Archive for November, 2010

November 30th, 2010

How to Set Up a Mobile Website in 4 Easy Steps

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Are you interested in learning how to set up a mobile website?

Believe it or not, putting together a mobile website is actually pretty simple. Here are the steps we used in putting together the 60 Second Marketer iPhone website:

How to Set Up a Mobile Website

We designed to 60 Second Marketer iPhone website to be intuitive and easy-to-use. Go ahead, give it a trial run. Just grab your iPhone, open your browser and type in www.60SecondMarketer.com

  1. Ask Your Designer to Install a Browser Re-direct: Ask your web designer to install a browser re-direct feature onto your website. All this is is a line of code that “sniffs” out whether your visitor is coming from a large regular browser or a smaller mobile browser. In many cases, your visitors will be coming from a regular PC, but in some cases, they’ll be coming from a smart phone. With a browser re-direct feature, your website will be able to re-direct mobile users to the pages on your website that were set up to be viewed in a mobile browser. (An alternative that works for other mobile platforms like Blackberry and Android is to set up a separate site on a .mobi domain or an m. (m dot) sub domain.)
  2. Redesign Key Pages: In most cases, you’ll want your mobile website to be a smaller version of your regular website. After all, visitors are typically looking for a few key pieces of information — directions to your store, information about your services, special offers, etc. In our case, we set up the 60 Second Marketer iPhone website with 6 key pages — Videos, Blog, 100 Top Mobile Apps, Social Media Glossary, Bookstore and Speaking.
  3. Install Mobile Plugins for Your Blog: I use WordPress for my blogging platform. It’s a wonderful platform and very easy to use. They have a plugin called WPTouch that reformats the blog so that it’s mobile friendly. It’s a terrific Plugin and very easy to install.
  4. Upload your Website: That’s all there is to it. Oh, sure, there are a few twists and turns along the way, but creating a mobile website is really not all that hard. Go ahead, give it a try!

Why don’t you take a spin through the 60 Second Marketer mobile website? Just grab your Smart Phone, open your web browser and type in www.60SecondMarketer.com. You’ll automatically be re-directed to our mobile website.

Enjoy!

Posted by Jamie Turner, Chief Content Officer of the 60 Second Marketer, the online magazine of BKV Digital and Direct Response. You can order Jamie’s new book today by clicking How to Make Money with Social Media.

CategoryMobile Marketing, Mobile Media | Comment6 Comments »

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November 29th, 2010

Blogger’s Glossary

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Do you know what a Blog Carnival is? How about Linkbait? Or how about Blackhat Search Engine Optimization?

If you’re a blogger — and even if you’re not — these are definitions you should know. After all, a blog is one of the more important tools in a marketer’s toolchest. And being familiar with our Blogger’s Glossary can help you get more familiar with blogs and blogging.

Blog RSS Feed

This image is an example of a hotlink. The term "hotlink" is just one of 66 blogger terms in this glossary.

With that in mind, I asked Ashley Gallacher from BKV Digital and Direct Response (our sponsor) to track down the top terms every blogger (and every marketer) should know.

Let us know if we missed any that you think should be added.

1. AdSense: An ad serving application run by Google that enables bloggers to monetize their blogs. Every time someone clicks on an AdSense link, the blogger will earn money based on a per-click or per-impression basis. AdSense is good for pocket change, not good if you want to become a millionaire.

2. AdWords: Google’s pay-per-click advertising platform designed to help businesses to promote their products, services and websites. The advertiser identifies the keywords they want to target, and the amount they are willing to pay per click. AdWords is not entirely relevant to bloggers, but it’s still something you should have a good handle on since it’s one of the more important online tools for making money.

3. Akismet: (Automattic Kismet) The most popular spam filter plugin for WordPress blogs. The filter works by combining information about spam captured on all participating blogs, and then using those same spam rules to block future spam. We use it here at the 60 Second Marketer and find it invaluable.

4. Alexa: An internet company (subsidiary of Amazon.com) that ranks all websites on the internet based on traffic to the site. The Alexa rank reflects the popularity of the site; the approximate number of web sites in the world that have the popularity higher than the given site (the smaller the ranking the better).

5. Anchor Text: The visible, clickable text that typically provides the user with relevant information about the content of the link’s destination.

6. Archives: A section of the blog containing previous posts.

7. Automattic: A company founded by Matt Mullenweg in August 2005, and most noted for the development of WordPress (open source bogging software) among other projects.

8. Autocasting: Automated form of podcasting that allows bloggers and blog readers to generate audio versions of text blogs from RSS feeds.

9. Audioblog: A blog where the posts consist mainly of voice recordings sent by mobile phone, sometimes with some short text message added for metadata purposes.

10. Backlinks: Hyperlinks present in other blogs or websites that point either to the homepage or to internal pages of a website. Their significance lies in search engine optimization where the number of backlinks is an indication of the popularity or importance of the website or page. This is how Google determines the PageRank of a webpage.

11. Blackhat Search Engine Optimization: Techniques used to get higher search rankings, usually in an unethical manner. These techniques include: keyword stuffing, invisible text, and doorway pages. (For a quick, 60 Second Marketer video on this topic, click Blackhat and Whitehat SEO techniques.)

12. Blog: A combination of the term web log. This type of website or part of a website is manipulated by an individual with regular, published posts of commentary. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. (For a 60 Second Marketer video on this topic, click Why Most Blogs Fail.)

13. Blog Carnival: A blog event, dedicated to a specific topic, where a host blogger coordinates the collection of relevant contributions from interested people and is published on a regular basis.

14. Blogger: The author of a blog. Blogger is also the free weblog publishing tool from Google.

15. Blogging: The act of writing something on a blog.

16. Bloglines: One of the most popular RSS feed readers. It is a web-based application that allows the user to subscribe to and manage RSS feeds.

17. Blogosphere: Term used to describe the universe created by all blogs and their interconnections.

18. Blogroll: A list of other blogs that a blogger might recommend by providing links to them (usually in a sidebar list).

19. Blog Scraping: Scanning multiple blogs and copying content that is not owned by the individual participating in the scraping process.

20. Comments: The majority of all blog platforms contain a section where readers can post comments on a blog. Comments have transformed blogs into live conversations, largely contributing to the overall success of blogs. Feel free to leave a comment in our comment section below. C’mon, don’t be shy!

21. Comment spam: Adding links via comments that point to the spammer’s website with the goal to increase the spammer site’s search engine ranking.

22. Compete: Web traffic analysis service that publishes the approximate number of visitors to the top 1,000,000 sites in the world.

23. CSS: Acronym for Cascading Style Sheets, a style sheet language used to describe the look and formatting of web pages written in HTML and XHTML. The advantage of CSS is that it allows you to control the style of any number of pages simultaneously from a central location (the CSS file).

24. Domain: Also known as domain name or hostname, it is a name that identifies a website or computer on the Internet.

25. Favicon (favorite icon): A square icon associated with a specific website or web page typically seen in the URL menu bar.

26. Feed: Allows users to receive updates from their favorite websites and blogs, as soon as new content is available. There are two main feed formats: RSS and Atom. (To add the 60 Second Marketer’s RSS feed by clicking the link.)

27. Feed count: Displays the number of subscribers to your feedburner feed.

28. Feedburner: Web feed management provider launched in 2004 that provides custom RSS feeds and management tools and allows you to add special features, and to collect data and statistics about your subscribers.

