[daviddoughty83]

Moving, Settling, and Building a New Website

I have moved from one country to another and have also decided to build a proper website. The results of this have caused a lack of posts. Soon I will be finished and will point this blog to the new site.

Thanks for bearing with me.

[daviddoughty83]

This is a great flowchart to look at when thinking about whether or not you should respond in social media for businesses.

[daviddoughty83]

Moving Global and so is E-Commerce

I must apologize for my lack of posts lately. I have been in the process of moving countries and finishing my Master's Degree. Today my wife and I have finally started to get things settled and I can finally come back to this and focus.

In light of a global focus I'd like to share this inforgraphic of how fast e-commerce is growing world wide. 

If you haven't heard recently, online retail giant Alibaba out of china, raised $21.8 billion in its debut, making it the biggest U.S.-listed IPO in history after the IPO of credit card processing company Visa in 2008.

This graphic shows the perspective of how fast it is growing versus everything else in the world. But that doesn't mean the rest of the world isn't growing quickly because it is. In the United States, e-commerce is growing at 4X the rate of retail.

If you aren't convinced yet that you need your business online. Maybe you should think again.

[daviddoughty83]

Full Sail University, a leader in providing degree programs in the fields of entertainment and media, received two of the highest honors given by the Florida Association of Postsecondary Schools and Colleges (FAPSC).  Full Sail student Harmony Jones was named the 2014 Graduate of the Year for her outstanding civic contributions and educational success. Full Sail University, based in Central Florida, was named the 2014 School of the Year at the FAPSC annual conference held recently in Miami. 

Click link below to see the Press Release from the FAPSC website:

http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.fapsc.org/resource/resmgr/Awards/FAPSC_FULL_SAIL_2014_GOY_SOY.pdf

[daviddoughty83]

60 Marketing Acronyms Every Industry Pro Should Know

AIDA: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action

The four steps of the now somewhat outdated Purchase Funnel, wherein customers travel from consideration to purchase. Learn more about the new purchase consideration cycle.

ASP: Application Service Provider

Internet hosting that provides computer-based services to customers over a network. (See SaaS.)

API: Application Programming Interface

A computer programming term meaning a series of rules. APIs allow an application to extract information from a service and use that information in their own application, or sometimes for data analysis. It's kind of like a phone for applications to have conversations -- an API literally "calls" one application and gets information to bring to you to use in your software. APIs facilitate the data needed to provide solutions to customer problems.

HubSpot has APIs that developers use to get information from our software into theirs. It’s important for marketers to understand what APIs can do to factor them in to their marketing strategies. Learn more about how marketers can use APIs here.

B2B: Business-to-Business

Companies that sell to other businesses. Examples: Salesforce.com, Google.

B2C: Business-to-Consumer

Companies that sell directly to consumers. Examples: Amazon, Apple, Nike.

BANT: Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline

The four criteria sales reps use to qualify prospects. A famous tool for sales reps and sales leaders to help them determine whether their prospects have the budget, authority, need, and right timeline to buy what they sell.

B = Budget: Determines whether your prospect has a budget for what you're selling.

A = Authority: Determines whether your prospect has the authority to make a purchasing decision.

N = Need: Determines whether there's a business need for what you're selling.

T = Timeline: Determines the time frame for implementation.

The BANT formula was originally developed by IBM several decades ago. We don't think BANT is good enough anymore: Learn more about the qualification criteria set by HubSpot's VP of Sales.

BR: Bounce Rate

Website bounce rate: The percentage of people who land on a page on your website and then leave without clicking on anything else or navigating to any other pages on your site. A high bounce rate generally leads to poor conversion rates because no one is staying on your site long enough to read your content or convert on a landing page (or for any other conversion event).

Email bounce rate: The rate at which an email was unable to be delivered to a recipient's inbox. A high bounce rate generally means your lists are out-of-date or purchased, or they include many invalid email addresses. In email, not all bounces are bad, so it's important to distinguish between hard and soft bounces before taking an email address off your list.Learn about hard and soft bounces here.

