Find your way with Waze

You could use a GPS to find your way, but one of the hottest cell phone apps is using the latest technology to combine a GPS and social media. Waze is one of the hottest apps on the social media scene today. One small aspect of Waze is a GPS, but it has much more to offer its users. And Waze is free.

No one wants to encourage people to text or enter information into their phone while driving. That being said, there are many ways to get great travel information from this app while on the road.

After logging into the app, which tracks your journey, you can find gas stations, parking lots, ATMs, convenience stores, coffee, food, pharmacies, attractions, hotels and even hospitals and police stations.

Once you have logged into the app, you can not only find things, but enter them as well. Let people know the current price of the gas at any station you visit. Tell others about accidents, road closures, heavy traffic or dead animals on the road. If someone you know needs a ride, they can enter their location in their phone and you can map a route to pick go get them.

The more you use the app, the more points you accumulate. However, points seem to be meaningless for any practical purpose. Once you get to 100 points, you can tell others what mood you are feeling. Similar bonuses are available as you gather more points. You can see who has the most points among your friends.

Other Waze users are visible on the map as you drive. The only drawback to this program is for people with limited data plans for their cell phones. You will be using your data time as you use the app. If you avoid being charged with data time when you are not traveling, you can simply switch it off. Turn it on when you need it and always remember to turn it off when you are finished.

The new look of Pinterest

If you are unfamiliar with Pinterest, this is a social media platform for photos. Imagine a room full of bulletin boards. You see a photo that you find interesting and you pin it to one of the boards. That is the focus of Pinterest.

That is all well and good, but you probably want to know how can it help you grow your business. If you embed your web address in the photo using photo editing software, such as Photoshop or Picasa, your website will be on that photo forever. If people repin your photo, or post it to their own Pinterest page, your message will go along with the photo. You can also simply type a message with your web address in the comment section that goes under the photo. If someone repins the photo, they have the option of typing their own comment and your comment will be gone.

You can show what your business does and then pin that photo to your board. If the comment has a call to action, a person may be prompted to email or call your business. Of course, some businesses lend themselves to this visual medium. Others do not. People in the fashion industry, a retail business, real estate agent, etc. would do well with a Pinterest page for their business. Other businesses may not benefit as much from an account. If you can show before and after pictures of a service you provide, Pinterest would work well.

Most people use Pinterest for fun and not for business reasons, which is why getting your brand and message across is a bonus. If you can post non-blurry photos that are clever, funny, awe inspiring or amazing, you can attract people to your boards. Not all of your boards have to be business related.

When I was little and my brother and I would fight, he would often slap me up high and punch me in the stomach and say, “While you are looking up here (slap!), I’ll get you down here (punch!). He is five years younger, so I guess it was acceptable back then! My point is that while you have people looking at your pretty photos, you can sneak the punch in with your brand and message.

The new look of Pinterest was made to be more user-friendly. It was purposely made to look much different than Facebook, according to CEO Ben Silbermann.

Cover photos are now larger to help get your statement across. When you view the boards, you see the cover photo and four smaller photos of pictures within that board. The profile information is now across the top of the page instead of along the side. The profile photo itself is much larger. On the right side, you can see the latest people to repin any of your pins.

Where will social media show up next?

Today I attended a funeral and was told that I could have stayed at home and watched live streaming video instead. I turned around and looked. Sure enough, mounted up high on the back wall was a video camera. There really is no privacy any more. You can now attend some funerals from home or anywhere you can grab some wifi.

I am not sure if I am comfortable with that or not, but it does really show that all sorts of businesses are on the “live streaming video” bandwagon. Maybe caskets will someday be covered with advertising like race cars so people viewing will see their logos. How far will it go? No one knows for sure.

Some religious services are also streamed live. Not feeling well? No worries. You can attend services via the internet while sitting at home in your jammies.

If you can stream an event, people will watch, if you get the word out. You can stream events through several sites including You Tube, Livestream and Ustream. Google+ has hangouts, where multiple people can chat live via webcam and millions more can watch. Using this technology can, not only help grow your business, but actually change the way we all do business.

I can remember way, way back when I was in college. A professor told my class about how we would one day have a card, similar to a credit card, that would allow people to travel with no cash. Money would come right out of a person’s checking account. Every business would accept them. Of course, we know that debit cards exist now. But back in the day, that sounded crazy.

Online coupons that are scanned from cell phones at the cash register are already available. PayPal and credit card companies offer gadgets that connect to a cell phone. The business owner can simply swipe a credit card through the gadget. The client signs the phone with their finger to make a charge or payment. Can you imagine what might come next?

I talked to a friend the other day about business cards. He predicts there will be a business card where the image changes and maybe even has video. How far are we from that? There are already animated picture frames, why not a business card?

Even though social media is my business, I am hearing about new apps and sites every day. Some are great, some not so much. But the technology is changing daily. To stay on top of things with your business, you need to change with the technology and not fight against it.

Swinging out on Vine

At first I was apprehensive. Isn’t that the way with every new social media? I want to try it, but it’s different. Along with most people, I am not so good with change. And social media is constantly changing!

So, what is Vine, anyway? Think of Instagram with a 6-second video. In fact that’s what Twitter is calling it and they are the company who released it. It’s a video sharing app, but here’s the fun part… the videos are only a few seconds long and they are a continuous loop. 

