Brand by Pinning
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What’s your Pinterest? Whether it is cooking, traveling, exercising, designing or pretty much anything else, Pinterest has a “pin” for you. One of the newest social media sites, Pinterest is all about imagery. Users create boards to categorize their favorite images. Think of it as an online bulletin board for all of your ideas, inspirations and, of course, interests.
According to a recent ragan.com article, imagery allows people to consume information in a much quicker way. For instance, if a user sees something they like, such as a product, they pin it and might refer back to it when making purchasing decisions.
For this reason, the site is a great source for branding—if you do it the right way. This means not posting just pictures of your products. Devote one or two boards for product posting and use the other boards to form relationships with pinners.
For example, for a company in the home and building industry, develop a board for pictures of your homes. Be sure to use interior and exterior shots and link them to your website. Then, create other boards that home
buyers would be interested in. Think interior design, home products, crafts and even recipes. These pictures will attract other pinners. As they repin and comment on these images and you repin their images, you can build relationships.
Your brand will be seen as an expert on all things home related, instead of just a builder spamming the site with tons of pictures of homes. Not a lot of pinners search for “pretty pictures of homes”. But if they are searching under the category “Home Décor”, they will come across all of your pins, including the homes you are selling.
The mission of Pinterest is “to connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting…With millions of new pins added every week, Pinterest is connecting people all over the world based on shared tastes and interests.”
If you need help building a presence on Pinterest or creating a social media strategy for your company, contact mRELEVANCE.
This Holiday’s Must-Have Tech Gifts for Business
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What should business owners want in their tech stockings this year? If you are making a wish list for Santa and trying to decide what hot tech items you can’t live without in 2012, then here’s our list of suggestions to put on your list.
Smart Phone – If you don’t have a smart phone by now, this should be number one on your list. Capitalize it, underline it and put it in bold; so Santa will know you really want this. Smart phones not only combine the functions of a handful of tech accessories into one device (your smart phone will be your PDA, mobile phone, digital camera, video camera, GPS unit and portable media player); smart phones typically also include high-resolution touchscreens and advanced web browsers with high-speed data access. A smart phone won’t guarantee that you’ll never get lost, be late for an appointment, or miss the opportunity to take a cute pic of Fido, but those things will happen a lot less with a smart phone. And like the rest of us, you’ll wonder how you ever functioned without it. iPhone, Android and Blackberry are probably the top three smart phone brands, play around with models of each of them to find which will work best for you.
Tablet – A tablet computer, like the iPad, is a mobile computer, larger than a mobile phone, smaller than a laptop that allows you to do just about anything you would on your computer. This includes office tasks (like spreadsheet, word processing, presentations); note taking; online chat and social media; personal finance; web browsing; email; playing games; reading e-books, magazines and/or newspapers; playing videos or movies or watching TV or shopping online. The great thing about a tablet is not just that it’s portable, easier to carry than a laptop, but that it is uniquely yours. Computers are more or less, kind of all the same, but you set up your tablet to do what you want it to, and it is a reflection of you. It’s the intersection between the creative and the technical. This year’s hot tablets are the iPad 2, Kindle Fire, Nook Tablet and Galaxy 8.9 Tab.
Super slim laptop – Like the MacBook, these laptops are incredibly lightweight. No more achy shoulders and backs hauling around bulky, heavier laptops. Lightweight laptops are not new, but they are getting better and better. They are sturdier, faster and more powerful, more comfortable to type on and have a greater battery life than its predecessors.
If you travel, ask for a charging station, like an ElectroHub. These neat little tools offer compatibility for a vast amount of devices, from the TV remote to your smart phone. Many charging stations can charge up to six devices at one time, all using AA or AAA batteries.
More monitor! Okay, we love our itty bitty smart phone screens, but when we need to get down and dirty and get to work, most of us over the age of 22 appreciate a large monitor with a screen that we can actually see, at a distance of more than 8 inches away from our faces. A 24-inch monitor for your office would be great for this. Even better, ask for two monitors, that way you can view multiple screens at one time.
If you do any sort of presentations in your job, you will want a pocket projector. These highly compact projection devices weigh less than two pounds, but have the ability to project for large audiences. They have long-lasting batteries, internal memories and memory-card compatibility, and many have touch-screens, blue tooth compatibility and internet access.
