Category: Review

Professional evaluation on interesting products and services.

  • The Best of Twitter Marketing from Moonfruit

    One of the hardest markets to crack is the web hosting business. There are so many hosting services to choose from, which mean that competition is very tight in the market. It is often said that small fish cannot make it in big waters, especially when those waters have even bigger fish.

    A good example of a small-time web hosting company is Moonfruit. Moonfruit is a small British web hosting company. If you have ever tried Googling the phrase “web hosting service,” you would know exactly how big the competition is for Moonfruit. Moonfruit is a small web hosting business that is currently competing with large hosting sites like HostGator and GoDaddy.

    Although it’s difficult for small businesses to stand out in a dense market, it is not impossible. The key to winning, regardless of your size, is to market yourself the right way. There are several things you have to consider when planning on marketing a small business.

    First, you should know where the market is. Second, you should make yourself visible to them. And third, give them a reason why they should go for your service. This is exactly what Moonfruit did. Studying social media trends, Moonfruit started marketing their services in the microblog Twitter. Twitter marketing is currently one of the best ways to promote your business online. But no all succeed in Twitter marketing. It requires a lot of homework before it can be effective.

    Moonfruit studied the social media trends of today and found ways to attract quite a following. In Twitter marketing, the main point is to get a big following. This following will be redirected to the business’ actual site and thus generate more web traffic for the business website. It is not easy to get a strong following, but Moonfruit was very successful in doing this. Their following surged after they started a contest for their followers. But what broke the deal way the contest’s very appealing prize─ a Macbook Pro.

    The result of this ploy was simply smashing. In that short time period, Moonfruit became a household name. Everyone who was on Twitter knew them and knew what their business was all about. After the contest, everyone had Moonfruit in mind for their web hosting services. Moonfruit followed social media trends and executed their marketing strategy in Twitter very effectively.

    Thanks to Twitter, after ten years in the business, Moonfruit is now one of the most popular web hosting services available. Moonfruit’s success is the result of great social media marketing.

  • The Best of Twitter Marketing from Kodak

    In today’s camera and photography market, competition is very tight, especially now that SLR and DSLR cameras are popular. Kodak is a well-know and trusted camera company both in the United States and across the globe. But when it comes to professional cameras, people tend to prefer brands like Nikon and Canon over Kodak. This is currently Kodak’s biggest problem.

    The professional camera’s segment of the camera and photography market is very promising. SLR and DLSR cameras are a luxury, but a lot of people are investing in them. Also, once you commit to a brand of professional camera, you stick to it as you get upgrades for you unit. This generates quite an income for the company. Kodak is lagging behind in this segment and they desperately need to get into it.

    The reason for Kodak’s problem isn’t because they aren’t as good as their competition. Their actual problem is that people don’t see their outputs. In truth, Kodak produces great photos and can easily match what a Canon or Nikon camera can produce. But since not a lot of people know about it, consumers tend to assume that they are not that good.

    What Kodak needs to do is to show people the quality of their work. And there is no better way to do this than by employing the tips of social media trends and showing off in social media platforms. Kodak has employed Twitter marketing and other social media marketing techniques to show people in the Internet how good their products are.

    Kodak’s Chief Blogger, Jenny Cisney, has a very active Twitter page that updates followers with developments in Kodak’s camera technology. In order to show people the quality of their products, Jenny posts links to Flickr Photostreams with pictures taken with Kodak cameras. Following social media trends, Kodak has joined in on the Twitter marketing bandwagon to promote their products.

    Their work speaks for themselves; all they needed to do was have people see them. This is definitely one of the best Twitter usages of a company. They promote themselves, not only with Twitter, but also with other related social media platforms.

    Twitter marketing has done wonders for Kodak. Their strategy has resulted in one of the best Twitter success stories. With the help of their Twitter updates that link followers to Kodak’s photo stream site, Kodak sales have improved immensely.

    Because of this, the Twitter community considers them every time they make a camera purchase. Following social media trends have done Kodak very well.

  • The Best of Twitter Marketing from Shoemoney

    There are many ways to make profit online these days. A lot of companies claim they can make you richer just by utilizing the online marketing system. But no one rode on the online marketing wave better than Jeremy Schoemaker. Schoemaker is the founder of the Shoemoney Group of Companies, which owns AuctionAds, and eBay marketing affiliate.

