Category Archives: Social Media Marketing

Why the Future of Marketing Is All About Helping

Blogging, Help marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Video marketing, Viral marketing, YouTube Marketing, ,

The future of marketing is helping. Helping will bring you new customers, and forge trust in you and your brand for future customers. Jay Baer explains how and why the help marketing concept works here:

Transcript:

0:01 I’m going to try and make this
0:10 is entertaining as possible to start a full video watch this for me
0:16 in the right and yet he’s up
0:19 today we’re gonna show you how to remove viruses and spyware
0:22 your computer all home
0:27 the best way to remove viruses and spyware Caldwell where
0:30 video is awesome and you can see if amis it’s a guy
0:35 talking about mall so Geek Squad in addition to that sort of weird video
0:41 about viruses and spyware has YouTube channel the couple have 100
0:46 other videos on it all can you how to install Windows 8 not kinda crazy stuff
0:51 and I was at a conference
0:52 a few years ago and Robert Stevens who is the founder and Geek Squad was the
0:57 keynote and some in the audience
0:59ask him a question he was talking about the series videos
1:02 it’s Robert now let me see if I can get this straight
1:05 Geek Squad is in the business
1:09 fixing stuff for money it’s a kid that’s
1:14 that’s more or less what we do physical but you’ve got all these videos that
1:19 show people how to fix stuff themselves
1:22 how does that make any business sense at all in Stephen civil
1:27 you know first of all you gotta understand our best customers are the
1:32 people who think
1:33 they can fix it themselves
1:36 which is absolutely true right that is me I am I K
1:41 hot water heater repair in like four thousand dollars into trip to the
1:44 emergency room later we’re good to go
1:45 told effect and he said second of all eventually
1:49 everybody gets out of their depth right eventually you can’t do it yourself and
1:53 at that point who are you gonna call
1:55 but even a randomly dialed up the yellow pages or are you going to call Geek
1:59 Squad
1:59whose videos you’ve been looking at for 46
2:038 10 12 minutes because robert stevens a Geek Squad
2:09 understand a very important business principle
2:13 which is that the difference between helping
2:17 and Celine is just two letters
2:21 but those two letters make all
2:24 the difference in modern business
2:28 because if you sell something
2:32 you can create a customer today but if you help someone
2:37 you can create a customer
2:41 for life now so we’re going to talk about this evening
2:47 we are at a conference we’re talking a lot
2:50 about content and content creation and marketing automation
2:55 in feeding information to customers but the reality is
3:00 the content that will be effective is content that is truly
3:05 and inherently useful and I call that information
3:10 a utility yooo utility
3:14 and the definition of utility is simple it’s just this its market team that is
3:19 so useful
3:20 people would pay for it
3:24 now you’re not going to actually make them pay for that would be bold
3:28 but it’s so useful that if you ask them to you they actually work
3:33 me give you an example Hilton Hotels has a program
3:39 on Twitter called act Hilton suggests
3:43 they started as a couple years ago as a trial program they
3:47 they took 25 hotels across the United States took a volunteer from each ot
3:51 else was on a full-time job it was in addition to the regular duties
3:54 is that who’s we want you to do we want to listen on Twitter
3:57 pay attention to what’s been said on Twitter and if you can find a way to
4:01 help
4:02 just help so that’s what they did
4:07 here’s an example at Lt Houston
4:12 says on Twitter good places to eat your the Magnolia Hotel
4:17 downtown Dallas on Saturday Hilton suggest
4:21 jumps into this conversation note that this was an address templeton
4:25 they just thought they were strategically eavesdropping
4:28 if you will they saw this they leaped into the conversation said hey at LT
4:32 Houston
4:33 wild salsa on major camp easy’s on elmer awesome
4:36 both within walking distance of your hotel in Dallas enjoy
4:42 but here’s the fat the Magnolia Hotel
4:47 is not a Hilton property so now you have Hilton Hotels using staff time and staff
4:53 resources
4:54 to assist somebody that they know for a fact is not
4:57 a customer but eventually this guy’s gonna be in a different city and your
5:02 hotel recommendation
5:03 and at that point who’s it gonna think I’m first
5:06 Hilton because they helped him when
5:10 he needed it it’s a utility
5:15 a couple days later Melanie J who was at Rockstar
5:18 extreme on Twitter tweeted out
5:21 anybody know who’s hiring in Orlando for professional positions at this time
5:25 seems like it’s at a standstill
5:29 Hilton suggest jumps into that and says at Rockstar extreme check out Orlando
5:33 jobs dot com for a comprehensive list now
5:36 no I think what I would have said is Haley Melanie maybe if your Twitter
5:39 handle wasn’t at Rockstar extreme
5:42 you would have some additional interviewed maybe this is sending the
5:45 wrong message
5:48 it’s just one of many reasons I’m not in customer service
5:51 but now they’re trying to help her find a job and eventually maybe she’s gonna
5:55 get a job and he’s gonna have disposable income
5:57 and she’s going to want to travel and he’s going to need a hotel and at that
6:00 point
6:01 who is she gonna pinko first
6:04 Hilton because they helped her when she needed help.

The Effects Of Social Media On Communication

Business Tech, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Marketing, ,

social media and communicationSocial media has become so deeply entrenched in our society that it’s almost impossible to remember a time where we weren’t checking Facebook every ten minutes or posting all of our dinners to Instagram. Social media has (in theory) brought us all closer together and has made our world a significantly smaller and more convenient place. But has it improved how we communicate with one another or has it distanced us from each other in a strange and profound way? Making communication via social media almost a surrogate for real, face-to-face conversation? There are two schools of thought on the matter and in this article we intend to explore both of them.

