Tag: social media trends

Live streaming is one of the biggest innovations that have come from the use of the internet. In fact, a larger percentage of internet traffic currently is attributed to make their events available to the public live. And it is expected that the percentage share of internet traffic will increase further in the coming years. So, why is that streaming your moments to the world online is that big? The reason is that there are numerous advantages associated with live video streaming platform and live video streaming services.

One reason is that through making your event live, one can be able to engage with attendees. These attendees are the ones who are unable to attend the live event in person but can watch it through the streaming service. So, in a way it can be argued they attended. The other reasons are of course that you can increase the attendance, and increase the user experience.

The type of event to be streamed on platforms will depend on what you prefer. You can showcase a cooking competition, a music concert, a coaching session, a festival and even a wedding, which is rapidly growing in popularity. Of course, as already aforementioned, there are a number of platforms such as Live broadcasting to Facebook, Go Live Broadcast and other social media platforms such as Twitter and YouTube and Periscope.

Social media sites such as Facebook Live are increasingly being preferred as a platform for going live because of the huge number of people who use them. Social media sites users as per the recent statistics of 2017 are indicated to be about 2.46 billion worldwide. That is a huge number of potential viewers for your event or even potential attendants.

Most of the platforms available are increasingly integrating the use of various social media platforms for instantaneous live streaming across multiple platforms. You are talking about broadcasting across Facebook live, YouTube Live, Twitter live and Periscope. That can be done by using live broadcasting platforms and live streaming devices.

Requirements for Going Live Using These Services:

Of course, apart from identifying your live streaming platform/application and signing up, you must have the following:

· A reliable internet connection

· A high-performance computer/smartphone

· A webcam or camera with a video capture device in case you are using a device

As devices can be bought, or you can use the platforms which have many plans – basic, premium or enterprise plans. There are some platforms who offer free trials, often for a period usually 1 month. The main disadvantage with free trials is that they are limited in terms of features and functions and thus you may be limited when broadcasting.

Live streaming your event

After knowing the importance, ways available for live streaming and the requirements needed, all is left is the action itself which is simple. When you have a live streaming device, the first step is to connect your device to any video source or to the camera. With one tap from the app provided, you can modify the title of your event, start, stop and pause and execute and use other functions and features. There is a feature for streaming across multiple platforms simultaneously.

Using Facebook Live Stream Service

1. With your mobile device or computer with a camera, you go to the news feed on the Facebook app to live stream. There is a “live” option that you must tap. Another option for live streaming is through your profile. There is a live video option from the menu “What is on your mind”, when tapped.

2. Facebook would then request access to your camera if is the first time. You must allow it. Any subsequent access to the camera will be automatic when one is to live stream.

3. Choose preferred privacy setting. You may choose to live broadcast to your friends or public. There is another option for “only me”, that is great when you are new to the service and want to test it. Nobody loves embarrassing himself, you can trust the live streaming for this.

4. Describe your live broadcast. Give it a catchy title.

5. Choose a location, or an activity and tag friends.

6. Before going “Go Live”, you must set up your camera in the right direction/view. After setting up the camera, and Going Live, you can then interact with your viewers.

7. When done, click “finish”. There is the option of posting the video for other people to be able to watch it even after the broadcasting has finished.

8. Save your video for future use; tweaking and re-watching.

Lyfeloop

Marketing is essential to any business and is generally referred to as the most important aspect of any business strategy. Large companies spend millions of dollars to hire reputed agencies to handle the marketing of their business whereas smaller companies rely on more creative and cost efficient methods. In the extremely competitive world of today, social media marketing is the new ‘in’ thing and definitely here to stay. In a nutshell, it means using social media such as blogs, community sites, video sharing sites etc. to market a product or a business.

Certain popular websites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube which have more than five million visitors everyday are considered to be an important hub for marketing. Promoting your business using these sites is a very attractive business proposition since they offer a huge amount of steady traffic everyday. In today’s world, social networking is extremely successful and social media marketing is very important to a business because of the sheer number of people that access these sites regularly.

The reasons why this type of marketing is so important, or rather, essential for a business are many. Firstly it is a low cost investment when compared to the other options available, offering many links to your site for free. Social media is generally free to use but marketing the same thing through conventional methods would cost you thousands of dollars. These sites get a lot of traffic and they in turn generate traffic to your site. Also it acts like a word-of-mouth concept that people tend to believe when compared to commercial advertising.

To make a lasting impact on the user and build a successful business any entrepreneur should be adept in social media marketing. There are a number of factors to keep in mind while promoting your business online so as to maximize its potential and achieve realistic real time sales. Lehman Hailey believes marketing through social media is a potent method that will make your site profitable over time.

Following are a few pointers that an entrepreneur would do well to remember while utilizing the immense scope of this type of marketing. Firstly, one should always try to give a clear account of the company’s product or the contents of the business instead of exaggerating and claiming the impossible because this discourages people from visiting your site whereas a more realistic picture generates slow but steady traffic over time. Secondly, it is important to post as many links as you can wherever there is a provision to do so.

Any business becomes profitable only if the end product promised by the company or the entrepreneur is really as good as advertised and produces customer satisfaction. There is no sure-shot formula for success using marketing since it only gives more visibility to the business and the end sales depend only on the efficiency of the product. However, social media marketing is an important tool that, when properly used is a highly beneficial and promising enterprise.

Lyfeloop

Successful businesses today employ the Internet to create “brand awareness” among targeted customers, and convince them to purchase products and services. In this era of Internet exploitation, the web site has become the ideal medium through which your messages cost-effectively may reach targeted customers.

