9 Social Media Marketing Pointers To Change Your Business

If you have a business, you would like to change or improve or even start, today you will learn about a few social media marketing pointers for changing your business.

1.    You should always make sure that your page, blog or website is always up to date. Nobody will want to visit it unless it provides the current information about your business. Whether you have started some new business, a new discount of some kind, promotion or coupon, verify that it is mentioned on the website, blog or page.

2.    Many Facebook apps are available which provide you the opportunity of holding many contests. Nothing excites people for winning something in return for nothing. This way you can have a win-win situation in which both you and the customer is happy. In these contests however, you have to make sure your brand is visible enough for the customer to register it in his mind. If you won’t have a lingering effect on their psyche, everything will be a waste.

3.    Using of social media outlets is very essential. You can be rest assured that it is never enough. Though Facebook is the most popular, it won’t hurt to use Twitter, Myspace or Google + too as all it will do is earn you profits.

4.    Be yourself, show yourself. Follow this rule and you will not be disappointed. Just because of the fact that you are a businessperson, you don’t have to act all corporate. As a matter of fact, people will support you more if they can identify a face and a human touch behind your business.

5.    Listen to your customers. They are just laymen. They are taking time to invest in your page and being on social media. Their opinions can make you improve and make you better and different from the rest. Read their comments, look at their posts and on top of everything else take action on what you learn.

6.    Be patient. Yes it is hard to keep it when you are getting no offers, the social media marketing take time but once people start recognizing you, you won’t complain.

7.    Have a schedule. Make a time table. Keep a note of when you are going to post stuff and do it accordingly. Do not keep any work pending and slowly but effectively you will get the popularity you deserve.

8.    Online media keeps going through a change and is a dynamic entity. In order to survive here, you must change too. Do not cling to old methods just because of their comfort. New companies are entering everyday and it is a fact that you will not be able to compete with all of them. Be humble and do not overdo anything. Just post great content and you won’t go wrong.

9.    Collaborate with your competition and they won’t remain competitors anymore. Come up with ways by which both brands can benefit. You will get noticed more as now you would have become a bigger company.

Get Killer Market Insights Through Social Media

There are many online promotion strategies that are being adopted by the marketers to promote their brands. The best among them is the internet marketing network. It is an online community where you can connect with other people in the market who share the same thought as you. Social networking websites provide you the perfect stage where you can form a relationship that is symbiotic in nature by linking up with others. This is a true fact because social market has become a global phenomenon in the present time.

Blogging can help you generate huge volume of sales leads. This will help you greatly in making money online. You can do this by following a very simple approach. You have to just join some of the major social networking sites. Then you have to create own community of online business internet marketing. You can also follow the network of your business rival to connect with the people in your niche. To get involved into each and every major conversation taking place in the social media websites is the secret behind online business marketing. To do this you have to post comments in the blogs that are operated by people in your niche, answer the emails, respond to every direct tweet and get involved in each and every tweet debate. Just doing all this is not enough. You should make sure that the contributions made by you are insightful. This will help you get loyal followers. If you have a good following or fan base then you remain assured that you will get comments from people in your blog posts. They will also tweet your posts. As a result your content will keep spreading. This will keep on increasing your fans and making money online will become a child's play.

Social marketing is being adopted by more and more small businesses. If you don't have good insights about this highly popular platform, you can destroy your chances of getting successful. Each and ever social networking platform has its own features. For instance the audience of LinkedIn is more affluent and mature. So if you choose Likedin as a marketing platform your strategies would be much different from those you adopt when you go for marketing in Facebook. You should always remember that the users of Facebook are less affluent and younger. You should not jump into social marketing just because your competitors in the market did. You should consider the psycho-graphics and demographics of social media sites just like you would have considered when you had gone for other marketing mediums. You can consider the following strategies to enjoy the benefits of this growing and powerful medium.

