Olympic-level social media growing pains

Organizers and broadcasters who hailed the London Games as the first social media Olympics may now wish the events were a little less social, as heavy smartphone use caused technical glitches and Twitter became a worldwide platform for complaints about everything from ad sponsors to TV coverage.

After heavy use of smartphones interfered with live television coverage of cycling races, the International Olympic Committee on Sunday asked fans attending the Games to avoid sending text or Twitter messages. The surge of cellphone traffic had overwhelmed signals from GPS location transmitters attached to the racers’ bicycles, and TV commentators could not receive real-time information on the contests, including the locations of many riders. The committee did not return a request for comment, but a spokesman told the Reuters news agency that it was asking smartphone users to “please kind of take it easy.”

REUTERS/FILE

US women’s soccer player Hope Solo ranted on Twitter against former player Brandi Chastain, who criticized the defensive play of team member Rachel Buehler during an NBC telecast.

The failure of organizers to prepare for a surge in wireless traffic is inexplicable, said Mike Proulx, head of the digital strategy team at the Boston advertising firm Hill Holliday and coauthor of a book on social media. “It would seem that this would have been expected, given the inherently social aspect of the Games,” he said.

Bluefin Labs, a Cambridge-based company that tracks social media usage, found that Americans posted 4.5 million Olympics-related Facebook and Twitter messages on Saturday and 5 million on Sunday. That’s not a record; this year’s Super Bowl football game generated 12.2 million messages.

Laura Fitton, author of “Twitter for Dummies’’ and spokeswoman for HubSpot Inc. in Cambridge, a maker of marketing software, found it amazing that there was a shortage of wireless capacity at the Games. “Gosh, did they really not build in enough bandwidth for their cell network?” she said.

Fitton suspects organizers wanted to discourage live tweets and text messages because they compete with coverage from global media giants who have paid billions for the right to cover the Games. “All of the media companies trying to make money covering the Olympics are being undercut,” Fitton said.

Overall, Twitter reaction to the Games has been solidly positive. According to a Twitter sentiment tracker developed by Boston-based Sosolimited and published by British utility company EDF Energy, well over 60 percent of all messages posted about the Olympics since competition began have been favorable.

But that leaves plenty of room for hostile comment. In the United States, critics of NBCUniversal flooded Twitter with complaints about the network’s decision to broadcast most major events in prime time, hours after they have actually taken place. And in the Olympic village, US athletes took to Twitter to protest a rule forbidding them from appearing in ads for anyone other than official sponsors of the Games.

“It shows [the athletes] are taking direct control of how they hand out their opinions,” said HubSpot’s Fitton. “Before, they had to go through a spokesperson. Now they just hand it out through the phone.”

Such instant commentary has its perils. On Monday, Swiss soccer player Michel Morganella was expelled from the Games for tweeting racist comments about South Korean players; last week, triple jumper Voula Papachristou of Greece was expelled after she tweeted disparaging remarks about Africans.

Meanwhile, the Twitter hashtag #NBCfail has become popular with thousands of unhappy American sports fans, who use the account to criticize NBC’s coverage of the Games. Some have denounced NBC’s editing of the opening ceremony because the network omitted a tribute to the victims of the 2005 terrorist attacks in London, but most of the anger was roused by the decision not to show major events on live television because of the time difference between the United States and Great Britain.

AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Twitter users generated a storm of criticism when NBC Universal delayed broadcast of opening ceremonies until prime time in the United States.

NBC does show all Olympic events live, but only on the Internet or over wireless cellular data networks. On television, events are replayed hours later during prime time, when audiences are bigger and advertising revenues higher, but after results have been reported in other media.

“There is no point in watching your prime-time Olympic replay when I already know the results!” tweeted one user. Another complained that NBC’s own nightly news show revealed Olympic results hours before the events were shown on the TV network.

NBC officials downplayed the criticisms. “We’re enjoying tremendous success with our digital offerings,” the network said an e-mailed statement. “A small number of complaints, relative to the huge number of users, are a very positive early sign.”

On Saturday, NBC said, it delivered 7 million live video streams, much more than the 1.6 million offered during the first Saturday of the Beijing Games of 2008. The company said that TV ratings for the delayed broadcasts are the highest ever, with 40.7 million viewers watching the opening ceremony and 28.7 million tuning in for the first night of competition.

