Health Tips for Bloggers

In Today’s world, large number of working professionals belong to IT profession and bloggers too come in this category regardless of their part time or full time blogging.

There are numerous health problems faced by those people and the main reasons for their unhealthy conditions are:

» Carelessness on their own health
» No time to take care of themselves
» Long hours work
» Mental strain or stress

I would like to help you with some very simple and useful tips. And I hope that it will help you all in living better and longer with good health.

1. Back pain, neck pain and hand pain :

These problems can be solved by stretching your neck before starting your work and do some simple exercises for your hand, wrist and fingers. Posture is important and you must maintain straight posture. Take breaks in between your work if you are working for long hours.

2. Eye problems:

Eye problems are very common. For this you have to avoid sitting long hours before computer or laptop screens. Drink more water to avoid puffiness. Do some eye exercises (refer some exercises related to eyes). You can use anti-glare glasses to avoid strain on eyes.

3. Obesity and weight gain:

These problems are due to sedentary life style. The only solution for this is to exercise and exercise. Do daily morning exercises for at least 30 minutes or if you have no time you can do it in your working place or office before starting your work. AVOID JUNK FOODS.

4. Stress and depression:

To solve these problems you must have positive attitude. Have enough sleep and relax your mind by practicing meditation and yoga.

5. Bad addictions ( alcohol and smoking):

This is a very important which must be seriously looked into. People living in this tech world are very easily get carried away by the addictions which are very bad for the health and wealth as well. Learn tips that can help you in avoiding those addictions. Consult your doctor and take counseling.

Hope the above mentioned tips will help you to lead a very happy and healthy life.

75 ways how you can use twitter in your business

Yesterday we mention about 42 signs You Are A Twitter Addict. Today we like to tell you about how twitter can be used as key tool for marketing your business.

We really can’t deny the fact that businesses are testing out Twitter as part of their steps into the social media landscape. You can say it’s a stupid application, that no business gets done there, but there are too many of us (including me) that can disagree and point out business value. I’m not going to address the naysayers much with this. Instead, I’m going to offer 50 thoughts for people looking to use Twitter for business. And by “business,” I mean anything from a solo act to a huge enterprise customer.


So here are the 75 ways how you can use twitter in your business

1. To promote your worthwhile cause/favourite charity on justgiving.com
2. To point people to the latest copy of your newsletter
3. To promote your internet radio show on blogtalkradio.com
4. To tell people of your event on eventbrite.com
5. To send out an updated price list to clients & prospects
6. To share your powerpoint presentation on slideshare.net
7. To ask for referrals
8. To qualify prospects
9. To tell people about your latest press release on prfree.com
10 To promote your latest article on ezinearticles.com
11. To get eyeballs on to your ad on ebay
12. To Share some useful tips about your services
13. To get signups for your workshops and seminars
14. To conduct market research
15. To promote your latest podcast
16. To share your seminar talk on slideserve.com
17. To give your feedback of software you just bought
18. To conduct marketing research
19. To show the latest thread on your blog (twitterfeed)
20. To point them to your press release on PRWeb.com
21. To get eyeballs on to your squidoo.com lens
22. To get people to book on your workshop via regonline.com
23. To position yourself as an expert
24. To get new members to your clubs on groups.google.com & groups.yahoo.com
25. To promote your articles on goarticles.com
26. To increase response to your base.google.com ads
27. To tell people about onlywire.com
28. To share your white paper on scribd.com
29. To launch your new premium service
30. To tell people you’re going on holiday
31. As a way to promote your products online
32. To promote your latest video on You Tube
33. To promote your ad on oodle.com
34. To allow people to download a trial version of your software
35. To promote your latest job vacancies
36. To find out what latest job vacancies are out there
37. Share some useful tips about your products
38. To promote your latest photographs on flickr
39. To get comments onto your blog
40. To share an important fact form wickipedia.org
41. To give referrals
42. To help others generate traffic via trafficswarm
43. To show your demo video on video.google.com
44. To show people your trial software on download.com
45. To boost morale
46. To create mutual opportunity for friends
47. To simplify/improve your customer service and support
48. Tto tell people about theresultsacademy.com
49. To promote your new membership site on ning.com
50. To promote your latest book
51. To help with recruitment for your MLM Opportunity
52. To remind people of your terms and conditions
53. To tell people how to create a mobile website with mofuse.com
54. To give people a google map url on how to find you
55. To direct people to your ezine sign up page
56. To get people to vote for you at dig.com
57. To collect case studies
58. To get people to sign up to your webinar at gotowebinar.com
59. To share customer testimonials
60. To run a poll or survey using surveymonkey.com
61. To advise others of bad payers / bad debtors
62. To point people to your latest article on Business-Scene.com
63. To tell people about ping.fm
64. To tell people about your new listing on reddit.com
65. to tell others what the best sellers on ebay are
66. to link to your ads on Friday-ad.co.uk
67. to encourage others to subscribe to your group on facebook.com
68. To share financial market info from http://finance.yahoo.com/
69. To ask for ideas, suggestions and recommendations for new products
70. To share a Spreadsheet via Google Docs
71. To Tell people how to book on your next webinar
72. To share your diary and get your appointments booked up
73. To give your feedback of a workshop or seminar you attended
74. To demonstrate to journalists how responsive your network can be
75. To say thank you to people you care about.


