner recently interviewed Mark Burnett and Brian Reich about the HUGE, almost ground-breaking, social media strategy being created around the new Sarah Palin reality show - Sarah Palin's Alaska.

Mark Burnett from Michael A. Stelzner on Vimeo.

4 blogs have been created to support the show, and there will be 2 podcasts each week; one immediately after the broadcast and the other later in the week. The 4 blogs are to enable lots of very different audiences to "engage" with the show on any level that fits them. Explains Brian Reich, the Social Media Director for TLC -

"the blogs will focus on culture (and fashion), politics, media and pr and then then behind the scenes aspect of the show.  So that if we're talking about dog-mushing, we can offer information on dog-mushing on the blog"

This expands and deepens the content of the show, but also allows the TLC folks to explain what's going on in a cool way without turning the broadcast into a news program/documentary or talking down to the audience who may have no clue what dog-mushing is.  TLC calls it having a deeper conversation, making the whole thing a "richer and more compelling experience".

As such it's fascinating.  And fun.  But it's not new.  Squidoo has been surrounding a tiny topic with a bigger experience with their shopping modules, video, debates, prediction modules, etc. since 2005.

There is another aspect to it.  Spin. Taking a potential negative and spinning it into a bigger, more appealing asset. Here's another example:  At PF Changs, your server comes to your table to mix their special formula of a hot sauce.  Could it be that management realized no two servers would ever be able to replicate the exact same "company" sauce, so why not re-position is as a custom creation, unique to the server?  Now, no matter that it's always different every time you eat there.

For all of 2010, pundits have been saying that Social Media is no longer the story: it just is, and that "is" is part of everyone's regular marketing.  It's fun for this online visibility, web based marketing consultant to see that prediction being so deftly deployed, by TLC.

 

The Magazine Industry - saved by the iPad?

The world of internet marketing promotion is forever changing itself, and the media environment around it!

First, the magazine industry was dead.

Then someone noticed that readership was up.  Ad revenue was up.

Now, it's in a resurgence, but not in print, they say.  Online.

And it's all due to eReaders... a.k.a. the iPad!

According to Jack Griffin of Time, “sixty percent of American consumers plan to purchase an e-reader; four out five e-reader consumers want to read magazines on those devices.” The industry has created 300 apps across the spectrum, said Griffin and added “It’s been a long time since we’ve seen such a burst in creativity.”

Barnes and Noble - whose impressive newstand is a delight to behold, and a fabulously quick colorful way to note trends - is experiencing diminishing returns with their print versions (and with magazines on their Nook reader).  They are pulling back from magazines.

Starbucks, on the other hand, is rushing into magazines with it's own branded Starbucks Digital Network - aggregated, premium content offered for free over its massive WiFi network... as a value-added to in-store drinkers.  While this might be great news in the magazine industry, it will be interesting to see how it pans out... when the real reason for the value-added might be to  simply justify the rate hike.  

How much would you pay for a cup of coffee if the New York Times was thrown in and a few other periodicals?

And on an unrelated note... there are certain places where magazines will always be the easiest most enjoyable thing to read... places dangerous for eReaders, places where it would be horrendously expensive if the eReader was dropped.  eReaders don't do well when wet.

Taking “The Social Risk”

When I started experimenting with Social Media tools to get some online visibility for my commercial real estate practice over a year ago, I did expect it would raise a few eyebrows and perhaps even illicit a few snickers from my colleagues, peers and even senior management. When I decided I would experiment with social media for business purposes, one of the first things I did was research if anyone in the CRE industry was using the tools of what many considered only a fad that is “Social Media.” What I discovered was that very few were.

While I believed at the time Social Media was going to increasingly find its place in the mainstream business world, what I was really excited about was the fact that you could count on two hands people in my industry who had really adopted these tools. I saw this as a huge opportunity to differentiate myself from the pack of CRE brokers out there who all are doing exactly the same things in terms of business development and client relationship management.

Let’s face it, the CRE industry is:

• Very conservative or stuffy, pick your preference to describe it.
• Historically late adopters of new technology or even to new ideas for business practices.

