Social media is one of the best tools in terms of lead generation for small-business owners. The role of a company's presence on social media has started to include customer service, building brand awareness, and lead generation. High-quality content marketing is another lead-generation tactic for small business owners to generate lead and engage consumers. Read more about this topic at: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6399-social-media-lead-generation.html

HipLogiq, a technology marketing company, developed a platform that allows small businesses to target conversations on Twitter and collect more responses than they could by attempting to facilitate engagement on their own. The software filters conversations on Twitter and identifies potential customers through keyword performance technology.

To read more, visit the following link: http://www.contactcenterworld.com/view/contact-center-news/software-helps-businesses-increase-customer-engagement-on-social-media.aspx

Social media - one of the most sought after tool for marketers to increase their business. Using social media, you may probably think to broadcast your products, post updates to social networking sites and introduce promotions. But, that is not the whole thing.

Every action carries a strategy. It is true in this case also. Unless and until you give updates about your products, customers will not get it. You have to build a community like situation and not just concentrate on sales. You have to create relationships using social media and along with that build a value, which is really important. Social media is giving rise to a concept called co – creation, which is much like a give and take policy. You create value for your customers through interactions, sharing experiences, etc. and they provide value to you in the form of feedbacks, contributions to your community and growing your network.

So, what are the guidelines that you will follow so that social media can be truly made to work for your business? Read them at http://timesofsandiego.com/opinion/2014/05/16/make-social-media-truly-work-business/ .

If you are a marketer, then you must agree that social media has brought in an entirely new change. Most likely, you have also started to leverage the power of social media for the success of your business. But, at any time, do not think yourself as a social media expert, a social media guru or the like. Even, if someone tells you that ‘I am an expert in social networking’, do not believe. You must be thinking why! The only reason is social media is still evolving. And, if something is developing, how can he or she be an expert?

Think of mobile marketing. In the past, had you ever imagined how social media will make a mix with mobiles now? At present, it has exploded and at every moment, way of interacting in social media is changing.

While you may be knowing many things about social media, these are the things that you may not know: http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolenski/2014/05/16/4-things-marketers-may-not-know-about-social-media-marketing/  .

What many social and marketing professionals fail to acknowledge is the reality of what can be called the coherent customer. As lines in between marketing and IT merge, the consumer has a huge head start in their daily lives. While device adaptation is a fairly blunt tool to gauge new coherent customer, studying consumer trends increasingly points to not only cohesive elements but to stratification as well. Marketing needs to play a bigger role in harnessing all that data and determining how to use it to drive customers through the purchasing life cycle.

To know more read the article by Phil Butler, editor-in-chief of Everything PR, follow http://socialmediatoday.com/philbutler/2368211/new-marketing-paradigm-coherent-customer-satisfaction

Search Engine Optimization is an effective tool in internet marketing which helps to understand how search engines take user queries in the form of keywords and turn them into search engine result pages. The algorithms in the search engines are geared more towards understanding and appreciating the importance of social signals.  Shares, likes, posts, comments and followers will expand your business not only in the branding aspect of your business, but search engines as well.

To gather more insights visit the article by Joe Chierotti, lead strategist and VP of Search Engine Optimization in InternetReputation.com, follow http://socialmediatoday.com/joe-chierotti/2367216/advanced-seo-techniques-importance-social-media 

An article by Chris Syme, owner of CKSyme Media Group, talks about how monitoring social media can help in preventing crisis. She also mentioned that the first step in crisis communication planning is learning to listen. She spoke about some key conversations that one should monitor while listening and also discussed about how to monitor those conversations.

To know about effective listening strategies in details follow http://socialmediatoday.com/chrissyme/2362621/how-monitor-social-media-prevent-crisis

A new feature is built into Facebook's mobile app that allows you to see which of your friends are close by and even share your exact location with others. The new feature uses the geo location technology in your smart phone to determine when you are close to one of your Facebook friends. When activated, the feature will send periodic notifications to friends who are nearby. Users who did not activate Nearby Friends won't be affected in any way, and will not share with or receive any location information from others on the platform.

To know more about the use of this new feature visit the article by Kurt Wagner, Social media reporter for Mashable, http://mashable.com/2014/04/17/facebook-nearby-friends/

An article by Jaylee Miguel, Lead Community Manager for social media management agency Emoderation, conveys that the beauty industry is often overlooked when we think about the ways how social media has grown and how brands have adapted. Just like beauty counters at a department store, social media can be a great place for consumers to interact with beauty brands. Brands are now investing more money in digital-led campaigns not only to improve their social media presence but also to achieve a higher ROI in areas that TV failed to deliver.  It is essential for brands to understand their strategy, through the line campaign that works in conjunction with its advertising and marketing by using social media as a platform to push content.

To know more visit http://socialmediatoday.com/jaylee-miguel/2354996/beauty-brands-and-social-media

Social, video and marketing - these three words have different meanings. But if we club them together then they create a very powerful message which will engage customers and improve their on-line experience. Social video marketing has the power to reach a wide range of consumers. A video carries the exact brand image though just posting a video is not enough to engage consumers. It is important to create conversations in order to engage consumers. In a recent article, Dr. Melody King, vice-president of sales and marketing, Treepodia, speaks about how to start marketing your product via social media. For more details please visit: http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2014/24860/social-video-marketing-create-conversations-and-build-customer-loyalty

An article by Jaylee Miguel, lead community manager of Emoderation, talks about different new features of twitter like timeline changes, mobile updates etc. Now the key question is how brands can use Twitter's new features to their advantage? To answer this, she mentioned that brands can use the video sharing tool to communicate with competition winners in a creative way, thus raising awareness of new campaigns by tagging others. But she also spoke about how free tagging feature can create spam.

