Discover These 11 Helpful Social Media Tools for Marketers

Looking for better social media marketing tools? There are excellent third-party apps that can help you build your brand and audience through these social media tools.

.Analysis Tools

1. Analyze Social Media Traffic With Leadfeeder

Leadfeeder is a B2B tool that lets you track website visitors and retarget them on social media without having to install a special code or enlist the help of your webmaster.

It connects to your Google Analytics account and uses the data to give you leads. As soon it’s set up, you’ll immediatelystart seeing which companies have visited your website from social media platforms over the past week. You can also view which products or services they’re specifically interested in.

There’s a free 30-day trial that you can sign up for using your Google account.

With your new list of leads, click on the name of a company and Leadfeeder will show you whom you can reach out to on LinkedIn from that company, including second-level and third-level connection contacts (which makes your lead outreach that much warmer).The tool also shows you which social network referred traffic, how many pages those users visited, and how long they stayed on your site.

Leadfeeder makes it easier to filter your data to analyze what’s happening with your social media traffic on your website.

2. Build a Custom Dashboard With Cyfe

There are plenty of social media dashboards available, but Cyfe makes monitoring your accounts a little bit easier. It’s a custom, cross-channel tracking dashboard that has performance (instead of scheduled posts) baked into its DNA. Better yet, it’s free.

Signing up is quick and easy with a simple form to fill out. Once you’re logged in, you can customize your dashboard by adding your own widgets.

3. Analyze Your Competitors With Mondovo

Are you wondering what your competitors are doing to capture the attention of their followers? Then you’ll want to start a Mondovo account.

Mondovo is a Facebook and Twitter competition analyzer tool that shows what your competition is doing right and wrong. It isn’t free, but it is affordable. You only pay a few cents for each feature you want to access.

To get started, you’ll be asked to choose which area you want to analyze. Click Social to analyze your Facebook competition.

Next, pick how many domains you want to analyze. They’re only $0.15 per domain. Then create your account.

Video Content Tools

4. Shoot Short Films With Cinamatic

If you’ve ever dreamed of being a cinematographer, you’ll want to check out Cinamatic. It’s an app that lets you create short films and share them on Instagram or Facebook. The big difference between Cinamatic and other video-production apps is that it lets you shoot short clips and then add filters to make your video more attractive and professional.

Cinamatic is available in the App Store for $2.99. Once downloaded, just press and hold the red button to record. You can stop mid-movie to go to a different location to add interest.

5. Combine Photos, Videos, and Music With PhotoVideoCollage

Does your business host a live event? Do you want to showcase your product in action? PhotoVideoCollage is the app to bring those static pictures to life with music.

You can take photos from your phone and put them to music using a variety of layouts. After you select your layout and add your images, incorporate music. Adjust the volume, use snippets of songs, and apply fade effects to complete the experience.

6. Broadcast Live to a Wider Facebook Audience With Livestream

Livestream is slightly different from Facebook Live. The big difference? You can reach more people by sharing your event with the masses, not just the people who like your page. If your business holds a conference or award show, this is a great tool to have.

Click the link to install the app on your Facebook page. Then choose whether you want to broadcast from your smartphone or computer.

Once you’re live, you’ll be able to engage with viewers through comments, as you can see in this livestream of the Ironman World Championships. Better yet, your viewers can engage with each other. It’s an interactive type of broadcasting tool.

7. Create Time-lapse Videos With Hyperlapse

Ever wanted to share a fun moment without taking up a lot of your follower’s time? Then Hyperlapse is for you.

Instagram build this time-lapse video software, so you know it has strong social media capabilities. But it’s not your average time-lapse video software. This app (which you install on your phone) stabilizes your camera, giving you higher-quality videos.

To use it, download the app and give Hyperlapse access to your camera. Then take a hyperlapse video of something, anything. For example, take a hyperlapse video walking through your office and saying hi to your co-workers. Or shoot a video of the sunset over your building.

Research Tools

8. Run Advanced Instagram Searches With Mulpix

One of the biggest challenges of social media is sifting through all of the noise. You have to contend with lots of chatter and algorithms online. When you’re looking for something specific on social media, you need a specialized search engine that filters based on your requirements, rather than what the bots think you want to see.

That’s where Mulpix comes in. It’s an enhanced search engine for Instagram that works by leveraging multiple hashtags (instead of just the term you used in your search), saving you a lot of time.

One of the best features is the geographic targeting. If you’re looking for places to go hiking in Boulder, Colorado, for example, you can type in the search terms “boulder” and “hiking.” The app will automatically filter out any posts that have to do with “bouldering” and instead focus on the city of Boulder.

9. Research Hashtags With Hashtagify

Many marketers use hashtags in their posts without knowing if people are actually searching for them. Hashtagify solves this problem by putting real data behind the hashtags you use. You can see the most popular hashtags related to your topic or product.

For example, if you sell running gear, you might be tempted to use #running in your posts. This is a good start, but there are other hashtags that will make your posts stronger. To discover those, type “running” into the Hashtagify search box. The results below include #everymomentcounts, which is a unique hashtag related to running that you might not have thought of before.

Contest Tools

10. Run a Contest With Rafflecopter

When it comes to social media, it’s all about engagement. Rafflecopter lets you create a contest to get people engaged with your account and build your following.

Sign-up takes only a clicks. Once you’re logged in, you can create a giveaway in minutes.

11. Run Facebook Campaigns With ShortStack

If you regularly run campaigns through your Facebook page, you need ShortStack. It lets you design and create attractive campaign pages.

Signing up is easy and takes only a few seconds. Once you’re logged in, create a new campaign using either a template or a blank page. If you’re new to the design world, a template is the way to go.

Wrapping Up

Setting up social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and so on is just the beginning. Gathering the right group of tools can make it easier to build your following and manage your accounts. These 11 third-party tools and apps stand out from the pack.

What do you think? What’s your favorite tool? Which apps do you use that aren’t listed here? Share your experience in the comments below!

Some of the Greatest Innovators in the Last Century

Innovation plays a significant role in the success of any economy. Successful companies not only respond to their current customers but often anticipate future trends and develop ideas, products or services that allows them to meet this future demand rapidly and effectively. In a broader sense, the greatest innovation is important to the advancement of society around the world. Here are some of the greatest innovators.

