Facebook launched their Deals site earlier today to a small group of cities including San Francisco, Dallas, Austin, Atlanta and San Diego. The new Groupon competitor site fully utilizes all of the social features of Facebook, such as Notifications, Sponsored Stories, Likes and Shares amongst friends, email blasts and more.  Within the Facebook Deals Guide for Business they describe the Deals feature as a way to create unique social experiences for friends to enjoy together. Deals encourage people to share their excitement about your business, creating word-of-mouth for your business and can help you build long lasting relationships with your customers.

We believe this new Facebook feature is a great way to increase new customer reach, as well as increase your brand and customer loyalty. Facebook seems to be making it increasingly easier for people to recommend your business through several different sharing options within their platform. These days it is crucial to utilize the marketing features of Facebook and other social media channels because of their endless opportunities and simpler marketing tactics.

If you have any questions about Facebook Marketing, please feel free to contact us here at Sage Island.

So you recently created a Facebook Fan Page, Twitter account or branded your very own YouTube Page. Now What?

Your next step should be to track what “social customers” are saying about you and your company. Monitoring and engaging these conversations will allow you as a business owner to keep your finger on the pulse of the market, and make quick business decisions.

Facebook Insights

Facebook’s analytics tool, also known as Facebook Insights, provides you with important metrics specifically related to your company’s Facebook Fan Page. This tool allows you to view a comprehensive dashboard highlighting top level metrics around the posts and visits to your company’s Fan page. By understanding and analyzing Insight’s metrics, marketers are better prepared to respond to customer feedback and needs.

Within Facebook Insights Dashboard, you will see both User Insights and Interaction Insights. User Insights allow you to view monthly active users, total and new page Likes, Likes from referring sites, user demographics, tabs views and photo views. In addition, Interaction Insights allow you to track daily comment views, mentions within status updates, reviews, wall posts and video posts surrounding your company.

Monitoring the total number of new Fans or Likes is a valuable metric to consider. At what point did you receive the most Likes? How were you engaging these “social customers”? What content were you pushing on your Fan Page? Once you have defined the factors that contributed to this growth you will be able to cater your marketing strategy accordingly. Aside from new Fans or Likes, it is also beneficial to know the average number of comments you typically receive on any given post. Measuring this engagement metric will allow you to increase the number of posts around topics based on your fans interest. These insights gather data comparable to what you would receive from a focus group, but they are totally free.

YouTube Insights

YouTube offers a similar reporting tool known as YouTube Insights. Much like Facebook Insights, this tool allows you monitor your company’s branded YouTube Page. You can check out who is watching your videos, see what referring sites and keywords continue to drive traffic to your branded page and what videos are the most popular. You can also drill down within a specific video to see what portion particularly sparked viewer’s attention and where the interest dropped. These metrics help you understand what content your customers like, enabling you to promote related content and grow your audience.

Twitter Analytics Dashboard

With millions of tweets occurring daily, it seems only natural that you would want to monitor any conversation surrounding your brand on Twitter. While much newer than Facebook and YouTube, Twitter has several applications that allow you to monitor when people mention or follow your company. Last quarter Twitter announced a launch of a new official Twitter analytics dashboard. This dashboard highlights real-time data regarding which tweets are spreading and which Twitter users are influential in your network. The emphasis of Twitter’s analytics is focused on the fact that the data is truly real-time, allowing for branding adjustments and marketing strategy decisions to be made on the fly.

Each of these monitoring tools will provide you with a wealth of knowledge about our company. When deciding which tools are best for your brand, remember to always keep your end goal in mind. Utilizing these tools will help you better understand how people interpret your brand, and allow you to respond quickly to customer’s needs.

