With billions of social media users worldwide, it is no surprise that 93% of marketers use social networks to promote their business and services. As most companies end up targeting the global market with the help of the Internet, their needs for multilingual and multicultural marketing and public relations follow a constantly growing trend. SociaLingo by ComTranslations was created to answer those marketing needs – it offer real-time social media translations in over 140 languages.

SociaLingo allows you to engage potential and existing customers regardless of the language they speak, reducing tremendously the difficulties in promoting products and services arising from speaking different languages.

“While businesses may be actively engaging in social media, unless they are participating across a wide spectrum of languages, they are missing the boat. An estimated 50% of social media users communicate in languages other than English. This is where SociaLingo comes in, offering businesses a near real-time translation solution, available in over 140 languages,” explained Carlos Garcia, ComTranslations CEO.

Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube are only the most popular of the social media channels supported by SociaLingo. Using the services, companies create the right messages for the social media channels, choose the languages they want them translated into and then sit by while they are being translated and posted on social networks by a team of native translators. Replacing automatic translation services, such as Google Translate, with human translators, offers a better accuracy and adaptation to cultural aspects of a company’s communication.

Multicultural social media marketing is something any company looking to target more than one country needs to consider.  Having their communication strategy adapted and their messages localized to reach each targeted audience in their native tongue is indeed an important advantage.

If you’re a blogger, there are many issues to consider when creating content, promoting it, and designing the aesthetic of your blog. Whether you work for a marketing agency like Quick Sprout with a number of different online clients or are launching your own blog, ask yourself these six questions in order to get yourself on the fast track to success:

What is your niche? Don’t blog in a vacuum. Decide who your blog is for and actively write for that audience. If your blog is about graphic design, specify what medium of graphic design—online, advertising, manufacturing, etc. Any general category you think of can be drilled down into at least a half dozen other sub-categories. Honing in on the most lucrative sub-category and niche audience will allow you to focus your content, marketing, and publishing outreach.

Do you update multiple times a week? One of the best ways to make sure your blog rises to the top of search engine queries is to frequently update your content with media-rich posts. In fact, fresh content is one of the most important and fundamental elements in search engine optimization as well.

How familiar are you with your content management system? Most CMSs, from popular ones like WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla to smaller, simpler systems like PageLime, Konductor, Zimplit, and Perch, allow bloggers incredible tools for customizing their content and aesthetic.

Do you study your analytics? Most content management systems allow you to monitor your inbound links and see what search engine results are leading readers to your blogs. This affords you many useful ways to calibrate your keywords and tailor your marketing strategies. The further you dig into your blog’s stats the more you will learn about what kinds of people are reading your content, how long they are staying on your site, and whether or not they’re sharing your posts.

What is your approach to SEO? Hopefully you’re utilizing a combination of keywords, meta-tags, link building, social bookmarking, and a wide variety of other search engine optimization tactics. SEO isn’t just for online marketing agencies. Bloggers can employ on-page SEO strategies that can greatly improve their page views and value.

Do you use social media? You should integrate social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, and YouTube as well as social news aggregators like Reddit and Digg. Notonly do these sites expand the reach of your blog across the Internet, it opens you up to new readers.

Answering these questions will not assure you of blogging success, but it’s hard imagine you won’t be headed in the right direction. The all-star blogger will be simultaneously considering how to improve his/her content, aesthetic, stats, and outreach strategies.

About the author
Guest post by Nick Jameson. He is a freelance writer specializing in business and marketing

Buying fans or followers has somehow become a sort of a taboo whenever PR or marketing experts discuss social media strategy. It is something people regard with distrust and the act of paying someone to like your page or follow you on Twitter is something devious and wrong. As always, things are not black and white, most of the online world has an intriguing grey attitude.

Let’s face it, if you advertise your page or profile on Facebook, Twitter, Google Ads or wherever, you still pay for people to like you. When you buy social media fans, does that mean they are worse then when you pay for advertising? Maybe. It all depends on what service you’re using for your purchase, it depends on their method of getting you fans and so on. 

A while back, someone asked me on Twitter if I would ever recommend to a business to buy social media followers. And I took my sweet time to reply! Sorry Kushal!

After considering it and actually testing some services, I still say it depends. If you have limited time and you can either interact with existing fans or increase your followers count, it might pay off to buy some fans and invest your time in building trust-based relationships with them. You might get a crowd of really enthusiastic people who actually are worth the money you’ve invested. So why not try to get Facebook likes using a service such as BuyRealFansandLikes.com, which I am currently testing, or something similar to increase your follower base on Twitter?

