Social Capital is looking for Speakers and Sponsors!

A little over two years ago, even before we formed Wellman Wilson Consulting, we started a little conference called Social Capital. Ottawa needed a place for social media users to learn here in our hometown. To our surprise and delight, news of the conference spread and we’ve had attendees come in from Montreal, Toronto, even as far away as Alberta. 

If you’re interested in getting involved, here are a few ways to jump in:

Attend!

We’re in our third year and we’re looking forward to hanging out with everyone who’s planning to attend on Saturday, June 1st! Tickets will be going on sale in March, so it won’t be long now - the year sure is flying by!

Apply to Speak!

Right now, we’re looking for speakers to submit speaking proposals that will fall into one of the four streams for 2013:

• Commerce
• Content
• Multimedia
• Tools

You can find out more information about the streams on the Social Capital blog.

We’ve even provided some excellent speaker application tips to help prospective speakers prepare their proposal.

Sponsor!

We have a multitude of oppotunities for sponsoring businesses/organizations to increase their exposure to our attendees and beyond. 

Email us at info@socialcapitalconference.ca to find out more about sponsorship or ask any other questions you might have. The sooner you sign on as a sponsor, the more opportunities for exposure you’ll have!

Will you be attending Social Capital this year?

Guest Post: How To Attract Customers with a Mobile Phone

I recently met Nathan Richer, owner of Virtual Alchemy, at the Orleans Chamber of Commerce Business Showcase and was thrilled when he agreed to write a guest post for the blog.  Nathan specializes in Internet Marketing and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and is a wealth of great information.

Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt was quoted saying “Mobile is pretty much the answer on everything”. In fact, the search engine giants are considering “mobile first” for all future endeavours. This makes sense since there are about 5.3 billion mobile users compared to a paltry 1.7 billion Internet users.

Google is preparing for the Mobile future….are you?

There are several ways you can attract and retain customers/clients through the use of mobile marketing but today I wanted to focus on Text Message Marketing.

What is Text Message Marketing?

Text message marketing is similar to e-mail marketing but using mobile phone numbers instead of e-mails. You build a database of mobile numbers which provides you with the ability to send out text messages to your faithful followers.

I want to be clear that I am not talking about spamming people with useless advertisements. Instead, text message marketing can be a great tool for offering value to your customers and building long lasting relationships along the way.

Who Can Use Text Message Marketing?

Any business that is looking to communicate and build relationships with their customers or clients. It is an excellent opportunity to add value to your customers overall experience.

Some of the ideal businesses that use text message marketing include:

• Restaurants


• Retail Stores


• Event Organizers


• Real Estate Agents


• Night Clubs


• Schools


• Churches


• Fitness Studios


• Medical Professionals

The list goes on and on…

How Does Text Message Marketing Work?

A business will need to purchase a mobile marketing platform to set up campaigns, store mobile phone numbers, send messages and even set up appointments. There are some pretty good and inexpensive mobile platforms out there so be sure to shop around. Be prepared for a monthly fee as most platforms charge based on the number of text messages delivered.

Once you sign up for your mobile platform you will be given a short code, which is just a number (usually 5 digits) that people will text your “Keyword” to. Next you will have to create a “Keyword” that represents your business or promotion. Often this keyword will be your business name or something related to your services or products.

The mobile platforms are generally user friendly and shouldn’t take long to set up. Once it is up and running you will need to start building your mobile database by promoting this service.

How to Promote Your Mobile Marketing Campaign

Here are a few examples how you can build a mobile database.

Restaurant Owner
Set up a tent card on your tables that says “Text Restaurant to 54321 for Exclusive Coupons”. Next time your restaurant is experiencing a slow day, just send out a text message that reads “Show this text to your server before 10 pm and receive 10% off your meal”.

Since text messages have a 97% open rate, your restaurant will be busy in no time.

Real Estate Agent
Put a message on your lawn sign that says “Text House to 98764” and have your mobile platform send an automated response with the details of that house. Not only are you providing details of your listing but you are also building a list of potential buyers that you now have access to.

Dentist
Professionals are able to use Mobile Marketing to record mobile numbers and set-up appointments. This will allow you to automatically send a text message to your client reminding them of their upcoming appointment.

