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

Social Media Advertising - Are Your Ready to Attend the Party?

All dressed up and nowhere to go? That's a problem which some businesses encounter when launching a Social Media campaign. The website is fully functional, the Facebook page is set up and posting what seems like worthwhile information, and perhaps a Twitter or FourSquare account has been set up for the multitude of fans who will welcome your business with open arms. All the power of Social Media is at your disposal, right? Wrong!


Unless you have spent some time finding out where your existing clients are and where your target market is, you may just be wasting your budget on either the wrong clothes for the occasion or overpriced designer duds that won't attract anyone who would buy your product or service.


Knowing how your clients interact with digital media is not only important, it's essential to any strategy that hopes to yield a modicum of success. It's like being invited to a party and not knowing where it's being held or whether the occasion is formal or not. Sure, you can look good anywhere and people will admire you, but what you should aim to do, is look sharp and interact with your friends because they're the ones who buy your product! If you can effectively interact with the people who know you, they will no doubt say good things about you to their friends – hence the “social” in Social Media.


Before you RSVP on the invitation to attend the big event, get some advice from a company specializing in Social Media Marketing, and for Pete's sake, don't put the office intern in charge of handling the transportation!



To find out more about how your business can harness the power of Social Media contact us at wwwroambusiness.com

Not a Funeral, a Wedding!

One of the biggest misconceptions about Social Media is that it will somehow “kill” traditional media as a means of advertising and interacting with clients and potential clients. Television, radio, and print ads are not obsolete, nor are they useless in the modern age of social media marketing.

The reality is that all forms of the more conventional advertising channels have had to adapt to the “new kid on the block” - Digital Media. You would be hard pressed to find a television or print ad for any major product or service that doesn't contain an invitation to “visit us on Facebook” or provide a domain name for the company's website. Quick response codes, those squares with the leopard spots, that redirect mobile devices to a website, are all over ads in the subways, buses and common spaces in every city around the world. Ill-conceived “tweets” are often the substance of a television news story, giving an advertiser some unwanted notoriety while at the same time providing television with material for a story.

What has changed with the arrival of social media is the degree to which an advertiser can interact, in many cases instantaneously, to a consumer's question, compliment, or complaint. A company can no longer deliver a monologue on how their product or service is the best, fastest, or cheapest without being publicly called to task by the consumer. In fact, instant comparison shopping is available to anyone with a mobile device and the right software to scan a barcode. Traditional bricks and mortar stores now have to meet their competitor's prices on the spot - or be last in the race for the buyer's buck. Most larger companies have had to rethink their entire customer service strategy, since social media advertising demands constant monitoring and an ongoing dialogue with consumers.

With the billions of dollars being spent world-wide on marketing strategies and advertising, it's not likely that traditional media will die or simply pack it up and go away. What is taking place is actually an evolutionary process (some would call it a revolution) whereby a shotgun-wedding of traditional and digital advertising is taking place. The success of this marriage will be depend, as with any successful coupling, on how well the two components complement one another. Without fully accepting the partnership and cultivating the possibilities of harmonious co-existence, neither will reach its full potential.

To find out more about how your business can take full advantage of Social Media's broad reach contact us at www.roambusiness.com.

RKN

Phony Followers and Limp Likes

Imagine that you decide to have a party at your home and you invite 1000 people you have never met, who may or may not speak the same language as you do, and who will never have anything to do with you again once they have stopped by at your house. Oh yes, here's the kicker – you pay to have them come to your house.

Sounds crazy doesn't it? Why would anyone do such a thing unless all they wanted to say was, “I hosted a party and a thousand people showed up!”

Sadly, there are companies who take advantage of people's ignorance of how Social Media / Digital Advertising works, and sell them a bill of goods claiming to be optimizing their product or service for search engines by selling “likes” or “follows” on every Social Media Application imaginable. In fact, all they are selling is a set of “Emperor's Clothes” to businesses naive enough to buy into their illusion. What the algorithms that drive search engines get “tickled” by, more than a 1000 Facebook likes or Twitter followers, is the interaction or engagement of users with these sites.

