digital

Why Your Business Needs ALERT®

Magnify Digital was created in 2007 as a digital strategy agency. The team here soon realized that they were creating much more than just an agency.  They pioneered a process for aggregating, simplifying and leveraging the non-stop avalanche of  digital platforms, tools, and tactics. That’s when ALERT® was born.

ALERT® is an automated web based system that enables marketers and small businesses to take control of their digital presence and devise effective strategies that actually work for them and their clients. ALERT® stands for ASSESS, LOCATE, ENGAGE, RESPOND & TRACK – the five key steps to the system and we’d argue, the five essential components of every successful digital strategy.

Assess & Locate make up the first stage – a rigorous Assessment of a company’s digital presence, and that of its competitors. A scan of the industry reveals what your target audience is saying and where they are hanging out. The second stage is Engage, which consists of devising and implementing a manageable and measurable Strategy. Once the strategy is in place, it’s time to Respond & Track, which essentially is monitoring your online presence.

The benefits of using ALERT® are endless! Marketers often complain they don’t have enough time to keep up with the seemingly endless changes in social media features, emerging tools, guidelines, policies, and thought leaders. ALERT® does the heavy lifting for you.  Think of it as a digital whisperer! ALERT® makes licensees look like digital strategy rock stars without the expense and hassle.

Here are some key features. The ALERT® system is:

• Updated daily. The tools are updated whenever a new feature, viable platform, or tactic comes to market.
• Resourceful. Includes a resource area full of aggregated information, such as social media statistics, news updates, and case studies.
• Easy to use. You don’t have to be a digital expert, the system takes you through a step-by-step approach on how to use each tool and feature.
• Time saving. We’ve already done the work for you. You don’t need to keep on top of trends and new tools. ALERT®  aggregates this information into one place and best of all makes the digital jargon make sense.
• Web based. You can use it anywhere.
• Professional in design. The system is designed to make you and your company look great. It automatically creates polished documents based on the data you input.

ALERT® is the perfect system to help get you and your business get on its way with an effective digital strategy!

Please contact us if you have any questions regarding this system.

Maryam
@socialmaryam

Tags: digital, small business, Social Media, strategy

Using Hashtags in your Digital Strategy!

#hashtags are being used across all social media platforms. So what’s the deal with hashtags anyway? Is it imperative to use them for your digital strategy? Do they help optimize your social media presence? If used effectively, yes, they can help your digital presence.

A hashtag is used to mark keywords in order to facilitate an unmoderated ad-hoc forum type discussion. Hashtags are words, or strings of words and characters stuck together with no spaces and marked with the # symbol, like this #hashtags. If a hashtag is promoted and used by enough individuals on one social network, this can result in a “topic” or keyword to start “trending,” inviting more people to join the discussion.

Although hashtags first appeared on IRC (Internet Relay Chat) networks in the late 80s, it wasn’t until Twitter rose to popularity that hashtags gained mainstream appeal. Hashtags are now being used on Google+, Instagram, Tumblr, YouTube, Orkut, Twitter, and several other micro news websites such as Gawker, Gizmodo, and Jezebel. Most people don’t understand the purpose and effectiveness of hashtags. Other people over use them. Below are 5 examples of how you can use hashtags effectively to help optimize your digital presence.

1. Engage customers in a poll or questionnaire. Ask your followers on Twitter or Google+ to participate in a poll or questionnaire for a new product launch. For example, for clothing retailers, asking consumers what they think of a new color or collection #summercollection2012.
2. Run a contest. Using hashtags to run contests on Twitter and Instagram are very popular. When running a contest, ask your followers to share or RT by including your company’s hashtag #magnifygiveaway.
3. Create real-time dialogue. This technique is a fantastic way for events, conferences, and festivals to create dialogue online and build a larger audience outside of attendees. By promoting the hashtag on all marketing materials, including speaker schedules, and program brochures, attendees will know how to share the content as it is presented. Television shows that are broadcast live also utilize this method to engage with fans watching at home, for example, #americanidol2012.
4. Run a promotion. Offer a discount by asking followers to share your promotion. For example, users can save 10% by retweeting your brand’s promotion using the hashtag #magnifysavebig.
5. Use photos or images. With Instagram gaining popularity, businesses can engage followers on this network by asking them to upload a photo for a contest, or giveaway, including a hashtag to enter. For example, LEVI’s ran a campaign looking for their next model, and asked users to upload a photo of themselves on Instagram with the hashtag #iamlevis. They received millions of submissions.

My prediction is that we will see hashtags being used more and more across digital platforms. Hopefully these examples will help you understand how hashtags can be an effective way of promoting your business online!

Maryam Mehrtash
@socialmaryam

Tags: digital, facebook, google, hashtags, instagram, strategy, Twitter

5 Tips On How to Filter Through The Fluff!

Marketers are constantly inundated with information on the #digitalmediasphere – felt like a hashtag was appropriate for this post! The amount of information our brains have to consume on a daily basis is mind blowing, literally. According to Mail Online, each person is drowned with “174 newspapers’ worth of information every day.” FastCompany also published an infographic in September 2010 based on the book The 24-Hour Customer, indicating that we will generate more data in the next 4 years than in the history of the world, adding that the average person is connected 12 hours a day to some form of digital media which translates to 34 billion bits of information per day (an equivalent of two books).

The biggest concern for marketers is the ability to sort through all the fluff and not get bogged down. Recent studies are showing that the level of information we are being asked to break down can cause increased stress levels. So how do we keep on top of the abundance of information and still keep our sanity? Learn how to filter through the fluff and manage your time. Here are 5 tips that can get you started:

TIP #1. BE SELECTIVE. Don’t follow every single person on Twitter who follows you, or subscribe to every blog with the word “digital marketing” in it. Be selective to what you subscribe to and who you follow. Similarly, don’t feel the need to subscribe to every single news outlet, most likely they all end up publishing the same stories within 24 hours of each other anyway. By being selective you can start filtering through the noise and choosing what you really want to focus your brain cells on.

TIP #2. TAKE TIME OFF. Set aside certain time periods when you are active on social media, reading the news, updating your blog, and so on and so forth. We spend most of our waking hours connected to some form of digital media. Sometimes it’s nice to tune out. Take a break and set rules and regulations. For example, when you are at the gym don’t be the person on the treadmill who is replying to emails and tweets. It’s okay to not reply back right away. Let your body relax and do something else. You can set time limits for yourself of when you are on and off, even computers need down time.

TIP #3. UTILIZE DASHBOARDS. Dashboards help aggregate various accounts and create search tabs to sort through specific content. Hootsuite is a great dashboard that allows you to do both. You can add all your social media accounts to this one dashboard so that you don’t have to keep switching between tabs or windows to get up-to-date on all the new content. You can also create search tabs with specific keywords such as “online marketing” or “search engine optimization” and Hootsuite will then aggregate content based on that filter. That way you can sort through the fluff without actually having to do it yourself, the dashboard does it for you.

TIP #4. ACTIVATE GOOGLE ALERTS. There are a ton of free tools available online that help you filter through the data, Google Alerts is one of them. Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results based on your queries. You get the most up-to-date information sent directly to your mail box.

TIP #5. CREATE YOUR OWN READER. Setup a RSS Feed Reader or News Aggregator by adding your favorite blogs, and websites to it so you can keep on top of the latest content without actually having to visit the site. Feed Reader or News Aggregator software allow you to grab the RSS feeds from various sites and display them for you to read and use.

Hopefully these tips will help you stay on top of your content, and help save you a little time and stress!

Maryam Mehrtash @socialmaryam

Tags: data, digital, facebook, information, marketing, Social Media, stress, Twitter