Posts Tagged ‘web’

Entering The World Stage

View CommentsPosted by ISP Media on March 10th, 2010


It can be an intimidating endeavour, putting yourself out there and communicating publicly on the world stage. So just remember when you enter the Social Media scene … take a deep breath and don’t be afraid.

It really is just like any other activity in business:

  1. First you work out your strategy
  2. Then you back it up with a concise plan
  3. Next, you roll it out in stages
  4. And finally – test, monitor, report and adjust (repeat this step as often as needed).

Having a digital marketing strategy ready that addresses social media, coupled with the technology and the tools, will save you money and open your business up to new and potentially untapped opportunities.

Big business is already changing the way they approach marketing – small business can and should be doing the same.  

And I can use this how?

Social Media has a whole swagger of great benefits, a few of my favourite ways you can use social media to enhance your business is to:

  • Drive targeted traffic to your main website
  • Grow your web presence
  • Build awareness of yourself, your company, product or service
  • Launch new products or services
  • Position yourself as an expert in your field
  • Keep in real time touch with the people that matter most to you (your current clients and stakeholders)
  • And meet new people (potential clients, business associates, mentors, peers) you may never have been able to gain access to in the past

Just to name a few!

So as we said in the beginning, take a deep breath and don’t be afraid to step away from the off and into the online!

Posted in: Business Tips, Social Media, The Basics Tags: , , , , ,

Lost in Translation

View CommentsPosted by ISP Media on February 26th, 2010


The colloquial language may mean that a newbie (n00b / noob / newb / nub: a slang term for a newcomer to an Internet activity) could be potentially lost in a maze of strange and unfamiliar words and acronyms.

If you are already breaking out into a cold sweat at the mere mention of IT acronyms, or wondering how you will ever get your head around it all, don’t worry – you are not alone!

Everyone goes through this period in the beginning and to be honest, with the rapid rate of change; pretty much everyone (outside of those who live and breathe digitally) stays a newbie in some form or another!

However, to help make your initial transition easier, visit our glossary of terms and acronyms and become a whizz at the digital lingo!

Posted in: Social Media, The Basics, twitter Tags: , , , , ,

And Then There Were Lists ….

View CommentsPosted by ISP Media on February 22nd, 2010


The now well recognised Twitter Lists feature is a great way to organize the people you’re following on Twitter, or find new people. In reality these lists are actually Twitter’s version of a “groups” feature, offering an easy way to cluster other users on Twitter into groups allowing you to get an overarching view of what they are up to without having to filter through your vast followers list or visiting each and every profile.

Lists are not just static listings of users, rather compilations of feeds from a specified set of users that you choose. What this means is that you can create a live feeding snapshot of the tweets from your users by viewing a specific list’s page. Lists are a great way of organising the people you are following into topic based groups. Lists also have the great benefit of allowing you to include people that you are not following!

There is a whole swag of reasons for developing your own set of lists and you can make your lists public or private to accommodate your varying needs.

Below are some tips on how to use lists:

Follow Industry Leader Trends
Lists are a great way to follow leaders in your industry to find out what they are tweeting about, ensuring you stay at the top of your game and up to date for your clients.  For example we have created a list of our industry leading “look to” tweeters on social media http://twitter.com/#/list/ISPMedia/getsocial

Create a Topic Focused Group
Create private or public lists so you can follow topics of interest, for example, ISP Media has created a public list called http://twitter.com/home#/list/ISPMedia/webwisdom which follows our favourite web wisdom providers. A topic can be anything you want, i.e. friends, co-workers, hobbies, family or employees.

Perform The Sneaky Follow
Something I personally love about lists is the sneaky follow, what I mean is that you do not have to be following someone to include their feed in your list! Brilliant right? This is particularly useful for the over achiever tweeter, i.e.  the person who does provide great tweets … just too many or in huge batches with no spacing! By adding them to your list your main feed is not clogged and you can check in on them within your list when you want to, or have time to wade through their 400 daily tweets!

