Business | One Social Media

5 Embeddable Resources You Could Be Using To Enhance Your Blog And Keep Visitors Coming Back For More

May 26, 2011 By Rob Wormley 1 Comment

For a lot of businesses, the idea of blogging can be scary. It’s easy for a CEO to decide that his or her company needs to have a blog. For most blogging platforms, the setup process is fairly simple. In fact it only takes a matter of seconds. The hard part, however, comes when the person who has been put in charge of running the company blog realizes they have no idea what to write about. So what’s the secret to running a successful, interesting, valuable blog that keeps people coming back for more? It all comes down to two things: strategy and creativity. That’s it.

Here’s the deal: Blogging isn’t hard. It just takes a little strategy, and a little creativity. Blogging is a must for all companies. Joe Soto, CEO of One Social Media, said it best at a recent social media luncheon that he spoke at following New York Times bestselling author Jeffrey Gitomer’s sales seminar. When speaking on the topic of blogging, he said: “If you don’t have a blog, you’re not taking your business seriously.”

To help you come up with effective blog strategies, AND to help you boost your creativity, I’d like to share 5 embeddable resources that will help you enhance your blog and keep visitors coming back for more.

1. VYou
Site: http://vyou.com
What it is: The concept behind VYou is simple, yet ingenious: Ask a question about a topic—get a video response. Click here to learn more.
Strategy Tip: Set up a VYou account and start interacting with your clients. It provides a great opportunity for organizations and companies who want to start connecting with customers on an entirely new level. Invite people to interact with you on VYou by embedding your profile in a blog post.
Cost: Free
Example:

2. ISSUU
Site: http://issuu.com
What it is: ISSUU is the leading digital publishing platform on the web. It’s a site that allows you to upload and share publications.
Strategy Tip: Create a profile on ISSUU for your company and start uploading your brochures, reports, case studies, and any other marketing materials you have. Then embed your publications into a blog post on your company blog.
Cost: Free
Example:

3. Prezi
Site: http://prezi.com
What it is: A new way to present information. Prezi allows you to take your personal or corporate messages, meetings, and speeches to the next level by helping you create visually-stunning presentations.
Strategy Tip: Set up your account on Prezi, then spend some time learning how to use it. In the meantime, share other presentations that you come across by embedding them into your next blog post. Search for a topic that relates to your industry.
Cost: Free
Example:

Power of storytelling on Prezi

4. Twitter Search Feed
Site: http://twitter.com/about/resources/widgets
What it is: A Twitter widget that allows you to create a live stream of tweets based on a specific search term.
Strategy Tip: Search for a word(s) that relate to your industry. Help keep your clients and future customers informed by embedding a Twitter search widget into your next blog post.
Cost: Free
Example:

5. LiveShare by Cooliris
Site: http://www.cooliris.com/yoursite/express/builder
What it is: A new way to share YouTube videos, Flickr photostreams, Facebook photos, and more!
Strategy Tip: Use LiveShare by Cooliris to share your company’s YouTube channel with your clients. Embed the LiveShare app into your next blog post.
Example:

Hopefully these ideas will help get you started. At the least, they will help you drastically improve your next five blog posts. Just use one resource per blog post and share them across all your social media sites. You’ll be pleasantly surprised with the positive feedback you receive. The key to using your blog as an effective resource for future business is all about value, and in order to provide value on your blog, you need to invest in two things: strategy and creativity.

Still have questions? Ask me on Twitter. I’m @robwormley.

Rob Wormley
As a social media specialist, Rob thrives in situations that require constant creativity. On days when Rob isn’t working hard to create, maintain, and strengthen relationships online, you might find him spending time with family, browsing through his nearest bookstore, or sipping on a cup of coffee at his local Starbucks.
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Filed Under: blogging, Creativity, search engine optimization, Social Media, social media marketing, Social Media Trends Tagged With: blogging, Business, business blog, business blogging, business networking, des moines social media company, des moines social media firm, One social media, online marketing, social marketing blog, social media blog, social media company, social media des moines, social media iowa, social media trends, web trends

How To Improve Your Writing For Social Media (In 140 Characters Or Less)

May 14, 2011 By Rob Wormley Leave a Comment

To see the real-time stream of these tweets on Twitter, click here.

Rob Wormley

As a social media specialist, Rob thrives in situations that require constant creativity. On days when Rob isn’t working hard to create, maintain, and strengthen relationships online, you might find him spending time with family, browsing through his nearest bookstore, or sipping on a cup of coffee at his local Starbucks.