CAC: Customer Acquisition Cost

This is your total Sales and Marketing cost. To calculate, follow these steps for a given time period (month, quarter, or year):

Add up program or advertising spend + salaries + commissions + bonuses + overhead.

Divide by the number of new customers in that time period.

For example, if you spend $500,000 on Sales and Marketing in a given month and added 50 customers that same month, then your CAC was $10,000 that month. (Learn more here.)

CAN-SPAM: Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing

A U.S. law passed in 2003 that establishes the rules for commercial email and commercial messages, it gives recipients the right to have a business stop emailing them, and outlines the penalties incurred for those who violate the law. For example, CAN-SPAM is the reason businesses are required to have an "unsubscribe" option at the bottom of every email. Learn more of the details here.

CASL: Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation

A Canadian law passed in 2013 that covers the sending of "commercial electronic messages" that may be accessed by a computer in Canada. CASL covers email, texts, instant messages, and automated cell phone messages sent to computers and phones in Canada. Learn more of the details here.

CLV: Customer Lifetime Value (See LTV)

CLTV: Customer Lifetime Value (See LTV)

CMO: Chief Marketing Officer

The most coveted job in the marketing organization chart. A CMO's skill set is rooted in marketing fundamentals but expands into personnel development, quantitative analysis, and strategic thinking. Learn more about what it takes to be a CMO here.

CMS: Content Management System

A web application designed to make it easy for non-technical users to create, edit, and manage a website. Helps users with content editing and more "behind-the-scenes" work like making content searchable and indexable, automatically generating navigation elements, keeping track of users and permissions, and more.

At HubSpot, we think COS (Content Optimization System) is better than CMS. Find out why.

CoCA: Cost of Customer Acquisition (See CAC)

COS: Content Optimization System

Take a CMS (Content Management System), and optimize it to deliver customers the most personalized web experience possible. Learn more about the COS here.

CPA: Cost-per-Action

An internet advertising model where the advertiser pays for each specified action someone takes, like an impression, click, form submit, or sale. You can decide if a given action is a lead or a sale. Marketers use it to figure out spending for the desired action they're are driving people toward.

CPC: Cost-per-Click (See PPC)

CPL: Cost-per-Lead

The amount it costs for your marketing organization to acquire a lead. This factors heavily into CAC/CoCA, and is a metric marketers should keep a keen eye on.

CR: Conversion Rate

The percentage of people who completed a desired action on a single web page, such as filling out a form. Pages with high conversion rates are performing well, while pages with low conversion rates are performing poorly.

CRM: Customer Relationship Management

A set of software programs that let companies keep track of everything they do with their existing and potential customers.

At the simplest level, CRM software lets you keep track of all the contact information for these customers. But CRM systems can do lots of other things, too, like tracking email, phone calls, faxes, and deals; sending personalized emails; scheduling appointments; and logging every instance of customer service and support. Some systems also incorporate feeds from social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others.

The goal is to create a system in which Sales has lots of information at their fingertips and can quickly pull up everything about a prospect or existing customer. 

CRO: Conversion Rate Optimization

The process of improving your site conversion using design techniques, key optimization principles, and testing. It involves creating an experience for your website visitors that will convert them into customers. CRO is most often applied to web page or landing page optimization, but it can also be applied to social media, CTAs, and other parts of your marketing. Learn more here.

CSS: Cascading Style Sheets

A language that manages the design and presentation of web pages: color, look, feel, and so on. It works together with HTML (see HTML), which handles the content of web pages. "HTML is the skeleton of your webpages, while CSS is the clothing."

With CSS you can create rules to tell your website how you want it to display information. And you can keep the commands for the style stuff -- fonts, colors, and so on -- separate from the commands for the content. They’re called “cascading” because you can have multiple style sheets, with one style sheet inheriting properties (or “cascading”) from others.Learn more here.

