Business Profiles on Google+

Back in July, the Google+ team announced that they were working on a business specific platform as part of the development roadmap for the Google’s Social Media ecosystem.

Google+ Pages Overview

Google+ Pages help you build deeper relationships with customers by sharing your thoughts, links, photos and promotions with the right people at the right times. Want to offer a behind-the-scenes look at your product team in action? Highlight a unique sale? Get live, face-to-face feedback by holding multi-person video chats with customers all over the world? With Google+ Pages, you can share what matters in a way that matters most to your business.

Post
Once you have people on your page, how do you start talking to them? You can use your Stream to post relevant content, including photos and videos, and even engage your followers directly by asking questions that start discussions. You can make your posts public so people can find them using search, or use Circles to tailor specific messages to specific followers.

Hangouts
Hangouts let you set up one-click video conversations with customers and colleagues alike. You can get face-to-face product feedback, help customers solve problems or simply get to know them better, and collaborate with remote colleagues on shared documents in real time — all over high-quality, easy-to-use video chat.

Circles
Different people are interested in different parts of your business. Whether it’s breaking news, updates, promotions, links, photos – even talking face-to-face with groups via easy-to-use video chat – Google+ lets you easily share the right things with the right customers.

On the promotion side of things, Google Pages are tightly integrated with other products like Adwords, Search and the Plus1 (+1) button which we will now start all over the place… even in paid ads.

Finally and this is perhaps one the most promising aspects of Google+ Pages, is the reporting tools -like the Ripples visualization tool- and the release of the API for the Google+ platform. In the coming days we will be covering more in depth features of Google Pages and most importantly, how can integrated to your local marketing strategy.

Visit the Google+ Pages for more information. Keep in mind that you will need a Google+ Profile to create your business page.

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Posted in News and Updates Social Media by Felipe Huicochea. No Comments

4 Ways to Use an Autoresponder in Your Business

Autoresponders are such versatile online tools that they can be used in a number of different marketing campaign types. Here are four ways that they are commonly used to provide effective marketing for a business.

Providing Autoresponder Courses

One popular way to use an autoresponder is to create a course that your list members get in increments. The course may be just a few emails, with each email containing one section of the course. Or, it may be a lengthy course that takes months or even years to complete. With an autoresponder, you can load all of the parts of the course at once and then have them sent out along a scheduled coursework timeline.

Courses can be a part of your marketing campaign, offering useful information along with the marketing of your business. They can be made up of simple articles or reports that offer valuable, succinct information that will attract new list members. Or, the email course may be the end product that you are selling.

Send Multiple Marketing Campaign Emails

With most autoresponders, you can create more than one email campaign. This makes it possible to identify and target more than one customer market and to tailor your marketing messages to them. This highly targeted marketing makes it possible to create messages that resonate well with the specific audience you send them to. It also makes it easier to keep your autoresponder messages shorter and to the point instead of creating long messages that are meant to appeal to many customer types.

Marketing With an Ezine

One of the most popular ways to use an autoresponder is to create an ezine and to send it out to those who are interested in the information. With a regular ezine, you can build up a loyal readership that read each issue for its in-depth, topical information. The publication also markets your business, mentioning your specials, new products, etc.

With an ezine, the focus is on the content, and the publication can be lengthy in order to provide everything that readers want. Ezines are generally written with personality, giving your business a personal face that inspires loyalty among readers. They often have several different sections to provide variety to readers.

Promotional Emails

Another common way to use an autoresponder is to send out short, promotional emails that spotlight some aspect of what you are selling. These can be one page or less and offer to-the-point information about the current sale, the best-selling product, publicity that the products are getting, etc. These messages are fast and easy for list members to read, and they can earn you quick sales by specifically pointing out what buyers have to gain by doing business with you.

Short promotional emails are also easy to write, making it possible to load months of announcements all at once and to allow them to be sent out on any schedule. Regular promotional messages assist in your online branding efforts, reminding customers of your business name and website address.

One of the most complete autoresponder platforms is GetResponse, we use it for some our clients and provides high email delivery rates but also a complete set of tools for a seamless integration with your Social Media properties.



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Posted in Email Marketing by Felipe Huicochea. No Comments

Google City Pages: Local Listings will be even more relevant

For the past couple of months Google has been working on a new platform to integrate Google Places with community building tools to enhance the level of engagement of local consumers. Dallas is not on the map yet, but it is a matter of time and those businesses that are taking advantage of the current Google Places platform will benefit greatly from the upcoming changes.

Screen shot 2011 10 03 at 1.35.26 PM 300x212 Google City Pages: Local Listings will be even more relevant

For Small Businesses, Google Places provides the easiest, quickest path to outreach the ever growing mobile device consumer base.

Screen shot 2011 10 03 at 1.48.12 PM 300x193 Google City Pages: Local Listings will be even more relevant

If you haven’t claimed your business listing, we have a complete Google Places Tutorial. We strongly advice you to do this first, even if don’t have a website.

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Business Profiles in Google+

Google’s Christien Oestlien update on Business Profiles in Google+:

A few weeks ago we mentioned we would be doing a test of business profiles and asked people interested to apply. Believe it or not we actually had tens of thousands of businesses, charities, and other organizations apply to take part from all over the world. Many of you have reached out to me personally through Google+, e-mail, chat, and even other Googlers. Thank you. Your response has been humbling.

With so many qualified candidates expressing intense interest in business profiles, we’ve been thinking hard about how to handle this process. Your enthusiasm obligates us to do more to get businesses involved in Google+ in the right way, and we have to do it faster. As a result, we have refocused a few priorities and we expect to have an initial version of businesses profiles up and running for EVERYONE in the next few months. There may be a tiny handful business profiles that will remain in the meantime solely for the purpose of testing how businesses interact with consumers.

In the meantime, we ask you not to create a business profile using regular profiles on Google+. The platform at the moment is not built for the business use case, and we want to help you build long-term relationships with your customers. Doing it right is worth the wait. We will continue to disable business profiles using regular profiles. We recommend you find a real person who is willing to represent your organization on Google+ using a real profile as him-or-herself.

All of us on the Google+ effort are delighted by your engagement with this project – thank you all for taking the time to apply and offer such incredibly useful feedback. Keep it coming!

This update comes within days from Google announcing changes in the Google Places customer reviews model.

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Dan Pink on the surprising science of motivation

Career analyst Dan Pink examines the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don’t: Traditional rewards aren’t always as effective as we think. Listen for illuminating stories — and maybe, a way forward.

About Dan Pink
Bidding adieu to his last “real job” as Al Gore’s speechwriter, Dan Pink went freelance to spark a right-brain revolution in the career marketplace. Daniel H. Pink, bestselling author of  Dan Pink on the surprising science of motivationDrive, A Whole New Mind & Free Agent Nation.

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