US consumers are spending more time on social networks, according to the market research firm eMarketer. Due to a significant growth in usage of social networks and digital video, the overall average daily time spent online rose again in 2012, while old school media, like radio and newspapers, continued to lose share.

eMarketer reports that US consumers spent an average of 37 minutes daily on social networks in 2012, compared to 30 minutes daily in 2011.

The only other digital activity that gained as many minutes as social is online video, which rose from 17 minutes in 2011 to 24 minutes in 2012. This is largely due to a sharp increase in digital TV and movie content available online.

Social media and digital video seem to be closely correlated: the Interactive Advertising Bureau reported that, for one-quarter of online video viewers 18 and older, the third preferred way (after word or mouth and ads) to discover TV shows that they could watch on the web was through social sites.

In conclusion, the multi-media driven online social networks are here to stay and continue to evolve creating huge business opportunities for savvy marketers. Leveraging the power of social networks can represent a key opportunity to build a viable, valuable, and long lasting connection with your customers and prospects.

Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Kreiger loved playing around with cameras when they were kids, and they came up with the ‘Instagram’ name from a mixture of using the concept of an instant camera, with the way they compared a picture to an old telegram that was sent over a wire to others.  Thus the name Instagram.  Their concept though simple, has transformed the photo taking and photo sharing world.

Taken directly from the Instagram FAQ page, this is how the two Stanford grads describe what Instagram was created for: “Instagram is a fun and quirky way to share your life with friends through a series of pictures. Snap a photo with your mobile phone, and then choose a filter to transform the image into a memory to keep around forever. We’re building Instagram to allow you to experience moments in your friends’ lives through pictures as they happen. We imagine a world more connected through photos.”

Over the last few years, millions of users later, after being acquired by Facebook, after launching IOS and Android apps, and even after a desktop version, the use of Instagram by companies has skyrocketed.  It’s not just for personal use any longer either.  Instagram has become the perfect opportunity for brands and business to get quick, instant messages and photos to their target audience in a very rich, visual manner.

Images are being used more and more within business social media marketing strategies.  Here are a few ways to use Instagram to market your business:

1. Take advantage of the desktop version and set up a Profile that gives your audience a better insight into your company.  The desktop version is bigger, therefore more visual and robust, so take advantage of the increased real estate and tell a story with the images.
2. Create engagement with photo contests.  Contests are easy to create on Instagram.  Companies can ask users to incorporate a specific hashtag (#) for the contest, so after uploading their pictures, they can tag it with that hashtag.  That way, it’s easy to search through pictures, ask other followers to vote for their favorite pictures, and pick a winner.
3. Reward followers with promo codes within your photos.  This will definitely keep followers coming back to check in and see what new photos have been posted and what promos are being offered.
4. Post photos of your customers - nothing says brand loyalty more than a happy customer.  Take quick pictures of your customers, with their permission of course, and showcase a sneak peek into what the experience with your company or brand is like for them.  Make sure the photos showcase your brand values while also highlighting the customer experience.
5. Most importantly, promote your Instagram feed across all of your other social networks.  Create a custom tab under the Timeline photo on Facebook, add the Instagram badge to your website and to your G+ page, and make sure to include it in all email marketing.

Customers want a personal experience with a brand, and by adding Instagram to your marketing tools, your brand can start engaging with customers instantly while telling a story with images that are quick and easy for customers and fans to digest, process, and ultimately share with others.

Last week Google+, Google’s social network updated their profile pages with larger cover photos, a redesigned “About” tab and created a new “Local reviews” tab. These added features were based on feedback from Google+ users who wanted more editing control, flashier displays and clearer social networking.

Cover Photo

The new profile “cover photos” have a much larger display at 2,120px by 1,192px and adjust sizes depending on web browsers, zoom and monitor size.  Now that the cover photos have gotten larger, the profile pictures have been reduced from 250×250px to 120×120px, which can be tough for branding purposes.  Notice in the screenshot below that the MoreVisibility profile picture is much smaller and the text is not as noticeable.

Google’s justification for the change was as follows, “This way more images can be used as cover photos, and there’s more room for your selection to shine,” It appears Google+ updated their cover photos to almost mimic Facebook’s large background cover.

About Tab

The ‘About’ section now organizes user info into category boxes created for easier user modifications.  These boxes enable Google+ users to edit information from their ‘About’ tab such as education, work, links and places. The information being provided on the ‘About Tab’ is optional and like before, can be hidden or only shared between your selected circles.

Also, along with the cleaner look, Google has added a splash of color above each section, labeling the section’s people - blue, story - red, work - teal and education - yellow. Google is becoming more creative on how they use their logo’s colors and I am sure we will see much more of these colors in the future.

Reviews Tab

The newest addition to Google+ is the ‘Local review’ tab.  The ‘Local review’ tab can be shared within your network of circles, assuming you would rather post your preferences, opinions & reviews on Google+ versus other popular rating sites.

Similar to photos and the +1 buttons, Google+ users now have the ability to highlight reviews for their favorite businesses and share experiences.  This is optional and can be hidden within your settings.

Google has hope that with this new tab these recommendations will enhance its own social search results and increase the development of business pages. Chances are this “Local review” tab will most likely become a part of the search integration within the Google platform and this is one thing brands should be aware of.  See below for the organic results that auto populated when I typed “Boca Raton, FL” in G+ “Local” search.

Google Plus has added updated their pages to not only benefit personal users, but also to increase the involvement of business pages.  Local pages allow businesses to be found by their customers or prospects through better visibility in Google’s search rankings.

This social network is engaging and when pursued effectively, can create buzz for your business, drive traffic to your website and benefit your search results.  If you haven’t created a Google Plus business page I would highly recommend starting one now.

SlideShare is the world’s largest online presentation sharing community.  With over 60 million unique visitors monthly, and over 16 million registered users, (http://www.slideshare.net/about ) SlideShare is a community where business professionals and individuals can research topics, get inspiration for their presentation or simply check out a sales deck without an annoying sales rep.

SlideShare was launched in 2006 and was acquired in May 2012 by social media powerhouse LinkedIn.  LinkedIn just recently reached the 200 million registered user mark, and is the world’s largest online professional networking community, so the SlideShare acquisition is a perfect fit.  The SlideShare app integrates with your LinkedIn company page so you can showcase all your professional presentations seamlessly, while keeping more real estate for yourself on your LinkedIn profile.

SlideShare is effective for storing, sharing and studying presentations. The ability to embed presentations into a blog or website is also a very handy feature. Businesses, educators and entrepreneurs are all target-users for SlideShare, which makes the demographic very similar to LinkedIn’s.

If your business is new to SlideShare, here are 10 tips to help you get the most out of its community and start sharing your presentations online:

1. Create a main Company profile including a well-branded username that represents your business or your objectives well.  Your company name should be used to build your brand.  For example, www.slideshare.net/yourcompanyname (minimum of 3 characters with a maximum of 25 characters).
2. Fill out your profile information completely.  Profile fields include your location, phone number, About Us, all other social media URL’s such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn and a tags field where all your keywords go.  Make sure to include a link to your website.
3. Try to include your company contact details, address and web address url within the first few slides in case people don’t watch the entire presentation, and make sure your company branding is within the footer of each slide.
4. Always include clear links back to your website within your slides to drive users there.
5. Keep presentations visual and eye catching, without being overly wordy.
6. SlideShare adds navigation around your presentations, so make sure to leave enough space around your slides so there is no important information too close to the edge that could get covered.
7. Ensure your title is captivating and contains targeted and unique keywords for search optimization.
8. Cross promote your presentations to all other social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook and Google Plus.  You can even add snapshots of them to Pinterest.
9. The description of your presentation should be compelling and contain relevant keywords. You can also add your website address (unfortunately this will not be clickable) and your full business address and telephone number (ideally exactly as Google has it in your Google Places account).
10. If you find yourself using SlideShare a lot, it may be worth looking into a “Pro” account. They start at $19 per month and will allow you to capture leads, upload larger Hi-Res images, track presentations you share by getting alerts when a user views your shared presentation, and many other features that business users value.

Even short Powerpoint or Keynote presentations take a good amount of time and resources to prepare, so use these tips and let SlideShare help you to maximize your return on investment.

Just like in real life, there are things we can do on social media to alienate people. If you’re a chronic over-sharer, are offensive, or fail to make personal connections with your followers, you may get unfriended, says a new report from SocialVibe.

Among SocialVibe’s findings:

• 33% of users unfollowed brands that posted too many updates

• 22% of users did so because their values and/or content differed from the users’ original perception

• 19% did so because they didn’t find value in remaining connected

• 9% did so after signing up through an ad then changing their minds

How many updates are too many? That’s a little hard to pin down. SocialVibe reports that 17% of users checked for brand updates every day, while 23% checked at least once a week.

Ideally, you should be posting somewhere between these two extremes, say 3-5 times a week.

More important than how often you post updates, though, is what you’re saying.