CTA: Call-to-Action

A text link, button, image, or some other type of web link that encourages a website visitor to take an action on that website, such as visiting a landing page to download a piece of content.

The action you want people to take could be anything: Download an ebook, sign up for a webinar, get a coupon, attend an event, and so on. A CTA can be placed anywhere in your marketing -- on your website, in an ebook, in an email, or even at the end of a blog post.Learn more about how to make CTAs effective.

CTR: Clickthrough Rate

The percentage of your audience that advances (or clicks through) from one part of your website to the next step of your marketing campaign. As a mathematic equation, it’s the total number of clicks that your page or CTA receives divided by the number of opportunities that people had to click (ex: number of pageviews, emails sent, etc).

CX: Customer Experience (See UX)

DM: Direct Mail, or Direct Message (Twitter)

Direct Mail: The delivery of advertising material to recipients of postal mail; also called "junk mail" by its recipients. Direct mail is a dubious investment for most businesses -- here's why.

Direct Message: A message on Twitter used to get in touch with a Twitter follower directly and in private. DMs can only be sent to your followers.

DNS: Domain Name Server

A server that translates a web address into one or more IP addresses. (See IP Address.)

FB: Facebook

That thing you're really addicted to.

FF: Follow Friday

A popular hashtag on Twitter (#FF or #FollowFriday) in which, every Friday, you send a tweet to your followers recommending a Twitter handle you think is interesting that others might want to follow, too. You accompany these Tweets with the hashtag #FF or #FollowFriday. This Twitter trend is outdated: Find out why.

GA: Google Analytics

A service by Google that generates detailed statistics about a website's traffic and traffic sources, and measures conversions and sales. Marketers use it to get to know their audience, trace their customers' paths, and make a visual assessment of how visitors interact with their pages. Find out why HubSpot and Google Analytics don't match here.

HTML: Hyper-Text Markup Language

The language used to direct the architecture of your website, landing pages, and emails. HTML lays out the structure of your website, from the title and first header, to a bulleted list, to your footer. "HTML is the skeleton of your webpages, while CSS is the clothing." Learn more here.

IP Address: Internet Protocol Address

A numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.

ISP: Internet Service Provider

An organization (commercial, community-owned, nonprofit, or otherwise privately owned) that provides internet services. 

KPI: Key Performance Indicator

A type of performance measurement companies use to evaluate an employee's or an activity's success. Marketers look at KPIs to track progress toward marketing goals, and successful marketers constantly evaluate their performance against industry standard metrics. Examples of KPIs include CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost), blog traffic sources, and homepage views. Choose KPIs that represent how your marketing and business are performing. (Learn more blogging KPIs here.)

LTV: Lifetime Value

A prediction of the net profit attributed to the entire future relationship with a customer. To calculate LTV, follow these steps for a given time period:

Take the revenue the customer paid you in that time period.

Subtract from that number the gross margin.

Divide by the estimated churn rate (aka cancellation rate) for that customer.

For example, if a customer pays you $100,000 per year where your gross margin on the revenue is 70%, and that customer type is predicted to cancel at 16% per year, then the customer's LTV is $437,500. (Learn more here.)

LTV:CAC: Ratio of Lifetime Value to Customer Acquisition Cost

The ratio of LTV to CAC. (See LTV and CAC.)

Once you have the LTV and the CAC, compute the ratio of the two. If it costs you $100,000 to acquire a customer with an LTV of $437,500, then your LTV:CAC is 4.4 to 1. 

MoM: Month-over-Month

Changes in levels expressed with respect to the previous month. These changes are more volatile than QoQ or YoY and tend to reflect one-off events like holidays, website troubles, natural disasters, and stock market crashes. Compare the average of whatever you're measuring in Month X with Month Y to calculate the MoM change.

To calculate percentage growth: Month X number minus Month Y number, all divided by Month X number, multiplied by 100.

