How to Name Your Product or Business

It can be a daunting task to name a product or new business. Once you have named it, you are usually stuck with the name. You may choose a website based on the name, order marketing collateral, etc. So it is important to put a lot of thought into the name. Here are a few tips from MarketingProfs: 


1. Know what you're (re)naming

You'd be surprised at how often people don't really know what they're naming or renaming—or whether they really need a new name at all.

Often, a new name seems the obvious solution; it's the big, shiny thing that grabs people's attention and gets them excited. But you need to dig down to the justification for a new name. Remember that creating and launching a new name takes substantial resources and effort, and although it might be fun to create new name, it might make more sense to use one you already have.

But once you're sure you need one, it's time to figure out the exact nature of your offer. Is it a product? Vudu and Roku, both streaming media players/boxes, are clearly products. A feature? A service? A platform? A new program? Taco Bell's menu of lo-cal items, confusingly called both the Fresco Menu and Drive-Thru Diet, are products and advertising concepts both.

Is it some combination of a product, service, and platform? For example, eBay is simultaneously a website, a shopping mall, and an auction house. Remember that the nature of your offer may change over time, and any names you consider should be flexible enough to accommodate such variation.

So, consider not only what your thing is, but where it will live. In other words, where will your offer appear in relation to your other products/services? What is its place in your portfolio? Is it a standalone? Or is part of a line of related offers? Sub-brands or brand families can really help tie related products together. For example, under the overarching Budweiser brand, you find Budweiser, Bud Light, and Bud Light Platinum.

2. Know your target audience

Remember who you're naming for. It's your target audience—and you may not be part of that audience. So don't let your personal preferences get in the way. It's not about what you like; rather it's about what attracts and appeals to your customers. After all, your name is your first and last opportunity for customers to notice and engage with your offer.

So identify the single most crucial audience for your new name. That audience will include some part of your key customer base, since they're the people you do the most business with. Put yourself, as they say, in your customers' shoes, and try to figure out what's the most important part of your business for them. Why do they come to you over a competitor? What naming messages do you think they'd favor? What kinds and styles of name?

And keep in mind that while your name can't appeal to everyone in your audience, at the very least, it shouldn't offend them.

Here are some examples of names that successfully appeal to their target audiences: Abbot Downing (mega high-worth investors), Gilt (sophisticated shoppers), Monster High (preteens with 'tude), Axe (20-something men who wanna impress), Jot (financial customers constantly pressed for time).

3. Know what you need the name to do

Remember that a name can do lots of things--communicate what you do, differentiate your product or service in the marketplace, establish your offer's relationship to other things--but it can't do everything. Expecting your name to do all the communication heavy lifting is just unrealistic, so you'll need to figure out what other marketing tools you might want to use. Taglines? Descriptors? Other short verbal blurbs?

Let's say you want your name to "pop" on the shelf, so customers are more drawn to your product over a staid competitor. An evocative, quirky name like Lucky Charms does this quite well, as it's much more likely to catch the eye of a hungry kid than the more generic (and BOR-ing!) Kellogg's Raisin Bran. On the other hand, imagine a customer who just wants something semi-healthy for her kid. Well, the descriptive "Raisin Bran" says exactly what it is--and that customer, spying it on the shelf, might well respond to that precision and drop a box in her shopping cart.

Beyond helping you stand out from the crowd, names can engage your customer by being easy and fun to say—cue Etsy and Droid. Such names help the customer identify and establish a relationship with a strong and bankable masterbrand, such as the little "i" casts the halo of Apple around iMac, iCloud, iPhone, and iPod. You can even use names to minimize negative publicity, as when Blackwater changed its name first to Xe and then to Academi. (Although to make a shift in public perception possible, you usually need major overhauls in company policies, not just a name change.)

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Four Tips for Using Instagram for Business

Instagram is fast becoming as popular as Facebook. It has a different dynamic, so here are some tips from MarketingProfs on how to use it for business.

Four Tips for Using Instagram for Business
Published on September 17, 2012    

Who would've guessed a few photo filters and instant sharing capabilities would produce a social hit? Instagram, that's who!

The image-based social network, available on iPhone and Android smartphones, boasts more than 100 million users. Many are brands: Starbucks, NASA, MTV, and NBC News are some of the most successful Instagrammers.

Recently, the Instagram team started a Tumblr called Instagram for Business. In it you'll find best-practices for enterprises, new service offerings of interest to brands (like the new photo maps), and a list of ways to make yourself an Insta-success. A few suggestions:

Get a personal account in addition to your professional one. That will let you experience Instagram from the perspective of a real user, gauging what you personally like, who you tend to follow, and why.

