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Splash Media is proud to participate in an online campaign called A Giving Chance. A Giving Chance allows two business owners or entrepreneurs to win a Dream Team Business Makeover while bringing businesses together to support Compassion International’s Child Survival Program. The “Dream Team” is made up of eighteen nationally known and successful entrepreneurs who are donating their expertise and services to the two winners. As part of the Dream Team, Splash Media is offering one month of social media management on Twitter, and that’s just a tiny portion of the overall prizes that will be awarded to two lucky businesses.

Some of the other prizes include:

• One Year of premium email services from Aweber.
• One Year access to Laura Roeder’s Social Media Marketer.
• Premise and Scribe WordPress Plugin licenses from Copyblogger.
• One Hour Borrow My Brain session with Jonathan Fields.
• A 3 hour Social Media Strategy Session by Padron Social Media.
• A Custom-Designed Website by Ekcetera.

Businesses can enter the contest simply by donating $10 or $25 to Compassion International’s Child Survival Program. The promotion began Nov 1, 2012, and runs through Christmas Eve (Dec. 24), with the winners announced on Christmas Day. Every dollar raised from entries will go to the Child Survival Program. For more information, please read the Official rules.

Last year, Compassion International’s Child Survival Program gave 25,000 moms and babies the lifesaving support they needed. According to Compassion International, every day 1,500 women die from complications in pregnancy or childbirth, 10,000 newborns die within a month of birth, and 10,000 babies are also born dead. And, more than 9 million children under age 5 die each year. Two-thirds of these deaths — more than 6 million every year — are preventable. Compassion International touches lives worldwide in their fight to provide lifesaving support to mothers and babies.

Are you interested in winning a business makeover while also benefiting a worthwhile charity? If so, check out more about the Dream Team Business Makeover Contest.

For more information about Compassion International and sources for the facts listed above, visit their website: http://www.compassion.com/help-babies.htm

Rhea Thomas is the Blogger Manager at Splash Media and part of the Content Creation and Script Production team at Splash Media U. You can find her on Twitter @TexasRhea. Click here to see all of Rhea’s blog posts.

What does Halloween have in common with marketing? More than you think! Clever marketing requires creative content, a clear message and the right delivery to attract and impress consumers. Halloween requires the same.

As with any marketing campaign, you need to start with a strategy, understand your target audience and craft quality content.

1. Offer Something Desirable

When I was in high school, my Mom was on a super health food kick. And so, when Halloween rolled around, she decided to give out healthy snacks. You know, like boxes of raisins or packages of nuts. And wouldn’t you know it, that was the one year our pumpkins were trashed. By trashed, I mean they were smashed and destroyed. The lesson here? Know your target audience and what they want. Here, the target audience is trick-or-treaters. Do they want chocolate and sour punch straws? Or dental floss and raisins?

The same goes for marketing. What does your target audience want? The great thing about social media is that it opens the lines of direct communication between businesses and consumers … and makes it easy in fact.  People are already spending time on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, etc., so it’s in your best interests to make sure your business is there also. It might seem scary at first (just like opening your front door to rush of trick-or-treaters) but ultimately, it makes for a better relationship with your consumers and creates loyal followers.

2. Create a Memorable Experience

What are you doing to entice that target audience? Are you in costume and the house decorated? Trick-or-treaters are much more likely to stop at your house if the porch light is on and the decorations are out. It’s the same with marketing. Put yourself in the mind of your audience. How welcoming is your marketing campaign? Have you dressed it up and gotten creative?

3. Patiently Encourage Word-of–Mouth Support

Sometimes it takes a while to reap rewards from your marketing campaign. Trick-or-Treaters will spread the word that your house is a great place for candy … just like real-life customers will use social media to spread the word about your business and its awesome products and services.

So, next time you’re passing out candy, remember the tricks and treats involved, and apply those same basic principles to your next marketing campaign, whether it’s traditional or through social media—or both.

Rhea Thomas is the Blogger Manager at Splash Media and part of the Content Creation and Script Production team at Splash Media U. You can find her on Twitter @TexasRhea. Click here to see all of Rhea’s blog posts.

You’ve heard of the “baker’s dozen,” right? Well, now we have the Facebook Billion! Facebook recently celebrated a rather impressive social media marketing milestone this month by reaching one billion users. That’s one billion people sharing what they ate today and uploading photos of their pets and babies. And if you’re a business, this translates to millions of potential consumers within your reach.