But the network’s recently hired chief digital officer, Vivian Schiller, irked many Twitter users when she retweeted a message from CNN producer Jonathan Wald that seemed critical of those who complained about NBC’s coverage. “The medal for most Olympic whining goes to everyone complaining about what happens every 4 yrs., tape delay,” the message said.

Schiller, who did not return a request for comment, later deleted the message from her Twitter account, but not before it spawned a flood of angry responses.

Twitter suspended the account of journalist Guy Adams of the British newspaper The Independent, after he tweeted the e-mail address of an NBC executive as part of a complaint about the network’s Olympic coverage.

NBC confirmed that it had filed a complaint with Twitter, “because a user tweeted the personal information of one of our executives.” Twitter officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Social media controversies have not harmed viewership of the Games, however. According to HubSpot’s Fitton, the resulting publicity could even lead to larger audiences: “Any outrage on social media ends up being advertising, too.”

By Hiawatha Bray.  Article source: http://bostonglobe.com/business/2012/07/30/olympic-level-social-media-growing-pains/1WJun66oU7SbbrCF35s3aL/story.html

Do the Olympics make money?

As the 2012 Summer Olympics have kicked off, it's easy to imagine that all the activity, the pageantry, the swarms of purple-clad volunteers must be engaged in some highly profitable activity. Otherwise, why would so many people get sucked in?

Except the Olympics aren't a great money-spinner. Why?

Sponsors. Companies sponsoring the games don't make a ton of money because they tend to be large, well-known corporate brands, like Coca-Cola or McDonald's, that have bought into these gigantic deals for no other reason than to keep their chief competitors out. There's no question of raising brand-awareness; after all, these are the most familiar brands in the world. Given such companies' existing sales, even major public events aren't going to budge the needle and may not even cover the travel costs of all the executives who, of course, must be present for the games. So no big profits here.

Product providers. The International Olympic Committee has stringent rules governing how many and what logos athletes can wear, so the competitors' bodies themselves can't be used as human billboards (as uniforms are, say, in professional soccer in Europe). The IoC is also determined to eradicate any attempts at so-called flash-mob advertising. So the chances of hugely increasing the sales of tennis rackets, swimming suits, or running shoes are pretty slim.

Athletes. Will the competitors themselves make much money? For most, there's a huge cost in taking part in the Olympics at all. Few have sponsorship or even government support. Athletes who win a gold medal in popular sports are more likely to make their careers, but the rest will gain little beyond memories.

Special report: Technology and the Olympics

Tourism. Whether London or the U.K. will see a net increase in tourism as a result of the games remains to be seen. Certainly at Heathrow today there seemed to be more people leaving the country than arriving. The Queen's Jubilee and the younger royals have done what they can to attract visitors, but leaders of arts organizations, museums, theaters, and heritage sites are despondent about the huge disincentive to visit Britain at a time when congestion and queues are all that seem to be on offer to cultural visitors. Meanwhile, the Brits themselves don't want to hang around for the traffic jams.

Residents. Boris Johnson, the media-crazed mayor of London, has recently been spouting all kinds of nonsense about how important it is that people not stay home during the Olympics, but instead fight their way through traffic and transportation jams to get into work. He's fighting a lost and stupid cause. If anything can help the British economy, it will be the productivity boostgenerated when executives decide to work from home. Maybe a morale boost too.

Ad agencies. This is a tricky one. London currently is festooned with sports-themed ads, making it clear that every company on earth had the stunningly original idea of doing ads around winning, performance, achievement. Most of the people I know in advertising have booked their full-year's revenue by now. So they're happy. What does the rest of the year look like? They don't care.

Ad agencies aside, I've managed to find no reputable research indicating that the Olympics makes money for anyone. That doesn't mean the games are bad. The Olympics are, after all, supposed to represent the virtues of amateur competition (even as the games themselves are dominated by pros of on stripe or another). Still, maybe what they are good for is to remind us that there are others things that matter in life beyond making money.

By Margaret Heffernan  Article source: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-57480881/do-the-olympics-make-money/

Four Steps To Generate Leads Online With Your Business Blog

Most experienced marketers agree that a business blog is an extremely useful tool to expand online reach, build brand loyalty, and generate leads online. 