Share compelling content. Reveal insider photos, exhibit experimental shots, or offer sneak peeks of what's to come. Make users see the value in following you by posting stuff they won't find anywhere else.

Expand your audience. Connect Instagram to your other social networks and use relevant hashtags (#yourbrandhere) to make it easier for people to find your account.

Engage directly with users. Ask questions in your photo caption, and respond to comments. You can also organize local Instagram meetups!

The Po!nt: Send out a shot or two. Mobile devices have become our most intimate technology: Our phones are with us all the time. And snackable mobile content like the kind Instagram delivers is the easiest way to stay top-of-mind with folks on the go.

Six Reasons Journalists Make Awesome Marketing Professionals

I obviously had to share this article from MarketingProfs because I graduated from Journalism school and am a marketing professional. It is a natural progression and my skills at writing and researching have proved invaluable!

Six Reasons Journalists Make Awesome Marketing Professionals

A few years ago, when newspapers around the country started laying people off and downsizing like it was going out of style, I began to question whether I chose the right career field.

I was five years out of college with a degree in journalism, working as a sports copy editor, and college football and basketball blogger. Sure, I went to school to pursue a career in journalism, but I did not anticipate the unstable condition of the industry. Your age or tenure, or how many awards you accumulated didn’t seem to matter. If you worked in a newsroom during this time, your brain was programmed to expect the worst when it came to job security.

Seeing the writing on the wall, I began to think big picture. How long did I want to work in a decaying industry? What skills had I acquired that would translate well to another field? Did an industry aside from journalism exist for someone with my editorial and content-producing background?

I quickly realized the answer to my final question: marketing.

Working in journalism taught me how to write and edit content, engage with the audience, build credibility with the audience, and think like the audience. It turns out these skills are quite useful in the marketing arena as well. In October 2011, I became the social media manager at Grantham University in Kansas City, Mo.

Marketing is not what it used to be, not in the modern era of blogging, social media, and online reputation management. Organizations have realized the powerful impact of generating content and establishing themselves as a trusted source of information. Kind of like a newsroom.

Organizations used to create first impressions with their customers via phone calls or face-to-face meetings. Nowadays, first impressions are created through Google searches, Facebook pages, Twitter profiles, and blog posts.

Whether this shift to less formal communication is a good thing for society is up for debate, but one constant has remained: the quest to build trust with everyone who comes across your brand. That seems to be the common thread between journalism and marketing. That focus to provide customers with reliable information made my transition from journalism to marketing more comfortable.

With this in mind, here are six reasons why marketing professionals should take a hard look at journalists when recruiting talent.

1. Journalists have experience in being published online

Most journalists have had a portion of their work published online through blog posts and/or news stories. Their ability to write for and communicate with an online audience translates well to marketing.

Marketing managers won’t have to introduce industry topics, such as keyword optimization and strategic link building like they’re trying to explain a foreign language. Many journalists, particularly ones with blogging experience, already write with SEO fresh in mind. Everyone loves web traffic, right?

2. Journalists are well-versed in social media

Social media marketing plays an integral role nowadays in the overall strategy of an organization. Journalists—especially bloggers and beat writers—often are required to have an engaging and interactive social media presence to build trust in their communities. Sometimes, these social media profiles act as information highways for a particular topic. Journalists associated with these kinds of tasks are familiar with establishing credibility in the eyes of their community, something that marketers strive for as well.

3. Some journalists may carry editorial management experience

If marketing managers recruit a journalist with editorial management experience, it could sharpen a focus to become more organized with big-picture projects. For instance, journalists with management experience could lead brainstorming sessions for various campaigns/blog articles, compose a content calendar, or report on web traffic, leads and social media.

4. Journalists have a mindset that stresses convergence

One of the first things I learned as a professional journalist was to always think of the different types of content or media that could be packaged with my news story: blog posts, audio clips, podcasts, pictures, video clips, etc. This ability to think creatively translates well to marketing.

For instance, think of the different pieces of content that could work well with your latest blog post: calls to action, e-books, infographics, webinars, videos and related social media campaigns. Journalists have a background to think creatively and connect this kind of content.

5. Journalists are familiar with audience interaction

Journalists are encouraged to interact in a professional manner with community members in the comments section of their blogs and stories, and through social media channels. This experience will help greatly in the quest to preserve an organization’s online reputation.

