Posts Tagged ‘business’
Friday, October 28th, 2011
This isn’t a how-to guide for businesses to use Twitter. Rather, it’s the latest evidence and support that if you’re not using Twitter for your business, you should be!
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo recently announced that Twitter has more than 100 million active users, half of them are logging in daily. WOW! And right now 250 million tweets are posted each day, up from 100 million per day in January. That’s some serious growth.
But so what? It’s growing. Good for Twitter. What’s it to me and my business? Well, how about these five key facts from a recent study about the relationship of Twitter and consumer behavior:
1. 60% of brand followers are likely to recommend brands to a friend
2. 50% of brand followers are likely to buy products from that brand
3. Consumers follow brands for exclusive content, promotions, and to be in the know
4. 75% of consumers on Twitter have NEVER “un-followed” a brand
5. One-third of brand followers this year are interacting with brands compared to last year
And don’t expect the growth to slow down. With Apple’s recent release of iOS 5, Twitter sign-ups have tripled and been a big boost for the company.
Tags:business, Marketing, Social Media, tweets, Twitter
Posted in Social Media | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 20th, 2011
Lets not kid ourselves. The iPad is a consumer product. Using them we surf the internet, watch videos & movies, play games, view
photos, etc. But iPads are also becoming a great tool for businesses. Here’s 5 great uses in particular that are making iPads a viable business tool.
1. Filling out forms- The iPad is great for managing documents. Filling out forms and signing documents is made easy with some great apps out there. An Easy Sign app actually let you email a document, image, or PDF and then affixing a signature on it. The signature can be freshly signed on the document right on the iPad itself. The app also lets you insert text fields for adding dates, names, addresses, and checkboxes.
2. Accepting and Processing Payments- There are now apps out there that turn your iPad into a full credit card terminal. This allows businesses to sell merchandise, tickets, and other goods anywhere. 3 great apps for processing payments are Intuit GoPayment and VeriFone’s PAYware Mobile.
3. Presentations- iPads are a great tool for presentations. Displaying graphs and charts are slick. iPads have a VGA or HDMI adapter allowing users to run presentations directly into a TV or projector. iPads are also excellent for one-on-one presentations with clients.
4. Web Conferencing- Thanks to apps like WebEx and GoToMeeting, iPads are making web meetings fast and easy. The iPad 2 has both front and rear cameras so users can connect with others using video chat.
5. Collecting Data- Bento is an iPad app that is a wonderful tool for small businesses to create manageable databases and collect data. With Bento, you can create a digital guest book project for an event where guests simply sign in leaving their contact info. After gathering the data on your iPad you can create databases that can be used for your marketing efforts for the future.
Tags:apple, business, iPad, iPod, presentations, tablet, web conferencing
Posted in Marketing | No Comments »
Friday, June 17th, 2011
If you haven’t heard of Angry Birds or Farmville, you have been living under a rock. These are just two of the many games that have transformed the trend of social gaming. Social gaming is playing games as a way of social interaction, via social networks like Facebook. Gaming is not only for the stereotyped teens, now moms, business execs, and retirees are reshaping the demographics of who a gamer is. The two top activities people do online is social networking and gaming, so its no wonder social gaming has become so popular.
Social gaming is not only keeping users entertained, it is also helping companies market and advertise their brands. Marketers use social gaming to reach a wide variety of people. It also gives them the opportunity to target specific groups of people by uncovering their preferences, habits, and acquaintances via social networks. This is where targeted advertising comes into play. Companies are leveraging their brands to create experiences that exist within the games to encourage engagement and interaction. For example, you can get a pair of Nike tennis shoes for your Avatar. The idea is to incorporate businesses and brands into the gaming network instead of overloading users with ads. By integrating brands into games, users will have the chance to interact with the brand instead of being attacked by numerous ad campaigns.
Social gaming enables an interaction to take place. This is the first step in attracting users to a brand, product, or service. By integrating brands into a game, it allows users to have fun with the brand and get to know it. If a user’s avatar wears Nike shoes, the user may be more inclined to buy a pair of Nike shoes for themselves.
Tags:ads, advertising, brands, business, demographics, engagment, facebook, gaming, gaming network, integration, interaction, marketers, Marketing, social gaming, social interaction, social networks, targeting
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 15th, 2011
Have you ever wondered what crowdsourcing is? I have heard of it, but never fully understood what it was. For starters, the name crowdsourcing came from combining crowd and outsourcing. By definition, crowdsourcing is the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to an undefined, large group of people or community. Still confused? Well when a company has a problem they usually hire someone to perform the necessary procedures to fix it. Now a company will involve a crowd to help them solve their problem. A larger group of people has a higher potential of finding a better solution than compared to one person. So the basic idea then is to tap into the collective intelligence of a group of people to perform business related tasks.
