Vidicom CEO Recommends Brands to Mix and Match Different Social Media Platforms to Interact More with Consumers

Here at Vidicom, Christy Ferer think the various social media platforms are great tools for brands to utilize to connect with consumers. Brands can grow their audiences and discover new content on social media by mixing and matching the different platforms. Here is a list of the platforms that mix well together:

1.     Instagram + Pinterest: A good way to interact with consumers and generate conversations is by pinning your Instagram pictures.

2.     Twitter + Pinterest: You can share your pins with a new audience by pulling content from your pin boards to Twitter.  Photos also help increase engagement with your followers.
      Facebook + Twitter: A good way to find content to post on Facebook is by using Twitter’s search engine.

http://mashable.com/2013/12/23/social-media-mixology/

Vidicom Helps Small Businesses with Social Media Marketing

Vidicom CEO Christy Ferer thinks that utilizing social media is a great marketing strategy for brands. Since it can be a challenge for small businesses to engage an audience via social media, we have provided some tips for building and retaining an audience on social media:

1.     “Pay-to-Play”: Although most of the social media platforms are free, businesses should still allocate a marketing budget for social media.

2.     Pick your platforms wisely: Certain businesses will flourish on visually rich sites such as Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube, while others may have more success with Twitter’s 140 character format

3.     Create a community of insiders: Many people “like” a brand on Facebook so that they can be “in-the-know” about events, promotions, and special offers or discounts

4.     Social is 24/7: Since people are on social media at all hours of the day, including off-hours, the ideal social strategy does not shut off completely for hours or days on end.

http://mashable.com/2013/12/24/grow-social-audience/

Christy Ferer Shares a Mashable Article: Tips for Live Blogging

Christy Ferer says we are experts at linking brands with consumers here at Vidicom. A great way to do so is live blogging. Here are some tips for brands that want to start live blogging or are interested in stepping up their live blog game:

1.     Clarify the event/topic you are discussing: Since the range of topics you can blog about is so vast, you should always indicate what topic you are covering.

2.     Tag your live blog appropriately: It is important to tag your live blog correctly and not to add tags of other fandoms or shows in an attempt to get more notes and reblogs as that can annoy people.   

3.     Include reaction GIFs for full effect: You will make your post more eye-catching by using reaction GIFs.

4.      Be detailed but genuine: Be sure to include detailed information to fill readers in about the topic you are covering. However, keep in mind that live blogs are all about genuine reactions, so don’t don’t shy away from them.

5.     Avoid accidentally spamming your followers dash boards: A good way to avoid filling your followers’ dashboards with an excessive number of posts is to collect multiple ideas in one post and then publish it every few minutes. 

http://mashable.com/2013/12/22/tumblr-live-blogging/

Businesses Should Consider Social Media Lessons of 2013 Says Christy Ferer

Christy Ferer and the Vidicom team read that this was a big year for social media from Twitter making its successful debut on the stock market to China’s e-commerce giant, Alibaba, spending $586 million for a stake in Weibo. Vidicom thinks there are many social media lessons of 2013 that businesses can take away. These lessons include:

Social media can move markets: This was shown when the Dow dropped 150 points seconds after The Associated Press’ Twitter account was hacked and broadcasted a fake tweet saying that there were explosions in the White House and Barack Obama was injured.

Social media is increasingly visual: It is clear with Twitter-owned Vine being launched and Facebook responding by enabling video on Instagram that social media is becoming more and more visual.

Social media is for everyone: Global leaders such as Warren Buffett and Jamie Dimon even use social media platforms.

Social media advertising is on the rise: Facebook reported in the third quarter of 2013 that revenue grew 60% compared to the previous year, with mobile advertising being a large part of that.

Social media could be TVs biggest ally: In October, Nielsen Ratings displayed a correlation between live-tweeting during TV and having a larger, more engaged audience.

http://mashable.com/2013/12/18/social-media-lessons/

Vidicom Share Tips to Keep Employees Happy

Christy Ferer cares deeply about her employees’ well-being and she always make sure that everyone is happy at Vidicom. It is extremely important for any company to create and maintain a pleasant workplace. Some tips for building employee retention and fostering a happy work environment include:

1.     Establish a mission: People want to feel like they are making a difference. Having a mission will keep employees motivated to keep working hard and stick with your company.

2.     Get employees talking to each other: Encouraging employees to interact will make them feel more connected to and informed about their company and one another. 

3.     Have a culture community: Tasking a team to own “people’s operations” and culture can help make sure your employees are engaged and having fun.