    You should use multiple mediums like video and infographics to reach your audience. This is because the users of social media websites are plugged into various multimedia outlets.
    Most of the firms use the same message on different social media platforms. This is a great mistake. You should always try to tailor your message.
    Social media is not a place where you can sell. You should use the platform to convince the audience that your product or service can make their lives better.

Following the steps blended with your own strategies can help you build a strong market using social media.

Virtual Platform: Playing Important Role through Various Social Media Platforms

Social media platforms can act as a very powerful tool to promote a product or service. Not only can this people residing in different parts of the world share precious information, ideas and thoughts with each other. Social media is faster than any other form of communication. It has a very far reaching effect. As it operates on the internet, it is sometimes referred to as a virtual platform.

Most of the people wonder why they need a social media platform or tool that is most effective. If you don't use a social media platform that is effective, your business or marketing campaign won't work well. One of the greatest features of social media is that it is capable of spreading your business like wild fire. Many people fail to use the far reaching powers of this wonderful platform in an effective manner. But virtual platform plays a very important role in expanding a business.

Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin are some of the most popular social media & networking sites. They not only help people connect to their friends and other people, but also help them to build a strong relationship with their target audience. Due to this reason companies and businesses organizations have started using this virtual platform to reach greater number of customers and expand their businesses.

Some ways by which a person or organization can use this virtual platform effectively:

•    It should be always remembered that things not going to work if someone simply opens up an account in a social network platform. The business or person has to continuously keep on posting information about the product or service. This will help retain the audience. Their mind will be also occupied with the thought of the product or service. If the audience does not get new content regularly, they will start luring away. If the marketer does not have time to do all this things, he can employ a social media consultant or even employ someone to do it for him.
•    The next thing that should be done to use the virtual platform effectively is to increase the number of followers. Adding new and fresh contents is not everything. If the network has fewer followers the results will degrade soon. The results are directly dependent on the number of followers.
•    The social media account for personal and business purpose should be always separate. No one wants to share personal information with strangers. On the other hand a business account should be accessible by the public in order to gain maximum exposure. The businesses account should be always given a professional look.
•    It is necessary to visit the business page daily. This can done using some tools like Hoot suite or Tweet Deck. These tools help a person manage several accounts simultaneously. One of the greatest advantages of using these tools is that there is no need of signing in and signing out several times. This will help the person in saving a lot of valuable time and use it in a better way.

Why Social Media is Need Of The Hour

Social Media has become a most popular “technical jargon” these days. The combination word connects Social life with media (marketing), which includes activities and technologies that enable the people to share their ideas and experiences with each other. People also get a lot of information from these social media sites. The actual meaning that lies behind the term is that “It is a systematic process of integrating social interaction with technology”. It also involves words, audio, pictures and video which are constructed in a proper manner. This can be appropriately termed as UGC or user generated content. The audio and video that are found in YouTube is an example of user generated content.

Social Media exists in various forms. It includes videos, images, blogs, online forums and wikis. Some of the technologies that lie behind social media are listed below:

•    Social Networks              (Facebook, Google Plus)
•    Blogging                (Word Press, Blogger, Tumblr)
•    Micro Blogging            (Twitter, Google Buzz)
•    Photo sharing                (Instagram, Pinterest, Flickr)
•    Instant Messengers            (Yahoo, G talk, MSN, Whatapp, BBM)
•    Video sharing                (YouTube, Metacafe )

The list can take few pages if we mention each and every portal of Social Media will be a big one if every technology is mentioned. The list of applications of social media will also be a big one. Facebook and MySpace are social networking sites, Flickr is used for sharing photos while YouTube enables a person to share videos effectively and Twitter facilitates networking and micro-blogging.

Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Another term that occupies a significant part of Social Media is Social Media Marketing. It uses the power of social media network to promote a service, content or product. One thing that makes SMM different from traditional marketing is that the marketer has to participate in a conversation with the audience. Social media can help you make a strong position in the marketplace if used effectively.

Many marketing professionals are not much aware about social media marketing because they are unable to control the social networks. If a person masters the basics of SMM, he can use its power for corporate branding or reputation management.

