Social Media Management Sydney Australia: Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest

Kik For Business

December 25, 2013 Tags: kik for business, kik messenger, kik messenger for business, social media management, social media sydney Stewart Dawes

Kik For Business: Can you use Kik Messenger for Business? What exactly is Kik? The newest hit on the universal messaging service scene is fast and simple so it’s not just handy for connecting with the people you love to talk to, but with a few group smarts, you can use it for business …

Has anybody asked you “What’s your Kik?” or said something like “Kik me!”? If you hear those words and you just remain clueless, then you are missing out on the latest trend to hit the messaging service apps.

Kik is one of the big players in the universal messaging service. All the other messaging apps would require a phone number to sign you up; Kik on the other hand is the only mainstream messenger that doesn’t require you to post your phone number. Your identity is based on a username to guarantee control over your privacy which proved to be a good concept since most users are not comfortable on posting their phone numbers on the internet. This idea also turned out to be a huge hit especially for the youth that have no phone numbers yet.

What’s great about this app is that it lets you cross-platform. Anyone running the app using iOS, Android, Windows Phone and other platforms can exchange text messages, forward photos, play games and view content over the service.

They have also integrated HTML5-powered apps called “Cards” which give users the capacity to experience the Messenger in a different way. These cards enable Kik to swiftly create and deploy cross-platform apps within the Messenger client that lets users find, watch and share YouTube videos, send images or create sketches all without exiting the app itself.

Because of these great features, Kik has also created a practical solution when it comes to business communication. Since Kik crosses throughout all major mobile devices, employees who don’t use the same mobile brand can still communicate and connect through business conferences and chats using the messenger service. This app has made communication with staff members in other countries possible and so easy.

The people behind Kik have designed a concept of immediacy where people can always get a hold of you when they need to – an approach that is perfect for business.

People also looking to connect on apps like Instagram or every mobile app with some public component provide their Kik usernames so people can get in touch with them to discuss business or just to communicate.

Of course it seems the dominant tribe on Kik is 11-13 years olds – a great target market for clients of ours such as iCutes who want that tweens to teens demographic – but is there anything wrong with Kik being used by this age bracket to get social?

Possibly two things:

1. Recent news about teenagers going missing after they connect with complete strangers on Kik for a start.

2. Within about two weeks of being on it, we were approached by a girl from the USA – seemed friendly – chat chat … two minutes later she’d flashed a pussy photo of herself up on-screen and barely a minute later was angling for us to join in some nude cybersex – while paying for the privilege of course. Just what the average 12-year-old boy might be looking for!

Nevertheless, don’t be left behind. See why it’s the next big thing and how you can integrate it into your own business. And the next time someone tells you “Kik me” you can go ahead and say “Kik me” too!

We plan to offer Kik Messenger for Business training as part of our social media workshops and also have begun Kik management and development for a number of small to medium Sydney businesses – email us to find out more.

Sharepoint Development

November 14, 2013 Tags: sharepoint development, sharepoint sydney, social media management Stewart Dawes

What the heck is Sharepoint and how can your company use it? We speak to Sydney-based Sharepoint developer and consultant Marcus Dervin, director of WebVine, about its uses …

By Catherine Blum

When did you first get interested in the internet and technology? Did you do a course in web technology? What course was it and where did you do it?

I completed my uni degree in 1994 and started working for Apple in 1995. That’s where I discovered Netscape 1.0 and the Internet. No-one even spoke about it in Ireland (where I am from) at the time, and I think there were only 50,000 websites at that time. I was enthralled, chatting to people from around the world, building my first website, it was really exciting

Were there other sharing applications that you were initially interested in or worked with before you discovered SharePoint?

I worked with all the usual web applications – dreamweaver, photoshop and then worked with a lot of CMS products – Vignette, Kentico, WordPress, Joomla etc.

What are some of SharePoint’s best characteristics compared to other applications in its industry?

