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Why Your Fan Base Matters & How to Grow One

Posted on February 15, 2012 by in Facebook, Social Media, Twitter

By now most people recognize that having a social media presence and interacting with current and potential customers online is a good thing. You know that connecting with people on and offline is important for your business and brand. But you might not know the statistics behind having that online fan base…

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The Big Tease: Getting Us Hooked on Super Bowl Commercials Before the Game

Posted on February 2, 2012 by in Integrated Marketing Campaigns, Marketing, Social Media

I hate television commercials, and I’m willing to bet you do, too. They’re annoying, they’re unrealistic, and perhaps most infuriating of all, they always air much louder than the actual show you were engrossed in before the break.

With my DVR, I can get around this. There’s nothing I love more than being able to fast-forward through the commercials. It makes me feel like I have the upper hand on the advertisers. That I’m beating them at their own game.

And this makes the advertisers very, very sad. Indeed, as traditional television viewership has declined, so has advertising revenue. The television ad market dipped 21.2% between 2008 and 20091, and since then it hasn’t exactly made a comeback.

But there remains one time of year where the advertisers can still beat me at my own game. One very special day where they know that they have nearly all of America’s attention…

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Twitter Tutorial: Using Hashtags

Posted on January 26, 2012 by in Marketing, Social Media, Twitter

There are a handful of words that never fail to make me hungry, and one of those words is “hashtag.” Whenever I lay eyes on that word, visions of perfectly browned shredded potatoes come dancing through my mind.

Sadly, a hashtag couldn’t be further removed from a hashbrown. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing, because when’s the last time a potato did so much for your marketing strategy?

If you’ve been on Twitter for any length of time, you’ve seen a hashtag in action. A hashtag is any word or phrase preceded by a # symbol. The hashtag is used to denote key topics, similar to the way a tag is used on a blog…

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Social Media: Why You Should Respond to Negative Comments

Posted on January 9, 2012 by in PR, Small Business, Social Media

You’ve worked hard to grow your business and your reputation, and someone has just started complaining about you via one of the many social media channels available.

Unfortunately, there are endless examples to draw from. In fact, they follow a formula, and you can fill in the blanks (like MadLibs… brings me back!):

(name) is on (website), and (he/she) is unhappy because (reason).

For example:

Joe is on Twitter, and he is unhappy with the flowers he ordered for his girlfriend’s birthday because they were late. He’s using those 140 characters to explain that the bouquet was note only late, but also dried out, and overall a major disappointment. And he’s naming names. In fact, soon he’ll be blaming all of his relationship problems on this one bad bouquet.

Problem is, you’re the florist. So…

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How to Grow Your Presence on Twitter

Posted on January 6, 2012 by in Social Media

I’ll admit it, I was a late adopter of Twitter. Something about that 140-character limit seemed, well, limiting, and I was sure I didn’t need to add another distraction to my day. I figured it’d be better to leave the tweeting to the birds.

Two years after I finally overcame my reluctance and opened an account, I’m a solid believer in this social media platform. Yep, I’m one of those annoying Twitter evangelists, running around encouraging everyone to join. And even if you’re not yet quite as convinced as I am, you’ve probably figured out by now that Twitter is here to stay, so you’ve likely jumped on the bandwagon, too.

Good choice. Twitter is a great way to promote your business and brand…

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