According to Social Media Examinar’s 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, 79% of marketers with over three years of experience use blogging as a social media marketing tool. Whether you’re just getting started or need to revamp your approach, here is a proven four-step formula your business can use to reap the many benefits of blogging:

(DEFINE+LISTEN+ADDRESS) X (COMMUNICATE) = BLOGGING SUCCESS

Clearly define your target audience, listen to them, and then communicate solutions that address their pain points in a simple, concise and relevant way.

DEFINE – Develop Buyer Personas

Create a demographic profile for each buyer persona. Flesh out personal details, such as gender, age, income and education level, marital status, and children. Speculate on any hobbies, pursuits, and personal interests to give you personas a three-dimensional feel.

Expand on employment information. Create data points for industry, department, specific role within the organization, and level of seniority.

Finally, speculate on each persona’s information acquisition and consumption habits. Do they prefer nline search, social networks, books, newspapers, or trade papers? If yes, which ones? Try to be as specific as possible- the more detailed your buyer persona, the more effective your blog.

LISTEN – Understand Needs and Motivations

If your business is selling a product or service (which for your sake I hope is the case), take a moment to think about the needs and motivations of your target market. What features and benefits are your buyers looking for? Make sure to think about this for each of your buyer personas. Moreover, what type of user experience (UX) is your buyer expecting to have when purchasing your product or service?

On the flip side, you need to anticipate objections. What issues or concerns would keep each buyer persona from purchasing your product or service?

To the extent that you can understand needs and motivations, and expose consumer objections, you can tailor various blog posts to address the interests and concerns of each persona within your greater target audience.

ADDRESS – Solve Pain Points and Offer Value

Now for the nitty-gritty: how will your product or service resolve a problem, address a pain point, and/or ultimately provide value to your target audience? At his/her core, what does each buyer persona really value? What will get them excited to work with your brand? What are they trying to accomplish with this relationship?

Once you have a clear grasp of such fundamental buyer motivations, you can communicate how your product or service can solve their problems and add value to their lives. Blogging gives your brand a direct and relatively intimate platform to communicate with your target audience on a consistent basis.

COMMUNICATE – Keep it Simple, Concise and Relevant

Clarity of message is the cornerstone of effective blogging. A simple structure and a clear proposition make for the most compelling posts. Most readers are looking for useful insight they can easily digest in one sitting. The best blog posts are usually 400-800 words in length. Make sure each post is in some way relevant to your target audience: resolve, inform or entertain. Tie your product or service into each blog topic, being mindful of the buyer persona(s) you are trying to reach.

In an increasingly crowded Internet, a well-crafted business blog can provide real value to your target audience. In time, this will translate into more web traffic, leads and sales for your brand.

By Chris Horton.  Article source: http://www.business2community.com/online-marketing/four-steps-to-generate-leads-online-with-your-business-blog-0229171#izJhYLWjoABvGQ6I.99

5 Ways to Earn Money through Social Media

Whether you own a virtual store or a simple personal blog, neglecting the importance of social media for it is a huge mistake. People spend the majority of their time on the internet with social networks; therefore, this represents the safest and most handy source of incomes and visitors. Let’s see 5 ways to make money with your blog with social media.

1. How to find people on social networks to bring them on your site?

• Ad Sense Integration
• Banners
• Articles

A blog can make money through AdSense programs of Google, through banners and commercials, but also by selling products to the interested people. As soon as you have those engines integrated on your website, it is time to think about promoting the website on those social networks.

In all the traffic charts and tops, the social networks can always be found on the first places in terms of traffic and visitors. This is because now it is trendy to stay on Facebook and Twitter just to see what your friends are doing. This is a method to bring visitors on your website, real visitors that might be interested about the products you sell or about the articles that you write.

2. Advantages of Social Media promotion compared with organic traffic

When you optimize your site for Google searches, you might need to wait for weeks before the visitors would come. This depends on the reputation of the website. However, while organic traffic comes harder, the social media traffic comes instantly. As soon as you send a message in the network, people would start reading your post or article. With social media traffic, you can expect instant results, and as soon as you have placed a new product in the list, you can expect people to enter and to buy your products.

