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  • Oct 11 / 2013
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Articles, Inbound Marketing, Social Media

Lake Havasu Web Design – Social Advertising for Your Business

ThumbnailGood morning folks!

 

Are you looking to invest in some social advertising for your business? Check out Lauren Indvik’s article, “Social Advertising Tips for Your Business”, below:

 

 

“Social Advertising Tips for Your Business

 

For small business owners, the complex ecosystem of social media advertising can be difficult to navigate. For every success story — and there are plenty — there are hundreds, if not thousands, of small business frustrated by their attempts to attract customers through FacebookTwitterTumblrFoursquarePinterest, etc.

 

 

The problem, fundamentally, is that small businesses are on social media because they feel that they should be — not because it fits into some larger strategy. They’ve heard about the small businesses that have radically enlarged themselves through those networks, as if by magic — that magic being, in fact, the execution of very smart strategies.

 

 

 

Before you pour further resources into a Facebook page or a Twitter account, it’s worth laying out the factors — in marketing terms, the key performance indicators (KPIs) — that determine the success or failure of your business. Are word-of-mouth and customer advocacy essential to your customer acquisition strategy? Perhaps it’s worth looking at social media to amplify those messages. Likewise, if you find that your Facebook fans spend more and more often than non-Facebook fans, it may be worth investing in ads that will help you boost your fan count.

 

 

Here, we’ve outlined the ad products offered by the two most popular social networks: Facebook and Twitter. Perhaps in reading about them, you’ll find matches with your business’ list of KPIs. In that case, you may want to set aside a budget to test them against the marketing investments you’re already making. After all, you’ll never know what works until you try.

 

 

 

 

Facebook Ads

 

 

Facebook ads used to be extremely complex, but thanks to a recent overhaul, they’re much simpler to purchase these days.

 

 

Your first task is to identify your marketing objective. Do you want Facebook users to buy something on your site? You should optimize for website conversions. If you simply want more Likes on your Facebook page — knowing that Facebook fans tend to be valuable customers in the long run — then optimizing for page Likes is the way to go. You can also optimize for website clicks, post engagement, app installs, app engagement, Offer claims and RSVPs to a Facebook event.

 

 

 

facebook objectives 2

 

 

 

 

Once an objective has been identified, Facebook will guide you to the most appropriate ad type. It’s up to you to choose where that ad appears — in the News Feed, for example, or alongside it. Facebook will help you figure out where your ad is likely to perform best. You’ll also need to choose a headline, image (you can upload up to five on rotation) and text for your ad. Facebook recommends copy be “succinct, friendly and conversational.”

facebook choose placement

 

 

 

Once you’ve chosen your ad, you’ll need to decide who sees it. You can target people by location, age, gender, interest, relationship status, language, education and even workplace. You can also opt to target only people who are or are not already connected to your page or app, or the friends of people who already like said page or app. This kind of targeting is unique to Facebook, and should be thought out carefully. A restaurant, for example, may want to advertise a group happy hour special to employees of nearby businesses that tend to go out together after-hours.

 

 

Lastly, there’s the budget. You can allot a daily or lifetime budget, the former of which will allow you to space out your ads over a broader timeframe. You can also decide how you want to pay: You can either pay for specific actions (such as Likes or website purchases), or per thousand impressions. Facebook will help you choose the best one. Pricing varies according to the competition in the demographic you’re targeting.

 

 

Once you’ve set up your campaign, you’ll want to track its progress through Facebook’s analytics dashboard. Pretty quickly, you’ll be able to see which ads and images are performing the best — and can modify your spending accordingly.

 

 

Head over to Facebook’s advertising center to get started.

Twitter Ads

 

 

Twitter’s ad suite is much more simple. It’s divided into two categories: Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts. (A third ad product, Promoted Trends, isn’t available to small businesses.)

 

 

Promoted Tweets are ideal when you want to advertise a specific message, or product. If your goal is new followers, promoting your account is the most efficient method, as you’ll pay only when you add new followers. It’s worth testing whether promoting a specific message, or having more followers (who may then see multiple messages), is more profitable for your business over time.

