1. Giving out Free Content Can Boost Business – Counter-intuitive, right? Giving out free content every so often, whether it be a demo version of your company’s newest software or a recent track from your recording studio’s latest artist can actually boost your customer base by bringing new people in. They can download the free content and thus be exposed to some of the other products you have on hand. This can later translate into new business if the customers decide later on to buy more of the product or service. Giving out freebies works a lot like a coupon would in any non-digital retailer by bringing in new business to supplement the old.
2. Merchandising is Your New Friend – One of the biggest reasons the music and film industries didn’t collapse due to P2P file sharing was because of merchandising. Think about how many films have corresponding action figures, t-shirts, posters, stickers, or other collectibles. Plenty of people will buy merchandise from films or music they enjoy, and the same can work for other industries that are heavily Internet based. If your business is one that can successfully create marketable merchandise to supplement any costs of making online content, consider it as a viable option for lessening the impact of piracy on your business.
3. Consider Your Pricing – If you are concerned that your content is being heavily pirated, consider lowering the prices on your digital goods. So many people who resort to piracy quote ridiculous prices as their reason for file sharing. No one is going to want to buy from a source they believe to be gouging their wallets unnecessarily, so make sure your product is affordable while still maintaining profit.
4. Consider Your Availability – The second most-quoted reason for resorting to piracy is that people sometimes cannot find the original source for the material or that the material is unavailable in their country. If your material is difficult to find on the Internet, people will simply not be able to buy it. Make sure that common online retailers stock your product, whether it is software or media. Also be sure that the SEO on your primary sales webpage is in tip-top shape that way people are able to find your website without having to scour the entire Internet.
5. Don’t Let Piracy Intimidate You – Yes, piracy is a cash-sucking fiend and it’s a huge problem, but people do exist out there who still buy their software, music, or movies from reputable sources. For every person who steals content via file sharing, there’s other people out there who would be completely willing to buy your business’s content. Plus, since when did fear ever help anyone in the business world?

Moments like these remind me why social media is awesome. Personally, I love being able to talk to professors and university officials over social media. It’s what makes the college experience so much better than being in high school – there’s not so much of a disconnect between students and teachers. Besides, students nowadays most often communicate via social media. It only makes sense that professors would take advantage of this new technology. However, some universities feel that using social media to connect with students is unprofessional and that social media is encouraging laziness and informality among students looking to enter professional careers.

Personally, I think NOT utilizing social media to connect with students is unprofessional and crippling to students. The career world is shifting fast and many employers have hopped onto the social media bandwagon in order to best utilize their business strategies, so students need to learn how to professionally interact on social media. At one of my last jobs, our company used Facebook to communicate about our various schedules and new client updates. My on-campus job as a Resident Assistant has me connecting with dorm residents through social media on an almost daily basis because that’s the most reliable way to get in contact with my residents. When I asked my residents about emails sent by University staff members, one resident unabashedly replied that he deleted university emails without even checking them most of the time. While the professional realm is shifting to accept social media as the new norm, the university level seems to be back in the Stone Age as far as social media use goes.

To the university’s merit, they are making strides towards improvement. Through my work at a student PR agency, we finally taught the graduate school how to set up and maintain a Twitter account – we were so proud. Our hip-and-happening president, Leo Lambert, has even become fairly active on his personal Twitter account, @headphoenix. It is important for schools to realize that social media is becoming a newly professional mode of communication despite its informalities. Therefore, it is important to teach students how to utilize social media professionally instead of shying away from the teaching opportunity social media presents. Putting together a Facebook group for students to collaborate teaches students to pool resources and act as a team using social media as the platform. My media writing professor actually taught us how to ‘tweet’ in order to chop down on wordy, run on sentences while still upholding the rules of grammar and spelling, effectively improving our news writing skills. Getting students involved on LinkedIn teaches them how to craft effective résumés. Even Pinterest can be used as a teaching tool, since Pinterest’s new terms of use require people to source their material, thus teaching against plagiarism which is a huge issue at the university level. This just goes to show that social media’s past in informal banter between groups of people can be used as a teaching tool and should not be ignored by the university. Social media is the future of the job realm and college’s job is to prepare us for the professional world beyond the classroom. It only makes sense that universities would teach students to the best of their ability.

1)   Good Ideas are the Foundation – No matter how much money you sink into a video project, it will still be a complete failure if your idea is awful. Spend the necessary time on creating the best idea. Carefully plan out your shots, necessary supplies, and budget before you even touch a camera.

