Social Media Marketing Internship

Are you a social media connoisseur? Do you want to learn more about the world of social media marketing and strategy? Are you a team player?

BAM! Social Business is a social media marketing/strategy firm that specializes in helping businesses of all sizes engage their audience and create a content strategy that turns occasional visitors into repeat consumers.

For more information about us: http://www.bamsocialbusiness.com

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Title: Social Media Marketing Internship

Pay Level: College credits and a performance based monthly stipend

Responsibilities: This position is responsible for increasing brand awareness and driving internet traffic for our clients:

• Supporting team with day-to-day activities
• Scheduling social posts through different channels
• Weekly newsletter of social media trends/news
• Other activities as assigned

Reporting Relationship: This position reports directly to the Project Manager.

Working Hours: 10 – 20 Hours Weekly

Requirements:

• Love for social media/digital marketing
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Active on social media channels (ie. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, etc)
• Ability to work well as part of a team and autonomously
• Sense of humor

If Interested: Send us your resume, links to your social profiles and 1-2 sentences about why we should choose you!

Contact: Haley Bragg, haley@bamsocialbusiness.com 

The Nashville Film Festival is a huge deal in our growing, talented city and it kicks off tomorrow! For all of the information you will need for the week, click here! 

We are so honored to be in the “Silver Sponsor” category for the Nashville Film Festival this year with folks like Whole Foods, Nashville Scene, Jeni’s Ice Cream & more! 

Here are some of our top picks for this week-long event full of films, food & fun:

A CELEBRATION OF KURDISH FILMS

April 19th, 20th, and 21st:  Regal Green Hills Stadium 16

15 Kurdish Films from the Duhok Film Festival with Filmmakers in Attendance(Click to buy tickets) 

2 Panel Discussions Featuring Kurdish Filmmakers

1 Incredible Party

FILM TICKETS:  $12

Party Tickets: $35

The final night of the Celebration of Kurdish Films is a Closing Night Party that you are cordially invited to! Click to buy tickets to the party! 

SMBs are spending 15% of their budget on email blasts and marketing when the average actual open rate hits a max of 7-8%. Typically, emails are only opened from customers that you know.  More SMBs should spend more of their marketing dollars on social media platforms, especially Facebook.  With Facebook advertising alone,  you can target both current customers and new customers based specifically on interests, personal demographics and socioeconomic backgrounds. See our last blog post on Facebook Graph.

Information gathered from: www.mediabistro.com

In January, Facebook announced the launch of its newest feature – Graph Search.  This latest development allows users to search for friends based on shared interests, view pictures for places they would like to visit, and can even be used as a dating or match making tool!

An added bonus is the ability for publishers to view words entered into Graph Search.  Thanks to Facebook’s partnership with Bing, users searching for a restaurant or other business not currently in their social network will be routed to Bing search results.

This is a big breakthrough in terms of the wealth of knowledge we can now acquire about our viewers.  Graph Search takes social media to a new level of user data accumulation for our brand and other businesses. What do you think?

For information about Facebook’s newest development, check out www.allfacebook.com.

Screenshots courtesy of Facebook and Inside Facebook. Photos by Justin Lafferty.

1.Engage your fans and followers:

Get the conversation started like Simon & Schuster did by asking open-ended questions to gain comments and suggestions.

It’s a long weekend! Pick your #Fridayreads with a game of Reading Roulette. vine.co/v/brbbPp9KOY0

— Simon&SchusterCanada (@SimonSchusterCA) February 15, 2013

2.Celebrate holidays:Tropicana used their product with a fun video to play on Valentine’s Day.

Happy #Valenvine! vine.co/v/brh6j0Lprn3— Tropicana (@Tropicana) February 14, 2013

3.Give a Tour: Fans constantly want “behind the scenes” accessThat is now made possible with Vine. Show off your office or facility to your fans like HubSpot did in this Vine video.

New community / food / play area in @hubspot office (aka “Benioff” room). vine.co/v/brqehHIu3EQ — Mike Volpe (@mvolpe) February 14, 2013

4. Educate: Enlighten your audience like The San Francisco Zoo did- they created a Vine about Poison Dart Frogs. http://vine.co/v/bv5ZeQjY352

5. Tell a Story: Gap captured their jeans through the years in a Vine video to illustrate their history. Customers respond well to knowing where a brand comes from and where they have been.

From the past to present, the labels tell the story of our 1969 jeans. #denimevolved vine.co/v/bvP0zgpe9Oa — Gap (@Gap) February 12, 2013

6. Brand your company: BAM! highlights their employees to show off some new merchandise with the company logo and even the company dog, Charlie. The main idea is to have fun with it!

We’re REALLY excited about our new BAM! swag! vine.co/v/bHVD5UArExY

— BAM! (@bamsocialbiz) March 7, 2013

Source: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/twitter-vine-creative-uses-for-business/

The manager was looking to get more traction from his facebook, so I went in to consult with them. After meeting with him, he told me his market was a little older, people looking to go out and enjoy an evening, some live music, and dinner. What was happening, though, was the place was becoming a binge drinking joint. People didn’t come for the food, they came for the bar. Even though his food was great.

