Social Media Report 2012: Top Trends SMBs ... - ReachLocal Blog

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Nielsen?s State of the Media: The Social Media Report 2012 reflects on various social media trends of 2012, as well as the potential impact they will have on the coming year. There is no denying that social media is more popular than ever with consumers, and that having a social media presence is critical for SMBs? online marketing strategies in 2013.? Here are a few highlights from the report.

Mobile Usage Is Not Slowing Down

As you might have guessed, the amount of time consumers spent on PCs and Smartphones increased between July 2011 and July 2012.? Time spent on these devices grew by 21%, while time on apps rose 120% in that same period.? While PCs still remain our primary source of Internet access, the usage of mobile Web and apps are increasing at a significant rate. Small businesses can?t afford to ignore mobile any longer, and should invest in mobile-friendly advertising and sites to reach this growing audience.?

Time Spent on Social Networks Grew 37%.

From July 2011 to July 2012, the time consumers spent on social media sites grew from 88.4B minutes to a whopping 121.1B minutes. Nielsen attributes this substantial growth in part to the rise of mobile apps, which enable us to stay connected to our favorite sites while on the go. In fact, we spent seven times more minutes on apps than on the mobile Web. Time spent on these sites means social media access is not only on the rise, but also that we are more engaged when we do visit them. For small businesses, this means being active on social media is more important than ever in order to reach consumers spending a large portion of their time there.?

Consumers Value Social Customer Service

For more and more consumers, social care, also known as social customer service, is becoming an increasingly important, and valuable social media trend for SMBs to leverage. Nielsen reports that one in three social media users prefer social care to contacting a company by phone. That means that more consumers are using social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and the company blog to reach out to businesses and brands in the hope of resolving a customer service issue. SMBs are not immune to this trend, and many will see an influx of customer complaints through these channels, which can impact their online reputation. As a result, it?s vital for businesses to monitor their social media pages regularly and respond to customer questions, complaints, and more as soon as possible.?

As we?ve seen throughout the year, mobile and social media continue to top consumers? online behavior. And as 2012 winds down, it?s important for small businesses to think about whether they have successfully taken advantage of some of these social media trends, and how they can incorporate them in the future. You can read the entire Nielsen social media report here.?

How do mobile and social media fit into your online marketing strategy? Let us know in the comments!

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About the Author

Tamara?Weintraub?helps equip small business owners with information about local online advertising, social media, and content marketing as a writer for?the?ReachLocal?blog.

Source: http://blog.reachlocal.com/616785/2012/12/26/social-media-report-2012-top-trends-smbs-need-to-know.html

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Impact Investing, Naturally | Bonnie Foley-Wong

Are we hardwired to make impact investing impossible? That is the question posed by Ben Metz on the Pioneers Post. In my response to what motivates us to invest for positive impact, we must consider the following: what does impact mean to each of us, what is the purpose of money and monetary rewards, and how we make decisions.

Impact is Personal

I believe impact is fair and equitable access to resources for all. By resources, I include food, clean water, shelter, education, information, energy, transportation ? anything that is a resource that enables people to do the things they need to do to have a thriving, fulfilling life. More specifically, the things that had the most significant impact in my life were access to education (specifically deep literacy in financial matters), guidance from people who identified and supported potential, not just performance, and being in careers where building relationships was a daily necessity. It is no coincidence that the social venture I have created is focused on investing in earlier stage entrepreneurs with potential, building a community of investors and increasing investment literacy, and building relationships between investors and entrepreneurs. I support and serve women investors because I believe growing the community of women investors will have the most positive impact and knock-on effect on the world.

Ask a handful of people what they believe ?impact? is and get a handful of different answers. Impact is personal. It depends upon personal experiences. What someone experienced in their life will influence what they believe is impact. Just take a look at how organizations and businesses are often formed. Many are solutions to problems or challenges faced by the founders themselves. Founders create impact based on their personal experience of what would have greatest impact.

In his post, Ben writes that ?introducing the promise of monetary reward can actually reduce the motivation to do good ? and throwing more money at the problem doesn?t yield proportionate returns.?

The issue is not ?doing good and pursuing monetary reward, where one competes against the other?. It is most definitely not about one as motivation for the other. They are distinct, but complementary goals and desires. Each has its own motivation and each yields its own, complementary outcome.

The promise of monetary reward triggers an analytical part of the brain, potentially motivating a person to maximize monetary reward. However, to increase the motivation to do good, we must consider the key influencers of decisions to do good, such as feelings of fulfilment, contentment, joy, and love. For each person, these key influencers to do good are going to be different and personal.

Ben notes a study in 2000, where researchers offered subjects the opportunity to earn money for a charity at varying levels of financial reward. The study shows that monetary rewards alone do not motivate good acts. Feelings of creating fairness, emotional drivers, physiological conditions, and mindset all could have influenced the decisions to generate more money for the charity or not. How motivated each subject was to generate more money for the charity would have been influenced by their personal experiences.

