Tip 1 – Focus on the Bottom Line

Although those on the front line may utilise a hugely complex web of analytics to inform campaigns, business leaders in the boardroom will be far more interested in the basics, so focus your data on three or four different elements. CEO’s and managers will want to know the company’s social media is driving revenue, increasing traffic and improving the health of the business. For campaigners to make the most of metrics they should concentrate on key performance indicators like increased inbound traffic, conversions, conversation share and increased subscribership.

Tip2 – Analyse Changes and Measure what Matters

The final step of any analysis of metrics should be concerned with asking why. For example, your analytical data may highlight that your social media campaign has led to an increased share of voice for your company, but to get the most value from this information it’s essential to consider the causes of any positive or negative data collated.

Tip 3 – Consolidate your Metrics

Big Data is the current buzzword amongst internet professionals and as technology develops, then various information across the web will begin to be analysed as a whole. This means that business owners should look at qualitative and quantative results based on their entire SEO strategy and not just their social media campaign.

Tip 4 – Break Goals into Bite Sized Chunks

At the outset of any Social Media campaign the goals of that campaign should be established and shared with all staff. However, for many firms the goals they set out, such as increasing subscribers by 50% within a year, can seem like a daunting prospect to employees. Smaller goals are more manageable and much less intimidating, so if your SM ambitions are on a huge scale, break them into bite sized chunks to give your staff a better chance of success. Any staff member who has involvement with the campaign is well versed in relation to the goals set out and how they should be achieved.

Tip 5 – Track Success with Campaign ID’s

For a campaign to work, any social media output needs to be carefully tracked so its impact can be properly analysed. This means for example, that a tweet can be tracked from when it’s pushed out, through the internet and back to the site, so analytics professionals can ascertain the increased percentage of visitors the tweet led to. One way to do this is to utilise bit.ly to assign social media output with campaign ID’s that can be tracked back to the pipeline. Tracking ID’s are already widely used by large companies but as the world of eCommerce becomes increasingly competitive, it’s becoming more and more important for even the smallest business to develop professional and valuable social media strategies. To make the most of any social media campaign and achieve a worthwhile ROI, business owners can utilise a four part strategy to measure success by assigning unique ID’s.

Tip 6 – Create an ROI Dashboard

You can utilise software to create an ROI dashboard on your network so that staff can have constant access analytics which can help to inform their practice and help keep the overall goals of the company at the forefront of employees minds.

The Penguin is more than just a Google update. It is a wake-up call. It’s poured cold water on the faces of all webmasters who were not above using unnatural link building techniques to improve their websites’ ranking on SERPs.  Penguin has one clear objective – To clear webspam in search engine results pages and improve search quality. It wants to improve the rankings of deserving websites who utilize the best SEO practices to rank their sites, and penalize those sites who use poor quality SEO to build a link profile.

Let’s take a look at how Penguin is clearing webspam from SERPs to reward high-quality sites with good rankings.

• It’s Frowning upon Paid Links

Google wants you to build natural links to your site. It’s declared war on the business of buying links. What this means is that to buy links that will point to your site is committing SEO suicide. This is unnatural link building at its worst, and is a trigger for creating spammy links pointing towards your site.

• Say goodbye to Link Farms

Another important way it is getting rid of spammy links is by penalizing websites with a link profile that is a result of link farming. Link farming is essentially a group of websites linking to one another. These typically are created by automated programs or software. Link farming is a technique that was never liked by Google as it spammed its search engine index. It did penalize sites, majorities of whose links were built using link farms. But, with the Penguin update it has decided to come down heavily on any and every site that even uses a little bit of link farming in its overall link building strategy. It’s strictly a no-go zone.

• Bulk Directory Submissions

Getting backlinks from bulk directory submissions was the in thing a few years ago and sure fire way of getting thousands of spammy links pointing towards your website. Gone are the days when Google would ignore such transgressions, today, you will be penalized for creating such spammy links. It’s far better to pick a human moderated directory for submission purposes.  Also avoid making bulk submissions.

