Posts Tagged ‘social media’

We don’t need your newsletter

Friday, June 25th, 2010

One thing that people think is that you can send anyone an email anytime.  Sure, if we have something to say to each other, even if it is a simple add me to your database or nice meeting you, then great.  I even welcome the personal, “This is what I do, and this is my company.  Can we help each other?”  However, just because we met at a party and I told you about myself and gave you a card, does not mean you should add me to your company’s newsletter email list for soap dispensers or floor wax spreaders.

These are interesting times.  Just a decade or so ago, the best way to reach your audience was to buy an ad.  Whether you made a commercial for television, made a radio spot, put an ad in a trade publication, or  even put an ad in the yellow pages or Better Homes and Gardens, traditional media marketing had the best sell through and response.  Still, people continued to create and send direct mail marketing to land in your mailbox.  Even now, I get ads and junk mail, though I have used some tools to reduce its amount significantly.  (I went to the Direct Marketing Association and signed up to reduce my junk mail clutter.  Surprisingly it seems to have worked.)  So how does one find your customers and get them to buy?  Most people turn to the internet.

Now, I have never really been bothered by spam.  I figure that spam is better than junk mail which takes paper, energy and more to produce.  However, I am now rethinking that.  Spam creation and distribution takes up a huge amount of energy that could easily be applied to more productive measures.  Furthermore, as people tighten their spam filters, it makes it harder for real email to get through-both from and to us.  So, it really begins to bother me when I talk to a salesperson and then they add me to their distribution list.  I hate signing up for anything online, as that just adds me to an email list that is sold around the net.  What I don’t get is that this is the same distribution model that was used for junk mail, and while it didn’t work for them, why would it start to work now.

When we started this business, I admit I rushed out to try and connect with every person I could and add them to my email list.  I didn’t send out a bunch of emails, but at least I had them in my Rolodex.  Problem is, now a few years later, a large portion have moved on to new ventures and new jobs.  What good is having a huge contact database if it is not accurate and most of them don’t do you any good.  When we started doing online branding and social media marketing as a service, I sent out our only email blast.  It was the perfect  time to clean up my database of old unusable emails and to remove contacts that didn’t want to hear from me.  Question is, I don’t know how many of them ended up in a spam filter anyway and how much time I wasted trying to get those emails to them.

So, if traditional methods do not work, then what does?  Social media and the internet.  People have turned to the newsletter as a way to get their message across.  While this sounds good, it is misleading.  Yes, people need to get added to the list, they may even have to sign up to get your content.  But i a world of spam, where hundreds of emails cross the desk of busy individuals, then your newsletter goes to the bottom of the read list.  By the time time they get the time to read it (if ever), you may have sent out another one or two.  Usually they are deleted without ever being read.  So what is the answer?

First off, if you do not have a blog these days, then you are missing the opportunity to add fresh new content to your website on a regular basis.  This new content is needed to drive traffic to your site.  Otherwise, your site becomes a billboard that most people have seen, but few pay attention to.  Secondly, you need to add social media to your marketing routine.  But adding it and using it are two different things.  If you only use twitter to talk about what you had for breakfast, then you are not really building the kinds of relationships that matter.  Facebook may be a time waster for lots of people, but so is television.  If you can get your message across to just a portion of the millions (or is it billions today) of Facebook users out there, then you are doing better than many.  Besides, if your friends “like” your site, then their friends see that and might check you out.  In this economy, word of mouth does more to promote your brand than any advertisement ever could.  Personal relationships are what matter.  These days, employers rarely even look at resumes and applications anymore.  They skim sites like LinkedIn for potential employees.  Service seekers are more likely to ask their twitter followers for recommendations than to check the Better Business Bureau.  Customers ask their friends where to eat, what to buy and who to hire for many of their goods and services.  So why are you wasting your time sending out a newsletter?

I personally am on a mission to reduce my email clutter.  I just unlisted myself from dozens of spam sending services.  I opted out of at least 15 newsletters today alone.  I didn’t want most of them in the first place.  We live in an online world with a 110 volt plug at the end, and if you are using email as your best means of advertising, then you are missing the boat.  Just my opinion.  If you don’t agree that is fine, but don’t tell me in a newsletter, because I won’t read it.

GLDC Launches Online Branding

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

Are you using the internet to promote your business?

Whether you are an established business or a new start up, internet marketing should be a key component of your overall strategy. In the digital age, information is available at your fingertips-literally. Rising usage of smart phones and television viewing sites online demonstrate a rapidly changing world:

5% of the world has a Facebook account. According to Facebook, they have over 350 million people logging into Facebook every month, and 175 million use Facebook every day.
19% of internet users use twitter, and the growing segment of the population that is now using twitter is young people.
The average household has at least one computer and most have two. Nearly all of these households have internet access.
Over 80% of Americans polled have purchases online at least once.
Social media marketing allows you to reach a broad audience with relatively little time and expense.

What sites are right for you?

