New Social Media Marketing Manager

| July 11, 2016
Business Coaching

 

I’m excited to announce that I’ve been selected as the new Social Media Marketing Manager with The Business Source LLC. Hi I’m Brandon Kappel. As a recent graduate from the University of Wisconsin Madison I am excited to what my future holds helping companies create, develop and execute social media marketing campaigns.

This position for me is much more then a job, I see it as a way to express myself in something that I have a passion for. The use of social media has allowed me to create a brand for myself and I want to take what I have learned to assist small businesses and people reach their goals.

If you asked me 4 years ago what I wanted to be doing someday as a career, I would have told you something along the lines of athletic training or exercise science. Although fitness is still a huge passion in my life, I stumbled upon social media/ digital marketing.

I saw the influence it has had for people and businesses to really express who they are. Going into my junior year at UW Madison I knew that what I wanted, was to pursue a career in marketing. Ever since then I have immersed myself into everything I can to develop my understanding of creating well-rounded social media and digital marketing strategies in a unique way.

The Future of Advertising

| February 24, 2013

In the March issue of Harvard Business Review, Sunil Gupta writes about the impact smartphones and mobile devices are having on advertising.  In short, screen size minimizes the users experience related to ads with text and icons to small to be functional.  “Instead of buying tiny banner advertisements, markets should create apps that add value to consumers’ lives and enhance long-term engagement with their brands”, says Gupta.  Here are five strategies to help marketers succeed in helping people understand how and why users choose apps.

1.  Add convenience.  Apps work well to strengthen relationships.  Gupta states that apps aren’t very effective for acquiring new customers.  I disagree.  The “share” feature on most apps that allows users to refer an app to friends and associates across channels is one way to expand exposure of a brand, product, service or company.  Apps are also another digital footprint that helps promote a brand to consumers, search engines and other online communities.

2.  Offer unique value.  Here’s where apps separate themselves from other forms of communication, namely ads and email.  The user rich environment that can be created gives a unique customer experience to the user.  When designed correctly to super serve your customer base, a custom app stands out and is preferred over browsers or email.  What unique benefits does your company provide for your existing and potential new customers?  Create a value proposition for people to download your app and they’ll opt in and pull down your content because it makes their life better.

3.  Social value.  The world is hyper-connected in small and large online communities.   Facebook, LinkIn, Pinterest, Yelp, and hundreds of other social media channels are now hosting smartphone and mobile device traffic that contains information about your company.  Get connected and make it easy for your custom smartphone app users to connect with others.

4.  Offer incentives.  While not every business will want or need a customer loyalty and incentive program, the opportunity to reward your customers for patronizing your business or for opting in to download your valuable content is becoming more apparent.  It’s easy and encourages sharing and referrals.

5.  Entertain.  Today most smartphone users are using social media apps like facebook, google and dozens of tools that help people connect and gather information quickly.  More than 40% of people’s time with apps is spent playing games.

Sunil Gupta closes this article with the most powerful statement.  “So apps are not only the most effective way to reach mobile consumers; they are also more cost-efficient than many traditional ad campaigns.  When we started mobizmedia, LLC, we knew that the ability for a company to connect with their customers in a customized, branded and user friendly environment will surpass the ability of any other traditional media.  Now is the time to start building your custom mobile app audience of repeat customers.  Read more about this subject here.  Harvard Business Review – For Mobile Devices, Think Apps, Not Ads.

Social Media and Sales

| August 6, 2012

Tim Miles is very astute at explaining things related to how to increase sales in simple ways.
When people are skeptical about social media, they think and analyze the entire social media process like it’s underpinnings are like advertising.  Strategize, budget and execute.

People often ask me, “how do I set up my social media?”.  The answer is simple.  Get a facebook or linked in or Google Places page and start spending some time on the site to learn about it’s features and how they work.

Social media is not a pulpit from which you broadcast.  Social media is your outward showing personality.  It’s who you are as a person.  Do you care?  Do you play games?  What do you care about?  Why is that important?  Are you only interested in birthdays?  Or do you post about social causes?

Have you invited your customers to become “friends”?  Or have you invited your customers to Link In?  Or become part of you “circle”?

What competitive advantages do you bring to the table professionally?  Are you able to put those thoughts into writing to demonstrate your strengths and points of differentiation?

These steps to communicate online take courage, because you are exposing your core and you’re vulnerable.  Now anyone who’s part of your network can see what you believe.

Are you comfortable enough to put your best foot forward?

