Google Hangout or Hang up?

Logging into my Gmail recently, I was confronted with yet another pop-up from Google telling me about a change they made with Google Chat, asking me if I wanted to “See how it works.” Of course I chose the “Ok, I got it” option, which I later regretted after I saw what Google had decided to change this time…

Google cancelled the practical Google Chat option and traded it up for a Hangout only option, which, for those of us who use Gmail for work, is a bit silly. I understand the desire to seem more social, but there are many people I email that I don’t necessarily want to “hangout” with, which is why the quick and easy chat was so realistic.

New Google Hangouts

 New Google Hangout Ad.

http://www.google.com/hangouts/

Small changes like this one are happening all over social media. Do you enjoy the changes and social trends as they come, or does it make you want to pull out your hair? It makes me question what role the users of these platforms really have, and if the creators really make the changes to help us or are we just their guinea pigs? What do you think?

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Google Hangout or Hang up?

Optimizing your YouTube Videos

Using video for social media marketing is the most effective way to advertise online for your business  Especially understanding how to optimize your YouTube videos on youtube is crucial as the Google owned platform is the number one search engine beside Google itself. With updates that YouTube has recently made, here are some things to do to your existing videos or newly uploaded videos to ensure they are being watched and rated and passed along online.

Getting views is always a concern. It is important to know that YouTube considers a video “viewed” after eight seconds of runtime, so make sure your video has enough “pull” to get you past that hump. Embedding your video on your company blog or on product pages can boost video views and encourage discovery. You can also post your videos to your Facebook channel and encourage others to share your video on social media platforms within the video itself and in the description. You can also seed your videos on bookmarking and listing sites and distribute links to your videos in press releases and embed them in social media releases. Chunking your videos into smaller parts and linking them all together using playlists is also a creative option.

Getting ratings from your viewers is important also, so be sure to rank your own video and encourage others to rank your video by asking for it within your video, description, posts etc. You can do that in one shot by going back to Info and Settings tab and sharing your URL on the various social media networks;  You can embed your videos on your website as well.

upload_video_edit_drop_down

The Annotation tab under the Info and Settings section of the video edit options allows you to add more personality, effects and speech bubbles to your videos.Watch your video and decide where it would be advantageous to place an Annotation, hit pause, click “Add annotation” and decide which type you’d prefer. We encourage to add an annotation at the end of every video with your Contact information i.e: email, phone number, website.

add_annotation_contact_information

An extra step in optimization is creating a keyword rich text file and uploading as a transcript are great opportunities for hyperlinks to your website and contact information.  For more details you’ll want to review specific instructions here: http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/static.py?hl=en&page=guide.cs&guide=2734661

As you go through to edit and optimize your videos be sure to add your contact information at the end of all your videos that includes a link directly to your Google+ profile. If that link is setup properly it has authorship setup which links your Google+ profile to any content you create online. This is crucial as it will help you appear in searches because your content will be organized under your name and business, making it easier for clients to find and contact you. Here is a link with information about Google Authorship and a link to sign up!

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Optimizing your YouTube Videos

Get Your Facebook Working

funny-facebook

Facebook is such a handy tool for business marketing; especially if you’re already doing everything else right through your other marketing channels. But sometimes business owners spend tons of time on Facebook to no avail. Here are some reasons why your Facebook may not be working for you…

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  • If you are making Facebook your only plan of attack for marketing, you are barking up the wrong tree! You should continue or begin to use Facebook only as a springboard for your other marketing avenues, to compliment your marketing plan, not drive it! Remember Facebook isn’t everything!?
  • It goes without saying that your posting should be consistent and interesting, and that posting photos and videos will get more views that just plain statues updates….More importantly, be sure to tailor all your posts so that they generate a response naturally; they should ask thought provoking questions or suggest challenges and intriguing ideas for your fans and followers. Put some thought into your posts, directing them toward specific audiences, and you will get thoughtful responses in return.
  • Posting during the evenings and the weekends could also help to get your posts in front of more people’s eyes, as those are the high traffic times when Facebook is used.
  • Posting is great, especially posting the right things at the right times. However, relationships are not one sided  not een Facebook relationships. So be sure to have conversations with your fans and friends to encourage traffic on your page.
  • Fans of your business page were generous enough to pay you the time of day, so throw them a bone! Give consumers what they want, like exclusive Facebook coupons or promotions. This move will keep them checking back and intersting with you and your page for sure.

facebook_relationship

Think on these things and put some into action today if you are feeling like a Facebook wallflower these days. Get out there and get social for the sake of your business on and off Facebook!

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Get Your Facebook Working

RE: Website 1st Ranking On Google – SEO service

How many of emails do you receive on a regular basis about SEO service?  We not only receive them, many of our clients do and forward them to us for input.  This week was the tipping point for me….here is why this type of SEO emails cannot be taken seriously.

1) They are using some sort of email merge program and didn’t even feed in the website (‘<>’ empty field) they supposedly looked at.

2) If they were a reputable company they would have a proper email signature with contact information.

