5 Best Uses of Google Hangouts!

Now this is next level engagement!!
           
    No matter what business your in or whether your just trying to reinforce yourself as a brand or go to source for information the best way to stand out is to STAND OUT! Utilizing Google+ Hangouts is perfect for engaging your followers or your prospecting clients. With Hangouts your able to conduct live conversations with yourself and up to 9 people which you could use to show off your expertise and/or demo your product all the while getting real-time input from the rest of your group, the video can be broadcasted live or posted later to be shared to the masses! Using Meta Tags you can make the content searchable and in turn engage a new audience with fresh information, giving them the opportunity ask questions about the video in the comments and if they love what they see they will share it too!

Google+ Hangout Features!

1. Video Chat with up to 9 People!

       *Establish yourself and others in your business as the go to source for information by scheduling public conversations about different aspects of your expertise. Appoint a moderator and make sure you begin with an arranged agenda and then provide the added value of the Hangout by allowing the audience to chime in with questions and let the audience steer the conversation with the information they are looking for and they will come back for more!
       *You can schedule your Hangout with a Q & A session for example and engage directly with your core audience or conduct a conversation with other experts to convey your message with in depth analysis.
       *Brainstorm publicly or privately about potential new services or products and get an immediate market response to what the public would like to see in such a product or service and even how they would like it marketed!


HINT:      ITS NOT A VIDEO- IT'S A CONVERSATION! Engage the audience for input on the topic. The end goal is to get engagement by making it fun, informative and appealing!

2. Demo your Product and/or Share documents, media or other files with members of the group!

         *We all know that some products are simply better demonstrated than explained.  Schedule a

"workshop" or demonstration of your product/expertise or both to add value to yourself and the brand or product! Show the many uses of the product beyond the typical ones that most would not think of to add even more value to the broadcast, your product, your brand and yourself.
          *Use Give-A-Ways to promote your Hangouts! I'm sure you can think of something! If your in business you surely have some overstock, if your an expert in a field you can generate some useful memes or info-graphics, etc.

HINT: Run a graphic to announce the Hangout instead of simply just announcing it on your blog or other social media. Its ok to to be personable and make small mistakes during the broadcast, your viewers will appreciate an honest representation.

3. Watch Videos on YouTube or other mediums together and chat about it!

        *It's a great idea to engage your clients with a tour your YouTube videos and other media with the client to add another level of engagement to videos and media you have already created.


4. Share your Screen with the others in the group!
   
          *Demonstrate your technical expertise by showing off! Allow the viewer to see your screen as you navigate menus, create files and graphics, or answer technical questions through demonstration. Add value by showing your audience everything that you can and will do for them!

HINT:  Build trust by pulling back the curtain! When can you really show off your skills to the client? its a lot easier to appreciate the final product when they can see all of the hard work they usually couldn't see!

5. Broadcast your chat live or record it for later! 


       *If your going to do a LIVE Q & A, post the topic nice and early this way the viewers can post questions regarding the topic and you can be more prepared to give a well thought out and detailed response.
       *Those watching your broadcast live can post comments and feedback, use this opportunity to engage the audience by replying as they come in.

HINT: After the conclusion of the broadcast be sure to post a summary of the conversation on your thread in case someone misses it. They can see in your thread if you touched on the topic they are interested in and add value to the missed broadcast by engaging someone new to be sure to catch the next one!

   

Your Primary Strategy in Branding is Engagement

       Social Media is NOT about likes and shares, well not totally, its about ENGAGEMENT and BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS! Whether its within social circles, drumming up new clientele or for billion dollar corporations, the goal is to brand yourself with what is called a Social Media Profile.  Your Social Media Profile (SMP) is essential in differentiating yourself from your competitors, it is the 21st century hand shake, introduction and interview all at once and in turn will be the gateway to engagement. You would be very surprised to see how many corporations neglect their web pages but still have a strong engagement with their customers through their SMP. Typically your SMP will be the determining factor in getting you in the door for any opportunity; it will make or break you and your brand so it must be given the utmost respect.

