Will Groupon Really Boost Your Local Business?
Groupon has been hailed as the new miracle advertising tool. It has also been accused of being a ruthless corporate giant, preying on the ignorance of small businesses.
Since its inception in November 2008, Groupon (think social media meets coupons) has transformed the way local businesses promote their products and services.
How does it work?
First, you agree to become a featured business on their network. You then reduce your product or service price by 50% or more. Groupon promotes the deal and gets new customers through your doors. For every deal, Groupon gets between 30% and 60% of your drastically reduced price. 
3 Rewards and 3 Risks of Making Customers Brand Ambassadors
Are you prepared to put your customers in charge of your brand… literally?
What would happen if you gave your customers the keys to your corporate social media channels? This article reviews the rewards and the risks marketers face as they decide how much brand control they’re willing to give up.
Marketers are just coming to terms with how to deal with customers having free rein to either praise or bash their companies, but I think there may be a new trend on the horizon—the customer brand ambassador.
You have customers who love your brand and rave about it. But their reach only extends so far. Why not give them a platform to amplify their reach and spread the word? Think about it… It really could be a beautiful partnership.
How Social Media Helps Journalists Break News
Social media is transforming the way journalists break news. Consider Robert Hernandez. He was searching for video on YouTube of the Bahrain protests.
He used filters to find videos from Bahrain and then sorted to find the most recent uploads. The top result had just been uploaded and had yet to be viewed. He watched it.
The shaky video was taken by someone in a crowd holding a cell phone. It shows a protester who gets shot and killed.
Record. Upload. View.
Without a news crew standing nearby, this death may have gone unnoticed and unrecorded, but through the power of a cell phone, the Internet and YouTube, this tragic event was captured forever.
Should You Advertise on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter?
Are you wondering if it makes sense to advertise on your favorite social network? Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all have different demographic profiles and use cases that may provide good advertising opportunities.
All three platforms are also developing new and innovative ways to target advertising messages, based on the overwhelming amount of data they possess about their users. Marketers should explore the paid opportunities social networks offer with as much thought and effort as they experiment with the “earned” and “owned” aspects that these networks provide.
Depending on your business objective, one platform will likely prove more useful than others. In this article, I will explore the functionality each provides and how you can integrate the paid activity for maximum impact and return.
The Future of Geolocation: What is Coming?
Since location-based check-in app Foursquare was launched at South by Southwest in 2009, the app has seen exponential growth, reaching over 7.5 million users this year.
Other apps have been popping up as well, as geolocation takes center stage in the mobile arena and users flock to apps that create games from typical situations and offer rewards for users.
Two years later, check-ins are old news and the still-young area of geolocation is evolving to keep users interested. Apart from gamification through leaderboards and badges (or stickers, or pins), the motivation for users to participate in location-based networks is severely lacking.
7 Tips for Selling Executives on Social Media
Are you a marketer who’s trying to juggle social media with the rest of your team’s activities? Do you think social media should be at the top of your priorities, but you’re having a hard time proving it?
Don’t worry. You aren’t alone.
I fought this battle also, and in the end I realized that I needed to drop terms like followers, retweets and status updates from my discussions in executive meetings. It was a tough conclusion, but I realized those metrics didn’t tell executives what they wanted to know.
This article will share 7 tips for getting executive buy-in for social media.
22 Hot New Social Media Tools Worth Exploring
Are you looking for the hottest new social media tools and services? We asked our team of Social Media Examiner writers to share their best new social media discoveries.
What follows is an amazing list of social media tools you’ve likely never heard of—covering a wide range of categories:
- Tools for pictures, video, audio and screen capture
- Tools to measure and track results
- Tools to manage content
- Blogging tools
- Twitter tools
- Other social media tools
Try them out. And be sure to report back here with your thoughts.