If you decide to test it, here are some quick words of advice:

• Try to get targeted fans – either by region or by interest. Businesses that sell fans or followers can also refine their services and connect you to the audience that’s most relevant for you. It might cost you more, but if you sell exclusively to the USA, for example, having cheaper fans from the rest of the world won’t help you much.
• Don’t rely exclusively on the social media fans you buy! It is important for you to reach out to the audiences you target and try to engage existing fans so that they recommend you to their connections. Organic growth is as important as a fresh batch of 500 new fans that don’t really know that much about you to actually instantly buy or instantly recommend your products or services.
• Even if you have the budget, don’t jump to get the high numbers unless you have tested the service before. Start small, with a few hundred  targeted followers or fans and see if it works out for you. If you get real value, you can always buy more. If it turns out to be just a number that does not say much, you haven’t invested a huge amount in hordes of useless fans.
• Before you choose a service, try to do a bit of research. Has anyone you know used them? Are they happy? Would they recommend them to you? If no one you know has used them, just google the company in question. Blog posts, comments or social media updates might give you the information you need.

BlueGlass Interactive has recently acquired Voltier Digital, a content marketing company specializing in infographics production and data visualization. We all knew infographics and visual aids used to deliver a certain message were becoming more and more popular, but this recent acquisition by BlueGlass to support their strategy to boost their digital offering once again proves this type of products will play a key role in overall content marketing strategy and production.

BlueGlass Interactive, Inc. an Internet marketing company focusing on social media marketing and search engine optimization, will integrate Voltier Digital into their operation, thus expanding their marketing capabilities. All Voltier Digital employees will join BlueGlass and Voltier’s three founders will hold senior roles on BlueGlass’ production and marketing teams.

“It’s hard to express how excited our team is about joining BlueGlass,” said Nicholas Santillo, CEO of Voltier Digital. “We have watched the impressive trajectory BlueGlass has taken since its inception and we are eager to add our team’s experience to an already stellar group of Internet marketing visionaries.”

BlueGlass Interactive Co-founder Chris Winfield described the move as strategic:

“I first started working with the team at Voltier in 2007 and I have always been amazed at their ability to constantly innovate and stay at the forefront of the inbound marketing industry. The need for companies to implement and execute effective content marketing strategies is constantly increasing, so we are thrilled to have one of the leaders in this space become a part of BlueGlass.”

The move is indeed strategic for BlueGlass, as they tap into a content marketing field that is bound to drive more sales in 2012 and more so in the years to come. The acquisition and the value they put on infographic production is confirmed by recent studies, such as the results published by the Custom Content Council,  showing more than 75% of US corporate marketers say they are aggressively (16%) or moderately (62%) shifting spending from traditional marketing to branded-content marketing.

We are already seeing the high use of data visualization products and their high potential of going viral – infographics have become a welcome and powerful addition to most blog posts, press releases, research results articles and pretty much any type of content published online.  Why they work so well? They are fun and colorful and explain in an easy, fact centered and easy to remember way the issue they focus on. And social media users love to share them – no matter what field they tap into, they take sometimes boring or complicated issues and make them fun and engaging.

Have you already included infographics in your content marketing strategy? Were you pleased with the results?

The rise of Twitter as a powerful social media tool as seen its deployment in a wide variety of marketing, journalism, and propaganda campaigns. Recently many companies have also begun to use Twitter as a Public Relations tool. From real time communication to brand reputation, Twitter can be used for public relations, but only if your PR team is wise and careful. Here are three factors to keep in mind:

Twitter creates a real-time dialogue without taking on dangerous newscasts

Almost like having your own global LP Chat software, Twitter creates a running dialogue with the world that can be updated so rapidly it begins to take on characteristics of real time communication. This can be extremely beneficial for time-sensitive events related to product releases, political campaigns, and even international stock market tips. With the world more connected than ever, the ability to spread information efficiently and instantaneously allows companies and public entities to address issues concurrently with network news cycles.

You should Tweet informative links that show that your company is working on the problem

Because Twitter allows you to share links with thousands, even millions of followers, what you say has added importance. Especially given the truncated nature of the message, when using Twitter for PR it’s important to remember to use your tweets wisely. After the 2010 oil spill, BP used their Twitter account to keep people updated about the efforts they were making to contain the leak and protect the coastal inhabitants and ecosystems. Links to reports on their efforts were probably far more effective at conveying information and reducing anger than a press conference full of lawyer-written canned responses.

Be careful not to add fuel to the fire

A recent McDonald’s campaign about new efforts to make their fast food menu healthy backfired when Twitter subscribers began to lampoon the global icon about the quality of its ingredients and health benefits. The campaign quickly became a joke and likely caused damage to the brand. If your company is perceived a certain way, don’t use Twitter to try and reverse that image. You’re setting yourself up for disaster. Twitter is for subtle branding adjustments, not a complete reputation overhaul. Tweets are composed of only 140 characters, but that doesn’t make them any less powerful as satirical weapons.

As you can see, it’s not just marketers who are using Twitter as an online tool. Corporate executives also use it as a PR strategy, and for good reason. Twitter can be a powerful vessel for information, but it must be used wisely and carefully.

