I just spent a day at AdTech, San Francisco visiting with Facebook, YouTube and several up and coming technology vendors. Here’s a quick recap for you to read. You may want to reassess your marketing plans in light of what’s happening in social media. If you need a quick marketing business plan template, save 50% off with this coupon FB50. (Make sure you copy and paste this code into the promotional box, after the green box, add to cart).

1) YouTube is going to open up their branded channels to small business owners. They used to charge

$250,000 to participate in this program, which pretty much limited the experience to big brands. Now, you’ll be able to add tabs to your channel and create more of a social experience. Look how Cleveland Clinic is using their channel to drive traffic to their website and engage their audience via online video.   I circled some items below to help illustrate these points. Subscribe to my channel to get updates.

2) Facebook got rid of “Become a Fan” in favor of “Like” so you now have connections as opposed to “Fans.” The Facebook Connect button and brand will be disappearing and you’ll start seeing Facebook connectivity and features in more locations than ever around the web.

3) Location-based social games are hot for advertisers–Have you heard of Foursquare? The place to “check-in” whenever you’re out and about. It’s kind of like Twitter, only it’s location-based and they reward you for frequency.  I understand most of the users are male, by the way. Well, MyTown is similar but with insane targeting by geo-location and they incentivize check-ins. It’s played by over 1.6 Million people and is the most popular location-based social game ever! Users on MyTown are averaging around 70 minutes of playtime a day and it’s now an Apple Staff Favorite. Local businesses can test it out to capture their target market both by category and location. My Town is at the center of the latest hot trend for casual gaming, according to the San Francisco Business Times.

In summary, companies are spending less time and money on building expensive websites in favor of  leveraging Free social networking sites like YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to expand their audience reach, build trust and engage with their users. Think of it as another way to build word-of-mouth referrals and we all know how valuable those are.  E-mail info@rlevinmarketinggroup.com if you need help with your marketing strategies.

Posted under Marketing Trends, Social Media, The Cocktail Napkin Marketing Plan™

LinkedIn, the #1 professional social networking site announced its own integration with Twitter today. Users of both services will be able to sync some or all of their tweets on Twitter and “network updates” on LinkedIn. This is more reason to “think before you tweet,” as I often say in my social media marketing boot camps.

According to BusinessWeek.com, Tech Beat author, Rob Hof says, “Specifically, users in LinkedIn will be able to check a “tweet this” box near their network update post to Twitter. And while on Twitter, they can add the hashtags “#in” or “#li” to their posts to appear on LinkedIn. Finally, a new app called Tweets will let users put their Twitter streams on their LinkedIn profiles.”

Here’s a video with LinkedIn Executive Chairman Reid Hoffman and Twitter cofounder Biz Stone and you can click the video to read the full story.

Posted under Marketing Trends, Social Media

Top 10 Twitter Marketing Tips for Small Business Owners

By Robyn Levin

If you’re like most business owners, you’re super busy figuring out ways to be profitable, however, you feel compelled to join the social networking world. One question that comes up frequently is, “What should I tweet about and how often?” Think about what you want to share when you see the box, “What are you doing?” Be strategic so you’re using your time effectively. Twitter has been proven to help drive traffic to your blog, website and even trigger a phone inquiry like the one I got this week. It’s a good idea to observe 1st and notice what other tweets appeal to you. How often? Once or twice a day works for me. If you have a dedicated social media marketing staff, tweet more frequently. Keep these top 10 Twitter Marketing Tips & suggestions in mind and remember; give value and you’ll get quality followers. Things to “Tweet” about:

1. Hosting an upcoming event or Webinar
2. Writing a new blog post
3. Writing an article
4. Writing a press release
5. Networking & looking for groups or people in your niche
6. Sharing breaking news, industry trends, etc.
7. Re-tweet someone else’s tweet or link
8. Announcing a special offer
9. Sharing a new video
10. Sharing recent & interesting stats

* Big TIP here– include a link to your blog or website and track your results using http://budurl.com

Feel free to “Re-tweet” this post on your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts.

Posted under Marketing Trends, Social Media

Social Media Marketing in 30 Minutes A Day

Read this article to learn how you can promote yourself using social media marketing in just 30 minutes a day.

“Thought article was dead on and just what the doctor ordered for me. I get too involved with trying to do everything at once.”

Social Media Marketing in 30 Minutes A Day
Are you overwhelmed with all the social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube) and trying to figure out how to incorporate these tools into your marketing mix? You’re not alone. Many clients often ask me how much time should they devote to social media marketing for business purposes and what’s the ROI. These are very good questions. My suggestion is to devote 30 minutes per day to social networking for brand building, getting referrals and to test the waters. You can’t possibly know if something is effective or useless until you try it for your own business. Best marketing practices include using a combination of social networking sites and other tools like online video, PR, blogs and Webinar marketing, and you’ll improve your results. The key is to think strategically and make it meaningful.

Most professionals want to increase sales and online visibility and those of you in this category should consider using Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube as your main social networking choices. Facebook has some good applications too, like Facebook Connect, however, I’ve found this to benefit big brands in particular. For example, Ben & Jerry’s promotes new flavors and solicits votes for brand building and to drive traffic to their stores through their “fan” page on Facebook. If you can think of a promotion and tie it into a major cause, this could be effective for you. Remember how CNN promoted the presidential election campaign using Facebook and Twitter to disseminate information to their audiences? CNN’s screen still says, “Follow us on Twitter” and, by following, I’m able to keep track of breaking news….

Sign up in the yellow box on the top left to receive the full article and other great tips on Internet Marketing!

Posted under Marketing Trends, Social Media, The Cocktail Napkin Marketing Plan™

From Fremium to Premium–a new Internet Marketing Trend?

More and more businesses are discovering many ways to reach and connect with their prospects and clients using Twitter and now, Twitter confirms paid pro accounts will be next for ” commercial power users or companies.” Click to read the article from Business Insider here,

Posted under Marketing Trends, Social Media, The Cocktail Napkin Marketing Plan™

According to eMarketer, “56.7 million baby boomers make up the largest group of users in the US Internet population.” You can view Baby Boomer Social Media Statistics here: http://www.emarketer.com/Report.aspx?code=emarketer_2000546

Think about your own behavior when you’re conducting research or browsing the Internet. Are you going to YouTube or LinkedIn more frequently?

Here’s some other interesting social media demographic data, thanks to twitter.com/neenz that called my attention to this on his tweet (post on Twitter.)

“A new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project finds more people are embracing social networking, but those Web sites remain most popular among the young.

Roughly three-quarters of U.S. adults go online, and 35 percent of those use social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook or LinkedIn, according to the report”  Read the Social Networking article here:

Nowadays, it’s pretty easy and FREE to test various methods of communication and that’s what social networking is all about. Follow me on Twitter to get some tips and ideas to improve your marketing using social networking.   http://twitter.com/robynlevin

Posted under Marketing Trends, Social Media

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Posted under Marketing Trends, Social Media, The Cocktail Napkin Marketing Plan™