MTD: Month-to-Date

A time period starting at the beginning of the current month and ending at the current date.

MRR: Monthly Recurring Revenue

The amount of revenue a subscription-based business receives per month. Includes MRR gained by new accounts (net new), MRR gained from upsells (net positive), MRR lost from downsells (net negative), and MRR lost from cancellations (net loss).

NPS: Net Promoter Score

A customer satisfaction metric that measures, on a scale of 0-10, the degree to which people would recommend your company to others. The NPS is derived from a simple survey designed to help you determine how loyal your customers are to your business.

To calculate NPS, subtract the percentage of customers who would not recommend you (detractors, or 0-6) from the percent of customers who would (promoters, or 9-10).

Regularly determining your company’s NPS allows you to identify ways to improve your products and services so you can increase the loyalty of your customers. Learn more about how to use NPS surveys for marketing here.

PPC: Pay-per-Click

The amount of money spent to get a digital advertisement clicked. Also an internet advertising model where advertisers pay a publisher (usually a search engine, social media site, or website owner) a certain amount of money every time their ad is clicked. For search engines, PPC ads display an advertisement when someone searches for a keyword that matches the advertiser's keyword list, which they submit to the search engine ahead of time. 

PPC ads are used to direct traffic to the advertiser's website, and PPC is used to assess the cost effectiveness and profitability of your paid advertising campaigns.

There are two ways to pay for PPC ads: 1) Flat rate, where the advertiser and publisher agree on a fixed amount that will be paid for each click. Typically this happens when publishers have a fixed rate for PPC in different areas on their website. 2) Bid-based, where the advertiser competes against other advertisers in an advertising network. In this case, each advertiser sets a maximum spend to pay for a given ad spot, so the ad will stop appearing on a given website once that amount of money is spent. It also means that the more people that click on your ad, the lower PPC you'll pay and vice versa. Learn more about getting started with PPC here.

PV: Page View

A request to load a single web page on the internet. Marketers use them to analyze their website and to see if any change on the webpage results in more or fewer page views. 

QoQ: Quarter-over-Quarter

Changes in levels expressed with respect to the previous quarter. QoQ numbers tend to bemore volatile than Year-over-Year, but less volatile than Month-over-Month.

To calculate percentage growth: Quarter X number minus Quarter Y number, all divided by Quarter X number, multiplied by 100.

QR Code: Quick Response Barcode

Scannable barcodes used by marketers to bridge offline and online marketing. When people see them, they can take out their smartphone and scan the QR code using a QR barcode (installable on smartphones). The information encoded by QR codes can include text, a URL, or other data. Learn how to create a QR Code here. 

QTD: Quarter-to-Date

A time period starting at the beginning of the current quarter and ending at the current date.

ROI: Return On Investment

A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency and profitability of an investment, or to compare the efficiency and profitability of multiple investments. The formula for ROI is: (Gain from Investment minus Cost of Investment), all divided by (Cost of Investment). The result is expressed as a percentage or ratio. If ROI is negative, then that initiative is losing the company money. The calculation can vary depending on what you input for gains and costs.

Today, marketers want to measure the ROI on every tactic and channel they use. Many facets of marketing have pretty straightforward ROI calculations (like PPC), but others are more difficult (like content marketing).

RSS: Rich Site Summary

An RSS Feed is a web feed that publishes frequently updated information like blog posts and news stories. They let publishers syndicate data automatically, which is why they're sometimes known as "Really Simple Syndication." When you subscribe to a website's RSS, you no longer need to check their website for new content -- instead, your browser will automatically monitor the site and give you timely updates.

RT: Retweet

A re-posting of a tweet posted by another user on Twitter. Retweets look like normal tweets except for the retweet icon. They can be done in two ways:

1) You can retweet an entire tweet by clicking the retweet button, indicated below.

