The Progressive Media Concepts Website is Here!!

FINALLY!

As our readers know, we have been using this WordPress blog as a means for our company website. Over the past few months, Will and I have been working on a real website in order to provide our clients and potential customers with a more professional experience. Our blog isn’t going anywhere though! All of our articles will still be available, but under the new domain:

http://www.progressivemediaconcepts.wordpress.com

We will still be posting every Monday, Wednesday and Friday as always, so don’t worry, you’ll still be getting your social media marketing fix every week.

Are you guys ready for the final product? Visit www.progressivemediaconcepts.com and show us some love!

Please feel free to leave comments and/or suggestions for the website below. We love feedback!

Google+ Launches Business Pages Today

The day that marketers everywhere have been anticipating has come. Google Plus has finally rolled out their business page feature today. Over the next few days, Google Plus is allowing businesses to Create a Page on their platform. When I read about this, I instantly tried to create a company page for Progressive Media Concepts, but I unfortunately got this message in reply:

Google+ Pages isn’t ready for everyone

Thanks for your interest in Google+ Pages, but we haven’t finished releasing them to everyone. Please check back soon.

I will be trying over the next few days, but until then, let’s look at what you can expect from a business page on Google+.

Social Media Spotlight: Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza

For this week’s Social Media Spotlight, we are pleased to introduce Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza. New York native Anthony Bruno moved to South Florida more than 25 years ago with his father to start Anthony’s Runway 84, now a Fort Lauderdale icon. Unable to find the great pizza he remembered, Anthony decided to introduce South Floridians to the old-world art of coal-fired cooking and opened the first Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza in 2002. The concept caught on like wildfire.

Known for its high energy atmosphere and simple menu, Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza uses 800-degree coal burning ovens to create a “well done” taste. Signature menu items include specialty pizza made with the freshest, top-quality ingredients, coal-oven-roasted chicken wings topped with grilled onions and Italian-style salad. Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza’s food and service have continually been ranked “very good to excellent” by Zagat Survey, the distinguished dining and entertainment guide.

Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza has 20 locations throughout Florida, as well as 9 locations throughout the Northeast (DE, PA, NJ, NY), including White Plains. Expansion plans include additional locations in the Northeast and South Tampa, FL. We had the pleasure of speaking with Toby Srebnik, the Director of Social Media for O’Connell & Goldberg, the PR firm that represents Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza, and here’s what he had to say about their social media marketing strategy.

How to Manage Your Social Media Comments

If your social media strategy is anything like ours, then your brand is probably on numerous social media sites. That means you have a bunch of fans visiting and interacting with each post that you publish. There is a certain response etiquette that is important to follow when answering your fans. Let’s take a look at each social platform and see how to enhance our response strategy.

Social Media Spotlight: Get-A-Game

This Wednesday, we are happy to inform our readers on how app developers can build awareness for their new product by using social media marketing.  Get-A-Game is a free app that connects people looking for pickup games and sport play. Whether it’s basketball in Brooklyn, soccer in Salem, or wiffle ball in White Plains, the mobile app gives you all the tools you need to live an active lifestyle. We had the pleasure of speaking with Dan Tashman about the new app, and here’s what he had to say…

How to Design Your Social Monitoring Plan

Measuring and recording the analytics of your social media sites is important in providing insights to your overall campaign. Social monitoring goes beyond those numbers inputted for your data records. Measuring is when you use analytical platforms to measure your social progress. Social media monitoring is using a tool to crawl the web and find online users who are mentioning your brand, your products, or your competitors, and then engaging with them.

If you have all of your analytics set up, wonderful! But it’s time to take your social media game up a notch with a monitoring tool. But before we get to speaking about which tools are best for your business, (yes, there are free ones), let’s try to help set up your social monitoring plan.

The Profile of the Social Consumer and How to Interact With Them

Let’s face it; social media has changed the way businesses have to interact with their customers. What used to be a one-way, company-centric selling process has become a customer-driven procedure. Social media has revolutionized the way consumers go about buying their products and services. If your business doesn’t understand the new-age purchasing behavior of your consumers, you are sure to be left in the dust.

How to Get Your Brand Ready for Social Media Marketing

Social media has become a main stream way for companies and brands alike to connect with their following. Going further than just engaging their consumer, brands now have several more outlets to market and promote their product and service. What some brands are having trouble with is how to properly get started with social media.

I am particularly aiming this blog towards the small to medium sized businesses. Companies like Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Snickers, and any other name brand company have the funds at their disposal to do whatever they like; they can create a campaign, then completely overhaul it 5 times over if they please. I am dedicating this post to the companies that are up and coming, who are looking to jump on the social media bandwagon and would like to hit the ground running. There is still a large population of companies and businesses that have not yet adopted social media. So how do you get your company geared up for a social media strategy?

The Benefits of Outsourcing Your Social Media Marketing

There is no doubt that social media has become an integral part of many business marketing strategies. It seems that if your company is not on Facebook or blogging by now, you may have been somewhat left behind. But there are many reasons that small and medium sized businesses have not established a social media presence yet.

Social media marketing is very easy to be overlooked in small business environments because of the amount of employees the company has. When there are not enough employees to manage the daily tasks of social media marketing, it is likely to get cut from a business model. Additionally, there may be enough employees, but not enough time in the workday to complete the social media initiatives.  So what do you do when there’s a need for social media management, but you don’t have enough resources? Outsource.

What the New Facebook Features Mean for Your Business Page

The newest changes made to Facebook have been getting a lot of mixed reviews from users everywhere. Facebook aims to engage its users with new features such as the ticker and the selected top stories depending on their “interests.” While the ticker shows users every move made by any of their friends throughout their network, the updated newsfeed pulls stories, posts, and photos that Facebook believes would be most valuable to you. On the Facebook blog, they compare the newsfeed to reading the first page of a newspaper; what matters most will be shown first. How does this have an impact on the businesses that have created a buzz on Facebook?