The Positives

Always available – Considering more than half of the western world now owns a smart phone or tablet, nearly all of us are constantly ‘on’, which means we’re always available and within reach. For most of us this is a good thing.

Workplace convenience – Social media in the workplace will make it far easier for employees to form friendships with one another and make lasting bonds with their clients.

Everything in its right place – The majority of social media platforms will now include options for collating all of your other social media profiles into one place so that communication between all platforms (email, SMS messaging, Facebook, Linked In etc. etc.) is seemless and convenient. Certain ‘apps’ such as the incredibly popular ‘WhatsApp’ also allow users to open ‘group conversations’, which means that creating separate groups for your friends, family and work colleagues is as simple as filling in a few boxes.

Connection – The sheer convenience of being able to link to information and access it in an instant is one of the primary reasons why social media has really taken off in the last ten years. Of course many might decry this constant connection as a negative point as could make it harder to distance ones self from their work lives when at home and vice verse. But the great thing about laptops, smartphones and tablets is that they can always be switched off!

Visuals – It has been proven that we respond more actively and positively to visual stimulus and sites such as ‘Flick R’ and ‘Instagram’ rely specifically on images to relate a message. The instantaneous nature of these sites can only be a good thing as it cuts through a lot of the ‘noise’ and gets to the point in an immediate and cathartic way.

Getting to the point – Especially with sites such as Twitter, which limit the amount of characters available per message, social media has made us all ‘get to the point’ with our communication. This means there is less pointless, protracted ‘small talk’ in modern communication in general.

Teaching – As a teaching tool, social media is still flexing its muscles but the potential is unmistakable.

The Negatives

Cyber bullying – A genuine problem that is endemic amongst all social media platforms and has resulted in a genuinely shocking amount of teenage suicides. Ten, even five years ago, schoolyard bullying generally began and ended just there, in the schoolyard. But social media has given vindictive, shallow minded and hateful children the platform to make the bullying a perpetual problem that follows victims home after school and into the weekend.

Quantity over quality – The amount of ‘spam’ advertisements that seep through social media platforms on a daily basis is infuriating but necessary as it’s this spam that keeps the sites free to use. However being bombarded with so much information makes it more difficult for us to see the wood for the trees so to speak and we can end up being pulled into a spiral of links that can bleed hours out of our lives.

Innocence – The internet in general is stealing the innocence from our children and social media is one of the primary facilitators of this loss. Twenty years ago, it would have been almost impossible for our young children to gain access to excessively violent material or hardcore pornography but in the 21st century, any child with even a cursory amount of internet savvy will be able to access stomach turning, potentially mind altering material with next to no hassle at all and social media provides a perfect platform from which to spread such inappropriate material.

Who are we talking to? – Social media allows its users to hide behind a veil of illusion which they can decide to stay behind indefinitely is they so choose. This is potentially damaging as it could cause certain individuals to grow more introverted and isolated as they delve further into these fantasy ‘personas’.

Conclusions

Ultimately, whether or not social media has improved or detracted from how and why we communicate with one another depends very much on your own opinions and your own experiences. It is irrefutably here to stay though, so on whichever side of the fence you choose to sit, you better get comfortable!

Because of social media we are much more connected which can be a blessing and a curse. It is important to allow people privacy and not abuse it, if you’d like to find more information please visit Insignia. 

Interaction Is The Key To Getting More Twitter Followers

Small Business Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Twitter Marketing, ,

Twitter followers, how to jump start your campaignWhen using Twitter, you want to get as many quality followers as you can and the best way to do that is through interaction. You can’t create a business account, post a few tweets and expect people to follow you automatically. There are too many people using this social networking site for that to happen.

Instead, you have to put time and effort into it before you’ll see results. Here are three ways that you can interact with others on Twitter to help you build a loyal fan base.

Stay Active

Many people go through the effort of starting an account and then, for whatever reason, they don’t bother to post regular tweets. It could be that they don’t see immediate results so they lose interest quickly or it might be due to lack of time. Whatever the reason is for not staying active on your site the results are always the same. The followers that you do have will lose interest and they will look for someone else to follow.

If you’re slacking in this department, make some changes. Post several tweets every day, answer questions left by your fans and comment on important issues that are relevant to your business. Staying active will help you gain more followers.

Retweet Relevant Messages

When you see tweets from others that you find interesting and they are relevant to your business in some way, retweet them. When you retweet on Twitter, it can help to increase your fan base because the followers of the person you retweeted will see you and any comments that you leave.

It also encourages the person to retweet some of your posts. This makes retweeting a great way to interact with your followers and other professionals within your niche. When tweeting, keep your posts as brief as possible and it will be easy for others to retweet the messages they find interesting.

Become a Follower

When you follow people in your niche, many of them will follow you back. This actually has two benefits. One is that you’ll increase your fan base with quality followers. You’ll also have the opportunity to create a good business relationship with other professionals and that’s always good for business.

Do choose who you follow carefully because you don’t want to waste your time following someone that has absolutely nothing to do with your niche. Even if they follow you back they wouldn’t have anything to discuss that would be beneficial to your business, so read the bio’s and learn a little something about the person or company before you follow them and it will help you generate more quality followers.

If you’re having a hard time getting started, you can always invest in fake twitter fans. This will help generate an interest in your company from real users because people have a tendency of following businesses that already have a lot of followers.

Increasing your fan base will help build up your social media presence and interacting with your fans and other professionals in your niche, will help you increase the number of followers you have.

Author Bio: Judy Collins has years of experience using Twitter that she would like to share with you to help your business attract more quality fans.