CRE doesn’t understand Social Media

I believe there are several reasons CRE brokers have been slow to embrace Social Media as a tool for their business which revolve around several misconceptions that:

• Social Media is only for the younger generation
• Social Media is a fad that would quickly fade away
• Social Media is too far out of the mainstream for Commercial Real Estate

For the rest of this article, please visit Coy Davison's Blog

Coy Davidson speaks for many when he steps back to enjoy how much he's getting out of jumping in to social media!

The ROI of Social Media... is still zero?

When sweating the budget for your company's marketing efforts in 2011, no doubt there will be discussion along the lines - What about our soc

ial media marketing?  How much have we spent?  What's the ROI?  It's time-consuming; do we still have to keep doing it?  

Augustine Fou makes some brilliant points in the her article - The ROI of Social Media is Still Nill:

There are a few good examples where marketing activities in social networks can drive quantifiable value. For example, Dell has built up a following on Twitter over time so it cannow tweet last minute deals and clear out unsold outlet inventory very efficiently. Netflix has built up a large fan base on Facebook and uses it to interact with fans, get feedback, and announce new features or content. JetBlue and Best Buy use Twitter for customer service and have thus built up a large enough following to use Twitter as a launch or awareness channel which is free, compared to other channels like e-mail or direct marketing. The value derived from the above examples is replacement value - in other words, it can sufficiently and efficiently replace traditional, costly tactics such as market research, direct marketing, e-mail marketing, etc.

Fou's key assumptions:

Social media is not media - people's conversations cannot be purchased, nor should they be purchased. The volume and influence on these conversations are not known ahead of time.

Social marketing is not marketing - instead it is listening and learning from customers' genuine conversation among peers and earning the right to be part of the conversation by providing value and earning customers' trust.

He takes it one step further:-

Consider a new way to think about social media investment which may help to align spending and actions - "social media total value of ownership." Just like companies shifted to thinking about the total cost of ownership versus the one-time cost of capital purchases (e.g., computer hardware), companies should think of the longer-term "total value of ownership" for social media. Examples of the social media assets that are "owned" after longer-term investment may include fan pages on Facebook, followers on Twitter earned over time, collections of videos on YouTube, etc.

The return on these assets is derived over time and may not be attributable to any one marketing campaign. The ROI derived from these assets will come in the form of replacement value (e.g., you can tweet your launch announcements instead of paying for e-mail and direct marketing) and lasting value (e.g., customer reviews and candid discussions about a brand or product can live on in social media and benefit future potential customers when they go online to search, at no additional cost to the advertiser). Because the return is derived over time and is not easily attributable to any particular marketing campaign, social media should be thought of and executed at the corporate level - e.g., via corporate marketing - as opposed to brand marketing, which has a short-term view and specific revenue goals.

 

The Map of Online Communities

October 07, 2010

In 2007, the web-comic xkcd published their version of an "online communities map," which use statistics (and admittedly some guesswork) to map out social networks and communication sites in the form of countries on a world map.

As cool as that was, it was taken a step further in the 2010 version. You can compare the two versions and see how things have gotten bigger and smaller in the world - notice the rise of China's social networking website QQ.

 

Check out the full-sized version at xkcd, where you can also order it in poster form for $15.

Amazing when you see it all laid out like this...given the enormous change in the last 5 years, how can you possibly anticipate with any accuracy what's coming next?

The Map of Online Communities

October 07, 2010

In 2007, the web-comic xkcd published their version of an "online communities map," which use statistics (and admittedly some guesswork) to map out social networks and communication sites in the form of countries on a world map.

As cool as that was, it was taken a step further in the 2010 version. You can compare the two versions and see how things have gotten bigger and smaller in the world - notice the rise of China's social networking website QQ.

Check out the full-sized version at xkcd, where you can also order it in poster form for $15.

Amazing when you see it all laid out like this...given the enormous change in the last 5 years, how can you possibly anticipate with any accuracy what's coming next?