3) They would list a website where you could check out client testimonials as results speak for themselves.
google search results must be earned

Hi, my name is XXXXXXXX and I am an Online Strategist.

The reason for my email is I have come across your site <> and decided to run an analysis on your competition and your current search rankings. I also tried to look for your business on various social media sites and really couldn’t find much else about you.

Over the last 12 months GOOGLE has placed so much importance on Content Creation & Social Media Performance that if your business isn’t creating valuable content or even visible across social media platforms you have basically no chance of being seen on any search engine for keywords your customers are using to find businesses like you.

With a solid plan and strategy I honestly believe I can help get your website ranking higher on GOOGLE and getting customers to interact with your business on Social Media to really build your brand. Can I call you and run some ideas I have to help your business grow?

Regards,

XXXXXXXXX

SEO Co-ordinator

Please treat these emails as spam and ensure that you mark them that way.  I find it very difficult to believe that anyone would respond to an unsolicited email without proper contact information.  Does your email signature reflect your business well?

What about your Google Authorship?  Now this is an important and effective exercise to attach yourself to the content you create online and a step that a verified SEO service organization would setup for you.

Recommended Reading:

Search Results that Drive Business (Part 1 – Snippets and Authorship)

Search Results That Drive Business Part 2 (Moving Beyond Authorship)

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RE: Website 1st Ranking On Google – SEO service

Kick Start your Twitter

Many people who sign up for Twitter for business use put in a lot of work to get more followers by tweeting, re-tweeting and engaging potential followers/customers frequently. But often all that work gets done and people are still not flocking to your twitter feed like you thought the would even if you did everything right. How frustrating!

twitter

There are things you can do to kick up your twitter experience and therefore your business via Twitter:

1) Remember that first impressions matter so make sure your profile photo and description are welcoming and interesting to your followers and those you hope to attract. No mug shots or obscene hand gestures please!?

2) Be positive and thought-provoking, and short and sweet with your tweets so that what you say applies to a wider audience and can be re-tweeted by providing room for people to comment on the re-tweet. Also re-tweet your followers tweets to show them that you are listening to them also. People like shout-outs!

3) Track the demographic of your Twitter followers to see who they are and how to better advertise to a specific group, or try to expand to different demographics by using apps that records your follower’s information. A few of these new kinds of apps for social media tracking are called SalesForce Marketing Cloud, SoDash, KnowYourFollowers, BirdSong, and Ad.ly.

4) Rule of thumb is to follow back all the legitimate people back out of those who choose to follow you. Watch out for spammers etc. Then once you’ve got a load of people who you follow, you’ll need to organize your timeline/feed so that you can see what’s going on with your nest of peeps! There are a few apps to help you manage that task as well…TweetDeck is for desktop or use TweetBot on your mobile device to organize multiple timelines. Also, TweetDeck has a filter feature that finds tweets that contain certain keywords, hash-tags and phrases.

5) Be careful how you use hash-tags  They are great for narrow down your audience for sure. However, if you use one that is extremely high traffic, you won’t stand out in the millions of other people are tweeting with that same hash-tag at the same time. Check out hash-tag traffic on twubs.com before using high-traffic hash-tags to make better use of your tweets.

6) The kind of material you post/tweet about matters, of course. In general, in a western demographic of most young users like those in Twitter the click rate on stories about celebrity gossip, news, and politics is much higher that educational information like science updates. However, people tend to re-tweet science info. and other this things make them seem smart, even if they’d rather read about Kim Kardashian and Princess Kate! So be aware of what kind of posts get more clicks than re-tweets and vice versa!

Hope these tips are helpful.  If you need a refresher or coaching on twitter feel free to contact us at @TouchMrktg.   Tweet on!

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Kick Start your Twitter

YouTube changes to One Channel

YouTube has jumped on the bandwagon and updated their designs. The new YouTube One Channel is ready for you to tackle, if you should choose to accept the challenge!

youtube_upgrade_intro_page

The new YouTube One Channel gives users more control over how their graphics and information are seen in other social media platforms in order to better display what the channel’s all about. A better design across the board to advertise for your channel will help you direct potential subscribers to your channel.

Tips to get ready for the redesign direct from the YouTube Creators blog…

1) Create a channel trailer to get people to subscribe
On your new channel, you can show a trailer that will only appear to viewers who aren’t already subscribed to your channel. This is your chance to let visitors know what your channel is all about and tell them why they should subscribe!  Keep it short and to the point, and include a clear call to action inviting your audience to subscribe.

2) Create some channel art
Channel art is how you can express the personality of your channel wherever it is seen, whether on a mobile phone, a tablet, a TV, or in a hover-card anywhere on the site! It’s easy!

youtube_add_channel_art

Here is a link to YouTube’s guidelines on how to cope with the new channel artwork changes and make those changes on your own to better suit your channel’s needs.

YouTube has also created videos describing One Channel that you can watch to better understand how your channel is different now and how you can customize it.