4.     Inspire employees to live the brand: This will remind team why they work for your company and it ignites passions that can be shared with your customers.

http://mashable.com/2013/12/04/employee-retention/

Instagram Direct, Christy Ferer Believes, Can Strengthen Customer Relationships

New features are constantly introduced in the social media world. Here at Vidicom, Christy Ferer loves finding ways brands can benefit from the new products that are released. A new set of private and group messaging features was rolled out for Instagram on Thursday morning. Brands will be thrilled to learn ways they can benefit from Instagram Direct. Cofounder and CEO of Instagram, Kevin Systrom, announced that marketers can use the messaging feature to college images for contests. This can help brands deepen relationships with customers as well as increase consumer engagement. Brands can also advance by using direct messaging to handle customer service issues on a one-to-one basis. Brands should try out this new feature to strengthen customer relationships! 

http://mashable.com/2013/12/12/instagram-direct-brands/

The Vidicom Team Help Brands Garner Press Coverage

Christy Ferer, CEO of Vidicom, says receiving press coverage is an effective way to do so. It’s not always easy for small businesses to get coverage. However there are some ways to help. Here are some tips to garner press coverage:

1.     Editorial Calendars: Many publications offer editorial calendars, which include events they plan to cover, seasonal themes, etc. A good way to get coverage is to find where your business can fit or bring value to the editorial calendar.

2.     Create your own content: Diversifying your content strategy is a great way to garner press coverage for your business.

3.     Good Will: Doing good deeds such as donating or sponsoring can bring attention to your business and connect you to both the media and the public.

4.     Consider other press: Press coverage often snowballs into more press coverage, so pitching to smaller blogs or local news as well as your industry’s leading publication can be very beneficial.

http://mashable.com/2013/12/10/how-to-get-press-coverage/

Tips Shared to Enhance CRM by Christy Ferer

Christy Ferer emphasizes the importance of customer relationships here at Vidicom. In order for businesses to succeed, it is necessary to maintain those relationships. Some tips to help brands manage interactions with current and future customers include:  

1.     Generate word of mouth conversations: In today’s society, word of mouth conversations means online reviews and recommendations.  You can get customer feedback from those already using your site with onsite reviews that translate to qualitative stars like you see on Amazon or Yelp. Social media is your best bet for feedback from newcomers.

2.     Use negative feedback to improve customer experience: By responding to negative feedback in a positive way, you can turn frustrated customers into loyal fans and brand ambassadors.

3.     Be honest:  This is an advantage for small businesses because it’s easier for customers to get in touch with a real person. Small businesses can increase customer loyalty, by capitalizing on being honest.

4.     Maintain customer relationships: It is just as important to keep track of ongoing customer relationships as it is to have a positive customer experience. Some helpful tools to help you keep track of relationships include, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Kovida.is, Close.io, Sugar, or an Excel Doc.

http://mashable.com/2013/12/05/crm-tips/

Most Brands Can Advance with Twitter's New Program, Christy Ferer Agrees

Here at Vidicom, Christy Ferer makes sure to stay up to date with social media. There are always opportunities occurring in social media that can help brands advance. Twitter announced on Thursday the introduction of ads based on what users search on the web. Brands can highly benefit from this new program, tailored audiences, because they are now able to target users who have visited their website or “shown an interest” in the brand’s category on and outside of Twitter. With this new program, it is a lot easier for brands to connect with customers in their market. In order for brands to get advertisements, they must go through Twitter partners Adara, AdRoll, BlueKai, Chango, DataXu, Dstillery, Lotame, Quantcast, ValueClick, and [x+1] to do so. 

http://mashable.com/2013/12/05/twitter-ads-browsing-history/

Brands Should Use Snapchat to Enhance Brand Marketing

Christy Ferer says that helping brands strengthen their relationships with customers is what we do best here at Vidicom. One effective way brands can connect with customers is with the mobile app, Snapchat. Snapchat allows brands to interact with customers by way of snaps at little or no cost. In addition to snaps, brands can connect with customers by way of Snapchat Stories. Rolled out in October 2013, Snapchat Stories offers brands a longer conversation format than just 10 seconds. Brands are proving that time-sensitive images can be an asset for brand marketing by using Snapchat. Some brands that are extra chatty on Snapchat include: 16 Handles, Taco Bell, Acura, Karmaloop, GrubHub, and many more. Brands that haven’t already should jump on the bandwagon and start utilizing Snapchat to their marketing advantage!

http://mashable.com/2013/12/05/snapchat-brands/

Vidicom's Christy Ferer Urges Businesses to Start Using Mobile Advertising to Increase Brand Awareness

Here at Vidicom, Christy Ferer is always seeking effective ways to increase exposure for brands. Data from this year shows that 17.4% of web traffic comes directly from mobile.  Based on this information, it is clear that companies should develop, if they haven’t already, smart mobile advertising strategies to increase brand awareness. Many businesses have already started using mobile advertising.  Listed below are businesses that are using mobile advertising in effective ways.