These are some of the greatest innovators that come to my mind:

Steve Jobs. The iconic American entrepreneur and founder of Apple will go down in history as one of the great innovators. As CEO of Apple in the 1980s and again in the late 90s and 2000s, Jobs played a central role in the personal computer revolution and in developing its key products, including the McIntosh, the iPod and the iPhone.

Larry Page. Co-founder and current CEO of Google, Page was the leading one of the most innovative and successful companies in the world, perhaps in history.

Sergey Brin. The multi-billionaire co-founder of Google, Brin has been involved with some of the company’s most innovative technologies including Google Glass, and Google’s self-driving cars.

Bill Gates. One of the great businessman/philanthropists of the last century, Gates founded and built Microsoft into an unmatched software behemoth before leaving to state the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, a multi-billion dollar philanthropic enterprise working to enhance global healthcare and reduce poverty.

Reid Hoffman. Founder of the pioneering social networking website, LinkedIn. Hoffman is a Silicon Valley veteran who was also COO of Paypal.

Richard Branson. The colorful and creative British founder of Virgin Group is one of the most successful businessmen of our time, as well as a billionaire philanthropist and humanitarian.

Jeffrey Grossman. The Carl Richard Soderberg Associate Professor of Power Engineering at MIT, Grossman has done pioneering work and research on materials science, including photovoltaics and nanotechnology.

Jeff Bezos. Founder and CEO of Amazon.com, Bezos is one of the most successful entrepreneurs of our time, and the man who revolutionized e-commerce.

Ray Kurzweil. Revolutionary futurist, celebrated inventor, innovative researcher, and bestselling author, Kurzweil received the 1999 National Medal of Technology and Innovation, and is currently Director of Engineering at Google working in the field of artificial intelligence.

Tim Brown. CEO and President of IDEO, the pioneering international design firm, Brown is a global expert on the nature of innovation in business, technology, and design.

Martine Rothblatt. Founder of United Therapeutics, a medical biotech company as well as a founder of Sirius Satellite Radio. Rothblatt’s technologically pioneering work has included innovations in space sceince, satellites, the human genome project. She has also been an activist in the transhumanist movement.

Larry Ellison. Co-founder and CEO of Oracle, Ellison is one of the wealthiest individuals in the world and has been a long-time pioneer and innovator in the software industry.

Michael Dell. Founder and CEO of Dell Computers, Dell changed the personal computer industry with his innovative business methods and pioneering use of e-commerce.

Jony Ive. A world renowned product designer, Ive is the person responsible for many of the Apple’s most innovative and pioneering designs, including the iPhone, the iPad and the Macbook.

Robert De Pera. Robert Pera is the founder of Ubiquiti Networks, a pioneering wireless technology company serving the world’s emerging markets.

Marissa Mayer. At one time the CEO of Yahoo, Mayer was the first female engineer at Google, and was the youngest on Forbes list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business.

Salman Khan. Founder of the Khan Academy, a free, nonprofit online education platform, Khan’s mission is to provide a “world class education for anyone, anywhere.”

Elon Musk. A co-founder of Paypal, Musk went on to found the electric car company Tesla, and the space technology company SpaceX.

16 Most Significant Business Lessons from my 40 Year Career

Significant business lessons from my 40 year career? It is tough to name just one as I have done much learning over the years and I will never be done.

Being such a business manager is a lifelong learning process. You are never done learning and renewing lessons you have learned. Every great manager always looks for ways to improve their ability to improve their leadership qualities and attributes.

If you read ten books on business management, you could easily build a checklist of 50 or more management lessons for future business managers. But more is not necessarily better for the best lessons to study and apply.

The following lessons represent my favorite lessons on business management I have learned over my 40 years. They are the ones that have made the biggest impact on my success:

I have been in management and leadership positions in the military and business world for forty years and I often get asked what the best lessons I have found. Surprisingly (or not) my list of lessons probably have varied to a degree, depending on when in my career it was constructed.

The following lessons represent my favorite lessons on business management that I believe could make the biggest impact. If I was starting my career over and could take what I learned back in time with me, these are the lessons I would choose:

Create an environment of continuous learning

It is absolutely necessary that business people be good learners. They need to instill this in all their team. They must learn from their mistakes. To be most successful, managers must acknowledge, understand, and improve on their shortcomings. And they must encourage their team to also focus on continuous learning.

Be a multiplier

Multiplier business managers know that at the apex of the intelligence hierarchy is NOT the lone genius. Rather, it is the genius who knows the importance of bringing out the smarts and capabilities in everyone in the team.

Build connections

Both managers and leaders know their job with their teams is about building lots of connections. They make people feel they have a stake in common problems.

Encourage feedback

It is vital that you let your team know you are interested and will listen to their concerns and ideas and contribute to solutions to any and all problems.

Embrace change

Change is the only constant in business, so make it your competitive advantage. Initiate change rather than react to it, and give clear instructions to help the team understand why the change is necessary, and how it will make the situation better.

Manage risk

After my first 3 years as a business executive, the business I ran was going great guns … we seemingly couldn’t lose. So I continued to ‘double down’, so to speak. The game finally caught up with me, as we got far ahead of our talent. Not a good place to be, believe me. Learn not to be greedy.

Offer recognition and always share success

Focus on building team confidence by publicly recognizing their efforts and achievements. Think of it this way; anything is possible if you share the glory. Giving others a chance to claim credit is an easy, and effective, way to magnify results.

Foster teamwork

Peter Drucker is a silent mentor for our small agency. We are big fans. He once made an interesting point when he said that leaders don’t train themselves not to say ‘I’ He’s implying that leaders innately work with others and let the team get the credit. They don’t force themselves to say ‘we’. ‘We’ is natural for them, and it’s the way they’ve always thought.

You work as a team when you don’t care who gets the credit.

So the next time you interview someone with a resume that states, ‘I accomplished x’ or ‘I did x’, it should send up a few warning signals.

Be decisive

One of the key jobs of a manager is to be an effective decision maker. Employees are never comfortable with managers who make slow decisions and the frequently change their minds. Quality managers make decisions quickly and stick with them.

