Take a stroll around the Google-sphere and you’ll find article
after article about the importance of social media and the benefits it
can offer. To most marketing experts, social media is a no brainer, but
when it comes to getting your boss to buy in, there is usually some
resistance. Don’t be surprised if you find that the higher the executive
position, the more social media resistance.
Your executives are busy like you, so don’t waste time. Be
prepared and have all of your data ready to present. Start your
discussion by telling them what you want to do, why you want to do it
and that you have developed a comprehensive plan that shows the costs
associated, time involved and projected outcomes.
Here are some tips on how you can sell social media eternally:
Lilach is the founder and driving force behind Socialable, and highly regarded on the world speaker circuit.
Forbes and Number 10 Downing Street have even been graced by her
presence! In a nutshell, she’s a hugely connected and highly influential
serial entrepreneur – the embodiment of Digitelligence.
Listed in Forbes as one of the top 20 women social media power
influencers and likewise as one of the top social media power
influencers, she is one of the most dynamic personalities in the social
media market, she actively leverages ethical online marketing for her
clients and for Socialable. After launching her first business within three years of becoming a
mother, her financial success was recognised by being a finalist at the
Best MumPreneur of the Year Awards, presented at 10 Downing Street.
Following a resultant offer and wishing to spend more time with her
daughter, she sold her first business to focus on social media,
developing a multi-site blog and online marketing portfolio that
generates in excess of 600,000 + page views per month. A business owner, social media consultant, internet mentor and
genuine digital guru, Lilach is consulted by journalists and regularly
quoted in newspapers, business publications and marketing magazines
(including Forbes, The Telegraph, Wired, Prima Magazine, The Sunday
Times, Social Media Today and BBC Radio 5 Live). What’s more, her books
have achieved No 1 on Amazon for Sales and Marketing and Small Business
and Entrepreneurship. When Lilach isn’t working she enjoys spending time with her family and is an avid fan of Zumba. To connect with Lilach follow her on Twitter at @LilachBullock and visit www.socialable.co.uk. Subscribe and get the AMP Up Your Social Media podcast on iTunes or
listen below. Tweet about the show using #AUYSM or Tweet at us @AMPUpSocial.
It's
really tempting to let terrible Excel graphs creep into your marketing.
Your boss doesn't care about little things like how graphs look, right?
And whatever Excel comes up with as the default is probably fine ...
right?
Not really. You're using data to spur action. Maybe you pull data to convince your boss to adopt inbound marketing,
give you an extra sliver of budget, or adjust your team's strategy,
among other things. Regardless of what you use data for, you need it to
be convincing -- and if you display data poorly, the meaning of your
data is more likely to get lost. To make sure you're making your data as convincing as possible, you
should always customize your graphs in Excel. And by customization,
we're not talking about big sweeping changes. Below are some quick
tweaks you can make to your graphs convincing, easy-to-read, and
beautiful. Note: I'm using Excel from 2011 on a Mac. If you're
using another version or operating system, implementing the following
tips may look different.
1) Pick the right graph.
Before you start tweaking design elements, you need to know that your
data is displayed in the optimal format. Bar, pie, and line charts all
tell different stories about your data -- you need to choose the best
one to tell the story you want.
Bar graphs and pie graphs help you compare categories. Pie graphs
usually compare parts of a whole and bar graphs can compare pretty much
anything ... which means often you should just use a bar graph. Bar
graphs are easier to read and notice incremental differences between
categories, so it's a good go-to. Pie graphs are best used when one of
the categories is way larger than the other.
Want to see the difference? Here's an example of the same data set displayed as a pie graph and a bar graph:
Ginny Soskey is a Staff Writer for HubSpot, creating written and
multimedia content for the Marketing and Sales sections of Inbound Hub.
Say hey to her on Twitter @gsosk.
We are clearly at a crossroads, social media marketers. Facebook is
going to continue to make our jobs increasingly difficult, week after
week, as their algorithms continue to tighten and there’s nothing we can
really do about it. They’re a publicly traded company now and “have
investors to answer to.” I’m not exactly complaining here, mind you; I’m
just pointing out some facts. This is a free country and a free market
and it’s not up to anyone to tell Facebook what they can and can’t do.
