Social networks offer the most powerful marketing opportunity since television. Learning how to successfully navigate the constantly evolving social space is critical for today’s business owners.
This award-winning learning series produced by the CENTURY 21 System provides a series of video vignettes that provide easy to understand instructions on how to set-up and leverage today’s most popular social networks to drive business. Quickly learn how to set up a Facebook Business Page or Twitter account, learn valuable tips on how to use video to enhance your overall marketing efforts.
Become a fan of the CENTURY 21 Learning System Today: http://www.facebook.com/C21Learning
Way back when… when I was a kid, we had a television about the size of a smart car with a small black box on the top with directions North, South, East, West on the sides and a plastic dial in the middle. We used it to direct our antenna which sat on top of our roof near the chimney. (For anyone under 35, think satellite dish, but not round, with multiple steel spikes shaped like an arrow.) This monstrous contraption provided access to ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and channel 53 (in Pittsburgh) which played reruns of The Three Stooges, The Little Rascals, F-Troop, Beverly Hillbilly’s and so on…maybe channel 22, if it was a very clear day.
You Are A Media Company Start Broadcasting
Oh, and we had to get up every time we wanted to turn the channel. An issue that undoubtedly created a more devoted fan base for one show and one network. I cannot imagine what it would be like to ask my seven or nine year old to get up and turn the channel every time we wanted to watch a different program.
My how times have changed. Through advances in technology, everyone now has the ability to create their own broadcast network and if you are a small business with tight marketing budgets, there is no reason not to claim your piece of the incredibly diverse media pie, and the sooner the better.
Video marketing is incredibly powerful and according to Nielsen’s recent
Double Vision article, video marketing to one screen is no longer enough. According to the survey;
In the U.S., 88 percent of tablet owners and 86 percent of smartphone owners said they used their device while watching TV at least once during a 30-day period. For 45% of tablet-tapping Americans, using their device while watching TV was a daily event, with 26% noting simultaneous TV and tablet use several times a day.
Image via CrunchBase
From the iPad3 to the new Windows phone, consumers are watching more and more video online and on the go. To meet this growing demand for video content brands and businesses are moving into online video at breakneck speed.
Based on recent research by Digitas, Consumers Want Online Video from Brands. The survey from Digitas and Harris Interactive reveals that 46% of U.S. online video viewers are at least somewhat likely to look up a brand or product when it’s mentioned in an online video they’re viewing. Similarly, 49% of people who follow brands on social networks are at least somewhat likely to watch videos published by those brands to learn more.
To assist CENTURY 21 Real Estate professionals market via online video, we have produced our latest How To TV video focused on marketing through online video.
Statistics show that A LOT of this video content is being consumed via social networks. According to Nielsen’s most recent State of the Media report: “274 million Americans have Internet access, which is more than double the number who did in 2000 and Americans spent 81 billion minutes on social networks” Do you think there is a marketing opportunity there?
Check out these recent stats from industry evangelist, Matthew Ferrara
YouTube is the second most visited search engine on the internet
Videos are two- to three-times more likely to be shared on Facebook than other content
Nearly 1/3 of all mobile data in the United States is video consumption
The number one iPhone app was YouTube (December, 2011) (#6 for Android smartphones)
Now let’s look at just how wide video consumption is globally:
Canadians remain the global leaders in video consumption (over 260 videos per viewer per month) (Nielsen)
179 million U.S. Internet users watched nearly 38 billion videos (Comscore, Feb, 2012) and 7.5 billion video ads
France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy average about 250 videos per viewer per month
Japanese viewers watch about 222 videos per user per month
Hong Kong and Singapore average about 150 videos per user per month
In Mexico, 87% of internet users watch video monthly, Argentina and Brazil (both at 85.6%), and Chile 83.2%
Do you have someone tasked with editing video in your marketing department? If not, you may want to hire one of the thousands of unemployed or underemployed college graduates, or at a minimum, put your teenager to work editing short, visually powerful videos to help you market and sell your products and services.
Visit our How To TV playlist for additional tips on marketing your products and services via social media: CENTURY 21 YouTube Channel
Pinterest is the new cool kid on the block in social media. It was started in December of 2009 and has already attracted over 20 million fans. Don’t worry if you haven’t caught up with it yet, someone will be tweeting you with a link to their Pin Board soon.
This just in: Not so fast says, USA Today article: Pinterest Growth Comes Back to Earth. It seems growth has slowed and legal issues loom for this Internet whiz-kid. Is Pinterest destined to be the next Instagram as its value shoots to the stars or will it fall into the ocean like so many North Korean “satellite launches”.
I still can’t get my mind wrapped around the $1 billion price tag for Instagram. I’m still shocked I had to pay close to $90 to fill up my 1994 Cadillac Sedan Deville…oh yes I did pin it…and yes, I do drive it.
So, what is Pinterest? To me it is like the cork board at the office where people post items that they want to promote or sell, but let’s get the technical definition from the Pinterest homepage:
Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. Pinterest allows you to organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. You can browse pinboards created by other people to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.
So, who is on Pinterest? Your customers. At least if you market and sell products and/or services to 25-34 year old females, which make up the largest percentage of …hmmm…what do we call them…”Pinners?” Check out this awesome infographic from Mashable. I don’t know about your business, but this is a sweet spot for the real estate industry, as single females comprise about 20 percent of home buyers according to National Association of REALTORS® data.
A pin is an image added to Pinterest. A pin can be added from a website using the Pin It button, or you can upload images from your computer. Each pin added using the Pin It button links back to the site it came from.
A board is a set of pins. A board can be created on any topic, such as Cool Posters, Recipes For Dinner, or Wishlist. You can add as many pins to a board as you want.
So, to answer the big question…should you jump into Pinterest if you are a large, global enterprise? My recommendation is that you may want to wait a bit before asking for that pitch meeting with the CMO. Don’t want to push a Pinterest technology that may pop with the next pin. However, if you are a small company with products or services that benefit from visual marketing, then I see no reason not to start pimping…errr pinning your products on the easy-to-use social site. It interacts very well with Facebook and Twitter.
Personally - I’ve always heard that a picture is worth a 1,000 words, and as a writer, I’ve always hated that phrase, but with Pinterest the written word is once again threatened with extinction. Oh, who am I kidding, visit my Pinterest page and check out some of the online images that I find cool at http://pinterest.com/mattgentile/.
