Social Media: Comment on Facebook’s Timeline Takes Off
January 19th, 2012
Jeff DeChambeau, a Senior Analyst at T4G, an IT services company, made a comment on a start-up community site (Facebook timeline is too awful to be an accident) on how Facebook is manipulating user behaviour to increase brain activity and increase susceptibility to advertising , along with a link to his personal blog.
Result: 35,000 hits in 24 hours.
Then CBS News/Techtalk contacted him and created an article on over-sharing information around the topic and quoted him.
Nice to see a positive example of an insight being spread around the Net.
Content Marketing – Good for Small Business
October 27th, 2011
Here’s a good article that covers the kind of things we do for Toronto Small Business clients after the essential web site optimization has been done. Content curation, blogging, white papers, photos, videos and article syndication all support the promotion of a small business’s expertise in a particular domain:
Why Content Marketing is King
To find out more, contact bernie
Deal Sites – another Internet Flame-out
October 2nd, 2011
While an on-line “daily deal” from the likes of Groupon can increase the exposure of your small business, there are three downsides:
- You damage your brand with poor on-line reviews from one-time users of your service or product
- You can negatively impact your value proposition with existing customers, who will now expect to pay less.
- If not careful, you will lose money on your discounted offer.
For more, read this New York Times article on deal sites
Will “Daily Deals” Hurt Your Small Business Site’s Reputation?
September 21st, 2011
The number of daily deal sites like Groupon and LivingSocial continues to grow but research shows that deep discount offers may be doing more harm than good for a small business’ on-line reputation.
According to a study by Boston University and Harvard University, small businesses that run ‘daily deal’ promotions on Groupon are likely to see their ratings on Yelp drop thereafter.
The data gathered included over 56,000 reviews for 2,300+ merchants who ran 2,500 deals on Groupon. The analysis seems to show the two sides of the deal-of-the-day website – from one perspective, the number of reviews for the business on Yelp goes up because of the daily deals (which for some could be seen as a good thing). However, the average rating scores from reviewers who reference daily deals are 10 per cent lower than scores coming from “business as usual” reviews.
There’s no explanation offered for why the customers using Groupon gave less positive reviews on Yelp, and the report leaves business owners pondering the question: is it worth running daily deals (expensive but can bring in new customers), if it’s at the expense of a lowered on-line reputation on user review sites like Yelp?
Canadians prefer Internet over other media
April 13th, 2011
A Canadian-based survey of media users suggests that most value Internet access over their newspaper, cellphone and TV subscriptions. And if forced to choose one, they would stay online.
The Canadian Media Research Consortium commissioned the online survey and found:
- 42 % of respondents said the Internet would be the last service they would cut
- 24 % would keep their cable TV
- 17 % would keep their cellphone service or newspaper subscription.
Overall, the survey really speaks to how Canadians get their information – important news for business seeking to find customers.
Restaurants Use Social Media to Reach Out to Customers
January 20th, 2011
Restaurants and bars count on repeat business, with customers increasingly expecting more than service, food and drinks. They want to be engaged as well, and major food restaurant chains are turning to location-based social media to help keep customers happy and loyal.
Read more of New York Times article
Computer-generated ads for small business?
May 23rd, 2010
From the New York Times
Recently launched in the U.S., a new software called PlaceLocal builds display ads automatically by searching on-line for references to a restaurant, grocery store or another local small business, then combines the elements (photographs, reviews, customer comments) into a customized online ad for the business.
Read more…..
