Social Media

Social Media is a variety of websites each with different features that allow people to setup a personal and/or business profile then communicate with other users by posting information such as their unique opinions, likes & dislikes, photos, audio, videos, friends, associates, and portfolio of life accomplishments.  This sharing of media makes the transfer of text, photos, audio, video, and information in general increasingly fluid among internet users.   The main purpose of creating a social media network is to gather people to a website so advertisements can be forced upon the users and important data can be collected from the social media users to tailor future advertisements of products, services & events to that user.   This valuable user information can also be sold.  This model is a never ending gold mine for social media companies, advertisers and business users alike.   Social Media has relevance not only for regular internet users, but business as well.  Millions of people gather daily on their favorite social media as a form of entertainment and business.  As a business owner you need to go where the people are.  Where else as a business owner can you go to setup a free account and have access to 100’s of millions of potential customers?

Many small business owners are now using sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest to help grow their businesses. And if you are still standing on the social sidelines, there’s never been a better time to get started mining new customers from the different social media platforms.

Join Fox Valley Web Design on social media:

• FVWD on Twitter
• FVWD on Facebook
• FVWD on Pinterest
• FVWD on LinkedIN
• FVWD’s Behance Portfolio

You may ask why do I need to get my business or organization on social media?  Quite simply, because it works!

Social media does in fact help get the word out about your business.  More importantly then the extra exposure is it provides a great opportunity to expand the relationships with your target markets.   This target audience will become your Facebook Fans, Twitter followers and LinkedIN connections.   They may already do business with you and are likely to tell their friends & associates about your business or organization.  Social media allows you to strengthen relationships with these connections through social engagement and meet new clients from around the world. And because that engagement is easily visible to the connections of your current fans and followers, social media can introduce your business to a whole new audience and enable you to reach your next new customer.  Users social media have access to millions of profiles.

Social media is in the mainstream.  Social media has definitely become popular as Facebook has over 1 billion users, Twitter & LinkedIN both have over 200 million users and continue to add new users daily.   Social media will touch nearly every customer that comes to your website or visits your brick & mortar business.   For most small businesses, Facebook is the starting point for social media marketing. With it’s extensive reach and dynamic functionality—there are very few businesses that couldn’t benefit from having a presence on Facebook.

Social media sites are free. Getting started on social media is completely free. These sites mostly make their money through advertisements and some offer premium account upgrades with extra features for more advanced users.   You can also purchase advertising directed at your target market & location.   Signing up won’t require anything more than an email address. For the purposes of getting started, there’s no upfront cost for most of the social networks.

Social media users are active.  Just walk down the street or through the mall and you will see tons of people glued to their mobile phones.  I bet 3 out 5 people that you see are using their mobile phone to access Facebook, Twitter, Instagram at that moment.   When it comes to Facebook, more than half of its users log on to the network every single day and 60 percent of those users say checking Facebook is one of the first things they do every day. This level of activity isn’t unique to Facebook either, today more than 400 million tweets are sent on Twitter each day. While a customer may visit your store once a week—they could see you on Facebook or Twitter every single day.

Social media encourages two-way communication.  There is no marketing tool available to small businesses today, that provides the type of two-way communication that comes with using social media. It has the power to take any of the feedback you may receive from using a tool like Constant Contact or MailChimp email marketing and supercharge it— letting customers share their thoughts, questions, and ideas quickly and publicly without having to take the time to write an entire email. And it allows you to respond just as fast, without having to pick up the phone or worry the customer isn’t seeing your response.  Social media is everywhere.  60% of Twitter users connect to the site via a mobile device  More than half of all Americans are smartphone users and more businesses are offering mobile-friendly experiences. The benefit of the increased presence of mobile activity in our daily lives is huge for small businesses. Every major social network (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.) offer free mobile apps that let business owner manage their presence on-the-go.

How can Fox Valley Web Design help with my social media marketing?

