Join MoreVisibility (@MoreVisibility) for an upcoming Twitter Chat discussing the value of Social Media in our communities.  Along with special guest, City of Boca Raton Police Dept (@bocapolice), we will discuss how this vital platform of communication is so valuable for Community Service, Public Safety and beyond!  With many of the nation’s recent events illustrating the power and fast actions of Social Media (Boston Marathon Bombing, Oklahoma Tornado, etc.), we will share real-world examples of just how resourceful Twitter and other social platforms can be.

Sit-back and watch the fast-flying conversation or join in with your own questions, insights and comments.

WHEN: Thursday, June 13, 2013 from 2pm – 3pm EST
WHERE: TWITTER
HOW: Follow along and join in using #MVchat

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.

Tumblr’s rise has been colossal. In four years, it’s grown from just over a million monthly visitors to more than 53 million. And that’s just in the U.S. Globally, Tumblr receives 148 million monthly visitors in the key 18-35 demographic. To reach these individuals, top brands have taken to Tumblr in droves. The question is – should you?

Tumblr Basics

Tumblr combines the versatility of a blog with the hyper-sharing of a social network. Brands currently using Tumblr effectively include JCrew, Universal Music and Standard Hotels.

When using Tumblr, it’s important to post often, interact with users, follow influencers, and reblog others’ content where appropriate. Luckily, Tumblr allows users to post quickly and easily via a mobile app, and a social sharing app called the Tumblr Bookmarklet, so, while it doesn’t take a lot of time to create a Tumblr post, it does require dedication in order to take full advantage of the opportunity.

Tumblr’s Advantages

Aside from the ability to reach a key demographic, Tumblr offers several advantages for businesses struggling to get found in a crowded marketplace.

To begin, Tumblr blogs tend to rank well in organic search engine results. This is a boon for anyone focused on landing on page one. And, thanks to the availability of Google Analytics tracking code for Tumblr, your efforts within Tumblr are easy to track.

Plus, Tumblr’s tagging conventions make it easy for users to find your Tumblr blog in the first place.

Using Tumblr for Business

Like any other social platform, how you behave on Tumblr will determine your success. As with Pinterest, businesses should think of Tumblr as a tool for characterizing their brands – not as another platform from which to sell.

This is why the best brand pages combine a mix of product images / links back to their site, bite-sized informative content, aspirational musings and entertainment.

Is Tumblr Right for You?

Whether or not Tumblr is right for your business largely depends on your brand’s target demographics, and how much time you have to devote to the channel.

If you’re trying to reach the coveted millennial demographic, it’s in your best interest to give Tumblr the time of day. If you’re not, you may still want to consider jumping on board – if you have the time and energy to devote to it.

Since the launch of Google Plus, we have covered what to expect with a Google+ Business Page and what has happened to Places Listings that merged into Google+ Local.   Recently, Google released the ability to merge the Google+ Local listings with a single Google+ Business Page.  This functionality is very important, since there are features available on a Google+ Business Page that were not accessible on a Google+ Local listing.  The advantages to merging your listings into a single Google+ Business Page include the ability to share updates with photos or videos and links, create Circles (segmented networks of fans), set up Events, host Hangouts that can be linked to your YouTube account and recorded, and include you customer reviews on an SEO optimized About section for your business.  We will continue to share more ideas about the social media marketing strategies for a Google+ Business Page in another follow up article.  Below are the steps to the verification procedure for merging one Google+ Local Listings into a new, more robust +Business Page.

Step One: Create a profile with a gmail address, this will be the owner of the page, make sure it is unique to the business and not a personal account. Create a Google+ Business Page, if you do not already have one.  Populate the “About Info” with keyword rich text and hyperlinks to your website.  Upload a profile photo and cover image that will enhance your brand’s exposure.  Start adding People, and Pages to circles that are in your scope of interests, to expand your Pages reach in the network.

Step Two: Select the “Verify Now” button next to your Google+ Page name.  You will be able to add managers to the Page, and they can perform this action as well.   You can add a personal gmail account to be a Page manager, but they will need to have a Google+ Profile activated.

