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August 10, 2011

Small businesses and social media

Marketing tools These days, small business owners have a lot of marketing options to consider. There are a number of traditional marketing platforms including newspaper ads, print ads, billboards, direct mail, and TV commercials. Then combine these with a slew of digital and social media marketing options such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, blogging, a custom mobile application development, Groupon, Places, foursquare, Yelp, PPC advertising, and mobile marketing to smart phones. Now you’ve got an extremely large pool of potential marketing combinations and strategies for small businesses to exploit.

The number of options and evolving technologies can be overwhelming for small businesses. Staying current with various platforms can be a challenge in itself. The amount of time required to simply manage and maintain a handful of online accounts can be daunting. In fact, a recent survey by Hiscox revealed that many small businesses were not using social media channels to promote their products and services. Only 12% of businesses considered social media promotion a necessity, 14% indicated they don’t know enough about it, and nearly 50% of respondents weren’t using social media at all.

Over 40% surveyed said that word-of-mouth was the main way they got business. This is an interesting statistic – as social media is essentially a word-of-mouth advertising vehicle. While offline forms of word-of-mouth remain critical for all brands, and certainly for small, local businesses, social media also plays a valuable role by giving customers a louder voice for their recommendations and helping to amplify that voice beyond their immediate circle of friends, family and colleagues.

So how can a small business focus on what they do best while at the same time take advantage of social media marketing? Easy – you don’t have to go it alone. There are marketing specialists to help sift through all of the social media options and develop a custom marketing strategy that fits your business model and budget. For the same reason you wouldn’t attempt to fill a cavity in your child’s tooth, there’s no need to take on tasks which exceed your limits.

Small businesses need to open their minds and be creative. Innovation is paving new opportunities for businesses to market themselves and secure customers. Integrated marketing campaigns can yield meaningful results. Whatever your objectives are, social media can be a powerful communication tool to help spread your message.

waveSpawn provides a full range of customized marketing solutions for small businesses. Please contact us to discuss your specific goals.

April 20, 2011

Respecting privacy with social media

Online privacy Facebook and social media are great outlets for people to vent with friends. People go online to complain about the weather (especially here in Western New York), sports teams, a bad day, boredom, etc… but what are the rules of the discussion? Are there any topics that are off limits – politics, religion, or personal matters?

A doctor from Rhode Island just found out the hard way that patient privacy is definitely not a topic that should be shared publicly through social media. “Dr. Alexandra Thran, 48, was fired from the hospital last year and reprimanded by the state medical board last week. The hospital took away her privileges to work in the emergency room for posting information online about a trauma patient.” While Dr Thran’s post did not actually include the patient’s name, apparently enough facts were included for others in the community to properly identify the individual.

While this may seem obvious to some, to others discussing their daily grind is a normal routine. There can be a lot of gray area for appropriate content. There comes a time when common sense should prevail. If you are not sure about something you are about to post, you probably shouldn’t be clicking submit. I’ve often thought about launching the social media hall of shame – to showcase social media bloopers and blunders. They are everyday occurrences. Just a few years ago the biggest concern was clicking “reply all” to an email. Now a simple post or tweet has trumped the old school email.

There is a lot to be learned from this Rhode Island case. I’m sure much of the healthcare industry is taking note and working to implement training programs and education for appropriate use of social media. With liability concerns, health privacy issues (HIPAA), and reputation there is a lot at stake for health facilities. It’ll be interesting to see how other healthcare institutions react to this occurrence.

March 24, 2011

Creating customer loyalty and retention with mobile applications

Mobile application development Customer satisfaction and retention is the underlying goal of most businesses. A happy customer that buys repeatedly from you and perhaps even acts as a reference or ambassador on your behalf is invaluable. How do you effectively monitor or stimulate this behavior?

While there are a number of traditional methods to reward and retain customers, new technology is providing a number of innovative formats. Mobile applications and even web compliant websites can be a powerful way of monitoring and rewarding loyal customers. Imagine pushing highly targeted specials or promotions to regional customers based on their location or buying patterns? Companies right here in Buffalo are embracing new technology as effective branding and marketing tools.

This trend is influenced by the escalating statistics of smartphone users who are the target of mobile marketing. Digital advertising is projected to reach the $1.1 billion mark by the end of the year and over $2.5 billion by 2014. This is an opportunity for businesses to reach a much more diverse demographic audience and influence their purchasing decisions, all happening in real time.

According to Gartner, by the end of 2013, 12.5% of all ecommerce transactions will be undertaken from mobile devices and context-aware data based on location or personal user profiles will be used to validate 90% of them.

William Clark, a research vice president at the firm, said: “Enterprises that want to remain competitive in electronic commerce over the next five years should begin exploring context-aware applications by year-end 2011 for both fraud detection and later on for customer acquisition and retention activities afforded by personalized and customized marketing and advertising information.”

