Many brands and businesses have seized the Instagram opportunity- it provides these businesses with yet another platform to present their brand and gain consumer interaction. What I like about Instagram for brands is that it is a way to interact with consumers and customers without trying to push your product on them. It’s not salesy like Facebook and Twitter posts can sometimes be. Instagram is all about sharing, viewing, and commenting on pictures of things that people are passionate about.

Some of my favorite brands and companies that are doing it right:

• Starbucks (starbucks): Starbucks has over 16,000 followers on Instagram, and they have been tagged over 100,000 times. The popular Frappuccino drink itself has over 1,000 followers. Starbucks has even linked their Instagram account tohttp://www.starbucks.com/coffeehouse – a smart move.
• ABC World News (abcworldnews): ABC World News uses Instagram to visualize their news stream and engage with over 92,000 followers in the comments.
• Diet Coke (dietcoke): I’m admittedly addicted to both coffee and diet coke. So maybe I’m biased with listing Diet Coke under one of my favorite brands on Instagram, but I can’t help it- and neither can their other 1,700 followers. Diet Coke’s instagram is filled with quirky graphics all related to DC.
• The Boston Celtics (celtics): Sports Social Media Marketing can also go beyond the habitual mediums such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, believe it or not. The Boston Celtic’s Instagram has over 50,000 users following. The Celtics are using Instagram to connect with its passionate fans.
• Mashable (mashable): As everyone’s most frequented source for social and digital media, it’s no surprise that Mashable is on Instagram- and even less of a surprise that they have almost 33,000 followers. Mashable has uploaded photos of social media events, employees, and puppies. It’s no wonder they have such a following.

If you’re an avid Instragram user such as myself, feel free to leave your username in the comments, and I’ll gladly follow you.

Communication

The first advantage of blogging is that it provides an effective communicative means for your business. For instance it can be used to effectively educate your consumers on how to use a specific product. Furthermore it allows you to inform people of what’s going on with your business making them feel as if they are a part of it. This will help build trust and loyalty with your customers.

Reputation Building

In addition to loyalty with your customers, blogging will also allow you to build your reputation on the internet. By posting quality content on a regular basis you can quickly establish yourself as an expert in your industry. This too will increase your number of loyal followers.

SEO

Business blogging is a great way to get higher placement on Google and other search engines. In addition, it allows for a stream of constant content which will lead your site to get indexed more effectively. Blogging will also allow you to get ranked for some long-tail keywords.

Social Media Initiatives

Having a blog can allow you to leverage the power of social media sites. This can bring not only a surge in traffic to your blog but also some really powerful links to your site. If used properly blogging can help improve different aspects of your business process and help you reach new heights in your business.

Conflict Management

Businesses can also use blogging quite effectively when it comes to conflict resolution. If there is a problem with one of your products and people start to complain on your social media sites or on an internet forum it could cause a laundry list of new problems. Having a blog will allow you to address these issues quickly and make sure that there is some form of damage limitation.

Blogs are wonderful tools for businesses because they are so versatile. If your business has yet to begin blogging I suggest you jump on the bandwagon. Before you do so be sure you have an employee dedicated to maintaining your blog. The only thing worse than not having a blog is abandoning it shortly after you’ve created it!

Author: George Irish, Strategis.

I am sure we have one more invite left, so give us your best reason why we should let you come to the big dance.

For the first time in a long time we didn’t go away for a family April vacation. Truth be told I missed the long drive from Boston to Miami. Maybe next year or this summer.

1. Persistence: Boy oh boy were my kids relentless when they wanted to have an evening party. They were not harassing, but made sure they followed up with me until I gave them an answer. The right answer, yes. They pleaded their cases very well both individually and collectively. Some reason and a little what is in it for Dad was the tactic of the day. Needles to say they had their party and I had a few non-complaining helpers in the yard. Without perseverance you will not go far in life.
2. Patience: Both Josh and Nicole waited patiently at home for Dolores or I to get home from work and take them on a little field trip. No phone calls asking when we will be home. No text messages or emails also. Over the years they have learned a lot of patience adds up to a lot of guilt. I love going to the Aquarium, but it seems we are there every week. Patience is also a form of action – Auguste Rodin
3. Have Fun: Even though my kids have been to the Aquarium at least 30 times over the last 5 years they always seem to enjoy seeing the same exhibits especially the penguins. For them it is less about where we go, but with whom. They will have a great time anyplace and anytime. For me the enjoyment is seeing that they are just happy to be together as a family. My good friend Paul Berenson mentioned to me if you can’t expect to get at least two out of these three things you don’t need the account. The ability to do great work, to make money and to have fun.
4. Do your homework: Come to find out they had been planning this party for at least 5 days. I stumbled across the invitation on Facebook after the fact. Nicole put the strategy together while Josh handled the sales. They spent a considerable time planning and strategizing what my hot button would be. Best of all they negotiated very well. The more I am prepared the more confident I am and the better I will ultimately do.
5. Make nice with the Teacher: Once all the fun and games were done I expected them to attend to their studies, which they did pretty much unaided. All papers were completed and they surpassed their reading assignments. A funny thing, I heard them both taking about how to get good grades. Their key was to be nice to the Teacher and actually engage them in conversation; look at my little networkers. Networking is one of my most valuable skills I posses and without it everything I attempt to do would be very difficult if not impossible.

