Alberta Business Marketing

Last week our team from Ulistic met with the great folks at MSP University in Garden Grove, California.  Together, we started to carve out what will become an awesome relationship.  MSPU is one of the leading managed services firms globally and the clients they work with are market leaders and enjoy the fruits of the hard work. I have personally known Erick Simpson and Gary Beechum for a number of years, they are rock solid guys and the entire team at MSPU is built on the same core values Gary and Erick bring to the table.

During our chat last week we got looking at Facebook Marketing and how businesses can leverage Facebook to market their offerings.  It is no secret that Facebook is growing.  Their recent partnership with Microsoft BING has shot Facebook up to the 6th most popular search engine.  One in Four page views on the Internet is Facebook related and the average person spends anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour on Facebook each day.  Still many question Facebook’s effectiveness in the market place.

During our time with MSPU, a number of ideas were discussed, but it was this fact amongst all the others that kind of surprised me when I stumbled upon it.  There are almost as many Facebook users in California that what there is in the entire country of Canada.   This is no secret really, we have heard for years that there are just as many people in one state in the US than what we have in Canada.  15.4 million Facebook users in Canada and almost 15.5 in the entire state of California.  What does this mean for business?

Does marketing on Facebook now make sense to your business?

If you look at the numbers closely, the 15 million or so folks from either California or Canada represent about 50% of the population.  That represents a good portion of the Canadian or Californian landscape uses Facebook.  Pretty impressive.

Are you leveraging this to get your message out there?
How can you use Facebook to market your business?

There are many ways to do this from Pay-Per-Click or Pay-Per-Impression ads, Facebook Pages and regular interaction with people.  Engagement with folks on Facebook, talking with your community, the people in your network and simply serving the market.

Do you need to know more about how to create a Fan Page that sings?
Want to know how to engage with Facebook?

I invite you to reach out and let’s have a chat about how you can use Facebook right now.

There are a number of opportunities and Facebook can be another important channel for you to help with your marketing.  You know the old saying about LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION or what Wayne Gretzky has always said “skate to where the puck is going, not where it is”.

Need a hand to figure it out…visit my Execute On Facebook or Marketing On Facebook page and take the first step in creating a marketing strategy for Facebook today.

Tags: Blog software, Business Partnership, California, canada, Criticism of Facebook, Erick Simpson, Facebook, Facebook features, Facebook Inc, Garden Grove, Gary Beechum, Human Interest, LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION, Microsoft BING, MSP University, Online social networking, search engine, Social information processing, Technology/Internet, United States, wayne gretzky, web 2.0, World Wide Web
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Google gloats that over 2 Billion videos are viewed on YouTube each day, but don’t discount the value of posting video to your business fan page on Facebook. After all, Flickr was the most popular photo sharing site until sharing on Facebook became so popular. Now photo sharing on Facebook dwarfs that on Flickr. Youtube has big advantages over Facebook

Although views of videos uploaded directly to Facebook have more than tripled over the last year, according to comScore, and more and more phones have video cameras built into them, I don’t expect the video sharing on Facebook to take over Youtube’s positioning. For one thing, many video cameras including the iPhone make it super simple to upload video directly from iTunes to Youtube. Also, Facebook video quality is relatively poor compared to dedicated video sharing sites.

Facebook lacks HD Video

One thing that Facebook could do to encourage growth in video uploads to the social networking site is to provide HD video upload capability. As of now, file size and file quality are still too low for most folks to spend the time rendering their video files for the relatively small video audience on Facebook. For now, linking out from Facebook fan page to your HD video hosted on Youtube, Vimeo, or Blip.tv are best bet.

Tags: Facebook, Video
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According to a recent Nielson report, three quarters of Internet users are social, so surely by now you’ve dipped your toes in the blogging and Facebook pool.

Way back in the old days, 2006 or so, you might have been forgiven by your guests and prospects for not having a life outside your own Website. Conversely, today it is more than likely the first interaction your prospect has with you will be via photo or video sharing by friends and family, reviews of your services on sites like TripAdvisor or Yelp!, or a story by a travel blogger.

So this week, it might be worth considering how deep to dive into the social networking pool?

Since the average Internet user devotes 22% of their Internet time to social networking, how much of your online marketing budget time and money should  be focused around social networking?

Links:

• http://mashable.com/2010/06/15/time-spent-online-nielse/
• Nielson Report on Internet Use
• photo credit Seattle Municipal Archives

Tags: Facebook, free web marketing stuff
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I am flowing a very interesting discussion on one of my LinkedIn groups which focuses on Social Media.  The question raised by one of our members was on “what makes or what qualifications does a social media administrator require?”  Interesting question since the person asking the question has a title of “Certified Social Media Strategist”.  I was shocked to hear that there is actually a program for a Certified Social Media Strategist.  It is provided by Social Media Academy.  Very interesting.

