Social media is quickly becoming integrated into every level of our culture and soon it will take on another new role. A newly re-branded company now called Chirpify sees social media as not just a place to advertise and build an online presence for your brand. They have taken the next step and are offering services to allow companies big and small to use social media to actually conduct commerce.

Chirpify is a service that takes advantage of the huge reach of Twitter, and enables consumers to buy, sell, donate, and conduct transactions directly through Twitter. The platform allows businesses a simple and easy way to turn tweets into sales. This could completely change the way that brands and consumers interact through social media in the future.

The functionality of Chirpify’s service is very simple and easy to use. Chirpify connects directly with PayPal to allow transactions over Twitter to be secure. Users can make donations or purchases just by replying to a tweet with a keyword such as “buy” or “donate.” For example, if I wanted to donate to a politician’s campaign I could just reply “@politician Donate.” For merchants and brands who have this Chirpify service all they would have to do to sell products on Twitter is just click a “list on Twitter” button in the Dashboard.

Sounds like an excellent service to me and it definitely seems to be moving social media into a whole new realm of e-Commerce. There are already some services that allow a virtual storefront for brands on Facebook and I fully expect to see more of these kinds of “Social Media Commerce” services popping up all over the place. If you thought people were obsessed with social media these days just wait until they start doing all their shopping through Twitter and Facebook as well as social interaction.

On the heals of Tim’s big post about Google Plus I thought I’d highlight a small change in Facebook that might have huge implications. Facebook’s open graph allows interaction between your content or app by a user to be shared on that persons news feed and consequently exposed to all of their friends. Starting last week Facebook started allowing advertisers to pay for more exposure of these kind of interactions, turning them into powerful social ads, and changing the way Facebook marketing works.

Previously advertisers could only sponsor actions taken on their own pages or apps, excluding advertisers whose content was being interacted with through third party apps. With these new news feed ads you could now sponsor pretty much anything that mentions your name. So for example a band could now, not only sponsor likes to their own page, but listens to their songs on Spotify as well.

This new feature expands on Open Graph activity ad targeting and lets more advertisers reach users in a personal way, rather than sponsoring ads in the side bar. As opposed to letting advertisers inundate users with irrelevant ads, based on generic demographic data, Facebook is now allowing advertisements that show the actions of friends. This will be exponentially more relevant and effective than traditional ads and is a win win for everyone. Users will be advertised to as they always have been but now in a more relevant way that they might actually find helpful, Facebook gets more ad revenue, and advertisers see better conversion rates.

Wikimotive President, Timothy Martell – Featured Speaker

See and hear what last years attendee’s and speakers had to say about the Automotive Digital Marketing Bootcamp. Wikimotive’s own Timothy Martell can be heard at 3:30 mark!

The Good, The Bad, and The Guru

A lot of fuss is being made of late, of Search Plus Your World. And for good reason, love it or hate it, this is going to make a huge impact on search results now and for the foreseeable future. This is great and there are some great simple steps you can take to create your Google Plus account. There is actually very little to do other than add a photo and tagline and start sharing.

But no one is talking a whole lot about the +1 itself. Sure we’d like to assume if we create a nice page and put lots of great content on there that +1′s will follow. But let’s face it folks; Google’s new toys are always just that: toys. Little testing, and no guru’s have taken a crack at breaking or gaming them yet. In other words, can you buy plus ones?

Well, we’ve gamed the system and tested the results and they’re profound. Gain a nice steady flow of  +1′s and the Google Search Gods will smile upon you and grant you unparalleled domination in SERP with your highly +1′d content!

Getting lots of +1′s is easy when you know what to do, but very time consuming due to the amount of time one needs to spend engaging people on google plus. Therein lies the beauty… The results allow you an unfair competitive advantage. It’s also, what google wants! So this “Gaming of the system” is one Google WANTS! Hallelujah!

But where can a car dealer go to get someone to get Plus 1′s for them?

Wikimotive is announcing +1′s for Car Dealers! We have developed a strategy where we can acquire +1′s at a steady rate from real verified google plus accounts owned by real people over the course of days, weeks or months which remains consistent with google’s guidelines!

We are selling +1′s for $2 per +1 and offer discounts for large orders.

To find out more contact us!

An article recently published on the Harvard Business Review website explores the idea of NBO (next best offer) as the holy grail of marketing. The article entitled “Know What Your Customers Want Before They Do” outlines how brands can utilize the wealth of data currently available to customize their offers, and target individuals at the right moment through the right channels to maximize their marketing.

So what exactly is an NBO? It is a targeted offer customized for a consumer based on a number of factors including demographic, shopping history, search history, and relationships on social websites such as Linkedin and Facebook. Despite the name an NBO can often be an initial interaction with a consumer and is usually designed to inspire a purchase, build brand loyalty, or both.

