JSMM & VBM Announce Summer 2013 Video Blog Packages: VBM Rolls Out Newest Promotion
By Valerie Jennings, CEO of JSMM & VBM
Jennings Social Media Marketing (JSMM) and Viral Bolt Media (VBM), a sister company to JSMM announced new summer video blog pricing. Video blogs (vblogs) are video weblogs that capture the essence of a subject matter expert, discussing key points of content. These short excerpts are not to be confused with a promotional Web video as they constitute the core messages of a particular topic without much editing or special effects.
Vblogs may be published on a blog, YouTube channel, social networking site(s) or embedded in a Marketwired press release. The purpose of the vblog is to direct SEO attention, subject matter expertise, content development and fast-paced social media sharing. The vblogs should not be longer than 30 seconds.
Here are a few pricing options, but custom packages are available upon request. See distribution options for additional pricing.
Basic: $600
- 3 videos: Each up to 30-seconds in length.
- May include logos, titles and simple edits to smooth out the video.
- No special effects, motion graphics, music or transitional edits such as wipes, etc. Vblogs do not require this type of editing.
- Camera includes HD Sony handycam specific for YouTube, but no professional lighting or sound.
- Scriptwriting is not included and should be discouraged to maintain the authenticity of the content. However, strategic planning, messaging and bullet points are encouraged to entice the viewer and position the brand properly.
- Keyword analysis is included, but not competitive research and development, i.e. competitive research per client/per industry.
- Social media marketing is extra, unless the business is already a client of JSMM (See pricing options for social media marketing, viralizing video content, distribution and SEO.) *See below.
Professional: $1,200
- 6 videos: Each up to 30-seconds in length.
- May include logos, titles and simple edits to smooth out the video.
- No special effects, motion graphics, music or transitional edits such as wipes, etc. Vblogs do not require this type of editing.
- Camera includes HD Sony handycam specific for YouTube, but no professional lighting or sound.
- Scriptwriting is not included and should be discouraged to maintain the authenticity of the content. However, strategic planning, messaging and bullet points are encouraged to entice the viewer and position the brand properly.
- Keyword analysis is included, but not competitive research and development, i.e. competitive research per client/per industry.
- Social media marketing is extra, unless the business is already a client of JSMM (See pricing options for social media marketing, viralizing video content, distribution and SEO.) *See below.
Enterprise: $2,000
- 10 videos: Each up to 30-seconds in length.
- May include logos, titles and simple edits to smooth out the video.
- No special effects, motion graphics, music or transitional edits such as wipes, etc. Vblogs do not require this type of editing.
- Camera includes HD Sony handycam specific for YouTube, but no professional lighting or sound.
- Scriptwriting is not included and should be discouraged to maintain the authenticity of the content. However, strategic planning, messaging and bullet points are encouraged to entice the viewer and position the brand properly.
- Keyword analysis is included, but not competitive research and development, i.e. competitive research per client/per industry.
- Social media marketing is extra, unless the business is already a client of JSMM (See pricing options for social media marketing, viralizing video content, distribution and SEO.) *See below.
Custom: Available Upon Request
*Social Media Marketing Pricing:
Jennings Social Media Marketing (JSMM) is a full-service, social media marketing agency, providing boutique-style services for small to publicly traded companies. Viral Bolt Media (VBM), a sister company to JSMM, provides viral Web videos, social sharing and distribution services. VBM also offers tailor-made videos including promotional, campaign-style, subject-matter testimonials, whitepapers and informational. These Web videos, for YouTube and other social media marketing channels, are filmed with a professional HD camera, lights and audio kit and are edited with professional software. Scripting, production setup, video editing and some special effects are included in these types of videos. Pricing is available soon for Summer 2013. For a complete list of services, please contact Valerie Jennings at 913.424.3042 or valerie@viralboltmedia.com.
*Businesses that are not already a client of JSMM, may opt-into any of the following packages for video distribution. Companies that are clients of JSMM’s may also upgrade to some of the specific video marketing services, but many of these items may already be included in the monthly packages or prices. See Valerie Jennings for additional information.
Basic: $1,000
- Promote 3 videos.
- SEO descriptions per video.
- Distribution across social media and social networking sites including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blog(s).
- Upload each video on one video channel or two video channels, however, the channels must already be created.
- Video reporting may include SEO results, views, shares, comments, likes, tweets or e-News open-rates.
- Additional vendor costs such as Marketwired press releases are extra and may include additional copy editing costs.
- Additional video requests may be offered via another package. (See Valerie Jennings)
Professional: $1,500 + Marketwired
- Promote 6 videos.
- SEO descriptions per video.
- Distribution across social media and social networking sites including Marketwired, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blog(s).
- Upload each video on one video channel or two video channels, however, the channels must already be created.
- Video reporting may include SEO results, views, shares, comments, likes, tweets or e-News open-rates.