Some of you may be concocting points of attack at the algorithms and
finding success in your Facebook posting. But I don’t think most
of you are. If that were the case, then the topic of the mighty and
fluid Facebook algorithms wouldn’t be dominating the industry’s
discussion as it is now. Social media marketers simply have to adjust,
and I would like to discuss some possibilities on how we can better
serve our clients.
Michael
Stahl is a journalist, social media manager & strategist. Hailing
from Astoria, New York, his articles and essays have appeared in several
online and print publications. He is currently accepting new social
media clients, so if you’d like to procure his services, contact him at mrstahl7@gmail.com.
En garde! Sony's Project Morpheus headset,
teamed with two PlayStation Move controllers, gets ready for a
sword-fighting demo called The Castle.
(Credit:
Josh Miller/CNET)
There's one pivotal difference right now between the two most promising,
best developed virtual reality headset prototypes, forming a
simultaneously technical and philosophical barrier.
Oculus VR, while exclusively focused on smooth tracking and optics, has made an open-source darling out of its Oculus Rift
headset, turning a radical crowdfunding idea into the face of an
emerging industry. Its openness has spawned a movement with a wide
breadth of third-party spinoffs, from the Virtuix Omni to countless motion-tracking suits and handsets. Its final, relatively affordable development kit -- announced Wednesday at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco ahead of its official release -- will continue to accelerate the growth of that community.
Sony's Project Morpheus, in the works since 2010 and unveiled at GDC on Tuesday,
has crafted an equally amazing and immersive experience. Not only is it
just as comfortable -- in some respects more so for a glasses wearer I
noticed -- but it's also a smooth experience almost on par with Oculus'
Dev Kit 2, which has had a more thoroughly field-tested development
approach this past year.
(Credit:
Josh Miller/CNET)
More importantly, however, Sony has baked in from the get-go a promise to make virtual reality (VR) a full-body affair, using
PlayStation
Move controllers in conjunction with the PlayStation Camera to get you
moving around the room and swinging your arms like a madman. The
results, still as early and limited as prototype demos can get, are both
breathtaking and hilariously fun.
The catch: Morpheus looks locked to the PlayStation platform, with no foreseeable exit from that proprietary strategy.
Google is promising a multitude of uses for the Android Wear.
(Credit:
Google)
Google is dipping its toes into the wearables world with Android Wear.
In a blog post on Tuesday, the Internet titan unwrapped the details of a modified version of its mobile
Android
operating system. The OS will be heavily based on its Google Now voice-recognition technology, and is designed to be applied to
wearables, with the initial push with smartwatches.
Google also introduced LG, Asus, HTC, Motorola, and Samsung as hardware
partners to utilize Android Wear, and Broadcom, Imagination, INtel,
Mediatek and Qualcomm as chip partners. The Fossil Group will bring
Android Wear-powered watches later this year.
CNET previously reported that Google would release the details of its smartwatch-centric OS
in March. The report also noted LG and Google would unveil a smartwatch at the Google I/O developer conference, and a person briefed on the
matter confirmed that LG would indeed be the first partner to have its
smartwatch go on sale.
Roger
Cheng is an executive editor for CNET News. Prior to this, he was on
the telecommunications beat and wrote for Dow Jones Newswires and The
Wall Street Journal for nearly a decade. He's a devoted Trojan alum and Los Angeles Lakers fan.
Need a tool to boost your search engine rank? Watch What ContentNotifier Can Do For You
In less time than it will take you to read this page, you'll get 45,000+
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(Knowledge of SEO, Pinging, and Backlinking NOT REQUIRED!)
Does this sound familiar? You have a great idea for a product or service,
and you set up a website to sell it. Even though the website looks great, it needs
visitors! Which brings us to the question: how are people going to know your
site is online?
Trying to find the answer, you research different ways to get traffic, and
you are suddenly faced with all kinds of terms to deal with, like SEO, pinging,
and backlinks.
What do they all mean, and more importantly, how do you use them for your
site?
Let's look at these problems one at a time:
Problem #1: You're not exactly
sure how SEO works. The letters for SEO stand for Search Engine Optimization.
Basically, you optimize your site by including certain keywords within the
text of your pages. When people search for those words or phrases on Google, Yahoo,
or other engines, your pages will be listed along with a link to your site.
