Future of Social Media
Future of Social Media…
The future of social media will lead quite a dominant role in our future whether you are a sceptic or no.
In the past few years, researchers have identified regional spikes in seasonal flu at least one week before CDC by tracking online search queries and following Twitter streams.
So what is the Future of Social Media?
The mobility of technology is probably the most impressive, when we can go for a run wherever we are, and we can track our progress online and at the same time share this with our friend who is also running on the other side of town. We can track our weight loss, what a way to be held accountable to ourselves and having our friends giving you support online.
Social media icons Twitter and Facebook have become “social dashboards” for many up and coming businesses that have grown and developed supporting Twitter and Facebook such as Marketmesuite, Tweetdeck, Zynga and even Townsville Social Media Marketing.
Facebook will become one of the major channels for future online shopping. With its 700 million users businesses can reap the benefits of all their brand and commerce store, building and promoting their businesses online.
Imagine receiving the right information just at the right time when we require it, imagine how much time, energy and effort have been saved. This is what is currently being developed with all the information collected by Facebook, Google, and Amazon about us all. This information is being collected, collated and stored for future use.
Therefore, companies will realise to measure ROI through social media, they need to look at the interaction that they see on their page and the overall involvement and intimacy of the people that influence their page.
A recap on the word of mouth promotion through social media:
- It starts with an interaction on your website, Facebook, twitter, YouTube etc.
- Secondly as a business owner you can choose to show an involvement and you interact
- Next their develops an intimacy between you and the consumer in regard to your product and/or service. A purchase follows
- A recommendation of the product and or service follows this, this in turn influences their peers and friends to trust and see credibility in the product and/or service, this is the future of social media.
End result is as your influence grows so then does your business. We all have a different view on the future of social media, however it is here so why not embrace and see where the rides leads you.
What an adventure it could be and if you are not the adventurous type then that is okay too. Enjoy Kaz :)
Will Facebook Bite You On The Bum
Will Facebook bite you on the bum…
I am sure Facebook will not bite with intent, however what you portray on Facebook, Twitter may well bite you hard. Those excellent Wednesday and Saturday nights where you post the piccies and tweets of those wonderful antics. Those posts how you rang in sick… Could not drag myself out bed brilliant night etc… We have all had them, let ‘s just keep those things to ourselves.
The big question Why?
It seems that schools and employers are looking to social media to get a first hand look at a prospective student or employee.
Miriam Salpeter, a job search and social media coach and author of “Social Networking for Career Success,” says people should “assume everything that is online (on social media) is public.” need to find link
So just beware.
Yes you can make things private, however you do realize that nothing is really that private on the Internet.
The most exciting thing about Facebook biting you on the bum is that you can do it to show your skill, your passion, your goals, lots of things that a prospective school or employer will love seeing. A philosophy you could have when it comes to social media is that you see the good in everyone so when you want to “bag” someone you can turn it around and say something positive about them and your closest friends will certainly be able to read between the lines and you have not damaged your reputation.
The things you can do to enjoy that Facebook bite on the bum:
1. Let’s start with Facebook ensure all your information is filled out eg. schools, education history, interests, hobbies etc. This shows two things, one your actual history and two that you took the time to fill it out. Also ensure this information is made public so everyone can see it so when you are being looked up their is something of interest to see. You can look up promising schools or employers, their company and find out their interests and have an advantage when it comes to the interview process, just knowing that they are keenly interested in something you are and it comes out in interview – just about guaranteed offer.
2. A great place to showcase your talent, passion and goal is LinkedIn. LinkedIn remains a social network with a great professional persona. You can network with people looking for jobs, you can network with former and current employers, employees, work and school colleagues about your future. This site is ver job-focussed and the more interactive with this site the more opportunities for those offers. You can start your own group or join. Many professional groups where you can be stimulated and learn a heap of information as well, it is certainly worth researching more.
3. Twitter is focussed on quick short tweets to share information about what you are doing, where you are and displaying information of interest. So again you can use this to your advantage. If you have skills in a certain area then share snippits of this skill. Follow people you admire, who have same interests and of course potential schools and employers.
4. Lastly, you should get a YouTube channel, these are free, and start videoing things of interest and benefit to you and others.
Of course if Facebook has already bitten you on the bum it is not too late to turn the table. From this point forward just interact on the social networks with a different mindset, play to your strengths and watch your credibility grow, and prospective and even current schools and employers will have no need to dig too far.
So if your waiting for those brilliant offers then let Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube bite you, but for the right reasons and watch those offers roll in.
