Archive for the ‘Social Marketing Strategy’ Category

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Understanding the Culture of Social Media Platforms

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Understanding the Culture of Social Media Platforms

Every social media platform (Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, etc.) has it’s own “culture.”  Each of these platforms has it’s own language, its own customs, and its own personality.  Paying attention to these cultures is critically important to anyone looking to use these social media platforms for marketing or brand building.  Ignoring, or not properly understanding, the culture of a particular platform will make your marketing efforts suffer.  And you’ll look silly, and will be ignored, in the process.

Understanding the culture of a particular social media platform is no different than understanding the culture of another group, city, business, or country.  By that, I mean that it requires a lot of listening and observation.  When I was in the Army, I was stationed in South Korea for fourteen months.  During my time there, one of the most valuable lessons I learned was how to appreciate a different culture.  There were many things about the South Korean culture that, at first, didn’t make any sense to me.  For a 21 year old kid, it was a lot to take in.  Over time, however, I did learn to accept and appreciate the culture there.  Once I decided to make the effort to learn and experience as much as I could about the South Korean society, my time there became much more rewarding and enjoyable.  It’s no different when it comes to understanding and operating on a social media platform.

To give a better idea of what I’m talking about when I refer to a social media platform’s culture, let’s use Twitter as an example.  Twitter represents a community of 200 million users who communicate with each other in 140 characters or less.  Certain symbols and abbreviations (@, #, RT, etc) have taken on special meaning and they have adopted unique customs like Follow Friday and Music Monday.  The communication across Twitter is rapid-fire, with many users sending multiple updates an hour.  Compare that with Facebook, where most users rarely post more than three times a day.  Someone who’s attempting to use Twitter to market a brand or business had better be well versed in the culture of the platform.  Otherwise, they will be quickly ignored for the same reason that telemarketers are widely ignored.

So does this mean that your marketing department needs to enlist a sociologist to help you navigate social media?  No.  However, it does mean that before any campaign is launched across any social media platform, time and care must be taken to understand the culture of that platform.  Anyone looking to use any social platform for marketing purposes needs to understand who uses that platform, how they use it, and how best to interact and build a relationship with its community.  Otherwise, you’ll just be wasting a lot of time with little to show for it.

-Dan Cheek
LaserBurnMedia.com
dan@laserburnmedia.com
Twitter.com/LaserBurnMedia
(570)795-9467

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Posted in Social Marketing Strategy | No Comments »

How to Not Use Twitter

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010

What Not to Do On Twitter

Twitter represents one of the most dynamic and powerful communication tools currently available to the masses.  The service makes it easy for almost anyone to quickly share information with large numbers of people.  It allows for a dialogue across continents, government censors (sometimes), and platforms (web, phone, app, etc).  Updates are sent and received in real time, allowing for communication at a speed that, when you think about it, is really amazing.  All of this said, Twitter remains a tool.  And, like any tool, the user needs to take care not to misuse it.

This is especially true in marketing.  Yes, when used correctly and intelligently, Twitter can represent a hugely powerful marketing communication tool.  However, it’s easy to go the other way, as well, and really end up screwing yourself and your brand.  In an effort to help you avoid this disastrous fate, here are some tips that should be followed to keep you and your brand from falling into common pitfalls.

  • Don’t spam people.  If you want your audience to quickly ignore and block you on Twitter, just send out endless amounts of links across Twitter.  People don’t like that, they don’t fall for it, and they aren’t going to take you seriously if you do this.  It’s better to not Tweet at all than use it as a mass spamming tool.  Just don’t do it.
  • Don’t blindly follow thousands of people hoping they follow you back.  This little trick might get you a few dozen, maybe even a few hundred, followers.  However, they aren’t going to be quality followers.  Chances are, they’re either spambots or people trying to do exactly what you’re doing.  Either way, these type of followers aren’t going to be paying attention to what you’re Tweeting and they’re just going to clog up your Twitter feed with useless jibber-jabber.
  • Send Tweets that people can understand.  Many people and brands, in an effort to stay within or under the 140 character limit, will shorten words by replacing them with symbols or think it would be smart to remove all the vowels from every word.  And while this might result in a Tweet that meets the character limit, it also results in something that no one is capable of understanding.  At least not easily.  And people aren’t going to waste time trying to figure out what the hell you’re talking about.  Again, you’ll be ignored.
  • Don’t overuse hashtags (#).  Yes, adding a hashtag to your Tweets can sometimes make it easier for other to stumble across them and make them available to a larger, ongoing conversation.  However, adding more than two hashtags makes your Tweet look stupid, spammy, and mindless.  If your Tweets are relevant, people will notice.  Over-hashtagging just comes across as amateurish and annoying.  Don’t do it.
  • Don’t RT someone’s RT who is sending a RT from someone else.  You know what this is?  It’s the equivalent of getting an email that contains the subject line of “FW: FW; FW: FW: FW: Funny Picture!”  I don’t open those emails because I know it’s probably not that funny and possibly a virus.  I don’t put much value in tweets that contain multiple “RTs”, either.