The better optimized your website is for search engines, the higher you'll rise
in the search results for those specific keywords. This increases the exposure
of your website and eventually lands you more traffic and more sales. I'm
sure you can begin appreciating the power of SEO and why it truly can make the difference
between success and failure.
Problem #2: Maybe there's not
that much pinging on your site, but you don't know how to fix that. Pinging
just means that you are telling other websites on the internet whenever you have
new content. For example, if you put a new article or blog on your site,
you can ping to alert everyone by leaving links that people will click on.
Why is pinging important? Search engines receive this alert and begin paying more
attention to your website - this increases the amount of pages they will index,
and ultimately drive more traffic to your website.
Problem #3:
You've heard about
backlinking, and think
it could work, but you're unfamiliar with how and where to
get links. Backlinking is what happens when another website links back to yours.
Think about it like a high-school popularity contest - the more websites linking
back to yours, the higher your website will appear in the search engine results.
How does this happen? Google and other large search engines assume you must be a
credible, authoritative website if you have tons of backlinks from other
websites (especially if these other websites are related to your niche/industry!).
They simply prefer your website over other sites and therefore give you a higher
ranking - thus, flooding you site with visitors and eventually, sales and profits!
Search engine rankings and links will make your site more noticeable, when
they are done correctly. As you might have already realized, SEO can be tricky.
If you use too many keywords, you run the risk of being penalized by the search
engines. And if you don't use enough, they might not recognize your site. Plus,
backlinking and pinging seem like they take a lot of time and effort with
no guarantee they will work.
Back to the original problem, how do you use all three to get quality traffic
for your site?
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In 2014, your first step towards becoming a published author with a traditional publishing
house is to start a blog focused on what you’ll eventually want to
write a book about. Your second step is to grow a community around the
writing you’re doing on your blog. Step three is to start writing for
sites that have bigger, stronger, and more influential readerships than
your own blog does. Eventually, and often immediately, you’ll watch your
hobby become a profession.
I have been saying the same thing for over a decade: you can write
yourself into any job you want. And it’s still true — and may be even
truer today than it was in 2003. Why? Because in 2003 there were plenty
of jobs, plenty of money, very few Internet-savvy hirers, and the
Internet really wasn’t ubiquitous like it is now. And, back in 2003, the
publishing industry was still deeply in denial that their hegemony
would dominate the written world for years to come (where they were in
1993, a decade earlier–it’s true, denial is our strongest muscle). Do I have a recent example of this happening in the wild?
Case-in-point: my buddy Minh Lê. He just sold a picture book to Disney!
During the day, Minh works for the Federal Government. At night, he’s a
loving husband and father. At some point in his busy, fulfilling life,
he also loves literature. He love literature a lot. He’s the guy who
always has a thin paperback book of short stories or essays in the a
pocket of his blazer. When he sits or waits, it’s always a book he
settles into and not his phone
Chris Abraham is a leading expert in
digital: social media marketing, Internet privacy, online reputation
management (ORM), and digital PR with a focus on blogger outreach,
blogger engagement, and Internet crisis response.
A pioneer in online social networks and publishing, with a natural
facility for anticipating the next big thing, Chris is an Internet
analyst, web strategy consultant and advisor to the industries' leading
firms. He specializes in Web 2.0 technologies, including content
syndication, online collaboration, blogging, and consumer generated
media. Chris Abraham was named a Top 50 Social Media Power Influencer by
Forbes, #1 PR2.0 Influencer by Traackr, and top-10 social media
influencers by Marketwire; and, for what it’s worth, Chris has a Klout
of 78 the last time he looked. Chris is currently Director of Social Media at Unison agency, where
he is expanding their social media offerings by starting a social media
practice. Unison is an integrated brand agency combining strategic,
creative, and technology services to help their clients build and
strengthen their brands. Chris recently completed a five-month contract with Reputation.com as
Team Lead, Special Projects, in sales for their "Whale Hunting" team.
