// BLOG
Let’s Blab About It!
March 4, 2016
Consumers today are more visual than ever before. Studies have shown that people spend more time on your website on average if video is involved and pay more attention to social media posts involving photos and video. A practice that's growing in leaps and bounds? Live-streaming. There are so many ways in which it can be used – from webinars to product demonstrations and more – and easily holds attention. That means platforms for live-streaming are popping up left and right, so which do you choose? One of the latest ones to spring up is Blab.
What is Blab? Simply put, Blab lets you build a personal and business presence while creating community. How does it work? It lets you host your own live show or conference with up to four people engaging at the same time. The moderator has control over who's in the three additional video seats, but anyone who wants to tune in can use the right panel to chat and the left panel to tweet. Blab’s ease of use, simplicity and functionality give it the edge over other live-streaming platforms. It's also important to note that Blab’s time length is open-ended and most blabs last about an hour.
Blab is easy to use. It's an off-shoot of Twitter, so you just login with your Twitter account info. You also find people to follow by using their Twitter handles (and of course you can search by subjects, etc). To create a Blab, you push the “create Blab” button, give it a title and a few tags, then either go live or schedule a time for it to post and away you go! And when your Blab is done, you can upload it to YouTube or as a podcast on iTunes or somewhere similar.
Blab really is the next step in live-streaming and is an easy way to introduce yourself to the format. Check out the FAQs section on their site to familiarize yourself, then Blab away! And remember, when you need help setting things up in the social media world or get too busy to handle everything yourself, give us a call. We'll put together the perfect plan for your company and get all eyes on you!
Start the Year Right!
February 4, 2016
January is about to end (can you believe it?) and 2016 is off & running! That means it's time to create a social media marketing plan that details your business's social media goals and the actions necessary to achieve them. Do you know what a good social media marketing plan entails?
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LISTEN: Tune in and listen to what people are saying about your company. This is how you can evaluate your current social media presence. It also helps you better understand what the competition is doing and figure out what people are talking about so you can join the discussion.
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SET GOALS: The next obvious step is setting your goals for the year. Now that you know what people are saying, what's trending and what your competition is doing, what do YOU want to accomplish this year? You want to use social media to meet your audience's needs and capitalize on your company's strengths.
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IDENTIFY OBJECTIVES & DEFINE STRATEGIES: Identifying objectives and defining strategies is how you'll decide to meet your goals for the new year. Breaking down each goal into the steps to achieve them, makes the bigger picture easier to accomplish.
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IDENTIFY YOUR AUDIENCE: Who are you trying to reach? Do you want to continue reaching your current market or do you want to branch out into new areas? Deciding this helps you tailor content to each market's specific needs.
And from there it's onto implementation! Social media is a wonderful (and necessary) marketing tool that businesses often don't understand how to use. Many ignore the above steps and simply hop on social media creating random posts or spamming people, which is why they rarely (if ever) see results.
So what's your plan for 2016? If you're still working on it and need a hand, give us a call and we'll help you figure out the perfect strategy. And if you find yourself having trouble with the implementation portion (too little time, etc), our social media managers can handle it, down to the last detail. We work with each company to create an individualized plan, so we're able to market it all, big or small!
Happy 2016 and Best Wishes for the New Year!
January 4, 2016
The holidays are behind us and the new year is here…Another year gone, can you believe it? We wanted to say THANK YOU to all our wonderful clients. It's been amazing and wonderful helping you all grow your social presences online this past year! We love what we do!
This year has been amazing for us as we've accomplished more than ever! We recently celebrated 4 years in business, with progressive growth each year. We expanded to clients in three new states: California, Florida and Georgia. We also expanded our services to include social media sites such as Pinterest and Instagram. In addition, we had a rise in customers in need of blogs and the creation and distribution of online newsletters, which led to the addition of those services to our repertoire. Our newest clients include NY Metro Dryer Vent, Orangetheory Fitness of New Providence and Middletown, NJ as well as Ketterhealth, who have been added to our list of clients who have been with us from the beginning, such as Payroll Specialties, College Hunks Hauling Junk and Moving, Suburban Furniture, and C&M Medical Billing.
