Monthly Archives: February 2012
Facebook Timeline For Business Pages Finally!
So i have you noticed that you can convert your Facebook page to the new timeline format. Right, you don’t have to wait for the official roll out Mar 20, 2011. I was just previewing and playing around with it this morning.
Of course there is the awesome cover photo. I talked about this in my expectations with the Timeline Business pages a while back. This
is great branding real-estate for businesses. Now you can expose people to whatever promotions, event sponsorships, and whatever else you can think of with a big in your face banner. What a great way to bridge your social presence to your ecommerce.
The Admin panel is a nice feature, it’s a one stop dashboard to managing your page rather than going the tedius clicks of going through the old fashioned “edit page” button at the top. You can see insights and go right into creating ad, sharing your page, or inviting more.
One thing that I saw it lacking right off the start, is that it doesn’t have the cool feature of adding life events like our personal pages. I’m thinking that they would have something like Business Events that would allow you to actually date specific events in your company, but maybe that’s coming later. I also hope that facebook will give us the control of “highlights” so far it just picking friends activity, page posts, and posts by others. It would be more effective if you could actually pick the post to highlight, or preference a story to the top of the timeline.
Well I just wanted to give my quick input on the Business Timeline. I’m personally just going to keep
experimenting with the preview first because maybe the will roll out with more functionality.
Have fun!
Ciao~
What Happens in Social Sixty Seconds?
Looking at what you do personally in a 1 minutes time may not seem that exciting. But have you ever thought
to yourself how that one tweet, status update on Facebook, a video view, and that repin from Pinterest contributed to an overall mind blowing statistic? Yeah me neither. This infographic shows it all, so enjoy!
Ciao~
Infographic Source: Social Jumpstart
Funny Facebook Infographic~Had to Share The Future of Facebook
I saw this cool infographic thanks to SocialMouths and I had to have it on mine to share. I thought this was really creative, enjoy! Facebucs- Currency, Funny 😉 
Want Save Yourself a Pay Per Click Management Fee? 5 Tips PPC To Get You Started
So you’re not a big business, or global corporation that has a multi- million dollar ad budget. But, being a small business doesn’t mean you can’t be competitive in market. Because the wonderful internet allows you to do just that without requiring you to break the bank. One of the easiest and quickest ways to get your business name, products, and services out there has always been the oldie but goody Pay Per Click (PPC) Aka Search Engine Marketing (SEM). But for a small business to cough up $100 + for management fees, or 20% or more margin off the top of your total ad spend, just isn’t feasible nor does it make sense.
So if you’re in daring and you want to save yourself money, and become a digital marketing student at the same time here are the top 5 concepts to get you started on your first ppc campaign.
Numero Uno. LOCATION LOCATION
First of all where the heck are you? Don’t worry about encrouching on your competitors territory. Concentrate on dominating your local market first . Many PPC platforms will leave their defaults to more countries than your product or service applies to so make sure hone in our your specific area, because you don’t want to burn through your budget marketing to the wrong audience.
2. Content Ads or Search Only
First off Content Ads display ads on the websites where people are participating in Adsense, which basically allows them to make money on ads that are displayed on their website. So you can imagine that many people opt in to Adsense. Just FYI Google has AdSense, while Yahoo has Yahoo Publisher Network, and Microsoft Adcenter Display Network. But, let’s not get to lost in this one because then you need to decide on what kinds of sites to display on, can I use image ads or text only ads, etc… The easiest and most popular route among marketers is to start with search only. You can hone in on your ad copy (descriptions) writing skills and really figure out keywords are bringing the ROI. Google is notorious for mysteriously opting you into their content networks while you might be thinking your only running PPC, so be thorough in your setup.
3$$$ Budgeting
The easiest way to proper ad budgeting is to figure out how much you can afford on search marketing for the month and then it divide it by 30 to get your daily spend. To enusre you’re starting off at comfortable pace properly setting your budget settings is a crucial step. A majority of ad platforms allow you to set daily budgets and sometimes budget setting on a monthly basis.
4. Scheduling/Timing
This may sound elementary but this has been a common mistake overlooked. For a small ecommerce business running your ads when your customer service can’t take orders is a definite fail. Or for a business such as an automotive dealership why would you run all of your ads at night? The most repeated overused stat is that most people are doing their searching during lunch at work or during the evening when kids are out of their hair, so let’s make sure you’re ads are at the height of showtime during this time of day. But, I’m sure this true for all retailers in the like.
5. Tracking Your GOALs
No matter if you’re using Microsoft Adcenter, Yahoo Search ads, or Google Adwords you need keep track of what’s making sales, or whatever you’re defined goal is and what’s not. All these platforms give you tracking code ready to install on your site that feed back to their systems every lead count (hit) or successful sales via (contact form confirm) so you can easily see down to the keyword level of what’s working and what’s not. I know it may sound a little a technical but, just locate “conversion tracking” in any of those platforms and it will walk you through. The only technical thing is that if you didn’t build the site you may just have to pass the tracking onto your webmaster and have them place the code for you.
So get out there be adventorous you might actually find that you like this stuff. A marketer in the making. Remember you don’t have to start out big, test out a campaign and let it run for a couple days and then dive into the analytics to get familiar with what you’re looking for. Most platforms allow you to create a dashboard, which is customized to just what you want to see so take the time to see what information is valuable to you and create your shortcuts so that monthly or weekly reporting isn’t a tedious chore.
Have Fun!
