If you have any questions just let me know. Please comment below!
The post Google Rolling Out New Interface For Places appeared first on Ken Ivey.
If you have any questions just let me know. Please comment below!
The post Google Rolling Out New Interface For Places appeared first on Ken Ivey.
If you have any questions just let me know. Please comment below!
The post Google Rolling Out New Interface For Places appeared first on Ken Ivey.
Ever thought you could be involved in a conversation with Ashton Kutcher, Jon Stewart, or Miley Cyrus? What about some of your industry’s rock stars? Well, you can, through social media. Tools like Twitter and Facebook make it easy to connect with the stars and the experts on a person-to-person level. Here’s how:
Getting noticed by the stars in Hollywood, or in your industry, is possible. But rather than sending a fan letter via post and waiting months for a reply, cut through the red tape and go directly to the source via social media. It will save you time, and save yourself a postage stamp.
Conclusion
As an entrepreneur, time is your most precious asset. It’s the one resource you cannot beg, borrow, steal or replace. While some people are thinking of social media as a sinkhole for losing hours and days, smart business people know they can leverage their networks for a variety of business-related purposes. Hopefully, this series has given you some ideas for saving yourself time, money, and effort.
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In an earlier article in this series, we covered using your social media networks to get informal opinions from your followers and friends. Now, let’s cover how to solicit more structured input. There are a number of ways to create and post “official” polls or surveys, none of which involve getting a paper survey printed, and sending it out via snail mail to your followers. Here are some options that are much faster and less expensive:
Polls are perfect for the following circumstances:
The post Execute a Survey or Poll appeared first on Ken Ivey.
You’re changing the name of your podcast. You just gave birth to a baby girl. You’re heading to Los Angeles for an upcoming trade show. You are releasing a new online product. All these are perfect opportunities to use your social media networks to help spread the word far and wide.
When you have something that you want to share with the widest possible audience, leverage your networks – all of them. Here are some tips to make sure your news gets the attention it deserves.
1. Don’t be afraid to post it more than once. Particularly on Twitter, stuff gets lost in the noise. If people don’t catch it the second you post it, it may be gone forever. Use a tool like Tweriod.com to see when most of your followers are online, and post during those times. And post it a couple of times over the course of a day or so. Those who already read the original post will just delete it without thinking twice about it.
2. Create an opportunity to connect. Turn a newsy announcement into a way to engage with your audience. Instead of just saying “My new product launches next week,” say, “Check out this sneak peek of my new eBook that I’m launching next week. Let me know what you think!” Or, “My daughter is here – here’s her birth photo. Guess her birth weight and the person who’s closest will win a free 30 minute consultation with me.” People are looking for new and different. Give it to them.
3. Talk about the news before it happens. Telling people about what you have in progress not only helps them feel engaged, it also serves as a subversive way to promote yourself without sounding promote-y. Say, “Just finished the last chapter for my eBook. Have you signed up for early notification?” Or, “I’m interviewing so-and-so next week for my next online class. Do you have any burning questions you’d like answered?”
4. Interconnect your social media networks. Place an announcement on Twitter that sends your followers over to your blog to read more. Record an announcement on YouTube and then post it on Facebook. The stronger the interconnections between the spokes of your network, the stronger the overall network.
As an aside, it’s also important to note that with recent changes in the search engines’ algorithms (the mathematical equations they use to determine if your website shows up in the search engine’s results for a given query) the recommendations above are now considered “Social Signals” – and may give your website an unexpected boost!
So, get a jump on press releases and publicity, and don’t sit back and wait for the newspapers to find you. Instead, you can do some promotion yourself by leveraging the members of your network.
The post Share Important Announcements appeared first on Ken Ivey.
Whether you’re working in an office or at home, taking regular breaks is essential for your mental and physical well-being. In the traditional office, you could head to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee, or head down to the proverbial water cooler. But when you work for yourself, taking a break to join into humanity is a little more involved. You can get in the car and drive to Starbucks for a quick latte, but that takes time and money.
You could call up a friend to check in, but who talks on the phone anymore? Instead, here are a handful of things you can do to take a much-needed mental vacation, all from the comfort of your own home, all via your social media networks:
Any of these ideas takes less time than a trip to the local Starbucks counter – or a trip to the water cooler, for that matter! Use your break time wisely and you’ll receive the double benefits of refreshment and audience engagement.
The post Take a Quick Break appeared first on Ken Ivey.
Large corporations spend millions of dollars, prowling the streets, seeing what the trends in fashion, music, and culture are. They rely on feedback from companies like Gallup, the Nielsen Ratings, and American Consumer Opinion to see what’s hot and what’s not. In a small business, you don’t have the same level of resources. But that’s okay – you can get your own “feet on the street” feedback, quickly and easily, using your social media networks. Here are some of the tools you can use to see what’s hot, right now:
Twitter Trends. Go to http://search.twitter.com/ and right below the search box, you’ll see a list of trending topics (as of this writing, the trending topics include #ImSickOf, #YammouniFollow, Windows Live Messenger, Happy Election Day, and TVA ). If there’s a topic you want to track, you can click on the name and subscribe to the RSS feed to keep constantly updated on a trending topic.
Hashtags. If you want to follow a particular topic (“internet marketing,” “titans,” etc.) via Twitter, you can simply follow the hashtag (#) associated with that subject. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed to be notified whenever new tweets on that topic are posted.
Facebook and LinkedIn Groups. It’s a little more difficult to see what’s trending on Facebook or LinkedIn, but you can see what groups are growing and what topics are hot. Do a search on either site for results, and join groups that look interesting and pertinent to your business. You can receive messages directly to your email inbox or opt to log in to your account to read. Either way is a great tactic for keeping tabs on what people in your niche are talking about.
Yahoo! and Google Groups. Go to groups.yahoo.com or groups.google.com to view thousands upon thousands of groups for interests as varied as recycling, Santa Clara University alums, and Justin Bieber fans. Join the ones appropriate for your interests, browse topics, and see suggestions at http://custom.yahoo.com/bestofyahoogroups/.
YouTube “Most Viewed.” Head over to http://www.youtube.com/videos?feature=mh to see the most viewed videos of the day. You can even see top results by category (Education, Howto & Style, Nonprofits & Activism, News & Politics, Comedy, People & Blogs, etc.) The results may surprise you!
Stumbleupon, Technorati, Alltop. Check out any of these blog aggregators to see what others find interesting, read-worthy, or titillating. You can see hot topics, trending news, and just plain weird stuff.
As you can see, no need to hire a beat reporter to tell you what’s happening in your target market. You can easily track it all from your computer – no reporter’s notebook required.
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