The Purpose of Money and Monetary Rewards

The connection between the study?s subjects earning money for themselves and impact investing is that in order for doing good or doing purposeful work to be ongoing, it must be economically viable. To be economically viable, we must also earn money. More accurately, we must continually produce, generate, recycle, and reuse resources in order to sustain ourselves ? money happens to be the measure and currency of those resources.

It gets even more complicated and interesting. Money and monetary rewards are not themselves motivators. Instead, I believe it is the purpose of money that motivates people. Dougald Hine gave a great presentation on the purpose of money, in which he describes five main purposes:

• Subsistence ? a means to stay alive or sustain one?s self
• Security ? a means to manage your future, to make the world less unpredictable
• Luxury ? if something is a luxury, then you?re not dependent upon it
• Status ? games by which people establish, hold onto, and change status
• Accumulation ? the idea that more is in and of itself better

Relating the above to investing, the purpose of money or more specifically the purpose of a financial return is:

• to create an income to sustain one?s self or others
• to grow financial reserves in order to manage the future or manage change or be re-invested in other ventures and projects
• for luxury, if investing is not one?s main source of income
• for status as a successful investor
• simply as a way of keeping score, if you treat investing as a game

Integrated Decision-Making

Impact investing is a complex decision-making experience. We seek multiple outcomes from an impact investment ? economic viability and positive impact in the unknown and uncertain future. To achieve these multiple outcomes, we require multiple inputs into the decision-making experience or process.

We all make decisions using analysis, emotion, intuition, and body. Reflect upon the biggest decisions you have made in your life ? choosing a college, university or course to further your education, choosing a career path, or choosing in what city in the world to live. All of these decisions are similar to those faced in impact investing ? they each come with different monetary implications and each may have impact. There is a high likelihood that you conducted some analysis and reflected upon the emotions you felt given your choices. Your physiological state and a dose of intuition likely would have affected your decision. I suspect monetary reward alone would not have been a sufficient motivator where impact is important to you.

?

These ideas, concepts, and approaches ? that impact is personal, the purpose of money and investing, and integrated investment decision-making ? will be discussed further in the book I am writing on investing in an integrated way. Chapter excerpts will be posted on this website throughout early 2013.

Source: http://bonnie.foleywong.com/impact-investing-naturally/

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Product Spotlight: The Sunrise Walking Shoe | Footnotes - by Lamey ...

At Lamey Wellehan, we stock many different types of shoes; some of them are very unique.? One such shoe is the Sunrise Qi walking shoe, one of my personal favorites.? While the shoe was designed with medical distribution in mind, it has turned out to a great addition to the Lamey Wellehan mix.

The Sunrise walking shoe was created by a pedorthist in northern California in conjunction with leading podiatrists.? A major medical center in that area was looking for a shoe that would help reduce the rates of diabetic complications. ?The shoes were designed with special features and were constructed in various widths for both men and women.? Primary distributions of the styles were through medical facilities and only a small group of retailers have been allowed to be distributors.? Lamey Wellehan is the only family shoe store north of Connecticut to stock the brand.

There are five big features that form the DNA of the Sunrise walking shoe.? First is the addition of a silicone-based ?crash pad? under the heel area to absorb and disperse impact shock.? Second, the shoe is designed with incredible volume, which is further increased when any of the multiple inserts are removed.? This volume makes the style perfect for those who wear thick orthotics or braces.? Feature three is a forefoot shank, which is a rigid unit embedded in the front of the sole that increases energy return upon toe-off, reducing foot fatigue.?? Feature four is a rocker sole design that provides a natural roll from heel to toe which reduces flexion of the foot.? Finally, the Sunrise shoe is designed with balanced stability in mind, offering as much lateral stability as medial stability.? This is something not always found in walking shoes and is great for people who have a more bow-legged walk or those who need extra support.

Who might benefit from the Sunrise shoe?

• ?Those with forefoot problems like metatarsalgia or arthritis
• ?At-risk diabetics who need to reduce foot pressures
• ?Anyone who wants comfortable walking!

I?ll be the first to admit this may not be the perfect shoe for everyone though.? It has a boxy design, offering lots of internal space around the foot for wide feet or inserts.? The result is a broad-based, bulky design that is even more apparent against today?s fashion trend toward lightweight, low-silhouette footwear.? I?ve also found the shoe to be fairly warm in the summer, due to its all-leather design and the soft layer of padding found internally above the forefoot.? Finally, the Sunrise walker won?t be found on the fashion runways anytime soon ? it has a very utilitarian style to say the least.

However, most people are amazed at how comfortable it is.? It comes in a men?s version and a woman?s version and can be found in medium, wide and extra-wide widths.? For more details, just stop into your closest Lamey Wellehan location or shop online.

