SCSC Web Dude Blog

By  Jim Belosic Published  March 24, 2014  Do you have big-brand Facebook page envy? Do you, as a small business owner, want your page to be popular and  engaging ? It’s easier than you think to emulate what Facebook’s major players do. In this article, I’ll  show you how some of the top brands keep their fans coming back, and how you can follow their lead to build an  engaging page of your own . #1: Capitalize on Major Events and Holidays During the Sochi Olympics,  Coca-Cola  hosted a contest/series called #CokeGames. The gist of it was that they created silly Olympics-inspired games like Bottle Cap Hockey, Coke Curling, Ice Cube Ski Jump. Then, they asked their followers to play along by filming and uploading short videos of the Coke fan playing the game. The incentive was a $100 gift card. Pin It Coca-Cola was inspired by the Olympics to host a series of games. Users who uploaded videos of themselves “competing” were in t...

Posted on  March 24, 2014   by  Joshua Titsworth If there is anything that can create a frustrating user experience faster than ugly graphics or automated sound, it is a slow-loading site. You would think that waiting five seconds or so would not be that bad. However, though patience may still be a virtue, it isn’t one for the web. Users want to see your site now, not five or ten seconds from now. So what do you need to do to speed up your site? Here are a few helpful tips to consider: Take a Look at Your Code If there is one thing that can bog down your site, it is when your site is making many calls to the server to load a page. Try reducing the number of plugins you are using (regardless of CMS). Think about what you are and ask yourself, “Which of these do I really need, and which can I just hardcode into the template?” What should you do if you have already reduced the number of plugins you are using? Try Gzip compression. This will reduce the amount of brow...

By  Donna Moritz Published  March 17, 2014  Are you leveraging your community to bring attention to your brand? Have you asked your customers and fans to contribute pictures and images to your social platforms? If you’re not involving your community in creating and sharing visual content, you’re missing out on massive organic reach and engagement. In this article I’ll  show you how brands are empowering their fans to create and share visual content about them in really cool ways . Why Ask Fans to Create Visual Content? If you want  organic sharing and big traffic , you need stunning and remarkable images that stand out in social feeds. But that doesn’t mean you have to rely on brand-generated visual content. There’s been a shift in who creates visual content (and how). Mobile platforms have made it easier for consumers to create and share images on the go. Smart businesses are capitalizing on that and encouraging fans to create visual content ...

As an SMB or startup, you often don’t have the luxury of having a vast marketing budget. But that doesn’t mean that your marketing strategy should be haphazardly strung together. Because you need to be prudent with your money and time, we understand that you don’t want to reinvent the wheel when it comes to your marketing strategy. And you can still compete with the big boys if you just avoid these deadly marketing mistakes. 1.  Focusing too Much on the Features and Not the Benefit The features and benefits of a product or service work well together. Features are the characteristics of said product or service while the benefits are the positive results of the features. For example, the feature of an iPad is that it can hold a ton of apps. The benefit is that you can use those apps to improve your business and personal life. The key when marketing your products or services is to balance how much you focus on features and benefits. Features are fantastic. They’re snazzy and ...

By  Harsh Ajmera Published  March 6, 2014  Are you using  hashtags in your social media campaigns ? Do you want to find tools to help manage your hashtags? The right tools can help you launch, track and analyze hashtags across social networks. In this article, you’ll discover  five tools that make it easy to track hashtags and their related conversations . Why Use a Hashtag? Hashtags  make it easier for people to find and follow discussions  about brands, events and promotions. They also let brands  track the performance of promotions across social media . Hashtags can determine how easily you can target and track a campaign. You’ve probably seen many businesses use generic hashtags like #food or #chocolate. While these will get your update into a large conversation, using such broad hashtags is wasting your time. Can you imagine how many posts (tweets or otherwise) contain #chocolate every minute? Managing the hashtag would be a...

By  Patricia Redsicker Published  March 4, 2014   Do you use images to boost engagement? Are you looking for tools to create better visual content? Creating compelling visuals for your social media marketing can be challenging. In this article you’ll  find just about every resource you need to create visual stories on all of the major social platforms . The Big Picture Visual content has become extremely important to marketers’ social tactics. That’s because of a growing consumer interest in images as evidenced by popular sites like Pinterest, Instagram and  Snapchat . People  connect more emotionally with images than they do with text . In fact, customers are more likely to  take action or make a decision when prompted with an image . That means brands using visual social media content to  drive a stronger message  to their audience will naturally cut through the noise and rise to the top. Here’s a lot of important stu...