by winstonbromley | Jun 10, 2014 | Social Media
As a person who loves and enjoys social media for it’s innate ability to connect us to people and events, which we could never have done so even just a few years ago, I wanted today to talk to you about a topic dear to my heart. It’s a strange but very real phenomenon that has occurred within the past few years with the rise of Smartphones being tied to our hips and wrists and almost everything we do. When our phones bing with texts and 
we answer it the second it happens, or we check out tweet or Facebook timelines every 10 minutes, this begs the question. With all of technologies advances in the past few years, does technology bring us closer to each other or further apart?
My answer to that is that both are correct. We live in a world where the gift of “social media” is that we can discuss, rate, help, contemplate, learn and talk in mere seconds/minutes/hours on new things happening throughout the world. However, we also live in a world where living in the “present” is being “assisted” by technology.
There is concept that is called Fear of Missing Out, or FOMO for short. This is the idea that most of us using our smartphones and technology are glued to what others are saying on the social media platforms, and have this need to check in as often as humanly possible, just in case we miss something good. As humans, and curious people, we hate to think we missed something good. Naturally, we do this as a way to feel connected to our “friends” online that we follow and Like, and Pin. It makes us feel good. Some people have mentioned that they see their real friends more often online via Facebook, Twitter, etc than they do in just getting together in person.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am part of this group and have willingly jumped in, as have you, to be part of my own experiences online as well as finding out about my connections, brands I follow and friends and their latest exploits detailed online. However, I do believe you need a BALANCE in life and go and meet, in my case, business leads and contacts you meet online. I use social media to start the process, and finish in person.
What I wanted to share in this post, from a Social Media insider, is that sometimes, we just need 2 things in our lives to achieve a good balance online:
1. UNPLUG and be ok with it. Don’t be afraid of missing out on something you missed online. Like a detox in real life, I have Unplugged myself when I find I need to re-charge my “batteries”. No cellphone, no social media, no texts sometimes for 1 day or longer just so I can be present with my family and my life.
2. Take the conversation OFFLINE and TALK to that person via the phone or in person. It’s amazing the amount of friendships and connections I have built up over the years with this tip.
Don’t buy into FOMO. Buy into real connections and being present.
My 2 cents…
Enjoyed this post? If so, please share on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest to let your friends know about it. Your help spreading the word would be really appreciated.
by winstonbromley | Jul 24, 2012 | Google+, Social Media, Social Media Management, Social Media Tools
{EAV:325b878b30a844a4}Social media is all about coming together and having a way to talk, find friends, and share everything. There are many ways to connect with the world around us through this still relatively new media, but one that has made heads turn is Google+. It is an interesting and attractive social media website that makes everything easy to understand and find out. Just like many other websites, it is in a constant state of change, upgrading and adding more each time. The brand new events feature from Google+ is an excellent example of their change for the better.
Social Media EVENT using Google+: Winston Bromley Social Media Marketer
Many may know of Facebook events, but this is a step up from there. You have additions like the live broadcast, which allows a person in a particular event to see the updates of everyone else in it. This makes for better managing and control of it all, as well as the ability to keep up on all incoming information. Events need to be watched and planned, and, with the ability to see everything as it happens, that is more than possible with the new Google plus events.
When you set up events, you want to get the word out as quickly and easily as possible. Using online websites like Google plus has become the best way to do so. People are capable of sending the invitations out to everyone at once and the invited will be able to say whether they are going. This provides the event creators with a solid head count, making the event that much more manageable. You can also list all of the facts and information to go with the events, as well as edit and change them as you go.
What sets Google plus apart from the Facebook events is that it has more features. One that really stands out is the live broadcast, which allows event goers to see what others in the event are saying and doing. Sharing information between every person is the best way to monitor everyone and ensure it goes off with as few problems as possible. Being able to view what one person says, regardless of whether they are added to your friend lists, will let everyone know what to expect. This does help the event creator immensely because they are more capable of knowing what everyone is planning and up to, giving them the opportunity to better manage the event itself, add in updates and images, but it is also greatly beneficial for those just going. There is a lot to know with large events, making the sharing of information and communication necessary. Live broadcast makes that an easy task, one Facebook events cannot match.
