Using Social Media to Find Local Customers for Your Small Business

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Buy LocalHow would you like to target potential customers for your small business-but only in your local area? Targeting local traffic is an important website marketing strategy for small businesses. According to a variety of studies that have been done regarding website traffic, approximately 80% of people doing an online business search are searching for local businesses. But what if you want prospective customers to know that you are here locally? Here is where Social Media can help!
Promoting through social media sites is a new way that offers a lot to your business, mostly for free. Utilizing social networking sites is an effective way to draw local customers to your website. Here are a few social media tools to use:

FREE TOOLS

Twitter

In Twitter you can literally find tweets that mention your topic of expertise, from people who are geographically close to you. The way to do this is by using Twitter search. But instead of using the basic Twitter search box, you would want to use the Twitter Advanced Search page, which will allow you search locally.
To access the Twitter Advanced Search page type the keywords you want to search for in the usual Twitter search box and press Enter. You’ll see a results page that gives you a list of tweets that include those keywords. Click the down arrow next to the ‘cog’ in the corner of the page, then click Advanced Search. This reveals the Twitter Advanced Search page where you can really narrow your search. Type in your keywords then go to the Places box. Enter the geographical area you work in and then click Search. You’ll get a list of tweets that include your keywords, from people who are in the location you searched on. To save this search for future use click the drop down arrow on the search results page next to the ‘cog’ and click Save Search. The next time you want to look at this search click in the basic search box and a list of your saved searches will appear.
Using Twitter search in this way helps you find opportunities and people to add to your network.

Twellow

Twellow is a Twitter related tools that permit you to specifically target users who are among a certain area of interest and those who yield the most influence on the site. Once you’ve identified these people, you should follow them and hope that they return the favor.
You simply open up a Twellow account. At the top of the page you will see “Find Twellow users anywhere.” Just enter your city or location and start clicking on users you would like to target. Once they follow you back then start engaging with them.

Facebook

If you want to build brand awareness and connect with your customers, there is no beating Facebook. To claim and set up the Facebook Places page for your business. The first step is to create your Facebook Page by going to https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php. When you click on Local Business or Place, you will be taken to a page that will require you to fill in the required details of your business. After this you can use your admin panel to edit your page, build your audience, and fill your page with the requisite content. Once you have created your official local business page on Facebook, it’s time to claim your Facebook Places page.
Go to your Facebook Business Page and click on the arrow on the box next to “edit” and select ‘Is this your Business?’ When you click on it you will be taken through a series of steps that will ask for information about your business. You will now need to verify your connection to the business by either choosing an email verification process or by uploading the necessary documentation. Choose the email option only if you have an email address linked to your Facebook account and which also serves as your business email address. In terms of documentation, you will need to scan or click a picture of an official business document, like business license, tax file, phone bill, etc., and upload it.
Now you are done claiming and setting up a Facebook profile for your local business. All you need to do now is start managing it.

Foursquare

Foursquare is a location-based social networking site for mobile devices that gives your business a mobile footprint. With more people using mobile devices to search for businesses, a presence on Foursquare is one of the most popular social media tool for local businesses. Create a Foursquare Page and connect it with your Twitter account. When you create your page make sure you complete your Page Profile. Now you want to add your listing to Foursquare’s searchable database. If you don’t have a business listing, you can create it on https://foursquare.com/login?continue=%2Fadd_venue. The business listing will ask for your phone number, your website’s URL, links to your Twitter and Facebook profiles, hours of operation, and description of your business. Make sure you leave no information out.
Once your business listing has been added to Foursquare, claim it. When you claim your location, you are telling Foursquare you are the manager of that venue. You can claim multiple locations of Foursquare; all you need to do is to provide verifiable contact information. Once you are done listing and claiming your location on Foursquare, you can begin adding specials, checking your analytics, and a whole lot more. But the most important way to use Foursquare is to take the time to build up a network of just local followers and interact with them.

Google + Local

The local pages on Google+ Local closely resemble company Facebook Pages —they interact with Google Maps, Zagat reviews, and Google+. But the big thing is that your local pages will be indexed by search engines. Just click here to read my article on how to put your small business on the map!

