Ways Social Media Could Hurt a Business

A lot of people talks about the good and how effective social media is. These things are very much true but if not managed properly and took seriously these are a few errors social media can cause.

Error #1: A small business owner will not be able to effectively use social media if they don’t comprehend how and why it works.

Error #2: Not engaging your followers’ friends will keep you from reaching out to audiences beyond the ones you have.

Error #3: Not being original in your updates will dissuade people from looking at your posts.

Error #4: Not using social media for link building will stunt company growth.

Error #5: Not coming up with a plan and a goal will create only average results.



Which of these five errors you think is most important it cover? and Why?








http://coworktampa.com/cowork/5-social-media-errors-that-will-hurt-your-small-business/

Tweets About Nothing

I am following a lot of composers because it is my job. I wanted to find out more about their workspace and gear that they may use to record, but instead it is just tweets about what they had for lunch. I think twitter is great for certain aspects, but if you are trying to get a lot of information on the profession you are in then it is not a whole lot of help. Or so I have observed. I have yet to see a tweet from one of the composers I follow about the gear they use or even a picture of their studio. I was hoping to learn more about how other composers work and get a glimpse into how they do what they do. Instead it is just regular tweets about every day life. Which I guess is what twitter is mainly for. The businesses I follow are different. They at least tweet about new products or promotions, but as for individual people, the tweets are usually about nothing.

Re-tweeting

I am new to twitter. I did not have an account before this class, but I have found a few common things amongst the people I have followed. I started following composers and companies dealing with musical equipment since my job is composing music. What I observed was an overwhelming amount of re-tweets. Especially from one company I follow, Martin Guitars. Martin Guitars are a highly reputable guitar company with over 77,000 followers. Martin re-tweets people all the time, which in return ends up on my feed as well. So even though I am not following these people, they show up on my feed because Martin has re-tweeted them. If you can get the attention of a large company like Martin and get them to re-tweet your information then you can have a huge amount of free publicity to all of their followers.

SAMSUNG GALAXY GEAR

Samsung has came out with a wrist watch that has the capability to connect to your Samsung phone Galaxy Note 3. With a 1.6-inch AMOLED screen, upcoming third-party support and even a camera, this promises to be unlike any smart watch we've played with before. Still, the suggested MSRP of $300 is a pretty high price to pay for the convenience of looking at texts on your wrist. The watch has the ability to listen to music, go through contact, answer, and decline calls as well. This watch is a new generation device using apps such as Facebook, and Twitter. This is the next big thing. 

Iphone Adding Depth

The U.S. Patent and Trademark office on Tuesday revealed a newly-granted Apple patent that details a method for capturing stereoscopic image data in software, a possible precursor to a depth-enabled photography mode for the company's mobile devices. 

PSI (producing stereoscopic image)  a system in which a computer can identify two suitable digital photographs from a range of options, then combine those photographs into a single stereoscopic picture. This is adding depth to the image. This is particularly challenging,for photographers due to the need to manually ensure that the chosen photographs are properly matched. Most stereoscopic cameras can be use the effect by using two offset lenses in a design that mimics the way a person would view the scene. Where previous Apple patents covered the integration of multiple cameras into a single device, this new patent would allow stereoscopic images to be captured from only a single camera, with the work of selecting and aligning suitable photographs performed by the device, rather than the photographer. 

The Equinest

I think out of all the groups I followed The Equinest is my favorite one. It gives news updates on horse crimes or horse related crimes that have taken place. A horse was doused in Dublin, Ireland and set on fire. A horse was shot in a drive by in Amish country. To me this is all horse cruelty and stupidity on humans'. It's one of my biggest pet peeves when humans mistreat animals, especially horses to The Equinest tweets articles from horsetalk.co.nz and they're always interesting stories.

Horse Lovin'

As a horse lover I am continually looking for more information on the best care and training for my horses. I've learned about allowing horses to graze and eat with cattle. Whether or not markings are inherited, shock wave therapy or whether or not I need liability insurance. It's important for me to understand what is best for my horses so that they will be happy and content.

I recently bought a nine year old mare who needs a lot of work. By following groups and people (especially trainers) I've learned how to work with my mare to benefit the both of us. Working with my mare is one of my favorite past times and I by using my Twitter List I have quick access to articles that can help me with the care of my horse.

Business Intelligence Dashboard

What is a business intelligence dashboard you ask, well let me tell you.

