September 2011
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Labor Board: Fired-For-Facebooking Employees Must... →
We hear a lot about people being fired for the conversations they have on Facebook, but this is the first time we have seen the National Labor Relations Board order someone be rehired. Here the judge claims the Facebook conversation in question was “well within the bounds of normal discussion of workplace conditions” and should not constitute grounds for immediate termination. Is this...
August 2011
2 posts
Every time you make it hard for your customer to provide you with feedback, your basically admitting you have bad service.
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14 Million Americans Scanned QR or Bar Codes on... →
It appears QR codes are catching on quickly. Study shows users most likely to scan code at home or in store. We’ve seen examples of this in clothing stores where customers can scan a QR code to order alternate colors or sizes that may not be in stock. What other interesting uses have you found?
July 2011
1 post
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Sh*t Hits the Fan for Netflix as Customers Speak...
If you haven’t yet heard, Netflix announced a huge price increase across the board today based on splitting its DVD and streaming services into two separate plans. The resulting price increase brings basic fees up over 50%.
The company announced the change on it’s company blog as well as on Facebook and have been receiving a steady stream of complaints and negative feedback ever...
June 2011
4 posts
Get Satisfaction Upgrades Social Customer Support... →
Seems like a great tool. Has anyone tested it out?
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Klout Comes to Facebook Fan Pages « Measuring... →
The new Klout partnership with Involver allows brands to create custom fan content for those with greater social influence, allowing those who will help your message go viral faster to have priority access.
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More Marketers Embracing Brandverbing →
Interesting article on empowering brand names by making them verbs. Note that what this article doesn’t discuss is the danger of losing your trademark if your brand names becomes the unanimous term for your category of product or service.
May 2011
1 post
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March 2011
10 posts
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Salesforce Buys Radian6 →
Social Media Monitoring giant Radian6 was purchased by Salesforce.com. How will this improve their offerings?
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Not Being on Social Media is Killing Your Business →
If you read one article this weekend, this should be it!
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Quick Engagement Tip - Profile Picture
Go to your favorite brand’s Facebook fan page and what you’re most likely to see is a picture of their company logo as their profile picture. There is nothing wrong with including your logo in your profile picture, but if it’s the only thing there you’re missing out on a great opportunity. You see, when fans visit your page, chances are they are already aware of who you are...
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Beginning to Measure Social Media ROI
Analytics are undeniably important and usually the only way to convince a CMO to grant a budget for social media. However, tracking social analytics hasn’t been much of a science until late. For many, social media ROI has been strictly centered around conversions, likes, followers and views. While these are all valid and still necessary, they only measure static, single-time interactions. A...
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Yelp Explains Reviews & More →
Read this post to see insider information from Yelp on how to make the best uses of checkins and reviews. Note: Yelp states that more established reviewers carry more weight on your rating, so if you’re worried about that one disgruntled customer joining Yelp to destroy you, think again.
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Blogger Revamp →
Looks like Blogger is finally getting a revamp. Whether it’s just out of necessity to compete with Wordpress (known for it’s style sheets and use in developing full websites) and Tumblr (known for simplicity and ease of use) or because Google’s finally innovated some new tools is yet to be seen. Click the link for the article on TechCrunch.
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The Evolution of Social Advertising
Are you familiar with the Sponsored column on Facebook? That series of ads on the right side of the screen that highlights products and services and then says 4 of your friends like this? If so, then you’ve been introduced to social advertising. Named as such not because it is advertising that appears on social networks, social ads are marketing messages that integrate an interactive social...
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QR Code Case Study: Disney
Disney is a brand always on the forefront of technology and social communication and for the launch of elecTRONica, the nighttime dance club experience to complement the launch of Tron: Legacy, the park didn’t fail to use the latest in mobile tech to keep visitors informed and compliment the attraction’s theme at the same time. While constructing the facades that would transform...
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Starting Conversations with Your Fans - Part 2
We know that starting conversations with your fans can be tough. Social media marketers must be able to find a balance between creating natural, engaging dialogues and trying to sell your product to your audience. As we discussed in the introduction of this series, the key to forming a relationship with your audience is to find your branded voice - the tone, language and personality that embodies...
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Don't Just Talk, Listen!
Is your business using social media just to push messages and media at your customers? Then you may be missing out on opportunities. Social networks are an opportunity for two-way conversations and listening to what your customers are saying about your brand is the best way to gather information about their expectations, needs and experiences. Read the comments and wall posts being left on your...
February 2011
21 posts
8 tags
QR Code Tip #4
QR Code Tip #4: Make sure the site you take your customers to is formatted for a mobile device. This includes: size and layout for a 3.5” screen, touch-friendly interface and low load times. Another option, if you are advertising for an iPhone app, is to link directly to the app in the App Store. Rather than link the customer to a website that discusses your app, take them right to the...
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Disneyland in LA Times →
Reader Geoff submitted this article to us from the LA Times newspaper that also discusses the magical experience of Disneyland. Thanks Geoff! Learn more about Geoff’s business, Telesis Collision Center, here! Submit related articles or questions to us and we’ll feature your business too.
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Positioning Help?
Need help writing your positioning statement or determining what your company is in the business of after reading our last post? Then maybe you should attend are Achieving Results in Social Media Workshop. We will be holding our next workshop next Thursday and Friday, March 3rd & 4th, in Orange County. If you are in the area and interested in attending, check out the link below for full...
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Starting Conversations with Your Fans
You may have heard that one of the keys to success in social media is interacting and starting conversations with your fans. What you may not have heard is how to do this. What most brands want to do is throw promotions, news articles, and sales pitches at their fans. Think of this as the online equivalent of direct mail, only worse. Most people don’t want to be unwillingly solicited to,...
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Social Media Sites for Kids?