10 Reasons Why Your Competition Is Beating You On Social Media

April 29, 2011 By Rob Wormley 3 Comments

Although you might not want to admit it, I bet you’re paying attention to how your competition is doing on social media. Have you noticed lately that their social media profiles are growing a lot faster than your company’s social media profiles? It might be because of one of these ten reasons:

1. Your competition has a presence on multiple social media sites. While you’re spending all your time updating your company’s Facebook page, your competition is busy sending out tweets, uploading YouTube videos, connecting with potential leads on LinkedIn, creating a new album of photos on their Flickr photostream, and updating their blog. Your competition understands the importance and value of building an online brand presence through the use of multiple social media platforms.

Create a presence on all the popular social media sites

2. Your competition is updating their social media profiles consistently. Your competition’s social media profiles continue to grow because they continue to provide consistent, valuable content to their followers. They have maintained a loyal following thanks to the consistent updates they post on their social media profiles, and have even started attracting new followers.

3. Your competition is going out of their way to invite customers to connect with them on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Are you telling the customers who walk into your door about your social media presence? Is it in your brochures? Your quarterly newsletter? Your email signature? On the back of your restaurant menu? Your competition is going out of their way to invite customers and prospects to connect with them on their favorite social media sites.

4. Your competition is posting a variety of content. Your competition isn’t re-posting promotional text from their website. They are creating Facebook photo albums of their last corporate event. They’re finding interesting links that relate to their industry and sharing them with followers. They are uploading client testimonial videos and behind-the-scenes video tours to their YouTube channel. Your competition is posting content that they know their followers will like. They aren’t worried about leaving out the promotional text from their website, because they are attracting new customers by providing value.

Create a Flickr photo gallery and share it on Facebook

5. Your competition is cross-promoting. Your competition is telling their Twitter followers about their Facebook page. They are ending every YouTube video by inviting viewers to connect with them on their other social media sites. They are embedding their Facebook page feed into their blog. They understand that their LinkedIn connections might not ever realize they have a Flickr account unless they occasionally share links to their Flickr photostream on their LinkedIn profile.

6. Your competition isn’t afraid to answer the hard questions. If you’re afraid to answer the tough questions that people might post on your company’s Facebook page, don’t be. Your competition isn’t afraid. In fact, they encourage their followers to ask tough questions, because they see it as an opportunity to strengthen their online reputation. Instead of ignoring or deleting tough questions that show up on their Facebook page, they’re being proactive. They’re taking the time to come up with a helpful, thoughtful answer that will show people how much they care about their customers.

7. Your competition is customizing their profiles with recognizable brand designs. You might understand the importance of presenting a consistent brand design when promoting your business in the physical world (you have a standard design or logo that appears on your flyers, your company shirts, your store sign, and your press releases), but you’re not (successfully) incorporating your company’s consistent design into your social media profiles. Your competition has taken time to design visually-interesting, customized designs for all their social media profiles.

: Customize Your Social Media Sites

8. Your competition is taking time to listen to advice, suggestions, and other helpful comments. Your competition is not only improving their online reputation by listening to advice and comments made by their followers, but they’re also using these comments to improve their business in general. They value the interaction that is happening on their social media profiles, and they are using suggestions made by followers to evolve their business in the physical world.

9. Your competition is utilizing social media tools to become the expert in your industry. Where are your potential customers going to learn more about your industry? If you think it is your website (or your competition’s website), you are wrong. Your potential customers are learning about your industry on places like Facebook and Twitter because it’s easy for them. Your competition understands that. That’s why they are going out of their way to provide valuable content and information to people on their social media profiles. They are becoming the experts in your industry.

10. Your competition has support from employees, clients, and other businesses in the community. Your competition is succeeding on social media because they have support from every employee who works for the company. Every one of their employees is promoting the company’s social media profiles in email signatures, at meetings with potential clients, and everywhere else. Your competition also has support from clients. They even have support from other businesses in the community who are interested in building a relationship online with them.

: Interact with other businesses in the community

If you want to start seeing better numbers on your social media sites, implement some of the strategies that your competition is implementing. Use this list to beat your competition on social media. Become the expert in your industry. Invite your customers to connect with you on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and any other social media site you use. Listen to what your followers have to say. Update your profiles consistently, and provide value. It’s worth your effort and your time.

Still have questions? Ask me on Twitter. I’m @robwormley.

Rob Wormley

New Social Media Platforms For Innovative Marketers

September 10, 2010 By Joe Soto 4 Comments

Have you noticed how big brands like Starbucks, Nike, Adidas and others are making their presence felt on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter? Every company today is adopting social media marketing as a prominent tool to reach out to its target customers, but some innovative marketers have gone a step beyond by experimenting with lesser known social media platforms to reach to their target audience. To know more about a couple of out-of-the-box social networking sites read on…

Aardvark

If you are looking for an alternative to the LinkedIn Answers, then Aardvark is probably the name you can count upon. Being recently acquired by Google Aardvark is a useful question-answer platform.