There are hundreds of social media sites on the web. Figuring out which ones are the best for you and how to manage them can be an overwhelming task. Great Lakes Design Collaborative can help.  We will:

Set up social media profile with exclusive branding.
Establishing a rich presence on each social network creates brand exposure. Your brand takes the form of logos, colors, theme & feel, and messaging which will link back and direct traffic to your primary website.
Most sites allow you to claim a vanity url (twitter.com/you). Claiming your name and other high value keywords on the most popular social networks ensures you own and control your presence online.
Set up services that are relevant to your business and industry to get you more noticed.
Set up aggregator services which allow you to update content to a variety of social media sites with minimal effort. If you are using twitter, then you can reach at least 20 other social media sites with no more work.

Is your online presence driving traffic?

Make sure that your company has a website that is current and readable. Many companies make mistakes when setting up their website. They fail to target their end market, they over use flash or other video, they use too many colors or try to be too flashy and in the end turn customers away rather than drive new clients to their site. You should:

Design or update your current web site to maximize search engine optimization (SEO), through the use of keywords and meta data. A higher ranking in search engines like Google, Yahoo and Ask will force your company’s name to the top of any search.
Work to get your site listed on other sites, increasing the number of inbound links (other sites that point to your website). This increases your visibility and maximizes your SEO.
Help you to purchase as many relevant domain names as possible and have them all point to your website.

CONTACT US TODAY

For a free assessment of your social media needs, and what we can do for you, email:

Robert Stockham at robert@thegldc.com or call us at 216-469-1579

TO BLOG OR NOT TO BLOG

Blogs continuously put your name and message out, increasing SEO dramatically and creating a fan base for your brand. Integrating your blog seamlessly with your site ensures that it maintains the look and feel of your brand. Self hosting also gives you greater control of your content and of the traffic that is driven to your site. All social media and websites can be linked to your blog, increasing the inbound links.

WHAT DO YOU BLOG ABOUT?

Blog content needs to be focused and create traffic. It also needs to be regularly updated and faithfully executed. Most blogs fail because they do not remain relevant to core demographic, or fail to retain interest. Blogs that do not update regularly do not attract the attention of internet users or search engines. If you do not feel that you can execute a blog properly, we can maintain your blog for you. Through access to a variety of authors, we can find and create content that will get you noticed.

MAINTAINING YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PROFILE

Content needs to remain relevant to the industry. Your company’s social media standing is due in no small part to the level of content as well as the volume of content. Some sites only allow for small amounts of content. Smart crafting of headlines maximizes traffic and buzz. Followers are only part of the equation. Having thousands of followers is only relevant if you continue to engage with them. Engagement leads to conversion from follower to client. Blogs can be linked to social media sites. This propagates content across the web making it more noticeable across a variety of web sites.

Social Media Spots

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

I am on a large selection of social media sights. In order to connect with a wider audience, we are taking Great Lakes Design Collaborative to some of these great spots. Look for us soon on your favorite hub!

New Group Pages

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

As we strive to get our message out to the world, we have found that there are plenty of social media sites to help. Join us on our Facebook Group page, or our LinkedIn Group page. Join in the discussion and make us more interactive!

Social Media overtakes traditional types of advertising-but at a price.

Monday, May 18th, 2009

When blogs first started, I didn’t understand them. They were mostly online diaries of people put out there for the whole world to see. Along came My Space. This was a social site, where people could talk and see what other friends were doing, what music they liked, what was gong on with their buddies. I didn’t understand how all this would evolve or what it would mean to mainstream media. But at that time, people still read the paper everyday. They picked up the phone to say hello to people. The internet was a form of information gathering, rather than a new media for socialization.

Fast forward a half dozen or so years. Facebook is all the rage. Everyone is using it. Twitter is being used by every major celebrity and corporation.  My Space is now considered old fashioned.  Every day new and more specialized social networking sites are popping up.  You can now instantly take a picture with your mobile phone and upload it to a large selcetion of media sites with only a few button clicks.  The generation that follows ours will never be unconnected from news, people, or information.  What does this mean to us as a people and to the planet as a whole.

It is interesting how we are slowly weaning ourselves from paper.  Catalogs at trade shows are now efficiently distributed on flash drives.  Newspapers, books and magazines are available on line and on heandheld readers.  New gadgets are even arriving to replace business cards.  Soon, paper products will be obsolete entirely.  As less trees are being logged to meet our consumer demands for paper goods, we are starting to see the downside of these savings.  Increases in electricity use to power all these mobile devices is quickly on the rise.  This results in huge increases of CO2 emissions as we endevour to power these devices.

The second big problem is that of e-waste and pollution.  When I was young, we had a phone that hung on the wall.  Well appointed homes might have a second or third extension.  These phones remained in our homes for our entire childhoods.  Today, everyone has a cell phone that is replaced on a regular basis.  If you keep your phone for the 2 year length of the average contract, your phone is likely to be antiquated and useless.  Most strive to recycle their old phones, but many end up in landfill-with the TVs, computer equipment and printers.  All this e-waste is made of heavy metals that can leech into the groundwater and pollute our water table.

Social media allows us to replace the bulky production process and equipment with a small handheld device and a tripod.  This means however, we struggle to keep up with the ever changing technology that makes this possible.  While the ability to instantly get our news or point of view out there for the world to see is exciting, there is always a price to be paid.

In order to keep up with this media revolution, we are launching new media hotspots!  You can start by joining our groups on LinkedIn and Facebook.  ou can also follow our us on twitter: @GreatLakesGreen.