29. Fisking: A point-by-point criticism disputing or calling out errors in a statement, article, or essay.

30. Google Analytics: The most widely used website statistics service provided by Google that generates detailed specifics about the visitors to a website. We use it at the 60 Second Marketer to track unique visits, page views, bounce rate and other metrics.

31. Google Reader: The most popular Atom and RSS reader around the Internet. It is a web-based application that allows the user to subscribe to and manage RSS feeds. (You can add the 60 Second Marketer to your Google Reader RSS feed by clicking the link.)

32. Hotlinking: Also known as inline linking, the use of a linked object (often an image) from one site in the web page of another site. The second site is said to have an inline link from the site where the image is placed. Click the image on this page for an example of a hotlink.

33. Index Page: The front page of a blog or website.

34. Linkbait: “Bait” in the form of articles, videos, images, etc. that is created with the intention of attracting links to the website that is publishing it. The quantity and quality of inbound links are two of the various metrics used to determine the search engine ranking of a website.

35. Movable Type: Weblog publishing system developed by Six Apart.

36. Meta tags: HTML tags that reside in the section of a web page used to specify page description, keywords and any other metadata not provided through the other head elements. Meta tags used to be a huge deal, until they were abused, at which point Google stopped placing emphasis on them. (For a short, 60 Second Marketer video on this topic, click Google Wants to See You Naked.)

37. Moblogging: A blog posted and maintained via a mobile phone.

38. Niche: In online terms, it refers to a specific topic or subject.

39. Nofollow: A value inserted in the link code that communicates to search engines that they should not follow the link, thus improving the quality of search engine results.

40. PageRank: A technology developed by Google, that determines the “importance” of a webpage by looking at what other pages link to it, as well as various other data using a link analysis algorithm. (For a 60 Second Marketer video on this topic, click How Search Engine Spiders Work.)

41. Page Views: Also called impressions. A request to load a single HTML file or web page.

42. Partial and full feeds: Whenever you publish a web feed from a blog or website, you can choose the part of your content that will go the feed. There are two main options: full feeds and partial feeds. Full feeds include all the content that is published on the website. Partial feeds will carry only brief excerpts of the content.

43. Permalink: The unique URL of a single post. Used when linking a post somewhere.

44. Pillar article: Tutorial style article, usually with the goal to teach your readers something. Pillar articles are vital for building validity and generating traffic on your blog. You could argue that this post is an example of a pillar article.

45. Ping: When a web log notifies a server that its content has been updated. Most blogging platforms automatically ping one or more servers once a blogger updates an old post or publishes a new one.

46. Pingback: A network tool used to notify a web author when someone else has links to one of their documents. This allows web authors to keep track of who is linking to and referring to their articles.

47. Pligg: A user-driven social networking content management system designed to manage an unlimited number of authors where the content is driven by independent authors’ contributions.

48. Post: Also referred to as entry, the individual articles that make up a blog

49. WordPress Plugin: Plugins are pieces of code created with the purpose of expanding the functionalities and solving a wide range of problems and needs of WordPress.

50. Pro Blogger: A professional blogger that generates enough income with his blog (or blogs) to be able to live on it.

51. Problogger.net: Website created by Darren Rowse in 2003 to help bloggers add income streams to their personal blogs. Darren knows his stuff — I’m a regular reader of his blog.

52. RSS: Acronym for Really Simple Syndication. It is a family of web feed formats used to deliver information from websites and pages that get updated regularly. Once you subscribe to a particular RSS feed, you will automatically receive updates from the website that publishes the feed, whenever they release new content.

53. Splog: A blog that is used to publish spam material. The purpose is to increase the PageRank or artificially inflate paid ad impressions from visitors.

54. SEO: Acronym for search engine optimization. It includes several activities that are aimed to improve the rankings of a website inside the results page of search engines. (For a short, 60 Second Marketer video on this topic, click What are the Most Common Search Engine Marketing Mistakes?)

55. Social media: A broad term used to define website and web applications where you have social interactions and interactive dialogue around a media form (text, images, audio, video, or any combination of them). I’ve written a book on this topic called How to Make Money with Social Media. You might also be interested in my 60 Second Marketer blog post called How to Launch a Social Media Campaign: A Step-by-Step Guide.

56. Subscribers: Visitors that either grabbed the feed of a website or that subscribed to receive updates via email.

57. Tags: A keyword or term assigned to a piece of information that allows it to be found again via browsing or searching

58. Technorati: Internet Search Engine for searching blogs

59. Trackbacks: If another blogger links to your article you can set up notifications via special comments called trackbacks. This enables the author to keep track of who is linking to or referring to their articles.

60. Twitter: A microblogging service including text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on a user’s profile page.

61. Uniques: The number of unique visitors or humans that have visited a website within a given time frame.

62. Viral Content: Content that spreads very quickly on the Internet. Will this post go viral? That’s a very good possibility, with your help.

63. Vlogging: Blogging using video instead of text. The 60 Second Marketer is not a Vlog, although the 60 Second Marketer YouTube channel has over 50 short, 60-second marketing videos.

64. WordPress: The most popular blogging software on the Internet, create by a company called Automattic. You’re reading a WordPress blog right now!

65. WordPress Themes: Blog presentation designs offered by WordPress

66. URL (Uniform Resource Locator): Specifies where an identified resource is and the avenue for retrieving it. The most common example if the addresses for web pages on the Internet.

That about does it for our social media glossary. I hope you find it helpful. Did we miss anything? Let me know. If you provide the term and the definition below, I’ll give you credit (and a link) for your efforts.

Posted by Jamie Turner, Chief Content Officer of the 60 Second Marketer, the online magazine of BKV Digital and Direct Response. Jamie is also co-author of How to Make Money with Social Media, now available all over the place.

CategoryBlogs, General Marketing | Comment2 Comments »

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November 23rd, 2010

How to Plan for a Better 2011

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This is the time of year I take a step back and look at what I want to accomplish for the upcoming 12 months. In order to get a handle on where things are and where I want them to go, I find it helps to get away from the busy day-to-day tasks so I can focus on long-term strategic planning.

One technique that I use to help with this is called The Wheel of Life. It’s a tool I use to help me stay focused and balanced on what’s important.

Here’s how it works — take the graphic on this page and rate yourself in each of the categories on the Wheel. If you’re doing well on something, it would be further out on the Wheel. If you’re not doing well in something, it would be closer into the hub of the Wheel.

If you’re like most people, your Wheel will be unbalanced. You might be doing great on the Career front, but not so well on the Giving Back front. Or you may be doing well with your Health, but not so well with your Business.

When that happens, your Wheel goes down the Road of Life in a bumpy, unbalanced fashion. It’s a rocky ride because an unbalanced Wheel can’t stay that way for long. Eventually, it implodes.

The goal for the Wheel of Life is for it to be balanced and even. In the United States, we make heroes out of people who have unbalanced wheels — notorious work-a-holics like Martha Stuart and Donald Trump fall into this category. But genuinely successful people are more balanced and even-keeled. They have family lives that are as important as their business lives. Their spiritual health is as balanced as their physical health. Overall, they have balanced Wheels.

So where are you on the Wheel of Life right now? Use the graphic below to find out. But the really important question is where are you going to be on the Wheel of Life in 2011? After all, what you plan for today dictates the success of your life tomorrow.

