The Niche Marketing Blog

Social marketing tech startup Bread Labs slices $4.3 million funding round

Bread Labs, a San Francisco-based social media marketing technology startup, is raising a $4.3 million round of which $3.3 million has already been secured, according to a regulatory filing that surfaced earlier this week. The funding round comes at a … See all stories on this topic »

The Next Web

New 59 Point Mobile Marketing Health-Check From MilagroMobileMarketing.com to …

MilagroMobileMarketing.com serves local businesses with the latest in mobile website design, QR codes, SMS/text message marketing, social media marketing, and local search engine optimization (SEO). According to Maya, “Today’s customer is online and …
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2012 SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING INDUSTRY REPORT

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-marketing- · industry-report- 2012/ … WEEKLY TIME COMMITMENT FOR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING .
www.socialmediaexaminer.com/SocialMediaMarketingIndustr…

eMarketer Webinar: Social Media in the Marketing Mix—Global Best …

Creating effective social media marketing campaigns in multiple countries requires companies to know local languages and cultures and to respond to …
www.emarketer.com/…/social-media-marketing-mix-global-be…

advertising and marketing

One of the trends you tend to see at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSWi) in Austin, Texas, is that it’s where big, nontech brands show up to test edgy social-media marketing initiatives in the ultimate geek test bed.
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Technorati Tags: social media marketing

Social Media Marketing: the New trend — AllThingsTiki.Com

There’s so much excitement and hype about Social Networking and/or Social Media Marketing and these are what anyone really wants to learn about nowadays. It?s really the next big affair and this is the advertising in 21st century. ?? Allow …
AllThingsTiki.Com

Social Media Marketing for Small Business – 7 Time Saving Tips …

Youtube is for watching kittens fall down toilets, Facebook is for arranging a night out with friends and Pinterest….well I haven’t even heard of that one.
Business 2 Community

PINKCLOUDS needs a Summer PR and Social Media/Marketing …

PINKCLOUDS is a luxury, vintage online retailer based in New York City. PINKCLOUDS.COM is seeking a summer public relations and social media/marketing intern. This opportunity would offer valuable hands-on insight and experience in …
Fashionista

Why You’re Not Using Social Media Marketing: 9 Excuses

There are endless excuses why you’re not using Social Media and Social Media Marketing. And there is three good reasons you should be involved in SMM: it will make you money, or reduce your costs, or both. So let’s cover some of these excuses, …
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Volvo creates global social media marketing role

Volvo has created a global social media director role as part of a strategy to more closely align digital, online and social PR activity with its global marketing strategy. Duncan Forrester, current head of public affairs, events and sponsorship in the … See all stories on this topic »

Marketing Week

Technorati Tags: social media marketing

Social media marketing is becoming an ever more important tool in the niche marketer’s bag of tricks.  But not all think this is as it should be…

Study Reveals Industry Experts Split on Future of Social Marketing

According to The State of Social Marketing 2011–2012, industry experts are split on the future of social media marketing; just over half believe it is already or will go mainstream during 2012 and just under half feel it will remain experimental this …
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When social media goes anti-social

“It’s a pretty stringent process for us … we write content, word for word, what is going to go up on the Facebook wall and send it to the brand team for approval,” said Matt Singley, chief executive officer of social media marketing firm Singley + … See all stories on this topic »

Globe and Mail

Social Networking Takes Center Stage at P&G

All its major brands now have a social media marketing component. Women ages 25 to 54 with children at home—the key target audience for consumer products makers—each spent an average of 484 minutes on Facebook in February, 14 percent more time than …
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New AddShoppers Social Sharing Platform Integrated with 3dcart

That way, online retailers can make sense of their social media marketing and learn from the information. “Using social media to promote your store is crucial to an online marketing plan—but measuring the impact of social media on your business is a …
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Freelance SEO, PPC and Social Media Services Now Offered in Oxford by an …

Digital marketing channel-tactics such as ‘Search Engine Optimisation’ (SEO), ‘Pay Per Click’ (PPC) advertising and ‘Social Media Marketing‘ are now firmly embedded within the marketing mix of some of the world’s biggest brands and organisations. See all stories on this topic »

PR Web (press release)

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• When should PPC campaigns feature in a digital marketing strategy? (marketing.yell.com)
• Social Media ‘Best Practices’ Questioned (lorirtaylor.com)

Technorati Tags: social media marketing

Survey Says Marketers See Social Media as an Experiment

Or is social media marketing still more of an experiment? Pivot (the social business conference people) asked brand managers, agency professionals and marketing experts that question and the result was surprising. 49% said that social media marketing …
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Successful Internet Marketing Includes Both Email Marketing & Social Media …

According to their survey, Small businesses that combined email & social media marketing services experienced a 28% higher open rate than companies who didn’t. VerticalResponse also found that the Top 5 industries who employed this method of internet …
See all stories on this topic »

The Social Marketing Ninja Behind The Hunger Games Success

Simply put, “Lionsgate social media marketing is centered around thismoment’s social infrastructure,” writes Forbes. Entrepreneur-centric Inc. also acknowledged the thismoment-powered social media savvy of The Hunger Games pre-launch marketing.
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Earmarq, LLC Announces Launch “Spring Has Sprung” Social Media Solutions Sales …

Earmarq, LLC, a leading social media marketing group, is excited to announce the launch of its “Spring Has Sprung” social media awareness program for businesses of all sizes. Atlanta, GA, March 29, 2012 –(PR.com)– Earmarq, LLC, a leading social media …
See all stories on this topic »

Successful Internet Marketing Needs Email & Social Media | Small …

According to their survey, Small businesses that combined email & social media marketing services experienced a 28% higher open rate than companies who didn’t. VerticalResponse also found that the Top 5 industries who employed this …
Small Business Technology

