Attention Business Owners, let 2012 be the year that you take your social media engagement tactics to the next level. After months and months of trying to build your community, it’s time that you start doing more to engage that community. What might surprise you is that by shifting your focus from solely trying to grow your online community to trying to engage the members you already do have, your community will begin to grow organically. This happens only if your current community gets actively engaged in your social media efforts, so much so that their online network can’t help but be intrigued by all of the activity going on. A percentage of those folks will click over to see what all of the commotion is about. If the commotion is of interest to them too, they will become new members of your online community. Sold? Good. So where do you start?
Small businesses are always looking for new in store marketing ideas to help engage their customers. Using games to engage customers while in store is one marketing tactic that can be extremely successful when executed properly. If you’re thinking about using games in store to engage customers there are a few things you need to keep in mind when choosing a game. In this article we will review how to choose a game to use in your store, and then we will list a few games that would be great for engaging your customers in store.
Wireless internet. Mobile marketing. iPad, iPad, iPad. Everyone, including us here at Catalyst, are infatuated with all of the new technologies out there when it comes to small business marketing. Sometimes we need to take a step back to ensure we are focusing on what really matters, and what really matters is engaging your customers in a way that allows you to build deep relationships with them. You see, it’s those relationships with your customers that allow you to sell more products and services. Obviously new technologies like iPad allow you to engage your customers, but lets not forget that some traditional marketing tactics, combined with creativity, can work just as well.
Content Marketing can be extremely beneficial for your business. Content Marketing is the process of creating online content as a way to educate your customers and prospects, increase your website traffic, and engage your online community. With that said, when most business owners think “online content” they only think about blog articles and e-mail newsletters. Blog marketing and e-mail marketing are two very effective marketing tactics, but they are only 1 of 4 different types of online content.
Are you interested in finding out who stopped following your business on Twitter? If so, there’s an online tool to help you with that. Who.unfollowed.me offers a free service which allows you to see who unfollowed you on Twitter. Businesses who use Twitter to engage with customers and prospects should always be aware who’s following them and who isn’t. If someone unfollows your business it’s probably for a reason. Before who.unfollowed.me came out with their service, finding out who stopped following you on Twitter was a tedious process. Other services make you wait for an email or direct message. Who.unfollowed.me allows you to manually check who unfollowed you whenever you want.
Facebook has recently made it much easier to get a custom Facebook URL for your small business Facebook page. It used to be that Facebook required all Facebook pages to accumulate 25 ‘Likes’ prior to them being able to quality for a custom URL. This requirement caused a lot of small business owners who were just getting started on Facebook to use that ugly URL string for their page. The problem with the old way of doing things was that when small business owners when to promote their Facebook page on other marketing collateral, such as in-store, on their website, on print ads, etc. the URL was not easily read and couldn’t be typed into a browser without a lot of patience on behalf of the customer. Realizing that their rules were causing headaches for business owners and Facebook users, Facebook has changed the rule.
More and more I’m seeing LinkedIn Group Members using LinkedIn Discussions to add Facebook and Twitter connections. At first glance you think to yourself, hmmm, this is a good idea. After a little time though, you realize that this is a failed strategy. Why? Well it gets back to a point we make over and over again at this company, when it comes to online marketing, it’s about QUALITY over quantity. Too many business owners make the mistake of thinking that if they have a large quantity of followers they will be successful. Unfortunately, that’s not the case if ‘quality’ is missing.
Do you own a small-to-medium-sized business? If so, you probably haven’t considered ever creating a television commercial to help promote your business. Why? Because it’s just way too expensive. Plus you’re probably noticing that TV ads are rapidly losing their effectiveness for helping to sell products and services. With all of this being said, it doesn’t mean creating commercials for your small business is a bad idea. Notice I didn’t say, “…creating TV commercials…”. New video recording, editing, publishing, and promoting tools are popping up everyday, which brings down the costs for creating a commercial for your business.
Are you looking for creative ways to engage your Facebook community? Facebook Photo Caption Contests can be an effective marketing tactic for small business. Facebook Photo Caption Contests help businesses attract new Facebook ‘Likes’, engage existing Facebook community members, learn from their community, provide a fun way to interact with customers, and can lead to increased sales. With that said, there are a few things all businesses need to know before they can run a successful Facebook Photo Caption Contest.