3. Facebook promotion

• paid advertising
• free advertising

There are several methods to promote a page on Facebook. Free advertising might be a good solution, with the specification that you can’t reach a desired category of clients. Paid advertising will allow you to target only a category of clients, therefore you can reach only teenagers interested by clothes or pregnant ladies interested about pregnancy products. Yes, it is true that you need to pay for this advertising, but the money you spend will return to you under the form of visitors and sales.

4. Twitter promotion

You might be surprised about the number of people staying on Twitter all day long, and following any page or product. It is a method to earn money, as the people will instantly enter your page as soon as you “tweet” a new product on this network.

5. How to start earning money with social media

With a simple Facebook account and with a “tweet”, you can start an empire for your page. It is important to create a good image, and you should make people interested by your products with the quality of the respective products, not with spam and aggressive promotion.






By Kady Babs.  Article Source: http://inspirationfeed.com/articles/social-media-articles/5-ways-to-earn-money-through-social-media/

Get set for the socialympics

The best of the Games - and the stories behind the action - may be a tweet or click away as social and online media join the networks in the starting blocks.

Illustration: Rocco Fazzari

London 2012 is shaping up to be the biggest Olympic Games in history, thanks in no small part to new technology. The city will play host to 10,500 athletes and 11 million visitors later this month, but many more viewers than ever before will be watching, sharing, blogging and tweeting from around the world. From digital radio to Twitter, Facebook, tablets and 3D TV, there are no obstacles to enjoying the Olympic action.

Television coverage

Who needs results and coverage when the world is your commentator? 

Jennifer Wilson

TV sales usually spike before the Games, and this year is no different. Smart and 3D TVs are set to make the experience a rich one. The Games will be shown in Australia by both Channel Nine and Foxtel.

Social media ban ... the offending photo of swimmers Nick D'Arcy and Kendrick Monk.

Nine will broadcast 14½ hours of live coverage a day, as well as highlights and replays. This will be simulcast in HD on the network's digital channel, Gem, and selected events will be shown in 3D (for those with 3DTVs) on Australia's first free-to-air 3D channel, digital channel 95.

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Foxtel will broadcast 24/7 throughout the Games via eight HD channels (channels 184 to 191), divided by different sports and events. All gold medal events will be shown live.

Online coverage

While broadcast rights prevent events being streamed live on the internet in Australia, there are still plenty of websites for an Olympic fix.

You can keep up to date with official news at both the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) website and the London 2012 site. The IOC has created an athletes' hub, with profiles for competitors, including photos, fans, tweets, events and links to their Facebook pages.

Fairfax will have up-to-the-minute coverage online, with live blogs, videos, reports, and photo galleries directly from London. Ninemsn's Olympics page will feature catch-up TV six hours after events air live (because of broadcasting rights) and exclusive videos with Australia's 30 top medal hopes.

Social media

These Games have been dubbed the ''socialympics'', with social media use expected to exceed that of any sporting event in history. At the Beijing Olympics four years ago, Twitter had 6 million users while Facebook had 100 million. Today, Twitter has more than 140 million users and Facebook a whopping 900 million.

''Social and online are changing everything,'' says Jennifer Wilson, a director at multiplatform digital production company the Project Factory.

''From international events such as the Olympics to local sporting events, sports can be covered in a really interesting way through digital media, particularly social.''

The IOC's official Facebook page, which has 2.9 million fans, will host live video chats with athletes from within the Olympic village. The IOC has also partnered Facebook for Explore London 2012, an official page that presents the Facebook pages of athletes, teams and sports. ''We want to bring discovery to the Olympics,'' Facebook's Joanna Shields says.

There are also official Olympics pages on Twitter, Google+, Foursquare, Tumblr, Instagram and YouTube (though YouTube's streams are not viewable in Australia due to broadcasting rights).

Ninemsn has also capitalised on the rise of social media with Social Games, an online game in which cash is awarded to fans who share the most articles, photos and videos via social media.

But there are some rules around social media for both spectators and athletes. Due to broadcasting rights, viewers can take video for personal use but not share it on social media. You can post photos on social media, as long as you don't earn money from them.

As we have already seen, social media can be a can of worms for athletes. Aussie swimmers Nick D'Arcy and Kendrick Monk are under a social media ban after posting a Facebook photo posing with guns. The Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) has warned that other athletes who misbehave online will face similar penalties. The media boss of the AOC, Mike Tancred, said that ''athletes are on notice - do not vilify anyone on social media''.