Building and maintaining trust

Always do what you say and set good examples. Demand from yourself the same level of professionalism and dedication that you expect from others. Trust, once broken, is seldom restored to its original state. It is the most fragile yet essential attribute of leadership and management.

Doing the right thing

Always listen to your inner voice. If it “feels wrong” it is. It is never wrong to do the right thing. It is never right to do the wrong thing. The ends DO NOT justify the means

Take care of employees

Love your people. If your end users are viewed as people who are “clicks” or just customers you will fail. If you care about them, you will make the product that will actually make their life better or easier. You both win. Most companies are upside down.

Trust people

Don’t be precious and protective of things. Let people showcase their expertise and benefit collectively. Welcome people into the team with open arms, don’t be suspicious of their intentions. Ultimately you and the team are the beneficiary. You will meet lone superstars so find ways to connect whereby the partnership is mutually beneficial.

Keep learning

Don’t be afraid to ask stupid questions especially when you are new and fresh, its the best time to do it anyways.

When choosing work, don’t focus on what you CAN do, focus on what you WANT to learn to do.

Focus on results

You will encounter barriers, blockers but you must focus on getting results. Many instances in your process, you will be told “No” often but it is up to you to respond to it by taking whatever action possible to keep driving your project forward.

Do you need to ask for help? Do it. Can you re-negotiate by bringing certain people together in a room? Set it up. Do you need more time to make a decision? Ask for it.

Everyone is expendable

I have seen many people, whom I thought were indispensable, asked to let go. One failed initiative, an altercation with the boss, a year of under-performance is enough to undermine years of your contributions.

So don’t be complacent. If you are not evolving constantly to maintain your competitive edge, someone will catch up to you and make you redundant.

The bottom line

The moral of this story is that the best business lessons should have a great influence on team development and teamwork. If these different thoughts are possessed by your current management or leadership team, or your emerging leaders, you will be in a good position for the road ahead.

More leadership material from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:

Build an Effective Team by Being a Talent Hound

Success Enablers of Highly Creative Leaders

Secrets to Becoming a Remarkably Mindful Leader

Leadership Characteristics That Improve Influence

Benefits Offer Mentorship for High-Level Executive Monitoring

The term “executive mentoring” describes a situation in which seasoned professionals interact closely with recent hires to impart and model abilities, know-how, and responsibilities. Building on their relationship, the mentor and mentee collaborate to generate work and enhance operations. They frequently offer resources, support, and comments to help their mentee grow and develop. A mentor offers strategy, pointers, and direction based on their understanding from their time and High-Level Executive Mentoring experience in the position or industry.

Enhanced output

Having a mentor can help you perform better and be more productive because they provide information and support. A mentor can help new hires solve problems and make decisions more effectively by teaching them the procedures, logic, and objectives. Your mentor’s extra knowledge and instruction will help you better understand what is expected of you in terms of performance and role.

The Relationship Between Executive Mentoring

The relationship between the mentor and mentee is executive mentoring. Mutual respect, honest communication, and trust are the cornerstones of this relationship. The executive mentoring connection is non-hierarchical to other professional partnerships, enabling mentees to freely express their issues, ask for guidance, and learn from their mentors. The executive mentor’s job is to support and encourage the mentee’s critical thinking and problem-solving skills rather than offering answers.

Overcoming Obstacles with Executive Coaching

A key element of executive mentoring is executive coaching. Although mentoring provides more general counsel and strategic insights, coaching focuses on improving particular skills. In coaches, executive mentors offer constructive criticism, offer workable solutions, and lead skill-development activities. Mentors and coaches work together to provide mentees with a comprehensive toolkit that helps them succeed in their roles.

Business networking

Making connections and interacting with managers, executives, and coworkers at work new hires. Developing a High-Level Executive Mentoring connection gives the chance to get to know and understand staff members who are more senior and experienced. To expand on your interactions and contacts, some mentors additionally take the effort to introduce and put you in touch with other managers or executives. Making connections with more seasoned workers within the company opens up doors for you and gives you access to higher-level structure procedures, insights, and prospects.

Opportunity to advance professionally

Professional development is one of the requirements for every position, and executive mentoring is a fantastic way to achieve it. Professional development frequently calls for additional classes, which can be costly and time-consuming. On the other hand, executive mentoring serves as on-the-job training, which makes it an opportunity to advance your career while still working.

Provides you with helpful criticism

It is impossible to grow in any niche if you don’t get helpful criticism. You will never be aware of your strengths and shortcomings and what needs improvement if you don’t routinely receive honest evaluations. Working under an executive mentorship program to receive some helpful comments from your mentor. You can use this feedback to pinpoint your areas of strength and improvement. There’s nothing like getting advice from an industry leader about your strengths and weaknesses to help you grow.

Participation

Mentors give their mentees unwavering attention and input. By developing a personal relationship, a mentor tries to comprehend the situations, feelings, and experiences under their direction. While an executive coach offers suggestions and enthusiasm to assist trainees, an executive coach may also push staff members to use resources and generate ideas. Since coaches function as external departments or employees, they have direct familiarity with the organisation’s structures and activities. While executive coaching delivers information and training, it does not participate as much in the development process as other forms of coaching.

Concentrate

Employee relationships and goals are the focal points of executive mentoring. Coaching methods focus on teaching and developing new abilities rather than offering direction and insight. By the regulations and requirements of the company, a coach may instruct staff members on how to impart and use hard and soft skills. Coaching programs empower trainees to independently build goals, methods, and relationships, with a focus on skills and procedures.

Enhance Employee Growth with an Innovative Learning Management System

The right learning management system (LMS) can help you tap into the latent abilities of your staff and push your business to new heights. Encouraging employee development is no longer an option in today’s competitive company environment; it’s essential. Step into a world where education is not limited by geography, growth is seen as an individual adventure, and development is monitored and improved in real-time. Find out how a clever learning management system can energise your staff, refresh their abilities, and spark a culture of constant development and growth. Learning has the capacity to change things, and when you do that, you may open up a world of possibilities for your business.

The Power of a Learning Management System

A Learning Management System (LMS) provides a centralised location for an organisation to plan, develop, implement, evaluate, and improve its training and development programmes. An LMS takes full advantage of current technology to standardise and individualise the training process, making it more efficient and accessible for employees.