    Shoemoney is a very successful company. But as there are so many sites that claim to offer instant online earning these days, Shoemaker has a lot of competition. Moreover, some of Shoemoney’s so-called competition has given online profit a bad name as some of them turn out to be scams. This is the biggest hurdle Shoemoney has to surpass. They need to prove to the online community that they are legitimate.

    One of the best things Shoemoney did to overcome this problem was to show people tangible proof that their system really worked. Twitter marketing is a big income generator for Shoemoney. Here, Jeremy Schoemaker personally microblogs about a lot of companies. In actuality, these companies pay him to do that. So basically, the most important thing he should invest on is a big following. With Twitter marketing, Shoemoney follows social media trends and shows the Twitter community first-hand how it can make money before their very eyes and using their attention.

    Shoemoney gets paid by companies, such as Kmart, to tweet about them. Kmart pays Shoemoney $250 per Tweet. The reason these companies pay him is because a lot of people listen to him. In order for this Twitter marketing technique to succeed, Shoemoney needs to invest on a lot a good following. They were successfully able to do this by giving incentives to followers.

    In short, they ran contest with cool prize and gave giveaways every now and then. These prizes are reserved solely for the loyal followers. Having a good following would make Shoemoney’s Twitter marketing technique successful. Shoemoney doesn’t only follow social media trends; they show you how it’s used properly in Internet marketing.

    This display of practical application not only had Shoemoney making loads of money; it also showed people the effectiveness and the legitimacy of Jeremy Schoemaker’s techniques. It showed how social media trends can be translated into actual profit. What can prove Shoemoney’s legitimacy better than showing people first-hand how the magic is done?

    By getting a good following in Twitter, Shoemoney showed that you can earn money online without breaking much of a sweat. This is definitely one of the best Twitter success stories today.

  • The Best of Twitter Marketing from Naked Pizza

    For small and medium sized businesses or SMBs, Internet marketing is very important. Regardless of what industry you are in, a well-thought-of online marketing technique will make a very big difference. With today’s social media trends, social media platforms too have become open to online marketing. One SMB that has followed and studied social media trends is Naked Pizza. It is a pizza shop based in New Orleans, LA.

    In 2009, it was aiming to go national, with the support of multimillionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. But even with the support of a well-known person, if you aren’t able to put yourself out there and make your name known, you cannot possibly succeed in a big time venture.

    Because of this big challenge, Naked Pizza decided to take on Twitter marketing. Twitter marketing is one of the most effective ways of marketing yourself through social media. In order to successfully sell your company in Twitter, you have to study current social media trends and find different ways of making the community listen to you. Twitter is basically a networked microblog.

    For business, it is great for broadcasting new offers and events. But for small and medium sized business, the best thing that can be done in Twitter is to win customers over. This can be done in what’s called Twitter promotions.

    Twitter has already done a lot for the Naked Pizza business. Most of the attention is has now is because of the many promotions it ran via Twitter. What makes Naked Pizza special is the health difference it makes versus other pizza shops. Unlike other national pizza places that have already made a name for themselves, Naked Pizza is healthy. That in itself is a marketable characteristic. But the thing is not all people know about it.

    But after all Naked Pizza’s, Twitter promotions, people now know of the health benefits it offers. If you could get the same great tastes in a much healthier package, would you not go for it? This is exactly what the pizza company promoted to the online Twitter community.

    Twitter marketing has definitely done a lot for the Naked Pizza business. After their first Twitter promo, it had a 15% sales increase. In May 29, 2009, roughly 68% of the customers who called in for an order were calling in as a Twitter follower. That is just how important Twitter is for this company. Naked Pizza is living proof of the effectiveness of social media marketing for an SMB.

  • The Best of Twitter Marketing from Comcast

    For big companies, sometimes it’s hard to keep track of this. Everything is so widespread and broad that some parts of the business tend get neglect. And whenever there’s neglect there are bound to be casualties. More often than always, the negative side effects will be felt the customers. When customers feel unsatisfied, the company will feel a backlash. This is especially true when there are a lot of customers experiencing the same issue. Big companies don’t worry much about getting new customers; their primary concern is keeping their existing ones.

    Comcast is one of the biggest Internet providers in the country. Unfortunately, it is also known for its poor customer service and frequent downtimes. They have such a bad reputation they are actually called “Comcrap” by some subscribers.

