Sharing Print and Social Media

Have you ever come across a print ad that was very ‘loud’ in regards to spreading their social media seed? Yes, we’re fully aware of your widgets that let viewers know that your business is on every social media outlet known to man. In all honesty, what is the best way to promote your social media pages through your print work without looking desperate or downright over the top?

Soshable.com posted an article suggesting different ways to complement your print marketing with your social media marketing efficiently. If you know me, you know that often times I treat Soshable somewhat like my social media bible, but this time I had a little trouble believing exactly what the article states.   Even though this article was posted on January 4, the advice appears to be a little outdated…

Last time I checked, QR Codes were becoming more and more a thing of the past.  Am I right?  I uninstalled my QR Code app several months ago… I also have a love/hate relationship with contests. I want viewers to be intrigued by my business and the good work we provide, not by the opportunity to win free stuff. (Believe me, I love free stuff just as much as the next guy girl, but I more times than not I don’t end up using the business from which I won the free goods.)

Check out this article and decide for yourself whether or not it’s fully beneficial. The One-Two Punch: Print and Social Media Marketing found on Soshable.com. Don’t get me wrong, a great majority of the article is excellent but a small portion I disagree with. “To each his own.” Right?

What are your thoughts on QR Codes?

Have any of these suggestions really worked for you?

Is Social Media Erasing In Our Future?

When on the brink of graduating college, I remember having several lectures over the importance of having a clean and appropriate social media page. At the time, I was a naive 22 year old with a pretty squeaky clean background.  I had a tendency to laugh off those wasted hours with my college BFF, but I’ll admit something in those lectures always seemed to haunt me… No matter what you’ve deleted from your social media outlets thus far—they’ll never truly be erased from the internet.  Basically, there’s no possible way to delete those hideous ‘duck face’ photos I was tagged in circa 2008 (okay, okay 2012).

I failed to mention the fact that before I took my job here at PRA, I was a licensed teacher. Long story short, I was unhappy with ‘teaching to the test’ and I ended up following another passion of mine…online shopping computers.

As a potential educator, you’d imagine that an appropriate Facebook or Twitter page was imperative in regards to wanting to get hired.  Whoops.  But I couldn’t be the only one with embarrassing photos on page 3,486,094 of the Google search…could I?

But thinking back to those pre-Bachelor’s Degree lectures–I wish someone would’ve given me this tidbit of information back (gee I dunno) when I actually created these pages! I do believe I started my social media addiction in 2002.  Damn you, Myspace!

Unfortunately, the infamous photo of me at a ‘CEOs and Office Hoes’ party may always float on in cyber space but there’s hope for our future generations!

Say What?

Currently, legislators in California are working towards creating a GIANT eraser button to help teens and young adults (minors only, sorry) delete unwanted information/photos on their social media platforms. Check out the entire article here: Social Media ‘eraser button’ law would let kids delete web history.

Plastic Surgery for Facebook?

I usually spend my first hour of work everyday catching up on articles and postings related to digital/social media.  Most some articles I skim, others I truly take the time to dissect and summarize for your enjoyment.  Yesterday I came across and article on Mashable.com that floored me…I think I literally had to pick my jaw up from the desk! Here’s a tid-bit:

 “For some (or arguably all) of the above reasons, keeping up appearances is a social media consideration. Obviously, you choose how you represent yourself. And perhaps for that very reason, profile pictures on the free social network are getting more complicated — and much pricier — in India.”

Much pricier?  Does this mean that people in India are buying profile pictures from others? (If you’ve seen the MTV television show ‘Catfish’ you’ll understand the creepiness.) But unfortunately, profile picture purchasing isn’t what’s making Facebook users in India shell out the big bucks…it’s Facebook Facelifts!  Yes, you read that right.  Social media users are spending thousands of dollars for plastic surgery to make themselves more presentable on Facebook?!

Now I’ve heard it all. Isn’t match.com a much cheaper alternative to finding a date? Read the full Mashable.com article here.

