CaliberPulse

A growing percentage of your customers have become online journalists, reporting their experiences using your brands in their social networks. Are you listening to what they are saying and responding to their suggestions? Social media can provide valuable insights about your customers and their brand preferences. To learn more, check out this article published in Inside Tucson Business by Caliber’s CEO…

DISCLAIMER: This blog is written as a guideline to highlight legal issues when integrating social media into a business. We are not attorneys nor has this been reviewed by an attorney; this should not be considered legal advice. More businesses are using social media as a marketing and public relations tool to communicate with loyal and prospective customers. As with any business communication tool, there are guidelines that should be followed when using social media, and legal ramifications are possible if certain rules are not observed. To stay out of legal trouble while communicating via social media, here are seven issues to keep in mind:

Clients and seminar attendees frequently ask us when the best time to send email and post social media content is. The answer often depends on the business and the target market, but data have been released that reveal timing patterns of email and social media engagement. We recently participated in a HubSpot webinar discussing this very topic. Here are seven valuable suggestions.

Nearly 90 percent of U.S. households have access to the Internet. Two-thirds of homes with Internet access have Wi-Fi network. More than half of Americans 12 years and older have a Facebook page. These are just some of the highlights that Arbitron, a radio rating and media research company, and Edison Research released in the results of their recent survey, Navigating Digital Platforms. The survey combines a cross section of previous research spanning thirteen years of inquiries into traditional, new, and digital media preferences and user habits. Here are the three top takeaway trends, discoveries, and significant implications that will affect marketing decisions today and tomorrow.

We have yet another answer for the ever-present challenge of how to stimulate more interaction on Facebook. Facebook recently introduced a new feature that allows page administrators to build interaction by polling. This added feature allows social site managers to not only survey their fans to find useful information, but it can also be used to reinforce message strategy via questions.

Though our vehicles of communication have changed, proper etiquette remains a key to successful interactions. In this three-part series, we will provide tips to help you become more etiquette savvy with Facebook, Twitter, and sharing tools such as Digg, Delicious and Reddit. In the first post of the series, we offered suggestions for managing your Facebook profile and tips to keep you on the appropriate social networking etiquette path. In this second post of the series, we will offer the etiquette guidance to follow for your Twitter presence.

The Caliber team recently participated in a half-day virtual conference by Vocus, titled: “Social Media. So What?” One of the keynote speakers, Scott Stratten, gave an insightful talk reminding us that every employee is a marketer, and engaging with customers online improves your brand enormously. Stratten’s views on marketing inspired many industry professionals, including our friend and respected colleague, Abbie S. Fink. Today, we are happy to share her guest blog post, which provides some thoughtful insight on Stratten’s new book, “UnMarketing.”

With all the technological advances at our fingertips, proper etiquette is still a key to successful interactions. In this three-part series, we will provide tips to help you become more etiquette savvy with Facebook, Twitter, and sharing tools such as Digg, Delicious and Reddit. In this first post, we offer suggestions for managing your Facebook profile and tips to keep you on the appropriate social networking etiquette path.

In the past year Twitter use has exploded and is rapidly becoming an essential business marketing tool. Millions of people and companies have utilized Twitter to gain exposure, brand recognition, and maximize online marketing. Almost every successful brand has a powerful Twitter presence, but the magic question is: How do they obtain—and maintain—so many loyal and qualified followers? Whether seeking to increase your following personally, or for your business or brand, there are several strategies for building a successful Twitter account and an invaluable online marketing tool.

Clients and colleagues are always asking “What’s the next ‘hot’ thing we should be doing?” Our latest answer? Quora. According to its administrators, “Quora is a collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it. The main goal is to be the best possible resource for someone who wants to know about each question.” According to Peter Baskerville, Quora reviewer, entrepreneur, educational resource developer and vocational teacher, Quora is: -An online collaborative information sharing and learning platform. -An online engineering platform that connects the information needs of real people with information solutions provided by real people.

The return on investment of time spent posting messages on Twitter is directly related to the number of qualified impressions those messages make. One key to increasing Twitter impressions is to have followers retweet your message to their followers; hence, retweets become an important tactical goal. Researchers and astute students of Twitter user behavior have made observations about tweet characteristics that result in retweet activity. Below are 10 things that you can do to get retweeted more:

In December, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released new guidelines concerning the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising (now including blogging and microblogging). These guidelines are intended to ensure that consumers are made aware if third-party endorsements are influenced by advertisers and marketers. Translation: blogging and micro-blogging evangelists (including celebrity spokespeople) must reveal that they have received free products or incentives of any kind that may have influenced a positive endorsement of a brand or product.