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Persuasive Picks for week of 10/29/12

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Did you know that, according to a recent study by Nielsen, around four out of every five smartphone owners now use their device whilst watching television? Shea Bennett posts an interesting infographic that takes a closer look at social television and the rise of the second screen on AllTwitter – TV Goes Social – The Rise Of The Second Screen [INFOGRAPHIC]

Michael Cohn reminds Business2Community readers that relationships are at the heart of social media success for your business. He writes in Relationship Building Through Social Media that your online strategy must include the concept in some form and you should keep track of how much return on investment those relationships are bringing to your business; and offers several other principles to follow.

Are you using LinkedIn to generate leads or referrals? Brad Friedman at SocialMediaToday is guessing that there are features you may not be aware of in LinkedIn Company Pages: 5 Things You’re Probably Not Doing and thinks it’s time that you take advantage of the feature-rich LinkedIn Company Page.

Online video can engage an audience, help viewers retain information, and assist customers in remembering a brand. But how can you go one step further… and make your videos social? MarketingProfs‘ Jeff Fissel explains in Six Ways to Make Your Video Strategy More Social that video actively engages the users by soliciting comments, questions, and feedback; it creates conversations that take your videos to the next level.

Persuasive Picks for week of 10/15/12

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The key to being a good consultant of any kind is to ask the right questions, writes Michael Teitelbaum in a recent post at Marketing Trenches, and provides a list of 5 Questions Marketers Need to Ask Prospective Clients to get to the heart of a prospect’s challenges and aspirations – via MarketingProfs.

Visual networks are now changing the rules of engagement and agencies and brands need to find the best ways to measure and understand their customers cultures. Laurent Francois of SocialMediaToday explains How Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr are Blasting Social Media Monitoring tools because there’s a fantastic bias supposing that people express themselves only through words, sentences and syntax.

LinkedIn has rapidly become the number one B2B social networking tool with over 175 million users from around the globe. So why would someone in your target audience choose to do business with you in LinkedIn? Online Marketing veteran and ClickZ contributor Jasmine Sandler says it’s not as easy as one-two-three, but provides some helpful tips on Creating Solid Business Relationships Through LinkedIn.

First impressions matter! Blog readers generally pay attention to the title and the first two paragraphs of any given post, and then decide whether to read the rest. Lydia Di Francesco gives content marketing tips to bring more attention to your posts in 6 Easy Ways To Write Headlines That Get More Clicks on Business2Community.

Persuasive Picks for week of 9/3/12

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The balance of power in B2B public relations has shifted. No longer does the media hold all the cards, although they are still important influencers. Fast Company writer Wendy Marx provides some Best Practices In B2B PR to consider as the B2B public relations ecosystem continus to evolve.

B2B marketers have one of the most difficult and underappreciated jobs on the planet. Their mission is to create memorable brands out of some downright “unsexy” products. How do they do it? MarketingProfs‘ Russell Glass explains that the best B2B marketers are successful because they start with building a brand in How the Best B2B Marketers Think Like B2C Marketers: Five Strategies to Emulate.

Using social media correctly is like putting your Rolodex on steroids. Perhaps the best thing about using social media is that it allows you to communicate with all of your contacts at once through status updates. But Melinda F. Emerson at The New York Times warns there are some important lessons to learn and gives some insights on How Not to Pitch Your Business in Social Media.

Are you one of the many marketers who launch their social media programs because they feel they need to and then scramble to understand both how they will make these work and how they will be managed? Online marketing veteran Jasmine Sandler urges you to stop chasing your tail and start Your Social Media Marketing Plan in 5 Easy Steps via ClickZ.

Persuasive Picks for week of 8/20/12

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Diane Schwartz of The PRNews Blog recollects one of her favorite childhood memories of the annual shopping excursion for school, with the coveted “list” in hand. Fast-forward decades later, now as a PR pro, she’s penned a new list of 11 Supplies for Your Back-to-School (PR) Backpack.

