By Janette Leon-Speyer, Web Success Team
When I was growing up I did not play Pac Man and I am far from being part of the “D” generation. However, working at Web Success Team has enabled me to discover all the sharing and social media platforms and among them is Foursquare.
I discovered Foursquare, last year. My colleague, Marci Rosenblum shared the link and asked me to try it out. I immediately signed up and linked it to my Twitter and Facebook accounts. I played around, added my Web Success Team as a location and forgot about it and got on with my busy life. Little did I know, I was becoming hooked on Foursquare.
Continue reading “The Politics of Social Media: Being Elected Mayor of Starbucks!” »
By Bob Speyer and Kristin Tomlinson
Numerous community or location-based services have come out that have grown into massive platforms for sharing and connecting. The most recognizable ones are Yelp, Foursquare, and Gowalla. These allow you to easily broadcast your current location on sites like Facebook and Twitter — promoting the services of various local retailers and businesses. By associating businesses with a physical location and promoting their services, loyal patrons influence others to stop by and visit. It’s free marketing for businesses and retailers, and it’s great for customers because they’re often rewarded with coupons and freebies for promoting their services.
Here are three take-a-ways on why these social sites are an effective marketing tool for staying connected and marketing a business.
Continue reading “How Online Community-Based Services Can Effectively Market Your Business” »
April 15, 2010 at 2:57 pm
By Bob Speyer and Kristin Tomlinson
A few exciting new tools have blasted onto the web that are being used to advance the Twitter market and attract advertisers and users toward new markets. Even Google has entered the Twitter universe and further support the view that Twitter is a marketing tool that is here to stay. Advertisers can now reach users who can in turn be paid for supporting the advertisers efforts. Users can also increase their customer base and connect with more relevant Tweeters. Here are a few innovative tools and their features that will motivate you to tweet and keep the Twitter buzz alive:
Promoted Tweets: Twitter has just announced a new revenue-generated ad model called Promoted Tweets. It connects advertisers with tweeters. Advertisers can use the same 140-character messages to promote their brands and will appear on users Twitter pages. Tweeters can then earn money for spreading the tweet a to their followers, thereby going viral. Advertisers create and make an offer to tweeters, who in turn write tweets and include links to advertiser’s sites. Sponsored Tweets then will make electronic payments to the tweeter participants.Starbucks is already on board with this new Twitter tool and their sponsored posts will appear atop user-based searches that relate to their product.
Replay Popular Tweets: Google is now allowing people to rewind time and check out popular tweets through their Google Replay feature. You can now focus in on any point in time and replay what people have tweeted about on various topics that made headline news the previous months and later back a few years. By indexing all the most popular tweets, Google is allowing people to go back in time and see how people expressed their opinions and how they reacted to particular events on Twitter — all good marketing information.
Find and Follow Twitter Users: Google is supporting Twitter by rolling out their new Google Follow Finder tool. In brief, it displays a list of Twitter members who are not yet on your “following” list and gives you the option of whether you want to follow them or not. This will allow you to follow twitters who are in your target market with the “hope” of having them follow you as well. The lists are created using public following and follower lists on Twitter. The best part about this tool is that you can use it without ever logging onto Twitter, all you have to do is just enter you Twitter account name on Google Follow Finder. So now the next time you want to find people to follow on Twitter, you can choose which are interesting to follow and those that aren’t your target market.
These new options express the ever-expanding Twitter world and are designed to help organize all the overload of information that is generated by Twitter. This will help users organize their accounts in more useful and efficient ways. It will also allow Twitter users to drill down to locate users to your choice and become more selective and effective in reaching and expanding your base.
Grow Your Business Online: These tips are meant to be used as a guideline to improve traffic to your site, increase your conversion rates, help turn visitors into buyers, and keep you ahead of the competition. Turning to a web marketer can ultimately save you time and money and increase your success online. The Web Success Team has many proven marketing strategies and techniques that can be viewed at http://www.websuccessteam.com. The Team would be happy to discuss your web marketing needs with a complimentary consultation and web marketing assessment of your current site. Simply mention this article when contacting bob@websuccessteam.com or call 818-222-5643 for an appointment. To your web success!