Instead of relying on television, magazines, or newspapers, you may deliver profitable messages in a matter of minutes – versus hours, days, or even weeks appealing to customers via the other media. However, to make certain your business communications are strong and convey the right appeals and urges to purchase, you will need to employ a well-organized social media management plan. Such a discipline helps you ensure your promotions via business web sites are effective, and enhance your client base and brand popularity.

By implementing effective social media management, you avoid posting messages that do not elicit the desired responses. In this manner, you carefully manage advertising and marketing strategies on social web sites, and prevent messages being ignored. With this in mind, social media “analytics” will help you determine the behavior, attitudes, and likings of your target customers. By examining key web sites – Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn – you’ll learn which are frequented most often by your prospective customers, and discover what they think about your products or services.

This provides insight into your brand response rates, and also informs you about any grievances customers may express. When you are completely aware of your target customers’ preferences and choices, you’re better equipped to alter your brand and resolve any criticisms customers may have noted. You also will recognize that effective social media management will increase the popularity of your brand, as well as the size of your customer base. In short, efficient social media management ensures you enjoy the best promotional advantages of business web sites.

In another vein, you’ve probably learned that promoting oneself or one’s company is time-consuming, especially when it comes to accessing Facebook and Twitter; two of the most heavily-trafficked web sites on the Internet. Many who try to employ these sites for business have no knowledge of how to use them appropriately, and often are frustrated and give up trying. However, once again there’s an approach that helps with this dilemma, and it’s as simple as employing someone to “shepherd” your Facebook and Twitter accounts through social media management.

Effective social media management guides your business and that individual, and also helps with the design and development of interactive web pages for sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Social media management also helps you obtain fans and pals with whom to communicate as well as assist with every day communications with one’s “followers.” Additionally, it will relieve you from creating daily posts and tweets, and serve as an excellent time saver.

A social media management provider also may create advertising and marketing techniques that support your Facebook and Twitter accounts, and explode into the “viral realm of achievement.” He or she will offer suggestions on how best to promote your Facebook page and Twitter account inside the “off-line planet.” A social media management provider will demonstrate concepts like printing Facebook and Twitter pages on your receipts, and getting posters on your walls by using the “comply with us” sign-on at the bottom. Such suggestions are simple yet effective, and your social media management provider will offer even more inventive tips.

Social media marketing, overall, refers to the process of gaining web traffic through numerous social networks. It is a program concerned with creating impressive contents, and attracting large numbers of readers who share those messages with others. In other words, trustworthy information usually is obtained from third parties, and not the companies involved.

Social media actually are intermediaries (or “information tunnels”) accessible to anyone with internet access, and through which verbal and visual communications flow. As a result, this type of marketing takes advantage of, and captures, the large market operating within the Internet. In fact, the Internet platform has become one of the most effective and least expensive parts of the marketing mix that exists within today’s business environment.

In addition to the above benefits, cell phone usage further enhances the value of social media management. Most of these instruments are installed with networking capabilities, and users receive notifications of practically every event through their public networks and cells. Because of this phenomenon, the number of people being informed about your product or service has doubled over the last decade or so.

This uninterrupted connection to communal networks is yet another indication that companies and entrepreneurs may keep reminding customers of the availability of their products and services within the marketplace. In addition to advertisements, many companies include Quick Response or “QR” codes alongside their products. This visual “bar code” enables individuals to access company websites and on-line services through their smart phones.

Many businesses and organizations add a QR application to their promotional programs, and report achieving unimaginable traffic. In fact, there are even reports the program was used in the recent presidential campaigns, and candidates employ this strategy to reach wide ranges of supporters to whom they “sell” their suggested practices and policies. If this simple strategy works for politicians who reach more constituents and increase their support bases, it also should work cost-effectively within the business environment.

Most companies also have added blogging platforms to their social media repertoires. Myriad people access such blogs daily, and increase the chances of creating awareness for new products and services within the marketplace. Blogs are ideal for creating longer and more informative descriptions of products and services for potential customers, and effectively target the ideal market. Most viewers will have “opted in” to read the blog, so the interest is there. In addition, smart advertisers may include customer testimonials in their blogs, and which also adds to effectiveness and credibility.

Social media marketing through communal networks provides advertisers with crucial information regarding customer likes and dislikes, as well as “first-hand” suggestions for product or service improvements. It is the ideal platform that provides a target audience for companies and entrepreneurs, because people always are readily available at these web sites. Which means, in essence, companies do not have to search far for the best targeted market. Additionally, these networks provide people from all walks of life, which also increases the chances of finding the right customers who will be interested in certain products or services being marketed.

Currently, social media play vital roles in enhancing business images and increasing their returns on investment. Competition among businesses and services greatly has intensified, and effective marketing is the primary tool by which one businesses can get leverage over another.

Without proper promotion and well thought-out employment of the marketing mix, you cannot create awareness of your brand among target customers. Gone are the days of limited products and services available in the marketplace, when customers recognized each and most promotion “word-of-mouth” testimony.

Today, there are hundreds of World Class products and services on the market. However, only those that come to the forefront through effective social media management will be promoted adequately, and achieve the best return on a business’s marketing investment.

Lyfeloop

Your potential clients are using social media. Why aren’t you there networking with them? Now that you have an online presence through your website, you might think your web marketing plan is complete and you don’t need SMM – but think again. Agents who are neglecting SMM miss out on lucrative listings, and they lose the chance to connect with potential buyers who are seeking their dream home.

What is social media marketing for real estate?