The most valuable thing we all have is time.   They say, “Make sure you spend your time wisely.”  Social media tends to make time fly by both as a social media user viewing & interacting with associates on social media and as a professional agency such as ours who creates original content then posts that fresh content to our clients social media networks on their behalf.    By hiring us to handle your social media marketing your time will be freed to take care of other items on your business agenda.      You don’t need to sign up for EVERY social media network available.   We can help you determine which are the MOST relevant to your business by defining a strategy.   Its best to be excellent with two or three social networks than mediocre at six or seven.  Many people lose their business focus while becoming “social”.   It can have a negative effective on the business due to the time lost trying to come to terms with social media. A plan will help to stay focused on the strategy goals and to stay within the time budgeted for social media marketing tasks.  Social media content creation & posting takes an investment of time over a sustained period in order to achieve results.   We understand the ins and outs of social media.   Below are some of the social media networks we can help your business or organization with:

 Facebook

If you are a business-to-consumer company, we can reach out directly to the kinds of people who like what you are offering by setting up a Facebook fan page.  We will use this fan page to engage your audience through your circle of friends and ask them to help spread the word.  We will actively make posts to your fan page and let people know what you’re up to such a new products, current specials, or holiday promotions.
If you need help setting up & on-going posting to Facebook, contact Fox Valley Web Design today.

 

We provide custom Social Media API Integration into your website.  Below is our Facebook Feed:

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Twitter

We will help you start following others who are industry colleagues and people who you are interested in.  They will see us re-sharing / re-tweeting interesting and useful information including original content about your company, products or services that we help you write.
If you need help setting up Twitter, contact Fox Valley Web Design today.

LinkedIN

As a powerful player on the business scene, it demands to be acknowledged, respected, and integrated into any successful marketing strategy.  Successfully integrating LinkedIn into your business plan begins with creating a quality profile.

If you need help setting up LinkedIN, contact Fox Valley Web Design today.

 

Vine

Twitter’s micro-video social network, is perhaps the best form of entertainment by and for Generation Distraction. With a limit of six seconds per video, Vine provides a steady supply of hilarious, surprising and inventive mini-movies showcasing users’ art, comedy, pets, pranks and general Internet weirdness.  If you need help setting up Vine, contact Fox Valley Web Design today.

 

Blogging

A blog is a frequently updated online journal where we can post news or any information you like.  We can help come up with a plan or outline for your initial blog and setup your RSS feed. RSS (Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it.   A lot of businesses use it as the news area on their website.   A blog can be setup with different categories to help organize the

information we are posting and most blogs have a searchable archive to store older posts.   A blog also helps us quickly add new content to your website which will help improve your ranking on Google and the other major search engines.
If you need help setting up a business blog & your RSS feed, contact Fox Valley Web Design today.

 

Pinterest

Pinterest is a pinboard style social photo sharing website that allows people to share and discover beautiful images, videos, products, and discussions. For an eCommerce store owners,  we can help your best products get discovered by other Pinterest users. The majority of users on Pinterest are women (over 80%) between the ages of 25-45.  Pinterest users aren’t just looking for creative inspiration on the network. They’re also ready to buy.   We can help photograph your products if needed then setup boards and add pins.  Images shared on Pinterest take on a viral nature as they get repinned to other people’s bulletin boards. When we pin your products on Pinterest, you’ll get more life out of those shares as people discover and repin them to their own boards.    If you need help setting up Pinterest, contact Fox Valley Web Design today.

YouTube

Owned by Google, this social media channel is the most popular video oriented site and has an estimate of over 1 billion unique visitors every month, with over 100 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute. A huge factor to note with YouTube is that it’s the second largest search engine after Google (not Yahoo or Bing!). So, having content here that is optimized to be found by someone looking for your products, services, or niche can have enormous benefits.  When it comes to boosting your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) ranking, videos are over 50 times more likely to appear on the first page of search results as part of the blended results that Google now shows.  We can help setup your YouTube account. Need some creative videos to add to your account?   We offer professional video production specifically for YouTube (1-3 minute videos) using professional 4K video equipment from GoPro, Canon, and professional editing services with Final Cut Pro software.  We have also added a couple drones to our camera equipment for unique aerial photos & videos.  If you need help setting up & adding videos to YouTube, contact Fox Valley Web Design today.

Vimeo

Vimeo is a video-sharing website in which users can upload, share and view videos.  Vimeo is video + you. They put your videos first and give you the best ways to share, discover, and be inspired.  Millions of people from all around the world enjoy Vimeo, and we’re growing bigger every day. We hope this fun and friendly environment fuels your own creativity and inspires you to contribute to Vimeo in the ways that mean the most to you.
If you need help setting up & adding videos to Vimeo, contact Fox Valley Web Design today.

