As Facebook launches their IPO after reaching more than 845 million users, I’ve been wondering what’s next.
In the last month, Pinterest has been part of of my marketing discussions with other online publishers and marketing cohorts. Is this the next BIG thing?
Like YouTube, Facebook and most of the social media applications, you’re not supposed to blantly promote your products. However, Pinterest has a growing momentum and I’ve noticed that many small businesses are using it to showcase their products.
For those with a visual product, Pinterest could be a strong viral sharing tool.
If you haven’t used it before, Pinterest works like an online corkboard where you can “pin” photos and ideas onto different boards. You can’t start an account without getting an invitation.
Have you considered using Pinterest to build awareness your product’s benefits? Please leave a comment below.
Do you use reviews to market your products, services and business? If you’re not, and you’ve not even considered How To Get Google Reviews, then you’re likely holding your business’ potential back.
After a customer or client has said how much they appreciate your business, product or service, ask them to post a review online with a specific site that will help you. People can then find these reviews on sites such as buyersimpact.co.uk and others to decide whether the product or service is the correct choice for them before buying.
For a service professional, it may be LinkedIn recommendations or simply asking for a “LIKE” for your Facebook Fan Page. For a product or a restaurant, it may be different.
Some of the sites require that your website is registered before anyone can LIKE it, review it, or recommend it… and it is generally the site owner’s responsiblity to register the site.
Here are some examples of directories with reviewing capabilities or just plain review sites.
It’s takes a little time to register your site, but don’t you think it is better for you as the owner to register your own site, than someone else claiming it, right? If you leave a review, make sure you follow the rules! It’s very important to make sure that you use full disclosure!
The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service. Likewise, if a company refers in an advertisement to the findings of a research organization that conducted research sponsored by the company, the advertisement must disclose the connection between the advertiser and the research organization. And a paid endorsement – like any other advertisement – is deceptive if it makes false or misleading claims.
Which crucial site did I miss?
Where are some places for reviews that are appropriate for your business?
Let me know by leaving a comment below!
Photo credit: Kelly Abbott 
Some rights reserved by Roebot
Supersized fast food drinks. Jumbo shrimp. Enormous flat screen TVs.
BIG is a very popular product positioning in the United States. But when you are trying to increase sales and profits, bigger may not be better.
If you’re trying to sell to emerging markets, where people buy in small quantities, but enormous volume, you may find that smaller is the best.
This look at packaging sizes for products marketed in emerging markets via a slideshare presentation by marketing professor Sameer Mathur of McGill University in Montreal Canada shows the enormous potential of microsizing your product to meet the needs of the emerging markets.
Dr. Mathur has lots of intriguing marketing presentations about pricing, branding, distribution channels, target market segmentation and positioning. And more! These are a great resource for any business professional who is trying to navigate thru all the onion layers of marketing to improve the results for their product, service or brand.
I like how his PowerPoints mash up real life examples with the intellectual marketing theories to make the ideas easy to understand.
After clicking thru Dr. Mathur’s marketing PowerPoints, which one did you find the most helpful to your current marketing challenges? How will you change what you are doing based on what you saw in his presentation?
BIG photo credit: ::: Radar Communication :::
Most book authors will tell you that writing the book is only the first part of the process. Picking a publisher (or preparing to self publish) and then marketing the book takes time, talent, effort and know how.
Book marketer, joint venture specialist and author Denise Cassino has coordinated (actually, orchestrated is a better term) many very successful book launches by developing an extensive mailing list, getting joint venture partners and then using the power of social media to create the ripple effect.
Today is the book launch day for “The Wild Soccer Bunch” and websites, Twitter feeds, Facebook walls and other internet marketing media will be alive with messages promoting the book. I just checked Amazon’s best selling book list and this book is number 1000 and climbing every time I hit refresh. (Strike that, 1/2 hour later: #596.) (Update Sept 9, 2010 next morning: #173.)
Beyond writing and distributing press releases, photos of the product and flyers linking to the website launch page , Denise arranges to get many marketing joint venture partners to offer a “bonus” so that when someone buys the book, they also will receive an opportunity to download free goodies.
While not everything that is offered as a bonus actually relates to the book title, (or maybe I should say it backwards, not many of the bonuses relate to the book title), there is a substantial choice of promotional freebies for the book buyer to choose — and there is bound to be some offerings that are appealing to each individual.
Den offers suggestions to the joint venture partners of what to tweet about the book and even goes so far to offer to take care of tweeting out the news using the jv partner’s account if they are willing to give her password access for the day! (That’s a trusting marketing partner!) So she is actually doing all the tweeting for the marketing partner as well. ( I’d have to say it would be odd for my Twitter followers to find me Tweeting every hour about some soccer book or any book for that matter.)
I have noticed some of the JV partners prefacing their Twitter tweet with #ad or just the word ad.
This model seems to be working for her and her business. I’m not sure how long the link will be active for today’s launch, but you can find out more about Denise and her book publicity program at her website.
She has figured out how to appeal to the people who are her marketing partners so that it becomes a win-win-win for the author, the book buyer and the marketing partners.
What do you think of this approach to book marketing? Will it work? Does it work? And if you were a marketing joint venture partner, would it burn a bridge with your followers, fans and those who use social media for conversation? If you had a book to market, would you use this technique?