5 Big Social Media Questions from Small Business Owners

via feeds.mashable.com

Great summary of issues all of us face with small business marketing, when trying to optimize "all that social media stuff!"

Next: The Social Media Restaurant

Next: The Social Media Restaurant

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September 30, 2010

Nick Kokanas seems to be exploring the future of dining with the forthcoming launch of his restaurant Next. Wondering why he employed three people at his restaurant Alinea “just to say they were full“, Kokanas has realized that computer systems can help independent and small-chain restaurants cost effectively by offering customers better pricing at low periods, all-inclusive annual passes and a simple-to-use web based booking system.

The website reads:

Instead of reservations our bookings will be made more like a theater or a sporting event. Your tickets will be fully inclusive of all charges, including service. Ticket price will depend on which seating you buy – Saturday at 8 PM will be more expensive than Wednesday at 9:30 PM. This will allow us to offer an amazing experience at a very reasonable price. We will also offer an annual subscription to all four menus at a discount with preferred seating.

Two walk-in tables will be available every evening.

The tickets will be available via our website, and we are building the reservation system from scratch to ensure the best customer experience. It will be simple to use, efficient, and familiar to anyone who has booked a show or travel online.

As for the food, Kokanas and chef Grant Achatz will also keep diners hungry for more with a quarterly shift in cuisine (.e.g Sicily in the ’40s, or the Edo Period in Tokyo). The team created this teaser video to give future diners a taste of what’s to come:

via psfk.com

Such a fun idea. I am continually amazed at the new things EVERYDAY social media impacts and more often than not, improves our lives.

Facebook Making Significant Upgrades To Photos

Facebook Making Significant Upgrades To Photos: "

This afternoon Facebook announced a number of impending upgrades to their Photos product, the largest online photo product in the world. Many of the improvements that are being rolled out we’ve already covered through users who have sent screenshots over the past few months, however there are a few extra improvements that have not previously been covered.

The most significant improvement is that Facebook will now support high resolution photos. That means images can be as large as 2048 pixels in width or height. Additionally, Facebook is rolling out a new album layout to support the higher resolution images (as pictured below). These are the most significant upgrades for the most part, although there are a number of others, all highlighted on Facebook’s blog post from this afternoon which you can read here.

"

Facebook and LinkedIn are useful but they can't replace the in-person hugs and handshakes

John Jantsch, founder of Duct Tape Marketing is renowned for his impressive accuracy identifying trends in small business marketing.

Last year his predictions for 2010 included:-

No matter how wired we get as a society and business, there will always be a need for face to fact trust, building engagement. Now that small businesses have moved more online, the smart play will be to find the best ways to fuse the online and offline activities in ways that make the return on both even greater.

While LinkedIn and Facebook may be great places to find prospects and create awareness, they are not always the best platforms to build relationships deep enough to create a sale.

Using these platforms to create awareness for content that resides on your web site or to drive people to events where they can learn and network in person, will become an essential part of the marketing process.

In addition, using online tools such as Twitter and Biznik to further facilitate existing in person relationships, will become another tool that small businesses will add to their competitive arsenal. Now when a member of your sales team meets a prospect at a Chamber of Commerce function, they may follow them on Twitter and invite them to connect on LinkedIn as a matter of process and as a way to more easily communicate, refer and connect, all apart of the trust building cycle.

Elements of these trends have been brewing for some time and adoption of any trend generally happens over time and almost immeasurably. However, now is the time to analyze the impact these ideas may have on your business this year and into the future.

John Jantsch is a marketing and digital technology coach, award winning social media publisher and author of Duct Tape Marketing.

Now for 2011, John' writes - 

Information seekers will grow tired of the unpoliced nature of the Web and will increasingly turn to trusted sources of content and willing pay to have that content contained, packaged and delivered in application form to the device of their choice.

This is music to MY ears, as I have long felt enraged by the fleet of non-native english speakers who plagiarize decent material simply for backlinks.

