It seems like such a short time ago, all a web developer had to worry about was making sure their websites looked good and performed well in Internet Explorer (IE). After all, for close to a decade, IE totally dominated the web landscape. This is however no longer the case. READ MORE
Social Media Tools and Marketing
Social Media (or Social Networking) is an umbrella term to describe various applications designed to facilitate social networking and exchanges online. An increasing amount of organizations are including social media as part of their overall marketing strategy. Social Media consists of online social media platforms, the buttons and functions within them and of course the overall strategy used to execute these tools and applications. The tools included on social media platforms allow you to post information, gain and give feedback to others, interact with many platforms at once, network with key players and integrate your entire tactic.
Here are a few of the ways that Expression can help your organization with its social media strategy:
- Create a presence for your organization on the major social media sites (see list below)
- Build blogs which can be used on your site as well as on the major social media sites
- Add social bookmark links to your most important web pages and/or blog posts to improve sharing
- Identify which power-bloggers might care about your audience and learn how to use their influence to spread your message
- Create a short series of audio podcasts or video podcasts and evaluate their efficiency on sites like YouTube
- Use Facebook groups to build media and generate a buzz for specific events
- Run social media contests, campaigns and more…
The most popular social media platforms are:
Launched in 2004, Facebook has become the world’s most popular social media platform. Facebook is defined as a social networking service, but it has evolved into much more. Facebook is now the place to view and exchange photos, the forum for organizing public and private events and the place to give updates about yourself while keeping up with those of others using the News Feed (to name just a few examples). While Facebook began as a site where individuals could create and share their customized profile with their network, it has grown to become a promotional portal for businesses and organizations of every kind. Facebook even launched a feature in the spring of 2011 that makes it even easier for marketers and creative firms to brand and promote online. Brand and promote your organization using the world’s most popular social media platform as an integral player of your social media strategy.
Twitter is defined as another social networking service but it is also the most popular microblogging service. Twitter allows you to give updates to your network about what you are doing, while you follow the updates of what others are doing. Updates are limited to 140 characters in-length, making this social media tool perfect for communicating quick updates to a mass-audience efficiently. Businesses and organizations will appreciate broadcasting breaking news and links with the flick of a button. At the same time, Twitter can also help your business interact with your customers or can be used to facilitate inter-office communication and collaboration. Why not send your first “Tweet” today and make use of this powerful and popular social media tool?
With 3 billion videos viewed every single day, YouTube is the world’s largest video-sharing website and online community. After only 6 years in operation, YouTube has grown to also become the world’s largest collection of online video, with over 48 hours of video being added each minute. Now you can even use YouTube as a video database whereby you can search for almost any topic under the Sun and find a video about it.
Considering its popularity, YouTube can significantly enhance your social media strategy in a number of ways. You can embed the YouTube player into your website and display videos on almost any topic, as over 10 000 other website already have. Inversely, you can post videos on YouTube.com and direct viewers to your website or just use the tool to promote yourself on their site. The success of your video depends on the number of “hits” it gets or in other words, how many people have viewed it. Indeed, animals and people have become instant celebrities overnight after posting only 1 video! Additionally, each video viewed on YouTube is complemented with social actions, so you can like, share or comment on any video and the online community can do the same for videos that you post on the website. YouTube is such a powerful social media tool that over 100 million people take social actions on videos each week. You can take action today by using YouTube as the ‘hit’ part of your social media strategy.
Since 2003, LinkedIn has been a social networking service for professionals. Similar to a work-place friendly Facebook, LinkedIn allows you to create a professional profile and share it with your network. Once you have your LinkedIn profile you can stay informed with your network, keep up-to-date on industry news, control your professional identity online and you can find the people-resources you need to achieve your goals. LinkedIn becomes even more engaging for its 120 million users, with components like the Question feature and the ability to join groups. For example, the Question feature allows you to ask questions to other professionals in the LinkedIn community, and similarly, if you answer enough questions that others have asked, you can become a “LinkedIn Expert.” Branding yourself as an expert or associating with many groups can only increase your online presence. Link into the world’s most popular social networking service for professionals and build your network and your social media strategy!
While being heralded as the next Facebook, Google+ has similar qualities but has gone above and beyond, as everyone expected. Google’s main intention with this application addresses the heart of modern online technological innovation, which is making virtual experiences happen the way they would in real-life. One of the coolest features Google+ has included, to recreate real life interaction, is the ability to strike up video conversation in an instant with as many as 9 people at the same time! This feature also allows a group of friends to simply ‘hangout’ online. Another distinguishing feature of Google+ is the ability to control the way you interact with designated groups of people, so you don’t have to treat all your relationships the same, just like in real-life. For example, you can create circles for family, circles for work colleagues or a circle for the groups of peeps you were with on Saturday night. The circles allow you to control how you interact with this group, meaning you don’t have to worry about mom reading the wall-post about your silly Saturday night. There are a host of other Google-worthy features included in Google+ including a game room to compete against the high scores of your friends, an automatic-instant upload feature for pictures and of course, Google’s classic search engine built right into the platform.
Social Media Marketing Strategy
For clients looking for a more comprehensive social media strategy, we can also offer a complete social media marketing plan. We will get you started with a web presence assessment as well as a social personas analysis that will then be combined and compiled into a final report. The next phase of your strategy is to develop an in-depth understanding of the current state of your in-house social media management and monitoring. This will allow us to develop a methodology to fill in any gaps within what currently exists and to understand how to increase your internal capacity with social media training. Based on our findings, we will apply the appropriate social media marketing and public relations services to ensure that you meet your goal. Our clients are satisfied and feel secure knowing we work alongside some of the best social media strategists in the country. Our strategists are also constantly measuring the results of their social media campaigns thanks to the strong web analytics expertise of our Google Analytics certified partners. Measuring our efficiency allows us to constantly improve our tactics and deliver the best possible service to our clients.
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Can I buy your product while sitting on the beach in New Zealand? Mobile gains in e-commerce reigns
By: Chandal Nolasco da Silva Posted: Nov 22 2011
By: Chandal Nolasco da Silva Posted: Nov 22 2011
I remember when it was a very scary thing to purchase anything online. Putting your credit card on the internet was the equivalent of leaving your purse in those cubby holes before you get aboard a rollercoaster ride. However since the invention of buy-sell sites like eBay followed by purchasing platforms like PayPal, online consumer purchasing discomfort has subsided. READ MORE
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