Screen Shot 2013-10-01 at 12.50.41 PM

 

 

 

 

You can opt for two kinds of targeting. The first is by keyword, which will allow you to target those who search, tweet about or otherwise engage with a specific term. You can also target by interests and followers, reaching people who fall into certain broad interest categories (like board games or college basketball) or who follow specific accounts — a skin care brand might want to target users who follow accounts that tweet about beauty and anti-aging advice. You can also limit your targeting to certain devices, like BlackBerry, and by gender.

 

 

Once you’ve set that all up, you can set lifetime and daily maximum budgets for your campaign. If you’re running a Promoted Tweet campaign, you set the amount you’re willing to pay every time someone retweets, replies, favorites, follows or clicks on your tweet. (Twitter recommends bidding somewhere in the $1.50 to $2.20 per engagement range.) For Promoted Account campaigns, you pay per follower — Twitter recommends bidding in the $2.50 to $3.50 range.

Beyond Facebook and Twitter

 

 

While small business participation on Twitter, and especially Facebook, is high, companies may find that other networks (and their ad products) are a better strategic fit. Pinterest, for example, has become essential to women’s lifestyle publishers, accounting for as much as 10% of their monthly referral traffic. Tumblr and LinkedIn may also be worth exploring, depending on your target customer demographic and other needs.

 

 

To repeat our earlier mantra: You’ll never know what works until you try. What you may discover is that social networks and their ad products don’t yet provide the kinds of returns that ad products from Google and elsewhere can — and that’s okay, too.

 

 

Images: Mashable composite from iStockphoto, Artpuppy; Facebook; Twitter”

 

 

 

success CTA

  • Sep 06 / 2013
  • 0
Articles, Blogging for Business, Inbound Marketing, Social Media

Havasu Graphic Design-How to Get More Subscribers, Part II

calltoactionHowdy readers!

 

Welcome to Part II of our blog series featuring Hubspot’s article, “How to Convert Casual Blog Visitors Into Dedicated Subscribers“. Keep reading for more tips on having more subscribers and better CTA’s (call to actions).

 

 

“How to Convert Casual Blog Visitors Into Dedicated Subscribers

 

….continued…

 

 

Tips for Encouraging Subscription

 

One great tip for encouraging blog subscription is to use social proof to show new visitors just how popular your blog is among their peers. If you have impressive traffic or subscriber numbers, consider showcasing those. Something as simple as “Join more than 1,000 [insert persona]s who already subscribe!” can help you convert those visitors who may be on the fence.

 

Another smart way to incentivize blog subscription is through the use of free offers. Check out how HubSpot partner IMPACT Branding & Design does it on its blog. They provide a little something extra for new subscribers by also providing a free ebook (something usually reserved for visitors who complete a much longer form):

 

 

 

blog-subscription-offer-incentive

3) Promote Blog Subscription With Smart Calls-to-Action (CTAs)

 

Be more “in your face” about converting your blog visitors into subscribers by creating subscriber CTAs and placing them directly within each of your blog articles. Don’t worry — they don’t have to replace your articles’ lead-gen CTAs; just insert your blog subscription CTA as a secondary CTAdirectly below the one you’re using for lead generation (like we’ve done at the bottom of this very post!). Here’s what I mean:

 

 

 

end-of-post-subscribe-cta-1-1

 

 

 

If you’re worried about it impacting the clickthrough rate (CTR) on your lead-gen CTA, just keep a close eye on your CTA analytics. When we implemented this on the HubSpot blog, we didn’t notice any dip in CTR on our lead-gen CTAs, but you should always test for yourself.

And Make Them Smart!

 

Here’s the thing: If a visitor is already subscribed to your blog, it doesn’t really make sense to continue displaying your subscribe CTAs to them, now does it? These people are already subscribed, and it’s a much better, more contextual use of your blog’s real estate to show off that lead gen CTA front and center — by itself. So how do you make sure you’re only showing your subscribe CTAs to visitors who aren’t yet subscribed? Technology, my friends … technology. I like to call these CTAs “magic CTAs,” because sometimes they’re invisible 🙂

 

 

 

magic-subscriber-cta-comparison-1

 

 

 

To create these “magic” CTAs, you are, however, at the mercy of your software. They’re powered by dynamic content, so you’ll need marketing software with this type of functionality.(Note: HubSpot customers can use a combination of the new HubSpot Blog COS and Smart CTAs to create these. You can find instructions about how to set them up in this blog post.)

