by admin
April 29th, 2010
By Gordon Green – Social Media Expert
Action of the day: Exceed your customers expectations with ACTION!
1. Know your customers
Create forms on your web site for customer to let you know what their needs and preferences are when signing up for your newsletter. Link a computerized database to this information so you can retrieve it whenever you need it. This information helps you keep in touch with and serve your customers.
2. Inform your customers
Say you own a wine store and you just received a shipment of Cabernet Sauvignon. Go through your files to see who buys Cabernet Sauvignon and send them an email about it. Reference the fact that they’ve bought this from you in the past, then offer to hold some for them for a few days. Since you’re loyal to them, they’ll be loyal to you.
3. Help your customers
Write a monthly, quarterly or even semi-annual newsletter and post it to your web site to keep customers or clients informed about issues that might relate to them. Changes in the tax code, computer-software compatibility problems, whatever. Give people information they can use and they will think of you as a resource.
4. Surprise your customers
Send your best customers a gift Certificate in the off-season or a useful premium with your name on it. Since they haven’t asked for this and haven’t “earned it” through some points program, they are surprised and delighted.
5. Delight your customers
Send a friendly email to wish them a happy birthday or happy holidays with a nice card personalized to them.
6. Thank your customers
“Please” and “Thank you” may be the most powerful words in the English language. Use them in email. A sincere thank-you letter following up
a purchase is always appreciated. Say, “Please let me know if there’s anything else we can do for you,” and customers may take you up on
your offer.
7. Reward your customers
Call it a “Membership Card,” take some personal information before you give it out, and use email to take the rewards program to a higher
level. Maybe send members of the program a card on their birthday, with an offer of a discount or free gift. The card becomes a symbol of a
more personal relationship. How to delight your customers. There was a time when a woman could walk into a store and be greeted with “Good
morning, Mrs. Jones. Those jelly beans that Junior likes came in this morning. Should I pack some up for you?”
8. Free Advertising
Ask your members to share success stories, helpful tips or valuable information that you can then add to your web site with a link back to their
business.
by admin
April 27th, 2010
When it comes to Twitter and brands, consumers who are also Twitter users have plenty to say on the subject. We’ve interviewed a few folks, analyzed a couple of streams, and come up with ten common, recurring requests and complaints from users who’ve engaged with brands on Twitter.
As it turns out, the rules they expect brands to follow are distinct from the code they expect “normal” users to follow.
Check out these dicta and caveats, and let us know your experiences and best practices in the comments.
1. Don’t Be a Showoff
Give Twitter users your features and benefits. Let them know about special deals. Don’t post links to your latest press release, promote articles written by your CEO or make extravagant claims. A good rule of thumb to determine whether a tweet is user-friendly or brand vanity is to ask yourself, “If I didn’t work here, would I care about this?” If you’re not sure, ask a brutally honest friend who doesn’t work at your company.
2. Don’t Use Poor Grammar or Spelling
If your replying 2 a user make sure ur social media intern doesnt do it like this LOL!
Seriously, grammar Nazis abound on the web. Write words out in their entirety, don’t use confusing abbreviations or too many of them, make sure punctuation is pristine and try to keep “lolspeak” and emoticons to a minimum.
3. Don’t Get Too Personal
You might be a real person hiding behind your brand’s Twitter account, but depending on the size and nature of the company, this isn’t likely the best place to share your favorite band’s latest track, or compliment a user’s hairdo. Keep your conversations warm but professional; it’s what users expect from a brand ambassador, and anything else comes off as creepy.
4. Don’t Auto-Tweet
It’s OK to set up tweets to roll out while you’re away from your desk, but think long and hard before you automate an entire feed to stream into your Twitter account. Users can smell a bot from miles away, and the point of Twitter is to be personally engaging more than blatantly promotional. Also, this might go without saying for the tech-savvy marketers among us, but don’t automatically DM new followers; it’s seen as spam. And never DM someone your account doesn’t also follow.
5. Don’t Leave Air in the Conversation
If you’re carrying on a series of @replies, don’t wait a day or two between messages. This isn’t the Pony Express; users will want a reply within a few hours. If you wait longer, they may have already forgotten what you were talking about. And be sure to use standard reply mechanisms so the Twitter web interface and other applications will thread the conversation, in case either party needs to reference a previous comment.
6. Don’t Overtweet
If you’re using Twitter as a 24/7, one-way broadcast system, you’re not having a conversation — you might be just “shouting” at your followers. While some brands have successfully maintained one-way, broadcast-only, no-@reply accounts, many opt to engage directly with their followers. Whichever method you choose, make sure you’re not tweeting too often and flooding your followers’ timelines.