- Additional vendor costs such as Marketwired press releases are extra and may include additional copy editing costs.
- Additional video requests may be offered via another package. (See Valerie Jennings)
Enterprise: $2,500 + Marketwired
- Promote 10 videos.
- SEO descriptions per video.
- Distribution across social media and social networking sites including Marketwired, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blog(s).
- Upload each video on one video channel or two video channels, however, the channels must already be created.
- Video reporting may include SEO results, views, shares, comments, likes, tweets or e-News open-rates.
- Additional vendor costs such as Marketwired press releases are extra and may include additional copy editing costs.
- Additional video requests may be offered via another package. (See Valerie Jennings)
Custom: Available Upon Request
Does Social Media Sell? Influencer Over Purchase & ROI
By Valerie Jennings, CEO of JSMM
Social media marketing can sell, but what about influence over purchase? In this recent article about social media and sales, some brands still believe that social media shouldn’t be utilized for generating revenue. What a conundrum for a CFO: spend more money on social media but don’t use it for sales? JSMM disagrees. Social media should be utilized for sales for B2C brands and B2B brands should still have a ROI strategy, even if it’s just SEO.
Find out how retailers are making money from social media and how to tap influence over purchasing power.
(Image Source: The Guider Group)
Why Fab proves that social media sells
With high profile brands such as Gap, Gamestop and, in the US, JCPenney, having opened and then subsequently closed Facebook stores (presumably because they weren’t delivering ROI) it would be easy to assume that social media is not suitable for sales – too easy, perhaps.
But those who dig a little deeper may find that opportunities abound if social media is leveraged in the right way.
“We haven’t tried to use social as a sales channel at all. It doesn’t suit our demographic and we’re not a discounter,” argues Andrew Curran, chairman at luxury homewares e-tailer Amara. “Having said that, there are examples – take Fab – of retailers for which social is a significant proportion of what they do and drives a large percentage of their business.”
He’s not wrong. E-commerce site Fab, which specialises in “everyday design” items, grew sales by nearly 300% in January 2013 over January 2012. In Europe alone, 50% of its members have come from social sharing and lead to 33% of revenue in the region. Its member base grew to 11m people, up from 1.5m at the start of last year. With social networking sites and mobile apps forming a significant part of its business model, the innovative company has won a raft of awards.
Kansas City Social Media Marketing Company Shares How to Create the Best Pinterest Strategy for Brands
By Valerie Jennings, CEO of JSMM and Katie Stumpf, Intern at JSMM
The rise and domination of Pinterest over the past two years has helped brands make a presence on a very visual social media platform and grow a potential customer base. According to Mashable, arts and crafts, fashion, food and home are the most popular categories on Pinterest. However, a study by Maxymiser claims that all brands can gain from the social media channel. Pinterest is an extremely effective tool for marketers because it is driving more to websites and blogs than YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn combined.
Here are our best approaches to creating a Pinterest strategy.
Create an editorial calendar. Having a plan before delving into any marketing plan is always a smart idea. A brand’s Pinterest should have at least 25 boards with at least 15 photos on each board to make the page look active. Make sure the most populated boards are placed first. It’s important to make sure images are pinned to each board at least once a week. Boards can be created as “secret boards” and then published to public one board a week to seed fresh content onto the page. The best time to post content is after 6:00 p.m. during the week and on Saturdays.
Curalate Analytics. Curalate is one of the best Pinterest applications to track pins and measure performance, consumer engagement and enable Pinterest promotions to live anywhere.
Influencers. Following key influencers will increase Pinterest following and drive engagement of repins, likes and comments. People who pin images from websites are called promoters. These pinners can be found using pinterest.com/source/yourdomain.com.
SEO. Users search Pinterest pins, boards and profiles the same way through keywords. Find the best keywords for your brand and incorporate hashtags. This will increase your chances of being found in Pinterest search. Make sure to upload your own images at least some of the time. Re-pinning other people’s images is a good idea, but will not have as much value as contributing your own images. Pin from a variety of sources as opposed to one specific site. A variety of images will make your overall Pinterest account more compelling. Without a doubt, re-pinning, liking and commenting is going to play a role in where your images appear.
Board Search. Boards should be named based on the most popular keywords. Some of the most popular boards, for example in the travel industry, focus on inspiration. Even create a board specifically for YouTube videos. This will not clutter the page and will drive traffic to YouTube. The views on Pinterest also count towards YouTube views.
What are your best approaches to a Pinterest strategy? Let us know in the comments below.
JSMM Reviews Wyndham ® Extra Holidays Social Media
By Micah Pratt, president of JSMM
In lieu of the New Year and all things social, I wanted to spend a moment reviewing our work with Wyndham ® Extra Holidays. The brand’s social media has evolved so much since 2009 when JSMM first began working with the team. We are so grateful and appreciative of the opportunity to launch EH’s social media very early in the social media, travel and e-commerce spaces.
