Your Ads on Social Media : “Trick or Treat”?

Offering treats to ward off evil spirits is an ancient pagan custom which we celebrate today as Halloween. Offering up your product or service on Social Media can be seen as being somewhat analogous.


When potential clients show up at your Social Media platform's door, are you offering them a trick or a treat? If you think that you can fool people by only spouting off about all the wonderful things your company has to offer without expecting any feedback - the trick may well be on you! Just like the graffiti “artists” who go around tagging everything they can find, you may be the target of some unwanted posts. Some large corporations have fallen victim to this, so it's not just a question of advertisers being naive enough to have a Pollyanna attitude. If people wanted to see a billboard, they wouldn't go online – they would go outside. Put up a billboard on a Social Media channel and you can expect the goblins to come out and haunt you. Ask a question begging a positive answer and the Frankenspammers will come out of the dungeon.

Targeted, well thought-out Advertising with a reward for loyal followers, even if the reward is simply important or useful information, is the “treat” for online consumers. Professionals in the field of interactive advertising are better equipped to handle your account than your cousin who calls himself a webmaster on weekends. But perhaps you feel you can safely remove your own appendix. We'll save that sort of gore for next year's Halloween blog! Meanwhile, Happy Halloween from Roam Business, give yourself a treat - click on this link and visit us on Facebook.

The Mobile Holiday Shopper – (This isn't about buying a smartphone!)

For many businesses the Holiday Season represents the biggest sales spike in the entire year. Some even separate the period from the rest of their fiscal year for purposes of analyzing financial data because it has such a huge effect that it skews monthly averages when factored into annual sales. But this isn't about accounting, it's about how consumers are using mobile devices to shop.


The reality of today's marketplace is that a growing number of consumers use mobile applications to find stores, compare prices on site, or simply purchase online without even seeing the product other than in a virtual image in cyber-space.
Gone are the days when a festive window display and a few ads in the local paper would draw consumers into a store for some Santa action. Today, Santa has a smartphone and he/she isn't just being guided by Rudolph's shiny nose!

The growth in mobile data usage is not a flash-in-the-pan. According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index, the number of mobile users and data transferred over the next few years will grow exponentially. To the business owner relying on retail sales, this reality means a whole new way of dealing with advertising and even in how the consumer is accommodated in-store. Customer service has been redefined with the demand for, and capability of, instantaneous response. Businesses that are prepared and properly using the power of online advertising and quick consumer response tools will not only see the immediate benefits, they will also generate the kind of buzz that can't be purchased in ad space.


If you are a small business, or speciality store owner and don't believe that this change will impact your bottom line – think again. An online presence, easily discovered by mobile applications will not only allow you to compete with the big stores, it will give your regular clients the signal that you are present and ready to serve them on any platform. Not to belabour an already over-worked truism, but when it comes to mobile visibility, you really “can't afford not to have it”.
Before Santa comes calling again this year, there's still time to fine-tune or even launch an online campaign. Contact us today for a free, confidential consultation – www.roambusiness.com

RKN

Six Reasons Why Buying Twitter is not “For the Birds!”

Whether or not you use Twitter or even understand the purpose of sending messages with 140 characters or less, the company's Initial Public Offering makes for what we believe to be a smart investment opportunity.


Twitter is tailor made for mobile devices. Created in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, it has grown to include around 218 million average monthly users sending over 400 million “tweets” per day. It has only scratched the surface of its potential advertising revenue which is expected to to hit $1 Billion next year.


But the six best reasons we can find for buying into an application that dominates mobile messaging is in the expected growth of mobile data and devices in the next five years. According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index – a global mobile data forecast – Mobile data traffic will reach the following milestones within the next five years.

1. Monthly global mobile data traffic will surpass 10 exabytes in 2017.
   
2. The number of mobile-connected devices will exceed the world's population in 2013.
   
3. The average mobile connection speed will surpass 1 Mbps in 2014.
   
4. Due to increased usage on smartphones, handsets will exceed 50 percent of mobile data traffic in 2013.
   
5. Monthly mobile traffic will surpass 1 exabyte per month in 2017.
   
6. Tablets will exceed 10 percent of global mobile data traffic in 2015.
   
   

In case you were wondering, an “exabyte” is one billion gigabytes, but what we find really amazing is the statistic about mobile devices exceeding the world's population.


Roam Business is not an Investment Firm and our opinion is not based on anything but speculation and our own analysis. We are, however, firmly convinced that you could do worse on the stock exchange than buying a Board Lot of “TWTR” when it becomes available if you can afford the risk.
www.roambusiness.com



RKN