7. Do Shout Out to Users Who Mention You
Especially if that mention is favorable, don’t be shy about tweeting thanks, tips or promotions to someone who’s shown your brand some Twitter love. Most of the time, users are surprised and delighted to find a name brand in their stream of replies. Exercise caution, however, when engaging with users who’ve made negative comments. Those conversations can go very well, or they can backfire. Always remain empathetic but professional.
8. Do Monitor Keywords and Competitors
If someone expresses issues with a competitor or poses a general question about your vertical, you should be all over it within a few hours. It’s a great opportunity to win new fans, convert seekers into customers and develop a reputation as a knowledgeable and responsive resource in your industry. Just make sure you keep off-brand replies to a non-creepy modicum.
9. Do Make an Informative Profile
Use your company or brand logo as your avatar, and state the purpose of the account clearly in your description. Your profile’s main link should direct Twitter followers to the most informative, engaging and user-friendly part of your website.
10. Do Fish Where the Fish Are
Let’s be honest: Not every brand needs to be on Twitter. Every brand should be monitoring Twitter — and we’ve written a lot about social media monitoring tools for brands on Mashable — but not every company’s customers are going to be on this site or be open to being contacted this way. If your brand has an older demographic, or if your product is of a more sensitive nature, you might want to be a silent observer of this ecosystem rather than an active participant.
by admin
April 13th, 2010
In every recessionary economic period, there are winners and losers. Those of us still in business seem to have it good as 2010 pushes on – Very good! And why is that? Well the answer for many of us is strategic marketing plans.
The notion that some businesses will benefit from a recession isn’t new – and that’sexactly why it’s worth revisiting. Keen C-suite executives and savvy marketing pros will face the current economic crisis head on: with one cautious eye on historical lessons and theother on opportunities that abound in a changing, newly emerging marketing environment.
Today, it takes steely nerve to resist the pressure to cut marketing spending at all costs.But solid historical evidence proves that companies that reduce marketing spending in arecession enter the post-recession future far weaker. Conversely, historical data also showsthat companies that continue or increase marketing and advertising spending during arecession come out the back end with stronger brands and increased market share.
But then the question arrives: "Which marketing strategy(ies) will work for my business in this new economy?"
Enter Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Optimization and Social Networking…
Historically, Search Engine Optimization, Social Networking and Social Media Marketing were considered separate activities and separate programs. As of now they are actually becoming more related and more components of one comprehensive Online Marketing Campaign.
As best and as briefly I can explain it, now is working like this. Search Engines make their money be selling ad space. They have traditionally managed this revenue by selling ads on their search engine pages. Over the last one or two years as the social platforms have skyrocketed in popularity and in usage by consumers, search engines are now selling ads on the contextual social networks.
This brings about a severe shift in the way marketing dollars are leveraged moving forward. So I ask you this:
How have you implemented your Strategic Marketing Plan for 2010 and beyond?
This list will be very useful for bloggers,web designers and graphic designers to promote their articles and their services. The usage license is described for some icon packs here.If you need more information about the icons usage you can get from their source page.
To promote your blog or articles in social media world you need a creative and unique icons and i am sure you will find your most favorite and suitable icons here to include them in your blog or website.
1. WHITE MAGIK – A Free Social Icon Pack
A clean set of icons from chethstudios.Re-distribution not allowed! White Magik is perfect for white minimalistic sites and can be used with image hover for excellent looks!. It includes 45 icons in .PNG format.
2. Elegant social media Icon Pack
Just another contribution from chethstudios. An elegant design icons. Well you’re free to use in your blog. But Please DON’T re-distribute.
3.3D Social media icons
This 3D Social Media Icon Pack comes with 20 icons which include your favorite social media websites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Twitter and lot more from dawghouse design studio.Get the license details of usage from source.
4.Vintage post stamp icons
The set comes with 23 icons of your favorite social media sites, all in 200 x 200px and in transparent PNG formats. These icons would surely be a perfect fit for your vintage or grunge themed web designs!
5.Glowing social niche icons
Neat icon set.License usage :Creative Common license BY-ND
6.Social icons sticker set
Pretty nice icons. It’s a sticker type social icons.Available in .PNG, EPS and Ai format. Free for any use.
7.Social icons vector set
Consists of 16 popular social media icons, available in both vector and PNG (64×64 pixels) format. Free for any use.