2)   Extras – One of the best and most inexpensive ways to up your production quality is to have crowd or group scenes (provided your idea needs a group or crowd scene). Extras are those people who meander around in the back of a scene without saying any lines. These people increase production value simply because its difficult to corral extras and to pull off the group scene. Also, a lot of ideas can be easily improved by having access to as many people as you need. Getting your friends to help you out in a group scene makes a production look that much better, and if you have good friends, they’ll be willing to help you out for a few hours.

3)   Steady Shots – True, tripods can be costly to a production budget, but there are less expensive ways to keep your image steady. Make sure you’re not doing any handheld shots. Professional cameramen might be able to pull off the handheld, but chances are you’re probably not a professional cameraman. Put the camera on a steady surface such as a table or a chair to improve the quality of your image.

4)   Background Noise – Sound can sometimes make the difference between a great video capture and a terrible piece of material. While you may not be able to invest in a fantastic microphone, you can improve the quality on the mic you already have. Be sure to have your subject as close to the microphone as possible. Surprisingly, your lighting can also sometimes affect your sound quality. Certain mics will pick up noise from the fluorescent lights that are common in office spaces. Also keep in mind that noises from the wind, office technology, or even traffic can ruin a great sound clip. Choose your location while keeping your sound quality in mind.

5)   Dolly Shots – A dolly shot is a segment in which the camera is attached to a wheeled platform while video is being captured in order to track action. A dolly is a ridiculously expensive piece of equipment, but dolly shots up the production value exponentially because it shows technical proficiency. Dolly shots can be pulled off without an actual dolly through creative thinking. I’ve seen dolly shots performed using a wheeled office chair, skateboard, or even a tablecloth being pulled across a table with the camera secured to the cloth. Dolly shots can be achieved through using creative solutions with everyday office supplies, so look around and see how you can try one of these shots in your workplace production.

For more information, check out the press release below from the Democratic National Convention Committee:

http://www.demconvention.com/releases-view.asp?id=54

1)   Keep it Simple: The biggest mistake I see is when people try to turn their screen time into an epic of vast proportions in a ten minute timeframe. Online videos should be as short as possible and as simple a story as possible. If you can fit all the content you need into thirty seconds, do it. Never go past 4 or 5 minutes if you can help it. We live in a world where consumers expect quick turnarounds, so people will stop watching if they think a video will eat up too much of their time.

2)   Comedy over Drama: While it’s easier (and often more tempting) to write something dramatic or thought-provoking, skip the drama and stick with more humorous writing. People are more likely to want to watch a short humor than a short film making them feel guilty about their lives. Since humor writing is often more difficult than drama writing, it’s best to get some extra feedback on anything you write in that genre.

3)   Make it Current: Figuring out what’s popular now and incorporating it into your video is a great way to tap into an already-available fan base, however, be careful with this. If you plan on making videos frequently, feel free to choose something that may be a little more transitory. If you don’t want the upkeep of making videos more frequently, be choosier about your topic. Make sure it’s something that is popular, but has more staying power.

4) Vimeo vs. YouTube: This is a decision that is important to consider depending on your audience. If your video is lower on the production quality scale, YouTube is definitely the way to go, but if your production quality is higher, Vimeo is what you need. Vimeo is a bigger hotspot for people who are active in the cinema industry, so posting something of low quality will get you easily dismissed. Vimeo is also less crowded with work, though, so if your production quality is high enough, go for a Vimeo over a YouTube account.

1. Clear Goals are Key – If your only goal in promoting a contest is to bump up your social media presence by gaining followers, I only have one piece of advice – don’t. A contest is a strenuous task and putting all that work into a marketing ploy in order to gain followers is a lot of labor for few fruits. Have a more specific goal in mind. For example, maybe your contest will promote a specific product. The product could be part of a giveaway, so seeing who likes the product after the contest is done could help your company identify a target demographic. While this approach does not directly translate to dollar signs, it does help your company more than just blindly recruiting followers would.
2. Choose Wisely with Prizes – It is oh-so-tempting to just give away some flashy, new, third-party product nowadays in contests, like a Mac product or popular new gadget. This is actually counterproductive to the business because it casts too wide of a net. These types of prizes attract everyone, including people who will never interact with your business again and who have no interest in the product. Instead, give out a prize that attracts the kind of demographic that wants your product. For example, a band might give out a free copy of their latest CD. This will aid the band in perpetuating their brand to at least one lucky follower and will let the band know who their target audience is. Or, you could give out an intangible prize, like the opportunity to be behind the stage of the band’s next performance or to name the band’s next studio album. These prizes gain the same effect of attracting only the people you want to attract but with little to no cost involved.
3. Don’t Limit to Likes – Sure, liking a page is the easiest way to enter a contest, but there are more effective ways to get people to interact with a page that can benefit both you and the consumer. Let’s continue on with the band example. The band could host a contest, but instead of just liking the Facebook page, they could have people post their favorite pictures from band performances.  The best picture gets featured on the website and the band gives that person some prizes. Not only does this boost interactivity with the Facebook page, this also requires people to buy tickets to go see shows in order to participate and gets the band some “free” press, because now there are pictures of their band circulating the Internet. There are other creative ways of boosting interactivity during a contest, such as having people actually write responses on your wall or reposting. Just make it something more intellectually stimulating than hitting a ‘like’ or ‘follow’ button.