• Anchor Text Over Optimization

The focus of the Google Penguin update is to make sure that you create natural links. Now, if all your links have been created manually there is no way in the world that these links will have the exact same anchor text with the keyword phase that you want your web page to rank for. There are no prizes for guessing these are spammy links. It’s only diversified anchor texts that are considered ‘quality’ by Google. If there are plenty of links pointing to the web pages on your site with the same anchor text, it’s time you diversified them.

Google’s Forcing Webmasters to Avoid Creating Spammy Links

Google is easily the most popular search engine available on the World Wide Web and if you want your online presence to remain relevant, you do as Google says. If it asks you to dance, you dance. But, it’s not asking you to dance, what it is asking you to do is something that it always wanted you to do – Focus on quality link building. The only reason why webmasters were able to get away with spammy link building techniques was because Google didn’t come down heavily on them by slapping penalties. With the Penguin update, it’s decided enough is enough, and websites with low quality link juice are being show the door.

What it is doing is that it’s forcing webmaster to create natural links. This is slowly but surely getting rid of webspam on its search results. It’s using the age old carrot and stick approach to improve the number of natural links on its SERPs.

Webmasters who earlier wouldn’t life a finger to earn natural links are now scurrying to get rid of low quality links from their site and using natural link building techniques like:

• Guest Blogging

• Creating RSS Feeds

• Integrating a website blog and posting on it regularly

• Social link building

• Video Submission

• Submission to high quality niche directories

• Contribution to discussion forums

• Insightful blog commenting

………. And many more

End Words

Google’s thinking is simple. People will only wake up and listen to its calls for attracting natural links and getting rid of spammy links if it penalizes websites that participate in such link building techniques. It is regularly pushing Penguin updates to making it more attuned towards what are quality links and what are not.

Google is now punishing even the most minimal of link building transactions. So, you need to be very careful about how you go about building your links and who you get your links from. Only get back links from authority sites and avoid low quality sites at all costs. In a post Penguin era quality is paramount, everything else is secondary. In the battle against webspam there can only be one clear winner, and that is Penguin.

Related Reading

• The Death of Link Building and the Rebirth of Link Earning – Whiteboard Friday (seomoz.org)

Apart from this, if your office fails to have the right tech gadgets, work efficiency get affected too. Here are a few tech gizmos that can bring enormous profits to your company, whilst enhancing efficiency and improving productivity.

Carry Out Office Tasks Effortlessly with Tablets

Having the capability of carrying out innumerable functions, tech gadgets like tablets are easily portable, allowing employees to perform their day to day tasks effortlessly. You will require this device to record important information concerning business and it is also helpful at the time of jotting down meeting notes. Boost productivity at the workplace by utilizing gizmos like the iPad.

Portable Projectors: Apt for Every Business to Boost Productivity

If your business is such that it requires frequent interaction with clients then portable projectors are apt technological tools that will help you put forth business ideas to clients. Employees can be made aware about business practices through portable projectors – a device must for every office of it is looking to enhance productivity. You can even access your company’s information on web through your tabs.

Communicate with Clients through USB Mail Notifier

Imagine being away from work and you need to contact your clients? One thing you will require at this point of time is a remarkable gadget like the USB mail notifier. By utilizing this tech gizmo, you will receive up to date information through emails and messages from clients at once. If you feel that the “Ding” sound, while at work causes disturbance then switch over to this tech gadget.

Know The Status Of The market

No matter where you are, these 3G enabled gizmos can give you latest report of the stock exchange. From your tab only you can have an access to online pricing systems you can see the bids and ask the price there and then.

Sync In:

Some word processing apps on tablets allow you to save your work directly in the Drop-box Folder from your tab. Your data get synced to the Drop-box’s online serves and this is then accessible on web from any PC and can be opened in word.

Schedule:

Tabs have very user friendly schedule planners which not only give notifications but can even be synchronized with your office mails. You can make a list of to do’s and plan a whole day so well and prompt.
So, start from today to ensure that productivity and efficiency at the workplace improves. And you may be able to utilize these amazing tech gizmos well which are vital tools for every business organization.

The only limits are those of your own imagination.

Where it All Started

Once upon a time small brass “campaign buttons” (to hang or wear) were engraved with, “G.W – Long Live the President” and passed out during George Washington’s presidential campaign. These campaign buttons were the beginnings of what we now call “branding” and Washington must have known what he was doing since he had to turn down running for a third term.

