Archive for category Social Networking
Social Media Marketing is on the Marketing Menu
Posted by admin in Internet marketing, Social Networking on June 28, 2010
Social media marketing is becoming increasingly crucial to the growth of businesses. This has become evident for our friends at Weslayan Café, a great little restaurant owned and operated by good people that serves tasty food that is close to Marion. They have recently asked their customers to partake in the social media scene by asking them to post reviews on many dining directories.
“To Our Loyal and Appreciated Customers:
We love having you here at Weslayan Café, and your continued support is what keeps our doors open; however, word of mouth, mail flyers, etc., don’t do much for business growth. The advent of smartphone growth and computer usage make dining ‘social networking’ not only a helpful but extremely powerful tool in increasing our customer base and subsequently being able to do things like add more variety to our menu, extend our hours, hire more employees to expedite order speed, etc.
That’s why we would love if you could take 10 minutes or so to take advantage of websites like citysearch.com, yelp.com, 29-95.com, or b4-u-eat.com to post reviews of our restaurant so others can hear about our great food!
Thanks,
The obvious purpose of these sites is for current customers to share their opinions and experiences and for potential customers to see the reviews for a restaurant (or other products and services) and, hopefully, make a decision to dine there. Business owners also benefit from these sites. Much like comment cards, online review sites help businesses learn what their customers think about the products and services they receive and can use the reviews to improve many aspects of the businesses.
General directories, such as yelp and citysearch, provide reviews and information about businesses around various cities in different categories. Sites such as b4-u-eat.com and 29-95 are specifically targeted to restaurants and businesses in Houston. To get listed, businesses submit their information and usually pay a small fee. Because the directories verify the information, they are considered ‘authoritative’ in the eyes of the Google bots. However, since general interest directories like yelp hold a broad range of interests, they may not hold as much authority as the more specialized directories focusing on a narrower field of interest.
For more information on social media marketing for your company, contact The Marion Group at 713.623.6444 or email us at info2@marion.com.
Has the Stinger Fallen Off for Google Buzz?
Posted by admin in Social Networking on June 2, 2010
Have you felt the buzz around Google’s new social network? If you haven’t, you aren’t alone.
Since our previous post, it seems Google Buzz has lost its sting and lost some of the honey. Only being released 4 months ago, the hype surrounding the new social media platform is already dying down. In its first 56 hours of release, and 9 millions posts made, Google saw sure success in its newly formed social network. Independently, the Chitika search network saw a surge of 1,500 searches on the term “Google Buzz” the day it was launched; 15 times more than its competition Twitter.
These large numbers of posts seemed sweet on day one but quickly turned into a sting for the site. Just one day into its launching, searches quickly diminished. Dropping to only 580 on February 10 and three days later, falling into single digits, Buzz seemed to be losing its sting. So, is this just another Google invention that received a huge outpour of attention at release, and will soon fizzle down into a thing of the past?
An issue being hit on the most with Buzz is the privacy implications. Upon the initial set up of a Buzz account, your immediate followers are people you chat with and email through Gmail. This stings the users. Someone can access your profile and see who you chat with or email the most. A simple solution: Once you create the Google account, it is important to go into your default settings and make changes. If it’s so easy for me to fix, why couldn’t Google fix it before they released it?
When using Twitter, your followers will be shown by default, but no one is selected automatically for you. When you do follow someone, you effectively review each and every person before you make that choice. The power of choice is given to you.
Google has proposed a possible solution to this problem. The company is looking at creating a “stand alone” Buzz site that people can access independently that would come on top of Buzz inside Gmail. This would allow for Buzz users to start fresh with a contact list instead of incorporating their whole Gmail contact list. The Buzz through Gmail would still be offered, but this new Buzz option would be available as well. However, in the months since Buzz’s launch, a stand alone site has not been launched.
Another downfall of Buzz over Twitter is when you make a “buzz,” it emails you a notification immediately. Why would you need an email buzz to let you know of your new buzz posted? A quick solution to this problem is to block your buzz email updates in your inbox. However this is just another problem Google didn’t bother to look at before they launched Buzz.
Hopefully, with Buzz still being a fairly new release, Google will find honey in a quick solution to these flaws before the sting is taken out of their Buzz.
For more information on social media marketing for your company, contact The Marion Group at 713.623.6444 or email us at info2@marion.com.
Google Buzz for Social Bees
Posted by admin in Social Networking on April 14, 2010
In February of 2010, Google released its form of social networking called Google Buzz. It was created to work with the company’s email program, Gmail. It allows users who have established a Gmail account to be able to post and share links, photos, videos, status messages, and comments. These additions can be shared with whomever the user chooses, whether they are an established group of friends or publicly to everyone.
Google launched this program with the intentions of competing with other social outlets such as FaceBook and Twitter.
Buzz has incorporated Inbox Integration. Anytime a buzz user adds something new to their account, comments can be made about that specific addition. That comment is automatically sent to your email inbox to notify you of the newly posted comment.
Buzz also gives users the option of incorporating other networking sites into their setup. Other social networking sites that have integrated with Google Buzz are Picasa, Flickr, Google Reader, YouTube, Blogger, FriendFeed, identi.ca and Twitter.
No refreshing is necessary to see newly posted comments. Updates happen in real time which saves the “buzzers” the hassle of hitting that refresh button.
Google Buzz is also compatible with mobile devices. Buzz users can upload mobile pictures or send texts. They can also make and receive comments on their accounts from their mobile devices.
Google Buzz hit the social networking market with a bang with 9 million posts made within the first 56 hours of release.
Will Buzz generate “honey” for Google? Or will they get stung?
For more information on social media marketing for your company, contact The Marion Group at 713.623.6444 or email us at info2@marion.com.
B2Blog: Social Media Marketing Tips for B2B Companies
Posted by admin in Social Networking on October 14, 2009
Social media marketing, like any marketing strategy, takes planning, a tactical approach and most importantly, effort. For B2B companies, social networking can easily fall to the wayside or even sometimes, be abandoned completely. It seems though that with the right mix of strategy and planning and the all-important effort, B2B companies can reap the benefits that social media offers.
Strategy
Have a strategy. Why does your company want to use social media? To help with search engine optimization? To interact with clients? Whatever the reason, just have a reason. Your company will not stick with it, if there is no reason to do it. At Marion, every time we post a blog, we put a link to it on our FaceBook page. It keeps the content updated regularly and utilizes a bit of link strategy to optimize it.
Planning
Have a plan, and stick with it. Search engines, like Google, like it when content is updated. Simply having a blog and never updating it, doesn’t help you. So, make a plan and update it regularly. Here, at the Marion Group, we try to update our blog on every Friday and then post a link to it on our Company FaceBook page.
Effort
Execute your plan. It takes 100 “fans” for your Company FaceBook page to be picked up by Google. So, make some effort. Contact everyone in your Outlook and ask them to join. They help your page get picked up by Google, which is great for optimization purposes, and it keeps your company’s name in front of them, which is key in any marketing strategy.
The Marion Group provides Social Media Packages for clients seeking Social Media Marketing, but don’t know where to start. We develop the strategy, provide the planning and can even put forth the effort for you too. Whatever your marketing need is, The Marion Group has the solution.
For more information on our Social Media Packages, contact us at 713-623-6444 or email us at info2@marion.com.
-
You are currently browsing the archives for the Social Networking category.
Subscribe to the Marion RSS Feed
