May 9th, 2013 // Small Biz Embracing Social Marketing; Location-Based, Not So Much
Posted in // MediaPost.com
Posted by // Erik Sass

Small businesses have embraced social media marketing in a big way, but aren’t nearly as keen on location-based social media like Foursquare, according to a new survey from Constant Contact, which provides digital marketing services to small biz owners. An impressive 97% of small business owners told Constant Contact that they are using social media channels of one kind or another, including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube and Instagram. And 66% said they are using mobile marketing, including ads delivered to smartphones and tablets, Web sites optimized for mobile devices, or text messages. By contrast, just 17% said they are using location-based social media like Foursquare to market their business. Meanwhile another survey of small business owners by Staples also found that Facebook and Twitter were the most popular social media marketing channels. In terms of goals, Staples found their main purpose is engaging customers -- endorsed by half of the respondents -- followed by increasing sales (46%) and raising brand awareness (44%). Perhaps unsurprisingly, small business owners don’t consider themselves social media marketing experts by any means, with 53% characterizing themselves as novices or completely ignorant of its potential benefits. On the other hand, 40% said that social media has benefited their companies. Staples also announced a contest that aims to encourage small businesses to adopt digital media, with $50,000 prizes for three small businesses and paid digital marketing services for one grand prize winner. Companies who want to enter the Staples “Push It Forward” contest are asked to submit a 75-word essay (that seems more like a paragraph) describing what they would do with the prize money. Read the entire article posted by Erik Sass as it was posted on MediaPost.com HERE. ___________________________________________________________________________ All credits for this article are attributed to its author, Erik Sass. The MediaPost logo is a trademark of MediaPost Communications. [AgooBiz is not affiliated with MediaPost Communications.] ___________________________________________________________________________

Apr. 22nd, 2013 // Moms Utilize Social Media, Online Spending
Posted in // MediaPost.com
Posted by // Gavin O'Malley

Moms have long held the household purse strings, but, in the age of social media, their influence now goes far beyond the front door. The vast majority of moms (91%) make regular use of social media -- a 20% increase from 2010. Perhaps even more remarkable, over a fifth of moms (22%) now expect a high level of social media engagement from their friends and family, according to a survey of nearly 1,500 U.S. moms, according to new research from comScore and parenting site BabCenter.com. “Social media has become so pervasive [among moms], it’s now fundamental to the way today’s moms live their lives,” said Mike Fogarty, senior vice president and global publisher at BabyCenter. “Today’s mom is the most influential and social consumer you’ll meet.” Yet, all this social activity doesn't seem to be interrupting moms' shopping time. On the contrary, despite making up only 18% of the total U.S. Web population, moms were responsible for 32% of total online spending in the last quarter, according the research. Compared to the general population, moms who are also heavy social networkers are more likely to shop online for clothing (61%), portable devices (91%), baby supplies (63%), and home and garden products (65%). Despite the popular perception of gadget geeks as young and male, moms are actually early adopters of devices. Compared to the general population, 49% more moms have smartphones (81% vs. 54%), while, in a year-over-year comparison, mom’s smartphone ownership is up 25%, while tablet ownership is up 79%. More to the point, 89% of moms with smartphones access Facebook on their phones, and they are four times more likely to prefer to check social media via their smartphone than the average user. Where are moms spending their social time? Today, 91% of moms have used Facebook in the past six months -- compared to 80% of the general population -- while nearly two-thirds of moms (61%) report having used Pinterest in the last six months -- nearly double its 30% usage among the general population. Read the entire article posted by Gavin O'Malley as it was posted on MediaPost.com HERE. ___________________________________________________________________________ All credits for this article are attributed to its author, Gavin O'Malley. The MediaPost logo is a trademark of MediaPost Communications. [AgooBiz is not affiliated with MediaPost Communications.] ___________________________________________________________________________

script type="text/javascript">var switchTo5x=true; Apr. 21st, 2013 // Social Media Affects Purchase Decisions, ARF Finds
Posted in // MediaPost.com
Posted by // Erik Sass