Gowalla

With 450,000 users it is a new location based application based in Austin, Texas. Gowalla is the latest favorite of innovative marketers, and brands like National Geographic, Red Bull and Levi’s are some of the popular names that are exploring this new platform for social media marketing.

To read the full article click here.

Joe Soto

Joe Soto is the CEO of One Social Media. A leading expert in social media marketing, Joe has over 12 years of experience in all aspects of sales, marketing, online lead generation, and Internet marketing.

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Filed Under: Social Media News Tagged With: 2010 trends, blogging, Business, business blogging, des moines social media company, facebook, One social media, online marketing, search engine marketing, small business social media, social media, social media des moines

Exploiting social media for raising popularity of your business

July 2, 2010 By Joe Soto 1 Comment

Do you use social media to market your business? It is certainly one of the best steps you can take in today’s social media savvy business world, but you have got to do it the right way, in order to get any real value out of it. Improper usage of social media channels will only make your business lose popularity, and doom all your efforts to waste. Here is how you can exploit your social media channel to maximum effect:

Keep it active: This is perhaps the rule of thumb in any social media campaign. Never let any of your social media channels to become stagnant. It is alright if you post just 1-2 posts per network every day, but do that much at the very least. An inactive social network does not only fail to bring in new followers, but may also start losing existing ones, which is something you do not want to happen.
Put up something of value: Don’t just post random fluff about your business in the networks. Put up related links of good quality, interesting news that is actually good to read. It is this kind of links that generate the most traffic. Also, keep track of what kinds of comments your social media network members are making against the posts. If you do not have much time in hand to look into it yourself, get some of your employees to get it done.
Make some small talk: Allow your employees to work on the social networks, and ask them to make some idle banter. That’s alright; it will give your social media network a genuine feel and attract more visitors. Tell them to interact with visitors on a regular basis. That should automatically boost the popularity of your social media network.
Get viral: Have a viral video created and uploaded on your social media channels. An in-house video of a kitten playing with the CEO’s stress ball can actually get pretty viral within a short time. Slap on a catchy caption, upload it on your YouTube media channel and share the link with your entire social media network. Track comments made on the video, and reply to as many as you (or your staff) possibly can.

Keep your social media network active through regular participation. Keep your visitors entertained and they will pay you back in brand loyalty. Start now; tomorrow might be too late.

Learn more about One Social Media, an Iowa based social media marketing firm, by visiting www.onesocialmedia.com today!

Joe Soto

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Filed Under: social media marketing Tagged With: Business, Internet Marketing, One social media, social media, social media des moines, social media iowa, social media marketing, Social network, Viral video

Ecommerce Benefits Substantially From Social Media Networks, New Study Reveals

June 29, 2010 By Joe Soto Leave a Comment

Social media networks can no longer be ignored by any successful online marketer. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter can probably boost profit margins of almost any company that carries out ecommerce. A recent study has revealed that the impact of social media networks on businesses is definitely more than ever believed, and these are, beyond doubt, the most powerful tools in the hands of any company.

In a recent study sponsored by Social Media Success Summit 2009 and carried out by Michael Stelzner, some unforeseen trends in social media have emerged, which may eliminate any hesitation online ecommerce businesses have about using social media channels extensively.

The trend, however, was quite positive, as the study reported that around 88% of online marketers were using eCommerce extensively for their businesses. 72% of marketers reported that they had embraced social media in the last few months. The study revealed that four types of social media tools were used the most by online marketers nowadays. These were:

Twitter – This microblogging platform sure has gained huge popularity among online marketers. The option to include a short link directed towards webpages highlighting target products is simply too good to pass up. Besides, the 140 character limit on the posts automatically makes it possible to post several tweets in an hour or less, which simply cannot be beaten yet by any other social media platform.
Blogs – Although creating blog posts about products and services do require plenty of hard work, there is something really cool about being able to highlight upcoming products or services, as well as creating hype over existing ones, all in an attempt to create interest in the possible consumers’ minds and benefiting financially from the same.
LinkedIn – The popularity of this platform should not surprise anyone, given its ability to allow users to become familiar with people operating in similar business domains. This can, in turn result in formation of successful business partnerships.
Facebook – In spite of having more members than Twitter, this massive social network with over 400 million members is still not the preferred one for most online marketers. However, the popularity curve is certainly on the rise, and it may eventually rise higher in the list anyway.

