Friday 25 October 2013

5 WAYS TO USE HALLOWEEN FUN IN YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING CAMPAIGN

Who doesn’t love Halloween?  I mean, besides the one guy who complained when I used an image of a jack-o-lantern in my Halloween Savings email marketing campaign. True story! Can you say “Stick in the Mud”?? Good thing I didn’t go with my original (albeit in jest) idea of using an image of Michael Myers (you know, the psychopathic killer star of the Halloween movie franchise) menacingly holding a bloody knife!                  


Well, like it or not, Halloween has, and will continue to, come around once a year – and most of us enjoy it and have fun with it. So why not take advantage of the season and create your own Halloween-themed social media marketing campaign? Here are a few ways to do it:                      

1.  Hold a photo contest. This will work on a number of social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etcetera. You can make it a “Cutest Costume” contest (kids, pets, etc.) or you can do a “Scariest Costume”– or even a “Best Jack-O-Lantern” contest.  Offer a prize for the winning photo and let users know that you’ll be announcing the winner on your social media platforms – that’ll ensure they keep checking back in.

2.  By the same token, you could hold an essay or short spooky story contest.  Again, offer a prize and arrange to have the winner’s story posted on your blog, with, of course, the credit going to the winner. And be sure to link to your blog on your other social media platforms.

3.  Offer Halloween savings or discount specials on your products and services. Everyone loves to get something at a discounted rate or price!

4.  Play up the spirit of the season! Make most of your tweets and Facebook posts Halloween-themed – really get into the spirit and encourage your followers to do the same! You could try horror movie quotes, Halloween (historical) facts, Halloween themed jokes – and don’t forget the pictures and/or video!

5.  Play a Halloween-themed “word of the day” game with your followers.  You could, for example, every day, post a word or phrase from a horror movie or a Stephen King novel, and the first person to guess the movie or the book, wins a prize! You get the idea.



The more fun and engaging you make your social media marketing campaigns, the more followers you’ll attract - and that spells more potential business for you.  And if you get a great response with your Halloween campaign (of course you will!!), remember, the holiday season is right around the corner.  Just imagine the possibilities!

Thursday 17 October 2013

10 Things You'll Want to Know about the 10 Most Prevalent Social Media Sites

For today's blog, I'm cheating. Rather than research and write it myself, I figured why not just plagiarize from the best?  (Well, it's not really plagiarism if I tell you outright that I didn't write it, and give the credit to the person who did!)  So, without further ado, here are some fascinating statistics you'll want to know about the 10 most prevalent and popular social media sites, courtesy of one of my favorite go-to social media gurus - none other than Mr. Jeff Bullas (from jeffbullas.com).


1. Facebook

There are now over over 1.15 billion active Facebook users.That’s the main fact you need to know.
This is a 21 percent increase in 12 months. Facebook is still the social media network of choice and its numbers are huge no matter where you look.
Source: Facebook 

2. Google+

Google+ has become the second biggest network during the last 6 months and continues to grow rapidly. It seems to have reached a tipping point in consciousness and people are curious about how to use it.
Why do I think that?
My approach is not scientific but anecdotal. It is based upon the crowd voting with retweets, shares and traffic. And they are often right. Any blog posts about Google+ that I have published in the last couple of months receive much more traffic than Facebook articles.
The latest statistics indicate that there are 343 million active monthly users.

3. Twitter

Twitter is a platform that is bridging the mass media and social media gap. Television is using the social network to obtain feedback and comments. It’s power lies in its simplicity, real time feed and news breaking capabilities.
The latest numbers on Twitter indicate that it has  has over 288 million monthly active users. This is according to GlobalWebIndex Study
The number registered currently sits at over 500 million. So there are many registering but not inhaling.


4. LinkedIn

LinkedIn has been working on making its platform more social and is social media’s quiet achiever. According to some reports it has now reached 238 million users.

5. YouTube

YouTube is the giant of online video and this social media giant now has over 1 billion unique visitors every month. It’s big.

6. Instagram

Instagram was Facebook’s first major purchase (when it had 13 million users early in 2012) and despite paying top dollar it has helped Facebook move into mobile advertising and also is continuing to grow.
It has now reached 130 million users.

7. Pinterest

Pinterest captured many people’s imagination shortly after it launched. The online “pinboard” social media platform has had significant impact on web design (even seeming to have influenced the  new Google+ design)
It currently sits at 70 Million users.

8. Vine

When Instagram launched the video feature for Instagram there were many pundits predicting the demise of Vine  (Twitter’s new 6 second looping video social network).
Twitter has just announced (with a tweet ) that it had 40 million users. That is significant growth considering it was only launched in January, 2013.
In June it only had a user base of 13 million. That is a growth of 27 million in just under 3 months! No wonder Twitter is a proud parent.

9. Tumblr

Tumblr was bought by Yahoo last year because it had broken into the top 10 sites in the USA and its audience was young tech and savvy. It is an easy to use blogging platform that is both visual and mobile. There are some statistics showing that is shrinking after being bought by Yahoo.
Currently it has 245 million monthly unique visitors according to Qantcast.

10. Foursquare

Foursquare has been with us for a while now after being established in 2009. Its attraction is that it is a mobile media channel.
Number of users now sits at 30 Million.