Enjoy Kaz :)
Social Media Effectively Connecting Shoppers and Retailers
A recent study has shown that 42% of online shoppers connected with a retailer via social media.
According to the 2011 Social Commerce Study, a joint research project by Shop.org, comScore and Social Shopping Labs, showed that shoppers are willing to interact with retailers through a variety of social media, giving retailers limitless opportunities to capitalise on the momentum.
Shoppers are willing to interact with retailers through social media, Facebook or Twitter to find information on deals, products and contests according to the study.
A few specifics from the study of 1787 adult online shoppers:
- 42% of online consumers have “followed” a retailer proactively
- The average person follows about six retailers showing the effectiveness of the connection between retailers and shoppers using social media
- 58 % say they follow companies to find deals
- 49% say they want to keep up to date on products
- 39% follow retailers for information on contests and events
Overall 56% of the Facebook users and 67% of the Twitter followers visited a retailers’ website as a result of the post on Facebook or a tweet.
The study also revealed that these shoppers were accessing the social media sites with their smartphones and IPads. These shoppers were accessing their Facebook or Twitter sites at least once a day.
The popularity in the use of smartphones and IPads will continue to boost the power of social media, so all retailers need to be in the forefront of the incredible opportunities presented to them.
The study also revealed that shoppers are also using mobile devices for research and information while shopping in stores.
47% have accessed customer reviews in store using their mobile device and interestingly enough it showed 55% men were more likely to access these reviews in store than women which was only 39%.
Another area revealed by the study was the group-buying sites like Groupon, LivingSocial and Gilt City which showed that though only 19% of shoppers actually purchased through one of these sites, 82% were aware of these group-buying sites. These sites, though still in their infancy stage will certainly gain momentum and spread to more cities around the country and retailers will have an opportunity to experiment not only with established sites but also group-buy promotions on their own Facebook pages and websites according to Social Shopping Labs founder, Peter Leech.
So there are interesting times ahead with shoppers and retailers being effectively connected through social media, so retailers this is the time to ensure you are on board with your social media and the interconnectivity with your website.
Enjoy Kaz :)
Hide “Recent Activity” On Your Facebook Wall So Your Friends Don’t See Them
FOR MORE UPDATED SOLUTIONS SEE https://www.facebook.com/notes/townsville-social-media-marketing/question-how-to-unhide-recent-activity-after-you-have-hidden-them-from-your-wall/215998321755330?ref=notif¬if_t=note_comment
Did you know that every time you LIKE another page or change your Relationship Status, it appears on your Facebook Wall and goes out to all your Facebook Friends via their News Feed?
Yes, and it can be very annoying, not to mention a little invasive. I found a way to stop these posts being seen by your Friends.
If you want to disable these recent activity posts appearing on your Friends news feeds, then follow these steps:-
HIDE “RELATIONSHIP STATUS” ACTIVITY
To disable the recent activity posts and prevent people from seeing a Recent Activity story about a profile change you make to your relationship status, follow these steps:-
- Login to your Personal Profile;
- Account > Privacy Settings > “Sharing on Facebook” click on “Customize Settings”;
- Under the “Things I Share” click on the dropdown next to “Relationships” and select “Customize” and then “Make this visible to” and select “Only Me” from the drop dropdown list the “Save Setting”. You will still be able to view a Recent Activity story about your relationship change, but no one else will.
HIDE “LIKES, ACTIVITES AND OTHER CONNECTIONS” ACTIVITY POSTS
To stop automatic posting to your Wall each time you “LIKE” a Page or other activities and prevent people from seeing a Recent Activity story about your likes, activities and other connections, follow these steps: –
- Login to your Personal Profile;
- Account > Privacy Settings > “Connecting on Facebook” click on “View Settings”;
- In the dropdown box next to “See your likes, activities and other connections” select “Custom” and then in the “Make this visible to” select “Only Me” from the dropdown list then “Save Setting”. Now only you will be able to view your likes and activities, no one else.
HIDE “ARE NOW FRIENDS” ACTIVITY POSTS
To stop automatic posting to your Wall each time you be-”Friend” someone and prevent people from seeing a Recent Activity story about who your Friends are, follow these steps: –
- Login to your Personal Profile;
- Account > Privacy Settings > “Connecting on Facebook” click on “View Settings”;
- In the dropdown box next to “See your friend list” select “Custom” and then in the “Make this visible to” select “Only Me” from the dropdown list then “Save Setting”. Now only you will be able to view your likes and activities, no one else.
