Why Blogging is Not a Viable Business Model

Here is Wikipedia on the topic of business:

So, does your blog satisfy the above definition of a business?

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Top 10 Best Social Media Blog Posts of 2011

Social Media Top 10 Posts

It’s the end of the year and I am very glad for the year we have had. We have made improvements to the website and our blog. Robert (Social Media Strategist) and Miguel (PHP Programmer) have joined the Branding Personality team, and our team has written about many social media topics.

Here is a recap of our blog based on the most popular posts this year:

#10: Social Media + Restaurants = Increased Foot Traffic
This post is geared to the Restaurants that want to benefit more from Social Media, but don’t know where to start. Most restaurants do ‘something’ with social media. But to our findings, most aren’t doing it consistent enough, frequent enough or interesting enough to profit from it. We plan on doing more outreach to restaurants specifically in 2012.

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WordPress Websites Rock and here are 6 reasons why

These days a lot of people start off using WordPress by signing up for an account on WordPress.com for their personal blogs, others install WordPress on their own domain. You start off with a small simple blog and then you start customizing it a bit. A plugin here, a sidebar widget there and now your blog is really rockin’. Within a few weeks you have added a couple of pages and a few more plugins and widgets and your little blog is looking more and more like a full fledged website! (more…)

Social Media + Restaurants = Increased Foot Traffic

Social Media Restaurants

Social Media + Restaurants, a successful combination. This post is especially for the Restaurant and Bar owners who aren’t taking advantage of social media marketing. Most restaurant owners are busy 24/7 and there is little time for them to learn the ins and outs of social media. But restaurant owners, you are missing out!

Honestly, it doesn’t take too much to send out a tweet or a Facebook post, which could really drive foot traffic into your place. Take a look at how technology is changing, and how people are using their phones now to find good places to eat, drink and hangout. (more…)

Facebook’s Privacy Overhaul: What you need to know!

It’s about time, Facebook! It took Mr. Zuckerberg long enough to realize that we want more PRIVACY! Since its conception, Facebook users have had issues with the privacy settings on their Facebook profile. Well here at last we have a little more control over what people can see and what they can tag you in.

In the next few days Facebook plans to roll out over a dozen new changes that make up two main categories: Profile privacy and the way in which users can share content. These major changes come after Google+ makes some headway to becoming the fastest growing social network in the world! (Check out our article on what Google+ is and how to use it) Essentially, Facebook has taken some of what Google+ offers and has integrated it into Facebook profiles.

New Privacy Settings

Facebook is done with the bulky privacy settings page and has now embedded them right on to the profile page. When you edit your profile page, a box on the right hand side will be there for you to edit your privacy settings, for that section. In addition, Facebook has taken the “View Profile As” page and moved it directly onto your profile page. Instead of going to the privacy settings to see this, it will now be on the top right of your profile page. You can now just type in someone’s name  too see what your profile looks like too them, according to the settings you have enabled.

Along with showing you what others can see, Facebook has enabled a privacy feature to let you review tags from Locations, Pictures, and Posts before anyone else can see them on your profile. This includes people that aren’t Facebook friends with you as well. Now anyone can tag anyone else, but that person must review it before it gets posted to his or her page.

Content Sharing

That’s just half of it. Facebook has made some serious changes to the way we will be able to share content. Facebook takes a page from the new entrant Google +’s book, on content sharing. Just like Google+, Facebook has upgraded its publisher bar to include location, tags, and control over who can see your content. As mentioned above, you can now approve tags by friends or you can have an approved list of friends that can tag you without your approval. Facebook Places has also been integrated into the publisher bar. Now you can just “check in” through a status update, as well as tag photos and videos from that location. With this comes the upgrade on Facebook’s mobile app for iOS and Android. You will notice that Places has been replaced with “Nearby”, a section where you can see recent check-ins around your current location.

Facebook allows you to now pick and choose who sees your status updates just like Google+. You can choose to share a status with the “Public” which is anyone who can see your profile, or you could choose groups of particular people to share your status update. Clearly a move that needed to happened since the arrival of Google+.

Untagging

The last of the privacy changes is the ability to now untag yourself from Facebook content. They have come up with three new options that include untagging yourself from photos, asking the photo uploader to take down the photo, or block that person on Facebook.

Google+ must have really shaken up the industry this summer, for Facebook to revamp all their privacy settings, after it being criticized for so long. This summer of Social Media has been quite an interesting one to follow. What else can we expect to be taking place in the near future?

Foursquare Phenomenon: Are you Checked In?

