Social Networks

Why You Shouldn’t Limit Your Brand to Just One Social Networking Platform

October 18, 2011 By tlyons Leave a Comment

Social media is a valuable tool for businesses and organizations. While game-changing in many ways, they are simply the latest in the evolution of tools that allow people to easily connect with one another. Ultimately, it’s important to keep in mind that the purpose of social media is to generate interest in your product.

Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Friendster, MySpace, Xanga, etc… Anyone who has internet is familiar with these sites. Some of these sites have faded (Friendster, Xanga, etc.), leaving decaying individual’s profile. Yet, the fact remains that social media is of essential importance to anyone hoping to expand their brand. So the question is “Should companies focus on one social media platform to ensure success?”

In a blink of an eye, something beyond your control might affect the way you reach your target audience, especially when you just rely everything in just one social media platform. Take for example – Facebook.

Whether you’re a fan of change or not, it’s coming quickly to the social media giant, Facebook. They basically just dropped a bombshell and instantly changed the way we communicate online with their new newsfeed, timelines, subscriptions and a myriad of other enhancements and updates. However, if you have a fan page, you might have noticed a drop off in the amount of interaction you are getting on it. Facebook said they want to make it easier for people to connect on the web. But we have yet to find out what good does the new changes bring to Facebook pages.

See, this is what we have to understand. If our brand just circles around Facebook and if it’s the only way we communicated with our clients because we haven’t diversified enough and use other platforms, these changes could have badly hurt our business. Email, Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds, Google, SEM, SEO, phone calls, QR codes, texting and prints all need to be used in conjunction with one another to drive people to your home base, which is your self-hosted blog. That is the only thing that you control! And if Twitter goes away tomorrow and you use other mediums to communicate with your clients, you will not be badly hurt & crippled. You cannot afford to put all of your eggs in one basket.

The first step of a successful (and long term) social media plan is to spread your brand everywhere you can and the main goal is to drive people to your site and give them a ton of quality content that will keep them coming back. More than ever, it’s important that you have a web presence. Especially in a Real Estate business, since it’s is no longer a short term -transaction game, but a long term relationship building process, that would definitely be strengthen by having a web presence. Your own website or a self hosted blog is the only thing that you have a 100% control over, so it is where your time needs to be spent first.

Here’s a pratical takeaway: Google your personal name and your company’s name. What comes up? If you don’t see anything about yourself or your business, none of the other billions of people online will see it either and you know wha to do.

Filed Under: Articles, Facebook, Must Reads, Social Networks, Tom's Ramblings, Twitter

10 Social Media Marketing Tips Small Businesses Should Bear in Mind

October 12, 2011 By tlyons 1 Comment

Most small businesses usually focus on researching, understanding and managing elements related to their businesses. That’s good business sense. However, only few have the resources necessary to keep current with changes & have the time to monitor the daily changes that impact social media marketing.

Fortunately, small businesses don’t need to be experts to be able to promote their businesses through social media sites and connect with people quickly & spread the brand faster than ever before.

Here are 10 smart social media marketing tips:

1. Have A Social Media Marketing Plan

Businesses can take advantage of a lot of sites & applications that are available for free but you need to spend ample time to plan to make your social media marketing work. Set the goals you want to attain from social media & the actions you plan to take to achieve them. Determine the amount of time & resources you need to allot for every process to keep you on track. Make sure to write it down so you can keep track of your progress & focus on getting the results you want.

2. Do Things In the Right Place at the Right Time

After setting a plan, oftentimes small business owners tend to do everything all at once in all places. Being in all social networking sites is not essentially beneficial for every business. Do some research to determine which platforms work best for you line of business. Do a research which sites are your competitors and customers on. Start with the platform that you are familiar with and that you already have established network on.

3. Keep Track of Your Achievement & Return on Investment

Being a small business, you’re always pressed for time & you only have limited resources, so it’s very important for you to keep track of every aspect of your business to be sure you’re doing progress & that it’s worth your time and efforts. A social media program is no exception. Make use of some type of analytics that most social media applications have (google analytics, number of views on a video or blog), to keep track of your progress, for you to determine which ones are working and which ones aren’t. The success of your social media marketing will always be based on the feedbacks you receive, so keep track.