By Bob Speyer – Web Success Team
I believe one of the most important pages on a website is the About Us page. It is often misunderstood and at best undervalued. Going against the grain, I propose this page is more about the reader and less about the company or person.
Here’s my reasoning: Marketers have long agreed that people both read and react (positively and negatively) to the proposition “What’s in it for me!” In real estate it’s location, location, location. In online marketing it’s benefits. People want to know the advantages of a product or service before making a decision. In their quest to find reasons to buy or learn more, website viewers will go to the About Us page to gain a better insight on who is selling to them or, more to the point, whom they are buying from.
This is key, because viewers do not just want a resume of location, employees, company history, and growth patterns. What they really want is to find out the personality of the company, what makes them tick and if they are sincere and credible. It’s their first impression of you, how you want to be portrayed and if your values match up.
A Culture of Caring About Your Customers
From the corporate side, Starbucks is a great example of an effective About Us page. It is not too wordy or detailed as in how may locations they have. Rather it is about the customer and their experience. They humanize their page stressing each customer is as important as the next one. It’s about making a connection; serving the community and conducting business responsibly. They have other links to other social media outlets on the page if you want to go deeper into their mission statement, their history and their company workings. But the message is clear.
They are about people and making their lives a little bit better each day. In reading their Facebook page or Twitter, you are instantly engaged, thinking, “I can relate to that!”
For small companies or entrepreneurs, your online brand should be personalized. Using an inviting picture of smiling head shots or an engaging video of a talking head will connect with your viewer. The content should be informative and portray you or your company as well rounded and committed to giving back to your customers and your community. Sprinkling in some personal glimpses of your life or interesting anecdotes will help make you the reader feel they know you or get to know you. Putting yourself out there is never risky, it is what makes us human and real to others.
It’s About Us — Your Viewer and You
In conclusion, if you can get a reader to make that positive connection with your organization, they will be more receptive to processing your information and ultimately interacting or contacting you. You will achieve more web success if you can follow these simple guidelines.
The Web Success Team specializes in developing and marketing direct response websites that take full advantage of the latest developments on the Internet. The Team has an arsenal of effective web strategies, online marketing tools and proven customized social media techniques to promote your products and services. And we’ll show you ways to increase the amount of qualified traffic to your site.
For more tips, tools and articles of interest, become a fan of the WebSuccessTeam Facebook page and learn more about online marketing, SEO and social media. Visit us at http://www.facebook.com/WebSuccessTeam. Contact the Team today for a complimentary consultation to your web success!
January 19, 2010 at 7:28 pm
I recently came across an article in Advertising Age about re-branding Time Warner Cable.
In my very recent past Time Warner Cable was one of my accounts on the creative services side. Being tightly controlled by the large Madison Avenue Advertising Agency. Creativity was very limited.
In this day and age with all the social media avenues Time Warner Cable can find a viable avenue to re-brand the company and its services.
We are a client of Time Warner Cable and find that the company is “stuck” in the last century, as you can see by the comments on the Ad Age post.
They are competing with the Dish, Netflix and many other more “modern” avenues like watching TV online. Customers are their lifeblood and they need to do a better job taking care of them.
I would STRONGLY recommend that Time Warner get a Facebook page and a Twitter page and USE them for customer complaints and suggestions. That would be a start. Then follow what other strong customer oriented brands are doing. Starbucks, JetBlue and others are using Social Media to better communicate their services, offer discounts or specials, field and resolve complaints, and to gain valuable customer feedback. They gain loyalty and repeat business.
Here is one of many “Time Warner Sucks” pages that I found on Facebook. It has over 1,000 members.
A Lesson for Your Business
Throw a rock in a pond and watch it ripple. The bigger the stone, the bigger the consequences. But what does this mean for your business? Do not underestimate the value of social media. It is a unique way to reach out to current and new customers. Business is about building relationships and trust. Keeping open new and popular channels of communication will help grow your business online. And it is a good way to defuse negative press before it gains momentum.