How about some others? If you liked this post, Share it to your friends spread the word. And also, you can comment below if you know more ways to know how you can use twitter in your business or not, if its not listed above.

42 signs You Are A Twitter Addict

Are you addicted to Twitter? Twitter is the popular micro blogging platform which allows you to send messages (tweets) to your friends, relatives and followers. You can send tweets to your followers with text up to 140 characters. As Twitter has got really popular, there are people spending all day over twitter with signs of twitter addiction.


Warning signs of Twitter Addiction

You are warned that you are addicted to Twitter when you…

1. Get excited when someone follows you on Twitter.
2. Feel the end of the world when twitter gets an outage.
3. Send @ and RT in messages to your friends in emails.
4. Beg your blog readers to follow you on twitter, and then beg your Twitter followers to Retweet the tweet.
5. Post more tweets than blog posts, and turn from full time blogger to full time tweeter.
6. Spend all day on twitter giving yourself the excuse that you are doing great service to your followers, and bunk going to office.
7. Tweet on Twitter more than doing office work.


8. Feel over the Moon and on top of the world when someone Retweet your tweet
9. Keep searching for your twitter name and your tweets in real time twitter search.
10. Keep refreshing the twitter page every second for new tweets.
11. Include your twitter profile in your Gmail signature instead of your blog
12. Print your twitter id on business cards.
13. Set Twitter as your browser home page.
14. Add notice in front of office door – “I am on Twitter, Don’t disturb”.

15. Use more than 5 twitter clients.
16. Add your twitter name to Google alerts to know what others are speaking about you.
17. Blog more about twitter applications.
18. Add your status message as “Follow me on twitter” to Gtalk and yahoo messenger
19. Use Twoogle to search in Google and Twitter.
20. Keep urging your family members to get a twitter account.
21. Follow lot of people on #FollowFriday
22. Introduce yourself to new persons more as a tweeter than as a businessman.
23. Go crazy about twitter and advertise on newspapers, TV and distribute pamphlets to follow you on twitter.
24. Ask your bosses wife to follow you on twitter!
25. Add your twitter id to the nameplate of your house.
26. Keep sending SMS to all your friends to follow you on twitter.
27. Ask questions about Twitter rather than job related queries during interviews.
28. Threaten your wife to get a twitter account and follow you, or warn her of divorce
29. Only wear dresses with twitter logos.

30. All of your friends’ names start with @.
31. You know what a tweet is and don’t snicker.
32. Your tweeted while your wife gave birth.
33. Your tweeted while giving birth.
34. Your kids have to tweet you to get you to make dinner.
35. Your mom joined Twitter to chat with you.
36. All you want for Christmas is unlimited SMS use on your cell phone.
37. You don’t read emails that aren’t highlighted replies to you.
41. You Twitter before you start the coffee in the morning.

