Posts Tagged ‘social media’
Thursday, April 29, 2010 | Written by Jacob Dearolph
Posted under: Marketing, The Entrepreneur School |
Tags: Constant Contact, Email Marketing, entrepreneurship, Marketing, social media |
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We’re honored to have been featured in a Constant Contact press release especially since they have 350,000 clients from which to chose. Constant Contact reached out to us a few weeks ago. We had been using Constant Contact as our email marketer and they liked our implementation and business concept. The press release was put together over the last few weeks and released on Monday. I’ve got a screen shot posted below. Here are a few links:
text here
- Constant Contact’s Press Release featuring The Entrepreneur School
- EON’s Syndication of the Constant Contact Press Release
This is an exciting piece of news for The Entrepreneur School as we were recognized by a well-recognized industry leader. We have no formal connection to Constant Contact so it came out of the blue for us. They liked our product and liked the way we were using theirs. Thus, they wanted to feature us. The great thing about a press release like this is all the residual links it generates. I did a quick google search and take a look at the the number of links the press release created:
- Constant Contact: Constant Contact’s Press Release featuring The Entrepreneur School
- Constant Contact: Email Marketing Solutions from Constant Contact: Press Releases
- EON: The Entrepreneur School Selects Constant Contact Email Marketing …
- Twitter: Entrepreneur Busines (entrepreneur432) on Twitter
- Tweetme: Entrepreneur Busines (entrepreneur432) on Twitter (Close to 70 separate tweets from people unaffiliated from The Entrepreneur School)
- Betteronlinemarketing.com: The Entrepreneur School Selects Constant Contact Email Marketing …
- Friendfeed.com: The Entrepreneur School Selects Constant Contact… – Health-and …
- smfusion.vox.com/: smfusion’s blog – Vox
- textmarketingtoday.com
- www.docstop.com: Scottrade Doubles Its Tax Resources for Investors (This is interesting as our link is some type of a ‘related content’ link).
- myspace.com: MySpace (A person’s tweets about the Press Release)
Press Release Screen Shot:
Tags: Constant Contact, Email Marketing, entrepreneurship, Marketing, social media | Posted under Marketing, The Entrepreneur School | No Comments
Friday, April 16, 2010 | Written by Erik Rostad
Posted under: Marketing, Social Media for Entrepreneurs |
Tags: blogs, Facebook, social media, social media tips, twitter |
No Comments
As an entrepreneur or small business owner, one of your primary goals in using social media is to keep yourself in the forefront of people’s minds. At the root level, most business transactions occur because of trust. Price is not the sole determining factor. This is especially true in the services industry. My choice in an accountant has more to do with trust than what they charge. I am providing very personal information to them, and I care more that I can trust them than if they are $100 more expensive than another company that I don’t trust.
Since trust is a main force in the decision making process, people are more likely to choose you because of a referral than because of a Google search that leads to your website. So, by reminding people what you do on a consistent basis, you keep yourself in their minds for your particular service or product.
Think of social media as the way to build trust so that someone considers your company or even takes a first step and looks at your website already knowing more about you.
Here are examples of ways to use particular social media sites to keep yourself in the forefront of people’s minds:
- For your personal Facebook account, send a status update every now and then stating a success or product launch. For instance, if you are a web designer, send an update once a month or once every few weeks linking to the new website that you just launched. Your contacts from high school might write you back saying they didn’t know you did web design and their company is looking for a new website.
- At the same time, don’t have all your Facebook status updates be about business. Keep it personal and only do business ones every now and then to keep yourself at the forefront of people’s minds for web design or your particular service.
- If you are going to do all business updates, create a business page in Facebook where people are connected to you only if they really want to know about your company.
- Send updates through the week describing what you are doing for your clients. For instance, send a quick Tweet letting people know you are headed to Coca-Cola headquarters to show your design proposal for their new promotion. After the meeting, send an update on how it went. Just keep in mind your client could also be reading your posts.