The Wheel of Life can help you plan for a more successful 2011. Remember, your goal is for your Wheel to be balanced so that you have a smooth ride down the Highway of Life.

CategoryGeneral Business | Comment3 Comments »

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November 22nd, 2010

How Mobile Media Will Change the World

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For the past several months, I’ve been saying that mobile media will eclipse social media in the next few years. The reason is because with social media you need to be tied to a PC. But with mobile media, our computers are carried around with us.

(Side note: Mobile media won’t actually replace social media — the two platforms will just merge and become one and the same.)

The other day, Jessica Josendale who works at BKV Digital and Direct Response introduced me to a cool new mobile application that I wanted to share with you. It’s called SnapShot and it allows you to preview furniture as though it were in your home.

Check out the video below. It’ll give you an idea of just how cool SnapShot is — and just how cool mobile media is!

CategoryMobile Marketing, Mobile Media | CommentNo Comments »

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November 21st, 2010

What are the Best Times of Day to Run a Paid Search Campaign?

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Every so often, I take a spin through the 60 Second Marketer YouTube channel and re-visit some of the videos we’ve uploaded there. Our goal with the channel is to provide short, relevant videos that can help you grow your sales and revenue.

If you’re using paid search to drive traffic to your website, then you’ll want to watch the video below. It’s called “What are the Best Times of Day to Run a Paid Search Campaign?” and it gives some tips on how to improve the results of your paid search campaigns.

You can watch the 60-second video below. If you’d like to see more marketing videos, be sure to visit the 60 Second Marketer YouTube channel.

CategoryPaid Search | CommentNo Comments »

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November 18th, 2010

Watch the World’s First YouTube Video Here

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YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, all of whom were former employees of PayPal (and, I might imagine, already very, very wealthy). Legend has it that in the early months of 2005, two of them attended a dinner party and shot videos of the event. The problem was that there was no easy way to share the videos with each other.

Alas, the concept for YouTube was born and, after an initial investment of $11.5 million, YouTube went live.

Which begs the question, what was the first YouTube video?

Glad you asked.

Just click the link below and watch the world’s first YouTube video, which was uploaded by founder Jawed Karim on April 23rd, 2005. (Additional facts about YouTube can be seen below the video.)

Additional Facts About YouTube:

  • It is estimated that in 2007, YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in 2000
  • In October 2006, Google announced that it had acquired YouTube for $1.65 Billion
  • In May 2010, it was reported that YouTube was serving more than 2 billion videos a day, which was nearly double the prime-time audience of all three major U.S. networks combined
  • In October 2010, YouTube announced that it was serving 2 billion videos a week that were accompanied by advertising

Source: Wikipedia

Posted by Jamie Turner, Chief Content Officer of the 60 Second Marketer, the online magazine for BKV Digital and Direct Response. Jamie is the co-author of How to Make Money with Social Media, available everywhere.

CategoryYouTube | CommentNo Comments »

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November 17th, 2010

5 Top Viral Videos

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Here’s a list of five top viral videos that have made their way around the net.

One of the videos was created by my friends at Definition 6 here in Atlanta. Other videos were created by various agencies around the globe.

Here’s the list:

  1. Coca-Cola – Happiness Machine, agency: Definition
  2. Nike Basketball – Dunking on Reindeer, agency: Wieden & Kennedy
  3. Nexus One – Ninja’s Unboxing, director/animation: Patrick Boivin
  4. Lego – Click, agency: Pereira & O’Dell, Sharethrough
  5. Domino’s – The Pizza Turnaround, agency: Crispin, Porter & Bogusky

It’s really difficult to figure out what’s going to go viral before you launch a video campaign. Consumer behavior is complex enough that plenty of terrific videos don’t break through. Which is why these videos are even more impressive.

Enjoy!

Posted by Jamie Turner, Chief Content Officer, the 60 Second Marketer.

CategoryViral Video, YouTube | Comment2 Comments »

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November 16th, 2010

10 Elements of a Social Media Press Release

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Last week, I was interviewed by Inc. Magazine for an article they were writing about social media press releases.

My first step prior to the interview was to talk with Joyce Delay and Kwesi Robertson, both of whom work at BKV Digital and Direct Response and both of whom specialize in social media PR.

Interested in learning more about social media press releases? Then click here to read Jamie's entire interview on the Inc. Magazine website.

The article is packed with tips and techniques on how to get your press release picked up by the social media-sphere. If you have a minute, it would be worth reading the entire article, which can be seen here: “How to Write a Social Media Press Release.”

That said, here’s a quick re-cap of the 10 key elements in a social media press release as stated in the Inc. Magazine post.

1.  Headline: exactly as it says, focus on brevity. Get to the point and don’t try to be too creative. A few keywords should get the job done.

2.  Secondary headline (optional): If you have an extremely important nugget of information that you think will get users to read on, put it here. Otherwise, skip to the overview.

3.  Overview: A brief summary of the release and what you’re covering. This is where you will hook the reader or lose them, so keep it under two paragraphs, use keywords and put real thought into every single sentence.

4.  Body: The so-called meat of the release, this should be the news. Don’t scatter bias in here; just lay the facts out for what you are pitching (think about it like a journalist would, and cover the who, when what, where, why and how).

5.  Facts: You need some statistical data or bullet points to back up your claim from above. This information should be easily shareable so if someone wanted to pull this right out of your release, they could.

6.  About the Company: Very brief company bio with a link to your website, Twitter feed and Facebook fan page.

7.  Multimedia links: The social aspect of the release, this should include videos on YouTube, images, RSS feeds and more. You don’t want people to be driven away from your message, but you want to be seen as a useful resource.

8.  Relevant links: This is a good way to promote your company and what you’ve done a bit more. If you have related releases, include links to them here. While this particular product might not be a fit, if you’ve kept someone’s interest this long, they may find your other products of use.

9.  Tags: Recommended sharing methods, whether via social bookmarking sites, Twitter hashtags or Facebook fan pages.

10.  Contact: This may sometimes be overlooked, but don’t forget to include your name, email, Twitter alias and more. If you are willing to put all of that info out there and stand behind your release, it lends it a bit more credibility.

As mentioned, if you’d like to take a deeper dive into the article, you can do so here: “How to Write a Social Media Press Release.”

Posted by Jamie Turner, Chief Content Officer, the 60 Second Marketer, the online magazine for BKV Digital and Direct Response. Jamie’s book, “How to Make Money with Social Media” can be found in fine bookstores everywhere.

CategoryPublic Relations, Social Marketing, Social Media | Comment1 Comment »

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November 15th, 2010

IBM and ThoughtLead Present the Future of Marketing

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On Tuesday, November 16th, a digital influence collaborative called ThoughtLead will host The Future of Marketing, an online event featuring 60 of the top industry innovators in a 60-minute microconference.

Future of Marketing Conference

The Future of Marketing Conference includes some of the best-known names in the business. Will you be joining us at this free online conference? Click here to register.

The speakers, each presenting 60 seconds of expert insight, include some of the most well-known names in the industry today, such as: Guy Kawasaki, Co-Founder of Alltop; Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia; Chris Brogan author of Trust Agents; and Brian Solis, Principal of FutureWorks and author of Engage!

A few weeks ago, I was asked to participate in the conference. As you might imagine, it was an honor to be included on the list of speakers, each of whom will be given 60-seconds to provide their insights to the listening audience.

