Category: E-Business

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Top Interactive Marketing Tips 2011

We hope you’ve had a great year following our tips! According to our analytics, our readers and clients were most interested in learning about the latest trends in social media and e-communications – and how to apply them to their business. Here’s to more of the same in 2012!

#1 – Social Media Management: Facebook ‘recommends you create a page instead’ of groups for businesses
Social Media ManagementThree things you can do to avoid losing your community of supporters to Facebook’s archive. According to Facebook, the archiving process will involve converting all old groups to the new group format–but without several key functions and content. For example, old groups will lose members and will not show ‘recent news’ or information about the group’s network and branding.

#2 – Social Media and Business:  Twitter – How Startbucks Use Twitter
Social Media and BusinessThe fact is, you can’t stop people from using social media to say good or bad things about your business or organization, but if you are a part of the conversation you can clarify misconceptions, learn from accurate criticisms, and show off the positive buzz.

#3 – Email Marketing: Spirit Airlines Jumps on Hard to Resist ‘Weiner’ Keyword – Should You?
Email MarketingWhile U.S. Congressman Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) colleagues were busy rebuking him, Spirit Airlines’ marketing team were busy launching their “Want To See Our Weiner?” e-mail marketing campaign – all puns intended.
#4 – Social Media and Product Improvement: How Realtime Tech Can Highlight and Fix Biz Failures; Bikeshare review
Social Media and Product ImprovementThanks to technology, businesses and organizations function in a real-time information environment. Feedback on your brand’s reach, influence and performance is broadcast across the globe 24-hours a day in an endless news cycle fueled by social media.
#5 – Social Media and Crisis Management: How and Why BlackBerry Turned to Social Media
Social Media and Crisis ManagementBlackBerry needed to manage the 24-hour news cycle driven by social networks to assure their customers that a fix was in progress. Their best bet was to join the conversation and use their own social media networks to engage their customers. Twitter,Facebook and YouTube were all used by RIM/BlackBerry to keep customers abreast with the company’s efforts to restore service – here’s how and why!

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Website & Mobile Sites

Need a Website or a mobile site? We’re here to help. We have over 10 years experience delivering Websites for clients large and small. We’ve got a Website for almost every budget with a CMS to match.

Maroon Interactive will design, host, and maintain your Website as well as apply the latest SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to keep your Website ahead of the competition. We’ll help you create a Web and mobile presence that match your budget, brand and goals.

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Social Media Marketing and Engagement

Find New Customers. Did you know your customers are spending most of their online time in social networks? Help your customers spread the word about your business by establishing a social media presence. We’ll help you identify which social network is right for your business and help you craft an effective strategy for engaging current customers and finding new ones.

Engage Current Customers. Web and mobile applications are powerful marketing tools that can help your current customers tell their friends about your business. We’ll match the best tools with your business to help you reach your sales and marketing goals. Focus on running your business while we focus on generating referrals and extending your brand. Call us, we’ll show you how!

Social Network Management. Looking for someone to manage your business’ social networks? Call us! We’ll help you create comprehensive and effective communication plans, broadcast your messages/tweets, and provide useful reports to demonstrate your ROI.

We specialize in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Ning and Google+ – Call us today!

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Search Engine Marketing and Optimization

Did you know that more than half your customers conduct an online research before buying your product or service? Whether your business is Web based or a traditional brick and mortar store, we’ll connect your business with customers in your neighborhood and beyond through search engine marketing. You set the budget, we’ll generate the leads. Call us for details.

We have over 10 years of experience in online marketing and paid media management. Our services include ad design, ad trafficking, campaign optimization, customer targeting and reporting. Our specialty include Google Search, Microsoft Search – Bing, Facebook and LinkedIn. Call us for details.

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How YouTube Killed Klickable TV

It has only been 3 years since Klickable TV‘s Founders Roger Wu and Emily Gannett presented their great idea to the world – a user-friendly platform where users can add clickable hotspots to their videos regardless of where they were hosted. Sadly, today Roger Wu sent an email to Klickable’s beta subscribers saying that Klickable TV will soon be no more… unless some else decides to buy the site.

According to Wu –

“We have had offers to purchase the site / technology / users and are open to other offers and proposals from those of you that know the product the best.  Therefore, if you are interested in the site and our users, please let me know as soon as possible.”

Klickable’s business model seemed pretty solid – the service was free but ran ads, subscribers can pay-up to run their own ads and more importantly access great analytics about their videos reach and impact to their bottom-line; they even had some big user endorsements from The Rachel Ray Show and Jay-Z’s Rocawear brand.

So what could be contributing to the demise of this little company with a great idea? If YouTube is a part of your social media marketing plan, you should thank Klickable for some of the great features YouTube now offer account holders. The truth is, as Klickable gained traction, market leader YouTube simply applied all of Klickable’s great ideas to their platform. As a result, YouTube account holders can now add captions, ads, and clickable links (that takes viewers from videos to any Website) to the videos they upload.

So why would anyone want to buy Klickable? Well, their application works on pretty much any platform – not just YouTube and let’s face it, you cant click on a link on your TV… at least not exactly.

We certainly hope you’ve been using some of cool features Klickable and YouTube have for marketers. Here’s to wishing the folks at Klickable continued success!

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Online Donations – What to Expect

If you run a non-profit organization, by this time of year you should be shoulder-deep in soliciting donations to keep your projects going – if not, there is still time!

