Putting It All Together

By now we have all probably been overwhelmed by the sheer number of social media and marketing tools and sites available to us in our internet marketing plan. Even once we carefully evaluate and choose the tools most applicable to our business marketing plan, how in the world are we supposed to keep up with them all? Must we log onto every site and every tool every day or even multiple times of day? This would be a huge undertaking and could be very inefficient and time consuming. This is where aggregators come into play.

Aggregators allow you to compile the information you need into one place. If you have ever customized your iGoogle page or your MyYahoo page, you have used an aggregator. Yet there are many different types of aggregators to serve your individual needs.

Digg combines the best rated news and videos on the web, as rated by other members. It works well with most social media platforms and blogger sites. It can be very helpful for keeping up with the competition and for disbursing information about your company. Similar is Reddit, which is a news site driven by readers postings of links on the web.

FriendFeed, Google Reader, iGoogle, MyYahoo! are all aggregators which compile your customized sites and information on one page so that you can easily keep track of postings, news, financial events, competitors, and much more. These make life so easy, as you don't have to log on to all of the sites you are keeping up with individually - you can see a brief of each and expand as needed.

Aggregators make life easy. Explore them, try them out, get to know how to use them to your advantage. This is the way to pull it all together. Good Luck!

#cgs2069 - Donna Holmes

Ongoing Marketing Success

It takes a lot more time and a lot more money to get a new customer than to keep an existing one. Add to that the fact that repeat customers tend to spend 33% more than new customers and repeat customers generate more referrals and it is clear to see that maintaining existing customers should be a top priority in your marketing efforts.

There are five basic reasons a customer discontinues a relationship with a merchant. These are as follows:

· Pricing is too high or not fair

· They have an unresolved complaint

· They took a competitor’s offer

· They feel you didn’t care about them

· They have lost the excitement or you are not meeting their needs

Pricing must always be compared with the area market. Although it is not always in your best interest to be the lowest priced provider, you must be competitive or offer something which greatly increases the value of your product or service as compared to competitors. This is not a one-time exercise, as economies and local markets change frequently, so be sure to plan regular market research in this area and act accordingly.

Many times a customer will have an unresolved complaint that causes them to boycott your company. I didn’t shop at Sears for fifteen years after an unresolved complaint about a set of tires. If you stay in touch with your customers regularly, you will have a better chance of knowing if there is a problem. Then you must be sure to go ahead and address the situation to the customer’s satisfaction.

A competitor will often offer specials and incentives do drive new traffic to their doors. Their target market includes your customers. While you can’t prevent a customer from taking advantage of a competitor’s offer, you can make sure that you deserve their loyalty and perhaps offer to match any competitor’s offer they receive.

If a customer does not feel that you care about them, they will go elsewhere even if you have everything they are looking for. We are social animals and we need to feel that people like and care about us. How many times have you become frustrated and left a store because the staff was indifferent or could not stop their personal conversations long enough to tend to your needs? When a person makes the time and effort to visit your facility, whether in person or on-line, they need to know that you are glad they are there and you want to do anything you can to help them feel welcome. As our world becomes more and more technology oriented, that personal touch can make a huge difference.

If a customer has lost excitement for your product or service or feels you are no longer meeting their needs, you need to look at your overall offerings and how you present them. Chances are that this is not the only customer who is bored or frustrated. Use this as an opportunity to beef up your program to bring in new blood and re-excite the existing customers. Also, you can do special things for existing clientele only – special discounts, early sales, bonus purchases, etc. You need to become exciting again, whether you sell plumbing supplies or bungee jumping. You need to have what people are looking for – the newest product line or best delivery system. This exercise will also re-invigorate your own enthusiasm and give your business new life.

Remember too that word of mouth is the greatest sales tool available to you. If you keep generating excitement, surprise and delight for your customer, they will spread the word faster than any marketing program you can generate. I hope you will share your ideas with others in this class on ways to increase customer loyalty and satisfaction so we can all benefit from the collective creative mind.