If you’d like to register for this free online conference, you can do so by clicking The Future of Marketing.

The event is sponsored by IBM and will focus on trends and solutions practiced by industry leaders. Topics include: how major trends in digital and social media can build upon tradtional strategies and tactics; how everything from mobile apps and email, to customer experience and organizational culture, will affect marketers’ decision-making over the next year; and how to co-create marketing messages and products with customers, prospects, and constituents for greater impact and growth.

I hope you’ll join us on Tuesday, November 16th at 1:00 pm EST. Please feel free to participate in the online conversation that will be happening around the event.

Jamie Turner is the Chief Content Officer of the 60 Second Marketer, the online magazine for BKV Digital and Direct Response. He is also the co-author of How to Make Money with Social Media.

CategorySocial Marketing, Social Media | CommentNo Comments »

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November 15th, 2010

5 Tips to Better Lead Generation

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Lead generation is the Rodney Dangerfield of the corporate world.  It gets no respect.

One of the least desirable jobs in any organization, few people actually want to make outbound prospecting calls.

Yet, it provides the first impression that many prospective clients have of the company, and can provide a wealth of information to the company that can impact sales, as well as product development, marketing and service. When approached the right way, lead generation actually is an organization’s most valuable resource.

So how can organizations get the most out of their sales prospecting teams?

1. Invest in good data.

Before the first lead generation call is made, behind the scenes work must take place to make sure callers are given high-quality, clean, industry-specific contacts.  This should be the job of researchers who develop lists and validate accurate contact information so there are no wasted touches when the campaign begins.

Giving an unconfirmed or outdated list to the lead generation team slows down the campaign and skews conversion data.  If 30 percent of a list is irrelevant or inaccurate, the correct way to calculate conversion is on the 70 percent of the list that contains accurate data.

Curious how to improve your lead generation process? Read on for 5 tips to better B2B lead generation.

2. Plan a workflow that incorporates a realistic call volume.

Develop a campaign structure that combines at least two channels, such as email and phone contact, with phone follow up over a realistic length of time.  Plan for when touches should occur and their frequency so lead generation can be professionally persistent over time.  Plan call volumes so your team can follow up in a relevant time period.  If you send 1,000 emails, it may take 10 business days to call the list of recipients.  This will not allow representatives to make a second call in an acceptable time period, and results will suffer.

3. Make messaging about peers.

People don’t like to be told what to do or how to feel.  So messaging that is “You-based” backfires. Instead, talk about peers and their experiences.  What are their challenges. How have you been able to resolve those challenges.  People are curious about what their peers are doing so leverage that curiosity.

4. Develop an accurate reporting mechanism.

It’s important to have insight about how your campaign is working so you can adjust your program to get better results.  Make sure you can see important metrics such as what day and time of day is best for calling, which lead source was most successful, which targets were most receptive (by revenue range, employee size, etc.), which message resonated the best, which team members are having the most success, what campaign cadence or frequency of calls yields the best results.

5. Get value out of every call.

An outcall should generate appointments and more. Every prospect conversation has value even if the response is a “no.”  Make sure you have a process in place so representatives can gain valuable knowledge that will help future campaigns or give insight about product needs.  For example, if you are selling a solution that complements a CRM technology, ask which CRM technology the customer uses.  In several months when the company launches a module just for that technology, a database of vetted users is available.

With these best practices, companies should be able to come away with leads and appointments as well as visibility into how to adjust the outcall to exponentially increase the output, leading to more sales leads, more appointments and more revenue.

Jenny Vance is president of LeadJen, a B2B lead generation company that uses unparalleled data and insight to drive prospect interactions that convert to sales.  She can be reached at jenny@leadjen.com.

CategoryB2B, General Marketing, Lead Generation | Comment3 Comments »

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November 11th, 2010

101 Top Mobile Media Applications

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Are you looking for a list of the top mobile media applications? Then you’ve come to the right place. What follows is a list of the top 101 mobile media applications divided into 11 different categories.

As mentioned in the book I co-authored with Jeanne Hopkins from HubSpot called Go Mobile, the next big thing is mobile media. If you’re interested in connecting with customers, differentiating your brand, distributing coupons inexpensively or any of the other uses for mobile media, then you’ll want to take a spin through the list below and download the applications that are most relevant to your business.

Mobile Media

Looking for a list of 100 top mobile media applications? You've come to the right place.

Special thanks go out to Nicole Hall at Mobilize Worldwide, Matt Luber at Emory University and Sylvia Driver at BKV Digital and Direct Response, all of whom helped research and organize the list.

Top 101 Mobile Media Applications for Business

Social Applications

Bump:  This is a terrific application that allows you to exchange contact information, photos, social networking information and calendar events just by “bumping” your phone with another Bump user.

eBuddy:  Have friends on MSN, AIM, Facebook, MySpace and more?  eBuddy lets you chat with all of them on one integrated platform.

Facebook: You can update your Facebook page on the fly with their mobile version.  You can even update your Facebook Places profile, which lets people know where you’re eating, drinking, relaxing or just hanging out.

Foursquare: Ready to “check-in” to your favorite restaurant, bar, mall or retail store?  If you do it enough, you’ll become Mayor or be eligible for discount coupons.

Gowalla:  This location-based service allows you to explore some of the fun and interesting attractions in the world’s great cities.

Hipstamatic:  This app, available on iPhone and Droid, allows you to take cool pictures with different lenses, flashes and films to achieve a unique look.  You can then share your photos with people on Facebook and Flickr or enter your photos into the Hipstamatic photo contest.

Hootsuite: Using HootSuite, you can manage your Facebook and Twitter accounts within an elegant, clean user interface.  HootSuite stands out from other social network managers for its extra features:  You can schedule updates, set columns to monitor keywords and hash tags, and translate updates in other languages.

LinkedIn:  Ready to exchange LinkedIn contacts just by bumping your phone?  Or perhaps you want read someone’s profile while you’re waiting for them at a restaurant.  If that sounds enticing, then this application is for you.

Loopt:  Allows you to connect with your friends by sharing your location and status with friends.  With Loopt, you can find your friends on a map and view their photo and status updates in real-time.

Mass Text Message:  Text up to ten friends with just one click by downloading the Mass Text Message app and creating custom groups of contacts.

Photobucket:  The Photobucket application lets you upload photos and videos from your Windows Phone handset to your Photobucket account.

Skout:  This mobile dating site enables your cell phone’s GPS to find profiles of other uses near you.  You can browse profiles and even use the site’s chat feature through your mobile phone.

SCVNGR: This location-based service app gives you the opportunity to win prizes and discounts when you check-in at certain locations. Think Foursquare, but with a twist.

Skype:  Verizon Wireless users can now use Skype through their phones with free Skype-to-Skype calling and IM without using their mobile minutes.  Users with other carriers can get a Skype To Go number that they can reach from any mobile phone.

Twitter:  You don’t have to be sitting behind a desk to update your Twitter status.  The mobile version lets you stay connected wherever you are.

WHERE: You can use WHERE to get exclusive daily deals and to find awesome new places in your city to eat, drink, play or simply hang out. If you like Foursquare, Gowalla and SCVNGR, you’ll love Where.

WordPress, TypePad or Drupal Blogging Platforms:  Interested in writing a blog from your hammock, your sailboat or your private island?  You can do it with these mobile apps.  (But first you have to buy a hammock, a sailboat or a private island.)