What we learned- a lot. To say the least over time, we have found the need for a more aggressive and geo-targeted strategy with influencers, bloggers and media; more aggressive SEO across channels; and most importantly, the opportunity to fully integrate social with e-commerce. All of these items combined, gives us deeper perspective into the next year. Check out the Facebook page, blog or YouTube.
Thank you for being a great client. Happy 2013.
Viral Bolt Media, Sister Company to JSMM, Produces & Distributes Frank Ancona Honda Demolition YouTube Video
By Valerie Jennings, CEO of JSMM & VBM
Last month, Viral Bolt Media (VBM), our sister company to JSMM, created new video content for a YouTube series, featuring the $6 million construction remodel at Frank Ancona Honda. We are truly honored to have an amazing project and client to begin promoting our new company. We do have a few other video projects in development, however, this is our first available case study via VBM. If you have further questions, please contact me at valerie @ viralboltmedia. com.
Jason Heard, sales manager at Frank Ancona Honda, hosted the video during the live demolition of the dealership. We wrote the script; search engine optimized the copy, tags and categories; distributed the video across all social media channels, the e-newsletter and Marketwire’s special video embed wire service; pitched the story to key influencers; and provided a high level ROI report.
Here are some of the key ROI results –
- Marketwire Video Press Release Performance: 2,054 total pageviews
- e-Newsletter ROI: Approximately five times more link clicks than previous e-newsletters
- Video Press Release SEO: The release showed up on 24 Google page results
- Major News Sites Impressions: MarketWatch, 22.8 million monthly visits, and Reuters, 14.4 million monthly visits
- YouTube Views: Pending, but more than 322 in a few weeks
Thanks to Auctioneer Magazine for Publishing Valerie Jennings’ Social Media Marketing Insights
Posted by: Katie Stumpf, Intern at JSMM
Valerie Jennings, CEO of Jennings Social Media Marketing and Viral Bolt Media, was recently highlighted in Bryan Scribner’s article published in Auctioneer Magazine, the official publication of the National Auctioneers Association. In the article, Jennings gives her thoughts, approaches and strategies on integrating social media into a marketing plan.
Social Media Marketing: Give your customers something to talk about
Kansas City Social Media Marketing Company Shares Top Five Predictions for 2013 Including Pinterest, Foursquare, Facebook, Twitter and Google+
By: Valerie Jennings, CEO of Jennings Social Media Marketing
These are my top five social media marketing predictions for 2013. This list may not encompass the trends in the next months ahead, but it’s a fairly adequate outline of what the future looks like.
1) Pinterest continues to monetize social media. However, without an open API platform, it’s a little too soon to see its full potential. Overall, I don’t see any reason why all brands across all industries wouldn’t take advantage of this monetization platform. While social media isn’t just about sales, Pinterest offers brands real value via their pinners by building content that they love, feel inspired by and may feel inclined to purchase. It could be the next best e-commerce platform in the social media marketplace. It’s already one of the top social networks for referring website traffic. I would highly recommend it to all brands.
2) Foursquare will continue to offer monetization opportunities for brands via the check in feature. Foursquare’s recent modifications to allow franchise pages to have one brand a page is a nice addition to tracking data analysis, engagement and ROI. If Foursquare can monetize differently, other than rewards via their check in system, allowing for a more integrated social media campaign which effects all other social networks, it would open up the doors for a more targeted location based campaign. This would trigger insights in geographical markets where consumers engage more heavily via Foursquare. This would also allow the brand to have more confidence in a social media presence with a heavier emphasis on Foursquare where insights prove substantial engagement throughout a local zip code. While Foursquare, Twitter and Facebook synchronize, there is still room for improvement to determine a way in which the location-based model integrates more heavily with Twitter including viral tweets in targeted areas where Foursquare is performing very well for a brand. However, this could improve campaign functionality, engagement, monetization and ROI. Foursquare continues to be one of the best location-based tracking platforms in the social media industry for brands.
3) While Facebook continues to be the top social network for businesses, large and small, there are some challenges ahead for this platform. The first issue is that Facebook is trying to be all things to all people and brands, diluting its social network impact across engagement. This is attributed to the fact that the edge rank scoring model has been changed substantially, affecting a brand’s ability to engage with its fans. Even though brands have the option to engage more readily via the promoted posts, sponsored stories and ads, this is still a paid investment versus the natural model of displaying a brand post to those who have liked the page. Lately, we have noticed a distinct decline in the viral nature of organic posts without utilizing one of Facebook’s paid models across all pages, all industries and sizes from publicly traded to small businesses. If Facebook continues to push brands into the paid model to increase its edge rank score, then this is not a pure social channel. Facebook continues to impress my colleagues and myself, and we know that Facebook will evolve over time to improve its algorithm for brands to purely reach, engage and monetize with its user base. Social networks ads are one of the greatest opportunities to reach a new targeted influential and action-oriented audience. We utilize Facebook ads across all clients, industries and brands, both large and small. There is still great value in tapping into Facebook’s resources. We just hope that Facebook continues to recognize the importance of collaborating with its businesses.