If you need assistance with your social media management, Townsville Social Media Marketing are happy to help. [email protected]
How to Purchase a .com.au Domain Name for an Australian Business
In my opinion, you should choose a domain name before you register a business name… but that’s the seo geek in me talking. Having a domain name with your keywords contained in it is half the ‘SEO’ battle. Either way, you will need to decide whether to purchase a .com or a .com.au version or both!
.com or .com.au?
There are no rules you need to abid by when selecting either .com or .com.au. (Except that you need a ABN, ACN or business number to register a .com.au).
However, there are two streams of thinking… one is that you need .com even for Australian businesses, the other is that you need .com.au. What you need to consider is your target market. Are you targetting primarily Australian clients, or the global market?
A while back a domain with .com used to present as an overseas business and a lot of Australia’s perferred to view websites with the .com.au because that meant they were Australian. But .com has lost that stigma now and is pretty much accepted in Australia. But be aware that search engines may not show your website in local area searches because it is a .com and not a .com.au. To satisfy both camps, and you have the funds, buy both the .com and the .com.au and have the .com permanently redirected to the .com.au.
Anyway… if you have registered a business in Australia, then you should jump online and purchase a matching .com.au (and/or .com) domain name. Here are the steps I take to register a domain:-
I use www.crazydomains.com.au but there are a few around:-
- Go to www.crazydomains.com.au and type in the domain you are looking for and click “SEARCH”;
- From the list of results choose the one you want and click “ADD TO CART”. (If you don’t like the results, then enter a different domain in the search box and click “SEARCH”);
- Click “REGISTER SELECTED”; (The next couple of screens are trying to sell you addons)
- You will need to create an account with CrazyDomains, just follow the prompts, “CONTINUE ORDER”;
- Click “CONTINUE ORDER” (I don’t add DNS Upgrade);
- Click “CONTINUE ORDER” (I don’t add privacy protection but you might be interested);
- Click “CONTINUE ORDER” (I don’t add promotion);
- Click “CONTINUE ORDER” (I don’t add hosing);
- Next, because you are registering a .com.au they will need to confirm that you are the owner of this business name, so you need to put in here the ABN; ACN or Business Number in here and the Business Name and select the type of business it is. Crazy Domains will need to check that you are in fact the owner of the Business Name (it doesn’t have to be exactly the same but similar, eg xyzbookkeepingtownsville.com.au can be owned by XYZ Pty Ltd). Once it is authorized, they will send you an email. This could take as little as a couple of minutes or a day or two.
If you have problems, Townsville Social Media Marketing are happy to help. [email protected]
Will Your Business Benefit More from Building a ‘Website’ or setting up a ‘Facebook Page’?
Website OR Facebook Page for a Small Business?
We have had a lot of people ask us if we think that micro and small businesses should invest in a website or Facebook, so I thought I would put forward my opinions in this post.
A lot of the old-school guru’s will say that you need a flash website but some of the new-age marketers will say a business needs both! But that’s all well and good for a medium or large business that has a marketing budget and can afford the time and money to create and maintain both a website and a Facebook business Page. However, most owners of micro and small businesses don’t have the money to invest in both. So what should they do?
When you have limited funds and limited time, you really need to be focused with your marketing; you can’t afford a ‘scatter-gun’ approach. In this post I will put forward my observations and experience from years of wasting both time and money focusing on the wrong market… (Learn from my mistakes).
Firstly, you really need to know your ideal customer: not just any customer, but the one you would bend over backwards for, the one that will help your business succeed, not just provide you with a J.O.B. You need to know where on the internet your ideal customer hangs out and you need to make yourself known to your ideal customer, earn their respect and then they will buy your stuff: Engage, Interact and Follow-up.
Real Estate analogy: Location, Location, Location.
Say you were looking to setup a brand new bricks and mortar business in a local town and you had limited funds to invest, where would you gain the most benefit regarding exposure to customers.
You could choose a nice shop front in an alley in a quiet suburb, but you will have to spend a lot of money and effort in advertising to encourage your prospects to come to you. Remember, they don’t know you so why would they trust you enough to drive have way across town to buy your stuff? This is what it is like having a website for your business. Websites are perfect once you have the customer in the door, you can sell them stuff over and over again, but you have to spend a lot of those limited funds to try and catch your potential customer’s attention; primarily by getting on the top of the search engines.
OR
You could choose to set up a small stall in a very busy shopping Centre in the heart of town. Even though you have limited resources, you will have lots of potential customers walking past your stall and heaps of opportunities to show off your stuff. Now, you won’t sell to everyone, but if you provide a great experience for the potential customer, they WILL tell their friends, who WILL tell their friends. Does this sound familiar… yes, it’s Facebook. Setting up a Facebook Page is inexpensive, but is invaluable if, and only if, you provide a “great experience” for your potential customers (in Facebook these are called leads or ‘fans’).
