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Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Twitter Announces New Money Making Plan

Twitter, a popular social marketing site, has been a highly trafficked site since it's launch in 2007; they finally decided to cash in. The company announced Tuesday that they plan on rolling out a new business plan, which they refer to as "Promoted Tweets" Advertisers will soon be able to buy search terms and come up in the Twitter stream. Only one ad will show up alongside the other search results.

It has been 3 years since the company launched, so it is not surprising that they have decided to come up with a new way to make money. Twitter has become increasing popular for businesses over the last few years. My clients are starting to embrace social marketing more than I would have ever imagined, and it is great to see them use creative and new ways to reach and build relationships with potential patients and clients.

For an example of how you can use Twitter to your advantage check out our Page 1 Solutions Twitter page!

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posted by Ashley Martin at 8:45 AM 0 comments

Friday, February 26, 2010

6 Tips for Engaging Facebook Fans

It seems that February unofficial became social media month for me. I worked with several clients to setup new Facebook fan pages and discussed how to get more fans. But whether the client was new to Facebook or had a fan page for awhile, I found myself having the conversation of "How to make the Facebook fan page better?" over and over again. Here are a few tips.

Tip #1 - Start a Discussion
The entire basis of social media is to connect and share. By utilizing the discussion application, you open up your fan page from being a source of information about the practice page to an engaging social media page.
An easy way to start a discussion is to ask for opinions or questions about a recent news topic connected to your industry. For example, if you're a plastic surgery practice you could start a discussion about ABC News' story on Fat Transfer for Breast Augmentation. You can briefly share your thoughts about the procedure and/or story and end by asking fans what their thoughts are or if they have any questions they would like answered about the procedure.

Write a teaser and post a link to the discussion page as a wall update. If you're having trouble getting the discussion started, encourage practice staff or other people you know well to comment. I also recommend posting a link to the discussion on your personal page to get things rolling.

Tip #2 - Take a Poll
This is a quick and simple way for your fans to share their opinion. You can poll about anything, but keep it related to the practice in some way. If you've been thinking about doing a special on a service but not sure where to start, then ask your fans what procedure they would be most interested in getting if money wasn't an issue. As an extra incentive to cast their vote, you can offer a free or discounted service to one randomly chosen voter.

You can also make it as fun as well as research based. For example if you're a dental practice and a hygienist gets a new puppy you can have the fans vote for its name. Does your practice make philanthropic contributions? You can have your fans vote to determine which charity you'll give to or participate in. The possibilities are endless.

Tip #3 - Setup an Event
This is a great way to connect with your fans offline as well as online. I recommend keeping the event related to your business. For example, a plastic surgery center that has an Aesthetician can do a wine and skin care evening. You can add details about the event, receive RSVPs, and much more. The event application can also be used as notification tool if someone in the practice is speaking at an event, being featured on TV or radio, or is making any other form of public appearance.

Tip #4 - Join the Conversation
I've seen numerous pages that don't allow its visitors to comment on their videos, posts or photos. I highly discourage this. Even if you allow comments, you still have control over whether they are visible or not. But it is not enough just to allow comments. You must join the conversation! If someone leaves a comment, don't forget to comment back. To ensure timely responses, I recommend having a dedicated admin for this.

Tip #5 - Become a Resource for Information
The most common mistake I see are a fan pages that only talks about their business toting their own specials, blog posts, staff, etc. and nothing else. While it is a good idea to share that information on the page (after all it is your practice's page!), I recommend publishing interesting and relevant content about your industry. Have you recently read an interesting or relevant blog that someone else wrote? Then share it! This helps to make users not only fans, but repeat visitors.

Tip# 6 - Offer Exclusive Incentives to Fans
While I realize this may not be feasible for every business, for many businesses it is. When someone new becomes a fan, send them a welcome message with the incentive. Recently I began following a company on twitter and received a message from them thanking me for following them, as well as a code for 15% off one of their services!

In addition to sending out initial fan incentives, you can periodically send incentives to all of your fans or even just the fans that are active on your page thanking them for their input.

The fundamental basis of all social networks is connection and sharing. To do that it's essential to engage your audience. Need more help? Your Page 1 Account Manager can work with you to get the conversation started!

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posted by Jessica at 1:09 PM 0 comments

Monday, January 25, 2010

Vitamin Water Creates a New Flavor of Facebook

Wanna know what Facebook tastes like? Well according to Vitamin Water, it tastes like black-cherry lime. The new drink flavor is a result of an online marketing campaign that ended this month. Vitamin Water asked Facebook users to compete in naming and creating a new flavor to represent Facebook. It is the second time this month that a unique campaign has swept through Facebook. Recently I blogged about a strange breast cancer awareness campaign on Facebook, where users were updating statuses with their bra colors. The campaign went global in less than a day.