4) Twitter will continue to improve its customer service support while maximizing its reach across industries and large and small brands. We see the best value coming from the customer service elements in which it is very easy to track and measure performance on Twitter while engaging with customers. Complaints on Twitter about brands continue to be the best opportunity for businesses to improve its customer relationship with its audience. While Twitter still doesn’t have the full functionality of Facebook for tracking, analysis, engagement and ROI, its short messages break through the clutter with custom hashtags, SMO and engaging with key online influencers. Key online influencers continue to drive engagement for brands, monetization and ROI. Twitter contests are still extremely valuable for large brands that need to improve engagement and rapport with consumers and influencers. However, smaller businesses are still suffering from too much fragmentation across social networks and will need to rely on Twitter for organic SEO, engagement with influencers and maximizing headline news. ROI is still important on Twitter, although it’s been transformed into more of an influencer metric versus an engagement monetization tool.
5) Google+ is here to stay. If we don’t engage on the platform in the near future, Google will probably erase us off the search map.
If you have any questions, concerns or comments about the 2013 predictions, please reach out to Valerie Jennings via email valerie@jenningsocialmedia.com or via Twitter @ValerieJennings. As always, feel free to leave a comment.
JSMM Hosts Training Summit for Team in Kansas City
By: Cassie Stubbs, Intern
Alli Heitzenrater, Intern; Tumara Bosnell, Social Media Marketer; Chelsea Lee-Lewis, Social Media Marketing Manager ; Cassie Stubbs, Intern
This week in Kansas City, Jennings Social Media Marketing (JSMM) held a summit for training team members in the ever-changing social media world. As a business that lives and breathes social media, the team needs to stay up-to-date on all things social media. The summit went over Facebook marketing, Twitter features, the professional use of blogging and the importance of SEO. JSMM welcomed three new members to its team this week, eager to learn the trade. To enhance social media standards, JSMM Skype’d with two team members who could not make it to the summit.
JSMM Reviews Best Practices for Social Media Content Curation
By: Chelsea Lewis, social media marketing manager, and Valerie Jennings, CEO
One of the biggest challenges that most companies face is a lack of content, editorial planning and integrated SEO/SMO.
We spend countless hours consulting large and medium-sized businesses about how they curate content for their social communities. The trick is assessing content inventory first and then deciding on the profile of the types of customers or clients the company wants to cater to online. Then we employ an R&D process that JSMM developed to evaluate sales, marketing, search, competitive analysis and content development. These tricks are what make communities, results, success and perhaps sales escalate.
Steve Rosenbaum detailed this complex issue that all businesses face. Here are some key findings from the article:
You’ve heard the buzz word — curation — being thrown around like it’s a gadget we all know how to work. In reality, good content curation isn’t as simple as pushing a share button. It’s actually a combination of finding great content and following some simple best practices on how to successfully share that content.
If you’re a curator looking for some boundaries in what feels like the Wild West, here are five best practices to consider.
Valerie Jennings, CEO of Jennings Social Media Marketing, Featured on Entrepreneur Website MO.com
By: Micah Pratt, director of Jennings Social Media Marketing
I am very excited to announce that Valerie Jennings is now being featured on MO.com, a website that specializes in interviews with entrepreneurs from various industries including online marketing, PR and business development.
Valerie will be a subject matter writer, sharing her expertise and industry news on social media, Internet marketing, SEO and SMO. Valerie’s biography, as well as Jennings Social Media Marketing’s, can be found here. Make sure to bookmark the page below so that you can check her articles out in the future!
MO.com interviews entrepreneurs from all walks, across all industries, and from around the world. We focus on their habits and methods; what makes them tick. The primary focus of MO.com is entrepreneurship.
M.O. is the abbreviation for Modus Operandi or Method of Operating and we interview entrepreneurs to learn about their methods and to share their strategies and business philosophies with our readers.
Jennings Social Media Marketing Launches Facebook Contest In Response to Fan Poll
Posted by: Micah Pratt, director of social networking R&D
Jennings Social Media Marketing (JSMM) announced their most recent Facebook contest, following a small poll the company posted on Facebook over the summer. Enter for a chance to win social media marketing services by JSMM just in time for the holidays by “Liking” us on Facebook and signing up via the sweeps tab.
The winner of the contest will receive a boutique style campaign which may include a social media evaluation, channel branding and designs, channel updates to social media sites and organic search engine optimization analysis.
