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You know what's really odd? I've never met any of my staff in real life. Not one! The Shift Digital team is spread out all over the world, and thanks to Google Hangouts, we get to "meet" every day at 12:30 pm ET. Like the boardroom, we've all become quite familiar with each other, and sometimes it feels as though we've all met in each other in person already.

One of the best ways businesses can use Twitter for client acquisition and brand development is by answering questions people ask relating to their service and/or product. It's also a great way to grow your online community, and meet fellow colleagues in your industry.

What makes me passionate about my job is my belief that social media can help bring back the small town feel we lost along the way. I grew up near a small town in Florida named Clermont. Our claim to fame was our hills of citrus groves, and our community was largely made up of small and family run businesses. But, over the years the citrus groves were hit hard by freezes, and as Orlando started to creep closer they were replaced by subdivisions, and large corporations started pushing out the little guys.

Every marketer desires brand loyalty. I see a lot of giant offers, beautiful ads, funny commercials, and eye-catching billboards. Although there is nothing wrong with that at all, it won't foster brand loyalty. As a consumer and a marketer, I'm a big believer in the little things. The details of life are what capture my attention, memory, loyalty, and passion. I find this truth to be evident in the world of client relations and relationship building.

LinkedIn is the professional social network for business development and marketing purposes. If you haven't created your profile yet, make sure you read my previous post, The Ultimate LinkedIn Profile Cheat Sheet as soon as possible, and get started growing your network. With over 161 million members to date, you can't go wrong.

Last week, Beatriz gave us some great reasons why we should take control of our Facebook privacy using lists. This week, I'll give you some simple instructions on how to create custom lists in Facebook, and how to do it without spending hours on Facebook. The easiest way to create lists is to roll your mouse to the right of the Friends section in the left sidebar of your Facebook page. Or, you can go to https://www.facebook.com/bookmarks/lists.

Have you ever wanted to share a blog post on Twitter but couldn't find share buttons? Or maybe you wanted to subscribe by email but couldn't find the proper sign up form? These days, more and more people are penning blogs for business development and marketing purposes, and I think that is great, but a few critical mistakes can send readers screaming for the hills never to come back.

Breaking News: Facebook is launching Facebook Camera, a new mobile app, that looks eerily similar to Instagram, the company that they recently purchased for $1 billion. Why would Facebook purchase Instagram and then launch their own similar application? I'm thinking they might have purchased Instagram prior to launching the app so they have a full monopoly on all camera applications, and to use their technology.

If you own a QSR franchise that isn't expected to compete with the McDonald's' or Dairy Queens' of the world then it might be time to motivate the troops by saying you're not afraid to take on your more heralded competition head on. This has been a successful strategy we've implemented with our franchise clients. The quick-service industry thrives on competition and if you don't have the stomach to compete with the multi-national corporations then you might be in the wrong industry.

LinkedIn is the social network for business professionals and networking. With 161 millions members to date, it's one of the most popular social networks to date. Are you using it to its fullest potential? While we hear a lot about Facebook and Twitter for lead generation, LinkedIn can be just as good, if not better, if you spend a little bit of time optimizing your profile.

The Airtime story is the current video platforms are designed to talk to only people you know. But Parker and Fanning met in a chat room 15 years ago, not knowing one another at all, and that turned into creating more than one business together. They missed the serendipitous nature of these kinds of meetings so decided to recreate them using today's technology.

Have you ever wanted to post something on Facebook and the immediately thought of someone that might not apreciate the post? Maybe it's your mom, or your boss, or your girlfriend. Well, lists make it easy to categorize the people in your life and share information that would only pertain to certain groups of people in your life.

Did you know there's a way to have someone's public posts show up in your Facebook News Feed or have people follow yours? Whenever I talk about the Subscribe button, I usually get blank stares. After Facebook Lists, it's probably the most misunderstood Facebook feature that you should probably be using.

Today while I was reading American Express OPEN Forum I came across another article with some bad advice to small business owners. Barry Moltz's "How to Calm Your Social Media Anxiety" article misguides business owners into the type of thinking that actually makes them ineffective with social media. Here are his points, and my thoughts on the advice he should be giving to small business owners that are feeling overwhelmed.

There are two groups of people that will always have the best perspective on your business: your customers and your ground level employees. Any business owner that ignores that fact and doesn't learn from these two groups is shooting themselves in the foot. When it comes to social media, the best content comes from where the rubber meets the road, not from marketers who haven't a clue about the day to day operations of the business.

More and more businesses are buying and selling products and services via the Internet. This practice is commonly referred to as e-Commerce. e-Commerce involves many different technologies including online transactions, funds transfer, and electronic data exchange. As e-Commerce because a mainstream part of life, businesses must get on board and make sure their customers have smooth transactions when purchasing products online.

This is your guide to social media community creation and management bliss. First things first. You've created a branded Twitter account, an engaging Facebook page and penned multiple blog posts. You're feeling pretty great about all your social media activity, but have you thought about the other side of the equation i.e. the social community you're hoping to engage with? Creating and managing an online community is one of the most rewarding aspects of social business development. It involved building and managing a group of like-minded individuals around a brand or cause to achieve your marketing and business development goals.

In this day and age, businesses must be onboard with digital marketing to stay competitive and give customers what they want. Having a website or an advertisement in the yellow pages doesn't cut it anymore. Your competition is active online, it's time for you to be as well. At SHIFT Digital, we develop custom strategies based on the very latest in digital trends and technology. These custom strategies focus on increasing the reach and visibility of your business online while also establishing long lasting relationships with your customers through the use of social media.

Content marketing basically means creating and publishing interesting content that attracts your target audience and positions your business to be discovered by potential customers. This content can be audio, video, photos, articles, newsletters, webinars, etc. Content marketing can achieve many goals, including increased brand awareness, establishing an authoritative presence in an industry, increasing sales, and improving customer loyalty.

You're heard all the SEO experts talk about the importance of conversion optimization, but what does that really mean and why does it matter? Simply put, conversion optimization is the method of creating an experience - like a contact form, download or some other action - for a website visitor with the goal of increasing the percentage of visitors that convert into customers. It doesn't just stop there. Once an experience is created, it is consistently and constantly tested, analyzed and modified to ensure maximum conversion.