1.     Rock/Creek: The outdoor gear and apparel company uses Twitter’s Promoted Accounts to increase awareness and engagement with followers who were interested in their products.

2.     Karaoke Heroes: When the karaoke bar opened in 2012, it was able to reach its target audience via Facebook.

3.     Colombo & Hurd: The Florida law firm was able to get more people into it’s office via Google Adwords.

4.     Just Salad: The salad chain geotargets by using Foursquare ads.

http://mashable.com/2013/11/07/mobile-advertising-wins/

Christy Ferer Recommends Brands to Become Familiar with the Four Types of Holiday Shoppers

Not only is Black Friday a big day for shoppers, but it is also an important day for businesses/retailers. Vision Critical, a market research and technology firm, defines four types of Black Friday shopper personas: the Modern-Day Coupon Queen, the Millennial Generation Shopper, the Mobile Tech Embracer, and the Single Cyber Male. Vidicom and Christy Ferer suggests brands to become familiar with the four major personas when marketing to them.

1.     Modern-Day Coupon Queen: This persona is typically a mom in her forties who spends the least amount of money on herself during the holidays. The Modern-Day Coupon Queen is likely to line up for doorbuster Black Friday Sales.

2.     Millennial Generation Shopper: Usually in their mid 20s, the majority of Millennial Generation Shoppers admit to impulse buying and about 2/3 are not in-store when shopping on mobile devices.

3.     Mobile Tech Embracer: This type of persona embraces traditional forms of shopping while adopting new ways of purchasing.

4.     Single Cyber Males: This persona generally makes purchases via their computers. Most Single Cyber Males look for gifts ahead of time and are not likely to bother with lines and crowds for in-store holiday promotional sales.

http://mashable.com/2013/11/28/marketing-holiday-shoppers/

Vidicom Suggest Ways for Brands to Bring More Consumers to Their Sites

Here at Vidicom, Christy Ferer stresses the importance of connecting brands and consumers. Bringing consumers to brands’ websites is one way to increase consumer engagement. Brands need to know their referring traffic sources in order to do so.  Some effective ways to analyze and optimize referral traffic include:

1.     Analyze the two types of referrers: The two types of referrals are referring domains and individual referrals.  In order to understand your referral sources, brands should know both metrics.

2.     Track everything: Brands should go into great detail in their data so they know where to invest for the next campaign.

3.     Optimize for social: Social media is a powerful tool that can increase visits, develop brand affinity, and get your brand in the conversation of consumers; all of which will pay off in the long run.

4.     Partner opportunities: You can find potential partners with similar missions and goals by keeping track of your referrals.

http://mashable.com/2013/11/27/referrals-metrics/

Vidicom Provides Brands with Tips to Build Customer Relationships

Christy Ferer agrees that we strongly value customer relationships here at Vidicom. It is a nonstop effort to strengthen our customer relationships as well as help other brands build theirs’. Some useful advice for brands regarding cultivating customer relationships include:

1.     Realize that happy customers are returning customers: When customers are happy, they are more likely to spread a positive message about your brand by speaking to potential customers or posting reviews online about your brand.

2.     Set and manage realistic expectations: To avoid disappointing your customer, it is better to under-promise and over-deliver than to set unrealistic expectations that your brand cannot follow through with.

3.     Be a connector: Your brand will benefit in the long run if you help people fulfill their needs by making connections for them.

4.     Keep track of customer information: Documenting customer details such as names, birthdays, kids’ names, etc. will build your customer relationship and will keep your customers coming back.

http://mashable.com/2013/11/25/customer-relationships/

The New Addition to Instagram will be Beneficial for Brands, Recommended by Christy Ferer

Christy Ferer and the Vidicom team love discovering what’s new in the social media world. It was recently reported by GigaOm that Instagram will be adding private messaging before 2014. What the messaging function will look like is unclear, but it is likely that a user might be able directly share photos with particular friends or groups instead of posting to the public newsfeed. Private messaging is a efficient tool for brands to use to reach out to consumers as well as potential consumers more directly. Brands should get excited for the new addition as it can enhance consumer relationships!

http://mashable.com/2013/11/22/report-instagram-messaging/

Vidicom Helps Businesses Grow in Cost-Efficient Ways

To help other businesses expand that are just starting up, Vidicom's CEO Christy Ferer shares some bootstrapping tips from successful entrepreneurs:

1. Use Time Wisely: Laura Kenney, founder and editor-in-chief of YouBeauty.com, has set up a process to ensure productivity. The development team makes a clear direction on which task to accomplish first by having weekly priorities meetings.