Why is social media becoming so popular?

Social media enables a person to reach out and connect to a large number of people with the help of technology. New features are added to social media everyday making it more and more powerful. It can help a start up business to reach a vast audience in no time. The cost incurred in doing the publicity is also very nominal.

Some factors that one must keep in mind while using social media to reach target audience:

•    One should always remember that the web is all about people. One should understand the preference, behavior and language of the people. One should keep an eye on the favorite online hangouts of the people.
•    Before going for social media marketing one must clearly decide whether he/she is going for testing the product or its marketing. One should clearly define the motive behind the actions.
•    One should also make an idea about the outcomes and what target he is looking forward to achieve.
•    One should also make sure about the technology he is going to use for the social media marketing.

Social Media Plan for ICC T20 World Cup Cricket

Social media experts are planning for ICC T20 World cup cricket now a day as the rumors are dispersed about its initiation in social buzz. Test team of this year has been selected by the nominated selection panel and has been announced by the international cricket council (ICC) in Colombo. The jury was appointed by Clive Lloyd who is a batting legend of West Indian cricket team. ICC 2012 will be the 4th twenty20 tournament. This international competition will be held on 18th of September and 7th of October 2012 in Sri Lanka.

Schedules, venues, quads, teams, theme songs, etc. have been posted on the ICC website. 

Last three tournaments were held in South Africa in 2007, at England in 2009 and at West Indies in 2010 respectively and this year this tournament will be held in an Asian country for the first time. Lasith Malinga, who is a pacemaker of Sri Lanka team, has been appointed as ambassador of the whole event. Three out of the four groups will participate in the preliminary round according to the format. Indian team and England cricket team have been placed in the same group and they will be joined by the Afghanistan who is runner up of ICC 2010. The other three groups consist of cricket teams of Ireland, Australia and West Indies in Group A, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka & South Africa in Group B, and Bangladesh, New Zealand and Pakistan in Group C respectively.

Right from creating interest, branding to selling ICC T20 World Cup (Srilanka) 2012 tickets online, social media companies around the world are trying to cash the opportunity. 

Booking time and official entry time have been finished but, social media is helping the fans to arrange entry tickets with extensions using multiple strategies and arrangements including developing campaigns and other innovative ways like organizations involved in event marketing online. Event marketing or event management companies basically administrate events by hosting, managing and selling the tickets. All arrangements related to the format have been made and it has been expected that next ICC twenty20 world cup will be held in Bangladesh in 2014. Cricket fans who want to know about ICC T20 venue, teams, tickets, squads, news, scores, highlights and live streaming they can visit official website of ICC where every information of teams with all statistics have been placed. 

David Richardson who is ICC chief executive has recently announced shortlist at the press conference. Sri Lanka will host all 27 matches throughout Sept-Oct 2012. T20 competition correlates future cricket tour programs offered by ICC. Qualifying rounds have been played at the beginning of 2012 in UAE.  These competitions are basically a blend of knockout and Robin Round. Teams are making efforts to beat the England who is ICC world T20 champions of 2010. The ICC champion trophy has grabbed the attention of all fans and they are making efforts to buy tickets to watch live matches.

Golden opportunity for online marketers (SEO, SEM and Social) to create content, news, press releases and product promotions around the big event of 2012. Let's not forget Hugh fan following for each team and country for this rapidly scaling event.

Social Media : How Internet Buzz had affected London Olympics 2012

Did you capitalize socially for the just concluded London Olympics 2012?

I've pointed out some points below that social media marketers should take a note of during any next big event/ opportunity.

The social community on the web today is different than that it was in the time of 2008 Olympics. The truth is that the London Olympics 2012 will be what some social media professionals are making as the first Social media games of its kind for the influence networking platforms are bound to have on its marketing, updates and information distribution. Social media is playing a major part in London Olympics 2012. Anything related to news, count of medals and back stories can all be found on these social networking sites. Majority of the people today are turning to these sites to get updates while at work. 

