Online Marketing
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, September 30th, 2010
Guest blogger Tomica Divic is the Marketing Coordinator at the YWCA here in Vancouver. In this blog post she highlights some important considerations that should be taken into account by anyone looking for employment and using online tools like social media to do so. It is a great post to complement our series of posts on using social media for recruitment.
THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN APPLYING FOR A JOB ONLINE
Long gone are the days you can just walk onto a job site ask if they have any work available for a hardworking, respectable person like yourself.
According to a recent employer survey conducted by the YWCA One Stop Shop and Career Zone – over 75% of employers surveyed said they preferred to receive job applications via email or online. A large percentage also admitted to using social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn to research a potential candidate. So with Big Brother watching your every move – have you asked yourself how employers see you, even before they meet you? Here are a few tips on how to make sure your behaviour online doesnt affect your chances of landing a job in the real world.
Email address:
- Make sure you use a professional email address when contacting employers. Many people sign up for an email account when they were younger or to communicate with family and friends and forget that sunnybunny@hotmail.com might not be the wisest choice when contacting employers. Others take it one step further by using email addresses such as sexymama@yahoo.com. Not only does this come across as inappropriate for the workplace, it also increases the chances of having your email end up as spam in someones junkmail . When it comes to email addresses its best to play it safe. Setting up a professional email address is easy (and free!) to do, and should consist of a combination of your name and/or last name, such as kentclark@gmail.com
Facebook profile:
- A lot of employers will Google your name to see what comes up online – and one of the things that regularly pops up is your Facebook profile. While you think you might be safe if youve restricted your page to friends only, your profile picture will still be available in Google searches. Profile pictures alluding to drunken nights out or revealing plunging necklines might not make the best first impression so make sure your pictures are work appropriate. Also remember that when you belong to certain online networks or become a fan of something on Facebook it can increase your online exposure to that whole group. Try “Googling†yourself to see what comes up and make any necessary changes to your online profiles.
Cover letters/emails
- With the rise of texting came the demise of spelling and grammar! When applying for a job online or via email youll usually have to write a cover letter, or an introductory email at the very least. Dont make the mistake of sending a rushed email/online application full of typos and errors – this was listed as the #1 top pet peeve among our surveyed employers. Instead, take a minute to copy and paste the text into a MS Word document and run it through spell check.
Hopefully these few tips can help you improve your online presence and your chances of landing a job!
About Tomica
Tomica Divic is a communications professional with over 7 years of experience ranging from youth marketing, to public relations and law. She is currently the Marketing Coordinator at the YWCA Career Zone where she leads all marketing, social media and communications programs for the centre, working with over 2500 young jobseekers and 400 local employers.
About the YWCA
The YWCA Career Zone is a free drop-in employment resource centre for male and female jobseekers ages 15 to 30. For more information visit the Career Zone at 1260 Granville St, Vancouver BC. Check out all the YWCA Vancouver Employment Programs. For more useful job search tips follow the YWCA Career Zone on Facebook or Twitter.
Written by Jan, September 20th, 2010
Jan Littler Finseth is our in house expert when it comes to online couponing. This blog post gives you an insight into the latest web phenomenon and whether it is indeed a viable marketing option.
Make a Deal with Social Media
The morning coffee and email check has become a shopping opportunity for millions who are registered with one of the 43 Daily Deal sites (I counted yesterday!) such as Living Social and Groupon.
How does a Groupon-like deal work and are they a positive internet marketing and promotions tool?
Basically these new coupon deals all work similarly. They make an offer to their list of internet subscribers – every day – in the various geographic markets they serve. The deals work as an assurance contract so that if a certain number of people sign up for the offer, then the deal becomes available to all. If the minimum is not met no one gets the deal that day. This reduces risk for retailers, who can treat the coupons as quantity discounts as well as sales promotion tools. The daily deal sites make money by getting a cut of the deal from the retailers – in some cases up to 50%.
Group-buying deals are by no means new on the scene. They surfaced during the original dot-com heyday and mostly failed. But now advancements in social media have made it a much more stable business model. Facebook and Twitter sharing buttons are ubiquitous on daily-deals sites, as companies encourage consumers to tell all their friends and ensure that the deal goes through. The sites that are the winners are those who best harness the power of social-media channels.
