Social Media Marketing: How To Market Successfully On Google+ – Infographic

The world’s second biggest social network, Google+ is about to change the online marketing landscape. Our new infographic, developed from our Google+ Marketing Guide, breaks down the basics of what marketers need to know.

Source: Vocus

Your Kickstarter Project Needs A Video – Infographic

The fact that video became one of the dominant tools for presentations in the business world is nothing really new. It is interesting to see that video also seems to be a must have if you consider to run a Kickstarter project. According to this research, if you don’t have a video going hand in hand with your project, your chances of funding seem to be slim.

Have a look at this infographic with some number and facts:

Source: MWP Digital Media

Two Women That Came Out On Top: Oprah And Ellen – Infographic

Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres. The road to success!

In this infographic of Oprah vs Ellen, the team at FinancesOnline.com takes a look at their money and status.

However, what really matters is not who’s richer or more powerful. It’s about two women who beat the odds to come out on top.

Source: FinancesOnline

Why BuzzFeed’s Traffic Doubled in Six Months

BuzzFeed’s Peter Lauria discusses the site’s success with Pimm Fox on Bloomberg Television’s “Taking Stock.” (Source: Bloomberg)

The State Of Social Media Marketing – Q2, 2013 – Infographic

Like any savvy online marketer, I live by stats and analytics. If I see a trend line not going the right way I jump to Google Analytics to isolate the problem.  

Marketing Metrics Overload: What Really Matters – Infographic

Don’t Get Caught Up In The Data Madness

Data and metrics are everywhere these days, making it easy to compile numbers on nearly any topic, from email marketing and lead generation to social media and digital campaigns. But often these marketing metrics are not actionable and can lead to misinformed business decisions. It is important to keep in mind that in excess, metrics may become cumbersome, overburdening, and may even lead to a false sense of success.

The History Of Business Travel – Infographic

The team at Expert Market have created a hand-drawn infographic about famous explorers called The History of Business Travel.

The aim is to compare vehicle fleets and business travel to modern day commuters. All those old expeditions were just business voyages in history.

Best Practices For Successful Facebook Posting – Infographic

Best practices for posting on Facebook have proven to be a moving target for marketers. This is especially problematic for small business owners who have limited time to devote to social media marketing. We have put together the latest findings on what to post and when to post it, so you can manage your Facebook page and get back to business.

Samsung’s Secret Sauce

Hudson Square Research Analyst Daniel Ernst and Bloomberg Businessweek’s Sam Grobart take a look at what makes Samsung so successful. They speak on Bloomberg Television’s “Market Makers.” (Source: Bloomberg)

The Chance A Startup Business Will Fail – Infographic

Blame it on the media when people seem to think that their hot tech startup will make them a billionaire by their mid-20s.

Being a startup ourselves, we are very interested in the factors that contribute to a startup’s success, so we created this infographic on the chances that your startup will fail or succeed. This also includes some research on projections for the best sectors to start your new business.

Social Media Marketing: Online Engagement Is Hot – Infographic

Online Engagement is hot among marketers. But how intensively do we really use it? And what results do we achieve with it? To find out, the University of Utrecht conducted a study, commissioned by GX Software, consisting of a survey sent to 15,000 marketers in the United States and the Netherlands. The results of this study show that Online Engagement is growing rapidly and that marketers are achieving promising results.

Online Engagement
Listening to each individual customer is the core of Online Engagement. Marketers ‘listen’ online to determine who a customer is, what he or she is looking for, and how involved they are with the brand. All in order to proactively help customers in their search by using targeted, relevant messages across all online channels. The goal is to improve customer satisfaction in the long term and increase conversion ratios in the short term.

Strong growth
The research conclusively shows that Online Engagement is growing rapidly. Although currently only 15% of the respondents indicate to practice Online Engagement, 57% say they are gearing up to get started.

Does it work?
Why Online Engagement? Most marketers use this technique to increase customer satisfaction and reduce churn rate (the number of customers who leave a company). However, Online Engagement also produces short-term results. Marketers report about 30 to 100 more clicks, 60% to 70% more conversion and sometimes even up to 50% more revenue when customized messages are used.

Learn more?
See the infographic below or download the full report on online engagement.

Source: GXSoftware

4 Things Small Businesses Need To Be Successful Online

4 Things That Small Businesses Need To Start Today To Succeed Online

Small businesses have a certain advantage; the owners and top management know their customers very well.  Using this to your advantage can pave ways to succeeding online.  Small business owners need to only focus on 4 things and do them well.

1. Contacts and Social media
2. Search
3. Website and Systems Display, Access & Usability
4. Communication and Database

1. Contact and Social Media

Social media is a bit of both; there is a sense of excitement because of the opportunities and then there is frustration when social media strategies do not work.

Business owners need to make sure that all of their contacts have been reached out to. Remember friends and family are a great way to start. The target in social media is not to think of likes but how well you can communicate and give human consumable info that your fans and followers can share with their circle.  It’s that next layer of contacts that you want to market to indirectly.

