Promoting your events is now easier than ever. Not only mailing lists, print ads and such, now you can do so on social media. In fact, you should focus your effort on event promotion via social media. Why?

It’s pretty simple really: Social media is THE hangout place for people today. There’s no better place to kick-start your promotional campaign than the place where hundreds of millions of people are socialising on daily basis.

The big question is, how to effectively promote your events on social sites? Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn,… the list can go on and on… and one-size-fits-all approach just won’t work; each and every of them has unique characteristic – not only in the features, but also in the user base.… Continue reading »

When it comes to raising awareness and drumming up interest for your event, it would take a very brave event manager to ignore social media completely. One of the most effective social media sites for event promotion is undoubtedly Twitter and one strategy that can work really well, especially for larger events, is the setup of a separate Twitter account for the event. Below you will find 5 great tips on how to do this effectively.

1. The first thing to consider when setting up a separate account is the Twitter handle you will be using, the information included in the bio and the image you will be using.… Continue reading »

Taking a business idea from the drawing board to the launching pad takes a great deal of time, dedication, and hard work. Today, entrepreneurs have the benefit of social media, allowing them to connect with potential customers and partners on a variety of platforms. Social media has proven to be a powerful tool in helping to take these small business start-ups and turn each one into a success story.

Birchbox

One of the most popular and well-known subscription services on the scene today, Birchbox delivers samples of beauty products to subscribers each month. Co-founders Katia Beauchamp and Hayley Barna met when both were attending Harvard Business School.… Continue reading »

Social media has changed the game when it comes to promoting your conference. While traditional invitations to colleagues and interested user groups still have value, the likes of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn offer the chance to get the word out about what you’re planning to a wide variety of like-minded people with minimal effort and cost.

But how do you find these people if you are new to these ways of communication, and what are the most efficient time-saving ways of finding potential attendees quickly in the vast hubbub of noise that social media sites generate?

Once you have chosen your conference’s theme and venue, ideally through a specialist conference facilitator who offers meeting rooms and venues from an hour upwards, spreading the word to get as many relevant attendees as possible is the biggest challenge that event organisers face.… Continue reading »

LinkedIn is the #1 website for business networking. With over 200 million members LinkedIn is a ready-made address book, packed with contacts, waiting to be opened, if you know where to begin.

LinkedIn’s not just a place to post your CV or resume but a living, breathing community or people waiting to connect or hear about opportunities. Thanks to the community, promoting your event can also be efficiently and effectively done.

This blog post will guide to promote your event better, in such a way that not only buzz, you will also get sign-ups.… Continue reading »

Top 6 Tips for Promoting Your Event on LinkedIn
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Recently there has been a trend for employers to go beyond the usual job interviewing process. In an effort to get to know job applicants, some employers are looking at candidates social media pages during the hiring process.

This has resulted in debates over privacy issues. While it seems reasonable that viewing a social media page might be a way to “get past the resume” to see the real person that the resume represents, there are justified concerns about privacy that need to be considered.

Right to Expression

Within reason, everyone has the right to express their thoughts and opinions on social media sites.… Continue reading »

One predominately untapped resource in online marketing today is Google Plus. While many have considered Google Plus a failure, including contributors at Forbes, Mashable and MSN Money, few have realized the true potential of this platform.

As of now, the late adopters have decided it’s better to employ the excuse of lacking the resources than attempting to dominate the field and create barriers to entry for the competition.

So how do you build your brand, customer engagement and a following on Google Plus? Read on and get started today.

Utilizing a New Media to Convey a Message

The key element of social media success with businesses is the ability to create and engage with a targeted community of current and potential customers.… Continue reading »

How many times have you heard the mantra about keeping social media followers engaged by constantly updating your profiles with fresh and unique updates?

And yet what a lot of entrepreneurial peeps don’t realise is that it is actually possible to have too much of a social media presence…

It’s a common mistake – and it’s a BIG one.

I know that there are plenty of people who seem to suddenly swamp my social newsfeeds with constant updates, most of which aren’t even of interest to me. It feels invasive, impersonal and overwhelming – it feels like, well… spam. So what do I always end up doing?… Continue reading »

We made it, folks! December 21 has come and gone, and we are still standing. Not that there was much question of that, but having lived through a couple of alleged doomsday predictions in my time, it is always fun to add another one to the old notch list. Now 2013 is just a tiny jump away, a new year full of possibilities and who knows what else.

Of course, it isn’t all New Years resolutions and counting down the months until summer. No, it is also time to start preparing that social marketing plan for the coming year, a plan that will need to come into effect within the next week.… Continue reading »

Twitter is a fantastic medium with which to expand the social reach of your business network, manage your company or brand’s reputation and interact with customers. With more than 200 million users around the world, every business- large or small- has the potential to access a global audience.

While we’ve all read articles on ‘when social media goes wrong’ (and admittedly, these social media horror stories do make good reading), there are also many success stories out there that show social media really can enhance the reach of small businesses. Gone are the days when Twitter, Facebook and the rest could be dismissed by stating the belief that “it’s just for kids”, social media has a real-world impact.… Continue reading »

Internet days of old pitted webmasters against each other, attempting to farm links through FFA or even write forum posts which demeaned their business credibility. With the evolvement of social media platforms, the world has the opportunity to speak its mind on various products, pictures, services and businesses in general.