6. Working on deadline is second nature to journalists

The mind of a journalist naturally operates with a certain section reserved for hitting deadlines. Every story or blog journalists write has a deadline associated with it. Of course, marketing projects come with strict deadlines as well, a pressure that journalists will be well-equipped to handle.

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Pinterest's Impact on Users and on Your Brand

Pinterest's Impact on Users and on Your Brand from MarketingProfs
Published on September 10, 2012    

We've mentioned Pinterest numerous times—enough to show we're Pin-crazy.

But we're not the only ones!

To back us up on our Pin interest, Compete has published charts about Pinterest's growth and its impact on marketers.

Some quick stats:

• Pinterest has grown from 700,000 to 20,000,000 unique users in the past year; that's already almost half the number of Twitter's users.
• It is cannibalizing other social media: Compete attributed a 3% decline in Facebook activity in June to users' preferences for Pinning.
• 1 in 4 users spend less time on other social media in Pinterest's favor, with 15% of Pinterest users saying they don't use any other social sites.
• That number's even higher, 23%, among those with an income of less than $30,000.

The food industry is a big Pin winner: 57% of users interact with food-related content on the site, which benefits other sites.Traffic from Pinterest to Allrecipes.com, for instance, was up 16% when Compete took a look. And Kraft captured an additional 4% share of Pinterest traffic in May.

But it isn't just foodies building Boards: 25% of customers purchased a product or service after discovering it on Pinterest—with that figure rising to 37% among males!

Compete's suggestions for marketers seeking to Pin down a profit:

• Measure the difference in user engagement and purchasing behavior before and after exposure to specific categories, brands, or products on Pinterest.
• Isolate differences in purchase and engagement behavior across given demographics, including age, income, and gender.
• Compare how the engagement/purchasing behavior of users on Pinterest compares with Facebook.
• Quantify the impact that exposure to Pinterest has on brand or product loyalty.

To start, we recommend checking out our tips for masterful Pinmanship, and three useful measurements for tracking Pinterest traffic.

The Po!nt: Knowledge is power. Using Pinterest lets you leverage user behavior in nuanced and positive ways. So determine who loves your Pins, and what Pins work best, to improve your long-term strategy.

5 Ways to Increase Your Facebook Engagement from Social Media Examiner

5 Ways to Increase Your Facebook Engagement

By Mari Smith
Published September 10, 2012

Looking to increase your Facebook page engagement?

Wondering why some pages have very high engagement and others nearly none?

In this post I’ll share five tips you can put to work right away.

About Facebook Engagement
What is it that makes some Facebook fan pages wildly successful with constant high engagement rates where the fans and their friends eat up the content like there’s no tomorrow… while other pages sit there dormant with hardly any activity, yet they produce great content, too?

Making Facebook work for your business can often take a bit of trial and error… and time.

You need to have patience and be willing to invest your own time and/or invest in a team to help you. You might refer to my post Facebook 101 for Business: Your Complete Guide and scroll to the section on Recommended Six-step Approach to Building Your Facebook Page for a refresher.

Though Facebook has introduced a plethora of changes since I wrote that post, the six-step approach remains valid.

In order to create success on Facebook, you need to have a clear objective and great design, plus:

• Solid content strategy (what you’re going to post on your page)
• Promotion strategy (how you’re going to continually increase your fan base)
• Engagement strategy (how you’ll respond to fans and build community)
• Conversion strategy (how you’ll turn your fans into customers)

In this post, I’ll explore five factors that contribute to exceptional engagement and measurable results!

#1: Launch Creative Incentives
From time to time, keep your fans engaged with fun promotions. That may include contests, offers, games, vouchers, codes and more.

Arby’s recently rolled out a clever campaign to celebrate its 48th anniversary. The company added a nifty retro-style coupon as a Milestone way back in the year 1964 (the year the company was founded) on its Facebook Timeline page.

Visitors to Arby’s Facebook page were encouraged to click on the beginning of its Timeline to get a coupon for a Classic Roast Beef sandwich at the 1960s price of $0.64.

Coupons could only be redeemed on July 23, the company’s anniversary date.

The post announcing that the coupon was coming got over 2,600 shares and the post on July 23 got over 3,000 shares. Both posts received thousands of likes and hundreds of comments.

Arby's Facebook fan page post.
This was a wonderful opportunity for Arby’s fans to play a ‘treasure hunt’ game of sorts, and clearly yielded significant engagement.

Jo Ann Herold, VP of communications and public relations at Arby’s Restaurant Group, said,

“One of our goals for this promotion was to increase engagement and entice sharing, so we wanted everyone to explore our Timeline and have access to the coupon.”