    It is very important for Comcast to fix its reputation. If customers don’t feel satisfied, there is a big chance that they will transfer to other service providers. One of the many ways that Comcast is employing to fix its reputation is by Twitter marketing. For Comcast, Twitter marketing is a way they can show customers that they really do care and that they have an initiative to fix their customer’s problems.

    There is no better way to appease a customer than to show them that their problem is being taken care of. Even if the problems don’t get fixed yet, a customer has peace of mind is he or she knows someone is working on the problem.

    For its Twitter marketing, Comcast has launched Comcast Cares. This is a Twitter page where people can actually express their grief over the services they get. Customers can also express their concerns online, plus they can even give suggestions. These posts are not only viewed Comcast representative, but also by Comcast executives. Thanks to this, Tweets can be a form customer tickets for their problems. The great thing about it is that, at times, problems get fixed faster through Twitter that if customers called the tech support hot line.

    The result has been very good for Comcast. Their customers have seen their efforts in trying to make things better for them. One tweeter even claims that after a few minutes of tweeting his complaint, he got a reply from an actual Comcast executive asking how he could help his situation. Knowing that their issues are being fixed, customers feel better about the company. A company’s willingness to help is very important for customers. Showing them good customer service will go a long way.

  • The Best of Twitter Marketing from Namecheap

    One of the biggest online marketing techniques today is social media marketing. Online businesses can study current social media trends and tap into social media platforms to market their products and services. This is a very effective technique and has worked wonders for so many companies already. When you run your business online, it is important to market it well as there is a lot of competition.

    Namecheap is one company that is employing Twitter marketing. Namecheap is a small company comprised of only 70 people. Their main line of business is selling domain names. If you have every tried searching for domain name providers in the Internet, you would know that Namecheap has a lot of competition. This is the primary hurdle the company has to overcome.

    Twitter marketing is the perfect solution to Namecheap’s problems. Twitter is a social media platform that serves as a networked microblog. After studying social media trends, an online company can apply best Twitter practices and promote themselves to members of the Twitter community. Twitter is a very effective platform for online marketing and has done wonders for a lot of online businesses already. Namecheap just needs to put themselves out there and get as much followers as possible. Getting a lot of followers is one of the best Twitter practices for online businesses promoting themselves online. As simple as it is, Twitter can present great opportunities to businesses.

    Namecheap has employed one of the best Twitter marketing techniques− Twitter contests. Namecheap offered their best Twitter followers a way to win freebies just helping to promote the company in the simplest way they can. One example is Namecheap’s trivia contest where they held hourly trivia contests and offered the first three Twitters one-year free domain registration. Everyone wanted a free domain registration. People were so delighted with the contest that they Twittered about it to everyone they knew. The contest spread like wildfire in the Twitter community, eventually making Namecheap a well-recognized name. Followers jumped from 200 to 4,000 in a month.

    After following social media trends, Namecheap was successfully able to infiltrate the Twitter community, instantly making their small company a popular service provider for domain name registration. Their effective Twitter marketing led to a 10% increase in their website traffic and a 20% increase in their domain name registrations. Without a doubt, Twitter helped their business immensely. After years of being in the business, Namecheap now has their biggest customer base ever. This is all thanks to effecting social media marketing.

  • Online Marketing Trends – 7 Top Influential Marketing Trend Websites

    Online Marketing Trends – 7 Top Influential Marketing Trend Websites

    As Featured On EzineArticles.comEvery day, billions of keyword searches are made all over the world, reflecting stories of entertainment and celebrities, current affairs and popular news, and the interests of millions of people. Tapping into these enormous online marketing trends not only gives you an advantage in online marketing, it also gives you the privilege to easily draw maps of cultural trends, business, food, and virtually any topics they desire.

    Google Search Trends
    Google is a very popular website that specializes in search engine and page ranking. This website also offers 20 more different services, which includes Google Maps, G-mail (e-mail accounts), Google Earth and Google Moon.
    Google also offers a service called ‘Google Zeitgeist’ that delivers the top 10 lists of the most highly searched keywords in different countries.

    AdCenter Search Trends
    AdCenter is Microsoft’s applied research group that is intended and dedicated to incubate and search the latest digital advertising technologies. This website was opened in 2006, which roughly combines talents of its engineers and researchers. AdCenter also offers effective services with regards to the changing online marketing trends. They also provide clients with an account and campaign setup where trends and other related information are forwarded.