All in all, the study has revealed that social media networks rule the roost among the online marketing tools. In the coming days, the popularity can only increased even higher.

Joe Soto

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Filed Under: social media marketing Tagged With: Business, des moines social media company, facebook, LinkedIn, Marketing, One social media, social media, social media des moines, social media for small businesses, social media iowa, social media marketing company, social media services, Social network, twitter

3 Ways to Properly Use Social Media in Your Business

June 25, 2010 By Joe Soto Leave a Comment

Social media is undoubtedly the most powerful medium that you can use to boost your business revenue and expand your business network as well. However, in order to exploit the potential of social media to the fullest, you must use it properly. There are certain tips and tricks that you should always keep in mind when using social media network for business. Here are 3 top tips regarding how you can do that:

Be honest and authentic: Always give facts to your consumers and potential leads. Putting in lots of fluff and tall tales may make your company seem impressive initially, but once the exaggerations are discovered, your reputation will fall flat. Give accurate facts, which are verifiable.
Be consistent: If you are maintaining a business oriented approach in your social media network, be sure to maintain the trend. If you are using social media networks to indulge in more interpersonal conversations with consumers and business leads, that is fine too. But do maintain consistency in the way you are approaching your network. If you change the way you are networking all of a sudden, people in your network will feel confused.
Be helpful: Has any of your consumers or clients expressed concerns over any particular product or service that you provide? Then try to be as helpful as you can, and try to provide a solution through the network itself. Other people will see both the problem and the solution, and will appreciate your prompt action. This little helpfulness can go a long way in improving the reputation of your brand.

These three are the core tactics that you should always follow in your social media networks that are used for business. Be consistent, and helpful to your consumers and potential sales leads. They will pay you back in loyalty over a long period of time.

Joe Soto

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Filed Under: Social Media for Small Business Tagged With: Business, des moines social media company, One social media, social media, social media des moines, social media for small businesses, social media iowa, social media marketing company, social media policy, social media services

Social Media can Act as a Bridge between You and New Clients: Here's How

May 15, 2010 By Joe Soto 1 Comment

Using social media to keep in touch with your clients may seem like a very good idea, but finding new clients through the same is a different ball game altogether. Your website may have gained several thousand visitors on a regular basis as a result of your all-out social media campaign. But unless you manage to nail some new deals through it, the campaign does seem to lose a lot of its oomph.

Here are some pointers regarding how you can use your social media campaign to pick up some new clients:

Locate a relevant niche: Check out their websites and social media accounts of your potential leads to find out what kinds of content they access the most. Identify the niche market that they deal in. Then, start posting links relevant to their business in your business blog, social media accounts, etc.
Approach discreetly: Once you have built the background, it is time to observe conversations going on in the client

Joe Soto
Joe Soto is the CEO of One Social Media. A leading expert in social media marketing, Joe has over 12 years of experience in all aspects of sales, marketing, online lead generation, and Internet marketing.
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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Blog, Business, Internet Marketing, Marketing and Advertising, Mass media, Niche market, social media, Website

Are B2B Marketers Less Social Network Savvy Than They Should Be?

May 13, 2010 By Joe Soto Leave a Comment

Social media is the all new buzzword among many major business organizations. But how far has the B2B marketers, who would possibly be able to exploit the tool to its fullest potential, been able to adapt themselves to it? Theoretically, marketers can harness the power of social media to reach out to hundreds, or possibly thousands of new clients every month. A research conducted by marketing automation firm Genius.com, and the popular BtoB Magazine in March 2010, however, tells an altogether different story.

The research found that as many as 50% of business-oriented marketers have shied away from popular social media tools like Twitter, and just as many never bothered to blog about their businesses. Facebook had a better acceptance rate, with nearly 60% of B2B marketers sporting customized user profiles and respectably strong networks. LinkedIn, perhaps the most business-oriented social network, had user accounts of as many as 75% OF B2B marketers, making it the most popular tool among the ones examined.

Any social network can offer various advantages to B2B marketers, most of which warrant that marketers exploit these tools. Some of the significant advantages include:

Improved communication between suppliers and customers, which can only increase the profits as time progresses. Besides, the social networks also allow the marketers to find new prospects, and follow up with them, resulting in a chance to boost the number of leads a marketers can possibly identify within a certain timeline.
Better collaboration between business partners, which can be particularly significant if the partners are located at different geographical locations.
More streamlined development process for new products, which is possible by improving the communication channel between product developers and marketers who would actually sell those to consumers.

The report clearly had a silver lining in the dark cloud, when it stated that B2B marketers who do use social networks do so more dedicatedly than their B2C counterparts. However, it also lamented the fact that