Popular Articles on Business 2 Community

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• 5 Social Media Marketing Predictions for 2014 [Infographic]
• Manage Your Pinterest Account in 10 Minutes a Day [Infographic]
• How to Increase Social Media Engagement
• What’s Your Social Media Personality?
• Mobile Cloud Computing Exploding To $4.4 Billion by 2017
• 4 Social Media Blunders Every Company Makes (And How to Avoid Them)

5 Social Media Marketing Predictions for 2014 [Infographic] Posted: 19 Jan 2014 09:38 AM PST With each New Year comes a new wave of red-hot social media strategies for marketers to implement. 2014 is no exception, as it's poised to be a year of big ideas and even bigger campaigns. The above infographic from OfferPop features 5 predictions for social media marketing in 2014 complied by their team after reviewing data and upcoming campaigns from the best-of-the-best brands on social media. Video and e-commerce will be centerpieces for social media marketing, and don't be surprised to see brands make the fans the stars of their increased number of campaigns. Check out the top five trends for 2014 and start planning your social media outreach.

Manage Your Pinterest Account in 10 Minutes a Day [Infographic] Posted: 18 Jan 2014 04:00 PM PST Social media marketing has gone visual. Brands are increasingly focusing their efforts on using distinct imagery to educate and engage their audiences. A picture really is worth a thousand words and Pinterest, the online pinboard, has taken center stage. Shareholic reports that Pinterest is second only to Facebook when it comes to driving referral traffic. The lifespan of a pin is the longest of any social media post, which is why it's important to manage your Pinterest account to your best advantage. The lifespan of a pin is the longest of any social media post. Social media marketing is time-consuming. Putting your brand's best foot forward generally entails managing multiple social media profiles. The daily activities necessary to be effective on each platform can be very labor-intensive. Mitt Ray of Social Marketing Writing has created the useful infographic below to help you get your arms around your Pinterest account and manage it effectively in just a few minutes a day. Check out his tips and put them to work for your visual marketing initiatives on Pinterest. Be prepared Before you begin managing a Pinterest account, it's important to plan ahead in order to achieve maximum engagement. Set goals. Decide what you want to achieve — grow your followers, increase website traffic, improve sales, increase repins, etc. Find your most popular boards and pins. This inventory will help you determine what is most popular with your audience. Subscribe to useful content. Blogs and other Pinterest boards will provide shareable images. Save articles and images you like. This will help you build a backlog of visual content. Pin when it's most effective. Pins that are posted 2:00-4:00pm and between 8:00pm and 1:00 am receive the most engagement. Managing your Pinterest account Now that you're prepared, you can methodically manage your Pinterest account. Respond to comments. Comment on pins shared from your website, on repins, and on pins in which you are mentioned. Limit your number of comments to 2 or 3 at a time — more than this will cause your account to be flagged. Repin and like some pins. Liking pins is a great way to same images you can pin later. Schedule your pins. Use Pinterest's scheduling feature to distribute your pins throughout the day and keep fresh content in front of your followers. Cross-promote. Share your pins on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and your other social media profiles to drive traffic and audience engagement.

