GOOGLE ALERTS
Posted: February 8, 2012 | Author: Margarita Makovetskaya | Filed under: social media | Tags: Blogs, books, content, daily, discussion, email, Google, interesting, internet, monitoring, news, online, search, social media, tags, trends, Twitter, video | Leave a comment »Many times it gets stressful trying to find cool content to share across various social media platforms. A good way to relieve yourself from all this unnecessary stress is to set up daily ‘Google Alerts’. Setting up your own targeted alerts in the form of email updates are so simple to set up, customizable, and time-saving at the same time. How can you go about this? All you have to do is:
- Type in the keyword(s) in the search query as you’re setting up your personalized alert and then sit back and relax as Google monitors the rest for you.
- Customize the result type: Do you want an email update with everything Google search yields? Are you only interested in top news articles? Blogs? Books? Or videos?
- Decide how often do you want an email sent to your inbox. Daily? Weekly? As soon as there is breaking news?
- Customize your results type: Do you want all the results to choose from or a smaller list of only the *best results?
- Decide where you want the updates delivered
Setting up Google Alerts can be done in five simple steps. You can set up unlimited alerts so you can be up to date with all the latest news and trends in various industries. Managing and editing these alerts are simple with preferences and options for opt-out in every delivered email. Like what you receive in your inbox? Set up more alerts. Suffering from information overload? Cancel some alerts. Google Alerts are a great way of fishing for cool content to share and keeping tabs on what you have an interest in. You won’t need to shuffle through user-generated content across social media platforms anymore when you’ve got daily email updates delivered to your inbox. What are you waiting for? Go set your alerts up right now. Go. Go. Go!
FOSTERING COMMUNITY
Posted: January 31, 2012 | Author: Margarita Makovetskaya | Filed under: social media | Tags: advertising, Blogs, branding, community, content, Facebook, internet, marketing, networking, online, social media, Twitter, website | Leave a comment »Being able to foster an online community on various social media platforms can create an immense amount of value towards a specific individual or brand. These people are such valuable assets as they share similar interests amongst one another and are brought together to one specific page on the world wide web. This page then becomes the online playground – a daily meeting spot for sharing, caring, and fun. By fostering an online community, you are helping these people connect – with one another and the brand as well. Attracting a surplus of fans should be in everyone’s secret agenda when it comes to trying to build brand awareness by utilizing various social media outlets. Don’t you like it when you’re liked? A proper strategy needs to be implemented as well so people are constantly engaged and their needs are attained to.
How can you build community by attracting fans? Easy peasy:
- build brand awareness
- write in a warm, welcoming, and friendly tone
- share meaningful and tailored content
- cater to a specific target audience
- have a consistent blog
- make sure all the social media platforms and websites are interlinked
- offer special advertisements, promotions, and offers
- keep your fans engaged
- post on a regular basis
- interact with your fan base; reply to their questions or comments
Usually if you like what you’re posting, others will enjoy it as well.
TARGETING A SPECIFIC AUDIENCE
Posted: January 23, 2012 | Author: Margarita Makovetskaya | Filed under: social media | Tags: blogging, consumer behavior, demographics, Facebook, geographics, internet, marketing, networking, psychographics, social media, socialgraphics, specific, targeting, Twitter | 2 Comments »It’s very important to appeal to a specific target audience so you can build from your loyal fan base. You can attract fans by various market segmentation trends in terms of demographics, psychographics, and consumer behavior. Important factors like age, gender, occupation and household income come into play when using demographics to target a specific audience. The term psychographics refers to the values and lifestyles individuals have. This is one of the most important factors when it comes to defining your target audience as you have background knowledge diving into the minds of your fans. You know what interests them, their opinions on various issues, and the activities they may be interested in. There are different labels for various groups that are clearly defined by psychographics. Some of these labels include: Thinkers, Believers, and Innovators. Consumer behavior also plays an important role in market segmentation as the behavioral aspect of marketing is crucial to targeting a specific audience. The behavioral aspect is important when dealing with brand awareness of products. Brand loyalty is often measured by repeated purchases, so that’s why monitoring consumer behavior and statistics is key.
Almost every business or individual has a fan page on Facebook, their own Twitter page, and even a blog. There are so many different categories and specialties to choose from when setting up such accounts. People are attracted to these niche markets, whether it be luxury goods like fashion or high-end cars or interests like cooking, reading, music or playing sports. The people that are your subscribers or fans are there for a reason. They’re interested in what it is you have to offer so it’s important to give them more of what they want. You have to stick to the common theme. Recommend and share things that are catered specifically to the fan base you have. For instance, if I’m a fan of Coca Cola I wouldn’t want to be receiving updates about the wine and spirits industry. The more targeted your various sites are, the easier it will be to attract more of the same niche market that you may be representing while at the same time satisfying your loyal fan base. Tailor your posts to a specific group and you’ll see the level of interest increase among subscribers.