If that’s not enough incentive to set up a business page on Facebook, we don’t know what is, but here are some other seriously persuasive factors:

Manage Your Brand – People are already talking about your brand, it’s up to you to find the conversation. And, if they aren’t talking about your business specifically, they are likely talking about your industry—all the more reason you should be a big part of that conversation. Manage your online reputation on Facebook: 1 billion users is a huge captive audience.

Engage With Fans – The Facebook Billion also helps you build relationships with consumers that are potential customers and establish better ties with current customers as well. Sharing your business’s successes, community initiatives, and behind-the-scenes business activity creates loyal fans. It’s also a platform to speak directly with your clients and offer deals and discounts to them, and also a great way to gain valuable feedback. Consider Facebook an extension of your customer service team.

Raise Brand Awareness – The more people who “Like” your brand or share your status messages, the more their friends—and friends of friends—will see your company on Facebook and the further your marketing reach. Don’t discount Facebook because it’s relatively free. You can buy advertising if you want to go that route, but small businesses who can’t afford a substantial marketing budget might find Facebook’s relatively free reach a big enticement.

The Facebook billion brings home the message that Facebook is popular with all ages now, so no matter who your target audience is, they are most likely on Facebook. And it’s important to note that your Facebook Business Page will appear in Google Searches, so being on Facebook helps with your search engine ranking. Don’t discount the power of SEO!

Is your business on Facebook? If not, what’s holding you back? If you need help forming a Facebook marketing strategy, contact us at 877.861.0010.

Rhea Thomas is the Blogger Manager at Splash Media and part of the Content Creation and Script Production team at Splash Media U. You can find her on Twitter @TexasRhea. Click here to see all of Rhea’s blog posts.

photo credit: Fiduz via photopin cc

It’s that time of the year. No, I’m not referring to holiday season or other fall festivities … it’s political season. Elections are just around the corner, and everyone and their grandmother has a strong opinion on one policy or another.  And you know what goes hand-in-hand? Social media and politics. While all those political conversations dominate online discussions and social media marketing campaigns, it brings up the something to ponder: should your business get political on social media?

[photo credit: DonkeyHotey via photopin cc]

If you work for a nonprofit, you know how difficult it can be to find professional help. While there are plenty of willing experts, connecting to them sometimes can be a challenge. On Sept. 17 LinkedIn announced a new service, LinkedIn Board Connect, to address this problem for the nonprofits. This new service is designed to give nonprofits an easy way to find marketing experts, human resources personnel, and other professionals whose talents are needed. With the addition of this new service, LinkedIn for nonprofits becomes a powerful force for good.

Here is a look at LinkedIn Board Connect:

Talent Finder

Organizations that are registered as a nonprofit in the United States can use this service for free—a $1000 value. This is the main tool used to match your organization to the people it needs. Talent Finder includes perks such as receiving alerts when a great candidate appears, the ability to search within specific groups, and special talent filters to help match organizations with excellent prospects.

Educational Webcast

This is one of the great ways this LinkedIn for nonprofits service helps organizations expand the depth and breadth of their knowledge base on a variety of topics.  This content is exclusive to LinkedIn and covers topics like how to make connections and how to find the right person for your nonprofit.

Board Connect Groups

These are similar to how other groups work in LinkedIn, except Board Connect Groups are exclusively for nonprofits. Connecting to other organizations helps to establish important professional relationships and is an effective way for nonprofits to share advice with other nonprofits.

Want to learn how to use social media marketing to help nurture and grow your nonprofit? We have over 400 social media training classes videos that explain how.

[photo credit: coda via photopin cc]

We’re always interested in how big brands are using social media to build their online communities. Whole Foods is a prime example of a large business that knows its audience well and how to reach them.

Michael Bepko, Global Online Community Manager for Whole Foods Market, joined us to talk about the structure of social media management for the food retailer, tips for sharing multimedia content, and how to keep brand messaging consistent across platforms and communities.

Check out our playlist to watch more SplashCasts: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL730A9649E3F2A154

We all know the Internet sometimes struggles when it comes to design changes (believe me, some people are still grumbling over Facebook’s Timeline), but, people of the Internet, I promise this latest change is a good one.

On Monday Twitter unveiled new features that appear in their mobile apps as well as on its website. Unlike previous design changes, Twitter rolled out this one to everyone all at once in the wee hours of the morning. Here’s a breakdown of what has changed.

Updated Mobile Apps

Included in this update are new and improved apps for iPad, iPhone, and Android. These showcase some improved stream features that enable users to expand a tweet so they can see a larger version (with images, if used) without having to lose their place in their mainstream. It even plays videos in full screen mode.