I’m sure by now you have at least heard of this foursquare business. Where people “Check-In” to the locations in which they are currently at. Its been sweeping the country in droves and becoming larger by the day. Well, just incase you don’t have a clue as to what I’m rambling about; let me let you in on the big secret.

What is FourSquare?

Foursquare is a location-based mobile application that makes cities more interesting to explore, and new places easier to find. It mixes reviews, maps, social media, and fun all into one place, right on your phone! By “Checking In”, users are able to share their location with others, as well as collect points and badges to compete against their friends. It’s really just a big interactive location based game, that lets people know where they can find their friends or find out where the hippest places in town are located. What’s great about the application is that it allows you to bookmark information for certain places as well as leave tips for those users who haven’t been there yet. So if you had a great dish at a restaurant, or you want to let someone else know how to beat the lines, just leave a tip for that location and everyone who looks at that location can see it!

Badges and Points?

What are these so-called badges and points? Let me explain, by checking into locations, Foursquare awards you points based on their established point system. You earn at least one point for every “check in” you make, but every “check in” could be different. Lets say you are at a place for the first time, or you’re the first of your friends to visit a place, or maybe it’s your first time at a certain type of place. Each of these scenarios can bring different point values. So it encourages you to get out and explore new places, in order to rack up those points! As for badges, they are based on a few different things. For example, it could be based on the number of people checked into one place at the same time, or based on the number of similar places you’ve visited within a certain time frame. There are virtually badges for everything! Foursquare has new ones coming out daily to keep it fresh and keep people engaged in the game.

How does it work?

When you open the application on your phone, foursquare uses your phones built-in gps system to find out exactly where you are located. It then brings up a list of places based upon where you are currently located. For the most part, the current location you are in will show up on top followed by a list of places within a certain range of your location. From this list, you can select a location and “Check in” adding pictures, comments, tips, as well as statuses. Your friends, as well as the owners of these places can then see what you’ve posted.

So there you have it, the FourSquare basics to get you started. Now all you have to do is sign up, add some friends and see how many points and badges you can rack up.  Be sure to “Check in” to our blog and find out more about FourSquare discounts and deals next time…

5 SEO Tips to Get Higher Rankings

Search Engine Optimization, a big scary phrase that frightens a lot of business owners who are new to expansion through the Internet. For most, they barely understand what it means, let alone know how to do it. Well don’t fret; we’ve got some really easy tips that can get your page ranking higher in no time. (more…)

Facebook teams up with Skype for Facebook Video Chat

I don’t know if you have gotten the new Facebook chat yet, or if you have, if you’ve even noticed the video button near the top of the chat window. Recently, Facebook announced that it has teamed up with Skype to bring users a new Video Chat feature in their newest chat update. Facebook is excited about this new service, and thinks that this will be a huge hit. Now users can simply call their friends right on Facebook and have conversations face to face.

In order to use this new feature, you need to set it up. To get started, first you must visit http://www.facebook.com/videocalling. Once you’ve arrived at the page click on the “Get Started” button. This will begin the installation process, where you will be asked to download and install the new video chat plug-ins. This should take only a few of seconds, it may ask your permission to install depending upon the browser you are using. Yes, Facebook Video Chat is supported on all browsers, so there is no need to worry.

Once you have finished your install, open up a chat box to call a friend. There are two ways to initiate a Video Call. You will now see a Call button on the top right of your screen in-between the Message and Poke Buttons. You can click there to start a video chat with someone, or you can also start a regular chat with someone and then click the video button in the top right of the chat window. It’s really that simple, no need to worry anymore about people’s skype names or ichat names anymore. Just simply find them on Facebook and click the video button to begin chatting face to face!

Here is a video brought to you by Facebook on their new Video Chat!

5 Things You Missed Out On From the Social Media Workshop

For those of you who didn’t make it to our Social Media Workshop, here is a little recap of what you missed out on. The workshop was a huge success. The workshop started out with a few examples of how social media has helped businesses grow. After that, Brian went on to cover the four major social media platforms for business, which include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

Social Media Examples:

One example was for Headrush Hair Salon in the UK, which uses social media to inform its customers as to who is available daily for hair styling as well as a messaging system to decrease cancellations by 70%! Another Great example was how H&R Block uses twitter to reach out to potential clients to get them to set up an appointment at their local H&R Block. In return, H&R Block receives feedback on their twitter, generally in the form of thanks, which is great publicity for their twitter profile.