Back to the question at hand, what skills or requirements does a social media administrator need to have?

Does business acumen matter?

How about a marketing degree or equivalent career history?

What risks does your business take by having someone who doesn’t get it?

I believe that alignment with the overall marketing strategy of the business is crucial, social media doesn’t stand on its own for many companies.  It is very important but the company can’t rest everything on the modern tools of the day.  Most businesses today who are looking at or implementing social media are not dumping their existing or proven marketing or communication activities.  The successful organizations continue to send postcards, making phone calls and hosting meetings. Their social media activities play a supporting role in many of the activities of the corporation including marketing, corporate communications, customer support and forming strong business networks.

Alignment is critical to the overall success of social media into your business.  Does your social media administrator need to understand where they stand in the pecking order?

Social Media is just another spoke in the wheel of your business.

What about maturity, is this important? Would you rather have someone who has a proven track record in your industry or someone new.  Everyone has to start somewhere but when it comes to maturity I mean you don’t want to risk having someone, regardless of age, tweeting what they had for breakfast on your company Twitter account.

Is social media deeper than Facebook and Twitter? What is the depth of knowledge of your social media administrator?  Do they have press contacts or know where the industry or your clients go to research information?  Is your administrator’s depth of Social Media knowledge stop at Facebook or Twitter?

How about thinking out of the box? In other words, creativity!  Can your social media administrator come up with creative solutions to enhance your company’s reputation or ability to serve your clients better?

What about the size of their ears? Well, not physically.  Can they listen to what is going on around then.  What is happening in the marketplace?  How about understand what news Bloomberg is reporting and what it means to the organization.  Can they listen and then approach the leadership to formulate a response or plan to seize opportunities which may exist.

Lots of stuff to consider.

If you would like to engage with the Social Media group on LinkedIn and our discussion, click here.

Tags: administrator, Blog hosting services, Bloomberg L.P., Business/Finance, Certified Social Media Strategist, creative solutions, Facebook, Facebook Inc, linkedin, LinkedIn Ltd, Online social networking, Social information processing, Social Issues, social media, Social Media Academy, social media administrator, Social Media Strategist, Social Media Ventures Inc, The Facebook Era, Twitter, Twitter Inc, web 2.0, World Wide Web
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Hot off the presses…I pulled this off of some newswire stories today.

According to PCWorld’s Carrie-Ann Skinner, Facebook is reconsidering some it’s privacy settings after a backlash from their members.  Maybe not so many changes, but making privacy and controlling what others see in Facebook easier for the average user of Facebook.

Carrie-Ann included a quote from a Facebook representative in her article “We’re working on responding to these concerns. Watch this space”.  Privacy commissioners here in Canada and privacy groups in the UK have called Facebook privacy settings “unacceptable” and are on a rampage against the US-based social networking service.

Privacy specialists are lobbying Facebook for an opt-in vs. an opt-out policy for who sees what with your information on Facebook.  Some Facebook users are even threatening to take extreme action on May 31st, 2010 by deleting their accounts if Facebook doesn’t fix their privacy.  You can share your intention to quit Facebook by signing up on quitfacebookday.com.  Funny thing, according to Facebook, they added 10 million new users since the uproar on security first was reported.

Once again, I need to remind or caution you all that if you wouldn’t email a photo or even share it face-to-face with someone..then posting it on Facebook is also not a good idea.  When you elect to post something to any online service you must practice “sensibility”.  This goes for posting, sharing, status updates or anything that could be used against you.  Almost sounds like a court of law.

But, Facebook is just the whipping boy this month.  I still remember when Microsoft was the whipping boy for all the security holes in Windows…have we forgotten about Windows.  Next month or some time down the road it will be another program or social networks turn in the spotlight.  Maybe it is Twitter or LinkedIn’s turn next.

How can you test your Facebook privacy settings?

There is an answer for all of you who are concerned about your Facebook privacy settings and don’t understand how to lock everything down.  There is a great website and serve that does all the testing for you and ensures your Facebook account is properly secured.

Are you interested in testing and then ensuring your Facebook privacy settings are set correctly?

I stumbled across this interesting site today that helps you determine you level of privacy online.  Check out reclaimprivacy.org and test your online privacy. When you hit the reclaimprivacy.org site, read the instructions very carefully and run their tool against your Facebook privacy settings.  The service will offer up recommendations to tighten up your Facebook security and actually fix them for you.

Give it try to see if you have any privacy holes that need filling.

Tags: Blog software, canada, Carrie-Ann Skinner, Criticism of Facebook, Facebook, Facebook Beacon, Facebook Inc, Internet privacy, LinkedIn Ltd, Microsoft Corporation, Microsoft Windows, online privacy, online service, Online social networking, privacy, reclaimprivacy.org site, representative, Social information processing, social media, Social network service, social networking service, social networks, Technology/Internet, Twitter Inc, United Kingdom, web 2.0, World Wide Web
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