In the current age of increased online shopping, consumers are bombarded with ads, information, and options, and they often struggle to find the products or services that will best meet their needs. Most retail sites rely solely on demographic information and can’t replicate the personal touch that shoppers once depended on with on-the-floor sales people who would help the consumer find exactly what they wanted or needed. However, with the increasing availability of information about consumers, and online channels that brands can use to communicate with them, many companies have had huge success with customized and targeted internet marketing.

One of the best examples of this, is a program that Microsoft ran with e-mail offers for its search engine Bing. They sent out e-mail offers that were tailored to the recipient the moment they were opened. In 200 milliseconds, about half the time it would take you to blink your eyes, Microsoft’s advanced analytic software would assemble an offer based on real-time information about that customer. The data they were able to gather and analyze in that amount of time included location, age, gender, online activity (both historically and immediately preceding the e-mail), and the most recent responses of other customers. These ads were able to achieve conversion rates as high as 70%.

Obviously you and your small business probably don’t have the same resources and programing capabilities that Microsoft has to be able to run something like those e-mail offers; but the information is out there and ready to be leveraged for more effective advertising. Appealing to a customers unique needs based on their behavioral patterns will allow your brand to stand apart from irrelevant offers that are based solely on demographic information. It might involve you becoming more engaged with your customers online or on social media but if executed properly you can gain new customers and build loyalty in your current customers by being more relevant online than the competition.

All of us here at Wikimotive will be attending the Digital Marketing Strategies Conference (DMSC) in Las Vegas in February and we couldn’t be more excited. The conference agenda was posted on ADM not long ago and DMSC looks to be an excellent experience for those attending this year.

DMSC and other conferences like it are a great way to get your internet marketing people informed about new strategies and ready to implement them in the new year. Experts from all over the country will conduct workshops on everything from BDC strategies to how to create and implement your own video projects. These workshops are endlessly helpful for dealerships who may be looking to hone their internet skills.

Our own Tim Martell President of Wikimotive will be part of the Winning Dealer Strategies Panel. This is a general session interview where after a short presentation attendees in the crowd can ask questions or pose scenarios to the experts and get their opinions.

These days it’s more important than ever for your dealership to stay informed and ahead of the competition and the information you can learn from your peers and experts like Tim at a conference can be invaluable.

Facebook page analytics company EdgeRank Checker has recently conducted a study of 30,000 posts on over 500 pages and they’ve come up with some interesting data. In the pages EdgeRank Checker analyzed they found that the average post will continue to receive likes and comments for around 3 hours after being published. This means that to maximize engagement and impressions a page owner should wait at least 3 hours in between each post.

The study found that the average post lifetime on pages with middle-of-the-road fan counts (around 140,000) was around 3 hours and 7 minutes. They defined the end of a posts lifetime as when it drops to only 10% of the engagement per hour that it had in its most popular hour. After about three hours most posts only receive a trickle of engagement and there is little lost by posting again. Engagement on your Facebook page is very important because it is directly related to the news feed visibility of your post and your page’s future posts. The more you maximize your Engagement the more people can see your content and that is what it’s all about; whether you are trying to drive traffic or just create awareness.

This is not to say, however, that you should start implementing a Facebook advertising strategy to post something every 3 hours all day. Making that many posts everyday would more than likely annoy your fans, not to mention you would eventually run out of content to post and would likely begin to lower the quality of your content to keep up with the quantity. How often you should post depends on your page, your audience, and your content. For example I Like GoPro (a camera company who makes HD video cameras for people on the go) on Facebook. They post, hands down, the best HD video content anywhere, but they still only make 4 to 5 posts a day, they could probably work a bit more on spreading some of their posts out but I think they’re doing fine anyway with about 1.5 million likes.

The average page owner should usually stick to something like 2 or 3 posts a day. If you come across something that you feel you absolutely must post, or you have a bunch of great content that you want to get out there just make sure not to hurt yourself by posting back to back. Take a deep breath and wait until at least three hours since your last post so you can maximize your engagement.

When it comes to TVs, I am far from educated. Just last week while shopping for a new one, I found myself standing in the TV aisle of Best Buy with a perplexed look on my face. No matter what quality TV you purchase, you will not be able to notice much of a difference unless you program it to give you the best picture possible. Unlike you would think, TVs do not come out of the box ready to use at their optimum potential.

TV’s are slowly replacing computers. All of the same functions on a computer are becoming available on televisions. Facebook advertising is, even now, being seen on 72 inch television screens! Buying yourself a quality TV will, in the near future, become much more important then an HD computer screen. According to MSNBC.com, there are five settings to fiddle with in order to get the best possible viewing image.