Step Three: Verify your business address.  Select the “View Page” to see what your current +Local listing contains.  You will be able to compare what information has merged with your existing +Business Page, by keeping a copy of this screen shot in your records.

Step Four: Complete the verification process by requesting a postcard with a pin.  Once you receive the postcard in the mail, go to the link provided and validate that you are the business owner.  You’ll need to accept the terms and conditions before selecting the “request post card” button.

Once your Google+ Business Page is verified, your Page will be shown to anyone searching in Google Maps, Google Search, and Google Plus.  Your business’s reviews will migrate with the about information you have populated on your Page, and have the potential to also appear in search results.   It will be important to share updates frequently, so visitors to the Page have a resource for learning about specials, your company, or industry news and trends you provide to your fan base.  Google+ users will be able to leave reviews and give your business a rating directly on your page.  You might want to consider a way to reward customer reviews, so there is a good representation of positive feedback about your business.

We specialize in social media strategy and search engine optimization for Google+ Business Pages.  This network, has the ability to drive traffic to your location as well as enhance your website’s position in natural search results.  If you are interested in learning more about the benefits of Google Plus for your business, call us at 800.787.0497 for a free consultation.

Social Media Marketing strategy includes a few best practices to employ in order for businesses to conduct themselves successfully.   The most important of which is engaging the network of fans that are interested in following your presence with content they will want to interact with.  Although the endorsement of your brand is apparent when a user follows you, there is also and understood conversation that will occur surrounding the overall interests in the industry you conduct business in.   Because your fans are interested in topics beyond just your propriety content, it is important to find ways to integrate external content like industry news, history, trending topics, and overall knowledge of the trade to leverage and encourage potential conversations and fan growth.   Becoming a source for your fans to rely on for additional content provides more opportunity for you to exposure your brand as a thought leader.  Some simple tools exist that can aid in creating this type of social media content.   Outlined below are a few tools that any marketer can use to get a daily resource for industry topics and trends from both businesses and individuals to share with their own network.

Google Alerts - This free tool is not new to many marketers, but probably isn’t used as often as it should be.  We recommend setting up a daily alert with your company name, to monitor reputation management.  You will want to set up alerts for industry keywords to be able to generate content based on these searches, which provide fresh content from various sources.  You may also consider creating alerts for you top competitors, to keep an eye on what self-promotional marketing efforts they are publishing online.

Storify – This small social network allows a user to search for a topic/keyword and then aggregate multiple sources into a single story.  We recommend trying out this tool because the search feature targets social media networks.  You start with a keyword search within Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Flicker, or Google to see results for Tweets, Images, Videos, Links, and Posts.  This content can be repurposed either in a single article or as individual posts to your network of choice.

Bottlenose – This new site describes itself as a “public discovery portal”.  It will allow a visitor to conduct a search that will stream in trending conversations from Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and more by offering a live stream of photos, videos, and posts.   We recommend setting up a free account to have access to the built in Dashboard and Sonar features when linking your social media accounts and rss feeds to the tool.   This also includes a publishing feature, where you can post updates directly from the site to different accounts you have connected it to.

Tools like these are free and easy to use to target trends and create content that can be good to share with your growing social community.   Know what the audience is interested in with each network you participate in, so you will understand what content will be best suited toward starting conversations with them.  Make sure to add your own voice to these industry trends by asking questions and providing insight into the external content you are sharing.  If you are not sure about what content you should generate to share with your target audience, then contact us for a social media strategy that will enhance you company’s online presence.

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

LinkedIn, a professional social network, has recently started to release a new platform design to users.   LinkedIn’s blog states that it will be a simpler and easier user interface allowing for navigation from a user’s homepage to features, which can improve access to relevant information about your industry.   The more modern design focuses toward current updates occurring within the network.  Users will see trending topics, news, and status updates from their connections in a larger dashboard at the top of the news feed. Engagement with these posts is also highlighted more prominently.    Viewing comments, liking, sharing, and contributing to conversations is available within the stream.   Although this isn’t a huge change to the previous user experience, LinkedIn has hinted that more robust features will soon be added to this home page.   Some of the other features still available are:

• Recommended people to add to your network.