After reviewing their social media, all the photos were about people drinking. Photos of musicians on stage. The musical lineup for the coming week. There was little to no mention of their amazing burgers. In turn, they were promoting the wrong stuff.

If content isn’t engaging, people will stop listening. Users will get tired of being advertised to and eventually turn you off.

To compound the issue, they weren’t creating engaging content. Their conversations where completely one sided. Very few items were shared, commented on, or liked. This type of one sided social media is pointless. Over time, you begin to lose customers. If I were to post something like “hire me. hire me. hire me.” on a regular basis, and not give you any real info your interested in, you’re going to stop following me.

Keep these things in mind when you do social media for your business. Don’t make the mistake of make it one sided. Invite feedback. Invite conversation. Provide content that’s not always about your business but about your customers interests. You’ll have better brand loyalty because of it.

Source:  http://www.betterthanclicks.com/dont-be-social-awkward/

We found this cool interview that covers the time and value of social media for companies of any size and shape. Enjoy!

JP: (Article subtitle)  A new survey shows that more small business owners are not only using social media but they are willing to pay for help.

BF: This is good. Businesses owners shouldn’t do everything themselves. However, social media is a voice of your brand, so proceed with caution. I’m not saying don’t outsource. I’m saying don’t neglect this stuff.

JP: As a marketer turned technology CEO, I’m more convinced than ever before that small businesses need to leverage the power of social media to grow their business. But they need to do it in a smart, efficient way. So are they? We asked 462 small businesses how much time and money they invest into social media, and announced the results this week.

BF: Cool.

JP: According to the survey results, small businesses are…
Investing More Time Into Social Media Marketing

JP: Two-thirds said they’re spending more time than last year. That’s great, because it says they’re seeing enough ROI to keep doing it.

BF: I hope that’s true, but is it possible they are just faithful to the cause?

JP: A third of them said they’d rather spend less time, suggesting they preferred focusing their time on other activities to grow their business. It sounds to me that they could use some strategies and tools to help them recoup some of that time.

BF:  Agreed, but I must add: it sounds to me they need to treat social media as a seriously important activity to grow their business.

Focusing on Facebook and Twitter

JP: Approximately 90 percent of the folks we surveyed are active on Facebook and 70 percent on Twitter. Only 32 percent are on Google+ and 29 percent are on Pinterest. (LinkedIn straddles the middle, at 50 percent.)

BF: 50% active on LinkedIn? What!? Get active on LinkedIn people. It’s a business network.

BF: Ahem. I don’t think Facebook is king. I think it’s the Premier, of China, if you will. It has the biggest population, but not the marketing firepower of a real super power.

Seeing the Value of Sharing Content–But, Again, Time is an Issue

JP: We also asked small businesses to rank what types of social media activities took the most time. They said finding and posting content to their social networks was the most time-consuming, followed by: learning and education; analyzing their social media efforts; and following their competitors’ activities. 

BF: Nobody asked me, but if finding content is your biggest time-consumer, you’re consuming time wrecklessly, a.k.a “wasting” time. Creating content should be where you “spend” time if you want to see your investment payoff.

Finding Value in Paying for Social Media

JP: Small businesses reported that their social media budgets are increasing at a faster rate than overall marketing budgets. So, if a small business is going to increase its budget, it will likely be for social media. Additionally, 36 percent of those surveyed pay for a social media publishing or analytics tool; of those, 58 percent spend $26 or more every month for the tool. Small businesses are starting to put a real value on social media for growth. Good for them.

BF: Amen.

You gauge return by increased leads, online and offline traffic, share of online voice, and ultimately, sales. Social media marketing done right, everyday, is helping small businesses enhance their reputation, increase customer loyalty and frequency, and yes, put more bread on the table.

JP: So what does this all tell me? It reminds me of the saying, “time is money.” Being able to balance it all is still a bit of a challenge for some small businesses, especially the owner or solopreneur who’s handling social media on top of all the other responsibilities of running a company. But small businesses definitely see that social media is a big opportunity to drive growth–and they’re invested.

Time suck?

BF: It’s probably fair to say if you dispel social media as a time suck, you probably suck at it. Dave?

Part of the problem is that you’re still thinking of social media marketing and community building as a quick campaign, like three weeks of traditional advertising or a day of cold calling. Too many small businesses that try social media marketing either don’t do it right or don’t do it long enough, or both, and then give up, thinking it doesn’t work.

You can absolutely use social media to drive and track new leads and sales, increased frequency of purchase from current customers, both very hard business metrics, but don’t expect this to happen overnight, or over three weeks. Expect to see (and by all means track!) results within six to nine months. Yes, it’s risky for a small business to put in that much time and/or money without a guarantee of a return. But that’s how social media marketing works. {Dave Kerpen}

BF: One of those data points reveals 55% of small businesses have a blog. Provided they use the blog as a strategic weapon in their content marketing arsenal, those businesses are going to generate more traffic, leads and sales. The other 45% will simply follow, figuratively—and literally.