8.Social icons pack by Sylwia Besz
Clear design icons.This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
9.Social media icons pack from Blogperfume
Designed as a circular style. Available in 3 sizes (128*128, 64*64, 32*32).Please feel free to use Social Media Icons Pack on both personal and commercial projects. These icons are designed by Eli a south Australia web designer. They provided these icons in two parts.
10.Woven fabric social media icon set
This set contains 26 icons of your most favorite social media sites such as Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Facebook and lot more! These icons would be perfect for websites or blogs that uses textures or a grungy theme.
11.Social icons made of wood
Wood theme icons from webtoolkit4.me .The set consists of 11 icons in PNG format (64 x 64). It’s free for both personal and commercial projects.
12.Icon texto web 2.0 inside icon pack
Download this free Windows Vista icon pack for your Website or Application. 32 icons in .PNG format.It’s free! These icons are released under CC License Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0
13.Amazing 3d social icons
A brand new set that consists of 20 3D icons in PNG format (64×64 & 128×128pixels). It’s really an awesome icons.
14.Hand drawn social icons
Very cool and creative set of drawn, sketched social icons! Have fun with this one! Hope you enjoy them.
15.Worn out soda cans-social-icon-pack
The Worn-Out Soda Cans Social Media Icon Pack is free to use for both your personal and commercial projects.The icon pack once again features icons of our favorite social media sites in 200×200, transparent PNG formats.
16.Social media icons by plechi
Free vector social media icons.This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Designed by plechi.
17.Jeans-social-media-icon-pack
Great work and unique idea the designer.Free for personal and commercial use.the credit goes to nishad.
18.vector-social-media-icons
This free set includes 50 icons of the most popular social media networks on the internet. The icons are designed in 32px and 16px vector format. With the vector format. Now this icon pack is updated recently.This icon set is released under is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
19.Minimum-icon-set
This minimum social media icon set.includes deviantart, delicious, flickr, Gmail, twitter.This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
20.Grunge peeling stickers social media icons
This Icon Pack is chuck full of 20 Grunge Peeling Social Media Stickers, This Free Icon Pack is for use in your personal and commercial projects, and can be used without attribution. It may not be redistributed.
21.Iconshock’s free social icon pack
Smooth edge icons and a classy look.It’s a freebie from Iconshock.
22.Wooden badges icon pack
The icon pack contains web and social media icons such as StumbleUpon, Digg, Twitter and several others!.This icon pack is free to use for both your personal and commercial projects but may not be sold or redistributed in any way.
22.Icon pack with PSD
A full set of icons ready for use with mac and pc. Attached with PSD.
23.Social grunge icons
Grunge effect in social icons made in a elegant way.available in PNG format.Designed By: tydlinka
24.Networking and Bookmarking icon set
There are a total of 36 icons with 9 different Social Media – Networking & Bookmarking sites.Of course this pack is going to be regularly updated and reorganized .License/Usage : Free for personal and Commercial work
25.Icons made with the type tool and helvetica
Helvetica social Icons that are 99% made with the type tool in Photoshop.
Everything is made with the type tool in Photoshop and variations of the Helvetica font.There aren’t really any typographical icons around the web like this icons.Free to download and use.
26.Social web button sets
There are 20 social web buttons in two sizes and two colors. Download is free.
27.Old bottle crowns icon set
The icon set consists of 20 very unique and never before created bottle crown icons such as Digg, Stumble Upon, Twitter, Delicious, Technorati and a whole lot more.These icons are free to use for both your personal and commercial projects but may not be redistributed or sold in any way.
28.Gummy-social-icon-set
29.Social trucks icon set
Social Truck Icon set consists of 10 social network icons; These cute icons are designed by Andrea Austoni . Andrea is an Italian freelance designer currently living in Krakow, Poland. He specializes in icon design and illustration.these icons are absolutely free and you are allowed to use them in personal or commercial project. Just don’t redistribute
30.32 Pixel Social Media Icons
Free for personal and commercial use.Cute design.
31.Web 2.0 Gift Icons by IconsPedia
This icon pack contains 14 icons, including popular social bookmarking services and our favourite browser Firefox etc… The icons are available in PNG, ICO and ICNS format. They are free to use for both personal and commercial projects, including websites, templates & software. You are not allowed to sell or redistribute the icons anywhere else.
A Big treat from webtreat
In this below lists you are going to view a massive contribution of webtreats.mysitemyway.com in social media icons.They have done a great work in social media icons! and these are high quality designs.
32.Glowing Neon Social Networking Icons
108 free high-resolution Glowing Neon Social Networking Icons. 2,000 more icons of this style will soon be released on ETC format.
33.Crystal clear bubble icons
It’s an updated set of icons including Drupal,Deviant art icons etc… They are free to download and use. 154 icons available.
