Can Social Media Marketing Work For Your Business (Or Is It Yet Another Service Marketers Want to Promote)?
March 25, 2013 by The Anywhere Office · 1 Comment
This guest post was submitted to The Anywhere Office by Gean Biffulco of Idea180.com
Can Social Media Marketing Work For Your Business (Or Is It Yet Another Service Marketers Want to Promote)?
The short answer to both questions is, ‘YES.’ Social Media Marketing (SMM) can generate brand awareness (locally, nationally or globally), it can influence purchases (give your brand “social endorsements”) and can even generate a return on investment if set up and measured properly. The problem many businesses run into is they set the wrong expectations about SMM right from the start and then consider they have wasted marketing dollars paying for “fans”, “subscribers” or an “amazing Facebook app/game” that didn’t seem to do anything for sales. This is not only the marketer’s fault for setting the wrong expectations, but also the businesses’ for lacking the proper knowledge.
We have seen the expressions of many business owners who just don’t get what social media is (they call it the Twitter, the Facebook, the YouTube, and others like it), and the truth is that some authors or pseudo-experts can make any internet marketing subject too complex. This is why idea180 has prepared this article, intended for small or medium business owners who want to understand social media in laymen’s terms, and to help determine just how much social media their business needs.
Why Are You Considering Social Media?
If your interest in social media is to have the same high number of Facebook fans as your friend’s page, you can buy a few thousand fans from India or some other countries for a couple of hundred dollars and be done with it. This is not really cheating, it’s just plain stupid. A couple of hundred dollars used in Facebook ads can give your business a few thousand impressions from the right pair of eyes. You can choose if you want your promotional ad to be seen by males or females, specific age ranges, run it in specific towns, cater to people with specific interests, and based your campaign on any other demographic data Facebook collects. You can also decide if you want to create fans for your page or drive traffic to a landing page on your site. If you compare creating “fake fans” made in Pakistan to “targeting the right people”, the choice is obvious – social media is quality over quantity. The right people are more likely to buy than some “fake fan” that could care less about you or your products.
The example above shows how setting the right expectations in SMM matter a lot, thousands of fans means nothing – SMM it’s all about interaction. Some small businesses have only a few clients, not thousands, who generate 100% of their revenue; the relationship with these clients is based in quality interactions.
USPS Free Package Pickup and Online Postage Payment
October 15, 2012 by Jason Montero · 3 Comments
Very proud of the United States Postal Service for thinking ‘in-the-box’ and rolling out some great new services that have particular appeal to anyone working in The Anywhere Office.
By now you have probably seen the USPS ad campaign for their new flat rate boxes and envelopes: ‘if it fits it ships’. Well, taking measuring and weighing packages out of the equation and making the shipping fee a flat rate has allowed the post office to make some great strides in door-to-door service offerings. I mean, think about it – they already visit your house and/or office every day.
A friend told me that I could now pay for my postage online and have a package picked up at my door. I went to the USPS website to see for myself and sure enough they were encouraging me to ‘schedule a pickup.’ I saw the possibility to reduce the time suck of yet another dull errand: trips to the post office.
I tested the process and it worked near flawlessly. I entered my address, told them which type of flat rate package I had, chose a day and time for the package to be picked up by my carrier during their regular route, and even got to choose if I wanted to leave the package by the dorr, in the mailbox, or have the carrier knock.
I paid for my shipping right there by credit card and I received a confirmation email Read more
