Don't Waste Your Money on Social Media Two-Timers

Small business owners! I know... you recognize how powerful social media can be for your business vs traditional marketing, but are you noticing the lack of engagement by your followers? But you say you really don't have the time to invest in doing it right for better results?

Consider outsourcing. BUT be careful who you hire!

Don't fall for: "No time for Social Media? Pay just $___ a month for twice daily posting, five days a week."

That's like saying: "No time to answer customer phone calls? Pay just $___ a month for twice daily answering, 5 days a week." NOT! Get it? Oh, sure... having someone post 2x a day at least keeps you active for search engines... but isn't the goal customer face-time and response?

3 Ways to Monetize Facebook

Facebook at the moment is easily the most popular social media website that is around. It is no longer a platform only for the college students. Instead it has exponentially extended its reach to people of all ages. With millions of people on Facebook, it has opened up a Pandora's box of opportunities for business owners. Although many doubt the effectiveness of marketing through social media, it is nonetheless a means of online monetization that you do not want to miss out. Let me show you some tactics that you could use to monetize Facebook.

Share more, Sell less and Make Friends!

First and foremost, it is important to understand that Facebook was setup for the purpose of social interaction. It is a place for people with common interest or similarities to get to know one another.

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.

Earning Using Social Media

New advances in technology have completely revolutionized the manner in which people interact. Physical presence is no longer a requirement to keep in touch with your friends and family. With a few clicks and keystrokes, one is able to view the most recent photos, find out the current location, as well as know about the latest developments in people's lives. Remarkable, isn't it? And all this can be done in real time. There is yet another advantage of the increased accessibility of information: you can earn income from it.

Social media marketing encompasses a wide range of marketing strategies. By definition, it is the process of employing social media in order to promote or sell products and services. You will later find out that it is not limited to computer usage.

Using social media marketing to promote your products has several advantages over the traditional means of marketing. 

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.

Using Social Media for Your Event's Success

The social media explosion has changed the way events were being organized so far. The platform for social networking has been serving a lot as a marketing and promotion tool these days. Today, organizers across the world explore every aspect that a social media site offers to promote events. In fact, social media is infused with today's event promotion strategy, thus opening up new avenues to promote events virtually.

In this article, we are going to share four key tips on how to maximize the usage of the social media platform to execute a successful promotional campaign for events.

1. Create buzz by setting up an account

The promotion of an event starts long before the scheduled date of the actual program. You can start by creating an event page on leading social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter LinkedIn,etc. 

Using HootSuite to Help You

I often hear people share they are losing all their time in social media or they just can't ever find the time.

With so many social media platforms available to you, however, it can be tricky to manage all of them. You may even have multiple accounts in one site - for example, in Facebook, you may have a personal account and a page you created for your brand. It's very time-consuming to have to log in to all of your accounts, as well as input the information you need to post. So is there a better way to do this?

Well, HootSuite can definitely help you. It's a social media dashboard that can help you manage all of your social media accounts in one simple and easy-to-use interface. And that's not all it does - it even helps you monitor, track and measure your brand, so you can determine if you're getting a good ROI in your social media investments.

Managing your brand in one dashboard

Social Media and Email

There are so many available ways to make connections online and you can't just rely on email marketing to get great results. When used separately social and email are powerful tools, but used together they can really bring your customer engagement up to new heights.

Here are some tips for combining social and email:

    Use social media to get more people on your opt-in list. With a Facebook page for your business, you can provide page visitors an opportunity to "like" you and to register to be part of your email; on a Twitter account you tease followers with short blurbs from an upcoming newsletter or an offer.

    Flip the first tip and use your email to boost your social media fans and followers. In email marketing messages, you can invite people to find you on Facebook and Twitter using embedded links and buttons.