What are you doing to imprint your brand on the public eye? Here are some smart choices for promotional items great for small businesses…

Bumper Stickers and Window Clings

If you have a really cool graphic or slogan, bumper stickers or window clings are a good addition to your marketing. There was a a tanning salon in California whose slogan was “Tan Naked”. That’s all the sticker said, but everyone knew who it was for this place because of the killer Jamaican style “Tan Naked” radio jingle that went with it!

Business or School Supplies

Everyone takes note. In other words we all still use pens and paper. Technology hasn’t quite removed those items from our  lives and promotional pens or note pads can help brand your company in the right environments.

‘Tis the Season, Any Season

What’s the weather like where you live and work? In notoriously rainy cities like Seattle and Portland promotional umbrellas would make perfect sense and be appreciated. In places like Florida or California, custom sunscreen bottles would be equally great.

Smooth & Sophisticated

From customized wine bottles to personalized wine glasses or golf tees, promotional products can be made to mirror any lifestyle. If your business handles high end clients or if you often host intimate business events, upping your game with a few creatively classy touches can go a long way to cementing your brand.

That’s Your Name, Do Wear It Out

Snazzy aprons, polo shirts, hats, bracelets, and other wearable items are a great way to get your business name and/or logo seen. Try to be more creative then just slapping a logo or image on some fabric. Make it look good.

They’ll Drink to That

Everyone has a cup of some sort in their hands or on their desks. Whether you have personalized water bottles, travel mugs, Pilsner glasses or any other type of beverage container made, the trick is to choose good quality. You don’t want liquids spilling out onto your clients or prospects, or on their belongings.

Remember, if it doesn’t work or look good people simply will not use it and you will have wasted your money. Compare prices, ask about quality, and don’t forget you save money buying in bulk. Here are some other top tips for making your brand more recognizable to help you on your promotional journey.

So, if you’re looking to build a responsive site for your business or blog, having the right tools can make a world of difference and make life a lot less stressful. Below are 15 fantastic tools that can help you build a responsive site which will work on any device.

Responsive images

Previously, if you wanted to make the images on your site responsive, so that they’d be displayed correctly according to each visitors’ screen size, you had to improvise. You could’ve either tried a “noscript” tag or rewritten the “src” attribute. Tools that can deliver optimised, contextual image sizes in responsive layouts not only save time, but are also easy to use.By determining the screen size of each visitor device it can display a re-scaled version of your embedded HTML image.

Adaptive Images

This tool lets you resize the images on your site according to each visitor’s screen size. It uses htaccess and php files and some Javascriptto detect screen sizes and then it automatically creates, caches and delivers device appropriate re-scaled versions of images.

Retina Images

While Adaptive Images loads a larger version of an image when a larger device is detected, Retina Images loads a larger image when the pixel density of the device is greater than 1. All you need to do is set it up on your site and create a high-resolution version of each image that you’d like optimised for retina screens.

Retina.js

This open source script allows you to display high-res images to devices with retina displays. So, when a visitor enters your site, retina.js checks each image on that page to see if there’s a high-resolution version available on your server. If located, this clever bit of tech will use the hi-res version instead.

Responsive layouts

The starting point for any responsive design is a flexible grid based design, allowing layouts to adjust to different devices. Below are some handy tools that will aid you with your web design.

Gridset

One of the most popular tools for creating responsive sites is Gridset. This handy softwarehelps web designers with grid layouts, allowing you to make easy custom grids of any type. It’s as simples as dragging guides in Photoshop. The tool also comes with PNGs, CSS cheats sheets and is a god send for prototyping.

SimpleGrid

With Simplegrid you get exactly “what it says on the tin”. It really is that simple! This lightweight responsive tool gives you a quick starting point for creating infinite grid-based layouts, which means your visitors will see a layout according to the size of their browser window. SimpleGridworks on a number of different screen sizes, allowing you to wave goodbye to those hideous horizontal scrollbars.

Responsive.gs

This fluid grid CSS framework helps you build responsive websites quickly. It’s available in 12, 16 and 24 columns with media queries for all standard devices and best of all it’s free to use.