Valerie Jennings, CEO of JSMM, said they polled their Facebook fans and asked which grand prize they would most like to receive: an iPad, Mac computer, iPod or two free months of social media services from JSMM. The two free months from JSMM won with an overall majority. “We are excited to reward our fans in time for the holidays and hope the grand prize winner really takes advantage of this opportunity,” said Jennings.
Jennings Social Media Marketing is a full service company that utilizes the art of online storytelling with the science of measuring quantifiable results. JSMM creates comprehensive social media marketing, mobile, Web videos and website design and development strategies. 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).
Social Media Marketing Can Be Measured
By Valerie Jennings, CEO of Jennings Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is something we have been doing for more than six years at JSMM. Although, I started the company more than eight years ago in June 2003, we have been analyzing data across marketing channels during that time and into social media for roughly six years. We have valued strong organic search engine optimization (SEO) as part of our social media marketing strategy since we first began this system, but I know we have also reviewed other types of metrics such as engagement, brand awareness, monetization and other forms of successes such as cross-promoting our social media with e-newsletters, Marketwire press releases, media outreach, print pieces and websites.
Our successes at JSMM include tripling targeted website traffic, growing Facebook fans by the thousands, generating hundreds of new emails for prospecting via Facebook contests, downloading whitepapers and converting website traffic into revenue. I have a case studies page on the website which is broken down by industry that may be helpful to review specific information.
This article, written by Ron Joes at Clickz, does an outstanding job breaking down the different ways to measure social media:
5 Ways to Measure Social Media
As you know, the ability to measure the effectiveness of marketing activities is imperative to any company’s marketing strategy. Measuring social media marketing isn’t as easy as other marketing channels, but it can be done with the right tools and mindset.
As you consider your social media monitoring strategy, it will help to group your efforts into a progression where awareness and exposure lead to desired action from your target audience. As you do so, it will help to place each type of measurement into the proper context and will help you visualize how each one leads you closer to desired results.
InformationWeek.com Reviews Tips for Business Facebook Pages During the Holidays: 51% of Consumers Are More Likely to Buy From a Company After Becoming Their Fan on Facebook
Posted by: Micah Pratt, director of social networking R&D
The holidays are just around the corner, and businesses are finalizing their marketing campaigns to optimize the shopping rush. Here is an article from InformationWeek.com, written by Kevin Casey, about how companies can prepare their social networking sites in time for the holidays.
4 Tips: Prep Your Facebook Page For Holidays
Will your company’s Facebook page help you take advantage of the holiday shopping rush? Consider these tips for SMBs and fine-tune your strategy.
Small and midsize businesses (SMBs), like Santa Claus, should be making a list and checking it twice. But rather than sorting out who’s naughty or nice, consumer-focused concerns should fine-tune their Facebook presence in advance of the holiday shopping rush.
Among the reasons: The bevy of market research showing shoppers increasingly turning to social sites before they make purchase decisions. Consider this recent study, which found 51% of consumers are more likely to buy something from a company after becoming their fan on Facebook. With the annual flurry of capitalism known as holiday shopping looming large, it’s time for retailers and other consumer-focused SMBs to make sure they’re ready to reap the rewards.
That means doing a bit more than putting up a page and hoping it connects with customers, according to Laura O’Shaughnessy, CEO of SocialCode, a social agency that emphasizes a quantitative approach to performance advertising, with a particular focus on Facebook. The firm recently added LinkedIn to its mix, and is considering the likes of Twitter and Google+.
Socialcode itself has an interesting SMB story. The 50-person agency was born as an internal department of The Washington Post Company, which owns–in addition to the flagship newspaper of the same name–a number of media, education, and other businesses. O’Shaughnessy said that the results of Facebook programs for the company’s various brands were so strong that it began shifting money away from its Google adverting and spending more on social. Later, Socialcode was spun out as an independent subsidiary and began signing on external customers.
In an interview, O’Shaughnessy shared these four tips for optimizing your Facebook activities in the coming weeks.
1. Set goals. The businesses that get the most out of their Facebook presence are the ones that have goals behind it. “Step one is deciding: Is my goal to drive people into my restaurant, is it to drive people into my store, is it to introduce a new product, is it to get people to buy my product?” O’Shaughnessy said. Without a clear sense of what they want to accomplish, SMBs, can’t make efficient use of their resources.
2. Design a campaign with a “viral accelerant.” O’Shaughnessy said the most powerful, effective Facebook campaigns place heavy emphasis on sharing. That often means developing an application, game, or a related microsite to encourage people to spread the word–no matter what the word is. “You want to make sure you’re taking advantage of the sharing activities that are going on,” O’Shaughnessy said.
While a development-intensive application might require a bigger budget, O’Shaughnessy noted that there are sharing-oriented things marketers can do on a smaller scale. She gave as an example a nonprofit client that found strong results simply using a light application aimed at sharing badges on Facebook walls.