PAID TOOLS

Yelp

This is another directory that is scaling the popularity charts, though for a small monthly fee. The 3-step process to be followed for claiming a Yelp listing for your business is similar to the processes on other sites. First go to https://biz.yelp.com/claiming. Type in the name of your business. If it shows up and is unlocked, somebody has already claimed it. If it turns up locked, click on the ‘Unlock’ button.
Another scenario is that your business listing doesn’t turn up in search. Don’t worry, just click on the ‘Add your business to Yelp’ link, which will take you to a page that will allow you to do just that. Once you click on ‘Add’, you are done. Now wait for the confirmation email from Yelp. You are done claiming your listing. Now you need to optimize the page by adding as much business information as you can. This could mean including more business information, photos, responding to reviews, and a whole lot more.

“The Bottom Line”

In using these social media tools, it’s very important that all your profiles contain complete and up to date information. Also, your contact addresses and phone numbers must be the same across all your profiles. Maintaining profile consistency across different online directories will boost your local SEO efforts and allow you to target market local customers for your business.

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6 Social Media Tools to Simplify Your Social Media Marketing

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Social Marketing Tools

How to simplify your social media marketing

 

6 Social Media Tools

 

We all know that having the right tools is essential to simplify or make any job easier-whether large, small, or just time consuming-would you not agree? The same is true with social media marketing! Are you using the right social media tools to simplify your marketing campaign?
It’s a demanding routine for a marketer or a business owner-not only that there is a lot of concerns to address such as the quality content to share with the prospect audience and right tool to use in sharing the content, but there is also the struggle against time. Nonetheless, the social media tools come into existence to shoulder the burden of these marketer just like you.

Presently, social media plays an important role for the effective online presence of businesses or websites. However, it cannot be denied that these social platforms are broad and powerful. On top of this, these networks are constantly expanding and becoming more complicated than usual. Thus, it consumes much time for a marketer or social media admin to manage the tasks on hand.
Although the social networks are upgrading with complexity, marketers can still get a hold of the advancement. In fact, there have been a number of social media tools that are created to cut down the time allotment and ease in the management of social activities. Here are just six!

1. Like Alyzer. Make sure you include in your marketing strategy a Facebook Fan page, then use Like Alyzer as a tool to provide assessment to your Facebook page. This tool will rate your page out of 100 for a free cost. Afterwards, recommendations are given for the improvement of your page.

2. Scoop.it. One of the popularly used social media tools to boost social media marketing is the Scoop it. When your social networks are connected with this app, you can publish wherever you are as you “scoop.” This only means that you are also posting on Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and tweeting on Twitter. On top of this, you can keep your audience inspired with a random of fresh interesting articles to use and post on your website, Facebook Fan page or both.

3. Post Planner. The Post Planner is one social media tool that you can install within your Facebook. It comes with a pack of features including automatic publishing of content per schedule, database of thousands update ideas, simple analytic s of people who have liked your post, add posts to your queue, and many more. With these features, Post Planner comes with a premium. However, there is a trial version available for you to determine its efficiency and usability.

4. Razor Social.  Get free juices on the social media innovations from Razor Social. It will provide you information relevant to social media tools available online to boost up your presence and reputation. Hence, cutting down the burden of managing social activity through knowledge application. Moreover, Razor Social is a community that continuously motivates its people to share significant and quality content.

5. Mention me. This is one excellent and efficient monitoring tool. The key to this application is the keyword at which will merit you to connect with other people or find potential businesses. Hence, the tool will alert you through your email or any other social media as it encounters particular keywords from various sites around the web. Nevertheless, Mention me comes in a free trial and paid versions.

6. Feedly. If you want to be updated on the news, Feedly serves the purpose. It will simply provide you with a myriad of posts at which you can subscribe to. Furthermore, Feedly can be integrated with Buffer that will allow you to share content with ease. This is because Buffer will be responsible for disseminating the posts. Furthermore, the articles that are featured in Feedly can be viewed with convenience using your very own computer or smart phone.