How to Increase Social Media Engagement Posted: 18 Jan 2014 09:30 AM PST Think about the social media content you're most likely to like, share, comment or click on. What posts catch your eye? Humorous comments? Inspirational photos? Instructional videos? A sales pitch? Odds are you're most drawn to posts that aren't a solicitation to buy, but offer something informative or entertaining. The next question is, what type of content are you posting? Is it informative or entertaining or pitches? Too often, entrepreneurs focus on themselves when posting to social media. But doing that is like attending a dinner party and only talking about you. If you did that, most other guests would give you a wide berth. Social media is social, which means there is a back-and-forth conversation and the content should be compelling to everyone involved. Here are some tips to increase social media engagement with your market. 1. Give 'em what they want. Your market doesn't want to be sold. It wants information and resources to solve a problem. Instead of promoting your widget, post information on how widgets will make your market's life better. For example, you can post a video tutorial on how your widget reduces time or saves money. 2. Make it interesting. Images and video catch people's eye more than text. If you're using text, make them compelling, using attention-grabbing headlines. 3. Get 'em involved. Ask questions or seek feedback. "Coke or Pepsi?" "Boxers or Briefs?" You can take it even further by asking your market to post content for you such as sharing a testimonial, image or video of them using your product or service. 4. Be approachable. Every time I Tweet about Starbucks using its Twitter name, I never hear anything. But if I Tweet Comcast, CenturyLink or HP, I get a response. In fact, I fixed a printer problem by tweeting with someone at HP. Remember, social media is social. If you're not going to respond to people who contact you through social media, why bother doing it? Not responding is the same as ignoring. People don't like to be ignored. 5. Reach out to others. While you want to post compelling, interesting content, don't forget that you're not the only one at the party. Comment on and share other people's posts, as well. In fact, a great way to get yourself on someone else's radar is to engage with him first by responding to his posts. It would be nice to post on social media and have it go viral all on its own. But the reality is that if you want people to engage with you, you need to give them something of value and you need to engage with them.

What’s Your Social Media Personality? Posted: 18 Jan 2014 06:05 AM PST As you participate on social media websites, do you know that your activity can mode you into a particular social media personality? As you interact with others on social media, you are establishing a pattern of behavior that emerges and defines your social media personality. Let's explore the different types of social media personalities and the ways that knowing which type you are could help you be more effective in marketing your business on social media. What do I need to know about social media personality types? There are many different types of social media personalities. As you read this you might discover that you fit into more than one category. But that's not set in stone. Let's explore this further: Types of personalities – There are distinctly different varieties of social media personality types. Each one represents how you interact with your social profiles. Embracing my type – Once you become aware of your personality type you can use it to your advantage. In embracing your personality type you can tap into the strengths which will help you to market others that also fit into your type category. Changing my type – There is a chance that you might not like the type your defined as. If this is the case make yourself aware of your behavior. This way you can choose to do something different which will eventually change your type. How many personality types are there? According to PR Daily and author Michael Sebastian there are 12 different social media personality types. Here is a run down on each type: The Ultras – Happily checks their social feeds many times every day. The Dippers – Infrequently checks their social profiles, this can mean that days or even weeks go by before they check in. The Deniers - Feels anxiety over not being able to check their social profiles but denies feeling this way. The Virgins – New to social media, period. The Lurkers – Never participates in anything but watches other people interact. The Peacocks – Really popular on their social sites, getting likes, re-tweets and followers are a must. The Ranters – Extremely opinionated on their social sites but not in real-life situations. The Ghosts – Fearful of giving out personal information so their profiles are anonymous. The Changelings – Creates a new persona so no one knows that their online profiles belongs to them. The Quizzers – Uses questions to start conversations. The Informers – The first to share information in order to get recognition. The Attention Seekers – Needs responses to their postings. Why do I need to know what type I am? You may be wondering why this is important to know. As you evolve as a business owner you will find yourself playing many different roles in your business. Here are some the top reasons knowing your social media personality is important: Information means Awareness – When you are aware of your personality type when using social media you have better control over your actions. This allows you to be proactive in situations where your reaction might reflect badly on your business's reputation. Use it to your advantage – On the other side of the coin being aware of your personality when using social media can also help you to be better at marketing through social media channels. Helpful in figuring out who you're marketing too – This awareness also can be helpful in crafting posts in your marketing efforts. As with all things in marketing knowing as many details about your target market as you can allows you to speak directly to them. It can be really enlightening discovering your social media personality. In an effort to be a better marketer I've taken the time to learn as much as I can about myself and my target market. Tell me about your personality type in the comments below.