People follow brands for updates, sure, but between true “updates” it’s important to stay connected with content that is informative, helpful and engaging. Content that reinforces the ideas behind your brand, and reminds users why they follow you in the first place, is ideal.

Just make sure that you’re content isn’t too aggressive or sales-focused. If you had a friend who clogged your timeline with incessant self-promotional messages, you would unfriend them too.

A little more than a year after the launch of Google+, usership of Google’s “social layer” remains anemic. Brands, many of which jumped on board in the early days of Google+, have yet to enthusiastically embrace the platform. This is either because of simple platform fatigue, or – and most likely – because Google+ still looks like a ghost town.

But consider the long tail for a moment. There might not be as many users on Google+ as there are on Facebook or Twitter, but Google+ does have users – passionate, creative, enthusiastic users – who might love to follow your brand, if only you were active on their preferred channel.

Now, consider that many Google+ brand pages are mere shells – they exist, but they’re not active. These are brands you might compete with (either directly, or for attention) on other channels, but that just haven’t bought into Google+ yet.

And in that, is opportunity.

The business case for Google+, as it stands today, is not the various sharing options and ways to connect with your audience – those will always be there. The best reason to come on board right now is that your competitors are likely not active in the channel. And as long as brands stay away from Google+, the easier it is to get the attention of its users.

Like many opportunities, this one won’t last forever.

This year, Google has made several moves aimed at increasing adoption. This includes integrating Google+ into a user’s overall search experience (SPYW), converting Google Places listings into Google+ Local pages, and merging Google+ Business pages with Google+ Local pages.

Given this, brands will either come on board whole-heartedly or be left behind. The brass ring will go to the brands that do it sooner, rather than later.

The number of social media channels available to us today can be daunting. It’s easy to feel as if your time and resources are spread thin when you try to reach every audience on every platform. While it’s important to be where your audience is, it’s also important not to overwhelm your resources.

Luckily, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time you approach a new channel. You can repackage your existing evergreen content (content that is always relevant) for use across the channels. Here are six ways to do just that.

1. Turn a blog post into a deck for Slideshare. Take the central ideas from the existing blog post and create a PowerPoint presentation, breaking the post down into bite-sized pieces. Just make sure you’re not ripping the article verbatim - fresh, unique language is a must for SEO.
2. Use images that illustrate the ideas in your blog post and turn them into a slideshow video on YouTube. Simply build the “video” in PowerPoint and then convert the PowerPoint presentation to an .mp4 file.
3. Create an abbreviated version of the original post for use on Tumblr. You can even link back to the original post to gain additional traffic for your site.
4. Create a lens in Squidoo using pieces of information from the original blog post. As with Slideshare, it’s important to repackage the ideas from the original post in a way that uses unique language, and that suits the audience and the channel.
5. Use the images from your blog post to create pins on Pinterest.
6. Create a Google Alert for the central idea in your blog post. Then, when something you’ve already written about makes news, post a quick update on your blog, linking back to the original post. You can then post the new information on Twitter, linking back to the new – brief – blog post.

Notice that the operative word here is “create.” While this work is time consuming, it is simple - because you already did the majority of the work, fleshing out a new idea for use on your blog.

It’s also important to note that these kinds of repackaging techniques should be used sparingly. You would never want to appear redundant or stale. So don’t do everything all of the time. Do some things, some of the time, where it is appropriate for your topic, audience and channel.

When you think of social networks with local impact, think Foursquare.   In a previous post we outlined a marketing strategy for local businesses to participate in this mobile centric based social network.   The popularity of Foursquare boasts an active user base of over 20 million, and has been making updates recently to the app’s design and functionality.  Foursquare just announced it launched an advertising program allowing businesses to create promoted updates for local marketing campaigns.  These promoted updates will be seen based on a store’s location, Foursquare specials, and a personalized algorithm created especially for the functionality of the Explore tab in a recent release.  In Foursquare’s blog they describe it as, “The [promotion] update can be a money-saving special, an update on a new fashion line, or a photo of their [the businesses] latest dish.”  In the screenshot below, you’ll see examples of how these offers appear in the Explore tab.

Members of Foursquare will notice these promoted updates will be personalized recommendations based on criteria like:

• Places they have visited before.

• Places that are on their lists.

• Places based on the time of day.

• Places in relevance to the neighbor they are in.

• Places they have liked or marked as a favorite.

• Places their friends have checked in at or endorsed.

This type of personalization will ensure that the offers are shown to members who would be genuinely interested in them and therefore have excellent targeting and acquisition potential.

