Expert Advice That Can Make Mobile Marketing Easy

In the world of mobile marketing, there are plenty of great resources available to both new and experienced marketing alike. There are many websites, programs, e-guides, books, videos, and other resources available. This set of tips contains some of the best advice for helping a good marketer become a great marketer.

Keep in mind that it is more difficult to navigate online when using a cell phone or other mobile device. Design a light website that loads quickly and can be navigated in a few clicks. You could have two versions of your site, one for computer users, and one for mobiles. However, a simple site works well for both types of users.

If you run a business online, you are most likely aware that there are free apps available to offer to your visitors. However, do you realize that you can easily create your own apps? You could create your own personal app for your business which would be unique and would help make your mobile market thrive. There is a wide variety of features that might suit your purposes.

Expert mobile marketers deploy various aspects of their marketing strategies in sequence. Take this same approach. Start with texting, progress to calling, proceed a bit further to videos and maintain this progression as you build your social network and expand your mobile marketing empire as far as it can reach. Use all resources that you have at your disposal.

It is important to offer up a little as a means to get a lot. Make sure you give incentives when you market your own mobile marketing campaign. For example, you could offer local event notices, weather updates, or even discounts. Customers love a good sale, so offer them coupons to increase website traffic.

Picture-to-screen campaigns can be very effective. This is a technique that allows customers to send in their own custom photos that involve a current topic or product. The customers then send the photos in a short code to be instantly posted on a digital screen. You can post their photos on however many screens you want.

Location is important in traditional marketing, and can be even more important in mobile marketing. Mobile marketing is an opportunity to use people's location to your advantage; there are fewer location-based barriers. People take their mobile devices everywhere. This ability opens up a world of possibilities that are exclusive to this particular type of media. Figure out how to exploit this location-targeting strategy for your company.

Be sure to take the time to test your website on various mobile browsers, just like you would for computer browsers. Each mobile device is different, complete with different browsers, resolutions and screen sizes. This means that your site and ads may look totally different, depending on the user's device. The least you should do is perform a test on each kind of popular device.

After reading and thinking about these tips, you should have a better understanding of it will take to find success with mobile marketing. There is a ton of info that you need to understand. Remember this as you develop your own strategy and work towards your goals for your business.

Exploring The Benefits Of Social Media Marketing

Even if you've already heard the term "social media marketing," the details of the process might be a bit unclear to you. Have you only used traditional methods in the past, and therefore are uneasy about using social media? Relax! Social media is a simple and effective way to get a message out to a massive audience, and learning how to leverage it is as easy as reading this article. Here are some ideas that will assist you in doing just that.

Your Facebook page can invite customer reviews directly through your business Facebook profile or through a Facebook page for reviews that is linked to your website. This way, visitors can review your site and share it publicly. These reviews can be edited by you and anything that is not to your liking can simply be removed. Entice visitors to participate by making it into a contest.

Create specials that are exclusive to your social media sites to entice your customers to come to them. If customers are treated specially for being followers, they are even more likely to subscribe and stay subscribed to your feed or profile.

It's all about playing with the right keywords and ads when you're marketing via social media. This means you have to put a lot of time and effort into finding the right keywords. This can be another good strategy to use to get more people to come to your social media pages. Additionally, constantly maintain such pages with up-to-date content and promotions. You need to make sure that your entirety of ads actually link up to content relevant to their keywords in order to make sure that your social media campaign works.

Try creating a Facebook or Twitter business profile. That will make it easier for your customers to find you through a search, allowing you to build a solid follower base. You can use this name when ever you are ready to get into social media marketing.

Read up on social networking so you become knowledgeable about the topic. Even if you use Facebook or Twitter already, establishing a professional social media presence is very different from personal social media use. You can find many useful resources on the Internet and even talk to professionals if you are having difficulties.

Brag about friends using your social media. Many online users require you to demonstrate some form of social context before they trust you with their own money. Talk about the people you care about on Twitter or Facebook. Make sure to link other pages too!

Be sure to think of eye-catching headings for your posts. The first piece of content your readers will see is your headline, so try your best to make an impression. You want to be able to catch their attention and make them interested in reading the rest of your article. Don't just write anything; give it the thought it deserves.