Happy Marketing! - Donna Holmes #cgs2069

World Economy/Internet Marketing

I can’t help but reflect on how long our economy has been in terrible shape. I was wondering where it is all going to end up as. Wave after wave of foreclosures continues. Record number of people are jobless. The stock market is all over the place with uncertainty and volatility. College graduates are falling behind or defaulting on record numbers of federal government backed student loans because they can’t find jobs. Given all that, one of the most despairing sights is the number of businesses closing – large and small. I haven seen that happening even now. And, as a country we are in more debt, at levels that seems to be having a serious impact on not just us, but the world economy.

What really could turn this economy around is entrepreneurship. America was founded, and has flourished over the long term, mainly as a country of small businesses. Sure, one small business hiring a few people is not going to save our economy, but it is not just one small business…it could be thousands and thousands – and that represents a real force to be reckoned with. What built this country will save it. Small business is the heart and soul of America. I am sure other countries have their small businesses as well but their economy is pretty bleak too from what I hear.

The truth is, people who has online experience with internet marketing don’t realize how much power they have to help the economic situation. The internet keeps growing; it is not the bleak world off line people are dealing with. If you have any level of experience at all go out and work with local and small businesses. Even if they think a Facebook Fan Page is about rock stars, you can probably help by showing how it can generate business for them…..and if you like, get paid for fostering this held back desire I sense in the entrepreneurs of America. They have the will but not the know-how to do internet marketing. Each small business you can help will save our economy, one step at a time.

Rebecca Williams
CGS 2069

Virtual Imagination

Have you ever wanted to go somewhere where you don’t have to be yourself, there is a place that is fairly cheap to travel to and you don’t even have to pack your cloths there already waiting for you. Are have you been on a business trip and thought that there was a better way of sitting up meetings without traveling thousands of miles across the glob to meet your client. Well there is a way to do all that and more and it’s with virtual worlds. Virtual Worlds have been around for a long time and a lot of us have been in one and didn’t realize it. Some would call it an online game, but in fact it was a virtual world what I’m talking about is places like Runescape , Guild Wars , Ragnarok Online that caters to the gaming side of people, but they are a place to socialize and come together with friends both the ones made online and in the real world.

There is also a side to virtual worlds that is most times overlooked that’s the businesses and marketing aspect of using virtual worlds like Second Life Active World. These are more social and cater to more of the creative side of people. Some have already started using these two for
online business purposes like meeting clients that reside in another country. The internet has a
multitude of resources that we can use like Face-Book and Twitter; virtual worlds are just one more thing that can be used for personal are internet marketing, are what the heck you could use it for both.






Harry V. Adkins

Virtual Worlds for Education

Virtual Worlds for Education

We all know Virtual Worlds are used for socializing, E-Commerce, to hold business meetings and gamming; especially the gamming. The use of MMORG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games) have skyrocketed. Microsoft reported that during the first week of its release Halo 3 players racked up more than 40 million hours by the end of the first week. While virtual worlds do all of the fore mentioned they are also used for education. They can be used to play fun educational games, to teach in a virtual classroom or share and learn from your peers. For a student with disabilities virtual worlds can be a great learning resource.

Being a student can be a daunting task especially for students with disabilities who face physical obstacles, social rejections, academic failure, medical issues and bullying. One of the most powerful aspects of virtual worlds for students with disabilities is that everyone’s avatar has the same virtual abilities. Everyone can run, jump, fly, swim, whatever the task the virtual world makes it possible no matter your handicap. Think about the impact this can have on someone who is handicapped, to see your avatar running and jumping over things to save the princess and win the game. Just to be on the same playing field as everyone else has to be a huge confidence builder. This is such a powerful tool not just for those with disabilities but for all students to learn and help develop self-esteem. Virtual worlds for education are a win win situation, the student gets to have fun interaction and spend a little extra time on their times tables or spelling words whatever the case may be they are learning and engaging in a positive educational experience.

