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Do Mobile Apps Improve Your Reputation?

Many people think mobile apps are annoying and will not improve your company, but actually hurt it and be overbearing. This can be true if you do not properly advertise with mobile applications. If this tool is properly used it won't hurt yourcompany but actually could be a valuable asset.

One thing that is important when using mobile app advertisements is to make sure you allow the user to be in control of the application. This means let the user be able to see what he or she wants to see in your app by giving them choices. This gives them the feeling of you not being overbearing or trying to control them and force them to see your product or service.

Another way to have success with you mobile apps adverting is to make sure that you design for the medium. What this means is to not make it so simplistic but also don't go over the top with your design. You have to find a happy middle ground where you're not boring people to sleep but you're also not to in their face about it. This is may be the trickiest of all steps to creating your mobile app advertisement since it is hard to gauge where you stand exactly.

Load times are something that can really break you if you don't take seriously. No one is going to check out an advertisement for a product that takes 10 minutes to load. Make sure your advertisement loads quickly and without any faults to make sure you are able to get your word out. Also, if someone downloads your app advertisement you should think of giving something back to them. Such as a coupon of some sort or discount to your product or service you are offering.

Mobile app advertising is a great way to improve your company's reputation and expand it across the globe. So many people use mobile applications multiple times a day giving you a large group of people access to your company and whatever it may provide.

 

How to Reach Out (Virtually) to Japan

The recent devestating earthquake and tsunami in Japan has left hundreds of people dead and thousands upon thousands homeless. According to CNN, this could be the most expensive earthquake in history. However, there are plenty of clever ways that caring people are finding ways to help online. Here are some of our favorite highlights of ways that you can make a difference to the Japanese people.

Facebook Donate

The Red Cross is using facebook causes to launch an incredibly timely fundraising campaign to send $25,000 to Japanese victims of the tsunami. On their facebook cause page, the Red Cross has also posted raw footage of the earthquake and other important bits of information to motivate people to donate. The project has been incredibly successful and already raised nearly double their target $40,000. 

Donate your SMS

The American Red Cross has also launched a SMS donation campaign where you can simply text REDCROSS to 90999 and donate $10 to the Red Cross' humanitarian efforts in Japan, Haiti and other places suffering from natural disasters around the world. This type of fundraising has been so successful, that last year the Red Cross was able to raise $20 million for Haiti.

Virtual Games

Thought those people playing FarmVille are just waisting their time? Not since FarmVille decided to provide relief to Japan. Zynga has already raised $2 million dollars for relief efforts in Japan and millions more for Haiti.

"Like" a facebook page

Explore.org is donating $1 for every person who likes their "Dog Bless You" facebook page. This idea could be applied to several other campaigns and helps organizations connect with new users, improve your reputation and put funds towards a worthy cause. 

Create a donation landing page

Several companies and organizations have added a small piece of html code to their websites to encourage their users to donate to relief organizations. The Hello Bar puts a small message on top of the website and lets people directly send donations via your website. This is a great way to encourage people to donate to the relief efforts and get to get to know your organization or company better. 

Improve Your Business with Blackberry Apps

A Blackberry is good for much more than making phone calls and checking your emails. With the addition of more and more apps on the market, you can run most or all of your business from it as well. Using Blackberry apps to improve your business is the way to go if you want to be successful. Below are the top 5 must-have apps for the blackberry to help run your small business. 

1. Blackberry Messenger

This messenger app offers more than just being able to chat with your friends. With Blackberry messenger, you can improve your business by being able to keep in constant contact with clients, business partners and employees in order to organize work tasks and get work done. 

2. Evernote

Evernote is another perfect tool to use to improve your business. Whenever you have an idea that you need to save, you can use Evernote to instantly write it down. You can also use it to take notes, make memos and lists, tag pictures and much more. 

3. Google Sync

If you use both a computer and your phone to make appointments and keep track of clients, then you know that it can be hard to keep both of them up to date. With Google Sync your contacts and calendar are automatically synced together so you can easily keep everything up to date.

