To Chat or Not on Facebook?
By Camille Rodriquez Facebook has done something sneaky again for the personal user on Facebook. You may or may not have noticed it, but regardless of your settings, it seems your Chat feature has been turned “on.” Facebook will keep turning it on, too. It keeps defaulting to “on” whether you want it to or not. So, the question becomes, should I be chatting on Facebook? You certainly can, and lots of folks do. For those of you who love to use the Chat feature, which, by the way has been reemphasized with Text based Hangouts on the recent G+ changes, this is probably a...
read moreSocial Media Explained
By Camille Rodriquez Social media networks are so very different. Each has a distinct set of characteristics, reasons why some folks use it and others do not, and best practices for marketing tactics. If you employ one strategy across all networks, or automate your posts from one platform across others, you will find that your results diminish on some networks. Therefore, it is very important for each business marketer to determine how and why they will strategically use each social network. Your brand reputation and character are at stake. To demonstrate this, we pared down the distinct...
read moreGreat News for Polka Dot Impressions!
Polka Dot Impressions is happy to announce that our team is officially expanding. In the past, we’ve been able to share some of the wisdom of Frankie Rodriquez in a consulting or limited availability capacity, but as of this month, he will be a permanent fixture on our team. He brings with him a great deal of knowledge and business experience covering radio broadcasting, marketing, healthcare management, and non-profit industries, so this is quite a “feather in our cap.” You can view the full Press Release HERE, but we encourage you to welcome him to the team. You may...
read more4 Reasons To Use Instagram and 4 Instagram Strategies
By Camille Rodriquez If you have been following Polka Dot Impressions for any length of time, then you will recognize one of our fundamental social media best practices: You don’t have to be on every social network. It’s better to operate a few social networks well, than a lot of them poorly.[1] To that end, it is only very recently that we have begun to experiment with Instagram. It’s been around since 2010, and was acquired by Facebook in 2012, but proportionately, very few businesses have jumped on Instagram for their social media marketing. Why is that? Or, perhaps the better...
read moreA Consumer’s Market
By Camille Rodriquez You’ve heard the real estate phrase, “It’s a seller’s market,” or “It’s a buyer’s market,” right? When it comes to social media, it’s a consumer’s market. Let’s take a look at what that means for your business, because the implications of this are going to be long-lasting and affect your bottom line for quite some time. Yes, some consumers still make impulse purchases. It happens. Emotions still play a part in sales. However, with the exception of a few industries, most business owners are finding it harder and harder to get the attention of...
read moreRisk Management in Social Media
By Frankie Rodriquez If your business has a presence on social media it is essential to practice risk management. Traditionally when one thinks of risk management in business one thinks of policies and procedures in place to reduce the risk of accidents in the workplace, safety during natural disasters, protection from fraud and theft, protection from sexual harassment litigation, credit risks and confidentiality/privacy compliance. Those areas of risk management apply in social media as well. But social media also presents an unusual area to be vigilant about risk management. The nature of...
read morePurpose and Goals in Social Media Marketing
By Camille Rodriquez No one would argue that marketing a business is optional these days, but many would debate the methods. The methods and the success stories vary from industry to industry, but is social media one of the successful methods of marketing? A recent survey by Manta, outlined in USA Today, came to the conclusion that “social media is a bust for small businesses.” But when a closer look is taken at the conclusions, some interesting assessments can be made. According to this survey, some of those goals are as follows: 36% want to acquire new customers, 19% are hoping to...
read moreSeniors and Social Media
By Frankie Rodriquez There are many new folks participating in social media platforms and they’re not kids who are getting their first computers. Senior members of our communities are increasingly online. In fact, 2012 was the first year that at least half of Americans over the age of 65 used the Internet. Our senior neighbors and family are slow to come online because of several reasons. The technology, more specifically, the speed and frequency of changes in technology can be overwhelming when you were not born into the age of two thumb communication. As I’m typing this, I’m trying to...
