The Stop Online Piracy Act is designed to stop Internet piracy but has critics concerned it will limit freedom on the Web. Wikipedia, Google, Reddit and thousands of other websites went “dark” on Wednesday January 18, to protest the SOPA (Stop Online Privacy Act) and it looks like it succeeded to get legislator’s attention.

U.S. Rep Rush Holt tweeted on Twitter yesterday:

U.S. Rep Timothy Holden withdrew his co-sponsorship of the bill.

U.S. Rep Charlie Dent said in a news release

Find out more about SOPA and what you can do to stop it: Wikipedia SOPA

We all know that a well built and information-robust website is very effective in customer acquisition and retention. People are more attracted to impressive website content. But it’s not only through websites that businesses can fully succeed. Growth can rely greatly as well on how a business connects with customers and how customer and business relationships are maintained. But with increasing costs in traditional advertising and marketing techniques often done in print and television, social media has opened new doors to more affordable and effective methods of promoting products and services.
The car repair industry has always been very competitive and a car repair shop’s growth can be dictated by the number of customers and connections it has. Normally, products and services prosper more effectively through word-of-mouth advertising which is very powerful and free.
Word-of-mouth advertising is controlled by consumers and this makes social media marketing in the internet one of the most effective ways in targeting a great number of customers. Social media marketing is contagious as long as there is something good to share. As far as businesses are concerned, social media marketing helps them in promoting their key strengths by providing valuable information to the various social networking members who grow by leaps and bounds every day. Is your business worth talking about? Just make sure it’s all positive. Words spread so fast like wild fire and a negative business image can create great damage to your reputation.
You have to realize that since consumers control social networking sites. As a car repair shop owner, you have to be sensitive about things that tick the public off, what interests them and what pushes them to spend. It really takes a great deal of time in observing these different types of behaviors, but can be very effective if social media marketing is used effectively. If you think that car owners who are into social networking are more interested in the quality of service, then you must promote your advantage from other auto repair shops. If you think car owners are interested in the price, then inform them why your service has more value for their money. In short if you post something about a particular service of yours, you have to write about it truthfully because consumers will always find out if you are giving misleading information.
Many businesses are also scared of social media marketing because one wrong move can result to a very unfavorable reputation. You can be the ridicule of the town and erasing a bad image is difficult because people remember the negative things longer than the positive ones. Although social media marketing is amazingly effective, not to mention free, business reputations can also be at risk. Therefore a well-planned strategy is strongly advised. Avoid joining all social media sites; just choose a couple of the most popular ones so you can easily manage the time to respond to your members and when you do, make sure that you are meeting their needs and satisfying their concerns. This will surely increase customer acquisition and retention dramatically that equates to a more constant source of profits.
If you don’t know where to start or what to do, you may consider hiring a social media marketing assistant to help you get started.  Here is an idea of how you can market your business, or you can create coupons and specials and distribute them through social media to your prospective customers.  For more ideas, give Global Assist a call at 1.888.828.9826

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Consider Twitter the newest advertising tool that can reach a wide array of potential clients that your business has never touched before.

Where did Twitter come from?

Jack Dorsey,  an American software architect created Twitter. A micro-blogging and social networking service that basically sends messages to its followers with a limit of 140 characters per “tweet.”  When he first analyzed the idea of instant messaging, Dorsey had thought of how to share posts amongst a number of friends easily.  Twitter has now obtained notice in the world market and has received a trendy status to teens,  movie stars and now is moving on to the business community. Due to its 140 character limit, it is from time to time referred to as the “SMS of the Internet”

How can it be used for marketing your business?

Twitter permits businesses or business owners to interrelate with their customers or networks by broadcasting information and updates as well as address comments or concerns about their products or services. These messages are broadcast over the Twitter network, thus letting businesses achieve reaching a greater number of possible customers.

Most of the leading networks and organizations have been using Twitter to provide updates to their followers. Since, these tweets can be viewed using mobile phones it becomes a powerful communication tool.

How to use it?