5 ways to establish your Social Media Profile

1. Develop Yourself as a Brand -
          Who are you? Who is your intended audience? How do you want them to view you and/or your brand?  What image and/or impression do you want to convey? What separates you from your competitors? Understanding these key components will be essential in developing your brand and creating your SMP. If you don't know who you are, your audience won't. If you can't make yourself stand out from the competition how will the viewer separate you from the competition. You must know who you are, what you do and impress it exactly in every aspect of your brand and in every medium you choose to conquer to show the level of dedication that the viewer can expect. Every aspect of your brand should tell the audience at least a part of your story, take a look at this 9 min webinar video from Vistaprint detailing how to get started creating the one aspect which will most recognizably connect every aspect of your campaign- YOUR LOGO!

HINT: Knowing who you and who your intended audience is critical in developing content that your customers or audience want to talk about. Increase engagement by being the person your audience can relate to. Not everyone will engage you immediately but if you provide answers to commonly asked questions you can be the go-to source your audience comes to for your niche.

2. Assess your Capabilities -
            Keeping up with your SMP is critical to maintaining your image or brand, if your not going to dedicate the proper time and energy to maintain it then do not overextend yourself. Simply putting your name on every available social network thinking your going to reach more or have a better Klout score is far more detrimental than having a single well maintained profile on one of the more popular forums like Facebook or Twitter. The viewer can see how often you post, comment, respond and share; they will not engage you if they think your not going to see, comment, reply or share.

HINT:  If you don't have the means or resources to be everywhere then be where your audience wants to have conversations and interactions about things that correspond to your brand; i.e where they "hang out".


3. Understand your Goal -
             Knowing who you are and what you can do is only half the battle. The typical primary components of any social media strategy are building awareness about your niche or expertise, generating sales of a product of service or simply encouraging brand/product loyalty. Explore the tools/apps and forums of the trade that your audience interacts with and build a presence to accomplish your goal.

HINT: Know exactly what you are trying to accomplish, its not always simply awareness, sales or loyalty. Perhaps your branding yourself as an expert in a certain field, if this is the case you must provide resources to back you up. If its web/graphic design you want to have a web page for sure but more than that it must be impactful to those in the know and you should include in it examples of your other work.

4. Structure your Campaign -
              After you have assessed your capabilities and realize the importance of maintaining your brand you must implement it. Develop your schedule for posting content, for replying to posts or comments, and for engaging others in your niche to generate awareness among those in the know to add value to your content. A schedule for all of your content and where it will be posted must be firm and you must stick to it, you audience will come to expect your content once they realize its value so DO NOT DISAPPOINT THEM or they will move on.

HINT: Maintain your brand identity by using the same graphics for logos and the same color schemes and themes across all apps and pages. Utilize the 1-2-3 strategy to get you used to sticking to your schedule; 1 Blog post weekly, 2 Facebook posts weekly and 3 tweets DAILY. Take a minute to view Coke's video explaining their revolutionary campaign and goals to be realized through Transmedia;connecting each and every medium you use to support your message and introducing your brand to your audience through creative story telling. 

5. Maintain your Campaign-
              Remember to be PROACTIVE and not REACTIVE.  Utilize real time analytics to test your content and its impressions on your audience and tweak your campaign regularly for optimum performance. Always remember there is no such thing as privacy in the digital world-NEVER POST ANYTHING ABOUT YOURSELF that you do not want to DIRECTLY associate with your brand.

HINT: Listen to your audience, if they have suggestions- head them, if they have questions- answer them, if they hate you or post negatively about you or your brand DO NOT DELETE IT- confront them professionally and publicly to see if you can change their mind. Worst case they still hate you but your audience sees that you care and you put in the effort.

