A lot of people have been talking about social media for quite a while now. You keep hearing about Twitter and LinkedIn. You may have your own Facebook account, and even browsed through Pinterest. You can see how some of it would be interesting. But still, is there anything in all of that stuff for your company? Can social media do anything for you and your customers? [Read more...]
Avoiding Facebook’s new timeline? Your time’s almost up!
January 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment
If you’re on Facebook — hmmm, does that leave anyone out? — you’re already familiar with the new “timeline” feature. Love it or hate it? Using it already, or avoiding it like the plague? No matter what you think of it, your option of whether or not to use it will soon be history.
Facebook announced today that the timeline will soon be mandatory on everyone’s profile. Yep, even yours. As they put it…
Last year we introduced timeline, a new kind of profile that lets you highlight the photos, posts and life events that help you tell your story. Over the next few weeks, everyone will get timeline. When you get timeline, you’ll have 7 days to preview what’s there now. This gives you a chance to add or hide whatever you want before anyone else sees it.
Five ways to market with blogging and social media.
January 20, 2012 By 2 Comments
Sales are built on trust and relationships. If we believe something does what we want and the price is right, we’ll buy it. On the other hand, if we don’t think the ingredients are safe or we just don’t believe it’s going to work, we won’t buy. And if we don’t like or trust the person selling it or representing it in a commercial, we almost certainly won’t buy. Trust is big.
To address this reality, companies often rely on trusted celebrities or word of mouth to increase sales. If we hear someone we trust say they like a product, we transfer our trust from that person to the product. A big company might be lying just to increase sales. But would Mom? The guy next door who knows cars inside out? Beyonce? No way they’d lie. We believe them, and we therefore believe in the products they recommend.
That’s where blogging and social media can come into play.
Social media for Newfoundland and Labrador companies
December 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Social media can give Newfoundland and Labrador companies a world of new opportunity.
Marketing strategies have stated for as far back as any of us can remember that the key to long-term success is the building of stable relationships. People like to buy from people they like. Companies like to buy from companies that not only deliver the products and service they need, but also reduce their risks. The more peace of mind a supplier can deliver, the greater piece of market share they can expect to win.
Social media helps NL companies build relationships
This importance of relationships has always been a great challenge to any small business trying to enter new markets. Imagine a company from Newfoundland showing up in a new city or country, bringing with it no known reputation, no local customers, and no local established presence. From that starting point it would try to convince potential clients to trust them over local suppliers that had been earning their trust for years. Many of those suppliers would have sales reps who would be on a first-name basis with their buyers and who would regularly be seen at the baseball park or in a grocery store or church. While it can be done, it’s hard to work against competitors with that level of relationship to build trust and confidence with prospects who have never heard of you. Happily, social media makes it possible to start building relationships and reputations in markets anywhere in the world. even while still sitting at a computer in Newfoundland and Labrador. [Read more...]
Why social media isn’t getting you a job.
December 8, 2011 By 2 Comments
Social media is useless for finding work.
I’ve spent days and days on Twitter trying to talk to all sorts of people, and they either don’t answer or just don’t want to help.
I’ve had my resume up on LinkedIn for months, and not one person has even asked for an interview.
Social media can be fun, but it’s no way to get a job.
It’ll never work for me. I suck at social media.
If you’ve heard any of those thoughts floating around your head lately, it’s time to toss them out. Social media can indeed help you find work, but like anything in life, you’ve got to do things well if you want to see results.
Here are three reasons social media isn’t getting you a job yet, and how to turn things around: [Read more...]
How to remove a nasty Facebook app
January 16, 2011 By 1 Comment
You saw the links showing up on several friends’ Facebook walls. It said that you had visited their Facebook pages more than anybody else, or some other intriguing message, and attached was a link to show you how they knew. So you clicked, just to see what it was all about. What you saw was not worth the click or worth much of anything, really. But now you’re seeing those messages showing up on more friends’ walls, and this time they seem to be coming from you. Awk-ward!
Trick links like these are terrible, and they catch a lot of people. It gets even worse though. Once you’ve given them permission, they can keep sending comments that look like they’re coming from you to your Facebook friends. Suddenly your friends may not be as eager to hear from you as they once were. You feel bad, but how do you stop sending those comments?
Good news! Getting rid of a nasty Facebook app is actually not too hard to do at all. In less than two minutes you can cancel the app’s ability to access your account in any way… as long as you don’t click on one of those links again, of course!
Here’s what to do: [Read more...]
In social media, we’re ALL learning.
January 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment
For many people, social media is still very much a mystery; a strange new world where the talk is all about building communities and sharing, yet you can’t help but feel frighteningly alone and bewildered as you try to figure out what you’re supposed to do. Everything is constantly changing. You were just starting to figure out Facebook and maybe even LinkedIn, but now suddenly people are talking about Quora and Amplify. Everybody in this social media world seems to have their own blog, but you were told that blogs were supposed to be dead by now. And although you may not admit it to everyone, Twitter still seems to be just a mix of being complicated and silly. Whom do I follow? How do I follow? Why do I follow? How do I get out of here?
If you feel like you just don’t get social media, let me let you in on a secret… [Read more...]
What ARE social media, SEO, and blogging, anyway?
November 29, 2010 By 4 Comments
Search engine optimization. SEO. Search engine marketing. SEM. Social media. Facebook. Twitter. LinkedIn. Blogging.
Welcome to the Justin Biebers of business. You may not know what these terms and names really are, or why they’re important. You may have even already decided you don’t care and you’re sick of all the talk. But it’s hard to get through even one day without hearing these names mentioned somewhere, and without realizing they’re making a whole lot of money for someone.
But should you be paying attention and getting them working for you? Can they benefit your company? Can they help you make some of that money? Can they really sing and dance without messing up their hair? Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. Whether your company is in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador or in Santiago, Chile, SEO and social media can propel your business into world markets. Even if your focus is strictly local, you can still derive lots of benefits from some strategic planning and activity. But before talking about any kind of strategy, it’s important to at least understand what the basic terms mean.
So let’s break them down to one paragraph each. These definitions are by no means complete, but they should quickly give you a good general idea of what’s included: [Read more...]