 

For 2011 a new kind of strategy will emerge for the small business and that is one of using the online space to drive people to the offline space. The in person experience is the ultimate competitive advantage of the small business and how they beat the online and big box competition.

 

Get them in the store, get them to a meeting, get them to an event, get them in a community, get them on using an app.

 

Online 2 offline will be a strategic marketing approach employed by the most successful local businesses where conversion will be measured in hugs and handshakes. 

 

And the bottom line on Social Media/Networking, etc --

This year we will simply stop talking about social media as though it were some new, sexy, foreign cousin of marketing. It’s just a fact of marketing life and will get integrated into strategy and tactics alike in ways that produce ROI. (I hope all the social media consultants heed this.)

 

It will become standard operating procedure to include social media activity into a prospect of client’s CRM record and use social networks as the primary way to acquire introductions and make warm sales calls.

 

 

 

Small Biz Marketing: More Bad News for Yellow Pages

Long predicted this demise. Hard to feel bad for the folks who work there when this has been coming for so long. It's good to see some numbers in print, these thanks to Vistaprint.

Small Biz Marketing: More Bad News for Yellow Pages

via Small Business Search Marketing by Matt McGee on 9/23/10

It’s not quite “breaking news” anymore is it? No, but here are more troubling statistics for the yellow pages and, specifically, their status as a marketing venue for small businesses: According to a recent survey of “micro-businesses” conducted by Vistaprint, two-thirds of respondents have “no interest” in marketing via the yellow pages, and only 11% say they plan to use it in the future. Have a look:

The survey of 1,100 Vistaprint customers was done this past April. The stats above come from a question that asked what channels the micro-businesses are using now, and what channels they plan to use in the future. (Micro-business = 10 employees or less)

66% said “no interest” when asked about Yellow Pages — the highest to get a “no interest” reply. And only 11% said they planned on trying it in the next 12 months.

Social media and “online direct marketing” (i.e., e-mail marketing) both scored pretty well. Online advertising (i.e., paid search ads) had the top “plan to try it in the next 12 months” reply at 19%.

There’s some other interesting stats from the Vistaprint survey. I’m troubled by the notion that “friends/family” is the top reply when respondents were asked where they get marketing advice. Yikes.

Here are the full survey results on Vistaprint’s Small Business blog.

This is a post from Matt McGee's blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

Small Biz Marketing: More Bad News for Yellow Pages

Related posts:

1. Yellow Pages status report
2. “Other” Local Search sites gaining on Yellow Pages

Three Best Ways to Use Location-Based Social Media - WSJ.com

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Really good info - worth a read...and a save for future reference!

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Three Best Ways to Use Location-Based Social Media - WSJ.com*

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Why do Customers Make the Effort to "like" Company Facebook Pages?

Since Facebook is now the World's Third Largest Country (! half a billion people!)  why people are there, and what they do there becomes very interesting to those of us advising small business on how to grow their online visibility  Matt McGee recently shared a great look at why folks "like" Facebook pages... and you'll see it's is always to "get stuff"!  Successful Facebook pages therefore share unique coupons, tips, advice, information, etc.

Why do Customers "like" Facebook Pages for Brands

Since Facebook is now the World's Third Largest Country (!)  why people are there, and what they do there becomes very interesting to those of us advising small business on how to grow their online visibility  Matt McGee recently shared a great look at why folks "like" Facebook pages... and you'll see it's is always to "get stuff"!  Successful Facebook pages therefore share unique coupons, tips, advice, information, etc.

 

My First AudioBoo! They can only get better!!

General Motors to Integrate Facebook with OnStar

via mashable.com

"OnStar will soon offer a service that reads both Facebook and text messages to subscribers, according to an undisclosed source. Drivers will be able to respond with pre-canned messages, allowing them to keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel."
Do we really need to be soooo in touch with Facebook that we can't wait until we stop at a light or something?

Social Media: Top 10 Reasons Why Your Audience Doesn't Like You ...

Are you struggling with social media engagement? Struggling with building your audience? You have thousands of Twitter followers, maybe even 50 or 100 people who have clicked “like” on your Facebook page.

