Social Media Marketing Ideas from the West

Hi, its my first blog post on the very first day of my trip to USA. Actually I have been here twice before but I never thought of writing down my daily experience into a blog post. This interesting idea struck when I was packing my bags and thought that how am I going to share pictures with friends on facebook while am travelling. This thought concluded in deciding that not only pictures but I would also "Live Share" my thoughts and experiences with all!
Yesterday I just went to a small outlet near by to strech my legs. Outlets included the famous brand names like Macy's, J C Penny, Old Navy, Aeropostale, Hollister, etc whose product we now get in India too.. (they are made in India originally ;-) ) As I was walking by the stores, I noticed an interesting marketing idea for shops and outlets.
Traditionally, we see store names above the stores at each shops. Now they also imprint with various graphics and designs on the front doors and glass to attract customers. On occassions like Diwali, Holi and Navratri we see drawings of diya and dandiya on store front glasses. Its aesthetically attractive and inviting. And so this marketing stuff works well in India.
With the upcoming industry of social media marketing businesses have entered into the social media world to attract online viewers and customers. Now, we know that cross marketing always works best everywhere. Letting know people that "We are on Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, etc" is most important because your customers need to know where are you located online and offline both, so that they can reach out to you everywhere in every possible ways. So for this businesses need to imprint social presence on the outside store maketing materials. Printing social networking sites logos, QR codes, etc will definitely bring you lot of loyal customers.
I noticed this small but very effective social media marketing idea at each store imprinted right outside the store's front glass. They are letting their customers and walking-by visitors know that they are actively present on social media platforms. They are there to serve you better. Just take a look at the picture I took at some of the stores for better understanding. Isnt this amazing?
What you think? Let me know your thoughts too..
Thanks for reading. Lot more yet to come, as I will be blogging throughout my trip, jotting down amazing things ! :-)    

7 Impressive Free Tools to Create a “Brand YOU”

Have you spend a huge amount on online branding? Well, then you have still ignored Social Media. This article will brief you with few websites that really helps in branding yourself and your business. These tools are free forever. They are impressively awesome.

Brand My Mail

Email continues to be one of the most important digital communities. ‘Brand My Mail’ personalises your e-mail with Headers, Background, Signatures, Social sharing applications, Twitter tweets, Images, and many other applications. It is a complete e-mail branding and marketing solution. It can be integrated with your Gmail account. Another benefit of this great website is that you can create a free newsletter of your own without spending anything.

about.me

“about.me” creates your personal one page website, where you can choose every possible options like Background, fonts, applications, colours, etc. Anyone can connect with you through this tool, send you an email message just like contact me forms, share your website with others, give you compliments and also favourite it. about.me lets you quickly build simple and visually elegant splash pages that points visitors to your content from around the web. Through your personalised about.me page you can promote yourself and build trust with potential business contacts. You can also find and connect with other about.me members with similar interests and create a network. It is a great free tool. There are two other free tools that offers similar features like about.me – follr.com and flavors.me

Xobni   

Xobni makes your inbox smarter. Once you install it, you will be able to monitor what your email contacts are doing across Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Moreover, Xobni makes it easy to automatically find all the people with whom you have ever exchanged emails, calls, or SMS messages. They instantly provide a full view of each contact, complete with their photo, job title, company details, and email history as well as updates from LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. You can connect with them directly from your inbox. Xobni is smart in true sense – it easily searches and discovers all your contacts - even those who are not in your address book. It works with Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, Blackberry, iPhone and Android. There is another similar tool – Rapportive. However, it only works with Gmail.

Google Scholar

Many of you must have heard about it and read scholarly articles through it but have you actually used it? Google offers this amazing free tool that helps you “be searchable” by others. If you are in to education field, original content writers, authors, then this tool is for you. Make your Scholar account and it will automatically search your work online. You need to claim it and add in your profile. If some of your work does not appear in the search results then you can add it manually. The best advantage of making a Scholar account is that you can get “Quoted” in other’s work as you appear in Google search results. This creates credibility and an impressive personal brand value. 

Marketing Grader  

Marketing Grader by Hubspot is an awesome tool to grade your website. It gives you the complete report after analysing your website. After all that efforts that you put in creating your brand and marketing plan you should analyse it. Marketing Grader is a free analytics tool that offers detailed report on every parameter that is important to measure and improve your website marketing efforts. 

Kred

Just like Klout, “Kred” is an influence measurement tool, which uses social data and influence measurement to produce a personal visual stream from activity on a Twitter ID or hashtag. A free tool measures influence (the likelihood that someone will trust a person and act upon their posts) and outreach (the propensity to share other people's content forward). The scoring system of Kred is stonger because it reflects the foundations of strong relationships – Trust & Generosity. Kred scores can be shared in your blog like a badge – it helps in creating credibility of your content and of your own self. 

Piktochart

Images always say much more than words. Ideas and thought processes can be easily described through charts, images, and infographics. Piktochart is an easy and free tool to create infographics. It helps in creating engaging presentation of your ideas. No technical skills are needed, just write your thoughts, drag and drop images, decorate it with related icons and its ready. You share it, save it; download in various formats for future reference. It is an excellent tool for presenting your ideas and work.