Picture Size for Broadcast or Cable - Those black bars on the side of the screen may be distracting but, it produces a higher quality picture than if you were to stretch it to fit the entire screen. When the image is stretched, it is distorted and looses quality. If you have HD stations from your cable company, those are programmed to fit wide screen TV’s and will fill the screen with high quality when you flip to one of those stations.

Picture Size for DVDs – DVD’s will tend to have the same issues as cable stations because they are originally created for a 4:3 ratio television. When you purchase an HD TV, the picture ratio changes to 16:9. The DVD will play in the 4:3 ratio that it was created for unless you go and change that.

Audio Output – HD TV’s have a special output place where you can attach a home theater system. This will allow you to not only watch your movies and shows in HD but also, hear them in HD. The TV’s built in speakers do not give off the high quality sound on their own.

Label Your Inputs – When it comes time to switching inputs, it is much easier to click on the input labeled “Cable” or “DVD Player” than to have to remember that input 1 is DVD and input 6 is the cable. these can be changed under most “settings”.

Program Your Remotes – There is nothing more aggravating than having a different remote for powering the TV, changing the volume, and another for the DVD player and changing the cable stations. Take the time to program one that will be able to control all of the functions. Locate the owners manual to the remote, in the back there should be a long list of codes for programming it to different manufacturers products. It does not matter if your TV is Panasonic and the DVD player is Sony. They can both be programmed to the same remote with a little effort.

With constantly changing technology it can be hard to keep up. You may think that your TV is out of date because of the lack of quality compared to the displays in the stores. The truth is, it probably is not. It takes a little fiddling to get your picture looking as clean and crisp as the ones in Best Buy, so get to it and enjoy your newly progamed TV!

Internet marketing has been a rapidly growing field since the turn on the century. The internet has the power to reach an unending number of potential viewers. With Smartphone technology the number of people that internet marketing reaches has grown even more as well as the fact that it reaches most people instantaneously. It is no surprise that this area of technology is growing so rapidly. Picture if you will, not having to carry with you your smartphone, tablet, or laptop. Well, that day is coming, sooner than you may think.

Keyboards are going to be the first things to go when we start eliminating bulky computers. A graduate student at Carnegie Mellon, named Chris Harrison, has been working on a way to eliminate physical keyboards, but being able to have one at the ready whenever you need it. Chris’ vision is to one day be able to turn any surface into a personal screen and/or keyboard. He has already succeeded this with his prototype. The prototype is made up of a Kinect system that sits on your shoulder and produces images on any surface in front of it for you to “touch” and click through. Want to make a phone call? Just pull up the number pad on the palm of your hand and dial the number, hit send, and the call is put on a speaker that is connected to the rig on your shoulder.

Having this monstrosity sitting on your shoulder is not what I would call convenient but, it is a start in the evolutionary portable computer screens and keyboards. Chris has decided to team up with Microsoft because of their online reputation. As well as, the fact that they have and the abilities to make this dream a reality because of their technology through the Kinect System for Xbox. The two will work together to make this invention into a true, functioning reality. Chris says that the system could possibly become so small that it would be put on a necklace. This not only makes it compact enough to carry with you all the time but, a necklace is also the prime place for the projection to come from with the least chance of objects getting in the way.

See the OmniTouch in action! Click Here

Apple is one of, if not the most, dominating companies in the technology field. Apple desktops, laptops, tablets, and music devices produce the highest sales compared to their competitors. Why should Apple not try to boost their sales even more by breaking into the TV field as well?

The Apple TV has been in circulation since 2007. It has not become too popular from what I have noticed yet, I do own one myself. From my experience with the first generation Apple TV it is not much different then the “On Demand” capability available from your cable company . The only difference is that it allows you to surf the Internet from your TV. I was able to watch a YouTube video on the big screen rather than just on my laptop.

What makes the Apple TV so convenient is that it links your iTunes Library on your computer to the TV. Whatever you purchase on iTunes, be it music, movies, or podcasts, will now be available on both your TV and computer. The latest Apple TV looks to have quite a few new features that makes the device more appealing to purchase.

The newest Apple TV includes much of their latest technology like Siri, that is included in the iPhone4S. Siri is a voice command system where you can speak what you want the device to do and it will do it for you.  Forget about that lost remote control because you will not need it! Tell Siri, “Play The Big Bang Theory” and it will be played. Tell it to pause, and it shall be done without the touch of a button.

In addition to voice recognition software, Apple is also making a move to eliminate the need for cable companies all together. Similar to the apps for the iPhone and iPad, apps for TV stations are in the works. Apple is leaning towards a “pay for what you watch” style unlike the cable companies that bundle channels together, whether you want to watch them or not. Why has no one thought of this before? I am in favor of this new style to watching TV and am excited to trade in my first generation Apple TV for the latest model in order to replace a potentially expensive cable bill.