Social media has a measurable impact on consumer purchase decisions, according to a new study from the Advertising Research Foundation based on a survey of 2,000 U.S. shoppers. The study was commissioned by the ARF, conducted by Communispace, comScore, Converseon, and Firefly Millward Brown, and sponsored by General Motors, Google, Kraft, Motorola, and Young & Rubicam. Technical guidance was provided by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. The study, titled “Digital & Social Media in the Purchase Decision Process,” found that roughly one-third of shoppers said they were either introduced to a brand or product, or changed their opinion about a brand or product during the buying process, because of social media. What’s more, 22% of shoppers surveyed by the ARF said that social media was “important in my final purchase decision.” By the same token, the ARF study emphasizes that many consumers may not be fully aware of the factors influencing their purchase decisions, as “some ‘shopping’ behaviors are taking place outside of consumer consciousness, as digital and social media have infiltrated consumers’ lives…” On this note ARF executive vice-president for primary research Todd Powers stated: “This state of constant interaction with brands through digital and social media has come to challenge the purchase funnel, as we have traditionally understood it. This also challenges the notion that consumers are aware of the influences on their purchase decisions, and that they always make decisions consciously.” While ARF studies are something of a gold standard for advertising research, there are some other recent studies suggesting a link between social media and purchasing behavior. Earlier this week I wrote about a study by researchers from the University at Buffalo School of Management, Aalto University and Texas A&M University, who were able to correlate social media engagement with increased purchases for a large specialty firm in the northeast U.S. According to co-author Ram Bezawada, assistant professor of marketing in the School of Management at the University at Buffalo, “Our results show that when customers engage with a business through social media they contribute about 5.6 percent more to the firm’s bottom line than customers who do not.” Read the entire article posted by Erik Sass as it was posted on MediaPost.com HERE. ___________________________________________________________________________ All credits for this article are attributed to its author, Erik Sass. The MediaPost logo is a trademark of MediaPost Communications. [AgooBiz is not affiliated with MediaPost Communications.] ___________________________________________________________________________



 Jan. 15th, 2013 // Did Instagram Really Lose Half Its Daily Users?
Posted in // MediaPost.com
Posted by // Erik Sass

Say what you want about the New York Post, it doesn’t shy away from a fight. New York City’s newspaper of discord appears to be locked in an epic statistical pissing match with Facebook over the number of active users at Instagram (note to self: try to fit “epic statistical pissing match” into more conversations). The NYP previously reported that data from AppStats showed Instagram’s active daily users dropping by about a quarter following its terms of service privacy fiasco, from 16.4 million on December 19 to 12.4 million on December 26. Facebook fired back that the data was “inaccurate,” but declined to specify how or why this was the case. Now the NYP says that according to AppStat the number of active daily users has actually declined by about half, from 16.35 million on December 17, when the TOS change became public, to 8.42 million this week. In case anyone has trouble connecting the dots, the NYP also quotes AppStats CEO Sebastian Sujka: “The main loss will be most likely due to the terms of service changes, given how much attention and controversy the terms of service change has brought, and seeing how clearly the Instagram app dropped after the terms of service change.” And this is where we come to the maddening thing about Web and mobile measurement: a set of numbers might seem to clearly suggest some sort of trend, but there’s always the possibility that they’re wrong. And not just a little wrong, or misinterpreted or massaged -- they’re somehow, like, diametrically opposed to reality according to another interested party (usually the company which stands to lose by the negative publicity). Thus, Facebook insists that “We continue to see strong and steady growth in both registered and active users of Instagram.”Another good example of this is Google’s ongoing dispute with various Web measurement firms about how much traffic there is on Google+: back in April 2012 Google CEO Larry Page said he was excited about “impressive growth” at Google+, while comScore data showed that users only spent around three minutes per month on the network (which in fact isn’t a social network at all, according to Google execs -- but I’ll leave that for another time). Anyway, I think the problem is that the science of Web and mobile measurement is still so new that anyone who disagrees with numbers can simply call “methodology” and claim to have won the argument. It would be nice to know if the number of active daily users at Instagram dropped by half following the privacy uproar -- for one thing, it would be a good warning to Facebook and other social media sites that, despite appearances, consumers do care about privacy. But instead we’re left with speculation… or not even that, actually, since Facebook has now blocked access to Instagram’s user figures via its API. Read the entire article posted by Erik Sass as it was posted on MediaPost.com HERE. ___________________________________________________________________________ Erik Sass is a journalist for MediaPost-Publications. ___________________________________________________________________________ All credits for this article are attributed to its author, Erik Sass. The MediaPost logo is a trademark of MediaPost Communications. [AgooBiz is not affiliated with MediaPost Communications.] ___________________________________________________________________________ 







