By Suzi Elton I learned about strategy and customer service from my mom, who had a wildly successful bakery business. We were a poor family with eight kids. My mom was a generous woman, and donated cakes to the Catholic bingos that our schools held. Her cakes were so good that people started asking her to bake for them and paying her to make cakes. The business grew, and soon we added a small addition onto the house, then a huge commercial addition. We lived in the country and people
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Three Strategies To Effective Mobile Web Design
Business owners looking to delve into mobile commerce must consider the following three strategies to effective mobile web design. They must evaluate and choose how they can provide the best consumer experience as customers view and interact with their content through a variety of mobile devices. However, transitioning to mobile marketing does not universally fit or contain all business content. There are three basic methods to incorporate mobile marketing and web design into your
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Mobile Marketing For Local Businesses With Yelp | My Local SEO Guide
Mobile Marketing For Local Businesses With Yelp
by Biggi on February 8, 2011 in Lead Generation, Location Based Marketing, Marketing Strategies, Mobile Marketing, Mobile Marketing Apps, Mobile Marketing Campaigns, Small Business Marketing
Mobile marketing for local businesses seems to be all the rage. More and more people access the web via their mobile phones, and it turns out that one third of Yelp searchers are using their mobile devices to find a business. The cool thing is that these searchers are looking to do business with you right now! (see the official Yelp statistics below)
So, just when you thought you have no clue on how to get mobile marketing for local businesses going for your small business, turns out, if your business is on Yelp, you are already heavily involved.
Now there are things you can do to improve your chances of being the chosen business. Yelp offers location-based marketing check-ins, and you could provide special offers to those that check-in at your business. Or you could also advertise a special sale or offer on Yelp.
Amplify’d from officialblog.yelp.com
Who you gonna call when you need a local business? We think we have some idea. In December 2010 alone, yelpers called a local businesses every other second — and that was just via a Yelp mobile app!
- 3.2 million unique visitors used a Yelp mobile app*
- 35% of all searches on Yelp.com came from a Yelp mobile app
- Every other second a consumer generated directions to a local business
- A photo was uploaded every 30 seconds from a Yelp mobile app
See more at officialblog.yelp.com
So, make sure to take advantage of all Yelp has to offer and all the work they have put in already to attract 45 million monthly visitors to their site and get started with mobile marketing for local businesses now!
Tags: location-based marketing, marketing, mobile marketing, Yelp
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Yelp and Google Places are a great way for small business to get started with mobile marketing.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
How To Improve Landing Page Conversion Rates with LinkTrackr A/B Split Testing
Whether you’re selling your own product online or trying to make a living as an affiliate marketer, there are two very important skills you must master if you want to get an unfair advantage over everyone else and make more money with less traffic.
Those two skills are: How to create an effective landing pageHow to split test your landing pages
Continued at http://www.johnchow.com/how-to-improve-landing-page-conversion-rates-with-linktrackr-ab-split-testing/
(My Local SEO Guide, your Dallas SEO Company uses LinkTrackr too.)
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Article: Google Kills Tags In Favor Of Boost
Google Kills Tags In Favor Of Boost
http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/15/google-kills-tags-boost/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29
Google is killing Tags, an advertising product for local businesses which allowed them to enhance their Google Maps or Places listings. For a flat $25 monthly fee, local merchants could make their their natural listings stand out a bit with a yellow tag and a few words pointing to offers, photos, menus, or links back to their website. Tags were introduced with Google Places, the search engines local listings effort, about a year ago after being tested for a few months
(via Instapaper)
Read more at http://mylocalseoguide.com/google-places-optimization-for-local-business-owners/Sent from my iPad
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
How To Rank Higher In Google Local Business Listing
How To Rank Higher In Google Local Business Listing | Google Local Listings | Optimize Your Local Business Listings | Ramit Narang
http://www.ramitnarang.com/blog/seo/five-proven-ways-to-rank-higher-in-google-local-business-listing/
Add Keywords to your Company Name and Description : If your Business Name happens to have your Keywords in them then definitely use that name in the listing. Don’t make up a new name with the keywords just for the listing. Google gives you the ability to add a description describing what services the company offers. Make sure your content has your keywords along with Location added along with the prime features. This description is used by google in calculating rankings.