7 Steps to a Successful Facebook Content marketing Strategy

            So you have a local business and everyone said you just have to have a Facebook page! Now you have one but the only likes you have are from friends and family and maybe a few loyal customers… What did you do wrong? Isn’t it supposed to be automatic? Should likes, followers and leads just be pouring in by now? Having a facebook (or any social media page) is a marketing campaign all by itself and so it requires a specific marketing strategy like any other campaign. You need to know who your looking to reach, how to reach and engage them and just as importantly-A COURSE OF ACTION! This blog will give you the general strategy that will guide you from setup to upkeep and everything in between!

7 Steps to a Successful Facebook Content marketing Strategy

1.                   

                  Determine your image and or message and stick with it! You will have to generate content on a regular basis to keep your followers (once you find them) interested, reading and sharing your content. DO NOT JUST POST PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL! Your readers do not want to see one coupon or ploy after another which is the most direct route to get dropped! 2:5 should be the formula you follow, for every 2 posts of promo you do 5 more of other content you think your readers would fancy. Use humor and wit if appropriate, but keep it in some way related to what you want your businesses image to resemble. 2:5 should also be followed when determining how often you should post, you need to constantly add content to remain relevant so be sure to post around 2 times every 5 days.

2.       

                   Design your Facebook page! DO NOT ALLOW YOUR PAGE TO BE GENERIC! People aren’t interested in boring pages, it makes you look phony! Put the time, energy and money into the page and it will return the favor. Make it look professional and follow a specific color scheme with your cover image and your profile image. Choose a template that is intriguing and KEEP ON TOP OF YOUR CONTENT!

3.      

                   Integrate your Facebook page! Integrate your Facebook page (and campaigns) into ABSOLLUTELY EVERYTHING! Put FB posters up in the storefront with the Facebook page prominently displayed, use QR codes to make it easy for them to find you, incorporate links on your homepage, digital ads, add the FB Page to your business cards and promotional material (if you have old promo material without the FB page-it would make great kindle for the fire!), initiate marketing campaigns to encourage followers with promotions.

4.       

                    Use the Facebook ad tool! The Facebook Ad tool is so incredibly easy to use but TAKE YOUR TIME WHEN SETTING IT UP! You do it wrong and not only will it be an expensive mistake but most of the money you just spent will be wasted (not to mention you won’t know where you made the mistake and will most likely chock it up to the tool itself and not the tool that set it up!) Facebook has by far the most information on each of its users than any other ad or marketing firm so use it to your advantage! You can set the demographic by interest, location, age, gender, relationship status, employment, etc. Go thru the campaign with a fine tooth comb and be sure to set up your key audience carefully. You can also set up your ads to show at specific times, so if your key demographic is for school children for example you obviously don’t want to run the ad before 3:00 pm or after 9:00 pm. It provides apps for contests, giveaways and other incentives to build your following-use them! Be smart about it and you will love this tool!

5.       

                   Utilize the Promoted Posts! Once you have generated a decent following (a few hundred followers/likes) start to use the promoted posts on both the promo posts and the “puff” material. Facebook uses an “Edge Rank Algorithm” which will automatically limit the views of your posts by itself so of the 2-3 posts you generate a week most of your followers will probably only see one of them and you won’t know which one so the promoted posts is a good tool to use once in a while to be sure the message is received.

6.       

                 Add Media to your page! It is a proven fact the media (images or video) will be shared and commented on the most so whenever possible add short videos of you and your staff or professionally produced marketing material, images of your products or services and also like I mentioned earlier other media that is NOT promo material. Use “puff” media as well to engage your following, people aren’t going to share everything you post-they may not share any of it, but if you post something worth sharing make sure there is a link back to your facebook page with it!

7.     

                                    KEEP UP ON YOUR PAGE! Use analytics to see what works and what doesn’t. Reinvent your page every few months, regenerate new ads every few weeks, and add new content every week! Keep referring back to this list and consistently keep your FB image fresh! Change your profile pics/cover photo once in a while and try new things! You will most likely not nail the campaign off the bat, it will need to be fine-tuned constantly but if you follow these tips you will see the growth!

NOTHING GOOD COMES EASY! You can do this if you are smart about it! Who knows… once you see the power behind FB, sharing and social media with a good return you may just be ready to hire the big boys! Check out my last blog post on Empowering your product with Blogger Outreach for another efficient and cost effect way to engage your prospective clients! 