 

Where appropriate, use your blog subscription CTAs on other pages of your website as well to give visitors a low-commitment conversion alternative. You might also consider adding your blog subscription CTAs to other Smart CTA groups to allow you to automatically customize which CTAs get shown to users in different lifecycle stages or based on specific list criteria.

 

…to be continued…

 

 

Contact us if you need a website, or the website you have needs some work and a blog. Have a great day, and stick around for Part II of How to Get More Subscribers. Tootledoo, and have a great weekend!

  • Sep 05 / 2013
  • 0
Articles, Blogging for Business, Social Media

Havasu Graphic Design-How to Get More Subscribers, Part I

imagesGood morning NSquared readers!

 

Do you have a blog?

 

If so, chances are you want people to read it, right? Well Hubspot posted a fantastic article, “How to Concert Casual Blog Visitors into Dedicated Subscribers“. Check out Part I below:

 

 

“How to Convert Casual Blog Visitors Into Dedicated Subscribers

 

You probably know all too well by now that content creation is a very necessary function of successful inbound marketing. And for the inbound marketers who embrace that, abusiness blog is one of the most reliable and effective platforms for publishing much of the content they create.

 

But if you’ve been consistently blogging for a while, you probably have all the business blogging basics down pat. So wouldn’t it be great if you could take your blogging to the nextlevel, scaling the impact of your blog so it makes an even bigger, better, and more powerful dent in your marketing results?

 

Enter the concept of ‘blog marketing,’ which refers not to using a blog to market your business, but instead to implementing a marketing strategy to grow and scale the impact of your blog. In other words, marketing for your blog. There are three critical steps to blog marketing: 1) getting your blog discovered by new visitors, 2) converting those visitors into dedicated subscribers, and 3) leveraging your blog evangelists to share your content and attract brand new audiences.

 

So let’s say you’ve worked through step number 1, and you’ve got a good amount of blog traffic flowing. How can you get those folks to stick around and keep coming back so they become avid readers and fans of your blog content? With step number 2: by converting those visitors into subscribers! In this article, we’ll give you some great tips for turning those casual visitors into valuable, dedicated blog subscribers.

 

 

1) Blog Frequently (and Make Sure It’s High Quality)

 

First things first: frequency matters. How can you expect visitors to subscribe to your content if you rarely or infrequently publish anything for them to come back to? You wouldn’t exactly be making the strongest case for subscription. If you really want to scale your blog, you need to make a commitment to boosting your blogging frequency. According to an internal study of HubSpot customers, businesses that blog more than once per week add new blog subscribers at twice the rate of businesses that blog just once per month.

 

Yes, frequency matters — so work your way up. If you’re currently blogging once a month, work your way up to once a week. If you blog once a week, work your way up to a few times a week. Truthfully, the most successful blogs publish content daily — or multiple times a day.

 

Keep in mind, however, that a boost in frequency can’t come with a decrease in qualityYour new visitors won’t be enticed to subscribe if they don’t find your content to be worthy of their attention. And with all the crappy content out there, you can’t afford mediocrity if you want to win over those new visitors. For more on creating high-quality content, here’s how to tell if your content is actually valuable, and here are eight instant ways to improve your content’s quality if it’s not.

 

 

2) Encourage Blog Subscription (Particularly Email)

 

If you want people to subscribe, encourage blog subscription! Sounds simple right? But it’s amazing how often I have to hunt through a blog’s homepage to find where in the heck to subscribe. Make it easy for visitors to subscribe — put your subscribe module above the fold on your sidebar, and display it prominently.

 

 

 

blog-subscribe-above-fold

 

 

 

Also notice how I mentioned you should emphasize email subscription. Remember, there are two ways your visitors can subscribe to your blog — via RSS, and via email. Both are valuable, but email subscription can have a much bigger impact than RSS subscription. Email boosts traffic to your blog, since subscribers get emailed whenever new content gets published (compared to RSS, which subscribers have to manually check on their own).