• Recommended jobs you may be interested in.

• Viewers who have viewed your profile (depending on your account settings).

• Stats for your LinkedIn network like the number of connections.

• Recommended groups you may like.

• Companies you may want to follow.

• Applications you’ve added to your profile like Blog Link, Amazon Reading List, Behance Profolio, SlideShare, and more.

Image source: LinkedIn Blog

Once you have used the new homepage design, there is a convenient feedback button, located at the bottom of certain features, for you to express to LinkedIn what they can improve upon.   What other features do you predict LinkedIn will be incorporating into the new homepage in the future?

Professional copywriters have to wear many hats. They have to shift on a daily – and sometimes hourly – basis to suit the purpose, brand and audience they’re writing for. As a result, “voice” is something copywriters think about all the time.

Voice is central to a brand’s identity. And, now that so much of business is conducted online, voice is more important than ever. So, if you haven’t taken the time to truly evaluate what your brand should sound like, there’s no time like the present.

Some things to consider when developing your brand’s voice:

• Who is your audience?

• What kind of language does your audience use?

• Which brands do a good job marketing to your audience? (What do they sound like?)

• What is the mood or idea you want your brand to emulate?

• If your brand was a person, who would it be? (And what does that person sound like?)

As you begin to develop your brand’s voice, you will find that what you do is tied very closely to what you should sound like. If you’re in the business of selling meditation downloads, for example, your brand’s voice might sound very positive and easy going. If you’re in the business of selling stock advice, your brand’s voice might sound informed, mature and confident.

If you’re able to create a voice that resonates with your target audience, they’re more likely to want to hear what you have to say. And that – in the world of social media marketing – is golden.

Facebook continues to attract businesses that desire a better understanding of the effectiveness and potential influence social commerce has upon their consumers.   Some larger brands, like JC Penny, have tried e-commerce within Facebook and claimed to have not realized expected results from e-commerce efforts.  There are new brands, like Fab.com, that adhere to a business model dependant upon the integration with social networks, and have been very successful with marketing on Facebook.   So how can small and larger brands differ in their success rate?  Strategies that drive F-commerce have to be different from normal e-commerce methods in order to provide a return on investment.  F-commerce focuses on utilizing the data from customer’s interests, enhancing fan activity, and social sharing with friends on Facebook, in order to improve online sales.

F-Commerce Referrals. The strategy that has been effective for larger brands, uses Facebook to drive traffic to their online store.  These brands have found it more successful to offer links to e-commerce sites via posts, advertising, and custom tabs because their websites are proven to be better at converting the sale.

F-Commerce Stores. The smaller businesses have seen promising results by building their store directly within Facebook.  This type of store is successful in integrating the sharing aspect into all segments of a Facebook fan’s shopping experience.  This strategy allows fans of the company’s Facebook Page to share items they are interested in buying with friends as well as sharing items they have purchased from the store.  The social commerce is paramount in exposure of the company’s product selections and existence of the store on Facebook.  This type of store can also be driving traffic to an e-commerce website to complete the sale.

F-Commerce Focus Groups. There are some companies who utilize the social aspect of the network by conducting exclusive product launches to their Facebook Page’s fans.  This strategy gives fans the opportunity to request free samples of the new product, share the product announcement with friends, and participate in the campaign by uploading a photo or video using the product.  The company benefits by requiring fans to first “like” the Facebook Page and submit information, like an e-mail address, before they may request a sample.  This also builds up a demand for the new product pre-launch and gives the company the ability to monitor feedback about the product while supplying the consumer with links to purchase that item from an online store.

The Apps designed to help businesses market themselves are what drive this f-commerce strategy.  Facebook released Timeline to business Pages along with the social graph API in order to better develop the relationship from socializing about a product to purchasing it.  When companies begin to leverage their use of the “like” button, activity feed, integrated registrations, and sharing they will benefit from the success that lies in social media marketing.