Category: Marketing

Is Hootsuite Good For Your Social Media Needs?

We think Hootsuite is a brilliant tool if you need to be in control of more than one social media platform. Hootsuite allows you to be in control of Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram, FourSquare and many other applications. One problem many people have with software is that it’s not cross-platform. Luckily with Hootsuite, it’s available on all the main players – Apple iOS, Android, Windows and Mac OSX. Perfect! If you need to know how things are going, but don’t have the time to collate reports, allow Hootsuite to send you your monthly report via email. You can even have a weekly report if you want to be even more on the ball!

Overall it’s a business owner’s dream and it’s also compatible with so many systems that you can relay the information you find in Hootsuite and help tailor your larger marketing focuses.

‘Least Effective’ Marketing Channel?

It’s worth bearing in mind that not all marketing channels will influence consumers in the same way. It could be like with the ‘blanket marketing campaigns’ with advertising on the radio or TV; where the targeting is very limited in scope and the return you see is often in terms of brand recognition rather than an immediate return, or it could be like with search marketing, where your ability to target people looking for your services is very strong and you generally see an immediate (or at least easily attributable) return.

All you need to do is look at the platform which neither helps your brand or gives you an immediate return on your investment; cold calling. Cold calling often leaves a bad impression which can end up damaging your brand, and as people will often not listen to a cold call (typically hanging up within the first 10 seconds), your ability to sell products to the people you call is extremely restrained.

Social Media and Its Role in the Development of Business Marketing

Recently, we’ve seen a massive movement towards the internet within the business community. This is represented in different ways; with more people paying for goods online; with business investment in their digital enterprises continuing to rise and everything else remaining stagnant – at best; and businesses beginning to rely upon social media for word of mouth. Some of it is good, and some of it bad, but the changes haven’t stopped since.

We’ve also seen the tremendous benefits that they can gain from the internet, with it allowing small businesses to get widespread attention from interested people, whereas before they would have difficulty due to not being able to reach many people. This is done through a couple of ways, with search engines allowing businesses to immediately reach people interested in their products and services, and social media, being used to build relationships and create interest in products that you’re selling.

No More Character Limits on Direct Messages

Plenty of businesses use Twitter direct messages to have a private conversation with their customers, meaning that any complaints can be dealt with without the public seeing a fall-out. The problem has always been that there was a character limit for each message, but this has now changed.

While Twitter is largely a public experience, Direct Messages let you have private conversations about the memes, news, movements, and events that unfold on Twitter. Each of the hundreds of millions of Tweets sent across Twitter every day is an opportunity for you to spark a conversation about what’s happening in your world. That’s why we’ve made a number of changes to Direct Messages over the last few months. Today’s change is another big step towards making the private side of Twitter even more powerful and fun. (Twitter Blog)

Instagram Supporting Portrait and Landscape Images

Social media platform Instagram has announced that users will now be able to share images and videos in BOTH portrait and landscape orientation on the application.

A pet peeve for many users when having to crop an image, now there’s no need thanks to the newest update to the app.

Today, we’re excited to announce that — in addition to square posts — you can now share photos and videos in both portrait and landscape orientation on Instagram. Square format has been and always will be part of who we are. That said, the visual story you’re trying to tell should always come first, and we want to make it simple and fun for you to share moments just the way you want to. It turns out that nearly one in five photos or videos people post aren’t in the square format, and we know that it hasn’t been easy to share this type of content on Instagram: friends get cut out of group shots, the subject of your video feels cramped and you can’t capture the Golden Gate Bridge from end to end. Now, when choosing a photo or video, you can tap the format icon to adjust the orientation to portrait or landscape instead of square. Once you share the photo, the full-sized version of it will appear to all of your followers in feed in a beautiful, natural way. To keep the clean feel of your profile grid, your post will appear there as a center-cropped square. (Instagram)