Social Media You Should Be Using

Social media reaches large numbers of individuals with only a few key strokes. You can connect with a wide-range of individuals, differentiate your brand and distribute codes and promotional codes with relative ease at little to no cost. If you are looking to reach a maximum amount of people without exerting all of your time and energy into social media marketing, there are sites you need to be using. By now you have probably got the basic down — Twitter and Facebook. However, there are many other social media outlets out there to help you appeal to the masses.

Trying “bumping” with your customers or clients. Bump is a mobile application that gives users the ability to exchange contact information, pictures, social networking information and calendars. All you need to do is bump another individual using the application on your mobile phone.

Share unique photos with customers using Hipstamatic. This is an application available for iPhone and Android users. You can take pictures using unique lenses, flashes and films. You can then upload your pictures to Facebook or Flickr. You can even enter contests with your picture on the Hipstamatic application.

Manage your Facebook and Twitter accounts with one application known as Hootsuite. Hootsuite is a clean interface that allows you to tweet, like and update your statuses from one convenient location. You can schedule updates, set up columns to monitor tags and translate your tweets and updates into other languages allowing you to reach individuals around the globe.

Send text messages to all your customers at once using Mass Text Message. You can create custom contact groups based on the types of customers you are trying to reach. You can then send out a mass text message with your message, promotion or discount code.

The world of mobile application continues to grow. Many mobile applications are directly linked to social media. Search through the applications on your smartphone, you may be surprised at the applications out there that can help your business.

Super Bowl Social Media……

Football players and coaches are not the only individuals to come out big at the end of a Super Bowl match-up. The Super Bowl XLV winners are the Greenbay Packers and the National Football League. Aside from the obvious revenue from tickets, merchandise sales and advertising, the NFL was able to benefit from the use of social media.

Social media gave those who were not so lucky to have a ticket a peek at what it was like to be inside Cowboy Stadium. Avid Twitter, Facebook and bloggers shared photos and tweets directly from inside the stadium. Taking advantage of applications including Blogger and Flickr, the Super Bowl became a popular event through mobile application use. You could receive real time updates from you friends through the use of your mobile phone applications.

The Super Bowl introduced a new social media site known as Heapr.com. This site combines Google and Twitter searches on to one page, which presents the information you want and need much faster than having to search two different websites.

Some of the most popular searches: Steelers, Packers, National Anthem, Super Bowl, Half Time, Usher, Black Eyed Peas, Win, Game, Halftime Show.

Additionally, real time blogging has become a thing of the past. Journalists have turned to Twitter and updated their followers with 140 character updates of the game. After all, do you really need an entire blog entry to say Touchdown, Packers or Sack, Steelers ? Probably not.

How to Boost Your Online Business?

The popularity of online shopping continues to grow and grow. With so many online stores selling similar products, standing out in the online shopping world is a must. Here’s how to boost your business and stand out from the crowd.

• Develop an SEO campaign. Keywords will direct traffic to your website.  When a customer places keywords in a search engine, using the right keywords will place you on top of the competition.
• Develop a user-friendly website. A user-friendly website should load quickly and be easy to navigate. If a potential customer becomes frustrated with the loading time or has difficulty navigating your online store, they are likely to move on to the next site.
• Make a deal no one can refuse. Offer free shipping, sales, clearance items, free gifts with purchase and promotional codes. Every consumer loves a good sale.
• Use e-mail marketing. Let loyal customers know about your sales and promotions. Use e-mail marketing to send sale reminders, promotional codes and information on new products.
• Use social media. Facebook and Twitter is a great way to get your name out there. You can use these media outlets for promotions and lead generation. Offer contests through the use of social media.
• Create a blog. Let shoppers know what your company is all about. Use a blog to explain company events and to mark company milestones. Blogs can also provide reviews and demonstrations of products for sale on your website.

Keep Your Readers! Even if You Take A Vacation.

Blogs have become an integral part of small businesses. Fresh content on your page will keep your readers coming back for more. But what happens if for some reason you are not there to provide this fresh content? Life sometimes finds it’s way between you and your blog and you need to be prepared for this, even if you do not have time to update your blog. Say you are busy, take a vacation, have a baby, go on a business trip, etc. Now what? As life happens, your blog can carry on. Here are some suggestions to keep your readers reading:

Write in advanced. You can write your posts ahead of time and put them on a schedule to post while you are vacationing or doing whatever your life takes you. Your blog posts can go live regardless of where you are and what you are doing. You don’t have to even be near your computer. Your content will remain just the way you like it, without having to worry about style or tone changes that a guest blogger may bring to your blog. The only pitfall with writing in advanced is that you are going to have to find the time to actually write your blogs in advanced.

Create a series. Many bloggers will create a series of posts to release to their readers. This is generally a popular topic that needs to be broken down into various sections. A series can leave the reader with something to read and want to come back to reading all week long. Once again, these posts will need to be created ahead of time.

Enlist the help of a guest blogger. If you do not have the time to preplan your blogs before you go away, you can always opt of a guest blogger to keep things up and running while you are away. You can invite co-workers, experts in the field, or even frequent commenter’s on your blog to do the job. This can even add a little spice to your blog. Just remember to leave your guest bloggers with guidelines before you leave.

The best of your blog. Take this opportunity to highlight your best posts.  Instead of developing new content, take posts that received a lot of traffic and feedback and repost them. This will also allow more recent followers of your blog to take a look at your best work.

Simply keep it quiet. Some bloggers chose to announce to their readers that they are going to be out of the office or away from their computers for a couple of days or a week. They just leave it at that. This way can be a little risky. People like constant updates and you may risk losing readers if you take this route.