Video Marketing Tips

February 8th, 2011
Sometimes there is no substitute for a good visual demonstration when trying to market yourself and your unique skill set. Blogs and social media are great, but with inexpensive video cameras like the Flip camera series, which can shoot in high definition, there is no reason you shouldn’t add video to your next marketing campaign.

How To Videos are all over YouTube, and make up a size-able chunk of YouTube’s video channels. Here is one such example of a successful YouTube campaign.

Food Wishes by John Mitzewich is a great example.
I definitely like to think of myself as a hardcore foodie, and I find myself turning to YouTube more and more for inspiration when its time to make dinner.  Mia Quagliarello, YouTube’s senior marketing manager, told the San Jose Mercury News that there are more than 600,000 cooking videos — 195,000 on the topic of “how to cook a turkey” alone.  Mitzewich is not only… Read the rest of this entry »

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One, Two, Three, Foursquare!

February 1st, 2011
Even though I will tweet whatever random thought goes through my head, and I have no problem spending hour upon hour on Facebook (Thank you very much Cafe World)  I’m still somewhat of a newbie when it comes to  location-based social media services, of which Foursquare is probably the most recognized.

That’s probably because I really don’t go that many interesting places on a daily basis (Do people check-in when they go to Publix?). And it seems like Foursquare still possesses that under-the-radar appeal. The site is barely 2 years old, and it doesn’t seem to yet have the mainstream appeal of a Facebook or even Twitter. But it is clear the site is starting to gain traction, and not just with the 20-something bar crowd.

Just last month the company announced they had 6 million registered users, and had over 380,000 check-ins in 2010. (See their stats here). And if imitation is a form of flattery, it’s worth noting last summer Facebook launched a similar service called Places. which apes many of the same features. And just this month Google added the check-in feature to its Latitude location-based service, which started about the same time as Foursquare.  So Clearly… Read the rest of this entry »

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Who are you (Bloggers) Who? Who?

January 25th, 2011
There’s an app for that? Well the same could be said for blogs. Looking for the latest cupcake recipe?  There’s a blog for that.

Need advice on planning a wedding? There’s a blog for that too.

But exactly who is blogging these days? Most bloggers are adults between the ages of 21-35, according to a statistics complied last year by marketing company Sysomos. Not terribly surprising, since people in this age bracket grew up as blogs became more prominent on the internet, within the last seven years, Sysomos reports.

After analysing over 100 million blog posts, their stats show over half, 53.3 percent, of were written by 21-35 year-olds. The under 20-crowd came in 2nd at 20.2 %, followed closely by 36-50 year-olds at 19.4 percent. Those over… Read the rest of this entry »

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Click! Take a Pic! Facebook Photos

January 18th, 2011

One of Facebook’s most basic appeals, at least for me, is the ease at which I can share photos with family and friends. It’s gotten to the point where I rarely use other online-services like Shutterfly or Flickr, mainly because everyone I want to share photos with don’t use either of those services.

For me nothing beats the immediacy and simplicity of Facebook’s photo albums, and the gratification of instant feedback is why I find myself taking pictures in the first place. The minute my son decides to start wearing his dinner (A semi-regular occurrence), I have an almost reflex-like instinct to find my Blackberry and take a picture.

Facebook has always realized the important of photos to the social media experience, and proved it with a much greater emphasis on photos on its new profile page setup. But where Facebook has suffered  is while it’s easy to share photos, sometimes things got lost in translation. If say, my sister-in-law took a nice picture of my kids and posted it on her page, even if the camera was professional grade, the picture I printed didn’t look it.

Thankfully Zuckenberg and friends have addressed this, and with recent improvements to Facebook’s photos app, it now rivals other photo sharing services. Hi-res photos, photo download links, and bulk tagging options, are among some of the options now part of the mix.

What does this mean?

Well Mashable says you can now upload (or download) pictures that are 2048 pixels wide or high, and each photo now comes with a hi-resolution download link. Bulk tagging? Simply put, it eliminates some of the tediousness of tagging your friends when going through large batches of photos.

Facebook has excelled where other services haven’t.  It has become sort of a one-stop shop for the average social media user. And now, it’s photos app has risen above. Facebook is not just a place for sharing your son’s latest spaghetti accessories, it’s a place for professional-grade photos. Regardless if you’re a wedding photographer or an amateur shutterbug, I think you’re going to enjoy the photo sharing experience even more.

By Chad Cookler

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Running a Successful Twitter Contest

January 11th, 2011

Contests aren’t exactly a new way to drum up interest in your business or charity, but using Twitter to conduct a contest is a relatively new phenomenon.

Any Twitter contest isn’t just a chance to put your name out there, but done right, can be turned into a sustained marketing campaign that will increase your reach with consumers.

There are a number of ways to run a Twitter contest, but most I’ve entered usually involve having people following your company on Twtter, and then retweeting information about your promotion to their followers.  The contest may also have your followers send out a #hashtag, that is unique to the individual contest. Really this part is up to you, but you want to make sure your company is prominently featured.

