Pinterest Social Media Profile 

A Marketers Guide to Pinterest:

Promote/Pinner page: http://pinterest.com/laurenconrad1/

Personal Pinterest:  http://pinterest.com/justisse/

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a social networking platform that is used for personal blogging of current interest like recipes, apparel, and travel destinations. Each pin has a specific bookmark so members can view where the product can be found or bought.However there are alternative uses for this website like advertising and promoting businesses to create brand awareness. Many businesses will hire a “promoter” or “spokesperson” to advertise their products on the website.  A promoter may get paid to “pin” links from a website to their Pinterest board for followers to view their page with pictures of new products or video links that lead back to the businesses page.  

Visuals are detrimental to a “pinners” page if the picture isn’t appealing enough it could bring down the chances of driving traffic to specific boards. If the picture is visually appealing to the pinners current followers the chances are higher of a follower being introduced to more products and how they could be used by “repining”. When a post is “repined” the user may repost the same link that is on another user’s page to one of their personal boards similar to a twitter “retweet”.

Repining in my opinion is a primary marketing strategy a promotion can be great for driving traffic effectively to a specific board. When a link is reposted by a follower the original pinner will receive an e-mail notification with a link stating that one of their followers has repined a post to their board.  Thus grabs the attention of the original pinner right away and includes a link to where the original pin was recently posted. The primary pinner will then be redirected to where the pin has been posted on the followers boards. In order for any of this to work there is the obvious need of interest from new members to visit the page to even take the chance of following the links to a partners website that the pinner is promoting.  

That brings us to following what makes or breaks these types of advertisements. When new members follow a celebrity promoter like Lauren Conrad this gives a promoter the potential to drive traffic to their page and create more awareness for the brand she is currently promoting. Following one another  is done when an e-mail notification is sent with a link to a profile of a member that has decided to follow another. Once two people start following each other their recent activity and pins will be uploaded to the “popular page” to be viewed by all followers.  Immediately this gives a frequent promoter a chance to easily direct followers to the businesses main site thus starting a circulation of products to be seen by millions of members.

Justisse Tourountzas

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Social Media Marketing as a Strategy

Social Media Marketing as a Strategy 
Sumir Bassi 000035292
                These days many common marketing strategies such as advertising on television or posting a listing in the yellow pages are becoming a thing of the past just like the 8track. With the use of the internet social media entities such as Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, and Linkedin, have become the new playground for marketing through a certain method of strategies. Firstly there’s branding, which is the image created around a brand or a certain product that will represent certain things such as quality, price range, what colors to associate with the brand or product, and so on. Branding via social media can be done through various mediums such as creating Facebook groups were people can discuss and review the product or brand thus adding to its legitimacy and gaining reputability in the eyes of a future customer. Another popular strategy is to endorse a brand or product using a celebrity or figurehead by getting them to tweet about it on Twitter, which in turn relates the product to a certain genre and penetrates that market sector. The internet and its social media entities also provide a lot of traffic for products or brands being marketed. A common saying in business is “location, location, location”, referring to how accessible your business, product or brand is. The internet has revolutionized this saying and along with that allowed a platform for an immense amount of traffic to access and interact with the business, product, or brand being marketed. The use of all these social media entities also allow you to develop a network of other individuals and businesses that in turn can bring the traffic of their networks to your social media hub, bringing you, your brand, or product more traffic.  With the use of these strategies such as branding, traffic, and networking, social media and social networks can be made a very useful tool for marketing.

