SOUNDCLOUD – A WEB BASED MARKETING TOOL YOU SHOULD BE USING

I’ve been a fan of SoundCloud.com for a long time. It’s a site used for people who create their own music that allows them to build an audience through the site itself. It’s completely free to use, but not just for musicians.

If you are an avid blogger, or you’re in charge of marketing for your company, SoundCloud can be used as a quick podcasting tool. Instead of going through all the trouble setting up an official podcast feed, you can record lengthy audios via SoundCloud and embed them into your website.

So check out the quick podcast below, and then share with me if you are aware of other sites that provide free hosting of audio and video that you can embed for blogging!

Using SoundCloud for Podcasting by Carlton

Carlton Flowers
SoundClouder Extreme

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SOCIAL MEDIA MONITORING WITH TWEETGRID

Technology has really changed the way people share their thoughts, opinions, and experiences about businesses. Thanks to social media websites like Twitter and Facebook, a company’s positive image can be bolstered or destroyed overnight.

Those who take the power of social media communities seriously allow themselves the ability to steer through the minefield of public opinion and continue with great success. But companies who chose to ignore the new paradigm we have experienced for the past several years are destined to hit mine and fail.

Reputation monitoring is the big new thing in the world of business today. Community relations now takes place online… in real time… and there’s a secret weapon you can use absolutely free of charge called TweetGrid that will allow you to keep track of what people are saying about your brand as it is happening.

According to Twitter.com, there were 140 million Tweets posted just last month. You better believe that a small but significant fraction of those little messages posted on the hottest micro blogging social community board were from people expressing their thoughts, feelings, or experiences about a business product or service.

Now then… considering the massive amount of traffic pulsing through Twitter each and every day, do you think it would be worth monitoring the site for any instances where your brand is being talked about? Would you like to know when someone says something positive? Or perhaps be in-the-know when someone says something negative about their experience with your business so that you could have the opportunity to corral the unhappy customer and show them that you truly care?

I should hope that you do!

That’s where TweetGrid comes into play. All you have to do is launch the website and set up as many grids that you need in order to monitor what is being said about your business. Pick a few keywords that you think people would use for your business, enter each word into a grid, hit the <enter> button, and there you have it. Each and every time someone makes mention of one of your keywords, it will pop into TweetGrid in real time.

The key here would be to test as many keywords as you possibly can. If there are variations of the names of your business, enter them all. You could even enter common misspellings of your business name. The more the better. The bigger the population of people that frequent your business, the more chances there could be for people to talk up your brand.

If you own a restaurant or a service-related business, you might be surprised at how many people are commenting about your establishment on Twitter. People tend to Tweet a lot about the service they receive, and the quality of food at restaurants, for example. Your goal should be to reinforce and reward the positive comments, and transform the negative comments into good customer service buzz.

Throwing a “thank you” out for positive comments is a no-brainer. But what do you do when an individual says something critical or negative about your business or service? Is it possible to transform such an occurrence into something that could end up building up your reputation?

You bet it is!

If a customer tweets something that doesn’t put you in a positive light, your immediate response and offer to remedy the situation could end up transforming that unhappy person into a happy camper. At worst case, even if they are not ultimately satisfied, more people will trust you and take a chance because they will see that you care.

Simply showing that you care enough to respond is one of the best ways that you can bolster your business’s reputation. However, it goes without saying that you would need to have an actual Twitter account in order to post responses to mentions of your brand, so a little bit of research on how to get started using Twitter and knowing the best way to share your online presence would be in order.

As a side note, most businesses actively posting to Twitter have absolutely no clue as to what to post to be most effective in their marketing efforts. A lot of careless business owners “spam” the Twitter timeline with constant ads, and never interact with others in the community. That is a big mistake. Even if your only activity on Twitter was to respond to people posting about your brand, you would be leaps and bounds ahead of the majority of business Twitterers.