With the available social media tools online, workload is relatively lessened. Thus, it allows you and your website maintain credibility online. Furthermore, it maximizes your time for far more important tasks and duties.

I hope you can make use of these 6 social media tools to boost your social media marketing! Please leave a comment below.

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How to Leverage Pinterest to Increase Business Sales

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PinterestIt has become one of the fastest growing social media platform and one of the most popular in usage online to promote personal ideas or products to sale. Since E-commerce has been around for years and the number of online businesses is still growing rampantly, businesses or store owners tend to influence the social media idea as an avenue to grow their sales. Inclusion to these are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Among these social media platforms, it is Pinterest that raises virtual interest the most among online users, making it the “new kid on the block.”
Whether you want to increase your daily, special, or holiday sales, Pinterest can help you attain the upper hand. Depending on your marketing scheme, your sales can skyrocket from its baseline. This is made possible because Pinterest is inclined towards company’s products that combines both the ideas of vivid images of magazines and best deals of catalogs of some sort.
Before you promote your business or store, you need to probe a bit deeper on Pinterest. Nevertheless, there are ways that business owners need to undertake to jump-start their way to success.

Run a Test
One of the best things that you can do for your business is to invest time and resources in Pinterest. Simply open up an account and start building a following by following others-especially those similar to your niche. Then observe how others use Pinterest to promote. You will notice “Boards” and “Pins.” Boards are like your category and the pins are your post. Some have multiple categories, but you can be very effective with just one.
Here are some interesting facts about Pinterest.
• Pinterest users: 70 million

• Page views: with an average of 2.5 billion views per month

• Frequency of use: ranks 4th for most-used social media platform

• Average time spent by Pinterest users: 98 minutes/month

• Average amount per order: $140 and $180

The digits appear to be favorable, but letting the platform work in your favor is a formidable challenge. Just for a fact, you have to conceptualize your plans efficiently and competitively because your competitors are doing the same thing. Include in your strategy the identification of popular pins. You can do this by using a Pinterest analytic program like tailwindapp.com -a paid site that can help you track popular pins, followers, likes, and many more.

Work on Striking Visual Content
If you are geared towards marketing, you can make use of stunning images in Pinterest. Just for a fact, people love wonderful pictures as it can express a lot more than words can tell. When people get enthusiastic about your pin, users can re-pin it resulting to spread of your content.
You might be in an enigma of what kind of images can capture the hearts of the users. Of course, the bottom line here is that it should appear pleasing and worth the time. Earthy colors and reds can mesmerize your audience while a full background can give them a whole picture of what you want to portray.

Rich Product Pins
Pinterest Screen-shotDo not forget to change your pins into rich product pins. It comes in six types: app, article, movie, place, product, and recipe. It adds extra information and help the pin itself stands out from the others. With the rich product pins around, Pinterest had also came up with a rich pin validator. It is made for e-commerce sites to safeguard against fraudster. At this point, information is always updated because it is link to site.

Good Advertiser
Just like any other ads, Pinterest is also keen towards high standards. If you want your advertisement to get noticed and appreciated, you just have to follow the basic advertising principles. According to Pinterest, these include being authentic, promoting your best pins, and obeying applicable laws and regulations. When these are met and with some homework, everything else will fall as you want it to be.

Coupons
Take your daily sales an extra mile by giving coupons to your valuable consumers. Remember, people want to spend their hard-earned money wisely, so it is up to you to give them a hand by virtue of your promos and great deals. Your coupons pinned in Pinterest may contain discount, free product or service, or anything that will greatly benefit your customer.

Fiery Competition, New Approach!
Marketing scheme is not just all about the ideas. With the rise of Internet and other social networks like Pinterest, there now comes a need to employ a photographic approach to reach the desired sales of every company despite the heated competition.