Crowdsourcing increases productivity, while also allowing to hear feedback from more than one individual. A lot of businesses are using crowdsourcing to gain insight and solve problems. As social media has become the way we communicate, crowdsourcing is becoming more and more popular. Businesses may use crowdsourcing to get opinions on a new logo design, voting on a product design, or rank songs and movies. Crowdsourcing can be used for any purpose a business needs.
Sony used crowdsourcing to get people from untapped audiences the chance to think of new ways to tackle the sustainability challenges we face. This started in September of 2010 when Sony set up an online open forum. PepsiCo also dabbled in crowdsourcing last year when they created their Refresh Project campaign. They asked for customer’s favorite ideas for community involvement and they would fund the ideas that got the most votes. Mob4Hire is one of the world’s largest mobile research and testing companies and they used crowdsourcing to test products.
Crowdsourcing connects businesses with their consumers and produces collaboration. It gives businesses the chance to hear what a group of people have to say to get more feedback and opinions.
Tags:business, collaboration, collective intelligence, communication, consumers, crowdsourcing, feedback, involvement, marketers, Marketing, outsourcing, Social Media, solutions
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »
Friday, June 10th, 2011
Social media has encompassed our world and lifestyles. Not only is social media used for personal reasons, but now businesses have put their mark on social media. Marketing via social media is a great way for businesses to get connected with a vast amount of people at the same time. It creates communication among consumers and has the potential to attract new ones. One of the main benefits of using social media is that it is free and easy to use. All you basically have to do is create a profile and let the marketing begin! Keep in mind that content is key to having a successful social media campaign. If your content is not interesting or useful, you will have no luck with social media.
Social media allows you to share, network, publish, and discuss. Although social media has these benefits for businesses, it is hard to decide which ones to use. There are so many social media outlets to choose from that it can get confusing. Let’s take a look at the most popular social media networks and what benefits they provide.
LinkedIn: LinkedIn sets the stage for networking with business professionals. It allows you to personally brand your business and market yourself to others within your industry. It is also a great outlet for providing knowledgeable content that informs and educates users. Lead generation is the most valuable outcome of using LinkedIn.
Facebook: Facebook has more than half a billion users, making it a great way to share a message and reach a large amount of people simultaneously. It opens up a communication portal and creates social interaction. Facebook works great as a promotional tool. You can promote your products, services, and events to a mass audience, giving your business the opportunity to expand. Frequent and interesting posts will help to keep users attracted to your business.
Twitter: Twitter is your outbound messaging tool. It consists of tweeting 140 characters or less messages to users. These tweets are short and concise, creating a social buzz. This buzz creates interaction with users. While you are tweeting it exposes your business and brand, and then you get to hear who is talking about you and what they are saying. Twitter is all about listening to others through feedback.
YouTube: Known as the largest video sharing community, YouTube is also a marketing and advertising tool. It gets an informative and positive message right in front of existing and/or potential customers. Creating and sharing a video on YouTube provides the opportunity to share knowledge, market products, show off expertise, and connect with users. Videos that are compelling and entertaining will catch the attention of users, also creating interaction for your business.
Tags:brand, business, communication, content, facebook, linkedin, Marketing, networks, promotion, social interaction, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Twitter, youtube
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 8th, 2011
I will admit that I finally signed up for Twitter a week ago, so I am a few years behind. I didn’t really understand the importance of Twitter until I hopped on the bandwagon. I was confused by all the hash marks and other symbols, that I didn’t recognize how powerful Twitter is as a business and marketing tool. Using 140 characters or less, Twitter can help any business promote and share its marketing efforts to a vast amount of people. Since Twitter is one of the largest social media outlets in the world, it has also become a new form of communication. Twitter is used to share content. Businesses want to share content to attract potential customers. So here’s a crazy idea: businesses can share their content on Twitter to attract customers to their company.
Twitter may seem confusing at first, but it is actually easy to use and provides many benefits to businesses.
Here are some of the benefits Twitter can bring to businesses:
- Can impact search rankings
- Drive traffic to your business website
- Can be used check competitors accounts to see what they are sharing and who they are following
- Target the people you want to target in relation to your business
- Twitter search allows you to follow relevant conversations, trends, and people
- Hear feedback about your business from the content you share and conversations you start
Those are just a few benefits Twitter provides for businesses and marketers. Twitter also allows you to unleash your creative side. You can customize your profile, add a picture, and create a descriptive bio. Creativity combined with interesting and knowledgeable tweets will allow any business to be successful on Twitter. So the question is: to tweet or not to tweet? I will let you decide.
Tags:benefits, business, communication, content, conversation, creativity, feedback, marketers, Marketing, search rankings, Social Media, Target, traffic, tweet, Twitter
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »
Monday, May 23rd, 2011
Consumerism is a movement that seeks to protect and inform consumers by requiring practices like packaging, advertising, product guarantees, and safety standards. In theory it is also the outcome of producing greater consumption of goods for the benefit of the economy. Since we have become a society that is concerned with the state of our environment, consumerism has become eco-friendly. Green consumerism is a new movement that is concerned about products and services that are considered ethically made. This means with minimal harm to or exploitation of humans, animals, and/or the natural environment.
