Social Marketing: Page 379

  • 5 Ways Strategic Social Media Can Help Small Businesses

    I often write about enterprise organizations and global brands...essentially big businesses. This is the first in a series dedicated to small businesses.One of the biggest misconceptions about social media strategy is that only the big brands and enterprise organizations can afford success. The i...

    By • Sept. 23, 2012

  • Help Wanted Maybe: SM Pros Expected to Show Strong Personal Followings?

    It's no revelation that after being on social media for an 8+-hour-day for business, some involved in the social media industry don't log on in their off-hours.In fact, Reuters Deputy Social Media Editor Matthew Keys announced in July that he was making the decision to quit Twitter until Septembe...

    By • Sept. 23, 2012

  • Customer Service Agents are Also Sales People

    Although a customer service agent might be overheard saying they prefer to be in the background when it comes to sales positions, the talents of customer service representatives also take a paramount position in successful sales and marketing. The leadership role, as well as the emotional tone an...

    By • Sept. 22, 2012

  • How Retail Channel Surfing Affects Sales and Customer Service

    Never forget: Your customers are likely to use the different sales channels you offer in different ways. Some of your customers may buy exclusively over the web but visit your brick-and-mortar stores to see, feel, even sniff your products (or, I suppose, your personnel) before they go home to ord...

    By • Sept. 21, 2012

  • 10 Things Your Customers Wish You Knew About Them [Infographic]

    Earlier this week I shared an infographic that outlined the 6 Keys to Branding your Small Business. One of the components was related to knowing who your target audience - or customers are. You can never know too much about your customers. Understanding their likes and dislikes, shopping behavior...

    By • Sept. 20, 2012

  • Five Ways To Socialize Your Customer Service Team

    All forms of customer service share the same core values. But social media brings in completely new rules of play that you need to educate your social customer service team in. How can you best deliver great customer service while adapting to the demands and challenges of social media?1. As Custo...

    By • Sept. 19, 2012

  • Thoughts on Managing Your Social Vendor Relationships

    Let's face it - the vendors you rely on for social media & community platforms, services and advice have you outnumbered and surrounded. Between account reps, sales reps, relationship managers, executive success partners and the rest of the cast, most vendors have a veritable army of skilled ...

    By • Sept. 18, 2012

  • How the San Francisco Giants Hit a Home Run with Social Media

    It wasn't too long ago when sport industries were confounded by the openness of social media and the ability for fans and players to share experiences in real time. Now of course, times have changed and teams in every sporting league imaginable are experimenting with social media to improve relat...

    By • Sept. 17, 2012

  • Content Curation: A Poor Substitute for Original Content

    You may have noticed that content curation has grown very quickly as a way for people and organizations to publish on the Web.Sure, there are some benefits to this effort. But as a strategy for generating attention for yourself or your business, content curation is nowhere near as powerful as gen...

    By • Sept. 17, 2012

  • Going Mobile: Do You Use Utility Marketing to Connect with Clients?

    What is Utility Marketing?Putting content and information in your marketing material that your target audience can utilize.It's the opposite of interruption marketing where your goal is to get your offer in front of as many people as possible in the hopes that someone will buy.You may have heard ...

    By • Sept. 17, 2012

  • Local communities for local business

    When you think of online communities what springs to mind is typically a global, or at least international, gathering of people around a shared topic of interest. It could be a group of football fans discussing the fortunes of their favourite team. It could be employees of a multinational colla...

    By • Sept. 16, 2012

  • Savvy Salespeople Do Prospect Research [VIDEO]

    Have you noticed how many of your prospects these days have a whole lot of knowledge regarding what you're selling? There's a good reason for it. They've been online doing their homework. Prior to meeting, they've often researched your company. They know about your products & services. They k...

    By • Sept. 15, 2012

  • Ten Questions: A B2B Online Community Readiness Checklist

    A wide range of B2B firms are considering the need for creating and operating their own online customer communities. In the B2B information technology sector, customer support, knowledge-sharing and product enhancement communities are common. For example, nearly two-thirds (65%) of 207 firms sur...