Make the decision now to start monitoring your brand on Twitter and take charge of what your customers reactions are. Turn every situation into a reputation-building opportunity, and watch your business grow leaps and bounds!

Do you have ideas on how to use sites like TweetGrid to better your social media monitoring efforts? Do you have a question about the strategies mentioned in this article? Share them in the comments section below!

Carlton Flowers
Marketing Strategist

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BLOGGING AS A WAY TO DISSEMINATE NEWS AND INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS OR SERVICE

Your customers are looking for news about your business and/or your products on the web. Are you providing them with the information they want, or are your competitors?

To continue my Blogging Basics series, I wanted to share this video that gives a graphical and simplified view and explanation of how a blog can help your business.

If you don’t have a blog, your competitors are probably feeding your clients and customers and drawing them away from your business. That’s why it is critical that you understand this concept.

As the video states, there have been over 70 million blog sites created since 2003. Blogging has become the standard way to share information “news-style” for businesses, organizations, clubs, and groups.

But let me remind you, the greatest benefit for creating and maintaining a blog is the search engine optimization (SEO) power. You’re not just going to benefit by keeping news and information about your business on the web, but you will increase your chances of landing on the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs) when potential clients are searching for info about your products or services.

When a local client is searching for your product, the chances that person picks your business are far greater if you are on the first page of the results that pop up on the screen. It is rare that searchers ever go past page 2 or 3 when drilling down through the results, unless there are no direct matches for what they are looking for.

Google’s search engine loves blogs, because they constantly feed in new information, unlike static web pages. That’s why it is time for you to take serious consideration on starting your business blog in the near future.

Stay tuned for the next post which will showcase my favorite free blog services. Meanwhile, if you have a question on business blogging, feel free to ask your questions in the comments section and I’ll do my best to help you see the light!

Carlton Flowers
Business Blogging Consultant

Hit this link to subscribe to my RSS feed right now —> http://feeds.feedburner.com/carltonzone/yZXF

Business owners, click the image below for information on how you can get your hands on my special report, “Social Media Reality Check“!

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QR CODES WILL REVOLUTIONIZE YOUR BUSINESS MARKETING

The future of local business marketing is here. There’s a small black and white box with a strange pattern in it that will change everything. They’re called “QR Codes“, and you need to know why they will impact your business for the better if you utilize them.

If you are a small business owner, your local advertising and marketing will be revolutionized by incorporating QR codes in your flyers, print ads, billboards, and every single place that you display your business identity.

The days of traditional advertising are over. I will even boldly say that marketing your business on the Internet or on Facebook without QR codes are going to quickly be useless. Why? Because there’s a new mega trend about to hit. And it’s mobile marketing.

Smartphones are everywhere. More of your customers are packing iPhones and Android devices than ever before. When they want to check out for options eating out or shopping, they’re not sitting at home on their home computer to search. They’re reaching for their smartphones.

Within one year, there will be more searches conducted using a smartphone than the home computer. Studies say that 240 million searchers will use their cell phone, while 200 million will use a PC. The gap will widen as more and more people utilize their smartphones as their primary Internet device.

In fact, mobile marketing will give you your biggest bang for your advertising buck. It is a wise investment. You can forget about wasting time and money designing fancy web pages that aren’t optimized for viewing on a cell phone.

The new formula for reaching your potential clients and bringing customers back on a consistent basis will be combining a mobile optimized landing page with traditional advertising and QR codes (plus a little bit of stealthy marketing).

More and more smartphone carriers have free QR code-reading apps, and they are using them. The newness scanning QR codes piques interest and curiosity, and it is quickly becoming popular. Just imagine the rush of new business that could generated by using this new technology right now, while it’s hot.

Just when we thought Twitter, Facebook, and social media marketing was the big new thing, technological advance brings us another paradigm shift in the way we will interact and do business on a local level.

Are you a small business owner or leader of a community group or association that depends on driving new customers and clients to keep your business thriving and growing? Then you better get on this now, and strike while the iron is hot.