To view more examples of partners already participating in promoted promotions on Foursquare, check out these Foursquare business pages:

Otto Las Vegas
B&B Ristorante
Best Buy
Dave & Buster’s
Gap
Hilton
jcpenney
Lowe’s
Old Navy
Starwood Preferred Guest,The Standard Miami
Walgreens

There comes a time in every relationship when you have to ask yourself the defining question: “Where is this going?” The same is true when you’re trying to turn Facebook “Likes,” LinkedIn “Connections” and Twitter “Follows” into concrete sales. While you already know the user “Likes” you, what you really want to know is if they’re going to buy what you’re selling. Here are four ways to turn Social Media connections into real-life customers … without getting stuck in the dreaded “Friend” zone.

Brand Your Platforms
Whether you’re on one Social Media platform or eight, it’s important to utilize the opportunity to brand every company profile page with your own signature look/feel. On Facebook, you can upload your company logo as the profile picture or design a custom banner advertising your company’s services for the cover photo. If you’re on Twitter, you can take things a step further and design a “skin” that will then become the background of your Twitter page. While customization options are limited to the functionality capabilities of each Social Media platform, there are still many great ways you can set your page apart from the competition, and point potential customers to your brand.

Balance Self-Promotion with Audience Relevancy
If you’re using Social Media as a marketing tool, you already know the advantages it carries for self-promotion. But if you’re hitting current or potential customers with promotion after promotion, it’s going to come across loud and clear that you have an agenda—and it’s not the same as theirs. Be selective with what you share and make sure it’s relevant to the end-user. “Pin” a great recipe on Pinterest for a party dip, and include your company’s salsa as the main ingredient. Host a “Hangout” on Google+ where you show viewers “How to Make 10 Different Outfits From the Same Five Core Pieces,” all sold at your clothing boutique. The key is to use Social Media as a way to engage with the end-user, not to send them content that’s the equivalent of a print mail piece addressed to “Current Resident.” Get to know them and, in turn, they’ll want to know more about you—and the services your company can provide.

Don’t Stand Them Up
Once you have a captivated audience, pat yourself on the back, but don’t leave them hanging. If you do, they’ll just leave—period. If you suddenly stop posting Tweets on your stock broking company’s Twitter page and potential customers were following you for investment insights, they’ll bring their business elsewhere when they decide to buy. Social Media engagement isn’t a destination, it’s an ongoing activity. So once you achieve your Social Media goal of hitting a certain amount of viewers on your YouTube channel or “Likes” for your Facebook page, don’t rush out to buy a bottle of bubbly (unless you’re going to share). You’ve still got work to do.

Include a Call to Action
Although you don’t want to include “Call Us Today” verbiage in all your posts, you do want to display contact information prominently on your Social Media pages. If I’m watching a video on your yoga studio’s YouTube channel about how to properly execute that tricky “Crow” move and I decide I want to try it out at your studio next Saturday, I’m going to look around that page for contact information. If I can’t find any, I’m probably going to lose interest and move on. And while I may go on to become the best Crow I can be, you just lost a sale that you had in the bag. For maximum ROI, use your Social Media pages to get their attention, keep it and then direct them to the right place to seal the deal.

The concept behind marketing with video makes sense for social media for many reasons.  People are attracted to a visual medium, and video can provide stimulus for both the eyes and the ears.  There is a power behind providing your message in video if it’s done well, and engages the audience.   Basic concepts of creating videos aren’t so different from traditional marketing campaigns where a good story is the core concept behind the messaging.  Once the video is produced, uploading to YouTube and providing keyword rich titles, descriptions, meta tags to enhance the video’s exposure is also a key to marketing success.

In The Q4 2011 Video Marketing Survey and Video Trends Report by Web Video Marketing Council (WVMC) and Flimp Media shows that video marketing continues to trend upward as a strong marketing vehicle.

The latest survey results from the Web Video Marketing Council show that:

• 81% of marketing professionals say that they have used video in their online marketing efforts.

• 67% of marketing professionals have posted online video to their websites and 61% to social media sites.

• 52% of respondents have used video email marketing and of those that have used it, 88% report that integrating video with email marketing has made a positive impact.

Social Media is the second largest used application for distributing marketing videos:

As the majority of the social channels support video sharing, it is clear why marketers continue to find value in participating in these platforms.   The added SEO value from optimizing videos to rank in organic search results also presents another viable reason to invest in this format.  As online marketing and social media marketing strategies develop, expect video to be the most sought after medium for communicating messaging to consumers.