Common Factors of Social Media Success

Question: Don't you think its tough to measure social media?

A few weeks ago an email circulated pointing out one hapless company’s image problem.  Their website was upbeat, bright, with neon green highlights and a hip feel.  But the actual company’s retail location was drab, old, with ancient signage and really the opposite feel to their site.  While they may have intended to capture the web audience and show them how hip they were, their actual location was anything but, and the mixed message was killing them.

     Armed with a tag cloud and an RSS feed spitting your company’s insights into the twitterverse, you might think you’re good to go. Don’t. Like most things, there is always something else you can do to make your social media presence more effective. The first of these is a flickr widget.

Episode 5 of the Sitepro Podcast is now available. The Sitepro Podcast was created to help educate clients and the community about various aspects of web, video and other multimedia content. This is the second of four episodes of the podcasts that focus on the the Grace Lutheran Foundation and all the multimedia work that Sitepro has produced for them. Be sure to subscribe to get all of the episodes of the Sitepro Podcast.

    Continuing my series on company blogs, I’m now going to describe for you the myriad benefits that come from what MTV might call "Pimping Your Blog". These nifty techniques have nothing to do with the words you write, but rather how people see, interact, and (most importantly) broadcast them around the web.

Your Company Video: The Pro’s and Con’s of YouTube Hosting

This is part 2 in an onging series  called "YouTube Video 101". See this post and others to learn how hosting videos through YouTube may apply to your business.

Social media is all the rage these days. From building company Facebook profiles to placing videos on YouTube, a lot of businesses are jumping on board. YouTube is a great medium for putting the right kind of video on (I’ll get in to what may be the right kind of video in another post). With an audience of nearly 330 million user’s world wide, the format cannot be ignored. You can use YouTube hosting to present your video content to this audience as well as embed video feeds from YouTube in your company website. While YouTube presents some incredible new possibilities, there can be some drawbacks that companies may not be fully aware of. This post explores both the pros and cons of using YouTube’s service in business applications.

     In my last post, I overviewed a few of the ways to get your company blog in front of interested people. In this one, I'll try to help you find enough material to keep them coming back.

     If you're not a media company, you're wrong. Every business has news and events, products or services to sell and a need for the public to know about them. And if you think that your latest contract or the opening of a new plant in Oklahoma isn't worth talking about, just take a look at what we're saying on Twitter every minute. Believe you me, there are eyes out there that want to read what you can provide.

Episode 4 of the Sitepro Podcast is now available. The Sitepro Podcast was created to help educate clients and the community about various aspects of web, video and other multimedia content. Hosted by Sitepro's own Steve Allingham, the next four episodes of the podcasts will focus on the the Grace Lutheran Foundation and all the multimedia work that Sitepro has produced for them. Be sure to subscribe to get all of the episodes of the Sitepro Podcast.

There are millions of blogs out there, with more created every second. Yet, it's still vital to the health of your company to have one. The key to success is not to join the rest of the blogs in yelling for the world's attention, but to whisper into the ears of those who matter most to your business.

This isn't so daunting as you might believe. No matter what industry you're in, there's likely already blogs or forums full of passionate people discussing your field. For example, a simple Google search of "welding forums" turned up over 7 communities, on the first page. Any one of these would make, for a welding company, an ideal place to make a social media mark.

Your company’s logo is a symbol representing your business.  It serves as a visual representation of your place in the industry, your company’s culture, and your attitude to clients.  Have you thought about what your logo says about your company?  Read on to learn just how critical a clean, well-designed logo is the cornerstone to a solid brand.

Having worked for several years with small-to-mid size companies on a daily basis, the most common issue I find is lack of consistency in their visual identity. These businesses all have reasons for not developing consistent brand marketing ranging from belief that doing so would be cost prohibitive, to not believing the scope of their business is large enough for consistency to matter.