Of course, if all you're setting out to do by having a Facebook page for your business is to appear to have thousands of people who “like” you, the illusion is right there for you to buy. But if that's how your business is going to use Social Media, you may as well get a guy to walk around with a sandwich board advertising your rates. You will likely get a better return on investment!

Phony “followers” and limp “likes” will not interact with your posts, tweets, photos, or blogs. They are robotic, one-time, clicks. Single, imaginary visitors to your feed, that will never come back again. The worst of it is, if you are actually analyzing the stats generated by tools like Facebook's great new page insights, or Google Analytics – the data generated by fake followers will be misleading and useless. “Garbage In – Garbage Out”.

There are much better ways to enhance your visibility on Social Media. If you really want to spend a few bucks, tools like Google +AdSense or Facebook's adverts for business pages, can make you much more findable to the people that really count – your prospective clients! If you want to enhance your website for search engines, get someone who knows what they're doing to imbed code and plan your strategy for back-links.

But if you're hell-bent on wasting your money, it's your party and you will eventually cry (even if you don't want to!) by paying for false friends and phony followers.

For a confidential consultation and to find out how your business can best harness the power of Social Media, contact us at www.roambusiness.com.

Labor Day for Social Media Marketers

This blog spot is written exclusively for those in the business of Social Media Marketing. Whether you call your self an Internet Advertising Specialist, Social Media Marketer, Interactive Media Professional, Digital Marketing Expert, or however you define yourself in the online world, as Bud says : “This one's for you!”

As you find yourself explaining landing pages, back-links, analytic software, or maybe just the difference between RAM and ROM to a prospective client, take a deep breath. On this Labor Day Weekend, it's a good time to reflect on what you may have recommended to some of your clients. UNPLUG the hardware and take a break!

Don't buy into the myth of being able to do it all. Software doesn't sleep, but you have to. Take some time to connect with friends, meditate, exercise, or whatever gets you away from the office (virtual or real) and cut yourself some slack.

Connecting with the real world gives us all a chance to re-evaluate what's really important in our lives. Real time, face-to-face human contact is essential to maintaining perspective. There's something exquisite to your “reach” being limited to only one, or a few real people in a room with you, and the idea that organic growth is only important to agriculture. It's nice to stop and realize that “going viral” is only critical to immunologists.

When you settle back into your workspace and hone your skills, who knows? Maybe you'll even have something to blog about! Happy Labor Day!

www.roambusiness.com

Social Media - Home on the Range!

The myriad channels of Social Media allow businesses the opportunity to make more consumers aware of Brand Identity than at any other time in history. Brand awareness is important but it is Brand Management, the art of creating and maintaining the Brand, that can make a Brand one of the most valuable advertising elements a business can own.

Unlike the Good 'Ol Boys putting their mark on the herd in the image to the left, the task of developing and maintaining the image of a product or service and associating it with the image or experience that makes it “special” or “unique” are not as simple as a quick round-up and a hot iron!

A business must decide on a target audience for the product or service it offers, understand the expectations of that audience though market intelligence and orient its image towards those qualities.

Social Media allows for constant feedback and ongoing improvement in reaction to the expectations of the marketplace. Using that intelligence to better maintain a Brand and improve its recognition can mean the success or failure of a product or service offered.

Many companies have an “advertising department” and implement a policy of brand orientation in their organizational image. Some even use the tools available to gather and analyze the vast amounts of data that can be collected from monitoring Social Media campaigns. For the small to medium-sized business, however, the cost and time involved in assembling the teams of personnel and software to carry out these tasks are too challenging and the result is a website with a half-baked presence on Facebook or Twitter in the hope that people may be able to “find” them.

Happily, there is a solution allowing small and medium sized business to take full advantage of Social Media's broad range of marketing and advertising opportunities. There are a number of reputable firms specializing in Digital Marketing and Online Advertising and that are experienced enough to use the tools of analysis to monitor and optimize your campaigns and exposure. Roam Business is one such firm. We can offer you the time and attention necessary to understand the image your business wants to convey. We can effectively reach your target market and provide the real-time interaction that Social Media necessitates. Visit our website at www.roambusiness.com and contact us for a confidential assessment of your Social Media Brand Management.    

R.N.