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Tips on Marketing Local Businesses With Social Media

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Social Media for Business

 

social media for businessBusiness oftentimes is a local competition. Especially if it’s a brick and mortar storefront and you want to promote it locally online. To get into the game, you have to ride the craze in reaching out your prospect consumers. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of options to choose from— paid advertisement and social media.
In every marketing strategy, budget has always been the primary consideration. Paid advertising can be effective, but it can cost you an arm and a leg. Moreover, there is a loophole in this scheme. The impression that you will make on your prospect consumers will depend on how you formulate the plan and execute it. This goes the same with social media marketing, but on the contrary, it is not expensive as paid advertisement. Despite the difference in digits, it can also render you promising results.
Social Media in Action
No matter what your purpose is— brand awareness, online reputation management, website traffic, or communication with your audiences, social media always has a room to cater these needs. With your goal right before your eyes, your approach to social media will depend accordingly. Here are 6 tips to market local businesses with social media!
• Devise a social marketing plan. Given that you have analyzed your target audience and your competitors, it is about time to carefully think of a plan that will blow away your rivals. In this part, consider coming up with content ideas that will interest your audience such as tips on using your products and great deals.
• Go for quality instead of quantity. There is no use in posting many articles online if it is just fluffy. Always remember that people want to read something valuable and worth of their time. For example, if you are promoting food supplements, write articles that relate to your subject like its benefits to the user.
• Maintain an open communication. Technology paved way to what kind of communication the people have today. With this advancement, it is easier for businesses to get in touch with their audience. For instance, people can exchange or share thoughts on Facebook or Twitter. As this continuous, it creates a dynamic and lively environment for people to interact. Hence, it improves customer relationship.
• Social Media Platforms. Facebook and Twitter are just some of the popular social media platforms where people interact. Despite its orientation towards online interaction, you can also take advantage of advertising your products or company as its reach is multitude. Just make it a point that you will not solely use the platform for the sake of promotion, but also for interaction. Apart from these social media platforms, you can also use Foursquare for your business. According to Social Media Examiner, it is a location-based social network that has over 20 million users. In this platform, people use to check it for locations or shops that they have visited. As people checked where they have been, it can be shared with Facebook friends and Twitter followers. Eventually, your business is noticed.
• Offer promos and great deals. Customers love promos and great deals from a company. You can offer discounted products or services, buy one take one deal, and even a game of prizes. Doing these are a sure fire to delight your consumers.
• Dress your business professionally online. Reputation greatly matters for every business. It is one of the main ingredient for success. With this, keep your social business accounts in motion by sharing good content, promotions, and fabulous deals.
Mapping your business success with social media is indeed possible. You just have to cut out the appropriate moves to market your products and services locally. Hence, delve deeper on what every social media network can offer and gear it towards your goal.

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Top Mobile Apps to Enhance Your Social Media Experience

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Mobile AppIt seems that smart phones just keep getting smarter every day! The same thing goes with mobile applications. Nonetheless, these innovations make it easier to everyone come in contact with their friends or audience.
Progress in mobile technology made a lot of wonderful differences in people’s lives. From the plain manner of messaging, you can now have emoticons and stickers to relay what you want to say or feel effectively. Not only that, you have the option of sharing what you have in mind or what you want others to know about on something interesting. With this advancement on mobile technology, you can now twirl the social media with just a small device at your palm for personal or commercial use.
So what are the top mobile apps that is assure to enhance your social media experience? Here are eight!
WhatsApp
Messaging has never been more amazing and wonderful with WhatsApp. As a messaging platform, it allows its user to enjoy sending and receiving messages, images, location and contacts, and videos all around the world. In fact, around 600 million of monthly active users enjoy this mobile app.
Snapchat
Another popular mobile app is the Snapchat. It has around 100 million of monthly active users who enjoy the Snapchat features. With this app, you can record a brief video or  snap a photo and sendMobile phones  it to your friends. Whatever you have snapped, it will disappear after a few seconds; but it will depend of course to your reference.
Facebook
Social media will not be complete if Facebook Mobile is not included in your mobile apps. This lets you stay connected on the current updates and whereabouts of your friends or audience. With this app, you are always on the go to share your status, photos, and pages you like.
Flipboard
Scanning and reading on the news, photos, and updates is made more fun and convenient with Flipboard. Get every bit of what your friends and audience share in Instagram, Google Reader, Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter in a magazine layout of Flipboard.
Instagram
You know how compelling images attract attention? With Instagram, you can turn every photo into some sort magic work of art.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn lets you keep in touch with professionals. This platform connects over 100 million of professionals and businesses worldwide. Chances of getting employed is likely in this platform. Nonetheless, you can always get the latest updates and messages from your network.
Mobile Apps Dropbox
If your photos, videos, and documents greatly matter to you, then you can save them in Dropbox. Automatically, it will sync with your other devices such as smartphones, laptop, and in the Dropbox website itself. Whenever you want to share something in social media, getting those files would be just a piece of cake.
Buffer
With Buffer, you can sync up all your social media accounts— Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Not only that, this app can also help you find content that are worth sharing such as photos, videos, blog posts, and even news articles.
Social Media Gets Even Better
The evolvement of mobile phones and apps made it possible for everyone gain access to social media. No matter what purpose the engagement is, these mobile apps made people’s experiences meaningful.