    By • Sept. 14, 2012

  • Social Marketing: It's definitely a team sport, says Toyota's Scott DeYager

    What are the most important social media marketing skills that graduating college students need to understand?I'm asking three questions of some leaders in the field of social marketing and this is what I learned.Scott DeYagerThis is No. 12 in the series (see the links below for other posts in th...

    By • Sept. 14, 2012

  • How to Run a Successful Photo Contest on Social Media

    In our last piece on Social Media Campaigns, we introduced the basic benefits of giving fans a solid reason to 'Like' your page. In this piece, we'll discuss a specific type of campaign that will get your fans involved and fill up your platforms with highly likeable and shareable visual content: ...

    By • Sept. 13, 2012

  • Why Social Media Matters for Students in Leadership Roles

    Think of social media users and the image that most likely comes to mind is a college-aged person on a smartphone. We are right there with you. As the first, and for awhile the exclusive, users of Facebook, college students and social media are a likely pairing. Social media use is highly associa...

    By • Sept. 12, 2012

  • Social Media Still About the People - IBM Smarter Commerce SummitTakeaways

    Yowza, what an amazing experience at the IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit in Orlando last week. IBM seriously rocked our business, social and personal world.As most of you know, we helped IBM turn up the social media volume at their Smarter Commerce Global Summit last week. We conducted numerou...

    By • Sept. 12, 2012

  • Social Media Expert Checklist- How Expert Is YOUR Expert?

    One of the other key conclusions that came from our video series on social media on YouTube called Social Revelations was how vast the subject of social media expertise really is. We were able to clearly show that the statistics just don't support the idea that one individual is going to have all...

    By • Sept. 12, 2012

  • Social Media Marketing: Lessons from the Thank You Economy

    In 2011, Gary Vaynerchuk wrote The Thank You Economy about the rise of social media and its effects on today's economy. We no longer live in a world where our opinions are rarely heard, "we live in a world where anyone with a computer can have an online presence and a voice," says Vaynerchuk. Dev...

    By • Sept. 11, 2012

  • SMB Still Reluctant to Embrace Social Media As They Should

    It appears that Social Media has finally been given the respect it deserves and is now a requirement, not an accessory, for all Business' Marketing Campaigns. Many larger Companies and Brands are active on social media, but Small and Medium-sized Businesses have yet to embrace the medium.A recent...

    By • Sept. 10, 2012

  • Online Communities and Self-service

    What do you think of when you hear the words 'self-service'? If you're anything like me your mind will wander towards supermarkets. After all, most large grocery stores have had self-service checkouts for a little while now. Initially they seemed rather clunky, and many more people needed assi...

    By • Sept. 10, 2012

  • The 3 Worst Ways to Use Social Media to Grow Your Business (And What You Should Do Instead)

    New media has changed the way we interact and communicate.To understand and adapt to these changes, "social media experts" popped up to help organization's evolve their marketing communications accordingly.But while their intentions might be good, their results aren't. Because having more Twitter...

    By • Sept. 10, 2012

  • How to Create Awesome Web Content and Achieve Top Search Engine Rankings

    This blog post highlights a very successful marketer - Larry Waight of The Lodge at Chaa Creek, an eco-resort in Western Belize - who has achieved high search engine rankings for many important keywords. This content marketing effort generates a remarkable 80% of new business for the Lodge. This ...

    By • Sept. 10, 2012

  • Why Costco Discounts Postage Stamps - and Why It Matters

    A good equation for value is as follows: Value = Personal Benefit minus Cost and Inconvenience. But the "personal benefit" variable can easily override the cost factor for a significant sector of the market, at least up to a certain point. Not everybody values money the same, clearly: If commerc...

    By • Sept. 9, 2012

  • 45 Signs You Need to Get a Grip on Your Social Media

    You are not alone if you feel that your social media program has gotten a bit out of control. Do you wish you had a social media policy? Have no idea what is being published when by your social media team? Have nightmares about a PR crisis or waking up to see a picture of you passed out at your d...

    By • Sept. 8, 2012