To use Twitter for business, it is as easy as following this 5 simple steps:

1.    First you need to log-in and become a member of the site. Use a provocative username that best fits your company. Then you need to expand your network by adding followers or following other people’s tweets. This way people will recognize your company’s profile.

2.    After creating an account, do not forget to put your logo in instead of your picture. You want people to recognize your brand. Think about using a Twitter background that is consistent with your company’s image.

3.    Talk to people; once you have developed a network, start sending tweets. It does not always have to do with the product or service you are selling, try to talk to your followers and show that there is a human behind the logo. This way people will become comfortable with your company. Always keep in mind that your posts are a reflection of you and your business.

4.    Provide creative posts:  suppose you owned a restaurant, you could “tweet”  your followers/customers about daily specials, enhancing it with pictures to add to their delight.

5.    You get immediate customer feedback.  If you receive a compliment, grace them with your gratitude, if you however receive negative feedback, acknowledge that you have read it and improve your service or product. This way they will know that you are taking comments seriously and can cause repeat business.

As a reminder you don’t need to read and reply to every “tweet” thrown at you. If you are running a bigger staff, assign more than one individual to updating the tweets, this way there is a variety to the type of message received by your followers.  Or if you don’t know how to get started or don’t have the time or people resources, consider hiring a virtual assistant to help with the task.  Twitter is just one of many social networking sites you can use to promote your business.  You may consider using Facebook, Youtube , Linkedin, Flickr and many more.

Soon you will be surprised when your revenue increases as more and more share your tweets and more and more people are introduced to your product.

If you have been introduced to the world of cyber blogging, then you must have heard of WordPress and TypePad.  If you are just getting started, congratulations!  WordPress.com and other blogging tools are available to assist you in sending your thoughts and work into the cyber world. These products have been competing for your attention, but which to use will depend on you and your personal needs. Let me give some tips for you to enhance your knowledge of the most common blogging tools.

WordPress started as software that you can install onto the Web server of your choice, but now  has 2  versions:  WordPress.com which is a hosted turnkey solution, WordPress.org for installation on your own domain.

TypePad has no installation task to be accomplished. Your blog and the control screens through which you operate the blog, all reside on TypePad computers, not your computer. You pay a monthly or annual fee for a chunk of server space and access to the administrative controls.

What are the features of a blog?

Bloggers create posts and share with their cyber networks by using a blogging tool such as WordPress or TypePad. A post is essentially an online journal entry.  It holds a blogger’s thoughts on anything they can think of that includes words, pictures, videos and links.  A significant feature common to blog sites is the facility to sort posts so that they can be located effortlessly. These would increase the traffic on posts and make it easier for anyone who is looking for a specific topic to search an entry; this capability is usually found on either side of the screen depending on your blog’s design. These blogs would have time stamps from the time you uploaded them. This would allow a blogger to properly archive their entries.

What are their similarities and differences on blogger tools?

WordPress is free while TypePad is not, although if you obtain a full version of WordPress  you will have to pay for web hosting and your own domain, unless you opt to go with WordPress.com which provides the service absolutely free, but does not allow you to put ad sense on your sites.

WordPress has wide-ranging theme types as opposed to a TypePad.  TypePad, however, is uncomplicated in regard to CSS codes, as it does the job for you, so without having any  code knowledge, you are able to switch the customized themes.

TypePad does not offer pages, as the system only allows a blogger to select a certain number of words to be published upfront and the rest would have to be accessed via archives.  WordPress offers multiple pages at the bottom of each page you can either go to the next page, if there is one or previous page if you want to go back.

WordPress has made plugins available on their system to improve its function. These plugins include: tags, popular post side bar, lists of related posts, subscribe to other people’s post or to a comment on your post, SEO tools, social media interaction tools, and much more.

TypePad is reliable during upgrades and maintenance as opposed to WordPress.  If a new version of WordPress is released, you can upgrade it to your existing WordPress, however, you have to do this on your own. TypePad, unknowingly to its users, do the upgrades for you so you don’t need to worry about your PC’s configuration.  Latency on the server may be experienced during this scheduled updates.

So if you are still a bit unsure, just try both for the meantime and compare. This will help you decide on which tool to use for your blogging pleasures.