4. Do Not Underutilize Social Platforms for Branding

Every social media platform enables you to insert your brand messages and images in multiple fields. Many small business owners fail to take advantage of these and leave multiple fields on their profiles blank. Your company information, logo, contact number and any other links to your website should be available so potential customers would have an idea what you do and would know how and where to contact you. Make sure your company profile is complete and nicely done, it reflects

5. Engage & Listen to Others

Great salespeople are great listeners. The most critical communication skill for anyone in the business world – managers, innovators, salespeople, and customer service specialists – is effective listening. People don’t buy what you wish to sell. They buy what they need. Selling is not happening when you are talking. Selling is happening when your prospect is talking, and you are listening actively and passionately, listening to your prospect’s emotions to find the right fit.Engagement in social media gives you the opportunity to build authority in your field which leads to – sales

6. Address Negative Comments or Feedback

There will be times when you’re going to get negative posts or comments from customers or clients on your profile. The initial reaction is to delete the comment, which is not the right thing to do. Social media is based upon transparency and authenticity. The best thing to do, instead of deleting the post, is to address the concern and give solutions if needed. Dealing with it will earn your brand loyalty than you had before.

7. Be Consistent on Each Network Your On

You may not know it, but a lot of your company information is a matter of public record. Regardless if you want to be involved socially or not, your company might already be in Google Place and Yelp may have already list information about your company whether you’ve created a profile or not. Use this as an opportunity to expand your web presence. All of these services give you the option to control what’s shown about your company and how it’s shown. Claim all of the profiles that mention your company and update the information. Be consistent on each network so the same information is listed.

8. Don’t Skimp on Time

Having an online presence requires time & maintenance, so to speak. To fully get the results of expanding your network online, you need to consistently interact online, even if it’s just about 10-15 minutes a day. If you don’t have the time, might as well not start it.

9. Be Passionate

Passion drives you to give it your best and strive for perfection. Social media marketing cannot be successful without passion, as it requires a drive to be able to push through difficulties and setbacks inherent with managing interactions from people. If you have the resources, consider having one of your employees run the program. Social media can make a big impact on your business, but (like anything) you need to have a certain level of interest and passion to make it successful.

10. Know if Social Media Is Right For Your Business or Not

Just because lots of businesses are using social media, doesn’t mean you have to. For many small businesses, social media isn’t the right outlet. Know and assess your business, so you won’t be wasting a lot of time if you think social media is not really for your business.

Social media marketing, when done properly, contributes a lot to the development of your company’s online social presence which leads to improved search engine positioning and increases website traffic. It builds credibility and give people an opportunity to get to know and trust your business. So make sure to take control to get amazing results. Social networking is not just a fad, it’s a revolution.

Filed Under: Articles, Social Networks, Tom's Ramblings Tagged With: Social Media Marketing Tips

Facebook and Google still tops for web hits

August 15, 2011 By Tom Lyons Leave a Comment

The latest web statistics from Hitwise (www.hitwise.com) are out. Here are the highlights of the most popular websites in Canada for the week ending Aug. 6. A few things are obvious from the latest results.

Facebook, YouTube and Google dominate in their categories. Canadians love our banks’ online banking websites, too! Meanwhile, MLS continues to dominate activity in Canada’s real estate industry.

The top 10 overall websites for traffic were: 1) Facebook (12.52 per cent of all traffic); 2) Google Canada (9.26 per cent) ; 3) Windows Live Mail (4.34 per cent); 4) YouTube (4.21 per cent); 5) MSN Canada (2.17 per cent); 6) Google (1.72 per cent); 7) Yahoo! Canada (1.30 per cent); Bing (1.27 per cent); 9) Yahoo! Mail Canada (1.16 per cent); 10) Sympatico.ca (0.96 per cent).

The top five search engines: 1) Google Canada (65.68 per cent); 2) Google (12.18 per cent); 3) Bing (9.03 per cent); 4) Ask (3.60 per cent); 5) Yahoo! Canada Search (2.79 per cent). It’s pretty clear that Google continues to dominate the Canadian search engine landscape, leaving all others in the dust. You know you’ve arrived when your brand name has become a verb.

The top five social media websites: 1) Facebook (64.52 per cent); 2) YouTube (21.72 per cent); 3) Twitter (0.98 per cent); 4) Meebo (0.79 per cent); 5) Badoo (0.78 per cent). Of the 15 other websites showing up on the Top 20 list, Google Plus is nowhere to be found. Note the complete dominance of Facebook and YouTube. Together, they account for a phenomenal 86.24 per cent of all social media website traffic in the country. Incredible!

Hitwise also ranks sites in banking, travel, real estate and entertainment.

The top five banking websites: 1) TD Canada Trust Online Banking (12.36 per cent); 2) Royal Bank of Canada Online Banking (11.30 per cent); 3) Desjardins Online Banking (8.52 per cent); 4) TD Canada Trust (7.50 per cent); 5) Royal Bank of Canada.

