I’m conducting the first West Hawaii Social Media Survey. People who take the survey will be entered to win a drawing for a $50 Costco Cash card. Please take the survey by clicking on the image below, or by going to: http://survey.laura-kinoshita.com.
The purpose of the survey is to find out–once and for all–who is using social media in West Hawaii! I will also be comparing local and national trends to see how much Hawaii lags behind mainland U.S. Every response counts, and I especially need folks from West Hawaii to participate. So please help me get the word out. You can help me promote this on Twitter with something like:
“West Hawaii: Enter to win a $50 Costco Cash card by taking this super-short survey: http://bit.ly/91snua [please retweet!]“
Or use the green ”ShareThis” button below. Please contact me for a copy of the results, which will be ready in about 3-4 weeks.
I often get asked about how to keep online communities “engaged.” So, today, I found this fascinating quote:
TripAdvisor needs to keep reviewers reviewing, and an email message they sent to me suggests one way to do so. They don’t merely ask for more reviews but instead appeal to some of the motivations that Mass Influencers have for their social media activities. The TripAdvisor message takes away doubt about readership of reviews and implies that those who post reviews have an audience eager for more content. Here is what I received: Augie Ray, How Do You Keep Mass Influencers Engaged? An Example from TripAdvisor, Mar 2010
This article explains what works best–and what doesn’t–in getting people to talk about and share information about your product or service. It also goes into the mentality of your Web users, and why certain tactics work better than others. It’s a must-read for anyone struggling to keep customers engaged … and how to turn those customers into referrals! Take a look, and let me what you think!
Laura Roeder has taught me a lot over the past year, and I admire her greatly for how much she has been able to accomplish over the past few years. I subscribe to the “Dash” newsletter, which she runs, which is also linked to her Facebook community. The Facebook group allows people to extend the learning of her workshops and share results of what’s worked best using her methods.
Recently, Laura got a question about how much time she spends on various social media tasks. Her response is probably the best one I’ve ever heard.
The 2009 Small Business Survey found that social media adoption by small businesses has doubledfrom 12% to 24% in the last year, according to a study sponsored by Network Solutions® and the Center for Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business.
The report also found that investments in Web sites and social media will be large growth areas in technology over the next 18 months. These changes are coming as small business owners try to be more innovative and successful in the marketplace.
Most often, social media is used for external marketing and engagement. Such as finding new customers, building awareness or staying engaged with customers.
Thirty-seven percent of small businesses still rely on traditional print advertising to get the word out. After advertising, the second-most popular form of marketing is e-mail (24%), followed by social media (19%).
Social media ranked about even with cold-calls (18%) and direct mail (17%), suggesting that small business owners have yet to discover the true potential of this technology. For example, the ability to collaborate with suppliers, partners, colleagues or staff.
Yet, this type of innovation is what separates the small business winners from the losers. Besides working capital, the authors found that marketing and innovation were the two largest indicators of small business success.
“There may be a vast untapped potential for using the medium to link members of the supply network, colleagues and staff to gain advantages in creativity and productivity. Such internal uses are harder to imagine and in their infancy, but have the potential to unleash a vast reservoir of creativity and joint problem solving as social media users grow exponentially. Examples of such uses are developing a new product or service, finding low cost resources, teaming to pursue business opportunities, or leveraging an expert source to solve a special problem.”
The 2009 Small Business Report goes into more detail about how the report was compiled, provides more detail on what characterizes a successful small business and provides a year-over-year Small Business Success Index. If you work with the small business community, it’s one of the most useful and fact-filled reports you’ll read all year.
Sometimes you need to replace something in your document that takes several keystrokes. In this video, I show you how to copy something to your keyboard, then how to use those clipboard contents in a global search and replace.
This tip has saved me hours and hours (and hours) of time!
What has been YOUR most useful Word 2007 tip ever? Leave a Comment to let me know!