Proper planning and communication make every event a successful one. Just letting everything happen as it happens opens you up for mistakes, possibly even a ruined day or night. With the new events feature from Google plus, you can be sure that whatever you are planning happens as it is supposed to happen. With a stream that allows you to view everything other event goers are saying and doing, you know what to expect. You are more in touch with the people and what is happening, allowing everything to fall into place and work as it should.
What do you think? Of course to make this happen, you need to be signed into your Google+ account. But why wouldn’t you be? 😉
Winston Bromley
www.WinstonBromley.com
by winstonbromley | Jul 5, 2012 | Google+, Social Media, Social Media Management, Social Media Tools
Google Plus (Google+) is a great option for a business looking to get noticed and wanting to standout from other pages. Easy to create and easy to use, it is a growing platform for business sharing. The following explains just some of the great aspects why Google Plus is becoming a must for business leaders and webpage designers and just how it might benefit your business.
Easy Distribution of Ideas
Sharing is important and your business needs to take an active role in doing this with their webpage or website. This act is not simply about promoting a product or idea but actually creates an interactivity between the consumer and the business itself. With Google Plus for business this can be completed quite easily. One of the greatest tricks to get a response from clients and potential customers is to share photos and other images and messages that help to promote the brand without overtly doing so. It leaves the client interested, gets them talking, and thus builds the brand from the backend of the business rather than overt advertisements all the time.
Clarity
Google plus is a great way to tailor your business to the individual or client themselves. With Google plus in business, the beauty is that there can be clearly delineated separations between different aspects of your business. This means that if an individual is interested in one area, they can focus on that while others can find exactly what they are looking for in another section. This is a highly touted point as described by business webpage owners who say that clients respond better to the ability to find what they are looking for easily without getting lost in a web of other information that is unneeded. In this way, then, Google plus for businesses provides a clarity and ease of specificity that business webpage designers thrive upon.
Social Media
Social media is an ever growing platform for recommendations and discussions in customers’ lives. For this reason, Google plus has made it easy to share and promote your business through easily navigable and usable social media sharing options. Just one share can lead to a trickle out affect which holds the potential to get your business noticed even more. There is also a button on Google plus that allows customers to actually make a recommendation, all with a simple click of the mouse. Be sure that your webpage has this as this is one of the best tips you can know to really getting a mass discussion and recommendation for your business page.
What is your take on Google+?
by winstonbromley | Jan 19, 2012 | Facebook, Google+, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media, Social Media Tools
I will make a bold statement here: If you are not on Google+ now, you should be as it is an important part of your Social Networking and Marketing toolkit, as it will change how we interact, purchase things as well as rank in the Search Engines.
If you haven’t heard of Google+ or have been sitting on the fence, Google+ is a newer social media platform from Google that brings together the best of Social Media networks as well as Search engine optimization and a lot of great features. A bonus is that the layout of the site is very clean and easy to read.
There are quite a few things that separate Google+ from it’s rivals. Here are the key ones in my mind as a Business owner leveraging Social Media.
Circles – Laser Focused Marketing:
One of the features is the introduction of Circles. Circles are clusters of your Contacts placed into a group that you would like to address separately. You can put your Family into the Family Circle, your Friends into a Friends cirlce, Boat enthusiasts into another circles, Joggers into another one, etc.
What this allows you to do is to be able to broadcast your thoughts or messages to select groups, such as a timely article to only the Jogger Circle. That way you are not telling your whole list about the activity that will not relate to most of your list.
By having Circles, it helps to organize the people you have friended, into circles that are easy to give them a name that is easy to remember.
As a business owner, this is a great thing to have. What you can do, is as you find people on Google+ in an area that you are looking to target, you can place them into a circle. Let’s say you are looking for Musicians to be part of a festival and you only want local musicians. All you have to do is search for them via the search features and when you find them, without leaving the page, you can Add them to the appropriate “Musicians” cirlce. From that point on, if you have an item you need to say or market, all you have to do is click on the SHARE button and pick that Circle, and voila!, only those people will see it. Again you are not “spamming” the rest of your list so people will appreciate this.
