Social Media

By BDX Guest Blogger, Carol Morgan, mRELEVANCE

LinkedIn, the top social network for professionals, is looking to increase its business appeal by introducing sponsored updates for company pages.

While LinkedIn advertising has existed for a few years, the newly added sponsored updates allow businesses to specifically target updates to customers. And, with a new prominent placement in users’ news feeds, instead of in the sidebar, sponsored updates exponentially increase the potential for engagement and exposure.

When it comes to defining the audience for your sponsored update, the sky is the limit. Audience filtering options include countries, states or regions within states; specific companies, industries or company sizes; job titles or function; education; skills; group memberships; gender and age. However, audience isn’t the only thing businesses can control, as they can also determine budget, campaign length and if they want to pay every time LinkedIn shows or every time a user clicks on their update.

If LinkedIn advertising sounds like just another social media network you have to pay money to, think again. While Facebook and Twitter are great for reaching current or potential customers, LinkedIn is the go-to source for building or enhancing business relationships and for reaching professionals who are searching for their next job. LinkedIn’s core audience is already on the site because they want to learn more about you, your company and your job openings, so sponsored updates are a great way to more effectively reach an already willing audience.

 

 

By BDX Guest Blogger, Carol Morgan, mRELEVANCE

Tweet, tweet, tweet! Many home builders, real estate agents and industry suppliers have finally started tweeting their content and creating buzz with their interaction. However, Twitter users and skeptics alike still want to prove that their time and energy is worth it. Luckily, help proving the return on investment on Twitter is finally here! Recently, Twitter released a new analytics platform which provides users with a wealth of useful and insightful account information.

Among the information available when a company or user logs into the analytics portal is a timeline glimpse of your follows, unfollows and mentions over the last 60 days. Below the timeline is a chart displaying recent tweets along with retweets, favorites and replies each specific tweet received. To see which content is among your most actionable, users can sort this data to show your “best” or “good” tweets, including highlighted statistics on which tweets or actions fall within your top 15 percent for the past 30 days. Businesses can make the most of the data from this chart by noting what types of content or tweets are most successful, and applying this information to future tweets.

Switching to the followers view, users can see the growth of their followers since the account was created. A further breakdown of  followers’ location by country, state and city; gender; interests and who else they are following provides interesting insight that can help companies strategically plan tweets to appeal to their audience demographics.

Ready to start tweeting more relevant content for your Twitter followers? Be sure to bookmark this URL, which takes you directly to the Twitter analytics login page: https://analytics.twitter.com/accounts/1edxhg/timeline_activity.

By BDX Guest Blogger, Carol Morgan, mRELEVANCE

I’ve got a challenge for you: show off your new home or community in six seconds or less. Sound difficult? Even though it might be a little tricky, it does force you to get creative, which is exactly why Vine, a video sharing app from Twitter, has become so popular with users and brands alike.

Videos on Vine are limited to six seconds; however, they play in a continuous loop until the user scrolls down to watch the next video. For marketers, this makes Vine a great tool for entertaining current and potential customers, which can lead to increased brand awareness.

Here are a few ideas of how homebuilders can use Vine:

  • Share videos of a home throughout the various stages of construction.
  • Share a video with short clips from various rooms in the home.
  • Show off a community by creating a video with clips of the location, amenities and streetscapes.
  • Create a video showing the day in the life of an employee.
  • Develop how to or educational videos.
  • Promote a current incentive or contest.
  • Showcase homeowners at a community event.

While these video ideas for showcasing your specific product and brand, you should also create additional “fun” videos related to the holidays, seasons or just for pure entertainment to give your viewers a reason to keep coming back to your profile.

You can even put your followers to the test by asking them to come up with a creative video for you!

Ready to get creative with Vine video sharing ? Contact Marketing RELEVANCE.

 

 

By BDX Guest Blogger, Carol Morgan, mRELEVANCE

Last month, LinkedIn reached the 200 million members worldwide milestone. This comes as no surprise since the online professional networking site has plenty to offer for those of any status in the work force, from recent college graduates to seasoned business professionals.

One of the newest, and most useful, features of LinkedIn is the endorsement sections. This section is easier to use than the lengthy testimonials section and because of this has become quite popular. Endorsements allow professionals to validate and recognize the skills and expertise their peers have added to their profile. Reward your business partners and coworkers for their mastery of a skill by giving them recognition through an endorsement. This feature is the perfect opportunity to do so without having to write out a full recommendation.

Here’s a quick overview of how to endorse your peers:

  • At the top of a connection’s profile, you’ll see recommended endorsements, simply click on the skills you want to endorse them for
  • In addition, you can suggest additional skills
  • Endorsements can also be made in the new Skills & Expertise section

If you’ve been endorsed, you will receive a notification from LinkedIn both by email and when you log into the site. You can view who has endorsed you for each skill by viewing your own Skills & Expertise section, where you can also accept any new skills recommended by your colleagues or include additional skills.

While the new endorsements section is great for recognizing other’s achievements and expertise, it does raise a few questions when it comes to business etiquette.

  • If someone endorses me, do I have to endorse them? Endorsing someone isn’t time consuming, and it’s always good to return positive favors!
  • What if someone endorses me, but I don’t want others to see it? Simply click on their face next to the skill they have endorsed you for. Then, you’ll be able to select the hide endorsement button.
  • Is endorsing someone even worth my time? On the whole, I wouldn’t suggest going on an endorsing spree, but if your peer has done exceptionally well at something or if you know they are looking for a new job in a specific field, endorsing them could potentially help them out.

For more tips and tricks when it comes to social media and business etiquette online, be sure to visit www.MarketingRELEVANCE.com.

By BDX Guest Blogger, Carol Morgan, mRELEVANCE

Any good homebuilder or business person knows that giving away something for “free” is a great way to entice new potential customers or even keep current homeowners happy. No matter the size of the gift being given away, people flock to free. However, we all also know that nothing in life is truly free, including social media. Yes, technically, social media is still free to use, but as time has passed more and more sites are converting to a “pay to play” model. And, since they have your business relying on them to connect with buyers and drive sales, chances are, you’ll end up forking over the money to keep on playing.

Look at Facebook for example, builders heavily rely on this social media giant to reach new homebuyers, connect with current homeowners, share information and more. Lately though, you may have noticed that it seems like fewer fans are engaging with your page. It isn’t your mind playing tricking on you; engagement has been limited. Now that Facebook has become a publicly traded company, they upped the ante by creating new promoted posts and advertising campaign features. Unless you’re willing to pay (an amount that is decided by you), then chances are you will continue to see less traffic and less engagement to your page.

You may be thinking to yourself that you’ll never buy in, but if spent wisely, this money is a solid investment. Statistics have shown that 16 percent of fans are reached organically on average per post on the site, and this number increases by 40 to 150 percent through paid advertisements.

An example of one business that is using this to their advantage is Atlanta Real Estate Forum. A product of mRELEVANCE, this Atlanta real estate news site has been promoting their weekly radio show posts for $10 a day, three days a week. In that time, radio show downloads have almost doubled, page likes are up significantly and these posts are reaching more than 50,000 people.

But, Facebook isn’t the only site that is “cashing in.” Twitter has started promoting users to pay for tweets and Tumblr charges for highlighted and pinned posts. They’re getting away with this because they know you’ll keep coming back for more, and of course, they’re in the business of making money too.

If your business is looking to effectively monetize your social media program in 2013, visit www.MarketingRELEVANCE.com to learn more about how we can help you.