How To Use Hype In Your Social Media Marketing

Hype Works. None of us like it; all of us succumb to it. "They" keep doing it, because it works.

The reason hype works is because of the feelings that are generated with hype. There's excitement in the spokesperson's voice, enthusiasm and energy. There's the hope that whatever is presented really IS the solution to every problem on the planet. There's the vision of a better, brighter, richer, thinner, bug-free tomorrow. And if the practitioner does the hype really well, the price sounds like the bargain of all time.

What we resent about hype is that we are raised up with massive expectations and then inevitable reality sets in. We fall hard when the picture that was painted turns out to be smoke and mirrors. We resume gloom, feeling "taken" once again. As per usual.

Advertising on Facebook for Free: Tips for Increasing Your Fan Base

One of the easiest ways to conduct advertising on Facebook for free is to increase the number of fans to your Facebook business page. This step is really important because Facebook marketing is all about getting potential customers to become fans that will spread the word about how great your product or service is for other people. The greater the number of fans, the greater chance you have for motivating more dialogue on your page. The following are some easy-to-follow strategies you can use to increase the number of users on your business page.

Create a regular Facebook profile

You first and foremost want to start adding your personal contacts to your profile's network. 

Getting Fans and Engaging With Customers on Facebook - Part 1

There is no super secret on how to succeed on Facebook: it's all about hard work. The platform was created around personal relationships, and that's what you have to focus on. There are many strategies you can use to connect with your fans, but we are going to start simple. Right after you finish setting up your business page, Facebook will show you 4 ways to get fans: Invite your friends, tell your fans, post status updates and promote this page on your website.

1. Invite your friends: In this option you will be able to invite your friends from your personal account to join your page. Just click on INVITE FRIENDS, and choose who you want to invite. Check the box next to the person's name, and then click on SUBMIT. Facebook will automatically invite them to like your page.

2. Tell your fans: That's the most effective way to get fans, but you'll need to have an email database or an email account to link to Facebook. 

How LinkedIn Can Be Part of Your SEO Solution

LinkedIn is very SEO-friendly and therefore, is a service you should use. I use LinkedIn and find it more valuable by the day. "SEO," in layman's terms, means using Internet tools to help your ideal customers find you, your products and your services. When you first visit www.linkedin [dot] com and create an account, you create a personal profile. The profile reads like a Resume. It has your name, current job, previous job(s), education and recommendations. Because the LinkedIn profile reads like a Resume, I tell people to have their complete Resume in electronic format before creating their LinkedIn profile. They can simply copy and paste text from the Resume to the LinkedIn profile.

LinkedIn is very SEO friendly. I've had several occasions when I posted an entry at LinkedIn, Googled my name and found that entry at the top of the list. Not only did Google pick up the new entry within 30 seconds, but it also placed that entry at the top of the Search Results window.

Get The Most Out Of Social Media Marketing

One of the marketing advancements that is gaining grounds is social media marketing. This marketing style takes advantage of the internet to promote products and services.

The people's fascination and involvement with social media has made it the perfect tool to get people to notice the new products being sold and services being offered.

Social Networking sites are now not just for updating family members and friends about what's going on in a person's life. It is not just for communication. Today it is also for advertising.

Advantages of Using Social Media Marketing

What About Going Social on The Net to Reach Your Customers?

Gone are the days when you had to travel a lot to meet your relatives or your friends to keep up your social standing in the society. Nowadays all you need is an internet connection and an account in Facebook or Twitter to socialize with the rest of the world. I am amazed at the pace of technology and often wonder at the dependency of all on it. Even my six year old daughter wants to open an account in one of the social sites to be in touch with her friends, such is the influence of social media. There is no doubt that the computer technology has made things easier for us, but we need to use the same in the right way to increase our efficiency rather than replacing our social communication with it fully, especially in personal relations.

Video chat and Skype has given us a new way of communication thus increasing the accessibility and multiparty gathering from different parts of the world. The day is not far when we will see people getting married on a video conference and different relatives coming to the wedding through the same link.

Twitter Tips - How to Send a Direct Message

Twitter is one of the most popular websites on the Web, with 175 million tweets being sent every day. Most of those tweets are freely visible to the public, but sometimes Twitter users want to send a private message to another user. The only way to do this in Twitter is to send a direct message, which can only be seen by the user you send it to, much like an e-mail.

You can only send a message to people who are following you, though. That's the only catch. If you want to send a message to someone who isn't following you, you'll have to send a public tweet and include the @ symbol followed by the person's user name. However, for anyone who is following you, sending a message is simple and can be done in one of two ways.

One way to send a private message is from your profile page. At the top of the page next to the search box is a generic picture of a person. 

To Pinterest or Not?

What is Pinterest and Why Should You Care

Pinterest isn't new but it's just in the last few months that there has been a buzz about this new social media site called Pinterest, which actually was started by a couple of college guys. They had been looking at paper catalogues and then they suddenly had a brilliant idea about how much fun it would be to be able to look at a catalogue of items their friends had picked out. In began in December of 2009 and by March of 2010 they had a prototype in use for friends and family. Since then every user has been given a handful of invites to share with their friends and family.