Earth Day, which is held annually on April 22^nd, brings some of the most intriguing and informative ad campaigns the world has ever seen. Some of the largest corporations around the world use advertising to provide awareness to help educate people on ways to sustain and preserve our planet.  The Quiksilver Foundation has partnered with Waves for Development, a volunteer based organization that creates life-enriching experiences in coastal communities through education programs and Surf Volunteerism programs that engage travelers & transform their views of the world and themselves.  Quiksilver has been using their social media to utilize and brand this program for this year’s Earth Day.

Starbucks is also pushing a very beneficial advertising campaign for the planet.  Starbucks announced that they will serve free coffee or tea to anyone who brings in a travel mug tomorrow, Friday April 22^nd in order to reduce the waste accumulated from coffee cups. According to Starbucks, “One person switching can save trees, together we can save forests”.  Last year they pushed a similar campaign that saw more than 32 million participants, keeping nearly 1.45 million pounds of paper out of landfills.   This year at Sage Island, all employees posted their pledge to join the movement. Make your own personal pledge for “A Billion Acts of Green” at the Earth Day Network.

I am happy to announce that the new Vacation Home Services website launched yesterday!  They are a new vacation property management company that came to Sage Island for a new logo and new website for their business.  Their site is built in DNN for easy updates and will feature an integrated online reservation system in the near future.

We are really excited about the recent launch of Military Discounters, a comprehensive database of discounts for those serving our country. Viewers can search by proximity, category, or keywords and search results are populated on a map with full details below. There are banner ads throughout the site for advertising opportunities as well as the chance for businesses to upgrade their listing for additional exposure. There are already thousands of discounts on the site in categories all across the board- restaurants, services, home improvement, and entertainment!  An average of 500 new discounts are added each week and the site is updated daily, making this an excellent resource for military members and their families. The client has the flexibility to update the site, which was built in a Content Management System. We have enjoyed working on this project and look forward to watching the site grow!

I am happy to announce that the new Cape Fear Heart Associates website launched today!  The site is for a new practice formed by Wilmington Cardiology and Coastal Cardiology under the New Hanover Regional Medical Center Physicians Group.  The site utilizes the brand established by New Hanover Regional Medical Center and provides a place for patients and physicians to get information on the new practice.  It was built in DotNetNuke to offer easy editing and growth for the 6 expanding locations of Cape Fear Heart Associates.

Quick Response or QR codes are bridging the gap between offline and online media. As more and more people integrate their smartphones into their daily life, it is only natural that businesses understand the importance of QR codes and how to use them effectively. Sage Island considers QR codes an important tool in our integrated marketing process, and have compiled some tips for how to use them successfully.

First, what is a QR code?

A  QR code is essentially a special barcode that you scan with your smartphone which allows you to access many types of information including web addresses, personal and professional contact information (vCard), product and service information and almost any other type of data.

QR codes provide an essential connection between print media and interactive media in a matter of seconds. With a QR code scanner app installed on your phone, you simply point your camera at the code to find out more information or even compare like products.

Here are some tips for creating QR codes that work.

There are many QR code generators found online. Be sure to use a code generator that links directly to your service, not through theirs. To find this out, simply scan the produced code.

Make them readable. Choose a QR code size that is appropriate for your medium. For print, you will need to use a larger size which will produce a higher resolution. For web, use a size that can allows you to scan without encountering errors.

You will get better performance if the QR code is placed on a white background and displayed straight up and down.

Keep the information you’re encoding as concise as possible. The greater the amount of data, the higher the level of error correction, or ECL, will be needed.

Make your content valuable! Point viewers to a landing page or set of information that relates directly to your call-to-action. This could include:

• Product details
• A coupon or special offer
• A YouTube video link
• A Facebook, Twitter, MySpace Page
• Event details
• White Papers and more!

How can your business use QR codes?

There are numerous ways in which your business can benefit by using QR Codes. They work best when added to business cards, conference badges, product packaging and any form of marketing material.

If you are new to QR Codes, or looking for innovative ideas, our expert designers, programmers and marketers are here to help you with your next project. Contact us to move your business to a new level of success.