Mobile and tablet

Arguably the biggest growth since the last Games has been in mobile and tablet devices. Both Nine and Foxtel will use the Olympics as a launch pad for apps.

''We're aiming to kill two birds with one app,'' says Rebecca Haagsma, the director of product innovation at ninemsn, whose new Jump-in iPad app will be linked to social media and present Olympic tweets into one stream. The app also features a medal tally, TV guide, news, photos and videos.

Foxtel sports subscribers will be able to watch the action on their iPad or Android tablets. All eight Games channels will be available live in the Foxtel app, as well as catch-up sessions, results and a TV guide.

''It's amazing what two years does in terms of technology jumps,'' says the director of Sports & Olympics at Foxtel, Peter Campbell. ''This has become interactive television.''

The apps will not be available on smartphones, but both the Herald and ninemsn have mobile-optimised Olympics sites.

Digital radio

With many events taking place during peak commuter times in Australia (6-9am and 6-9pm), radio is well suited to the London Games. The rights belong to the ABC and Macquarie (2GB in Sydney). The ABC will stream commentary online - though it will be accessible only in Australia because of broadcasting rights - while Macquarie will not. The ABC will also create a dedicated digital station, ABC London 2012, which will broadcast continuously.

Regardless of how you choose to keep up, there is something for everyone. But Jennifer Wilson believes it is the people who have the power this time around: ''Who needs results and coverage when the world is your commentator?''

Date

July 15, 2012

James Manning

Online reporter

View more articles from James Manning

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Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/get-set-for-the-socialympics-20120714-222gh.html#ixzz20srTGc19

How to Use Social Media for SEO (Post-Penguin)

As a business owner and marketer nowadays, you should know how to use Social Media for SEO purposes. This article will show you how.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and social media marketing shouldn’t exist in separate planes. Marketers know that there should be an element of SEO in every online activity. But as social media marketing matures, it is becoming clearer and clearer that it has an impact on a site’s SEO.

It is common knowledge that Google now incorporate “Social Graph” in their algorithm. In fact, Eric Schmidt of Google has confirmed that social media activity is a ranking signal for Google search. Many SEO gurus already predicted that soon it will be one of the main factors in the Google algorithm as links become less and less reliable.

Social Media plays an important role in how people use the internet these days. In the next couple of years, it is estimated that 65% of all US Internet users will use social networks. So it is not surprising to know that Google’s crawling, indexing, and ranking are directly influenced by tweeted links, public Facebook shares and likes, and Google +1’s.

Now that Social Media has established its importance in SEO, “How should we use social media to improve our rankings?” The better you understand the nature and strength of the connection between the two, the better you can focus your efforts on activities that get results.

Create accounts and manage

It wouldn’t hurt to create accounts and profiles in different social media sites. Of course, those accounts should ultimately link to your site and pages via your profile or status updates or tweets or whatever you call it. Make “real” accounts and use them as a real person would. If it is still not happening, sooner or later Google will easily disregard spammy social media accounts.

Install social sharing buttons on pages/posts of your website

People do not have the right to complain that social media does not work for them when they do not even have social sharing buttons on their web pages. The point of social media is…well… to become social and share. If your personal Facebook account is full of musings of life, the universe and everything in between, why not give others the opportunity to easily share your posts and pages?

Content and Credibility: The King and Queen of Social SEO

It is very important to interact with your followers, friends, and subscribers in a fairly personal way. This creates credibility and may, in turn, cause some seriously beneficial social signals. Google likes very credible sources and they judge webpages/sites based on those signals created through social media. It should be mentioned that if your content is great, rest assured that people will create floods of social signals to your benefit. Google will eventually pick up the trend and consider positively.

Why Social Media is not that much of a huge factor in SEO yet

The main reason why Social Media is still not the main factor for determining search results and rankings is the fact that it can be “gamed”. Google may consider social signals but still struggles to identify spam shares, tweets, and +1’s. However, it is certain that they are working on it.

Penguin and Panda updates may not be intended for Social Media control but it is best to get used to ethical social media practices as the next update could impact the Social-SEO connection.

SEO is not dead but social sharing is merely in its infancy and will continue to grow. Human nature of being social makes it unstoppable and internet search companies have no choice but to adapt. As for us, marketers and SEO’s, we need to keep tab and continuously update ourselves on how to use social media for SEO.