A business intelligence dashboard is a data visualization tool that displays the current status of metrics and key performance indicators for a business. Dashboards consolidate and arrange numbers, metrics and sometimes performance scorecards on a single screen. They may be tailored for a specific role and display metrics targeted for a single point of view or department. The essential features of a BI dashboard product includes a customizable interface and the ability to pull real-time data from multiple source.

Oracle and Microsoft are among the vendors of business intelligence dashboards. BI dashboards can also be created through other business applications, such as Excel. Business intelligence dashboards are sometimes referred to as enterprise dashboards.

The business intelligence dashboard is often confused with the performance scorecard. The main difference between the two, traditionally, is that a business intelligence dashboard, like the dashboard of a car, indicates the status at a specific point in time. A scorecard, on the other hand, displays progress over time towards specific goals. Dashboard and scorecard designs are increasingly converging. For example, some commercial dashboard products also include the ability to track progress towards a goal. A product combining elements of both dashboards and scorecards is sometimes referred to as a scoreboard.

Twitter to the Rescue

Twitter has launched a new feature that sends alerts to people's twitter accounts concerning emergencies. These will only be tweets about urgent, life threatening emergencies such as floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc. The feature is only offered to the UK right now, and is only sent to those who have signed up for the feature. Twitter decided to create this program after the 2011 tsunami in Japan when people used twitter to find out information on the disaster that had occurred. Here is an example of an emergency tweet.

These tweets will contain an orange bell at the end of the tweet to make it stand out from the rest. With over 232 million monthly users, Twitter has found a way to do their part in keeping the public informed of disastrous situations.

- Do you think this is a good idea to use Twitter as the source for emergency alerts?

- Do you think the U.S. should adopt this feature?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24986263

10 Reasons to Market Via Email Continued

As an overview from the first article I wrote the first five reason to market vial email were: penetration, reach, lifespan, return-on-investment, and analytics. I'm going to finish up with the last five: engagement, integration, promotional, mobility, and personalization.

6) Engagement
You don’t usually hear the words “email” and “engagement” in the same sentence.
A question asked frequently among businesses is: When was the last time a subscriber replied to one of your emails? As a small business, email needs to become the ultimate engagement vehicle, a true 2-way street. We’re not talking about public engagement like Twitter or Facebook, we’re talking about one-on-one with prospects that have clearly expressed interest by joining the business' list.


7) Integration
The beauty of all this is that email and social media are friends, especially Facebook.
If you’re failing to see these potential connections, you’re probably wasting great opportunities not only for growth but to establish cross platform initiatives.

8) Promotional
77% prefer email to receive promotional content, while only 4% prefers Facebook, and LinkedIn users have zero (0%) tolerance for promotional messages. There is a natural perception users have for different networks and how that affects conversion. Facebook for example is viewed by the average user as a place to connect and interact with friends and family. You never hear “I can’t wait to see what Wells Fargo said on Facebook today." Email is perceived differently, perhaps due to its privacy or simply because we’ve grown used to receiving promotional items in the mix with other types.

9) Mobility
While it’s understandable that the majority of transactions will take place on the web, Mobile email already accounts for 13%. These are not small numbers and, while some marketers worry about having to be “compatible”, the smart ones are busy working on a whole new channel to deliver their messages: right to the hand of the subscriber!

10) Personalization
Email has the power to send one piece of content to thousands of people and still have some level of personalization. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, “Segmentation” of your list allows you to separate subscribers in different groups to send highly targeted messages depending on actions taken or specific times.

Recap
Yes, email is the only channel of communication that remains private, that is a direct connection between the business and the prospect, and most importantly, it has an opt-in process that turns it into the purest form of Permission Marketing

I love social media but, as they say, the money is in the list...


So what do you think? Is emailing customers important for marketing? Or is it a waste of time?
 
 

What Most Companies Don't Know

Social media has arrived, but companies still aren't sure what to do with it. 58% of companies are currently engaged in social networks like Facebook, microblogs like Twitter, and sharing multimedia on platforms such as YouTube - but research from the Harvard Business Review Analytics Services reports "The New Conversation: Taking Social Media from Talk to Action" finds that much of the investment in social is future-oriented.

Why do you think businesses are investing in social in the future, rather then the present?