Mobile Cloud Computing Exploding To $4.4 Billion by 2017 Posted: 17 Jan 2014 03:08 PM PST According to a report from Smith's Point Analytics released late last year, mobile cloud services platforms are projected to grow over the next four years from $579 million to a staggering $4.4 billion in 2017. The mobile cloud is no joke! Of course, when you're making projections, you can come up with any numbers you like. But this is almost a tenfold increase, and we think that since the folks over at Smith's Point went to the trouble to compile a full report on the matter, we would offer our readers a glimpse into just how bright the future might be for the mobile cloud, and why it matters to small businesses. First, what is the "mobile cloud?" It's not that different from the plain ol' cloud, honestly. Apps and all their wonderful functions are supported by a massive back-end network that houses their databases, facilitates their messaging functions, keeps up with user locations, and ties in to other platforms, like social networks. In short, there's a lot of computer grunt work to be done to support the functioning of mobile apps, and the mobile cloud gets it all done in massive server rooms all over the world (that would surely give your grandfather a stroke if he saw the related utility bills). Thus, as the market for apps grows, the market for mobile cloud services grows along with it. And, as anyone with an Internet connection knows, the mobile world, including devices, apps, mobile websites, and more, is growing at an astounding pace. If trends continue, Smith's Analytics may well be proven right several years from now. Why should small business owners care? As always, we tie our observations back into how critical a time this is to "go mobile" (i.e. publish an app and make sure that your website is mobile-optimized). No matter what facet of the mobile world we view, we see increase and growth. No matter whose figures we use, we see users clamoring for more mobile solutions, and spending an increasing amount of time with device in hand. And no matter which report we read, we see a business world moving quickly (but often not quickly enough) to satisfy this demand from every angle. So, why should small business owners care? The world shifts a little bit more into the mobilesphere every day. If you want fresh opportunities and to connect with customers in an incredibly robust and cost-effective way, mobile is your best friend. There's really no other way to look at it, standing where we are today.