Groupon
Groupon, based in Chicago is definitely the best known and leader of the pack. Groupon was originally called Thepoint.com, a platform to allow people to organize actions or boycotts of some kind. The action would only occur if enough people signed up. But when the financial crisis hit the company decided it needed to re-focus to make money and focused on assembling a crowd -`or the collective buying power to offer the most competitive deals to pre-registered consumers. Groupon and others have quite simply built their businesses around an email subscriber list and by focusing on the deals their specific demographics want.
Groupon goes direct to savvy, deal seeking consumers where they are these days – in their inbox. There is also a built in artificial scarcity
‘in the deals they offer with a tight time frame and the introduction of Caps on quantities of any given deal.
Consumers win by selecting deeply discounted offers from a seemingly endless parade of local businesses – from laser skin care, yoga classes and restaurant meals. Another new twist can be found on http://www.lifesta.com that brokers unused daily deals to those who missed the purchase by deadline. Consumers can also sell deals they can not or will not use.
Should you consider running a Groupon style ad?
Should you consider running a Groupon for your business or service? Yes, if a) you sincerely want more customers, b) can afford to discount your items or services c) are prepared to handle a surge in traffic to your website, your phone and to weather the additional wear and tear on your staff.
Right from the beginning of the Daily Deal phenomenon there have been complaints from participating merchants that they were overwhelmed by the business they gained after they offered a deal. To succeed your Groupon offer must be carefully designed to balance a desire to sell with your ability to deliver. An additional pay-off is the free advertising that comes with being exposed to thousands of subscribers. The exposure is magnified as it gains momentum because subscribers can forward e-mails, post to facebook and tweet the deal to their non-subscriber friends.
Preparation is the best way for a business to survive and flourish during and following a daily deal offer. First crunch the numbers – don’t make an offer that you can not successfully deliver to the high standards you aspire. Make sure your website is optimized and that your email server can handle the flood of inquiries – same goes for your phone line. Train your staff to handle the influx of new customers to ensure that a good portion of those customers become loyal ones. Mine the data of new customers for future offers. Also remember that 20% of the new customers redeem in the first month 20% in the last month and about 10% never to redeem. So plan accordingly.
Detractors report that many of the ‘new’ customers never comeback and are not apt to be ‘up-sold’. Dan Yoo http://www.linkedin.com/in/danyoo wrote that his restaurant business in San Francisco sold 2,600 Groupons and that this gave a huge boost to our business. Our post graph revenue was 63% higher than our pre-graph revenue over same amount of time. He wrote in his article How Social Media can Help your Business Grow that the new normal was almost 50% higher than before the Groupon and that in his opinion the reason for the repeat business was the viral spread through social media efforts combining to create a surge of viral knowledge about his business.
Daily Deals are best not considered as a fad but to be carefully considered as another Social Media tool that can create profitable marketing opportunities for both small and large businesses.
Have you used online couponing either as a consumer or as a company? Please share your experiences with us.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, September 07th, 2010
Location based networking is going mainstream this year and with the recent announcement from Facebook of the Places launch, I thought this would be the perfect time to write a blog post about location based social networking, explaining what it is and why it is generating so much buzz. I’ll also introduce you to some of the major players in the location based arena.
But first, consider two points that help explain why locations based social networking is going to be huge:
1) There are over 4 billion mobile phones in use around the world: that is 4 phones for every Personal computer. In 2009, phones overtook PC’s as the preferred means to access the Internet.
2) Humans are social by nature. Since the days of the cave, we have enjoyed the company of others. It is in our nature to want to share with others; to do things together; to tell them where we are going and to invite them along. We like our “tribe” to know what we are up to and thanks to LBSN we can now do that in real time.
Location Based Social Networking
Location based social networking is a form of geosocial networking, which, according to Wikipedia is “is social networking in which geographic services and capabilities such as geocoding and geotagging are used to enable additional social dynamics”. In other words, you can use Internet based services to share where you are and what you are doing in real time and based on where you are and where your tribe is at that moment.
For example, Foursquare, one of the top location based social networks, allows users to check in from their mobile phones when they are out and about at dinner, sports venues, tourist venues and even at the hairdresser. As a user, each time you check in to a location your connections are alerted and you are awarded points.
Some of the top location based social networks include: Foursquare, Facebook Places, Loopt, Gowalla and Yelp. Here is a resume of each:
Foursquare
Foursquare is “a mobile application that makes cities easier to use and more interesting to explore. It is a friend-finder, a social city guide and a game that challenges users to experience new things, and rewards them for doing so. Foursquare lets users “check in” to a place when they’re there, tell friends where they are and track the history of where they’ve been and who they’ve been there with.” Launched in 2009, Foursquare now has over 3 million users.