Accessible Learning Anywhere, Anytime

Modern learning management systems liberate students from the four walls of the classroom. Training resources and programmes are available to staff members whenever and wherever they need them. Because of this adaptability, employees can continue their education whenever and wherever it is most convenient for them.

Personalized Learning Paths

Individual employees bring a wide range of experiences, perspectives, and objectives to their jobs. An innovative LMS takes into account this variety and allows companies to design unique learning plans for each individual. The LMS analyses an individual’s role, talents, and performance to determine which courses and modules will be most beneficial to them. This customised method not only promotes greater participation from workers but also guarantees that they will receive content suitable to their specific growth needs.

Engaging and Interactive Content Creation

The days of using boring textbooks to teach new skills are over. An advanced LMS gives you access to a plethora of materials for making content that is both interesting and useful. The LMS enables organisations to create engaging training material that sticks with workers, including videos, quizzes, simulations, presentations, and gamified learning experiences. Improved knowledge retention and increased staff engagement result from this dynamic approach to content creation.

Transparent Progress Tracking

Monitoring employee development is a must for any training initiative. Clever learning management systems provide advanced analytics and reporting features that make monitoring development a breeze. The effectiveness of training programmes may be gauged, knowledge gaps can be quickly determined, and learner progress can be evaluated. Organisations may improve their decision-making, training methods, and on-demand assistance to employees all thanks to data-driven insights.

Integration and Scalability

Modern human resources and business tools, including performance management, talent acquisition, and payroll systems, can be integrated with ease into a state-of-the-art LMS. As a result of this amalgamation, data silos are eliminated, processes are simplified, and an enterprise-wide picture of personnel growth is shown. In addition, a cutting-edge LMS is scalable, meaning it can adapt to meet the needs of an organization’s expanding workforce.

Conclusion

Putting money into employee training and development is like putting money into the future of your business. A company’s ability to promote a culture of lifelong learning and improvement can be greatly aided by a cutting-edge LMS. A refined learning management system helps people learn new skills, adjust to change, and contribute to the company’s success by making learning easy to access, personalised, engaging material, transparent progress tracking, and seamlessly integrated. Make use of a learning management system’s revolutionary features and release the latent talent in your staff.

Can Social Change Theory Create Real Change?

A simple experiment to test a social change theory. Three hundred households in a California town were divided into two groups. Half were sent normal power bills and the other half had a smiley face on their bills if their consumption was below average, and a frowning face if their usage was higher than average.

The results could not have been more conclusive: within the group with faces on their bills, high users reduced their electricity consumption, and low users consumed even less than before.

Simple enough? The difference was a little yellow circle on a piece of paper, but was it a significant impact?

Nudge Theory rose to global prominence in 2008 with the release of the book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, by Professor Richard Thaler and legal scholar Cass R. Sunstein. The volume brought the discourse on Nudge theory to the wider public of government, as well as the private sector involved with public health and related fields.

Professors Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein cite the smiley experiment as a simple example of their theory that people can be gently encouraged to behave in socially desirable ways. Like shown here, even small incentives can improve people’s behavior. The two call it the nudge theory, quietly shepherding people in the right direction.

They cite many examples of research that raise “serious questions about the rationality of many judgments and decisions that people make”. (Wikipedia) They state that, unlike members of homo economicus, members of the species homo sapiens make predictable mistakes because of the way they are influenced by their social interactions.

Why should society need a nudge in the first place? The research team questions one of the major assumptions of economic theory, homo economicus, which is the idea that humans act in an enlightened and rational way to maximize their well-being.

This argument is the central thesis of behavioral economics, which asserts that emotion is an important factor in market behavior. It asserts that people make decisions on the basis of gut feelings rather than careful analysis of all the available options. Also, they’re lazy. People could save by switching to another power provider, but they can’t be bothered. Professor Sunstein freely admits that he’s no exception; for decades, he’s received newspapers he no longer wants, simply because he hasn’t gotten around to stopping the subscription.

Optimists? Yes, Thaler and Sunstein are optimists. Little things, like other people interfering ever so slightly in our lives, can help to push us along the right path. Nudge theory isn’t just about helping Californians to save energy, it has many applications. Nudge Theory has also found its way into business management and corporate culture. Health- Safety and Environment (HSE) and Human Resources are two areas that have found extensive potential to apply the theory to internal safety or management culture.

In another application, Thaler and Sunstein point out that many Americans are not saving enough for retirement. They state that “in 2005 the personal savings rate for Americans was negative for the first time since 1932 and 1933 – the Great Depression years”. (p115 of their book)

One change they offer is creating better default plans for employees. Employees would be able to adopt any plan they like, but, if no action is taken, they would automatically be enrolled in an expertly designed program (such as social security]. They also propose what they refer to as the “Save More Tomorrow” plan. This is to address the issue of people having the desire to save more, yet procrastinating on actually doing so. This program would invite participants to commit themselves, in advance, to a series of contribution increases timed to coincide with pay raises.

People are still given all the freedom to make their own decisions but they are “nudged” to make a particular decision.

So far, so good – but nudging can also be an intrusion into someone’s personal life. In Austria, people have to opt out of organ donation by specifically stating that they do not want their organs removed when they die. Other countries follow an opt-in system, in which you carry a card stating that you wish to donate your organs. The opt-out method is problematic from an individual moral perspective, but it significantly increases the number of donor organs.

Nudge theory follows the principles of libertarian paternalism. People must be free to make their own decisions – that’s the libertarian bit – but it’s also OK to influence their behavior in a paternalistic way. Freedom and paternalism are not contradictory terms. Displaying fruit at eye level in a cafeteria to encourage people to eat better is a nudge. Removing burgers from the menu, say the theorists, is unacceptable interference. Carrots are a good thing (to continue the healthy eating theme), but sticks are bad. It all sounds pretty simple, but is life really this black and white?

To critics, nudging often crosses into the realm of manipulation. The nudgers say they’re acting in the public interest and trying to make the world a better place, but do they really know what individuals want? Driving to work is not very good for the environment, but it’s considerably more comfortable than a sweaty, crowded subway. Cigarettes will kill you in the long run, but they’ll give you a buzz for five minutes. Shouldn’t people be able to achieve their own balance between short and long-term happiness? Could a well-intentioned nudge overstep the boundaries; could someone end up getting hurt?

