5 Tips for Using Twitter, Facebook, and Blogs for Event Marketing

October 13, 2011

Jenn

1. Create a Facebook event page
A Facebook event page allows you to publish essential information about your event (time, location, etc.), and track who will be attending. This is a great place to post relevant articles and resources that will further engage the audience. It also gives the audience a place to make comments on the event and share the event with their Facebook friends. The sharing feature is essential because it allows your event to reach more potential attendees.

2. Connect with Guest Speakers or Event Sponsors
If your event features a notable guest speaker, be sure to mention him/her on social media. For example, you can mention the individual on Twitter or tag them on Facebook. You can also mention sponsors in the same way. Mentioning a notable speaker or sponsor on social media will associate them with your event, thus creating increased awareness and credibility. Blogs are also a great place to connect with guest speakers. For example, you can have a guest speaker do a guest blog post about your event.

3. Publish Event Updates on Social media
Social media can also be used to keep your audience up to date as the event approaches. For example, you may want to let your audience know about agenda changes, new sponsors, new speakers, or new attractions. You can also use social media to countdown to the event, and to let your audience know when the event is close to selling out.

4. Publicize Social Media URLs
Be sure to include Facebook, Twitter, and Blog URLs on all websites and/or print collateral that are used to market the event. This should result in increased traffic to your social media websites since the consistent appearance of social media icons and URL’s will remind the audience to connect with your event.  Be sure to create a hashtag and let your audience know about it through your marketing efforts. Hashtags allow the audience to follow conversations about your event if they search the hashtag on Twitter.

5. Use Social Media for Crowd Sourcing
You can also use Facebook, Twitter, and blogs to interact with the audience. For example, you can poll the audience by asking what they’d like to see at the event. This will allow you to hear the voice of your audience and to ultimately present content that is relevant to your audience, creating greater satisfaction with the event.

Check out how DECO is using social media!

Image Credit: fotographic1980

2 Comments | Events, Marketing, Small Business Development | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jenn Lake

Getting in the Integrated Marketing Game

September 15, 2010

Sharyn

In recent months, DECO began to offer a new and exciting set of services. The Integrated Marketing Team (IMT) was formed to provide comprehensive solutions for communications and media challenges. Social media strategy and web site analysis and development are the focus of the team.

Just last week, the IMT completed a project where tactics, management strategies, and website integration approaches for implementing a Social Media Marketing Strategy were provided to six start-up businesses. Months were spent analyzing the companies and their industries. In turn, the IMT was able to provide a comprehensive strategy that included:

  • An overview of the social media landscape and how Web 2.0 has impacted the way consumers and businesses interact with one another.

    Click here for a one page reference sheet about the IMT services.

  • Specific social media tools that will work most effectively for each company.  Management and measurement strategies were suggested to ensure that implementing these tools are both time efficient and quantifiable.
  • Website analysis that includes improvement recommendations on navigation and functionality.  Also, social media tool integration recommendations were provided.
  • Tactical outreach, blogging, and search engine optimization (SEO) strategies provided additional advice on how to implement the suggested social media approaches effectively.

  • A Tool Kit provided summaries of each of our favorite social media tools.  The summary includes costs, usefulness, key features, step-by-step guide to get started, and helpful resources.

If social media is a marketing avenue your company would like to explore, don’t hesitate to contact me (I am one of the Project Managers for the IMT) for the guidance your business needs to take a strategy and run with it!

Leave a Comment » | Business Analysis, Community Outreach, Entrepreneurship, News, Project Management, Small Business Development | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Sharyn Grove

Cool Ideas + Planning = Efficiency

August 3, 2010

Sharyn

In case I didn’t mention this before, I took a course on Information Architecture (IA) this past spring. The course was useful and gave me the opportunity to put some IA best practices to work on class projects for some real life clients. Since then, I’ve been reminding colleagues around the division about the importance of IA and some steps we can take to be more efficient when it comes to designing a better user experience for our clients and their audiences.