It is always great to have a reminder of the little things that add up to success.

1.  Having the wrong expectations

When starting any campaign we strongly suggest setting some expectations and goals. It seems when it comes to social the expectation is that it can solve all our student recruitment problems. A well planned social communications campaign should not be meant to replace your student recruitment campaign 100%; it is there to augment it. Your expectations should be to increase engagement through current students on the networks. By highly engaging those students you will drive awareness through their friends. As a byproduct of having a social communication campaign that is engaging you are able to increase enrollments, but not as a direct correlation to the campaign.

2.  No segmentation

Facebook and Twitter can’t be everything to everyone audience. You must keep in mind that what interests your Alumni won’t necessarily interest your Undergraduates. It is imperative to have segregated channels and content to match those channels. Alumni, Graduate, Continuing Education and Undergraduate should all have their own pages.

3. To much sell sell sell

We have found this is the quickest way to see your fan base quickly decline overtime. Your fan base is attempting to engage with you on a social level and doesn’t expect to get barraged with a sales message all day. They want to be informed, so provide content rich information that is useful (school events, closings, registration hours…). Your audience knows who and what you are and what you have to sell.

4. Bad customer response

This is a simple one. If someone posts to your wall or tweets you respond back quickly. They probably are looking for some quick information and would like a quick response. There is no one single best way to stop engagement in it’s tracks than bad customer response.

5. Don’t push… Pull…

Social communications is meant to be conversational and engage your audience. You should appear approachable through your content. You must foster an environment where your fans feel comfortable in interacting with you on your channels. These interactions will drive awareness which in turn drives consideration and ultimately drives sales.

As many of you are aware, the movies are simply hurting. With the easy access of on-demand programming, DVR, movie downloads and DVD mailing companies, what’s the real reason to ever leave your couch? That being said, this new blow to the box office is making advertisers everywhere ponder how this should affect their expenditure.

In a perfect world, the natural system of checks and balances should prove that if less people are going to the movies, movie advertising should be cheaper. And if more people are On-Demanding movies, On-Demand advertising should rise in popularity and become more expensive.

However, things like this take time. Theaters are not necessarily going to start slashing ad pricing simply because less people are attending. In fact, they may even increase it to make up for the loss in tickets purchased.

This situation is most certainly not a simple nor comfortable one. The number of x-factors and questions are countless: 

• Should Cinema advertising still be considered since it’s such a big screen that it grabs attention from the (now small) audience?
• How does this impact product placement in movies?
• What is the most effective way to reach consumers through movies?
• Should we avoid this headache and abandon movie advertising altogether?
• Is cinema advertising the next media outlet to go extinct?
• Will 3-D movies save the day?

Well I suppose only time will tell. Voice your opinion by commenting below.

This new feature allows advertisers to display their brands via your friend’s endorsement. Another theme that relates to this new format is customization. Facebook, like AdWords, has always allowed the advertiser to “drill down” to the particular segments that they see fit for their brand. But now, Sponsored Stories allows advertisers to get to the user’s most trusted source- their friends.

For me personally, I feel much more inclined to buy a product that my friend willingly “liked” or “checked into” on Facebook than I am to buy a ticket to an action movie simply because I listed “Die Hard” in my favorite movies on Facebook (the way ads had been targeted up to this point).

In general, this connection to the consumer’s most trusted source is a breakthrough and will likely influence how other social networks choose to run their advertisements.

Let us know if and how your company plans on utilizing “Sponsored Stories” by commenting below.