2) You can post a new tweet that includes your own commentary in addition to the information you're retweeting. The formula is this: Your own commentary + RT + the original tweeter's Twitter handle + colon + the exact text from their original tweet. We prefer this method of retweeting because it allows you to add your own thoughts.

When you see "Please RT" in someone's tweet, it means they are requesting that their followers retweet that tweet to spread awareness.

Learn more about retweets here.

SaaS: Software-as-a-Service

Any software that is hosted by another company, which stores your information in the cloud. Examples: HubSpot, Salesforce, IM clients, and project management applications.

SEO: Search Engine Optimization

Techniques that help your website rank higher in organic search results, making your website more visible to people who are looking for your brand, product, or service via search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

There are a ton of components to improving the SEO of your site pages. Search engines look for elements including title tags, keywords, image tags, internal link structure, and inbound links -- and that's just to name a few. Search engines also look at site structure and design, visitor behavior, and other external, off-site factors to determine how highly ranked your site should be in the search engine results pages. Learn more here.

SLA: Service Level Agreement

For marketers, an SLA is an agreement between a company's sales and marketing teams that defines the expectations Sales has for Marketing and vice versa. The Marketing SLA defines expectations Sales has for Marketing with regards to lead quantity and lead quality, while the Sales SLA defines the expectations Marketing has for Sales on how deeply and frequently Sales will pursue each qualified lead.

SLAs exist to align sales and marketing. If the two departments are managed as separate silos, the system fails. For companies to achieve growth and become leaders in their industries, it is critical that these two groups be properly integrated. Learn how to create an SLA here.

SMB: Small-to-Medium Business

Usually defined as companies that have between 10 and 500 employees.

UI: User Interface

A type of interface that allows users to control a software application or hardware device. A good user interface provides a user-friendly experience by allowing the user to interact with the software or hardware in an intuitive way. It includes a menu bar, toolbar, windows, buttons, and so on. Learn how to create a user-friendly website registration process here.

URL: Uniform Resource Locator

Also known as a web address, a URL is a specific character string that refers to a resource. It's displayed on the top of a web browser inside an "address" bar. Learn how to optimize your URLs for search here.

UV: Unique Visitor

A person who visits a website more than once within a period of time. Marketers use this term in contrast with overall site visits to track the amount of traffic on their website. If only one person visits a webpage 30 times, then that web page has one UV and 30 total site visits.

UX: User Experience

The overall experience a customer has with a particular business, from their discovery and awareness of the brand all the way through their interaction, purchase, use, and even advocacy of that brand. To deliver an excellent customer experience, you have to think like a customer, or better, think about being the customer. Learn more here.

WOM: Word-of-Mouth

The passing of information from person to person. Technically, the term refers to oral communication, but today it refers to online communication, as well. WOM marketing is inexpensive, but it takes work and involves leveraging many components of inbound marketing like product marketing, content marketing, and social media marketing. Learn more about creating a powerful WOM marketing strategy here.

YoY: Year-over-Year

Changes in levels expressed with respect to the previous year. YoY incorporates more datathan MoM or QoQ, so it gives you a better long-term view.

To calculate percentage growth: Year X number minus Year Y number, all divided by Year X number, multiplied by 100.

YTD: Year-to-Date

A time period starting at the beginning of the current year and ending at the current date.

Got a marketing acronym to add to the list? Comment below with the term and its definition.

Authored by Lindsay Kolowich

[daviddoughty83]

While incorporating Social Media Marketing (SMM) into your business's marketing strategy is of utmost importance in today's increasingly online world, the process is not always an easy one, and many businesses fall victim to some of the common SMM mistakes. The following takes a look at some of the most important dos and don'ts of SMM: 

Do start with a solid plan. Your social media strategy needs to work together with your other online marketing processes, such as search engine and content marketing. You'll need to start with realistic goals and a thorough knowledge of your target audience.