- If your finished product is linkable, include a link to the website, song, photo, etc. that you just created.
Blog
- Make yourself human through your blog. Don’t advertise. Tell funny stories. Talk about failures and what you learned. If you discover something that you can’t find elsewhere online and it relates to your business, write about it.
And finally, make sure that all of your social media profiles are connected. On your blog, have links to your Twitter & Facebook accounts. Tweet about your recent blogs.
Your goal is to have people market for you. Your goal is to have your Facebook friend get into a conversation at a party, find out that the person they are talking to needs a service that you provide, and be at the forefront of your friend’s mind so that he recommends you to the person he is talking to.
Keep yourself at the forefront of people’s minds through Social Media.
Tags: blogs, Facebook, social media, social media tips, twitter | Posted under Marketing, Social Media for Entrepreneurs | No Comments
Friday, February 19, 2010 | Written by Jim Beach
Posted under: Marketing, Social Media for Entrepreneurs |
Tags: facebook ads, facebook advertising, social media |
1 Comment
Is Facebook now better than Google for running ads? It’s a big question with lots of implications. How
you present your business to the world and drive traffic to your site is one of the most important questions for your business. Every time I lecture on Google, I ask the question, “Do you click on the ads on the top or to the right of the organic listings?” The answer is almost always no. Has Google simply lost the ability to get the clicks?
There is a rumor on Internet land that Google just cancelled 15,000 ad accounts for life. We are all trying, and spending lots of time, on manual labor traffic, thing s like social media, articles, blogging, PR, and video marketing. But, to me, it still feels like Google controls you and your ads.
So, for the next week or so, I will be blogging about Facebook ads. I have done a lot of research and I want to share it with you. Google says their biggest fear is Facebook, which gets 39 billion views a month – 5 times bigger than Google – and has 400 million members.
Facebook ads are more targeted than Google, cheaper, faster, and with less competition. Facebook allows you to drill down by age, sex, hobbies, interests, location, education, and marital status. By the end of the next week, I hope to show you a whole new way to market.
Tags: facebook ads, facebook advertising, social media | Posted under Marketing, Social Media for Entrepreneurs | 1 Comment
Monday, November 23, 2009 | Written by Erik Rostad
Posted under: Marketing, Social Media for Entrepreneurs |
Tags: making money on twitter, social media, twitter, twitter advertising |
No Comments
Does it make you mad when you receive twitter follower requests from people you don’t even know? You look at the number of people they are following and that are following them and the number reaches to the thousands.
Well, these people might be on to something according to an article in this past Sunday’s NY Times.
According to the article, marketers know that a recommendation from a friend goes a lot further than an ad placed on a billboard, tv commercial, or website banner. So they plan to access your network to advertise for specific products. In turn, you can make money from the process.
There are now a number of websites that allow you to send messages to your networks on behalf of advertisers.
- Ad.ly – “Connecting Top Tier Twitterers with Top Tier Brands”
- Izea – “Sponsored Tweets”
- likes.com – “Promote what you Like” – to be live in the next few months
- Amazon – will pay commissions when you refer people to amazon via twitter
- peer2 – “Engage, Share, Earn Rewards”
So, do you currently have a number of followers for a certain topic? Or could you start one based upon a particular idea, movie, hobby, etc? If so, by using the sites mentioned above, you will be able to insert small text ads into your twitter stream that lead your followers to a product or service. These companies listed above will take a certain % of the revenue generated from the advertisement.
This is great if the advertising makes sense. I follow John Mayer on twitter, and if he recommended a particular guitar or microphone, that would interest me. But if he advertised for snickers on twitter, that would likely drive me away.
So if you plan to pursue this for your business or personal twitter account, be wise in the advertisements that you put up on your account.
Tags: making money on twitter, social media, twitter, twitter advertising | Posted under Marketing, Social Media for Entrepreneurs | No Comments
Tuesday, September 29, 2009 | Written by Erik Rostad
Posted under: Social Media for Entrepreneurs |
Tags: auto deaths, indian government, social media, social networking |
1 Comment
When someone returns from a trip overseas, one of the first things that person talks about is riding in a taxi. For most, it is a sobering experience where death seems near eminent the entire time.
