@Spirocks

video

Video Marketing Online Destroys Competition by Leveraging Time

Video represents the holy grail of online marketing, its ability to communicate with viewers trumps all other forms of online marketing.

Why is that?

Well if you were marketing your Real Estate Company for instance it would give you the ability to all at once show your personality, your expertise, as well as the unadulterated view of the homes you are selling with people in them. It demonstrates and explains so much more than can be read or spoken in that amount of time.

Why is time so important?

Time matters for a crucial reason which is that your audience will only give you a tiny bit before they move on. So if you spend 15 seconds explaining your knowledge of the industry, that is all you will get and you won’t have the chance to talk about what you are selling whether it is a home, a 45 day dry aged rib-eye, or anything for that matter.

Video allows you to address time in two important ways.

First it allows you to make the most of the time a viewer is watching, the visuals aid in telling a story that doesn’t need to be spoken or read. Secondly video stretches the time you have with your audience, studies have shown that more than 3 out of 5 said they would watch videos for at least 2 minutes. That is an incredible amount of face time in today’s 140 character message world.

A real estate agent might garner two minutes or more of face time with prospective clients by creating informative videos answering common questions about the market. Like this one: Matt Mclennan

Which may get you results like this:

Time also matters if you are paying for your marketing to be distributed, for instance if you are deciding between a direct mail campaign or a television spot on local cable, how much are you spending and how much of a message are you communicating? If you do direct mail you can cram as much info as you can onto a over sized postcard for a relatively affordable amount. I did that for my wing joint Sauce, and found that I could get a few pictures on the mailing side and the whole menu on the face of the card. But it left a lot of questions unanswered and we got the phone calls to prove it. Recently one of my clients decided that his money was best invested in a short TV commercial on local television. I am currently editing a 15 second spot for his store which will be able to convey so much information that we would have been unable to otherwise. Like they say a picture is worth a thousand words and a video may be worth 10,000.

When that video is finished I will link to it here as well.

Video is the best medium for dealing with the two biggest issues that time presents, attention span and cost.

Let me know if you have questions how video can integrate into your small business marketing plan.

yoga

I am Spirocks on Twitter.

Google Plus Customer Management

So I am embarking on a new project with my clients, to utilize the tools google has given us in Google plus to organize and market to their customers, prospective customers, and the world in general. First we are using gmail to maintain customer database, and then we are organizing these customers into circles by things they have in common. For instance a realtor is grouping buyers into price range circles, and town circles. In this way she will be able to share only that which is relevant to each group and never be intrusive.

Here is a video explaining a bit more about circles:

Even if the customer is not using Google Plus she will receive an email notifying her of what the realtor is sharing, the versatility of Google Plus will allow my client to share the stunning photos, videos, and written work we do with her in a variety of ways. Gmail will allow her to record all pertinent contact details both at her computer and via her smartphone. Here is the variety of information that Gmail will manage for each customer:

Gmail Contact Information Capabilities
Gmail Contact Information Capabilities

As you can see for a small business or professional the contact data is clearly sufficient with multiple notes sections that can be added for further customization. Couple that with the amazing google plus sharing technology, including video chat, and you have a dynamic FREE CMR and Marketing solution for the mobile entrepreneur and professional.

I will explain further in this video:

Let me know what you think in the comments, or hit me up on twitter: @spirocks

I am Spirocks on Twitter.

TTT: Two Twitter Tips

I love twitter, it has put me in touch with amazing people related to my businesses and connected me in ways I can not be thankful enough for. It is a service that is under appreciated and misunderstood by many. It drives incredible amounts of traffic to websites and blogs. In many ways that traffic has been mis-calculated as evidenced in this recent TechCrunch post: Twitter Drives 4x as Much Traffic as You Think. Here’s Why … all in all it is a very important piece of your marketing puzzle.

Here are two twitter tips to get the most out of your effort:

 

So remember these two things:

1) Know your twitter character limit

Here is the formula: 140 – # of characters in your twitter username – 4 = Your character limit

So for me: 140 – 8 (spirocks) – 4 = 128 which is my character limit.

2) Be aware of how your tweets come out of third party apps

If you use third party apps that are linked to your twitter account, specifically news readers, rss forwarders, smartphone photo apps, etc make sure you vet out how the tweets are composed. Some do better jobs than others, they may be annoying for your following to click through, they may not respect the 140 character limit, or other less than ideal results.

Here is a humorous one I saw this morning:

Unfortunate tweet image
2900 pounds of Ass

 

 

I am Spirocks on Twitter.

Google Plus – Business Ideas

 

By now you have heard about Google+, its a brand new social network that seems to have a ton of potential. I am not going to go over what its features are, as there are a thousand such articles already. What I am going to do is give you a few reasons to check it out, and hopefully reveal a few opportunities it presents.

Google+ and Your Business

By uniting the functionality of the Facebook style stream, the Twitter style update, the Foursquare Check-In, the Flickr photo video curation, the contact collection that is in your gmail contact list, and the power of multiple best in class Google properties from Youtube to Maps, Google+ is a legitimate titan in the making.

Google+ has one major Hurdle to Clear

In order for it to succeed Google Plus for business will have to answer one major question: Will enough people decide to invest time and energy into a new social platform? Who will right away: people like me, who have businesses that rely heavily on their web presence. The reason is, despite Bing’s progress, Google owns search. To ignore the potential for increased search rankings from interactions and content on Google+ would be foolish. Please don’t forget with every Gmail user there is also a built in head start as well… true that didn’t work out so well for Buzz. but Buzz sucked, it felt like an intrusive clone, and nobody likes that.

