Social Media Tools – Dennis J. Smith

Is your business on Instagram?

September 12, 2013

Being visual on social media can be very beneficial to your businesses online marketing plans. People are more engaged with a post that contain images or video rather than a bunch of text. You’ll find that more people will like, comment on or share your post that have images or video. Most smartphone have cameras and you’ll find the free Instagram app available for iOS and Android devices. With Instagram you can take photos and video and apply one of many filters. I take photos all the time and the photos aren’t always about my business. I like showing others what I am up to for the day or where I’m at for the day. It might be a photo of the sunset here in Seattle or documenting a road trip. I will sometimes take a photo of my book or when I attend a workshop. This puts a more personal touch on the post rather than being just about business. However don’t let this stop you from adding photos of your products, new arrivals, employees, customers or anything else related to your business. Be creative and have fun. Don’t forget to use #hashtags that are relevant to your post to take advantage of Facebook’s new Graph Search feature. This make it easier for others to find your business when doing a search on Facebook. Do you use Instagram or do you use another photo app like Vine? Snap a Instagram photo of your home office and add it to the comments to this post on Facebook. Leave a comment below on how you use photos and video to market your business. [divider] [hcshort id=”13″]

Google Releases Version 1.0.5 Google+ Android App Update

August 3, 2011

Android users now can now update to the latest version of the Google+ app from their Android phone or the Android Market. Google+ Android app (v.1.0.5) brings several improvements to the mobile version. Check out the video below from Google’s Mobile Project Manager +Punit Soni. v1.0.5 August 2, 2011 Improved notifications reliability "___ added you to Google+" notifications shown in bulk Share stream posts to individual people (search people & contacts) Clicking a +mention takes you to the person’s profile Stream no longer resets to top when screen is rotated Nearby accuracy & refresh improvements Start a one-on-one huddle from a person’s profile or a group huddle from a circle profile Hide one-on-one huddles Clickable links in huddles Confirmation text when leaving a huddle ("Are you sure you want to leave?") Improved autocomplete (people/contacts) when adding a person to a huddle Reshared posts show correct profile photo Punit Soni is the lead product manager for Google+ mobile has shared this video on YouTube talking about the changes. Download the updated version of Google+ for your Android from your phone or Android Market.

Promote Your Business with Facebook Deals–New!

March 19, 2011

Facebook is getting ready to launch a new feature that lets you offer your customers deals when they “check-in” using Places on Facebook. Called “Deals” the latest feature is currently in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego and San Francisco. I did notice that there are a few deals in my local area which is Boise, ID but I haven’t been to those businesses. Facebook claims that over 200 million mobile phone users are actively using Facebook on the go. That’s huge potential for a business to draw in new customers. Business can set one-time deals or even set-up loyalty deals by rewarding return customers. Hopefully there will be a day you won’t need to carry around those stupid cards on your key chain. I’ve included a link down below of a PDF from Facebook to give you more information. There are several videos to get a better idea on how “Deals” can benefit your business. Are “Deals” active in your city? Is this something you might consider for your business? See how it works: http://www.facebook.com/deals/checkin/business Deals for Businesses PDF ““ Download For more information head to Facebook and http://www.facebook.com/deals. Source: Dennis J. Smith Promote Your Business Or Cause Using Social Media ““ Beginner’s Handbook

Hyper Alerts Free Facebook Fan Page Notification Tool

January 27, 2011

With all the social media sites out there it’s a wonder that we have time to do much. Most of us running a business don’t have time to monitor our Facebook Fan Pages. Wouldn’t it be nice to know when someone has left a comment for one of your post? I have found the perfect free tool to help you manage your social media and stay on top of the game. YouTube Video ““ Hyper Alerts Here’s how it work: Get Your Free Account at the Hyper Alerts website: http://alerts.hyperinteraktiv.no/ Set-up Your Hyper Alerts: Click on the + Add new alert button to start the process. Tell Hyper Alerts which fan page or pages you’d like to monitor. There is no access via Facebook Connect so your personal information is not accessed. Pick your setting on what time you would like HyperAlerts to send your notification. Hourly, Daily, Weekly or Monthly. I would recommend that you check at least daily to keep in touch with your fans. Wait for the nifty e-mail to arrive with your notifications in a nice clean format. Right from the e-mail you can click to view the post or you can stop getting alerts of you choose to do so. Let me know what you think and feel free to comment below or share this with your friends. Know of a better social media tool? Posted By Dennis J. Smith Promote Your Business Or Cause Using Social Media ““ A Beginner’s Handbook

Get Real-Time Facebook Updates On Your Desktop

January 17, 2011

I love it when I find a cool new social media tool that I can share with friends and others. Facebook Desktop is one of those social media tools that notifies you in real-time when friends post something new to Facebook, updates their status, comments on your photos and more. All this without the need for a browser and its not intrusive when it notifies you. Notifications show on the right side of your screen briefly and then fade out of sight. If you miss a notification you can have it replay the last five updates. Users can also pause updates or adjust settings accordingly to lessen the amount of updates. You can download Facebook Desktop to your desktop free of charge. It installs within a few minutes.