Related articles

• What is social media marketing? (marketing.yell.com)
• Can a web design company help with social media marketing? (marketing.yell.com)
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• 7 Steps to a Simple Social Media Strategy : Marketing :: AMEX (bjconquest.com)

Technorati Tags: social media marketing

Image via Wikipedia

[Editor's note: Location based marketing services continue to be red hot. With the continuing soft economy, it is more important than ever for all marketers and business owners to see themselves as niche marketers. This is never more true than when it comes to smaller, local businesses; businesses that rely on local foot traffic to stay in business. Instead of focusing on the services themselves, this week's guest article focuses on how to distinguish yourself as an expert in providing location based services to your local marketplace. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below. ~Scott]

By Matt Bodnar

The increasing popularity of social media marketing and the explosion of traditional marketers and so-called “experts” pouring into the field has made it tougher for top notch social media marketers to distinguish themselves and rise above the fray. How do you bring real value to your clients and get a leg up in the highly competitive social media space?

The number one thing you can do to add value for your customers and most importantly distinguish yourself is to find a specialty or niche that you can deliver expert content to your clients in. The mainstream platforms are already saturated and its tough to carve out a meaningful niche. Everyone these days is an expert on Twitter, Facebook, and the other major platforms – it’s tough to find clients these days that you can offer a unique specialty to.

One of the new frontiers in social media marketing is location based marketing. Location based marketing presents the single best opportunity right now for social media marketers to become an expert in a cutting edge new area. Services like Foursquare and Gowalla are on the verge of going mainstream and offer great value for businesses if used properly.

There are very few social media experts right now who know anything about location based marketing and there is a real opportunity for forward thinking social media marketers to become experts in this new field before it becomes saturated.

Becoming an early expert gives you huge advantages over those who pile in after the service is already hot – think about people like Gary Vaynerchuck who pioneered some of the now-mainstream social media marketing tactics and became a leader in the industry.

Those who put in the focus and time now before location based marketing explodes will be the ones who ride the waves, and the profits, to the top.

How do you learn more? Go out and start using these services to get more familiar with them. Get Foursquare on your phone and try it out.

To learn how to apply location based marketing to a business and the proven tactics and strategies, the options are limited right now since this is such a new field. However, the leading guide on the market right now is “How To Use Location Based Marketing to Grow Your Business.” You can get the first two chapters for free at the bottom of this page.

So what are you waiting for? Go out there and become an expert now before the industry takes off. Location based marketing has a huge future and those who get in on the ground floor have the largest rewards to reap.

Matt Bodnar is a restaurant entrepreneur with a passion for social media. Visit http://www.locationbasedmarketing.biz to learn more about location based marketing and download a free how-to guide giving you tips and strategies for using location based marketing.

(C) Copyright – Matt Bodnar. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Matt_Bodnar

http://EzineArticles.com/?How-To-Add-Value-As-a-Social-Media-Marketer—One-Easy-Tip-To-Distinguish-Yourself&id=6020226

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Technorati Tags: Foursquare, Gowalla, niche marketing, social media, social media marketing

Image by ShashiBellamkonda via Flickr

[Editor's note: This is the first of a two-part article that focuses on the use of effective social media strategies for  increasing the number of sales leads for your business. Part 1 identifies the common mistakes that business owners make when using social media.]

As a Social Media Strategist, I spend more time than most setting-up and managing social media accounts; both for myself and for my clients. As more and more “brick and mortar” businesses have flocked to social media sites over the past couple of years,  I have seen an increasing discrepancy between the typical business owner’s use of social media and their understanding of how that media works.

Despite the almost constant barrage, offered up by gurus of all stripes, of the “latest and greatest, whiz-bang secrets” that promise to unleash the proverbial “flood of hungry customers to your web site via social media sites”, few, if any, of the promises come true, and the expected flood of sales leads coming from the typical social media marketing campaign usually turns out to be a mere trickle.

The problem isn’t the social media channels; it is true that there are untold millions of potential buyers out there. The problem lies in how the social media is being used – or misused – when trying to attract those potential buyers.

This is where the business owners are being misled, and where they make their fatal mistakes in the social media circles. These mistakes are almost always a result of a faulty, linear mindset. Business owners are used to viewing marketing activities as a linear, cause and effect relationship; i.e. place an ad, pull in some leads, distribute some flyers, see more walk-in traffic, that sort of thing.

Social media marketing, on the other hand, doesn’t operate in such a linear fashion. Rather, social media is more dynamic. Social media marketing is about developing relationships. It is about engaging the prospect, helping to solve problems, offering useful and timely information, and allowing the prospect to develop trust with the business and their products and services.

In short, social media is not about selling the prospect; it is not about taking the customary direct approach that so many business owners and marketing managers are used to in other forms of marketing.

Rather, to be effective, social media campaigns need to take an indirect approach. It is this indirect approach to marketing that is so misunderstood by, and so frustrating to, many business owners and, in my opinion, this is why many business owners eventually throw up their hands and claim that social media is a waste of time.

[Editor's note: The second part of this article will focus on specific steps you can take to increase the overall effectiveness of your social media campaigns and, thereby, increase your sales leads.]

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• Correcting the Social Media Myths (a1adminsupport.wordpress.com)
• 7 Missed Social Media Lead Generation Opportunities (hubspot.com)

Technorati Tags: business leads, social media, social media marketing, social media strategies

LaShanda, the Web Tech Gurl, talks about niche marketing and how you can find your target market online. This short video focsues on business fundamentals, and offers good tips for any niche marketer.

To learn more, visit the following web site: http://www.webtechgurl.com

Duration : 0:9:27

Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: business women, internet marketing, niche marketing, social media marketing, social networking, target marketing