In December 2011, Pinterest was on Hitwise's ten social networks list in position #5 ahead of Google+ and even ahead of LinkedIn.

Twitter Tips - How Often Is It Ok to Re-Tweet?

We've all had those moments when we're talking in a group of people and one person just keeps talking about himself. It's annoying. It may be tempting to do that on Twitter, but the same rule applies. Don't only talk about yourself. If all of your tweets are just promoting your blog or products, then eventually people will start to tune you out, if they even continue to follow you.

So what do you do? One way is to tweet links to web pages that you like. An even better way, though, is to retweet others

What is retweeting? It's exactly what it sounds like. When someone tweets a message or link that you love, and you want your followers to know it, then you can have Twitter retweet it from your name. It works like forwarding an e-mail. It'll show as coming from you, but it will show that it's a retweet from another user.

How Don Draper and Roger Sterling Succeed in Advertising - Martinis Anyone?

When Don Draper's highball glass starts to twinkle & glisten like his eyes, it is almost guaranteed that the sexy ad man from Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce has come up with a yummy campaign cocktail sure to entice and inebriate his potential client.

The days of "taking your client out for liquid lunches" and showing them a "good time" at the local go-go palace have been shoved aside to make room for coffee conclaves at Starbuck's, tuna salad sandwich trysts at organic health stores and even more prevalent is the ever so popular Noon-Time Showdowns on Skype. What happened to good old fashioned face-to-face, get down and dirty, this is what I look like when I've had a few too many, sign the contract and let's do business kind of work ethics?

Social Media & Social Networking are, for now, our modern day "sign the contract" work ethic. It's the way most advertising & marketing gets out there.

Social Networks: Understanding Each One

You know you should listen to your customers and you are aware that social media has been the new way for people to express their opinions about products and services. But what are the platforms available and what are the differences between each one of them? Here is a quick guide for you:

FACEBOOK

What it is: It is the most popular social network with over 800 million users. People usually build profiles to keep in touch with family and friends. Lately it has been used by businesses as a marketing tool. On Facebook people can send and receive messages, chat online, post pictures and share links and videos. They can also "like" a page - there are six types of pages: local businesses, companies, products, artists, entertainment and community. Facebook offers many options to interact such as the Wall, photo albums, comments space and the "like" button, where people click if they like the comment or post. If users don't like something or someone, they have the option of blocking the person's updates or deleting the person from their profile.

How to Social Network Marketing on Facebook: Tips for Engaging the Right Audience

When you first learn how to do social network marketing, one of the key skills you must know is how to perform a paradigm shift. The nature of Facebook is a place where people socialize; it's not an online marketplace. Why market on Facebook, then? Marketers and business owners know that they must create brand awareness and increase community which will eventually lead to sales. Finding your target audience and interacting with them will certainly lead to future profits if you know how to do it right. When customers are genuinely interested in you and your brand, that interest can eventually lead to sales. Here are some tips for finding the right audience.

Avoid the hard-sell

Conventional marketing allows for hard-selling to individuals. Do not use this type of marketing method on Facebook. 

How to Make the Most of Facebook for B2B Marketing

Most b2b marketing experts constantly find ways of how to utilise social media. And why not? Since almost everyone is into social media-plus marketing the "social" way is more subtle and effective than doing it the hard selling way.

Facebook for Business to Business Marketing

It all began in this social network. For marketers, it's a good news that Facebook-what was once considered to be a social network for requesting friends can already be used for business purposes. Here's how:

1. It can be transformed into a lead generation channel. So who says you can't generate business leads on Facebook? Sure you can-especially now with its latest Facebook Timeline rollout; though you can't place calls to action within your cover photos, but then you could place them in its "Views and Apps" part of the page, just below your cover picture.

How to Be in Time for Timeline

Facebook continues to change and enhance its features for all its users. After releasing the Timeline layout for personal profile pages a few months ago, they have released Timeline for business pages. And, all will have to change over by March 30 so the time to learn to use it is now! The new layout will benefit businesses in many ways, but we have to adjust some things to make it work to our advantage. The new layout makes it easier interact with our fans, post enhanced graphics, and will give us the ability to arrange our posts the way we want them to show on our page.

If you have a business page on Facebook, there are a couple of things that you need to do before switching to Timeline. Timeline gives us more creative freedom and if we take advantage of that, our business can attract more customers and make them stay long enough to find out more about us. The Timeline layout for business pages will automatically be forced to all pages on March 30. If you want to get the new layout for your business page, here are some things you need to prepare:

LinkedIn: More Effective Personal Meetings?

It is essential to a personal brand's success to be active in the social media world. Social media has transformed the way people communicate with each other. People are now spending more and more of their time in different social networking sites, interacting and engaging with other users and brands.

Though you may be able to connect with someone meaningfully through social media, nothing beats connecting with someone in person. Face-to-face meetings continue to be invaluable in helping you form strong personal connections.

Instead of viewing social media as a platform that can take the place of personal meetings, you should start looking at social media as a way to connect with people prior to meeting them in person. It's a way to interact and engage with them and to help you overcome that first hurdle when you finally meet them face to face.