Archive for December, 2011

Posted on December 29, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

Social Media Marketing for Startups – Infographic

via udemy

Posted on December 28, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

Guest Post: 5 Apps to Help You Reach that New Years Resolution

Guest Author:
Nancy Evans is a freelance writer that specializes in technology and business.

New Years Eve is just around the corner, and for many that means trying to come up with a list of this year’s resolutions. It seems like every year, nearly everyone you know comes up with a long list of resolutions designed to make them a better person only to have many off those resolutions pushed into nonexistence or rolled over on to the following year’s list.

While resolutions aren’t always easy to stick to or achieve, there are several ways that technology can actually help you stay true to your goals. The apps available on smartphones and tablets have become increasingly helpful when trying to better organize and manage our lives, and there are a few apps in particular that can make adhering to your New Year’s resolutions, even those hard-to-do ones, much easier and even rewarding. Such apps include:

LunchMeet
For those who are wishing to become better connected in the professional world in hopes of finding the job of their dream or to simply find a partner for a business venture, LunchMeet is just the app to have. LunchMeet connects to LinkedIn and allows professionals to meet with one another face to face in their available locations. Through the app you can locate other professionals of interest and list your location as well as any time you are available. You are then free to contact others which may just land you that job you always wanted – because as we’ve all heard, it’s not what you know, but who you know.

Mint
If you have found yourself surrounded by debt over the last year, your New Year’s Resolution probably has something to do with paying off those credit cards and loans. If this sounds like you, then Mint is your app. Mint automatically syncs all your bank accounts and other financial information, such as installment loans and credit cards, to help you monitor all of your spending in one easy-to-use place. The app will let you know where you are spending too much, and will also let you know when you are going over budget – making sure that you are spending and saving in all the right places.

Today’s Plate
Maybe you have got the job you’ve always wanted and your feeling financially stable so those two resolutions, which are at the top for many, don’t have a reason to make your list. Instead, however, you are growing wearisome of the spare tire sitting around your waist. There is no other resolution that makes the New Year’s lists more than losing weight, and for those who are finally serious about shedding those extra pounds, Today’s Plate is for you. One of the predominant reasons why people struggle with losing weight is because of their diet. With today’s plate you can keep track of all your calories on the go. The app even calculates restaurant meals so that you can always keep your diet in check ensuring that you will get that thin body after all.

MyQuit Coach
MyQuit Coach is the serious app for those serious about quitting smoking – which is a common New Year’s resolution for thousands of Americans. MyQuit Coach offers a personalized and highly customizable plan for quitting smoking, and will help you stay on track by alerting you to how many cigarettes you should be smoking a day in order to reach your goal. The app will even award you badges for quitting milestones, and will also tell you how much money you have saved to date by not smoking.

Quitter
While MyQuit is a little bit more intense as far as quitting smoking apps go, Quitter makes quitting, well, a little more enjoyable. The app provides you with a count of how many days you have gone without smoking, and congratulates you for reaching certain milestones. Instead of a coach, it is more like having your own personal anti-smoking cheerleader.

Following through with those New Year’s resolutions isn’t always easy, but thanks to a few selected apps, it can sure be a lot easier. Now if only one of those apps could actually create your New Year’s resolution list for you, you’d be golden.

Posted on December 25, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Google Doodle Happy Holidays Song Video

I say ‘Merry Christmas’ or ‘Happy Holidays’ to a person based on their appearance. Some call it profiling. I call it living on the edge.

— Andy Richter (@Andy_Richter) December 23, 2011

Posted on December 24, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

How Social Media is Ruining Our Minds – infographic

Posted on December 22, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

Guest Post: Budgeting for social media: Who pays for it and why?

About Guest Author:

Alia Haley is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on technology, health and parenting. Beside this she is fond of eating. Recently an article on Nokia Lumia 800 attracted her attention. These days she is busy in writing an article on Racing Games For Kids.

Have you ever come across deals like discount on purchase for a copy of a tweet or for liking a Facebook profile of a company? What could happen if you like Dell’s Facebook profile to Dell in reality? What is there for Coke to encourage Facebook profile? These are at the end of the day only intangible and binary signals confined within servers and networks. And answer is web 2.0 or interactive capabilities of today’s World Wide Web. User generated content is becoming tools for marketing in both B2C and B2B segments.

But who and why should spend?
All most anybody willing to draw public attention can spend – Barrack Obama did it in presidential election and Ford do it for their cars. Social media allows companies, organizations to spread brand awareness and increase customer engagement.
Companies spend millions of dollars on market research activities every year. But social network sites and forums provide endless opportunity to interact with customers and to understand their psyche at fractional cost. Besides, you can earn commitment if engage the customer around the branding activity. Reviews and remarks generated by customers work as marketing content for other left out prospects and customers.

Budgeting
But even a deep pocket corporate also needs to budget its spending. And despite so many cost efficient benefits it’s not easy to budget social media optimization. Part reason is lack of effective parameters that link money spent to money earned directly and the other part is slow action of optimization initiatives.
Other than budgeting, another common problem with SMO is how to distribute the allocated fund. Too much stress on campaign eats up fund for customer engagement process. This results in less than expected return on investments.
For these reasons, often companies drag their feet when budgeting for social media marketing. Even most willing marketing officers often suffer from over-budgeting or under-budgeting. To avoid such problem you can try few useful tips to streamline your social media initiative.

Separate budgeting
Make separate budget for different activities like, campaign, customer engagement, customer care etc. And don’t let one activity to eat up fund allocated for other activities.

Activity planning
We all know social media is a very fast changing medium. But for proper budgeting and fund use you must have a plan for future optimization strategy for near future. This would help you to allocate fund properly.

Introspection first
What worked for Ford may not yield for you. Try to understand your customers, prospects and brand reach. Every brand has its niche and it is important to understand that before you plan your strategy.

No magic
Social networking sites don’t give you any magic wand. It is absolutely legitimate if you find social media not much promising for you. You can restrict yourself within digital marketing only.

Wise parameters
Be wise when deciding on what test parameters to use to check effectiveness of your media effort. Try to rely less on paid media and stress more on earned media. Millions of followers won’t earn you dollar if they don’t shell out money to buy your product. Try to build and nurture even a small base of engaged followers.

CMOs must understand time is the most valuable input to skim optimum benefit from the social media marketing. And how much time you can afford would be major determinant of your budget. How much to spend is not important in SMO; what is most important is how long you can afford to spend. So, be careful to spend evenly across a long time horizon for better brand engagement and sales conversions.