Living on the Ocean

Have you ever seen the movie Waterworld? Where all the earth is under water now and everyone has to live on the ocean? The world may not be in danger of being completely covered by water, but the possibility of living on the ocean is now a reality. New technology has allowed architects to come up with good, sustainable, environments and homes for people to live on the ocean. The homes will comprise of a spherical shape that will allow it to stay stable and afloat during calm waters, and to submerge and stay unharmed during rough seas. A province in China has actually been living on the ocean since 700 AD and as per custom to their culture were not allowed to come onto land. So it can be done. The main concern with this is the depletion of supplies. The fish supply would go down as the amount of fishing in those certain areas would rapidly increase, but scientists say that the algae these pods will create will feed fish and multiply them and these fish will feed bigger fish which will in return feed humans,

- would you ever live on the ocean in one of these secure houses?

- what would be some concerns you have?

10 Reasons to Market Via Email

Email marketing has one problem: it's not as appealing or shiny as Social Media. Fortunately for your business, that's the only problem because when it comes to comparing them as marketing vehicles and return-on-investments. Email is by far the most effective way to directly affect your bottom line and actually grow your business.

Here are 5 of 10 ways that marketing emails will help your bottom line. I'll finish up the other 5 in my next post.

1) Penetration
There are more than 3.2 billion email accounts today. 95% of online consumers use email, and 91% check their email at least once a day. Simply, there is no competition. More importantly, it is such an integral part of life, no person walks around saying he will quit email.


2) Reach
The idea of "reach" is completely different between Social Media and Email. In social media there is the "potential reach" that refers to the number of followers. Granted, email is only opened by a fraction of subscribers, but the difference is that the actual message will reach its destination and then there is the option to read it.

In in the first half of 2013:

• 18% of all email messages were either blocked or went missing
• 4% were delivered to the spam or junk folder

Even if 22% emails get lost, there is still a higher potential than posting on Facebook where 74% of your messages are potentially missed.


3) Life Span
75% of Facebook post impressions were achieved in just two hours and 30 minutes and 75% of the "Reach" happens in only one hour and 50 minutes. The life span of a Tweet is so short, its popularity can be predicted in the first five minutes. Emails don't die. Email sits inside the subscriber's inbox waiting to be acknowledged, even if it's just to delete it.

4) Return-on-Investment
60% of marketers say email marketing is producing ROI and 32% believe it will eventually. For every $1 spent, $44.25 is the average return on email marketing investment. Both email and social media have costs, the difference is that most email providers have a monthly fee or some kind of cost and most social platforms don't. But social media isn't free.

5) Analytics
Social media has proven that measuring success is still under discussion and, many companies have different ways and systems to do so. Measuring ROI produces hundreds of blog posts every year without coming to a solid conclusion. Even the simply task of tracking traffic from social media is complicated. Email on the other hand has a set of solid metrics that have been standard for years: growth, open rate, click rate, complaints, unsubscribes, and you can take it from there and even track sales and revenue. A simple formula can tell you what the monetary value of your email subscriber is. Best of luck figuring out the value of the Twitter followers.

So what do you think so far? Do you think emails are a good way to advertise and to help your bottom line? Or do you think they are a waste of time? What happens when you have an advertisement pop up in your email? Do you open it or delete it?

Stealing Your Fingerprint

Apple released the iPhone 5s back in September, and one of the newest features was the fingerprint recognition. The fingerprint recognition allowed the user to unlock their phones with their fingerprints. Sounds like a great idea; very secure, fingerprints are one of a kind. A man in Germany however proves that is far from true. Fingerprints are everywhere. Anything we touch leaves a fingerprint, and with technology today all one has to do is take a picture of the fingerprint and they can make a copy of your unique one-of-a-kind fingerprint to use to unlock your phone. Granted not everyone in the world is smart enough to use this technology to gain your fingerprint, but the main point was to show that you should not rely on fingerprint security to hide important information. Your average Joe could use it on their phone because they probably are not running a business or have top secret information on their phone, but people who have very important data on their phones should not rely on the security of fingerprint recognition.

Do you have the new iPhone 5s?
Have you setup the fingerprint recognition?
Have you ever used a device that had fingerprint recognition? (i.e. computers, car locks, etc.)

How to Grow Your Business Network with Social Media

Before you can sell a product you have to project yourself as company or business and you have to create a trusted relationship with your future customer.  In this article, you’ll discover four ways to use social media to find and establish relationships with new prospects and leads for your business.

 

#1: Join a Conversation on Twitter

Tweet chats are great for person-to-person networking on Twitter and they can act as one of the single best lead generation tools in social media. You can consult a number of lists to quickly locate chats that are relevant to you. These lists include hashtags and other key information like date, time and the name of the host or owner of the chat.