Auto-update the font size

While responsive design may help your site show perfectly on any device, it will not automatically change font sizes. Resizing your layout is only one aspect of creating a responsive site. In order to complete it you need to make sure font sizes also scale to size. Luckily with the right tools, this can easily be achieved.

TypeButter

TypeButter is an extremely useful tool if you’re looking to lose those awkward spacing’sbetween characters. It works by default with Arial, Verdana and Helvetica but it’s easy to “roll your own” for pretty much any web font.All you need to do is down load a simple plugin and include the snippet of code on your site.

Fit Text

This jQuery plugin gives you the flexibility you need to achieve scalable headlines by auto-updating the font size, according to the width of the element wrapping it.Keep in mind that this plugin can only be used for headlines and not paragraph text.

Lettering.js

Lettering.js is a lightweight and easy-to use plugin for unique web typography. Basically, it allows you to target specific letters, words, or lines within an element by wrapping them in spans while keeping the mark-up manageable.

Making sure your navigation works

Navigation is one of the biggest issues faced when creating a website. Making sure it is easy to access with minimal scroll can be tricky. Tools such asFlexNav, TopDrawer and MeanMenu are perfect for all those navigation troubles, helping you to convert complex navigation into simple, standardised touch menus.

FlexNav

FlexNav is a fantastic plugin that uses media queries and JavaScript to simplify the process of creating responsive dropdown menus. Its key feature is that it uses touch events with tap targets, making it easy for mobile device users to navigate around a site.

TopDrawer

TopDrawer is a smooth jQuerydropdown menu for responsive web design that’s designed to create smoother reveal menus in small contexts using CSS3 instead of JavaScript.

MeanMenu

Another jQuery plugin that helps you create better navigation for your mobile visitors without using any media queries. Features include expandable/collapsible sub navigation and orientation adjustment.

Test, test, test

Now that you’ve switched to responsive design, you work isn’t done. You need to test every single webpage. Instead of doing this manually, you can save hours of time with these headaches free tools.

Responsive PX

This easy-to-use tool that lets you see how your site will look on different screen sizes. The beuyt of this tool is that it work with both online or local sites. All you need to do is put your URL into box and click open.

Responsive Design Testing

This is a great responsive design testing tool. It allows you to view different size screen side-by-side helping you save hours of time.

Resize My Browser

Just like the name says, this tool lets you resize your browser so you can see how your site is displayed to users visiting your site via various devices.

If you have any tools that have aided you when creating a responsive design I would love to know. Leave your comments below.

Blog bot bait

We all appreciate well written fresh and interesting contents. But the story is completely different with Search engine bots, they are obsessed with keywords. So a blog has to satisfy both the readers who visit your blog and subscribe to your post and bots that help to push your Google ranking higher and manages more readers towards your blog.

Here are some of the tips for you which will boost your blog post for managing more readers.

• Always try to use multiple tags in all your post because bots search tags for keywords.

• More frequently published blogs get higher ranks than those that don’t frequently publish posts on their blog.

• Try to write about your organization’s work on specific issues every now and then to get higher rankings.

Encourage Sharing

There is no other bigger platform than Twitter, Facebook or even Google Plus+ which help promoting and sharing. You can get feedback from your readers on how they feel about your blog posts which will help you engage with readers very easily. Add built in sharing tools to your blog so that your readers can easily share or email your posts on Twitter, Facebook or Google

Plus+ or in other platforms.You will be surprised to know that 44% online sharing is done on Facebook. So the more likes or tweets you get means the more you grow your leadership up. You should also add subscription option for both RSS and email delivery to cultivate more regular readers. You can also follow the 90/10 rule for blog promotion on social media platforms recommended by Maddie Grant. It says; post 90% of the time about other blogs and 10% of your time about your own blog. Shelly Alcorn also recommends cultivating relationship with other bloggers and sharing their post while Ray recommends three simple rules of “Publish, Promote and Repeat” for attracting readers.

Disallow controversial or bad comments

Blogs falls under a type of social media because it’s conversational. Now if you want to engage your readers by allowing them to comment then don’t forget to install a spam filter. Many organizations prefer to review the comments first and then to approve them before publishing. But that may hinder your conversation. Again many other organizations allow all comments to appear automatically and then delete the one that don’t falls under the blog guidelines. Always try to stick to a guide such as social media policy to address controversial comments.