 Dec. 19th, 2012 // Companies Still Lack Content Marketing Skills
Posted in // MediaPost.com
Posted by // Tanya Irwin

There is still opportunity for companies to improve their content marketing strategies to drive deeper engagement with customers, according to a multi-industry survey undertaken by IMN. The survey revealed that while content marketing is important to businesses across industries (including automotive, direct selling, franchise, financial services and insurance), companies still have inroads to make. Regardless of industry, finding and sourcing relevant content and internal resource constraints were the top two roadblocks to successful content marketing programs. The credit union (33%) and direct selling (31%) sectors had the highest number of respondents replying that their organizations have a formal content marketing strategy in place. The financial services (75%), insurance (50%) and software (50%) industries are the most advanced when it comes to having separate content marketing strategies for each channel. The automotive (14%) and banking sectors (14%) were the least likely to have separate strategies in place. Financial services (50%), insurance (50%), software (50%) and banking (43%) industries had the highest percentages responding that they do have content marketing editorial calendars in place. The insurance (50%), credit union (33%), financial services (33%), banking (29%) and automotive (19%) sectors are concerned about the regulatory compliance of the content they distribute. According to the results, 78% of respondents indicated that content marketing was either a medium or a high priority, while 52% did not have a separate content marketing strategy in place for each channel it distributes content through. A full 32% of respondents had a content marketing calendar in place to track the topics that would be covered, when and by whom. Across industries, Web sites, newsletters and social media consistently ranked as the most effective content marketing vehicles, except for the financial services and software sectors, which did not list social media at all (email campaigns completed each of their top three). Also, respondents from the insurance industry ranked video higher than social media. Open-rate metrics for email blasts is the most popular form of content marketing program measurement for the automotive, banking, financial services and insurance industries. For franchises, software firms and direct selling organizations, the number of incoming leads was most popular. Revenue increases were the most frequent type of measurement used by credit unions. Read the entire post in MediaPost.com posted by Tanya Irwin. ___________________________________________________________________________ Tanya Irwin is a MediaPost Writer. 5776 Grayton Street Detroit Michigan 48224 USA Connect w/ Tanya Irwin: Email: tanya@mediapost.com ___________________________________________________________________________ All credits for this article are attributed to its author, Tanya Irwin. The MediaPost logo is a trademark of MediaPost Communications. [AgooBiz is not affiliated with MediaPost Communications.] ___________________________________________________________________________

Dec. 17th, 2012 // Your Social Media Marketing Checklist for 2013
Posted in // Mashable.com
Posted by // Jasmine Sandler

As we enter a hopeful new year, we thought it would be helpful to deliver some key items for your corporate social media strategy checklist for 2013. And, as we also enter a new year of Google changes to the ever-important search algorithm, we include a review of SEO from a social standpoint.

1. Get Internal Team on Board

Before you enter the brave new world of mobile and tablets leading the way of content consumption, quality checks all over Google, and global adoption of lightning-fast broadband with any social media strategy, you will want to make sure all key stakeholders are on board with your goals. As a key performance engine for client/customer engagement, social media activity takes into account all organizational activities that affect those relationships. Your sales teams, marketing teams, social teams, creative teams, brand ambassadors and C-suite all need to be on board with the direction of your social strategy. The smartest way to move on this is to appoint one ringmaster within your organization to lead the way and be accountable to both your social media marketing goals and communicating any movements to the internal teams. If you represent an enterprise-level organization, having directors of important teams connect and agree on the direction and goals is a must.

2. Collect All Internal Assets

A good social strategy will require an analysis of all internal marketing and sales assets. In this way, you want to gather up all customer/client-facing online content, including: white papers, published reports, presentations, messaging, online videos, mobile apps and one-sheets. From here, you will be able to understand what you have been promoting about your brand and if you want that to change or stay the same.

3. Review Your 2012 Social Activity

The only way to assess and ignite a movement in social for your organization is to see what your current activity (2012) has done to drive customer engagement (and conversion if applicable). You will want to list all relevant pages, including: your blog(s) and any on-site communities, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and any other social networks or forums in which you are active as a company. From here, you should assess how you have been communicating, what you have communicated (content types, length, and messaging per target), how often you have communicated, a level of engagement and a sentiment of interest (positive/negative/neutral). If you have been using a social management and monitoring system such as HootSuite, Radian6, etc., you should certainly run analytics to assess how your social program has delivered in 2012.