4. Wordpress

Another way to improve your business is by having a blog that offers you a way to exhibit your business and give people info on what you do and offer. The Blackberry version is just like the web based version, allowing you to manage content, add posts as well as moderate comments. 

5. Skype

Everyone should know that in order to improve your business, face time is important. Thankfully, now you can do face-to-face chatting through your phone. Skype offers users a free way for businesses to interact with their clients and partners through web and text chat very easily.

 

Google Chrome Apps to Improve Your Online Business

Google has recently launched a new Webstore for Chrome users to get Google Chrome apps and extensions that are perfect for small business owners to improve your business. Below is listed the top 6 free apps and extensions that are offered and are perfect for small businesses that are on tight budgets.

1. Google Shortcuts

This handy little extension is a great tool to use because it will conveniently display all of your chosen Google services as buttons or as a small drop-down menu next to the address bar in your browser. You can add things like Google Reader, Google Calendar and Gmail with a single click on your browser. 

2. Scribble

Another app that is great to help improve your business is Scribble. It is basically like a virtual post-it notes application. If you like to keep lots of notes or thoughts in text files, this is a great way to organize and manage them in a clutter free way.

3. Vyew

This tool can improve your business because it is kind of like a web conferencing tool, but you can do a lot more with it. It offers the ability to upload files, images and videos into conference "rooms" where anyone can have access to them in real time and continuously. 

4. Todo.ly

This tool is also great to help improve your business because it is an easy way to manage all of your tasks as well as create lists. You can create projects and sub-projects and give them due dates and more. 

5. Write Space

This tool is a text editor that offers full-screen, distraction-free writing. You can work offline and your work is automatically saved with every key stroke. You are also able to customize the settings to your liking. 

6. Pivotal Tracker

This tool can help improve your business because it is a project management tool that is story based. It allows a team of software developers to get together and provide feedback to you in real time on your projects.

 

How to Improve Your Small Business' Reputation

Marketing is nothing like the way it used to be anymore. There are many small business owners out there that need to wake up to the fact that if they are not marketing on the web, then they are not going to be able to survive the ultra competitive market. It is simply the case that at least some small business marketing must be done online now if the owner is hoping for the business to reach its fullest potential. 

Some of the small business marketing tools are pretty obvious. You could start by just putting a few banner ads on some websites that you suspect might be visited by potential customers. If that works a little bit for you, then that is great, but that is not the only part of online small business marketing. 

Another great way to get your company's name out there is to make sure that you are creating pages on all of the social media websites. The best part about this is that the social media sites allow you to post your page for free. You are suddenly going to have access to millions of potential customers who are all commenting and sharing information with one another around the clock. This is a small business marketing dream. If you are not already doing this for your business, then you absolutely must start working on this today. 

Finally, you might consider adding live chatting software onto the official website of your business. Obviously, if someone is taking the time to come to your official website, then odds are they are interested in your products. Make sure that you use live chatting software to be able to communicate with them in real time to provide some of the best customer service on the web. These are just a few of the small business marketing strategies being used in the new age. See for yourself if they work for your small business and help improve your online reputation.

Improve Your Online Reputation with a Twitter Contest

Few people could deny the appeal of contests; when it comes to social sites like Twitter, word can be spread about them at a much quicker pace. 

However, one should keep in mind that starting a contest on Twitter requires specific skills. One should know their way around social media marketing, what the laws are for contests in a specific state, what the impact will be on the brand, and so on. The purpose of having a Twitter event should not sit completely with the chance to promote products. It should also impact a company's business goals.

If a company wants to go through with their Twitter project and further brand promotion in a positive way, there are certain steps that should be taken.

Step One: Regulations and Rules

Before starting the contest, it is important to have certain information prepared. How many prizes will there be? Who is eligible? How long do participants have to enter? Will the competition be based on a name drawing, or will people vote on the winner? The rules and steps should be clear and easy to follow.