34.Blue Chrome Rain icons
2000 more icons are available in this style in webtreats.
35.Orange grunge stickers
Wonderful orange social media icons in grunge style with some pop out effect.
36.Black paint splatter icons
No attribution necessary for these icon packs.Splatter effect in social media icons it’s a creative and unique concept from the designers.
37.Red and white pearl icons
38.Glossy black glass icons
20 web icons in .png format made with these styles, and a layered psd of the image below, which has editable text should you want to use this as a text effect.
39.Blue Jelly Social Media Icons
40.In-focus simple white icons
This matching set is designed to be put in the sidebar of your theme so you can link to your social media profiles.There are 10 more color variations for icon set is available.
41.Glossy waxed wood icons
42.Retro Grunge Stripes Social Media Icons
A classy look and these icons meet international standars.Retro Grunge Stripes Social Media Icons.
43.Crumpled paper social icons
A creative look for social media icons by this way.It’s suitable anything like grunge or crumpled themes.
44.Glassy space social icons
Just another beautiful glassy style icons.
45.Grunge-warning-stripes
46.Vibrant pattern icons
This vibrant pattern icons social media logos set includes the most popular social bookmarking and networking icons (Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon and Yahoo logos etc…
47.Twitter icons
Free set of unique twitter graphics.There really is no limit to what you can do with this brilliant set, lovingly designed by Pasquale D’Silva.The set includes 40 Files in total, all in transparent .png format.
48.Twitter icons by sibusinho
Really a cute twitter icon for your blogs or websites.Also only noncommercial use is allowed.
49.Twitter icons promo set
This breaks down to roughly 1,800 icons added to each existing set and 20 brand new sets! Here’s a little twitter promo pack with 53 twitter icons, one from each set!.
50.RSS cheese icon style
The set contains 4 high resolution RSS icons that come in four sizes: 512×512, 256×256, 128×128 and 64×64. Icons are completely free and can be used without any restrictions in any type of project including commercial projects.
A slew of online applications are attempting to eliminate the headache of scheduling meetings. And, unlike their proprietary older brothers, such as Outlook and iCal, these new entrants into the scheduling market are completely web-based, compatible with Google Calendar, and best of all, don’t require your invitees to install software or register on their site.
After giving all of these a test-drive, I have not found one service I would use exclusively — each one seems to have some attractive features. Here is the run down of the four applications that just might make the logistics of scheduling a little easier.
1. Doodle
Doodle is a pleasantly light, quick-and-dirty scheduler with the most intuitive interface of the four services I reviewed.
Step 1: Name the meeting. Step 2: Propose up to five possible times for said meeting. And… that’s it. Invitees are given a link to a spreadsheet-like interface where they check each one of their availability times. Everyone’s availability is neatly delineated with bright green and red squares on a calendar, and there’s a clear tally of the number of people available per time. The admin scheduler picks a time and e-mails it to the invitees. Done! In all, it takes only a few minutes, and neither the scheduler nor the invitees have to register on Doodle.
Notable Features: Like all of the services we sampled, Doodle integrates with Google Calendar(
) and popular desktop schedulers. It also has an iPhone app (for $2.99). Additionally, Doodle has a cool option to canvass attendees on options for a meeting, like what type of cuisine they’d prefer.
2. Tungle
Tungle is more feature-rich, and is designed for those of us who have so many meetings that it’s difficult to remember all the factors and people being considered. Scheduling is a 3-step process:
1) Name the meeting and give it a duration; 2) Invite participants (with e-mail addresses); and 3) Propose a time. Unlike Doodle, Tungle has a graphical calendar interface where the mouse pointer can be scrolled over large swaths of days and times. Invitees receive an e-mail which links to a similar graphical interface that denotes other users’ activities. The final meeting time is e-mailed to all participants.
Notable Features: Tungle has a brand new feature (exclusively launched with this post) that allows groups of registered individuals to see their overlapping availability. Simply type in something like tungle.me/greg,josh,wolverine, and my, my editor’s, and my comic book hero’s availability is displayed. Tungle, too, has an iPhone app, which is available for free.
3. ScheduleOnce
ScheduleOnce’s graphical user interface and scheduler is very similar to Tungle’s, and requires about the same amount of time to schedule a meeting. As far as I could tell, schedulers will need to send the link via e-mail, and this could make it more difficult to keep track of invitees. Additionally, unlike Tungle, meeting times are selected on a horizontal time line. This seems more intuitive if the meeting time being considered is only for a single day, but more confusing if multiple days are up in the air.