Yelp:  This application can give you restaurant reviews on the fly.  Better still, their augmented reality mobile application lets you look through your mobile screen and places tags with reviews over the restaurants on that street.

News, Information and Entertainment Applications

ABC News Mobile:  This application is for all those who love to be in the know.  You can receive text alerts about breaking news, watch video, listen to podcasts or read articles all on your mobile phone.

AccuWeather:  Downloading the Accuweather app allows you to view your two-day forecast based on your GPS coordinates.

AP Mobile:  The Associated Press mobile app helps you keep up-to-date with what’s happening anywhere, in your hometown and across the globe.  AP Mobile offers the world’s news at your fingertips.  Personalize your news to meet your needs.  You can select local news from your trusted local newspapers and broadcasters.

At Bat:  Created by the MLB, At Bat offers one free live streaming game per day, game schedules and highlights, breaking news, and background audio playback so you can listen to the game while using your phone for other things.

Caffeine Finder:  The name says it all.  Perfect for people who need their daily (or hourly) fix.

ESPN Mobile:  Recently named Mobile Marketer’s mobile publisher of the year, ESPN’s offering of mobile media applications has something for every sports fan including games, articles and live TV.

Fast Food Finder:  Wouldn’t it be great if there were an app called “Healthy Food Finder”?  Until then, there’s Fast Food Finder.

Google Books:  Interested in re-reading the Declaration of Independence or Dante’s Inferno?  Download Google Books to your smartphone and you’re ready to roll.  I’m reading Ben Franklin’s Autobiography on Google Books right now and it’s fascinating.

Google Maps:  What would men do without Google Maps?  They’d have to ask for directions, which, of course, will never happen.  Fortunately, Google invented their Map app for guys (like myself) who are too stubborn to stop and ask directions.

The Huffington Post:  The mobile version of this popular news and opinion online newspaper features breaking news, blogs and original content.

Kindle:  You can use your smartphone to preview books that you might like to buy later.  Clean and customizable, the app permits you to preview the first chapter, as well as to add bookmarks, notes, and highlights.

Layar Reality Browser:  The Layar Reality Browser is an AR (augmented reality) app that overlays information about such subjects as restaurants, public transit options, and apartment-search information on the view from your smartphone’s camera.  You can even see the tweets from people posting to Twitter within your camera’s field of view.

MobiTV:  Missing your favorite TV shows is no longer an issue.  With MobiTV you can watch shows whenever and wherever on your mobile phone.

NPR News:  Even if you can’t catch all of the news from NPR at home or in the car, you can still start your day with NPR News for your smartphone.  You can listen to national news stories on demand, or allow the app to use your smartphone’s GPS to pinpoint local content.

Pandora:  Are you a music lover?  Then you’re probably already familiar with Pandora.  Pandora allows you to create your own radio station based on your specific tastes.  Check out the Liberace Channel!  (Kidding.)

Planets:  Essential for any aspiring astronomer, this app is a 3D guide to the solar system featuring constellations, moon phases, and sun rise and sun set times.

Qik:  A new, faster way to share videos with all of your friends, Qik allows you to record and instantly upload videos to the internet or stream live video straight from your phone.  You can also 2-way video chat or send video mail.

Realtor.com:  The application lets you access over 4 million real estate listings and helps you find local listings based upon your location.  You can view pricing information, property details, multiple photos and more for each listing.

RunPee:  Have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the movie?  Check RunPee to find the best time to go without missing any of the good parts.

Stitcher:  This mobile application lets you get your news on the go by streaming up-to-date audio content about business, sports, politics and entertainment.

Viigo:  This application allows you to check on news, weather, sports, entertainment and other stories you’re interested in.

Weatherbug:  The location-aware WeatherBug app has detailed weather forecasts, radar maps, temperature maps, satellite views, and a cool sliding interface.  You can configure it to appear as a home-screen widget, too.

The Weather Channel:  The Weather Channel’s app and the mobile version of weather.com provide up to date weather information, text alerts, animated maps and more.

Windows Live Messenger:  You can chat with your friends on Windows Live Messenger on the go with their mobile application.

Games

Angry Birds:  This addictive game, where you get revenge on the green pigs who stole the bird’s eggs, has reached the #1 spot for paid apps in over 60 countries.

Brain Trainer:  Playing one or more of this apps 7 different “brain games” for just minutes a day can help increase your mental abilities and memory.

Doodle Jump:  Guide Doodle the Doodler up a piece of graph paper using tilt controls, pick up jet packs, avoid black holes and blast opponents using nose balls.

Tap Tap Revenge:  Similar to Guitar Hero, this game tests your rhythm as you tap out beats and shake left and right as the arrows fall.

Words with Friends:  This crossword game allows you to match wits with your friends or one of the millions of people in the Words with Friends community.

Culture/Fun

Britain’s Got Talent App:  This popular app allows fans of the show to view video, backstage footage, gossip and photo galleries.  It also features an X buzzer so you can X your friends when necessary.

Fandango:  This movie-lover essential allows you to search movie show times, buy tickets and watch trailers.

Happy Hours:  Displays the best food and drink deals going on near you at any time each day.  You can filter results in a number of ways including by day, time, location, type of cuisine and special features like free wi-fi and outdoor seating.

Instagram: 9 million people have downloaded Instagram, which is a free way to make and share photos from your smartphone. Find out what all the fuss is about and start shooting your own photos.

Magic 8 Ball:  Can’t make a decision?  Download the Magic 8 Ball app and all of your answers will just be a few shakes away.

RunKeeper:  You can track your workouts in a fun, easy to understand way with RunKeeper and then share them with friends.

Shazam:  Often find yourself wondering what song is playing right now?  Shazam not only identifies the song, it also allows you to purchase it straight from your phone.

Wikihood:  Wikihood blows away many traditional travel guides by organizing and displaying all of the Wikipedia information for any place in the world.

YouTube:  You can now check out the latest YouTube craze straight from your mobile phone.  You can search for and watch videos or record and upload your own videos.

Shopping

Amazon:  If you’re at a trade show or in a meeting and someone mentions a great new business book, wouldn’t it be great to order it right at that moment?  With Amazon’s free mobile phone app, you can order it on the fly.

eBay:  No need to lose a bidding war because you’re on the go.  With eBay mobile you can search, buy, pay and check the status of your eBay activity on your phone.

Scoutmob:  This website allows you to get coupons for local stores and restaurants sent to your phone that you can redeem by simply showing the cashier the text message.

Shopkick:  This app allows you to collect Kickbucks for simply walking into stores or scanning products in the store with your phone.  The Kickbucks can then be redeemed for cool prizes like giftcards, iPads, music downloads and more.

ShopSavvy:  You can use your phone’s camera to scan any bar code and receive a list of prices and inventory information for the same product at local stores and online retailers, ensuring you get the lowest price every time.

Mobile Browsers

Opera Mini:  The Opera mobile browser is available on a wide variety of phones, and works well on both touch screen and keypad phones for a good user experience regardless of device type.

Safari:  Safari’s mobile browser was created by Apple for the iPhone and is the only browser currently available to iPhone users, though the Skyfire browser is pending approval in the app store.