42. You Twitter from your candlelight anniversary dinner that you are celebrating.

How about some others? If you liked this post, Share it to your friends spread the word. And also, you can comment below if you know more ways to know whether someone is addicted to twitter or not, if its not listed above.

Osama Bin Laden Tagged On Facebook Pic

Is Mr. Osama Bin Laden social media savvy?

Not quite so when it came to Facebook. A friend tagged him on a picture captioned: “Chillin at the new crib in Islamabad”, but he didn’t know how to untag himself. CIA replied promptly and the rest was history.

How good if this was true. It could easily be one of the best social media disasters ever!

75 Ways to know whether you are addicted to Facebook.

1. You feel popular when someone "tags" you in a photo (it shows others that you do actually get out).
2. The mini-feed was a hot topic of discussion for a while among your friends.
3. You think "poking" is a valid form of flirting.
4. You have Facebook "friends" that you've never met in person.
5. As soon as you meet someone in real life, you go home to search for them on Facebook.
6. You feel cheated now that everyone can join.
7. You have pressured someone to join just so you can "friend" them.
8. You think your image is controlled by your profile picture.
9. You've created a group and evangelized everyone to join.
10. You think that wishing someone "happy birthday" on their wall is sufficient.
11. When you are talking to someone on the phone and writing on their wall at the same time.

12. You take pictures for the sole purpose of putting it on Facebook.
13. You join a new group on a daily basis
14. You stop talking to people who haven’t joined Facebook yet.
15. You break up with someone by changing your relationship status.
16. You find yourself saying things like "I will tag you in this photo" when you are out.
17. You check your account more than one time every hour!
18. You often make references to Facebook when you are in social situations! (ie. "Oh I think I am friends with you on Facebook")
19. You converse with other people more on their "walls" than in person
20. You wake up in the middle of the night just to write on people’s walls about your dream/nightmare you just had.
21. You check your facebook when you walk into a computer store.
22. You write on people’s walls more than you write notes in class.
23. You try to check the profiles of people you don’t even know
24. You create a group.
25. You tell everyone to invite their friends to your group.
26. You ask people to join even though you know they wont use it.
27. You make short wall posts so that you can post more often and therefor receive more walls yourself.
28. When someone writes on your wall, and you respond in a matter of seconds.
29. When you take your laptop in the bathroom with you so you can finish a conversation without asking the other person to wait.
30. You poke people for no reason and repoke over and over (not realizing there’s no point in doing it).

31. You consider FACEBOOK as part of your activities, hobbies and interests.
32. When your dog has FACEBOOK.
33. Your usual bedtime has shifted by two or more hours.
34. Are you unable to make it through the day without opening FACEBOOK once?
35. You write on someone’s wall and tell them you wrote on their wall when they’re RIGHT BESIDE you when you could’ve told them in person.
36. You deactivate your account, then reactivate it, then deactivate, then reactiviate it again…. don’t bother trying to leave.
37. Do you look at all your friends' pics nonstop?
38. You are in class and you use all the class time to create a quiz to keep your group members active.
39. You check Facebook daily, multiple times a day, or all day.
40. You always ask for admin or officer when you join a group.
41. You wake up at night wondering is someone wrote on your wall.
42. You add people you don’t know just to have more friends
43. You belong to more than 30 groups.
44. You post at least 10 comments a day.
45. You regularly read through the list of groups so that you can be sure to add yourself to clubs.
46. You make your first priority to check your e-mail in the morning, just in case someone added you or messaged your Facebook account overnight.
47. You find yourself frustrated when you search for someone, only to find that they are not (yet) a Facebook addict like yourself.
48. You have forced at least one of your friends to join Facebook.
49. You have pressured someone to join just so you can “friend” them.
50. You update your Status daily.
51. You use Facebook Mobile.
52. It's the first thing you do in the morning, and the last thing you do at night.