    AdCenter Keyword Forecast
    Beta tools are not really expected to operate perfectly, but you might want to raise your expectations a bit higher with Microsoft’s AdCenter Keyword Forecast engine. AdCenter Keyword Forecast is a helpful search engine tool that includes impression count in its searches. It also predicts the demographic distribution of keywords, providing you the advantage to learn what keywords are popularly searched in different areas.

    Blog-Pulse
    BlogPulse is a newly launched website that specializes in keyword searches, tracking tools, and ranks. It is a website built with intelliseek technology that specializes in various Language processes, internet searches, and unstructured data analysis. This website is a helpful and entertaining search engine tool for people who are interested in tracking certain issues, trends and rumors, often before these issues finally hit mainstream media.

    TrendPedia
    TrendPedia is website that searches trends in blogs and blogospheres. TrendPedia is a very simple search engine site that searches and provides the latest hottest online marketing trends on the web.

    Facebook Lexicon
    Facebook is popular social networking site that historically started as a social site for college students. Today, the website is now a phenomenal social group that stretches around the world. And with this, Facebook finally released its own search engine tool called Lexicon. Lexicon is a very basic search engine tool that follows the language trend. It is specifically designed to search for word and phrase usage on groups, events, and profiles.

    Twitter Twist Trends
    If you are feeling a little bit lost with your online business, and your progress seems to be very slow, then you might want to consider Twitter Twist as an alternative option. Twitter, personally does not own an official in-house trend product, but Flaptor did released Twist. Similar to Facebook and Google services, Twist also looks at keyword terms and creates graphs and messages according to their information. Users can also precede directly to their previous twitter messages containing that keyword.

  • The Lowdown on Google DNS

    The Lowdown on Google DNS

    As Featured On EzineArticles.comThe Domain Name System (DNS) is, more or less, an Internet naming scheme. By themselves, computers and other network devices use a set of numbers (called IP addresses) to refer to themselves or to each other. We hapless humans normally do not have the capacity to remember all of these IP addresses, so we use meaningful and often worded labels (called hostnames or if it needs to go online, Uniform Resource Locators, or URLs) instead.

    These names are then stored in a hierarchal manner in machines called DNS name servers. Name servers are distributed all over the world. There is usually at least one in every domain, organization, company, school, and other major establishments.

    If you aree subscribed to an internet service provider (ISP), part of their service is the setting up DNS or your connection using their DNS name server. These ISP name servers often have caching abilities, that is, they store DNS query results for a certain amount of time, enabling another computer looking for the same URL a faster result. It is important therefore that ISPs keep their name servers and their DNS information secure, fast, and reliable. Unfortunately, some ISPs do fail in one (or in a few cases even all) of the three criteria.

    Enter free and public DNS services. There are lots of companies out there (OpenDNS, ScrubIt, dnsadvantage, to name a few) that provide free use of name servers to anyone or any devices that need DNS lookups. In setting up these DNS, you just enter the IP address of one or more of these free name servers. Thus, Google DNS really is not new in the game. What they claim is that as part of their effort to “make the web faster”, they are offering free DNS services that is more secure, faster, and more reliable that we had ever seen before.

    Some online experts conducted some quick performance tests. A ping to Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org) clocks the average speed at 288ms, a bit slower than my ISP’s name servers (clocked at 281ms) but still satisfactorily fast. For non-existent URLs, Google DNS returns with non-existent domain (NXDOMAIN) replies, which show up in browsers as the usual “Server not Found” error. This is one of the good things that make Google DNS different from most public DNS resolvers: Google is saying that they are taking a stand against NXDOMAIN redirects (i.e. the tactics of many public DNS to redirect NXDOMAIN errors to a company-made website with some links, maybe a search engine, but always with tons of annoying ads).

    Everything looks too good to be true. The Google DNS’ privacy page states that they don’t keep user-specific information, including full IP addresses of users’ computers. They do keep statistics though: of browsed websites, general geo-locations, and some other technical information, but then most other web analysis tools do that too. In short, Google DNS is just an additional way for them to know more details about how you use the Internet. No wonder people are getting the suspicion that Google is taking over the world.

  • Tweeting For Bucks – A Review on Ads Companies for Twitter

    Tweeting For Bucks – A Review on Ads Companies for Twitter

    As Featured On EzineArticles.comWith around 27 million usages per month in the US alone, Twitter is a global phenomenon. The social networking and micro-blogging site had grown multi-fold since its launch in 2006, with forecasted revenues up to $140 million by the end of 2010. There is no surprise that there enterprising people out there who want a piece of the birdie pie too.