These are just some simple rules that, if followed, will help ensure that people take your Tweets a little more seriously.  They will also keep you from getting a reputation as being annoying or a spammer.  As I said, the upside to Twitter is massive and if used correctly, it can add great value to your marketing efforts.  You just have to think before you Tweet.

-Dan Cheek
LaserBurnMedia.com
dan@laserburnmedia.com
Twitter.com/LaserBurnMedia
(570)795-9467

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Posted in Social Marketing Strategy, Twitter | No Comments »

What I Learned at Toys R Us and Best Buy

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

While I was still in college, between my junior and senior year, I got a Summer job at Toys R Us.  Right after I graduated college, I began working at Best Buy.  I learned a lot from both companies.  I learned about leadership, the selling process, team work, and customer service.  I also learned valuable lessons about marketing, customer service, and running a business.  These are the lessons I want to talk about now.Toys R Us

Toys R Us was, hands down, the worst job I ever had.  The pay was horrible, the management and store leadership was incompetent, employee morale was non-existent, and customer service wasn’t even a consideration.  I ended up working there a week and then, disgusted, I just stopped showing up.  I received no training (well, I did watch a video explaining how to clean up blood and spilled cleaning chemicals), no one showed me around the store, and store management treated me as if they didn’t care if I showed up the next day or not.  It was common for employees to argue with one another in front of customers, for leadership to scold employees in front of other employees, and for managers to argue with one another in front of all of the above.  In one week, I learned a lot about how to not run a business, how to be a horrible boss, and how to be a lousy employee.

Best Buy

Upon graduating business school from Wilkes University, I found myself trying to get a job in one of the worst economies in a long time.  I had a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration, with a concentration in Marketing, and I couldn’t find a job.  I had also, right after graduating, gotten married and moved into a new apartment with my wife.  I needed a job…quickly.  Best Buy provided me that opportunity.  My only other experience with retail was at Toys R Us, and as you can imagine, I was expecting the worst.  Best Buy, however, was an entirely different experience, for the better.

I worked at Best Buy for about six months, the whole time selling computers and computer accessories.  Unlike Toys R Us, which was about as unorganized as possible, Best Buy was very structured.  I received constant training on selling, customer service, merchandise, and store policy.  Every morning, everyone in the store was briefed about the sales goals for the day, week, and month and provided an update with how we were progressing against those goals.  We knew how much we were selling, what we were selling, and who we were selling it to.  We knew which items provided the highest margin for the store, and which items we made almost no profit on.  Store leadership was engaged, led by example, and ensured that everyone was on the same page.  I enjoyed working there and learned a lot from the experience.

As I work with clients and help them with their online and social marketing efforts, I am constantly remind of what I learned from my time as an employee of these two retailers.  Here are three examples of what I learned and how I apply it today at Laser Burn Media….