53. You log into Facebook before checking your regular email.
54. You trawl your address book for who hasn’t signed up yet, or who you haven’t invited yet.
55. You can't wait to attack as many friends you have in wereolves, vampires, zombies, werewolves vs vampires, ninjas vs pirates & etc to gain point and level up to be stronger, changing your status and icon.
56. You made Facebook.com your home page.
57. You search through a list of first names to pick out the picture of that random person you met last night when you were out—you don’t know their last name.
58. You are disappointed when you click on a person’s picture only to find that you can’t access their personal information because you are not their “Facebook friend.”
59. You randomly search through your friends’ friends to find more people to add.
60. You spend hours of precious study time viewing photo albums and pictures of people you went to high school with but haven’t talked to since.
61. You enjoy in glee receiving drinks whether from Booze Mail, Top Friend, Happy Hour, Octoberfest, or Pub Crawl.
62. You get in a fight with your significant other because he/she doesn’t want to be officially “Facebook dating” yet.
63. You throw yourself a little Facebook party when you reach the big marks: 50 friends, 100 friends, 200 friends...
64. You feel faint or shaky during work or class—and other times when you don’t have access to Facebook.
65. You add as many applications as possible—and actually use them actively.
66. You constantly look at your online friends list to see who's available to talk with wall-to-wall.
67. You constantly do things to your profile so that you will show up in your friends' news feed more, and hopefully their friends will see your name, and those who know you will become friends with you.
68. You name a pet after one of your Facebook friends.
69. Your homepage does not even get to load before you switch to go to facebook.

70. You celebrate being someone's #__ (100th or 1000th) wall post by leaving a post of just that. "Haha I'm your 4372 wall post..."
71. Facebook is in your T9... and automatically caps the F
72. You own three or more accounts.
73. You talk about flair in daily conversation.
74. You refer to Facebook as FB
75. Yes, You are right. If you keep sharing blog posts, like the way you are going to do this post, Then Undoubtedly you are addicted to Facebook.

If you liked this post, Share it to your friends in Facebook and spread the word.

and also, you can comment below if you know more ways to know whether someone is addicted to facebook or not, if its not listed above.

Each Negative Social Media Comment Costs 30 Customers

Research by Convergys Corp. has shown that a negative customer review on YouTube, Twitter or Facebook can cost a company about 30 customers.

Here’s the math:

Each remark/comment would be viewed by an average of 45 people and about two-third of them would avoid the brand that was being criticized (45 x 2/3 = 30 customers).

We saw how social media has transformed the way we communicate and consume information. Marketing is no longer in a company’s full control. It is now largely dependent on what people say about it; especially with the rise of social media.

You can lose but you can also gain!

30 customers are lost when a company gets a negative comment on social sites. But would a company gain 30 customers if it earns a positive comment instead?

I would probably think so. It just highlights the importance of tracking the social media buzz surrounding your brand.

Source: Bloomberg, Stock photo powered by pixmac.

How to add orkut share button on your blog or site

Orkut is keeping on updating their interface to face out the rivals facebook and twitter. Recently orkut has whole new makeover by changing its looks completely, with plenty of brand new feature which the old orkut didn’t have. And now its Orkut share, it just same like the widgets tweetmeme and facebook share does. Just by clicking Orkut share, the user or the reader can share the interesting content with his /her orkut friends. In short the orkut share widget allows the website owners or bloggers to enable their visitors to share the post with visitors friends on orkut







Do add it up into your site or blog. Have fun by sharing interesting post!!



When the visitor click on share button and share the article, it automatically appears on the visitors friends update list, which instantly have the potential to spread it virally among a larger group of people. Every single such share could tremendously increase the traffic to the site / blog.

Download the script and to add it up into your site. Click download









For Blogger and For Wordpress

While implementing the above process in your site or blog, the shared content by visitor gets automatically in the shared visitors orkut promotion page-







And this is how it seen in yours updates-







And do add up Orkut Share Widget on your site or blog. And have fun by sharing interesting posts!!

Facebook Is Catching Up With Yahoo Soon

Following Willis’ insightful post on the progress of Facebook and other social sites, I’m excited to present to you where Facebook stands in the presence of other giants: Google and Yahoo – The irrefutable number 1 and 2 in the online world.

Looking at last month’s statistics, Yahoo should already hear the footsteps of Facebook drawing near.

Would Facebook finally break into the top 2 soon? From the Compete chart below, it seems like it would.