Learning social media marketing is much like other marketing avenues, but it does have it's own perks and setbacks. By implementing these hints and tips into your plan for social media marketing, you'll soon see firsthand how lucrative and beneficial social media technology can be to your business. It can be enjoyable to use social media marketing if you engage in it the right way.

Facebook's Lookalike Audiences Lets Advertisers Expand Targeting

Facebook on Tuesday offered advertisers another tool to target consumers on the platform with Lookalike Audiences, a feature that lets them reach users similar to those in their Custom Audience databases.

Launched in late 2012, Custom Audiences lets marketers use existing data like email addresses, phone numbers and user IDs to inform their Facebook strategy. As the name implies, Lookalike Audiences is a tool that alerts advertisers to similar consumers. 

In a blog post heralding the new feature, Facebook noted that marketers can buy Custom and Lookalike audiences in conjunction with any ad buy. 

"For instance, a business could choose to run an Offer to both people who they know have bought from them before, and to people who share similar attributes with those customers," the post explains. "Like with custom audiences, marketers can further refine lookalike audience targeting using Facebook’s standard interests and demographics targeting (i.e. a company could reach lookalikes with an Offer and use standard targeting to make sure that Offer only reaches lookalikes in Florida)."

SEE ALSO: Facebook to Serve Up Ads Based on Your Offline Shopping Habits

The object is to try to lure new fans. However, marketers will only know certain details about the Lookalike Audiences, like their size. 

Facebook says it won't share any personal info with advertisers. Facebook claims that such targeting increases ad efficacy. The company claims an unnamed online retail partner, for instance, has seen a 56% lower cost-per-fan acquisition cost and a 94% lower cost per checkout using Lookalikes in beta.

Facebook launched Lookalikes in beta in February. The product ties in with Facebook's goal of improving overall ad performance.

As CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts in January during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call, "There's a big opportunity in front of us to make every ad that we’re showing a lot better. The biggest ways we’re going to do this are by improving targeting and relevance so we can show everyone content that they care more about and by designing better ad products that aren't just about links and text and images. For targeting, I’m most excited about the work that we’re doing on Custom Audiences."

By mashable


articles from:  http://mashable.com/2013/03/19/facebook-lookalike/

Become The Social Media Marketing Expert With These Must Know Tips

Social media can be a place to stay in touch with friends and market your products. However, social media sites can easily become time wasters if they're not used effective. The next few paragraphs will teach you to exploit

social media marketing to its fullest potential.

Advertising is a very valuable component when you are trying to form your marketing campaign on social media sites. Such advertising is cost-effective and aimed at certain keywords found in user profiles. Many companies

advertise through Facebook because they give you the ability to target the specific type of people who give demographics that match what you're looking for.

Don't share things that are too political or personal, if you want to avoid repelling your social media contacts. You want your customer to feel connected to you through your voice and personality, but you also want them to

feel comfortable doing business with you professionally. Feel free to use a conversational tone, but stay within your niche.

Keep track of responses to your posts that are sent. When you send your messages, do it at this time. If you're messaging service is automatic, try setting your account up to send your tweets when most of your followers

are likely logging on to their own accounts.

If your company has a blog, post the link on your social media site whenever you update it. Your social media subscribers will see and follow the links to intriguing and fresh content they can enjoy.

When you write a blog for your business, add visual interest to the content. People don't want to read lines and lines of text without anything to break it all up. Add logos, videos, pictures or graphs to make your blog more

visually interesting. On the other hand, don't make it that the only thing seen on your page is graphics.

In order to encourage the sharing of your content, work on developing methods to expand your normal audience. Avoid jargon and use appropriate humor to help make content easier to share. Even if your followers are

able to understand what you're saying, they won't share unless they think their friends will be able to understand too.

Followers can easily share your content with Facebook. When a person comments on a post on your page, all of their friends can see it. Let your readers know that you'd like them to engage in communications, so that you

get more exposure.

To help people find your site in searches, try making YouTube videos that have keywords that relate to your website. Videos are extremely popular on today's web. Even if a search engine doesn't favor videos and put them

ahead of other related content, every engine out there still has a separate tab for videos that most people search specifically. Make sure that your site is linked via the video's description, and make sure the keywords you use

are relevant.