The top five travel websites: 1) Google Maps Canada (16.98 per cent); 2) Google Maps (4.46 per cent); 3) Take Off Eh! (3.99 per cent); 4) Expedia Canada (3.22 per cent); 5) Air Canada (2.20 per cent).

The top five real estate websites: 1) Realtor Canada – also known as MLS (25.81 per cent); 2) RE/MAX Quebec (5.31 per cent); 3) Duproprio.com (4.42 per cent); 4) ComFree.com (2.89 per cent); 5) Century 21 Canada Real Estate (2.49 per cent). Moncton-based Property Guys is in ninth place with 1.79 per cent of total visits.

The top five websites featuring entertainment personalities: 1) People Magazine (14.00 per cent); 2) TMZ.com (9.15 per cent); 3) PerezHilton.com (5.98 per cent); 4) Zimbio (5.79 per cent); 5) CelebEdge – Canada (3.51 per cent).

And finally, here are the top 10 search terms (written exactly as they are being searched for) for the week ending August 6: 1) facebook (5.42 per cent); 2) youtube (1.91 per cent); 3) facebook login (1.64 per cent); 4) kijiji (0.39 per cent); 5) www.facebook.com (0.31 per cent); 6) facebook.com (0.26 per cent); 7) plenty of fish (0.25 per cent); 8) google (0.25 per cent); 9) you tube (0.23 per cent); 10) fb (0.17 per cent).

Of all the terms searched for in Canadian cyberspace, Facebook-related searches account for five, while YouTube accounts for two – meaning that seven of the Top 10 searches only involve two websites. That’s pretty impressive, if you ask me! And again, Google Plus isn’t even on the radar.

° Brian Cormier is a writer, blogger and communications consultant. Social Media Matters appears every Friday. E-mail:brian@briancormier.com. Website: www.briancormier.com. Twitter: @BrianCormier. Facebook: facebook.com/briancormierreaders

Filed Under: Facebook, Google Tools, Must Reads, SEO, Social Networks, Twitter, YouTube

5 Facebook Pages That Everyone Must “Like”

July 13, 2011 By tlyons Leave a Comment

Your business can’t afford to not have a facebook presence. The social networking site has more than 750 million active users despite the headlines about security issues and the virus that began to spread claiming to have photos of him shortly after the news broke about Osama Bin Laden being killed.Good thing Facebook Security Page notifies people who “Like” the page about the virus so people were made aware to avoid computers to get infected.

We have to take the risk in order to take advantage of the benefits of Facebook. With the Privacy and Security settings available for us to find a comfortable balance between being social and being private, Facebook users need to somewhat accept the responsibility to secure and look out for necessary steps to protect ourselves.

Nevertheless, Facebook has a lot of resources to guide its users and keep them updated. Here are 5 Facebook pages that everyone is recommended to “Like”

Facebook Security

Like this Page to receive updates about how to protect your information both on and off Facebook.

Facebook Known Issues

“Like” Facebook Known Issues if you want the most up-to-date information about bugs and other issues on the site.

Facebook Marketing Solutions

This pages share news and best practices for marketing on Facebook. You will find videos, guides, interviews and links to live training events.

Facebook Pages

The guide provides best practices on managing a Page for advertisers and page admins. Your plays a very important role in your marketing, so you’d really want to stay up-to-date with all the changes.

You may also want to check out their guide on Facebook Page Marketing

Facebook Live

Facebook Live is Facebook’s official live video streaming channel, providing a deeper look into our features, partners & employees. They use this page to live stream product announcements, round table discussions and interviews with thought leaders. When you follow this page you will be notified of upcoming events that you may want to attend.

The reality is that Facebook membership is actually still growing. Social networking and data privacy are, in many ways, directly at odds and the solution comes down to user awareness and choice.

Filed Under: Articles, Facebook, Social Networks, Tom's Ramblings

Improve Engagement on Your Brand’s Facebook Fan Page

May 20, 2011 By tlyons Leave a Comment

Whether you blog or spend time using one or more of the available Social Media platforms, especially Facebook, you are in the business of creating content. Engagement plays an essential aspect in creating content. It is the most important part of your online presence. Engagement is important because it keeps the conversation going. It lets you know what your customers are thinking and how they feel. On the other hand you can give them advice/tips because again as a Realtor, you have to appear as a “Local Expert”. It gives you ways to provide better customer service, so to speak.