Pinterest is taking over social media like a tsunami of college students on a pizza delivery guy. Why not? It’s fun, highly addictive and now the 3rd most popular social media network. So how can you leverage that popularity to expand your reach? Carrie Morgan of Convince & Convert provides 5 Ways to Use Pinterest to Boost Press Release Results

The rules of search have changed. In fact, they change on a daily basis. Experts say social media’s influence on driving business via the web is expected to surpass search engine optimization (SEO). So, how can you use social media to increase your SEO rank and ensure that the rank and ensuing traffic will convert to web business? Jasmine Sandler of ClickZ provides some tips on How to Increase Your Search Rank Using Social Media via Mashable

Building brand loyalty is one thing. Marketing smartly through digital platforms is another. And strangely, the two don’t always walk hand in hand. Kyle Montero at iMedia Connection explains that digital marketing and fostering loyalty aren’t always mutually exclusive, but if you’re looking to jumpstart or improve your own online engagements with customers, you’d do well to take a page from these Brands breeding loyalty through digital

Persuasive Picks for week of 8/13/12

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Every business knows about social media, and today most businesses have some sort of social media presence — but Steve Nichols at The Huffington Post writes that very few have implemented a comprehensive and successful social media strategy that maximizes benefits and mitigates risks in Why Most Companies Fail at Social Media — Understanding the Three C’s

Danny White offers some social media best practices and what businesses should avoid when promoting their products and services through social media in 5 Critical Mistakes Business Make with Social Media on SocialMediaToday.

The ever-changing and informal nature of social media promotes witty tweets and in-depth discussions on Facebook, but as Matthew Hibbard reports Social media has legal implications for businesses as well. – on Business Journals

While stock pickers fret about the social media “bubble” – witness the concern over the frailty of Groupon’s daily deal business model and Facebook’s share price – Matthew Yeomans thinks something more profound is taking place within business in the shape of a structural, cultural and philosophical realignment of the relationship between customer and companies. Read more in Social media can provide eureka moments for sustainable business on The Guardian.

Persuasive Picks for week of 8/6/12

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Video is the undisputed darling of the marketing world in 2012. There are a variety of reasons web-based video is such an important media vehicle, and marketers that understand the nuances will be more successful than the laggards. To get started, Kent Lewis of iMediaConnection provides The ultimate guide to video marketing on YouTube.

How do you build buzz in social media? What makes social media real-life marketing events successful? It is not one thing in particular, but many things, according to Christel Quek and 2morrowknight of The Huffington Post and offer a few takeaways on Creating Social Media Buzz.

Social media, although a relatively recent phenomenon, has become an increasingly more important part of marketing and client base development platform for businesses. What could once be accomplished by a traditional website now needs to be supplemented by a robust and responsive utilization of the tools social media offers. Forbes contributor Jessica Bosari explains The Developing Role of Social Media in the Modern Business World and provides some tips for those looking to bring their business up to speed.

The social space has rapidly matured over the last decade-plus, but social media measurement remains a mystery for many. Adam Singer at ClickZ thinks that measurement is something that’s very possible, and offers 4 Ideas for Better Social Media Measurement.

Persuasive Picks for week of 7/16/12

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Most forms of marketing and advertising focus on attracting and engaging customers through a sales cycle to create awareness and interest, guiding the customer to consider and purchase. Lee Odden writes on ClickZ that while a lot of social media-savvy companies are leveraging social channels to engage with communities and for customer service, expectations are high to influence a social return on investment (ROI). Learn more in Optimizing Social Media Across the Customer Lifecycle

David Murdico at iMediaConnection thinks that a lot of efforts and resources are being wasted by too many businesses, brands and organizations that lack a clear understanding of social media marketing. He cites 5 Social Media Marketing Myths You Should Understand to provide a powerful way of building awareness, communicating with consumers and ultimately selling more stuff!

If your brand has a social media presence, consumers need to hear from you. 60% of Consumers Expect Brands to Respond on Social Media regarding service at least most of the time, according to a new report. Daniel Mickens reviews the findings of a recent online survey that looks at social media’s impact on people’s brand perceptions and purchasing decisions – via Mashable.

Do you tweet at the supermarket? “Like” your favorite brands? Scan QR codes? If so, you’re part of a growing group of social media savvy consumers who use technology to inform their purchasing habits. Lauren Dugan posts How Do Consumers Use Social Media To Shop? [INFOGRAPHIC] on AllTwitter – visualizing the results of a recent study that looks at consumers’ social media behaviors when they shop.

Persuasive Picks for week of 7/2/12

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As the business of social media continues to grow, social media tools – and the marketers who use them – are expanding their reach into nearly every social media network they can find. Brian Proffitt at ReadWriteWeb provides some insight as to Why You Can’t Escape Social Media Marketing Any More.

Over the last few months Facebook has come out with a raft of changes, feature enhancements and new releases. While it can be tough to keep up with all these changes, Samuel Junghenn of SocialMediaToday has highlighted some of the most important changes and how they could affect your business in Facebook’s Latest Changes – A Recap.