However, even with this early success you’ve seen in social media, people just simply aren’t engaging with your brand? You are not feeling the social media love that others talk about.

Top 10 Reasons Why Your Audience Doesn’t Like You

1. You are not engaging. You spend all day listening or retweeting. You are not genuinely engaging with your existing network. You are on the sidelines watching the game go on.
Tip: Engage. Have a conversation. Get in the game.

2. You are not providing value. Your website may lack content that resonates with your audience. Your tweets are well let’s say, tweets. They look, smell and act like everyone else.  There are more than 10 Billion Tweets sent  in a year.  Tweeting a simple tweet that looks and smells like every other tweeter will get you no where.
Tip: Provide value. Inspire and connect with your audience. Get in their head and learn who they are and what they need.  Provide content that helps them solve real business problems. Provide tips that help them move their business forward with new skills.

3. You are not following people back. If you have people following you and you are sitting on your arrogant Twitter mountain thinking you don’t have to follow them you might want to think again. This thinking drives me nuts. Show the love. Be a good friend.
Tip: Develop a follow-back strategy. There are different schools of thought on this. My personal recommendation is at minimum make an effort to follow people back. Don’t sit high on your Twitter mountain with the expectation everyone owes you something. They don’t.

4. You are not a good social media friend. You don’t retweet. You don’t thank people who show you love. You never follow back. You don’t comment on other blogs in a genuine way. You don’t thank people who comment on your blog.
Tip: Show the social love. Genuinely engage and make your audience and network know that you care about them. At minimum let them know you know they are there! Often times if I don’t have time to thank all of my retweeters or send a series of #FF follow friday recommendations on Twitter I will send a couple tweets during the day thanking my network.  I let them know I appreciate them and all the social love they gave me!

5. You are boring. Sorry folks but it could be you are just boring. I am seeing many people who have a boring profile picture, boring content. They are the same ones who sit all day and retweet news feeds of mortgage rates or market news. They are providing no value and not engaging.
Tip: Brand yourself.  Understand your audience. Who are they and what do they need. Who are you and what can you offer them. Give your business and brand a personality. Dare to stand above the norm.  If you shoot for status quo that is exactly what you will receive, if you’re lucky. It may be less.

6. Your website stinks. If you are boring, your content  is boring and your website stinks you have three strikes and you’re probably already out of the social media game.
Tip: Social media is about conversation. Engage in conversation with interesting content, design and brand.   Hire a web developer and freshen up your website.  If you don’t have the funds to do such then find a self-help site or teach yourself WordPress blog at minimum.

7. Your social profiles stink. If your Twitter background is the default and your Facebook Fan Page has no customization you once again are shooting for status quo.
Tip: Hire a consultant or an agency to spice up your profiles. If you don’t have the funds the leverage an off the shelf service. There are several Facebook Fan Page engines you can use yourself that are affordable.

8. Your Facebook Fan Page is all about you. What are you doing to engage your audience?
Tip: Engage your Facebook audience.  Have fun.  Ask them questions? Do some research. Ask them what they need, what they want.  Leverage the discussion tab to invite people to introduce themselves.

9. People don’t know the real you. You are hiding behind an avatar (social media profile photo). You are not sharing the real you. You are using corporate speak. You aren’t using video, no interesting blogs.
Tip: Let yourself shine. Try out video.  Come out behind the avatar and let people get to know you.  Don’t be afraid of video.  If you use video you will attract people who like you, people who want to business with you.

10. You are afraid. Because of what I said above you are afraid to come out and play in social media.  You have been intimidated by the mean blog posts that are surfacing the net on social media gurus, wannabe gurus etc.
Tip: Don’t let the bullies scare you! Be confident. Have fun. If you don’t you are never going to make it in social media, business or life.

Your Turn!

What are you doing to build community? Are you really engaging? What are you doing right that others can learn from? What do you find most difficult in building and engaging with your community?

via google.com

Be real, not corporate. Social = being you, as you might be a cocktail party, not a pitch meeting!