Featured Posts:
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3 Things Your Website Must Do
All websites are not created equal..here are 3 things to make sure yours is working Continue reading
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How to Prepare for Your Company’s New Facebook Timeline
On March 30th, all Facebook business pages will switch to the timeline Continue reading
Category Archives: Social Media
Radio Chumps
Posted on March 15th, 2012 by Jason Bumblis:
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Radio Chumps is a positive community site, which showcases interesting people, while highlighting personal style, fashion, and art. The content of the website is both informative and entertaining. They feature exceptional writers who focus on features that concern our community and today’s culture.
Pacer created a custom WordPress site for them that allowed them to easily upload blog posts, video posts and engage their community of users. The site also features their twitter feed.
Make sure to check the site out at www.radiochumps.com
Direct Mail Study
Posted on March 2nd, 2012 by Jason Bumblis:
Here at Pacer Design Studios we are always preaching that marketing is about having a complete strategy, and working all channels properly to reach your goal.
Although many firms are pushing their clients away from Direct Mail, we continue to promote it as a very good supplement to your digital efforts. The information we show below, continues to reinforce that strategy.
According to a recent survey conducted by marketing services firm, Epsilon Targeting, direct mail, especially when combined with other marketing tactics including email and social media sites, is still the number one choice among the over 4,000 survey participants.*
Here are some of the findings of that survey:
- Direct mail is the channel of choice for the 18-34 year old demographic.
- 37% of U.S. consumers believe traditional mail offers more privacy than email.
- Checking the mailbox is a source of enjoyment cited by 60% of the U.S. consumers.
- Consumers prefer personally addressed mail to unaddressed mail.
This study further proves our practice supplementing online marketing strategies with traditional means of marketing such as Direct Mail is a winning formula. But our customers already knew that.
If you need help putting together a complete and comprehensive marketing strategy, call us today at 724.709.7261
*“Consumer Survey Results Reveal Direct Mail Is Most Preferred Channel for Receipt of Brand Communications,” Epsilon Targeting, http://www.epsilon.com/download/consumer-survey-results-reveal-direct-mail-most-preferred-channel-receipt-brand-communication
How to Prepare for Your Company’s New Facebook Timeline
Posted on February 29th, 2012 by Jason Bumblis:
Facebook has once again thrown a wrench into the online marketing efforts of thousands of businesses everywhere. Starting on March 30th, 2012 all business pages will be making the transition to the “timeline” look that was rolled out for individual pages this past fall.
What does this mean to you? The Bad.
All of the work you had done on the sidebar is going to be essentially wasted. The customized tabs you created will disappear. You can also no longer set a default landing page either, which is a bummer.
How can I take advantage of this? The Good.
The timeline image is going to be a great opportunity to build your brand. This is a large piece of real estate that will present a very real opportunity to present information to the client.
This is going to really allow smart marketers a better platform to brand their products/company.
How can Pacer Design Studios help me with Facebook?
We can help work with you to make sure that when March 30th hits your business will be ready for the change. We can help you understand how to get more out of your new timeline look than your competitors.
Call us today at 724.709.7261 to set up your consultation.
Improve Your Facebook Page
Posted on February 16th, 2012 by Ryan Lucas:
So you’re on Facebook, like everybody else. How can you make your page stand out? Well, there are a few simple ways to do this, and here at Pacer we can help you take your Facebook fan page or personal page to the next level.
Step 1:
Landing pages – a nice and easy way to make your Facebook page stand out from the rest. Facebook gives you the option to add html and css code to an iframe within your Facebook page – internet code jargon aside – the general idea here is that we can create a totally customized page for when someone comes to your Facebook page.
Even better is that we can separate it between people who like your page, and people who haven’t liked you yet. So new visitors can be directed towards a big like button, and given information relevant information and attention grabbing graphics to get them to click it. Individuals who already like your page can be directed toward contests, promotions, or just about anything else you could think of to keep them engaged and interested in YOUR page.
Step 2:
Facebook applications – get your users involved. Facebook applications can do any number of things, most notable are Facebook games. Most notable about Facebook apps is that it can give you a way to interact with Facebook News Feeds and Notifications. Integrate your blog with your Facebook page and get your name out there by showing up on the News Feeds of the people who use your app.