With the rapid proliferation of social media and social media channels, there’s been an equally as rapid growth in the creation of memes. While memes tend to be light-hearted, when done well, they can pack a serious marketing punch. Mike Lewis of BostInno provides some tips in How to Use Memes to Create Social Media Engagement.

Each advancement in social media brings new methods for measuring digital campaign performance. But which tools are the right ones, and should we be measuring the same metrics we were 2-3 years ago? How should marketers be leveraging data-driven insights to assess, plan, and allocate budget across channels, publishers, and ads? Rachelle Considine provides some New tips for measuring digital ROI on iMediaConnection.

Persuasive Picks for week of 6/11/12

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Facebook Engagement is a critical issue for social marketers, not only because consumer interaction has become a cornerstone of the new marketing landscape, but also because Facebook Engagement is critically tied to brand visibility on the platform. Morgan J. Arnold at SocialMediaToday examines how the type of Facebook Post – Photos, Videos, Statuses, Questions and Links – impacts engagement in Optimizing Facebook Engagement – Text, Links, Photos or Videos?

Consumer brand interactions have come a long way in the past couple years. The social web has turned into a consumer’s playground to talk about or interact with brands. People search for the best deals, assess product reviews, share the positive or negative insights with their social spheres of influence, and find locations — whether online or brick and mortar — to purchase a product. iMediaConnection contributor Nicole Rawski explains that every brand can benefit from understanding online engagement in her latest post How to really measure engagement.

10 Social Media Tips From a Top Media Agency – Whether your company is just getting its social sea legs or excelling in the digital world, there is a niche and opportunity for every brand on social media. While Facebook and Twitter are the building blocks that a brand should start with in the social sphere, your level of understanding impacts your brand’s ability to perform on social media. Mashable’s Christine Erickson spoke with a one of the top media agencies in the world to provide helpful tips for brands at any level.

With a predominantly female audience, Pinterest is a popular place to share photos for wedding planning, home redecorating, recipes, vacation destinations, and books. However, despite popular belief, your business doesn’t need to be product-based in order take advantage of the benefits that Pinterest offers. Stephanie Chandler shows Forbes readers how to get started in Pinterest Power: How to Use the Third Largest Social Media Site to Promote Your Business.

Flexing your social savvy: Do you ‘THINK’ before you tweet?

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We’ve all committed social gaffes at one time or another, saying something in the heat of the moment that we immediately wished we could take back. But thanks to today’s public social media platforms, ‘what happens on Twitter’…can really stick around to haunt you.

The most recent case in point: This year’s Miss Seattle, who proclaimed her annoyance with the city of Seattle, its residents and its weather one dreary day in December. A local reporter caught wind and blogged about the blunder, which became a veritable viral sensation. An honest mistake, by all accounts – Jean-Sun Hannah Ahn, 22, a Seattle native, said she was merely missing the sunny weather in Phoenix, where she attended Arizona State University and was crowned Miss Phoenix – but damaging nonetheless.

Ahn has since spent the majority of her time in the position apologizing for her social media misstep. Most recently, she spent a day educating school children on her new platform: “THINK Before You Post,” which stands for Truthful, Helpful, Inspiring, Needed and Kind to remind them to make sure their online posts fall into those categories.

And so she joins the ranks of other famous (infamous?) faces who have failed to recognize that a public social media platform is just that…public. But they’re not alone; even though it may not be breaking news, there’s a good chance that many of us are also guilty of the same faux-pas. In fact, a recent Daily Mail poll revealed that approximately 25 percent of people have tweeted something they regret, and approximately the same number of people said they have posted something on a site that they never would have said to someone’s face.

So while there are no official ‘rules’ for using Twitter, we thought it might be helpful to review a few tips for projecting a more professional image, regardless of whether you use it for work or personal purposes. After all, you never know just who is watching…

  1. Have a goal. Decide what you want to get out of having a Twitter account before you set it up. Make a plan, have a purpose, and direct your actions accordingly.
  2. Mind your grammar. Capitalize only when needed (DON’T SHOUT IN CAPS!), use active language, refrain from using numbers “2” replace words, and use abbreviations wisely.
  3. Focus on value. What can you offer followers that others cannot? Post quality content regularly, – take an active interest and you’ll keep them connected, interested and engaged.
  4. Be edgy, not offensive. There’s a fine line between pushing the envelope and pushing the limits of good taste. Take your followers into consideration, but – above all – use common sense.
  5. Think before you tweet. This is definitely worth repeating. And when in doubt, wait. Give yourself a window for cooling off when you may be emotional.

Got any Twitter best practices? Or pet peeves? Feel free to share in the comments below!