You, personally, probably use social media every day. You just don’t know it. And, that’s why it hasn’t been working to your marketing advantage. You read and commented other people’s blogs. You use Facebook to keep up with your family and old friends. You tweet on Twitter to say witty things. You’ve watched many videos on YouTube. And, you’re a true fan of blogs. So, time to use SMM for real estate!

Social media marketing for real estate Choices

Here is a short list of just a few available choices of the popular SMM.

1. Blog for Your Brand – share relevant content with your target market
2. Facebook Business Page – make “friends” that are interested in your brand, product or services
3. Twitter Business Account – Share your expertise by tweeting to your online “followers”
4. LinkedIn – networking for businesses, including B2B
5. YouTube – market your commercials online for free

Social media marketing for real estate Blog Content

A blog, which is short for “web log”, is an online journal for your SMM campaign. It’s your company’s opportunity to introduce your brand by marketing your niche. Your business blog lets your target housing market get to know you, who you are and what you do through SMM

Get more clients with social media marketing for real estate

Are you looking for ways to gain more clients? Of course, you are! All experts, brokers and agents have a passion for making money. Informative content is what gives you that extra edge in the market. When you provide free, relevant, useful information to your target market, you become an expert in their eyes.

When sellers are ready to put their homes on the market, they will turn to a real estate expert – the agent or the broker who is professional and able to market their homes. Even banks selling REOs use SMM for content to help them connect to qualified agents to provide them with commercial services. Content helps to connect yourself with your readers and turn your followers into actual clients.

Use Your Social media marketing for real estate Now!

Social media is where networks of consumers share details of their lives, including the businesses and agents and brokers that they recommend. SMM for marketing is a great strategy to have online users to share your listings, price reduced posting, announcing great buying opportunities, provide informative blog posts to gain authority within your network. It is today’s digital way of gaining word of mouth advertising to potentially millions of online consumers. Don’t be a secret agent! Every agent needs social media marketing for real estate to help market their agent’s brand online.

Lyfeloop

When most of us think about online social networks, we most probably think about Facebook. Facebook is by far the most popular social networking site we have today with 500 million Facebook users.

However, Mark Zuckerberg was definitely not the first person to ever have built a social network – he was just the first to succeed in the way that he did.

In truth, one of the first social networks to really take off, was named Sixdegrees.com.

It was founded by Andrew Weinreich, a well known entrepreneur & internet executive. Weinreich started his career working as a financial analyst and after a short while, went back to school to study law. He worked as a legal professional for 2 years. It was during this time that he devised the concept of an online social network which made the process of “meeting people you don’t know through the people you do know” more efficient.

It was in 1997 that he launched Sixdegrees. At it’s peak, the site had 3,500,000 users and 100 employees. Weinreich later sold the site to Youthstream Media Networks in December 2000 for US$125 million. Weinreich is currently the CEO of meetMoi – a location based mobile dating service, as well as the chairman of Xtify, a platform for geo-targeted mobile messaging.

Sixdegrees was based on the web of contacts type of social networking. Weinreich drew his inspiration from the theory that every person in the world is connected to every other person by not more than six steps, otherwise known as the the concept of “six degrees of separation”. It was also the first social networking site to combine features found on other dating sites & community sites into one. Users could create personal profiles, set up friend lists and surf friend lists belonging to other users within their network. They could send each other messages, affiliate themselves with networks as well as send their family & friends invitations to become members of Sixdegrees.

Writing this now in 2010, none of this seems that impressive. However, back in 1997, no other site offered a combination of these features.

Unfortunately, Sixdegrees did not last very long, and it certainly didn’t leverage the popularity or support that a site such as Facebook has today. There were a number of reasons that contributed to the failure of this social network:

1) At the time, web technology was not yet developed to the point where it was able to support the features that were needed to make this kind of application successful;

2) Despite their 3,500,000 registered users, Sixdegrees couldn’t accumulate the amount of users needed before their money ran out;

3) The features available to Sixdegrees users were not as engaging as they could have been & failed to keep their users coming back;

4) Factors which were outside of the company’s control had a detrimental effect on it’s ability to make a profit from online advertising. These events included a post-April 2000 recession, as well as 9/11, and;

5) The online advertising industry was not mature enough to provide enough online advertisers to support their business model.

Factors 4 & 5 probably contributed the most to their downfall, however, Sixdegrees marked the beginning of a new era in online communication & networking. Despite it’s short-lived success, it paved the way for the likes of Facebook, LinkedIn and many more.

Lyfeloop

Although still right in the middle of the web-based brand marketing era, driven largely by the technique of search engine optimization and search marketing, the business revolution is starting to take note of social networking.

Recent polls show the social media giant Facebook, for example, as commanding more online liaisons through search than any other search engine not name Google. This slow but steady shift has alerted many businesses to the importance of social media management, in order to secure an even larger web presence than they already had from SEO (search engine optimization).

Using the Major social Outlets Wisely

The sheer ubiquity of social media outlets can be daunting to the late entrant; every start-up is trying to emulate the success of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, because the potential for advertising to the masses is tremendous. This array of options has led to the rise of social media management, which allows companies to easily keep track of the myriad of platforms being used for social engagement.

In addition to being seamlessly aware of network feedback, they can often integrate related aspects of media marketing into it, such as newsletters and email marketing. A medium-sized company can have connections across literally a hundred different sites, and social media management can negate the time-consuming practice of logging into each one individually to update status, renew offers, or a myriad of other things a business might use to engage their audience.