Within the last five years, however, the strength social media has gained can also positively, or adversely, affect one’s search engine positioning simply through the lack of linking, or linking to the wrong social category. SEO specialists realize the intrinsic power contained in SMM campaigns which is why many successful campaigns merge both styles of marketing.… Continue reading »

Twitter is the Marmite of social networks. Aptly described as ‘the nervous system of the internet’ by podcasting legend Leo LaPorte, it can take some time and effort to get the benefits of real-time 140 character updates.

But there are good reasons to persevere – eCommerce site Zappos recently revealed a Twitter referral results in a $33.66 average order compared to $2.08 for Facebook and $0.75 for Pinterest. And choosing the right Twitter tools can improve the experience immensely as well as helping you to build a bigger following for your personal or company profile or brand presence.

Twitter clients

Recently Twitter has made several moves to limit the number of third-party clients available, particularly after acquiring services such as Tweetdeck.… Continue reading »

Do you own your own home or do you rent? How many of you who rent somewhere have a great relationship with your landlord? Perhaps you’ve got an excellent landlord who fixes any problems as soon as they arise, maintains everything beautifully – maybe your landlord even looks after your property when you go on vacation and sends you Christmas cards.

My friend (let’s call him Mike) had just such a landlord, and the apartment had great views and was close to the beach – he loved it and he intended to stay there for many happy years. Mike invested some of his own money into home improvements, lovingly tended his garden and planted new trees and shrubs – we all thought he was onto a really good thing… right up until the moment when he received a notice from his landlord saying the rent was going up by 25% and if he was unable to pay he had to vacate the apartment within the month.… Continue reading »

Selling in China or thinking about it? These 5 reasons will help you understand why it is essential to have Weibo as a key part of your marketing strategy.

China is hot right now. As consumer spending growth dries up in most western markets, businesses are increasingly diverting their focus on enticing the highly-prized Chinese middle class. There are now over half a million foreign businesses in China, many of them competing for a share of Chinese consumer’s wallets.

But with such intense competition in China, how can small or medium business make any headway against the deep pocketed corporations and well established local businesses?… Continue reading »

The success of your small business’ social media campaigns depends on many factors; however, there are some common metrics to measure the effectiveness of your campaigns: The number of fans/followers/likes you get and the increase in sales and/or the number of clients during the campaigns.

Ideally, you want to obtain fans and followers free of charge – typically via smart strategies, such as “like this post if you agree!” However, that’s not always work in general – say you are promoting your sound/music-related products on SoundCloud, you might want to obtain free soundcloud followers using a different strategy. … Continue reading »

How to increase my social media followers?

The current digital age has made it the perfect time to start small businesses. This mainly has to do with all the outlets that are offered online for funding. Sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo allow for easy platforms that allow users to pitch their business, offer up plans of execution, and any other pertinent information that can get investors on board. While these platforms are extremely user friendly and easy to use, one has to remember that these efforts do not run themselves. Integrating social media outreach into your efforts are almost essential into your success. The following advice will give you a quick roundup of how to utilize social media into your startup fundraising.… Continue reading »

Today’s best and brightest entrepreneurs harness the full power of the web to expand their enterprises, meet new people, and stay informed. Perhaps the most important part of that devotion to the web lies in their social media presence, be it an active Twitter handle or a well-connected LinkedIn profile. With such a huge portion of the world on the web, why wouldn’t an entrepreneur take the opportunity to make their case to millions of potential customers, investors, and readers?

The fact of the matter is that entrepreneurs have no choice in the matter: if you want to be successful, you have to establish a strong social media connection with your clientele.… Continue reading »

Social media can offer marketers wealth of information to laser-target their ads to the right audience.

Using social data to build up a list for affiliate marketing can give marketers a tremendous advantage over their competition. This is because they are able to use the additional information that they get from their social leads to better target their ads. Not only that, but they can also better design their products using this information and make the pitches more personal.

For example, if you know somebody’s name then you can put their name in the letter and this may give a higher conversion rate.… Continue reading »

Twitter is, without a doubt, one of the most valuable online business assets you can have. When customers choose to engage with you, you have a higher chance of reaching them with your message. Still, it is important that you optimize your business’s Twitter presence, or else you may find that customers are hesitant to follow you. With a large, receptive Twitter following, you can drive traffic to your business’s website as well as subtly advertise your newest products.

Below you’ll find seven ways to better utilize Twitter for business…

1. Use hashtags

The hashtag, “#,” is a very powerful tool.… Continue reading »

With over a billion users on Facebook and hundreds of millions of active users on major social media services such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and Quora – companies like PeerIndex and Klout are racing to leverage social media data into valuable marketing information. PeerIndex and Klout -along with several other emerging services- have developed algorithms designed to measure and quantify an individual’s online influence. Whether these metrics provide useful, actionable data to businesses looking to augment their existing CRM systems has been the subject of hot debate.

Why Should You Integrate Social Media Metrics With Your CRM System?

The new wave of social media analytics software scrapes user data across the major social networks to build profiles of a user’s influence.… Continue reading »