(via Instapaper)
Sent from my iPad
Sunday, April 10, 2011
10 Ways To Make Your Business Blog Get Noticed
10 Ways To Make Your Business Blog Get Noticed : Technology :: American Express OPEN Forum
http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/technology/article/10-ways-to-make-your-business-blog-get-noticed-mike-michalowicz
In order for you to gain all those benefits, and more, from your blog, you must make sure it gets noticed. There are millions of businesses with blogs out there, but nobody really knows about them. If you aren’t going to take steps to get your blog noticed, spare yourself the time and investment of setting up and running one.
(via Instapaper)
Sent from my iPad
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Article: Online Marketing Case Studies For Offline Businesses
Online Marketing Case Studies For Offline Businesses
http://mylocalseoguide.com/online-marketing-case-studies-for-offline-businesses/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MyLocalSeoGuide+%28My+Local+SEO+Guide%29
This steakhouse has increased sales by 30% in one year, compared to a negative industry average of 15%. They have used various social media marketing avenues such as their own cooking blog loaded with videos and photos with links to other social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, FriendFeed, Flickr and Delicious, and their own YouTube Video Channel. Most importantly they monitor their web marketing using Google Analytics, news and alerts and use it to gain ideas to improve their products
(via Instapaper)
Sent from my iPad
Has Social Media Helped Your Business? - Website Magazine
Has Social Media Helped Your Business? - Website Magazine - Website Magazine
http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/archive/2011/04/08/has-social-media-helped-your-business.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Website-Magazine+%28Website+Magazine%29
According to the 2011 Industry Report from Social Media Examiner, 90 percent of more than 3,000 Web marketers say that social media is an important facet of their business today. Brand exposure was identified as the greatest benefit, with 88 percent of respondents citing it as a positive result of their social media campaigns.
Increased website traffic is another benefit (remember this when you get to the next paragraph), with 72 percent of the marketers claiming they gained traffic and subscribers through their social media efforts. Another advantage named by a high percentage of marketers was improved search rankings, gaining a 62-percent share of the response.
(via Instapaper)
Sent from my iPad
Friday, April 8, 2011
How To Use Social Media for Marketing Your Business
With the popularity of social media rising dramatically every year, many business owners wonder how to use social media for marketing your business. If you are one of those business owners that want to get started with social media, or simply improve your current social media marketing strategies and ROI, you should be very interested in this top notch training. Have you heard the buzz about Social Media Success Summit 2011 - the web’s largest online social media marketing
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Article: How to Hack RSS to Reduce Information Overload: Online Collaboration «
How to Hack RSS to Reduce Information Overload: Online Collaboration «
http://gigaom.com/collaboration/how-to-hack-rss-to-reduce-information-overload/
Another technique that helps me to consume information more efficiently is to modify the format of many of my RSS feeds; I bring relevant information into the headlines of the feed to make it easier to quickly scan it to determine which posts are important enough for me to click on them for more details. By bringing more details into the title, I can avoid spending time clicking to get more information. There’s an example of reformatting a Twitter RSS feed in the image to the right.