What do you think about this new trend?

Would you ever go under the knife just to help find a mate?

Keeping it local and likable.

Working for a local advertising agency, I know the struggles of building a sturdy repertoire. Not only do I work for a local business, but as digital/social media marketer at my agency I only work with local clients.

When working with clients on creating a social media plan, it’s sometimes hard to convince businesses that the main goal for their page is to maintain and build on their relationships with their already established customer base.  The misconception for so many businesses is the desire to build an endless fan base. Granted, thousands of fans make your page look great…on the exterior, but don’t you actually want to build your real life customer base? A fan that lives thousands of miles away can’t provide a reliable recommendation for your company.

A recent article on Soshable.com is much better at explaining this theory than I am…

Keep it Local, Local, or Local on Facebook

What do you think is important?  More Facebook fans or reliable local customers?

 

Social Media for Local Businesses

I love finding good articles regarding social media because they tend to make my blog writing much easier. Not that I’m inexperienced in writing my social media articles from scratch, but it’s definitely nice to get another point of view once in awhile.

I came across an article on soshable.com recently that discusses social media tips for local businesses.  Patterson Riegel Advertising certainly takes pride in being a local Fort Wayne business.  When my dad started this business 23 years ago he made it a point to only stay local to ensure he’d never have to travel with work and leave my family behind.  Anywho, I’m beginning to get off track… This article mainly gives local businesses tips on jumping in to the social media circuit. Most of these tips I agree with, others I don’t.  But then again, not all forms of social media are for every business.  What I’ve come to learn is social media is definitely not a “one size fits all” model.

Take a look at these tips and judge for yourself:

**Remember, this content is from here: http://soshable.com/10-social-media-tips-for-local-businesses/ **

Here are 10 tips so your local biz can reap the benefits of social media:

1. First make sure that people on Facebook can “check-in” to your business when they drop by. This is especially popular for eating establishments and bars. You want your check-in linked to a Facebook page.

2. Register your biz with Foursquare as well because they now give you access to the names of all of the people who checked in to your business so you can study their behavior as a customer and target them more directly.

3. Get ready for the all new Facebook graph search which allows people to find local businesses according to the likes of its fans. This feature is currently available a limited number of accounts, but it’s coming our way soon!

4. Give your business a voice by opening a Twitter account. Tweet about local events and about customers that drop by. Also ask (give incentive to do so) customers to tweet about you or post a status update about  you on Facebook, that way their friends become your audience too.

5. Enhance your LinkedIn presence- LinkedIn profiles rank highest in Google searches of all the social media, higher than FB even. So get your profile listed there if you haven’t already, especially if you are a professional who owns a local business. Keep your profile updated and join groups that deal with your industry and/or location.

6. YouTube is the 2^nd largest search engine so create and upload any type of compelling, hilarious, or smart tutorial videos, special event coverage, creative employee features, etc. Ask your customers to upload their videos to your YouTube channel and offer rewards.

7. List your business at Yelp, which combines local-based reviews with great social features. People go on Yelp to see what others are saying about stores, venues, public spaces, dentists and so much more. You need to keep track of the Yelp conversation about your business and make sure future customers like what they read.

8. Organize regular meetups, workshops and other informal local gatherings that are related to your business. Promote these events on Facebook, Eventbrite, Meetup.com, SkillShare and other platforms. People will be happy to attend if they feel like they get an added value – information, access, discounts or networking.

9. Image is everything! Attach photos wherever you can in your tweets, Facebook updates and blog posts. Take snapshots of everything that you associate with your brand and upload them to your sites. Snap photos of your customers/staff and post them on Instagram. Don’t forget to tag the people in the photo, so they have a good reason to share it too.

10. Blog weekly about your local business. Not about the business itself, but about the experiences and events, news and interesting information surrounding your niche. Focus on rich content and optimizing tags and titles in each post for search engines. Linking in and out of your blog builds both direct and indirect traffic to your business.