In spite of the criticism, libertarian paternalism is the flavor of the month. Richard Thaler, who lectures at Chicago University, is an advisor to Barack Obama’s economics team. Cass Sunstein, one of the country’s most high-profile lawyers, is Head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the White House. The Democrats have jumped enthusiastically onto the nudge-theory bandwagon because it provides a theoretical justification for state intervention. In a positive way that is, like a smiley on your electricity bill.

Our takeaway?

Our society needs to accelerate many changes. Any social change theories that can contribute must be employed. The Nudge Theory is no exception. The big change is always started with many small changes.

Magical Ideas for Employing Videos for Marketing

The best camera is the one with you. Videos aren’t about dynamic ranges and megapixels. They’re about stories and moments.

Camera marketing — How to build creative videos.

Magical? Yes, we do mean magical. We mean magical ideas on employing videos for marketing.

The magic that keeps you glued to your creative video. The magic that makes you remember what you just viewed. The magic that entices you to tell your friends about what you watched … and share it.

Have you ever seen the videos of Steve Jobs presenting the new product launch of the Mac, iPod, or iPad? He understood that something could be entertaining yet meaningful at the same time. Videos such as these work as well on the web as they do on television.

Related: Social Media Marketing Lessons From the New Pros in Town

The simple objective … turn marketing into magical, entertaining content, not content into marketing.

Why video marketing?

Video marketing is a powerful tool for getting more visibility more quickly, so you can get your message out, attract your ideal clients, and have more impact. It’s been reported that your chances of getting a page-one listing on Google search increase by 53 times when you use video.

Video marketing is relationship marketing: crucial for connecting, building loyalty, and developing the “know, like, and trust” factor which is so important when doing business online.

To be effective with video, the emphasis needs to be on your marketing strategy. You must ask: What’s the goal of the video? What business objective will it accomplish? Who will be viewing the video, and what do you want the viewer to do after they watch it?

Use the following structure for your video:

Objectives

Think strategically about the business objectives for your video. You can use it for creating awareness, increasing your visibility, building trust and credibility, generating leads, launching a product, growing your list, driving web traffic, and selling a service. Understanding your objectives up front will determine your message, platform, and distribution.

Story

The second element is to determine your message, script, or story. Your premise is how you’ll communicate your message and move your viewer to action. What do you want your viewer to do when the video is over?

When developing your message or writing your script, keep in mind the very limited attention span of online viewers. Be clear, concise, and direct. Get to the point quickly and keep your video as short as possible. The vast majority of YouTube videos are under three minutes in length.

Platform

While you could argue that there are only really two types of videos—on-camera or off-camera—there are actually many different styles and options. Video has evolved into much more than the traditional “talking head” format. You’ll want to find the platform that best fits your needs and personal style.

Most video creators default to the tried-and-true on-camera video, which can include a direct-to-camera video, a video interview with two or more participants, a video tips series, or a live webcast. On-camera videos are usually best for when you want to make a more engaging connection with your viewers, or when you’re promoting a more personal service and you wish to create more trust and credibility.

Off-camera videos, on the other hand, don’t require you to be on camera. Off-camera videos can be extremely effective when sharing a lot of information, such as during a video webinar or training video.

Promotion

A fourth structure element is a promotion or how and where you’ll distribute, share, and market your video online. Determine where your target market is, and share your video there. Once your video is on YouTube, you can set up one-click sharing to Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more. You can also use the embed code that YouTube provides to get the video on your website or blog. In addition, YouTube will provide a link to your video so you can send it out in an email to your list.

Be sure to consider other social media sites that accept videos, such as Pinterest, Instagram (15-second limit), Slide Share, and other video hosting sites such as Viddler or Vimeo. The more you distribute your video, the better chance viewers have to find it and watch it.

How to build winning videos

So what is the magic of creating a potentially viral video? Consider the following six elements we use to build winning videos:

Engage audience

Grab attention … to some problem your audience shares, and then address the solution. This is the most important part of the video … the part of the video that compels viewers to want to see and hear the entire story/show!

Stylize the experience

Design an experience that will be memorable … create the visual of your value, the core message. Take some risks here to stand out and be different … no risks, no rewards.

Enlighten and inform

Provide your key discriminating message woven into the central theme of the video. This is the second most important element of your video … convincing customers your story is the best and the reason to select you. Make sure you are addressing your most important target customers. And avoid selling at all costs!

Entertain

Be memorable and bold … be worth the audience’s time and attention. Use subtle marketing techniques. The challenge is to turn marketing into memorable content that informs, enlightens, and entertains at the same time.

Resonate

Strike a nerve to grab attention and connect with your audience. What makes your video such a powerful marketing and branding tool is its ability to communicate on verbal, visual, and metaphoric levels. If you are not using all 3 levels of communications, you are missing opportunities to resonate and connect with your audience.

Compel action

We all understand the need for a call to action. However, you can only deliver on the action called with a convincing story. A story catching attention and providing relevant messages for your target customers.

Video subject ideas

Show the steps it takes to make your flagship product.

Highlight a video testimonial: Ask your customers what three words they would use to describe your company.

Get customers to showcase how they use your products.

Create video clips from a charity event or corporate outing your company has organized.

Humanize your brand by introducing your employees.

Create teasers for upcoming webinars, events, or trade shows.

Create a campaign series; for example, how to install your product in easy, short steps.

Use stop-motion animation to deliver an exciting company announcement.

Build a 30-60 second video to represent the brand elevator pitch. Your goal is to explain what the brand is all about and why people want to buy from you.

Build one to two-minute video demonstrations of products in your store.

Give your brand a personality. Social media allows and wants you to give your brand a personality. Use a video to make it real and authentic. Make it quirky or innovative.

Use a short 30-second video to market a new promotion. This could be a new book, song or movie, or even event. How long do you need to communicate something new? Remember the power of simplicity.

Use a video to announce a special offer or discount.50% off. How long does it take to announce that special offer for your clothing store? Make it visual, aural, and shareable.

Key takeaways:

Imagination Knows no Bounds. With these examples, it’s clear that the potential for marketing with Vine is limited only by the imagination of your marketing team. Before setting out to make your own videos, decide what kind of approach you want to take—and how you can get your audience involved.