You can reap tremendous benefits from the use of social media. A lot of individuals register on these type of websites every and promoting your website through these sites will help you reach a wide variety of audience.

Having read through this article, you should now realize how you can utilize social media for its great benefits. Take a look at some social media sites and begin your new marketing campaign.

Confused About Social Media Marketing? Start Here With This Advice

 

Incorporating social media marketing strategies can quickly increase the success of your business. Social media provides you with the tools to not only communicate with a wide audience quickly, but also to interact with that audience. Use the tips in this article to develop the best social media marketing campaign for your business.

If you are considering using a consultant to assist you with your social media marketing campaign, make sure they use the sites they would recommend. If they truly believe and know how to utilize Facebook, Twitter, and others, they should have a page of their own. Do the research to verify this to be sure they are a company you want to use.

If you are using WordPress for your site, be sure to put a Retweet button that is at the top of your posts for your readers to use. This will make it easy for them to pass on your information to others. WordPress has plugins for this, so it will be simple for you to do with huge benefits in the long run.

Whenever you post something on your blog or update your website, write a Facebook post right away. Perhaps you should plan ahead and write your post in advance so that you are not rushed to do it. Remember that people subscribed to your Facebook posts to be updated about what you are doing.

It is important to be involved in the newer large social media sites for effective marketing, but do not forget about the older sites. Social websites like MySpace and Craigslist have huge followings, and you will be missing out on a large market if you ignore them. Social media is extremely competitive and the older established sites still have market share

To make sure people keep coming back to your page, update it regularly! If you have a consistent update schedule, people will keep coming back to see what you'll post next. If you only update sporadically, people will lose interest, and they won't see your content when you do share it.

You can get your followers' attention by posting something in a format that makes reading easier. For instance, try coming with a list of top 10 tips or writing questions and answers. The visual aspect of your article will make it more appealing and your readers will be more likely to share it.

Employing social media marketing strategies can be a great way to keep in contact with your customer base, and develop relationships. Customers that friend you on Facebook, or follow you on Twitter do so willingly. They want to hear from you. You can therefore notify them of new upcoming products, sales and discounts, or even just information concerning your business and industry without the fear of being too intrusive.

Applying social media marketing strategies will boost the success of your business. Take advantage of the many social media tools available to spread awareness of your business, and interact with your customers. Incorporate the tips in this article into your overall marketing strategy, and realize the rewards of social media marketing.

Facebook's 'New Look' May Include Multiple News Feeds

Facebook is planning to make its first major change to the news feed since it launched in 2006, and according to reports, we could see multiple news feeds based on categories, such as Instagram photos and music your friends are listening to and artist updates.

Ahead of the big press event the social network is holding on Thursday, TechCrunch is reporting that, in addition to several news feeds, we'll be seeing larger photos and image-based ads.

Mashable reached out to Facebook for confirmation: "We don't comment on rumor and speculation," a spokesperson said.

If the TechCrunch report is true, the multiple feed feature will be located at the top near the search bar. Although the design is expected to include a photo feed — dedicated to only Facebook and Instagram pictures — as well as one for music, there could be other options dedicated just for news, videos and apps. This would also allow advertisers to target specific interests.

 

This would make it easier for users to sort through the heavy stream of information hitting news feeds, without hitting repeated content posted by friends. By giving members more categories to sift through, Facebook gives people a greater incentive to spend more time on the site.

Mashable recently reported that a new look for Timeline is already live in New Zealand, featuring a new toolbar at the top of the screen and an about widget below the profile picture. Timeline navigation is also re-positioned at the top right of the page, taking the place of current ads, and shared stories get a like button for that site below the post.

What do you think of the new multiple feeds and Timeline concept? Let us know in the comments.