Social media management doesn’t merely manage the company’s preexisting contacts; it also extends their reach. It enables a company to advertise to and attract product promoters through contests and affiliate sponsorships, pitching their services to both targeted and untargeted traffic.

A robust social management program should enhance a company’s media strategy through diversification; keep track of analytics, notify administrators of important changes in the community, such as a mass exodus from the network for any reason whatsoever, and lastly, have an attractive interface, which is just as important as the previous attributes.

The Importance of the First Page

Creative and engaging landing pages have always figured prominently in web design, and will continue to be even more critical with the migration to social media management platforms. Ultimately, all of these things have two goals in mind: create a sense of community, and extend that community.

Social network management also entails devising general guidelines with dealing with a company’s customer base. Is it more optimal to erase any negativity, or information that might put the company in a bad light, immediately from the message boards or Facebook Walls? Research would suggest that not always; particularly in the case of a misunderstanding as to a product’s specifications.

Letting Go of Old Ranking Methods

Outright spam should of course be relegated to the dustbin; but other statements can give a company a chance to interact constructively with their fan-base by elaborating on an idea, creating an atmosphere of trustworthiness and engagement with the audience. Then, an especially well-constructed clarification can be recycled across the social media management network to other users, who might have had similar questions. In keeping with the user-oriented nature of the above transaction, any chance that a company has to involve their base should be seized upon.

Opinion polls for better service and novel ideas, contests and free giveaways can reap dividends in the long run. Ultimately, although the primary purpose of social media management on the company side is resource consolidation; the external appearance must always be one of keeping the customer first, and interacting with her as an individual entity.

Lyfeloop

Social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn among others have literally transformed from simple social network sites to major business/product/service marketing platforms. This is simply because of the large number of users accessing the sites on a daily basis. Like with any other marketing process, social marketing is a process that businesses/marketers employ to attract attention or gain traffic to their traditional business websites.

A common feature of social marketing is creation of relevant content that not only attracts but also encourages social networking users to share the same with their social networks. As users share content, a business/marketer gains what is referred to as “earned media” instead of “paid media”. Transformation of social networking sites to business marketing platforms has made it possible for a good number of firms to specialize in social media marketing, offering their services to millions of small, medium-sized and large businesses across the world.

There are several ways through which social media marketing firms can make your business a success story.

Business Reputation

Just in the same way that you strive to gain good reputation among your local clients, it is also very important that you have the same with social networking users. This makes it necessary to know what the users say about your business/product. A dedicated social media marketing firm will normally have what is referred to as Client Centre, a nerve centre that gives you information regarding what is said about your business/product on social media sites. A firm will normally gives you access to the centre with valuable reputation management tools for your own use.

Monitoring/Reports

Monitoring the performance of your marketing campaigns on social media sites can be a big challenge considering the fact that you need to focus on your business. Monitoring and reporting is one of the most important services that a social media marketing firm will provide you. A dedicated firm will continuously monitor the performance of your marketing campaign and report to you what is good about it and in case of poor performance, advise you on what needs to be done to improve the campaign.

Customized Marketing Campaign

Engaging the service of a social media marketing firm can be of great benefit when it comes to directing your campaign to a specific population in a geographic area. Although you may manage to gain a huge following on social media sites out of your own efforts, driving them to your traditional business website can be very difficult. A social media marketing firm will go the extra mile to keep your followers engaged through updated and encouraging content to attract them to your website.

Regardless of how small your business may be, having a presence on social networking sites is something you cannot ignore when you need to expand your business. However, engaging a social media marketing firm for the purpose of marketing your business on social networking platforms requires that you research carefully to identify a reputable firm that will take your business to the next level.

Lyfeloop

Protecting your identity online is essential for your brand, reputation and credit worthiness, far more important than updating your Instagram and Facebook every day. Several times a year the news will cover a serious data breach of information being held by major banks, insurance companies and/or social media platforms. Once the data is taken, it can be misused or even lead to identity theft. Deleting your old social media accounts is a vital step to help ensure some measure of identity protection. It is imperative that you keep your online access to your current accounts safe and protected and delete any old accounts.

Here is a guide that will help you delete your old accounts on the most popular social media sites.

Facebook

Moving onto the biggest social network platform of all time, Facebook, with over a billion users, keeps things simple and makes it incredibly easy for you to deactivate your account.

Once you go into the “settings” tab from the down arrow in your browser, select your Facebook information and then select delete your account and information”. When you are in this menu you will go to delete your account and must add the password to confirm.

Foursquare

Foursquare hit the internet over a decade ago to let friends know where you are and figuring out where they are. In order to delete your Foursquare account, you will have to access the platform from your computer. Move onto the “privacy” settings tab where you have to scroll to the end of the page and find an option to delete your account. When you select this option you will go to a page where you need to confirm whether you want to delete your account or not.

Google

Google is the undisputed search engine leader with one of the most interconnected ecosystems. By creating one account for Google you are able to access a plethora of different applications and websites without having to create separate accounts. In order to delete your Google+ or Gmail account, you will need to delete your entire Google account.

Go to “Google account settings” and choose “delete account and services”. There you will see the “delete products” option, where you can access all of your Google applications. You need to sign in to all of the websites first before you can delete your account.

Instagram

Facebook’s younger brother is possibly the most used social media platform by Millennials, according to Hootsuite. Thanks to its focus on visual communication, it is the go-to place in order to find talented artists.

Deleting your account is very simple and takes little time to properly accomplish. While you can manage your privacy settings using the mobile app, you must go through an internet browser in order to delete your account. Simply go to the “delete your account page”, and there you will have to provide a reason for deleting your account. Once you provide the reason, you will provide your password and then select the option to permanently delete the account.