Branded Apps

Barclay’s Waterslide Extreme:  Barclaycard allows you to interact with their latest TV commercial, in which a man takes a waterslide home from work, by downloading an iPhone app where you too can take a waterslide through the city, racing to get the fastest time.

Bank Of America:  Mobile banking now available from BofA.  Check balances, pay bills, transfer money and locate BofA ATMs and banking centers.

Delta: Want to track the status of your flight and check-in using a 2D code? Then you’ll want to download the Fly Delta app. It’s a great way to stay connected when you’re on the go.

Domino’s: There are over 500 billion possible combinations of pizza you can order through the Domino’s Pizza app. Hard to believe, but it’s true. Surprisingly, the app is an incredibly easy way to order pizza. Brilliant.

Kayak:  Kayak.com’s branded app that lets you easily search for flights, hotels, car rentals.  Includes trip itinerary and flight tracker information.

Netflix:  Part of your existing Netflix unlimited membership.  Get Netflix on your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch.  Instantly watch TV and movies streaming from Netflix.

Travelocity:  The application lets you check flight and hotel information from your mobile phone.  You can check flight status, airline schedules, and Airport delay information from the FAA.  The application also grabs your GPS co-ordinates to find local hotels and lets you read reviews, check room rates, and even make a reservation from your handset.

Virtual Zippo® Lighter:  This realistic virtual lighter sways with you as you move and even reacts when you try and blow it out.  You can choose from several different lighter images or customize your own.

Productivity

CamCard:  Let’s you scan business cards and automatically add that information to your phone’s contact list and/or your Outlook or Gmail account.

Evernote:  After you create a text note, photo or audio note, you can synch them to your pc or to the web.

Instapaper:  Through Instapaper you can save Web articles you browsed on your iPhone for later reading, using a browser bookmarklet.  The Instapaper Website reformats your saved articles (sans Flash ads and clutter) for quick reading on the desktop.

Yammer:  Yammer brings together all of a company’s employees inside a private, secure enterprise social network.  This enterprise platform lets businesses set up a Twitter-like service allowing for the open exchange of ideas, links, and documents within enterprise communities.

Financial Tools

Bloomberg Mobile:  Use this app when you’re on the go to access financial news, stock quotes, company descriptions, market leaders and laggers, price charts, market-trends analysis, customized lists of stocks, and more.

CNNMoney:  With breaking business stories and complete in-depth market coverage in a customizable format, CNNMoney provides real-time reporting of financial news and analysis, as well as data and charts.

Expensify:  Takes some of the hassle out of creating expense reports by allowing you to report expenses as they happen while you’re on the move.

Organizers/Time Savers

1Password:  To maintain your usernames and passwords on your iPhone in one place, try 1Password.  The mobile app syncs with the desktop version, as well.  If you wish, you can use it to store other personal information, too, such as your Social Security number and credit card numbers.

Barcode Scanner:  Barcode Scanner handles bar codes – including 2D QR codes – and lets you look up the associated product or URL for instant price checks and comparison shopping.

Craigsphone:  Search and browse Craigslist posts near your current GPS location, and bookmark relevant listings, with Craigsphone.  The app also has tools for posting your own listings with photos and maps.

PageOnce:  Use PageOnce to track credit card transactions, check your bank account status, monitor frequent-flyer miles and itineraries, and get alerts when bills are due and itineraries change.

Utilities

Analytics App:  Full mobile service for your Google Analytics data.  You can check everything from reports to specific data, and the tidy interface makes it even easier to navigate than the web-based service.

AntiDroidTheft:  If you lose your phone, AntiDroidTheft turns on remote GPS tracking so that you can determine its location.  You can also trigger the phone’s camera to shoot an image that might help you locate the handset.

AndroZip:  The powerful AndroZip File Manager works with archives, including 7ZIPhone, BZIP2, GZIPhone, RAR, TAR, and ZIPhone files.  You can use it to create GZIP, TAR, or ZIPhone archives, too. Free.

Dragon Dictation: Need to dictate an email or memo while you’re mobile? Dragon Dictation is an amazing tool that almost never misses the mark.

Fring:  Really cool mobile app that lets you place free calls or chat with anyone from your Skype, ICQ, Google Talk, MSN, Twitter, or SIP contacts.

Gas Buddy:  Locates the most affordable gas station closest to your present location in both the United States and Canada.  Includes maps and a “price freshness” guide to let you know when prices were last updated.

HubSpot Website Grader: Interested in finding out how your mobile website (and your regular website) stacks up against the competition? This incredible FREE tool from HubSpot analyzes how effective your website is at generating traffic, inbound links, and leads. It’s an indispensable tool for anyone who runs or owns a mobile or traditional website.

Line2:  Brings a second line to your phone (with a special number).  Calls on that line connect as free or cheap VoIP calls over a Wi-Fi or 3G data connection, but they can move to a cell network (which costs you plan minutes) when such connections are unavailable.

Penultimate: If you’re looking for a handwriting app for your iPad, look no further than Penultimate. It’s a terrific app that gets better all the time.

Photoshop.com:  Adobe’s Photoshop.com Mobile gives you an arsenal of tools to use on your Android phone.  You can crop, rotate, color-correct, or change images to black-and-white with a beautifully intuitive interface.

Soonr:  Need to access your PC directly from the handset?  Enter Soonr, a free mobile client that brings remote PC access to your phone:  search files, view documents, check emails, run programs and more.

SPARQCode Scanner: Looking for the best QR code/2D code reader around? Then check out SPARQCode. It’s the fastest scanner we’ve come across.

Talk to Me:  Originally, Talk To Me translated only English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian, with its speech-to-speech functionality.  Now it has many other languages from which to choose.

Vlingo:  Replaces every instance where you have to type on your smartphone with voice commands.  It covers your phone’s basic messaging functions, voice calls, Facebook updates, and personal notes.  On Android and BlackBerry, the app will even read your incoming messages to you.

Wi-Fi Analyzer:  Want to find the least-crowded Wi-Fi channel?  Wifi Analyzer shows a graphical representation of Wi-Fi SSIDs’ signal strength, plus which channels are being used.

Wi-Fi Finder:  A must-have for travelers, Wi-Fi Finder is a directory of paid and free Wi-Fi hotspots in over 280,000 locations in 140 countries.  You can filter results by provider or by location (restaurant, café, and so on).

Did we miss anything on our list? If so, just provide the name, description and URL of your favorite mobile phone in the comment section below. We’ll acknowledge your contribution with a link back to your site in future updates.

Posted by Jamie Turner, Chief Content Office of the 60 Second Marketer, the online magazine for BKV Digital and Direct Response. Jamie’s books, How to Make Money with Social Media and Go Mobile are available in bookstores everywhere.

CategoryMobile Marketing, Mobile Media | Comment16 Comments »

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November 9th, 2010

How to Make Money with Mobile Media

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If you’re like many people, you’re finally wrapping your mind around social media. You may be thinking, “At last, I finally get Twitter and understand Facebook and see how LinkedIn can be used for business.”

Who knows? You may have even read How to Make Money with Social Media and figured out how to set-up, launch and run a social media campaign that generates a positive ROI.

Given everything you’ve learned about social media over the past 12 to 18 months, you might be ready to take a little breather. And that’s understandable. After all, in addition to learning social media, you were also trying to do your day job.

This short, 25-page guide is designed to give you a quick, content-packed overview of the mobile media marketplace.

It’s a lot to ask.