Chris was one of two whale hunters tasked with closing clients for their
high-end Picasso Online Reputation Management (ORM) and Executive
Privacy products, from $10,000-$100,000/month campaigns for
high-net-worth and high-profile individuals and Fortune 500 companies. Prior to Reputation.com, Chris ran his own digital PR and marketing
company, Abraham Harrison, LLC, from Washington, DC, Portland, Oregon,
and Berlin, Germany, with clients including: Kimberly Clark, The Daily,
Habitat for Humanity, Greenpeace, The Fresh Air Fund, International
Medical Corps, Sharp, Pew, Alzheimer’s Association, and others. Previous
to starting AH, Chris worked on the Interactive Team at Edelman Public
Affairs in Washington, DC, consulting with clients such as Wal-Mart,
Shell, and GE on blogger and social media strategy. Before Edelman,
Chris was Technology Strategist for New Media Strategies, a pioneer in
online brand promotion and protection with clients including Sci-Fi
Channel, Buena Vista, TomTom, Paramount Pictures, Coca-Cola, McDonalds,
Disney, Reebok, EA, RCA, and NBC. In the early nineties, Chris joined The Meta Network, a seminal
online virtual community based in Washington, and so began his career as
an expert in online community development, social media, social
networking, and online collaboration. Chris has had a web presence since
1993 and started blogging in 1999, focusing on community, connection,
innovation, and brand extension. As a technologist, Chris has consulted
T. Rowe Price, the US Department of Treasury CIO, Friendster, Deutsche
Telekom, and others. Chris has taught blogging courses for the Writer's Center of
Bethesda, has been a guest lecturer on public affairs blogging at
Columbia University's SIPA school and the American University in
Washington, DC, the Emergent Technologies Advisor to the Urban
Institute's Communications Advisory Board, and a Renaissance Weekend
participant since 2001. Additionally, he is the go-to expert on social
media, citizen journalism, technology, and the Internet for BBC World
Service, CNN Radio, and CNet's BNet.
Chris received his BA in American Literature from The George
Washington University, studied American Literature at the University of
East Anglia in Norwich, England, studied French at the University of
Hawaii, and studied German at both the Washington and Berlin
Goethe-Instituts. In addition to the Huffington Post, Chris blogs for
his own blog, ChrisAbraham.com, for Biznology.com, for Socialmedia.biz,
and for MarketingConversation.com. Chris has written for AdAge’s
DigitalNext and Global Idea Network blogs.
Chris is indulging his mid-life crisis by buying a motorcycle and
taking up the shooting sports including trap and target shooting with
both rifle and pistol. Until he gets the novelty of gun ownership out of
his system, you’ll find Chris in South Arlington, Virginia, right
across the river from his beloved Washington, DC.
Chris is president of Gerris digtial and director of social media at Unison.
(Disclosure: I am a former employee of Reputation.com and they continue to sponsor my work)
Let's look at these problems one at a time:
Problem #1: You're not exactly
sure how SEO works. The letters for SEO stand for Search Engine Optimization.
Basically, you optimize your site by including certain keywords within the
text of your pages. When people search for those words or phrases on Google, Yahoo,
or other engines, your pages will be listed along with a link to your site.
The better optimized your website is for search engines, the higher you'll rise
in the search results for those specific keywords. This increases the exposure
of your website and eventually lands you more traffic and more sales. I'm
sure you can begin appreciating the power of SEO and why it truly can make the difference
between success and failure.
Problem #2: Maybe there's not
that much pinging on your site, but you don't know how to fix that. Pinging
just means that you are telling other websites on the internet whenever you have
new content. For example, if you put a new article or blog on your site,
you can ping to alert everyone by leaving links that people will click on.
Why is pinging important? Search engines receive this alert and begin paying more
attention to your website - this increases the amount of pages they will index,
and ultimately drive more traffic to your website.
Problem #3:
You've heard about
backlinking, and think
it could work, but you're unfamiliar with how and where to
get links. Backlinking is what happens when another website links back to yours.
Think about it like a high-school popularity contest - the more websites linking
back to yours, the higher your website will appear in the search engine results.
How does this happen? Google and other large search engines assume you must be a
credible, authoritative website if you have tons of backlinks from other
websites (especially if these other websites are related to your niche/industry!).
They simply prefer your website over other sites and therefore give you a higher
ranking - thus, flooding you site with visitors and eventually, sales and profits!
pocket of his blazer. When he sits or waits, it’s always a book he
settles into and not his phone