By mashable

Increase the Value of Your Facebook Community

As a relatively new and rapidly evolving digital channel, social media is subject to considerable debate among marketers, especially regarding ROI.
Undoubtedly, however, social media is becoming more effective in connecting businesses with prospects and customers. It is also useful for gaining user demographic insight, keeping current with trending topics, and addressing customer wants and needs.
With over one billion users, Facebook is the world's largest social network. It alone presents a robust opportunity for your brand to reach both potential and current customers. If used correctly, Facebook increases brand awareness and advocacy, lowers service costs, and drives customer loyalty and incremental sales.
To achieve those goals, you need to carry out two primary activities:

1. Grow your Facebook community.
2. Engage your Facebook community.

1. Facebook Community Growth
Fan acquisition campaigns are the best way to rapidly grow your Facebook community. Those campaign types vary, but they are consistent in that they must inspire participation via compelling value propositions and spark awareness via targeted paid social media.

Value Propositions Within Social Media
Value propositions are the incentives, offers, or experiences that will prompt users to "like" your page and to share with others. It is a key component that can ultimately determine the success of your social campaign.
Among the types of value propositions that have proven successful are offers, causes, and content gates,
Offers: Facebook's "offers" include both free and discounted deals. When polled, most Facebook users say they "like" brands in order to receive coupons. Offers not only increase engagement but also sales, because the discounts encourage purchases that may not have been made otherwise.
Kohl's provides an excellent example below with its coupon for an additional 15% off merchandise.





Of course, a free offer is always appealing to every demographic. As TGI Friday's demonstrates, sometimes all it takes is a free hamburger and a couple of days to see impressive results—within one weekend, it accumulated 500,000 additional fans on the social network.





Causes: Ideal for stimulating organic friend-to-friend sharing, donation-based causes are successful because the entry barrier is low and the return can be extremely high.
Olga Intimates, for example, collaborated with ZOG Digital's Creative Studio to honor Breast Cancer Awareness month. A "Virtual Quilt" Facebook application was created, turning every "like" into a dedicated quilt square and money donated to charity by the brand. The campaing resulted in a 400% increase in fan base in less than one month.


Content gates: If your brand already has compelling content—images, videos, or other experiences—a "like" is simple action for a user to take to gain access. A particularly innovative example is "The Society of Good Taste" campaign run by Grey Poupon. It required that Facebook users apply to be eligible to "like" their page, and it put those users pages through a screening "taste test." The campaign greatly increased engagement, supporting the idea that "exclusivity" is something brands should consider using.



Paid Media for Social Campaigns
For social, the maxim "if you build it, they will come" should be amended to read "if you build it—and spark awareness with paid social media—they will come."
In particular, Facebook advertising is effective in reaching the right type of prospects because it segments consumers into niche audiences. As Facebook's ad products continue to evolve, the quality of its user data continues to grow, allowing more targetable and effective campaigns.
You have a choice of four major types of ad units (as of November 2012): standard ads, like ads, page post ads, and Sponsored Stories.
Standard ads: Traditional ad units found on the right side of the page, these ads' effectiveness is debatable. Although they are not often implemented for a fan-acquisition campaign, they can have value in combination with the other ad types listed here.


Like ads: Similar to standard ads, but designed specifically to drive traffic to a Facebook page and increase likes, these ads achieve increased brand visibility.

Page post ads: With this option, you can take one of your posts and boost it into an ad unit. This is an interesting product to both increase "likes" and drive engagement with fans. Nonfans will have the ability to like your page directly from the ad, while current fans will see sponsored posts.


Sponsored Stories: Sponsored Stories turn your fan base interactions into ad units. They are effective when for increasing visibility, especially in light of recent modifications to the Facebook algorithm. Many types of actions can be turned into stories: page likes, post likes, comments, shares, and more.



Alternative Paid Social Ad Options
Along with the four basic types already listed, three other up-and-coming ad units are worth considering: mobile ads, Sponsored Results ads, and Facebook Exchange.
Mobile growth has expanded enormously, with 14% of Facebook's revenue in 3Q12 having come from mobile, and 680 million monthly active users using Facebook mobile products via their smartphones and tablets as of December 2012. Click-through rates are 23 times higher on mobile than on desktop ads, and mobile advertising allows businesses to specify details such as the device type in which the ad should appear.

Sponsored Results ads allow companies to place ads in the typehead search results so that they will appear before organic results. You are able to target exact pages and search entries (such as competitors) with this ad unit.

Facebook Exchange, a network-specific form of retargeting, has great potential as well in that marketers can target audiences based on behavior and interests, and bid in real-time, helping brands increase visibility and gain customer insight.