There are many numerous educational worlds for students to visit, create and play. From the simplest to the advanced here is a small sampling to check out

http://www.webkinz.com/
Where you take care of a virtual pet and play games
http://www.jumpstart.com/
A mix of virtual world with typical interactive learning
activities in a game to earn awards
http://www.clubpenguin.com/
Virtual world from Disney that includes filtered chat
and live moderators
http://www.dimensionu.com/
Virtual world targeting math, science, and history
http://www.avatarstorytellers.com/
A multiplayer online educational virtual world designed
for classroom students ages 9-12
http://www.zulaworld.com/
Virtual exploration of science, math, and astronomy


Cindi Davis
CGS2069

Exploring the World of Wikis

Ever since the online encyclopedia Wikipedia went public, I have been constantly informed in the academic world that it is not a reliable source to use when researching information because the site’s content can be edited and developed by just about anyone. Because of that reasoning alone I concluded over the years that the credibility of any wiki was obsolete. It was not until recently, that I decided to challenge that reasoning by doing some of my own insight into the use of wikis. I wanted to find out what are the different uses of wikis, how would they benefit me , and do they provide a substantial benefit to the social media world. I started off by looking up a definition of what a wiki was, and my choice of resource for that was none other than the famous site of http://www.wikipedia.org/. Wikipedia defines a wiki as “a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include community websites, corporate intranets, knowledge management systems, and note services. The software can also be used for personal notetaking.”.
Then I took a plunge into the Wiki World even further with a visit to the first wiki website created by Ward Cunningham, http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WelcomeVisitors. This is where the idea of wikis started. While this site is geared more for topics closer related to software development, there are many other wiki sites that help you develop a wiki to your liking. Up to this point the idea of wikis did not strike my interest until I came upon the http://www.wikispaces.com/ and the http://www.pbwiki.com/ websites. Just from these pages alone, I realized how closely wikis relate with other social media pages out there, but without all the other distractions like SPAM! These sites teach you how to create wikis to discuss your own thoughts and knowledge while allowing others to add or edit as they please. Sounds a lot like blogging don’t you think?! You can also use wikis to coordinate between people which is a growing trend as opposed to the old and not so effective way of email. A demonstration of how a wiki works and the benefits of utilizing one is shown in a three minute YouTube video I came across http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY.

Finally, between the information I found throughout the articles, posts, and videos I found on the internet, I now have a better view of what a wiki is and the benefits of using one. With the options of personalizing pages and adding images and files, I can see wikis growing into a widely used social networking tool. I can actually look back and think of a time when I would have benefited from the use of a wiki. For example, my wedding five years ago. It was a wedding that took place in Ohio, but I had to plan it from Arizona while coordinating with my family, photographer, minister, etc., and who were all scattered across the country. It did not run smoothly at all and was a disaster. It is mind boggling to think of the headaches I could have prevented if I would have used a wiki to coordinate with everyone. Lesson learned... Wikis Rock!

Megan Johnson

Broadcast Yourself!!

Ever since I have been on social networking sites, I have started paying attention to video sites such as YouTube. I didn't used to before until now. Now, I can't live without it. Although there are other video sites out there such as:

1. www.brightcove.com,
2. www.video.google.com (no longer used to upload videos)
   
3. www.hulu.com
   
4. www.metacafe.com
   
5. www.viddler.com
6. www.youtube.com

I prefer YouTube because of its easy access to thousands of videos to choose from. Also, I like it because it is the next best thing to being around people. When the mood suits me especially if I am sad, angry, or lonely, I will watch a music video on YouTube. It is more eye-catching than any flat picture and the audio is easier to follow than trying to read marketing copy.

If you want to be creative and do a vlog (short for video blog) to share videos such as YouTube instead of the more tedious blog, I have found some tips that will help you do just that. Share your favorite video clips without worrying about broken links or sending visitors away from your site.

At YouTube.com, you'll find an abundance of movies on any topic. Visit, watch, and find a video to share with your blog readers. Copy the embed code. Here is an example below.

Next to each video is an embed box. This contains the HTML code that you'll use to put the video in your blog. Copy this code in its entirety. Paste the code into your blog.

Open your blog and begin a new entry. Paste in the code you copied from YouTube. You can type text about the video above or below this embed code.