“The most important thing about Facebook is really perpetuating that social sharing–getting one friend to spread, in this case, a badge to another friend,” O’Shaughnessy said. “Then all of that person’s friends see that action, so you get this immediate lift.”
The Future of Google+: Integrating Brand Pages with the Social Network’s 40 Million User Profiles
Posted by: Micah Pratt, director of social networking r&d
Last Wednesday at the Web 2.0 conference held in San Francisco, Vic Gundotra, Google’s senior vice president in charge of Google+, discussed the possible changes coming to the social networking site. One of those changes included the idea of Google+ brand pages for companies anxiously waiting to reach out to the more than 40 million users. Here is an article from Mashable.com on what Google+ brand pages could look like when made available to companies.
What Google+ Brand Pages Could Look Like [PICS]
A few weeks ago, Mashable contacted some ad agencies and asked them to imagine how brand pages on could change in light of that platform’s planned redesign.
Just as Facebook was announcing its tweaks, though, Google was on track to add brand pages to Google Plus. Though it looks like that will happen any day now, the integration hasn’t been announced yet. Meanwhile, a handful of brands, including Ford, are already enjoying the possibilities.
There are several barriers to designing brand pages for Plus. For one thing, it’s hard to stand out the way Plus looks now. The somewhat rigid format has a leveling effect. But Colin Murphy, director of social for Skinny, one of the agencies that accepted our challenge, says there are potential advantages to Plus, too. “A primary gripe among Facebook and Twitter users is that brands bombard them with messages they don’t want or care to see,” said Murphy. “In its current form, Plus doesn’t solve that problem, but Plus Brand Pages might, if they implement Public Circles.”
Skinny outlined how this might work with a hypothetical example for Mini, the auto brand. In this case, a Mini Countryman fan could join the Countryman circle and see just Countryman updates in her feed. “This level of selectivity isn’t possible on Facebook or even Twitter, unless of course you are a fan or follow the specific product you’re interested in — but there’s a major drawback to that method because the user has to seek out content streams,” Murphy says. “With Google+ it’s all in one place, and the all the admin has to do is feed pertinent content to the appropriate circles.”
In addition to Skinny, Fantasy Interactive created some fictional Coca-Cola and Starbucks brand pages. Are these on the mark? We’ll know soon enough, but in the meantime, let us know what you think of these agencies’ vision of how Google+ can accommodate brands.
Social Networking “Friends” Politics: How to Make Facebook Ads Work to Political Candidates’ Favor
Posted by: Micah Pratt, Director of Social Networking R&D
The 2012 presidential election will be like one never experienced before. Social networking sites are playing a role in these elections that wasn’t imaginable four years ago by hosting debates, facilitating the political conversation and connecting candidates with voters in the digital world. Here is an article from CMO.com, written by Kim Soth, senior vice president of business development & marketing at Jennings Social Media Marketing, on how to get Facebook ads to work in your favor.
Five Ways to Make Facebook Ads Work For You
There is much talk in social-media circles about how to build your audience organically and that, for the most part, it is the best way to build an audience. It is certainly a good way, but it shouldn’t be your only strategy. We suggest that if you are a new company or are launching a product, you can do a great job of building fans with Facebook ads, which offer a great alternative to your marketing strategy. What’s more, Facebook ads are not nearly as complex as Google AdWords—but don’t let the simplicity fool you. For our campaigns we’ve found that Facebook ads, on average, deliver a higher click-through rate than Google AdWords.
For example, we were brought in to help promote a senatorial race. After a month of struggling to gain fans on Facebook, we eventually doubled the candidate’s fans in a week by running ads: We picked up 1,500 fans for a total cost of around $1,000.
So if you think this strategy might be for you, here are five tips that will help you make Facebook ads work for your campaigns.
1. It’s about testing. Always run multiple ads targeting the same “Likes and Interests,” and keep your Likes and Interests the same while testing different ad copy, headlines, or images. What needs to remain the same as your control for a general test is your Likes and Interests keywords. You can test many controls, but the simplest is Likes and Interests. Facebook targets audiences off of two variables: Users and Likes and Interests: If you change these in two different ads, then you don’t have an apples-to-apples test.
2. Likes and Interests matter. Likes and Interests are essentially keywords you are targeting for your campaign based on what shows up for a user. You don’t want to use random Likes and Interests keywords. To make Likes and Interests work for you, it’s important to target based on what is associated with that individual in some way—associations they belong to, things they like, where they work, what they are fans of, or what they’ve written on their walls.
