Branding & Marketing | Digital Ethos

Why You Need a Mobile Website

April 6, 2013 by CraigEYaris 1 Comment

Mobile is everywhere. According to Google, more than half of Americans currently own a smartphone, and estimates show that by 2015 there will be more smartphones than PCs surfing the internet.

Why do you need a mobile website?

According to recent studies, the majority of users searching for a local business from a smartphone are looking to buy immediately. They want quick access to important information about your company, which includes services offered, pricing, business hours and contact information. A mobile website puts all of that information at their fingertips. In fact, there was 103% growth in website traffic from smartphones from 2011 – 2012, and US consumers spend almost 1 in every 10 ecommerce dollars using a mobile device (25 Reasons Why You Should Have a Mobile Friendly Website http://www.business2community.com/online-marketing/25-reasons-why-you-should-have-a-mobile-friendly-website-0318161). And, if that isn’t enough to convince you that you need a mobile website, how about the little fact that there are more devices connected to the Internet than there are people on Earth.

What is the difference between a mobile optimized site and a regular site?

The biggest difference is screen size. A regular website is developed to be viewed by a desktop or laptop computer with a screen size greater than 14 inches. A mobile site is designed to be viewed on a screen that is considerably smaller. Remember, a mobile website will take advantages of services that mobile devices offer, such as click to call and mapping. This will convert mobile traffic to customers quicker by removing some of the barriers to contact. After all, if I am searching for pizza from my mobile device, it usually means I want pizza now. And, a mobile friendly site will allow me to call that pizza place without having to do anything but click the phone number.

Social Ribbit Desktop View

Social Ribbit Mobile View

In addition, a mobile website will load considerably faster, using less data, than its desktop counterpart. This is important since users expect a mobile website to be faster, and not require major amounts of data, which is paid for by the user.

Finally, check your Google Analytics. How many people visiting your site are are on mobile devices? Google provides that statistic under the “Audience” section of the reports.

The most important reason to go mobile?

Your customers are mobile. Your business needs to be mobile, too. Not only are we using our smartphones while away from our offices and computers, but we are using our mobiles and tablets while watching TV. and movies. We are using them from the comfort of our couches and at our kitchen tables. We are using them to access information quickly and easily. If I can’t access your site from my smartphone or tablet, I’m leaving. I will find a site that provides me the information I need somewhere else.

Have you mobilized your site? If not, why not? If so, have you seen an increase in traffic?

Resources:

5 Reasons Why You Need a Mobile Website RIGHT NOW

25 Reasons Why You Should Have a Mobile Friendly Website

7 Reasons You Need a Mobile Website

Google’s Ready To Go Mo?

About Craig Yaris

Craig E. Yaris is the owner of EsquireTech Solutions, which helps small business get found on the social web, whether through Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, he can both teach you the effective use of any social network or act as your social media manager, enabling you to reach your clients where they are and when they want to hear from you. He can teach your organization the social media best practices that can help you use the tools of today to cost-effectively increase your bottom line. EsquireTech Solutions brings the social web to your business. Visit EsquireTech Solutions or call 516-495-9107 .

Filed Under: Authors, Branding & Marketing, Business, Content Marketing, Design, Digital & Internet Marketing, General, Mobile, Mobile & Technology Tagged With: brand, Business Consulting, internet marketing, Marketing, Marketing and Advertising, mobile, Mobile & Technology, mobile websites, websites

Global social media leader at Ford @scottmonty

April 4, 2013 by Jeff Ogden Leave a Comment

Check out this LIVE HD show in which @scottmonty of Ford is interviewed in front of a live studio audience at #socialmediacampNYC by show host Jeff Ogden. This episode of Marketing Made Simple TV is fun, engaging and features awesome quality. Hope you like it. Please let us know what you think.

In this show, you will learn the innovative ways Ford leverages social media and we also take questions from the a

The show also includes a link to Ford Social. Scott and I invite you to check it out. You can also visit Scott at ScottMonty.com.

Scott Monty

Marketing Made Simple TV is a production of the sales lead generation company Find New Customers and is the creation of host Jeff Ogden, The show is directed by Craig E Yaris of Social Ribbit and is supported by our wonderful sponsors.

About Jeff Ogden

Jeff Ogden (@fearlesscomp) is the President of the B2B lead generation consultancyFind New Customers. Find New Customers helps companies dramatically improve revenue results by transforming the way they attract, engage and win new customers. Contact Find New Customers by calling (516) 495-9350 or sending an email to sales at findnewcustomers.com.

Filed Under: Authors, Branding & Marketing, Content Marketing, Digital & Internet Marketing, General

Confessions of a Social Media Girl: Why Image based Social Media Marketing might be the Best Sales Tool

March 31, 2013 by Veronica Guzik Leave a Comment

Facebook’s recent change to a more image based newsfeed has got me thinking that perhaps Pinterest may have had the right idea all along. While Facebook is just moving away from highlighting more text based news, Pinterest has been able to capitalize on capturing their audience from the start, and has the viral growth to prove it.