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5 Things Your Competitors Can Teach You About SEO

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CompetitorsWhat your competitors can teach you about SEO

Search engine optimization or simply SEO is one complex mechanism that even professionals get a hard time in cracking out the shell. For a fact, the algorithm has been changing overtime as search engines always want to give the people justifiable and reliable results for their queries. If you are an SEO professional, how can you get your hands on the top page?
To keep the content in top rankings, your search engine optimization strategies should always be legit and updated. Any foul schemes can be detected and eventually will sink your ranking to a lower level. In light of this, here are some tactics that you can practice to catch up with any search engines’ changes in algorithm.

Lesson #1: Content is king

Over the years, the content has remained as one integral factor in search engine optimization success. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo have always known that people are up to valuable content and not something empty-worded article. If you want your content to live up with the results, then you better affix high quality attribute. Furthermore, avoid putting duplicate content into your website. Observe your competitors articles in relations with their SEO technique or strategy.

Lesson #2: Getting reliable links

One thing that will surefire the success of search engine optimization is the links. This still works until today, but it now has to do with “natural and earned” links. Even if you buy links, there is no absolute guarantee that these links will count.
So how are you going to earn these links that are acceptable to the search engines? It may take up a lot of hard work and luck, but you can earn these links through endorsements. If you influenced other bloggers or journalists to write something about your business and link it to your site, then the search engine will count it in. You can get a good idea on how your competitors are doing this.

Lesson #3: Not overdoing keywords optimization

A content enriched with keyword can be the downfall of search engine optimization. You should take note that search engines can read between the lines. Therefore, keep the specific keywords at bay and use other keywords instead. You will notice how a certain site have good use of keywords but never overdo it.

Lesson #4: Work on social media

Social media plays an integral role in uplifting your online ranking. It should be remembered that the stance of social media is wide and so is its capability to bring quality traffic. Therefore, be active in updating your social media accounts and do not forget to link your content back to your site as part of your search engine optimization strategy. Look at your competitors site and notice how well they do this-normally on the right side of their pages.

Lesson #5: Be patient and always be updated

One time search engine optimization will not instantly make your site recognizable by the search engines. It takes times as you implement several tasks to attain a long-lasting impact on your website’s traffic and rankings. Apart from being patient, you also have to keep yourself updated on the current happenings on the algorithm of search engines. It is through knowledge that you can tailor your strategies in optimizing a website.

If you don’t know who your competitor is simply “google” your keyword or phrase, and the first three sites are going to be the competition. But you’re not going to want to compete with the “big boys” as of yet, so look for websites close to your size for they will be your real competitors.
Indeed, working with search engine optimization is no easy task. In order to be successful, you should unify all the factors or techniques in SEO to reap out justifiable and good ranking.

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9 Effective Practices for Social Media Success!

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Social Media Success

Every businessman dreams out to be successful in his chosen industry. The fact that you will have a lot of competitors, it would not be easy to scratch the surface of success. For this very reason, you might be betting on establishing an online presence and one of these is through social media.

In today’s technological advancement, businesses make use of social media for many purposes. These include getting in touch with their clients, driving sales, or reducing the cost for marketing. No matter what the purpose it may serve, social media success is essential to fulfill any businesses’ objectives.