You have two choices: figure all of this out on your own, or keep your mind and focus on the daily aspects of your business and let an expert handle it for you.

For the busy folks in the latter category, I suggest you contact me immediately and find out how you can be up and running within days with QR Turbo. I’ll even give you a free 30 minute consultation and live demonstration.

But if you hesitate, I’ll be swamped, and you’ll be left paying a consultant 5x the price for what I can provide for you.

Just pop an email to carlton.flowers@gmail.com with “QR Turbo Fee Demo” in the subject line, and I’ll contact you and schedule a visit.

I’ll also throw in a super free insider tip on how you can use Google Local to set up a free listing that will land you on page 1 of the Google search engine results for your locality.

You will want to get this info before your competitors crowd you out, leaving you on page 2 or 3. And believe me, that could mean the difference in massive traffic to your business (or your competitor). It is mission-critical.

If you want to keep your status as “top-of-mind” for your niche, or kick your competitors off the roost while they are sleeping, I’ll expect to hear from you soon.

All the best,

Carlton Flowers
Your High-Tech Marketing Strategist

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A-DRIVE OFFERS 50 GIGABYTES OF CLOUD DATA STORAGE FOR FREE

I wouldn’t have believed this if I hadn’t tried it myself. A Drive apparently has the largest free cloud storage service on the Internet for personal accounts. They also have premium services for businesses or those that require more space.

You can use A Drive to backup your important stuff, transfer big files to friends, or use it as your online vault for music, videos, and photos. It’s like having an extra 50 gigabyte drive at your disposal that won’t get zapped in the next thunderstorm!

I can always use extra space to store and backup all of my critical documents, spreadsheets, and graphic artwork that I have created. Because of that, I am also a proud user of Dropbox, but they have a limit of only 2 gigabytes for free service users. They have a nice user interface, and they are connected with several services that offer apps for the iPhone, but space is limited. I still encourage the use of Dropbox, and one of my favorite uses of this service is to transfer eBooks to my mobile device readers such as Kobo and iBooks. Click the logo or link and sign up for your own Dropbox. When you make referrals, they give you more free space.

Dont’ wait until it is too late to start backing up your important documents. The last time i had a hard drive failure, I hadn’t done a backup for 1-1/2 years. I lost tons of irreplaceable family pictures, documents and training modules that I had authored for my business, records like tax returns, and more. Sadly, most people don’t think about doing a backup until it is far too late. So be proactive and get an Adrive and Dropbox right now, and start safeguarding your valuable data!

Carlton Flowers
Guardian of Hard Drive Crashes
www.carltonzone.com
www.microbusinessplans.com
www.twitter.com/carltonf

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SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING AUDIO INSTRUCTIONAL CD OFFER!

For the rest of the month of February, 2010, I will be giving away a copy of my instructional audio CD entitled “The Seven Secrets of Revolutionizing Your Business Through Social Media” to any local Jefferson City, Columbia, or Central Missouri area businesses and sales professionals that ask! This audio instructional CD is valued at $29.95, and will help you charge up your marketing efforts using low to no-cost methods. You will not want to miss out on getting this information! The ideas, tips, and strategies presented are very simple to understand and even easier to implement. If you are a business owner, sales professional, organizational leader, or even elected official, this is something that you will have an immediate use for.

Here’s some of what you will learn in this 7-part program:

• the single most critical marketing factor that will cost you your business edge if you don’t pay attention to this marketing trend
• the undesirable result of not taking action if and when your competitors learn of these before you do, and what you must do to stay on top in your field
• how to hack down your advertising & marketing budget, and replace it with something that gets measurable results
• the low-cost and highly effective alternative to “grapeshot marketing”
• a new free service that the majority of households are now discovering and accessing while you continue to dump money into “Stonehenge Media” sources
• a new trend that most large businesses have not discovered that is becoming the most effective form of advertising and brand-building
• a new way to increase your exposure and add potential clients in rapid-fashion like never before

All you have to do to land this valuable information is to contact me via Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/carltonf) or by calling me at (573) 893-9498 and I will be glad to hand deliver a copy to your place of business. I will even post a picture on my blog and include your business name for added exposure! So don’t delay… once the special offer is over, I will have to charge the regular price to continue producing the CD’s. Contact me now, and I will look forward to seeing you at your place of business!