The promotion was also featured on Instagram and Twitter, both directing people to Arby’s Facebook page.

Simple campaign, yes? What can you take away from this idea?

It’s perfectly within Facebook’s Terms of Use to do a giveaway on your fan page. The rule of thumb is does everyone get one? If the answer is yes, you’re good to go—that’s a giveaway. If the answer is no because you’re drawing select winners, then that’s a promotion where you must adhere to Facebook’s Promotions guidelines and use an app to administer the contest/sweepstakes. More on that here.

#2: Post Highly Shareable Content
You might be familiar with the expression “Facebook candy.” This is the type of content that Facebook users get very excited about and immediately want to share with all of their friends.

Your own Facebook news feed is likely peppered with such candy!

This is almost always an image, which tends to get a higher EdgeRank (more news feed visibility). And often, the images contain inspirational or motivational quotes along with an eye-catching photo.

Popular fan page post by MorningCoach.com.
My friend JB Glossinger does a great job of posting consistent shareable content. The interesting thing is JB frequently shares what I call “OPC”—other people’s content.

And, JB’s team engages well with his community (see below).

JB has a daily podcast and has grown his subscribers considerably through his highly engaging Facebook page.

For more on this topic, see this post: 7 Ways to Craft Your Facebook Posts for Maximum Shares.

I’ve compiled a Facebook Interest List, Facebook Candy to Inspire, featuring 83 fun sources of content to share. (Let me know in the comments below if you have any fan pages to suggest for this list!)

Could your content use a bit of a boost? How many images do you post vs. links? The latter does tend to get much more visibility!

#3: Build a Tight Community
Some Facebook pages just seem to have a knack for building a real community—one where visitors and fans often engage with one another and there is much peer support.

Plus, you can feel the page owners’ presence. They don’t just use their Facebook page as a one-way broadcast channel.

Bridal Hotspot page owner Sylvana Spiby stated on this post that she can’t remember the last time her engagement rate (ER) was lower than 100%.

Now that’s saying something! Given that the average ER for most brands and businesses is a mere 2%!

Bridal Hotspot fan page owner Sylvana Spiby's comment about her ER.
To calculate your own engagement—or that of any fan page—here’s the formula:

(PTAT / Likes)*100, where PTAT is “people talking about this.”

This is the most common and quick way to calculate ER.

The screenshot below shows an example of an ER over 100%. This is Modern Parent‘s fan page:

Modern Parent fan page, an example of ER over 100% (135.5%).
However, there’s also per-post engagement rate which is:

(Likes + Comments + Shares on a given day) / # of wall posts made by page on a given day / Total fans on a given day)*100

On Bridal Hotspot’s fan page, Sylvana responds to ALL posts by others, always has a warm and personal style and often uses people’s first names. Plus, something else that stood out for me: she encourages others to share their own content… even if he/she could potentially be a competitor!

Bridal Hotspot fan page question requesting permission to share.

Here's an example of a fan posting on Bridal Hotspot's page. Notice their engagement.
Do you have an active community on Facebook? Are you or someone on your team consistently responding to fans’ posts and comments?

#4: Have a Quirky Brand
Have you seen the Dollar Shave Club‘s comic marketing video featuring CEO Michael Dubin’s dry humor? It’s exceptionally well done and currently has well over 5.5 Million views on YouTube!


The Dollar Shave Club is an innovative concept where members pay a small monthly fee to receive razors by mail. That’s it—super-simple and highly successful!

The company culture is clearly fun, quirky and creative, and this spills over onto the company’s Facebook page, too. Although DSC doesn’t post that often on its fan page, the fans post regularly… and they frequently get a personal response by DSC admins.

Example fan post and engagement by Dollar Shave Club on its fan page.
The company involves fans with giveaways such as flasks, t-shirts and “handsome-ass bottlekeys!” Fans can participate via Twitter and DSC’s blog, too.

Along with a hilarious marketing video and quirky brand, this company clearly filled a niche that people didn’t know they needed, and as such the company has built a cult-like following.

Even though he doesn’t shave often, Sir Richard Branson was so impressed he felt compelled to blog about this fun company! See also this writeup on Inc.com. (I first discovered the DSC in an article in the July 2012 Inc. Magazine.)

How can you add humor and maybe a wee bit more quirkiness to your brand and Facebook engagement? People LOVE to be entertained!

And, when you mix entertainment and education, you get edutainment. Social Media Examiner’s own community manager, Andrea Vahl, has an alter ego as a fun social media edutatiner, Grandma Mary.

