App Overload. Are you confused which app to use?

Many of the social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook are still useful media. And business networks like LinkedIn are very powerful, if you know how to use the tools effectively. Are you experiencing “APP Overload?” Confused what is the best platform to use in your pr marketing strategies campaign? You’re not alone.

Vine App

Vine App

It hasn’t been 2 years since marketers and advertisers were finally understanding how to use them in social media marketing, and now we need to learn all over again how to reach targeted customers. Let me explain. These social media platforms I mentioned are continually expanding their capabilities to be more productive. One in particular is Twitter. Two years ago they created a new app called Vine. The purpose of Vine was to give marketers, like Coco Cola, Dunkin’ Donuts, Target and publicity firms a way to post short videos (6 seconds in length). It was great for the first 18 months. Then competition from other platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube created their versions of short video formats marketers could use. But not all is lost. Still today, Vine has about 4% of all videos posted. This can be an effective platform for PR Clients when combined with others.

Allison Stern, founder at Tubular Labs commented about the decline-using Vine saying, “I assume that brands are having this platform fatigue”. I think that best describes what is currently happening with this app overload.

If you want to post something that is happening now, then you need to look at Periscope. That’s another Twitter app, which has become popular because it is a live video streaming app. They have a few cool features. When you tap the video (screen) it sends little “hearts” across the screen. It is their way of acknowledging, “likes” to compete with Facebook. Originally Periscope was developed in 2014 by another company and named it Bounty. Then in February 2015 Twitter saw the value and purchased the app, renamed it Periscope. To understand how fast this app became a hit, in less than 6 months of its release, Periscope had 10 million accounts.

So before you abandon any of your social media apps, just keep posting videos on all platforms, and write short Tweets, blogs and keep your brand in front of customers through all the different social media platforms, today and whatever develops tomorrow. Need help getting your social media campaign going, if so, call George Carson at 949-477-9400.

The Best Times To Post On Social Media

Are you a person or company that does a lot of postings? Are you aware that there are best times and worst times to post content? If not, read on. Why, because your pr marketing strategy can be a success or failure if you don’t know when your followers are interested in their social media. So make sure your followers/readers are seeing your posts, otherwise you are wasting your time.

I came across this great article and graphics from Richard Brownell, so thanks to Richard for making this simple to understand. Ok, lets start with the more staple social media. That would be Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. These are the more popular and better know social media for businesses. Below is a chart that illustrates what days of the week and times of the day that you should be posting, and when not to.

Social media do's and don'ts

When to post on social media

On Facebook, which is one of the most frequented social media sites, you should be active between 1pm- 4pm and the best day/time of the week is Wednesdays at 3 pm. Avoid weekends before 8 am and after 8 pm. I would stay away for weekends if you are a business, unless you have a retail store that is open on weekends. Twitter has a great readership Mondays-Thursdays from 1 pm – 3 pm. Almost the same time as Facebook followers. The peak time is Monday-Thursday from 9 am til 3 pm. Twitter readers move on to other things after 8 pm everyday and on Friday, so avoid any tweets after 3 pm. Probably they’re off to a party or fun weekend stuff. Now let’s look at LinkedIn. Seems Tuesdays-Thursdays are popular and the best times for the day are noon and again at 5 pm-6 pm. Most business people are not active Monday and Friday from 10pm-6am. Hey you gotta sleep sometime!

Other social media like Pinterest, Tumblr and Google+ have a different schedule that people use. For example Pinterest has heavy viewing on Saturday mornings (well, that does make sense) and the worst time is during work hours. Now Google+ is different with their community of followers. Everyday between 9 am-10 am (short window isn’t it) is the best time and Wednesdays at 9 am is peak times. But then again, similar to Twitter, Google+ is for short messages. You want to know quickly what’s happening and move on.

So there you have it. A quick insight on when to post and not post on your social media accounts. If you are developing a pr marketing strategy for the next season, keep these times and days handy so your social media campaign will have a greater impact. If you want more insights, give George Carson a call at 949-477-9400. He’s probably writing a post right now, but I’m sure he’ll take your call.