(via Instapaper)
I testing some Instapaper / Posterous magic a la Ed Dale.Sent from my iPod
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Facebook Plugin - How To Use Facebook Social Plugins
After you have learned how to make a Facebook fan page, it's time to integrate your Facebook presence with your existing website with a Facebook plugin. Below are some great Facebook social plugins, that are very easy to implement. One of the easiest ways to make your online presence more social is by adding a Facebook plugin to your website. There are many different Facebook social plugins to choose from — here are four of the top plugins for business and tips on how and when to use
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Google Places Optimization For Local Business Owners
Did you know that Google Places optimization is the easiest and fastest way to get your local business listed in the top 7 search results on any major search engine? And did you know that it is free? Yup, Google gives every small business a free website! All you have to do is claim your business' listing and do some Google Places optimization. Then, anytime someone enters local search terms into Google (search terms referring to a town or city or state or zip code), it automatically
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Mobile Local Search 2010
Below is an infographic with cool stats on mobile local search in 2010. Small businesses need to make sure their websites and marketing are ready for this mobile local revolution we are in the middle of! At My Local SEO Guide, we offer Mobile Marketing information and services for your local business.
Check out the infographic and more cool stats at biggifraley.amplify.com
Local Business Website Promotion - 6 Ways For Attracting Mobile Users
You simply can't ignore over 4 Billion mobile phone users globally - with a large part of them using smart phones like Blackberry, iPhone and Android - when it comes to your local business website promotion! The advantage of mobile phones is they are affordable, their owners always have them on hand and they are always switched on. You really can’t say the same for their personal computers. So how can a local business drive mobile phone users to their websites and businesses? Mobile
Friday, March 18, 2011
Building A Website For Mobile Devices
We have arrived in the mobile age, and building a website for mobile devices is a necessity for any business serious about staying profitable now and in the future.
I am planning on getting much more involved with mobile marketing myself and will share anything I learn with you here: http://mylocalseoguide.com/category/mobile-marketing/Amplify’d from localseoatlanta.com
Top 7 Reasons To Get A Mobile Website
For Your Small Business
1. 61% of mobile users will NEVER go back to your website (on their phone or computer!)
if they have a bad experience the first time they visit it (for example: difficult to
navigate or find the info they needed because it wasn’t optimized for mobile browsers)
2. Studies show that having a mobile-friendly site boosts overall website traffic by 13%
3. Internet traffic from mobile devices increased 110% last year in North America alone
(globally, the number was a whopping 148%)
4. Right now, more than 60% of consumers have access to the internet via their mobile phone
5. Currently, there are FOUR mobile phones for every ONE computer in the world … and
mobile phones are increasingly being used to look up local businesses on the web!
6. Low Cost, High ROI ~ Almost any local small business can afford to have a professionally made
mobile website. (Yes, even “cashflow challenged” start-up companies!) Plus, most businesses
see a 12 to 15% spike in new business within 2 to 4 weeks after launching a mobile-friendly site
7. Bragging Rights ~ Let’s be honest, being able to “show off” your cool new mobile website
to your buddies/girlfriends/colleagues, etc. is just plain fun. Aside from that though,
this is so new to small business owners that you could be the very first business
amongst your colleagues (and competitors!) with a mobile-friendly website.
See this Amp at http://bit.ly/fRvnKq
via Amplify.com
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Keyword Research For Local Business
One of the great opportunities when it comes to keyword research for local business lies in long-tail keywords. They are easier to rank for, yet much more targeted than the primary / obvious keyword choices.
So, don't make the mistake of ignoring long-tail keywords when search engine optimizing your local business website.Amplify’d from blog.hubspot.com
1. Not Using Long-Tail Keywords
Think you have fully optimized your website for local search? Well, you’d better have long-tail keywords throughout the on-page SEO elements of your site. Long-tail keywords are specific phrases describing your business, such as “bakery Cambridge MA” or “spa deals in Boston.” Make sure to tie together your industry name and location in your page titles, Meta tags and descriptions, Alt tags and headers. Adding long-tail keywords to these on-page SEO essentials will increase your chances of showing up in major search engines.