Watch video on Social Media Marketing: click here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gza8dvN8Hkc
Image reference: click here http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/freebies/integrate-social-media-your-website/

The Future Of Online Advertising

The Future of Online Advertising

Online advertising is becoming one the biggest and easiest ways to advertise a product or service. It has changed drastically in the last decade how we communicate and interact with others around the world with touch of a few buttons. All around there are people using the internet as tool to advertise for example: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube these three sources are the biggest traffic generators for potential customers as well to notify people about information.From a marketer prospective it is no longer measured by the size of the budget they have to market it seems to be the amount of strength the idea has and its ability to inspire people to take action and participate. The biggest brands in the world have shown this by having very strong and unique ideas starting with digital aspect being the back bone behind the whole advertisement. Every minute of the day and night something is being advertise on the internet and that is one of the biggest benefits of it being online its constantly on the go and changing being accessible anywhere around world at any time. There are many different price points that can be a factor with online advertising it can be very costly and most likely will be but there are also many options to cut down cost to advertise. In saying that the amount of money you put into the advertisement the wider the reach will be and more interactive the consumer will become. For many companies around the world online advertising is great way to seek attention and get immediate responses from the consumer because companies are able to track how many hits they have go on their ad while finding out geographically where the best place to advertise their product in person. The future of advertising is a question mark no one will ever know where it might go next the options are endless. That’s what makes online advertising one of the most beneficial ways to advertise.   

Elliott Jones

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The Rise of Social Media Marketing

The Rise of Social Media Marketing

by Yaprak Onur

Since I will be the first one to talk about social media I like to start with a definition. Social media has more than a thousand different definitions but all of them high lights the same couple of points. First, social media is an instrument of communication which allows and creates social interaction. Second, social media uses a highly accessible communication technology meaning the internet. And third, social media not only enables people to share different formats of information but also it allows people to see other people’s reactions to that information.

When social media concept first created; it was only used by youth to stay in touch with each other. Facebook created the biggest change when it allowed everyone to join; after Facebook more and more people joined to social networks. (I pinned the current user infographics for you, if interested click http://pinterest.com/pin/144396731773879508/) Then social Media was no longer restricted by region, demographic or age, it involved everyone.  And after that it did not took long for marketers to see the potential of social media. With more and more companies starting to use social media, new platforms started to emerge and the social media became a force to be reckoned with for both consumers and the marketers.  Check out the infographic at http://pinterest.com/pin/144396731773879574/ for a brief history of social media.

Marketers saw the potential of social media but they were limited, at first the companies jointed to social networks just like other users did, they didn’t have special abilities or pages they do have now but still they fund social media to be a perfect solution to engage with their customers and promote their brand. Facebook saw the new trend within the marketers to use social media as part of their integrated marketing plan and in November 2007 Facebook introduced Facebook ads as well as brand and business pages. (More about history of Facebook advertising http://pinterest.com/pin/144396731773880687/)

These new brand and business pages were different than regular user’s they allowed insights and targeted ads which means that brands and business got the ability to measure their social media success. Following that many other social media platforms started to differentiate their corporate accounts from regular user accounts, also many other facilitator programs and web pages started to launch for the easier use and analysis of the data for the social media platforms.

At that point many marketers realize that they can use social media in many ways such as; Public relations, customer service, loyalty-building, collaboration, networking, thought-leadership and last but not least customer acquisition. Now not only 93% of social media users believe a company should have a presence in social media but also 85% of social media users believe that a company should go further than just having a presence on social sites and should also interact with its customers. Because social media democratize communications, it allows dialogues and consumers want to interact with their favorite companies or brands.

That was the missing part of the traditional marketing, so the social media become the solution for a fast, interactive and engaging way to communicate for companies and brands. (For comparison of traditional media and social media please see http://pinterest.com/pin/144396731773879561/)

And now many consumers started to make their purchasing decisions in influence of social media; (Further information http://pinterest.com/pin/144396731773879556/) the social media become a road map for them therefore increasing number of companies joining to the social media networks and running different campaigns in social media.

Brand Evaluation - Task #4

This week we discussed email marketing. Does your brand use email marketing? How did they do? What do you think is the objective of their email marketing? Can you identify a communication schedule? Do their email campaigns follow some of the design best practices discussed in class?

Earlier, you evaluated how they use their website to collect data. Has this data been used in their email campaign?

How could they improve their use of email marketing?

This task is worth 10 points.