Keep On Top Of Your Social Media Game With Nutshell Mail

January 4, 2011

Feel like you are struggling to keep up with your social media? Don’t get buried in status updates, pokes, mail and Tweets. There’s a whole lot of services out there that make it easy to manage social media. The one I like the most is Nutshell Mail from the makers of Constant Contact. Setting up an account is easy and you can use Facebook Connect, MySpace or Twitter to start your account. It’s perfect for a small business or even for personal use and its free! Nutshell sends all your social media updates, likes, tweets and more to you in a convenient e-mail. You get to set the frequency of when you receive that e-mail. It’s also very customizable so you pick what information you want to see. Below is an example of the e-mail you receive to keep you on top of your social media. Think of it as a snapshot of all your social media sites. No logging into several sites because Nutshell Mail takes care of all that for you. If someone has commented on any of your sites you can respond right from the email. It support Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Yelp, MySpace, YouTube, Foursquare, and CitySearch. See it in action today by creating your own free account here. Know of another other great social media tracking tools? Feel free to comment and let other know below. Content by Dennis J. Smith Promote Your Business Or Cause Using Social Media Available on Amazon.com in Paperback and on Kindle

Google AdSense Plugins

December 4, 2010

Google AdSense Plugins What is Google AdSense? Google AdSense is a program from Google that pays website and blog owners to display specific ads on their sites. It is free and you can track your earnings with online reports. The ads are usually targeted to match the relevant content on your site. How do I get started? Visit http://www.adsense.com and Newbie Central for new users to get started and for more information about AdSense. If you have an account with Google you are just a few steps away from Google AdSense. If not you just have to enter a little information to get started with creating ads. I highly recommend that you watch the videos provided by Google. There are several books available to learn more about AdSense and there is lots of information online. AdSense Ad Create Your AdSense Code Once you have an account set-up you can start creating the code that will generate your ad or ads. There are different sizes of ads you can generate and it is important think about ad placement in your blog. Placement of your ads is essential in the amount of revenue they generate. Review Newbie Central for more information on the placement of your ads. AdSense Plugins Several plugins are available to choose from when it comes to displaying ads on your WordPress blog. Search for “AdSense” from the Plugin menu of your WordPress dashboard to generate a list of available AdSense plugins. Click on “Details” for more details on each individual plugin and “Install Now” to install the plugin of your choice. There are also several WordPress themes that have settings to display AdSense ads along with other types of ads. Do a search on Google for “AdSense Ready WordPress Themes” for a list of themes ready for AdSense. I suggest you install a few plugins and see what works best for you. Take your code you created above and copy and paste it into your plugin. Each plugin will be different so read the instruction for the plugin you choose. List of some of the many plugins available for AdSense Things to keep in Mind AdSense policy allows for no more than three AdSense ads displaying per page. Encouraging others to click on ads is a violation of AdSense policies. Don’t risk losing what might be a lucrative stream of revenue. Read Newbie Central so you are aware of policies, best practices and have the knowledge of what works best. Have a favorite AdSense plugin you are using? Please feel free to comment below and share your AdSense experience. Need a WordPress Blog? Contact IgniteHost website and WordPress blog hosting and get started for less than $5 a month. More resources: Google AdSense ““ AdSense Website AdSense Official Channel on YouTube ““ AdSense Videos WordPress Themes ““ AdSense Ready WordPress Themes Newbie Central ““ Information for AdSense Newbies AdSense Blog ““ Inside AdSense Blog Content Provided By Dennis J. Smith