5 Steps to Brand Empowerment Using Blogger Outreach!

          Right now there are thousands of products out there waiting to be discovered and most are waiting for that special blogger to send them over the top! Not convinced a blogger has that kind of influence? According to Chief Marketer Research- 1 of 5 Niche businesses not only utilize Blogger Outreach but thrive on it! Chief Marketer Research also indicates that display ad spending will hit $15.4 billion in the US this year, climbing to $26.7 billion by 2016 which demonstrates their primary focus on ad spending for most companies to be increasingly digital. While Nieche business, in most cases, do not have the kind of money to compete in such a market they can get far more bang for their buck by utilizing Blogs! A blogger can empower a product or business simply by providing content thru their blog which will get picked up by their users, shared with their users “friends”, increases organic web presence thru web crawlers which will read said content and display your product in search engines thru relative terms!

           IMAGINE for example you own a local flavored nut company which offers a wide selection of flavored nuts. You’ve been in business for a year and while you are content with the local business you get, you have the web and social network pages (AND UPDATE THEM CONSTANTLY!!) but you KNOW you can do better! But how? PPC campaigns get incredibly costly, TV and Radio ads are running but you know that will really only generate a few new local customers and print is a waste of money…. What’s a cheap and EXTREMELY effective way to generate buzz? You guessed it! BLOGGER OUTREACH!

     

HOW TO GET STARTED WITH BLOGGER OUTREACH IN 5 SIMPLE STEPS!

1.       Research to Find your Bloggers! You want to consider the factors that are specific to your business. For example the Local Nut Company; you’re a local small business so look locally for your blogger! Local bloggers have an incredible influence on local customers not to mention they have an already founded local following that you should be looking to take advantage of!  After you have found your niche bloggers make sure you read their blogs! Know your contact, KNOW THEIR BLOG!

2.       Engage your Bloggers! You probably won’t get every blogger you contact so be sure to cast a wide net! Send out several emails but be sure to write each one specifically! DO NOT SEND A UNIFORM EMAIL TO SEVERAL BLOGGERS! They can smell them and if they even get opened at all I would be surprised! Show them that you made the effort, compliment their posts, ask them questions about their opinions and make specific references so they know you know who they are and what they post!

3.       Work with your Bloggers! They will not know your business, your product or your goals if you do not tell them! Let them know what you wish to accomplish with the campaign, be their go-to source for any and all questions they may have and make it very easy for them to get answers. Offer to send them a free sample of your product to review or even a few that they can send to their readers. Offer a guest blog post directly from you the owner or a member of your staff to give a more personal appeal to the readers. INCLUDE CONTACT INFO AND LINKS!!!

4.       Develop a plan for your Blog Campaign with each Blogger! Who do you want to reach? What kind of message do you want to send? What kind of information do you want to be sure to convey? What kind of image do you want to project? Do you want to offer discounts, give-a-ways or other kinds of promotions? Be steadfast in having a core message and specific goals! Your bloggers are a lot busier than you think and odds are they’re working with other local businesses as well so be sure to keep your blogger hooked with more than just free samples. Offer compensation based on conversion if you can.

5.       Track your progress and develop a compensation plan for your Blogger! Nothing is free, if you get a blogger to dedicate his/her time to writing a post for your business for a single bag of nuts than more power to you, but even if you do- how good is that review going to be compared to a compensation plan that completely depends on the traffic the blogger can generate? All internet traffic can be mapped with ease, it would be a cinch to assess how much traffic to your home page, social sites and even calls that result directly from the campaigns you have set up with each blogger.