Do not be tempted to go overboard by setting up profiles on as many social media platforms as you can. While the largest platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+, can be useful for almost any business, many smaller networks are targeted towards a more specific industry or demographic.

Do stay committed to your SMM campaign. Social media is all about posting regular updates and engaging your audience on a regular, preferably daily, basis. You need to stay involved for the longer term, and it should become a part of your business's daily routine.

Do not use social media as a platform for hard selling. Your social networking profiles are not all about generating sales - they are a stepping stone between your potential customers and them getting to know your business. Sales pitches do not belong in things like Tweets and Facebook posts.

Do find the right compromise between professionalism and casualness, depending on the particular social network you are using, but regardless of the tone you use, be sure that you always use impeccable spelling and grammar and have something to back up your statements.

Do not expect an immediate return on your efforts, or in the case of paid advertising, your investment. As is the case with almost any form of online marketing (particularly the free ones), it will take time for your efforts to come to fruition.

Do listen to your audience. Social media is as much about listening as it is about speaking. As previously stated, social media is all about conversation rather than a platform for sales pitches. Be sure to partake in debates and answer any queries that your audience may have as soon as possible.

Do provide a regular, interesting and engaging stream of content that provides something of value to your audience. Your social marketing efforts should start with your blog or website and the content you publish on the Internet. SMM provides you with something to show off and share your knowledge.

Do track your results. Find out which social networks and any paid social advertising programs you have are delivering the most traffic to your website. Always track your results using the wealth of information generated by such activities, and tweak and customize your campaign to keep it on the up. 

As the above notes point out, SMM differs immensely to traditional advertising. These days, consumers are far more likely to respond to things like recommendations based on shares and likes on social networks, and getting involved in the discussion is critical for small businesses to stay competitive in a constantly evolving marketplace.  

[daviddoughty83]

If you aren't sure what to wear for 4th of July, try out this ensemble.

Happy 4th of July.

[daviddoughty83]

Blended Marketing and Real Store Benefits

Start by Evaluating Social Strategies

Striking the right balance between these two channels is not impossible. Several companies currently stand out as leaders in this “blended” marketing approach. For instance, Red Bull Media Housespecializes in creating social media content that can be tied directly to physical venues.

So, how do you achieve the right balance between your social and brick-and-mortar marketing techniques? First, reverse engineer the situation, and ensure that you have airtight social media practices that fulfill these criteria:

Engagement: Always hit your target audience with something they will find fun, useful, and shareable.

Relevance: Make sure your social media messages are timely. It pays to understand your audience’s wants and needs. You never know when your business will have an opportunity to weigh in and offer solutions to trending problems.

Geography: Be conscious of your audience’s location. If you operate in a small town, talk about that town in your posts. If you operate on a global scale, address a variety of topics in your posts to appeal to a wider audience.

Platform: Understand which social media platforms are best for reaching your audience. If your target demographic is 13- to 17-year-olds, for instance, Facebook might not be your best bet as the social giant has been steadily losing this demographic in recent years.

How to Blend Social and Brick-and Mortar Marketing

If you already have sound social media strategies in place, it will be easier to bridge the gap between social and brick-and-mortar marketing. Let’s look at “blending” options for a fictitious restaurant that has a strong preexisting social media presence.

Engagement: A successful blended approach uses social media messages to prompt customers to engage offline. For instance, if the restaurant regularly tweets great recipes, it could host an event where the chefs teach patrons how to cook the recipes at home.

Integration: Integrated marketing incorporates social content at the brick-and-mortar location in a natural way. The restaurant could introduce screens and mobile apps that encourage interaction between customers and the staff. Digital signage, wait time metrics, or even real-time customer feedback on entrées are bold ways to “blend” marketing channels and build patron engagement.

Entertainment: Social content should entertain customers both online and offline. If the restaurant specializes in lobster or seafood, it could set up a display by the lobster tank that shows how the restaurant supports sustainable fishing practices worldwide. These small entertainment and information centers help educate customers and drive sales.