Here are a few ways to increase your engagement with those who are fans or who “like” your Facebook business page:

1. You’re only as good as your last update – You have to “be seen”. If you don’t update, there’s no use of keeping a fan page. Everytime you update, it appears on the news feed of the fans of your business page.

2. Keep your posts short & to-the-point – Most people have more that 500 friends on facebook and would want to scan as many updates of their friends in a certain period of time. People will gloss over long paragraphs in favor of short, to-the-point posts. Posts that were 80 characters or less received 27% more likes and comments than posts that are lengthy.

3. Ask questions – Not all status updates need to be statements. Posts that ended with a question had a 15% higher level of engagement. The same goes for posts with calls to action like “Like This”, “Leave a Comment” or “Post Your Response”. Asking for feedback in your posts encourages users to interact with your brand and would think that the company Facebook page is indeed a place for conversation. Also, open ended questions help get a discussion going.

4. Pictures are worth a thousand words – People love visual media. Pictures and videos works for your advantage because you can display the photos and tours of your home listings plus it draws people to look at your page and give them more reason to either like or comment. In addition, videos and photos are “taggable”. So you can tag people that you think would be interested, they will be notified and their friends will see it too.

5. Create events -If you are having an open house or any sort of event with your business or organization, create a Facebook event for it. These are made with interaction in mind. People can be invited and they have the ability to RSVP. Each person who says they are attending furthers your reach. Plus, the events are shareable. Plus the events include the ability to comment, creating yet another place for discussion and engagement.

6. The day of the week and time of the day of posting also has an impact – It appears that posting outside normal business hours (early morning, after work, late night) had a 20% higher level of engagement.If you post during these times, it increases the likelihood that your posts will appear in your fan’ news feed, more exposure, more conversation.

Surprisingly, Saturday posts do not garner as much attention as weekday posts. Thursday and Friday are the best days for engagement, with an 18% lift in comments and likes on these days.

7. Don’t be one dimensional – If you’re a Real Estate Agent, you don’t have to talk about Real Estate & homes the whole time. You can talk about different topics occasionally & especially the current events. Could be occasionally funny updates or the basketball team that you want to win. It is great for getting comments. It helps to let people know that there is a real human on the other side, not just someone who’s only after the marketing of the page.

Filed Under: Articles, Facebook, Social Networks, Tom's Ramblings Tagged With: Facebook, Online Engagement

Checking In: Foursquare Holds Great Potential for Businesses

May 18, 2011 By tlyons 2 Comments

Foursquare, which was launched in 2009, allows people with GPS phones to “Check in” from various places. It’s basically a mobile application, part game, part social networking service.

Every time you go out and use Foursquare,you can track your whereabouts and publish them. This tells your friends where you are everytime you “check-in” and let’s you know if other friends are nearby. You accrue points for everything from venturing far from home to trying someplace new. Earn enough points and you’ll unlock badges. Another honor is being the “Mayor” of a certain location. You get the title if you check in to a specific location, say a local coffee shop, the most times, which entitles you to freebies such as a free drink. This location-based social network provides real-life rewards for telling the world where you are. Foursquare is very convenient & fun to use, that’s why many people have this app on their phones and have almost made it a habit to stop what they’re doing and take the time to “check in”.

Foursquare holds great potential for businesses given the fact the it’s widely use. When someone checks-in to a place, specifically your business, establishment or open house, it instantly becomes a word-of-mouth recommendation for you. Businesses should also establish Foursquare profile to set up a reward system for frequent check-ins or “mayors” and offer perks & tokens to entice people who are checkd in nearby. For Realtors, Foursquare is a great way to market yourself as a local expert who gives tips about the best places and restaurants to visit in a neighborhood and probably things to do in a certain place. Marketing a business is all about being aware of the trends & engagement with your customers. Foursquare is one of the many ways that enables you to do that.

Here’s what Matthew Shadbolt, (Director of Interactive Product & Marketing at The Corcoran Group) have to say about making use of Foursquare as a part of their marketing:

1. Foursquare is a natural extension of what we’ve been doing elsewhere in mobile for location-based marketing. Putting local Corcoran expertise into people’s hands in a venue and time-specific way is an incredibly powerful form of social marketing for us.

2. One of our core brand ideas is that the process of searching for a home is just as much about what’s outside of the 4 walls than it is inside. We believe that the idea of communicating ‘what’s nearby’ is a very powerful way of understanding a neighborhood, and sharing that information within Foursquare has been an exciting way to grow our brand’s presence within mobile platforms.

3. We don’t believe in selling within Foursquare. We do not post open houses or listings, and think that there are ethical issues in posting people’s homes as venues within the service.