4 Social Media Blunders Every Company Makes (And How to Avoid Them) Posted: 17 Jan 2014 06:21 AM PST Would you like to avoid social media blunders? Many companies unknowingly make social media blunders. Learning about these four common problems and how to avoid them could help you steer clear of a social media nightmare. So here are four common social media blunders and tips on how to avoid them… 1: Forgetting the "Social" in Social Media Flickr Many companies treat social media like it's the Internet version of a bullhorn. They post announcements on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other sites, but that's the end of it. They never spend time reading replies; they never post follow-ups; they never take advantage of the social aspect of social media, and that defeats the entire purpose. This year however we did see a more concentrated effort by larger companies to be more interactive with their followers – albeit most of these resulted in a failed effort. A perfect example of this is recorded by J.P Morgan Chase. They became brave and opened up a Twitter Q&A session with followers. In this J.P Morgan asked people to tweet with the hashtag #AskJPM for career advice and a chance to speak directly with a top executive. It is safe to say this hashtag campaign backfired, tremendously. And yes as you could imagine JPM was forced to come with a quick reply and some PR control. This is where the human aspect of social media came into play. Although JPM failed in this, at least they were able to recognize the fact and re organize a social media strategy, staying far away from that hashtag campaign. How to Solve the Problem: Recognize that social media requires a back and forth effort. It isn't there for you to blast the internet with news. The smartest companies use social media to start conversations. You can address the issue by making sure you have a social media expert on staff. Even small businesses need someone who can take time to communicate with customers online. If you don't have a social media expert on your staff, then you're missing an opportunity to form relationships that encourage customers to think about you and turn to your business when they need something. 2: Ignoring Negative Comments Frustrated consumers often use Twitter and other social media platforms to air their complaints. A lot of companies don't do anything when they see these negative comments. According to some research, only 29 percent of people who used Twitter to post a complaint got a reply. That's a lost opportunity for businesses to correct problems, improve customer relations, and boost brand awareness. Ignoring those negative comments is also a good way to lose customers while developing a negative reputation. This year we saw a huge mistake by Home Depot doing exactly this – ignoring not only negative comments but every comment after posting this very controversial twitter post (in the screenshot below). This is a perfect example to further explain the importance of the social aspect in social media. Now take a look at this response (in the screenshot below) to all the negative comments, it might have even proved better to actually ignore them. How to Solve the Problem: You can keep up with customer comments by giving your social media team, tablets that make it easy for them to respond at any time. Choosing which tablet is best is the first step towards addressing this problem. When you have the right tools at your disposal you will be ready to handle anything that comes your way via social media. Then you need to make sure that your employees know how to respond appropriately. Make sure your social media and customer service teams understand the importance of addressing negative comments. Train them to: apologize for any problems that customers experience find solutions to those problems ask if they can address other issues to improve the customer's experience It's important to think about your brand and campaign ideas thoroughly. Try out ideas that serve a greater purpose for engagement over time as opposed to a single shot effort. There are several large and small companies doing this very well. RedBull is notorious for social media management and recently Hot Pockets has attempted a rebranding campaign using YouTube videos, twitter hashtags, and Facebook information to garner excitement. 3: Using the Same Strategies on All Social Media Sites Different types of conversations require different modes of communication. Think about it this way: you probably don't speak to your boss the same way you speak to your employees. It's almost like you use several different languages during the day. The one you choose depends on whom you're speaking with. A great example is the use of hashtags on Facebook. The social networking site decided to use this tool (following lead by Twitter) to drive more conversation and centralize search for users. While the idea is a good one, Facebook users have not adopted the hashtag well and for brands to be effective they must communicate properly – and know the difference between an effective placement and a placement just to fit in. The same goes for social media. You shouldn't use the same tone when posting on LinkedIn as Facebook. Unfortunately, a lot of companies don't understand the difference. Here are some social media statistics you may find surprising. Use these statistics to improve your social media strategy across all your networks. Those companies often post the same information on all of their accounts. That can feel oddly inappropriate to many readers. It can also make your messages look like spam. (Who wants to see the same message posted a half-dozen times?) Tailor your updates and consumers will respond. How to Solve the Problem: Spend some time reading what other companies post on sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Eventually, you'll get a feel for what types of messages work on each platform. You should also spend more time crafting messages for different services. Never post the same message on multiple sites. Write each one independently. Google Plus is a great recourse for small business to create a social presence and for larger companies to reach an untapped market. This service has not been adopted for mainstream social media strategies, but some larger companies are using Google + and with great success. Ford Motor Company posts daily on Google + and has a following of over 3 Million. Ford uses their Google + page to post YouTube videos and other content that they may leave out elsewhere. This is hugely effective. Whether your company is large or small, learn to take advantage of social media and tailor your message with every platform, this will help you gain better engagement overall. 4: Forgetting that Customers Want Something in Return Image via Flickr You want a lot of people to follow your company online. That's a given. A lot of organizations, however, never give people any incentive to click "like," "follow," or "share." they just expect it to happen. That rarely happens. Let's take a look at what a brand did on Facebook that resulted in a complete fail. Remember the goal for brands is to drive engagement from consumers, too often companies pressure people for engagement and this never works out well. Here is a look at what MSN did to drive engagement and earn a "Like", and yes this was not received well. Via We see these types of posts by companies often and they are a very generic way to involve your audience. Social media allows brands to take calculated risks and be creative – these types of posts seem directional and while the engagement is there it can carry a heavy double meaning for MSN. How to Solve the Problem: Start by asking yourself why anyone would follow your company? Do you expect them to do it just because they love the products and services that you offer? If that's the reason, then you're not making the most of social media. Offer your followers sneak peeks, discounts, fast responses, and engaging content. Those things encourage people to follow your company. If you don't give something back, then not many people will care enough to follow you. What social media blunders do you see companies make? How do you plan to avoid them? Please leave your comments below.

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