I guess the biggest ‘beef’ I have with this article is the first and second bullet.  Coming from an advertising agency, not many people find the desire to ‘check-in’ to our business.  Let me tell you, becoming the Mayor of Patterson Riegel will get you nothing but a pat on the back. However, if your business happens to be food or retail this Four-Square option is definitely a good suggestion.  People love FREE!

Patterson Riegel Advertising is a local full service advertising agency, specializing in all facets of advertising, including consumer-based retail, business-to–business marketing, public relations, promotional services, social media marketing and more.

Raising Your Small Business SEO

For a small business, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) can sometimes be a difficult obstacle to achieve.  I have personally struggled with SEO as head of the digital media department for a fairly small advertising agency (Patterson Riegel Advertising). Taking the time to increase your business SEO can help put your small business up against larger companies. I recently came across an article on Soshable.com that helps breakdown the best ways for small businesses to increase their SEO without necessarily paying a company to do it for them.

Read the article here.

If you’re a small business looking for some great, helpful tips here’s a recap of the article.

Keywords: Before tackling anything else SEO related keywords need to be chosen.  Pick a list of relevant terms that many would use to find your website.  The best keywords are those with the greatest amount of traffic with the lowest competitiveness between similar businesses.

On-Sit Optimisation: Once the keywords are chosen,  you can use them in the programing of your website to help Google better recognize your business page. Be careful though, if you overuse your keywords Google might think your page is spam making it harder for your page to increase its placement.

Social Media Buttons: Having social media buttons available on your webpage can help send viewers to your other pages thus making Google recognize that your website is more relevant.

In conclusion, choosing the right keywords and utilizing all the sites that revert back to your home website are incredibly helpful when attempting to raise the position for your small business on Google. Don’t give up and consider it a challenge!

Facebook Timeline Part Deux

As I’ve mentioned before, when it comes to social media nothing ever stays the same for long.  Case and point, Facebook is making some new changes. (Insert shocked face here!) Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook creator/mastermind is introducing ‘The Timeline”…again!  Yes, just a year after we were forced to change over to the timeline dark side the man goes and changes it again!

Rest easy folks’ the changes aren’t too detrimental. The new Timeline feature will include a bigger emphasis on the apps you use. Currently, apps such as Instagram and Pinterest are available for viewing on your page, but soon new apps like Netflix and Fab will be available as well.  (Basically, Facebook is more ‘up in your business’ than ever before.

The Timeline layout will also be a little different.

Granted, we’re not going from this:

To this…

But merely to this:

It appears as though Facebook is becoming more visually obsessed friendly.  Before you boycott, this new layout lets you design and customize your columns.  If you’d prefer your Instagram photos to have the top spot on your page, by all means!

All in all, if we would prefer to continue using Facebook as the largest social media outlet in the universe we’re going to have to make like REO Speedwagon and ‘Roll with the Changes.”

 

**Image provided by Coca-Cola

Facebook Graph Search Tool

We all know that social media is ever changing, ever growing and ever addicting.   Due to the fast paced social media scene, it’s not unusual for a site to make changes or additions fairly frequently.  Facebook is the prime example of the ever changing social media site.  Finally after an entire year, I’ve stopped hearing rants about  the ridiculous Timeline feature. Now that those shenanigans have died down, it’s time for Facebook to bring about another ‘kookie’ addition. But relax my social media crazed friends, thankfully this new addition has nothing to do with your page format.  I repeat, your page will stay the same!

Now as if Facebook stalking couldn’t get any better worse, the Graph Search Tool was created. Basically it’s Facebook’s way of getting as close to Google as possible without creating an actual search engine…per se. With the Graph Search Tool, you can pretty much find out information regarding people, interests, locations, etc. (Again, much like searching Google or any other search engine site.)  Doesn’t sound too ‘stalkerish’ right?  Well that depends…the information collected for you happens to come from all your friends and pretty much everyone else using Facebook.  For example: if you’re looking for a fellow Underwater Basket Weaving enthusiast, Facebook can help narrow down all those in your area with the same (ahem) hobby. Again, not creepy at all?  I suppose if you use this search tool as just that, it actually could be quite beneficial. However, the downfall to this new search tool is that Facebook decided to choose Bing as its sister search engine. Who uses Bing, honestly?