Search Engine Optimization

On & Off Page SEO

On Page SEO

“On page SEO”  is a onetime procedure, the first step is to find the right key words that best suit your website; for example a flower shop in Hamilton might have keywords such as “Hamilton Flower Shop” or “Flower Deliveries in Hamilton”. Some people believe that having many keywords is the way to go, but others would disagree and limit the amount of keywords used for their website. Google will scan your website content based and determine the relevancy of your site to the search query. The more relevant your website is to the search, the greater likelihood it will appear on the first page, but too many keywords will dilute the content. Above all Google algorithms prefers sites with quality, unique content. The best way to determine the most effective keywords for your website can be done by creating a pay per click (PPC) campaign on “Google Adwords”.  By investing money to test keywords you will be able to determine your top converting keywords, and use them for your on-page SEO efforts. Another way to determine top keywords is to use a competitor’s keywords that have been previously tested. The next step is to ensure your website is properly structure for example, updating Meta tags, Meta titles, and other things within the HTML internal coding to make your site preferred by Google.

 

Off Page SEO

“Off page SEO” main purpose is to build links from other websites that direct them to your own. When you make a search, Google will also recognize how many back links direct to your website to determine the relevancy. For example if two Flower shops used the same keywords but one had more website directing towards it then the other, Google will typically notice the site more relevant and rank it higher. All website on the internet are given a page rank (PR) between 0-10. 0 meaning not listed on Google, 5 meaning that it is possible that you will show up on the first page of a search (e.x. Elearn), and 9 being websites such as Youtube and Facebook . A rank of 10 is websites such as Google, CNN, and USA.gov.  Google recognizes these PR back links; they use this to determine the quality of the links directed to your site. Quality is greater than quantity, this meaning that you will receive a higher ranking on a search for having more higher PR links rather than having many lower PR links.

Victor Lopez

Customer Acquisition Strategies

Customer Acquisition Strategies:

Have you ever received a sample of a product, tried it out, and enjoyed it enough that it led you to purchase the product? If the answer is yes, then you have been subject to a successful attempt of the ‘Customer Acquisition Strategy’.  I will admit, I have been subject to this strategy in my life.  When I was younger, I distinctly remember the release of “Sunny D” into the market.  This orange flavored drink made its mark in my life when a sample found its way to my mailbox.  As a young child, finding this drink quite enjoyable led me to everyone else’s mailbox on my street in search for more.  It definitely succeeded in its acquisition strategy in my life; sadly it could not retain it, as I was too young to make the purchases.  I’m sure all of you have a similar story with a different product.  This is just one-way companies search for new customers.  If they released the campaign now, with the use of the Internet, how do you think it would have been applied?

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHly4YZ61RDcvCFSeCUalD01HF1VSgzvNe6GJvnZawQ4laUe4sqdlkPkqQmxLkcDovyqSIV6HoBVm9ScuRWckuaql7BRIK33yB-OGp_88CbwEXCWZrgX3gUqrMuVkBsoLIdyDqw0lYkxM/s400/sunny_d.jpg

With the introduction to the Internet, and the rapid growth it has taken in the past decade, these strategies to acquire new customers have become more creative as well as competitive.  Our textbook gives quite the detailed explanation on various types of these technics, and a quick search on YouTube gives you more videos from experts and those claiming to be experts than you can watch in a week. 

http://www.netelixir.com/images/online_customer_acquisition

So which option should a company use for their product? Social media, Email promotions, online advertising, Search engine marketing, Affiliate programs, Portal deals or viral marketing?  Now if you are reading this blog, you have successfully made it to an academic level of marketing that should tell you the answer to this wonderful question.  It all stems back to the customer! The above diagram illustrates the cycle in which marketers evaluate which strategy to use online. 

It is nearly impossible to encompass and explain every strategy used with Customer Acquisition.  But in a few short words, remember that essentially, it is just a fancy way of saying “How to acquire new customers”. 

So now that you know what it means, feel free to post your own Sunny D story, and looking back on it, how does it make you feel? Be sure to include whether or not the company was also successful in retaining your business over the years.

Thank you,

Donald Porter