You may have heard about it, but here’s how it works for those who don’t have a full understanding. Foursquare, boasting 10 million users in June of 2011, is a location-based social networking mobile app. Like Facebook and Twitter, users add their friends to their account. When users go to a restaurant, store, airport, etc., they can check-in, just like with Facebook Places. The difference between the two, however, is that Foursquare tends to offer users more deals than Facebook Places because that is it’s whole purpose. Essentially businesses create, or claim if user has already created a check-in venue for them, their business location/profile on Foursquare and add deals or discounts to that profile. Users can only check-in somewhere if their smart phone’s navigation pinpoints them in the area where the business lies. When users check in, they find the deals and discounts available that a business hosts.

This is where the benefits of Foursquare participation to businesses comes in. First, Foursquare is free publicity for your business’ services/products. Users’ check-ins are shared to their friends on the app, so check-ins are a users’ public endorsement of a business; when people see that their friend has checked in somewhere, they might consider trying it themselves. Perhaps most importantly is that Foursquare users have the option to share their Foursquare check-ins on both Twitter and Facebook, which means your business has the potential to reach a far larger audience that it could with Foursquare alone.

Second, because Foursquare users can take advantage of discounts and deals, they are more likely to be repeat customers. This is especially true of those users who become the “Mayor” of a business. There can only be one Mayor of a business and it is an award given to a user if he/she has more check-ins than any other user. For instance, in Houston, TX, if you are the Mayor of the Galleria, you get free valet parking every time you go to it. If you’re the Major of a particular location of a local burrito chain, Mission Burrito, you get 20% off of your total meal purchase every time you go into that location.

Third, Foursquare gives your business a great marketing advantage over those businesses that don’t utilize it: Market research. It gives participating businesses the opportunity to better understand their customer demographics and what time of the day they are most likely to use their business’ services/products. Having this research can allow businesses to change their business in a way to better accommodate their customers’ needs and wants.

Put shortly, Foursquare offers participating businesses publicity and endorsement, customer loyalty, and market research; and it does all of this without charging businesses a dime.

Sara Witt is a guest blogger passionate about social media and its impact on business, thus she brought to us an article that relates just how beneficial Foursquare can be for businesses. Sara, who sees a problem with the justice system, also writes about how to find a good Personal injury Attorney to help laypersons make informed legal decisions.

 

 

To Start Your Broadcast

To start a broadcast, click on the Slide Show tab and then Broadcast Slide Show

 

 

You will see the default message, PowerPoint Broadcast Service. Note the message: “The PowerPoint Broadcast Service is a public service for users of PowerPoint 2010. You will need a Windows Live ID.

Note: If the user has a Windows ID and they can Sign in with their ID. According to Microsoft, if you use Hotmail, Live Messenger, or Xbox LIVE, you already have a Windows Live ID.

Creating a Link to Your Slide Show

 

 

To create the link, click on “Start Broadcast.” You will see a dialogue box, “Connecting to PowerPoint Broadcast service.” It may take several minutes for the link to be generated, based on your internet service, so just be patient.

 

 

When you are connected to the service, another box will appear with a link that you can send to your group. Anyone who receives this link can watch your broadcast, up to 50 remote attendees.

Viewing a Broadcast

For everyone to view your broadcast they will need the latest version of Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari. Now all they have to do is open the link they received from your and within a few seconds everyone will sharing your information. Of course, again, it all depends on your internet connection. This will work with a PC or a Mac.

Once everyone has the correct browser and your link, all you have to do now is just click the “Start Slide Show” button and you will be live and sharing your information. As you present your presentation, you will be synced with your attendees. You now can go through your presentation just like you are standing on a stage in front of attendees.

Ending the Broadcast

When you have completed your broadcast, all you have to do is just click on “End Broadcast” button and the link that you provided is no longer active and all users will be disconnected from your presentation.

Before I conclude, I want to make several additional points,

1. I am using the “Office Home and Student 2010” version which does not have all of the advance features of the Professional version, but works fine for me for what I do.

2. The on-line presentation depends on the internet connection as to how well the presentation is synced with the attendees.

3. If your presentation has animation built into the slideshow, it will advance automatically. So, make sure that you turn off all of your animations.

That is all!! I hope that you enjoy this post!

Step 2 – Once you start recording, you will see the timing of each slide at the top left of the presentation.  The best method that I have found is to listen to the audio, if you have audio, and then click the advance button (page down key) when you want particular graphics, topics, etc. to appear.    This sets the timing of each slide which allows you to sync your message as you would like to present the information.

When you have completed your recording and come to be end of your presentation you will be presented with a black screen.  Just hit the escape button and you will be presented with a new dialogue box.  This box will show you the total time of the Slideshow.  You will be asked if you want to keep the new slide timings to use when you view the Slideshow.  If you are happy with the timings, click yes.  You can always redo the timings if when you review the video you find that the graphics, topics, etc. are not as planned.

 

 

Here is a sample of what the timing look like on the slides.