See this Amp at http://bit.ly/gVZ3IJ
via Amplify.com
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Online Marketing Case Studies For Offline Businesses
We can always get inspired and understand things better by reading success stories of other people we can identify with and that’s why I decided to round up a few online marketing case studies about fellow local business owners who have successfully boosted their business even in this time of recession. Caminito Argentinian Steakhouse, Northampton MA This steakhouse has increased sales by 30% in one year, compared to a negative industry average of 15%. They have used various social media
Friday, March 11, 2011
How To Make A Facebook Fan Page
Here's a step-by-step guide on how to make a Facebook fan page for your business. Setup is relative simple, once you know where to look. While there are many advanced design options for your Facebook fan page, this guide shows you the basics of how to make a Facebook fan page. Creating a fan page for your business will give you huge opportunity to spread your message, brand your business, relate to and interact with your customers and prospects, and drive traffic back to your own
Search Engine Optimization Strategies
Here are some great organic search engine optimization strategies for 2011 that you may have missed - directly from the horse's mouth.
Amplify’d from www.prelovac.com
1. Website Optimization
Page loading time is a factor in Google rankings. Studies show it also affects visitor behavior on the site (faster site = more sales).
2. Internal linking
Use relevant keywords for internal linking. Be consistent with internal linking, and do not lose opportunities. Check your links for 404 errors.
3. Social Media Marketing
It is not Search Engine Optimization vs Social Media Marketing - the two work in synergy. Spreading good content on Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon creates natural link building possibilities.
See this Amp at http://bit.ly/eSBuxX
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Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Foursquare 3.0 - Explore and Engage
Foursquare 3.0 just released. Foursquare is a location based service that I highly recommend every brick-and-mortar business to use.
The new features will let more people find your business and allow you to engage with patrons.Amplify’d from mashable.com
New Recommendation Engine
The Foursquare user will immediately begin to see the value of the checkin in the new Explore tab. The Explore tab, which sits where the Tips tab once was, now serves as the meat of the application. Here, users can query for recommendations or dive into food, coffee, nightlife, shops and arts and entertainment recommendations served up by Foursquare and ranked by what’s most interesting to the user.
Version 3.0 also reemphasizes points, which have faded over time. Points have been resurfaced and fancied up in the Me tab because the startup has introduced a new points system that aims to better encourage user behavior. There’s now 30 different triggers for points, says Crowley, and the leaderboard is more focused on friends.
New Merchant Features
There will soon be seven special types available to merchants: Check-in Specials, Friend Specials, Flash Specials (e.g. the first 10 people to show up after 5 p.m. get a free drink), Swarm Specials, Newbie Specials, Mayor Specials and Loyalty Specials. Foursquare will reveal more details in the days ahead, but the startup is introducing these new special types to respond to merchant demand.
See this Amp at http://bit.ly/gGjBLO
via Amplify.com
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Facebook Marketing Tips
Following are some simple Facebook marketing tips that should definitely be a part of your overall strategy to get traffic and opt-in subscribers.
Note: http://mylocalseoguide.com offers custom designed Facebook fan pages for businesses, entrepreneurs and celebrities that can help you build your fan base and / or your opt-in list and more.Amplify’d from www.johnchow.com
5 Ways to Make Money with Facebook
We all know that the money is in the list. This tip is used by John Chow himself. On the John Chow dot com Facebook page you can opt-in to his list and get a free copy of his book Make Money Online.
Although there are apps like RSS Graffiti that automate posts from your RSS to your Facebook wall I like to post to my Facebook page manually so that I can optimize the image that I use and the description of my post as well.
See this Amp at http://bit.ly/i5cYbQ
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Monday, March 7, 2011
Facebook Mobile Marketing - Get Ready!
Yet another indication that mobile is the future: Facebook acquires mobile marketing app Beluga.
There's still time to get your website mobile ready with http://mylocalseoguide.comAmplify’d from www.facebook.com
In case you haven't heard of Beluga, it's a mobile app
and web service for sending group messages--
But users of Beluga know it's a LOT more than that,
and apparently, Facebook sees something big in it,
too. They acquired Beluga this past week for an
undisclosed amount.
Like plain-text SMS, sending with Beluga is instant -
but with a twist--
Using Beluga, you can send group messages and
notifications that display rich media, images, even
maps.