read moreSocial Media Basics – Two Strategies (Part 2)
By Camille Rodriquez In our previous blog, we began exploring two basic strategies for social media marketing – the Search Strategy and the Content Strategy. To review, the Search Strategy is the process of getting your business “found” through SEO, backlinks, and website development. The Content Strategy is about creating or sharing relevant blogs, articles, or videos to create credibility, thought leadership, or referral opportunities. Both are good strategies, and both create numerous options when it comes to social media use. The best marketing actually uses both methods. In Part 2,...
read moreSocial Media Basics – Two Strategies (Part 1)
By Camille Rodriquez When it comes to marketing your business with social media, there are essentially two basic strategies. They are intricately connected, but the methods used in the different strategies are different. To explore this concept, we’ll make a few assumptions: 1. All businesses want to make money. 2. All marketing, even social media marketing, should contribute to lead generation. 3. All lead generation is not equal. Now, let’s take a look at these two strategies. We’ll call the first method a “Search” Strategy, and the second, we’ll call a “Content” Strategy....
read moreSocial Media Audience or Community?
Every social media brand launches their social networks to an audience. It’s important to have a good understanding of your target customer when you begin the marketing campaign or launch the social network so that your audience is well-defined and your content is relevant to that audience. But social media success comes when that audience becomes a community. Let’s look at this analogy a little further before we apply it to social media. An audience is actively listening to what you have to say. There has been a catalyst, an interest, a question, a need, or some trigger that put...
read moreThe 411 on Foursquare
For those of you who regularly read this blog, you’ll know this is a diversion from our usual articles. Most often, we focus on the “big” networks in social media – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Pinterest. However, there are many other social networks that businesses can use for marketing and branding – Tumblr, Vine, Instagram and Foursquare just to name a few. A recent Facebook comment about Foursquare made it clear, though, that perhaps an overview of this social network is in order. Foursquare launched in 2009 as a location-based social network. In simple terms,...
read more7 Tips for Improving Your Social Media
No one is perfect. That’s true in every area of life, even social media marketing. The rapid-fire changes to social networks, and how we use them, make it very difficult to be a perfect user of all of the tools or to even know what all of them are. However, everyone has to begin using social media somewhere. We’ve watched the “big” names and the little unknown folks hit home runs at various times with strategies, tips, and helpful information for the social media marketer. But no one does it every time – not even the “big” guys. Largely, that’s because the first “rule”...
read moreFacebook – Highlighting Posts by Others
Imagine that someone posts something great onto your Facebook Business Page. Maybe it’s a great compliment, or maybe they talk about what wonderful service they got from one of your staff members. It might even be something that they share on your wall that’s just worth passing on to your Fans. There’s an easy way to make sure that post shows up to all of your Fans and doesn’t get hidden off to the side, and this video will walk you through the process. In the video, I demonstrate how to do this as a “Highlighted” post, which means that the post will span the entire width of my...
read moreShould I Create More Than One Business Page?
Many business owners are serial entrepreneurs. Or said another way, their visions for products and services extend beyond a single business. That’s not unusual. The truth is most people wear more than one hat in life – parent, employer/employee, child, caretaker, spouse, etc. – so why wouldn’t businesses have a similar experience? When it comes to marketing those different endeavors, however, the question often arises, “Should I set up multiple business profiles on social networking sites?” This is not a question of websites – that is a different question. This is a...
read moreHow To Create a Twitter List
Personally, Twitter is probably my favorite social media network. I love the power behind its Search feature, the ability to connect to others who might otherwise be “out of reach” to me, the real-time nature of the content, etc. But when I share that with some folks, they often complain about the “noise” on Twitter. “There are just too many people tweeting and I can’t deal with that,” goes the complaint. Unlike Facebook, Twitter does give you everything you sign up for – if you Follow someone on Twitter, you can see everything they tweet, as...
read more97 Things To Talk About In Social Media
Social media marketing is not just about having a business page on Google+ or Facebook. Once the page is set up, you have to say something. We have addressed this before in other articles, for instance in “The Art and Science of Social Media Marketing.” Saying something means posting. That might be a blog, a Tweet, a graphic, or a question, depending on the platform, but you have to create a voice for your business. That’s where many business owners and marketers fall short. It can be a daunting task to think of regular content to post, but if you aren’t saying anything, then your...
read moreWhy Social Media?