One should also make sure they are following competition regulations for their state to avoid legal trouble.

Step Two: Details

Exactly what the winners will be getting should be established as quickly as possible. Many companies opt to have a grand prize, a second prize and a third prize. When people have more chances to win something they are much more likely to take part. 

As Twitter is being used for the event, a special hashtag should be created for posts made about it. The tag should be clever, unique and improve your brand image; in this way entries will stand out more and be easily accessible. All participants should be encouraged to use it if not required and even emails and any other outside communication related to the competition should mention it.

Step Three: Promote

A company should treat the process as they would for any other marketing campaign. Each promotional post on Twitter should be planned ahead of time, with dates and even hours of the day mapped for when they will be released. A special calendar set aside specifically for this can be quite helpful.

Messages released to promote the prize giveaway should compel excitement, making people feel as though they would be crazy not to try to enter. Close to the end of the contest, a sense of urgency should also be pushed.

Step Four: Launch It

Once everything has been planned, the event should be officially launched. Messages and posts for awareness are the most critical during the first day, so this should be taken advantage of. One should make sure, however, that they are not going to be overshadowed by another prize giveaway or event. Should this be so, they may want to hold off the launch.

Step Five: Keep Promoting

Once the winners have been awarded their prizes, a company should not just mail it to them and move on. If they want to have long term success and even earn brand loyalists, they should stay in touch with the winners. Winners should continue to hear about special promotions in a message sent directly to them. This will ensure that they stay aware of the company and spread the word for months to come.

How to Improve Your Customers' Online Experience

The world of enterprise needs to focus more on their customer's experience. It isn't enough to simply have a great product or a great service, the online business has to make their customer's online experience satisfying. Your online customer's will have a better online experience if you can focus their attention on what you think is most important for them to focus on.The online world is full of information. According to Gartner, an online analyst, growth in social networking will be seen at more than 80% and a $1 billion market is being projected from engaging online customers favorably. 

Some ways of improving your customers' online experience is to focus in on what you perceive as being your customer. Then engage your customer by appealing to her or his social and cultural background. Once you have conceived an outline of your potential customers, share your perceptions with all member of your team and allow them to work on further engaging your online customers' experience by offering your products and services in such a way that will be attractive to people with your customer's social or cultural backgrounds. 

Mix Social Events Like A Honeymoon With Shared Interaction 

Spending a honeymoon in Tabacon in Costa Rica can be a powerful situation that can be used to enhance your online customers' experience. Sharing your agenda on your honeymoon from dining in the rain forest to mixing with motel staff is a great way of building communication with your customers and relating to a real or fantasy situation that they would enjoy.

Make Events Come To Life

Your business online can be brought to life when you have understood the basic tenets of engaging your customers in social contact by sharing your life events. Here are some ways of doing such social networking that will enhance your customers' online experience:

1. Hear and respond for better online support. An example given here is to illustrate that social net workers can hear what another net worker needs online and respond. For example, the airline, Virgin America, through being a part of a social network learned of a special problem with one of their fellow net workers. Virgin American using the social channels set up responded almost immediately with an 800 number that solved their problem. 

2. Keep files of online customers' personal information. Again, using the Virgin America example of responding to online customers, if Virgin America had not only contacted the customer with the problem with the customer's personal information, the customer could have had their problem addressed more quickly. Learning to avoid waste of customer time in personal data retrieval would make Virgin America's online customer response even better. 

3. Develop an awareness with your personnel of how and when it is appropriate to let the customer know the extent of your stored information about him with your company. 

Finally, learn about online social networks like Twitter. That social network is remarkable for the extent of online persons who have Twitter accounts and who also have online work positions with companies that you might deal with. The person with whom you are connected to on Twitter just might already have your email address and other information on you based on your online presence and profiles.

The Future of Digital Public Relations

In the last several years the media industry has been going through an evolution. The industry is restructuring to more of an online presents due to the modernization to digital public relations. This includes hundreds of social networking sites, online profiles and more. For businesses wanting to keep up with these changes, there are several things that need to be considered in regards to their online presence. For example how to share information on social networking sites, the need for blogging with a drive to be the forerunner, and the expansion of multimedia/mobile apps.