Gowalla
Gowallais a location-based social networking where users ‘check-in’ at Spots in their local vicinity, either through a dedicated mobile application or through the mobile website. As a reward users will sometimes receive items from check-ins. Items have developed to become a promotional tool for the game’s partners.
Yelp
Yelp is a website that connects people with local businesses and allows users to rate, comment and share their likes and dislikes and review said businesses. Founded in 2004, Yelp now has communities in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland and France and is available on your mobile phone. Yelp now has over 38 million regular visitors to the site.
Facebook Places
Launched in August, Facebook Places is a social utility that connects people with their friends: it allows them to share where they are and connect with friends who are nearby. Right now Places is only available on iPhone and in the US but given the clout that Facebook carries, it is surely set to be a major player in this arena. Of especial interest from a business perspective is the fact the businesses will be able to use places to create hyper local ads to targeted users.
Loopt
Another location based networking pioneer is Loopt, a company that builds mobile applications that use location to help you enjoy the friends, places, and events around you right now. Formed in 2006, Loopt now offers a suite of 5 mobile applications that run on over 100 different phones and are enjoyed by over 4 million people.
Which Tool To Use?
Judging by the following Compete graph analysis of unique visitors, Yelp seems to be the most trafficked location based social network at this point but this could change on the turn of a dime: when Facebook Places launched, Foursquare saw record sign ups for new users.
Check out the location based tools mentioned above and choose the one that best fits your social network and lifestyle preferences. If you are using Facebook extensively already, then it will make sense to use Facebook Places rather than have to learn and maintain another network. If you eat out a lot, then Yelp might be the best choice. If games are your thing then try Gowalla or Foursquare.
Whichever tool you use though, be cognizant of privacy settings and make sure that only those you want to have access to your where about can access this information.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, July 22nd, 2010
Here at Out-Smarts, we often get asked to assess company websites from a search engine perspective, to ascertain why their page isn’t appearing higher on Google. Often one of the main reasons is because they don’t have enough back links to their website: links from other websites tracking back to their site.
I’ve said it before and I will say it again: links are like gold online, the more your website has the better its ranking will be. Link building can be extremely time consuming and can seem like a fruitless task but its worth it. Here are 10 ways that you can easily build links back to your site:
1. Blog Comments – find blogs that are relevant to your industry and business and post appropriate comments with a link back to your website.
2. Directories – there are gazillions of websites that simply list the URL’s of other website (rather like the Yellow pages but online). Submit a link to your site on the ones that have a good page rank. Avoid the ones that ask for payment or reciprolinks to save you.
3. Articles – if you blog regularly or write articles then use that great content and submit your articles to online articles sites. Again, choose articles sites that have a high ranking like Ezine articles.
4. Events – if your business is a service that regularly hosts events then list your events and link back to your site in so doing. Read this blog post for more.
5. Social Networks – use your social networking presence to link back to your site. These links count and are really easy to create.
6. Relationships – ask partners, clients and organisations you are a member of to place a link on their site back to yours.
7. Bookmarking – sites like Delicious or Stumble Upon allow you to submit sites that you like. Submit your own (carefully) to build valuable links back to your site. Read this article for more.
8. Press Releases - if your company regularly creates promotional pieces or press releases, use free PR release sites: submit your press releases to these sites with a link back to your website. Here’s an article all about how to go about doing so.
9. Content - make sure that the content on your website or blog is great. The better it is the more likely people will find it and link back to it.
10. Advertising - consider advertising online: Craigslist can be a valuable way to to this – not only does it bring visitors to your site who might link to your content (see 9 above) but it also gives you the ability to link back to your site from another high ranking site.
Thanks -wink- for the great Flickr image.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, June 15th, 2010
Bookmarking sites are sites on the Internet that allow you to share and save your online discoveries making it easier for you to keep track of those gems you discover online and intend to revisit. Not only do bookmarking sites allow you to bookmark the sites you like but they also allow you to connect with others who have similar interested and to share sites with them too. They also have an added benefit in that, if you use them effectively they will increase your online exposure.
Most bookmarking sites allow you to download a widget to your br
owser allowing you to easily bookmark sites that you like and want to share. Each time you find a site you like you can click to add it and to organize with appropriate tags.