About the author
Guest post by Nick Jameson. He is a freelance writer specializing in business and marketing

7 years ago, on a similarly cold winter, but less snowy if I remember correctly, I went ahead and started my very own blog on the Blogger platform. It was long before the Google buyout of this popular platform, long before I gave up on my dream of being a journalist and, yes, long before the wonderful world of PR won me over and sparkled this version of the Words of a Broken Mirror Blog.

Seven years later, I have tested a lot  of everything that has to do with blogging, from niches to frequency to communities. I kept learning more about coding and customizing and html, and JavaScript, and how blogs generally work. A few social media channels later, lots of business articles, guest posts across the blogosphere, a few hosted contests, a travel blog and an online magazine for women, I am still blogging with the same great pleasure I experienced 7 years ago. 

I have grown and so has my career. I have launched my own company in the mean time and although we’ve had our share of difficult patches, it has always been profitable and every year made it better. It also gave me the choice I always wanted, at least in theory – choose how and when to work and never have just a job again.

To this day, nothing makes me happier than a comment on a post I’ve written. To this day, I am not more thankful for anything, from new business to recognition, than I am  for the many wonderful friends I made online. Some still are close by after all this time, some have went on with their lives, but I cherish them all, as they have all taught me something, shared a nice word when I needed it, offered their piece of advice when I asked for it and somehow helped me get so much closer to who I wanted to be.

In all honesty, the Words of a Broken Mirror PR and Marketing blog has been a bit sidelined in the past months. Life, work and clients took over and I have posted less often here. The good news is things are about to change. Mirror Communications is doing well, we will expand our team a bit and we have a lot planned for 2012. Nice surprises for us and for our friends, new projects and more services and packages to launch. That is why WoBM will only grow stronger and more useful this year so stay tuned and again…

….THANKS FOR READING, FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART! Happy blogging to you all!

As we usher in the new year, you might have made a wide variety of resolutions related to losing weight, spending less money, or drinking less, but if you own a small business or work as a freelancer, a resolution you might have neglected to make is to build up your online brand. So many times our resolutions are geared toward reducing the negative effects of something, and not increasing the positive effects of something else.

Building a brand online requires a multitude of incremental steps that start with your acknowledgment of the importance of having a clean bill of health. There are a wide variety of services out there, such as ReputationManagers.com, that can help you dispel slander or negative reviews. But when it comes right down to it, you need to proactively manage your image you put out onto the Internet. Here three ways to take control of your online brand:

Use your Facebook fan page to make personal connections with your fans and customers

If you’re a one-man/woman show this is easier, but if you have a big personnel, it’s time for you to designate one person, or even a team, to handle your social media relations. This is a big part of PR now. The position is often called Social Media Director, and this person(s) is responsible for using sites like Facebook to reach out to customers. A Facebook fan page offers an incredible opportunity to create one-to-one friendships with your followers. If you run a business, this could translate to excellent word of mouth. Take, for example, the Southwest Airlines ‘free tickets’ meme that has spread like a wildfire through Facebook.

Tweet it up

Twitter is billed as a micro-blogging site, but it’s also a great way to micro-manage your online perception. A dicey article about you on Huffingtonpost.com can yield hundreds or even thousands of negative comments. Counter this by Tweeting a brief explanation or just something positive to lessen the damage. This should in turn yield a fresh wall of positive Tweets that will be seen as more current than the original article. Twitter is way to stay on the offensive and to be seen as working in real-time communication.

Use viral video to your advantage

In the aftermath of the disastrous BP oil spill, the company took to the TV and the Internet with videos in which the CEO made personal appeals to the public, claiming that the company was going to do everything it could to fix the problem. While the videos might not have convinced everyone, they received thousands of views on YouTube and probably lessened the public outrage over this horrific accident.

There dozens of ways you can approach your company’s online identity, too many to list here. However, they all revolve around the core idea that social media is a storm of energy that can and must be harnessed. Staying active on these sites is an incredible way to evolve your PR strategies and refurbish your online brand.

About the author
Guest post by Nick Jameson. He is a freelance writer specializing in business and marketing

Guest post by Mihaela Lica Butler

One of the most important components of your PR strategy has to be reputation management. Your business and personal success depend by and large on public perception. Reputation is the essence of who or what a business or person is.

Unfortunately for the SME or even some corporate decision makers, not much information exists in simplistic form, there are no real “simple guides to reputation management.” But, the infographic below, provided by KBDS Digital Marketing , does a nice job outlining some do and don’t practices and possible remedies for negatives. An old Chinese proverb roughly states:

“Don’t consider your reputation and you may do anything you like.”