There’s no other application that quite compares with SharePoint for its broad range and depth. It’s a platform more than an application, as you can develop applications on it as well as use its many features.

Document management, business intelligence, content management, search, forms, workflows, Sharepoint has it all.

What size companies can benefit from using SharePoint?

I think to get the most from sharepoint, rather than just using it for documents, you really need to run an intranet on it with automated processes, dashboards etc so a company with at least 30 staff upwards.

Does it require training to use it? How much staff training is required to get people working on it?

General users do not need training, its like visiting any website. But authors need training, no more than half-day, and power users would need 2-3 days.

What is a typical scenario for a company using SharePoint e.g. how do they use it?

It’s the home page when staff open their browser, and typically has company news, a staff directory, HR section with ability to apply for leave. It can have social information, there’s no end to the content that can go on sharepoint.

Then many companies use it for document management, so all of their documents are stored there rather than on the share drive.

The benefits of this are many – version control (it keeps a history of changes so you don’t need to duplicate files), email a link to a document instead of attaching the document (so not creating more copies), using search and metadata to find documents rather than a million nested folders – and more.

Then you have forms and workflows for automating processes, so instead of using paper forms to get things approved, you get forms on the intranet, tasks are sent to the appropriate people to approve and go to the next stage. This can cater for complex processes or simple ones.

Some companies then start using Business Intelligence features, displaying information from other systems into SharePoint in a dashboard, so management can see how sales are going – without anyone preparing reports, even if it’s from another system altogether.

To find out more click this link:

Sharepoint Development

Most Searched Terms: sharepoint development, sharepoint sydney, sharepoint intranet developers, social media management, social media uses of sharepoint, sharepoint for business, sharepoint melbourne, office 365 service providers in australia.

Linen Sheets Australia

November 4, 2013 Tags: linen sheets, linen sheets australia, linen sheets sydney, pure linen sheets Stewart Dawes

social media management parramatta sydney

Linen is made from yarn spun from the flax fibres. Heavier and more textured than cotton, it creates a fabric that is polished with a very unique drape. It’s a durable material and with proper care will last for years.

It’s not hard to understand why people fall in love with linen. Apart from its natural and authentic beauty, linen is robust, absorbent, and gets better and softer with age. Linens are fabric household goods intended for daily use such as bedding, tablecloths and towels. There are tons of uses for linen around the home and here’s a few where it is mostly utilized:

Bedroom
In the bedroom, linen is used in the form of bed sheets, blankets, duvet covers and pillow cases. Our bedroom is our sanctuary, our refuge, where we revel in luxury and experience heavenly comfort. Isn’t it great to jump in a freshly cleaned pure linen sheets perfectly waiting for you everytime? The feeling of a pure, natural fabric like linen against your skin is a pure luxury on its own, and on a hot summer’s night, there’s nothing else you’d rather sleep on! Pure linen in the bedroom provides the perfect setting for a tight, revitalizing, luxurious sleep – the only problem is…getting up!

Dining Room
The dining table is the central piece of the dining room. It would be great to protect it and prolong its life for as long as possible and that’s where the combination of table linen, placemat and napkin comes in. Aside from decorative purposes, they also serve as the first line of defense for your dining table. Linen, being the most durable fabric, protects your dining table from steaming hot dishes or contacts with hot or cold utensils and even drippings from food or drinks. Napkins are there to use for wiping food from your face (which I’m sure you already know).

Kitchen
Linen is the most durable natural fibre which makes it ideal for taking on the dirty work. Its features really come into play in the kitchen – lint free, highly absorbent, and can be used instead of paper towels. It is used for cleaning, drying dishes, or to simply dry your hands, and the best part is you can wash and reuse it over and over again!

Bathroom
Linen is also useful in the bathroom and with its plush soft feel, it makes the most luxurious robes and bath towels, and because of its absorbency it is also engineered to capture water faster.