How Facebook plans to incorporate Beluga is not yet
known.
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/btfam
via Amplify.com
Friday, March 4, 2011
How To Promote Your Facebook Fan Page
Following are a few tips on how to promote your Facebook fan page offline. Yup, I said offline, a method all too often forgotten.
You first need a unique URL to promote. If you have enough fans already and have been able to name your fan page, you can simply use facebook.com/pagename (replacing pagename with the name of your page). If you still haven't been able to name your page, you could register a domain name like businessnameonfacebook (again replacing businessname with your business' name) and forward it to your Facebook fan page. Next watch the video below to get some ideas on how to promote your Facebook fan page offline.Amplify’d from www.hubze.com
Offline Marketing Tips for your Fan Page
See more at www.hubze.com
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bsuou
via Amplify.com
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Mobile Marketing Campaigns - Simple And Effective
Here are some simple and effective ideas for running mobile marketing campaigns for your local business.
When you are ready to implement mobile marketing into your business contact me at http://mylocalseoguide.comAmplify’d from www.marketingbestpractices.com
7 Traits of Successful Mobile Marketing Campaigns
You've heard all this mobile stuff and are thinking about running a mobile marketing campaign. Before you do, you’ll want to make sure your campaign has these 7 traits.
A mobile-enabled website makes it easy for customers to browse websites on mobile devices. If your site is not mobile ready, users will have to pinch, zoom, and scroll all over your site.
One in three mobile searches has local intent. Virtually all new smartphones come with GPS.
Successful mobile campaigns tie into the marketing plan of the company. You have to tell people about it. Put the promotion on your website, newsletter, Facebook, etc.
Trait 4: Timely
You can engage your customer as soon as something comes up.
Having interaction and getting users involved will dramatically increase results. Sweepstakes, polls, and contests have all been used successfully to build customer lists.
To encourage people to opt-in to your offer, give them a good reason. Present them an exclusive special. An example would be "Text FREE to 12345 for a free cup of coffee."
Successful mobile marketing campaigns ask for permission. They’re transparent and also inform the user that additional data or text messaging charges may apply. They must also tell the user how they can be removed from the list.
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bs75n
via Amplify.com
Friday, February 25, 2011
Google Recipe Search - Rich Snippets Recipes
In addition to videos, images, news and some other type of searches, Google has introduced the new Google recipe search.
This search relies on rich snippets, a microformat for certain types of information like people, events, reviews, products and recipes. These are basically tags attached to that type of information that allows search engines to easily recognize and index it. Large websites like Epicurious and The Food Network are already using rich snippets for their recipes, but it's certainly not too late for smaller recipe sites to incorporate. You can read all about rich snippets and find tools and tips for implementation at http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/topic.py?topic=21997Amplify’d from www.wired.com
Google Recipe Search Cooks Up Next Gen of Search
The Recipe feature will show up in the left side bar, underneath other so-called vertical searches such as Shopping, News, Images and Videos, and gives searchers options to refine results: such as finding a red curry recipe, then specifying one that has less than 300 calories and includes red peppers.
But the real innovation is in the background: the entire search is built on structured data that webmasters have built into their webpages using markup code that’s invisible to humans but is extremely useful to machines. The dream of the so-called semantic web is built upon the idea that web pages will be full of such underlying tags so that search engines can parse a webpage to learn someone’s e-mail address or know exactly what a restaurant’s operating hours are by scanning underlying code invisible in the browser.
The dream of a structured web has proven nearly impossible to create in practice as it requires coordination on building specs and then that web page builders take the time to mark their pages up in complicated XML. A more grassroots effort, known as Microformats, has had more success by focusing on just a few kinds of data and making innovative use of HTML, the lingua franca of the web, to simplify publishing meta-data. Google introduced its own suggestions of how websites could start publishing Google-friendly meta-data in 2009 (such as how many stars a rating is), with its so-called Rich Snippets.