#5: Be a Beloved Personality
Last, but by no means least, is the inimitable George Takei. He’s really in a league of his own on Facebook!

George is a widely recognized actor, starring in some 40+ feature films and hundreds of television shows. But, he is probably best known for his portrayal of Mr. Sulu in the acclaimed television and film series, Star Trek.

On Facebook, George seems to have an incredible knack for posting extremely viral content—his fans just can’t wait to share the next nugget of wit.

At any given time, George frequently has an engagement rate GREATER than 100%. At the time of writing this post, per the screenshot below, the ER is 135%. (Remember, the average is just 2%.)

George Takei's popular Facebook page with high engagement rate.
Almost all of George’s posts are fun and quirky Facebook candy. Notice that the majority of his posts are photos and he typically posts a very short (humorous) narrative, both factors in getting higher news feed visibility and engagement rates.

What we can learn from George and the way he’s built his Facebook community is that he is extremely consistent. He posts around 3-5 times per day, every day. And, in terms of driving his fans to action, George does get the word out about the upcoming musical Allegiance, in which he stars (and was inspired by his family’s experience).

Nonetheless, aside from being a celeb, you can definitely take away from factor #5 how it’s important to give your fans plenty of excellent content on a regular basis that they just love.

Marketing on Instagram

Using Instagram for Social Media Marketing from socialmediatoday.com

Not too long ago a reader asked me how to use Instagram hashtags within a social strategy. Well even before she asked me that question I was thinking of a bigger question: In which ways can a marketer use Instagram in social media marketing?

Here are 9 key points in marketing with Instagram. Since marketing is not holistic for any company, product, or situation, I encourage you to read these points and comment below if you want to expand on any ideas raised, or especially if you disagree. I am open to anyone’s thoughts and questions and will always respond quickly, with a value of One Billion dollars and 80 million users Instagram can’t be ignored.

Nine Points on Marketing with Instagram:

1: Don’t rely just on Instagram

When forming your social media strategy Instagram is a great mobile marketing tool, but it is not the only tool. By design Instagram works best in conjunction with other sites. Especially visual friendly content sites like Pinterest, Tumblr, and Facebook, as these sites also offer the best viral impact for sharing and discussing photos.

2: Involve your Community

As with any social media campaign not only should you reply on your own pictures, you should reach out liking and commenting on their photos too, especially if they mention your product or brand. As we have seen before customer service through social media can be a great way to retain a customer who is having a problem.

Create contests, scavenger hunts, and other promotions that encourage your community to display your brand on their photo feed and on their other connected social media networks.

3: Let Your Community See Behind the Curtain

Often examples of companies and people doing great jobs marketing with Instagram have a few things in common. They’re active, they post interesting pictures, they engage their base, and they show people the world beyond the faces at the counter.

Personally my favorite examples of this are:

@BarackObama which shows many pictures not only of President Obama at political rallies, but also more to my point the faces of the volunteers that make campaigns like his possible.

@Starbucks is also a great example and has been referenced by many marketers for their use of Instagram. Often their pictures range from their brand to the fields in which the coffee beans are grown.

4: Let Your Employees be Involved

As with any social media strategy your immediately accessible and most loyal brand evangelists are your employees. One great way to develop legitimate activity on your social media profiles quickly is to encourage your employees to participate. But don’t just encourage them to follow your company and like your images, encourage them to submit their photos too. This ties back into seeing behind the curtain, what is a greater way to let your community see behind the curtain than to have your employees submit their photos. Set clear guidelines on proper decorum, but work to make sure that the guidelines are not so restrictive that they stifle clever and creative contributions.

5: Popular Hashtags on Instagram are Dead

There I said it, someone had to say it. While hashtags are far from dead or falling from use in the internet, Instagram’s popularity is out pacing people’s ability to monitor these tags from within the app. Even with third-party monitoring tools these tags and their photos have a very short half-life before they’re replaced by another photo. If you’re a regular visitor to my site aptsonic.com you know that every month I update a post on the top 15 popular Instagram hashtags. This page is set up so that readers can easily copy and paste the hashtags into their Instagram captions. However from my own use of these tags I’ve noticed where photos that previously would have received 20 likes receive only 5 to 10. Therefore the use of generic popular hashtags on Instagram by companies and brands isn’t necessary. I’m not saying to not use hashtag your brand photos but instead use photo and promotion specific tags rather than cluttering your comment area with hashtags.

Individuals looking to promote themselves should and still use these tags as I do, but they should also focus on Instagram group hashtags and contest tags to gain greater recognition.