Green consumerism is interesting in that it focuses on us buying green products. Well how beneficial are green products to the environment if we don’t use them properly. An article written by Jacquie Ottman titled “The Next Frontier in Green Marketing is Responsible Consumption” pinpoints this issue spot on. The article provides an example: how is an eco-friendly light bulb eco-friendly if the light remains on after everyone leaves the room? They contradict each other. We may feel good about doing our part if we buy green products, but we need to focus more on the behaviors we conduct when we use them. It defeats the purpose of buying green if we are not using the products in an eco-friendly manner.
Going green is based on behavior. If we want to be buy eco-friendly products we must learn green behaviors. If we look at this issue from a business perspective, marketers of green products should focus on adding value for consumers and providing them with the needed knowledge of how to use the product. Buying green products and using them properly is how we will help save our planet. Green consumerism is on the rise and more consumers feel they have a personal responsibility to do their part to help the earth.
Tags:advertising, business, consumerism, consumers, consumption, Eco-Friendly, environment, go green, green, green consumerism, green products, marketers, packaging
Posted in Eco-Friendly, Marketing | No Comments »
Friday, May 13th, 2011
More and more health care companies are in need of temperature controlled solutions as their businesses are shifting and entering new markets. We need safe methods of storage for certain medical and pharmaceutical products because many need to be stored at specific temperatures. This also is required during shipment. FedEx Express has found a way to cater to the medical and pharmaceutical industries by finding a way to provide temperature controlled shipping and packaging options. This includes having dry ice capabilities and re-icing facilities at major hubs and ramps.
FedEx is always looking for ways to innovate their offerings and provide solutions to health care customers. They want these businesses to flourish by offering them the best possible technologies so they can continue to manage their supply chains and grow with the changes in the industry. FedEx is keen on improving the quality of life around the world and connecting with customers and providing them with the best experience possible. They continue to thrive everyday by creating ways to better their business and help others do the same.
Tags:business, FedEx, FedEx Express, health care, Medical, packaging, pharmaceutical, products, shipping, supply chain, technologies, temperature controlled
Posted in Custom Packaging Products, Product Information | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, May 11th, 2011
Traditional marketing has been centered around companies taking action to initiate a conversation, meaning companies are focused on finding customers. This is done by sending out a message to an audience through TV commercials, print ads, and cold calling. This form of marketing is called outbound marketing and it is starting to lose its effectiveness. We now have technologies like spam filtering, caller id, Tivo, and other measures to block out these outbound marketing techniques. It is also costly to create outbound marketing messages and difficult to track how successful or unsuccessful the campaign was.
We live in a world where things change everyday. Even the way we market has changed immensely. We have turned away from our traditional forms of marketing and have adapted something different called inbound marketing. This new form of marketing is centered around being found by customers. Companies that participate in inbound marketing take the stress of hoping the money they spent on expensive ads will somehow attract some new customers. Companies using inbound marketing utilize techniques such as writing a blog, creating a YouTube video, and constructing a presence via social media to draw customers in.
Inbound marketing is an efficient way to attract customers. It is less costly than outbound marketing, especially since many social media outlets are free to use. It also allows for more accurate targeting. Instead of sending a message to a large amount of people, inbound marketing allows messages to be formed specifically to certain people that you want to hear the message. The secret to a valuable inbound marketing campaign is through content and communication. If a company focuses on useful and confident content, people will find it and like it. Communication is also key to creating a conversation with potential customers because it could turn into a beneficial business relationship.
Tags:Blog, business, communication, content, conversation, customers, inbound marketing, Marketing, marketing message, outbound marketing, relationship, Social Media, targeting, youtube
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »
Friday, May 6th, 2011
I never really knew or understood what the purpose of a blog was until I started writing blog entries. I used to think blogs were just for individuals who wrote about their lives, sort of like an online journal. But little did I know that businesses also use blogs to try to increase traffic and search rankings. Business blogs produce a wealth of information about a variety of topics. They are one of the key ingredients to a successful internet marketing plan.
Business blogs are a form of social media that is a communication mechanism used to create and build relationships. Content is key when initiating a blog for your business. Online users are eager to dive into information that is meaningful and engaging. Blogging also allows a business to have a personality. It gives customers a chance to get to know a business on a different level. This also gives businesses a chance to hear feedback that they probably normally wouldn’t hear. Feedback, whether it is positive or negative, is beneficial for a business because it produces interaction. Businesses need interaction to start the communication process.
Blogs are a fun way to share important content and information to customers. A blog will give a business a personality, express creativity, and produce a positive business culture.
Tags:Blog, blogging, business, communication, content, conversation, feedback, information, interaction, Marketing, marketing plan, personality, search engine optimization, Social Media, traffic
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »
