Freelance Social Media

Passbook and Small Businesses

cinta5 — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 17:04:51 +0000

With iPhones upgrading to the iOS 6 operating system, a new feature to be aware of is Passbook. Passbook is an app that allows you to store loyalty cards, boarding passes, gift cards, movie tickets…the list goes on.

How can small businesses use Passbook?

Simply put, Passbook “passes” replace paper coupons, loyalty cards, etc. Companies that spend hundreds of dollars a month on loyalty cards can save money using Passbook passes. They can also utilize geo-fencing, which uses GPS features of the iPhone to send messages to customers based on their location. For example, a restaurant can issue a coupon utilizing geo-fencing so that when a customer comes within a certain distance of the restaurant they will be notified of the coupon. How convenient!

How to create passes

Passes are not easy to create unless you are familiar with JSON code creation. Below is a list of Passbook pass generators:

PassRocket (loyalty cards)

PassTools

There are probably a few missing from the list. Let me know if you’ve come across any others and your experience with them!

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Passbook and Small Businesses

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How to change your Facebook Page name

cinta5 — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 04:48:48 +0000

It used to be if your page had more than 100 likes and you wanted to change the name, you were out of luck. Now there is a process for changing your Facebook Page name!

Click here>> change your Facebook Page

Has anyone used this process yet?

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How to change your Facebook Page name

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Guidelines for your Facebook Page’s Timeline Cover Photo

cinta5 — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 17:01:10 +0000

The Timeline design will be coming to Facebook Pages on March 30th. For now, admins can preview the design and publish it for public view if they’d like.

As you can see, the cover photo is prime real estate and I’m sure you’re thinking of all the possibilities you could do with it. But, don’t get too excited because it wouldn’t be Facebook without some rules on how you can utilize it.

Guidelines for Timeline Cover Photo

According to Facebook’s Help Center, below is what you cannot do with your Timeline cover photo:

Cover images must be at least 399 pixels wide and may not contain:

Price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website”
Contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page’s About section
References to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features
Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends”

I’m sure over the next month we’ll be seeing some awesome ways businesses and brands use cover photos. If you’ve come across some, feel free to share them in the comments section!

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Guidelines for your Facebook Page’s Timeline Cover Photo

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Your business needs to be on Google+

cinta5 — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 20:45:32 +0000

It’s been debated whether or not businesses should be utilizing Google+. Most businesses don’t want to bother with another social network, especially one that doesn’t seem to be getting used a whole lot. However, it’s not just any social network. It’s owned by Google, and Google has the most popular search engine in the world. Having a business page will only help your search rankings.

Today, Matt McGee, of SearchEngineLand.com discussed in his blog post reasons why you should be on Google+ and involved on Google+. A few reasons he highlighted:

Fresh content matters: Google+ profiles with no posts within the last 72 hours don’t show up in the “Related People/Pages” section of Google’s search results

Pages can matter more than profiles: Brand pages with a few thousand followers/circlers can appear in “Related People/Pages” ahead of individual profiles with a million or more followers/circlers

For those interested in learning more about how you can utilize Google+ for your business, feel free to download this guide:

Google+ for Businesses

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Your business needs to be on Google+

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Google+ for Tourism, CVBs, and Cities

cinta5 — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:00:42 +0000

We’ve created a short how-to guide on using Google+ pages for destination marketing. We hope that convention and visitors bureaus, cities, and others in the tourism industry will find it useful.

You can download the guide here: Google+ for tourism, CVBs, and cities

Best,

Jacinta Langford Hoyt
LangfordMedia

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Google+ for Tourism, CVBs, and Cities

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Zarco 66 Pumping Out Foursquare Deals

Justin — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 19:58:29 +0000

TIME FOR A SMOOTHIE! That’s what you may hear over the speakers at Zarco 66 when you go fill up your gas tank at five o’clock in the morning. You’ll be going there that early in the day because if you are one of the first five people to check in to a Zarco 66 on Foursquare, you will get ten cents off per gallon of gas that you purchase.