 

In fact, 14% of our monthly traffic to the HubSpot blog comes from email. And to tie this all back to the importance of blogging frequency, in that same study of HubSpot customers we mentioned earlier, we learned that businesses that blog more than once per week generate 9x more blog email traffic than businesses that blog just once per month. Convinced that you should put more of an effort into generating email subscribers yet?”

 

 

 

Contact us if you need a website, inbound marketing campaign, or IT consulting. Stay tuned for part II where we share more tips on boosting your subscribers and talk about CTA’s (call to actions).

  • Aug 07 / 2013
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Articles, Inbound Marketing, Social Media

Promote Your Lake Havasu City Website – Why a Google+ Profile is Important for Your Business

google-plus-for-businessHowdy NSquared readers!

 

You may have heard or seen the hype regarding Google+. But, if you’re anything close to an average American, you already have multiple profiles on multiple social media websites. Is it really that important to have one more password to keep track of? In regards to Google+, the answer is yes.

 

If you aren’t using a Google+ profile to boost your business, then you are missing out. Keep reading the article below to see why one more password is totally worth it. You won’t regret it!

 

 

 

“Why Google Plus Can be so Important for your Business

 

Google plus is indexed by Google so it can help customers find your business faster and easier also by creating a business page you can increase your visibility.Google+ has more than 90 million members and 60% of them log in every day.How to reach all those users?

 

Provide original information but more importantly share other people’s ideas. Also make sure that you post few times a day to reach people in different times zones.

 

Build up trust

 

If someone you trust shares a link, you are more likely to check it out. Therefore, comment on your shares, respond to other people’s comments.

 

Educate your followers

 

Let your circles know more about your brand as the more they know the easier it is to them to make informed decision about your product or service.

 

Customer service

 

Make sure that your customers are kept happy and respond rapidly to their questions and complains. Offer videos or other media to help resolve their problems or issues.

 

Build a community

 

Give fans a place to talk and share their experiences but tailor your community to your location and business.

 

Share media

 

Do not forget to add media and provide value. Always look for user-created content like e-book, video, reports or photos.

 

 

 

Few ideas how to get it done:

 

Build a relevant audience by looking for people who are appropriate to your business. You can do that by defining your audience by demographic or location or topic.

 

Look for a content that your circles would like outside of Google+

 

Engage in conversation on a post

 

Read posts by others and comment but at the same time you need to comment on your own posts.

 

Share a new post since the purpose of a social network is to connect and share.

 

Finally, do not forget to be consistent and keep your offline and online business presence the same. Moreover, provide a continuity so your clients always know what to expect.”

 

 

 

 

 

Contact us if you want to start promoting your business through inbound marketing. Until next time, stay social media savvy!

 

  • Jul 19 / 2013
  • 0
Articles, Social Media

10 Reasons Your Business Should Tweet, Part II

twitter-newspaper-oWelcome to Part II! Check out the rest of the list from, 10 Reasons Your Business Should Use Twitter:

 

 

 

“10 Reasons Why Your Business Should Use Twitter

 

…continued…

 

 

 

5. News

 

 

You can also give latest updates on twitter about your company by tweeting. Here is one done by JetBlue Airways on their twitter account @jetblue

 

 

6. Give away coupon codes and promotions

 

 

You can also tweet about new deals and coupons codes to help give your company the extra boost. What everyone love include me is getting a good deal. Weather its a promotional lunch set, if its cheap. I want it. Here is  a tweet on Dell is doing it.

 

 

 

For me you don’t have to be like dell in order to do this. You can have a normal business as well. If you have a restaurant and you have build loyal or new followers in your place you can send out tweet like “Having a special set lunch this weekend.” or something like that. They can tweet you for more information regarding that. I am going to teach you how you can get local twitterers.

 

 

7. Twitter is Viral

 

 

If you’ve have succeeded gaining some popularity with your twitter account you will know how viral twitter can be. This will be part of your marketing strategies that you can use in the future. Dell have succeeded in making their tweets viral with their promotion tweets.