 

Foursquare

This is only for a business that have a brick and mortar location such as a restaurant, hair salon, or spa. Major updates have breathed new life into this social media channel. People use Foursquare to check into locations they’ve visited by using the app on their mobile phones. Once they’ve checked into a location, it can be shared with their Foursquare friends, Facebook friends and Twitter followers. This is where businesses on Foursquare benefit from being on the platform because users’ friends see where they’re checking in to eat, shop, have fun and more, which could possibly influence them to do the same based on the recommendations of their trusted connections.Interaction and real-time content is great when people write reviews, recommend and talk about your business, but know that you must join the conversation, interact, post images and reward customers in order to be successful on this platform.  If you need help setting up Foursquare, contact Fox Valley Web Design today.

Instagram

Instagram is a photo-sharing program. What makes Instagram different from other photo-sharing programs is that it’s a free app which can be downloaded onto iPhones and some Samsung and Android devices. It enables users to apply a variety of filters to pictures with a simple press of a button.  You probably would not sign up your business to Instagram if you are not going to use your smart phone. Though you can manage your Instagram account via your computer, you can’t upload images to Instagram without a third party tool from your computer. Instagram is great for products, pictures of staff and developments within your business, and using this social media channel can add the “we’re just human” factor to your business or organization. Statistics show that there are around 150 million users and the majority of users (70%) are female between the ages of 18-35.
If you need help setting up Instagram, contact Fox Valley Web Design today.

Tumblr

Owned by Yahoo, Tumblr lets you effortlessly share anything.  Tumblr is a microblogging site that sits somewhere between Twitter and a traditional blog. There are no length restrictions on Tumblr posts, but the culture of the site encourages short updates, and many users stick to this format. The major feature that makes Tumblr stand out is that it divides up posts by type: Text, Photo, Quote, Link, Chat, Audio, and Video.
If you need help setting up Tumblr, contact Fox Valley Web Design today.

SoundCloud

SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform, that enables its users to upload, record, promote, and share their originally-created sounds.  Among SoundCloud’s key features is the ability it affords artists to upload their music with a distinctive URL.   By allowing sound files to be embedded anywhere, SoundCloud can be combined with Twitter and Facebook to let members reach an audience better. By clicking a share button corresponding to the site where they wish to promote the shared content – such as Facebook – and approving the post, artists and publishers can let audiences on that site see the content through their desired media outlet. We can help post your audio files onto SoundCloud such as church sermons, music, audio books, speeches,  and more.   If you need help setting up & adding audio files to SoundCloud, contact Fox Valley Web Design today.

Flickr

Owned by Yahoo, flickr is an image hosting and video hosting website, and web services suite.  Users can organize their Flickr photos into “albums” (formerly “sets”) which are more flexible than the traditional folder-based method of organizing files, as one photo can belong to one album, many albums, or none at all. Flickr provides code to embed albums into blogs, websites and forums.
If you need help setting up Flickr, contact Fox Valley Web Design today.

Yelp

Yelp is a website that serves as a directory for local businesses, both big and small, in major cities and towns across the world in over 15 different languages.  In addition to finding the type of store that sells what you’re looking to buy, you can also leave reviews and ratings for those you’ve already done business with.  Other people will do the same, and can comment on reviews that others have posted.  This way, there is a little more balance to reviews concerning whether they’re positive or negative.  Whether you’re looking for a new place to eat out or trying to find a garage that will treat your car right, Yelp is a good place to start.  If you need help setting up Yelp, contact Fox Valley Web Design today.

 

Monitor all your social media accounts
Wisconsin Social Media Company

 

Work smarter, not harder but hard work never hurt anyone and can be good for the soul & the pocket book. We can also advise you on using services such as HootSuite or Social Office Suite to connect your social platforms and monitor them all in one place. These tools are also handy for tracking who is engaging with your brand.  When we have something that can actually show you how your market is responding to your brand, then we can figure where social media time is best spent.  Is it an event invite over Facebook? Is it using Twitter to promote your next big sales event?  Will it be through Evite to get people to reserve a ticket to have special pricing for reserving their tickets there? This would be a great way to build an opt-in list for emailing people for the next event.