Facebook is just behind Yahoo by 6 million unique visits. If Yahoo continues to dip while Facebook maintains its steady growth, a replacement of the no. 2 position is inevitable. We are living in an interesting time as we witness how Facebook could possibly overtake the search engines.

Following Facebook’s success and with more people embracing social media, social sites might just dominate the top spots one day. But will that really happen? Only time will tell.

Benefits of Social Networking

Social Networking is catching steam in India and more and more people are joining a community of their choice to remain connected. In the Comscore report the popular social networking sites used by Indian users are : Orkut , Facebook , Bharatstudent ,hi5 , ibibo, Myspace, Linkedin and Bigadda. The Social networking has now taken a next step to be a valuable business tool also. Beyond the casual friendship conencts , these tools offer all of us a great oportunity to utilize the resources to make our community , business and ideas visible to a wider world.

Every knows about social networking but not everybody knows the benefits or uses it to it’s full advantage. Of course the main reasons people network are to talk to others, build relationships and find people who are similar to themselves. The more you dig down though the more uses and benefits you can find for social networking and with all the different social network and platforms, you’re spoiled for places to go.

1.Building Meaningful Relationships

Social networking and the human side of it is so important, the more real and transparent you are the better. Therefore you’ll have the trust of people and when barriers are broken down and people actually trust you that’s when your relationships will really grow. When you reach this point and it’s the point you want to strive for, when you trust each other and when you just want to HELP and BENEFIT each other, that’s when the magic happens. For example, on twitter I get a lot of direct messages but the people who send them don’t introduce themselves, say my name or personalize it in any way. I understand the time savings of having automated messages and people don’t always have the time but in the long run it’s better to sent a message by hand. Those who do personalize and actually interact with me are the people I trust, the people I remember and the people I want to help more because they put the effort and time into building a relationship with me.

If you always keep in mind that you really are trying to build valuable and meaningful relationships and not seeing them as another visitor, customer or sale,then everything else you do will bring you nothing but opportunities, responsive followers and lifelong friends. Priortizing the important channels for communication then becomes an essential need of the way we do Social netwrking.

2.Building Traffic

Basically the more networking you do the greater chance you have of getting traffic. This doesn’t mean the more you bombard and spam people, the more traffic you will get. It means the more real and valuable you’re networking efforts are, the more traffic you will get. Building traffic from certain social networks can be very targeted and very beneficial. For example, if you’re looking for traffic from professionals online then go to linkedin, if you’re looking to target blog owners then go to blog social networks and comment on other blogs. Each social network has their own audience and user demographics so you’re approach to each should be slightly tailored to each one.

3.Building links

Link building is the life blood of SEO. The more links and quality links you get the better and if you can get those links with your choice of anchor text then you’ll rank higher in the search engines. Most of your social profiles will allow you to link to your blog or/and your other social profiles. This is a key to successful blogging, you must build as many links as possible.

4.Increased Visibility

The more social profiles you create, the more content you create on them and the more you interact, as at result you will increase the visibility you, your site and your brand will get and also gaining you trust in the minds of others. Remember don’t spread yourself all over the web if you can’t contribute, interact and give time to each of those networks and communities. People want to be in a community, they want to talk and interact with you but if your not there to care or share then that’s a problem and may be bad for you and your site. Still, the basic point is the more you’re seen, the more familiarity and trust you’ll gain.

5.Business and JV Opportunities

Over time and the more people you meet, the more business opportunities you will come across. You’ll meet other leaders and players in your industry and niche so over time these relationships will grow, ye will understand and know what the other is doing and an opportunity will arise when one person takes the first step and proposes something. I would recommend taking action yourself and not hoping or relying on others to propose something first.

6.Mind-sharing and Insight

The idea here is that you can engage with your target audience and find out new insights. You get a unique perspective into them, their lives and their problems. You can give them help and advice and in return they give you feedback and trust, this also applies to joint venture partners where ye both help each other, so in other words mind-share with each other. This is so powerful to be able to talk to your prospects and audience and hear from them what their point of view is. Social networking is also a great atmosphere to get feedback, research and insight because it’s so human focused. People don’t want to be told, forced, spammed or made do anything but when you Involve them that’s when everything changes.

