Who’s going to the Carnival?

by Tom Williams on July 2, 2009

in Blogging

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carnival-of-college-admissions

Hey everyone, InnoGage will be hosting the Blog Carnival of College Admissions coming up on July 8th!  This is a fantastic compilation of blogs dealing with college admission, advice and information for students making the transition from high school to college. Topics include admissions, financial aid, applications, interviews, test preparation, and a lot more!!

If you would like to submit an article / blog to this month’s carnival, CLICK HERE.

Thanks and watch this blog on July 8th for the latest release.  See you at the Carnival!!

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By now most of us have heard the term “Social Media Marketing”. Some of us are probably even using it, hopefully a good amount effectively. But there are still some that say that it’s just not that important or not that big. But the sheer numbers may surprise you.

Twitter grew 3,000 percent in April of 2009. Facebook hosted 61.2 million visitors in March. LinkedIn counts 20 million users worldwide.

With a potential marketing channel that big, it’s no wonder both big and small business owners are looking to unlock the secrets of social media as another way to get the word out about their businesses.  Because many of these social media accounts (and potential clients) are free, this adds to the appeal.  It can be relatively cheap to start a social media campaign, so it’s a way for a company - when they don’t have a lot of marketing dollars - to start to market their products or services.

But there is one thing that often gets overlooked, you have to do it right. “Marketing has fundamentally changed, so companies have to work even harder to get someone to buy their product,” Charlene Li says, an expert on emerging technologies and social media. “Just putting your product in a new medium isn’t going to work; you have to talk to customers in a different way through these different channels.”

Social media is not all about the hard sell either. Social media can be used to engage, educate, entertain and enrich your customers, clients or members. It’s about building trust and relationships. Once you do this, sales will follow. Chris Garrett said in best his seminar at the Social Media Success Summit 2009, “Content is the currency of Social Media”.

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Mike Smith, on the advisory board here at InnoGage, had an article published in the Huffington Post on June 6, 2009. Mike is frequently quoted and bylined in industry trade press, government IT publications and in the Washington Post. Mike is also a national speaker on the synergies between government affairs and tech public relations at international conferences and association meetings. He earned his Master of Science in Journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

His article, titled “This is Not My Grandfather’s GM”, talks about the Auto industry and the GM demise. You can view the complete story here: http://bit.ly/3g7wir

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Social Media has become quite a buzz word lately. It seems that everyone has or wants to jump on the Social Media bandwagon and hopes their sales skyrocket. But there is a lot more to Social Media than just writing a few blog posts and holding your hands out to collect the money. There needs to be a social media plan in place and it needs to be executed like any other plan in order for it to work effectively. Like the old saying goes, “Failing to plan is like planning to fail…”

The most recent Social Media plan that has worked to perfection was Obama’s presidential campaign. This was the start of a new era; both for the American people on January 20th as well as for the way the internet will be used to market products and promote brands. The Obama campaign used the internet and social media to raise awareness, address issues and raise money. Here are some of the highlights from the campaign [1]:

  • Obama’s e-mail list contains upwards of 13 million addresses. Over the course of the campaign, aides sent more than 7,000 different messages, many of them targeted to specific donation levels.
  • A million people signed up for Obama’s text-messaging program. On Election Day, every voter who signed up for alerts in battleground states got at least three text messages. Supporters on average received five to 20 text messages per month, depending on where they lived.
  • There were 3 million donors that made a total of 6.5 million donations online adding up to more than $500 million. Of those 6.5 million donations, 6 million were in increments of $100 or less. The average online donation was $80, and the average Obama donor gave more than once.

With videos, text messages and profiles on popular social media sites such as MySpace and Facebook, the team at Triple O, Obama’s online operation, had a motto: “Meet the voters where they’re at.” This huge undertaking was orchestrated perfectly, the individual pieces of social media worked together, the plan came together and was well executed with a huge victory in the end.Obama used social media to help win the presidency
There are new technologies and social media marketing tools coming out that can help to promote your business and brand. Recently, a little application called Twitter emerged, and is now one of the hottest pieces of social media on the market. Nielsen says US traffic to Twitter grew 1,382% between February 2008 and February 2009 — from 475,000 unique visitors to 7 million. Besides the tools available, the way you communicate with your customers is what really makes social media an effective tool to use for business. You need to converse with your audience, establish a relationship and build trust. Gone are the days of big companies hiding behind flashy websites, saying one thing and doing another. Flash and glitter are gone, transparency is in.

InnoGage can help your business capitalize on social media and come up with a plan for success. From political campaigns to not for profit organizations to higher education and companies, we have the experience and the tools for innovative, engaging social media. Feel free to contact us today at info[at]InnoGage[dot]com to learn more about what we can do for you.

References:
[1] Vargas, Jose Antonio. The Washington Post. Retrieved from the web site May 11, 2009. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2008/11/20/obama_raised_half_a_billion_on.html

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Another Niche Social Network?

by Tom Williams on May 11, 2009

in Social Media, Web tools

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I have sat back in disbelief more than once watching a company or organization throw up a niche social network with virtually no thought about “why” anyone would join…or more importantly why they would come back over and over.

There was a great post about this on The Old College Try blog.  In an attempt to not create the wheel on this one, I will defer to these guys for the details.  Link is below…it’s a quick read and well worth it.

http://higheredmarketing.blogspot.com/2009/05/niche-social-media-sites.html

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