 

Step 3 – Once step 2 has been completed, you are ready to produce your video.  With your presentation loaded, click on “File” and then “Save & Send.”   You will be prompted with another screen where you will click on “Create a Video.”  In the next section you will have the opportunity to choose your parameters that you want to use.  I usually use the default values.

Step 4 – Click on “Create a Video.”  You will be prompted to save your recording and once you have named your presentation and saved it, your recording will start.  You will see the progress of your recording at the bottom right of your presentation.

That is all it is to it.  Once your recording has completed, you can go to the directory where you saved your recorded file and view your recording.

In the next section you will get to choose your parameters that you want to use. I usually use the default that is set.

 

 

 

 

You will be prompted to save your recording and once you have named your presentation and saved it, you will see the following screen showing that you are recording your presentation.

Once the recording has completed, you can go to the directory where you save your files and play your view. Now you can share the video with others and/or send to YouTube if you wish.

So if you have the budget, you can further enhance your slide presentation and incorporate live screen show with your video. I use the following to record and produce my videos.

 

Now you can share the video with others and/or send it to YouTube if you wish

Share Opinions

The first and the greatest benefits that social media offers to its users is they get common platform to share opinions and views and help them to bridge differences quite easily.

Generate More Traffic

Social networking can help you reach the niche market and at the same time help new traffic to reach your websites as well. If you can run it successfully it will curb your reliance on search engines to a certain extent.

Back Links

You might be surprised to know that Social book marking websites can help you bringing back links for your website, which means it can boost your SEO campaigns.

Reach Target Market

The most important fact is with the help of a social networking site, you can communicate wit your target market quite easily. Social networking site will help you to stay updated with the needs, happenings and whereabouts of the industry.

Search Engines

The best part is well known social media sites are in the good books of famous search engines, so if you can use the networking site to promote your website especially when its new and has no such links, it would be easier for your site to get a good page rank. Remember, the more its better. The more number of likes or tweets or Google +1 factor you can have the more attention you will receive from Google or other search engines.

To conclude, remember, Social Media websites plays a significant part in the success of a SEO campaign. Make sure you don’t overlook its importance in any say and make the most use of it to get the best possible results for your websites.

consumers. Check out the below mentioned ones to see whether or not you’ll be benefited by them:

1. Increase brand value through social networking sites – You can definitely create awareness amongst the people through your social contacts. Extend your product identity into a brand, or if you already have a brand value, spread it more through networking. Your product or your website will invite more traffic, as the curiosity increases amongst the consumers.

2. Create a promotional campaign – Try to promote your products or your website through a campaign. Build it into a rage amongst the people. However don’t leave it midway or feel that a few weeks or 2 months campaign is enough for you. It is easy to engage their attention initially, while it is necessary to keep them engaged for a long time. You would need to stick with your efforts if you really want to maintain the continuous flow of interested consumers to your website.

3. Stay active and interact – Develop personal relations with your consumers through the social networking sites. Update latest news, and keep them informed about what is going on. Interact with them directly, because that is what social networking sites are for. Reply through comments and messages.

4. Make your exchanges interesting, don’t nag – Promote your products through your networking skills. Don’t make it too obvious, otherwise people may just start avoiding you. Be innovative, and don’t nag the consumers. Besides, make your posts, tweets or status messages relevant.

5. Find a niche network – There are a variety of social networking options available to you. Select one that suits your taste. Don’t stick only with one. Spread out. Find out the networking site that fall into line with your products or services. Then develop your own niche audience to promote your product or services.

The above mentioned social networking tricks will help you find your way amidst the web confusion. Increase your website visitors through social media SEO tricks and promote your products and services, with immediate effect.

 

This is one of the best ways to identify, classify, rank as well as share useful information with the help of tags. The concept of bookmarking first came into existence in the year 1996 by the release of itList.com.

Bookmarking sites have gained huge popularity in recent times. These sites enable you to enjoy huge traffic on your business profile. You will be amaze to know that, with the help these sites you can target more the 40,000 visitors everyday on your business profile. There are more than thousands of Social bookmarking sites running on internet but some of the renowned sites are Reddit, Delicious, Digg and Stumbleupon.

Achieving success is not a tough task; you just need to follow the right path that will lead you to the millstones of the destiny. Here we have discussed some of the crucial points, which you can incorporate in your site so as to gain complete advantage of these social networking sites.

First and the foremost thing is to make an attractive headline. Mostly, people prepare good content for their sites but fail to give a catchy title to it. Thus, whole of your content remain unnoticed because of shabby title.

Once you are done with the title, then move on with an appropriate and interesting description of article. Make sure that the description is limited to 100-200 words. These will the interest of readers. Remember, that your site must offer social bookmarking option so that users’ can vote and can also bookmark the article for free promotion.

The most interesting point that you must consider is that, you submit your article at right time. Never submit your article during sleeping hours of visitors. This is so because when the visitors will wake up, until then your article will be left behind by various other websites.

If you follow these simple points then you can surely take complete advantage of these social bookmarking sites.