To invite people to Google+, you simply add them into your Circle that you would like them to be part of. There is a button that says “Add a new person”. Next, you need to put them into a circle. Pick multiple ones if that person should be in 2 or more circles. Type in their Email address. Once they are located and they will get an invite from you.
+1 – Increase your Popularity and SEO while telling people that others like your stuff as well:
As you can see pretty much everywhere on the internet, a lot of sites are showcasing the +1 Button. This is the Google+ button that allows you if pressed, that you appreciate this article and find it valuable.
So if you like an article, even this one (hint hint), you can click on the +1, to show you like what information is being provided.
From a Search Engine optimization point of view for our Business or personal sites, Google is the king of all search engines. We all know that. Well, since it’s their social network, you are starting to see (if you are logged into Google+ while searching around – and usually unless you log out, you stay logged in), as you are logged in, Friends and contacts in your Circles that have +1’d an article and this provides the magic component of Social proof. Social proof is a way of showing others like your stuff, and makes it more appealing to like as well.
An example is if you +1 an article, and your friends on Google+ go searching for that items, say a restaurant review site, they will see that you +1 or liked it and that will make you more want to click on it as it’s like Winston likes this page, I will check it out as well.
The other MAJOR thing about the +1 is that for Google, once again the biggest Search Engine in the world, is starting to arrange the algorithm from how it indexes now to more of Social engagement. Put another way, the more that pages are +1 from Google+ users, the more it will help to move up the rankings.
Example: Bob pulled out all the tricks with SEO (search engine optimization) to create a top ranking page for a product on an Event in his town. Tim, another local person has a page for an event on the same day and wants to beat out the ranking of Bob’s site. Tim also does a great job but is behind Bob’s site. Leading up to the event, Tim gets quite a substantial number of +1’s and comments on his page. Since Google tracks this and the social input, it will cause Tim’s site to rise to the top, as it’s social proof that people are finding and enjoying that page.
This is crucial for SEO, development of sites and marketing from this point on. Google and other search engines see that basing rankings on what people like is truly the best way to rank pages.
Business Pages:
On Google+ you can create Business Pages for your Businesses, Brands and other non-personal items.
Agan, the main benefit is that Google is running the show and this will lead to be indexing of your Brand and better page indexing than Facebook could ever do.
NOTE: Facebook is not indexed in google other than personal page indexes that link to you, if at all.
Video Chats:
As a Google+ user, you can bring together your team on the site in a video chat area, called Hangouts. You can have up to 10 people at one time.
Facebook created a deal this past year with Skype however on FB, you can only do 1 person at a time on Video conference mode. They are still catching up and keep adding in features that look a lot like Google+.
In your Account Profile:
Once you have setup your Profile (and you can even transfer over all of your details from Facebook to Google+), people can see your Stream of conversation (or if you assign status updates for specific circles, on those can see it), About you, photos and videos as well as all the articles you have +1. I like that viewing of +1 as it allows me to bookmark sites I like with the +1 and then can refer to my profile to review them or re-read them.
URL Shortener:
There is a great site, called http://www.gplus.to that will take the ugly URL that links to your page and make it into a short URL for you. Just go onto the site, enter your long URL, add a nickname, as shown above and it will create a shorter, easier to use URL. I use this as it’s a lot cleaner in my Email signature.
This is mine: http://www.gplus.to/winstonbromley
Why Google+ Matters:
As there are many Social Media sites out there to be part of, I highly recommend for all it’s benefits, that you get a Google+ account today and start building your Network. It’s a very intuitive Site and poses many features that will help you and your Business to succeed in Social Media, SEO and whatever else Google thinks up. Google is the king of Content so let’s be part of their system and get the results we want.
Come and find my on Google+ and add me to your Friends circle.
http://www.gplus.to/winstonbromley
See you there!
by winstonbromley | Sep 10, 2011 | Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media, Social Media Management, Social Media Tools
I started out in Social Media by joining LinkedIn. LinkedIn made sense at the time when I joined as it was a smart way to promote yourself to prospective business people and of course, meet up with your co-workers. It was not the powerhouse it is today but it was very smart idea at the time.