Facebook provides a level playing field for all businesses no matter what size they are. On Facebook you CAN compete with any of the top 100 businesses in your niche and still succeed. It will all boil do to “respect” and “word-of-mouth“.
Engage, Interact and Follow-up
- To ENGAGE the attention of the 500+ million Facebook community you will need to be providing great content with a high preserved value: a reason for potential customers to ‘hang-around’ and see what you have to offer (in Facebook this is when they will “LIKE” your business page).
- It will be the way you INTERACT with your Facebook fans that will create your business’ “word-of-mouth” value. If you give them the right experience, your fans will like and trust you and tell their friends about you. (in Facebook this is when you ‘fans’ will share your comments to their friends, expanding your social networking reach).
- Once you have gained the trust and respect of your fans, it will be easy to ‘sell’, infact you won’t have to ‘sell’; they will be coming to you because they like and trust you.
Facebook First then Website for Small Business
Websites are a necessity for business and there are a number of important reasons why your business SHOULD have a website, but when starting out with limited funds, getting customers for your product should be more important that a flashy expensive website. So my suggestion is get your micro business on Facebook, Engage, Interact, Followup, then once you have a steady cashflow from existing clientele, you can afford to spend that $5,000 on a flash new website. But remember, just because you build it, doesn’t mean they will come. You will still need to spend time in the internet community ENGAGING, INTERACTING and FOLLOWING UP whether that be on Facebook or other social networking site. A truely successful online marketing program will incorporate a range of media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube, a Website and even offline media. The new marketing paradigm is a blend of media, but Facebook is a great place to start and it’s easy.
If you need assistance with your Facebook Business Page, give us a call and we can give you a customised Social Media Marketing Proposal.
PS If you want to receive these posts, don’t forget to “LIKE” us.
Older Australians Becoming Wild about Facebook
Older Australians becoming wild about Facebook a recent study shows…
It is quite refreshing seeing our older Australians becoming wild about Facebook, smartphones and all things hi-tech.
A study by McCrindle Research on behalf of Telstra revealed increasing numbers of older Australians are enthusiastic users of everything from smartphones to video calls to Facebook.
Facebook is not just for fun you can click here if you you would like to learn how to use Facebook for your business.
The Retired & Wired Report finds:
- About one in eight seniors has a Facebook page.
- The average Australian over 65 is online at least once a week.
- Seventy per cent of seniors have a mobile phone used to send at least one text message a day.
- More than a third of older Australians bank online.
- This is quite amazing, we tended to assume the older Australians are more comfortable with a crossword puzzle than a Facebook profile and smartphone, well this needs to be changed.
Social researcher Mark McCrindle said today’s seniors were embracing the latest technology.
“It’s no longer considered just a young persons’ domain,” he said.
“The majority of retired Aussies report they’re excited by new technologies and use them to improve their quality of life.”
And just because they are advanced in years doesn’t mean they are slow.
“Many demonstrate a greater level of skill than people half their age,” Mr McCrindle said.
Our future will see our older Australians will be leading a more quality life, thanks to Facebook, into their older years as expert Neuro-Scientists agree that today the majority of brain disease is not caused by viruses or disease.
Rather, brain disease is caused by a lack of use.
Most people don’t know that their brains degenerate with challenges in their life such as memory loss. There are numerous exercises to improve memory which can help to boost the neurons and synapses of the brain and potentially fight against the brain degeneration and memory loss.
So the use of smartphones, Facebook, Skype, and computer programs have converted our older Australians to savvy hi-tech users and this participation in technology will enhance brain activity therefore help prevent brain degeneration.
So everyone let’s get our Facebook profiles up and running. Enjoy Kaz :)
Post on Facebook as You or Your Page
If you have a business PAGE on Facebook, you probably want to keep your personal and business posts separate.
Let’s face it, your friends will soon get annoyed if you keep making sales pitches to them! And infact, using your personal profile as a business is frowned upon by Facebook. (So, beware, especially if you have over 1,000 friends; Facebook might just deactivate your profile.) Facebook was kind enough to create PAGES for this very reason. Just create a business PAGE and keep your business and personal Facebook lives separate. But there was one problem with this, in the beginning you could only post as YOU, not as your PAGE…. Thankfully, that has chanced. A while back they enabled admins of business Pages to “Use Facebook as Page”. This feature gives you the ability to post, comment or share anything within Facebook as though you were a PAGE or YOURSELF; it’s now your choice.