To your success,

Carlton Flowers
Marketing Strategist
(573) 893-9498

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WILL THE RECESSION ELEVATE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING IN 2010?

“The Great Recession” has brought hard times to businesses in just about every sector, and has everyone re-thinking and re-prioritizing business expenses and operating strategies like never before. During economic “high times”, waste abounds. But during tough times, deep thought is put into every aspect of business. Couple this with the fact that we are seeing a trend where more and more people are moving away from television and traditional media, and we have a problem worth paying attention to. As a result, companies think twice before dumping the usual amount of cash into traditional media marketing and advertising.

Unless a certain traditional advertising method is tried and tested and producing positive results, it’s risky business to throw large amounts of cash at new untested marketing ideas. However, testing new concepts and ideas can now be done relatively free of cost through social media communities. And the good news? There’s a huge audience waiting on sites like Twitter and Facebook to participate in your marketing and advertising ideas.

High levels of participation can normally be achieved, and the success of testing the market in this manner is due to the insanely large percentage of people participating in social media communities. Just today, it has been reported that Facebook alone has registered 400 million users worldwide. This figure is up 50 million from the last estimate I read just one month ago. Another staggering statistic is the fact that 50% of the registered users check in on a daily basis. This creates an enormous opportunity for businesses.

The goal in advertising and marketing is to get your message and/or brand in front of as many people that you can, and to engage your audience accordingly. Common sense would tell you to take your message where the majority of the people are gathering and paying attention, which just happens to be Facebook and Twitter. Does it make sense to spend advertising dollars in a declining media market? Of course not. That’s why social media marketing is making more sense by the day.

That gets me to my main point. I see social media marketing becoming a cost control measure in the coming year as companies and agencies slash budgets vehemently to survive. Pulling money out of the declining traditional media outlets and doubling down on social media marketing is a complete common sense cost cutting strategy that we are already seeing, but you can bet your bottom dollar that it will become a strong trend in 2010.

Have you observed an increase in the use of social media for marketing purposes among small businesses, corporations and government agencies in your area? Tell us about it in the comments section below!

Carlton Flowers
Marketing Strategist

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ARE SOCIAL MEDIA & BLOGGING JUST A FAD, OR ARE THEY A REAL TREND?

In the past 3 years, we have seen the explosive growth of the social media scene. Facebook has garnered over 350,000,000 active users worldwide, Twitter has attained roughly 45,000,000 users, and there have been 130,000,000 blogs indexed by Technorati since the year 2002. In 24 hours alone, over 900,000 blog posts are created. But even with these staggering statistics, there are still those who believe that the social media explosion is a fad, not a paradigm shift.

I strongly believe that social media represents a paradigm shift in the way that we as a people communicate and interact with one another. When the fastest growing sector on Facebook is the 55+ age group, you don’t have a problem believing that this is a definite all-encompassing shift. But the sheer numbers of people participating in social media communities and blogs does not determine the long-term viability of the trend alone. What makes me boldly state that the social media trend is “boldly going where no man has gone before” and will show no sign of weakening is one thing… monetization.