Some of the most popular bookmarking sites are Reddit, Delicious, Stumble Upon and Digg for a more comprehensive list go to Wikipedia. These are all social networking sites: online hubs where people connect, build community and communicate and interact online. Like other types of social networks they can be very effective in driving traffic to your website, building online connections and increasing your online exposure.
If you think bookmarking sites may be a good tool to consider using as part of your Internet marketing strategy, you should take time to take a look at the sites above to ascertain which is most appropriate given your target audience and content (by exploring tags or categories and the type of sites contained therein). As with any social media marketing activity, to be effective you need to add value, be consistent and to connect and build community with others.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, June 07th, 2010
This month’s new media reasons to be cheerful include:
- A new way to brainstorm online using Mind Meister mind mapping tools.
- Social media demographics from Flowtown – who is using which social networking site.
- Create your own newspaper in 60 seconds.
- Create astonishing presentations both live and on the web with Prezi.
- Location based social networking is currently the in thing – check out Carticipate and Gowalla and check out this list for more.
- Know more about who you know with Gist.
Enjoy!
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, May 31st, 2010
There are social networks, professional networks, microblogs, video sites, events sites, blogs, photo sites… the list goes on and one thing is for certain, you can’t be on all of them.
It is best, in fact, to deploy social media marketing strategies that involve using only a select few of these tools in highly targeted ways.
How to decide which social media tools to use?
In order to ascertain which social media tools are best you need to know a few things – some good old market research is needed:
- Customer – if you don’t already know this then you should. Understand who it is you want to do business with and what it is that you do that solves a problem for them. Take some time to listen to what is being said about your company or industry in these forums. Doing so will help understand the online habit of your customers.
- Company – consider your organisation, its products or services and determine which media are most appropriate to showcase these. Consider too, the resources you have at hand (what are you and your staff great at?) and use these strengths to build your social media campaign.
- Convenience – where is the best place to reach your audience online? Which tools you use will depend on knowing this. For example, LinkedIn is great to reach business people, Flickr is a great place to showcase art, photography and design companies – you get the gist.
- Communication – always remember to be consistent with your messaging and branding. Your online brand and message should be consistent with your overall branding as well so as not to confuse. The goal here is to build community, so consider ways to communicate and interact online that will add value, encourage interaction and grow your following.
Take these four C’s into account and your social media marketing is more likely to hit the mark.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, May 17th, 2010
Facebook is quickly becoming a major challenger to Google when it comes to web traffic. Not only can Facebook drive traffic to your website but the traffic it brings is more targeted, more likely to visit more pages and more likely to stay longer. This, combined with the fact that having a Facebook page can help you reach and communicate with new audiences, means that Facebook should be a major component of your social media strategy (especially if your audience is consumer).
Once you have created a Facebook Page for your organization the challenge becomes attracting an audience and getting people to “like” your page. Here are 10 tips that will help you do so.
Tips To Get More People to Like Your Facebook Page
1. Content - content is key to growing your following. If your content: adds value (by that I mean tells your audience something the didn’t already now) and stimulates conversion, more followers will come.
2. Website widget – add a Facebook widget to your website so that people can click from there to like your page.
3. Invite friends – use the suggest to a friend link to find and send invites to friends but be selective and only invite Facebook friends who might actually be interested.
4. Add your Facebook Page URL to your business cards. Once you have 25 Facebook “Likes” you can request a vanity URL like ours: http://www.facebook.com/outsmarts -which is much more concise and easier to fit on your cards.
5. Tell people – when you are networking both online and off, tell people about your page. If you use Twitter or other social networks, link and tell your followers in those forums too.
6. Update regularly – update your Facebook page regularly (refer to 1. when doing so!). You should update at least once a day but not so frequently that your posts become intrusive and annoying.
7. Place an ad – Facebook ads are highly targeted. Use them to spread awareness of your page with people who will be interested. You might be surprised as to how many new “likes” this will generate. You can also use Google adwords campaigns but this isn’t as effective.
8. Avoid selling – it is not good Facebook etiquette to simply use your Page for promotional purposes. Use the 20/80 rule and ensure that you only promote your company, products or services 20% of the time (focus the rest of your posts on adding value and building loyalty with your followers).
9. Make your Page Stand Out - use FBML to make your Facebook page more unique and attractive to potential new followers when they first pop by.