Speaking of social media success, “How to be successful?” is often the inquiry. The step to victory does not end in merely creating social media accounts, but rather on how you will tailor your strategy and put them into unwavering motion? In light of this, here are some practices that could be beneficial in your online endeavor.

·     Create simple social media references. When you create social media references, make it simple and short. The simplicity of these references will warrant your prospect target ease of remembering your brand and high chances of social media success. So whenever your consumers heard the advertisement on TV or radio, the references will ring easily in their heads.

·          Do your share in offline marketing. Do not simply rely on online campaign of your brand or company. To achieve social media success, employ as well the offline strategies to influence those within your target audience. Examples of which are incorporation of your social media references on business cards, invoices, product packaging, and even broadcast materials.

·     Be genuine. When you really want to gain the trust of your clients and truly achieve social media success, be true to yourself and to them. Therefore, use your real identity or the company’s name. You should take note that people can sense it whether you are being true or just fooling around.

·       Know your audience. Having a keen understanding on your target market can contribute to your social media success. Once you know how your audience interacts in social media platform, you can then tailor schemes on reaching out to them.

·       Listen to the public. To attain social media success, having all ears is one integral trait that all businesses should possess. You should acknowledge what your consumers’ concerns and what they think about your products or services. By being an active listener, you can address your consumers’ concerns more precisely.

·         Share awesome content. In social media, do not be self-centered. Instead of focusing on yourself, share content related to your industry that will interest your consumers. You should take note in social media success; interesting topics make people hooked into it. When you do so, people will talk about you through your content.

·        Communicate your mission and vision. Whatever social platform you are using, make it sure that you effectively convey your company’s mission and vision. In this aspect, you make your business appear in imbued professionalism and high credibility. In addition to this, you give your consumers a hint of what your company is all about and for what purpose it exists.

·         Do not annoy your followers. One thing that hinders social media success is being an annoyance. If you do not want your audience to draw back, then stop making requests that will do no good in their favor. Therefore, refrain from sending more than three messages or requests in a week.

·      Be consistent and remarkable. This would be easier said than done, but being consistent and living up for excellence will bring all your actions to social media success. Hence, do not falter in sharing valuable content, updating your account, and getting in touch with your audience. These actions will make you a remarkable company in the near future.

Discovering social media will not instantly bring you tangible results. However, keeping up with the best practices in social media will earn you success in the near future. As you attain social media success, there is the likelihood that it will do the same with your business!

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Miley Cyrus and Mobile Phone Tips: 5 Surprising Things They have in Common

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Miley CyrusAs you listen to Miley Cyrus’ music while playing games with your phone, have it ever crossed your mind what their similarities are? Who would have thought that in the timeline of Miley, mobile phones, and mobile apps, there are some surprising things they have in common. More importantly, they have brought great impact to both fans and users. Here are 5 surprising ways how:

1. Miley and Mobile Phones: You Never Know What’s Next

From squeaky clean singer-actress, Miley turned out to be a wild personality in Hollywood. The “Party in the USA” singer chopped her hair and portray a more modernized and all-out sexy icon.

Similarly with mobile phones, transition is constantly occurring to benefit its valuable users. It can be noticed that previous models of mobile phones are the bar phones. Presently, it transcended into more sophisticated smart phones bearing a wide-range of features. With a variety of options to choose from these communication devices, one of the helpful mobile phone tips is to select a phone model that will meet your demands and your budget.

2. They Inspire and Teach People

As Miley is an artist, she was set to be a role model to teenagers and younger generations. From her songs and actions, surely you can grasp both good and the bad ideas that will either be beneficial to you or not.

Those two facets of outcome are the same with mobile phones. Mobile users can learn good things from mobile apps such as knowledge and entertainment. However, misuse of those mobile apps will deter the growth of the user’s morale. To ensure the right decision, always follow wise mobile phone tips which are reading and understanding the details and features of a particular application for phones.

3. Both Tells Something about Themselves

In every song that Miley plays, it reflects something about her. For instance, the “Can’t be Tamed” relays the likelihood to stand out rather than fit in.

