Archive for August, 2011

Social Media and Mobile Applications: 8 Best Practices for Deploying a Top-Ranked Mobile App

Posted by Micah Pratt: social networking research and development

The convergence of social media with mobile applications has led to cross promotional marketing, and if done correctly, can lead to major success. Here is an article by Krishna Subramanian from Mashable.com about eight ways to make sure your mobile application gets noticed.

8 Best Practices for Deploying a Top-Ranked Mobile App

one billion apps hero 20090418 456x252 Social Media and Mobile Applications: 8 Best Practices for Deploying a Top Ranked Mobile App

Developing a mobile app is the easy part. Getting that app noticed is difficult. And getting the app to go viral is like winning the lottery. Yet many developers get millions of downloads time after time. How?

It’s all about app store SEO, and some developers have mastered it. Here are a few tips and tricks of the trade to help get your app to the top of heap.

Time Is of The Essence

The first two weeks of an app’s life are critical and will likely determine its future visibility in the app store. Top applications develop popularity within two weeks of release, and most applications have a tendency to drop in chart position over time. Remember, whatever you do — marketing campaigns, cross distribution and so on — the quicker you do it, the bigger the impact.

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Jennings Social Media Marketing’s Press Release Picked Up on Major News Sites Including Businessweek.com, Yahoo!Finance.com & Reuters.com: Veterans Funeral Care Triples ROI With Jennings Social Media Marketing

Veterans Funeral Care tripled its Facebook “Likes,” organic SEO, engagement and exposure via Jennings Social Media Marketing during a promotional campaign (www.jenningssocialmedia.com).

Jim Rudolph, president and CEO of Veterans Funeral Care, said they hired Jennings Social Media Marketing for social media promotion of their company and for a specific event. “It should be said: I waited until the last minute. Team Jennings jumped in and in 24-hours was working magic. We had around 200 people who ‘liked’ us on Facebook in two weeks and there were more than 800 ‘likes’ shortly after that. Valerie (CEO & founder) got our Marketwire press release on MSNBC. You can put me down in the ‘very happy’ category. This is my second project with them, and I’m a believer,” said Rudolph.

The goal of the Veterans Funeral Care social media project was to create brand awareness by getting new Facebook users to “Like” the page (http://www.facebook.com/Veteransfuneralcare), generate search engine optimization (SEO) and engagement. A targeted Facebook ad ran, focusing on veterans, veterans groups and Flag Day which resulted in the Veterans Funeral Care page tripling its Facebook “Likes” in a few weeks to 815. For organic SEO, a targeted Marketwire press release was written and distributed to generate traffic, millions of impressions and get picked-up by major news websites including, but not limited to, MSNBC, Reuters and Yahoo. The Twitter strategy focused on re-tweeting, sending @mentions, tweets and following veterans’ organizations.

4 216x252 Jennings Social Media Marketings Press Release Picked Up on Major News Sites Including Businessweek.com, Yahoo!Finance.com & Reuters.com: Veterans Funeral Care Triples ROI With Jennings Social Media Marketing

3 210x252 Jennings Social Media Marketings Press Release Picked Up on Major News Sites Including Businessweek.com, Yahoo!Finance.com & Reuters.com: Veterans Funeral Care Triples ROI With Jennings Social Media Marketing

5 389x252 Jennings Social Media Marketings Press Release Picked Up on Major News Sites Including Businessweek.com, Yahoo!Finance.com & Reuters.com: Veterans Funeral Care Triples ROI With Jennings Social Media Marketing

Jennings Social Media Marketing is a full service company that utilizes the art of online storytelling with the science of measuring quantifiable results. Jennings creates comprehensive social media marketing and Web advertising strategies from website design and development to viral videos. The company represents publicly traded to medium-sized businesses across the U.S. and overseas including technology, sports, sustainability, entertainment, travel, financial, health care and real estate (www.jenningssocialmedia.com).


Thank You to Thinking Bigger Business Media & David Conrads for Interviewing Valerie Jennings, CEO of Jennings Social Media Marketing, On How to Handle Employees’ Online Social Media Activity

Posted by: Micah Pratt, social networking research & development

Valerie Jennings, CEO of Jennings Social Media Marketing, was recently interviewed on how to handle employees’ social media activity. The emergence of social media has given many employees the same capabilities and tools as their employers which can be both beneficial and risky. Business leaders are wondering how to control the social media activities of its employers and to what extent. Here is an article from www.ithinkbigger.com, by David Conrads, on how to handle social media in conjunction with employees.

Social Media: Handle With Care

Do you need a policy to guide employees’ online activities?

jennings Thank You to Thinking Bigger Business Media & David Conrads for Interviewing Valerie Jennings, CEO of Jennings Social Media Marketing, On How to Handle Employees Online Social Media Activity While the benefits of social media are great, there also are risks—particularly as employees have access to the same tools and audience as the company.

As with so many things having to do with technology, social media is evolving so fast that businesses are scrambling to not only grasp its full potential, but also understand the risks and to come up with a consensus on best practices for its use.

The casual way in which many employees share their personal lives online can give a business owner nightmares. After all, TMI—“Too Much Information”—is one thing when it comes to an employee’s social life, it’s quite another when it involves company business. Leaders can’t afford to ignore the potential problems.

More Questions Than Answers
What are appropriate guidelines for what company information employees can share online? What liability is the company exposed to from employee posts that flow through the company’s server? How does a company protect its reputation from offensive postings by an employee on a personal account? Even large corporations are just now exploring answers to these questions.

“It’s an ongoing management problem,” said Valerie Jennings, CEO and founder of Jennings Social Media Marketing in Kansas City. “Social media has really cost a lot of organizations time, energy and money on so many different levels. It’s a blessing to have these resources, but the risks have to be managed or they can really hurt the brand.”

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Valuable Data: More than a billion opinions posted online about products & services last year

Posted by: Micah Pratt, social networking research & development

Today, more and more marketers are turning to online marketing programs because of the noticeable role that peers play in consumers’ purchasing desicions. What many of these interactive marketers are failing to realize is the volume of social data created by the influence of peers in purchase decisions. Here is an article by Nate Elliott, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, about how to effective utilize social data.

HOW TO: Utilize Social Data More Effectively

onlinemarketing Valuable Data: More than a billion opinions posted online about products & services last yearLast year, American consumers posted more than a billion opinions about products and services online, according to data collected by my company. With peer influence playing such a prominent role in consumers’ purchase decisions, it’s no surprise many interactive marketers are tapping into that influence via viral marketing programs and influencer outreach.

However, the vast majority of marketers ignore the staggering volume of social data all this influence creates. And those who do study social data typically use it for the wrong reason: to measure the brand impact of their marketing campaigns.

Social Data Is Often Based On Small Sample Sizes
With so many opinions posted online, you might assume it would be easy to find a reliable sample of data to analyze for brand impact. But even popular consumer brands often find it difficult to collect usable social data.

For instance, I recently reviewed a listening report for a global sporting goods brand — one that sponsors leading teams and athletes around the world and has strong brand awareness. I was surprised to see that the brand was mentioned in social media only a few hundred times each week in the U.S., and less than 100 times each week in other key markets around the world.

To make matters worse, the low quality of many social sentiment analysis tools reduces sample sizes further. When listening tools can’t decide whether comments are positive or negative, they’re usually labeled as having “no sentiment.” Three-quarters of the mentions for this brand were tagged as such, leaving less than two-dozen weekly usable posts in some markets.

If you asked your market insights team or your survey provider to analyze 25 consumer survey responses, they’d tell you it’s impossible to find statistical significance in such a small sample. The same standards must be applied to social data as well.

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