Posts Tagged: "Social Media"

This week in IPWatchdog’s Companies We Follow, our series returns to focus once again on Samsung and its recent appearances at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. As has often been the case recently, many of the more intriguing patents and patent applications from Samsung deal with electronic device development. One patent document protects a better system of constructing biochips to monitor drug trials. An application filed by Samsung describes a devised method of allowing mobile phones to give off fragrance in response to user interaction. Upgrades to electro-wetting displays, which use water and oil to affect light displays, are featured in a second patent application.

On May 9, 2013, IPWatchdog’s very own Gene Quinn will be attending and presenting at the Business Development Institute’s Social Media Marketing Summit for Law Firms in NY. The summit was put together as a result of increased awareness of social media by law firms and how these platforms can be used to attract new clients and to expand business with existing clients. According to the Summit’s Event Summary, “Most lawyers use social media networking tools such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter and most firms have at least one blog. Many firms now recognize that blogging and social networking have helped produce new client leads.”

On March 19, 2013, the Unites States Patent and Trademark Office issued U.S. Patent No. 8,401,009 to Twitter. The Twitter patent is titled: Device Independent Message Distribution Platform. It seems to me that the other social media platforms are utilizing similar functionality as well. I suppose that is a very good thing for Twitter! Depending on how strong this patent ultimately is and what Twitter wants to do with it, social media at its core may have been patented by Twitter.

Starting in the fall of 2013, the Nielsen Twitter TV Rating will chart the conversations that take place on Twitter about television shows. It will measure the total audience for each show’s social activity. According to a representative at Nielsen, this new rating system will provide the “precise size of the audience and effect of social TV to TV programming.”

Whether you are just getting your feet wet in the wild world of inventions and patents, or you already have your business up and running, social media can help expand your business. Everywhere you look, there are Facebook “Like” buttons, LinkedIn “Share” buttons and Twitter “Tweet” buttons. Even Google has entered the social sharing game with Google+ allowing you to “+1” content. Social media can help catapult your business into overdrive – if you know how to use it effectively. Here are some tips to using social media to expand business.

No matter where we go these days, social media surrounds us. It seems everyone is saying, “Follow us on Twitter.” “Like us on Facebook.” “For More Information Scan Our QR Code.” Just this week alone I have seen at least a dozen places in my everyday life where social media has come into the real world; At church, On my way home from the airport on the backs of hotel shuttle vans; At my local coffee shop to name a few. Social media is here to stay and businesses of all sizes know it. But what many smaller businesses don’t know or care to realize is that there are several bad habits that still need to be broken in order to make the most out of their social media strategies. Following is a list of these common bad habits and what small business can do to get it break away from these same old mistakes.

Social Media is not a fad. It is not something that is going to go away nor is it going to be replaced by something bigger and better. Most businesses have embraced social media and all that it has to offer. Perhaps you, yourself have taken a ride on the social media bandwagon. But, even if you have a well-established social media presence, are you really getting the most out of your online relationships? Are you missing opportunities to truly leverage your business relationships online in order to reap bigger rewards and sales in the real world? Following are 5 easy ways that you can take to utilize your online business and real-world relationships to increase your overall social media ROI.

Just like people, all brands have their own personality. Brand personality is defined as a set of human characteristics that are associated with a brand name and is determined by consumer interactions with your brand. It is essentially, how your brand behaves in the public light. Your brand personality is determined mainly by your own personality and identity. There are many influences on brand personality including profession, industry, age, gender and emotional characteristics, to name a few. But your brand personality should also reflect what you want others to think of when they hear your name.

One of the best things about social media is that you don’t need to have a big marketing budget to benefit from the different ways that social media can propel your business, but you do need to be committed and have a strategy. If you are not going to hire a consultant to assist you then you are going to need to invest the time to do things yourself, which is fine so long as you actually do it! Here is a list of “Social Media Resolutions” that you should consider implementing in your 2012 Marketing and Brand Building Social Media campaigns.

As I read through the patents and patent applications discussed below, and the many more I did not include, I started to wonder whether anyone has any reasonable expectation of privacy at all any more. I am a big fan of the CBS drama Person of Interest, and the surveillance system from that show that ferrets out dangerous on both macro and micro levels doesn’t seem quite so far fetched. I suppose that is why the FTC is seeking comments on facial recognition technologies and the government is attempting to get its hands around the enormous issues and promulgate some rules or guidelines.

Thanks to social media everyone has the ability to connect with like-minded individuals all over the world. But if you want to exploit social media you need to have an effective strategy. It doesn’t take an enormous amount of time each day. In fact with only 15 minutes a day, you can really make quite an impact. But like everything you hope to succeed with in life it does take planning and forethought. Here are suggestions on how you might be able to use social media to develop your brand, monitor quality, engage customers, expand upon ideas and connect with others within your industry.

Frustration with registration and login isn’t limited to mobile devices, of course. As the web has become more participatory and an integral component of our lives, the average web user has accumulated dozens of accounts at different websites — each with a distinct username and password to remember. Even more problematic, many people try to cope with this problem by recycling the same password across multiple sites, thereby jeopardizing their online security. Social login alleviates this “password fatigue” problem and offers up benefits both for online users and online businesses and other websites.

Once you understand what to tweet, how to tweet and how much to tweet, you are quickly able to make excellent connections, increase your website statistics and search engine ranking, find some of your best brand advocates, and benefit quickly and efficiently from word of mouth marketing. In fact, next to YouTube, micro-blogging on Twitter is one of the quickest ways for information about you, your brand, your business, your products and your services to go viral. Before one can feel comfortable on Twitter, they must first understand the purpose of Twitter, realize the potential of Twitter and learn how they can use Twitter to meet their overall marketing objectives. Following, I will discuss and demystify 5 of the top myths about Twitter use for business and give you pointers on how you can get the most out of your Twitter account.

Social media is quickly become THE way to market your business. In the US, more than two thirds of all adults who are active online are also actively using social media today, However, there is still a whopping 57% of businesses who, for one reason or another do not understand the real impact that social media can have on their businesses. Gaining new and retaining old customers, sharing your products and services to a broader audience and giving your customers a voice, are just a few of the many benefits that using social media can bring to your business. There are many myths and misconceptions that keep business owners and marketers from reaping the benefits that social media. If you are one of these businesses, let me “set you free” to explore all that social media has to offer.

It seems that no matter where you go these days, the likelihood is high that you will see a “Free Wi-Fi” sticker on the front door of the establishment. Whether you are going for coffee, meeting a colleague for lunch, stopping at a rest stop or waiting for an airplane, you can pretty much bet that you will be able to check your email and surf the web while you are there. It is clear that most restaurants are starting to realize the power and potential of social media, not only for the use of their clientele but also in getting their message out in new and innovative ways. They are seeing that building larger online communities equates to higher numbers of restaurant sales. For this reason, media outlet Nation’s Restaurant News teamed up with an analytics and digital branding firm, DigitalCoCo to create the Restaurant Social Media Index (RSMI) highlighting the industry’s Top 100.