Linen’s popularity is increasingly growing with each year. The incomparable comfort and quality of cool, strong, smooth pure linen is undeniable and that is probably the secret of its popularity.

Linen Sheets Australia has been making a buzz on the pure linen industry. They have been supplying customers with pure bed and table linen products perfect for special occasions. They are also an online store so that makes it even more convenient.

Most Searched Terms: line sheets sydney, linen sheets melbourne, pure linen sheets australia, pure linen, linen bedding. social media management.

Social Media Management

October 13, 2013 Tags: social media management, social media management for business, social media management sydney Stewart Dawes

In today’s digital age, business relationships have evolved. The best way to adapt to these changes and trends is through social media management. Staying current on today’s marketing strategies can help boost your business so that you get that advantage in reaching out and engaging with your customers.

Almost everyone is now onto social media. It is the best channel to check out news, information and pretty much every craze that is being buzzed about. Social media is so powerful and should never be underestimated. If you want your business to get that push and to really get it out there, participating and getting involved would be your best bet.

Social Media is playing a big role in today’s world. The public has relied much on social media to stay on top of things that are happening around the globe. It has become a great channel to get timely updates and gather information from potential customers, as well as the latest market shifts and shopping trends which you can use to better promote your products and services.

Social Media Management can greatly impact your business. If done right, well-administered campaigns in giant sites like Facebook and Twitter can raise your sales as well as your customer relations.

Remember that your profiles have to be kept up-to-date and present. Posting fresh and informative content to your social media networks can create interest and attract new customers. It is important to always have relevant information put out there. Engaging with your audience is also crucial as it can help attract potential customers while keeping your current customers happy.

Today, the volume of social media avenues has risen. Handling a business can be a handful and tracking, interacting, monitoring and effectively managing your social media networks can be a time and labour-intense process.

Social media management solutions can help you execute online interactions as well as other business marketing activities in a more efficient manner. They also assist you to keep an eye on what people say about your business and help you intensify your social media presence across various social networking sites.

Learn more about social media management and let your business profit from this essential marketing strategy.

Is Your Social Wrong? Paul Keung

August 26, 2013 Tags: social media management Paul Keung

By Paul Keung.

Despite the revolutionary changes to our social realm in just the last few years, still very few business owners comprehend the importance of running ongoing effective social media management campaigns. These days people are not listening to radio as much because they have Youtube, they’re still watching TV but equally they can stream their favourite shows online.

The way you advertise your business has changed and in my view that change will last decades at least.

It didn’t happen overnight, it’s been like this for years, if you’re only now becoming aware of this, you may be lagging far behind your competitors when it comes to showing your brand off.

A lot of companies take the simple route, let’s pay for online advertising. Let’s just pay and it’s done. If this is your thinking, welcome to the dark side of internet. For one people have gotten really good at ignoring ads. Then you have programs like Adblock, a piece of software which removes all advertisements, including pre-Youtube videos etc so many customers will simply never see your advertisement.

So depending on the demographic you’re chasing, it’s likely many of them have already ignored you, prior to you even getting out there.

People have completely flipped how advertising works, before you’d try and get them to remember you, now they vet your advertisement and decide whether or not their friends would like to see it, before showing it to them.

So now you’re having to appeal to people on a different level, you’re actively having to be in a social mindset while at work. Most business owners aren’t very good at balancing the two. They just want to briefly act social and then start measuring the dollars within a week or two.

Outsourcing your social media activity continues to make better sense as the ever-more smarter and savvier thing to do – as there’s just so much to keep innovating at the forefront of. This might make you think, are these guys just getting to be social butterflies all day? Yes. Obviously. They’re like professional friends. Cool friends who like your brand and tell people about it.

If this still doesn’t make sense to you, you’re going to continue to run advertising which is ineffective, if something just clicked with you, you’re understanding how things are already running well and truly – in your absence.

