Episode # 28 – Why Use Video on Your Website
I had a chance to sit down recently with Dave Anderson of Pinpoint Multimedia to talk about video. Dave, a video strategist shared some tips for small business owners considering adding video to their website. He says:
- When you can’t be face to fce, Video works
- It is on 24/7 – It is working while you sleep, but keep your audience awake with short, relevant content
- Video is great for Marketing/Sales, Training and Communicating to Employees and Customers
- Keep your conetnt consise and relevant to a targeted audience!
To here the rest of the interview, click the link
New Uses for Twitter
In the small business community we are very focuesed on how to use twitter to expand our brand and communicate with our customers, propsects and strategic partners. But Twitter has many other powerful applications as a search and even research tool.
In this article for the Harvard Business Reivew, the authors present an interesting example of how larger firms can use twitter to gather feed back from employees and customers. Obviously for sensitve company information, you would want a more private platform, but the strategy can work for small business easily. How? Just ask a question, and ask people to respond using a hashtag (#). Then search for results, and all your responses will come up on one page.
Simple surveys, opinion poles, and event product suggestions, can be tested with Hashtags on Twitter. Give it a try, and share your results here!
Baby Boomers, Business and Facebook
About two years ago I found an article by Mary Smith with some ideas on how to use Facebook to reach Baby Boomers. At the time, I wasn’t sure I agreed with her, that Facebook had the potential to be more than a social networking website, geared primarily for college – early twenty market. She argued, it could also be used as part of a small business marketing toolkit.
Today, I know she was right. Her advice is as relevant, if not more so today than it was two years ago. She recommended:
- In addition to creating your profile you should create a page for your business. ( These are now called Fan Pages)
- Start a group,
- Use the events feature and polls to gather information and gently market to your “friends”.
To her list I would add:
- Create special offers and coupons just for your fans
- Take photos at events, post and tag them with names of guests, so they show up on other pages on Facebook
- Connect your Twiiter and blog updates to your fan page.
Read the rest of the article …
Today’s Consumer Still Loves Coupons
She just doesn’t like clipping them.
When my kids were little, I would rip through the Sunday paper looking for coupons on diapers. I am not much of a coupon person in general, but we went through a lot of diapers and it just seemed silly to pay full price.
Once my kids finally mastered the potty, I said goodbye to diapers and good bye to coupons. They were just too much trouble to keep up with, organize and keep track of when I went shopping.
But I do like saving money, so I am the perfect target for digital coupons. Instant savings I can download to my computer as I head out the door, or better yet to my phone.
And I am not alone, it seems the down cycle in the ecomony, along with an increase in technology which delivers coupons has led to the first increase in the use of coupons in almost twenty years.
From a study by coupons.com (ok so maybe they are a little biased) the demographics of the average digital coupon shopper is not the low income, penny pinching housewife. Instead, the consumer who prints digital coupons is an attractive target for many products and services.
- has an average household income of $97,000,
- a 23 percent higher income level than the U.S average.
- 34 percent of those who print digital coupons have a college degree (up from 32 percent in 2008), compared to 30 percent of those who use newspaper coupons and 27 percent of the general populace.
- Users of digital coupons have higher household incomes and are better educated than users of newspaper coupons and the general population.
So what do these numbers mean to you? As the delivery mechanisms continue to improve, and the economy continues to put pressure on consumer spending, coupons, particularly those delivered digitally can be an excellent incentive for existing and new customers.
Interesting, as I was putting the finisihing touches on this post ( sometimes I write a few weeks out) I read a post by Kyle Lacy on the subject of integrating your marketing, tieing all the elements together, especially when you already use printed coupons in your mix.
Facebook: There is Strength and Risk in Numbers
In the early days of home video, there were two products, Sony Beta, and VHS. There was no comparison, the Sony product was significantly better, so why did it all but disappear? Because the masses couldn’t really tell the difference, and VHS was cheaper.
I was reminded of that case, as I read an article by Louis Gray. One of my favorite sources for new technology and applications, he made a compelling case for Facebook as the Social Media Hub for the average person. While he personally prefers other products, he is finding himself forced to Facebook. He says:
” I may prefer Google Buzz and FriendFeed and Twitter and SmugMug and all these other best-of-breed sites for their specific use cases, but thus far, I haven’t been able to convert the family to converge with me there.
Facebook is rapidly becoming the Web platform with external services feeding in, and it feeding out. It becomes the conduit, but also the destination.
What does this mean for the small business owner? Regardless of which platforms we prefer, we need to go where are customers are. And more and more, they are on Facebook. From fan pages, to event listings, and even targeted Facebook ads, this is quickly becoming a site, no marketer can ignor. But there are risks, as the folks at Fat Atom discovered when Facebook took down a client’s page.
The rules of social media marketing are being rewritten daily. For help making good choices, contact roundpeg today!