2. Facebook Community Engagement
At ZOG Digital, we define engagement as the quantifiable demonstration—including "likes," comments, and shares—that generate the attention of your community.
We focus on attention, because it is the fundamental precursor to preference, advocacy, and purchase; moreover, aside from doing secondary research, these types of clicks are a good way to validate that engagement.



Another critical component of engagement is friend-to-friend organic sharing. On Facebook, that activity happens overwhelmingly within posts in the newsfeed. To stimulate engagement, therefore, your brand needs to create ongoing timely and compelling post content.
What is the best way to create post content that will gain the most "likes," comments, and shares? We've analyzed brand and social network content and categorized the most popular posts into four types of content:

1. Topical
2. Visual
3. Expressive
4. Target-specific

By integrating such posts into your posting calendar, you will improve the likelihood of increasing community engagement and will ultimately increase consumer-generated referrals and sales.
Topical content: People tend to share content that is relevant to current events. By monitoring and "newsjacking" events relevant to your audience, you can take advantage of the popularity of these topics to increase engagement.
Oreo did just that in its "Daily Twist" campaign by incorporating topical content into images of it product (The Mars Rover Landing is shown below). It not only drummed up social media mentions and engagement but also garnered significant news coverage.

Visual content: Social continues to evolve into a more visual medium, as illustrated by the rise of sites like Pinterest and Instagram. Images garner higher engagement rates than other forms of posts because of the instantaneous nature of understanding and gratification via images.
In fact, 44% of users are more likely to engage with brands on Facebook if they post pictures, according to Performics. High-quality and high-resolution images in particular further raise engagement. The difference in post engagement with images vs. without is illustrated by WaterPik.



Expressive content: Expressive content refers to content that demonstrates a certain persona or point of view. For example, a brand looking to demonstrate its charitable tendencies may check in at a volunteer event or share its philanthropic donations via status updates and pictures.
This approach is best used when you understand the positive attributes of your brand and you're able to express those through specific posts. The Humane Society of the United States, http://www.humanesociety.org/ for instance, sees all current events in terms of animals and accordingly posted the following image of its Animal Rescue Team during a hurricane:


Target-specific content: Target-specific content is content that your audience engages with most. To identify what your target group finds most interesting, you have to use Facebook insights and categorize the recurring topics and themes for the posts that tend to get the most engagement.
For example, Healthcare provider TriWest discovered that the most engagement on its page occurred within posts acknowledging the contribution of military members to the United States.



Summing Up
To increase the value of your Facebook community, you need to grow and engage your fan base, which is initially done by way of compelling value propositions: Facebook offers, causes, and content gates.
Those efforts are then accelerated by targeted paid social media campaigns, including standard ads, "like" ads, page post ads, and sponsored stories.
Once you've accumulated fans, you'll want to keep their interest by producing timely, intriguing content that inspires interaction by way of "likes," comments, and shares.
Incorporated into an optimized Facebook strategy, those tactics can ultimately increase brand awareness, site traffic, customer loyalty, and sales.
If you have specific questions or would like to learn more about our social campaign case studies, strategies, and optimization programs, reach out to us. See our contact info in the author bio.




by Jeff Herzog

Marketing Budgets and Staffing Levels Rising Worldwide

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The outlook for marketers worldwide continues to strengthen, according to new data from Warc's Global Marketing Index. The headline GMI, a metric that combines trends observed in marketing budgets, trading conditions, and staffing levels, registered a reading of 56.2 in February 2013, up from 53.8 a month earlier.

Moreover, the headline GMI has now recorded month-on-month improvement for three consecutive months, with marketers in the Asia-Pacific region registering the strongest improvement in outlook.

The Americas remains the most positive region, with its headline GMI showing a strong reading of 59.5, up 1.5 points from January. The headline GMI for Europe also improved, reaching 53.1 in February, albeit remaining slightly less optimistic than the other measured regions.

The GMI is a monthly indicator of the state of the global marketing industry composed of three components: marketing budgets, global trading conditions, and staffing levels. A GMI reading of 50 indicates no change and a reading of over 60 indicates rapid growth. 

Below, other findings issued by Warc in association with World Economics.