    Simply put, the role of these ads advertisement web companies is to be the intermediary between the sellers who need to promote their product (the advertisers) and the tweeters who will post tweet ads for them (the publishers).

    For publishers, the first step is to sign up into the ad company website. Once logged in, they need to set their payment terms, including setting the price for the tweets. Advertisers will then select the publisher they like to represent them (or looking at the other side, publishers will then choose which advertisement offer they like to accept). Once everyone agrees, it is up to the advertising company to assist both advertisers and publishers, from checking up on the tweet ads made, to facilitating the payment given to the publisher.

    While the steps are generally the same, details of the offers to advertisers and publishers depend on the advertisement intermediary.

    Tweet price. While the publisher can set the price for tweet ads, the actual earnings depends on many things. One important factor to consider is if the ad company has ‘compensation options’ for the publisher to choose from. For example, Magpie (be-a-magpie.com) has options for per-click, per-view, per-sale, or per-lead payments. Many cases, the only option offered is a pay-per-click one; if this is the case, it would be better to know the how much is given per click.

    Celebrities and followed tweets. Advertisers give more money if you are a celebrity (both online or offline), as well as if you have many tweet followers. A good example is Sponsored Tweets (sponsoredtweets.com) which offers exclusive programs for celebrities.

    Selling your twitter account? Some advertisement company (e.g., Twittad, www.twittad.com) lets you sell your account to advertisers.

    Cashing out. A tweeter must know if he can actually have an earning do thing this. Sponsored Tweets and Magpie have $50 and EUR50 respectively as cash-out price. For AdCause (adcause.com), it is $25. Revtwt (revtwt.com) is lowest at $20. Also note that some advertisement company can only pay via Paypal.

    Check out their reputation. It is a wild world out there so be wary of advertising services with bad reputations. Check out the ad company’s credentials. Also note that even if the company is legitimate, it may not be giving that best deals to the publishers. Research for payment proofs online and read experiences from past publishers. Ask how much are the actual earnings, if there are unexplained trimmings, and how many tweets and followers do publishers have to have to earn reasonably. Use these companies at your own risk.

  • AdLy Micro Bloggers Versus Social Media Advertising

    AdLy Micro Bloggers Versus Social Media Advertising

    As Featured On EzineArticles.comIf you are looking for ways in order to take advantage of the Twitter network for your business or organization, Ad.ly is the best choice. Ad.ly makes use of micro blogging, forums, opinions and reviews that are available with the Twitter ads pages. Some of the major social networks that are available on the World Wide Web include Facebook and LinkedIn. The success of your online venture depends on what you choose from the best, and avoid the worst marketing opportunities. Ad.ly marks the beginning of the era of endless possibilities that are available on the Social Web.

    Today, there are a large number of communities, platforms, and advertising agencies that are available with Twitter ads pages, and one has to decide on the best service and how to make the most of the social media marketing services. According to experts, Twitter ads are interested in raking plans and, measuring results and tracking the return on investments. Ad.ly is useful in making sense of the rapidly evolving Twitter social networking website as the email campaigns with Ad.ly, make a through analysis of the Twitter page before putting the Twitter ads on the page.

    This form of advertising is useful, as it enhances the company and brand value by engaging the Twitter account holders in conversations that are insightful and entertaining with marketing intentions. It is also useful to determine the Ad.ly tools and applications that make the social networking website an effective and strong marketing tool.

    But before, one can register with the service; the user is required to improve upon the internal operations as well as those outside the community, thereby monetizing relationship with prospects as well as customers.

    Virtually every business can make use of Ad.ly in order to increase sale and profits with the biggest social networking service available in the whole world. Ad.ly has been touted as an advertising platform that matches Twitter publishers involved in the process of micro blogging with the advertisers. All that the publishers are required to fulfill is to send out Twitter ads that are created by the advertisers.

    Ad.ly gives the publishers an authority when it comes to choosing the right advertising agency for the website. The publishers can also choose to publicize their micro blogs with specific advertisers. Micro blogs are messages that are available on Twitter for public viewing and one doesn’t have to give specific permissions for allowing the audience to view the posts on the Twitter page.

    The publishers can opt to send the Twitter ads along with the Twitters as they have to be interesting or else the users will find it very confusing. If you are interested in signing up with Ad.ly you can logon to their website as it is specifically designed for the Twitter publishers and one can also make money with the services.