Engage your readers

Always try to reply to each and every comment. This is a very helpful trick to engage your readers in a conversation. Twitter is a good place where you can promote comments and prompt readers to revisit a post. If people are commenting on Twitter but not on your blog then try to engage them there, it’s fine. People who share or comment in your posts is nothing but a volunteer advocate.

Measuring engagement

Blogs are nothing but a low budget item with only an exception that is time. How will you realize that whether you blog is worth the time or not? Try Google Analytics to analyze the time spent on the site and the returning visitors which will give you a fair idea whether your hard work behind your blog is paying off or not. Bloggers also track the numbers of reader’s emails, comments or use of sharing tools and mention them on other blogs and tweets.

What’s your Say

Hope the above mentioned points will surely help you to succeed in generating more traffic towards your blog if you have any other ideas that I might have missed then please do share with us in the comment section.

Social media for business sounds easy, right? Write a couple of cool tweets, upload a few nice pictures on Facebook, pin them et voilà, you’re done. Wrong! This can be the perfect recipe for an online PR disaster.

It’s too easy to overlook social media channels, forgetting they play a big role in shaping an organisation’s online reputation. Social networking sites can help a company develop a personality, increase its visibility and build relationships with its public (consumers, the media, stakeholders). So we can’t really trifle with a business’ social media strategy.

In many cases, social networking sites can enhance a company’s business. But (and it’s a big but) social media require a good strategy and a degree of expertise to work well. So here comes the big question – outsourcing or not outsourcing?

Let’s look the benefits and drawbacks of both options.

Outsourcing

1. Strengths

Hiring an agency (or a freelancer) to deal with your social media has its advantages. They will have a wealth of experience and knowledge to take advantage of and will most likely be up-to-date with the latest developments, trends, and new platforms and features. At the same time, you can just sit back and focus on doing what you do best – business.

Outsourcing could also save you some money and time – think how much you’d spend by hiring a full-time employee or how much more time your team should devote to social media if you were to do it in-house.

2. Weaknesses

The big drawback is that external specialists might have little familiarity with your organisation and this might lead to poor performance or inconsistency with your offline activities.

This disadvantage can be overcome by providing the agency exhaustive information about your brand personality and by having a constant and transparent flow of communication with the social media professionals.

Before you give them access to your accounts, it is also imperative that you sit down and agree on a social media strategy that takes fully into account the objectives you want to achieve through these channels.

In-House Management

1. Strengths

In-house you know your stuff. You know your products or services. You have a clear understanding of your mission and philosophy and are committed to make your organisation shine in the online world. This can lead to building a closer and more sincere relationship with your followers or fans.

Also, when managing social networking sites in-house, you have unlimited access to resources and content that you can share in real time with your audience. This can sound very appealing to some companies.

Another pro is that by handling the accounts yourself, you can make social media an integral part of your marketing mix by making all your channels of communication consistent in terms of messages and content. So that tweet refers to something in your newsletter, while that picture you pinned was taken at a live event happening at your HQ, and that link you posted on Facebook directs to a new section of your website that you launched just a minute ago.

2. Weaknesses

However, there are some disadvantages to in-house management, too. Taking care of the accounts can be very time consuming (and expensive!), most of all if your staff don’t have any experience in social media. Lack of expertise and familiarity with the various and ever-changing platforms can also constitute a big risk: you could get it all wrong.

Both outsourcing and in-house management have advantages that can lead to successful use of social media within the marketing mix. Only you know which solution is best for your business, depending on your specific needs.

Have you managed your social media presence in-house or did you outsource? Share your first-hand experiences below in the comments section.

Those who want to put up their own company need a lot of money because there are so many expenses, like renting an office space. Imagine how much leasing an office space cost. You’d have to pay thousands of dollars for deposit and unless you have deep pockets, starting your business will take a while.

Fortunately, technology has allowed us to largely forgo the need for office spaces. Businesses can now be run even right at home. As long as there’s an Internet connection, handling the day-to-day operations of your business can be accomplished without a centralized office.