These are just a few examples how you can use text message marketing to increase your revenue while providing value to your customers or clients.

The mobile industry is going to continue growing so now is the time to consider adding text message marketing into your overall marketing plan.

Thanks for the great post Nathan!  I would adore it if my doctor or dentist texted me to remind me of appointments!  Go visit Nathan at Virtual Alchemy to learn more about SEO and Internet marketing - he’s got a great promotion on a web evaluation going on right now!

What is it and why should I care - launching my newest workshop

I have one of this QR necklaces - it’s awesome and I can tell you why!

There are so many tools and applications and web sites and kinds of blogs it can be overwhelming.

What ARE these tools?

What SHOULD I be using to promote my business?

Is there a good reason for me to be using them?

In this two hour workshop we will cover eight different tools based on the needs of the group.  Each participant will let me know what their top two choices are to be covered and also let me know what they do (business, personal).  I will then choose the eight tools to cover based on interest and what I feel are useful tools for the group to hear about.

Bring your smart phones and laptops and we will go over the tools in a hands on approach, so that by the time you leave the workshop you will know what these tools are and whether or not you actually should care.

Choose from the following list of tools (or add your own) to let me know which two topics you would most like to cover.

There really are amazing reasons to use so many of these tools to promote your business!

Crowd sourcing
Digg
Evernote
Feedburner
Form spring
Foursquare
Google alerts
Google docs
Instagram
Instapaper
Klout
LinkedIn
Micro blogging
Podcasts
QR Codes
Quora
Readitlater
RSS readers
Stumble Upon
Tumblr
Vlogs
Wikis

$40/person

Group rates and private lessons available.

Upcoming dates:

All sessions need a minimum of 4 participants and will have a maximum of 8, maintaining the one on one style coaching I like to give my students.


June 8, 2011, 1:30 pm, Boston Pizza, Orleans

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June 13, 2001, 10 am, Spin Kitchen Bar, 100 Kent Street

 

What is it and why should I care - developing a workshop

I am developing a series of workshops to help people feel more comfortable with social media - in using it for personal reasons or for business.

I’ve already launched my Intro to Twitter workshop (which is going really well and there are spaces available in three sessions - sign up, or tell your friends who need to know all about Twitter to sign up! :))

My next workshop is called “What is it and why should I care”

I often either get asked what the purpose of something is or get told it is of no value.  I agree that every tool isn’t for everyone, but sometimes you just need to hear in plain words what something is for, with some examples of why and how it can be used.

I am putting together a workshop that will do just that. I am working on a basic list of tools with descriptions and examples. My entire workbook with all the descriptions will be handed out to all students but we will go through and try out about eight during a two hour workshop.

What I want to know from you guys is - what are the tools you have questions about?  Here is the list I have so far (it’s a work in progress) but I would really appreciate your input on this!

Foursquare

Tumblr

Quora

QR Codes

Instagram

LinkedIn

Stumble Upon

Klout

Digg

RSS readers

Feedburner

Vlogs

Podcasts

Wikis

Crowd sourcing

Micro blogging

Form spring

What am I missing?

Making good SEO doable - Zemanta

SEO is important - as a wise friend once said when questioned about the value of SEO - popularity gets people to your current blog posts,  SEO is what gets people into your archives.

Search Engine Optimization isn’t a new concept but I’ve always had a hard time remembering to do it. I often am writing my posts at the last minute, or I just want to get them online, and I forget to add all the tags that describe the post.

Then, thanks to Sherrilynne, I discovered Zemanta and it automates the process.  Making the process easier is always a plus in my opinion!

Once you’ve installed Zemanta it works as you write.  It analyzes the words in your post and it finds photos that might be a good fit, it comes up with links to definitions and web sites about the words in your post, it suggests news related links and it suggests tags.  Nothing is automatically added, you get to then quickly click on all of the things you’d like to add to your post and it’s done.

It’s made me someone who always has tags and more links - something I definitely didn’t have before. I highly recommend it to anyone who blogs!  Has it made a difference in the traffic to my sites? I’m not sure - but at least it’s easier for me to do the work I know I’m supposed to be doing in my posts!

Are you good at tagging and making sure your posts are written for search engine optimization? Do you use something different than Zemanta? I would love to hear about it!