Paul Keung is a Christchurch New Zealand based social philanthropist, property investor, businessman and writer. His interests are living close to the land, digital communications, music, film, the arts and being a dad.

Stay in touch with Paul Keung via:
Twitter: @PaulKeung
Instagram: @PaulKeungChristchurch
Pinterest: pinterest.com/paulkeung

Facebook Business Page Management

August 24, 2013 Tags: facebook business page management, facebook for business, Facebook management, facebook training Stewart Dawes

It’s easy to “manage” a Facebook business page – any mug can do it – but for small businesses, what really matters is “developing” their business page.

Most of the time when business owners tell me “we’re managing our business page in-house”, part of me grimaces at the thought of their in-house “social media manager” happily whiling away the hours on Facebook, doing the very occasional post to “prove” their worth, and then whiling away a few more hours on Facebook.

I don’t see too many jobs posted on Seek.com.au or other recruitment sites for a social media developer, and yet this simple waywardness in semantics can make a significant difference to a company’s success or failure on social media.

While social media management is important – you need that daily presence even if you’re quite a small business – in fact more so – what ay small to medium business needs more than ever is social media development.

And a Facebook business page is – despite the stats showing 11 million Australians on Facebook – where social media “development” is the most difficult of all.

Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and even Google+, indeed even LinkedIn, are far more open platforms where people are often there because they are more open and curious about “the world of social media” – so a full-scale development process can reap massive rewards.

But Facebook pages – they’re a dog.

Like owning a dog, you’ll get some love back from them – but return on investment?

Like a dog, you’ll need to feed them once or twice a day.

Like a dog, you need to take them for a daily walk around the neighbourhood so they can piss on other people’s posts.

And most gallingly, like a dog, Facebook has got your business page cooped up behind four walls – stuck in suburban solitary – for most of the day.

Your Facebook page is stuck in backyard confinement – you can’t directly approach your Facebook fans, etc etc – so many things a Facebook fan is not permitted to do.

Delivering audience growth through legitimate, quality means is what we specialise in – we take your dog for a daily walk to achieve visibility, but we do far more than that.

Words By: Stewart Dawes delivers Facebook and social media training to corporates, government and universities. Email stewart@atomicdigital.com.au

If you’re serious about your company being a success on Facebook and the other social media platforms, call 1300 321 814.

Most Searched Terms: Facebook Business Page Management, Corporate Facebook Management Sydney, Facebook Managers Melbourne, Company Facebook Management Australia.

30 Reasons To Do Pinterest

August 16, 2013 Tags: pinterest for business, pinterest management, pinterest training, social media management, social media managers Stewart Dawes

pinterest for business training management sydney australia

Pinterest is one of the big players in the social networking sites today, and is very effective in strengthening your brand recognition. If you haven’t discovered it, now is the time!

There are multiple reasons to do Pinterest and here are 30 of them.