APPS to help you organize your daily business activity

It is almost impossible in today’s competitive environment to keep our daily activities organized in one place.Calendars are good to know what to do that day, but you probably have other “reminder” systems in place to coordinate all your daily activities. If your business is large enough, your secretary or assistant might be that organizer for you. But not always is that person at your fingertips.

Time Management System

Organizing Business Activities

I came across a few APPS that could help you organize your activities all in one place, making life just a little simpler. I am sure there are other apps being developed during this writing, maybe even something completely different will become available making all these apps obsolete. So for now, lets look at these 5 apps.

Recently Google launched an app called Google Keep. Like many of Google’s products, the “Keep” will sync your notes with Siri (iPhone users) and Google Drive. It will color-code them for easy retrieval, construct to-do lists, compile photos, and archive notes for later viewing. If you have used Evernote, then you will most likely want to try Keep. Google is constantly improving this app to become the choice for people on the go.

Jumpchart is slightly different. For example if you are redesigning your website, Jumpchart helps you plan your website layout, view the most recent content revisions, and a lot more, all in real time. Although this app is free, the more advanced features are at a cost up to $50, but worth it if that’s what you need to help keep things organized.

For those who are concerned about accounting and billing might want to look at Harvest app. This is a time tracking app program that will help you see where your staff is spending their hours, based on time spent on each task. If you use QuickBooks, you can export these reports into that program to keep real-time reports for billable hours. Another feature of Harvest, you can create invoices with your company logo and offer clients to pay invoices online.

Here is something that many active social media people will find useful. Hootsuite. This app helps you manage all your social networks, such as Linkedin, Twitter, Google+, Foursquare, MySpace, WordPress, Facebook and Mixi accounts. It’s a great way to track your brand mentions and analyze your social traffic.

What's next?

What to do next?

If you are truly a busy entrepreneur who just cannot remember to take your iPhone charger with you, or pick up your cleaning, or need to locate a restaurant for a client lunch meeting, then look no further than WunWun. This is not free. It’s a concierge service to make sure all your needs are met and on-time. WunWun is a 24/7 service that cost $2.50 for every 5 minutes of service, or you can choose $20 flat fee for deliveries.

I am still trying to find an app that just lets me be alone for a while. Seems our lives are so packed with things to do we just cannot tear ourselves away from not knowing what is happening in the world, or what our competitors are doing next. If I find an app that lets our devices all fall asleep at the same time, I’ll pass that along to you. For now, keep organizing.

If you want to learn how to make your business more productive, then call George Carson at Carson Marketing, Inc. 949-477-9400

 

How to increase website traffic using LinkedIn

Publicity is everywhere! And that is why social media is one of the most successful resources to get publicity quickly in front of your potential customers. Ok, I will now get into why LinkedIn has actually become a solid pr marketing tool.

Unlike Twitter (which should be part of your pr marketing campaign), LinkedIn is purely a businessperson’s social media. Yet, too often it is thought of as a place for job hunter’s or those looking for people to add to their company. In the past this was how LinkedIn was used, but it has grown more as a means to build traffic to your web site. Why is this a good thing? If you own a business, or are a VP or manager of a company, it can be a place to create topics, and discussions among peers. It can direct them to your site and establish business relationships that can lead to more networking and sales. Linkedin

Without trying to give you many examples, just visit Chris Crum’s article on this topic. I was glad to see and read his article because finally someone else recognizes the value and maybe pr clients will listen to a different person who sees this as a major opportunity to build traffic to your site. As many of you may know (at least I hope you know) LinkedIn announced it is now integrated into Microsoft Outlook. This is a big deal for LinkedIn! So now you should more than ever take advantage of this powerful social media and add it into your pr marketing strategy campaign.

If you do not have the time, or the staff to handle a social media campaign, then contact a social media company that could get you started. Don’t know anyone? Then call George Carson at Carson Marketing, Inc. – 949-477-9400.