So for instance, Google is able to show a searcher only Pho recipes that use tofu that take less than a half an hour to make, not by searching for pages that include the word “Pho” and “Tofu” and “Recipe”, but by actually knowing that a recipe for something called “Pho” has an ingredient “Tofu” and a listed cooking time of 1 hour (for example, the is done after publisher’s wrapping the word “1 Hour” in a defined HTML tag ()and then interpreting that in the search results ).
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/brqwd
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Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Mobile Website Design - Best Practices
If you have been wondering what the best practices for mobile website design are, here are some good starting points.
It is important to be very clear on two things: your customers objective, and your company's objective. So, you basically start with the desired outcome, and then work backwards from there.Amplify’d from 60secondmarketer.com
Mobile Website Best Practices
One of the first things your business should determine when designing your mobile website is what is the main activity that you want visitors to take or what is the most important information they want from you. Your mobile website should not incorporate all of the functionality and content of your traditional website. If you try to do this, your mobile site will be difficult to navigate and probably take forever to load.
To summarize the aforementioned best practices for mobile website design:
- Focus on the customer – Design your mobile website around what your customers are currently doing most often on your standard website.
- Keep the layout simple and the content succinct – You want your mobile website to be easily and quickly read on a range of mobile devices.
- Use a scrolling feature – Making your mobile visitors click through multiple pages is not a good idea.
- Don’t use tons of graphics or Flash – Use of large graphics files or advanced media will slow down your mobile website to a crawl.
- Test! Test! Test! – Did we mention you should test your mobile website?
- For an example of a very well designed and thought out mobile website, read about Penny Saver USA’s new mobile site
See this Amp at http://bit.ly/dKKI8c
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Friday, February 18, 2011
WordPress SEO Plugin Review
This is a great article review on WordPress SEO Plugins.
Please note that you won't need to install all 8 plugins, as some are very similar in function, like All in One SEO Pack, SEO Ultimate (which I am using on http://mylocalseoguide.com), and Platinum SEO Pack. I had not come across SEO Rank Reporter before, and am glad I found it. There's no way you can optimize your site's SEO or traffic, without tracking how your website is performing for your chosen keywords, as well as the ones you didn't even know you were ranking for but that bring you traffic. I will be installing it on my site this weekend and see how it does.Amplify’d from sixrevisions.com
3. SEO Ultimate
These WordPress plugins will give your WordPress site a complete SEO overhaul. Installing them and getting to understand each plugin’s inner workings may take some time, but it is worth it to know how each plugin can benefit your site. When used correctly, your content will be more visible, potentially attracting additional traffic consisting of your target audience.
See this Amp at http://bit.ly/fzF9ny
via Amplify.com
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
6 Small Business Blogging Tips
Here are 6 small business blogging tips with a few important steps to take, once you've set up your business blog on WordPress. Below is a sneak peek. Make sure to click through to the article for all six tips. They are easy to implement!
Amplify’d from smallbiztrends.com
You’ve taken the plunge. You’ve finally accepted just how powerful a blog can be to your small business and made the decision to add a WordPress blog to your site. You’re even working hard cracking out some small business blog ideas that will help you build thought leadership, connect with potential customers, and answer common questions. Now what do you do?
Before you even write your first post there are few things you’ll want to knock off your To Do list on your brand new WordPress blog. Below are six simple tweaks small business owners can make to their blogs today to ensure they’re stepping out on the right foot and optimizing the findability of their blog to customers.
See this Amp at http://bit.ly/hi8bGV
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Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Mobile Marketing For Local Businesses With Yelp
Mobile marketing for local businesses seems to be all the rage. More and more people access the web via their mobile phones, and it turns out that one third of Yelp searchers are using their mobile devices to find a business. The cool thing is that these searchers are looking to do business with you right now! (see the official Yelp statistics below)
So, just when you thought you have no clue on how to get mobile marketing for local businesses going for your small business, turns out, if your business is on Yelp, you are already heavily involved. Now there are things you can do to improve your chances of being the chosen business. Yelp offers location-based marketing check-ins, and you could provide special offers to those that check-in at your business. Or you could also advertise a special sale or offer on Yelp.Amplify’d from officialblog.yelp.com
Who you gonna call when you need a local business? We think we have some idea. In December 2010 alone, yelpers called a local businesses every other second -- and that was just via a Yelp mobile app!