Why Content Marketing Is King by Mikal E. Belicove

| October 24, 2011

Mikal highlights the important of demonstrating your knowledge by publishing quality content using new media.  Enjoy the article.

When it comes to marketing strategies, content marketing has just been crowned king, far surpassing search engine marketing, public relations and even print, television and radio advertising as the preferred marketing tool for today’s business-to-business entrepreneur.

Late this summer, HiveFire, a Cambridge, Mass.-based internet marketing software solutions company, surveyed nearly 400 marketing professionals about the state of the business-to-business, or B2B, market, and discovered that marketers are retreating from traditional marketing tactics such as search marketing and have made content marketing the most-used tactic in their brand-enhancing tool box. Fact is, according to HiveFire’s B2B Marketing Trends Survey Report, twice as many B2B marketers now employ content marketing as they do print, TV and radio advertising, according to the survey.

So what exactly is content marketing? It’s the creation and publication of original content — including blog posts, case studies, white papers, videos and photos — for the purpose of generating leads, enhancing a brand’s visibility, and putting the company’s subject matter expertise on display. HiveFire’s researchers found that an impressive 82 percent of B2B marketers now employ content marketing as a strategy in their marketing programs. Coming in at a distant second place is search engine marketing at 70 percent, followed by events at 68 percent, public relations at 64 percent and print/TV/radio advertising at 32 percent.

Seventy-eight percent of respondents said driving sales and leads was the top marketing goal of their organization, followed by boosting brand awareness and establishing or maintaining thought leadership (both at 35 percent). Another 28 percent said their primary goal was to increase web traffic and 24 percent said it was to improve search results.

Part of the popularity of content marketing is its ability to generate qualified leads while engaging prospects in a branded environment without busting the budget. Nearly half of the content marketers interviewed said they dedicate less than a third of their budgets to such marketing expenditures. In addition to frugality, B2B marketers also believe most of their customers and prospects are online, which is why they’re focusing their marketing efforts on the Internet.

Finally, the survey shows that “content curation” — which is defined as the process of finding, organizing and sharing content — continues to gain strength as a top marketing strategy, up 17 percent from six months ago. Seen as a way for marketers to fuel their marketing programs, content curation does have its problems. Nearly 70 percent of content curators say lack of time hinders their efforts, with 66 percent saying a lack of original and quality content is a major drawback. Another 38 percent say difficulty in measuring results is the stumbling block and 37 percent say lack of staff to do the work is the hindrance.

Despite these issues, the survey makes clear that content marketing is only going to become more important going forward, whether you market to other businesses or to the public at large.

How have you used content marketing to enhance your brand? Leave a comment and let us know.

Madison College

| May 24, 2011

Today I attended the Grow Your Business social media program at Madison College. Steve Noll facilitated a fun conversation on the impact of social media. He touched on the subject of Geotagging. According to Wikipedia, Geotagging (also written as GeoTagging) is the process of adding geographical identification metadata to various media such as photographs, video, websites, SMS messages, or RSS feeds and is a form of geospatial metadata. These data usually consist of latitude and longitude coordinates, though they can also include altitude, bearing, distance, accuracy data, and place names. It is commonly used for photographs, giving geotagged photographs.

Geotagging can help users find a wide variety of location-specific information. For instance, one can find images taken near a given location by entering latitude and longitude coordinates into a suitable image search engine. Geotagging-enabled information services can also potentially be used to find location-based news, websites, or other resources. Geotagging can tell users the location of the content of a given picture or other media or the point of view, and conversely on some media platforms show media relevant to a given location.

The related term geocoding refers to the process of taking non-coordinate based geographical identifiers, such as a street address, and finding associated geographic coordinates (or vice versa for reverse geocoding). Such techniques can be used together with geotagging to provide alternative search techniques.

Steve also touched on the importance of security and the risk of posting your location for “your friends” to see. According to Steve, Foursquare has about 10 million users and has created a great social media interface for retailers interested in rewarding people who “check in” frequently.

I attended this session for several reasons. I hadn’t seen the new Madison College West Campus yet, I wanted to get some fresh ideas on Social Media and it included free lunch. What a deal. A perfect networking event.

Watch for more great programs and innovative learning programs from Madison College. If we continue to promote continuing education and innovative learning with real business applications, our economy in Dane County will stay strong into the future.

Thanks to everyone at Madison College who put today’s program on, including the Fitchburg, Verona and Middleton Chamber’s of Commerce. If you want more information on Madison College click http://matcmadison.edu/CCL.