Linked In

LinkedIn is the social network for professionals looking for new opportunities to connect with other professionals and grow their business and careers. If you are on the platform, the profile should be complete and up-to-date. If you are no longer using the platform, delete the account. At the top right corner of any page of LinkedIn, you will first have to access the “privacy and settings” tab. From there, choose the “account” tab and then select closing your LinkedIn account. You will have to give your feedback and verify your account before you can delete it. From there you will see a post telling you of the consequences of deleting your account and then the final page which will be for confirmation.

MySpace

This social media platform has been bought and sold several times since its glory days (2005 to 2009). In 2016 their database was breached and leaked to a dark market website. To delete your MySpace account, you will first have to login to the account that you want to delete. From there, select the “gear” icon and choose the “account” tab. There, you will see an option to delete your account. Before you can delete your account you will have to provide a reason after which you will receive an email for confirmation. Open the email and follow its instructions.

Pinterest

Pinterest is a web-based pinboard or bulletin board, a place to bookmark images found online. To delete your Pinterest account you will first have to go to the triple dot icon on the website and select the “edit settings” option. From there you will have to go down to the “account” page and select “deactivate account”. From there you will click “yes” to receive an email, which you need to open and follow in order to permanently delete your account.

Snapchat

Snapchat is a service that, for a short time, rivaled Facebook and was the go-to social media app for many people. As is the case with Instagram, you cannot delete your account from the mobile app; you must delete it from a proper browser.

From the website browser, go to “delete your account” and enter your username and password. Your account does not delete instantly and it takes about 30 days to remove all of the information.

Twitter

Regardless of how famous your really are, everyone has a Twitter handle. Many people follow and get their news from the tweets of everyone from legitimate newsmakers and media organizations to raving fans of our favorite sport teams. Deleting your Twitter account is incredibly easy. It takes at least 30 days for all of your tweets to get deleted. Select “settings and privacy” from the form on the menu and go into the account tab. From there you will have to deactivate your account and enter your password to confirm the action.

Tumblr

Tumblr probably has one of the most bustling communities on the internet, which is also why it is very easy for anyone to delete their account. While you are able to delete your account, the content other people have reposted will remain available on the site. To delete your account, click on the person-shaped icon on the website, and go to “settings”. There select “delete account”, entering your email and password to confirm the process. Tumblr also states that it takes them a few days to properly wipe all of your content.

Whatsapp

Whatsapp is a free messaging app to send Voice over IP (VoIP), images, video calls and documents using a mobile device. To delete your account, simply open your Whatsapp and go to the “settings” menu. From there, select account and go to “Delete my account”, after which you will have to enter your phone number in international code and tap “delete”.

YouTube

YouTube is second only to Facebook as a social media platform, owned by Alphabet, the owner the parent company of Google. A well-managed channel can help to improve website ratings. A channel not in use should be deleted. Deleting your channel from the largest video-sharing platform on the internet is quite simple. You will first have to sign into your YouTube account and go to your advanced settings. From there, choose “delete channel” and then opt for “delete channel permanently”. This will launch a prompt where you can confirm if you want to delete your channel or would still like to keep it.

Final Words of Advice

According to industry experts and a recent article in Consumer Reports, it is a best practice to reduce the risk of having your personal and professional data being misused or stolen by keep your current accounts secure and deleting accounts no longer in use.

Lyfeloop

Alli, the new over-the-counter brand of prescription drug Xenical from Glaxo-SmithKline, is being marketed by a new mix of messages. Their marketers understand both the emergence and importance of social networking as a new media marketing tool, as evidenced in their latest commercial. They get it. They are now able to grasp the concept of social media networking as a tool for viral marketing. What is particularly interesting, is that neither of these terms were even a part of general marketing vocabulary and strategic thinking until just recently.

Marketers employed by the pharmaceutical giant have created a huge buzz surrounding this new product addressing a huge and hungry market; No puns intended! Their latest ad clearly displays the power of word-of-mouth viral marketing. It displays people conversing via email and phone extolling the benefits of this new product. The ad then begins to accelerate the layering of these images so that we can more easily perceive the word-of-mouth methodology and viral growth of their message. It works; Their message connects with us and they understand it.

At his legendary and highly respected blog DoshDosh, Maki has posted an impressive, detailed listing of forty-seven social media sites. Brandon Fritz, who writes for Kolbrener, has also assembled an amazing list of fifty social media sites categorized by market segment. These social networking site lists will continue to grow and change over time. One thing is certain, as is proven with the current political drama unfolding in cyberspace: Marketing and the timely dissemination of relevant information has evolved beyond anything previously available or conceivable and will continue to develop. Social networking is now viewed as a legitimate means of strategic marketing.

How will your sales be impacted by the development of new social media and viral marketing tools? You need to be paying attention and learning new selling skills to take advantage of this growing phenomenon as the sales cycle in most industries is certainly being impacted. Sales strategies are becoming more conversational as social media marketing unfolds. Perhaps the marketing mainstream is grasping what he direct marketers have known for some time; that selling is most effective when it is made to be personal and conversational.

Relationships continue to win sales. Salespeople who make the time to understand their customers and their needs, connecting with them, will sell more and have many more satisfied, referral-providing, long-term customers than those who look only for a quick sale. Which path will you take?