The best thing about tweet chats is that while almost everyone starts out a stranger, over time the participants begin to know one another and develop relationships that extend beyond the regularly scheduled chat. During the chat, you’ll find people who ask questions you can answer. Your replies will be limited to 140 characters, so they’ll need to be as concise as possible. Use the opportunity to let participants know you’re open to accepting a follow and a direct message from them and carrying the conversation further by phone or on another platform.

 

#2: Participate in LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn groups hold a lot of opportunity for networking with people who fit your prospect profile. There’s an easy way to find the groups you are interested in. Hover on Interests in the header navigation and click on Groups. From here, click on More>> in the Groups You May Like box. From here, use keywords specific to your industry to search for and find groups relevant to your business. You can filter your search results by Relationship, Categories and Languages.

Visit the profiles of those folks and see if any of them fit your prospect profile. Follow them on LinkedIn to get to know them better and when the opportunity arises, ask them to connect with you. Use tags to sort your new contacts into one of two groups—prospects and strategic partners who can refer prospects. The tags will make it easier for you to keep track of the relationships as they evolve. If there’s not an existing group that fits your needs, create one to network with your current prospects and attract new ones.

 

#3: Share Insights From an Event

When you attend trade shows or conferences, share the highlights and notes with people who can’t attend and you’ll attract people interested in the same niche. On Twitter, share your notes in real time with your followers. Use the official event hashtag in your tweets so they are included in the larger conversation, and they’ll be visible to people who don’t follow you. Make sure you pay attention to new follows during this time, as they could well be new prospects for you. You can accomplish the same goal with your company’s website. A tool such as Storify will help you consolidate your notes into a blog post with a rundown of all of the most important points made during the conference.

Pay attention to the folks who follow along, comment or retweet your information. This is a simple way to surface invisible prospects that you might otherwise miss. Connect with each person on the platform or network that makes the most sense, and when the time is right, reach out and offer your help.

#4: Interview the People You Want to Work With

Use social media video tools for more strategic networking.
Here’s how it works. First you create a list of people with whom you most want to work. Arrange to do a quick interview with each one. Interview your subjects at industry conferences, launch events, maybe even in an airport during a layover. If you can’t be there in person, arrange to do the interview on a Google+ Hangout, then publish the video to YouTube. Don’t introduce your own product or service into the equation; rather let your interviewee shine. Ask a question that encourages your subject to showcase his or her own expertise, then turn those interviews into helpful content and share them on your social networks.

So what about you? Would you use Linkedin or Twitter to put your business on the map? Would you be willing to keep up with the responsibilities of posting and answering comments to keep your business thriving?

 

 

Video Meetings

Smaller businesses tend to communicate differently than larger entities. Instead of internal meetings, you spend more time reaching out individually to customers, prospects and partners. Making calls can be costly, especially if you’re talking to colleagues and customers on their mobile phones or when they’re in other parts of the world. Keeping costs to a minimum is vital to improving your bottom line. Do you think large business should use Skype to communicate, rather than taking time and effort to try and gather employee's to have a business meeting across multiple departments?

What is a Dashboard?

A dashboard gives you a display of the most important information of a company. It shows you the objectives you need to achieve consolidated to a single screen. This is so the information can be easily monitored at a glance. So in essence it is just a single page comprising of a businesses most important performance indicators. It helps not only executives, but the general workforce to see where the business is under performing and areas where they need to work on, or areas they are doing well in. 

The essential goal is to have it all on one page for easy access, just like the dashboard of your car. The dashboard in your car is there for you to look down at quickly and know what is going on in your car (such as check engine lights or speedometer). A businesses dashboard works essentially the same way. It's primarily used to find correlations, trends, outliers, patterns, and business conditions in data.

- Have any of you ever heard of dashboards before?

- Have you ever seen a businesses dashboard, or used one before?

- What could be some potential problems with a dashboard?

http://www.dashboardinsight.com/articles/digital-dashboards/fundamentals/what-is-a-dashboard.aspx

Kaltura: The New Youtube for Business

Could you imagine a business realm where your main mode of communication was solely based on media? Kaltura is an open source video platform with both Internet and Intranet functionality.  A bit like the corporate YouTube, Kaltura host live or on-demand videos of anything from employee training to product demonstration. These videos can be post publicly or privately behind the your company's firewall.