For both small and large businesses the challenge is implementing an effective strategy to compete in this mobile space. Since many small businesses rely on regional customers, GPS and other social networking tools are available to help identify and reach prospects. Voice of the customer (VOC) is a powerful vehicle to gain valuable feedback on your products and services which can directly lead to quality improvements and enhanced features. These types of customer satisfaction surveys and suggestion features can all be deployed through a custom mobile application. These are immediate ways to capture and analyze essential information. More importantly this data can be harnessed to better serve and reward customers.

According to the JiWire Mobile Audience Insight Report, location-based ads and marketing are soaring, and it’s also the key factor that’s compelling people to shop online with their mobile phones. This is why many large companies are jumping onboard to take advantage of the trend. Facebook, for example is a recent supporter of location-based mobile marketing. However, a recent Microsoft survey sees that a part of the location-based trend is an opening to several forms of private data exploitation such as identity theft.

Early adopters of mobile technology are seeing immediate results. Furthermore, they are providing convenient methods for customers and prospects to express themselves and stay connected. As companies discover innovative uses of mobile technology, they can help differentiate their services, reinforce corporate culture, and build long-term customer loyalty.

March 15, 2011

Creating your social media strategy

Create your roadmap Is it wise to start a business endeavor without a plan? Most people wouldn’t build an office before they determined what their business would actually do. Without a strategy there is simply no structure, no clear objectives and no real way of determining its success.

The same principles apply to social media. Establishing a roadmap with clear objectives can help you determine the success or failure of your program. For example, what is your business trying to achieve through social media? Is it to:

Interact with customers and prospects
Increase visibility and strengthen your brand
Reach new audiences
Create loyalty
Deal with customer service and support issues
Boost revenue

Regardless of what you decide, you should plan to create measurable metrics for your social media program. These types of statistics, if tracked properly, can help to measure and monetize the results of your social media campaigns. Let’s say, for example, you have a small business and your goal is to interact with customers and prospects. In this case, you’ll want to define what would constitute success. For instance, the number of:

Completed customer satisfaction surveys per month
New features suggested by users (that are implemented)
People who post something about us
Blogs that link to us

There are a variety of criteria which you can use to measure progress. The idea is to define relevant success metrics that translate into meaningful business context for you. For example quantitative metrics may include number of sales, new leads, new qualified subscribers, while qualitative could track satisfaction levels, loyalty, visibility, amount of interaction, feedback. For qualitative goals, don’t get too complex, use simple rules as metrics.

Set your social media campaign goals based on these metrics. Monitor often and course correct as necessary. Don’t expect to get it right the first time, but by establishing benchmarks you can filter out channels and strategies that don’t return good results. Trial and error can be your best ally in discovering where to focus the most energy.

February 16, 2011

waveSpawn selected as a Finalist for the Rookie of the Year BETA Award

waveSpawn was recently announced as a Finalist for the Rookie of the Year Award for the 2011 BETA Awards! BETA is an acronym for Buffalo/Niagara Emerging Technology Awards. The annual awards are hosted by infoTech Niagara – who recognize the “best and brightest in Western New York’s technology sector”. Since 1998 infoTech Niagara has worked hard in supporting the WNY IT Community through networking, professional development, training and more.

The 2011 BETA awards will be held on March 23rd at the Buffalo Convention Center. waveSpawn is honored to be among the selected finalists. We are looking forward to a fun-filled evening. Many thanks to our customers and the infoTech Niagara association. term paper buy online

January 17, 2011

Data giant Experian buys into social media

Experian, who is best known for being a credit referencing agency, has just acquired a social media agency in England. It would appear there are at least two strategic initiatives in which Experian would benefit.

The first is to strengthen its own presence in the digital marketing space. With competition heating up between Equifax, TransUnion, Fair Isaac, and a number of online data services, Experian is looking to create a stronger brand identity and more closely connect with its customers. By leveraging a number of online tools and mobile channels, Experian will be able to make their services available in a number of new formats – while reaching a demographic of new prospective customers.

The second advantage is in the data harvesting business. Experian has a marketing services division, which provides businesses with data about shoppers’ buying habits and internet consumption trends. It is this competitive intelligence that arguably has more appeal than strengthening the brand. The more unique content and personal information they can access, the stronger the competitive advantage they create for themselves.

This concept starts to blur the boundaries between social media content and privacy concerns. While the short-term goal is most likely to expand their online marketing network, it’s only logical that aggregating new types of social media content would be a natural extension. Let’s be honest, this is valuable information that many companies are willing to pay a premium for. Knowing your customer and more importantly, where to reach them online is pure gold.

October 23, 2010

Michelangelo painting in Buffalo worth $300 million?

Michelangelo painting in Buffalo

Can the painting found behind a couch in Western New York really be worth $300 million? While Martin Kober has been trying to authenticate the work of art for years, his family has known all along that it is was created by the Renaissance master, Michelangelo. In his quest, Mr Kober was able to contact renowned Italian art historian Antonio Forcellino. After a careful review and scientific analysis, Forcellino concluded “I am totally certain that this is a Michaelangelo.”