2. Be Smart about Customer Feedback: Co-founder of Unroll.me, Jojo Hedaya, knows the importance of not only listening to customer feedback, but also being resourceful about what to do when addressing it.

3. Hire Well: Alexa Hirschfield, co-founder of Paperless Post, stresses the significance of the quality of a new hire in a small company.  Hirschfield says, “ Recognize that skill comes first and personality comes second, but if the personality is wrong, still don’t hire someone.”

For more productive tips, check out: http://mashable.com/2013/11/18/tips-resourceful-small-business/

Tumblr Add-ons Help Brands Improve Overall Experience Tumblr, Says Vidicom

As Vidicom previously noted, Tumblr is a great tool for businesses to use to build their brands. Christy Ferer agrees. There are extensions offered for users to improve their overall experience on the social media site. Some of the add-ons include:

1.     Missing e: Provides faster reblogs, a bookmark for your place in the dashboard and enables you to select multiple posts at once.

2.     X Kit: You can add timestamps to posts, improve your inbox experience, reply to notifications, dim posts you have already read, and browse safely in public.

3.     Tumblr Savior: Add words and phrases to a “White” or “Black” list with this Chrome extension. The Black list prevents you from seeing posts containing unwanted words and the White list displays posts on your feed containing the words.

4.     Tumblr Hate: This add-on is similar to Tumblr Savior because you can hide posts that are reblogged over and over again.

Brands Should Use Tumblr to Connect with Consumers

Christy Ferer and the Vidicom team take pride in linking brands to consumers. A sufficient tool for brands to use to connect with consumers is Tumblr. Tumblr can provide brands with great exposure because it highlights strong visual content that can be easily shared to mass audiences. Fortunately, Tumblr’s templates are easy to manage and many are totally free.  Brands that are not yet on Tumblr should check out the following brands that are successfully using the social media site.

1.     Calvin Klein: Tumblr is clean, sexy, and sleek just like their ads.

2.     Disney: The content is visual, recognizable, and commonly shared on the site.

3.     GQ: Tumblr highlights the most sharable content from the magazine.

4.     Lexus: Lexus’s Tumblr is subtle and sends the clear message that Lexus=luxury.  

5.     Adidas: Tumblr is interactive, clean and full of color and personality. The products are put front and center without seeming forceful.

Christy Ferer Thinks Custom Timelines on Twitter are a Great Tool for Brands

Christy Ferer, Vidicom CEO, makes sure her team stays up to date with social media news. The ability to create custom timelines on Twitter was announced last week. Users will be able to develop their own timelines focused on certain events and fill them with tweets from particular users and topics. Users will need Tweetdeck in order to develop a custom timeline. Timelines can also be made by hand by using the Twitter API. Our team recommends brands to create custom timelines about current events as they will grab the attention of consumers and increase engagement.

Vidicom Recommends Ways Brands Can Reach On-the-go Customers

Christy Ferer says helping brands get their names in the conversations of consumers is what we do here at Vidicom. With the major shift to mobile advertising in today’s society, the Vidicom team agrees that it is necessary for brands to have a strategy in place to reach on-the-go customers.  Some effective ways brands can reach customers via mobile advertising include:

1.     Create a native mobile ad: By finding and partnering with relevant blogs and new sites in your niche, you can create low-cost ads and target a more receptive audience. 

2.     Use a mobile display advertising partner:  If you don’t want to create a native mobile ad, then a good alternative is to partner with a mobile display advertising partner. You can create an inventory of products for a relatively low cost and the partner takes care of the hosting.

3.      Make a Foursquare ad: Foursquare ads help personalize local searches for consumers looking for the types of products and services your businesses offer.

Content Marketing, says Christy Ferer, is an Effective Strategy for Brands

Traditional, static forms of advertising are no longer effective in today’s social media-driven societies. Businesses now need to adapt by using responsive websites to build their brand. Vidicom and Christy Ferer strongly promotes brands to utilize this content marketing strategy. Brands should take a look at the following companies that have mastered content marketing:

1.     Zady: The ecommerce venture whose product is ethically made goods with transparent supply chains, connects with customers by providing a backstory of the maker of each product. This strategy increases sales because the target audience is shoppers who care about where their goods come from.