Tech Trader Daily states that as of January 20th, 2010, Facebook is valued at roughly $14 billion. Twitpic is said to be worth more than $10 million.  MSNBC’s Motley Fool states that search monster Google could be worth $200 billion. The Tech Observer believes Twitter to be valued at around $1 billion. That’s just a sampling of a few of the major players on the social media scene. But this is not what made my mind up about the strength of this trend. What aspect of monetization makes me so confident, you ask? The local search market. Heres why…

In this day and age, nobody is reaching for the Yellow Book to find a pizza joint for dinner. They are using Google. Not only are people Googling restaurant ideas on their home computers, they are using their smart phones. The smart phone trend is getting bigger by the day, and people are becoming more accustomed to using their smart phone devices as their primary internet portholes. The use of Google for researching purchasing decisions on the local level has captured the attention of small businesses and professionals. Instead of relying solely on the radio, newspaper, and the declining television market, they must now “optimize” their presence on the internet to take advantage of local searchers by maximizing their online visibility. This has created a cottage industry that we call “Search Engine Optimization”, or SEO for short.

Now it’s time to tie it all in. What is the fastest way to optimize your business presence on the web in order to facilitate ease of indexing by search engine giant Google? It’s social media platforms and blogging. Using micro blogging sites and social media communities, business owners are able to conquer search terms related to their niche and achieve indexing for their local search market within hours, in some instances. People can pay consultants hefty fees to optimize their searchability (my new word), or they can do it organically by blogging, using targeted keywords, and interacting with people on a one-on-one basis within the most popular social media communities.

The fact remains that social media is a societal trend, not a fad, and the money tied up into this trend both on the national level and the local level is proof. So the next time you hear someone telling you that social media marketing is a farse, and the social media communities will be gone before long, just think about the hundreds of thousands of grandmas out there who are spending hours a day tending to their virtual farms on “Farmville”, and picture this obsessive activity disappearing. I don’t see this happening within my lifetime.

by Carlton Flowers
Social Media Strategist

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TWITTER TURBO NEARS COMPLETION – VIDEO UPDATE

I’ve been at the helm pounding away at the keyboard and finalizing the Twitter Turbo seminar software CD for release in February of 2010. I’m three months late on my projected release, but I’ve had so much more great information to include in this project that I just could not let it go a minute too early. Several sales & marketing professionals have expressed interest in the program, and several others are asking for information on what the program covers. This video includes a basic explanation of how Twitter Turbo will benefit you as a business owner or sales professional in layman’s terms. In the video, I encourage viewers to sign up for the email list to have immediate notification when the product is ready for release. You will need to go to the Twitter Turbo page and enter your email address at the bottom of the page in order to do so. Questions, comments, or discussion? Feel free to post them below! I’ll look forward to hearing from you!

Click Here to view the video!

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TWITTER TRAINING COMING TO CENTRAL MISSOURI!

Today I was blessed to have been interviewed by the awesome David Lile on KFRU Radio in Columbia (1400AM). David is a very charismatic gentleman who carries quite a large following with his radio broadcast. He had some great questions waiting for me, and admitted that he has not spent much time at all on the social media front, nor was he entirely motivated to do so. But by the end of the interview, he saw value in social media participation for business owners and professionals, and even stated that he may look into getting on Twitter and Facebook himself!

We had 3 callers in the latter half of the interview who all had excellent questions. I was surprised that all were interested in learning how to use Twitter, and wanting to know ways that it could be integrated into their marketing strategy. From the questions that were asked, I get a good feeling that there is a need for fundamental Twitter marketing training in Central Missouri. I plan on helping people get the basics of Twitter marketing by providing basic info in my marketing strategy podcast, and also through live webcasts. In the future, as demand dictates, I will be offering workshops and individualized consulting.

My goal is to help business owners and sales professionals explode their current market base and expand the extent of their reach by utilizing the popular social media networks, thus increasing traffic to their businesses and increasing profits. All of this is possible with the right methods and a solid strategy. For more information on social media marketing, listen to the audio podcasts on www.carltonzone.com/blog and chime in to the discussion.

Do you have a question about using Twitter or Facebook to promote your business or organization? Write in a response to this blog post, or contact me via email at carlton.flowers@gmail.com. I’ll be waiting to help you!

Carlton Flowers
Marketing Strategist

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