It’s is important not to get carried away and add a hundred Likes and Interests keywords just because it’s cool to see the numbers of possible audience continue to rise. It would seem that big numbers of audience is a good idea, but it’s actually counterintuitive. You want to choose highly targeted Likes and Interests keywords that are tightly associated with your ad copy. Don’t choose a keyword just because of its audience reach. You want to make sure it matches everything you know about the ad copy. Just because someone rides a motorcycle doesn’t mean he is interested in a Harley. One person might buy sports bikes, another might buy BMW motorcycles, while another might be really into Harleys. So it does no good to blast all of them with a message about Harley gear.
A Huge Thanks to Mobile Commerce Daily for Featuring Jennings Social Media Marketing & Frank Ancona Honda: Car dealership boosts social media engagement with mobile bar codes, SMS
Posted by: Micah Pratt, director of social networking r&d
Thank you to Chantal Tode at Mobile Commerce Daily for interviewing Valerie Jennings, CEO of Jennings Social Media Marketing, and Jason Heard, Sales Manager at Frank Ancona Honda, about the launch of Frank Ancona Honda’s QR code and SMS campaign.
Car dealership boosts social media engagement with mobile bar codes, SMS
Car dealership Frank Ancona Honda is adding SMS and QR codes to its social media efforts to enhance customer engagement.
Frank Ancona Honda currently has a mobile site and is active in social media. It will expand these efforts going forward with QR codes and SMS as the traffic to its sites via mobile continues to grow.
“We need to expand into mobile to support our growing customer demand on smartphones,” said Jason Heard, sales manager of Frank Ancona Honda, Olathe, KS.
“We are utilizing mobile sites right now and this is the next step to not only expanding our mobile presence, but also adding more engaging to our social media practices,” he said.
Marketing Insight
Jennings Social Media Marketing is managing the dealership’s mobile marketing rollout.
Jennings Social Media Marketing has been working with Frank Ancona Honda for almost a year managing its social media.
The dealership is also working with KickANotch for mobile tracking.
QR codes and SMS will help Frank Ancona Honda engage with its customers via social media channels and mobile as part of its ongoing marketing activities around local events.
Mobile will also help the dealership track the effectiveness of its marketing.
“We are currently sponsoring several events in the local market and the QR codes will help us understand the impact of having our cars on display at these events,” Mr. Heard said.
Jennings Social Media Marketing Reviews Mobile Apps’ Usage: 50% of Mobile Consumers’ Prime Time Overlaps With TV
Posted by: Eric Johnson
As the popularity of smart phones continues to rise, it was only a matter of time before the mobile screen began to catch up to the big screen in terms of usage. A new study conducted by a mobile analytics firm, Flurry, points out that approximately 50 percent of mobile consumers are utilizing mobile apps during TV’s prime time.
Flurry also reports that mobile applications currently reach more than 20 million U.S. consumers per hour and the number of active iOS and Android devices in the U.S. is estimated at 110 million. These numbers reflect a significant impact to prime time viewing habits.
For TV broadcasters, prime time is 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. In radio, programming and advertising are all about morning “drive time.” On the Web, the popularity of social networks like Facebook, instant messaging like Skype and video-on-demand services like Hulu are pushing up usage in the evening.
So what time of day do mobile apps find their biggest audience? A new study by the mobile analytics firm Flurry shows the audience for iPhone and iOS apps rises steadily during the day and peaks at about 9 p.m. That’s when half the U.S. app audience is using apps. “Mobile consumers are using apps either instead of, or along-side prime-time television and the Internet,” stated a Flurry blog post on the study.
The finding contributes to a growing body of research suggesting that two-screen viewing is becoming increasingly common while people are watching TV. The relative size of the TV audience during prime time was larger than that for mobile apps, at more than 60%. But app usage remained higher than TV from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., and higher than the Internet almost all day. The Internet’s reach peaked at 7 p.m., when 40% of the audience for that medium was on the Web.
Mark Zuckerberg Reveals Major Facebook Updates at F8
Posted by: Micah Pratt, social networking research & development
Over the years, Facebook has been known to make small changes to how users operate on the social networking site. With Google+ becoming a threatening competitor, Mark Zuckerberg made serious changes to Facebook. On September 22, Mark Zuckerberg explained exactly what the 800 million users could expect from the new and improved Facebook at its annual developer conference including:
•Timeline: a stream of information about you
•Facebook Gestures: turning any verb into a button, similar to the “like” button. Example: Reading a book.
•Open Graph: third-party companies can connect their apps and services to Facebook using a one-time permission from the user to share stuff on Facebook
•Subscribe: subscribing to strangers or celebrities to receive posts from them without being Facebook friends
•Ticker: a real-time list of what your friends are posting
•Media: watching TV and movies, listening to music and reading news all within Facebook
How Social Media Has Changed the Game for Search Engine’s: 1/4 of Twitter’s 5 Billion Tweets a Month Contains Links to Content
Posted by: Micah Pratt, social networking research & development
Sharing and finding content over the Internet has become easier then ever, and now social media is changing the ways search engines track quality content. This article from Mashable.com takes a look at how social networks have impacted search engines.