But how can you run a business without a real office? Won’t it be difficult? How are client meetings held? Below are inexpensive and effective ways to conduct meetings:

Online through Skype, Face Time, and even Yahoo! Messenger

Technology has made it really easy for everyone to conduct meetings. It’s inexpensive and convenient for everyone involved. No matter where your client is, setting up a meeting is not a problem. A laptop, tablet, microphone & headsets, and strong Internet connection are all you need.

Don’t think that meetings conducted on Skype, Face-time, and Yahoo! Messenger are for amateurs and are not “professional.” A lot of companies are doing this now. Even model-host and producer Tyra Banks admitted to conducting meetings this way when they were in the early stages of production for her hit reality show.

Executive suites at a nearby hotel

You may have clients who are in the same area, so meeting them at hotels is a good idea. It’s possible to reserve executive suites for a few hours and not spend a lot of money. At most, you’ll spend about $100 for 3 to 5 hours. This should impress your clients.

Virtual offices

These are affordable and really cool places to conduct meetings and even do some work. These are leased spaces that’ll serve as your own office. You’ll have access to your own office, private corporate meeting rooms, and even a receptionist. You can have all mail and packages delivered to your office address. It’s like having your own building!

Base-camp and other online collaboration tools

It’s possible to coordinate with your employees, co-workers, and clients even when they’re not available in real time with online collaboration tools like Base-camp. Though you can’t talk to each other, these tools will let you see everything that’s happening with your projects.

You can assign people on specific tasks, update projects with new files, check completed tasks, send messages to the team, get and receive feedback, etc. The reason this can be an alternative to client meetings is you get to see the progress on the projects. The timeline feature will show you who’s done what and what the status of the projects are. With Base-camp, you don’t need to get in front of a camera or assemble everyone in one place to discuss how things are.

There are other online collaboration tools you can use: Google Docs, Drop-box, Join.me, Google Hangouts, and even Skype.

So you see, you don’t need a lot of money to setup your own business. In fact, it doesn’t have to be a major consideration. With these great alternatives to office spaces to conduct meetings, running your own company can be quick and breezy. And you can save a lot of money, too.

• A Selection Of Free Books

• More Than 1.5 Million Books Available

• Adjustable Font Sizes

• A Built In Dictionary

• Sample Books So You Can Try Before You Buy.

As you can see, the possibilities are endless- before, reading books in an electronic form was only available to those who owned a Kindle. However, now with a free app you are able to access the same features with added personalisation.

Downloading Apps From Websites

Google Play hosts this app on their website, which can be accessed at ease on any android based phone or device at a click of a button, within seconds you are able to enjoy the features that are offered with this useful software. HTC One is a touch screen, android based Smartphone, however as you can see smart phones come in many shapes and sizes, some with larger broader screens and some with relatively small, delicate screens. This is no problem however for the Kindle app, as the font re-sizing gadget is able to make any form of font larger, or smaller, with a built in screen zoom, making it easier than ever for those who experience difficulty reading smaller writing.

HTC One is just one example, there are many android devices that can run the kindle app, including tablets, there is research currently in progress that will eventually result in Windows 8 being able to run android apps, for those who acquire the touch screen monitor.

Where Can I Purchase Kindle Books?

This Android app runs the same basic software as the Kindle; therefore books that can be found for the kindle are also widely compatible for the android. Kindle ebooks can be found on Amazon’s website, with most android devices having built in Bluetooth, this means that once you purchase a book from Amazon, the book gets directly transferred to your device. This automatic transfer means that you do not need to search for wires, connect your device, and transfer it over manually; it is all done instantly and is a breakthrough for modern technology.

What Books Are Available?

There are so many genres of books available for the kindle app, infact some are even completely free to download. Ranging from:

• Les Miserable’s- Victor Hugo

• Quick Cookbook 50 Recipes- Hamlyn

• Deadly Stillwater- Roger Stelljes

• A Little Bit Of Everything For Dummies- John Wiley And Sons

As you can see, there is something for everyone, and you will never be in shortage of reading material, the days for scouring libraries and local book shops are far gone, books are now available at the click of a button and you can acquire that book you have been searching for within seconds.