Well … brace yourself. Because no sooner have we all wrapped our minds around social media than mobile media hits the big time.

Mobile Media Comes of Age. It’s safe to say that almost everyone reading this blog post has downloaded an iPhone, Android or Windows app. And the chances are that you may have used Foursquare, Yelp or Gowalla on your Smart Phone. And if you’re an advanced user, you’ve probably even snapped a QR code and experienced that whole shebang.

Despite that, you may still not completely understand how to use mobile media to grow your business. After all, it’s one thing to use Foursquare, Yelp or Gowalla, but it’s an entirely different thing to understand how to think strategically about using mobile media to connect with prospects and customers.

I have some good news. I’ve written a short, 25-page introduction to mobile media for the Financial Times Press called How to Make Money with Mobile Media. It’s a quick, but content-packed introduction to mobile media that’s perfect for marketing directors, entrepreneurs, sole proprietors, CEOs or just about anybody who is interested in using mobile media to grow their sales and revenue.

Here’s a snippet of some of the great content that’s included in How to Make Money with Mobile Media.

Before we dive further into how you’re going to use mobile media to connect with your consumers, it’s important to understand how consumers are using mobile media to connect with businesses. For example, Yelp allows customers to get restaurant reviews from their mobile devices. This is perfect for the consumer who is visiting an unfamiliar city and wants to check out the reviews of a restaurant prior to walking through the door.  As if that weren’t engaging enough, Yelp also has an augmented reality application that allows users to point their smartphone viewer down a street and have tags pop up over the restaurants on that street. That gives potential diners the ability to look through the viewfinder of their smartphones at a live image of the street and to see ratings and reviews of the restaurants on that street.

Consumers are also getting more comfortable with QR codes. The Smithsonian Institution used QR codes to enhance the experience smartphone users were having in their Natural History Museum. In the museum’s exhibit on early human Neanderthals, they encouraged visitors to snap a QR code that would link their smartphone to an application called MEanderthal.  The MEanderthal application superimposes an image over a photograph of the users to make them look like cavemen from 30,000 years ago. In other words, people visiting the exhibit could snap the QR code, superimpose a Neanderthal’s facial features over their own, and then share it with friends at the museum or even email it to others.

Chili’s found an interesting way to use mobile media to attract customers. The popular location-based smartphone application called Foursquare was used to provide coupons for free cheese dip for people who checked in at a Chili’s location. That’s pretty cool, but what made this even cooler was that Chili’s sent the same coupon to people who checked into other Foursquare locations nearby. In other words, they sent coupons for free cheese dip when people checked in to any store within 200 yards of their Chili’s locations.

As mentioned previously, LinkedIn allows people to exchange contact information by simply “bumping” their phones together. By using Near Field Communication technology, LinkedIn enables smartphones to exchange data between devices over a 10-centimeter (around 4 inch) distance. Bump accomplishes the same thing, only it allows consumers to exchange contact information, photos, social networks, and calendar events, too.  So, as you can see, there are a lot of terrific ways consumers are using mobile media to connect with the brands they love. This leads us to our next question: How are you going to use mobile media to connect with your consumers?

If you’re in business, then you should be in mobile media. After all, a recent research study found that consumers who leave their homes without their wallets usually won’t turn around, but if they leave their home without their mobile phones, they’ll almost always turn around.

If that’s not enough to tell you that mobile media is the future, then I don’t know what is.

Check out How to Make Money with Mobile Media. It’s under five bucks and can be downloaded instantly.

Isn’t your business worth that much?

P.S. I don’t make any additional money from the sale of these guides. Why? Because I haven’t gotten my act together enough to set up the affiliate links. But in the future when I have anything tied to an affiliate link, I’ll always let you know.

Posted by Jamie Turner, Chief Content Officer, the 60 Second Marketer, the online magazine of BKV Digital and Direct Response.

CategoryMobile Marketing, Mobile Media | Comment1 Comment »

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November 8th, 2010

Social Media Glossary: 48 Terms You Should Know

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Okay, friends. Here are 48 social media terms making their way across the web as we speak. Our list started out as 45, but several members of the 60 Second Marketer community have already suggested additions, so we’re up to 48.

Please feel free to add your own suggestion in the comments section below. Be sure to include a definition. If you include the definition, I’ll update the post with a link back to your website.

Enjoy!

App – An application that performs a specific task on your smart phone or your computer. The term “app” was popularized by Steve Jobs and Apple.

Alerts – Daily email notifications (usually sent by Google Alerts) that let you know when a keyword or keyword phrase that you’ve selected is mentioned on the web. Perfect for people trying to stay abreast of certain topics or online brand mentions.

BKV Digital and Direct Response – A marketing communications firm that sponsors the 60 Second Marketer. BKV’s clients include AT&T, John Deere, The Home Depot, Daimler, Equifax and the American Red Cross.

Blog – A tool used by content-providers around the globe to connect with readers. The most popular blogging platforms include WordPress, Typepad and Google’s Blogger.

Chat – One-to-one communication through a text-based chat application commonly referred to as instant messaging.

Compete – A web-based application that allows people to compare and contrast statistics for different websites over time. Totally worth checking out.

Delicious – A free online bookmarking service owned by Yahoo! When someone tags an article, video or blog post with a Delicious bookmark, it’s the equivalent of getting a “vote.”

Digg – This platform is similar to Delicious in that people vote for articles, videos and blog posts. If your content gets enough Diggs, it’s promoted to the front page for millions of visitors to see.

Disqus – A comment system and moderation tool for your website or blog. This service lets you add social web integration to any site on any platform.

Drupal – Interested in starting a blog? Then Drupal may be for you. More intuitive than WordPress and more robust than Blogger.

Facebook – A social network that connects people with friends, family and business associates. Facebook is the largest social network in the world with more than 500 million users.

Flickr – A social network that allows users to store photos online and then share them with others through profiles, groups, sets and other methods.

Foursquare — Foursquare is a mobile check-in service that allows regular customers to get points every time they visit their favorite restaurant, bar, coffee shop or whatever. The more points you get, the more likely you’ll be the recipient of special offers from that establishment.

Google Documents – Web-based office applications that include tools for word processing, presentations and spreadsheet analysis. All documents are stored and edited online and allow multiple people to collaborate on a document in real-time.

Gowalla- A social network where friends share their locations and connect with others in proximity to each other.

HootSuite – HootSuite allows you to manage multiple Twitter profiles, pre-schedule tweets and view metrics.

Joomla — An alternative to WordPress, Drupal or Blogger. This blogging platform is used by gazillions, although WordPress is used by gazillions upon gazillions.

Like – Instead of writing a comment for a message or a status update, a Facebook user can click the “Like” button as a quick way to show approval and share the message.

LinkedIn – LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site that is mainly used for professional networking.

MySpace – MySpace became the most popular social networking site in the United States in June 2006 and was overtaken internationally by its main competitor, Facebook, in April 2008.

Opera – Opera is an open-source web browser. While not as popular as Firefox, Opera is used as the default browser on some gaming systems and mobile devices.

Pandora – Pandora is a social online radio station that allows users to create stations based on their favorite artists and types of music.

Posterous — This is a very easy tool to create blogs for your family, your business associates or just about any other constituents. Worth checking out.

Qik - Qik is an online video streaming service that gives users the ability to stream video live from their mobile phones to the web.