6: Create Your Own Hashtag and Engage People that Use it.

Creating, Using, Promoting, and Monitoring your own hashtag has some great benefits.

People can easily find photos related to you or your brand.

It is easier to determine who your fans are beyond the users that follow and like your photos.
It is easier to engage your community and for your brand to be shared when you encourage the use of your own hashtags. Did you know when a user likes a photo on Instagram it appears in their newsfeed on Facebook? And did you know if one of their friend’s clicks on that liked photo they immediately go to Instagram’s hosted picture and can see all of the comments and your hashtags? They can also share the photo from there as well, this is a great possibility for a viral effect.

ROI! Creating your own hashtag adds yet another dimension to which you can measure your impact against. While it does not show a direct ROI to sales it does show yet another measure to relative ROI for the number of users involved in a given campaign.

7: Geo-Tag Instagram Photos

The geo-tagging feature on Instagram was great even before the 3.0 update because on upload it gave the user the ability to transfer that location information to Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and Foursquare all at the same time. After 3.0 users can still geo-tag and upload their content but now the Instagram app also incorporates a photo map on user’s profiles displaying where the photo was taken.

Geo-tagging involves your communities on another level on multiple platforms at once. Using it can help you promote your event or your participation at an event in a great way. Beyond that restaurants, retailers, and any other brand can promote their location and their products in use using and promoting geo-tagged Instagram photos.

For example a restaurant can by ensuring Foursquare lists their business could encourage patrons to post Instagram shots that are linked to Foursquare. This also notifies their patron’s friends of the restaurant and of their food presentation.

Photographer Monica Lo (@lobese on Twitter and Instagram) does a great job of incorporating her client's food presentations with their Foursquare locations.

In another example a company could make a scavenger hunt out of geo-tagging for contests and other promotions.

8: Find the Perfect Timing

SimplyMeasured has a fantastic study into engagement with Instagram showing which tags, filters, and times have the greatest correlation to comments on photos. From their work we can derive that the best time to post pictures for engagement is between 5-6pm.

The article is definitely worth a read:

SimplyMeasured: Instagram Analytics Tips

9: Finally Play with your Photos

Encourage you staff to take photos with their iPhone’s, Galaxy S 3’s, DSLRs, and even with their Polaroid cameras. Youtube and internet star Meekakitty has created some great examples of this.

Use editing/enhancement tools
Picstitch, Photoshop Express, Picfx, Diptic, Lenslight, and Slow Shutter are all great tools. Feel free to recommend other tools in the comments which you like to use.

Don’t be afraid of creativity and experimentation
Don’t always work with the square box. 4:3 photos with white filling the empty spaces on the sides will match Instagram’s photo feed and look strikingly different from other photos.

Text only Instagram photos using an app like Textgram while arguably weird looking to long term users, is just that, weird. Used correctly and sparingly these will stand out to a brand’s followers and can develop help develop engagement.

Mobile Marketing

A quick blog from Digital Street on mobile marketing, which is closely tied to social media marketing. It's another piece of the puzzle in your marketing strategy. Don't neglect it!


Current Trends In Mobile Marketing
It should be clear to you that mobile marketing is not a fad. There are more than 4 billion mobile phones in use around the world, over 1 billion of which are smartphones. It’s believed that mobile internet usage will overtake desktop usage by 2014. Therefore, you need to be up to date with mobile marketing trends to make it in your industry. Here are the latest trends but be quick to join or risk falling behind.

Data Capture For Targeting
The device of targeting via location, demographics and content has been used by advertisers for quite some time but social targeting is relatively new. Now, it is possible to provide a greater level of customization when messaging. Social targeting involves conversations on social networks tied to location. Re-targeting involves using connected devices that need registration in order to open up usage patterns. Adverts can then be created based on the data collected. A connection point and data capture from digitally enabled platforms such as phone, tablet and desktop is the ultimate goal.

 Content Adaptation
The need for high quality content will never die out by the looks of things. However, content will need to adjust for social media marketing purposes and cater to the dwindling attention spans of modern consumers. All content must be developed to meet the primary needs of customers. Remember, consumers have a 24/7 connection to all of your rivals too. The customer rules the mobile marketing world so pull out all the stops.

Social Media
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to learn that social media is at the forefront of the mobile marketing revolution. Without a doubt, a mobile phone is a consumer’s most personal piece of technology so it’s clear that social needs rule the world of mobile marketing. An estimated 50% of Facebook and Twitter traffic is mobile! Thanks to unlimited mobile access, the way in which people use social media has changed forever. Now it’s all about fun and frivolity. Do try to keep up!