  • Best Buy taught me the importance of building relationships with customers.  People could buy computers from a lot of different places, including the store right next door to Best Buy.  So why did they buy from us?  Because we were trained and encouraged to develop relationships with our customers.  We took the time to find out what they needed and then found solutions to meet those needs.  One time, I was talking with a customer for over an hour about her computing needs and what options she had available and what would work best for her.  She then told me that she had just purchased a computer from one of our competitors, but after talking with me, was going to go return it, come back, and buy a computer from Best Buy.  And she did.  When done right, that’s what social marketing can do.
  • Both Best Buy and Toys R Us taught me the importance of being an expert at what you do.  At Toys R Us, I remember feeling overwhelmingly frustrated about the fact that store leadership would, at random, assign me to work in a certain department without taking the time to ensure that I knew anything about what I was supposed to be selling.  Customers would ask me questions about this toy or that video game and I would just kind of have to fake my way through it.  Sometimes I was able to help the customer, most times I wasn’t and just ended up looking stupid and useless.  I never want to feel that way again and am dedicated, every day, to learning as much as I can about online marketing and social media.  And with as fast paced and rapidly evolving as this industry is, this is something that is critical, in my experience.
  • At Best Buy, I learned the value in building your business around the customer.  Everything we did revolved around the customer.  Making them feel welcome, identifying their needs, and then having the knowledge and products to meet those needs.  Toys R Us provided an example of what happens when you build a business around a product.  Their strategy seemed to be stuff a big store full of toys, hope this generates traffic, and then hope that enough of that traffic is converted into buyers.  This type of marketing strategy struck me as wasteful and highly inefficient, leaving a lot of opportunity on the table.  Marketing efforts should be built around the customer and her needs, not around a product and its features.

Best Buy and Toys R Us provided me with two very different experiences and presented two very different business philosophies.  In my opinion, Toys R Us is lucky to still be in business.  I would never shop there unless I absolutely had to, as my one week of working there was enough to make me never want to step foot in any of its stores ever again.  Best Buy showed me, first hand, the power of relationship building in business and how important it is to focus on identifying needs and developing solutions to meet those needs.  I’m glad that I had the opportunity to work for both of these companies, as it provided me with more than a paycheck.  Both employers provided me with valuable business and marketing skills that I use everyday at Laser Burn Media.

-Dan Cheek
LaserBurnMedia.com
dan@laserburnemdia.com
Twitter.com/LaserBurnMedia
(570)795-9467

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Posted in Social Marketing Strategy | No Comments »

Shut Up and Listen

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

Shut Up and Listen

No offense.  And, no, I haven’t lost my mind like a certain JetBlue steward.  What I was trying to get at with the title of the post is that, as marketers, business owners, customer service people, employees and employers, it’s important to listen.  Too often, we become fixated on our own message.  We want people to hear what we’re saying, read what we’re writing, see what we’re producing, and buy our stuff.  However, it is critical to take the time to, well, shut up and listen.

Listen to your customers. Your social media efforts should not be simply about using Facebook and Twitter to shove your marketing stuff down peoples’ throats.  Instead, and this is where a lot of businesses and brands get it wrong, social media should be fixated on building relationships with your target audience.  And, as any marriage councilor will tell you, listening is a key part of building relationships.  If you’re not listening to what your customers and potential customers are saying, then how do you know what they want and need?  How do you know what their concerns are?  How do you know what they’re saying about you, your competitors?  Do they understand what you’re selling or why what value your goods or service have to them?  If you’re not listening, you have no way of knowing any of this for sure.  Listen to your customers, take a moment to understand what they’re saying and why they’re saying it, and then respond.

Listen to your employees. Hopefully, you don’t hire stupid people.  And if we can agree that you hire intelligent people, then it makes sense that you should probably listen to what they’re saying.  Give your people access to Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn (at this point, I realize all of the HR people in the crown just stopped reading and now think I’m on drugs).  And don’t just give them access, interact with them across these platforms.  Ask questions, answer questions, share information, gather feedback, all that good stuff.  Social media platforms represent one of the most powerful communication technologies in the history of mankind.  Just like you do with your customers, use social media to listen to what your employees are saying (and I don’t mean spy on them), process that information, and then respond.  The smart people, who you hired and pay to work for you, will appreciate it and can help you make your business better.

Listen to your competitors. Because, like your employees, your competitors are smart, too.  Only they’re not looking to help make you money.  They’re looking to take it away from you.  Your competitors, as you read this, are huddled up with all of the smart people that they have working for them, and they are plotting your doom.  They are planning on how best to steal your customers, steal your market share, and defeat you.  So, yeah, you should probably pay attention to what they’re saying.  Follow them on Twitter, friend them on Facebook and FourSquare, and add them to your LinkedIn network.  Listen to what they are saying, how often they are saying it, and who they’re saying it to.  You don’t have to say anything back to them (although that is fun, from time to time), but you should certainly be aware of what your competition is saying.