Brian then went on to show us a great video of the Digital Story of Nativity. What does the Digital Story of Nativity have to do with Social Media you ask? Well the company that created the video, ExcentricPT of Portugal, nearly doubled their sales leads from the exposure of this viral video. It costs roughly a $1000 to create and its exposure value was over 40,000 Euros!!

Benefits from Social Media

After a short break to grab some delicious cookies and a cup of coffee from our new machine, we resumed the workshop with talks on the importance of Content Development. We asked the attendees about the benefits gained from using these four platforms: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Here are some of the responses that we got.

Content Development Questions:

After, spending some time on the benefits of each, we discussed Content Development according to the following questions:

Who Are You? – What makes your product/business unique and interesting?

Identify what previous customers like about your business and/or your products? If you don’t know this – think about what could make your business different.

Who is your Ideal Customer?-  What customer segments are you serving? Who is the most profitable customer? What customer segments are you serving? What products do they prefer? What life cycle events bring customers in to your business? 

What do customers want to know about you?- What questions are your customers asking you and/or your competitors? What can you simplify for customers? What content works for competitors? What level of expertise is expected by customers?

When do they need information?-What do they need to know about the product they purchased before, during, and after they do business with you? How can you prepare customers for their first meeting with you or visit to your business?

Who will develop content?- Who is already answering your customers’ questions? What skill sets do your employees have? What training do they require? Will your business model require financial rewards for SME’s?

How will you stay up-to-date on industry topics?- What industry associations are important for you business? Are there any personal connections that will help your business?

Where are your customers (each segment) online/offline?- Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Linkedin, MySpace, etc? Are they attending events online/offline?

What type of content is preferred by customers?- Do they watch a lot of video? Prefer to read research / case studies? Want quick tips & advice from a pro? What “tone” should the content have – should it be humorous, scholarly, casual, brief advice or well-thought out?

 Employee-driven content: How will you reward employees? What level of public exposure are they comfortable with? Will their content require editing, legal review, external help (video)? Do they know how to get something posted?

Content Development/ Time Saving Tools

By answering  these questions we were able to help Rod the Chiropractor in determining where to focus his efforts while forming some sort of content strategy for his social media campaign. From here we focused on Time management tips and how to use resources to better manage your online campaigns and time usage. Here are three good resources for monitoring, analyzing, and content posting. They are SocialMention, Google Alerts, and Hootsuite.

After showing  some of the tools that make scheduling and monitoring easy, its was time to discuss the benefits of planning ahead and creating a content calendar. We went over some of the benefits of having a content calendar and how it can actually save you money. Time is money so we want you to use your time efficiently in your social media efforts.

Content Optimization Steps

Lastly, we discussed the 5 steps in Content Optimization, which begin with goals and objectives, then move to planning, then execution, then analysis and monitoring, and finally adjusting accordingly based on your analysis. Robert took over and went through each of the steps using an example from one of our most successful clients as a case study, to show the benefits of following these steps.

We ended the workshop with a Q&A session to provide answers to questions people had about what they had just learned. Also we handed out our Branding Personality Daily Checklist as well as a worksheet with 20 ideas for content creation. The workshop was an overall success and we look forward to hosting more events like this, with new and interesting topics.

Klout: What’s your Score?

If you have no idea what Klout is, then you came to the right place. Our first suggestion is that you sign up immediately after reading this post. Why? Good question, because everyone who has social media has some kind of a Klout score.

What is Klout exactly?

Another good question, Klout is a San Francisco based company that provides businesses and individuals with social media analytics. It basically measures how influential you are across your online social network by analyzing all of the social networks you actively participate on.

How does it work?

What Klout does is, it collects data from your social media accounts such as: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Foursquare. From there it looks at how large your social network is, how much content have you created, and how have others within your network responded to your content.  It then uses algorithms with 35 different variables to calculate a score from 1-100. The higher your score is, the wider and stronger your sphere of influence is.

Variables? Algorithms?

Some of the variables that Klout looks at to calculate this score are things like your “True Reach”, “Amplification”, and “Network Score.” Your “True Reach” is a measurement of the size of your engaged audience. These are the people that actively listen to what you say and then react to it. Amplification is scored out of 100, and is based on the likelihood that your messages will generate actions such as @mentions, retweets, Likes, and comments. A Network score indicates how influential your engaged audience is, basically how many other influential people do you have in your network.

Now that you have a better understanding of what Klout is, it’s time to get on www.klout.com and see how you rank. Remember it’s not based on how many followers you have in your network, but on the quality of your network as a whole! Check back soon to learn more about Klout Perks, and how they work!

Check out this Interview with Klout’s CEO Joe Fernandez for Forbes Magazine