- 3.2 million unique visitors used a Yelp mobile app*
- 35% of all searches on Yelp.com came from a Yelp mobile app
- Every other second a consumer generated directions to a local business
- A photo was uploaded every 30 seconds from a Yelp mobile app
See this Amp at http://bit.ly/hLwzNY
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Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Creating A Facebook Fan Page For Your Business Just Got Easier
Creating a Facebook fan page was a little daunting until just a few days ago, when Facebook made it much easier to make a Facebook fan page for your business.
Not only was it difficult to figure out what category to use for your business, you really had to read up quite a bit to get started. No more! A simple, intuitive graphical interface makes it easy to get started with your Facebook fan page design. The choices are very clear and you won't make a mistake when choosing the type of page you want to create. Even better is the option for local businesses to create a Facebook places listing for their business at the same time they create their fan page. This is such an outstanding opportunity to market your business for free. Don't miss it!Amplify’d from www.allfacebook.com
The new starter subsite has a visual guide that shows newbies exactly how a page will be named and classified on the site. Icons depict the different groupings of pages that new admins can select from to start creating a page.
Behind this the easier-to-use interface is a more detailed categorization scheme that makes sure new pages show up in the right place on the site.
The new interface also includes the opportunity to supply a current address for a local business that people would be able to check into using the geolocation service Places.
See this Amp at http://bit.ly/eMJ3jv
via Amplify.com
Friday, January 28, 2011
Using Social Media for Business
Here's an interesting case study on how a restaurant owner was using social media for his business.
If you are a local business owner, don't underestimate the power of location-based services like Foursquare. If you are a brick-and-mortar business, Foursquare should definitely be a part of your social media toolbox. Good news: Foursquare recently introduced business pages that allow even businesses / brands without a store-front to be part of its services. Check it out here: http://foursquare.com/business/Amplify’d from blog.hubspot.com
How do you attract a flash mob of 150+ people to your restaurant? Offer the possibility of a Foursquare Swarm Badge, of course!
Last week, restaurant owner Joe Sorge attracted 161 Foursquare users at the same time to his burger joint in Milwaukee, AJ Bombers (pretty impressive considering there are approximately only 300-400 total Foursquare users in the area). Even more impressive is the fact that the restaurant more than doubled its typical Sunday sales, with an increase of 110% that day.
So how did he do it? If you haven't heard, Foursquare is a location-based mobile app that has been growing in popularity. Using the service, people "check in" at locations and earn badges based on a variety of factors, including frequency of check-ins, etc. In order to attract people to his restaurant to raise money for the Milwaukee Social Media Community to host an event at popular interactive conference South by Southwest (SXSW), Joe promoted the possibility of restaurant-goers earning the coveted Swarm Badge, which is awarded to users who check in at a location where over 50 other users are checked into at the same time. As a result, the restaurant raised over $500 toward the SXSW meetup.
This case study is a great example of business owners harnessing the power of social media sites and applications to attract customers. It's also testament to the growing power of location-based mobile applications. Joe paid attention to his customers to learn more about them, discovered their growing interest in Foursquare, then did his research about how he could take advantage of the new trend. The result was a carefully and successfully implemented promotion that afforded him new customers and additional buzz (and -- you guessed it -- the opportunity to create more content).
The lesson here is simple: Using social media for business works. Stay on top of and understand the latest trends, and most importantly -- be creative! Think about innovative ways you can use these applications to generate traffic to your website and/or your physical store. See a complete foursquare badge list to come up with your own badge promotion ideas.
See this Amp at http://bit.ly/heA3nL
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