Brick-and-mortar establishments such as McDonald’s and Arby’s encouraged this type of customer engagement long before social networks even existed. McDonald’s “billions served” campaign is similar to a company that boasts how many Facebook “likes” it has. Arby’s prompted patrons to ring the bell if they were satisfied customers. These marketing tactics were quick and efficient customer testimonials.

Social media has actively built on successful engagement ideas of the past, and it’s time for brick-and-mortar businesses to build on their social media efforts to create harmonized marketing strategies that bolster engagement, offer entertainment, and encourage repeat visits. By combining these efforts, brick-and-mortar businesses truly can have the best of both worlds.

Photo Credit: Blended Marketing/shutterstock

Authored by Joshua Conran

[daviddoughty83]

How to Incorporate Video into Your Social Media Strategy

There are a few different ways to incorporate video into your content strategy. Of course it all depends on your audience. You see, every audience has their preferences to consuming social media content. The older demographic might feel more comfortable and familiar with YouTube, while millennials prefer the 6 second loops of Vine.  Before you go about creating your strategy, you need to break down your audience and tap into their viewing habits and the reason for viewing. Are they looking for information? Are they looking to be entertained? Maybe they want to feel a connection with you. Maybe it is all of the above. Whatever it is, you will be successful if you hit them right in between the eyes.  Now there are a few different types of online video you should start thinking about. The businesses who dominate their marketplace create video across the board. That means Vine, YouTube, Facebook,Instagram and even Google Plus Hangouts. The beauty of each of these networks is that you can target the sentiment of the network accordingly.  YouTube tends to be more educational for business. Think product videos and longer format here. Vine can be kooky and be used to really showcase your personality. On the other side it can be used as a customer service tool along with Twitter. Because the video plays right on your Twitter feed, it's a great way to woo them no matter how much they have been complaining. Honda has been famous for this tactic and it works like a charm. Google Hangouts can be used in an interview format or as a live how-to demo. Because it streams on your feed and wherever you embed it, it's great for instant engagement. And lastly Instagram, well Instagram is my favorite, it has been around the longest which gives you a built-in following, plus it's the most preferred length.

Whichever networks you decide to work with remember this. You need to capture your audience within the first 10 seconds or you've lost them. Got it? Good!  Your self-produced video is taken care of. But the video doesn't stop there. This is the time to tap into your fans' inner director. You'll be surprised at the quality you can get from them. Depending on your budget you can use a service like Womadz or WooBox which will help you set up your contest in no time. Or of course you can always host it yourself. The key is to get your fans to create a ton of content for you. In return they'll get recognition for it through your promotional prowess and you'll use to promote your own business. 

Authored by Stephanie Frasco

[daviddoughty83]

5 Ways to Increase Fan Engagement on Facebook

1. Share Pictures and Videos

2. Ask Questions to Encourage Interaction

3. Host Contests and Share Winners

4. Host and Share Events

5. Utilize Page Insights to Increase Views and Discover Popular Content

Read More

[daviddoughty83]

3 Traits of Social Media Posts: Which Deliver the Best ROI?

This research is groundbreaking in that it statistically supports the commonly held notion that social media should be about delivering high quality content in a social fashion. It is not enough to have a mere social media presence; you must make sure that you are interacting with customers, and that you are adding value to your fans.

Richness The “richness” of a social media strategy refers to quality of the content that is being posted. 

Responsiveness The “responsiveness” of a social media strategy refers to interacting with social media fans.

Intensity The “intensity” of a social media strategy refers to the quantity of posts and comments. 

Read More

[daviddoughty83]

Mundane Monday Humor

The world of marketing can be an interesting place

[daviddoughty83]

Brands Should Be Active on Tumblr?

The blogging platform Tumblr gained notoriety for its quirky community and customizable design. It has exploded in popularity in the last few years, becoming a hub (especially among young users) for pop culture, imagery, music, and humor. Many brands resisted joining the platform, thinking it was too trendy.