Quantcast – Quantcast provides website traffic and demographics for websites.

Reddit – Reddit is similar to Digg and Delicious. It is a social news site that is built upon a community of users who share and comment on stories.

Search Engine Optimization – The process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a website from search engines via unpaid or organic search traffic.

SlideShare – An online social network for sharing presentations and documents. Users can favorite and embed presentations as well as share them on other social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

Skype – Skype is a free program that allows for text, audio and video chats between users.

Social Media – Media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly-accessible and scalable publishing techniques.

Social Media Monitoring – The process of monitoring and responding to mentions related to a business that occur in social media.

StumbleUpon – A platform that’s similar to Digg, Delicious and Reddit. When you rate a website that you like using StumbleUpon, you automatically share it with like-minded people around the globe.

Tag Cloud – A tag cloud is a visual depiction of user-generated tags, or simply the word content of a site, typically used to describe the content of web sites.

Technorati – A popular blog search engine that also provides categories and authority rankings for blogs.

TweetDeck – An application that connects users with contacts across Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and more.

Tweetup – A Tweetup is an organized or impromptu gathering of people who use Twitter.

Twitter – Twitter is a platform that allows users to share 140-character-long messages publicly. User can “follow” each other as a way of subscribing to each others’ messages. Additionally, users can use the @username command to direct a message towards another Twitter user.

Twitter Search – Twitter Search is a search engine operated by Twitter to search for Twitter messages and users in real-time.

TypePad – TypePad is a free and paid blogging platform similar to Blogger. It allows users to host and publish their own blogs.

Video Blog – A blog that produces regular video content often around the same theme on a daily or weekly basis.

Viddler – Viddler is a popular video sharing site similar to YouTube and Vimeo in which users can upload videos to be hosted online and shared and watched by others.

Vimeo – Vimeo is a popular video sharing service in which users can upload videos to be hosted online and shared and watched by others. Vimeo user videos are often more artistic and the service does not allow commercial video content.

Viral Marketing – Viral marketing refers to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives through self-replicating viral processes.

Webinar – A webinar is used to conduct live meetings, training, or presentations via the Internet.

Widget – A widget is an element of a graphical user interface that displays an information arrangement changeable by the user, such as a window or text box.

Wiki – A wiki is a website that allows the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser, allowing for collaboration between users.

WordPress – WordPress is a content management system and contains blog publishing tools that allow users to host and publish blogs.

Yelp – A website that provides users with a platform to review, rate and discuss local businesses. Over 31 million people access Yelp’s website each month, putting it in the top 150 U.S. Internet websites.

YouTube – If you have to look up what YouTube is, you shouldn’t be reading this social media glossary. We don’t mean to be rude, but that’s just a fact.

Posted by Jamie Turner, Chief Content Officer of the 60 Second Marketer, the online magazine of BKV Digital and Direct Response. Jamie is also the co-author of How to Make Money with Social Media.

CategorySocial Marketing, Social Media | Comment19 Comments »

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November 7th, 2010

Social Media Atlanta: How to Avoid the Great Social Media Crash of 2011

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On Wednesday, I’ll be taking part in Social Media Atlanta, a weeklong series of events put on by a dedicated team of Atlanta’s top social media practitioners, some of whom include Bert Dumars at Newell Rubbermade, Toby Bloomberg at Bloomberg Marketing and Stephanie Frost who is an author, social media strategist and co-host of Gravity Free Radio.

Click here to register for Social Media Atlanta: How to Avoid the Great Social Media Crash of 2011

(There were dozens of other volunteers who worked tirelessly on this event, so please forgive me for leaving you off this abbreviated list.)

I’ll be doing a presentation called “How to Avoid the Great Social Media Crash of 2011″ with Dr. Reshma Shah, who was my co-author on How to Make Money with Social Media. The talk is geared towards intermediate and advanced social media practitioners.

If you’re still tying to figure out how to sign up for Twitter, our presentation won’t be for you. But if you’d like to learn how to run a social media campaign on an ROI basis, then you’ll enjoy our talk.

For an advanced peek at what we’ll be discussing, you can check out my recent article on Mashable called “How to Calculate the ROI of a Social Media Campaign.”

Here are the specifics for the upcoming talk on Wednesday:

What: “How to Avoid the Great Social Media Crash of 2011,” part of the Social Media Atlanta series of events

Who: Dr. Reshma Shah and Jamie Turner, authors of How to Make Money with Social Media

When: Wednesday, November 10th from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm (NOTE: Parking at Emory is a challenge, so arrive early)

Where: Room W525 at The Goizueta School of Business of Emory University

Register: By clicking here or visiting www.TurnerShah.EventBrite.com

If you’re not going to be in Atlanta for this event, fear not — I’ll be doing this presentation in an upcoming webinar for people who have subscribed to the 60 Second Marketer e-newsletter. You’ll be notified about it shortly.

Otherwise, I look forward to seeing you at the event. Thanks.

Other Places I’ll be Speaking This Week

Here are some of the other places I’ll be making presentations this week. I hope to see you at some of them:

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November 4th, 2010

Tailwinds for Marketing Automation Software

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By: Lauren Carlson

Marketing automation is one of the fastest growing segments in the CRM market. Oddly enough, it wasn’t that long ago that people weren’t even sure what marketing automation was. Now, marketing teams are aggresively seeking out these systems. Clearly, the marketing automation industry has a strong tailwind at its back. But where is it coming from?

The B2B sales environment has changed drastically with the introduction of the Internet. Companies are finding that it is increasingly challenging to reach potential prospects, and they are changing their sales and marketing tactics in order to cope with the challenge. There are several specific trends that are driving the adoption of marketing automation. These work together to make marketing automation an indispensable asset to any organization.

Software Advice, a free online resource for software buyers, outlines seven macro trends that they believe are spurring the growth of marketing automation.

1. Buyers want valuable content.
The traditional marketing jargon needs to be replaced with original content that provides value and education to the buyer.

2. Buyers are hesitant to engage over the phone.
Sales professionals are constantly facing the issue of decreased sales engagement.

3. Buyers require marketing accountability.
Traditionally, marketing ROI was difficult to measure on positioning, collateral and brand building.

4. A down economy results in longer sales cycles.
When money is tight, people are less inclined to buy. Sales professionals are faced with more and more prospects that are more risk-averse than ever.

Software Advice notes 7 trends prompting the growth of Marketing Automation.

5. Consumerization of B2B sales processes.
B2B buyers want their sales process to mirror that of their B2C exchanges. They demand clear and concise pitches, simplified pricing, quick implementation and ease of use. They also want to interact with sales as little as possible.

6. Marketing channels have transformed.
With the advent of the Internet, the way we communicate has drastically changed. This means that companies also have to change the way they market. Thus, multi-channel marketing campaigns are born.

7. SaaS is the preferred deployment method.
Due to the high number of relatively new entrants to the marketing automation space, many of these vendors are built on a modern, software-as-a-service (SaaS) architecture. This deployment method enables users to get up and running faster than with traditional on-premise models. Also, with subscription pricing, the marketing team can easily add a digestible line item to their budget, as opposed to getting approved for a big capital expenditure.

Marketing automation is just getting started. It will be interesting to watch as it develops over the next couple of years, helping companies adjust to and embrace the new B2B sales environment.

To view this article in it’s entirety and get more information on these trends, please see the original post on the Software Advice blog.

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