Source: http://blog.lwshoes.com/product-talk/product-spotlight-the-sunrise-walking-shoe/

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Top Tips for Marketing Your Business Online, Email Marketing and ...

Top Tips for Marketing Your Business Online, Email Marketing and Free PR 0

Dec26

Carissa Dunphy interviews Ali Rittenhouse, who trains small business owners and virtual assistants how to embrace and utilize technology to their benefit. She also gives a ton of email marketing information, tips, what service she recommends using and why. Ali shares extremely valuable tips on researching, finding, and getting PR and media attention. In this episode Carissa shares a genius example of guerrilla marketing one small business used, which was free, and went viral in a few hours. Ava the Elephant is also featured on this episode. Ava is a talking elephant children's medicine dispenser, which makes giving kids medicine fun! More at sbdib.com

No tags for this post.

Source: http://www.mogulreview.com/top-tips-for-marketing-your-business-online-email-marketing-and-free-pr/

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Jackson to step down as Obama's EPA chief (reuters)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/273390598?client_source=feed&format=rss

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10 Things to Know for Thursday

Emergency and Power Crews block Woodbridge Road near Saddie Road outside Stantonsburg, N.C. Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2012 after a powerful storm tore through Wilson County with high winds, and torrential rain. Officials say all electrical customers in both Stantonsburg, and Saratoga are without power due to several broken power poles, and down lines. (AP Photo/The Wilson Times, Brad Coville)

Emergency and Power Crews block Woodbridge Road near Saddie Road outside Stantonsburg, N.C. Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2012 after a powerful storm tore through Wilson County with high winds, and torrential rain. Officials say all electrical customers in both Stantonsburg, and Saratoga are without power due to several broken power poles, and down lines. (AP Photo/The Wilson Times, Brad Coville)

FILE - In a Tuesday, June 12, 2012 file photo, former President George H.W. Bush, and his wife, former first lady Barbara Bush, arrive for the premiere of HBO's new documentary on his life near the family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. Bush spokesman Jim McGrath said Wednesday, Dec. 26. 2012 that doctors at the Houston hospital where Bush has been treated for a month remain ?cautiously optimistic? that he will recover. Still, no discharge date has been set, and McGrath says that doctors are being cautious because at Bush?s age ?sometimes issues crop up that are beyond anybody?s ability to discern or foretell.?(AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

FILE - In this June 17, 2010 file photo, former South African President, Nelson Mandela leaves the chapel after attending the funeral of his great-granddaughter Zenani Mandela in Johannesburg, South Africa. Mandela was released Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2012 from the hospital after being treated for a lung infection and having gallstones removed, a government spokesman said. (AP Photo/Siphiwe Sibeko, Pool, File)

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and stories that will be talked about Thursday:

1. A FORMER PRESIDENT IS AILING

George H.W. Bush is in intensive care at a Houston hospital, where his fever has worsened and doctors have put him on a liquid diet.

2. AND A SOUTH AFRICAN LEADER IS BETTER

Nelson Mandela, 94, was released from the hospital after nearly a month of treatment for a lung infection and gallstones.

3. TWO SIGNS OF A WEAKENING ASSAD REGIME

Syria's chief of military police defects to the opposition and a wounded interior minister returns from Beirut.

4. HOLIDAY STORM MOVES NORTH AS DEATH TOLL RISES

At least six died after the storm brought tornadoes, heavy snow and cancelled hundreds offlights.

5. A $1B SETTLEMENT FOR TOYOTA DRIVERS

The agreement over acceleration problems with the Prius is the largest in U.S. history.

6. OBAMA RETURNS TO TALK 'FISCAL CLIFF'

But no new negotiations are scheduled to avert the end-of-the-week economy-threatening deadline.

7. WHY SURVIVORS OF NY SHOOTING ARE THANKFUL

The two firefighters say they have received lots of support as they recover from an ambush by an ex-convict in Webster.

8. THE TEACHER IS PACKING

More than 200 Utah educators are expected to pack a convention hall Thursday for six hours of concealed-weapons training.

9. WHO HAWAII'S NEW SENATOR WILL BE

Brian Schatz, Hawaii's lieutenant governor, was just chosen by Gov. Neil Abercrombie to succeed the late Sen. Daniel Inouye.

10. 1,400 MILES IN EIGHT HOURS

That's the ground you'll cover if you take the world's longest high-speed train line, connecting Beijing and Guangzhou in China.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-12-26-AP-10-Things-to-Know-Thursday/id-86f800f041ce4e1bb4a583f47e2774d5

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How To Detox After a Day of Christmas Excess

In a move that surprised no one, you totally overdid it yesterday. You had to have thirds on ham. You took down a gallon of spiked eggnog. You were feeling festive, but now you feel like crap. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/5BXCFNkJXv0/how-to-detox-after-a-day-of-christmas-excess

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