Social Network Sharing

To be a leader in digital public relations the constant use of social networking sites is going to be imperative. Articles in leading business magazines state content-rich media that will prompt networking users to share will become the principal method of advertising. The more provocative the headlines the better, for captivating traffic and spreading information quickly. The competition will force digital public relations to rely on feedback from these social sites to measure progress and better create information flow.

Blogging In, Banners Out to Be in the Forefront

With the increase in popularity of consumers getting their information from bloggers, the need to transition from banner-style advertising to content-driven blog postings is a must. This will afford PR companies to advance in digital public relations by creating their own custom tutorial and guidance bulletins. The use of online networking sites lets PR companies derive audience-specific content giving them the ability to become forerunners in the industry.

Multimedia Options and Apps

In this age of digital public relations, it is important for agents to create content for podcasts, online video sites, and pictorial/slideshow sites. These will give PR agents the possibility to promote in a more complete fashion. The use of mobile apps will further assist in promoting the multimedia options.

Making a Living in the Online World

The world is increasingly moving to the online spectrum only. It seems that we all are doing more and more online and less in the real world. As a result, teams of professionals to work in digital public relations are needed by many of the leading corporations. The job of those who work in digital public relations is to make sure that the company they work for is staying ahead of the curve. 

The technology sector is probably the most competitive one that exists. It is also the most picked over one in the world. That is to say that the individuals who use the technology are very picky about having everything work to perfection. If there is something off, then they will let you know about it. Those working in digital public relations have to make sure that they are able to pitch a product to even the pickiest of customers.

Based on the demands that are required of someone working in digital public relations, it should be no surprise that the education requirements are equally demanding. There is a heavy screening process just to get a job in this field. You have to fight for your spot against plenty of other equally intelligent and innovative individuals and your online reputation needs to be top notch. The job may seem glamorous to you now, but you will soon realize that it is much more work than you probably think. 

Working in digital public relations means that you have to be ready to be cutthroat, and you have to be ready to be creative. You want your ideas to jump off the page and impress the boss, but you also want to make sure that you know when to take a step back and admit that you don't know something. This job is not for the faint of heart, but the rewards can make it worth it if you are ready to commit yourself to it.

Making Your Online Business Boom

The whole rulebook of how to run a business has been thrown out the window. No longer is it possible to run the most effective business that you can without the help of online reputation management and marketing. In fact, some businesses go so far as to make the whole business online. Creating an online business may be even easier than trying to make a brick and mortar business for some people. This means that without the overhead, the individuals running an online business are going to be able to make more money. In order to achieve some of these goals for yourself, you need to make sure that you understand some of the basics of online marketing. 

The very first thing that you are going to want to think about is how you are going to be able to reach the largest audience possible. Not only are you looking to reach the largest audience, but you are also hoping to reach the audience that is going to be the most interested in what you are trying to sell them. This requires you to target your audience through many of the online tools that are now available.

The first place to start taking a look at a new marketing frontier is through the social media websites. The social media websites are some of the most popular on the web, and they are the ones that many people go to every day. This is a great place to do some marketing because of the fact that people are sharing information with one another every day. An online business can benefit from this because of the fact that they are sharing information about the business with those who are sharing information with their friends. It is a virtual word of mouth campaign that helps many businesses large and small to gain a larger audience for their products. 

Social media websites are just the first step of an effective online marketing campaign. Another option is to use mobile devices as a way of marketing. Through the increasing popularity of apps on different phones, companies can market themselves to users who don't even realize they are being marketed to. A company might consider making an app that can be used as a utility by customers. Some companies even create games for users to play that simply has their logo embedded into the game. The customer is just enjoying their game play without realizing that they are actually being marketed to as well.