With the new updates allowing businesses to step into the world of Analytics for their Pinterest business page, I can’t help but make the connection that this is a trend in marketing and advertising experts have called on for decades and is really not such exciting marketing news at all. Think of it this way:

It takes our brains seconds longer to connect with text, any seasoned marketer or advertiser will tell you that. As children we reacted better to images because we didn’t need words, and couldn’t use them to associate one item with another. No brainer!

George Lois, the famous creative marketing genius back in the 1970′s had the right idea-If a message isn’t translated to the audience in a millisecond, and then you’ve already lost them. It’s a tale as old as time really.( Yes I was just referencing Beauty and the Beast). Using image, as the basis for a marketing message is the best way to convey an idea, consumers can make their own interpretation and its strikes them emotionally. It seems as marketers we’ve just been so consumed with communicating with words that we’ve forgotten about our other senses. All signs point to Image based marketing as the best sales tool.

On that note: For years trends in the Far East, specifically Japan have focused their advertising centrally around an image that evokes emotion from the viewer. For beauty products featuring an image that dictates the way a woman will feel after using the product, or depicting a benefit has been widely used. In the case of food industry marketing, highlighting an image of a satisfied customer or family rather than the picture of the food sitting on a plate has been a popular way to advertise. I don’t know about you, but if I saw a bunch of happy people standing around a plate of food, I’d imagine it was good. Reading words that TELL me how good something is, is much less powerful or believable.

Lots of folks say history repeats itself; so far it’s been true in every sense, from fashion to politics, and social media is no exception. We’ve been lucky enough to have a new space to connect businesses with the consumer, but seem to have forgotten a few of the fundamentals of marketing, and are now shocked when a new trend seems to evoke a consumer response.

So Why is Image based Social Media Marketing the best sales tool? It quickly evokes emotion from the consumer, and emotion rather than logic is what drives more sales. Consumers react more often on what they THINK they need, rather than what they really do.

About Guest Blogger

This article is a guest post provided by a third party, its content was added to Digital Ethos to help provide additional information for our readers and followers. While the Guest Blogger posts do not undergo the same scrutiny as Authors and lack sources, the content was reviewed and approved as valuable to our mission.

Filed Under: Branding & Marketing, Business, Design, General, Guest Bloggers, Social Media

What the #? Hashtags are Coming to Facebook

March 30, 2013 by CraigEYaris 2 Comments

In every class and presentation I do, I always tell people to keep Twitter and Facebook separate. They use two different languages. Facebook is all about “natural language”. We post the way we speak. We use full sentences, and have posts that can go on for paragraphs. Twitter is the complete opposite. It’s all about brevity. After all, you need to fit everything into 140 characters (and we recommend only using 120 to allow for retweets). That includes any links, and hashtags that you may use.

What is a “Hashtag”?

In it’s basic form, a “hashtag” is an organizational tool. It is a way to search for tweets that have a common topic or idea. For example, if you search Twitter for #HungerGames or #Bacon, you will get every tweet that uses these hashtags, and would be able to follow conversations and find out who says what about a certain topic. Anything can be a hashtag, and no-one owns them. While teaching my class at Hofstra University on Digital and Social Media, I use the hashtag #HofstraDigital so that the students can communicate through Twitter, and with me, on any topic they wish.

In addition, if you use social dashboards like Hootsuite, you can set up columns for specific hashtags to follow, and you will see all tweets using that hashtag in an organized fashion.

Hashtags can also be found on other social networks, including Pinterest, GooglePlus, and Instagram, and I’ve even seen them on T.V. shows, so that people can follow the conversation about the show in real-time (#thefollowing, #BigBangTheory).

So, it would seem a natural progression that hashtags would move to Facebook, where over 1 billion users visit daily.

Should I Care?

In short, yes. Hashtags are coming. There is no way to stop this. They are a great tool to organize conversations and topics. But, I don’t think it will change the way people interact with Facebook, at least not in the short term. People are used to longer posts, and that won’t change with the use of hashtags. They would be embedded within the posts. An example could read:

I can’t believe that #target is not going to match their on-line price with their in store price for me. That is #badbusiness.

This would allow Facebook’s Graph Search tool to offer up conversations around hashtags, when searching for the store “Target” or the phrase “Bad Business”.

This will also allow businesses to search around terms that they feel would be relevant to their business. Target, for instance, would find this post by searching #Target, as would anyone else, who could then join in the conversation.

It would become a great way to engage in a conversation around a specific topic, and allow you a broader reach than just your friends or fans.

Facebook could even go so far as to offer a dedicated page for hashtag searches, where people can save specific terms to be constantly updated (GooglePlus offers this). It may allow deeper and more meaningful conversations among people, and create new relationships.

Facebook could even begin to roll out a new advertising platform that would appear only on these hashtag pages, where advertisers could directly target people searching specific words or phrases. It would bring a more targeted audience to your brand.

In the end, there is no stopping the hashtag, whether you #love it or whether you #hate it, it will begin to show up in our news feeds. Why not #embracethehorror?

What do you think? Do you #like them or #hate them? Sound off below.

Resources:

3 Changes to Facebook Pages: Replies, Cover Photos, Hashtags

Hashtags: from Twitter to Facebook

Facebook Plans to Introduce Hashtags, Reports Say

Facebook Working on Incorporating the Hashtag