Source: http://socialmediatoday.com/feldmancreative/984596/if-you-dispel-social-media-time-suck-you-probably-suck-it

The design change brings the iPad version of Twitter up to date with the iPhone and Android ones. The differences are all aesthetic, but now all three versions are essentially the same.

The big change that comes to all three clients is in your own profile page. New additions include a new photo stream feature right below your tweets, and a new header photo (1252×626px). The header photo is similar to Facebook’s Timeline, and sits behind your avatar image. The header photo should be available on the web version today as well.

Starting or running a start up company presents many challenges for entrepreneurs no matter what the service or product. The last thing CEO’s may consider is their Internet marketing strategies or Brand management. In addition, most likely that is not their area of expertise nor do they have the time to implement the tasks required to gain the valuable exposure required.

Improperly-handled SEO campaigns are increasingly common these days, but it is not a fate that need befall all small businesses. It is always recommended that a company turns to a top SEO agency when approaching any search engine optimization project. Once a marketing firm has been selected, then the business will be able to run a successful SEO campaign. However, it’s important to bear in mind that there are several key points that should always be kept in mind when approaching SEO.

1) Identify your Intended Audience

The first step in any SEO campaign should always be determining who the intended audience of your good or service is. While it’s easy to simply focus on your business as the driving force behind your SEO operations, it always helps to be a more specific in your approach. By selecting a certain product as the core keyword of your campaign, you will be able to attract more traffic than otherwise.

2) Expand your Keyword Focus

Although your focused keyword may not have a hundred and one uses, you should always try to be as forward thinking as possible when considering other optional keywords. Sometimes the search term that Google looks for may not be the same one that you would have typed when looking for it yourself. You should always do research to find other ways that web surfers may try to look up your product or service.

3) Refine your Website’s Page-to-Page Connectivity

A well-designed website is one that funnels users from page to page effortlessly. By interlinking your site so that relevant pages connect to one another, you’ll find that even the less visited branches of your website will see more traffic. As a result, you can expect your website to have better domain authority and, as a result, a higher place among the search engine rankings.

4) Keep your Keywords Dynamic

Even if a particular keyword has generated a lot of traffic during the course of your SEO campaign, don’t let that prevent you from cycling your keyword focus. Search trends change as much as social ones do, so there’s never a guarantee that one term will consistently prove fruitful. Always be on the lookout for other applicable keywords that may bring traffic to your website.

5) Establish your Business on Social Media

Social media work has become an increasingly popular way to generate long term website traffic. These days, many SEO agencies focus a lot of their attention on establishing a follower base for their clients. As the number of people following your company continues to increase, so too will the potential customers that may frequent your business’ site. No matter how big or small your organization may be, you can never have enough Facebook or Google+ followers.

6) Go Where the Competition Isn’t

While it is important that your company builds a significant social presence on the more popular networks, it’s always a smart move to look for alternative sites on which to make your business known. As anyone in the SEO community can tell you, there are several up-and-coming social networks that have yet to be capitalized on. In addition to establishing yourself on Facebook or Twitter, consider also extending your social media campaign to sites like Pinterest as they become available.

7) Constantly Create Original Content

Increasing your company’s web traffic and domain authority is only the first step in your SEO campaign. While some SEO agencies may focus entirely on getting potential customers to your site, giving users a reason to stay on your website is going to be vitally important. Original content, such as a weekly blog or community activities, can go a long way towards capturing an audience and convincing them to continue interacting with your site until a sale is made.

8) Consider Pay-Per-Click as a Way to Create Site Traffic

While the service that PPC companies provide may not be as attractive as the long term solutions of most SEO practices, that doesn’t mean they aren’t useful. PPC advertisements have been a decent way to drive site traffic volume for over a decade. Should you feel your monthly analytics aren’t showing the numbers you want to see, consider supplementing them with PPC work.

9) Patience is Key

Even when employing the most methodical and well-run SEO or social media campaign, one has to keep expectations manageable. Yes, search engine optimization and other SEO practices can lead to dramatically improved site traffic and search engine rankings, but they do take time. After having built up momentum and established your company as a significant online presence, your website’s analytics will rise sharply. However, getting there may sometimes take a month or two. One should always keep this in mind throughout the duration of the campaign.

10) Always Stay in Contact with your SEO Firm

By keeping a close working relationship with your SEO agency, you and your business will be able to reap a number of benefits. Aside from having a greater degree of control over the details of your campaign, you will also be briefed on any setbacks or major developments as they occur. As a result, your optimization and social media work will go without a hitch, and you’ll be able to fine tune the particulars of the campaign as you see fit.

Article from: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/top-10-helpful-seo-tips-for-small-business-owners/41085/