Why This Is A Great Benefit To You and Your Business?
The answer is ‘BRANDING‘. We can now segregate between the comments that we make as our business brand and comments that we make personally. When you comment as your PAGE, you are spreading the word about your business and driving traffic back to your Facebook Business Page.
NB. One thing to note is that only “LIKES” from personal profiles are counted in a PAGE’S LIKES. PAGES that you LIKE when you are signed in as your PAGE will not increase the LIKES of the liked PAGE.
How To Switch Between YOU and your PAGE?
- Browse to your page;
- Click on the at the top right corner of the screen;
- Select the tab from the left menu;
- Untick the box next to “Posting Preferences”;
- Click ;
- Click to go to your PAGE’s Profile;
- Notice “Use Facebook as xxx”. Use this link to toggle between using the Page as yourself or as your PAGE.
See the screen dumps below and the video for step by step instructions:-
Social Networking in the Workplace
Social Networking is currently being used more & more in the workplace to communicate with clients and potential clients.
This is why, there are approximately 500 million world-wide users of Facebook between the ages of 18 and 64.
Then why is it with more than half a billion users…
sharing information, keeping up to date with issues, forming shared interest groups, sending pictures, information and videos
that companies are struggling to utilise this free social networking system into productive use.
I recently attended a business expo in North Queensland.
I was talking to an employee of a huge government concern regarding social media, interestingly she told me that her employer had an active Facebook and Twitter account and yet no one in the workplace were able to access these networking sites during work hours.
Ironic!
If a workplace is going to utilise those social networks then let’s put them to better use.
In other words, give employees the opportunity to share their skills and knowledge as this opens the door for collaboration amongst team members .
Have a meeting discuss the pros and cons of initiating Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter etc into the workplace 
where would it show improvements, how could it make work better…
You will probably be surprised at the responses you get, e.g. Joe has already thought if we had Twitter accessible through our workplace we could tweet our clients when business is a bit slow and promote a cheap lunch if they mention a key word from the tweet within a timeframe.
Off course companies have concerns regarding the use of these networks sites during work hours.
Guidelines need to be set for both external and internal social networking and collaboration.
I mentioned internal social networking, this is a separate issue and I have written about this in Social Networking Within A Workplace.
However, guidelines need to be set…
- make it clear to employees that they are personally responsible for the information they post
- and that real names should be used
- remind all that social networking at work is about work
- Get everyone involved
…this is great for staff morale, you will be surprised at what your team can now produce with social networking in the workplace.
If you require any direction in this area we here at Townsville Social Media Marketing can offer a free analysis of your social networking needs.
Simply send us your email address and your requirement or you can call us directly on 0429 883 462.
Thanks Kaz :)
We Are Going Mobile With Smart Phones
Way of the future we are going mobile with smart phone technology, actually it is already here.
I found this study using two samples one being the Nielsen US Total Online Population panel and BlogHer Network sample – sample sizes 1254 women / 517 men and 2673 women / 98 men respectively.
Studies can always be manipulated to suit the researcher, however one of the interesting things in this study is that as a nation we are increasing our time on the internet regardless of our intention.
This snapshot from the study shows that Smart Phone Mobile & Apps has grown 32% from the previous study.
What does this mean….we are going mobile.
With the increasing availability of smart phones, as they are such an affordable item these days with all types of payment plans available, more and more people are connecting with the internet.
We are using them on holidays, whilst travelling, at our workplace (on our own time of course), basically anytime.
So what does that mean to you, well if you are a business owner and you need to advertise your business, and with all this smart phone mobile technology, then a smart move would be to join the smart phone mobile army and share your product / service with all these people using mobile interconnectivity.
I found this bit of interesting information on Brafton News…
Attendees at an event were messaged by Coca Cola asking them to send a message to Coke for the chance to win access to another part of the event.
The outcome was that nearly 16% of the 20,000 attendees engaged in that campaign.
Also in addition nearly 1/4 of them opted for continued mobile connection with Coke and from this Coke received increased user-generated mobile content.
This is the power of mobile interconnectivity and is the way of the future.
This snapshot from the above study also confirms that people are more interactive if there is an opportunity to win something.
So we are going mobile with smart phones, so to ensure that your business is being promoted effectively and efficiently using smart phones you can contact us by simply putting your email address and name into our sidebar.
We can offer assistance in setting up, implementing and maintaining your inter-connectivity with your current and potential clients, you can visit our fan page and click our like button if you liked this post and we are happy to offer you a free consultation and proposal.