For instance, if you want to teach users a lesson similar to the way Lowes and GE have, think of a few tidbits that would be useful to your customers, then determine the best way to present them. Practice what you’re going to do a few times before filming, and make sure that everything is well-lit, clear, and distinctive.

Have you seen any good video marketing lately? Has your business unleash the power of video yet? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Need some help in capturing more customers from your video media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to innovating your social media strategy?

Do you have a lesson about making your advertising better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.

10 Social Media and Business Marketing Killers

Mistakes are ok if you are learning. But avoid these social media and business marketing killers.

Many of our small business clients are new to social media. One of the requests we get from them is to provide a simple system to do the work. Unfortunately, the truth is that there is no such system.

Every situation is unique and social media is as much an art as it is a science. However, having said that, there are some general social media mistakes that provide a framework of wisdom–wisdom that you can apply in almost every unique situation to capitalize on social media opportunities and maximize your potential for success.

“Vanity metrics” (friends, followers, “likes”) are the most common metrics marketers use to measure the business impact of social media.

But just 14% of marketers tie vanity metrics to sales levels.

I get it. Seeing your follower count grow and grow and getting a lot of likes on Facebook feels great.

While there are many mistakes to learn from out there, here is our list of the most important ones to learn from:

Social media and business … ignoring content marketing

Don’t make the fatal mistake of using more ads to compensate for not employing content marketing (or bad content). Rather, create quality content to convert your ads. If folks don’t like your content, they are not going to stick around long enough to be converted (i.e., perform an action such as clicking or subscribing). Likewise, more social media postings and links won’t compensate for bad content and poor headings either!

Little value added

Social media is like a bank account. You simply cannot withdraw more value than you deposit into your account. Too many people view social media as an auto-pilot technique for marketing messages.

I assure you… it is not. It requires effort and careful planning, and you will only get out of it what you are willing to put into it. Remember the quote, garbage in, garbage out? Well, it certainly applies to marketing messages.

A quick splash of value-free marketing will only produce quick and limited results at best. Quick social media splashes with little meaning or value add, always will be worse than no marketing at all.

No timeline consistency

Social media is a 24/7 marketing and customer engagement process—not a once-a-week occasion. You need to monitor constantly and interact with customers. You can’t pencil in “social media time” on your Google calendar once a week and hope to be successful. And remember it takes a lot of time and energy. Don’t start if you have little to spare.

Lacking emotion and enthusiasm

Social media, like most marketing, must be emotion-driven to be successful. People’s behavior (e.g., sharing your content or buying your product) is based on emotional responses. Your social media marketing should appeal to their hearts more than their heads.

Being everywhere and doing everything

Don’t go to social media platforms because of their image. Go to where you will find your target audience. For example, Facebook–although its well-documented and highly touted popularity–is the last place some small businesses should go. Don’t chase after the “best” or “most popular” networks—chase your audience! Find out where they are and live there. And you can’t be everywhere and do everything. Start small, learn how to do it well, and then add on more networks a little at a time.

Social media marketing killers … ignoring results and learning

You must know what is working and how well. Consider each thing you do as a small experiment. Look at measured results against your objectives. Do more of what is working, and stop doing things that aren’t.

Measure selectively. Just because you can measure something doesn’t mean you should. Not all metrics are created equal—or even worthwhile. Carefully select those metrics that provide feedback related to your social media plan and objectives. Remember what Einstein reportedly said, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”

New digital marketing ideas … lack a network integration strategy

To be successful in social media requires understanding and mastering the inherent differences between social media networks. For example, Facebook embodies the spirit of pure social interaction, while Twitter is all about communicating news and information.

Understand the difference and decide what is important for your marketing. Be sure and be consistent across platforms by integrating your objectives and messages.

benefits of social media for business — Benefits of social media for business.

Social media marketing killers … no storytelling

Marketing always has been and always will be about telling stories… stories that influence behavior and convince people to act.

Make sure your social media marketing tells a story and that your story is compelling and relevant. Pay particular attention to attention-grabbing headlines.

Social media and business … assume all marketing is the same

The nuances of social media marketing are entirely distinct from that of traditional marketing. Just as it is important to understand the differences between networks, it is equally important to understand how and why social media marketing is different from traditional marketing.

Hint: stop interrupting what your customers are interested in and be what they are interested in.

Ignore customer experience

Strive to keep your customers’ experience consistent, enjoyable, and simple. Give them something worth remembering and telling their friends. Not paying attention to customers’ experience is a very bad thing. Customers will always have an experience, and implicit ones won’t be good ones.

In summary, there are many social media marketing mistakes from which to learn. As you follow your competitors, look at their strengths and weaknesses and watch for things to learn. What do you think? What did you learn from these mistakes?

Remember, it is not what social media marketing does with the consumer; it is what the consumer does after viewing social media marketing.

What are some of your experiences with social media marketing lessons learned?

It’s up to you to keep improving your social media marketing. It is in constant change.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.

When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.

Need some help in capturing more customers from your social media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Do you have a lesson about making your advertising better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

KPI Metrics … The Website Performance Indicators You Must Avoid

Content Development Strategy … SEO Mistakes that Will Kill You

10 Social Media and Business Marketing Killers

How to Get Your E-commerce Store Noticed

More and more people are looking to set up e-commerce stores which allow them to sell products from their own home. First, you must get your E-commerce store noticed.

After all, these businesses can be relatively easy to set up and operate, which makes them a fantastic way to earn money while working from home, whether this is a full-time position or a way to earn on the side.

Additionally, you can sell practically anything online regardless of whether it’s a digital product, a physical product that you have made, or physical products that you have sourced from elsewhere.

With that in mind, here is our must-know guide for getting your e-commerce store noticed.

Sell In-Demand Products

Your e-commerce store will never succeed if you are selling products which not many people want or need. Instead, look into trending products that you can easily sell from home. There are then various ways that you can sell these goods.

A few good examples of current in-demand products include:

Smartphone accessories
Clothing
Health and beauty products
Fitness products
Maternity wear
Video games

To get noticed and develop a brand reputation, you will need to sell products that are of the highest quality.

Make sure that anything that you make or source will satisfy the customer.