 

 

8. Spying on competition

 

 

Did you know you can spy on competition too? Best part about this and spying on customers is that its FREE using twitter search. You can not only read what customers are talking about you but you can also read what customers are talking about your competition. If your competition is not doing anything with their customers complaints. Then what happens if you (the savior) suddenly tweet them “hey I heard you have a problem with…..” Just an example.

 

 

9. Increase Sales

 

 

Twitter can help you increase sales and make PROFIT. Dell is one of the company that have increase their sales on twitter. How much sales? Imagine $6.5 million in sales as reported at mashable

 

 

10. Brand loyalty

 

 

At the end of the day, once you have engaged, helped your customers (your followers) on twitter. They will be loyal to your brand for a long time. This will be talked more in the future post.”

 

 

 

Pretty awesome reasons, eh? We sure think so. Contact us for your IT and inbound marketing needs. Have a safe weekend, and stay cool NSquared readers!

  • Jul 17 / 2013
  • 0
Articles, Social Media

10 Reasons Your Business Should Tweet, Part I

twitter-marketingBonjour intellectuals! Are you at the cross street of Marketing Avenue and Twitter Street? No? You should be!

 

Monday we showcased an article explaining why twitter is beneficial for your business. Well today and Friday we are going to do a two part series featuring, 10 Reasons Why Your Business Should Use Twitter. The list begins now:

 

 

 

“10 Reasons Why Your Business Should Use Twitter

 

 

 

If you don’t know, companies have already started using twitter as it is the new way to promote, connect and brand a company. In my last post I mentioned if your company is not using twitter then your company is going to miss out be crushed.

 

 

So why bother using twitter for your business? Even twitter themselves know about the power of using twitter for business that they’ve set up a special twitter 101. Here is what twitter says

 

 

 
Here are reasons that I’ve came up.

 

 

1. Connecting with customers

 

 

This is the  main reason why you should use twitter for your business. You will be able to connect with your customers because they themselves are using twitter. Twitter has become a daily routine where people log onto it every single day, some log onto twitter the first thing they wake up even before brushing their teeth. If you have an unsatisfied customer you will hear them on twitter. This will help your company to help them. On the coming days I’ll be going deeper about how you can “spy” on tweets using free tools like twitter search.

 

 

2. Branding

 

 

You don’t have to be a big brand like Dell, Nike, Starbucks to brand yourself on twitter. You can be an average joe and brand yourself on twitter. For me if your company is not recognize then you need to get a PERSONAL account. Why? Firstly nobody want to talk to a LOGO unless its a famous brand. Everyone wants to connect with a person and not a bot.

 

 

3. Customers feedback

 

 

Once you have connected with your customers you will for sure be getting feedback on how you can improve your product, your services and maybe even improve your customers service. Listening to them will help you in the future.

 

 

4. Marketing

 

 

One of the reasons to use twitter is you get to market your product or services to more people and the best part about that is its FREE. You don’t have to pay (Unless if you plan to hire someone to run your twitter account).”

 

 

 

…to be continued…

 

 

 

 

 

Contact us for your IT and inbound marketing needs. Be sure to stick around for the last of the list this Friday!

  • Jul 10 / 2013
  • 0
Articles, Social Media

Are You Suffering From FOMO?

fear-of-missing-outThere’s an epidemic going on. It’s FOMO. Are you a victim of this relentless ailment?

 

 

 

 

FOMO (fear of missing out) goes hand in hand with social media. Check out, Report: 56% of Social Media Users Suffer From FOMO, below:

 

 

 

 

 

“Report: 56% of Social Media Users Suffer From FOMO

 

 

 

We all know that social media can be an addiction, a slippery slope consumed by a syndrome commonly referred to as Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). If you indulge in a few days away from your Inbox or Twitter stream, the emails start to pile up and key news is missed.

 

 

As technology enables us to stay more connected than ever, the addiction continues to grow. In fact, a new survey conducted by MyLife.com revealed 56% of people are afraid of missing out on events, news and important status updates if they are away from social networks.