An Internet and digital media presence is an effective way to generate business and offers a platform for engagement for small and large companies alike. Consumers are more likely to find and choose a service or product based on Internet presence, therefore upkeep of a website is vital to businesses of the 21st century.

Optimizing your company’s Web presence begins with an audit of its current digital state. Knowing how your company stands in comparison to your competition on search engine results pages, social media sites, and other digital assets is crucial. This month, BEC is offering free digital audits, so you can begin taking the steps to secure your company’s online presence. Contact us today to see how you can improve your company’s Web presence at (919) 426-2000 or info@businessempireconsulting.com.

There are plenty of things wrong with this. Yet, somehow, Facebook has not used its powers of social Darwinism to weed these people out of the social media realm. They exist everywhere and, most of the time, they don’t even understand how unbearably irritating they can be. For this reason, it is important to know how to avoid being that social media pain so that you do not become that person, especially if you want to successfully market your business. In other words, don’t be like Peter. Here’s how:

1. You Will Only Ever Need One Facebook Page – That’s right, folks, just one. There’s a few reasons for people only needing one page per social media site. First, there is the practical reason. If someone is looking up your business on any social media site, having multiple accounts for the same product or service is going to confuse the customer and turn them off before they even find your product. Peter’s radio show has two or three different Facebook pages and a friend account. Make things easier on the customer by consolidating all of your social media presence into a single page. It’s perfectly alright to have one Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest page. Just don’t have multiple Facebook pages for a single business. Another huge Facebook faux-paux is to have a friend account for a business that can send friend requests. This is not only unprofessional; it’s downright annoying. Stick to a single, general Facebook page for ease of use and streamlining.
2. Choose Wisely as to What You Do and Don’t Post – Regular upkeep of your social media pages is important, but Tweeting unnecessary updates every minute on the minute will immediately turn off your followers. Be choosy about what you tweet or post and make it count. Posting more important information less often is much better than posting a bunch of junk all the time.
3. Use Direct Messaging Sparingly – If you have a substantial amount of followers and you want to get them to go away, one of the best means to accomplish that is to clog their inboxes. Just because someone is following your business does not mean that they want to wake up every morning to fifty-plus direct messages specifically from your business. It may come as a surprise to some companies, but people do not join Facebook so that they can experience a barrage of advertising. Respect your customer’s privacy and keep direct messaging to a minimum.
4. Never Use Your Business Page as a Political Mouthpiece – Unless a company is directly related to politics, it doesn’t belong anywhere on a business’s social media. When it comes to my acquaintance, Peter, this was the final aspect of his social media campaign that forced me to stop following him altogether. His radio show is an oldies station, but he posted an incredibly graphic photo to the station’s Facebook page about a local political issue. For me, as a social media professional, it didn’t matter whether or not I agreed or disagreed with the political statement. It was unprofessional and turned me, as well as many other people, away from the station. Polarizing your audience is the best way to lose people because you can lose both the people who disagree with the statement and the people who do agree with the statement but feel that its inappropriate. Since Peter’s station is strictly musical in nature, politics had no place on the social media page. Keep political opinions away from your business and if you feel the need to post them, do it on your own time and own personal page.

Trend One: Location

Location-based marketing is easily one the top projected trends of 2012 by different industry experts. With mobile devices and constant Google algorithm changes focusing on a more personalized experience, it is easy to see why. Delivering high quality and relevant content to consumers should always be a top priority in any marketing campaign. As mentioned with the huge increase in mobile device users over the past few years, delivering location-based content to users has become a much more important part of a business’s digital marketing strategy. One of the biggest advantages to utilizing location-based advertising is that it can almost instantly increase the conversion rates of your business when done properly. Consider the following tips to improve your location-based marketing efforts:

• Purchase domain names that are location-specific when possible
• Create a mobile version of your business’s website (91% of the web isn’t ready for mobile in 2012)
• Use Facebook Ads to demographically target your audience
• Create something that has pass-a-long value on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social networking/media websites
• Engage with your customers by way of services such as Foursquare or Gowalla
• Lay claim to your Google Places page if you haven’t already.