Activation
When you engage potential consumers through mobile, you have the chance to extend the conversation from traditional mediums and it also serves as a good way to track prospects. QR codes are the fastest growing method of mobile customer engagement having grown over 60% in the last 6 months. As always, the content needs to be delivered at the right time to the right person. QR codes will prove to be more successful once reading them becomes seamless. We’ll see what happens with that.

These are the latest mobile marketing trends but such is the rate of technological advance and the speed with which mobile marketing grows, these may well be rendered obsolete with 6-12 months.

New Free Vectors from Vecteezy

Love my Vecteezy, here are the latest freebies:

Baby Vectors Play
Soft, neutral colors and pastels to create 11 separately grouped pieces and baby vectors: a boy and a girl moon, a onesie, 3 pacifiers, 2 bottles, and peas with 1, 2, and 3 pods in them. These baby vectors are perfect for scrapbooking and embellishing baby themes.

Creative Calligraphy
Calligraphy is the art of creating attractive handwriting or lettering using a pen or brush. It hails from the Greek term kalla meaning “gorgeous”, and graphia that means “composing. It is probably the most beautiful and fascinating form of art and also very intriguing too. Here are a few free vectors from the art termed creative calligraphy.

Eco Tags
Today’s free vector is a set of three eco tags. Download and enjoy! Feel free to use it commercial and non-commercial projects, personal websites and printed work, as long as it’s a part of a larger design.

Vector Banners
Today’s free vector is a set of 5 minimal vector banners for you to download and enjoy. Feel free to use these vector banners for commercial and non-commercial projects, personal websites and printed work, as long as it’s a part of a larger design.

Free Fresh Icons Vector Pack
Fresh free icon vector set for personal or commercial use. All I ask is that you give me a shout out on twitter @jr1018 & feel free to follow.

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4 Facebook Plugins to Drive More Traffic to Your Content from Social Media Examiner

4 Facebook Plugins to Drive More Traffic to Your Content

By Andrea Vahl
Published September 4, 2012

Do you want more of your content shared on Facebook?

Are you wondering how to make it easy for people to share your site or blog content on Facebook?

Which Facebook widgets are best?

Facebook recently introduced the Facebook Recommendations Bar—which is different from the Facebook Recommendations Box—and the Like Button and the Like Box.

But what are the differences and how do you decide what will work best for you? And then how do you install them?

Similar to the Like Button, when people like an article using the Recommendations Bar, a story is published back to their Timeline and friends' news feeds.
We’ll dive deep into those questions in this article (hint: your best solution may be a combination of the options).

#1: Recommendations Bar

First let’s talk about the newest plugin, the Recommendations Bar. This really is more of a popup box that is shown to readers of your blog post as they scroll down your post.

The Recommendations Bar is good for people who have blogs because it can help direct them to other blog posts that people liked on the site.

Here are some of the things you need to know about the Recommendations Bar:

• Pops up inline with your blog post. You can choose what percentage of your article must be read before the box pops up.
• You can choose to have the words Recommend or Like as the verbiage in the upper-left corner. That verbiage is then used in the Activity post.
• When someone clicks Like or Recommend in the upper-left corner of the Recommendations Bar, that information is sent to the Activity area of readers’ Facebook Timelines and also appears in the Ticker for their friends to see.
• Can be minimized by clicking the square in the upper-right corner of the popup box.
• Only appears if the person reading your blog post is logged into their Facebook personal profile. If they are logged in as their page, it won’t appear at all. If the person is not logged into Facebook, the popup will appear but if they click Like, they will have to log into Facebook to complete the Like.
• Shows how many people have liked the post, as well as whether a friend has liked the post, which is good social proof for your articles.
• Here is a video tutorial on how to install and configure the Facebook Recommendations Bar using the Facebook WordPress plugin.

As mentioned in this video, use this post as a supplement to help you install the Facebook plugin.

The Recommendations Bar can pop up at the beginning of the article and have the word Recommend rather than Like.

Different information appears in my Recent Activity if someone likes or recommends the article from the Recommendations Bar.

The Recommendations Bar shows how many people like the article and whether a Facebook friend of the reader likes the article.
When people see that one of their Facebook friends has also read and liked the article, they may be more interested in reading the article. The ability to keep people on your website reading your content and getting to know you better will help you convert readers to customers.

#2: Recommendations Box

The Recommendations Box is the older Facebook plugin (with the confusingly similar name). It appears in the sidebar of your website.