Lyfeloop

Social media

Social media is the combination of online communications channels committed to group-oriented input, communication, information sharing, and relationship. Various types of applications and websites which are devoted to social networks, blogging, forums, wikis and social bookmarking form the different types of social media. The most common types are Facebook, YouTube, Google+, WhatsApp, Twitter, QQ, WeChat, Qzone, OLX, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Skype, Viber, Snapchat, Pinterest, MySpace, Meetme, Meetup, Mixi, Tout, Douban, Flickr, Buzznet, Wehearit, and Friendster These social websites have approximately 100,000,000 registered users. Although there are different types of social media they use many common features such as Consumers create service-oriented profiles for the website and applications that are planned, and upheld by the association. The user-created material, such as digital images, posts, videos, comments and data shared through online interfaces. All type of Social media is interactive internet applications which enable the growth of online social networks by linking a user’s profile with those of other persons or groups.

Users usually contact social media facilities via web-based tools on computers, or download services from internet applications to their cell phones, through these services, users can generate highly collaborating platforms through which persons, groups, and establishments can segment, co-create, debate, and revise user-created data or pre-built content displayed online. They present considerable and prevalent changes to communiqué between trades, establishments, societies, and personalities.It has modified the communication between the persons and large establishments. Researchers study these changes and new Technologies are being introduced as a result of these changes. It is different from the traditional print and electronic media in various aspects, such as grasp, customer, value, reach, occurrence, interaction, usage, nearness, and durability. Its channels operate in a dialogic mode of transmission whereas old-style media used monologic transmission mode.

Facebook is widely used in all the countries, 84 percent of young Americans are its user. Almost 60 percent teenagers have social media profiles, a majority of people spend a minimum of two hours daily on social networking sites and the time spend on these sites is greater than the time spent on another type of sites. The total time spent on social sites in the USA was 66 billion minutes in 2012 now it reached to 121 billion minutes. It has become a source of professional prospects and financial profits.

Social media has a lot of good and bad effects. It gives a chance of linkage with actual or virtual groups, and it is a real publicizing instrument for businesses, financiers, charitable establishments, as well as support groups, politicians, and administrations. Its substantial use is also proved as a cause of sadness, cyberbullying online persecution and wandering.

We cannot define social media by its aptitude to fetch people together, according to this description telegraph and telephone can be its types, Actually social media is typically used to pronounce social networking sites such as: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, Instagram and Wechat permits their use to make their private Profiles to share ideas, images, videos, to talk with each other and update each other with the new things, events and happenings while doing their daily deeds and routine jobs.

Peculiarity of Social media-The Content Spread like Virus

Sometimes contents that are posted on social sites have likely to spread like a virus on social networks. The users will reshare the content posted by some other user to their social network, resulting in further sharing. Posts like North Korea Atomic Bomb Explosion, fast-breaking news like the news of Michel Jackson death have crashed down the internet servers as this news was rapidly shared and re-shared by the people who use social networking sites. This is the concept of spreading of a viral disease from one infected person to other persons. Some individuals, Groups, and Organizations use this Viral Spreading of a news as an effective way of Publicity.

Use of Cellular Applications

The usage of Mobile phone to access sites is a great factor in the popularity of these sites, Now it is more easy, private and cheap to use the social media than before, the Smartphone has made the internet a very “Handy” thing to use by the young generation. Now youngsters pass more time doing interactions on social media sites than to pass time on watching TV. Every type of sites can be reached easily with the help of the smartphone, contents can be added, shared, send, received, status updated voice and video calls can be made more easily without the use of desktop computers or laptops. Use of Wi-Fi technology has enabled to use an internet connection by the whole members of a family. All the family members can use the internet sites according to their own likes and dislikes, a flexibility of time and Privacy. The mobile applications like WhatsApp, Skype, are used widely to make video calls, YouTube is used to see videos, Facebook is used to share videos, images, texts and status updating by the mobile users. Mobile social media mentions the use of media on mobile phone sets such as smartphones. Mobile applications let the formation, interchange and spread of user-created content. Location and time sensitivity are the important factors to access the social media by mobile devices.

Business perspective

Location and Time sensitiveness gave mobile devices an edge on desktop computers in offering companies to expand their businesses by marketing and advertising by it. Mobile utensils can be used for investigation, communiqué, sales advancements or concessions, and affiliation growth programs.

E-Commerce

Social sites use sociable plans, creating stages that are equally helpful for users, industries, and the nets with the help of e-commerce, or online consumptions. The users post the remarks about a company’s product or service with their online friends and associates. The company profits because it gains awareness about how their product or service is regarded by customers. Applications such as Amazon.com and Pinterest influence a mounting tendency in the acceptance and approachability of e-commerce, or online consumptions.

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For today’s business owners, social media sites have become primary sales and services platforms. If you have not tapped into these resources to grow your business, know that you are missing out on some great opportunities. In this article, we are going to take a look at some advantages of using social media websites to help you expand your business.

1. Demographics Research

All social media platforms have a great deal of information about their users. And the good thing is that plenty of this information is accessible to business owners via special tools like Facebook insights.

With these tools, you can get a better understanding of your demographics, their interests, needs and buying habits. So, you can create better marketing strategies and products.

2. Sales Leads

The primary goal of marketing campaigns is to help business drive sales. By publishing your business ads on these platforms, you can target your niche segments. As a matter of fact, this is the most effective technique as far as getting new customers is concerned.

Today, business owners or their representatives are members of groups on social media networks. This helps them develop credibility and get leads at the same time.

3. Customer Groups

Now, almost every business has a social media group or page for their old or potential customers. The idea is to give feedback, share ideas and achieve a deeper insight into what customers need.