Tip: Make sure the HTML tags for your blog are turned on. Otherwise, the text and video in your blog entry may not be properly formatted. Preview your blog post. Here is one that I have embedded that is pretty funny and you don't have to understand this language. It is pretty obvious!! This would be good for Halloween!!! I laughed every time I see this.

Once you have entered everything for your blog post, press Preview. Now you can check to make sure that the formatting is correct and the video link works. When the text and video are correct and the formatting is right, hit Publish and share the embedded video with your blog readers! Enjoy!!!!

Rebecca Williams
CGS 2069

Photo Sharing The Night Away

The internet has given us many ways to communicate with others and one of these ways is photo sharing. I personally have not used online photo sharing sites to share photos, but I have searched them just to see what it’s all about and I have to say it’s a lot easier than the old way of sending photos through the mail, and cheaper. Many people use photo sharing sites to keep in touch with loved ones and family, but it’s good for other things like if your an artist are graphic designer you could build a online portfolio to show you work to others that might be interested in hiring, are buying your work. Sharing photos with family members that are separated by many miles is a popular use of photo sharing; furthermore, it gives the solders that are abroad a chance to see family back in the States. No longer do the solders have to wait for a letter to arrive, they just log on to their preferred photo sharing site and start viewing and sharing. Parents can post photos for the kids off at college to help with some of the home sickness that sets in for someone that is off on their own for the first time. Companies can even benefit from photo sharing sites in a way that will let their customers share their experience of the product are service through photos with other likeminded folks, and show off new products. Here is a short list of sites that are for sharing photos if you want to see more just Google it and start surfing away:

http://www.flickr.com/

http://www.snapfish.com/snapfish/home

http://photobucket.com/

“Tiny-Pic is a photo and video sharing service that lets you easily upload, link, and share your images and videos on MySpace®, eBay®, Orkut Scrapbooks, blogs, and message boards…”

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/welcome.jsp

“KODAK Gallery makes it easy to do so much more with your photo memories. Turn your most treasured moments into beautiful KODAK-quality prints, gorgeous photo cards, photo books, photo mugs, and a huge selection of photo gifts to personalize and make your own with our easy customization features. Plus, now you can easily, quickly and securely share your photos and projects, including direct Gallery-to-Face-book sharing…”

As with any thing that is posted to the internet photos are no exception, once they are posted its’ there forever, you truly cannot delete them they are somewhere and can come back to haunt you later, so be careful what you post, once it’s caught in the net any one fishing online may find them.

Harry V.Adkins

To Blog or Not to Blog

I am no stranger to social networking, I have been emailing for at least 15 years and I have been on Facebook for about 3 years now but I am new to the blogging world. So I have to ask myself why would I blog and what do I have to blog about?

I saw the movie Julia and Julia featuring a women who cooks all of the items from Julia Child cookbook and bloggs about her outcomes. I have some friends who are passionate about politics who blog. If you pay attention to entertainment at all, you are constantly hearing about what this actor or actress has posted on Twitter. For business I understand blogging can be an easy tool to reach not only existing but also potential customers. Business blogs are a good way to build web traffic, share products and information, build a relationship with your customers, market new ideas and receive feedback. That still does not answer, what do I have to blog about?

According to About.com the number one reason to blog is to express your thoughts and opinions http://about.com

I guess Facebook is a form of blogging from what I understand this is microblogging. Microblogging is a great way to stay connected with friends and families with updates, photos, and short post. I post on Facebook if I have something new and exciting to share or if I'm frustrated about something, but to maintain a blog on a regular basis; I'm not sure it's for me. I decided to take a look at the different types of blogs and what people write about. I like reading blogs about topics of interest, I see where blogging can market something (a product or a movie), and I love the idea of helping people by blogging about a difficult situation; I can see where this may help someone else with what they are going through or offer support during troubled times.

I am glad I have been introduced to the blogging world. I will definitely continue to read blogs but I'm just not comfortable enough as a writer or that passionate about anyone thing to maintain a blog. I think I will have to stick with microblogging for now, it is nice to know the option is there should I ever have the urge to share and be heard.

Cindi Davis
Internet Marketing CGS 2069