With all of these touch screen devices, you might appreciate touch screen gloves. Many companies are now making these high-tech finger warmers that allow you to use your devices while keeping your gloves on and your hands nice and toasty. Especially if you are traveling this winter, you will appreciate these. They are inexpensive and sold at most department stores.
Portable scanner – these aren’t new, but these compact scanners can help you get organized for the New Year. They can easily scan everything from business cards to receipts and include software to help you keep your scans organized and stacks of paper off your desk.
Look for our next holiday gift suggestions, which recommend the web tools that your business needs to stay competitive in the New Year. Contact mRELEVANCE if you need help setting up an effective marketing program for the New Year.
Listening is Important on Social Media Too
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The key to communicating is listening. If you don’t listen to those speaking to you or what is happening around you, what you have to say might be irrelevant. The same goes with social media. According to a PR Daily article, “To be a master at social media communication, you must have a strong foundation of listening.”
How do you build this foundation in the online world?
1. Set up Google alerts. This tool sends e-mail updates of relevant content found on Google based on your queries, or key terms. Want to know what people are saying about your company or clients? Generate a query for each individual company, client or relevant search term.
2. Set up Google Webmaster tools on your blog and website. Look at the inbound links report to see the number of inbound links and which sites are linking to your site.
3. Bookmark successful case studies. Read a case study or social media success story in your industry? Use social bookmarking sites, such as Digg, Delicious, or Stumble Upon, to keep track of them. That way, you can refer back to them online and you don’t even have to waste paper or ink.
4. Search on Twitter. Searching on Twitter allows you to view what others are thinking about certain issues, products and maybe even your company. Create search queries and monitor these daily. You can also create lists of people to monitor without actually following them. This makes keeping up with your competitors super easy!
5. Look at your Web analytics—at least once a month. This will help you see where your website traffic is coming from, as well as how it trends month-to-month and year-over- year.
After building a foundation, you can “listen” to what others are saying online and be able to communicate with them easier. Once connections are built, you may make new business partners or even clients. Just remember to listen!
If you need with any of the above tools or any other social media needs, contact the team at mRELEVANCE.
Your Internet Marketing Toolbox
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As you start to budget, plan and strategize for 2012, it is important to take a good look at your Internet Marketing Toolbox. In order to create a comprehensive marketing program, you’ll want to set it up with your blog and website as the foundation and all of your other marketing tactics integrated.
Your website is the single most important communication vehicle for your company and brand. It is also one of the few that you completely control. Make sure that you are taking advantage of your website as an effective tool to attract traffic and capture leads. After all, an effective marketing program will generate quality traffic and capture qualified leads. Your marketing program should
- drive traffic to your website;
- effectively convert web traffic to customers; and
- generate leads and prospects.
Your team will then take those leads and prospects and convert them into sales. Lead management is an essential component of your marketing program.
Each element of your strategy must work effectively with, and reinforce, the others. You must design and build your website so both consumers and the search engines can find it. You need a strong search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing program with the right keywords. Additionally, make sure you include blogging, online public relations, social networking, and bookmarking in your tactics. Ensure local search sites include positive information and recommendations for your company. You need to be everywhere your buyers might be and provide opportunities for your marketing team to communicate regularly and directly with prospects by e-mail, text messages, and social networks. Position advertising, whether online or elsewhere, to attract attention and include a call to action consumers will respond to. Finally, include tracking devices for determining what works and what doesn’t so you can adjust your strategy to be more effective.
Make sure that as you look at your Internet Marketing Toolbox for 2012 that these components are included:
• Website and/or blog
• Keyword strategy
• SEO
• Microblogs
• Social networks
• Local search sites
• Online PR
• Photo sharing
• Video syndication
• Social bookmarking
• Search marketing
• Internet advertising
• Lead management
• CRM
• E-mail marketing
• Website tracking
• Search engine rank tracking
If you need assistance putting your plan together, contact the team at mRELEVANCE, we can help!
Are People Reading Your Content on Tablets?
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It’s commonly said that tablets aren’t for creating content, but rather for viewing it. With the recent launches of Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble’s Nook, the tablet market dominated by Apple has some new competition. As the market continues to grow, companies need to consider how their content translates to mobile devices.