Since YouTube is the number two ranked search engine, second only to Google, doing personal or business advertising there, and doing it well, will pay off in a big way!  We are here to help you with keeping your online branding updated and you informed on the latest changes in social media marketing

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YouTube changes to One Channel

Google+ Changes it Up

Google+_changes

Google+ has recently made some changes that have some people in a tizzy. It is funny how such a seemingly small change, like the size of the cover photo, can create such a headache for social media users, but the headache is for real if you are in the social media marketing business like we are…

-Google+’s changes include a tab that allows for local reviews, which is a neat addition that encourages community connections ( something that the student of social media marketing would know is a thing of beauty when it comes to marketing one’s self).

-Google+ added an improved interface for editing your information about which no one can argue.

-The real humdinger is the addition of a bigger cover photo that has a “better aspect ratio.” Better according to whom?

Google+_cover_photos_just_got_bigger

This is what you will see once you’ve signed into Google+ now…whoa!

The new cover photos are gigantic, which means that, as a business owners advertising on Google+, all the work you did to make sure your logos were properly displayed on the profile page has now been all for naught. The profile photo has switched sides and is now a circle instead of a square. Also the basic information is now an overlay of the cover photo  just to add insult to injury, it would seem. Oh and, FYI, once you’ve changed tot eh bigger photo size there is no going back!

google+_huge_cover_photo_change

But then again, some may find the change refreshing and aesthetically pleasing, so to each their own…right!?

Either way, it isn’t the end of the world, and some tech savvy people have created some templates to help do-it-your-selfers update their own graphics for the new Google+ look. Here is a link to one such template. Best of luck!

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Google+ Changes it Up

Mobile Engagement Marketing

In western culture, the modern scenery is a crowd of people of all ages, each minding their own business and gazing into their palms that hold a smartphone that connecting them virtually to the entire world. They can call, email, text, shop, purchase all from the comfort of…anywhere they are. The mobile universe has begun, and it is how the trend continues to the point that sales projections point to the fact that most retail sales will be done by mobile phone this year. If you are a smart marketer, you will assess the changes and see that the evidence for mobile marketing is overwhelming. If you don’t market mobile, you will be left behind. One way to engage your mobile customers is to marketing with a QR code, a quick response code, on your product  QR codes are like the old fashioned black and white bar codes, but they are a matrix of information that can be accessed by scanning the code with a smartphone. You’ve probably seen them on your Coke cans or in a magazine or even on a park bench.

The app for the QR code scanner is easily downloaded, like any other app, which could be explained to your customers in your initial marketing approach. You must also show why scanning your code will be worth while for your mobile customers. Incentive is the most important element to engagement with the codes. The appeal of mobility is that it is convenient and instant. In a QR code marketing strategy you should make sure you can provide something exciting for your customer instantly to drive action on their part: “Click now to receive…”

The beauty of smartphones is that they connect all of a users social media networks, shopping trends and purchasing information all in one place. Since the smart phone is smart enough to personalize what a consumer sees to make sure they see things they want and not things they don’t want, a marketer has the advantage of appearing before many people that the smart phone already knows will enjoy their product. Take advantage of that personal service and extend the personal touches to be sure the consumer knows that your product is perfect for their lifestyle. Statistics show that  75% of smartphone users say they are more likely to continue to visit a website if it is mobile friendly. Including a well thought out QR code on your products and advisements can help drive customers directly the the information they need and want to experience your product and come back for more. Be sure to adapt your marketing strategy to include the mobile community since it is the majority!

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Mobile Engagement Marketing

The ever changing landscape of Social Web Marketing – Posterous Closing

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The ever changing landscape of Social Web Marketing – Posterous Closing

Thinking about Social Media ROI

In order to help social media work best for your business, it is to your advantage to attempt to track if your time spent on social media advertising for your business is paying off. Since statistics measure that seventy percent of businesses who advertise on social media sites do NOT follow-up to discover their return on investment, by doing so with your business you would be ahead of the pack. Here’s are a few simple ways to try to do just that…

1) Coupons and offers give specifically on a social media platform is a sure way to calculate that a customer found you only by using Facebook or Twitter etc. Track the trends that appear when sales increase after posting a new statues update or tweet concerning your product or service.

2) Call tracking phone numbers to show you which channels drive leads.

3) Google Analytics Google will track how much traffic visits to your websites from which social media platform like Facebook, Twitter etc.

4) Conversion measurement counts relevant user actions such as registrations and shopping cart check outs drive my specific ads from social media platforms.

5) Watch how many fans or followers you accumulate on social media and how many posts, shares, tweets or retweets you get on your posts etc. to give you a better idea of the reach your social media has. This is not a fool-proof way of calculating your ROI from social media (unless you asked each customer how they found you), but it will help you see that your advertising is reaching more people all the time.

6) By focusing on a clear baseline for your business, you should not get caught up in chasing numbers about social media ROI. If you reach a larger goal of ROI you can just assume that a portion of that came from social media without having to take extra time from your agenda to track it. Some believe thinking about the bigger picture is the more appropriate way to manage the social media for your business.

All in all, the time you put into connecting with past and potential clients on social media will inevitably help your business. Take the time to build business relationships with people in your networks and your community to ensure return on your investment in social media.

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Thinking about Social Media ROI