customers

The Top 10 Reasons You Need a Blog

The term blog is short for web log, which started out meaning a personal online journal. Back in the late 1990s when blogs first emerged, they were usually filled with personal posts about the owner’s daily life, thoughts, and problems. They have since evolved into invaluable online marketing tools. Blogs are now a “must-have” resource for any online business.

Read more from the original source: 
The Top 10 Reasons You Need a Blog

customers

10 Things to Look for in SEO – A SPN Exclusive Article

Everyone, from a corner coffee shop to an enterprise cloud provider, benefits from good SEO. But how do you get “good” SEO? Few people even understand the concept of search engine optimization, let alone what makes “good” SEO. You can attempt to go at it alone, but it will ultimately cost you more money in man-hours than it would have cost you to outsource. Although many business owners consider themselves Internet savvy, the learning curve for optimizing a business for search engines and social media is always expanding

See the rest here:
10 Things to Look for in SEO – A SPN Exclusive Article

customers

Sony names gaming chief Kazuo Hirai CEO

Sony has tapped Kazuo Hirai to replace chief executive Howard Stringer when he steps down from on 1 April. Mr Hirai has long been considered the heir-apparent for the CEO position – as a savvy gaming executive; he has been credited with turning things around at the company’s unprofitable PlayStation business and was promoted to head of consumer products last March. He takes the helm just as Sony is predicting its fourth year of net losses for the fiscal year ending 31 March 2012. The company is likely to announce its third quarter results tomorrow and provide more information on the company’s management shake-up.

Read the rest here: 
Sony names gaming chief Kazuo Hirai CEO

customers

Angry Birds boss doesn’t see Piracy as a bad thing

Rovio boss Mikel Hed has said he doesn’t necessarily see piracy as a bad thing when it comes to Angry Birds. Speaking at the Midem conference in Cannes, the Angry Birds maker explained the company sees efforts to pursue pirates in the court system as ‘futile’ – so long as pirated products are not harmful to the brand or ripping off fans. “We could learn a lot from the music industry, and the rather terrible ways the music industry has tried to combat piracy. “We have some issues with piracy, not only in apps, but also especially in the consumer products,” he said. “There is tons of merchandise out there, especially in Asia, which is not officially licensed products.” Hed also explained he believes there is a lesson to be learned from the music industry – namely, approaching customers as fans, rather than users. “We took something from the music industry, which was to stop treating the customers as users, and start treating them as fans. We do that today: we talk about how many fans we have,” he said.

Here is the original:
Angry Birds boss doesn’t see Piracy as a bad thing

customers

Using Customer Service To Get Social Media Marketing Benefits

Social media marketing is more than just spreading a marketing message through social networking tools like Twitter or Facebook. It is about brand management and defense on those same social tools, and turning that defense into marketing opportunities. In many cases, social media marketing will often transcend the typical marketing communication messages and campaigns, because it comes from sources other than the marketing department. The customer service department is an unlikely place for social media marketing to happen, but because of the public nature of social networks, it can be a great place for brand defense and word of mouth marketing to happen, all because the customer service department is on the ball and handling customer complaints. Here is an example of how social media marketing usually works. 1) A customer has a complaint with their satellite service provider. They send a tweet out, which is seen by their 750 followers: “Channel 213 is out, and right before the big game. Stupid satellite company. Been sitting on hold for past 30 minutes.” 2) The satellite company is monitoring Twitter, and they respond with a message of apology and an offer to help.

Go here to see the original: 
Using Customer Service To Get Social Media Marketing Benefits

customers

Getting Noticed on the Web

Website Engagement Techniques: The Caricature Effect Marketing is all about getting noticed, getting remembered, and motivating people to action. Whether it’s a website, display ad, or video, it must first grab people’s attention, it must stop the viewer from going onto the next website, turning the magazine page, or clicking the stop button. In order to accomplish that increasingly difficult task, you must understand the Caricature Effect. The Caricature Effect The Caricature Effect simply stated says that what we notice is variation from the norm. Caricature artists exaggerate reality because that is how we visually distinguish one person from another. Human beings are preprogrammed to look for patterns and variations in those patterns, it’s how we recognize who people are, and it is a basic survival mechanism that helps us recognize danger and distinguish friend from foe. By distorting an individual’s prominent facial features the caricature artist mimics the human brain’s way of remembering who’s who. Our brains are not cameras that take pictures and file them away for future reference