2.     Sweetgreen: Via social media platforms, (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Youtube) having a mobile app, and a whole section of its website dedicated to community, the restaurant chain actively engages with consumers. While maintaining consistent brand identity, Sweetgreen also connects with customers by taping into their core beliefs and healthy lifestyle values.

  

Vidicom Says Google Analytics can be Very Useful for Brands

Here at Vidicom, our main goal is to link brands to consumers. Christy Ferer thinks it is a great tool brands can utilize to do so is Google Analytics. Google Analytics promotes brand awareness, lead generation, and customer retention for free!

Brand Awareness:  By using Google Analytics’ “Traffic Sources” option and viewing the “Organic Search” data you can view the top referring search terms that drove Web Traffic to your site.

Lead Generation: You can drive more leads for your business by using the Organic Search results to gather demographic information and behavior found in the audience selection.

Customer Retention: By knowing the search terms, you can understand customers’ reasons for visiting your site and if the visitor is a new or returning customer. In addition, you can optimize the response for existing customers and take care of any issues they may have.

Vidicom recommends brands to Google Analytics to connect more with consumers.

Have you ever used Google Analytics? 

Vidicom Suggests Three Free Tools to Improve Your Overall Twitter Experience

As an active user on Twitter, Vidicom was pleased to discover three free tools that allow you to analyze and manage the accounts you follow to improve your overall experience. These tools will help reduce the list of who you follow in a meaningful way:

1.     Manage Filter: This tool enables you to view the accounts that don’t follow you back, don’t tweet in English, accounts with high and low influence, talkative and quiet accounts, and accounts that haven’t been active for 30 days.

2.     Untweeps: You can reduce your list with this service by being able to see which accounts you follow haven’t tweeted in a while.

3.     Tweepsi: Tweepsi’s “cleanup” function shows all the accounts you’re following in a grid-based list format. This tool is useful because you can add or remove grid columns to see more information about the accounts you follow.

Social Media Sites are a Great Tool for Brands

As social media is becoming so prominent in today’s society, more and more businesses are using it as a tool to promote their brands. CEO of Vidicom, Christy Ferer, agrees that via social media sites, businesses can spread their brand embedded content by allowing customers to share the content with other potential customers. According to data, 87% of content marketers use social media platforms as part of their marketing strategies. Of those who used them, 91% preferred LinkedIn to popular social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter, which 85% and 81% of those surveyed used respectively. Based on these statistics, we know it is quite clear that many businesses are building their brands via social media.

http://mashable.com/2013/11/01/b2b-marketing-infographic/

Christy Ferer Recommends Ways to Balance Your Personal and Professional Lives on Twitter

Twitter is a great social media platform for people to connect with friends and develop their brand. However, since Twitter is public,  it is important to always maintain a balance between your personal and professional lives. Christy Ferer, has figured out how to maintain a fun yet public-facing Twitter account. Here are a few tips to help balance these two worlds on Twitter.

1.     Understand that Twitter is public: The first step to finding that balance is to accept that anything you say on Twitter can be publicly viewed by a potential client, employer, partner, or colleague.

2.     Don’t be a robot: You should still be a very conscious version of yourself in order to let other people get to know you. 

3.     Avoid sensitive topics: Certain topics shouldn’t be discussed on your general Twitter account if it is going to harm your brand/company.

http://mashable.com/2013/10/30/twitter-branding-personal/

Brand Tweets that are Funny Will Increase Consumer Engagement Says Christy Ferer

The presence of brands on social media is becoming a popular strategy for brands to connect with their consumers. Vidicom CEO, Christy Ferer, likes this strategy and thinks Twitter, in particular, can be extremely useful. Brands have potential to reach an enormous amount of consumers with the 230 million Twitter community! A great way for brands to get the community engaged is with humor. Listed below are some hilarious tweets from brand accounts as well as take-aways for brands to improve their tweets:

1.     Provide prompts to your followers: 

2.    Interact with your audience

3.    Make catch phrases that your followers will remember

4.    Be transparent about your strategy

Vidicom Shows How Instagram Ads Will Benefit Brands

Vidicom CEO Christy Ferer, always knows the scoop about what's happening in social media. As many already know, Instagram will soon be rolling out ads to users. However, it was revealed on Thursday that Instagram will release a sample ad "in the coming week". Brands already on Instagram will be the first to have ads. The company said, "We want ads to be creative and engaging, so were starting with just a handful of brands that are already great members of the Instagram community." Vidicom thinks this is a great opportunity for brands to take as it will increase exposure as well as get consumers more engaged! 

Is your brand on Instagram? If yes, has Instagram increased consumer engagement?

http://mashable.com/2013/10/24/instagram-ads-glimpse/