Step 3:
New uses for page tabs – page tabs can take you to custom pages (like the landing pages described above), and are located in the sidebar where your wall, info, links, etc. usually are. Facebook tries to keep you ON Facebook though, which gives people an incentive to go back to checking out what their friends are doing (or other infinite ways to waste time on Facebook), instead of being interested in your content. Well there are ways to direct people out of Facebook and to your site, using the page tabs.
Note:
At Pacer, we customize your experience. Other programmers may use existing apps to build custom pages for you. Their apps may be existing apps re-purposed to fit your needs. The issue here is that these pages are often riddled with branding and advertisements for sites that are not yours. The icons, logos, or links attributing to the source of the app have the potential to draw individuals away from your site. At Pacer, we brand products with YOUR brand.
Linking your site to your social media – WordPress and Twitter
Posted on February 6th, 2012 by Jason Bumblis:
Simplify your life by integrating your WordPress blog with your twitter account. Engage users on both platforms and save yourself some time. At Pacer, we’ll add this feature to your custom WordPress site!
Check Out Our Latest Service Offering
Posted on February 3rd, 2012 by Ryan Lucas:
At Pacer, we’re always learning new tricks. If you’re using a WordPress blog, we’ll link it directly to your Facebook so that when you post, it displays on your Facebook wall automatically, saving you time and effort.
Google Gets Personal With Your Data
Posted on January 11th, 2012 by Jason Bumblis:
Google’s new “Search Plus Your World” rolls out today, marking the most radical change ever in how Google serves up your search results. The new results now not only find content out there on public websites, they also display content that has been shared privately through Google+.
The new format went live today, and will start showing up for everyone over the next few days. You can tell if you are seeing the new format because you will see an image like this:
HOW IT AFFECTS YOU
Google has been using personalized search results since 2005, with updates in 2007 and 2009, but this is a whole new level. For instance, when you type in your friends name, their Google+ profile will appear right in your search results. When you search for a photo of say, “Bermuda”, any photos your friends shared of Bermuda will come up first. If your neighbor shared a photo of his dog named Bermuda, that would appear.
The personalized results will also creep into your search bar via the autocomplete predictions as well.
For instance, for most users, a search for “chikoo” would show links about and photos of an Indian fruit. But for friends of Google Fellow Mr. Amit Singhal, it would also show photos and posts about his dog, Chikoo. A search for a sports team would show, in addition to the usual links, conversations about the team among a user’s friends on Google Plus.
PERSONALIZED SEARCH RESULTS NOW INCLUDE:
- Listings from the web
- Listings from the web, boosted because of your personal behavior
- Listings from the web, boosted because of your social connections
- Public Google+ posts, photos or Google Picasa photos shared with you
- Private or “Limited” Google+ posts, photos or Google Picasa photos shared with you
While it may freak some people out seeing personal information in their Google results, you must remember that these are not public results. They are results personalized just for the person viewing them. If private content has been shared with those people, that is visible. If it has not been shared, it is not visible.
PUBLIC CONCERNS
This new system seems to have an appeal to certain people, but in the broader scope it seems to have generated more concern than anything. Right off the bat the anti-trust comments are everywhere because now it seems that Google is giving search preference to its own social network. Obviously Google and Facebook are not friends anyway (since Facebook partnered with Bing), but now Twitter and other social services are concerned that their information will automatically be pushed below Google’s own network results…which is a no-no.
“We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users,” the company (Twitter) said in a statement.
SHOULD YOU BE CONCERNED
As with nearly every social media, it is very easy for someone with access to private content to re-share it publicly, whether intentionally or not. So if you share a photo of Grandma sleeping on the couch on Google+ and forget to mark it private, it could potentially show up for anyone searching Google.
DO I HAVE TO SIGN UP?
Unfortunately, Google chose to not go down the Opt-In route, but rather the Opt-Out option. You can go into you search settings are on Google and choose to permanently opt-out.
“I think this is a much better experience, at the end of the day,” Singhal said, explaining why the default change was made.
CONCLUSION
Overall, I think that the marriage of public and private data is an obvious one, and everyone could see it coming. I think there are some security concerns that will startle a few people, but for the most part people will adapt to it and learn to like it.
I think this will almost force Facebook and even Twitter to come to the bargaining table with Google and try to get their services included in the same fashion.
It is nice that Google allows you to turn this off, which will help some people avoid it, but long term I think this is the future of search.
The way Google+ is integrated into this gives it a distinct advantage and only further strengthens our stance here at Pacer Design Studios that search engine marketers cannot ignore Google+.