66% of LinkedIn users are decision makers or have influence in the purchase decisions at their companies 

LinkedIn has a higher percent of audience than Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and CNN Money in the following groups:

• Decision Makers
• iTunes users
• Individuals with more than 3 PCs in their home
• Smartphone owners
• Product review seekers/posters
• Online advice seekers/givers
• EVP/SVP/VPs
• Business Travelers
• Employed Women
• Individuals with Household Income of 100K+

This successful, high tech audience provides tremendous opportunity for advertisers. One opportunity to utilize this relationship-promoting tool is through cross-company promotion. By first contacting HR representatives, who were easily accessible by view of company profiles, you can inform the necessary personnel at your targeted companies about the promotion. You can reward the winning company in different ways; for example, whichever company has the most “follows” of your company’s LinkedIn page by the end of the month could receive free products. A promotion such as this would increase the amount of times you or your client appears in newsfeeds, increasing awareness. Keep in mind the product or service must be something to be used in the office, though it can be personal or professional.

To bring us back to the point of how corporate promotion of this product will reach the end consumer, it should be applied to the trickle down effect. Not so much that products or services are inaccessible to lower income classes, but we feel that if we get products in the hands of company employees, especially influencers, they will definitely be more inclined to use the product at home. Hence, the product will be exposed to their friends and family outside of the office and gain further exposure.

One theme that should be underscored is LinkedIn’s ability to model itself after the larger social networks by adding features such as the ability to follow a company. This adaptability proves that it may eventually lead to being used more so as a news source which would create room for further promotion on the site.

LinkedIn’s audience is most certainly distinct, as the earlier statistics indicated, and this specificity can at times be ideal. As stated earlier, it’s not perfect for promoting all products or services, but if your offering is suitable, then the ability to hit this market is profound.  

An example of how our agency used this tool outside of cross-company promotion is when one of our clients released a Mobile App that enabled users to easily book their event venue. To promote this we created a LinkedIn advertisement. Not only was LinkedIn ideal for reaching this high tech segment but it enabled us to promote the product using 8 variations of the advertisement. This is something that neither Google Ads nor Facebook allows the advertiser to do. It most certainly increases adaptability of an initial advertisement by measuring each variation’s effectiveness.

In conclusion, the next time you log into LinkedIn, realize it’s not just a network building tool but can be the gateway to reaching the professional world with your message.

Author: George Irish, Strategis

To breakdown how FourSquare can help your business, some beneficial information that the platform logs is:

• most recent customers
• frequency of check-ins
• breakdown by gender
• user feedback

The basic idea behind your business gaining from it is through rewarding customer loyalty. By using “Specials” you will further engage your loyal customers by offering prizes or discounts for checking in to your location.

With a fairly small market size of nearly 3 million users, FourSqaure on its own may not be in the hands of the majority of your typical customers. However, one must consider the usage statistics of individuals who are on it:

•  94% check in to 10 or more venues
• 79% check in to 25 or more venues
• 57% check in to 50 or more venues
• 77% check in 30 or more times in each month

Additionally, after realizing the various benefits of geolocation, the ultimate social network, Facebook recently released its own location based service called “Places”. This application allows users to check in to registered businesses and tag friends who they are with. Facebook’s 500,000,000+ users will see information about their friends’ check ins on their newsfeed. The most indicative statistic of geolocation’s quickly spreading awareness is Foursquare experiencing its largest amount of user signups just shortly after Facebook’s release of “Places”.

If Facebook discovering the potential of geolocation wasn’t enough, rest assured that the world’s largest search engine, Google is exploring location based service. Having already its own feature called “Places”, Google recognizes the benefits behind providing as much information about locations as possible and currently offers “Google Tags” within “Places”. This leaves something to be gained by business owners, as it allows users to view select features about the location with simply scrolling over a yellow “tag” (no clicking through to the website required). They look to expand “Places” into a more interactive API using the “Check-In” feature.

Though Google has yet to announce the release date of a Places API, the “Check-In” has clearly been identified by these online giants as a feature worth pursuing. The intense user engagement displayed through geolocation creates something all business owners should strive for: a passionate consumer market segment.

Author: George Irish, Strategis

Author:  George Irish is owner and president of Strategis, a full service marketing and communications agency specializing in social communications. George has more than twenty-seven years invested in the advertising and marketing industry. With Strategis, George has recently carved out a niche for the agency in the arena of social communications by marrying the arts of branding, public relations and social media.