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Notes for my class “Powerful Ways to Increase Your Online Presence”

Below are notes, tips and samples from today’s “Powerful Ways to Increase Your Online Presence” class for the University of Houston Small Business Development Center. I’m posting this info because it was requested.

Pinterest – www.pinterest.com

Pros

  • 10M+ unique visitors a month
  • Fastest-growing social network
  • Refers more traffic than Twitter and most other social networks
  • Easy to “pin” and “re-pin”
  • Can create collaborative boards
  • Can automate to include in other personal social networks

Cons

  • All “pins” must have a large image attached
  • There are some concerns over copyright

Tips

  • Keywords
  • Hashtags
  • Link back to your own sites
  • Credit your sources
  • Create boards with multiple contributors
  • Comment, like and re-pin
  • Use quality photos on your website
  • See what’s being pinned from your site
  • Pin videos
  • Avoid self-promotion
  • Promote through other channels
  • Upload new images
  • Host a contest
  • Add links in the descriptions of your pins

Examples

Tumblr — www.tumblr.com

“With more than 10 billion posts and 30 million blogs, Tumblr is quickly becoming a force in the world of social media. It combines the social sharing of Twitter and Facebook with a clean, easy-to-use blogging platform.”

Source: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/should-you-be-on-tumblr-seven-business-case-examples/

Pros

  • Easy to use
  • Resharing is encouraged and easy
  • Allows sharing of almost any kind of content, media
  • Very Visual
  • Tumblr users can also open their blogs to submissions from readers, which has led to some very creative Tumblr sites
  • The simplicity makes it a good choice for those who want to get a blog up and running right now

Cons

  • Commenting is not part of the site, you have to add it in
  • Customization is harder than with some other blogging platforms

Tips

  • Keywords
  • Hashtags
  • Link back to your own sites
  • Comment and re-blog
  • Use quality photos on your website
  • Don’t forget multimedia!

Examples

Storify — www.storify.com

Pros

  • Storytelling at its best
  • Can create “social stories” from curating content from other sources
  • Can add your own narrative and headers
  • Can embed the stories on your website or blog
  • Can update the stories, add more sources, and it’ll update all the embeds

Cons

  • You have to be logged in for Commenting
  • There is no customization

Tips

  • Add headers
  • Add your words – explain what’s going on
  • Don’t forget it’s multimedia

Examples

Google+ — http://plus.google.com

Pros

  • Absolutely will improve your Search Engine rankings
  • Websites using Google’s +1 button get 3.5x the Google+ visits
  • Google is integrating all their products, so there is a lot of room for growth with this network in the future
  • Video chat “hangouts”

Cons

  • Very new, minimal adoption currently
  • Pages don’t receive notifications via email, text, etc.

Pros

  • Absolutely will improve your Search Engine rankings
  • Websites using Google’s +1 button get 3.5x the Google+ visits
  • Google is integrating all their products, so there is a lot of room for growth with this network in the future
  • Video chat “hangouts”

Cons

  • Very new, minimal adoption currently
  • Pages don’t receive notifications via email, text, etc.

Tips

  • Add a +1 button to your site
  • Share unique content
  • Share photos
  • Add recommendation links
  • Promote your Google+ page on your site
  • Ask for the re-share!

Examples

Foursquare — www.foursquare.com

Pros

  • Customers/users check in, letting you know how often they visit, what their experiences were, and leave recommendations for others
  • You can reward your “best” customers or give rewards for “first” experiences

Cons

  • Security concerns
  • Whether you “claim” your business or not, they are still checking in

Tips

  • Claim your venue or create a page
  • Create a special – reward new customers, reward your best customers, provide a discount on a special day
  • Leave tips & “to do’s”
  • Use the To Do lists to give customers tasks to complete
  • Cross-promote offline and online
  • Encourage your customers to check in and post reviews
  • Use the “mayor” status as a perk

Examples

  • Radio Shack – foursquare users spent 350% more than average customers
  • GranataPet – sales increased by 28% in the month following billboard ads encouraging Foursquare check-ins, w customer specials
  • Angelo & Maxie’s Steakhouse – estimated ROI $18K from campaign; 400 people unlocked the check-in special, 60% were first-time customers
  • The Ritz Carlton – increased use of online tips
  • Livestrong – strong messages

Instagram — http://instagr.am/

Pros

  • Lets people/brands share photos
  • Lets friends and followers like, comment and reshare photos

Cons

  • Exclusively a mobile interface, with plug-ins and postings for other sites
  • Minimal control over usage of images, minimal tracking of where it went

Tips

  • Show “behind the scene” photos of how your product is made or how your prepare for an event
  • Share vintage photos
  • Show real-time photos of customers being served
  • Spotlight one thing a day – one product, one feature, one benefit, one location, one customer, one staff member
  • Use hashtags
  • Give sneak peeks
  • Ask customers to submit photos they’ve taken

Examples

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