Written by Lesa Seibert | 06 July 2012
Posted in Social Media Tip of the Week

Pinterest had more than 16 million unique visitors in March, making it one of the most popular social media sites on the Web.  Due to their popularity, there have been some copycat sites that have popped up that you might be interested in:

1. Image Spark - The site lest users collect, discover, tag, share and converge images that inspire creative designs.  Users can create boards that set a visual tone for their images and users can also keep their images private.  It is free to use and gives the user 1GB of storage and two boards.
2. SparkRebel - This site is a fashion-inspired, social shopping platform that is currently in Beta.  The site contains 19 categories for users to browse and features brand pages that allow vendors to share products and content with members.  It includes prices and a "buy it" icon on content pages that redirect a user to a separate site to finish the purchase.
3. Stylepin - This site allows you to collect and organize fashion and style images for inspiration.  It is only for fashion and style.  Users must request an invite.
4. Manteresting - A totally "man" focused site, users nail their content onto workbenches.  You can sign up through your social platforms.
5. Gentlemint - Another male-focused site that is very similar to Pinterest.  It is currently open by invitation only.  
6. Fancy - Users of this site "fancy" the content instead of pin it.  Users can search for product deals and make purchases directly on the site.  This site is a really good alternative to Pinterest for retailers.
7. Juxtapost - This site allows users to keep their boards private and also share them privately.  You can also export content to Excel, index photos by colors and find similar content through a "more like this" button.  The site has 18 different categories and is one of the best Pinterest alternatives we've seen.

Written by Lesa Seibert | 02 July 2012
Posted in Social Media Tip of the Week

Did you know that you can have a storefront on Facebook?  Well, you can and it is a lucrative place for lots of online retailers.  While your Facebooks fans are talking about you, if you have a Facebook store, they can also share products directly from your store.  They can "like" a product which would then be publicized on their wall for all their friends to see. 

There are multiple Facebook store formats to use, and we have highlighted a few of the better ones here:

1. Payvment allows all transactions to take place entirely on Facebook.  The platform also includes features like social sharing options, analytics tracking, product management solutions, orders and payment support and store setup.  It also has 3 services levels - free, premium and platinum. 
2. Ecwid offers a widget that builds seamlessly integrated online stores in minutes. It works with any existing website as well as major content management systems such as WordPress and Joomla. The widget can also be used to build a Web store on Facebook and accepts payments from all major payment systems. The service is free for smaller stores and pricing begins at $17 for stores with over 100 products.
3. ShopVisible is a fully immersive e-commerce experience for Facebook users. The suite of e-commerce, analytics and social marketing tools was designed specifically for selling on the world’s most popular social network. It can be used as a stand-alone platform for Facebook or integrated to an existing e-commerce store, duplicating the experience customers would find on your primary retail website without requiring users to leave the Facebook site.
4. ShopIgniter offers a suite of products for f-commerce that allow fans to make purchases directly within Facebook.  It features real-time inventory checks, social rewards, exclusive-offer technology and a social product launch feature.
5. BigCommerce gives users the ability to browse products and share them with their Facebook friends before making any purchases, but unlike the previous solution the transaction itself takes place on the merchant’s BigCommerce-powered website. BigCommerce offers a free 15-day demo of the app, and pricing starts at $24.95 per month.
6. VendorShop currently powers thousands of Facebook shops and has over 170,000 active Facebook users, which makes it one of the top three providers of integrated Facebook stores worldwide. The software is free to install and all stores carry the McAfee Secure and VeriSign Trust marks of security and have powerful promotion tools to maximize social selling opportunities.

It is important to remember when creating an f-commerce store to remember that Facebook is a social media site first and foremost, so make sure to keep providing valuable content on your page for fans and not just product promos.

Written by Lesa Seibert | 08 July 2011
Posted in Social Media Tip of the Week

by, Lesa Seibert, President, Xstreme Media

Facebook Ads
Facebook will generate about half of the projected $1.68 billion spent on U.S. advertising on social networks this year, and some companies are said to be spending about $20,000 per day advertising on the site. If you have not looked at Facebook ads for your own business, it might be worth investigating. Below are some tips to help you get started:

• Be as specific as possible with your keywords and demographic selections
• Use compelling images, titles and copy in your ads
• Make your ads as interactive and engaging as you can
• Frequently update and refresh the images and copy for better results
• Be vigilant about testing your ads and monitoring the results
• Bid high to get your ads approved faster by Facebook
• Start with CPC (Cost Per Click) ads if you have a very small budget, otherwise CPM (Cost Per Impression) is the better bet
• Use Facebook Ads Manager, which can be downloaded and installed on Firefox

Whether it is through a paid advertising campaign or some basic social media marketing, using Facebook’s incredible platform to help grow your business should by now be a strategy used in some capacity by every business and web professional.

Written by Lesa Seibert | 01 July 2011
Posted in Social Media Tip of the Week

by, Lesa Seibert, President, Xstreme Media

Facebook Pages
If your business does not have a presence on Facebook yet, drop everything you’re doing and go set up a Facebook Page. If you already have a Facebook Page for your business, perhaps you could be getting a little more out of it. Some of the basic rules of thumb include the following:

• Set goals for your Facebook page and monitor your progress
• Make your page interesting and informative, and update it as often as you can; remember to post things that are informative to Page Fans - it's not all about you
• Promote your Facebook page on your business website and elsewhere; add a Find us on Facebook button wherever you can
• Reward your Facebook Fans with discounts and special promotions
• Create a Facebook user group that will be of interest/useful to your audience
• Join other Facebook user groups that pertain to your industry or niche
• Take advantage of Facebook’s tools; track your success with Facebook analytics

Facebook Places
Facebook has a new location-based check-in service called Places.  Businesses can add a Facebook Place to their Facebook Page, or the two can be combined. The result of either option is getting your company’s address, map, phone number and other data in front of Facebook’s massive user network and giving them a way to share the information with friends.

Facebook Places is also built directly into the advertising platform, and registered businesses can target their ads with very specific information such as location. Ads can be bought on a pay-per-click basis, and more information is below.

Next week we will look at Facebook ads.

Written by Lesa Seibert | 03 June 2011
Posted in Social Media Tip of the Week

by, Lesa Seibert, President, Xstreme Media

With the implementation of Google Instant, this revolutionary new feature has many business owners wondering about the future of search engine marketing in particular and Internet advertising as a whole. There was some other news that is even more surprising and that is the shift away from Google and directly on to Facebook.

Data from comScore has revealed that time spent on Facebook in the U.S. during the month of August 2010 surpassed the time spent on Google sites for the first time in history. That includes all of Google's properties – YouTube, Gmail, Google Buzz, and others.

These are significant milestones Facebook, but what do they mean for the future of the industry? Will looking for content on search engines be overtaken by the sharing of content on social networks? Or, according to the statistics, has that happened already?

Because of these survey results and Facebook's growing base of more than 600 million active users (half of which spend at least 30 minutes every day on the platform), it is time to take a serious look at how your business is utilizing the social network.  Next week we will look at some of the ways that your company can leverage the popularity of Facebook.