 But before this new search tool makes it debut, what’s your verdict? Do you think you’ll stick with Google and leave Facebook for it’s original purpose? Or will you ‘kill two birds with one stone’ and use Facebook for the whole shebang?  Personally, I think I’ll stick with Google. Like i’ve always said, “When in doubt, Google out!”

Either way, more information is on its way before the release date. Perhaps i’ll search Google for some more information and add it to another post. (Ha! Ha!)

Giving Back To The Community-Patterson Riegel Advertising

The holiday season has come to an end and you’re either completely bummed out…or completely relieved! Here at Patterson Riegel we’re a little of both! (Glad the holidays are over, but not so glad about returning to full work weeks again!) This blog fails to mention much about advertising, but we felt it necessary to boast a little bit about the recent happenings around the office and the community. *A virtual pat on the back if you will.* 🙂

During the holiday season another local advertising company put together a contest to provide a local nonprofit organization with a $1,000 donation.  The contest in short: five nonprofit organizations were chosen and the business with the most votes cast on their website would win the charitable donation. It was a very close race between Big Brother’s Big Sister’s of Northeast Indiana and the Allen County SPCA.  During the final minutes, BBBS won the contest.  Matt Henry, owner of Patterson Riegel Advertising, felt that the hard work of the voters and pet adopting advocates shouldn’t go unnoticed. Matt decided to create a contest of his own, but only with the help of other generous donors. Patterson Riegel decided to match dollar for dollar (up to $1,001) every donation up until Christmas. This appeared to be a pretty optimistic goal due to the fact that Christmas was less than a week away!  Word spread like wildfire and the SPCA ended up raising over $3,000 in less than 24 hours!! $3,114.50 to be exact.

The following week we made the Community Support section of the Fort Wayne News Sentinel for our generosity! Check out the blurb below!

Donations matched

Patterson Riegel Advertising held a challenge to match donations made to the Allen County SPCA, up to $1,001 since the nonprofit lost a $1,000 prize in another advertising contest.Within 24 hours, the shelter received $2,114.50 in donations.

If you’re interested in adopting a dog or cat please visit the Allen County SPCA website: http://www.acspca.org. If it’s not the time to adopt, the center is always on the lookout for supplies that will help keep our dogs and cats healthy, safe and happy. From food to toys, they welcome a number of items that will give our fur friends a comfortable lifestyle. Check out the items most needed here: http://www.acspca.org/help.html

To conclude this blog, we at Patterson Riegel wanted to thank everyone involved in donating to such a wonderful cause! You truly made a difference!

Majoring in Social Media?

When you entered college did you find yourself having a hard time choosing a major?  Did you find yourself stressing about which life path to choose? Truthfully, I didn’t envision myself working for an advertising agency like Patterson Riegel.  I graduated with my degree in education…slightly off the advertising path. For those of you struggling to find the right life path, you’re in luck! There’s a new major in town and it’s called ‘Social Media.’  Yes, you can now go to college to become an expert everything social media. Hold on, before you wear your best sweats to class anticipating surfing Facebook all day, take a look at the article below. (Believe me, it’s not as easy as one may think.) Soshable.com has recently posted an article introducing Social Media as the up and coming college major.  Granted, this particular major has only reached one college thus far, but with social media knowledge becoming a demand for many businesses more colleges may be adopting this major sooner rather than later. This may or may not be the best news since being a ‘gym teacher’ became an option for college majors…but how long will this craze last? Could you see yourself working with social media until retirement?

Do you think creating a major in social media will be beneficial in the long run?

Read the Soshable article here: There’s a New Type of College Major in the Making, We Call it Social Media. Tell me your thoughts on this new college craze!