STAY POSITIVE
Posted: January 22, 2012 | Author: Margarita Makovetskaya | Filed under: social media | Tags: blog, content, Facebook, internet, networking, online, positivity, social media, Twitter | Leave a comment »Nobody wants to read content from Negative Nancy. Constantly whining and complaining about everything will only get you unwanted attention. You don’t want to be perceived in such a way that is detrimental to your own personal brand or company. There is a light at the end of every tunnel so you want to focus your attention on looking at things from the “glass half full” perception. You should always try to avoid negativity when posting or sharing on the internet. You have to keep in mind that your attitude can easily influence others. It’s like the domino effect. No one wants to be bombarded with rants that are of little or no value to them. People also don’t want to start conversations or engage with users that always find something wrong with everything. Times can be tough but you shouldn’t focus your energies and attention the little problems. Let them go. There are bigger and worldly problems out there to worry about so there’s no point in sharing content that will overwhelm or turn people off. Share something positive, hopeful, or even inspirational and you’ll notice how much more feedback and interactions you’ll receive because people genuinely care about what it is that you have to say. Positive Patricia is the one everyone wants to be friends with.
CRUSH COMPETITION
Posted: January 10, 2012 | Author: Margarita Makovetskaya | Filed under: social media | Tags: behavior, blogging, competition, cyber world, Facebook, information overload, internet, sharing, social media, Twitter, web | 1 Comment »In the online world you’re immersed with posts, unlimited sharing, and information overload from other social media enthusiasts. Take advantage of this opportunity to sneak multiple peeks on various sites to see what is going on in the digital world around you to understand what you’re up against. Consider yourself a secret spy. What kind of posts are being shared by certain brands? How are individuals responding to them? How is the brand responding to these individuals? Think about how you perceive the brand after you take a look at the engagement and cyber behavior going on.
By looking at other social media accounts and websites you can figure out what it is you may want to try next. There is no ideal strategy that works for every person or brand online but seeing what you’re up against can help you figure out where you went wrong and help point you in the direction that you want to go next. All you have to do is visit the various websites and take mental notes of what is going on in via the interwebz around you. Most of us have unlimited access to the web now anyways, so why not use it to your advantage? You never know which post will just trigger all that creative juice within you and keep it flowing. Sooner or later you may even be able to squish your competition with the bottom of your shoe.
BE HUMBLE
Posted: January 9, 2012 | Author: Margarita Makovetskaya | Filed under: social media | Tags: blogging, content, Facebook, internet, social media, Twitter, web | 2 Comments »Nobody likes arrogance. Make sure you don’t sound like Kanye West while social media networking. You’re just a human-being speaking to other humans so keep that keep in mind. This isn’t the time to be concerned with oneself, but instead the perfect time to be concerned with other people. Times call for certain advertising to be done on social media networking sites, but don’t over-advertise your own personal brand or your client’s. When you are posting as somebody else, try to be mindful of other people. The most simple thing to do is to say “thank you” regarding any feedback you may get, whether it’s appraisal or criticism. If you’re trying to promote something, do it in a humble manner by kindly offering to show your fans, followers, or readers what you have on your plate for them. Don’t shove your plate into another person’s face. They may not even be hungry. Acting in a humble manner is a way of life so live it and don’t forget to pass it on to your friends or fans. You need to value the needs and wants of others before they can place a true value on you and the content you bring to the digital sphere.
SPLEL CHECK
Posted: January 8, 2012 | Author: Margarita Makovetskaya | Filed under: social media | Tags: blogging, connect, Facebook, internet, mistakes, social media, spelling, Twitter, web | Leave a comment »Seeing both people and companies using social media in their day-to-day routines doesn’t necessarily mean they’re using it correctly. The most common mistake I’ve seen on various public social media accounts is misspelled words. It can get pretty embarrassing so make sure it doesn’t happen to you. This can be avoided by turning on the spell-check options before posting. When you see a word underlined in red make sure to take a second look at it to find out what’s wrong. Sounds like common sense, right? If so, why are so many commonly misspelled words still not spelled correctly? People are going to correct these mistakes for you. You never want to come off as illiterate and you most definitely don’t want your client to look like an ignoramus. This specific art to social media networking can be mastered by simply proofreading one’s work before publishing. Just remember that many pairs of eyes are on you so try to avoid these basic oopsies!
INTERACT WITH OTHER USERS
Posted: January 21, 2012 | Author: Margarita Makovetskaya | Filed under: social media | Tags: blog, comment, content, conversation, engaging, Facebook, feedback, interacting, internet, networking, sharing, social media, socializing, Twitter, updates | Leave a comment »The whole purpose of social media networks is for individuals and companies to converse with others. Reach out and help out. Initiate conversations with other users. That is a great way to increase user engagement. There is no point of having a social media account if you’re not going to respond to other users. People tend to get turned off by those accounts that only post new content and updates. Starting a conversation is the perfect way to get yourself noticed. Don’t be shy. It’s impossible to be socially awkward over the internet. I’ve had a professor tell me once “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”
It’s always nice to receive feedback from other social media users. Individuals may agree with what it is you’re saying and will let you know what you’re saying or doing right. It’s also nice to receive tips regarding what it is that you could always work on to better the content you are publishing. If people want to see more of something, they’ll let you know. Quality work is often times recognized. Let others know what you think. Your opinion matters and there is enough room on the net for millions of people.