It was a surprisingly daring move to revamp a classic. almost outdated brand.
In terms of Social Media, it was a true blast.
Who would have guessed?
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Online Reputation Management Strategies for Small Businesses
Image credit: Flickr user - lindyireland
In my previous post I wrote about local business listings and business review websites. I really believe they are, for the most part, a cool marketing and business networking tool. However, my last post was about PR nightmares you can get yourself into, just by having a business listed in the wrong sites: sites that have a incoherent policy concerning anonymous and fake reviews.
However, PR nightmares can happen to anyone, anywhere on the web. Ever since the web started and people began to interact, there have been people using the perceived anonymity or virtual connections to slander and harm others. My first “social media” experience happened more than 20 years ago when I installed a 14.400 external modem on my Mac Classic and logged into a BBS. That was also my first encounter with a “troll”.
The fact that you expose yourself and your business to this kind of problem, doesn’t mean it is a good idea to shy away from social media. “Au contraire”; it is a very bad idea. Continue reading
Business Review Sites: Double-Edged Swords?
Image credit: Flickr user - snappybex
Picture this:
You are a small business owner and you have this nice little storefront downtown. You provide great products and services, you have a good clientele, you are happy with the business and your customers, very satisfied.
One morning you come to work, to find that, in the middle of the night, someone sprayed some slanderous words about you and your business all over your window. Continue reading
“We can’t all be Apple or Cirque du Soleil or Basement Systems Inc. But we can damn well die trying” – Tom Peters
We can’t all be Apple or Cirque du Soleil or Basement Systems Inc.
But we can damn well die trying.
via tompeters.com
I began my career working as evangelist for an Apple dealer, and now I work for Basement Systems. Things like that make my day.
And no, I have no intention of joining the circus…
SEO for Small Business: When the Higher Ground means Lower Profits.
As the Web becomes Web 2.0, and internet marketing becomes an opt-in, two-way street, search engines are constantly tweaking their algorithms and working harder to cater to a pickier, more informed and much savvier “2.0 audience”.
Organic searches are still the main generator of traffic for most sites and in most cases the main lead generation tool. However this recent study by Comscore indicates an interesting trend towards and increasing weight of user generated content in customer’s purchase decisions. People now have tools to easily check a company’s trustworthiness or a product’s reliability using social media and polling other users.
In other words, typical search engine results are no longer the final word when it comes to selecting a service providers or products. Sensitive to that, search engines algorithms are leaving their purely mathematical comfort zone and paying more attention to what is going on in Social Media, trying to make sense of all the buzz and computing social media mentions and references when trying to sort a broad range of results, to better serve the new audiences. Continue reading
5 Reasons Why I DON'T Follow You on Twitter
This post is translated (poorly and with a few impertinent edits) from a great post I read at a friend’s blog. (Thanks for allowing me to translate it, Han!)
Han Badalamenti, the guy who wrote this, is not a Social Media marketer. He is a Social Media user. He is one among the millions of social media savvy users you are trying to market to, one of the guys who you are planning to target with your Social Media strategy. He is writing to other users but what he says applies to Social Media Marketing as well
He, like many others in this environment, knows what he wants and he knows that, when it comes to Social Media, he has a choice. He can pick who he wants to listen to. He knows what every Social Media user knows and so many Social Media Marketers seem to ignore.
Let’s hear what he has to say, shall we?
5 Reasons Why I DON’T Follow you on Twitter
This is a text for you that logs on to Twitter everyday only to see that the number of people following you is dwindling. If you are asking yourself: “what did I do wrong”, here are your answers.
My friend, here are the 5 mains reasons why the idea of following you on Twitter gives me the creeps:
SMM and SEO: Setting the Record Straight
Let me say this once and for all: Social Media Marketing is not Search Engine Optimization, period.
No, SMM is not a part of SEO either, and calling it SMO (Social Media Optimization) doesn’t make it any different. A top-notch SEO expert is not necessarily a Social Media Wiz, and vice-versa. They are different specialties with a different focus.
Allow me a “girlie ” analogy to better illustrate my point:
A hair dresser and a pedicure specialist work in the same field, yet we would be better off not trusting the first with our toes and the second with our “dos” just because they work in the same salon.
What happens in Internet Marketing is about the same that happens in the beauty parlor: different professionals with different skills collaborate towards a great result.
Keep it Human
I have this conversation quite often:
Small businesses asking me if they should open Social Media profiles in their names or the company’s.
Here’s my take on this: in most cases, people buy from people. Social Media is about people, so Social Media Marketing should be too.
The Social Media crowd is not very fond of companies without a “face” and “faces” without a little bit of humanity. Understandably so. Spammers are out there creating mass profiles and flooding social gathering sites like Twitter with sales pitches, phishing scams, phony links, mass “follow” apps, and spam bots and taking the fun out of Social Media just like they almost ruined email, before email clients developed smarter filters.
Social Media Starter Package
So, you really want to get started with Social Media. You’ve decided that you can no longer afford to not be there. Yet, you don’t have a lot of time to devote to exploring the vast landscape of Social Media platforms and sites and you definitely can’t afford to hire a specialist or a good Virtual Assistant to do the job, or you don’t have the time and means to train anybody on the peculiarities of your business so that they can effectively represent your company over the Internet.
You are thinking maybe of something you can do and administer yourself in your spare time, or have your secretary or someone in marketing do, just so you will not be completely absent. Is it possible?
Social Media: so… what is in it for you?
On a personal level, social media allows you to:
- Meet and network with new people in your area
- Form groups of peers with similar interests
Whether it is you favorite band, sports team or old TV series there are literally thousands of people out there who share the same passion and interest, willing to connect with someone like you. Interest groups are a great way to get started in Social Media, as you will immediately connect with like-minded people of all walks of life.