Network for Good (a major hub for non-profit giving that distributes over $350 million in online donations to more than 45,000 different nonprofits organizations) recently shared some great information that I think should help non-profit organizations (small and large) understand what to expect from their donation campaigns this giving season.

The best news is that giving has gone mainstream – in 2001 the average online gift (through Network for Good’s platform) was $226 – today it’s $73. It’s not that people are giving less, but that more people are giving and mostly in smaller amounts than in 2001. For example, today 65% of Americans give online – compared to just 4% of Americans in 2001.

It’s a great time to raise funds for a worthy cause. Here are three articles to get you started on your donation campaigns:

1. Non-profit fundraising – from email to donation form
Four great take-aways for anyone using email to get visitors to give through online donation forms… Read more »

2. How to craft emails and other communication
If you are sending “e-blasts” to your customers or supporters – please, stop doing it now. This outdated style of email marketing has the same results as fax broadcasts of… Read more »

3. Give your donation campaigns the holiday spirit
…come up with cleaver ways to engage your audience, pair your brand with the festivities, and present an opportunity to convert your audience to customers… Read more »

Good luck – and remember to share this resource with your friends!

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How to Use Twitter to Promote Events

Over 200 million folks use Twitter to keep up with brands, each other, snark, and a wide range of topics. Twitter is also great for promoting – and organizing events (as evidenced by TweetUps). Planning a conference, concert or a book signing?  Adding Twitter to your marketing plan can help boost your guest list.

If you already have a presence on Twitter, here are three tips for using Twitter to get word out about your event (if you don’t have a Twitter presence, start here) –

1. Location, location, location – target your locals
Tweeting your event to the universe and hoping the right person will see it is not the way to go. Use hashtags to include your tweets in searches for your event’s city or venue. For example, if you are hosting an event at the 9:30 Club in Washington DC, your tweet could look something like this: “Who’s coming to the Thievery Corp show at the #930club? Tix still available. #WashingtonDC.”

2. Partnerships – friends influencing @friends
If your invited guests are using Twitter, partner with them to promote the event – the more popular they are, the better. Guests that have a strong following (speakers, musicians, authors etc.) can be great ambassadors for your event  – get them to share details of the event via Twitter and their other networks. Got performers? Target their followers by mentioning them in your tweets  – and don’t foget to use hastags.

3. Promo basics – what’s in your goodie bag?
It doesn’t matter what type of event you are tasked with promoting or where you’re promoting it; follow the basics! Give your prospects an incentive to attend your event – offer rewards for registering. Teasers are also great for building a buzz about your event. Tweet “behind the scenes” photos and video interviews so prospects can get a taste of what to expect.

Follow the steps above (that are appropriate for your event) and watch your conversion rate climb. Happy promoting!

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Google+ Ready for Business Profiles

Google+ Ready for Business ProfilesGoogle is finally inviting businesses and organizations to set up profiles in their Google+ social network!

First adopters can choose to set up a business profile in one of five categories; “Local Business or Place” (e.g. Hotels, restaurants, places, stores, or services), “Product or Brand” (e.g. Apparel, cars, electronics, financial services), “Company, Institution or Organization” (e.g. Companies, organizations, institutions, non-profits), “Arts, Entertainment or Sports” (e.g. Movies, TV, music, books, sports, shows) and “Other” (e.g. pages that don’t fit any of the above categories).

Here are answers to three questions you may be asking before joining Google+ for business: Continue reading “Google+ Ready for Business Profiles”

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New Facebook Design – Timeline

facebook timeline biography cover
Facebook's new biography "cover"
Your Facebook profile is about to undergo some heavy design changes – but don’t groan, the company did their research and this time they are confident you will like it 🙂

The new layout will be called Timeline and its focus will be you. According to Facebook’s own research, users spend more time looking at their own profile than they do anything else, so Timeline will be geared towards making your profile seem more interesting to it’s primary visitor.

Timeline will be more than just a new design, the layout will provide users with an overview of their life since they joined Facebook – possibly all the way to their birth.

Let’s take a look at a few of the design elements that will frame this experience –

A Biography Cover
The first thing visitors to your profile will see is your feature cover – since every biography has a nice cover, why shouldn’t yours? The cover will appear pretty large (see above) and can be uploaded or chosen from any of your photos. The downside is that it appears so large that finding your info will require a little searching. The upside is that if you click on the cover it retracts. If Facebook implement this type of cover for business Pages it will be a great billboard for advertising products and services!

Activity Log (i.e. Chapters)
You (and other visitors) will be able to scroll through your life and Facebook activities right up to when you were born! If you forgot to add some major life event such as: ‘lost a love one’, ‘acquired a pet’, ‘bought a house’, ‘lost weight’, ‘had surgery’, was ‘diagnosed with an illness’ or ‘changed your beliefs’ – there will be a feature that will allow you to update your timeline with this information. And if you forgot to mention that you were somewhere – your friends can now add that information (and more) to your timeline as well. The downside is that it’s a lot of information. The upside is that you will have access to this information and can remove (and sometimes delete) some of it from the timeline.

selective sharing on facebook

Highlighting Important Events
It will be easier for you to control who can see the things you share on your timeline – in just a few clicks you can select the audience for any post or updates you choose to share. The new layout will also allow you to ‘star’ or highlight stories you deem important (allowing them to display differently). The downside is that there will be a lot to learn but its mostly intuitive. The upside is that it will be easier for you to manage what your ‘friends’ see in your timeline going forward.

Happy facebooking!