Article source: http://www.bestwaymakemoney.org/how-to-use-social-media-for-seo

How to Make Money by Writing Articles - How to Make More Money As a Writer

Not sure how to make money by writing articles online? In this article, you will not only learn how to get started, you will also learn 1 tip on how to make more money as a writer.

So how to get started?

The best way to get started is to become a freelance writer. The fact is, it is extremely easy to get started. Just join any of the top freelance websites and you will be able to get started within minutes.

All you need is to register for an account. Registration is usually free, depending on which site you join. Some of the more popular ones are eLance, RentaCoder, oDesk and GetaFreeLancer.

After joining, you can start bidding for your first writing assignment. Next, you will learn 1 tip on how to make more money as a writer. First, you need to understand that as a freelance writer, the more assignments you can complete, the more money you will earn. Thus, one way to make more money is to increase your productivity. Most writers, especially new comers suffer from writer's block.

I will share with you 2 ways to overcome it.

1) Keep On Writing

It is easy. Just keep on writing. People suffer from writer's block because they just couldn't get anything down on paper. Another reason is because they worried too much about sentence structure, grammatical errors and spelling mistakes.

I am not saying that those 3 things are not important. However, you can always go and fix them later after you have completed your articles.

So, just keep on writing without worrying about those 3 things. You will be surprised how much faster you can write.

2) Use Speech Recognition Software

As the name suggest, a speech recognition software will be able to recognize your voice and translate it into an article. If you have problems writing an article, you can always speak out your thoughts.

Speaking is much faster than writing. Thus, an article that usually take you an hour to write can now be written in 20 minutes. With that extra 40 minutes, don't you think you can complete more writing assignments and earn more money?

By Reyinson Smith  Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Reyinson_Smith

How a Scottish Home Brewer Used Social Media to Get Global Customers

If you run a small business or you’re thinking of starting one, a big challenge you will face is getting customers. Without customers, you can’t pay your bills, and you have no hope of convincing anyone to invest in your company.

And it’s a Catch-22 for most entrepreneurs, because they probably think that they need capital to build the product and sales force required to get customers. The difficult reality for most start-ups is that they have to get customers before they can raise outside money. And this puts start-ups under pressure to make the cleverest possible use of their scarce founder’s capital.

And one way to get the biggest bang for the buck is to use social media. This comes to mind in considering the success of Scotland’s James Watt -- who is nothing if not a business renegade. When he started beer-maker BrewDog, after quitting work at a law firm after two weeks, he knew clearly what he didn’t want to do. But what’s most interesting is how he figured out what to do instead and how he used social media to get customers.

BrewDog’s co-founders started the company because they were bored with their conventional jobs, disliked conventional beer and the conventional corporate cultures they represented, and wanted to do something they loved.

As Mr. Watt explained in an interview, “Law — in a word — is dull, and there was a big part of me that totally panicked thinking @!*& is this it?’ The last thing I wanted to do with the next forty years of my life was to sit behind a desk, sorting out paperwork and other people’s problems, constrained by a nine-to-five and a smart casual wardrobe. When I quit, I didn’t know what I would do, but literally a week later [co-founder] Martin Dickie and I started experimenting with beer, so I wasn’t stuck watching daytime TV for long.

As Mr. Watt said, “The idea to start our own brewery certainly wasn’t something we consciously set out to do.”

“I guess like any good idea, it just had this natural flow about it that . . . kept rolling and has never really stopped. BrewDog officially began in April 2007, but it was some months before that, when [Mr. Dickie and I] were having a beer that BrewDog was ‘born.’ The subject of monotony and the fact that all supermarket or big brand beers taste the same was the topic of conversation.

“[With Mr. Dickie] having just finished a degree in brewing, beer often took precedence in our conversations, but this time words became actions, and we decided to try and create our own beer as a means of remedying the stuffy ales and fizzy yellow lagers that had come to dominate the UK drinks market.

“That evening we set up a makeshift and pretty sketchy looking brewery in Martin’s garage, and created the first batch of what has now become known the world over as Punk IPA.”

Their next move was to see if anyone in the world would like what they had brewed. Mr. Watt continued, “From here we took our pilot beer to a series of open tastings and — by chance — were discovered by the late beer guru Michael Jackson at an event in Glasgow. Upon tasting our beer, Michael told us to quit our jobs and go into brewing fulltime. This is exactly what we did.”