Google+ is different, it is intuitive and it is a hybrid of features from successful networks that have been improved and tied into very very robust Google properties.

Privacy is Weapon #1 for Google+

How many people have had an issue arise from something posted on Facebook? How many people have grown frustrated by the obvious push by Facebook to make it hard to keep things private?  Sure it does make sense that you should not share things on Facebook that you would not want public. But those making that argument are missing the point. PEOPLE WANT TO SHARE THOSE THINGS. They just want to be able to choose with whom. With circles Google has the best answer to date. You can share items specifically with the people you want to, and creating a circle is incredibly easy and the granularity of the process is as transparent as I can imagine. I highly suggest that you take your time at the beginning and try to think of the ideal structure for your circles. Work, Friends, Family may be too general to really get the benefit. Think: Potential Customers, VIP customers, company bosses, employees who report to me, CBS fantasy league, college guy friends, Mom’s side of the family, cute girls (if you are looking for that), etc. You can always select to share something with everyone, or you can drill down to the groups you are trying to reach.

Video Meeting via Google+

Having an active Google+ profile and well defined groups means that you will be able to selectively manage the promising video meeting feature of Google plus for business. That could mean proactively jumping into a customers Google+ hangout and striking up a convo and asking if you can do anything for them. But most incredibly you can be face to face with a  customer who needs help with your company immediately and for free. Yes it starts to sound like a Skype killer here.There are a ton of possibilities here, including remote meetings with co-workers. Imagine for a moment. Google plus for business and for personal use, under one hood.

Google+ is Uncluttered

Time will tell if it stays this way but the clutter of Facebook is not here. There are no mafia invitations, or applications that ask you to answer juvenile questions about your friends. It is pure and that is refreshing. I don’t have to tell you about the annoyances with Facebook applications, they are the Myspacification of that platform in my eyes. Combined with the lack of control over privacy, the black screen of death when viewing photos, and the general feel of a meat market Facebook has lost some of its appeal to me. The big draw? Everyone is on it… but you know what everyone I knew was on Myspace too, and I can remember the day I fell for Facebook and then the day some time later that I somewhat sadly deleted my Myspace page. Things change and in the world of internet empires, pretty f’in quickly.

In summary here is why you should give a chance to Google Plus for business:

  1. Google+ is a legit, full featured, and well thought out social network.
  2. Google+ makes Privacy a core feature, highlighting the shortcomings of Facebook in that department.
  3. It has the strength of many Google properties driving it. (Youtube, Maps, Places, Picasa)
  4. Google owns search and will be tying data from Google+ into search results.
  5. The Video feature has a ton of possibilities, and it is free on Google+
  6. Google+ is a more grown up social network, uncluttered by childish games and the meat market feel of Facebook.

Want an invite? Email me your gmail address and I will send you one. (spirocks@gmail.com or @spirocks on Twitter)

Like updates like this? I would love it if you subscribed to my blog updates HERE.

This is my initial post on how to use Google Plus for Business, and ideas about the feature of Google plus for business.

I am Spirocks on Twitter.

How To Use Video to Market Your Restaurant

I have written about video before, but this time I wanted to share some examples of ways that video can be used to market your restaurant. Here you will see three short videos that aim to do three different things. One will focus on food, one will focus on a particular day/event, and the other will be a general overview for a newer place.

GuestFeed created these three videos for three different clients this week. Here they are:

Video Focusing on Glory’s Food:

Video Highlighting Valentine’s Specials at Evenfall:

Video Introducing Taza to a New Audience:

None of these would be the only way to achieve the stated goals but they are valuable tools which encourage people to take the time to watch and learn what your message is.

What do you think? You can reach me here, or on twitter @spirocks.

I am Spirocks on Twitter.

Step Up Your Photo Game

In your social media marketing efforts it is important to incorporate as much photo and video sharing as possible. That means you need to generate these images on a regular and ongoing basis. That is one of the core services that GuestFeed provides for our clients, proffesional photography. The truth is much of it should done ‘on the fly’ and can result in what I call ‘reality show’ results. These photos taken during the course of business add credibility to your feeds. That being said I strongly encourage the use of professional photographers to create the images that are the face of the restaurant like this one:

Evenfall's Lamb Rack - A GuestFeed Pro Photo By @megelms

But what can be accomplished on the fly creates a personality and a behind the scenes feel to the images that is also very useful. For that reason having the right tools to take your social media strategy to the next level is important. For photos,the Canon PowerShot S95 10 MP Digital Camera is the choice. Why? Well for starters it is small, 3.93 x 2.30 x 1.16 inches, meaning you can pop it in your pocket to have with you during the night and take pics as the opportunity arises. But where this camera really shines is in its low light capability, it is built for it, with a f2.0 aperture it lets in more light than any other compact camera. That is especially important when taking pictures of your dining room or lounge full of guests, nobody wants a flash going off then. Additionally the Canon PowerShot S95 10 MP Digital Camera takes HD Video. Be sure to read the amazing reviews the camera gets by following those links to Amazon, it’s a great great camera.

Those two features alone mean that for carrying a device the size of a deck of cards your social media can be enriched with stunning photos even in low light, and HD videos to share daily.

Let me see the photo/video you create by sharing with me on twitter @spirocks. Happy Shooting.

Here are some pics I took with it recently for a post on my restaurant blog:

Canon S95
Canon S95

P.S. Note: To make sure you get the most from the camera make sure you get a class 6 or higher memory card, here is the one I got:

-Spiro

I am Spirocks on Twitter.