By using social media to actively listen to your customers, your employees, and your competitors, your social media efforts will become much more focused, more relevant, and more intelligent.  Your business will become more dynamic and will be able to respond much more quickly to changing market conditions.  You will,very quickly, learn what part of your marketing message is working and which parts can be improved.  All of this starts with listening.  So sit back, shut up, and listen to what everyone is talking about.

If you business or brand would like help in using social media to make your organization a better, more active listener, Laser Burn Media can help.  Our online and social media professionals can work with you to develop and execute a social marketing strategy.  Laser Bun Media specializes in working with small and medium sized businesses and are capable of working with almost any marketing budget.  If you would like more information on how we can help your business, please don’t hesitate to CONTACT US directly.

-Dan Cheek
LaserBurnMedia.com
dan@laserburnmedia.com
Twitter.com/LaserBurnMedia
(570)795-9467

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Does Your Social Media Have a Strategy?

Sunday, August 1st, 2010

Does You Social Media Have a Strategy?

It’s not uncommon for businesses, of all sizes, to have a social media presence.  However, in my experience, having a well planned, carefully thought out strategy attached to that presence is far less common.  There are many reasons for this, but the result is the same: Wasted opportunity.  Not having a clear, focused social media strategy results in the Facebook pages and Twitter accounts belonging to thousands of brands and businesses to go largely unnoticed.  Do not make this mistake as you contemplate adding a social media presence to your business or brand.

Here’s a mistake many business owners make: They set up an account for their business on some social media platform (Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, etc.) and then….not much else happens.  Why?  Because this is as far as the planning went.  There was no, “and then” added to the strategy and, as a result, nothing more happens.  The profile just kind of sits there, it’s updated sporadically, it collects a few fans and followers, and then it just goes silent.  The business owner might then be inclined to shake her head in disgust, thinking that social media has failed her and her business.  Just a waste of time.  However, a closer examination will reveal that it wasn’t the social media platform that failed, it was the plan that failed.

So, as I said before, don’t let this happen to you.  Take the time to ensure that your social media efforts aren’t flying blind, destined to achieve nothing.  Here are some questions that you should ask yourself when fleshing out your social media efforts.  As you answer these questions, you move from a rough idea to a strategy.

  • Why should my business have a social media presence?
  • Which social media platform(s) best suits my business?
  • How much time am I willing/able to devote to this per day, per week, per month?
  • What type of social media strategy do my competitors have?
  • How do I want to use social media (find new customers, build relationships with existing ones, build my brand identity, etc.)?
  • What are my criteria for success and how do I measure this?

These are just a few of the questions your social media plan should look to answer.  It’s also important to keep in mind that once you have a social media strategy in place and are working at executing it, it is also critically important that you monitor its progress.  Have a plan, but be willing to adapt.  Identify what’s working, what’s not working, and where your areas of opportunity lie.  Tracking your results and monitoring the data will allow you to make informed decisions and greatly increase the power and effectiveness of your social media efforts.  These are the efforts that will lead to a a successful social media strategy and, ultimately, a stronger business.

Laser Burn Media can help your business develop and execute your social media strategy.  Our social media professionals specialize in working with small and medium sized businesses and can work with you to develop a custom based solution for your online marketing needs.  We can work with any budget and will sit down with you, answer all of your questions, address all of your concerns, and provide industry-leading customer service throughout.  Laser Burn Media would be honored to work with you to help make your business stronger.  All you have to do is ask.

-Dan Cheek
LaserBurnMedia.com
dan@laserburnmedia.com
Twitter.com/LaserBurnMedia
(570)795-9467

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Posted in Social Marketing Strategy | No Comments »

Why We Chose to Use Tumblr

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

Why We Chose to Use Tumblr

If you’re reading this, you already know that we have a blog.  We’ve incorporated our blog into this site, which also serves as our main website.  Considering this, it may seem a bit confusing to some as to why, as of two days ago, we have also set up a Tumblr account for Laser Burn Media.  We decided to do this for a couple of reasons, which I’ll share with you now.

