Inbound Marketing Blog

As emerging social media trends start to take hold and appeal to consumers, so too do they begin to complement the overall integrated marketing communications of a business. When Facebook first debuted, it would have been pure speculation to envision the type of platform is has become today in terms of how businesses use it to interact and engage with their customers. Now the emergence of other lesser known platforms like Pinterest and Instagram has brought newer ways for companies to engage with their consumers.

While you're scanning through Pinterest, you might find some interesting pins on your business, you might be thinking to yourself is now a good time to pin this or should I wait till I see more people actively pinning and re-pinning? Well the answer is yes and no. As with many things in life, everything depends on your individualized situation and what is best for that situation. For example, the best college may not necessarily be the best college for you. The best phone for you may not be the best phone for someone else. Everyone’s needs and expectations vary person to person.

The top ranking websites with the best reviews and most qualified experts can do all the research and look at the specifications, data and rankings, but none of that is going to tell you what is best for your situation. It will only give you the results based on the data.

Social media continues to grow every day, with new features and networks popping up all the time. Then there are the big social media networks like Facebook that purchase other platforms; like Instagram. Recently, Facebook announced that Instragram would now have a video feature that allows users to capture a video clip. This release comes after the huge hit Twitter had with their application, Vine. However, instead of a 6 second video with Vine, you can capture of to 15 seconds of video with the new Instagram feature. The best part is you don’t need to be a professional video editor to use this feature. With this new feature, you can easily showcase your small business. Here are a few examples to help you get started:

Drip marketing isn’t your typical email marketing campaign. Unlike a regular email newsletter, drip marketing campaigns allow you to create a program to take your subscribers through. Drip campaigns traditionally run in either 12 or 24 email formats, however they can be of any length.

The primary differentiating factor of a drip marketing campaign from a traditional email campaign is that new subscribers to your list always start with the first email in the series, and not the most recent email as with traditional campaigns. This means that you have the ability to create a campaign once and utilize it as long as you would like, as long as you are updating your contact list with new email addresses.

I believe every company should have a customer service goal. More specifically, a business should have a company-wide goal revolving strictly around taking care of clients. Once a business achieves a solid vision of what this means, the company should empower their staff to take care of clients and achieve this goal.

Imagine two exact companies that provide a particular service. For this example we will use two painting companies, “Company A” and “Company B” (very creative, I know). “Company A” has a very strict policy that demands nothing falls out of procedure or their scope of work. If the client doesn’t like it, tough.

BOISE, Idaho – The fifth installment of Idaho Startup Weekend will take place October 26th through October 28th at Hotel 43 in downtown Boise. First created in 2007, Startup Weekend is an international event that provides entrepreneurs an opportunity to test their startup business ideas. With the tagline, “No Talk, All Action,” Idaho Startup Weekend will give aspiring innovators an opportunity to commercialize their ideas in just one fast-paced and exhilarating weekend. 

In the short 54 hour time frame, participants pitch their ideas, form teams, and build a viable product. Startup Weekend likens the event to “an MBA in a weekend” because it helps professionals learn through the act of creating. Idaho Startup Weekends attract the best and brightest in the Boise community, therefore the event helps participants build long-lasting relationships with influential people. According to internal statistics from the organization, Startup Weekend held 260 events in 67 countries and startups incubated at its events received at least $30 million in outside funding last year alone.