 

 

Many would trade other addictions to stay connected this way — about 26% percent said they would trade habits such as smoking cigarettes or reality TV for access to social networking sites.

 

 

In the same vein, about 51% of people visit or log on more frequently to social networks than they did just two years ago. And users want their updates first thing in the morning: 

 

 

About 27% of participants flock to social sites as soon as they wake up.

About 27% of participants flock to social sites as soon as they wake up.

 

 

 

People are managing more social networking accounts as well. About 42% of study participants have multiple accounts — and the percentage jumps to 61% for those between the ages of 18 and 34. The average person also manages 3.1 email addresses compared with 2.6 from last year.

 

Although 52% of respondents said they have considered taking a “vacation” from one or more social networks in the past year, only 24% said they will likely follow through. Why? FOMO, of course.

 

 

For a full look at how people are using social media and managing the many platforms, check out the infographic below.

SocialMediaAddictionInfographic

 

Homepage image via iStockphotorudigobbo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contact us for your IT and inbound marketing needs. And if this article didn’t convince you that obviously social media marketing is one of the best things out there…then well, it should have.

  • Jun 26 / 2013
  • 0
Articles, Social Media

A Social Network Dinner

potluck-appHi readers! Are you confused by our blog title? What the heck is a social network dinner?

 

 

 

Well, a new social network website has been launched and released on Tuesday, and we thought we’d share. It’s called…Potluck. (Is the title making sense now?)

 

Check out, Branch Launches Potluck, a Stress-Free Social Network, below:

 

 

 

“Branch Launches Potluck, a Stress-Free Social Network

 

 

 

Likes. Retweets. Upvotes. Plus ones.

Every social network seems to have a way of quantifying how well the posts you share perform among other users, but one new site is doing away with all that in the hopes of eliminating performance anxiety online.

 

Potluck, which launched to the public Tuesday, is a pared down social network that simply asks users to share links — no witty comments, no back-and-forth banter, just links. Once the link is shared, it appears in a notifications dashboard on the left side of the page, but unlike traditional news feeds, Potluck won’t show the name of original sharer. Instead, it only displays the name of the link and the number of friends who have left comments on that link.

 

 

Potluck was developed by Branch, the New York startup behind the social discussion platform of the same name, which came out of The Obvious Corp — an incubator launched by Twitter co-founders Ev Williams and Biz Stone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“We’ve always wanted to design a system that enticed every user to engage,” Josh Miller, co-founder of Branch, wrote in a post introducing Potluck. He described the new product as being a good fit for “lurkers,” meaning people who usually “sit back” and look at what others share rather than share posts themselves (perhaps out of fear of judgment). “It’s incredible that these same users make up the 86% of the internet who have never published a blog post or tweet.”

 

 

The hope, according to Miller, is that Potluck can convince this normally hesitant group of users to start sharing by making “‘publishing’ as simple as copy-and-paste.”

 

 

Potluck is currently only available on the web, but Miller says it will launch on iOS soon.

 

 

 

Contact us if you could use some IT help or inbound marketing. Happy social networking, folks!

  • Jun 21 / 2013
  • 0
Articles, Social Media

Texting…Don’t Look Like a Jerk

image‘Sup NSquared readers?

 

 

Today we are concluding our week on correct and professional writing habits with a blog on texting.

 

 

Check out, 20 Business Texting Tips, and make sure you’re texting professionally. The last thing you want is a business colleague thinking you’re a jerk because of your textings habits…

 

 

 

 

 

“20 Business Texting Etiquette Tips

 

 

 

With the advancements in smart phone technology, text messaging is becoming a more popular way to communicate. Commonly referred to as “texting”, this method of communication is simple, efficient and effective. But what’s considered acceptable when texting friends is very different than what is acceptable when texting business contacts. Here are 20 short tips to help you make good decisions.

 

 

1.  Don’t send a text, unless it’s urgent.When you send people a text, in most cases you will be interrupting them. The default settings on most mobile phones ring or vibrate when it receives a text message. So if you are going to interrupt someone, make sure you have a good reason.