A recent study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and The Economist Group reveals several interesting statistics regarding tablets. For example, 11 percent of U.S. adults now own a tablet computer of some kind. About half of them (53 percent) get news on their tablets every day.
According to the study, 77 percent of all tablet users who view the news weekly on their devices now spend more time getting news than they did before purchasing a tablet. Even more surprising is the fact that 33 percent say they are using brand new sources of news on tablets, i.e., sources that they didn’t use on other platforms such as televisions or even other computers.
What does this mean for websites and website development?
With the popularity of tablets clearly on the rise, especially among news seekers, the big question is: Are you developing website content that is easily accessible for people regardless of platform? Mitch Levinson, managing partner of mRELEVANCE, explains some of the trends he is seeing in terms of web traffic.
“Over the past 12 months, our monthly web traffic from mobile devices ranged from 5 to 10 percent. In the last two months, it has increased to roughly 15 percent,” Levinson said. “We believe this increase is permanent and that the number will continue to rise.”
People who own tablets are already getting news in a less conventional way simply by using the device itself. The popularity of apps creates another wrinkle in the equation. The study reveals that 21 percent of tablet news users rely on apps for information instead of a browser.
Tablets are inherently social, much like phones. Even though people are often protective about their mobile devices, they are usually more than willing to show off their latest app or game to friends and family. The same is true of news. Word of mouth is key among tablet news users, and 85 percent of them reported sharing a long article with someone.
How can you make sure that your news is the news that people are discussing and sharing with others? Make it fresh, original and relevant.
“Mobile devices require content developers to think about information in new ways. Your information may look great on a desktop or laptop, but what about on a tablet, iPad or smart phone?” Levinson said. “Developers also need to think about how news is written. People on mobile devices have access to an infinite amount of information quickly and won’t hesitate to skip your website or blog if it’s not easily digestible.”
To get help creating unique content for your website or blog, contact mRELEVANCE at 770-383-3360.
The Most Important Aspect of Google Search Is…Timing
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If I don’t know the answer to something, my first instinct is to ask people around me. And if they don’t know the answer, they usually reply, “Look it up.” In recent years, this oft-used phrase has been replaced by an even simpler one: “Google it.”
Google has worked hard to become the place people go to for search results. It has tweaked algorithm after algorithm to bring you the most comprehensive collection of information relevant to your query. Unfortunately, this all-encompassing nature is sometimes a severe disadvantage. A student writing an essay on the Civil War won’t care if the top search result is from 2001 or 2011 – the facts are still the same. However, someone looking for ways to change page settings on Facebook will find that results from 2010 or even early 2011 are already obsolete.
In the ever-changing world of technology, obsolescence is damning. It might not be so bad for Google if not for the popularity of other sites that provide up-to-date information. Twitter, Facebook and and Bing have all made strives to provide real-time search results.
According to a recent New York Times article, Google is making changes to its search algorithm to produce timelier results. The new algorithm should affect roughly 35 percent of all searches.
“Depending on the search terms, the algorithm needs to be able to figure out if a result from a week ago about a TV show is recent, or if a result from a week ago about breaking news is too old,” said Amit Singhal, a Google fellow working on the algorithm. “This algorithmic improvement is designed to better understand how to differentiate between these kinds of searches and the level of freshness you need.”
Google is constantly making changes to its search algorithm to provide users with the most relevant search results possible. Although you may not have some complicated formula for creating content, you could still take a page from Google and apply it to your company blog or website. Consistently creating new and varied online content will let your readers know that you’re still relevant and timely.
If you need help creating fresh content for your blog or website, please contact mRELEVANCE at 770-383-3360.
BLOG = Better Listings On Google
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B = better
L = listings
O = on
G = Google
Marketing today is different. Yet, there is no need to reinvent it all. Think about how to integrate what you are already doing into today’s marketing mix. You should incorporate social media marketing into an overall marketing plan just as you do Internet marketing, SEO (search engine optimization), events, advertising, specials and public relations.
Your online interactive strategy is built on stories, messages, and events, with ample space to encourage conversations and spontaneity. However, a sound social media strategy ends, rather than begins, with social networking sites. First, you must create an optimized website and blog. Whether you want to build brand or manage your reputation, you must create a plan, measure results, and focus on milestones. Milestones could include launching a blog, optimizing the blog to become a top five referral source to your website, or getting 200 new fans on Facebook.