Should your brand get on Tumblr? We think so. Tumblr is:

1. A place for your personality to shine. Tumblr has a very laid-back vibe. Many of the posts are witty and lighthearted, allowing brands to be playful with customers. If you’re having trouble connecting and conversing with users, Tumblr could be a great solution for your business.

2. A home for multimedia. Tumblr has loads of options for the medium you use to share info. You can express yourself with photos, videos, gifs, quotes, articles, links, and even surveys (we recommend wedgies.com’s widgets). Tumblr recently introduced a gif creator that you can use with your webcam. (Warning: this is about to explode in popularity. Gif selfies anyone?)

3. The community. Tumblr has a community of passionate, loyal, and very intelligent users. It’s easy to be intimidated by them, but once their affections are earned, they can be champions of your brand. Tumblr users appreciate wittiness and visual posts. They also flock to brands that interact and reblog their followers, just like on Twitter. (A reblog is like a retweet, but you aren’t limited to 140 characters). The Tumblr “ask” feature allows you to receive questions from users (but you can also choose to not respond and no one will see the question– great to avoid Internet trolls). 

4. Visibility. Tumblr incorporates tagging and blog categorization to help users find the subjects they’re interested in. Many blogs garner so much attention online that they have even led to book deals. Have you ever heard of the book “Stuff White People Like”? How about “Humans of New York”? These both started as Tumblrs.

5. Customization. There are thousands of blog themes to choose from that can be easily altered to create your own unique profile. It’s also simple to start a Tumblr blog theme from scratch. There are interactive layouts, layouts that look like zines, image only themes, and pretty much every other style you can dream of. Tumblr also allows group blogs, so you can have several admins that can post to and customize your page.

6. Mobile Friendly. Recently Tumblr rolled out a “mobile layout” feature that allows you to customize your mobile appearance. This is huge for the Tumblr app since it’s such a visual platform. Now you can change the colors, header, and fonts of your mobile site- further syncing your brand. With the giant jump in mobile usage in 2014, this is an important benefit of blogging on Tumblr.

7. Reach a new audience. The user demographic of Tumblr is mainly very tech-saavy and creative. Blogging on Tumblr allows brands to reach a new group of followers that may not be as active on other platforms. The varying media possibilities within Tumblr appeals to this group of users more than the corporate posts of LinkedIn and Twitter do.

This post originally appeared on Didit.com.

[daviddoughty83]

Facebook Launches New 'Slingshot' Messaging App Strikingly Share Moments

Facebook briefly released messaging app Slingshot. The app, which is currently avialable in the App Store on Google Play & Itunes, promises to grant Facebook users the fun of competitor Snapchat. Using Slingshot has made us feel closer, and we can’t wait for others to try it out.

This is Facebook's push to bring back the teenagers to Facebook.

[daviddoughty83]

4 stunning social media stats for mobile

[daviddoughty83]

If you’ve ever read “What to Expect When You’re Expecting”, you probably didn’t notice a chapter about Google tracking your parental status in AdWords. Well, this is exactly what Google is doing, as Parental Status is now a demographic subset that advertisers can explicitly target.

[daviddoughty83]

10 Custom Audiences You Should Be Targeting With Facebook Advertising

To target current fans effectively, you need to stick to your brand message and overall brand integrity. For example, Disney currently walks a fine line between what I like to call the Maleficent-Frozen paradox – promoting the darker side of Disney villains alongside the lighter side of Frozen. Read More

10 Custom Audiences:

1. Current Fans

2. LookaLike Fans

3. Newsletter Subscribers

4. Lookalike Subscribers

5. Custom Website Audience

6. Lookalike Website Audience

7. Google Plus Contacts

8. Lookalike Google Plus Audience

9. Email Contacts

10. Lookalike Email Contacts Audience

Read More to find out the details of each audience.

Authored by Kandice Linwright