Growth of Social Marketing

SIIA surveyed small businesses to large conglomerates with hundreds of millions in annual revenue.  Given the executives’ optimism, social media marketing should continue to see industry growth.  Vendors will continue to offer innovative solutions to cater to corporate clients with large marketing budgets.

However, the study also shows differentiating features between company managers and casual users of social media.  Most corporate marketers heavily gravitate towards LinkedIn.  There are there are more than 2.6 million company pages on LinkedIn.  In contrast, consumers are much more biased towards Facebook and Twitter.

SIIA’s report states, “Given the large number of marketers in our survey that are targeting businesses, it’s no surprise that LinkedIn was again the channel where most survey respondents planned to increase the use of in 2013. Over 80 [percent] (up from 75 [percent]  in 2011) of the companies planned on increasing the use of LinkedIn followed closely by Twitter at 70 [percent].”

Emergence of Mobile Platforms

When social media first emerged several years ago, usage was primarily confined to college students, urban young professionals, and early adopters.  During those early periods, companies preferred to apply their advertising budgets towards traditional channels such as newspapers, television, and radio.  Corporate professionals who ventured into the world of online advertising, such as Google AdWords, seemed to be pioneers in advanced – and somewhat unproven – forms of marketing.

In the past few years, companies have clearly found opportunities to reinforce their brand and Internet presence through social media.  Most experts predict the campaigns will evolve to incorporate the emergence of mobile platforms which feature their own unique interface and applications.  Since 2012, large automakers used video-sharing site YouTube to empower their campaigns to go viral on the Internet.  Chrysler hired rapper Eminem to star in a Super Bowl commercial which cost at least $4 million per 30 seconds.   The campaign got lasting power due to fans watching and sharing Chrysler’s ad on YouTube.

Preference for Multimedia

Video-sharing sites show the evolution of content on the Internet and social networks.  In 2005, most users posted text-based content on their friends’ Facebook walls.  Twitter encouraged text confined to 140 characters.  Last month, YouTube announced that it has surpassed more than one billion monthly users.  Last month, it was disclosed that Yahoo! may buy video-site Dailymotion.  Why?  People are preferring multimedia content – such as videos and photos – over traditional text messages.

The implication is that companies will need to evolve with this change in customer preferences.  SIIA’s study reports that “YouTube has also gained a following with over half of the marketers expecting to increase its use.”  It added, “Many firms are now creating YouTube channels for the business as well as product categories. In 2011 we predicted that we would see new targeted social networks and marketplaces emerge and we see that with Google+ and Pinterest gaining some attention in 2012.”

Credit: Commons/Flickr

Measuring ROI

It should be noted that many small businesses and retailers prefer to stay close to their customers.  That means confining their efforts to Facebook and Twitter where a regional mom and pop shop may have several thousand social media fans and followers.  Most don’t have a large budget to initiate campaigns across dozens of social sites.

Case in point: Allied Marble, a regional installer of consumer stone products, maintains a common sense Facebook page that provides weekly updates of their construction projects.   Frills doesn’t necessarily translate into leads.  Often, customers simply want updates or samples of a contractor’s work.  A neighborhood plumbing business can settle for wall posts and Twitter photos of their latest projects.  People can then verify the contractor’s legitimacy as a niche operator.

In Australia, an April 2013 study shows that nearly 80 percent of the continent’s small businesses are planning to increase their presence on social media.  Most are likely to run simple campaigns on limited budgets.  However, they can still yield returns by generating leads in an affordable manner.

Companies are getting good at measuring the return on investment (ROI) of their social media campaigns.  ”Nearly 74 [percent] of the businesses use web traffic as an indicator of social media ROI, up 14 [percent] from 2011. Meanwhile, over 60 [percent] of the respondents using social media marketing are using number of connections/conversations as a key ROI metric, also up almost 14 [percent] from 2011,” according to SIIA.  The report adds, ” This suggests that some firms have found a way to correlate social media efforts to business leads. The number of qualified leads/conversions also ranks high with half (51 [percent]) of the companies.”

Investors want results.  Therefore, managers want leads.  By not using social networks and mobile platforms, companies risk becoming an isolated island in the middle of an interconnected world.