Disney just announced it acquired Togetherville, a social network designed for kids. In addition to connecting with friends, users can play games and watch videos. The site is the forerunner of a new trend of kid-friendly social media sites, including Skid-e Kids, What’s What? and ScuttlePad. The benefit of these sites is that they allow parents to interact with their children online in a...
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LinkedIn Tip #2: Building Your Products & Services...
As we mentioned in our last LinkedIn post, the website now offers businesses the ability to expand upon their company profile by adding your product and service listings to the page. These take the form of a simple and an advanced method. You should do both.
The simple method entails listing out each of your products and/or services, adding a description, and any additional attributes or...
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Are Your Social Profiles Costing You Jobs or...
From college admissions officers, to human resources, to parents hiring nannies, social media profiles are becoming the default goto to check up on the reputation of applicants. For some of you this may be disastrous (remember those photos tagged of you from your bachelor[ette] party?). But the rest of us probably think our profiles are clean and professional. Guess again!
Enter Socioclean, a...
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QR Code Tip #2 & #3
If you watch Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, you may have seen him hold up a giant QR code this week when he introduced Odd Future. If viewers scanned the code, it brought them to oddfuture.com to learn more about the band. This use brings us to our second and third QR tips.
#2: Make sure your audience is capable of using the code at their convenience. Right now, we cannot expect users to be...
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Thinking Off-Peak →
Great article on OPEN Forum discussing how operating your business during off-peak hours, such as promoting a travel sale after a big holiday, or opening your theater in the early morning, can help you catch off-peak, overflow or johnny-come-lately traffic.
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Capcom Case Study →
Take a look at this excellent example of integrating social media onto a web platform. Capcom uses Facebook comment feeds to allow gamers to talk about their favorite individual characters and also integrated YouTube videos of character-specific gameplay footage. The integration is clean, keeps the conversation on Capcom’s website and isolates conversations by topic. Click the title for the link.
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Workshop Reminder →
Don’t forget to sign up for our Achieving Results in Social Media Workshop on March 3rd & 4th. Only $50 for both days. For more information click the link above. If you’d like to host a workshop in your area, let us know.
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Exclusive Fan Content on Facebook Fan Pages
Any content placed on your Facebook Fan Page is already free, and since you can’t track Facebook traffic through Google Analytics, the best way to maximize your ROI is to at least require visitors to like your page before browsing your content. This only works with custom static FBML tabs, but if you are designing your pages correctly, that’s where a lot of value should live.
To do...
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If the CIA Can Adopt Social Media, So Can You →
According to this article from Engadget, the CIA has begun incorporating social media widgets into their website, including sharing buttons, YouTube videos and Flickr feeds. If the government agency, with a website we can only assume you hardly ever think of as social, can incorporate social media, there is no reason why your business can’t or doesn’t need to. Call us.
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LinkedIn Power User Tips
Did you know you can request recommendations for your company profile in addition to your personal profile on LinkedIn? We all know how important word-of-mouth is and a good review can be the difference between closing a deal and choosing the competition. If you have not begun collecting recommendations on your personal LinkedIn profile, you’re going to have a lot of catching up to do when...
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Tips for Using QR Codes
You’ve probably seen these weird boxed images before. If you aren’t familiar with them, they are called QR or 2D codes, which you can scan using your smartphone to perform certain actions. Search your phone’s app store for “QR” to find a scanner. With them, you can take the user to a website, load a map, or even have them call or text a number.
If you are...
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Old Spice's Secret to Going Viral
After the huge success of Old Spice’s first campaign featuring Isaiah Mustafa, nabbing 24 million views on YouTube, the brand wanted it’s next commercial to garner similar attention and viral buzz. They created a strategy to release Mustafa’s next commercial solely to one super fan, whose responsibility it would be distribute the video to the masses. That exclusivity factor is the secret...
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Achieving Results in Social Media Workshop
After popular demand, we are going to begin hosting monthly workshops on achieving real and measurable results in social media. These workshops will be open to all small and medium business owners and/or marketing managers looking for real hands-on experience in advancing their online profiles. Our first workshop will be a two-day event, March 3rd & 4th, from 11:00 - 3:00 in Laguna Nigel. The...
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Vote for Your Favorite Super Bowl Commercials on... →
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NBC news covers client Ms. America Pageant →
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Using Social Media for B2B Outreach
I’ve heard this a hundred times, “Facebook doesn’t work for my company because we don’t sell to consumers.” Inaccuracies aside, social media is so much more than Facebook alone. There are dozens of great social media tools, including Facebook, to reach B2B audiences. Principal amongst these has to be LinkedIn. What’s great about LinkedIn is that it can...
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Ms. America in the News
The Ms. America Pageant is being talked about around the globe. Check out these news articles from the UK http://ow.ly/3OdJs, Thailand http://ow.ly/3OdKQ, and India http://ow.ly/3OdMq !
January 2011
13 posts
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“We’ve had over 140,000 page views and 4,000 fans in just over a month.”
– Pageant owner Susan Jeske
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“Ms. Cleary says the highlight of her reign was working with the Salvation Army...”
– Reigning Ms. America, Bridget Cleary
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Ms. America Pageant Update
Sunday night we will be posting live photos and updates from the pageant. Stay tuned to see who wins our Ms Popularity contest. To vote, visit our Facebook page.
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Metrics & ROI - Why You Should Use Engagement... →
Just like a customer that doesn’t buy anything, a fan that doesn’t interact with your posts shouldn’t be measured as a success.
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New Site Design
Welcome to the new BrandingReason.com! We’ve updated our site and improved our layout to provide a better experience for you, our readers. Our new interface allows us to provide you with more content in a cleaner, streamlined format. Be sure to check out our links in the lower right to see our services, contact info and to join our social media profiles. We also have a new feature that...