If you want, you can also start private groups in order to offer exclusive deals and promotions. So, all you need to do is invite your returning customers to like or follow your page. This is another major advantage of these websites.

4. Social Proof

Typically, referrals are the best prospects you can get. Joining social media groups can make it easier for your customers to get the word out about your products or services. Aside from this, you can also allow your customers to rate your products or services on these sites. Getting 5-star reviews can do wonders for your business.

Positive reviews and testimonials are the main factors that play a great role in generating leads. In addition, many buyers ask for recommendations online before placing an order to buy something they need. If you have social media presence, your returning buyers will direct their friends to your page.

Some great Networking Platforms

Nowadays, there are many top social media sites. You can sign up on any of them to get started. Listed below are some of the top players in the field:

Facebook: Without any doubt, Facebook is the top network sites. The site allows you to create both personal and business profiles.

Twitter: This is another quite popular platform that allows you to create and post brief posts. You can post breaking news on Twitter, for instance.

Instagram: This platform is all about images and videos. You can use it to highlight your product styles and images, especially if you deal in clothing or electronic items.

Sharfly:

Sharfly is a good alternative to Facebook. However, it offers many new exciting features. For instance, it allows you to create a product store without charging your any fees. Plus, it has a reputation system based on likes and dislikes. So, it’s a great social media site.

So, these are some major advantages of using social media sites for businesses. Hopefully, this helps.

Lyfeloop

If you are looking for free ways to increase blog traffic and how to use social media to increase traffic, you should read this.

As social media is becoming more and more populated with users world wide, many marketers and companies (like McDonald’s) are using Facebook to maximize their potential. By using social media to increase blog traffic for free, you can save up on advertising costs, viralize your traffic for more visitors, getting more exposure, make more friends, make more money, be famous and many tons more.

On top of that, this is the real reason why you would want to use social media to increase your blog traffic.

Google is dying! Yes it is true. Social media sites like Facebook is already catching up with Google in terms of most visited sites. And in years or even months to come, Facebook is going to out-beat Google if Google did not do anything about it.

But what this shows is that social media site is getting really popular and it is the hottest stuffs on the internet. After so much of analysis and gathering data, most of the webmasters who do online marketing, are using social sites for their websites and businesses. Even McDonald is using social sites (and media) even though you know that they are already very successful.

Using social media to increase traffic

Let’s start with the basic. Using Facebook, the simplest way to get someone to visit your websites is by posting status updates on your wall. You may post your blog URL if you want to increase blog traffic or just your regular website.

But these are just among your friends and contacts. Not more. What you can do to reach out to larger audience is by creating pages and inviting your friends to like your page. However, is you will definitely realize that not many will like it because simply they do not know who you are or basically, if you are not recognized, no one will bother to like your pages.

Fortunately, there is a proper way or rather a strategy to increase traffic. One of the ways is to create events like outing, public relationship or contest. However this requires some investments and that is not what we want.

The better and free way to increase traffic using social media is to create a page that uses emotions. Like for example, “Save these animal by not.” These kind of pages will help to get the sympathy of others and therefore will get more people to like your pages. Having that said, it doesn’t mean it has to be animal or saving something. Make sure that it is related to your website or products.

And lastly, do remember to place your website link on your page so your ‘fans’ will know where to proceed after liking your page!

Lyfeloop

This article is the first of a series of articles which will help you boost your social media marketing.You can benefit by posting your bookmarks to a social bookmarking service.

Do you need to; Create new targeted traffic to your website, blog or optin page?; Create more chances for your site to appear in the search results of major search engines?; Create the chances of viral traffic?

Of course you do. These can be the benefits to you of social bookmarking. Importantly the submission process can be automated so saving you lots of time.

A social bookmarking service is a centralised online service which enables users to add, edit and share bookmarks of the website pages which they like. You can use your bookmarks easily from any location using any computer which is connected to the internet.

Being listed on sites like Digg and Delicious can drive new traffic to your website. Incidentally Delicious popularised the terms “social bookmarking” and “tagging.” These sites offer the best type of visitor. People who reach your site from such a social bookmarking site are generally there because your website appeared in a search for topics they were interested in.

Search engines will often list results from bookmarking sites. So if your site is bookmarked, this is an extra opportunity to show up in search results.

Being featured on one bookmarking site can often lead to people tagging your site on other bookmarking sites so you have the possibility of viral traffic.

The top 5 bookmarking sites in terms of unique monthly visitors are Reddit, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Digg and Slashdot. But there are many more. Search Engine Journal has put together a list of 125 social bookmarking sites, some of which are very popular and others which are newer or somewhat unheard of.

Besides targeting the major social bookmarking sites, you will find some diamonds in the rough which are niche oriented or treated well by Google and other search engines.

To get your share of the wealth which social bookmarking offers, you should leave your bookmarks in multiple sites. This might seem a daunting task but it can be automated with appropriate software such as IMAutomator.

This social bookmarking software allows you to build links in just moments. IMAutomator operates using Submission Credits. Every site in the system has a credit cost equal to its PageRank so a PR1 site costs 1 credit to submit to, a PR4 site costs 4 credits and so on. When you submit a job you choose exactly which sites you want to submit to and thus control exactly how many credits you are spending on each one. If you’re just starting out the best option is the free trial then you buy credits as you need them.

You’ll be surprised how easy the submission process really is. Once you’ve completed your details and submitted the job, you’ll have access to a submission schedule, for each job.