When you start to apply some of these online principles to your marketing, you are going to find that the results translate well to the real world. Before long, you are going to find that you are able to bring in more money than you ever imagined possible. When this kind of activity is going on, then you are going to find that your business is able to grow and you are becoming more and more of a household name. That is the ultimate goal of all who get involved in business.

Facebook Page Statistics Explained

Facebook insights, or Facebook statistics, can be very useful in determining how much influence your Facebook fan page has. The insights can help you target your potential customers, but you have to know how to interpret the data first. A Facebook fan page can really help your business, or it can be a waste of company time. In order to determine which scenario you have, you have to read the statistics. 

Your Facebook statistics will not be activated until you reach thirty "likes", or fans, on your page. The insights will automatically be started, you don't need to activate it yourself. When it is activated it will be visible on the left sidebar of your Facebook fan page. Your insights has a summary with two graphs: interactions and users. Both provide a summary of their respective pages. 

For the users data, you will find the following information:

Users active in the last month
New likes per day
Total number of likes
New likes and unlikes
Sources for likes
Demographics for your fans
Fanpage page views
Referrers
Media consumption

For the interactions page you will find the following data:

Post views per day
Post feedback per day
Story feedback per day
Recent posts
Page activity per day 

Using Facebook statistics can help you learn how much influence your page really has. Focusing on the total number of fans isn't enough. Many people click on "like" and never return to your page which doesn't help your company. Focus instead on the number of active users per day. Active users are those that come to the fan page or see the content on each day. By getting users to interact, you increase the chance that your company will be fresh in their minds. The daily page activity can also help measure how many users are interacting with your page. Here you will find any mentions your page has received and be able to track how your online reputation is spreading. These are very helpful because they help your page go viral and gain more fans. 

By reading your Facebook statistics, you can see which days of the week your fans are most likely to engage with you. You can then post new products and other relevant information on these days to get more user participation. Look for unusual activity in the likes/unlikes graph. If you see a big increase for either, try to see what caused it. If a post caused a lot of people to unlike the page, avoid posting this material again. 

Also look closely at external referrers. This will tell you what is working for gaining more fans and what isn't. This can help you refocus your efforts when advertising or doing other social media. If a source isn't working to gain fans, you can work harder on another source that is working.

Demographics of your fans is also very useful. It's helpful to know what gender and age your potential customers are and tailor your content to that audience. You should determine your target audience first. Then when your page gains more "likes", you can see if you are reaching your target market.

The Power of Online Public Relations

Public relations is an all-encompassing program of marketing a person, service or product to the best of it's advantage. Whie public relations was traditionally conducted offline and cost companies high prices, today online public relations are the best way to improve your reputation and to get information about your company, brand or product to the public.

Creating an Online PR Plan

The first steps to successful public relations is deciding what message you want to push and how to best share it with the public. Online public relations is all about promoting your message in different formats. For example, you can promote on one or more blogs, websites and article submission websites, on social media sources like Facebook, Twitter and LookupPage and many other places online. You can also plan online events to spark the interest of the public. For example, you can hold a competition, one-time online conference, or live chat session. If you're clear about your message and creative with your form, you'll be able to successfully conduct a public relations campaign online.

Make the Experts Talk About You

Though it might be surprising, expert public relations professionals know how to get other people to talk about their company or product -- this is what makes public relations different than online advertising. For example, public relations campaigns usually target journalists, important online figures and other professionals in the field to get them talking about and interacting with your company or product. If you aren't successful in getting others to write about you, try inviting them for an interview and asking them what they think of your product. Experts that have large followings are the best, because people will inevitably be looking for them online and this will provide you the oppotunity to become aligned with the best and attract their following to you. 

Get References

One of the more subtle nuances in PR is the use of references from experts and product or services users. References go a long way toward turning ambivalent prospects into confident customers. Don't be afraid to use testamonials from qualified professionals as a point of reference. This is particularly important for websites or blogs that utilize article markets to further promote their offers. Finally, promote yourself as part of the PR package so prospects feel they know you as well as your products or services.