It’s truly a remarkable story to think that this type of masterpiece could simply be collecting dust in someone’s living room. Apparently it was placed there after it was knocked off the wall back in the 1970’s by a stray tennis ball. It’s hard not to be captivated by this news. Imagine buying an old house and finding a painting like this stored away in the attic? It clearly makes you realize that there still are hidden gems out there.

Kober stated that the oil painting was willed to his great grand father’s sister-in-law, who transported the painting to America in 1883. It is now being kept in a bank vault. While there has not been an official disclosure as to the value of this painting, estimates have ranged as high as $300 million. Not too shabby for a family heirloom. That’s even better than winning the lottery. Within the next few years, Kober hopes to have the painting restored and on display in exhibitions in Rome and Florence.

September 27, 2010

Reinforcing your value proposition with social media marketing

Well thought out sales and marketing plans are critical for most small businesses. There are many strategies to leverage in order to meet specific revenue goals. However, decision-makers should not lose sight of establishing a unique value proposition which clearly differentiates the product or service from competitors.

What differentiates you from your competitors? Why should prospects buy from you or utilize your services? These are the types of questions that you need to answer before generating your sales and marketing plan. Your value proposition should support your brand. As discussed in an earlier topic, your brand is the personality that identifies your product, service or company. Specifically, this image should represent the heart and soul of your organization as it relates to your customers, employees, partners, and investors.

If you don’t focus on your unique value proposition, you’re likely to get lost in the shuffle with your competitors. Understand what makes you better and use it to your advantage. This could be customer service, quality, cost, innovation, a niche market, core competency, or something else. Incorporate that same strategy into everything you do – including both internal and external communication. Consistency in your message will help establish a clear vision. More importantly it’ll define who you are.

Ultimately, you want customers and prospects to recognize you for something – best quality, lowest price, fastest delivery, most helpful, dependable, etc. That same competitive advantage should be leveraged in your marketing and communications strategy – including social media. Social media offers endless innovative and creative possibilities for businesses to exploit. Learn how to leverage these tools to your advantage. Know your target audience, share your value proposition, and consistent follow-through are all keys to your success.

September 10, 2010

Flash coming soon to iPhones and iPads

Flash coming soon to iPhone After an antitrust investigation by the FTC and increasing competition from other mobile devices (such as Google’s Android), Apple has “decided” to relax their programming restrictions for third parties. Even though this sounds voluntary, Apple was certainly under pressure to comply.

So what does this mean? Essentially Adobe is now resuming its work on developing a version of Flash technology suitable for the iPhone and iPad devices. It had put those efforts on hold back in April when Apple placed severe restrictions on third party applications. This should come as good news for Apple users. Having additional functionality, such as Flash, will help to stay competitive in the rapidly changing space. As an iPhone user, why should I be limited because of a personal grudge between two CEOs? Get over it Jobs… let’s move on!

Downstream, this decision will also create new marketing opportunities. Since Flash applications are currently being utilized by ad agencies and media sites, they’ll eventually have the infrastructure to expand these campaigns to mobile devices. While some devices already support this technology, advertisers generally want to expand their reach without limitations. While it’s difficult to predict where this will lead, with Apple and Jobs in the mix, it should be an entertaining journey.

August 10, 2010

Steven Slater, don’t spill that beer

Steven Slater, don’t spill that beer It seems that “former” Jet Blue employee, Steven Slater, shoveled about as much crap as one can take in 20 years in the airline business. As you’ve probably heard by now, this all escalated to a dramatic reaction by Mr. Slater in response to a non-compliant passenger. Apparently the passenger failed to listen to the instructions by Mr. Slater to remain seated until the plane completed taxing. Furthermore, as the passenger retrieved a bag from storage, the luggage struck Mr. Slater in the head. After an exchange of expletives, Mr. Slater helped himself to a cold beer then jumped down the emergency exit slide to head home for the day. Wow, that’s going out in style. It’s similar to Fred Flintstone sliding down the dinosaur after 8 hours of pounding rocks. It probably felt good.

We’ve all had rough days – where we’ve wanted to take matters into our own hands. That’s exactly what Steven Slater did. He was fed up with the nonsense, spoke his mind, grabbed a refreshing beverage, and then stormed out. Maybe his behavior was extreme, but it seems that many people can relate. Steven is instantly becoming an internet sensation for his efforts. His Facebook page already has 50,000 fans. Clearly people understand his frustration.

Whether you agree with Steven’s reaction or not, most people have witness an irate customer who just doesn’t listen. They seem to annoy everyone around them. It’ll be interesting to see how Jet Blue responds to this issue. While I don’t know the specific details, I must admit, it’s pretty entertaining. We’ll all be watching to see how much support and money will be raised for Steven.

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