10. Promote your Page – make sure your Facebook Page URL is highlighted on all direct marketing and tradtional advertising vehicles, add “Like on Facebook” information to letters, packaging and shipping materials to spread the word in other media.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, May 14th, 2010
In my last blog post about personal branding. which also appeared in the online Entrepreneurial Woman Magazine, I talked about how you can use social media to build your brand online. This post takes a look at the tools you should use to do so.
Tools To Use to Build Your Personal Brand Online
There are thousands of different social networks and social media tools out there. As busy people, we cannot have a presence in all of them (or we wouldn’t get any other work done) so its always a good idea to hone in on a few networks that best represent who you are and your goals from online professional networking perspective.
Who Are You?
The social networks you use to build your personal brand online will depend on who you are and what you are great at. For example, an artist, photographer or someone who has a visual presence should use a tool like Flickr or YouTube. An accountant looking to build awareness might use a professional network like Xing or Plaxo to spread awareness of what they do.
It is important, when considering which networks to use, to think about your resources and what you like to do. Someone with little time on their hands might choose to build the brand awareness and network on Twitter because you can do so in short burst of activity (140 words to be exact). Others who love creating videos will enjoy using a video site like YouTube or Vimeo to build their brand.
What are your goals?
Which social networks you use to build your brand will depend also on your goals. If you have a new business and you want to build awareness surrounding that then a networking tool for entrepreneurs like Biznik might be the best place to start. Real Estate agents might use ActiveRain whilst marketers might join Melcrum.
If you are making a move to a new location then find out which networks people there use – in the UK and Europe Bebo is one of the most popular social networks so you might want to consider building a presence there if a move across the pond is your goal.
Top Social Networks for Personal Branding
One of the most popular sites from a professional personal branding viewpoint is LinkedIn. It is the main professional network in North America and is the best forum to present your personal brand in a positive manner. Over 30 million users have used this tool to tell people more about what they do and to highlight the aspects that differentiate them from peers in their industry. LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to post your resume online and build communities around the people you have done business with in the past, those in your industry, with clients, partners and competitors.
From a social perspective, Facebook is by far and away the most widely used social network: practically everyone is on there these days and whilst many are using the forum from a purely social perspective more and more Facebook users are looking to build their professional brand there too. If you use Facebook purely for social networking, it is important to consider how your professional audience will perceive you there too.
Conclusion
When you have considered the points outlined above and determined which networks are most appropriate for you, refer back to some of the points on our previous blog post and always remember that recruiters, potential partners and clients will check out your profile – make sure it is appropriate.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, May 11th, 2010
Social Media tools are great for building awareness of what you do, for reaching and connecting with new audiences, for building and maintaining your networks and for driving targeted traffic to your website. Social networks are communities of people that connect and communicate online based on something they have in common. It makes sense therefore that social media tools can help you to promote events such as seminars, networking opportunities, concerts and sales.
You can use social media to promote practically any event but doing so takes time and effort. Here are a few pointers to bear in mind that will increase the likelihood of your success in using these tools to sell out your event.
Target Your Audience
Don’t try to submit your event to each and every event site out there, instead choose sites that are targeted to attract the desired audience. For example, if your event is in Vancouver and use Vancouver events site. If your event is a social one then post it on a “social” network like Facebook but if it is aimed at professionals, then LinkedIn will be a good tool to reach your target audience. If your event is aimed at the tech community then check out Techvibes but if its music oriented then Oscillations might be a better choice. The point here is that like any other marketing or promotional effort, online events promotion should be very specifically targeted to your intended audience.
High Ranking Events Sites
Only list on events sites with a page rank of 4 or higher. The higher the ranking the better from a search engine optimization perspective and the more likely your audience will be to actually find your event. A great multi purpose events site is with a high ranking is MeetUp - with a page rank of 7. It is better to submit to a few sites that get tonnes of traffic than to submit to lots of sites that hardly get any visitors.
Submit Events Consistently
If you start using social media to promote events then you should be prepared to do so consistently. Choose 5 -10 highly targeted events sites with a high page rank and submit all of your events to these sites and do so regularly. You will begin to build a following in these forums and the last thing you want to do is to annoy them with intermittent and inconsistent listings.
Events promotion lends itself well to social media because the inherent nature of an event is social. If you follow the 3 tips above, not only will you drive more awareness of your events but you will also be able to tap into the nature of social communities. If people enjoy your events they will be more likely to suggest them to others in their online communities and so the buzz will build.