 

 

2.  Don’t send a text message if you can send an email. Every business professional I know checks his or her email at least twice a day and almost all of them prefer communication by e-mail rather than texting. For the most part, their reasons are time management based. People don’t like being interrupted unless it’s urgent and they are more productive if they respond to all their messages during scheduled blocks of time. For most people it’s also more efficient to type messages on a computer rather than on a phone.

 

 

3.  Don’t send a text if you should make a call. If you know that the subject of your message will require back and forth communication, either pick up the phone and call the person or if it’s not time sensitive, send an email requesting a specific time to talk. I also want to point out that business relationships are seldom built or strengthened through text messaging, so use it sparingly.

 

 

4.  Avoid texting people who don’t text you. According to a Success Magazine survey, only 4% of the business professionals surveyed prefer texting to other forms of communication. If you have never received a text message from someone, consider that they may not like to text.

 

 

5.  Don’t text bad news. If you have bad news to share with people, give them the courtesy of a call. Emailing or texting bad news is a cop out.

 

 

6.  Don’t type in CAPS. Reading CAPS is harder and is generally referred to as YELLING!

 

 

7.  Don’t assume people know what all the acronyms and text slang mean. Not everyone knows that ttyl means “talk to you later” or jk means “just kidding”. Say what you mean and make sure your messages present you as a business professional, rather than a texting junkie.

 

 

8.  Don’t text during meetings. If you send or read texts during a meeting, your actions convey that the meeting is not important to you. After all, how can you focus on the discussion that’s taking place if you are texting? It would be just like having a verbal side conversation. Clearly inconsiderate and disrespectful.

 

 

9.  Use punctuation. Type your texts using the same punctuation you would use in your emails. Since these are business texts, make sure they present you well.

 

 

10.  Don’t text after business hours unless there’s a good reason. If you have something to share with someone after business hours, consider using email. If you want people to respect your family and personal time, respect theirs. You also run the risk of losing your influence if you don’t respect people’s private time.

 

 

11.  Proof your messages. Take an extra few seconds and make sure you don’t have any misspellings or improper language. Be proud of the messages you send.

 

 

12.  Get to the point. Since a text message is limited to a small number of words, get to the point in your message and keep it from spilling over into another message. If you have a lot to share, consider picking up the phone or sending an email.

 

 

13.  Include your name. Unless you are absolutely certain that the recipient of your text has your name plugged into their phone, add your name to the end of the message.

 

 

14.  Watch your tone. Make sure you pay close attention to the tone of your message. If you are upset about something, pick up the phone and call the person.

 

 

15.  Return text messages. If someone sends you a text, they expect a response in a reasonable period of time. Show that you are a responsible person by returning all messages in a timely manner.

 

 

16.  Don’t send a text after leaving a message. As a general rule, if you call someone, you should always leave a message. After leaving a message, don’t follow up with a text message unless it is URGENT. Consider that your call interrupted them once. You don’t want your text to interrupt them a second time.

 

 

17.  Don’t leave people hanging. If you are done with a text conversation, let the person know.

 

 

18.  Don’t waste people’s time. Don’t send unnecessary text messages. As an example, when a text conversation is clearly over, don’t send another message. Once again, every text you send is likely to interrupt someone’s activity, meeting or train of thought.

 

 

19.  Show respect and courtesy. Whatever you do, consider how it affects those around you. Unless it’s urgent, avoid sending texts when you are spending time with people.

 

 

20.  Not while you are driving. While this seems like common sense, I am shocked by the number of people I see sending text messages in cars. Next to drunk drivers, distracted drivers are the second leading cause of fatal automobile accidents.

 

 

If you will follow these 20 text-messaging tips, you will be viewed as someone who is professional, considerate and respectful of other people’s time. You may want to consider implementing these same tips in your personal communications. Practicing these texting lessons will certainly bring more peace into your life and allow you to better control your time.”

 

 

 

Don’t be caught looking like a scrud!

 

Contact us if you could use some IT pros on your side. And we promise…we text politely.

 

 

 

  • Jun 17 / 2013
  • 0
Articles, Social Media

Obtrusive Digital Communication

obnoxiousHowdy NSquared readers!