5 IA steps that will definitely pay off!

  1. Complete a content inventory – if there is a site or application in place already, evaluate what’s going to the chopping block and what aspects are going to stick around. This ties right into the next step and you’ll see why in a second. If it’s a brand new project, this step can get skipped and you can jump to step 2.
  2. Gather requirements – Sounds so basic, but this is the step that can keep a project on track or let it spiral out of control. Meet with your stake holders to discuss what the needs are for the site and what’s actually doable. The time frame of the project might restrict how extensive the functionality can be. In the end, you’ll be happy you have this document to refer to and you can always reign the scope of the project back in as new ideas are presented.
  3. Organize a site map – Now, take your content inventory and your requirements document and create a site map. Personally, I like to use index cards (post-its work good too!) and create piles of things that will go together. Another approach is to create something that looks like a family tree to represent how all the pages and content will be organized.
  4. Lay out wireframes – Wireframing helps with laying out the basic framework of a site, but it also can show functionality. When I say functionality I and referring to how pages interact with one another and various designs to accommodate the various features that need to be incorporated into the design. Keep this simple. If you start to add too much color or design you stake holders will get too caught up in those elements oppose to the functionality, which is what you want them to focus on at this point.
  5. Create screen designs – Your wireframes are signed off on, now the part you’ve been dying to start – the actual design of the pages. This is where the graphic designer gets to go to town on applying the aesthetic look and feel to the basic wireframe.

So, why do all this. You will save time…I promise. Your programmers will be happy they have a concrete document to work from. Your clients will be happy to be a part of the process, opposed to a getting a big surprise when the whole thing is complete. And, your project managers will be happy with the efficiencies that came out of the process.

Try it, let me know how it works out for you!

1 Comment | Business Analysis, IT, TU Faculty & Staff | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Sharyn Grove

TowsonGlobal…in Residence

June 9, 2010

Clay

Neighborhoods, ideally, are social communities with considerable face-to-face interaction among residents. Neighbors often act as a resource or offer support when it’s needed the most.  What about in the business world?  It’d be nice to be able to walk next door and find invaluable resources at your disposal, especially for the small business owner looking to expand in this tough market.

Many business incubators provide a whole host of services for start-up ventures such as facilities, workshops, counseling, networking and organizational support, but there is more. TowsonGlobal, Towson University’s International Incubator, goes even further by providing both Resident and Associate member companies access to a variety of in-residence experts that provide creative, inexpensive, and effective counsel necessary to succeed.

Among the good neighbors “residing” at TowsonGlobal are:

CFO-in-Residence
Carol L. Coughlin
CEO/Founder, BottomLine Growth Strategies, Inc.
Attorney-in-Residence
Steven Tiller
Attorney at Law, Whiteford, Taylor, Preston, LLP
Entrepreneur-in-Residence
J. Gary McDaniel
President & Board Member (former), TerraWatt Power, LLC
VP Sales-in-Residence
Scott B. Turnbaugh
President/Founder, Eagles View Consulting LLC
  • The CFO-in-Residence advises on financial and accounting questions, and assists with many strategic business issues.
  • The Attorney-in-Residence counsels on a broad range of legal topics from contractual issues to intellectual property rights protection.
  • The Entrepreneur-in-Residence assists with a variety of strategic issues, including business plan fine-tuning or strategies and contacts for those seeking investment funding.
  • The VP Sales-in-Residence helps in navigating sales challenges, ranging from exploring new sales opportunities to building and managing a sales team.

Tapping into the one-on-one support such specialists as these who have years of experience in numerous fields and industries can make a tremendous difference!

To find out how you can become a member of the TowsonGlobal neighborhood, check out www.towsonglobal.com.

Leave a Comment » | Business Analysis, Community Outreach, Economic Analysis, Entrepreneurship, International Business Development, Small Business Development | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Clay Hickson

Focus Groups for Entrepreneurs

May 10, 2010

Clay

In the marketing world, focus groups are a way of reaching out to existing or potential customers for feedback.  Companies of all sizes often use focus groups to improve an existing product or service or to test new ideas.  These facilitated discussions of 6-10 people can elicit a great deal of valuable information.