On the other hand, mobile phones share about being diverse with its broad range of mobile apps that come in premium or free usage. Since some apps come with a price, heed one of these mobile phone tips— always weigh the significance of a mobile app when you opt for a paid service.

4. High Earnings

Both Miley Cyrus and mobile companies have earned good digits from their hard work. In fact, Miley hit the #35 spot on the “2008 Forbes Celebrity 100” for having estimated earnings of $25 million from June 2007 to June 2008. Meanwhile, smart phones accommodated the 55% from the mobile sales according to a post on Forbes’ website.

5. The Social Media Connection

Both Miley Cyrus and mobile devices are both very popular in social media. Like many celebrities who have a large following on Facebook and Twitter, Miley is no exception. Many mobile apps and devices are geared to interface or connect with top social media platforms. They both are constantly giving their fans and valuable users a worthwhile experience, engagement, and satisfaction.

We know that mobile phones are not merely for MobileMobile phones entertainment. From them alone people can have the opportunity to learn something valuable that in the end will be of great help to their growth. Therefore, just like Miley, respond appropriately or surprisingly, to whatever is presented to you.

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How to Craft a Killer “Elevator Pitch” For Your Business

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This article will explain the elements of a powerful elevator pitch and then walk you through how to craft your own.

What is an Elevator Pitch?

This is the 30-60 second business description of what you do and why someone should work with you. It’s called an “Elevator Pitch” because it describes the challenge: “How would you explain your business and make a sale if fate placed you in an elevator with your dream prospect and you only had the time it takes to get from the top of the building to the bottom?”

Why Is Having an Elevator Pitch So Important?
You only have 30-60 seconds to make a powerful first impression. The attention span of the average person is just 30 seconds before their mind starts wandering. The other reason is people have less time today. You need to grab them quickly or lose them forever.

Essential Elements of a Powerful Elevator Pitch
1. Concise. Your pitch should take no longer than 30-60 seconds.

2. Clear. Use language that everyone understands. Don’t use fancy words thinking it will make you sound smarter. Your listener won’t understand you and you’ll have lost your opportunity to hook them.

3. Powerful. Use words that are powerful and strong. Deliver the “Sis-Boom-Bang” to grab their attention!

4. Visual. Use words that create a visual image in your listeners mind. This will make your message memorable.

5. Tell a Story. A short story, that is. A good story is essentially this: someone with a problem either finds a solution or faces tragedy. Either type of story can be used to illuminate what you do.

6. Targeted. A good elevator pitch is aimed for a specific audience. If you have target audiences that are vastly different, you might want to have a unique pitch for each.

7. Goal Oriented. A great elevator pitch is designed with a specific outcome in mind. What is your desired outcome? You may have different pitches depending on different objectives. For instance do you want to: make a sale , gain a prospect, enlist support for an idea, or earn a referral.

8. Has a Hook. This is the element that literally snags your listener’s interest and makes them want to know more. This is the phrase or words that strike a chord in your listener.
How to Craft Your Killer Elevator Pitch

  • Write down what you do. Write it several different ways. Try writing it at least 10-20 different ways. Don’t edit yourself at all. You will edit later. This first step is for generating ideas. Don’t hold back. Ideas can be goofy, serious, wild, funny, or conservative. It doesn’t matter. The goal is to get at many ideas as possible down on paper.
  • Write a very short story that illustrates what you do for people. If necessary, the story can be long. You will boil it down later. Paint a picture with words.
  • Write down your objective or goal. Do you want to make a sale, gain a prospect, enlist support for an idea, earn a referral, or something else?
  • Write 10-20 action statements. This is a statement or question designed to spur the action associated with your goal.
  • Record yourself. You can use Dragon Dictation if you don’t have a recording device. Dragon Dictation is a free phone based service that translates your messages into text as well as providing an online link to the original audio.
  • Let it sit. Come back to what you’ve written with fresh eyes and ears the next day or later on in the same day.
  • Highlight the good stuff. Listen and read through what you’ve recorded and written. Then either highlight or circle the phrases that hook you with clear, powerful, and visual words. Obviously not all the words will fall into these categories. You still need connector words, but you want them to be as few as possible.
  • Put the best pieces together. Again you’ll want to write down several versions of this much tighter pitch. Tell us what you do and why people should want to do business with you. Include elements from your story if you can fit it in.
  • Do a final edit cutting as many unnecessary words as possible. Rearrange words and phrases until it sounds just right. Again, the goal is 30-60 seconds maximum.
  • Dress Rehearsal. Run it by as many people as you can get to listen to you. Get feedback from colleagues, clients you trust, friends and family.
  • Done for now. Take your final elevator pitch and write it down. Memorize and practice it until it just slides off your tongue naturally.
  • Continue to improve. Over time, always be on the listen for phrases that you think could make your elevator pitch more clear and impactful. And then test it out. Every once in a while you will probably benefit by starting from scratch because things always change: you, your business , your goals, and your clients’ needs.