So there you have it, 6 benefits. The benefits are huge and the results you’ll receive can be huge too.

Twitter Worth About $600 Million

That is what NeXTt Up Research found out. To be exact, it has estimated Twitter’s valuation at the range of $526 million to $674 million.

According to Michael Moe, the man leading the research team, “based his figures on revenue opportunities in regions, publicly available documents, press releases and articles, and other criteria.” It was also estimated that Twitter currently has more than 70 million users.


Other interesting findings include Twitter’s revenue growth, which is predicted to be $114 million to $134 million in 2013, and $126 million to $148 million in 2014.

Surely, this amount of money wouldn’t be solely from its paid-service account that is rolling out at the end of this year.

Twitter’s business model is yet another big guesswork.

Source: USA Today, Image via pixmac

Facebook Got Man Out Of Jail

Apparently, if Facebook can get you into jail, it can also get you out of it.

According to New York Times, Rodney Bradford, a 19 year old teenager was arrested for robbery. The twist is, he had an alibi.

Rodney typed in a message at the time the crime was committed on his Facebook page, from a computer in his father’s apartment in Harlem.

The message read, “Where’s my pancakes”.

If there was anything he was grateful for, it should be the random urge of typing these 3 words into Facebook.

“The district attorney subpoenaed Facebook to verify that the status update had actually been typed from a computer located at 71 West 118th Street in Harlem, as Mr. Bradford said. When that was confirmed, the charges were dropped.”

Whether the charges should be dropped so quickly is debatable. Anyone could have helped him type in those words with his username and password. But that’s not the point anymore, soon we will see more and more cases of social sites used as alibis.

I bet no one knew Facebook status updates could ever be used that way.

LinkedIn works with Twitter, and vice versa

Today we’re announcing a partnership between LinkedIn and Twitter – and new features that we think are going to make both Twitter and LinkedIn more powerful for you. These new features will be rolling out gradually over the next couple of days.

The idea is simple: When you set your status on LinkedIn you can now tweet it as well, amplifying it to your followers and real-time search services like Twitter Search and Bing. And when you tweet, you can send that message to your LinkedIn connections as well, from any Twitter service or tool.

Why? Because when you’re trying to get something done, you want Twitter and LinkedIn to work together. Like peanut butter and chocolate! Or at least that’s what Biz and Reid think:

LinkedIn has always been about helping you to build your professional identity on the web. The many elements that make up your online professional brand range from your LinkedIn profile to the many professional conversations you’re a part of. Status has proved valuable to our users, from finding new assignments and jobs to kick-starting a global business enterprise.

Now you can amplify those messages by broadcasting them to your audience on Twitter.

How does LinkedIn work with Twitter?

The feature will roll out to everyone over the next couple of days (so be patient!), but with today’s launch, we’re making that two-way communication between your status updates and tweets a breeze to set up. Here’s how it works:

1. On LinkedIn

Want to share some interesting ideas about an industry-specific article you’ve just read with an even broader audience? Or how about letting people view your Twitter account name on your LinkedIn profile? Begin by joining your LinkedIn and Twitter accounts in just a few clicks. All you need to do is check the Twitter box under your Network Updates box on the homepage and follow a few simple steps.

Syncing your LinkedIn and Twitter accounts

Clicking through the setup process will allow you to specify the Twitter account that you’d like to sync and/or display on your LinkedIn profile.

Display Twitter on your LinkedIn profile

2. On Twitter

As a professional online and in the real world, you’ll often find articles or think of ideas that would be useful to share with your Twitter followers and your LinkedIn connections. It’s about sparking interesting conversations. Now you can share from anywhere. As part of the setup process, you can choose to either send all your tweets or select tweets from Twitter back to LinkedIn as a status update.

Share tweets as your LinkedIn status

If you pick the latter, don’t forget to add the #li or #in hashtag to every relevant tweet you’d like to send back to LinkedIn. Here’s a good example:

Include #in with any tweet to post as your LinkedIn status

So go ahead and get started. Link your LinkedIn and Twitter accounts today to add a new dimension to your professional conversation.