Both marketing campaigns, though very different, have one major thing in common, they both got the attention from millions and have started more people talking about how social networking can launch a successful marketing campaign.

Social networking is no longer just to connect with old friends and share photos. Businesses that aren't using them need to start or they will be quickly behind the competition. Not only can they help brand your business, but with the recent viral campaigns, it has shown it can reach your target demographics instantaneously.

For more information on ways to think outside of the box with your online marketing, contact Page 1 Solutions today.

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posted by Ashley Martin at 1:23 PM 0 comments

Monday, January 11, 2010

Facebook Guerrilla Campaign Gets Intimate

Facebook users revealed their intimate side Thursday after a guerrilla marketing campaign asked female users to share their bra color in an effort to support breast cancer awareness. Where the campaign started or how it supports breast cancer is unknown. One thing we do know is that it's a preview of how businesses can take Facebook and other social networking sites to the next level.

Soon, it wasn't just women updating their status; Women and men Worldwide were updating their Facebook status with: "Red" "Neon" and "Black Lace." Groups emerged who supported the cause as well as groups that said, "I really don't care what color your bra is!" No matter what category you fall in, there's one thing that cannot be disputed, this will be just the beginning for similar online marketing campaigns.

Contact Page 1 Solutions today for questions on how you can take social networking to the next level.

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posted by Ashley Martin at 10:08 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Making the Most of Your LinkedIn Profile

I recently read an article discussing how social networking profiles like LinkedIn can be beneficial not only to your professional network growth, but also in improving your website's Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Below are a few things to consider after you've set up and are ready to use your LinkedIn profile.

1. Anchor Text and Links
Using anchor text and links is one of the most basic tactics we talk about with our clients. Creating backlinks to and from your site has high potential for increasing your site's standings in search engine results. Also, search engines scan through and analyze, to some degree, your anchor text. So Search Engines are likely to respond well to your site if you use keywords and phrases that relate back to your site and key business areas. Instead of saying 'my website or blog' try something like "my personal injury attorney blog." The level of specificity and relativity of the anchor text to your website content will have a positive effect on your SEO.

2. Use of Keywords in Your Profile
Take a look at your profile and see how many relevant keywords you included. There are probably areas in the headlines, personal interests and summary where you could add more focused phrases which, again, relate back to the content on your site and/or blog.

3. Adding Connections
This is what LinkedIn is really all about! The more you actively participate in the LinkedIn network and groups; you are expanding your visibility. Developing and expanding your network will increase the visibility of your site. Your site is a big part of your identity on the internet, so incorporate links to it from LinkedIn wherever you can and where it makes sense contextually.

4. Customizing Your LinkedIn URL
LinkedIn members have the option to create a customized URL for their profile - you are able to change it to your name or business name. I recommend you do so for one simple reason: it will improve your visibility within LinkedIn for people seeking out your information and again benefit the optimization of your website.

Overall I think this shows that keeping your website in mind when you are actively networking on the web is not rocket science and can be a pretty easy way of increasing your site and/or blogs presence. If you would like to read the complete article, you can find it here:
http://www.site-reference.com/articles/Search-Engines/How-to-Use-LinkedIn-for-SEO.html

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posted by sarad at 4:47 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Google Friend Connect

We all know social networking is the wave of the future. I am proud to have the first Page 1 Solutions client to take Social Networking into a brand new direction. Google recently released a new program called Google Friend Connect which allows websites to add different widgets to their site to make it more interactive, like Facebook, Myspace, etc.

After looking at some of the cool features that Friend Connect has to offer, I spoke with my LASIK client, The Carter Eye Center. They just built a brand new LASIK focused site with the intention of appealing to the younger generation and I thought they would be the perfect client to test this new program out on. They had asked about different ways we could make the site a little more interactive for users to leave comments and ask questions.

Google Friend Connect has the potential to make a site come alive and allow feedback from users. There are several options you can add into the site. After becoming a member of the site, users can rate, review, leave comments, make recommendations, and much more. We chose to start with 3 of the available features but have the option to add more down the road.
I am very excited to see how far we can go with the social networking for Carter Eye Center. They are the first in their area to try this, and will stand out in front of their competition.

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posted by Ashley Martin at 3:02 PM 0 comments