What exactly is Social Media Marketing?

In the brave new world of Web 2.0 various terms have become part of the language.  People throw them around with the expectation that everyone knows what they mean.  From more common words such as Social Media, Tweeting, Poking, to a bit more obscure words such as SEM, SEO, fan building, etc.

This brave new world need not be scary.  And it is never too late to jump into the mix.  But before you get into marketing your business via Social Media sites, let’s look at what is considered Social Media Marketing.

The term refers to a way for a business that can interact with their customers/fans on a more one to one basis.  Yes, there is Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and more sites that allow companies to do this; but these are merely tools that allow for a more interactive communication between the two.

So the question becomes, is it necessary?  By all means yes! 

Social Media monitoring is very important as you want to know what kind of conversations are happening around your business.  If there are unhappy customers out there, you want to reach out to them and make them happy.  If there are loyal customers who are talking about your business, you want to reach out to them and reward them.

For example, Home Depot monitors tweets of their rival Lowe’s customers.  Whenever there is an unhappy tweet about Lowe’s they offer them discount coupons to Home Depot.  This kind of marketing can create a positive buzz for potential clients and some good will.

Next blog article we will talk about some of these tools you can use to begin your Social Media Marketing for your business. 

WiseStamp – Email Signature Platform

Working for large companies means that you have many resources available to you.  It also means that there are a lot of rules and regulations of what you can and can’t do.  This includes your email signature, where the company may have a standard format available to all their employees.

But for many, creating a cool email signature with links to their social networking profiles for personal emails is just as important.  WiseStamp provides this feature to your email program.  The company claims that the E-Mail signature works with your web based email programs (Gmail, yahoo mail, AOL Mail, and Hotmail).  In out tests, we used the plug-in for Chrome and tested it successfully on Gmail.  We had issues with Yahoo mail as the email signature did not insert in out emails. 

WiseStamp has various plans available; the free version allows you to have two different types of email signature.  In our tests we created a personal email signature and a business version.  The options for your email signature are various, from your social icons (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr) to features that are both fun to use and interesting such as random quote, green footer, legal disclaimer.   The program also allows for your latest Tweets, StumbleUpon, Digg, and other social updates to be included as your email footer.  At last you can put your IM information in there (Yahoo, Google, AOL, Skype).

WiseStamp has developed plug-ins for Chrome, Safari and Firefox which makes it very easy to include email signatures. 

We also noticed that team was very responsive with their customers.  On Facebook, when a user had issue with latest Firefox the development team resolved the issue rather quickly and released the patch.

We believe that this is a great product and a worthy plug-in for your web browser. 

Social Photo Books - Keepsy

Making a photo album or a scrapbook of a wedding or an engagement party is often fun.  But until now it has been a solo gig.  You have to go through your photos of the party and upload them; once done you can print the photo book or publish your album, hoping you caught most of the people at the event. Once published, you will always have someone complaining that there were no pictures of them. Keepsy hopes to resolve that issue by bringing people together to create one album from multiple people.

Keepsy is now providing a “social” twist to creating a photo album.  You create a project and then you can invite your friends to join in on that album.  Each of you will upload your photos and you create an album from variety of perspectives.  This provides your project with some unique photos that you had no access to (Unless you begged the photographer to send you digital copies), as well as makes the process of creating a photo album more interesting and fun.

The digital copy of your scrapbook that you create on the site is free, while a printed album starts at around $30.    

Check Keepsy out and let us know for what events you will be using them for. 

Location Based Applications

By now you probably have heard of location based applications on the smart phones.  There are a few of them out there such as, Foursquare, Facebook Places, Gowalla, SCVNGR, Whrrl, and Loopt.  They allow the users to “Check-In” when they are at a location. This then gets sent out to all their connections on Twitter, and Facebook if they have the accounts linked.

So as a business owner how will these applications help you? First we need to look at who is using these applications.  According to Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project; about 8% of adults between ages of 18-29 are using these applications.  While this number is not large, it is a fast growing segment of social media users.  

As a business owner you could take advantage of this new technology to reach a younger audience for your business. Many of these applications allow business owners to offer deals to their customers for checking in or being the mayor of the location.  It could be as simple as a 20% discount, to a free cup of coffee, but this brings interest to your potential customers. 

In addition, after every check-in the customer is announcing to his/her friends that they have come to your location.  Each check-in can reach an average of 100 people (based on average number of friends each person has on Facebook).   A promotion like this is priceless.  

Company Spotlight - The Hot Lunch Lady

Niki Rafatjoo launched The Hot Lunch Lady after watching so many kindergarteners drinking soda and eating chips for lunch.  She thought that there had to be a better way to get them to eat healthier food and so last year she launched The Hot Lunch Lady. Niki’s catering business provides more than 300 launches to 10 Orange County schools.

After launching her new restaurant in San Juan Capistrano Niki began thinking of ways to promote her business, but with a tight budget she had limited options.  On her first to do list was to become visible in the Social Media world. 

A Facebook fan page was the first step, after reaching out to her friends and family The Hot Lunch Lady began its official Social Media Marketing Campaign.  Then the other major Social Media sites were added to the list such as Twitter and Yelp. 

To keep customers engaged The Hot Lunch Lady began the “Daily Fun Fact” which provided the audience with some interesting fact about the food or ingredients they served.

Today The Hot Lunch Lady followers eagerly await the latest deals and specials so they can enjoy their favorite meals and are constantly updated by Niki via the Social Media tools.