Graphic Courtesy of KBSD Digital Agency

Maybe the most valuable lesson that can be “re-learned” from this graphic is how companies and individuals can get a “so called” exterior vision. Judging for yourself the quantitative view of your reputation may lead to a filtered view. Seeking the advice and feedback of others in your network, even expanding your network for the purpose, can help your reputation in the short and long term. No matter what methods you employ though, it is crucial to listen and respond when customers speak. The social revolution just empowered billions, but it can empower you too.

About the author
Mihaela Lica Butler is an experienced PR professional, senior partner and founder of Pamil Visions PR. She writes about the latest in the PR field at Everything PR and is a widely cited authority on search engine optimization and public relations issues (BBC News, Force for Good, Reuters, Al Jazeera and others). She also occasionally writes for SitePoint, Search Engine Journal, and other online publications. To stay in touch with her latest work, follow her on Twitter.

As web marketers enter into the new year, it’s important we take time to consider what’s right around the corner. Whether you’re a part-time blogger or a salaried employee of an internet marketing agency, so long as your income is connected to technology you’re always going to need to be staying one step ahead. 2012 is set to become a memorable year for online marketers and entrepreneurs, so don’t allow yourself to get behind on the next big things in web marketing. In summary, expect the following to unfold sometime later this year:

Personal App Revolution

First came Siri available on the iPhone. Soon, everyone with a smartphone will have a personal assistant app. These services will partially render traditional SEO obsolete – and at the very least force a rewriting of the rules regarding the value of page rankings.

News Will Get the Clicks

With the advent of voice activated searches underway, pay-per-click is slowly going to subside into oblivion. The dwindling sources of PPC revenue will come almost entirely from news seekers and others attempting to retrieve recent information immediately, making constant updating a top priority.

Infographics Will Spread the Word

Infographics are a relatively new Internet-based media phenomenon in which highly detailed information is delivered by-way of an equally detailed graphic. They’re perfect for being linked to, sent via mobile text, and ultimately for online entities to market themselves.

QR Couponing

Now that the majority of mobile users in the U.S. use smartphones, which include barcode scanners, expect QR codes to finally take off as a legitimate form of online advertising. QR couponing will particularly become effective, further breaking down the wall that separates online advertising from its real world products and sales.

Flash Abandonment

In late 2011, Adobe announced they were halting development of their mobile version of Flash. Expect more and more online entities to depart from the platform altogether. This is for the simple fact that Flash is unsuitable for smartphones and even more unsuitable for tablets.

Before you sit down and start planning your 2012 online marketing strategy, it’s critical that you do your best to see what’s around the corner first. It’ll save you time spent playing catch up, as well as provide you with “first wave” time that others in your field won’t have the luxury of possessing. Be one of the first to act on the upcoming internet marketing trends of this year and expect to be rewarded because of it.

About the author
Guest post by Nick Jameson. He is a freelance writer specializing in business and marketing

Dale Carnege’s influential 1936 self-help book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, proudly sits on many PR professional’s bookshelves and in the Kindle queue’s of the digital library of many SEO services. The copy is usually in pristine and proper condition – because it has never been opened or touched since purchase. While playing a great prop in the professional business arsenal, it gets read as often as The Prince by politicians or The Art of War by generals.

If you are curious as to how the book applies to the current social media landscape, there are six guidelines the book gives to make people like you. Here they are with the proper social media advice to accompany them for our modern, networked times:

Become Genuinely Interested in Other People

While most people view social networking as a selfish, indulgent, and sometimes vain experience, you can get to know people intimately by following their posts. Get to know their personality by actively engaging them in content they post and not straying off of their interests when sending them messages

Smile

Too often people post about what is going wrong in their lives. The fact is that no one wants to get dragged down when checking out Facebook and Twitter. Make sure to keep your posts positive so you don’t lose followers, friends, subscribers, and friends.

Remember that a person’s name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language

Fake aliases are far too common on social networking sites. If you are going by an obscure, inside-joke ridden nickname and want to effectively network, you should consider changing your Twitter handle or Facebook profile back to what’s on your driver’s license.

Be a Good Listener

You shouldn’t use social media platforms to monopolize conversations. If you are littering the   Facebook News Feed with pointless posts, people are going to grow weary and either not follow you or not take anything you say seriously.

Talk in Terms of the Other Person’s Interests

If you are commenting on someone’s content post, do not try to veer the subject towards another topic. They posted for genuine discussion and by delivering you will score rep points.

Make the Other Person Feel Important

Instead of waiting for people to post or send you messages, actively go out and do it yourself. There is no bigger endorphin releaser than seeing a new notification, receiving a Twitter mention, or getting a DM.

By following Dale Carnege’s classic steps and just tweaking them ever so slightly, you will be on your way to winning more friends and influencing more people. This will ultimately lead to more business, better social networks, and a more fulfilling life full of variety and conversation.

About the author
Guest post by Nick Jameson. He is a freelance writer specializing in business and marketing