4. Unfortunately, we also don’t ‘play’ Foursquare now that we’ve become a brand – for the first 12 months of using Foursquare, we were earning badges and mayorships like regular users, but since we’ve become a ‘brand’ within Foursquare, that part of the platform is no longer available. We’re still able to check in and post photos, but it’s always been about the venue tips for us, not badges or mayorships. Providing helpful information using Foursquare is our focus.

5. One thing we often get asked is why we’re not doing this on Yelp, given Yelp’s much larger user base. The main reason is that in order to post tips within Yelp, you have to be an individual, you can’t do it as a ‘brand’, so it’s tough to replicate our goals in using tip-based location apps if we can’t speak as the brokerage. I’ve seen individual agents have a lot of success within Yelp doing this as themselves though, we just don’t do it as an organization for that reason.

In addition, Foursquare is included in Corcoran’s overall social media agent education programs, and all new agents who join Corcoran are made aware of these initiatives as part of their ongoing efforts to help agents understand how mobile, social and video are part of their digital marketing arsenal.

Credits to: FUTURE OF REAL ESTATE MARKETING

Filed Under: Articles, Social Networks, Tom's Ramblings Tagged With: Foursquare

Track Valuable Statistics w/ Twitter Counter

May 12, 2011 By tlyons 1 Comment

Twitter is one of the best ways to get more clients and promote your business online. It’s a great and effective way to keep your prospects connected to you and up to date on what’s going on in the business (specifically your business). It’s an additional tool you need to learn how to use because it’s a very good way to publicize you and your business and have some fun with it at the same time.

Businesses everywhere are beginning to use Twitter to interact with customers & clients. Invite your clients to use Twitter. They can follow you and you can follow them. You can all exchange information and ideas. You could notify them of your new listings, open houses, share links you think they might enjoy or find informative. Basically, you can build your very own Twitter real estate community.

The key is to just give Twitter a try. It is free. You only need to set up your account, find some people to follow, write some tweets for a few weeks, and see how things go. As you start having some fun with it and get involved in the community, you are sure to uncover new opportunities to use the service to help your business. (Twitip is a site you can visit to get a lot of useful information about Twitter)

What makes it more amazing is that Twitter has dozens of 3rd party applications. One of them applications that I find very useful is Twitter Counter. Twitter Counter provides statistics of Twitter usage which includes your number of tweets & retweets, how many followers you have (graphed out by week, month, 3 months or 6 months) and it also gives you a prediction of how many followers you’ll gain in a certain timeframe based on past performance. It’s so easy to use and you can just get your Twitter stats via email.

In marketing, you can never have enough statistics. This can definitely help you work toward your goals and assess progress with your social media efforts.

Filed Under: Site reviews, Social Networks, Tom's Ramblings, Twitter

Promote Your Brand, Products & Services Using Facebook With This Free WordPress Plugin

April 18, 2011 By tlyons Leave a Comment

Facebook “Pages” is a really great way for corporations and brands to advertise on Facebook. Facebook users interact with Pages the same way Facebook users can interact with groups. Fans on a Facebook fan page can post photos, videos, links, discuss topics on the discussion board and comment on the Page wall, all depending on the settings set by the Page administrator.

Facebook Pages are more flexible, unlike Groups, you can add Applications to enhance your Page, which is an advantage and beneficial to businesses. Pages also has a number of methods to communicate with users who “Like” the page. You can send updates to users which appear as notifications. The updates that you send can be targeted by age, gender, and location.

Businesses can also take advantage of Facebook’s analytics engine, Facebook insights. It gives you metrics such as the number of page views, unique pageviews, photo views, number of fans added per day, etc.

Almost everyone has a Facebook account, so it’s really a great way to consider and include Facebook as one of your marketing medium. Pages also have SEO benefits as they show up very high in search results for your brand or product. Facebook pages cost nothing to set up and there are no monthly fees for maintaining a page. When Facebook switched from using FBML to iframes on their fan pages, it opened up a great opportunity to businesses to promote their brand or product and give fans a more professional touch. With this new feature, you can build your own website within Facebook. You can insert videos, custom opt-in forms, pictures, audio, etc. and it’s so easy to do. With these capability, you can really engage with your potential customers and they can spread the word about your page. Which is a very effective and fun way to do your marketing.

All you need to do is to install this Facebook iFrame WordPress Plugin and you can start promoting your ad campaigns, promotions, etc. on Facebook Pages. I have found a video tutorial on YouTube showing you how to do it step by step.

Filed Under: Facebook, Social Networks

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