To know more about follow http://socialmediatoday.com/jaylee-miguel/2341916/how-brands-can-make-most-out-twitters-new-features

The world’s music habits were once relatively private. Record companies were aware about which radio station played their songs and where their CDs were popular, but that information painted an incomplete picture at best in reality. Who knew what music people were sharing on tapes and CDs burnt in the privacy of their own bedrooms? The sales figure notifies companies about the number of records or CDs sold, but no information can be tracked after that. With the time, the music industry is changing, thinking is changing, market is changing. The explosion of data from sources like torrents, music streaming sites and social media platforms has offered the music industry a huge opportunity to track sales, monitor post selling behaviour, understand their fans and spot upcoming artists like never before. Music analytics is now worth an estimated £ 1.8 billion per year. While internet is taking power away from record labels, it is also giving them the ability to predict future hits. Universal Music UK’s director of digital, Paul Smernicki, thinks that ultimately the music industry will always be focused on content, no matter what analytical tools are available. According to him,“It’s important to remember that it's just a set of tools to help inform us. The data doesn't make the decisions, that's an un-replicable part of what we do.” But with robots replacing humans in every sphere of work, who knows how long it will be before music- the most successful talent scout in the industry is defined by an algorithm!

To read more, visit: 

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/09/music-analytics-is-helping-the-music-industry-see-into-the-future

Big Data! While you are reading the two words and also this blog, you may be not aware that you already have Big Data right in front of you.

Many small businesses think Big Data to be very expensive to analyze. But, let me tell you one thing – we are analyzing Big Data freely for years! Sounds unbelievable right? Okay, so here’s the thing.

Nowadays, social media has become a great means of communication for every business. Many of them have their page on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus, profiles on Twitter, etc. The social media platform can provide valuable insights about their products or services and also about their target customers. With low investments, you can get to know your customers’ behavior, know their demographics and much more. But seeing large volumes of data can make you puzzled.

Nicole Fallon from Business News Daily writes about some tips to get you started. Read them at http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6190-smb-big-data-tips.html

David Waterman, expert in search engine optimization, talks about how marketers can take advantage of social media to spy on their customers and target audience to gather better insights. He also discussed about the five different steps to be followed for enhancing the process.

To know more about the steps follow http://marketingland.com/social-media-perfect-tool-spying-customers-76595

An article by Devin Redmond, Co-founder and CEO of Nexgate, talks about how social media spam can damage a brand name and how it affects social media marketing ROI. He also spoke about different steps that social media marketers can adopt to stop social spam and mitigate loss.

For more information visit http://socialmediatoday.com/1865971/state-social-media-spam-social-media-spam-rise

A recent research by Fast Company revealed that 93% of marketers use social media to promote their business.  It is the number one daily activity among Americans. Social media sites, email providers and the Google are eating up the largest chunk of the time spent over the internet. Social media is reaching beyond our traditional perception; it’s getting bigger and bigger with time. From a marketer’s Point of view, if you are not marketing on it, you are likely missing a large chunk of your target consumers. As a product of the Mark Zuckerberg generation, it is easy to understand why people are so obsessed with social media. For marketers, the potential to grow their business via these networks is endless. The following base strategies will help you take control of your social channels and give them a much needed facelift.

·         Create a game plan & stick to it.

·         Treat each channel as an individual entity.

·         Go above & beyond in Customer Service.

·         Embrace any kind of mishaps.

·         Track & talk.

·         Stay active on Google+.

To read more, see Margot da Cunha’s blog by visiting the following link address:

http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/01/09/social-media-marketing-strategies

An article written by Mike Bailey, owner of Grey Kite Resources, talks about how social media can play an important role in becoming an advocate for the organisation you work for. He mentioned that when employees share anything with their social networks, they reach 20 times more people than a typical brand sharing with the same number of followers. He also discussed about different guidelines to be followed for employee advocacy.

To know in details read the article on http://socialmediatoday.com/Beyond_Engagement/unleashing-power-employee-advocacy

By engaging more people in conversations/discussions related to company offerings via social media, organizations are creating brand awareness among mass. Today, creating hype for a soon to be launched product is easy & convenient with the help of social media, as it saves promotional cost as well as it helps in understanding consumer sentiment beforehand. By indulging in various social media conversations, people are actually acting like brand ambassadors & reviewers. Though chances of negative publicity cannot be ruled out entirely, still with a good structured online marketing strategy, immense benefits can be achieved. Few notable real time online advertising strategies deserve to be mentioned, such as following conversations and then joining them, saying no to discipline, getting legal permissions to use material, ensuring that the brand is never silent on social media, moving on when content gets stale, never ignoring negative feedback etc.

To read more, visit wall street journal article link given below:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303801304579407284034257414?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303801304579407284034257414.html

With the advancement of new technologies, big data and internet, young professionals are getting opportunities for new career options. With the growth of facebook and twitter, different organisations of BFSI sector require more professionals for their work like collecting data, prediction and forecasting revenue. So doors for new jobs are being opened in front of the young pool of talents.

For more information, please go through: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/jobs/rise-in-demand-for-social-media-experts-in-fmcg-bfsi-pharma-companies/articleshow/29500508.cms

In the recent years, social media has become a place where emotional roller coaster of the stock markets can be captured. How the Twitter and Facebook users are reacting to different business news can foretell where the index is heading. Knowing this information can help the companies in predicting their market price, top line, etc.

To know more on how social media can help in predicting in stock prices read http://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/031814/can-tweets-and-facebook-posts-predict-stock-behavior-and-rt-if-you-think-so.asp .