Integrating social media into your overall marketing mix will streamline your program and make it more effective. Think of your blog or your blog/website as the engine of your program. Your editorial calendar will center on your blog and the blog will pull the entire program together.
My friend Paul Chaney says that BLOG stands for Better Listings on Google. Your blog or your blog/website links all of your sites together and provides your program with the necessary search engine optimization to improve your listings on Google, and all the other search engines for that matter. You blog or blog/website are the center of your program, much like the center of a wheel or a car’s engine. No matter what sites come and go, if you have built your program around the one piece that you own (your blog), you will have a strong program for years to come and great search engine optimization.
Contact mRELEVANCE to build your optimized blog and complete social media marketing program.
New Facebook Changes Affect Branding
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Over the past few months, Facebook has made lots of changes. Even though these changes may be annoying, just remember that change is constant in the social media realm. Change often provides easier and more effective ways to communicate, as well as to brand through social media. In the marketing world, just as we learn how to control our personal pages, we must also learn how to maintain our fan pages.
“The challenge for Facebook marketers is keeping up with the changes that matter,” stated a PR Daily post. “Some are cosmetic, but others will possibly impact fan engagement and number of likes.”
Here is a list of some of those changes that matter:
Insights Analytics Tool
- See how your page’s posts reach people on Facebook (the whole site, not just your fans)
- Track numbers for total like, people talking about this, weekly total reach of a page and friends of fans
- Optimize content for posts by seeing what content is reaching the most people
People Talk About This
Measures:
- New likes
- Posts on your walls from fans
- Likes, comments or shares of your page’s posts
- Answers to posted questions
- RSVPs to an event
- Photo-tags
- Check-ins at your place
Conversations of Pages
- Allows your brand to reach more than just fans by extending content to friends of fans
Premium Ad Unit
- Combines page posts with social context from your fans. So, if a person viewing a brand’s ad has friends connected to that brand’s page, Facebook will share which friends like the page.
These changes will help get your brand out to a wider audience. In order to stay up-to-date with the latest Facebook fan pages, Like www.Facebook.com/mRELEVANCE and www.Facebook.com/FacebookPages. For more help with your social media marketing, contact mRELEVANCE.
Go Places with Google
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Map on mRELEVANCE's Google Place page
What is the first thing you do when you want to go somewhere new? You Google it, of course. You jot down the address and hours. Then, you check out the place’s rating, reviews and even photos.
Google Place pages are the perfect resource for this information. Recently, the Google team has made many adjustments in order to make Google Place pages simpler for desktop and mobile device users.
Now, according to Google’s Lat Long Blog, users wanted a more personalized experience when signed in to their Google account. They now get a focused, elastic and effortless experience. Photos are easier to upload with a more obvious “Upload a Photo” button. Review snippets from other web sources, such as Yelp, Citysearch and TripAdvisor, have been removed so that rating and reviews are only from fellow Google users. Additionally, all reviews are in a single section and a “Write a Review” button has been added to the top of each page.
Soon, Google will bring users searching for local places even more personalized results and ways to rate, discover and share. More information will be available at the push of a button—“Google Search”.
Trying a new restaurant tonight? Going to a new store? Be sure to add your reviews so that other users can go places with Google too!
Need help getting your business on Google Places? Just contact the team at mRELEVANCE, and we can assist with all of your Internet marketing and search engine optimization needs.
Facebook Revamps Its Dashboard
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Working at an internet marketing agency, I’ve come to expect and adapt to Facebook’s changes. If you’ve logged into Facebook today, you’ll notice it looks a little different. Here’s a brief run-down of some of the changes:
Lists
While lists have been available for awhile, they’ve been a semi-hidden feature. Now they’re prominently displayed on the left side of your screen. Smart Lists are sorted based on where you live, went to school, work and who’s listed as your family. You can also build your own lists. This concept is similar to Google+’s circles. You can share things with specific lists and filter content by list.
Top News
Facebook wants to be your social newspaper, so the top of your feed is devoted to “top news,” things it thinks you won’t want to miss. Did your cousin post about a job promotion and the rest of your family is congratulating him in the comments? Odds are that will be in your Top News, even if it was posted hours before you logged in. Read More→