Notable Features: ScheduleOnce has an integrated plugin for Google Calendar and Gmail, which places a box (in Gmail) right above the chat window that displays upcoming meetings. It can also find group availability like Tungle.
4. TimeBridge
TimeBridge has a similar graphical user interface to Tungle and ScheduleOnce, but there is a limit to five proposed times (at least in the free version). Time Bridge, like ScheduleOnce, allows invitees to show their preference for a favorite meeting time by selecting “Best” from a list of “Yes,” “No,” and “Best.”
It should be noted that TimeBridge is more than just a scheduler. It offers phone conferencing, online meetings, and to-do lists. Additionally, TimeBridge was by far the most aggressive advertiser. I was offered a coupon for free coffee (twice) and got multiple pop-ups to try new features and sign up for premium membership.
Notable Features: Instead of the scheduler playing king, TimeBridge allows invitees to propose meeting times, which might be the most convenient way to corral a busy team in some cases. TimeBridge also has a free iPhone app.
Conclusion
First, for those concerned with privacy, each one of the online applications is subject to OAuth protocol, which masks sensitive information from service providers.
Second, I would recommend trying out each service. Below is a comparison chart of features, but each app has its own unique interface, and it’s ultimately up to you to decide which one works best for your team.
Just when you thought you had social media figured out, Google(
) has shaken things up with a new entrant into the market: Google Buzz(
). It’s integrated into Gmail(), which means right out of the gate it potentially has an audience of tens of millions of people. As such, it could eventually prove as important to your business as the other services we’ve seen prosper in the past few years.
If you’ve spent much time on social media sites, many of the features will look familiar, as Buzz combines elements of Twitter(), Facebook(), and the quickly rising Foursquare(). But there are some subtleties that make Buzz unique, and in turn create opportunities that you should familiarize yourself with –- if not start to take advantage of –- as soon as possible.
1. Gathering Customer Feedback
Like Twitter, Buzz lets you post a message to a group of “followers” that subscribe to your updates. However, there are a few differences, namely that messages can be longer than 140 characters (and include supporting images and links) and that replies are all grouped under the original message. This makes conversations easier to track and follow up on. There are also built-in features to reply in a one-on-one way, via either e-mail or Google Talk.
2. Engaging With Others
If you use Gmail, there’s a good chance you already have a built-in network on Google Buzz. The service helps you get started by letting you connect with those you e-mail or chat with frequently. Once you’re following some people, clicking the “Buzz” link from Gmail’s main navigation will let you see their most recent updates. You can comment on them, “like” them, or follow up personally with an e-mail or chat message.
3. Collaboration
Buzz can be used both for broadcasting a message to all of your followers and to select groups of them. If you’ve already set up Groups in Gmail, they’re already available in Buzz. If not, you can create new ones on-the-fly. Posting a private message on Buzz works exactly the same as posting a public one – you just select the Group you want to be able to see it, and then only those people will be able to view and comment on it. It’s instant, private collaboration.
4. Marketing
It’s too soon to tell whether Buzz will have the type of impact for brick-and-mortar businesses that services like Yelp() and increasingly Foursquare have had, but it has a very similar feature set. Users can “check in” at business locations, in turn notifying their followers of their whereabouts. Thus, encouraging your customers to check in on Buzz (and other location-based services) can be a way to drive free word-of-mouth marketing for your business.
5. Sharing Content
Just like Twitter and Facebook, Buzz has the potential to be a powerful medium for sharing content. You can use it to share blog posts, special deals, or interesting links related to your niche. Just like other social media services, you shouldn’t overdo it though – you want to mix promotional messages with a balance of other useful information and conversation for your followers.
So is it time to jump head first into Buzz? At this point, the right answer is probably “not so fast.” While Buzz clearly has some promising use cases, it’s also not yet ideally designed for businesses. There are no business accounts, no multi-user support, and a host of privacy issues that nearly derailed the service in its first couple weeks (though Google has been quick to address them).
Buzz will likely become more viable for businesses when a Google Apps version is offered, as well as a standalone service that can be accessed by anyone outside of Gmail – both of which are reportedly in the works. Nonetheless, familiarizing yourself with Buzz’s features and opportunities now could be immensely valuable in the future, while at the present, it can provide some useful additional functionality for Gmail users and their contacts.
The end of 2009 showed a record high in online ad spending – $6.3 billion for Q4. This is the largest amount ever spent on online advertising in a single quarter, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB).
Staff at the Federal Trade Commission are poised to recommend that the U.S. government challenge Google’s acquisition of mobile ad network AdMob for antitrust reasons, according to multiple reports.