Here are some of the things you need to know about the Recommendations Box:

• Showcases popular articles on your website.
• Doesn’t have a social side to it.
• If you click on one of the articles, you are taken to the article but it doesn’t appear as a like or recommendation in Facebook. It is just a way to show popular articles with the number of people who have liked them.

The Recommendations Box is displayed on the sidebar of your website.

This plugin is a good choice if you want to have a list of popular articles in your sidebar with some social proof listed underneath the article.

But Facebook has done some initial experiments and found that the Recommendations Bar was getting three times more clicks than the posts in the Recommendations Box, according to a blog post from Facebook developer Jeffrey Spehar.

Add the Recommendations Box to have a list of popular articles, but using both the Recommendations Box and the Recommendations Bar may be overkill. Choose the one that fits better with the design you want—inline with the Recommendations Bar or on the sidebar with the Recommendations Box.

#3: Like Button

You may be familiar with the Like Button already. If you click the Like Button, you’re sending the activity back to your Facebook personal profile that you like the article you’re reading.

Here are some of the things you need to know about the Like Button:

• You can choose the verbiage Like or Recommend for the button.
• The action of Like or Recommend shows in the Activity area and the Ticker, similar to the way the Recommendations Bar works.
• You can choose if you want to display the number of people who have liked the article or post and even if you want to show the profile pictures of people who have liked the post (this will only show the profile pictures of someone’s Facebook friends who like the post).
• Shows up with an indication that the button is there if someone is logged in as their page.
• It can also easily incorporate the Send Button, which allows people to easily email the article.

The Like Button can have the number of people who have liked the post and the Send button.

Indication that the Like Button is there, and you need to switch to your personal profile to use it.
Use the Like Button when you have a lineup of social sharing buttons. People will look for your social sharing buttons all in one place. But if you have your social sharing buttons with a different plugin, then you may not need it.

If you are using the Recommendation Bar, you may not want to rely on that alone to allow people to like your post, since it doesn’t show up when someone is logged in as their page.

#4: The Like Box

The Like Box is different from the Like Button in that it allows you to bring your Facebook page to your website versus sending activity about your website to your readers’ Facebook profiles. The Like Box resides on the sidebar of your website.

Here are some of the things you need to know about the Like Box:

• Can be configured to show the profile photos of people who like your page, the last few posts from your page and other design elements such as width, height, and color scheme.
• Shows an indication that it is there if someone is logged into Facebook as their page with a prompt to switch back to the user profile, similar to the Like Button.
• When someone clicks Like, they will automatically like your page but not leave your website.
• If you have a Like Box with the stream showing (the last few posts), someone can click on the stream to be taken to Facebook or even click on the links you have shared on your Facebook page.

The Like Box can be configured with faces and different styles and allows someone to like your Facebook page without leaving your website.

Add the URL of your page and configure the Facebook Like Box.
The Like Box is a very useful plugin to allow people to like your Facebook page right from your website. None of the other plugins accomplish this, so it is a good one to keep if you don’t want to have people navigate off of your website to go like your page. You can configure the Like Box so that it doesn’t have to take up too much space on your sidebar.

Installing the Plugins

Now let’s talk about the easiest way to install many of the available Facebook plugins onto your website.

If you’re using WordPress, adding a suite of Facebook plugins is easy with the Facebook Plugin for WordPress. All you need to do is download a zip file, install the plugin and configure your own app on Facebook (which is completely outlined for you by Facebook).

Then you just choose which Facebook app you want to add.

These plugins are shown in the Facebook Plugin area of the sidebar: Social Publisher, the Like Button, the Subscribe Button, the Send Button, Facebook Comments and the Recommendations Bar.

Take a look at this post which shows you exactly how to install each of these options.

Then you’ll find the Facebook Like Box, Recommendations Box and even the Like Button and Send Button (another way to install them) in the widgets area of Facebook. Drag the widget over to your sidebar and configure it.

The Like Box and Recommendations Box are in the Widget area of your WordPress site.
If you have a non-WordPress website, then you’ll have to use the Facebook Developers site to get the code for each of these Facebook plugins.

Deciding What’s Right for You

Now that we’ve covered all the bases on the different plugins and you see the differences, you need to decide what’s right for you.

How much social interaction do you want? Do you want someone to be able to like your Facebook page easily or is that not as important as sharing your post with their friends? Maybe you already have social share buttons on your blog and you don’t want to add anything new.

A combination of these options may be best. At Social Media Examiner, we have a Like Box and the Like Button. Perhaps you want to experiment with the traffic generation of the Recommendations Bar to try to keep people on your site.