Where Personal Potential & Reality Meet » Social Media marketing

Echelon Media Launches, Providing Social Media Consultant Services

Steve — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 14:20:41 +0000

I’d like to announce a new project I am involved in with 3 of my buddies, Allyn Hane, Josh Whitford & Brian Matson. We have teamed up together and formed Echelon Media, a Social Media Consulting Business.

Most of you will immediately recognize those names. Over the last few months, we have all realized the fluff and the garbage floating around out there where Social Media is concerned. The so-called A-listers talking fluffy cloud scenarios but never actually giving real life examples and help to those who may be struggling.

The 4 of us have our own specialties in regards to our online work and participation in Social Media. We felt we could give our individual and group thought on how we use Social Media successfully from our own perspective. Thus, Echelon Media was born. Feel free to check out “About Page”, on Echelon to read individual Bio’s about our group.

One of the first things we hope to accomplish is to give you straightforward, no fluff examples of how to use Social Media to your benefit. The 4 of us are real people who actually do what we preach and teach.

The website is about 1 month old now and we have experienced a very successful month of traffic for such a new site. It is our intention to provide businesses and individuals with solid, practical advice on how to build their businesses and brands. We will offer our consulting services to individual and business online through the use of technology or we are available to speak directly to your group onsite.

Echelon Media has just kicked off a series of what we call “Social Media Shorts.” These are quick one minute video tips designed to help you in your daily efforts in Social Media. These are the things that we do everyday and we are sharing these practical tips with you.

Below you will find the first 2 quick vids of our Social Media Shorts series of tips.

If you need Social Media Consultants, or if you just want to brush up on some handy tips, please give us a visit. If you like what we are doing, help us spread the word. We would love for you to follow us on Twitter @echelonmedia. Become a Facebook Fan and ask us to answer a specific question you have about Social Media.

2010 BloggerLens.com

How To Buy Cheap Business Cards To Use As Social Media Marketing Tools

Steve — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:32:25 +0000

Who: Me. Local Social Media Expert who happens to be frugal.

What: Need cheap Social Media marketing tactics.

Why: I must constantly market myself and my network of community websites.

How: Business Cards!

Ok, you don’t have to be involved in Social Media to use business cards effectively. All of us should carry them everywhere we go.

The most effective and simple marketing tool that each of us should possess are simple business cards. I give them out everywhere I go.

I just had 250 of these cards printed for me at VistaPrint. All I paid was around $5.67 for shipping. I designed the card with their online template. It was easy and fast. The cards arrived about a week later. They are perfect and high quality.

I receive weekly emails and offers from Vistaprints now. I do not mind because the offers are mostly free and I only pay shipping. Last week I ordered 100 postcards for free and paid $6.56 in shipping.

For $12.23 I’ve ordered 250 business cards and 100 post cards. (I know it’s not free if you pay for shipping but free your mind on this one)

I wholeheartedly recommend Vistaprint.

Go to VistaPrint and order your business cards today for cheap.

This has been a “No Fluff, Common Sense, Direct Help” article from a guy who actually practices Social Media in his community.

2010 BloggerLens.com

The Truth About Social Media Traffic And The Hype Surrounding it

Steve — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:31:38 +0000

My Final Traffic Update

This article and video were written and produced based on my opinion of what I call Social Media Hype. You may have a totally different opinion. I base mine on actual events that happened to me and my blog. Please join in the discussion whatever your viewpoint may be.

I thought I would announce the final results of my recent surge in Social Media traffic and non-Social Media traffic. Guess which one won? Anyone who is familiar with this site knows that I was recently posted over at Chris Brogan. I made a spoof video about all the hype and hoopla that was being made over the release of Chris’s “Trust Agent” book. To my surprise and delight, Chris posted the video. What a cool thing for Chris to do for me.

The Truth About Social Media Traffic

At the same time, Allyn Hane at BloggerIllustrated.net, Internet Marketing Video Blog made several spoof videos of A-list bloggers also. Allyn was mentioned on Grizzly Brears blog, Make Money Online For Beginners. I also have been receiving some traffic from another up and coming internet marketer, Lis Sowerbutts, Passive Income Online. She made mention of our video spoofs and I have received traffic from her. BTW, if you haven’t read Lis, I would go and check out her blog. I dig chicks with attitude.

Allyn received a huge surge in traffic from a non-Social Media blogger (Griz). I appreciated the fact that Chris posted my video, but my Social Media traffic results were disappointing to say the least when you consider the huge amount of so called social media subscribers Chris has. As someone new to internet marketing, I feel lucky to received such a quick and helpful education that I hope I will carry with me as I continue to work on internet marketing in various forms. After I was mentioned on Griz’s blog, my traffic also surged and has been steady ever since.

There is a huge lesson to be learned here in Social Media marketing. However, I’m not the teacher, only a student. I made a video presentation of my Social Media surge and I hope that you will enjoy it and I also hope that the stats will open your eyes and help you on your journey in internet marketing. Your Social Media strategy may deserve a second look if you are serious about traffic to your blog.

For those who may be interested in the technical aspect of the video, here is how I made the video. Everything is Apple Mac based. I first made the presentation using the Apple Keynote program. All of the slides, transitions and typewriter text was made in Keynote. Keynote is how Apple kicked PowerPoint’s rear end.

To embed the video clips in Keynote, I used a screen capture program for Mac’s called IShowU.

Once I finished the presentation, I exported the presentation as a QuickTime movie. This is a very cool feature of Keynote. You can turn a presentation into a movie.

Once I made the presentation into a QuickTime movie, I imported it into my Mac video editing software, Final Cut Express. In FCE, I tweaked the video and added my music etc. I made this particular video in 4:3 aspect instead of the usual 16:9. The process is not a quick process but it’s very flexible. If you can think it in your mind, there is a good chance you can reproduce it in video form with these applications I mentioned. It’s not hard, it just takes practice like everything else in life we do.

Music by the O’Jays.

2009 BloggerLens.com

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