Here's a link to a Vine video.

All you have to do to take the video is hold your finger down. Let go, reposition things, hold your finger again. You can take a continuous video, or start and stop several times. It is user-friendly, which makes it more fun and bound to be a huge hit.

How can you grow your business with Vine? I don’t mean to put down consumers, especially since we are all consumers, but the majority of people have the attention span of a gnat these days. A 6-second video is just what is needed to get a quick point across to the consumer.

Do you have an amazing product? Show it! Take one second from far away, get a little closer for a second or two, keep moving forward and adding to the video until you are close to the product. There’s your video.

Do you clean houses? Show a messy room for a second, a person dusting for a second, vacuuming for a second, etc. In the end, you show the clean room.

Have a clothing store? Show someone trying on clothes. Make it like a time lapse series. A person wearing one outfit, then another and another. There is your video.

Teaching your dog to sit? Same thing. Show it!

Once you create your video, you can share it on Vine, Twitter and/or Facebook. You can “like” and make comments on other people’s videos as well.

They are organized by hashtag (#), which categorizes the videos. Be sure to add a description and hashtag when posting your videos.

There is a bit of bad news for anyone without an iphone or ipod touch. It is not available for other formats just yet.

Instagram, the inauguration and growing your business

While those of us in Baltimore are still celebrating last night’s Ravens win, the rest of the country is getting watching the inauguration and enjoying MLK Day. According to CNN, this will be the biggest event in the history of Instagram. Never before have so many people been able to use their cell phones to send messages out to the while world.

As photo sharing programs grow in popularity, you too can take advantage of this media to share photos of your business. Millions of people are out there waiting to see your images. Make them interesting and engaging and you will surely succeed.

How do you accomplish that? One way is to add a comment that is a call to action. Pose a question that you hope will elicit responses. Put a photo of a product you sell and ask people about it. Try to make your photos interesting and not just a picture of an item with a plain background. Have someone hold it, shoot it from a bit of an angle, do something to make the photo come to life.

Blurry photos are never good. No matter what filters you add or what program you use, it will still be blurry. Take a little time to get it right.

A funny or amusing photo will often get people to comment or share the picture. Adorable animal photos are extremely popular as are funny baby pictures. Photo bombing pictures, where a person or animal seems to have popped up out of nowhere taking over the photo, are always a favorite.

If you are well-versed in Photoshop, it can make all the difference in the world. Using filters, special effects and cropping will enhance the picture. Effective use of Photoshop to add a humorous element to the photo will add a little magic to your image.

So on this inauguration day, think about ways you can engage and entertain your own audience with the passion that this day holds for Americans.

Great content gets great results

Most websites are full of words, but how good is that content? Some sites have SEO (search engine optimization) articles that, while they have all the necessary keywords, the articles either do not make sense or the keywords are over used. The articles seem wordy and walk around the subject, never actually getting to the point.

Conversely, sites with interesting, interactive or unique content will grab the attention of the reader and urge them to read more. People return to those sites over and over again.

One of the easiest ways to grab attention is to change the information on the site. Of course, that is how blogs work. Hopefully, you update your blog often to keep people coming back. Giving high value content entices people to the site.

Content does not have to be words. Everyone loves a good photo or piece of artwork. Add graphics, photos or infographics to your pages, follow up by using Instagram and Pinterest to promote them. You will see more activity on your page.

By using Google Analytics, you can see what social media works for you and what does not. Just add the code to your website and you can start using this tool free of charge. If you use Blogger for your blog, there is a built-in Blogger version of Analytics that is already in use. You can find it in the “overview” section and it is called “stats.” If you use social media, you really need to make sure it is working and if not, change what you are doing.

Social media year in review

This has been the most spectacular year for those of us involved in social media. The entire industry has grown in leaps and bounds. More entrepreneurs and companies are using it to help grow their businesses. Athletes, musicians and individuals are so involved in social media that they use it multiple times every day.

Here are some of the highlights of 2012:

• Facebook stock goes public. Mark Zuckerberg gets even richer.
• Facebook buys Instagram for a big pile of money.
• Obama is called the “cool” president, has impromptu visit on Reddit and crashes the system.
• Infographics are on the rise, using pictures and words to get a message to huge numbers of people.
• Twitter had a record number of tweets during Super Storm Sandy.
• Angry Cat and other fun memes flood social media.
• Pinterest becomes 6^th most popular social media.
• Finding lost kids is enhanced with social media. Since it is incredibly fast, it gets the word out almost immediately.
• Gangnam Style goes viral. Do you know how to do that dance?
• Find lost pets, rehoming pets. Gets the word out faster and to more people than traditional methods.
• The new MySpace – it’s bigger, better than ever and making a comeback.
• Instagram changes policy, people get angry, Instagram changes it back in a matter of a couple days.
• School shooting in Newtown, CN has social media ablaze with outrage, gun control opinions, tributes and an outpouring of emotions.

No one wants to read text these days. That’s why this list is a list, in bullet form. Infographics are snowballing in popularity because the graphics make it simpler than a paragraph of words, to get the information to the masses. People all over the world want instantaneous information and they do not want to spend a lot of time reading it.

The best thing that happened in 2012 with social media is that people now take this method of communication seriously – more now, than ever before. So, here’s to the end of 2012 and to watching social media grow even bigger than anyone ever imagined in 2013!