Social Media

Social media is a fantastic tool for raising awareness about your e-commerce store. Invite your network to follow your professional pages and use relevant and interesting content to be shared to attract new followers.

You can also use promotions such as “like and share” competitions to encourage people to share your pages.

Create High-Quality Content

Following on from this, you can get noticed by generating high-quality content that your target audience will find helpful.

A few good examples include:

Product demonstrations/reviews
Explainer videos
Interviews
How to guides
Industry news

Internet Marketing

One of the most effective ways to get your e-commerce store noticed is to use internet marketing from a reputable agency.

They will be able to increase your web presence and visibility online, which will direct more traffic to your website while simultaneously establishing your brand as an authoritative figure.

Influencer Marketing

Another useful form of marketing is influencer marketing where you get an influential figure (on social media) to promote your products.

It can be highly effective as the recommendation is coming from someone else but also somebody that is influential and respected amongst their followers.

Customer Reviews

Similarly, getting your existing customers to leave reviews for both the products and service is a great way to increase your reputation, which will help you to get noticed and become a trusted seller.

You can also use any negative feedback to learn and adjust your business model.

Setting up an e-commerce store can be a great way to earn money, but it can be challenging to get your store noticed in such a competitive marketplace.

Once you have developed a reputation and lots of people are visiting your store, these businesses can be relatively easy to operate, but first, it will require hard work and patience when starting out with these all being effective ways of getting noticed.

Why Digital PR is an Essential Investment for Startups?

As a new kid on the block, a startup owner needs to apply the best marketing practices in order to stand out and get an effective promotion. If you are a startup owner yourself, one of your main goals is to reach your target audience fast, and digital PR will be your tool to make that happen.

Digital PR has become a pivotal and highly valuable marketing tool which can help startups to differ from their competition. If this sparked your interest and you want to know why is digital PR such an essential, just keep reading.

What is Digital PR?

As it is explained by Media Vision, digital PR is a tactic used by brands to increase their online presence through building relationships with key content writers and online journalists to gain “press hits”, or citations, and high-quality backlinks.

When done properly, digital PR increases a brand’s reach and visibility and in turn has a positive effect on search engine visibility through effective onsite SEO, driving increased referral traffic.

Now, let us address the difference between traditional PR and digital PR:

Traditional PR focuses on offline visibility. Its tactics mostly revolve around the production of press releases, the organization of press conferences and events, etc.
Digital PR focuses on online visibility. It works with Google and other search engines to ensure that a client’s website ranks highly in online searches, generating high-quality links back to a client’s website from each piece of digital content, as well as optimizing the website itself. The ultimate goal is to increase a brand’s visibility online.

Driving Awareness

One of the undeniable benefits of digital PR is that it enables you to drive awareness to your brand and to access the target audience on as many online platforms as you wish.

From SEO to bloggers, digital marketing is making sure that your brand is getting increased visibility and that the key audience is targeted from every perspective. Digital PR amplifies the message across a wide range of audience.

Increasing online visibility will also give your audience an opportunity to share the content about a brand. Digital PR can make your customers become your marketers. That is, your customer base can do some brand awareness for you!

With the ever-rising popularity of online business, the brand can simply not get enough exposure offline as it can online.

Visual Marketing … 15 Remarkable Content Examples From Which to Learn

Access to Social Media

Social media has become an inevitable part of any marketing strategy. This is where the digital PR steps in and take over the wheel.

Social media enables digital agencies to build audiences around a brand or product. This results in increasing overall online visibility and gaining engagement with key audiences.

Digital PR has direct access to social media community engagement.

In addition, digital marketers can make the most out of social data. It will provide them with an understanding about the demographics and interests of target audiences, again informing the content that is produced.

For example, the graph below shows the different interests of Zazzle’s Facebook audience (light blue) and how they compare to the Facebook average (dark blue).

audience insight — Audience insight is key.

Source: Zazzle Media

Teaming up with influencers

Digital marketing has become codependent with influencers. Influencer marketing is one of the main tools for spreading the word across and raising brand awareness.

Influencer PR is where public relations and social media intersect. According to a report from marketing firm Collective Bias, 30% of consumers are more likely to purchase a product endorsed by a non-celebrity blogger than a celebrity.

Social media influencers carry a lot of credibility on social media. By engaging them in the PR strategy, they can become the best and most effective brand ambassadors and earn brand the credibility it deserves.

Digital PR executives can even aim to get an infographic placed on high-quality sites by using tools such as Keyhole. The tool analyzes posts on both Twitter and Instagram and gives top-line metrics such as posts, impressions, and reach. It also gives a more in-depth analysis such as demographics, the share of posts, geolocation, and an advanced influencer filtering table.

Source: Keyhole

By finding out who has the same interest in what your brand represents and is talking about that topic, digital PR representatives will stand a much better chance of getting the content placed.

Interacting with the audience

Traditional PR conveys information without much feedback. Their communication is a one-way street.

This is where digital PR has an advantage. Every online post is accessible for leaving comments which provides receiving an instant feedback.

You will have an immediate reaction which will direct your future moves since you will have an insight into what your audience responds to and which tactics still need some work.

It will also show you the reaction to the products or services that you offer and whether you need to improve some promotional tactics in order to get a better response from the audience.

Melissa Snow, a digital marketer and a PR specialist at RatedByStudents explain that by interacting with the audience, your brand will establish a certain relationship with them and earn the status of being approachable and caring for the audience’s needs and opinions.

Tracking the results

Digital PR uses different measurement tools to track the power of a digital placement and its progress.

Some of the tools used for the analysis are Moz’s Open Site Explorer and Google Analytics.

Google Analytics allows tracking how many users on a website are clicking a link to a particular website. This enables complete tracking of the users’ experience from first clicking the link within a placement through to the brand’s site and how they engage with the site.

Attaining this valuable information will impact the tactics moving forward by which initiatives should continue, discontinue, or be altered.

There is no better way to tailor the future marketing steps than by having insight into real values and results.

The bottom line

Investing in digital PR can make a huge difference in reaching the right audience and spreading brand awareness quickly and effectively. If you want to keep up with the latest ideas in marketing, digital PR is a crucial step.

Digital PR should follow closely with your SEO and digital marketing strategies for maximum effect. It can strengthen weaker landing pages and increase the site traffic. Exploit the benefits of digital PR and effectively raise a company’s profile within the corresponding industry sector.