Trend Two: Video

A recent report released by the digital marketing and analysis company eMarketer showed that money spent on online video advertising in 2012 will pass the $3 billion mark. This is due to the fact that over 1.3 billion videos are viewed every day in the US alone, making video marketing the perfect medium to establish and build emotional connections with customers. Being able to engage with your consumers quickly can mean a higher conversion rate if done properly. YouTube is constantly upgrading its advertising program, making it easier and friendlier for smaller businesses to participate.

Trend Three: Building Social Momentum Through Gamification  

Although it is a little dependent on the type of business that you operate, gamification provides some potential opportunities that should not be overlooked. Gamification is essentially the application of using gaming principles to non-gaming experiences in an attempt to gain social momentum among targeted audiences.

Trend Four: Security and Privacy

Customer privacy and security is one of the top issues that marketers and business owners should give special attention to. No matter what kind of business you are, keeping customers informed of how you manage and handle their personal information is essential to their trust with your brand. If you are able to provide them with superior knowledge and control of their data, they will in turn trust in your business more.

There are many other trends that you should keep an eye on in the coming months, and try to incorporatesome of them to your marketing strategies. Getting the basics right should still take highest priority. It’s also important to discover which trends will be most beneficial to your business. Trends are just that, trends. You don’t want to be wasting your time playing catch-up when all of your competitor’s have moved on. So watch the market, pay attention to the trends, but most importantly focus on delivering quality content in your marketing to your target audience.

However, unlike most of the books on my list, which were recommended to me by peers or teachers, this book finally piqued my interest through a barrage of social media updates. No matter if it was Twitter, Facebook, or even Pinterest; The Hunger Games seems to have popped up everywhere. When I opened my Facebook this morning, I was greeted with 48 status updates from friends who had made it to the midnight premiere. I know the names of many of the characters from the book, not because I’ve read any plot synopsis, but from gooey-eyed girls fawning over how charming Peeta is all over my Facebook news stream. According to Mashable, social media users are even more excited about the film adaptation of The Hunger Games than the last installment of the Harry Potter movie series (though not as excited as they were for Twilight, which makes me incredibly disappointed in the next generation of moviegoers, but I’m a film snob).

Believe me, folks, all this buzz around The Hunger Games is by no means a happy accident. Someone had to sit down at a computer and analyze how to get people talking about the book before it became an Internet sensation. With some careful planning and tactful marketing, the piece became so widespread that it effectively marketed itself and helped over 25,000 theaters nationwide run out of tickets on the eve of opening night. It’s ingenious, really, to have something become so all-encompassing that everyone essentially markets the product for you.

This is by no means saying that the book’s actual content’s had nothing to do with the popularity, but to reiterate what I said last week, a product could be phenomenal and no one would buy it if it wasn’t pitched and marketed correctly. To flip that around, a product could be completely mediocre and yet become a booming success if someone takes the time to market it correctly. The Hunger Games marketing team had some stellar ideas when it came to the marketing campaign leading up to their soon-to-be box office hit and managed to hit all the major media such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and even mobile apps. What made The Hunger Games different, however, was how all the social media marketing tactics required users to engage with the program. The Facebook page had people vying for the role of mayor in each individual district. There were pages through which people could vote and share content, and even the mobile app was an interactive game. This created a community of avid fans who were able to share their love of the book and their anticipation for the movie. Engaging consumers and making them invested in The Hunger Games was the key to success in its marketing campaign and it could help your business’s campaign, too.

Many businesses make the mistake of believing that if they make it, people will come. This is not the case in marketing, nor will it ever be the case. Make a campaign widespread and make it something that people will want to explore further. Not everyone can afford to create a mobile game for the iPhone to market their product, but there are other, cost-effective ways to get the word out about your product without breaking the bank. The Hunger Games on Facebook made an easy-to-use app that gave users a random District assignment, which linked them to another Facebook page for that community. This community then competed with other districts for an inexpensive, online Hunger Games experience. Something as simple as making quizzes, sweepstakes or other activities that require user involvement could help to make your brand more likeable. Though, as is par for marketing, you should evaluate which marketing tactics will suit the brand best. If your product is laundry detergent, creating a mobile game involving washing machines might not be your best bet. Think about what would be feasible and likeable, then do it. And may the odds be ever in your favor.