5 New Media Blogs to NOT MISS!

smartonlinesuccess.com/blog/

SMART ONLINE SUCCESS

I get Garin's updates every single morning and I always look forward to reading every one! He always has new content posted and its always interesting! From posts for beginner bloggers, motivating tips for success to LinkedIn professionals promoting themselves or trying to optimize themselves for the job search! One of the greatest hings about Garin Kilpatric's blog is that he always takes the time to answer questions from his followers whether it's tweeted to him or in a comment on the blog itself! The look of the blog is blah, very flat and kinda boring to look at so it isn't the most aesthetically appealing but focus on the wisdom and the advice and you won't be sorry! 

mediabistro.com/10000words/

10,000 WORDS

AWESOME BLOG! Features real news and great tips on New Media; tips on integrating new networks into your business, tips for aspiring journalists and great new applications and their projected impact on the online community. 

mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/

MASTERS OF MEDIA

Prob my Favorite Blog of the Day! Written and compiled by several New Media Graduate students at the University at Amsterdam currently being trained on the newest media, sharing, networks and marketing techniques to give the articles a contemporary and up to date take on everything New Media. The blog articles are obviously submitted as an assignment with a general context or question to be answered (kinda like mine!) but are all listed together so you can get a variety of takes on the same issue from very different writers! 

www.pbs.org/mediashift/

MEDIASHIFT

So, they are a little liberal...This Blog has everything!!  Produced by PBS and written by hundreds of "citizen journalists" this blog puts out EVERYTHING new media; podcasts, transmedia, social media, marketing, digital education, info on new careers in new fields and how to get in, and their "Daily Must read" suggestions will get you lost for hours! They touch on everything, including the especially critical questions that everyone is afraid to ask like "who owns all of the photos and data I upload on my social networks?" But perhaps most importantly they provide an very up to the minute take on new media in and their effect on current events which is the most critical responsibility of New Media; 

mashable.com/

MASHABLE

If you don't know MASHABLE by now, your welcome! Mashable is everything and anything all in one place! News on current events, business, sports, news, entertainment, politics and yes...NEW MEDIA! Explore Mashable and use this blog to steer you to the questions you didn't know you had. Stay up to date on the newest sites, apps, social network news and subscribe to their HOW TO's! Understand the impact of events and releases in real time written by real journalists. 

Making Viral Videos 101

             Hundreds of thousands of minutes of footage uploaded into YouTube every day, 72 hours of video uploaded every minute! How do you compete with that? Chances are you are not going to create the most original video ever created and if you did there is no guarantee it will even be found attractive enough to go viral. So what’s the secret? There’s no secret, it follows the same logic as anything else you find online, it comes down to content and how you manage it. Follow the 10 basic things on the “do this” and “not this” list and you’re on your way!

 10,301,819 Views 

DO THIS!

NOT THIS!

1.       MAKE IT ATTRACTIVE! Production value definitely helps but it’s just as important for the content to be attractive to as many people as possible; follow current events and look for important keywords and tags to see what people are looking for. 2.       MAKE IT FUNNY! Try to use humor and wit that most people will understand. People share things to say something; whether it’s about them, something that affects them or how they are feeling. 3.       DON’T BE BORING! Make videos that are compelling and easy to watch! Choose your subject to be one that gets them excited enough to share! If you use old content with rehashed messages it will just be lost in the heap. 4.       KEEP IT SHORT! Remember that attentions spans are typically short when surfing. Nobody wants to watch videos longer than 2 min; therefore they won’t want to share it either! 5.       PROMOTION!! Put your video everywhere! Send it to everyone! Encourage everyone to share! If you’re hoping to profit from the video you should absolutely invest into optimization and monetization through ads as well.

6.       DON’T FOCUS TOO MUCH ON GOING VIRAL!  If you’re creating a video to be viral to generate revenue or market a business or product make sure it makes sense commercially! Proper promotion will generate more money for less views! 7.       DON’T FORGET TO HAVE AN AUDIENCE!Appealing to too many demographics is a mistake that so many make! The trick is to really excite your audience so they can in turn excite the rest! 8.       DON’T JUST USE YOUTUBE! There are hundreds of video share sites out there, use them! Dailymotion.com, tubemogul.com, vimeo.com, blip.tv,viddler.com, etc. Encourage sharing by posting it on your blog, your facebook, twitter, etc. 9.       DON’T FORGET TO OPTIMIZE THE VIDEO FOR SEARCH! Search engines cannot watch your video, it will completely depend on you to properly tag and label your video and whenever possible INCLUDE A TRANSCRIPT! 10.   DON’T FORGET YOUR PURPOSE! The viewer may like your video but still just move on from it when it’s over. Give the viewer a call to action! Encourage them to like, share, direct them to your product or webpage to !