What Flickr Thinks About Social Media

If I ask you for a picture to convey what you think about social media, what would you pick? They say a picture can speak a thousand words but wait till they meet Flickr, where a million pictures are found.

With a simple search for “social media”, we can see what people from unique places, who speak different tongues think about social media.

The ideas of social media can be warped or totally random, but they translate to what social media mean to individuals. Note how some people view social media with such complexity while others have already integrated it into their lives with ease.

Social Media

Facebook

Twitter

Digg

LinkedIn

Blog

FUN: What Google Thinks About Social Media

So what does Google think of social media?

Typing the phrase “social media is” would give you some interesting results.

Social media is a cocktail party? It’s a book by Jim and Lisa.

Integrate Offline and Social Media Marketing Into One

Social media marketing is effective, fun and addictive; but is your business really getting the most out of it?

Probably not if it hasn’t taken an integral approach!

That means, joining your offline and social media marketing efforts together.

Below are 5 ideas that will get you started.

1. Meet your followers: Tweetup & “Faceup”

Thought of meeting your fans and followers in real settings?

There is a limit to relationship building when it is done behind a screen. Meeting face to face with your fans and followers will bring that very “digital relationship” to a higher level. It builds brand loyalty and also shows that you care enough to go through the hassle to connect with consumers.

The result is likely to be great if you don’t mess up during the meeting.

2. Add Twitter and Facebook on…

Online customers probably know you’re on social media but does your offline customers know too? Most likely not. The idea here is to bring your offline customers online. Especially customers who are first timers, you wouldn’t want them to leave after their first visit.

Put your Facebook and Twitter page address on your brochures, business cards, paper bags or even the product itself!

For people who’re in the food business, adding them on your plates and cutlery will definitely spark off conversations between you and your customers.

3. Make it convenient for them to follow you

To make it convenient for your customers to follow you, perhaps placing a desktop at your store front would help.

You can call it a “social media booth” or something along this line. Make sure you explain to your customers how it works.

Example:
“Hammy Hamburger is on Twitter and Facebook! Follow us to receive a yummy voucher! ..eh and a burger follower too!”

4. Social media coupons

Who says coupons can only be given offline? To thank your fans and followers for following you on social media, allow them to print coupons online to receive discounts and benefits. This will spur many people to visit your store, translating their online loyalty to offline action.

Check out how Chick-fil-A give away sample through Facebook.

5. Use a social media business card

This deserves to be an idea on its own.

We know how awkward it is whenever we meet new customers and don’t know what to talk about. If you have a card like the one on top, it can spark off conversations easily.

With social media so widely adopted, it is not hard to meet another social media lover like yourself!

Coca Cola “Open Happiness” Campaign Uses Social Media

Coca Cola’s Open Happiness campaign has been on for quite some time. Some of us would have heard about it and seen some of the ads.

We all know how Coca Cola uses social media to engage its massive worldwide supporters. This time round, Coca Cola is taking an interesting and bold approach towards social media use.

According to the Canadian Press, the soft drink giant “will send 3 bloggers to more than 200 countries in a year to uncover what makes people happy, as part of the soft drink maker’s “Open Happiness” campaign.”

Coca Cola calls it the Expedition 206, and it is currently at the last stage of selecting its final 3 bloggers.

Adam Brown, director of Coca-Cola’s Office of Digital Communications and Social Media explains:

“It’s not about having the Coca-Cola brand first and foremost, centre of the screen,”

“It’s about telling the story that involves Coca-Cola, that involves the attributes of what Coca-Cola is about, optimism and joy.”

Coca Cola will cover the bloggers’ travel expenses and on top of that, pay them a salary – not too bad of a deal huh. The bloggers are expected to move from country to country at breakneck speed, meet locals and participate in local events. Besides blogging about their experience, consumers can also suggest a to-do-list for the bloggers to check as the expedition unrolls itself.

Pushing social media marketing to a new level?

This is probably one of the most serious social media marketing attempts done by a big brand. I’m pretty sure many advertisers are watching it closely to see how this campaign works out.

Perhaps the success of this campaign will push social media marketing to a higher level, breaking the conventional Twitter and Facebook fan page marketing campaigns.

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