Many small businesses rely almost entirely on word of mouth referrals for new business. People are much more likely to trust a colleague, friend or relative over what a business has to say about their products or services. Social media, when used properly and consistently, can help small businesses increase referrals. Since social media makes it easier for people to connect one-to-one, it makes it easier for people to see what other people have to say about a company. Besides helping increase reputation as an expert in your field, social media also provides the opportunity to increase the conversations that people are having online about your company (which, if positive, can lead to an increase in referrals). Here are some ways social media can help increase word of mouth referrals. [Read more…] about 6 Ways to Increase Word of Mouth Referrals with Social Media
Strategy
How Social Media Activity Affects Sales
Measuring social media ROI can sometimes be difficult. Metrics like followers, fans, and site traffic are easy to measure. What’s not so obvious is how your efforts on social media are affecting your bottom line (sales, revenue). While there are ways to directly measure certain campaigns (clicks on a specific link, visits to a landing page, etc.), how does social media activity affect sales? One way to take a look at the effects are by plotting social media activity (number of posts) and how it’s affecting the traffic to your website (or to a specific landing page) and the number of sales (another metric to look at would be number of mentions). [Read more…] about How Social Media Activity Affects Sales
Find Out What’s Trending by Demographic on YouTube with YouTube Trends Dashboard
Wondering what’s hot on YouTube? Need to know what the latest video craze is for a certain demographic or geographic segment? YouTube provides this information with their YouTube Trends Dashboard and lets you compare one segment to another (both by most shared and most viewed). YouTube also curates content for newsworthy posts every weekday (this is aimed at bloggers and news outlets) on their YouTube Trends blog. YouTube has recognized that their content is often used in news reports and is taking steps to make it easier for publishers to find quality content. Hopefully, they’ll also add the ability to segment on topic. [Read more…] about Find Out What’s Trending by Demographic on YouTube with YouTube Trends Dashboard