E David Callender Consulting » Social Networking

Useful Facebook Places Articles

Dave Callender — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 13:26:47 +0000

If you read my post from yesterday (Time for Small Businesses to invest in Facebook?) I think that this may finally be a marketing opportunity for many small businesses. Below are some of the articles I found to research my investigation:

How to use Facebook Places

Facebook’s How to Video
A Field Guide to Using Facebook Places
Keep Facebook Places From Driving You Crazy

Marketing Opportunities of Facebook Places

Three ways business can take advantage of Facebook Places
What Facebook ‘Places’ Means for Marketers and Developers

Competitors & Partners – Facebook Places

The Dark Side to Facebook Places

How to Almost Sabotage a Dinner Party With Facebook ‘Places’

Moms are a key market for Socail Networking

Dave Callender — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:12:11 +0000

If your products or services are of interest to women with children at home engage them on online social networks.

Retail Advertising and Marketing Association says that Moms are more likely to use Facebook (60.3%), MySpace (42.4%) and Twitter (16.5%) than average adults (50.2%, 34.4%, 15.0%, respectively), according to the survey conducted by BigResearch. In addition, 15.3% maintain their own blog.

“Retailers who aren’t engaging customers through social media could be missing the boat,” said Mike Gatti, executive director for RAMA, a division of the National Retail Federation. “Twitter, Facebook and blogs are becoming increasingly popular with moms as they search for coupons or deals and keep in touch with loved ones. The web provides efficient, convenient ways for brands to stay in front of their most loyal shoppers and attract new ones.”

On a scale of one to five, when asked what types of promotions most influence their purchases, product samples in the store (3.8), product samples delivered to home (3.6), loyalty cards (3.5), and special displays (3.4) rank as favorites.

Nine out of ten (93.6%) mothers regularly or occasionally seek the advice of others before buying a service or product, according to the survey. And 97.2% said they give advice to others about those products or services they purchased.

This points out again how key internet reviews are for bringing customers into your business.

Bike Shops – Use a blog to show your passion

Dave Callender — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 11:14:57 +0000

OK – You have taken the time and you have a great website for your bike shop. It has great information about your products, services, technical information and events. But how do you show your passion or expertise for cycling. The answer is your blog. A bike shop blog can be fun, build your reputation both locally & afar, and most importantly bring more customers to your website and shop.

Here is an example. At El Camino Bike Shop their blog both highlights the shops interest in 29er mountain bikes and the expertise of one of its owners, Will Schillenger (Otherwise know as 29er guy). The blog gets about approximately 40 to 60% of the traffic of the shops main website, and by linking product information from the blog to the store website drives traffic to the store. El Camino Bike Shop has seen customers out of their normal geographic region call and make the trip to El Camino Bike Shop to purchase products because of their blog.

El Camino Bike Shop website
El Camino Bike Shop Blog

Advertising Age says you are the Social Network you use…

Dave Callender — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:10:00 +0000

Advertising Age had an article about the work of Anderson Analytics identifying Social Network users’ likely interests, buying habits, media consumption and more for marketers. The research shows that restaurants, and other social facilitating businesses should participate in Social Networking

Below are some interesting excepts from the article

…Today 110 million Americans, or 60% of the online population, use social networks, and that number is fairly conservative, because instead of counting unique users or everyone who has an account, as many estimates do, the Anderson study counted only people who have used a social network at least once in the past month….

…Some 52% of social networkers had friended or become a fan of at least one brand…..

….Anderson’s research breaks down general social-media users into four categories: business users, fun seekers, social-media mavens and late followers. Of those, social-media mavens are the key group, not only because of their high incomes and decision-making power at companies but also because their large social-media footprints can make them brand allies and evangelists….

…..they (Non-users of social networks) say they don’t use social media for three basic reasons: They don’t have the time, they don’t think it’s secure or they think it’s stupid. While the first two groups — which Anderson labels “time-starved” and “concerned” — may be swayed to join eventually, don’t hold out much hope for the last group: 94% said they will never use social media.

About 22% of time-starved people said they’ll be using social media within three months, and another 27% said they probably will within a year — when they get the time that is; they’re more interested than all others in pursuits such as exercise, entertaining, music and movies…

….Twitterers are the super-user group. Twitterers are more interested than the others in many subjects but skew particularly high in all news categories, restaurants, sports, politics, personal finance and religion. They also especially like pop culture, with music, movies, TV and reading, ranking higher than average. And their buying habits mirror that. They’re more likely to buy books, movies, shoes and cosmetics online than the other groups…..

Where does the best Advertising Come From?

Dave Callender — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 05:24:00 +0000

The single most powerful form of communications is word of mouth.

The Corporate Culture Customer Trust Index 2006 showed that comments from trusted acquaintances topped the poll of trusted channels of communications.

In simple terms, successful businesses continue to strive to make the customer experience memorable so that each customer becomes your advocate. The more advocates you have, the better your business will become.

Social Networking is one of the strongest tool for small business to keep in contact with their advocates and compete in today’s down market.