Track Social Media With POSTLING

November 28, 2010

Like many out there you might be finding it tough to manage your Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, blogs and various other social media networks. I’ve had the same problem myself and have finally found a solution that I like. Postling was created to simply the process of managing your social media networks. I no longer have to check each one of my Facebook Fan Pages for comments. Postling lets me know when someone comments on one of my several post. That way I stay on top of interacting with my followers and build engaging relationships. Publish From One Location With Postling you can post right to your Facebook Fan Pages, WordPress Blogs, Blogger accounts, Twitter, Linked in and more. There is no need to go to each one of those locations to post something new or update your status. Do it all from Postling and save time! You can also schedule the date and time you would like your post published at. I know from experience what a great time saver this is when managing your social media networks. Dashboard The Postling Dashboard gives you easy access to all your social media networks. Update your status, respond to comments, track keywords and more. Try Postling There is a free version of Postling with full features you can can try for 14-days. The premium version lets you monitor social media sites like Twitter for keywords. This can be beneficial for those looking to target a certain type of customer. It can also be set-up to look for chatter about your business in case you receive negative feedback or even kudos. You don’t have to login to all your social media sites because Postling will e-mail you a recap of comments, reviews and keyword tracking results. Just click on reply in the e-mail and respond back to any comments right away. What a great time saver and an easy way to stay on top of the game. Head on over to http://www.postling.com and get your free account today or upgrade to premium and enjoy all the benefits. Do you use something different to manage your social media? Feel free to leave a comment below and thanks for reading! Postling on Facebook ““ Postling Fan Page

3 Social Media Tools To Grow Your Business

October 15, 2010

Here are 3 tools that are free and will help you grow your business through social media. There are many other applications out there and they appear and disappear as social media changes and evolves. I like these 3 listed below for their ease of use and little set-up time. Please feel free to leave a comments about the tools you use or if you use these. RSS Graffiti for Facebook Simplify your social media marketing with this free application available on Facebook. RSS Graffiti will automatically publish your RSS feeds to any of your Facebook Fan Pages. Setup is easy and and takes less than 10 minutes to establish. You can schedule how often RSS Graffiti updates your wall, set publishing limits and can even publish to Twitter. I use it to publish articles from my WordPress blog to my Facebook Fan Page. Then Facebook automatically send out a Tweet to my Twitter followers that alerts them of a new post on my blogs. Payvment E-Commerce Storefront If you are looking to sell product online with little upfront cost Payvment is the answer. Payvment is a free shopping cart application for Facebook Fan Pages and uses PayPal to process payments. Set-up is easy and most can have a storefront up and running in 1-hour or less. Visit the Facebook Fan Page of Pioneer Soap Works to see what an actual storefront is like. All In One SEO Pack WordPress Plugin This is a must have tool for any business with a hosted WordPress blog. All In One SEO is a free plugin that optimizes your blog for better search engine results. This application gives you better control over the optimization of your post, pages and site home page. Therefore your chances of moving up in search engine results increase. Easy enough for beginners yet fully customizable for those with a little more SEO background. Content by Dennis J. Smith ““ Social Media Author

Social Media Search Engine Taps Into Facebook

October 10, 2010

Here’s a search tool that you can use to see what people are talking about on social media sites. WhosTalkin is a great way to find out what others are saying about your business or your field. Just type in your search term and WhosTalkin will search all the social media site for matching conversations and return results in a few minutes. Social Media Search Engine, WhosTalkin, Recently Integrated Facebook’s New API, Giving The Search Tool Unrepresented Reach. Pawleys Island, SC (Content by PRWEB) October 5, 2010 Social media search engine, WhosTalkin, recently integrated Facebook’s new API, giving the search tool unrepresented reach. WhosTalkin is a social media search engine that searches real time conversations from around 60 different social media gateways. Adding Facebook, marks a significant step for the almost 2 year old search company. Along with the Facebook addition, WhosTalkin, is also launching a new aggregation engine, a new real time metric, and the ability to export results directly from the search tool. Joe Hall, founder and CEO says, "We knew that in order to integrate Facebook, we would need to change the way we aggregate data to facilitate large scale searching." As a result, WhosTalkin has launched a new aggregation engine that now powers their service. Hall says, "We are very happy with initial test." The new engine will allow WhosTalkin’s developers to easily add new social media gate ways over time. "The social web is constantly changing, so we wanted our new system to be able to change and grow with it." says Hall. The new aggregation engine has opened doors for Hall to launch other features as well. "We are also launching a new metric that we think gives a very accurate picture of the level of conversations in social media." states Hall. TalkRank is a new unique metric that gauges the level of conversation in social media. TalkRank is different than other social media metrics because its based on live data. Users can continually check TalkRank to monitor trends. Along with the new aggregation engine, the search tool now also allows for instant exporting of results. The search results can be directly exported into Microsoft Excel. In the future the search company plans to provide other formats. ### For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prwebsearch/facebook/prweb4592424.htm

Tag: Social Media Tools