Stadia Studio

How many words is a picture of food worth?

One of the first recommendations I give any restaurant owner when it comes to social media is to post more pictures of food! Businesses that deal with beautiful topics like great food, or perhaps gorgeous vacation spots, have a blessing and advantage over other, more mundane businesses. People love food and they love beautiful pictures!

And posting pictures to Instagram and other social networks aren’t the only new marketing techniques restaurants have at their disposal. There are a number of tools any service business can use to promote themselves, often at little to no cost.

Check them out, and let me know what you think!

How many new followers did you add yesterday?

That’s an interesting question. Perhaps it’s never occurred to you, but if you’re using Google+ to promote your brand and business, the number of followers that you add on a daily, weekly and monthly basis is sort of important, isn’t it?

Certainly, bloated follower numbers aren’t the most important metrics, since you can have all the followers in the world but still no engagement or sales. Yet, at the same time, if we’re using social media correctly, we should be attracting new followers every day - connecting with new people that we can engage and spark an interest in our products or services.

The problem is, to get back to our initial question, how do you know how many people circled you yesterday? Google+ simply displays a running total. If you can tell not only how many new people you get each day, but also on what specific days you see a spike in new followers, you can take a closer look at what you did that day and duplicate those efforts.

This is why Measurement is one of my core philosophies, and why I’m so excited to tell you all about +CircleCount. These guys have put together an amazing tool that you can use to monitor your follower changes, analyze your own activity, and see how effective you have been at engaging your followers. If you haven’t used it, or haven’t the taken the time to explore all of the benefits, please check out the walk-through article linked below.

What strikes you about CircleCount? What do you like, or what else do you wish it did for you? Please share your thoughts, and keep plussing!

Are you Attracting or Repelling Followers?

For businesses, attracting more followers on social media is a means to an end.Usually, generating leads and converting those leads into sales is the goal, but to do that, we need to create connections with people and engage them. So, it’s important that we don’t lose followers and lose those opportunities to engage!

Guest blogger +Monique Violet Jones takes us through 7 common mistakes that people and businesses make on social media that can cost you followers and business. These mistakes are easy to make whether you’re using social media as a business or as a personal brand. Check ‘em out and make sure you aren’t susceptible to these fatal flaws!

Have you ever unfollowed someone for doing one of these? Any others you might add to the list?

How to use Surveys

In our continued look into surveys as research tools, we dive into some best practices and techniques that businesses can use to poll both customers and potential customers to unlock some pretty amazing insights.

Have you ever tried using surveys for your business? How did it go?

As a customer, have you ever been surveyed? What were some of the strange or silly questions you’ve been asked?

If you aren’t already, consider using HootSuite to manage and monitor your social media activity. Today’s update has made it easier to identify your key fans and influencers.

Are you in a Great Google+ Community?

There are some truly awesome +Google+ Communities out there, but if you’re like me, it’s hard to find them! Maybe you’ll get lucky and Google+ will recommend one, but I’m just know that I’m still missing out.

This is a list of the Best Google+ Communities, but it’s unfinished. Using the power of a +Listly list, we’re going to crowdsource and curate the Best communities out there!

I’ve started by listing some of my own favorites, and few more have already been added. Please check them out, and if you know of one that’s not listed, add it! And I’m also curious, what do you think makes a Google+ Community special?

Do you use Flickr to find images for your blog?

In case you missed the news, there’s a new Flickr available now. It’s a beautiful new layout that mirrors a lot of the trends we’re seeing in other web services and social networks.

I use Flickr daily to find new images for blog posts. I use Flickr instead of a Google Images search because of one reason: copyright. With Flickr, you can filter images so that you only see images the owners have said are free to use. This is called Creative Commons, and it’s a critical component of blogging. You always need to include an image with your blog posts, but you never want to include an image you have no right to use!

The article below highlights the recent changes to Flickr, and walks you through how to use the new Flickr to find great images to compliment your blog posts.

BAM! Pinterest kicks products and recipes up a notch.

Have you ever watched Emeril on TV? Not only does he create awesome food, but his unbridled enthusiasm is amazing. And if you’ve ever watched his live show, you know that the most-anticipated part of every dish is when he “kicks it up a notch” - usually by taking a pinch of his cayenne-based special seasoning and shouting”BAM!”

The folks at Pinterest did just that.

Pinning cool products and great-looking food has been the staple of Pinterest since its launch in 2010. Now, products are going to include Prices, Description, Availability and better linkage to the source. Recipes will include Cook Time, Ingredients and Services, and even Movies get into the act with ratings, cast information and more.

This is awesome for us users, as we can find out even more about what we’re looking at and make faster decisions. I know those Batman-inspired, platinum USB storage cufflinks look cool, but now I can see that they only cost $45 and maybe I can actually entertain the idea of buying them. Or, more practically, I’m looking for a great Italian dish that I can make for my family and now, at a glance, I can see what’s in that great-looking lasagna and whether or not I can even get those ingredients, without having to click through to a website.

And for businesses? Whoa. Stop reading and click through to the story right now, because you need to get started on this today. If you weren’t using Pinterest before to promote your products, that needs to become your top priority for this week.

So check out these changes, and I’ve love to hear what you think, both as Pinterest users and as businesses taking advantage.