For start-up companies, focus groups can be a particularly powerful tool for evaluating new ideas, products or services before they are put on the market, avoiding costly missteps.

Developing new products can be very expensive, and focus group research can remove some of the risks by saving you from wasting time and money on ideas that won’t fly and by helping you strengthen good ideas.  If conducted properly, focus groups can uncover many diverse insights from participants into how the product may potentially be viewed and can aid in development of marketing strategies that will most effectively address customer needs.

Take a look at this video describing how Domino’s Pizza used focus groups to learn what needed to be improved about their pizza.

In many cases, companies use outside resources to coordinate focus group research; the cost for which typically can be $3,000-$6,000.  This may seem expensive for a small business, but compared to other research methods, it can be relatively economical.  For those who can’t justify the expense, there may be ways to reduce the overall cost of conducting a focus group.  For example:

  • Holding the session(s) in your own meeting space can save the expense of using specialized facilities; just make sure that the space is comfortable and private.
  • Using someone from inside the company as facilitator instead of an outside consultant may be cost effective; chose a person adept at leading discussions and keeping the group focused on the objective.
  • Having an internal scribe make notes of and summarize the meeting can save money, but the person(s) must be sure to capture the numerous thoughts and ideas from the discussion that will direct the efforts to move forward on the issue.
  • Analyzing the data internally also could save a significant sum; however, the risk of biased reporting, can make having an outside source analyze the data a worthwhile investment.

While there are options for cutting corners when conducting marketing research, there also are aspects on which the firm does not want to skimp.  The most important elements of a focus group are the participants.  You do not need to pay large fees, but some small level of compensation for participants’ time and ideas is required.  Also, make sure you have the right audience (people without the proper background or interests will provide useless or distorted information).

Check out these links for more tips:

Leave a Comment » | Business Analysis, Entrepreneurship, International Business Development, Small Business Development | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Clay Hickson

Turning Gloom into Bloom

April 20, 2010

Clay

In these tough economic times, everyone is feeling it.  Some families are watching their budgets, eating dinner at home more, and maybe not getting that new iPad they wanted.  Individuals are not the only ones feeling the pressure, so are businesses.  While big companies may be having cutbacks and layoffs, small businesses also are struggling.  Along with everything else, marketing budgets are tight, so companies are forced to be creative.

One company that is working to turn a challenging situation into an opportunity is Transcending Cosmetics, a TowsonGlobal incubator member company,  through the launch of its new marketing campaign “Turning Gloom into Bloom.” The initiative strives to use every opportunity to stretch marketing dollars and incorporate a variety of tools to help build awareness of the company’s revolutionary all-in-one foundation/concealer Natural Cover and the services of Linda Seidel—Pioneer, Makeup Artist, Author, Educator and Aesthetic Rehabilitation Specialist.

The campaign includes:

  • Partnerships with health professionals and special interest groups like Vascular Birthmarks Foundation
  • Radio talk show appearances such as “Woman Talk Live” and “Your Prescription for Health”, both on WCBM
  • Presentations to groups such as the Lupus Foundation Mid-Atlantic
  • Exploration of new media tools by engaging a consultant to help set up an easy-to-manage social media initiative that will include a corporate Facebook profile
  • Limited targeted advertisements such as in the program book of St. Joseph Medical Center’s gala event A Night with the Stars where Linda also did makeovers on cancer survivors

The campaign is also geared to giving back to customers and the community.  Transcending wants every man, woman and child to have an opportunity to feel confident about the way they look, so they are donating consultations, gift certificates, and time.  The company looks for a variety of avenues through which to share information on how to accentuate one’s best features, and how to deal with some of the common complaints that people have, such as dark under-eye circles, uneven skin tone, and rosacea.

Even in these rough times, companies can prevail and turn a very gloomy situation into a blooming success.

Read more about Transcending Cosmetics and the “Turning Gloom into Bloom” marketing campaign here.

1 Comment | Business Analysis, Economic Analysis, Entrepreneurship, International Business Development, News, Small Business Development | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Clay Hickson

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