INFOGRAPHIC: How to Grow Your Business With Online Video

Internet users are watching online video now more than ever. Online video, including TV shows, YouTube clips, advertisements, and tutorials are viewed by millions everyday. We now live in a world where a massive 200 billion videos are viewed online each and every month.
This popularity of video creates a chance to grow and promote your business online - simply through using video. It raises your company’s profile, communicates clearly and directly to your target audience, establishes your business as cutting edge and creates more traffic to your website.
Getting started Successful video marketing is not as simple as whipping out your camera phone and putting a clip up on YouTube. A little bit of preparation will go a long way. Take 5 minutes, and answer some simple questions
first: WHAT are you saying to WHOM, and WHY should they be interested – is always a great place to start. Video length – i.e. long and detailed, or short and snappy, is also an important consideration in growing and promoting your business with online video.
In this infographic below, we have gathered together some of the key reasons why video is so important to your business right now, and it lays out a simple 3-step process to start you on your path toward online video marketing superstardom!

This Infographic is Designed and Published by

One Productions

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INFOGRAPHIC: Is Google Plus a Failure?

In the marketing community, we keep hearing about Google+ as the marketers dream platform. Features such as Ripples and the Circles function do seem incredibly appealing. It’s fair to say that the audience segmentation and targeting options are unparalleled and in a marketer’s perfect world, everyone would be using the service. But guys, I hate to piss on your rainbow, but no real people in the real world are using Google+. Based on anecdotal and statistical information, it seems as though the only people that are truly involved in any sort of Google+ community are the people that stand to benefit from widespread uptake of the platform. That is never going to entice the masses into abandoning their longstanding relationship with Facebook, Twitter and their new BFF, Pinterest. At the moment, Google+ is like a pool of piranhas. The piranhas in this metaphor being online marketers, waiting to segment, target and sell to any real person that dares to step into the water.

This Infographic is Designed and Published by:

Browser Media

Facebook’s App Center Arrives in the UK

By Lauren Indvik at Mashable:  
Facebook has begun rolling out its apps marketplace internationally, launching a version for UK users Friday morning.

Facebook’s App Center (or Centre, in British spelling) launched in the U.S. early last month. It’s similar to Apple’s, Google’s and Amazon’s app stores, allowing users to browse apps by category, such as Games or Sports, and filter to show apps that are available via the web, mobile or both. Apps are recommended based on collective ratings, personal recommendations, what’s trending and popularity among your friends.

The App Center isn’t exclusively made for Facebook’s apps: It also indexes apps available only on third-party sites, or through other mobile app stores. When users click to sign up for apps like Netflix and Hulu, for instance, they are sent to their respective websites; other times, they’re sent to Apple’s App Store or Google Play. In the somewhat rare instance where a paid app is sold directly through Facebook’s store, the company takes a 30% cut; it takes the same cut of purchases made within apps based on its platform.

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5 Reasons People Aren’t Sharing Your Content

By Ginny Soskey at Social Media Today:  
Sometimes trying to get people to share your content feels like pulling teeth. There are only so many times you can hit up your closest friends saying, “Would you pretty please share this? I promise it’s awesome!” You shouldn’t have to hit them up at all because your content should speak for itself. If you’re finding that your content isn’t being shared, these are most likely the reasons why:


1. You only talk about yourself.
Everyone has been around constant self-promoters before—they aren't fun to talk to. Part of the reason they aren’t interesting is because they don’t involve you in the conversation. You probably won’t share their stories to anyone else since the stories relate only to the initial storyteller. The same thing happens online when people keep the conversation solely on themselves.
To increase your site’s shareability, start addressing the topics your readers want to learn and talk about. People will then view you as a resource and be more likely to promote you. The Golden Rule prevails here: talk about others as much as you would like them to talk about you.