Remember when creating your video that there is no recipe for taking advantage of the human factor to appeal to your viewers but it works, it is the key to catching lightning in a bottle and if you can nail it your gold! People share things that make them feel because they want to share the feeling they had when they encountered it. Take a look at how 7 year old Luka swept the internet with a 200 character email to Lego! Good luck on your video, follow my suggestions well and see your video take off! 

Augmented Reality: the future of Education FOR EVERYONE!

               Remember in the late nineties how we were all so convinced that Virtual Reality would eventually take over how we interface with people, the internet and the online community? Movies like the Lawnmower Man, Tron and the Matrix made us salivate at the possibility of exploring a new frontier of wonder and endless possibilities without even leaving the comfort of our own home. Almost 2013 and most people know they aren't getting any bulky headsets or full body suits anytime soon, and they are certainly not lining up to try Secondlife.com (a virtual world developed by Linden Lab) but there still is something on the tip of any tech savvy person's mind today; daydreaming and imagining the endless possibilities of Augmented Reality! 

               You can imagine A.R (augmented reality) if you can conceive that if Virtual Reality was the complete immersion of your senses into a digital world then augmented reality is less complete immersion and simply a virtual overlay onto the real world. It enables endless possibilities by providing limitless digital data pertaining to whatever you are interacting with through a monitor or a pair of augmented optical lenses, the most well known is the Google Glasses expected to be released sometime in 2013. The Google Glasses utilize smartglass to unify the virtual world of smartphones, computers and the web with the real world of people, places and information. They were an instant hit at Google's I/O developers conference in June/2012 and continue to be online ever since. This is the promotional video released by Google and has accrued more than 18.5 Million views since April '12!  And the buzz will increase steadily as the release date nears, if the can get the expected cost to be closer to the cost of an expensive smart phone (Aprox $450-500) and further from the cost of an expensive 3D TV ($1,500) then I would imagine to turn to much more of a craze! 
  
                A novel idea and all but are the masses really going to race to but the first smart phone you wear on your face? What are the potential uses beyond the capabilities of any typical smartphone? Once the public truly realizes the potential of augmented reality, the Google Glasses will only be the first of a long line of A.R Glasses! At least in the US, you will find them on the face of every student and teacher,  every tech, every engineer, and then virtually everyone else (pun intended!). If you look at this video of the capabilities of Augmented Reality linking a simple child's schoolbook with an interface it isn't very hard to imagine the possibilities for educating our youth! Imagine fusing a young child's will to learn with his/her will to discover in a way no teacher ever could before! 

                 What about the workplace? You think corporations won't jump at a way to quickly, efficiently and economically improve the capabilities and evolution of their workforce? There isn't a single industry in the world that wouldn't benefit from a more efficient and more savvy labor force. Imagine you can optimize all of your employees from day one with step by step individual tutorials with hands on practice without paying a single instructor for a single hour of mentor-ship! BMW has been working on a augmented reality training program utilizing their "datagoggles" a technology similar to Smartglass since 2007! Take a look at this brief tutorial to replace a cooling fan in a BMW 325i. 

                  Absolutely capable of reinventing education it's not hard to theorize that it will also revolutionize reeducation;  it will  be simpler, more efficient and ever expanding. No more will human beings be outmoded to younger, less experienced but more knowledgeable labor. With this new tech the evolution of man will grow in as many leaps and bounds  in the next 5 years as it has in the last 25! This is the retooling that will finally get us out from behind our desks and out in the real world working, blogging, learning, interacting, and interfacing with people, instead of keyboards!