By Frankie Rodriquez “Everyone tells me I need to be in social media, but I have no idea how or why.” We hear that statement more often than you can imagine when a potential client approaches us at Polka Dot Impressions. Whether it’s a phone call prompted by a referral or the folk who come up to us after the many speaking events we conduct, most business owners are looking for the logic of social media marketing for business regardless of their emotions toward it. The bottom line is the bottom line. But, not like you might think. Social media marketing is a tremendous return on...
read morePassword Security
In case you missed it today, the official Burger King Twitter account (@burgerking) was hijacked by someone who renamed the account McDonalds. Pretty funny, right? Well, not if you’re Burger King and you’ve worked hard to get those 86K+ Followers! (That number fluctuated wildly during this time, too!) Details are still coming out, and the account was suspended in less than two hours, but what can the rest of us learn from this about password security? Whether the hack is from a password breach or not is still to be discovered, but let’s take a moment to review some basics. Social media...
read moreFacebook Networking
One of the lesser-used features of Facebook is the ability to do some business-to-business (B2B) networking with it. Most business owners feel fairly satisfied if they have their business Page up and running smoothly, but stopping there is limiting the power of Facebook. Just like you would find it helpful to attend networking events as a business leader in real life, Facebook networking can be a valuable type of mutually beneficial interaction for business users once you realize how easy it is to do. The first step in Facebook B2B networking is to determine the businesses that you would like...
read moreEarly Media Trends for 2013
By Frankie Rodriquez Aggressive and successful marketing campaigns are relying on diversification of media platforms in the first quarter of 2013. The early trend in 2013 is that smart businesses are strategically leveraging their use of owned, paid and, increasingly, earned media. These terms may be self-explanatory. But there are significant differences that you should know about. Each is clearly different from the other. The outcomes, if not strategically planned, can range from scratch-your-head frustration to where-did-that-come-from success. So it is extremely important for today’s...
read moreReevaluating Social Media
One of the most common things I hear when meeting with business owners about their past social media efforts is, “It just didn’t work for me.” That always leads to a familiar conversation about goals. “What were the goals of your social media?” “How did you set out to reach those goals?” The wording may be different from person to person, but usually the answer they give reveals to me why “it” didn’t work for them. The “it” often falls into one of two categories: Either their goals were unrealistic, or Their methods went against the way social media works Every...
read moreMarketing Your Business Is Not About You
Whether we’re talking about social media marketing, print marketing, radio or television advertising, or a combination of all of them, marketers must remember that marketing is not about you or your business. At the most basic level, if all you do is talk about your product, you will bore the audience to tears. Not only that, but your business or brand’s reputation will suffer for it. This is why advertisers such as Budweiser or Dodge spend millions of dollars to create a compelling Super Bowl ad, one that you’ll remember, that may not have anything to do with their product. However,...
read moreRules for Twitter Following
Recently, a new Twitter user sent us a Facebook message to ask about “rules” for Twitter. (Don’t you just love modern communication across social platforms?) Specifically, his question was, “I am curious about Twitter etiquette. It seems like the nice thing to do in general is to follow those who follow you…Are there some unwritten rules?” This is a common question, especially by folks who are new to Twitter and trying to figure it out. What it boils down to is a question of best practices for representing yourself or your brand in an engaging way. While this article addresses...
read moreWhat Does Facebook Graph Search Mean to Your Facebook Business Page?
Social media marketing is an ever-changing field. In part, that’s because social networks are constantly updating features, and so business owners and marketers must stay in a constant learning mode. Facebook’s Graph Search is an excellent case in point. The service hasn’t even been rolled out to all Facebook users yet, and there is much wide-spread speculation about how powerful it’s going to be. Facebook has said, in fact, that they expect Graph Search to be something that they will update many times over the next few years, so what is a business owner to do? Pay attention. That is...
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