Pinterest is here to stay! Pinterest, which has recently launched Pinterest Web Analytics to illustrate its impressive statistics, has been valued at $7,700,000,000 by Forbes.
It continues to grow fast! Pinterest surpassed 10 million users, faster than any other stand-alone site in history. In March 2013 it’s estimated to have 640,000 Australian users, up by 30,000.
Its referrals traffic, when targeted, is very worthwhile! It appeals to college-educated females age 25 to 44, a sweet demographic for retailers if ever there was one.
Pinterest drives sales directly from its website — of people with Pinterest accounts, 21% have purchased an item after seeing it on Pinterest. (Sources: comScore and Nielsen). Pinterest shoppers spend more, buy more items, and make more purchases than other social media buyers including Facebook and LinkedIn according to comScore.
It’s Easy! Pinning uses up less than one calorie per pin!
It’s (still) easy to share … even though Pinterest has moved the Twitter button it used to have available at the moment of pinning(!) which means we can’t kill two birds with one stone.
It’s fabulous for recycling all your Instagram photos. Recycled content is king again!
It doesn’t have to be boring! Pinterest doesn’t have to be all shoes, shopping and images of cats – as the Epidi Curiosity Shop shows, it can even be shocking!!!
Infographics reign supreme. Infographics are the new fast way of learning for the time-poor attention-deficient modern thinker.
You can always edit your pins.
You can follow people’s individual boards.
Secret Boards! Develop ideas internally among staff or for in-house presentations (or for your secret dream wedding, even if you don’t have a boyfriend yet!)
Love a Good Satellite! Just as Twitter spawned Tweetdeck, Twitpic, Vine and ManageFlitter, to name just a few, so Pinterest has spawned Share as Image, Pinstamatic, Pinerly & Pinpuff.
Videos can also be pinned. Also check out the “best youtube videos ever” page.
One pin can launch a company.
It’s a great social media activity to do over a few glasses of wine.
Increase your website’s virality. The sheer existence of Pinterest is a good reason to improve the images on your website so make your website more pin-friendly!
Showcase your niches, showcase your knowledge! Pinterest allows people to express themselves through a blend of their many disparate interests. This allows you to not only find out about new & different market segments, but see the relationship between differing markets and segments. You can further divide your content & offerings into segments within your market. E.g. a garden store might have a board for different gardening tools, flowers, vegetables, & other reader-generated needs.
Its SEO properties are – at this time – the best of all social media.
It’s a fantastic personal and professional image library and its search facilities aren’t too bad also.
Pinterest can be inspirational! Create boards about things you love.
Pinterest drives more traffic to blogs than Twitter.
It can help secure your brand name. Do it now before it’s too late!
It is free!!! Who doesn’t love free advertising? The best part is other people help you advertise when they re-pin your pins!
Pinterest lets you express yourself!
Pinterest can showcase your brand’s best features visually enticing potential clients. Most people buy with their eyes. So if it looks good, they would want them!
Pinterest elicits random PR.
It’s a great way to engage with your audience.
Pinterest is another window to connect with the world giving you more access to a huge market.
Pinterest can give you inspiration for new ideas or useful information that you can practice in your own business or personal style. Inspire and get inspired!

Spray Foam

July 26, 2013 Tags: shed insulation, spray foam, spray foam insulation, underfloor insulation, wall insulation Social Media Addicts

Why would a person need spray foam? Is it environmentally safe? Is it safe to human health? How long does it last? Is a customer searching for it for home insulation or is it a business? What business applications is it most required for? A winery? A warehouse? A social media management company? Who the hell insulates their sheds? Which is better of you can only afford one – wall insulation or underfloor insulation?

One of the things that we strive to do, and is often a far more painstaking process for clients to grapple with as they know their own businesses backwards, is to as far as possible comprehend what a client’s customers needs truly are. To do this we have to try and understand what it is our clients’ do, why they do it and what the end outcomes are for customers of their business. So when approached by Ecofoam about starting a campaign with them we got to work on finding out as much about their customers as possible – within privacy limits of course!

Not only did we learn we’d be targeting a campaign that focused on residential, commercial and industrial clients, which is a broad range that needs to be approached in many ways, we conducted lengthy interviews with staff from Ecofoam in order to learn about the science behind spray foam and about its practical applications in the real world so we could talk about it confidently and run the marketing from an angle which we genuinely understood.

Insulation is a competitive market in Australia, every company worth their salt is truly having a go at dominating the market, whether online or otherwise. When coming up against this kind of competition it’s important to go on the offensive and to keep it sustained long term otherwise there will be no increase and possibly even a drop in rankings, just due to sheer competition.

This program has been one of our hottest. Simply because we had to allocate some of our best staff to internet battles to raise rankings. We threw some great minds at it and came up with a multi-pronged program which required staff members to write hundreds of hours of fresh content for a service wide information update and release.

This was definitely a case of bringing out the big guns!