New “Me” Section

Twitter updated profile pages and dubbed them the “Me” section. Here users can showcase a little more of their brand’s personality with a header photo since backgrounds aren’t visible on the mobile apps. Still, the header photo is applied as a background behind the user’s profile info such as their avatar, Twitter bio, location, and URL, so there’s not much room for cross-promoting or inserting copy.

The “Me” section improves on the old Twitter profile page and adds most recent Tweets as well as a photo stream that enables mobile viewers to quickly swipe through users’ streams of shared photos.

These new design changes show more focus on the mobile experience for users, allowing more media, such as pictures and video, to be accessible through their apps. Perhaps we really did learn a thing or two from Pinterest besides how to make a sock bun.

What do you think about Twitter’s latest design updates?

Kristine Macabare is Creative Developer at Splash Media. You can follow her on Twitter: @krisalis903

The Olympic games in London highlighted social media more than any major sporting event has before. One of the teams that took advantage of social media marketing capabilities was USA Boxing.

Rob Howe is Marketing & Events Manager for USA Boxing. In this interview with Duncan Gilman, Howe discusses the impact of social media on the London 2012 Olympic games, especially boxing. Howe also touches on celebrating successes through social media, including the women’s wins, and how amateur boxing using social media marketing during non-Olympic years.

Check out our playlist to watch more SplashCasts: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL730A9649E3F2A154

Adam Ogden is the entrepreneur behind JuiceBlendz, and YoBlendz, two rapidly expanding restaurant chains that benefit from personal communication in their social campaigns.

In this interview with Duncan Gilman, Odgen discusses the impact of his own significant Twitter following, the “Ask Our CEO Anything” section of their website, and the story behind Ogden’s favorite smoothie flavor.

Check out our playlist to watch more SplashCasts: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL730A9649E3F2A154

For those of us who use social media regularly—and can’t imagine not using it—it becomes fascinating to see how it is used in a variety of occupations. How are police using social media? Churches? Politicians? We’ve decided to explore how all of these use social media, and today the focus is on schools.

Meet the newest catch phrase: social learning. According to Wikipedia, social learning is learning that takes place on a wider scale than individual or group learning, up to a societal scale, through social interaction between peers—specifically through social media for the purposes of our discussion. So what are the implications and strategies behind social learning?

Educators can create private social networks focused on course curriculum thanks to programs like Edmodo or Schoology. These platforms make it easy for teachers to post assignments and communicate with their students in an online forum. Outside of this, educators are also using social media to keep in touch, share ideas, connect and learn anytime and from anywhere. Instant collaboration and worldwide reach: you can’t beat that kind of capability in an instant research tool.

Teachers are using social media to keep up on the latest learning trends and web tools. Here are a few Twitter chats where teachers share resources:

• #EdChat
• #MathChat
• #TeachChat

According to eSchoolNews.com, some teachers use Twitter to quiz their students. “I use Twitter to do an end-of-the-unit review. I tweet various topics, people, and dates for Advanced Placement U.S. History,” said Ann Wright, assistant principal of Archbishop O’Hara High School In Kansas City.

Some school districts are using Facebook and Twitter for messages to parents, back-to-school guides, and to show recognition for teacher and education awards.

Social media can also make learning more fun. Teachers can have students create a YouTube video and then track its sharing and views. Students can construct a graph to showcase how much cyber traction a good joke gets on Twitter. The teaching possibilities are endless.

Parents and teachers do express fears regarding social media. Parents worry about bullying, and everyone scrutinizes teacher-student online relationships. But, the nice thing about social media is its transparency. As a parent, if you’re worried about your children’s online social activity, follow them on Twitter and friend them on Facebook. Also make sure you have all their sign-in credentials and full access to their online accounts. Schools concerned about teachers’ social media activity need to create detailed and comprehensive social media agreements with their staff, laying out clear expectations as much as possible. We’re all in new territory here.

And it’s always good to remember that online activity has inherent repercussions that can come back to bite you, so follow these suggestions:

• Always check your privacy settings.
• Don’t share secrets.
• Be honest.
• Respect copyright laws.
• Think about the consequences.

Remember, today’s kids are growing up with Google, Facebook and Twitter in their communications DNA. They can’t imagine a time when these tools and networks weren’t around. Being online is integrated into their daily lives, so it’s a natural progression to have it in their schools as well.

Social media isn’t going away anytime soon, so eventually everyone’s going to have to figure out how their organization is going to use it. Here’s your homework: know that social media is out there, it’s loud, and it’s constantly evolving.

Are you keeping up with social media in your industry?

Rhea Thomas is the Blogger Manager at Splash Media and part of the Content Creation and Script Production team at Splash Media U. You can find her on Twitter @TexasRhea. Click here to see all of Rhea’s blog posts.