You will need to think of:

a) Is the message useful and to some certain displayed entertainingly?

b) Am I using the branding in the right place and way without shouting marketing slogans?

c) Is this what my current circle and the next circle would be interested from their POV.

2. Search

Google search and the search engines have 1 huge amazing impact: They are like dedicated billboards for the entire population outside of your contact circle. You need to have presence there.

You will have to think in terms of:

a) Re-targeting and converting some of the visits to fans and followers of your page or subscriber to your newsletter

b) Grab attention and lead navigation to deeper pages inside your website and engage them for more page views

3. Website and Systems Display, Access & Usability

Your website, satellite sites like FB page and YouTube channel need to be displayed well. Make sure your website is usable and that people can access them from Mobiles to Desktops.

You will need to think here in terms of:

a) Good and fast navigation

b) Content relevance

c) Page views

d) Conversion for re-target and direct business

e) Grouping similar items together

4. Communications and Database

The final thing on the list but as important as others; you need to be effective in communication.  Internet users love fast and quick language, avoid long, boring and cliché phrases. Instead think of bringing your words and sentences down by cutting words to make simple sense.

You need to think of:

a) Catchy and unique verbiage

b) Target Demographics

c) Lead Generation and Management

d) Marketing messages

Though these items branch out into more tributaries, they cover a good amount of real estate that’s enough to get you and your business into full swing. Although you can focus on some parts more than the others, you cannot however leave out any of them.

Source: Filsupport

What Obama Can Learn From German Solar Success And Failure

What Obama Can Learn From German Solar Success and Failure.

This is a featured article from PolicyMic, the fastest growing news site for millennials. PolicyMic provides high-quality, relevant and engaging news and analysis that promotes thoughtful conversation among millennials. Joseph Doolan is a political writer for PolicyMic. Follow @PolicyMic on Twitter.

In light of Barack Obama’s huge win and Democratic gains in the Senate, the future of American solar industry looks bright. In a campaign that only included whispers of green industry innovation, Obama’s acceptance speech included a mention of climate change.

The American media is also suddenly comfortable to acknowledge climate change thanks to superstorm Sandy. It seems that the national media cannot ignore a storm of this caliber flooding their own backyard.

So, where does the U.S. look to for an example of a successful solar industry? China has been very successful at flooding the solar panel market with the help of illegal subsidization practices, and, of course, cheap labor. This is not a viable option here, and China’s success has made it very difficult for American and German clean tech companies to get off the ground.

In a cold and cloudy country thousands of miles from the equator, Germany has launched the most successful solar panel industry in the West. With the help of years of subsidization, Germany has astonishingly become the world leader in solar energy production.

Berlin took off the training wheels earlier this year. Though results have been mixed and spun by conflicting interests, the panel industry is alive and well, and production is extremely high.

On May 25, Germany got one-third of all of its electricity from solar, for that day. While this was monumental, it was only the beginning of the good news. In the first nine months of 2012, solar power production is up 50% over the same period last year.

Astonishingly, the Germans are ambivalent over whether or not to phase out their “Feed-In Tariff” policy, wherein private citizens can actually make money with their solar power production by feeding it back into the power grid. This appears to be in response to the efforts of the great career contrarian Bjorn Lomborg.

Thanks to the German naysayers and Chinese market dominance, a wave of consolidation is sweeping across Germany’s “solar valley” in Bitterfeld. The solar panel industry is suffering. But a new manufacturing method, referred to as “oven technology,” is set to level the playing field by using fewer raw material.

The German solar industry is a model for those of us in sunnier climes. If they can have success in producing new records for solar power production every year, just imagine what the southern U.S could do. If the federal government follows California’s lead in funding innovation and subsidizing the still fledgling industry, we could abandon the damaging practices of fossil fuel extraction plaguing the countryside.

Instead of swapping one polluting industry (coal mining) for another (gas fracking) we could harness sustainable energy. We could simply take the $46 billion in fossil fuel subsidies that President Obama is promising to get rid of and put them into this domestic industry.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Pure3d

Source: Mashable.com

 

The Key To Have A Successful Viral Campaign – Infographic

 

Whether it is a new meme or the Kony 2012 video, every week there is something new online that goes viral and catches everyone’s attention.  So what makes something go viral? Ultimately viral content needs to evoke some type of emotional response from a targeted audience that motivates them to share it with their social networks. Here is how your content can go from one view to millions!

Source: Single Grain,  Pamorama

The iPhone Turns 5, A Success Story – Infographic

Love or hate Apple products, there’s no denying the iPhone’s indelible mark on technology, culture and business. Five years ago, the first iteration was unleashed on throngs of early adopters, who ogled its touchscreen interface and poked at little icons. Today, the smartphone concept is no longer the bastion of tech nerds and fan girls. It has become standard issue, thanks in large part to the iPhone’s overwhelming success and iconic design.

The device revolutionized Apple itself. iPhone sales were a tiny slice of Apple pie in 2007. In 2012, it accounts for 58% of the company’s revenue (which, overall, has skyrocketed, thanks to a culture of iTunes and apps propagated by the iPhone)…Read More

Source: Mashable.com, Statista