Why can a Twitter contest benefit your company? Well any successful social media campaign, contest or otherwise, is about spreading the word about your company to people who may not have heard about you before. The reason I love Twitter contest is, if you have a good prize, your followers will retweets to their followers, and they will retweet to their followers, and Presto! New followers/consumers at the ready!

Mashable.com suggests coming up with a firm set of rules before you set your contest in motion. Make sure you write clearly what you are offering, who is eligible, how long you want the contest to run, etc.  Of course when you are giving away anything of value you must check the legality of any contest. Contact your local state government to see what rules applies to running a promotion.

Once you’ve got the rules set up, make sure you promote, promote, promote. Use your website, Facebook, and any other means at your disposal.

For some examples of some of the latest Twitter contests, Tweet Giveaway is a great one stop shop. And if you want to enter a few contests for yourself, I won’t tell!

By Chad Cookler

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Facebook: King of all (Social) Media

January 4th, 2011

In between planting your corn on your Farmville farm and showing off your pictures of your latest vacation to your friends, you may have missed this fact about Facebook.

According to our friends at Hitwise, the social media giant toppled search engine Google for the first time, ending 2010 as the most viewed website. Between January and November of last year, Facebook accounted for 8.93 percent of all US web traffic, just ahead of Google at 7.19 perecnt.  Yahoo Mail, Yahoo, and YouTube rounded out the top 5.

Hitwise also says that the word “Facebook” finished 2010 as the most searched word of the year, which it also was in 2009. Not only that but “facebook login” catapulted to #2 on that list (MySpace held that spot the year before, remember them?) “www.facebook.com” was the 9th most searched term.

Bottom line, if you’re looking for eyeballs, they are squarely on Mark Zuckenberg’s baby.  While search engines still very much have a presence on the minds of web surfers (Several of the most viewed websites belonged to Yahoo!, and Bing also made the list in 2010), it’s clear Facebook is on its way to an evil empire-like dominance on the internet (Numbers released by Nielsen last year say the average web surfer spent over 7 hours a month a Facebook, well outdistancing AOL and Yahoo, which both averaged over 2 hours a month).

Among some of the more notable recent changes Facebook has made, a new profile with a greater emphasis on photos and a person’s background, as well as a new messaging system which will give you a facebook.com email address if you want one.

Now that Verizon will soon have its very own I-Phone, and with Android phones also in a lot of web-savy citizens these days, I’m curious how the mobile Facebook experience, with an emphasis on connecting with real-world users through things like Places, will play into Zuckeberg’s overall strategy for 2011.  It shall be interesting.

By Chad Cookler

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Low Cost Digital Solutions

December 16th, 2010

Are you looking for low-cost ways to market your business?  Then Social Media Marketing and Email Marketing are for you.

Social Media Marketing is the use of social media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and Bookmarking to promote your business.  These sites are free to use and are available to everyone who has an internet connection.

Email Marketing can be done through electronic Newsletters.  Programs such as Constant Contact and iContact facilitate digital marketing pieces that are delivered to your database.  The cost of these programs will run you $15 to $50/month.

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Blog Mistake: Treating Your Blog Like a Press Center

December 13th, 2010

According to Mashable.com, the number one mistake that business bloggers make is to treat their blog as an extension of their current press center. Repeat after me: Your blog is not the place for press releases. Blogging is a conversation and it offers a way for your customers to connect with your business on a completely new level. Press releases, on the other hand, are the exact opposite. They’re impersonal, they’re self promotional, and most readers don’t trust them. If you use your blog to republish press releases your customers will have no reason to keep reading and they’ll also likely not trust your content.

How to Avoid: First, don’t ever put out a press release on your blog. You can use your blog to make product or other business announcements, but do so with original writing and in a more casual voice. Second, do use your blog to write about things other than your core business. Share your thoughts on your industry, share insights into the day-to-day work life and processes at your company, and provide tips and tricks you have learned during your time in business.

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Just get started with Social Media

December 9th, 2010

This is to all the people who are not using social media….What are you waiting for? Social Media Marketing is a fun, interactive way to promote your business online using third party sites.

I talk to business owners every week who are using social media as an additional tool for marketing.  These business owners are experiencing a dramatic increase in brand awareness and buzz about their company.  In addition,  they are providing an additional way for their customers to contact them.

These companies are online right now, wooing customers, creating relationships, providing help… and obtaining the sale.

There is no time like the present to get started.  If you do not know how to use online programs, then you should hire someone to train you.  If you do not have the time to keep up with social media, then you should hire a company to assist you with your online presence.

Above all, you need to move forward and get started.

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Social Media Icons

December 6th, 2010

Have you been wondering what those  symbols are on many websites,  blogs and emails?  They are called social media icons and they are your friend!

Social media icons allow for people to find your social media sites and bookmark you on their favorite bookmarking sites.  These icons are easily recognizable and will assist in driving people to other sites you participate in.

from Jonathan Bishop's site

from Jon Bishop's site

Are you looking for free social media icons or “share” icons?  Try this link:

http://www.jonbishop.com/2009/06/27-excellent-free-social-media-icons-sets/

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