Not many better ways to entice customers to your gas station than giving discounts on an expensive necessity like gas. There are five Zarco locations offering the special, three of them in Lawrence.

The Facebook page mentions that there will be other daily specials. While you’re on that page, it looks like you can also sign up for a free sub sandwich or coffee for your birthday.

The great idea about having a Foursquare check-in special is the user has to enter the store to redeem the special. Therefore that customer may be inclined to make another purchase, like a smoothie. A great use of Foursquare to generate business and get people in the door.

So set your alarm and wake up early. Try not to commit any traffic violations in getting there quickly though. You wouldn’t want to get a ticket that would negate any discounts you might get.

This content from: Freelance Social Media

Zarco 66 Pumping Out Foursquare Deals

Technorati Tags: lawrence

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Big East: Goodbye Reese’s, Hello Twitter?

Justin — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 16:00:50 +0000

On Tuesday night the Big East Men’s Basketball Championship began. This is a five day tournament played in New York City’s Madison Square Garden. Usually the court is adorned with the Big East Conference logo, the tournament logo and some advertising logos (and if you see an advertising logo on a basketball court, more than likely it will be for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups). However, I noticed something else on the court while watching the games on television Tuesday night. The conference decided to paint the name of the Big East Basketball Twitter account on the sideline near both team’s benches. The name was highly visible, aside from the coaches and players walking all over it.

Every NCAA sports conference, at least every major one that I know of, has a Twitter account so that is nothing new. Being a Kansas Jayhawk basketball fan, I follow the Big 12 Conference on Twitter. However, I had never seen a conference promote it’s Twitter page by putting it on the basketball court at its biggest venue. Naturally, I decided to check out this Big East basketball twitter page because I assumed it would provide some in-game statistics, photos and just general updates of the atmosphere in the building. Instead, the tweets were simply giving links to a recap from a game that just ended and a retweet of someone else claiming the Big East to be the greatest conference of all time.*

I was disappointed in seeing this because I thought there would be some great content since the conference was promoting it during the games. If you look at the Big 12 Conference’s Twitter you can see that they provide constant updates of scores, statistics, photos and even correspond with some questions. I would think that if I’m going to be directed to a social media site that I would see something that would make me pay attention. Also, the Big East decided to share a link on the Twitter page that leads to nowhere….

*Those people who follow me on Twitter are probably aware that I have more feelings about the Big East that I could share but this blog is not for me to share those feelings about their foulfests, I mean games. However, it does have the most exciting conference tournament from start to finish.

UPDATE: The Big East Twitter account had a much different feel for Wednesday night’s games. A guest twitterer, Amanda Balionis, took the reins and made things look much better. She gave score updates, statistics and tried to create some fan interaction. In general, she simply brought some life to the account.

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Big East: Goodbye Reese’s, Hello Twitter?

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Rename app tabs in Facebook Page

cinta5 — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 18:06:54 +0000

It’s hard keeping up with all the Facebook Page updates lately! The latest one I came across involved being able to rename the app on your page sidebar. Click “Edit Page”>Apps>”edit settings” in the app of your choosing.

Happy editing!

*As noted by @bailann below, you cannot edit “basic pages” like Notes, Photos, etc.

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Rename app tabs in Facebook Page

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Customizing the new Facebook profile

cinta5 — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 16:42:15 +0000

I’m sure over the last few weeks you’ve noticed Facebook has been rolling out a new look for profiles. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind when it comes to the new profile:

Photos at the top. The photos at the top display the last five recent photos you’ve been tagged in. In case you’re not happy with what is displayed, you can simply hover over the photo you’d like to remove at the top and click on the little ‘x’.

Featured Friends. You can now highlight your closest friends by clicking on “Featured Friends” when editing your profile. Once you’ve added which friends to feature, they will show up on the left sidebar of your profile page.

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Customizing the new Facebook profile

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Google Goggles Marketing Experiment

cinta5 — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 17:04:36 +0000

Google Goggles has teamed up with five companies to test using Goggles as a way to further engage customers.

More information on the experiment can be found here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/offline-meet-online-marketing.html

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Google Goggles Marketing Experiment

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