4. Review Your SEO Program

What business-driving keywords have delivered qualified leads in 2012 for your organization? How have you taken a lead in online visibility through social with your knowledge of your SEO program results? Are you tracking social mentions and follows at the same time as SEO effectiveness in Google Webmaster Tools and Analytics? As social sites like Twitter, YouTube and Google+ directly impact search results, you need to be aware of your SEO programs and their effectiveness as they relate to social marketing activity and vice-versa.

5. Define Your Social Goals for 2013

Are you selling a service to executives? Publishing curated content for ad revenue dollars? An e-commerce site with multiple categories of branded products? Whatever the case, your social media marketing goals need to resonate with authentic customer/client engagement. To define your social media goals is to start with your business goals and a true understanding of your target market. Social media marketing is the ultimate communications tool for reaching and engaging a target audience in the following ways:

• Excellent customer/client service
• Updates on brand, products, and services
• Product/service promotions
• Education of the customer around your value
• Making your brand go viral on the web
• Informing your target of changes in your industry, products, and services
• Acting as a thought-leader by taking the lead in online education

If you are selling a service or solution, your goal may be customer engagement and qualified lead generation. To that end, you need to educate, inform and solve a problem. If you are selling a product online, your goal may be to use social to acquire first-time customers via giveaways. Too often we hear corporate marketers talk in terms of increase of followers and fans and not what they should be discussing -- engagement, conversion, viral factoring and so on. Once real goals are determined, only then can you make your social plan that benefits your end client. With the holiday season fast-approaching, taking stock of what you have done in social media marketing in 2012 and what business results those activities have driven will fast-track you on your way to launch a successful social media marketing strategy for 2013. Remember to gather your marketing communications assets, align your key team members to your 2013 goals, and review your SEO effectiveness and social play therein, and you will be well on your way to a social strategy that will work for you in the new year. Read the entire post in Mashable.com posted by Jasmine Sandler. ___________________________________________________________________________ Jasmine Sandler wrote this article for ClickZ. ClickZ is a Mashable publishing partner that provides marketing news and expert advice. This article is reprinted in Mashable with the publisher's permission. Connect w/ ClickZ:

• WebSite
• Twitter: @clickz
• Facebook

___________________________________________________________________________ All credits for this article are attributed to its author, Jasmine Sandler for ClickZ. The Mashable logo is a trademark of Mashable Inc. [AgooBiz is not affiliated with Mashable Inc.] ___________________________________________________________________________

Dec. 13th, 2012 // Good Content Will Generate Thousands of Visitors from Social Media Channels
Posted in // SocialMediaToday.com
Posted by // Edwin Huertas

As an on line marketing consultant, I have to constantly search out inventive ways to generate traffic to my clients' offers. It is not always easy, because every business is different. The approach I take will vary according to what industry and marketplace I am targeting. But, having said that, I find that there is a basic set of rules you can follow to make sure you reach your target audience and convert at a higher rate. In my opinion there are 5 important parts to making sure your marketing via social media is effective.