2. You pick topics that aren’t timely.
In the age of the 24/7 news cycle, the pressure is always on to write timely content. If something happened last week and you take a full week to write a reaction to it, the post isn’t timely anymore. People like to share content that is relevant to what’s going on in their community at that moment, not content that was “so two days ago.”
You don’t always have to be rushing to create posts at the last minute. If you know which events will be happening, you can plan beforehand to write a post. Use an editorial calendar to help plan out your post schedule and ensure your posts are timely.

3. Your headlines aren’t catchy.
You don’t have to have gimmicky headlines, but you need to them to be interesting and relevant enough to capture the small attention span of your audience. Keep your headlines less than eight words to make them punchy and memorable, just like your favorite tweets on Twitter. Which headline would you be more likely to share: “My Favorite WordPress Plugins to Increase Your Blog Pageviews” or “Top WordPress Plugins to Increase Pageviews”? The second headline contains some of the criteria for a great headline: It’s exclusive and specific. Keeping your headlines short and sweet will make it much easier for your readers to share your content—all they have to do is click the “post” button!

4. You write huge blocks of text.
Now that everyone is used to reading online, people have tiny attention spans. Most people want to scan your post before reading it so they don’t waste their time reading something that isn't relevant to them. To make it easy to scan, try adding bullet points or numbers like I’ve done in this post. You can also break up your text with video and photos—people are naturally visual animals, so they will be more engaged with your post overall if you have visual content. Having a few bullet points with multimedia will help your readers take home the main messages and easily share them with others.

5. You don’t make it easy to share.
Do you have sharing buttons in an easy-to-use location on your site? You don’t want to make your readers copy and paste your link directly into their social network—it’s too much work for them! Instead, choose the right social media sharing buttons for your audience and place them where your audience can easily see them.

5 Tips For Success With Pinterest

By John Reynolds at Spice Up Your Blog:  
Pinterest is quickly growing as a social network. The site is designed line an online pin board for the user. While it may have some perception as a craft, recipe, fashion, and vacation site, it is rapidly becoming much more. The site can make for a useful marketing tool for those who understand how to use it.


Below are just five tips for success with Pinterest:


 
1. Use Interesting Visuals.

Words maybe get you shared on Twitter or Facebook, but one of the top tips for success with Pinterest is to use pictures, illustrations, and graphics to your advantage. You want people to share your information, your photos, your sales pitch. That is much more likely to happen with a visual of some sort rather than just some words on a screen.

Pinterest is much more than just pictures. Inspirational quotes, short jokes, or other messages can also become quite popular.

 
2. Don't Underestimate Users.

You may think it will be enough to promote yourself or your business on Pinterest just by including your company sales pitch or ads, but Pinterest users recognize these for what they are.

If you merely use your site to promote yourself, you aren't likely to get many people sharing your posts and even fewer people who want to follow you. Pins get shared if they are interesting, entertaining or helpful. If your posts are none of those things, you won't find much, if any, benefit to being on the site.

 
3. Interact With Others.

One of the biggest draws of Pinterest is how interactive the site is. It allows a person to repin items posted by others, follow certain individuals and broaden networks. A successful user isn't going to just make posts, but will interact with other Pinterest users.

Remember that there are a number of people who have probably been using the site longer and/or better than you. Following them and interacting with them can get you noticed by their many followers and potentially bring them to track you as well.

 
4. Be Unique and Be Consistent.

You don't have to be a crafter or a skilled cook to do well on Pinterest. What you do need is a message that is entirely yours and speaks to your customers or readers. If you are true to yourself and your business, readers will pick up on that and will want to see more of what you have posted.

Keep that same message in line when you repin something from another user. If you are using Pinterest to market yourself or your business, you need to be sure that everything that appears on your board, whether it originated with you or not, is in line with what your company does or what you write or do. Keeping that common thread will ensure visitors are never unclear about you or your business.

 
5. Connect With Users.

Pinterest is a great resource, but like most things on the Web, it isn't something that should be used on its own. Tie your Pinterest board in with e-mail marketing, other social media platforms and your company website. Entice people to visit your board through alternative means, and you will almost certainly see your number of followers and one-time viewers increase, which can make a big impact in your bottomline.



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