Recommend Your Favourite Tweeps
A major reason for lists was to allow people to recommend other users to follow, by placing your favourite tweeps in a list and making it public, you are basically recommending them to anyone who is interested. People who visit can choose to follow the list or the individual Tweep!

Those of you who know me will be expecting this, become a voyeur first if you are unsure or new to lists! Take the time to follow a few lists and watch how they work before you leap in. then shed your baby feathers and start listing like there is no tomorrow!

It is a really great way to filter the massive influx of information that you receive through Twitter!

Lists Ahoy!

Posted in: Business Tips, Social Media, twitter Tags: , , , , , , , ,

The Social Media Mix

View CommentsPosted by ISP Media on February 10th, 2010


If someone says spider and you reach for your thongs …..

 

If you consider web presence to be something you send to a friend via email for their birthday …

 

If you still think tweeting is a sound that birds make ….

  

Then perhaps you need to get online more!

 

With so many new social media sites (Facebook), ecommerce platforms (eBay), media (Source Bottle) and article banks (Free Sticky) popping up, navigating the World Wide Web is becoming a mammoth task for business owners everywhere!

 

On top of the day to day operational aspects of your business, you now have to contend with finding, understanding and then becoming a part of, the ‘next big thing’ that claims it is going to forever change the way your business communicates online, explode your online earnings and increase your brand exponentially!

 

Frankly it’s a daunting task to even the most tech savvy business owners and I would hazard a guess that not many of you would have unlimited time and resources to research and analyse every single site’s value to your business.

 

If you are unsure where to start or how to go about it, then this blog series is for you! This is a straight shooting, no bull basics for business web newbies. OVer the course of this series you will find the who, what, when, where and why of social media to help you plan your social media strategy for the best possible success.

 

The objective is to provide you with enough information and confidence to get off the fence and launch into Social Media.

 

So strap yourself in and let’s get started! First cab off the rank .. the overview.

 

Holy Social Media ….

Bam!  Pow! Like a fight scene in the original Batman TV series, Social Media has hit with a quick punch combination that could knock the digital wind out of even the most savvy business person.

So what is it?

To keep it short and sweet, social media mainly consists of the following:

Blogs

Surprise, the IT world shortened web log down to blog! A blog is a tool that allows anyone to create content (post) to the web. It was originally created for people to keep an online journal, with posts being categorised and listed in chronological order. Basically, you can write whatever you want (without knowing anything about web development or design) and send it live to the web!

RSS

RSS is an aggregator and filtering service. The acronym stands for Really Simple Syndication, and is used to describe the technology used in creating feeds. A feed is commonly recognised as frequently updated content published by a website or blog, but it can also include images, audio or video.

Social Search

Social Search has many guises! It can refer to search engines that list businesses and allow external users to comment on and rate, or the more recent development has been the introduction of search engines introducing specific search facilities for social media, i.e. search specifically for blogs, Twitter or feeds – people select what they want and can then interact directly with their chosen platform!

Social bookmarking

Social bookmarking is a method for internet users to share, organise, search and manage bookmarks of web resources. Using certain bookmarking services you can tag items with keywords and place them on your website to share your resource references with others. 

Social networking

The best known social network in Australia would be Facebook. Social networks allow people to create an account, add their personal or business information and then invite people to join as friends, GROUP members or fans. Through these networks you can share and exchange information online.

Micro Media

The best example would be Twitter. Micro media is a social media platform that allows anyone and everyone to create small, real time connections with multiple other people online 24/7. You type, you click a button and you go live to the web – people can read, respond and comment instantly.

All of the above platforms create a wide range of new tools to add to your business marketing mix.

The all knowing and kind of accepted Wikipedia, describes Social Media as, “Social Media are media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media supports the human need for social interaction, using internet and web based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many. It supports democratisation of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers. Business also refers to social media as User Generated (UCG) or Consumer Generation Media (CGM).”

Right!  OK … so to sum it up, Social Media is providing people and businesses collectively, the ability to connect with each other, in real time, online!

What this means to your business, is that there is another channel to inform or sell direct to your clients – not just locally, but nationally, even globally (if that is where you want to go!)

Posted in: Business Tips, Social Media, The Basics Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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