By K Stone of Life Learning Today

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Avoid Bad Conversations

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One of the most interesting and fun parts of having a social media site is being able to jump into any conversation you feel you can share an idea or opinion about with people from all different parts of the world. Working as a social media virtual assistant, where marketing is one of your main goals, the conversation pieces you hold are necessary. However, the quality and legitimacy of those conversations really do matter.

As much as building relationships, human-to-human, is important, the quality of those relationships is also important. You may recognize that when meeting someone in person, you want to be approachable, sophisticated, and proper. Conversations that take place on social media sites should also fit within these guidelines. Conducting yourself in a professional manner shouldn’t end until you’re not working.

It’s normal to have bad conversations and good conversations. Bad ones may consist of mono voices, endless sentences, and quirky ways of expression. Good ones could also include quirkiness, but will also include meaning, depth, and less face value.
The point here is are you paying enough attention to yourself and the way you conduct your conversations? As a social media marketer or manager, most of your clients hired you because of your ambition, goals and the way you spoke to them. They don’t have much more to go off of other than how you speak and your past track record.

When you’re alone, start thinking and ask yourself some questions. How would I sound to a complete stranger? What would I say? What would I say about myself? When you’re out and about, think about the conversation you just had with the cashier or waitress. Also think about how you speak when you are at work. Being self-aware can give you more of an intelligent and professional outlook, which is very important as a social marketing assistant.

Great conversations start with positive behavior including, thoughtfulness, sharing yourself, empathy for others, and conveying insights or ideas in a positive manner. However, even when you are starting out positive it can end up in a bad place. Here are 4 ways to avoid a bad conversation:

1. Don’t be overly blunt when asking questions.

When asking questions to another person, don’t turn into a Combat Captain. Let the questions spawn organically, not brutally. Let the conversation unfold and ask questions so it can do so, but don’t pry and pry and come off too stern. That’s scary.

2. Difference of Opinion? It’s ok, embrace it!

Instead of just trying to get your point across and only giving a basic acknowledgement of the other person’s idea or opinion, even if you hate it, say more that “yea-yea.” You want to engage the person and the conversation, whether to move them towards what you think is right or not, we’re all humans and we’re entitled to our opinions. You’ll have a much better chance of swaying them your way if you just talk about it rather than shrugging it off.

3. Don’t go overboard when talking about yourself.

The last thing a person wants to hear is a two hour conversation, where the one person speaks the entire time and it’s all about them and their life. It’s boring, wasteful, and just rude. Try to avoid this at all costs. However, in my experience, to get someone on your good side and make them feel welcome, do remember to ask questions about them. It creates a more comfortable atmosphere and portrays that you care.

4. Short, Cryptic, One Way Statements = Bad

I love being witty, wise or a smarty-pants, whatever you want to call it, but there is a time and place for things like this, such as at home or once you know a person well and they know your personality. If you continue on this way, you may come off as a bit cold or mean. I know you probably don’t intend it to be that way, but not all people are like you so it’s better to just be personable rather than disengaged and short.

Great conversations are fluid, have depth, and are stimulating. They allow for connections to be made and can inspire. As a social media assistant and marketer, language is our art and we should provide the best. Working on the art of conversation can help you personally and professionally and overall, enrich your daily life.

By Dawn Pigoni of http://besocialworldwide.com

 

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