I usually respectfully listen as people describe their worst experiences knowing that nothing could top the experience of riding around in India. In all countries, there are walkers, bikers, cars, taxis, etc. In India, add to that cows. And the cows are sacred. No lanes, rickshaws, cows walking with or against traffic. You get the picture.
Amidst this chaos, 313 people die each day in auto-related accidents in India. That’s roughly 100,000 people a year, fewer than 10% of the world’s yearly 1.3 million auto-related deaths.
So, how is one of the most notoriously bureaucratic governments in the world combating this problem? They are tapping the power of social media. In order to reach their 2012 goal of decreasing auto-related deaths by 50%, the Indian government will begin using Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in an attempt to reach the growing online population.
How are you using Social Networks to reach your target audience be it an attempt to sell products, attract an audience, or save lives. Linking and Search Engine Optimization are wonderful techniques. But have you considered the power of a fan of yours doing your marketing for you? Someone who loves your product will advertise for you free of charge.
Tags: auto deaths, indian government, social media, social networking | Posted under Social Media for Entrepreneurs | 1 Comment
Wednesday, September 16, 2009 | Written by Jacob Dearolph
Posted under: Social Media for Entrepreneurs, The Entrepreneur School |
Tags: making money on twitter, social media, twitter, using twitter for business |
1 Comment
A bit of controversy is occurring here at The Entrepreneur School. Is it a battle of young (See Erik and Jacob’s blogs) verses old (See Jim’s blogs) or a battle of the naive verses the experienced? It remains to be seen and we need you to help. SEE BELOW.
Read the last 3 or 4 blogs at The Entrepreneur School Blog and look below post to the questions.
Is this True of Twitter:
True?
Or This:
$$
Calling readers of our blog, the blogging community, Twitter users, Twitter Preneurs, ect… to help. If you know of others who have been successful or have experience with the questions below then get them to respond.
So please respond with FIRST HAND accounts of your experience with Twitter in the following ways:
In the positive:
- Do you run a successful cash flowing business with Twitter?
- Do you run a online business where Twitter has verifiably helped you win customers?
- Do you run a different kind of business where marketing with Twitter’s has increased sales, brand awareness, market share, etc…?
- Have you had any experience with Twitter that resulted in an increase of the bottom line?
In the Negative:
- Have you tried to start and run a business with Twitter and it failed?
- Have you tried using Twitter for increased customers or revenues and it been a complete waste of time?
- Have you used twitter for any purpose involving marketing and it resulted in nothing?
Please respond and let us know of your experience.
Thanks,
Jacob
Tags: making money on twitter, social media, twitter, using twitter for business | Posted under Social Media for Entrepreneurs, The Entrepreneur School | 1 Comment
Friday, September 11, 2009 | Written by Jacob Dearolph
Posted under: Creativity and Ideation, General Thoughts, Social Media for Entrepreneurs |
Tags: entrepreneur, opportunity, Reality TV, social media |
No Comments
Fragmentation of an Industry - Opportunity for the Entrepreneur
I came across a blog (The Influential Marketer) that highlighted the possibility that Jay Leno’s new show could become a model for Broadcast Television (Fox, ABC, NBC, CBS). Rohit says that basically over the last 5 years the typical drama type shows (CSI, Law & Order, etc…) in this time-slot (10:00 pm) have been moving to Bravo, FX, Lifetime, HBO and others. He sites that cable’s flexibility and the impact of DVR and Tivo are two the main reasons. As these shows move thus goes the viewers and with the viewers goes the advertising dollars. In turn, Broadcast Television is declining. This may be in part why there has been a heavier influence of live reality tv and why Leno’s new live show could prove to be a working model.
I find the last point of his blog interesting:
“But here’s the most interesting part: one of the best things about social media is that it is focused on real time collaboration and sharing. If the future of broadcast is pointing towards live moments, then the intersection between television and social media may be one of the most interesting stories of the future.”