See the original post here:
Getting Noticed on the Web

customers

Online Reviews: Six Steps To Stop Your Business Reputation Getting Trashed

The Internet has become one of the first places that potential customers turn to for businesses and product reviews. As a result, it is imperative that your home business avoids negative online product reviews, especially now that social media has become the backbone of online communication. So, here are 6 quick tips to help you avoid getting negative online product reviews. 1. Dominate the Top 10 Search Engine Results The best long-term solution to this is simply to create a strategy to control as many properties as possible that appear on the first page of Google for your particular keyword phrase, product name, or business name. Many people may think this is an unrealistic goal. However, those properties do not have to be all your own

See the rest here:
Online Reviews: Six Steps To Stop Your Business Reputation Getting Trashed

customers

Social CRM: Four Pitfalls To Avoid

You can use social media and social CRM to build a stronger, more responsive business. But these new disciplines are not without risk. To keep your SCRM plans on track, avoid these all-too-frequent missteps. Social Media – It’s Not A Broadcast Network Many companies fail to grasp the two-way nature of social media. So they use sites like Facebook and Twitter to saturate their audience with messages while making no effort to listen to their customers and respond appropriately. It’s the social media version of “shock and awe.” This is understandable given the evolution of marketing as outbound communication only. But today, such behavior is seen as loutish and clueless. Your Customers Might Misbehave – You Can’t You should behave as a peer with your customers, not a pal. Your customer community may be fairly rambunctious, even coarse on line, but that doesn’t mean you should match their behavior.

More:
Social CRM: Four Pitfalls To Avoid

customers

Adobe changes upset users

After announcing significant changes to pricing and subscription plans on Creative Suite (CS) products, Adobe users are fighting back and voicing their complaints. Earlier this month, Adobe quietly announced changes to its pricing model, introducing a new subscription component for Creative Suite products that will change the way the product is delivered for many users. Senior Vice President and General Manager David Wadhwani said in a blog post : “Our move to this membership model allows us to keep our customers up to date with the latest Adobe innovations in our tools and related services. “Creative Cloud will provide maximum flexibility, offer lower cost of entry, and add cutting-edge innovation on an on-going basis to keep our customers ahead of the changing technology and device landscape.” “There is a tremendous shift happening around content creation, distribution and monetization. The Adobe Creative Cloud initiative has the potential to transform creativity as designers and developers look to create the best experiences across devices and platforms, while integrating tablet devices and cloud-based services into their workflows.” Under the new model, Photoshop CS5 users will be able to upgrade to CS6 for a discounted fee – however, Adobe users working with Photoshop CS4 or lower will have to pay full price for the upgrade. In an open letter to Adobe , president of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals Scott Kelby said: “While I understand that Adobe needs to make business decisions based on how it sees market conditions, I feel the timing of this new pricing structure is patently unfair to your customers (and our members). “Here’s why: you didn’t tell us up front. You didn’t tell us until nearly the end of the product’s life cycle, and now you’re making us buy CS5.5 for just a few months on the chance that we might want to buy CS6 at a discount when it’s released

More: 
Adobe changes upset users

customers

Mobile POS Payments Could Save Your Business Life – A SPN Exclusive Article

Honest Restaurant Owner Held Responsible For Fraudulent Transactions Here’s a true story that you may be able to relate to. You’re a merchant running a large local or national restaurant or other retail business. You work very hard and you’ve been fortunate to attract quality people along the way, people that are loyal and very hard working, people that have become family. You have 5 different locations and the management team that you’ve finally assembled in place does a great job and despite the challenging economy, you are beginning to do quite well again. Mostly due to your cost saving efforts and hard work. You’re comfortable and the future looks good when all of a sudden and without warning your business checking account is debited nearly $200,000. The money literally disappears overnight without notification. You only find out because your morning coffee purchase at Starbucks was declined on your company debit card, which should have just over $185,000 available on it. You’re calm on the outside and anxious on the inside because in this economy every sale counts and you’re certain there’s a mistake that someone must have made.

See the original post: 
Mobile POS Payments Could Save Your Business Life – A SPN Exclusive Article

Next Page »