I have to say when I joined Twitter a few years later (because EVERYONE I knew told me to join…. and I caved), I was not impressed. Within about 3 days of being on there, all I saw were posts about going to lunch, what a great jog or run they had in the morning, and other daily items. I remember clearly thinking to myself, “What am I doing here?”.. I am here to tell you it can be much more that That… but more on that in a bit…
The same initial reaction happened with Facebook. All the people I knew were playing games on Facebook, buying virtual gifts, nudging me to respond and posting comments about their daily lives. It felt like I got dropped into a party and was the odd-man out.
Then I got to thinking…. There has to be more to this than just daily life activity postings? There must be a practical use for Social Media in Business.
Being a web designer and programmer, with some successful online products at the time, I realized that if I could use Social Media in a business sense, then it would be a great tool to reach a lot of people all at once and leverage other people’s connections to increase my Business profits.
Well it worked, and I started to see results for myself, and more importantly, for my clients (I was their Social Media Manager – although that wasn’t a real job title at that time ;).)
Well, fast forward to September 2011 and Social Media is the Buzz word of the last two years or so. Almost every Entrepreneur and Business owner I meet are talking about Social media and wanting to apply it in their business. This makes really me happy to see.
A good percentage of them either 1. Know that they need to use Social Media now in their business but don’t know where to begin or what to do OR 2. They are using it in their businesses however aren’t seeing any results from it, which my Business helps them out with if needed.
As one business owner to another business owner, I wanted to share with you 5 reasons that Social Media is ideal for your Business, products and Services.. and yes, you need to get started now, if you have not already begun.
Also, it is definitely not too late to be profitable using Social Media.
Here are my 5 reasons:
- Leverage your Social Reach and Impact: By using Social Media, it allows you to attract and target potential customers that may never have known you and your Business existed, for a fraction of the price you can pay with costly and less-and-less effective traditional advertising. It also allows you to connect with your existing customers in a fun yet professional fashion with rewards, promo codes and timely information.
- Develop and Build your Social Proof: Using social media for your Business allows your Customers/Followers/Friends/Connections/(insert the social media platform of choice) in Social Media to build your business up with comments, tweets, recommendations, links to your website that other people will see, which build credibility for what you are offering. People are using Social media now to get reviews on products. We tend to buy and use a product or service much quicker with a referral or word of mouth, because of the Social proof of others talking about it. I know that I buy a lot that way and I would suspect you would to..
- Every Possible Demographics for your Business is in here: There are over 750 Million users on Facebook (33% of that number is women in the age group of 35-65!), over 12 Million Small Business owners on LinkedIn, Google+ grew to 25 million users in just 1 month time and Twitter continues to grow. What is powerful about these stats is that I am sure there are portions of each major social media engine’s demographic that is your ideal client. So why not figure out which ones to “target”, attract and engage them while at the same time, leading them to becoming a customer.
- You control the message: With Social Media, you can control the message. If something goes wrong, you can fix it pretty fast with Social media (United Airlines didn’t get this right until a musician and 1 Million Views on Youtube did it for them) . This also allows you to create messages that you can write and post everyday if you wish. You are not stuck with an 1 year paid ad in the Yellow pages, or a large Billboard that costs money to re-do. Social media is meant to be flexible. If you want to throw out a special offer to your lists or mention a new service, you can do it for low to no-cost to you.
- Build Loyal Communities: Social Media truly builds a community of people that have similar likes and interests. You can find people who love to Scuba dive or people who like knitting. Being part of these groups by leveraging your Social Media brand, you can become part of their conversations and be a solution to their needs. People follow or connect with their interests and if that interest happens to be your ideal client, you should be there to help them along to make a decision.
To end off, in Social Media, you do not “hard sell” anything. What I am referring to is helping people make an informed decision by seeing that you are the best choice for your Service or Product, complimented by your social media strategies, that just so happen to move them in that direction…..
until the next post.
Winston Bromley
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