I recently saw the power of this type of social media marketing when my I watched just 15 minutes of America’s Got Talent with my wife. There was a group on that I thought did well and the judges didn’t like; I was curious to learn more so I logged on and googled the show. Later I was working on Twitter and saw people talking about it with links to blogs. Naturally, I clicked the blogs and read about it. Next thing I know I wanted to send a text and vote…
So my interest is what does this mean for the entrepreneur? At the The Entrepreneur School we teach that changing events and fragmentation o creates opportunity for the entrepreneur. Here we have the fragmenting of what was once a dominated industry. I believe the fragmenting is happening not only in the type of show, and marketing aspect (social media) but also sales and distribution of the show. Hence, Netflix, Hulu, etc…
This is being seen right now in the music industry. The industry is fragmenting such that the entrepreneurs who got out in front a few years ago are doing well in niches in marketing, distribution, sales, etc… The way I heard of and bought music now is 180 degrees different than just 3 years ago; consequently I’m spending more money now than three years ago.
So in the case of the TV Broadcasting industry changing and then being impacted by social media there is now a whole new sub-industry for people to figure out niches and ways to make money.
Tags: entrepreneur, opportunity, Reality TV, social media | Posted under Creativity and Ideation, General Thoughts, Social Media for Entrepreneurs | No Comments
Friday, August 14, 2009 | Written by Erik Rostad
Posted under: Social Media for Entrepreneurs |
Tags: entrepreneurship, social media, twitter, using twitter for business |
No Comments
I often hear people complain about Twitter. They say they don’t understand how anyone could be interested in hearing what Joe ate for lunch. Although that is a part of Twitter, it does not begin to capture the power of Twitter.
MSNBC just released a report stating 40.55% of tweets (twitter updates) are “Pointless Babble.”
So, what about the other 59.45%? Is there something there?
First of all, the most important thing to understand about Twitter is that it is the fastest search engine out there right now. Not even Google has the up to date information available on Twitter. Where did the world turn for news during the last election in Iran? Was it CNN? How about the NY Times? No, it was Twitter.
Secondly, it is an incredible tool for companies, entrepreneurs, musicians, and organizations to put a face behind their structure. Think of Tweets as text messages to the masses. Really, text messages for anyone who cares to see them. Musicians can talk about the fact that they are back stage about to perform. Organizations can send out up to the minute news items dealing with the purpose of the organization. Companies can offer discounts to the next 50 people who visit the store.
So, how can you use Twitter for your new business? Let’s highlight a few ways. One is that you can treat Twitter as a search engine for your product. Twitter allows searches by topic and is used by countless companies to gauge response to new product launches.
Another way is to set up a company Twitter account and engage with your clients. If you are in the pizza delivery business, you can seek clients to befriend your Twitter account. You can then advise specials for Twitter users if they come in your store between 2-4, normal down time. Or say you are starting a new service-based company. Set up a Twitter account to talk candidly about your new venture and the struggles you have had being an entrepreneur. By doing so, you are putting a face behind the business and will likely gain sympathizers to your product or service.
A third way to use Twitter is to find a big company in your industry and invite all of their friends to be your friends. Friend lists are public in Twitter. If people are already following Papa John’s, chances are, they are pizza fans and may follow your local pizza delivery service as well. You then have an automatic audience where you can use some of the ideas listed above to engage your clients.
So, yes, there is something behind Twitter. Like all social media tools, if you as an entrepreneur are going to use it, then really use it. Don’t set up a blog and blog twice in one year. If you set up a Facebook room for your new company, don’t update it once every 2 months. And if you set up a Twitter account, don’t just have one Tweet that says “Hello World.” Invest your time wisely in these tools. Set time boundaries, but be intent on gaining new fans of your business.
Tags: entrepreneurship, social media, twitter, using twitter for business | Posted under Social Media for Entrepreneurs | No Comments
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