The default rate for link submission is one per day, in order to avoid search engine penalties. My job comprised of 63 scheduled submissions and the cost of credits was about $6. The bookmarking site with the highest PageRank was Delicious. The remaining 62 sites had a PageRank ranging from 1-7.

So there you are then. Automated social bookmarking. The automation cost of $6 saved hours and hours of my time. Of the top 5 sites however, only Delicious was included in the submission schedule. So I’ll have to do Reddit, StumbleUpon, Digg and Slashdot manually. Not such a daunting task considering the many long term benefits.

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Social media is lauded as the one digital channel that truly revolves around the idea of bringing people together. While this is of course true, analysts and users are finding that its popularity can also be connected to a growing trend of alienation and loneliness. The fact that social media can be responsible for loneliness seems bizarre and counterintuitive at first, but a deeper understanding of the medium and the role it is playing in people’s lives makes this fact easier to believe. So, if online social networks are proving to be a negative influence in the lives of some people, how can and should the medium be used by people and brands, if at all?

Social media rising

Claiming that social media is the root cause of alienation experienced by millions of people can be a little misleading. However, there is certainly a trend that indicates that the epidemic of loneliness and the rise of social media correlate in chronological terms. As more and more people became part of ever-expanding social networks, so key elements of human interaction started to drop away. Personal interaction was traded for online, abstract interaction. Verbal communication continues to decrease as more people now communicate with shorter texts or even indirectly. In a way, it appears that the mere awareness of being super-connected to a social network at all times, made constant communication unnecessary. Because you are already aware of what is currently happening in the life of a friend, it seems redundant to contact that person in order to connect and find out more about their life.

Indirect communication and alienation

Social networking may have started out as an idea to connect people to each other, but its evolution has seen it become more of a broadcasting platform where direct interaction with others is not actually required. Instead of using online channels to actively build our social connections by talking to or making contact with people, many users now operate in isolation – merely publishing content and updates that reflect their current situation. While this kind of ‘posting’ often elicits some form of engagement such as a quick comment or the curt ‘like’ – this is meagre social exchange that could be likened to greeting a friend as he or she passes in the street.

Connections lost and gained

While social media alienation is certainly a troubling symptom of the digital age and its impact on human interaction and behaviour, it also boasts many stories that contradict the findings of lonely social media users. Social networking has helped many people connect to more people than they may have otherwise done, while also allowing people maintain contact with friends and family that live far away. All in all, much about the social media experience is what users make it. Those that are susceptible to social anxiety and isolation will probably experience an increase in these feelings through social media usage, while those who are naturally inclined to socialise will find the platform useful as a supplement to their social life.

Social media has changed the way people interact with each other and with brands, and companies that are aware of these subtle changes will fare better than their competitors. Understanding how to use social media as a tool rather than a substitute for human connection is the key to a positive experience that can be enriching, useful and fun.

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Companies are continuously launching marketing campaigns in an effort to promote their brand and boost their sales. Some of these are highly successful – Carlsberg’s slogan and advertising of ‘probably the best lager in the world’ generates excellent brand awareness and reputation. This then contributes to increased sales and ultimately increased profits. However, many of these companies have large marketing and advertising budgets. What if your company can not afford these marketing initiatives? This is where Social media marketing comes in. Most social media marketing ‘tools’ are free to use and can provide the same amount of marketing exposure whether you are just starting out or are a giant conglomerate. This article explains how you can use social media marketing to increase sales at a relatively low cost.

Firstly, let’s just dispel the myth that social media marketing does not lead to a direct increase in sales. Here are some examples to prove this: Sony announced in February that through Twitter they had earned an extra £1million in sales, Dell announced in June last year that their presence on Twitter accounted for $3 million dollars increase in sales. You might argue that these are two big companies and they already have a brand reputation. However, other smaller companies have also experienced increased sales through this form of marketing. John Fluevog Boots & Shoes Ltd, a small shoe making company in Canada, reported a 40% increase in sales in 2009, the same year it started social media marketing, this was not by chance.

So how can social media marketing contribute to increased sales for your company? Social media tools allow you access to millions of people. A television advert will reach the people watching at that time and allows for no interaction with the consumer. One tweet can reach millions of people. Sainsbury’s for example regularly tweet their latest offers. Anyone wanting to keep up with these can simply follow Sainsbury’s on Twitter. This gives a much bigger potential customer base and allows for sales to increase, whilst also creating brand awareness. Furthermore, people can respond to these tweets, which provides a forum for customer interaction and thus customer insight. Your business can emulate this, tweeting your promotions provides free advertising. If this is done creatively, it really can boost sales and get your company noticed.

Social media marketing works in a similar way to other forms of marketing; it is viral. A small company initially works on a word of mouth basis, people tell their friends. This type of marketing, especially Twitter and Facebook, work with the ‘friend’ concept. People can give you positive reviews, recommend your product and tweet about your company. This whole social community allows your company’s name and brand to be viewed by a significant amount of people. Continuous use of social media over time creates brand awareness and thus helps to increase sales. One of our clients, PeachorLemon, a car review website, gained over one hundred followers on Twitter within a week. This is a hundred more people who know about promotions and offers, may tell their friends, visit the website or use other social media outlets to mention PeachorLemon. All this creates brand awareness and over time increased use of the website, thus increasing its value.

The effect social media can have on brand awareness is critical in the future of small businesses marketing strategy. Brand awareness is only one way in which sales are increased, there are many other important contributing factors. However, as this article has demonstrated, creating brand awareness through this new exiting variation of marketing can have a huge impact on your business and revenues.

Anthony O’Flynn

Lyfeloop