The Short Story:

We took a strong approach to learning about Ecofoam’s business in order to fully understand our clients’ needs.
We spent time developing a stronger frame than usual to support our efforts in growing their business presence online.
Staff created hundreds of hours worth of new content in order to develop fresh ideas for the campaign.
This massive influx of fresh content gave Ecofoam an edge in the market against much larger players to maintain and improve upon rankings.

Other keyword terms:

Underfloor insulation

Wall insulation

Shed insulation

Foam insulation

Most Searched Terms: Spray foam insulation, home insulation, wall insulation, shed insulation, foam insulation, underfloor insulation, insulation sydney, insulation australia, insulation melbourne.

Hearing Aids

July 26, 2013 Tags: hearing aids, hearing loss, hearing loss prevention Social Media Addicts

An extremely competitive industry in Australia, when we were contacted about SEO-marketing hearing aids initially by HEARnet we all had to take a look at each other for a moment. The best thing about this is, we weren’t afraid of this challenge, you could see we’d all gone into ‘how to make this work’ mode.

HEARnet is focused more on research around hearing loss to help with prevention and also partnering to develop hearing aids which are more effective in the future. So we were dealing with competition from many groups who are in the business of selling hearing aids for these search terms, but we had an entirely different angle we could use.

As usual our Google search team decided to go after hard goals instead of soft targets. It would be easy to get rankings for terms related to medical research and conditions, which would seem great on the surface, however HEARnet was also about informing the public at large about hearing loss prevention and solutions, so we had to go for the big fish.

We set up the program to have an initial blast off phase, where we focused more than double our usual resources to ensure we put enough momentum into the program to give us success later. This saw rankings increase dramatically and push some terms where we would usually not find our clients at all, to finding them as first page rankings.

The short story:

We were approached with a significant challenge due to the particularly competitive nature of the search terms required.
We looked for fresh angles which would give an edge on the competition.
A ‘blast off’ phase was initially used which gave this program double the usual resources in order to cause a stir.
Rankings have gone from not being found in the first 100+ places to the top ten, or first page of Google for terms that are searched over 5000 times per month locally.

Find more information on hearing aids check HEARnet out by clicking on the link.

Rubbish Removal Sydney

July 26, 2013 Tags: rubbish removal, Rubbish removal sydney, waste management Social Media Addicts

Recently we were contacted by Doyle Bros, a company specialising in resource recovery and waste removal, essentially offering an advanced recycling option for businesses.

They had stumbled upon the following problem, they offered a great solution to customers, 24 hour pick up of waste, it would be recycled using a modern Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) and in some cases they pay the customer to let them take the waste, however among a sea of businesses who offered only a simple rubbish removal option it wasn’t so easy to get this option in front of potential customers.

Having had some experience with online marketing before and understanding the cost benefits over traditional marketing, we were contacted by Doyle Bros initially to start working on a strategy with them.

The product they were offering was aimed at the commercial and industrial markets, and not for general consumption, so it was decided to focus even more heavily on the SEO component being delivered and less on social media functionality.

We also decided to be a little bold here, many SEO companies like to grab at long string, or very business specific queries, meaning long search terms which are not regularly used. We decided to rank for not only business specific terms, but also for general terms, like rubbish removal Sydney. This was a challenge as usually short or common searches are highly competitive.

This methodology helps us with funnelling huge numbers of common organic searches in the direction of the Doyle Bros business which means that they’re taking more advantage of leads being generated that long string searches or ultra specific searches wouldn’t bring them.

This has brought them a huge number of leads.

The Short Story:

Doyle Bros picked up on the cost benefits of online marketing versus traditional marketing.
A strategy meeting helped give the program direction, let’s focus on SEO instead of Social Marketing to target the right prospects.
We aimed to be bold when campaigning, going for large volume, short string queries that would pave the way to direct leads.
Doyle Bros is happy they’ve found a cost effective way to let people know about the good work they do!

Find out more at rubbish removal Sydney

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