 

 

Do you ever send and/or receive text messages? What about Facebook posts and twitter tweets? Well if so, you’re probably familiar with the fact that not everyone (or hardly anyone) uses proper grammatical punctuation during these conversations.

 

 

 

This isn’t really a big deal if we are talking about someone having a baby, i.e. (OMG Congratulations!!!), or we are communicating how excited we are for our weekend plans, i.e.  (Aren’t you excited for this weekend???).

 

 

 

However, a problem arises when we forget that not all digital communication is casual. Check out, E-mail Etiquette, below if you’ve been inundated with social media communication and need a refresher on the proper and professional way to communicate with colleagues and ask a question. Hint: This –> “???”, is not it. (Chances are you sound rude, not excited.)

 

 

 

“How E-mail Works

 

 

Most people wouldn’t think of being rude or obnoxious when they speak to colleagues, clients or their supervisor. But those rules can fall by the wayside when we use e-mail.

 

The opportunities for rudeness when using e-mail are plentiful and not always easy to recognize. Most people wouldn’t use foul language or derogatory terms in business communication. But what about raising one’s voice? Is that possible when using e-mail?

 

Here, we’ll discuss some business writing rules and tips for practicing e-mail etiquette.

 

 

 

People are busy, so:

 

  • Use the subject line. You might be tempted to bypass this part of the e-mail, but just remember: everyone is in a hurry, including the recipient of your e-mail. That person will appreciate the clue the subject line provides as to the message content. It helps them prioritize and organize.

 

  • Be brief and concise. No matter how clever and entertaining a writer you might be, your message recipients will appreciate brevity and clarity. Save the puns and witty turns of phrase for after birthday cards and toasts. State the message quickly followed by clear requests or instructions for any action needed by the recipient.

 

  • Keep it personal. Routinely copying others on e-mails clogs mailboxes and can lead to the main recipient wondering why you’re doing so. Unless you have a specific reason for copying someone, keep the conversation between sender and recipient.

 

  • Reply quickly. Don’t let e-mails sit around in your queue unanswered. Get back to the sender, even if it’s to say you need more time to respond.

 

 

 

People are sensitive, so:

 

  • Don’t over-punctuate. Adding multiple punctuation marks, such as ???? or !!!! after a sentence makes it seem as though you are shouting or frustrated with the recipient. Use normal punctuation rules.

 

  • Don’t use all capitals. Using all caps MAKES IT SEEM LIKE YOU’RE SHOUTING. Shouting is rude. Use normal capitalization rules. If you need to emphasize something, write “I’d like to emphasize…”

 

  • Read it, out loud, before you send it. While you may think you’re writing exactly what you mean, it pays to read some e-mails out loud to yourself, putting yourself in the recipient’s shoes, before hitting that “send” button. Once it’s in writing, it’s hard to take back. Also, never forget that the recipient has both a printer and “forward” button. Never write something you wouldn’t want to have circulated throughout the company or even beyond.

 

  • Don’t write when you’re angry. Perhaps one of the most common etiquette rules to break is firing off an e-mail to someone when you’re angry, either at them or a situation. See “Read it out loud” above. You can’t take it back once you “flame” someone, and it can come back to haunt you.

 

 

 

Not everyone is as hip as you are, so:

 

  • Keep the symbols to a minimum. Using “smiles” is a trendy way to communicate mood and meaning. But do you know the difference between a sarcastic smile and a mischievous one? And even if you’re sure you do, can you be sure your recipient does? It’s easy to see the potential to unintentionally offend someone using these symbols. Avoid using them.

 

  • Minimize abbreviated phrases. Using abbreviations such as IMHO (in my humble opinion). FWIW (for what it’s worth) and ROTFL (rolling on the floor laughing) can frustrate and confuse the recipient.

 

E-mail is like as a business letter. Ignoring basic rules can show disrespect for the recipient. Don’t let informality spoil the recipient’s opinion of you.

 

 

 

Contact us for all of your IT solutions and inbound marketing needs!!!!!!! <– Just joking. But really.

 

Until next time, stay polite NSquared readers!

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