Global Marketing Budgets

The index of global marketing budgets registered further growth in February (51.7) with marketers in the Americas recording the greatest confidence (55.5). 

Key budget-related findings for February 2013 include:

• Marketers in the Asia-Pacific region registered an increase for the first time in four months with the index rising 2.2 points in February, to 50.3.
• Marketing budgets are still being cut across Europe, but the European index recorded a value of 48.8 in February, up 2.6 points from the previous month.
• Digital channels excluding mobile (74.5) and mobile (68.6) continue to attract rapidly increasing investments, though both recorded slight month-over-month drops in index value, falling 0.5 and 1.3 points, respectively.
• TV gained marginally, up 1.1 points, to 48.8 in February, but continues to register a net budgeted spend decline.
• Radio also recorded a month-over-month improvement in index value, to 42.4 in February, but investment continues to shrink at a rapid rate.

Global Trading Conditions

The index for global trading conditions improved in February and now stands at 59.4 (up 1.5 points from January). That's the index's highest reading since April 2012.

The outlook for trading conditions remains most positive in the Americas at 60.9, followed by Asia Pacific at 59.7 and Europe at 57.4.

Global Staffing Levels

The global index of staffing levels, the third component of headline GMI, registered further improvement in February and now stands at 57.6.

Staffing levels continue to rise in all regions, with the Americas at 62.1, the Asia-Pacific region at 58.5, and Europe at 53.2.

About the data: Findings are based on a survey of 1,225 global marketers—experienced executives working for brand owners, media owners, creative and media agencies, and other organizations serving the marketing industry. The panel is selected to reflect trends in the three main global regions: Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe. GMI results are calculated by taking the percentage of respondents that report the activity has risen ("Increasing") and adding it to one-half of the percentage who report the activity has not changed ("Unchanged"). Using one-half of the "Unchanged" percentage effectively measures the bias toward a positive (above 50 points) or negative (below 50 points) index.

by Lenna Garibian 

Business Need A Marketing Push? Try These Great Tips

 

Mobile marketing can be quite confusing. Lots of methods exist for promoting a business using mobile devices. With all of the different ways to promote your business via mobile marketing, it's probably difficult for you to figure out where you should start. In this article, we'll provide the basics to help you out.

Try and make your marketing campaign viral, as this is the greatest way to be successful. They could recommend it to friends and family, which will increase your customer base.

To gain customers and expand your brand, use QR codes. For sharing coupons, promotions and/or discounts, nothing is better than QR codes. These codes are easy to use and captured on a cell phone. These codes help you communicate with an increasingly digital audience.

Remember with the onset of widely available cellphones, that you are in communication with real people, in real time. Treat your potential customers with respect, even if they happen to be rude to you.

Use mobile marketing to market your event a few hours before any major sale. A well-timed text message could be just the right spur to drive customers to check out your event.

As a mobile marketer, you should understand how the mobile devices are set up in order to properly understand how to create your sites and other advertising material. Being familiar with a wide variety of devices will help you see things from the perspective of your customers.

If you have any social websites that promote your business, make sure you include a corresponding link on your business homepage. It's more probable that people will search from your site, than they will do the extra work to see if you have a Facebook or Twitter account.

Your advertisements should carry QR codes to assist your tech-friendly customers. This makes it easy for smart phone users to access your site and use your coupons. You should put the QR code everywhere: catalogs, brochures, posters, business cards, and any other printed materials you use. If a customer wants to know more about your business, a QR code is a way that they can do that instantly.

Just as Internet marketers test their websites in differing browsers, you should try out your mobile websites and ads on more than one model mobile device. Mobile devices are equipped with a variety of browsers, as well as resolutions and screen sizes. This means that your site and ads may look totally different, depending on the user's device. At the very least, you should test on all of the most popular devices.

Take the time to promote your business on all the social networking sites. This is important in making your business known to other people. Keep to the basics with your basics and then expand from there. The least you can do is create a Facebook page for your business and establish a custom page on Foursquare.

Mobile marketing is complex, and you should take the time to learn more about it. There are no businesses that will follow the same marketing plan, or have the same views. A method that works for one business may be useless to the other. The previous tips should have helped you start.