The original concept was built on the collaborative Wiki model, but uses media rather than text. Over time, the company changed its focus to providing an open source video platform with a focus on universities, enterprises, media companies and service providers looking to deploy video in their organizations. Companies that include: Texas Instruments, HBO, SAP, The University of Virginia, Best Buy, Coldwell Banker, the NBA, Nestle, Arizona State University and several others.

Do you think this is a good tool for companies to be a part of? Why? If you answered "no," why not?

"A picture is worth a Thousand words"

"A picture is worth a Thousand words"

 

 If you come to believe this is true, then a great social network for you to join is Instgram!

Instagram was created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger and launched in October 2010. The service rapidly gained popularity, with over 100 million active users as of April 2012. This application can not be accessed through internet so unfortunately you would have to have an smart phone. The applicaton is supported through Apple store, Google play, and other applications engines. Instagram is all about capturing the moment. You are able to snap a picture, or newly added video of what ever is important to you, then filter it, then show the world. Also if you hash tag your picture it is placed in a category and whom ever  search the hash tag for example "football" all pictures and videos pertaining to football will show up. So it can be a great way to get products out into the world for everyone to view them.  Do you have an Instagram? If so, name one thing that you think should be added. If you don't do you think you will ever create one?

The New Face of Business

Like Facebook, LinkedIn is a social networking site, but for the business realm. It's a place where you can build your professional identity online and stay in touch with colleagues and classmates. You'll be able to power your career by discovering professional opportunities, business deals, and new ventures. Finally, you'll learn and share by getting the latest news, inspiration, and insights you need to be great at what you do.

LinkedIn was founded in December 2002 and was launched May 3, 2003 and as stated before it is used mostly for professional networking. As of June 2013, LinkedIn reports more than 225 million acquired users in more than 200 countries and territories. One purpose of the site is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people with whom they have some level of relationship, called Connections. Users can invite anyone (whether a site user or not) to become a connection. However, if the invitee selects "I don't know" or "Spam", this counts against the inviter. If the inviter gets too many of such responses, the account may be restricted or closed.

This list of connections can then be used in a number of ways:

• A contact network is built up consisting of their direct connections, the connections of each of their connections (termed second-degree connections) and also the connections of second-degree connections (termed third-degree connections). This can be used to gain an introduction to someone a person wishes to know through a mutual contact.
• Users can not upload their resume any more. This was a feature but became redundant in late 2012.
• It can then be used to find jobs, people and business opportunities recommended by someone in one's contact network.
• Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates.
• Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers and discover which of their existing contacts can introduce them.
• Users can post their own photos and view photos of others to aid in identification.
• Users can now follow different companies and can get notification about the new joining and offers available.
• Users can save (i.e. bookmark) jobs that they would like to apply for.

LinkedIn has been described by online trade publication TechRepublic as having "become the de facto tool for professional networking." LinkedIn has also been praised for its usefulness in fostering business relationships. "LinkedIn is, far and away, the most advantageous social networking tool available to job seekers and business professionals today," according to Forbes.

Are you a LinkedIn user? If so how do you use it and do you like it? If you don't like it, why not? If you don't have an account and would like to set one up, click on the image below.

Most used Social Network!

Which Social Network do you Use the Most, and 1 Reason why?

(A) Instagram

(B) Facebook

(C) Twitter

(D) Linked-In

Etsy

For those of you who do not know; Etsy is a website that allows anyone and everyone to sell artwork, handmade items, and vintage items. Their mission statement is, “Our mission is to reimagine commerce in ways that build a more fulfilling and lasting world.” It is different from eBay in the fact that it allows people to sell stuff they make, and they even will put your design onto canvas, or phone cases, or even pillows. You could sell things you make on eBay, but eBay is geared more towards selling manufactured items and no one goes to eBay looking for handmade art. I found an article about the importance of promoting your Etsy business through Facebook. There are over 800 million Facebook users and the majority of Facebook users are the type of customer Etsy people are looking for. Facebook is an excellent way to promote your Etsy business in the way that you can impact one person and that one person could share it with numerous other people and it creates a chain of free promotion. There is also an app called Promotesy that helps you promote your account for only $5 a month.

Have any of you ever heard of Etsy?

Do you have an Etsy account or have you ever purchased anything from Etsy?

If so, how did you hear about it, or what led you to the site?

http://www.handmadeology.com/facing-the-facebook-facts/

www.etsy.com