2015 was fabulous and we can't wait to see what 2016 brings. Most of all though, we hope all of your holidays were bright and that the new year brings with it plenty of luck and love!
~Kelly Jones
Is Tumblr Good for Business?
December 3, 2015
It's a whole new world out there in social media, and believe it or not Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn aren't the only main players anymore. From Snapchat to Google+, there are a host of social media platforms that your company should be taking advantage. One of the maybe most fun to use, but also somewhat hard to define platforms is Tumblr.
What IS Tumblr exactly? Well, it's a blogging and social media hybrid platform that's been around since 2007 and is one of the most widely used social platforms around. It allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog (so a mix between WordPress and Instagram).
Why should your business use it? Lots of reasons, but try this one on for size! Tumblr is still under-represented by many well-known brands so smaller brands have a chance to carve out a niche for themselves. If you embrace the unique environment on Tumblr, your small independent brand can do “just as well as the big boys.” Another plus of Tumblr is that it's well-indexed by the search engines (seriously, go search something – anything – and see how high up the Tumblr results are).
Let's talk numbers. There are now over 130 million Tumblr blogs, which makes Tumblr the largest hosted blog platform on the web. It has 300 million monthly visitors (basically 15% of all Internet users). And 50% of it's users are under the age of 25 , with 53.5% of it's visitors being female. Pretty good stats, huh? Especially if you're a marketer.
All that said, be prepared before you go in and have a clear idea of what your action plan and branding are first. Tumblr is unique and so are it's many, many users (as you'll fine), but if you reblog and post just right, you'll be on your way to success!
Scare Up Fun and Spooktacular Sales This Halloween!
October 28, 2015
Halloween is right around the corner. One of the world’s oldest holidays, Halloween is celebrated in many countries in many different ways – honoring lost loved ones, preparing for the new harvest season, dressing in costumes and celebrating with friends and family. Where did Halloween even come from? It's thought to have originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off roaming ghosts. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1 as a time to honor all saints and martyrs; the holiday, All Saints’ Day, incorporated some of the traditions of Samhain. The evening before was known as All Hallows’ Eve and later Halloween. Over time, Halloween evolved into a secular, community-based event characterized by child-friendly activities such as trick-or-treating. With all the Halloween festivities and excitement going on plus the added advantage of Halloween being a visual holiday, it's no surprise that Halloween is one of the BEST times to connect with your customers! But how?
Did you know Halloween is the second biggest holiday event in the U.S., where nearly $7 billion is spent on Halloween activities? It's also the kick-off to the huge holiday season that's so crucial to small businesses. This makes Halloween the perfect time of year to reach out to customers and prospects, but with everyone competing for attention you want to make sure you stand out from the crowd. So what's the plan?
Halloween is an entirely visual holiday and one that the entire family (pets included!) likes to get involved in. So get in the spirit! People love sharing photos of their costumes and decorations, and they also want to participate in promotions that are Halloween themed. Host a photo contest for best costume or best PET costume online and have people like and share your page to vote. Doesn't matter if you don't run a business that exactly ties into Halloween – the prize can be whatever.
Another idea for a business that may not sell anything Halloween related is COUPONS. People love coupons. People also love businesses – especially small businesses – that get into the Halloween spirit. Create a mailer that is Halloween themed and offer a discount for shopping near Halloween. You also could offer a discount to anyone coming in wearing a costume on Halloween.
One final idea for partaking in Halloween – no matter what you sell, consider the uses. If you're a small hardware store that sells things like reflective tape, flashlights or glow sticks, then do a promotion with those products, tying them into Halloween safety.
There's ALWAYS something you can do to reach potential prospects and customers. So get into the Halloween Spirit and scare up some sells!