First, let me briefly explain what Tumblr is, as there are still many people who aren’t all that familiar with it.  Tumblr is a free blogging platform that is designed to allow users to quickly post almost anything, links, photos, video, and even full blown blog posts, from almost anywhere.  While not nearly as functional as WordPress (which powers this website), Tumblr isn’t meant to be.  It’s essentially an online notebook that is great for quickly and easily sharing whatever you want to share and it can be done quickly and with very few key strokes.  But that’s just my definition.  Here’s how Tumblr describes themselves…

“Tumblr lets you effortlessly share anything. Post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos, from your browser, phone, desktop, email, or wherever you happen to be. You can customize everything, from colors, to your theme’s HTML.”

Right, so now that we all know what Tumblr is, let me now explain why we decided that in addition to this blog, Laser Burn Media also could benefit from a Tumblr blog.  For starters, we really love the idea of being able to shoot out quick Tumblr posts from anywhere, even from our cellphones.  This has a lot of benefits to both us and our clients.  It can serve as a virtual notebook and scrapbook.  If, while out and about, we see something interesting or suddenly get hit with an interesting idea, we can quickly shoot it to Tumblr.  Our Tumblr account then feeds that post with our Twitter account, automatically.  The ability to rapidly and easily share almost any type of information from anywhere has too many obvious benefits to ignore.  And, as our Tumblr is our “notebook”, it’s quite possible that a short Tumblr post will turn into a full blown, fully fleshed out post on this blog.

Tumblr also allows us to interact with an entire community that we might not otherwise have contact with.  In addition to being a blogging platform, Tumblr is also a social networking site.  Users can interact with each other, follow fellow Tumblr blogs, and participate in a diverse community of online enthusiasts.  As a business, having access to this community is something that is hugely valuable to us.  We hope that our Tumblr blog will allow us to build our brand recognition, help us generate leads, and allow us to share industry information with other social media professionals.  Simply put, Tumblr represents a community of users that we would be foolish to ignore.

Finally, there are real SEO (search engine optimization) benefits to having multiple sites all pointing to each other.  When determining where your site will show up in a search results (ie #3 on page 1 of the results or #7 on page 72716), Google places a high value on the number of other, quality sites linking to your site.  Google is also placing an increasingly higher value on links coming from social networking sites, as well.  So having a Tumblr blog will potentially help us in both of those areas.  Having multiple sites (this one, our Tumblr blog, our Twitter profile, and our Facebook page) creates a large “net” across the internet and since all the sites link to each other, it can help us drive traffic to the sites, build the ever-valuable back links, and potentially increase our relationship with our audience.  The more people we interact with, the more likely we are to earn links to our sites, and the better our sites will then perform in search results.  Or so the theory goes, anyway.

Tumblr is, by itself, a very powerful and incredibly useful social media and blogging platform.  We believe that by combining that versatility, and the large community of users associated with it, with our other web properties will pay large dividends for our company.  Additionally, by using both a full blown publishing platform (WordPress) and the quick and nimble Tumblr platform, we can create a deeper level of engagement with our audience, providing them with a wide range of content and have the ability to do so from almost anywhere.  Tumblr adds an exciting and powerful tool to our toolbox that will allow us to do our job better.  Considering all of this, setting up a Tumblr blog was something we couldn’t pass up.

If your business or brand would like help with increasing your presence on the web, providing you with a way to build and leverge powerful relationships with your target markets, please consider enlisting the services of Laser Burn Media.  Our professionals will work with you to develop a custom solution to your online and social marketing needs.  We specialize in working with small and medium sized businesses and can work with almost any budget.  Best of all, we’ll sit down with you, answer all of your questions and address all of your concerns before we accept a dime from you.  What do you have to lose?

-Dan Cheek
LaserBurnMedia.com
dan@laserburnmedia.com
Twitter.com/LaserBurnMedia
(570)795-9467

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The Old Spice Online Marketing Campaign

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

The Old Spice Online Marketing Campaign

I can honestly can say that “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” Old Spice commercials (created by the Wieden + Kennedy Ad Agency) are currently my favorite ads running on television.  The ads are funny, visually impressive, and very memorable.  Additionally, unlike other mens’ body spray commercials, they appeal to both men and women.  Men find them funny, in the same league with some of the Budweiser commercials.  And women like them because, well, the Old Spice guy is about as studly and awesome as humanly possible.  So not only do a lot of men want to get the body spray, but women also want their men to use the spray.  All in all, the Old Spice marketing campaign is brilliant.

But as successful as the television spots are, the social media campaign (also the brainchild of Wieden +Kennedy) that Old Spice has in place in even more impressive.  The campaign revolves around a series of YouTube videos and is supported by Twitter and Facebook profiles.  In addition to featuring all of the Old Spice television spots, the YouTube profile also has several dozen (over 100) short video responses, from the “Old Spice Guy”, answering questions submitted by real people.  The Twitter profile is used primarily to interact with other Twitter users, again using the “Old Spice Guy” persona.  Rounding out the campaign is the Facebook fan page, which features many of the YouTube videos and allows fans of the page to post questions to the Old Spice Guy.  Old Spice links to all three social media profiles from its homepage, creating a seamless experience for its audience.

All of these efforts have resulted in the campaign going viral.  For a time, “Old Spice” was a trending topic on Twitter.  The YouTube spots have been viewed over ten million times so far and that number jumps up by a lot each day.  Both the Twitter and Facebook profiles are also extremely popular.  The Twitter account now has over 86,000 followers and the Facebook profile boasts over 650,000 fans.  The Old Spice Guy (played by Isaiah Mustafa) has become a celebrity of sorts.  The Internet is full of fan pages dedicated to him and a quick search through Twitter shows dozens of women sending him marriage proposals on a daily basis.  Old Spice, once considered a product used primarily by old men, now has a young, sexy, and very hip personality.  The brand is now more popular than ever, thanks in large part to the success of the Old Spice Guy.

So what can be learned from all of this?  The first lesson is, obviously, that a well executed social media campaign can pay huge dividends.  As a result of this campaign, Old Spice has moved from consumer product to pop-culture phenomenon.  With the Old Spice Guy now a darling of both traditional and social media, the marketing potential for the brand is virtually unlimited.  Another lesson is that marketers and brands can achieve powerful results when they implement a campaign that interacts with the target market, rather than simply spamming them with forgettable ads.  Old Spice is well on its way to building and fostering a community around its brand.  That provides a huge competitive advantage.  Consumers are much less likely to switch brands or try a competitor when they have a relationship with a products.  For proof of this, look no further than the Apple user community.

The Old Spice online marketing campaign, while not providing a direct boost to sales, has been incredibly successful at increasing brand awareness and has helped foster a growing community of consumers around the brand.  If the company can exploit this success, they can achieve a sustainable market advantage over their competition, which is fierce.  A properly planned and executed social marketing campaign can pay huge returns on investment.  If your company or brand would like help in implementing a successful online marketing campaign, please take the time to consider enlisting the help of Laser Burn Media.  Our online and social media professionals can help you reach and surpass your goals.  All you have to do is ask.

-Dan Cheek
www.LaserBurnMedia.com
dan@laserburnmedia.com
Twitter.com/LaserBurnMedia
(570)795-9467

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Posted in Online Marketing, Social Marketing Strategy | No Comments »

Your Business is Already Online, Act Accordingly

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

Your Business is Already Online, Act Accordingly

When I meet with potential clients, one of their biggest concerns tends to be, “I’m not sure if my business is ready to go online.”  I usually respond by telling them that, like it or not, their business is already online.  If the business is open to the public, chances are it’s been added to FourSquare.  People are also probably talking about the business on Twitter and Facebook.  Additionally, let’s not forget about all the online consumer review sites.  Your business is already online, I tell them, it’s time to start acting accordingly.

Social media and the Internet are increasingly playing a bigger and bigger part of our everyday lives.  With the advent of smart phones, iPods, iPads, netbooks, and other highly portable, Internet capable devices, our society is more connected than ever before at any point in human history.  This means that your customers, and potential customers, have access to more information to help make their purchase decisions.  They can get recommendations from friends, product reviews, and compare the competition offerings and pricing all within a few minutes.  This is the type of market your business is operating in.

So, with this in mind, how should your business respond?  Simple: Embrace it.  Embrace the fact that you are competing in a highly connected, highly social, highly digitized market place.  Understand that a large portion of your customers probably use social media on a daily, possibly even hourly, basis.  Get excited about the fact that if you provide outstanding customer service to one customer, that one customer has the potential to tell hundreds of her friends about how awesome your service is.  Respect the fact that if you provide lousy service to even one of your customers, she will express her displeasure across her online social network and that news will travel at a speed that you can’t keep up with.  And, most importantly, get excited about the amazing opportunities that your business has everyday as a result of all of this.

And just to drive the point home as to why embracing online and social media is so important, consider the following….

There are, literally, hundreds of thousands of other examples detailing how businesses are using social media to build sustainable competitive advantages, strengthen relationships with customers, suppliers, and vendors, and make their business more profitable.  There is absolutely no reason why your business can’t be doing the exact same thing.  Your customers are online, right now, talking about you.  Your competitors are online, right now, doing their best to steal away your customers and market share.  Your business is already online, it’s time to act accordingly.

The social marketing experts at Laser Burn Media, LLC are here to help.  We can work with you to put the power of online and social media to work for you.  We can work with any budget and can design a custom marketing solution for your business.  And, as always, we will sit down and explain everything to you, answer all of your questions, and address any of your concerns before we accept one penny from you.  We would be honored to be given the chance to earn your business and your trust.

-Dan Cheek
www.LaserBurnMedia.com
dan@laserburnmedia.com
Twitter.com/LaserBurnMedia
(570)795-9467

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Posted in Online Marketing, Social Marketing Strategy | No Comments »

What is FourSquare?

Friday, June 25th, 2010

What is FourSquare?

By now, many people have heard of and use FourSquare on a regular basis.  However, unlike Facebook and Twitter, FourSquare hasn’t yet become a mainstream social media platform that is used by seemingly everyone.  And there are still many people and businesses who have never heard of FourSquare and have no idea what it is, how it works, or the benefits that it offers.  For those of you who don’t know what FourSquare is or how it can be used to help your business, read on.

So what is FourSquare?  For the official explanation of FourSquare, I’ll quote directly from the FourSquare website….

“People use foursquare to “check-in”, which is a way of telling us your whereabouts. When you check-in someplace, we’ll tell your friends where they can find you and recommend places to go & things to do nearby. People check-in at all kind of places – cafes, bars, restaurants, parks, homes, offices.

You’ll find that as your friends use foursquare to check-in, you’ll start learning more about the places they frequent. Not only is it a great way to meet up with nearby friends, but you’ll also start to learn about their favorite spots and the new places they discover.

Think of foursquare as an “urban mix tape.” We’ll help you make lists of your favorite things to do and let you share them with friends. Think beyond your standard review – we’re looking less for “The food here is top notch” and more for “Go to Dumont Burger and try the most amazing Mac and Cheese ever.” Foursquare will keep track of the things you’ve done, help you create To-Do lists and even suggest new experiences to seek out.

As you check-in around the city, you’ll start finding tips that other users have left behind. After checking-in at a restaurant, it’s not uncommon to unlock a tip suggesting the best thing on the menu. Checking-in at a bar will often offer advice on what your next stop should be. Every tip you create is discoverable by other users just by checking-in.”

In addition to this, there is also a few other features of FourSquare that add to the fun for users.  The person who checks in to a particular place the most becomes the “mayor” of that spot.  If someone else comes along and checks in more times than the current mayor, that new person then becomes the mayor, ousting the exiting mayor.  This aspect of FourSquare encourages friendly competition amongst users.  Additionally, users can unlock “badges” by checking in at different locations.  For example, someone who checks into four or more bars in one night unlocks the “Crunked Badge”.  And someone else who checks into the same place three times in one week unlocks the “Local” badge.  In addition to alerting the users’ FourSquare friends about these accomplishments, FourSquare can also send out these announcements via Twitter and Facebook.

The potential for business owners using FourSquare is huge, as you can probably imagine.  Many businesses, such as Starbucks, encourage their customers to use the service and award prizes (free coffee, free drinks, discounts, etc) to the current mayor of their location.  Additionally, FourSquare also allows business owners to track who’s visiting their location, when, and how often.  And since FourSquare allows users to make recommendations and leave “tips” for other users on where to go, businesses who embrace FourSquare stand to have a huge competitive advantage over those that do not.

If you own a bar, restaurant, hotel, or store of any kind, there’s a good chance that your business is already listed on FourSquare.  Users can add locations simply by using their GPS enabled phone (Blackberry, iPhone, Droid, Palm, etc) and once the location has been added, anyone can check in, leave recommendations, and tips for other FourSquare users.  And it’s also important to keep in mind that this information isn’t just being shared across FourSquare.  Users can share this information with all of their Facebook and Twitter friends, as well.  This means that every time someone checks into your business, that information is shared with potentially hundreds of other people.

So, as you can see, FourSquare has all sorts of benefits for business owners and provides a simple an powerful way for owners to increase awareness of their services and products, increase customer loyalty, and provide others with an easy way to recommend your business to all of their friends.  So what are you waiting for?  If you’d like help using FourSquare and other social media platforms to strengthen and grow your business, the experts at Laser Burn Media can help.  We would be more than happy to work with your business to help you build a lasting competitive advantage and build stronger, more profitable relationships with your customers.  All for now.

-Dan Cheek
www.LaserBurnMedia.com
dan@laserburnmedia.com
Twitter.com/LaserBurnMedia
(570)795-9467

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Posted in Social Marketing Strategy, Social Media in Society | No Comments »

Should Your Business Be Blogging?

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

Should Your Business Be Blogging?

Today, most businesses understand that having an online presence is more of a necessity than a luxury.  However, what’s less clear is exactly what type of online presence is the right way to go.  Obviously, this depends heavily on the individual business, the competitive environment, and the online goals of the company.  For some businesses, a blog is a great way to attract and engage an audience.  And while a blog does take time and effort to establish and maintain, the benefits of a great blog often more than make up for the extra effort.

S0 why does blogging work so well for so many businesses?  For many reasons, really.  For starters, it’s a very easy way to engage with your target audience.  With a blog, you can take direct control over your message and speak to your customers in your own voice.  You can speak to them about things that you know they find important, the benefits of your product or service, announce upcoming events or specials, and build a unique and recognizable online identity.  Additionally, you audience can interact with you via your blog.  Readers can respond to what you write.  They can ask questions, add commentary, provide their own opinions on the topic, and raise concerns that they might have with your business or your brand.  Readers can also interact with each other, via comments.  All of this combined is a great and highly effective way to develop a community around your brand and provides a way to better understand the people who are interested in your business.

Blogging is also a great way to build a reputation as an expert in your industry or profession.  Well written blog posts that answer common customer questions, provide commentary on topical issues, and offer professional advice have the effect of establishing your brand as a trusted source of information.  As an example, Whole Foods runs a very popular blog, known as the Whole Story.  The company uses the blog to provide healthy recipes, highlight exclusive products offered at its stores, promote contests, and highlight in-store specials.  The blog helps build Whole Food’s reputation as a socially responsible company with a focus on local, healthy foods.  And if people trust Whole Foods enough to get recipes for Father’s Day, they probably also trust them enough to shop their stores, as well.

A blog is also a great way for your company to help potential clients in their search for information about products and service.  Increasingly, people use the Internet to research products and brands that they’re interested in.  Before buying a new car or a big-screen television, it’s commonplace for consumers to take to the web to gather information such as technical specifications, user reviews, price comparison, etc.  Recognizing that potential clients use the Internet to seek out answers to their questions, The Michael F. Roe Law Firm has set up a blog, The Illinois Divorce Lawyer Blog, that provides information about divorce law.  Obviously, someone going through the often unpleasant experience of a divorce is going to have lots of questions.  By using a blog to answer common questions and provide insight and clarity into the process, the law firm establishes itself as a resource for potential clients.  This has the effect of building the firms reputation, establishing it as an expert in the field, and providing a seamless way for consumers to transition from the pre-purchase phase into the purchasing phase of shopping.

So, as you can see from just those two examples, blogging for business is a great way to establish an online identity.  Yes, it does require work to establish the blog and to write good content and deliver it on a consistent basis.  However, as I’ve discussed, the benefits to such effort are often times well worth it.  And if your company wants to get into blogging but doesn’t know where to start, the online experts at Laser Burn Media would be happy to help.  We can answer your questions, help you establish a blog, and even help you publish your content.  We can help deliver affordable and highly-effective blog solutions for your business.

All for now.

-Dan Cheek
www.LaserBurnMedia.com
dan@laserburnmedia.com
Twitter.com/LaserBurnMedia
(570)795-9467

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Posted in Blogs and Blogging, Social Marketing Strategy | No Comments »

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