Leap Year Gives Us One Extra Day to Gain Customers for Your Business

The owner of Welborn Social Media and the founder of The Tutoring Solution.My goal is to help business owners share the passion they have for their business with as many potential customers as possible.By helping passionate people achieve their dreams I am helping to create a society of passionate leaders that will help inspire others to make their dreams a reality.

It’s a leap year this year and even with the extra day, February flew by for Welborn Social Media. Now we’re well into March and looking forward to the new projects we’re working on through the end of the month to help gain customers for your business.

Facebook has made some major changes to individual’s profile pages incorporating them in the Timeline. At the end of March they’re switching Business pages over to timeline view as well. Stay tuned for Lacey’s tips on Facebook layout design for the new Facebook Cover Image as we start to create some exciting new designs.

After becoming annoyed with telemarketers, an excess of commercials, and distracting web advertisements we shared some of our favorite things about social media marketing.  Social Media is the Preferred Marketing for Everyone because it’s not intrusive and allows customers to seek access to your business.

The potential of Facebook is limitless.  In The Pyramid Scheme of Facebook Likes, we wrote about how building a large Facebook following can give you access to a much larger customer base.

We’re especially glad for the extra day this year. We are wonderfully busy and that doesn’t show any sign of stopping! We have several new clients and are excited to begin implementing their social media plans in the upcoming weeks.

We want to help gain customers for your business. We believe that social media marketing is the best marketing for for both the business and the consumer.  And, we know that social media, when done right, can benefit any business. If you or anyone you know is interested in growing their business contact us for a free presentation Welborn Social Media can have on any business.

Call Zeb Welborn for a custom presentation – (909) 973 – 9089

The Hunger Games and Social Media

Lacey and her brother Zeb Welborn founded Welborn Media. She has designed and launched websites, several projects, marketing materials, a podcast, a book and more. Her passions include her family, her friends, creating things and helping businesses grow.
Latest posts by Lacey Welborn (see all)

The Hunger Games opens in theaters tonight at Midnight. We’re excited about the movie and have been keenly observing the social media outlets associated with the film.  The Hunger Games has sparked a creative marketing effort to promote the movie, gotten fans involved, created massive amounts of content and allowed social media efforts to promote a good cause.

Also, we’ve been enjoying discussing how the Hunger Games and Social Media could have affected Panem (the fictional nation in The Hunger Games).

Social media has become one of the most cost effective and quickly spreading forms of marketing. To market the movie online and through social media the marketing team created a standard website that focused on the release date and movie trailers. They also created a website that allows visitors to become a member of Panem at thecapitol.pn. Users share what district they’re in and their new Panem identification card on Facebook or Twitter.

The official movie Facebook page is extremely well done. With over 3.2 million fans this page can attribute much of it’s success to making their Facebook fans feel valuable. Making their fans first to hear news about the upcoming movie by sharing screenshots, the movie soundtrack, exclusive photos of the characters & actors and by interacting with fans not only on the main page but also on Facebook pages created for each district in Panem. They’re really using the Hunger Games and social media to bring fans into the movies.

Their Tumblr page is a perfect example of this. Tumblr is a great social media site that has many uses, because it is a great place for sharing and reposting items found on the web it has a lot of active users. One popular topic on tumblr blog pages is fashion. Social media marketers used this to their advantage by creating a faux online fashion magazine called Capitol Couture which examines the extravagant and absurd fashion trends displayed by citizens in the Capitol.

On Twitter they’ve chosen actual twitter users to become mayors of districts and district recruiters. Tonight, along with the movie they’re also launching a Facebook Game — The Hunger Games Adventures. With all this and more their social media efforts have encouraged fans to interact and to generate their own content to spread all over the world wide web.

While it’s neat to see all the things the markerters are doing it’s absolutely wonderful to see fans get involved, to become promoters of a product themselves. While this is particularly popular for books and movies with epic stories it’s important to keep in mind that this can still apply and happen with other businesses as well. For Example, Arizona Iced Tea on Tumblr share fan generated content featuring Arizona Iced Tea.

One of the most popular things I’ve seen floating around the web is this creative and well thought out map of Panem, which obviously took quite a chunk of time to put together. There are podcasts and entire websites that are dedicated to the fandom with names from CitizenOfPanem.com to TheMockingjay on LiveJournal. Countless fan art creations including this lovely illustration of Katniss Everdeen.
Katniss Everdeen -- Girl on Fire

 

Hunger is Not a Game Website Badge

Website Badge

Besides promotion for the movies, other marketers have been able to use the success of The Hunger Games’s social media marketing for different endeavors. One example of this is Hunger is Not a Game by Imagine Better (An endeavor by The Harry Potter Alliance). By using themes from the novels & movies, and social media they are partnering up with Oxfam to gain supporters to change our system of distributing food relief, and to spread awareness of starvation.

While examining all the ways that the Hunger Games and social media are used, the experience got me thinking about how social media could have affected Panem. While there does seem to be television and phones in Panem there never is a mention of social media. One can imagine how it might affect the games and the fictional world of Panem. Tributes would be required to tweet throughout the Hunger Games competition, the more followers they get the better sponsors they’d get. There would be Facebook pages, fansites, podcasts, and blogs focused on all the tributes.

However, when I really think about it, if social media were around I don’t think they would have ever made it to a 74th Hunger Games. Social media can be very powerful. Knowing the role social media had in The Arab Spring, I think in the world of Panem, social media would have a hand in ending the spectacle of the Hunger Games years before Primrose’s name is ever called in the reaping.

Social Media is the Preferred Marketing for Everyone!

Lacey and her brother Zeb Welborn founded Welborn Media. She has designed and launched websites, several projects, marketing materials, a podcast, a book and more. Her passions include her family, her friends, creating things and helping businesses grow.
Latest posts by Lacey Welborn (see all)

Direct mail, radio commercials, television commercials, billboards, flashing web advertisements, pop-up ads, and horribly timed telemarketing phone calls are all forms of marketing most people find extremely annoying. They are intrusions in our lives — always interrupting. They’re not like social media marketing. The biggest difference between this kind of marketing and social media marketing is that people get to pick and choose which social media messages they receive.

On Facebook you choose which pages you like, on Twitter you pick who you follow, when it comes to blogs you pick which ones you read. Social media allows you to subscribe to messages for the products and services you actually want to hear about.

Marketing your business to only those that want to receive your message at times during their day when they’re able to take in your message is more effective and less expensive than other forms of marketing. There are two forms of marketing, inbound and outbound. Inbound marketing is any form of marketing that helps you get found by potential customers. Outbound marketing is marketing that interrupts consumers and forces the message on them. When you think about it like this, outbound marketing sounds rather rude.

Social media has quickly become the most effective means for inbound marketing. But, simply switching your messages from outbound marketing outlets to your social media outlets isn’t enough. Outbound messages are trying to be heard over the massive amounts of other messages that a person is bombarded with each and every day. Outbound messages are the equivalent of screaming at someone. Inbound marketing in the form of social media is for people who are already seeking out information from you. They may appreciate something with more detail. And, since social media platforms are a place for conversation, it’s a perfect place to be conversational and to encourage interaction.

Social media marketing is ideal for both businesses and consumers. Don’t just try to be heard. Invest in social media marketing, get your message to those customers who are not only interested in your message, but are also at a point in time when they can fully absorb your message and interact with your brand.

At Welborn Social Media we truly believe that every business can benefit from social media marketing. If you’re interested in social media services for your business please contact Zeb Welborn at (909) 973-9089 or email Zeb@WelbornSocialMedia.com