Mr. Watt said, “For us, everything comes back to one simple thing, one overarching ambition, one guiding light: to make other people as passionate about great craft beer as we are. We want to show people there is an alternative to monotone corporate beers and introduce them to a completely new approach to beer and elevate the status of beer in our culture.

Its marketing approach also reflects this anti-corporate bias. As Mr. Watt explained, “Whether it is wrangling with industry regulators, pushing the boundaries in high ABV [alcohol by volume] brewing, smashing bottles of generic beer with a baseball bat, or doing a Saturday morning tasting at a local street market. This is why we work sixteen-hour days and why we only hire the most committed and passionate craft beer fans to work at BrewDog.”

BrewDog produces very clever and humorous videos that are inexpensive to produce and tend to attract many viewers through viral growth. Mr. Watt noted that a one-page magazine advertisement in the United Kingdom might reach a few potential customers for $8,000; however, BrewDog was able to reach 250,000 people around the world with a humorous YouTube-style video that it created for $2,400.

If you’re a start-up with your back against the wall, you could do worse than using BrewDog’s tactics to get customers without spending too much money 

By Peter S. Cohan WALL & MAIN

Article source: http://www.telegram.com/article/20120702/COLUMN70/120629665/1002/BUSINESS

Opportunity To Earn Good Income From Social Media Jobs

If you do a google search “paid social media jobs”, you will find that there are lots of people interested in Social Media jobs and the positions are filling fast.

Facebook is the biggest social media and networking platform on the planet with over 600 million users. It’s the Internet’s largest social network site with millions of active users and over 300,000 being added up everyday. Facebook has quickly become a leader in the Social Networking space today!

Facebook’s success provides plenty of opportunities for canny entrepreneurs to profit, and is also a virtual goldmine for Internet Marketers who know how to get traffic from Facebook and then turn all that traffic into real money. Facebook is really an internet phenomenon that smart marketers can’t ignore.

Social Media Marketing is still in its infancy. And the great advantage you get you here as there are not many set rules. You can experiment with different methods and techniques, which can be further fine tuned and incorporated with your own ideas.

There are many ways to market on Facebook. Today almost anyone who has a Facebook page, can make money in a variety of ways. Some ways are free and some would cost you money. While Facebook ads could be one of the most targeted and profitable ways to market on Facebook, you can also use Facebook in a lot of other ways to market your products and websites.

With half a billion Facebook users and thousands of online communities to choose from, Facebook has brought potential customers much closer to you. Unlike any other Online Marketing Social Media Industry today, Facebook Fanpage is pointing to an untapped market, virtually making it limitless and filled with a world of potential.

Most people like the freedom of working from home. You can put some time and effort into it and earn some serious cash working from your home. With this massive flood of new Facebook users, business owners, advertisers, it takes hard work and persistence to be able to make a decent amount of money on Facebook – specifically making money online from the comfort of your home.

As an Internet marketer one of your main promotional goals should be to dominate social networks simply by attracting followers or friends and thus you can quickly build a list of valuable leads.

You know you will be writing about something that is of interest to a large group of people. There are also Facebook Groups that allow people from all walks of life to come together around a common cause or activity to express their views. One of the best features of groups is the ability to send messages directly to members’ inboxes. This way you will be able to form a community and help your brand image in a big way.

Did you know that businesses all around the world are hiring people just like you to help manage their social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube?

There are thousands of businesses around the world and in your local area looking to hire people just like you to work on simple tasks such as:

• Posting Facebook comments

• Moderating Faceook groups

• Uploading photos and tagging people

• Generating Facebook ‘likes’ and followers

Most of these jobs don’t require any prior experience and the only skills you need are a good knowledge of how to use Facebook.

Do you like to spend time on Twitter? Would you like to get paid to do simple jobs such as ‘tweeting’ and ‘following’ on Twitter?

There are thousands of people just like you are getting paid great money to work online doing simple tasks on Twitter.

There is a lot of money in it, and the best part is that you don’t need any prior experience or specialized skills. All you need is a few spare hours per week, a computer with an internet connection and a good knowledge of how to use Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.

Article source: http://cmvlive.com/business/small-business/opportunity-to-earn-good-income-from-social-media-jobs