1. Understand your marketplace - I know... this goes without saying - right? Well, not really; you'd be astonished at the small amount of time companies often put into figuring out who their target audience is. Remember these questions: Who are you speaking to? What are the problems and needs of this group of people? What is their age range and how much money do they make? Determining who these people are will help you present the right message. I create Personas that outline the basic information about who my potential customers are. Creating 4-5 Personas helps me get my creative juices going because it starts to feel like I am marketing to a real person. Think of this imaginary person as a real person and use your marketing to reach them in a way that gets them to respond. Orange Bus offers a great (and free) Personas template you can use here: www.orangebus.co.uk/sites/
2. Listen to the people - Each industry has a completely different audience, but it is important to listen closely to what people are saying, regardless of what you are selling. Listen to the conversations - the comments, the complaints, the praises, the opinions, the questions, the criticisms, and formulate your content accordingly.
3. Use the right content for the offer - We all know that "Content is King!" when it comes to SEO, but the same holds true for Social Media marketing. If you truly understand who your audience is and what your end goals are you will create the kind of content that translates perfectly to that particular audience. Providing relevant content creates a so-called "stickiness" that will help you generate more visits because people will want to share it. They will link to it from their blogs, social media accounts and other places, if they think it's useful. In my example (below) I explain how I have used good content to generate thousands of visitors to my client's offer.
4. What is your end goal? - What is it that you are hoping to accomplish by reaching out to this person or group? Are you trying to get them to buy something? Are you hoping they will sign up for your newsletter? Whatever your goal is, you should make sure that the page you are sending them to effectively converts them. Make sure you have the proper call-to-action and you are using the right mental triggers to create that sale or lead. Don't overwhelm them with too much information. I find that clean pages with plenty of open spaces make it easier for people to get to the content (or action) you want them to see. Your landing page will determine if this person becomes a customer, so take your time and split test different versions to make sure you are getting the most effective page in front of your visitors.
5. Use the right social media channels - Every social media network has a different kind of audience; which one you decide to focus on is important. For instance, I find that for my personal line of work, LinkedIn provides a great B2B type of audience where, if I am marketing a 'consumer' product for a client, I might focus on Facebook or Twitter a bit more. If you are a real estate agent who wants to show off a new property you might use Pinterest or other image-hosting social media sites, but if you have just completed an online teaching program, you might find it useful to market via video on Youtube, DailyMotion and other video distribution sites. This all falls back to point #1 - Understand your audience. Where (on what sites) do they hang out? What do they actually do on the social media site you are trying to use for marketing purposes?

To give you one example, I manage the online marketing for a company within the "Telecom" space and I use social media to drive potential agents to their offer. I understand that the audience they are targeting is a professional group of people, made up of cellular and land-line service providers--technicians and other people--who provide a variety of telecom services to their customers. On LinkedIn I created a profile with information about my client's business. I use this account to join Telecom groups and connect with people within the industry. Within a month or two I had almost 2,000 connections and I am constantly engaging with people from all corners of the world to help drive traffic to my client's Website and their agent programs. This is how it's done. I hire professional writers to write articles about this specific industry, and I use those articles to market their offer via social media sites. The client needs to attract people who own businesses and / or provide services to businesses, so I focus more on LinkedIn than other social media sites. I find questions in the Q & A section of LinkedIn that might be answered by one of my articles. This allows me to add a link as reference, which drives (targeted) traffic to my client's Web page in large numbers. I also post these articles to the groups I've joined and drive even more traffic to their page outlining their agent programs. I posted an article recently that ended up creating such a buzz that it had almost 1,000 comments (and still growing) and generated THOUSANDS of visitors to their site. As another example, I once used Facebook and Twitter to reach housewives and interior decorators who were interested in luxury stainless steel appliances. I hired professional writers to give decor tips and advice, and I used these articles to get 'likes' and 'follows' from people who may want to remodel a kitchen. I paid close attention to conversations that were taking place on interior decorating groups and on Twitter. I used hashtags that were being followed by similar groups of people to post links to these articles. In the end, having the right content and targeting the right audience can make a dramatic change in your marketing. If you are a specialist in your niche, and you have decent writing skills, you should start writing content NOW. If you don't have good writing skills, you can always outsource your writing using places like Odesk.com, writeraccess.com, elance.com or any of the major freelance networks on the Web. If you have good videos, make sure you upload them to Youtube.com, DailyMotion.com, vimeo.com and other video sites to expand your reach. There are also companies that provide all of these services if you don't have the time or experience in generating content. I have personally put together an "all-inclusive" online marketing program that handles it all for you, so if you need help please give me a ring! Read the entire post in SocialMediaToday.com posted by Edwin Huertas. ___________________________________________________________________________ Edwin Huertas is Vice President - MH & A, LLC. Company: Isis CMS - Complete Internet Business Development Packages. Edwin has spent the last fifteen years growing his skills in the internet arena, from programming and website building to the latest iterations of web marketing. He's a self-confessed nerd with an undying passion for marketing, because it is a way to get attention for deserving products and services. He loves using his skills to help people get the attention and business success they deserve and for the last 15 years companies from around the globe have relied on his expertise to help realize their online goals. Connect w/ Edwin Huertas:

• WebSite
• Twitter: @edwin_huertas
• LinkedIn
• Facebook

___________________________________________________________________________ All credits for this article are attributed to its author, Edwin Huertas. The Social Media Today logo is a trademark of Social Media Today LLC. [AgooBiz is not affiliated with Social Media Today LLC.] ___________________________________________________________________________