How Social Media Affects Content Relevance in Search
Old school SEO pros cover your ears, or be prepared to adapt your craft: Search engines are changing, and social media is a huge part of that change.
Bing, Google, and an increasing swath of nimble little search engines like Blekko and DuckDuckGo are incorporating social data into their results. This is potentially great news for new businesses trying to achieve visibility in search. It’s less great news for sites that rely heavily on link buying (illegal, but hard to catch), producing huge volumes of borderline-useless content (long-tail, content farm approach), or just really old domains (previously an SEO trump card).
Both Bing and Google admitted in interviews that their search results are positively affected by social signals, such as tweets, Facebook Likes, and +1s.
“As ideas, thoughts, questions and answers are shared more freely and easily than ever, the increased amount of information from social sources provides great benefits to users,” says a Microsoft spokesperson for Bing (who asked to remain anonymous).
“The links that you build through social media, the references, the authority — all can have an impact in various ways on how you are ranked and listed even in ‘regular’ search results,” says Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, in an email interview. “Social media allows for people to provide more trusted signals.”
Search Engines Adapt to SurviveSince the early Internet days of Excite and Webcrawler, the principal goal of search engines has been to help people find what they’re looking for. Google rose to dominate the industry by tracking better indicators of content quality than anyone else. It developed a complex algorithm that measured which websites were “voting” for others by linking to them.
Essentially, it was social media, but for websites rather than people. If your site had lots of links from relevant sites, your Google rank climbed. Plenty of other factors, like putting keywords into headlines and titles, remained in play (and continually evolved), but the game changer of the last decade was links.
The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) industry emerged to help webmasters play the “me rank higher” game with Google. On the one hand, website owners attempt to adhere to Google’s standards and prove they are high quality (creating relevant, high quality content and formatting it to Google’s taste). On the other hand, shadier sites try to trick Google’s secret formula, “pretending” to be good content without having to bother with creating useful stuff.
Location-Based Mobile Services Becoming Increasingly Popular: Over 25% of Americans Have Used Location-Based Services for Recommendations
Posted by: Micah Pratt, social networking research & development
Using location-based services to find the closest restaurant or to get directions is becoming the newest trend in mobile technology. Here is an article from The Washington Post on how Americans are using location-based services.
Over a quarter of American adults use mobile location-based services
Not many people are “checking in” using services such as Foursquare and Gowalla, but over a quarter of Americans are checking out their surroundings using location-based services.
The latest research from Pew’s Internet and American Life Project found that 28 percent of American adults have used mobile or social location-based services to get recommendations such as the best-rated nearby cafe or directions from their current location.
Only about 5 percent of those surveyed used services that post their current locations, though smartphone users were more than twice as likely to signal their location to their friends. In a similar vein, about 9 percent of all users used the location-tagging options on social media.
As once might expect, younger smartphone users are more likely overall to use check-in services, but there was no clear divide on age when it came to hitching a location-tag to a Facebook or Twitter message.
CNN: Smartphones Make Up 35% of U.S. Mobile Market
Posted by: Micah Pratt, social networking research & development
According to a recent story on CNN.com, smartphones still do not make up the majority of the U.S. market. However, we cannot ignore the value, power and influence of these mobile devices that are about to change the way we conduct business, review products, make buying decisions, and most importantly, interact with our friends.
Why smartphones still haven’t taken over the U.S. market
Smartphones may attract nearly all of the marketing hype and news coverage, but comScore’s latest statistics show that smartphones still comprise only a minority of the U.S. mobile market — about 35%, as of July 2011.
The other 65% of U.S. mobile handsets in use are “feature phones” — which tend to be much less expensive to buy and own. Often, these phones do not require a pricey two-year wireless service contract with hefty early termination fees.
Even though smartphones cost much more, these devices have been getting popular with U.S. consumers, even in light of the country’s economic recession. After all, a 35% market share is nothing to sneeze at — especially considering that smartphones have only been widely available in the U.S. for about five years.
At some point, a majority of U.S. mobile users will indeed own smartphones. But that shift won’t happen as quickly as early forecasts anticipated.
Back in March 2010, the Nielsen Company proclaimed that smartphones would overtake feature phones by 2011. Specifically, they predicted that by the end of Q3 2011 (about a month from now), most U.S. mobile users would own smartphones.
That ambitious prediction doesn’t seem to be panning out.
For over a year, comScore has been publishing monthly mobile-market-share statistics that show the percentage of U.S. smartphones. I’ve been tracking these figures. Based on this data, it looks like it’ll be roughly October 2012 before smartphones actually take over as a majority of U.S. handsets.
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
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.
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.
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?
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.”
Valerie Jennings 
Cassie Stubs
Katie Stumpf