Digital Spark Marketing’s Firestorm Blog

Daniela McVicker is a writer and editor at TopWritersReview. She graduated from Durham University and has an MA in Psychological Science. Daniela also has experience in PR. Besides doing her work as an editor and writer, Daniela has been applying her knowledge of psychology and marketing in order to contribute some valuable insights to startup owners who want to find and apply best practices and innovative approaches to their promotion strategy.

Enhanced output

The Relationship Between Executive Mentoring

Overcoming Obstacles with Executive Coaching

Business networking

Opportunity to advance professionally

Provides you with helpful criticism

Participation

Concentrate

The best camera is the one with you. Videos aren’t about dynamic ranges and megapixels. They’re about stories and moments.

Magical? Yes, we do mean magical. We mean magical ideas on employing videos for marketing.

The magic that keeps you glued to your creative video. The magic that makes you remember what you just viewed. The magic that entices you to tell your friends about what you watched … and share it.

Have you ever seen the videos of Steve Jobs presenting the new product launch of the Mac, iPod, or iPad? He understood that something could be entertaining yet meaningful at the same time. Videos such as these work as well on the web as they do on television.

Related: Social Media Marketing Lessons From the New Pros in Town

The simple objective … turn marketing into magical, entertaining content, not content into marketing.

Why video marketing?

Video marketing is a powerful tool for getting more visibility more quickly, so you can get your message out, attract your ideal clients, and have more impact. It’s been reported that your chances of getting a page-one listing on Google search increase by 53 times when you use video.

Video marketing is relationship marketing: crucial for connecting, building loyalty, and developing the “know, like, and trust” factor which is so important when doing business online.

To be effective with video, the emphasis needs to be on your marketing strategy. You must ask: What’s the goal of the video? What business objective will it accomplish? Who will be viewing the video, and what do you want the viewer to do after they watch it?

Use the following structure for your video:

Objectives

Story

The second element is to determine your message, script, or story. Your premise is how you’ll communicate your message and move your viewer to action. What do you want your viewer to do when the video is over?

When developing your message or writing your script, keep in mind the very limited attention span of online viewers. Be clear, concise, and direct. Get to the point quickly and keep your video as short as possible. The vast majority of YouTube videos are under three minutes in length.

Platform

Off-camera videos, on the other hand, don’t require you to be on camera. Off-camera videos can be extremely effective when sharing a lot of information, such as during a video webinar or training video.

Promotion

Be sure to consider other social media sites that accept videos, such as Pinterest, Instagram (15-second limit), Slide Share, and other video hosting sites such as Viddler or Vimeo. The more you distribute your video, the better chance viewers have to find it and watch it.

How to build winning videos

So what is the magic of creating a potentially viral video? Consider the following six elements we use to build winning videos:

Engage audience

Grab attention … to some problem your audience shares, and then address the solution. This is the most important part of the video … the part of the video that compels viewers to want to see and hear the entire story/show!

Stylize the experience

Design an experience that will be memorable … create the visual of your value, the core message. Take some risks here to stand out and be different … no risks, no rewards.

Enlighten and inform

Entertain

Be memorable and bold … be worth the audience’s time and attention. Use subtle marketing techniques. The challenge is to turn marketing into memorable content that informs, enlightens, and entertains at the same time.

Resonate

Compel action

We all understand the need for a call to action. However, you can only deliver on the action called with a convincing story. A story catching attention and providing relevant messages for your target customers.

Video subject ideas

Show the steps it takes to make your flagship product.

Highlight a video testimonial: Ask your customers what three words they would use to describe your company.

Get customers to showcase how they use your products.

Create video clips from a charity event or corporate outing your company has organized.

Humanize your brand by introducing your employees.

Create teasers for upcoming webinars, events, or trade shows.

Create a campaign series; for example, how to install your product in easy, short steps.

Use stop-motion animation to deliver an exciting company announcement.

Build a 30-60 second video to represent the brand elevator pitch. Your goal is to explain what the brand is all about and why people want to buy from you.

Build one to two-minute video demonstrations of products in your store.

Give your brand a personality. Social media allows and wants you to give your brand a personality. Use a video to make it real and authentic. Make it quirky or innovative.

Use a short 30-second video to market a new promotion. This could be a new book, song or movie, or even event. How long do you need to communicate something new? Remember the power of simplicity.

Use a video to announce a special offer or discount.50% off. How long does it take to announce that special offer for your clothing store? Make it visual, aural, and shareable.

Key takeaways:

Have you seen any good video marketing lately? Has your business unleash the power of video yet? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Need some help in capturing more customers from your video media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to innovating your social media strategy?

Do you have a lesson about making your advertising better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.

More reading on marketing and advertising from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:

Successful Social Media Marketing Tactics You Should Employ

Social Media Marketing Lessons From the New Pros in Town

The secret to the iphone5 TV ads …Effective Apple Marketing Strategy?

Like this short blog? Follow Digital Spark Marketing on LinkedIn or add us to your circles for 3-4 short, interesting blogs, stories per week.

Mistakes are ok if you are learning. But avoid these social media and business marketing killers.

Many of our small business clients are new to social media. One of the requests we get from them is to provide a simple system to do the work. Unfortunately, the truth is that there is no such system.

Related post: 17 Cardinal Sins to Avoid in a Social Response Strategy

“Vanity metrics” (friends, followers, “likes”) are the most common metrics marketers use to measure the business impact of social media.

But just 14% of marketers tie vanity metrics to sales levels.

I get it. Seeing your follower count grow and grow and getting a lot of likes on Facebook feels great.

While there are many mistakes to learn from out there, here is our list of the most important ones to learn from:

Social media and business … ignoring content marketing

Little value added

Social media is like a bank account. You simply cannot withdraw more value than you deposit into your account. Too many people view social media as an auto-pilot technique for marketing messages.

I assure you… it is not. It requires effort and careful planning, and you will only get out of it what you are willing to put into it. Remember the quote, garbage in, garbage out? Well, it certainly applies to marketing messages.

A quick splash of value-free marketing will only produce quick and limited results at best. Quick social media splashes with little meaning or value add, always will be worse than no marketing at all.