You can also check Olympic actions on Facebook. If you just Google in ‘Olympics 2012’ in the search box, there are lot of results that come up. Just by hitting the like option on facebook, you will get updates any time you need.

The Olympics are on the tip of every person’s tongue. Olympics coverage can also be found on websites like YouTube. NBC (National Broadcasting Company) has an authorized YouTube page that has highlights and videos from almost all the events. Social media effect is more on Olympics 2012.

The IOC (International Olympic Committee) has worked on the social media policies. These new policies are applied to the social networking sites like twitter and facebook. The social media policies states:

Rules for blogs and postings:

IOC supports participants to post comments on any social media network sites and also allow them to tweet at the time of Olympics. The participant can also do a personal posting or can write a blog.

However, these postings, tweets and blogs should be a diary type format and not in the role of a journalist. It means that the participants should not comment on their co-participants or should not report on the competition or should not disclose any confidential information regarding the Olympics to any person or any firm.

Sponsorship and marketing:

Participants are not allowed to do online marketing for their products and services on any of the websites. Also the participants should not enter into any restricted business contract with any firm regarding their blogs, tweets and postings on any of the social networking website unless they get an approved letter from their relevant National Olympic Committee (NOC).

Sponsorship around an Olympic content is not allowed unless permitted by IOC. And you should know few things if you are a social media marketer:

• ·     Each and every person must obey with Olympic Association Right (OAR) and London Olympic Association Right (LOAR). 
• ·       Products cannot be grouped together unless and until they have an authorized agreement directly or indirectly with the Olympics.
• ·         Do not take up any unauthorized marketing operation turning around the Olympics.
• ·         It is a must to provide correct facts and journalistic approach has to be followed to keep away from going against the rules and regulations. 

How SEO and Social Media Together for better Branding? Detailed procedure

Internet has proved to be a launch vehicle for modern enterprises that are making optimum use of the available tool to improve online visibility.  Technological breakthrough has made inroads into the online marketing strategies providing a definite link between the social media and the SEO. They work in tandem with each other to boost the ranking in search engine listings so that the companies improve their business prospects. Numerous utilities like the face book and twitters are inundated with the users who share opinions and perform status updates regularly. Using the back links in the blog on the social media platform is destined to drive the web traffic to the intended link. The search engine optimization techniques involve the usage of blogging to revive interest of the online users in the products and services of the company. There are some inherent strategies followed by the organization to make the aforesaid combination successful.

Strategies to Synergize social media and search engine optimization

• Integration of the social networking websites with the existing models of SEO is crucial in attracting the users to the target link with high quality content. Rather than deploying dubious techniques to gain high rankings, one can easily upgrade the subject matter related to the attributes of the niche being targeted by the online marketing experts. Advertisement on the social media is bound to gain attention from the users who are online for majority of their time. With persistent visibility and regular updates about the services, companies tend to generate useful business leads without any issue.

• RSS feeds sent to the users often comprise of the links which tend to increase hits at a particular website. An increase in the number of visitors is the prerequisite for a spike in the page rankings reinstating the popularity of the website. Creation of clean links through the clever use of comments on the postings could go a long way in enhancing the branding of a particular product.

•  Creating a community on the social media is a crucial strategy to develop the huge fan following since it will help to make the website famous among the target customers. Social content sharing will enhance the potential customer base of the company. Different promotional schemes pertaining to the products are regularly updated on the community page.  To make the links in the social channels more effective, one must implement SEO strategies to deliver perfect output. Followers of the link are the backbone for the products to achieve success in online marketing. Content should attract the users and must be vital to their requirements.

• Evaluating the importance of social links on various parameters like the number of shares and the topic to which they are pertaining could help to gauge the effectiveness of the online branding campaign. Search engine optimization with effective posts in the social media could be of great interest to the users, if they comprise of concise and targeted content. Social links could create awareness very quickly among large section of the users because updates could be tweeted innumerable times on twitter to increase awareness.