Ciao~
Don’t get Sucked in Social Media Expert Please Take My Money
My eyes continually get glazed over by over the over saturation of social media expert blood suckers. What I mean by that is you’ve got these people out there, that may every once and while might actually share some useful information with there followers, but in reality they’re on the dark side of the force. 
Pulling you in to only sell you on something that any great credible digital marketing blogger out on the WORLDWIDE web would tell you for free, and guess what would even have in depth how to videos on how to do so!
The only reason I’m venting about this is because I saw someone charging $500 just to create a personal profile on Linkedin! So entering in your email and setting password, uploading and image, all of your accomplishments and background, oh and all for your contacts to invite to connect is $500 worth of work!
Whether your entrepreneur trying to get yourself out there or company sending out RFP’s looking for an agency to work with. Educate yourself on all the social networks out there and beware of over inflated prices tagged to profile creation. Really dissect every line of there proposal. The internet provides us with so much information to not do the homework.
Or if saving the money isn’t that important to you, well just say:
Ciao~
Pinterest My New love, Businesses Don’t Turn your Head just Yet
Okay so I’m not going to bandwagon on all the blog posts out there about this cool network that’s obviously snowballing past the popularity zone. I can honestly say I love it because it’s caught on to people that aren’t into being tech junkies or work in the tech industry. It’s network that just makes sense to use. And seeing how it’s way to easily categorize lovely pictures that inspire such as trendy shoes, clothes, Homes, places to go, etc… Pinterest easily picked up the interest from ladies all over the world, or at least in my social circle LOL. This network is seeing tremendous growth, “ComScore showing that Pinterest had 11.7 million unique monthly visitors in January 2011. That’s up from only 7.5 million in December…and a scant 418,000 last May.
So what’s all the buzz about this virtual pinboarding network? So it’s cool being able to compile and share all these cool things you find on the net. Think about how you can use it in your everyday life. Ladies we all know how difficult it can be planning a wedding, why not create a pinboard and invite all the people you would like to contribute to your wedding pinboard and first start pinning what your style is to get them inspired on what you’re looking for. Or what about a home makeover create a board for it and start pinning cool pics from DIY and share it with your contractor.
Or maybe you’re like me and just love inspiration boards. Collect pictures of all the things that make you smile. Beautiful places to go are always nice. And I’m always a sucker for cute animal pictures! 
Now on the business side of things, because you know the gerbils in my head have the wheels turning on how to put this network to work for businesses. I just consulted a company on it the other day who specializes in custom homebuilding. I advised them to simply put together pinboards categorized by design. Instead of having that boring old school portfolio invite your prospects to your pinterest that way they can get to “liking” and “repinning” their favs immediately. And guess what all that social action just got you? Yup you guessed it free viral branding for you company! I think this strategy would work for many industries.
Now think about a business to vendor relationship. Thinking of changing your website design, why not pin all of your top favs? Then have your vendor add you to the list contributors so you can also pin other sites on the net that you like. I even think back to my Interactive agency days and how cool this network would be. You could use the Pinterest account for all designers and Project managers to share ideas. The possibilities are endless!
I haven’t seen the organic impact just yet, and maybe their won’t be because it’s image based. But regardless as a business don’t turn your head from this network just yet. This is another way to amplify your brand. After just minutes of pinning a picture I’ve seen over 20 repins happen in the course of 5 minutes.
Now take a dose of that viral juice!
Happy Pinning!
Ciao~
The Next Gen Mangers of Tomorrow
I read an interesting blog post written by the General Manager of Wireless Networking for the Cisco Business Unit. He obviously sees all of the insights and trends on how people like to connect. One of the biggest things he points out is that they love to connect. This is especially true in the Gen x and y. But, here’s the catch it’s not about calling people with these devices. It’s all about staying socially connected. 
Cisco backed this up by surveying 2800 young professionals and college in 14 countries. Not surprising that living without the internet for half of the participants couldn’t be an option, but if forced choose two-thirds would give up their cars to have the internet instead! There is definitely an intense desire to be around the clock connected. He says, “This intense desire to be connected leads to a demand for greater flexibility: Two out of five people said they’d accept a lower-paying job if the position offered greater flexibility on access to social media, the ability to work from where they chose, and choice on the mobile devices they could use on the job.”
“Choice on the mobile devices,” this hits home with me and I’m sure to all the digital marketing professionals. With needing to be socially connected in your day to day duties there is no way to efficiently do this without using a smartphone with the most up to date social apps available. Trust me I’ve had to take a break from my iphone and I feel my social world has been crippled. When you’re managing multiple social sites and fan pages you have to have the most sophisticated device to do so.
While on the subject of social media he goes on is his blog about how social media is overtaking phones and email and becoming the dominant form of communication. He says, “Young people are driving this change, with the one-to-one mode of interacting giving way to a one-to-many mind-set.” This is huge because social can be embraced by organizations, for project updates, feedback, and internal communication period. These new age thinkers want their voices heard and want to be able to shape a companies vision and strategy.
Everyday more and more companies are realizing that their old gen customers are going away and they have to discover how to engage this younger savvier market that is taking over. But, the important piece that solves this puzzle is how are they accepting this new generation into their company culture. The reality is, the internet has allowed positions to be more virtual and the old school way of needing to be face to face can still happen, but just in a virtual way. In order for companies to attract this new savvy leader that have got start in house changing their culture and embracing social media to help with recruiting. Old school saying, “fish where the fish are, duh.”
Read more from “the Days of “managers knows best” Is Ending”
~Tanesha White
The Digital Diva 