We are thrilled to celebrate our 20th year of providing innovative and time-saving solutions for PR, marketing professionals and small business clients. In our early years, we emerged as the technology leader in localized PR solutions for the franchise industry. From this experience promoting local businesses to local audiences, we recognized the value of social media marketing in building a loyal, local community of prospects and customers. In 2010, we launched our flagship social media management portal. Today, we offer a suite of no cost and subscription services that serve over 40,000 small and medium sized business owners in the U.S. and Canada. “Social media offers small and medium sized business owners an affordable and scalable way to promote their products and services and build their businesses’ reputations at the individual consumer level,” said Jon Victor, CEO of Engage121, Inc., “but entrepreneurs who want to take advantage of this potential face challenges. There’s a learning curve, it’s time consuming to do social media ‘right’, and it can be difficult to gain enough of an understanding about social media marketing to make the business decision to invest in it. As Engage121 moved toward its 20th year in business, we knew we had to make social media marketing for small business easy and time-efficient, and we had to give business owners a chance to try it before they made the decision to buy it. And that’s just what we’ve done.” Social Media Assistant is our professionally managed, full-service social media marketing solution. With Social Media Assistant, clients partner with our dedicated social media experts who post relevant and engaging content daily to their social sites, create and schedule advertising campaigns, and build each client’s reputation with social and review site response management. For small business owners not yet ready to invest in social media marketing but eager to test its potential for their businesses, we created our free HOT!Content™ service. Small business owners struggle to find the time to create and source fresh, eye-catching content for their social pages each day. With HOT!Content, clients receive a daily email with five interesting and engaging articles, images, and/or videos, curated by industry, ready to post to their social sites. Now small businesses can easily use social media marketing to build awareness of their businesses, identify new prospects, and cultivate customer loyalty with a minimal commitment of time and resources. Our innovative team continues to provide valuable solutions for our small business clients with the addition of two automated social media marketing services, at no cost. SmartPost selects the most relevant and engaging content and automatically posts it to our clients’ social sites to keep their social pages active. Reputation Monitor alerts your business when your average rating or number of consumer reviews changes on a variety of consumer review sites and blogs. “The past 20 years have been an exciting and challenging time in the PR and marketing technology industry,” said Victor. “As our company’s focus shifted to this new medium, where the only constant [...]

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” Dr. William Arthur Ward (1921-1994), American author, educator and motivational speaker There are many ways to thank the people that support your business. And this Thanksgiving and Holiday season is an ideal time to share your gratitude. We are happy to share these 10 ideas for thanking your customers, employees and business partners on social media: Acknowledge your Facebook fans and Twitter followers with a positive Thank You message Do you support a local cause or charity?  Thank the organization for the opportunity to give back on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn Post a group employee picture with an appreciative Thank You caption and share it on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn Create a Pinterest board and fill it with Thank You stories featuring your customers, employees and business partners Tweet a thank you message to one of your loyal customers on Twitter Have you reached a follower milestone on Facebook? Post a sincere Thank You to acknowledge your fans. Recognize a valued employee with a recommendation on LinkedIn Create a video with a Thank you message this Holiday season to post on Facebook and YouTube Thank fans that share your posts on Facebook and followers that retweet you on Twitter Spread the spirit of thanks and encourage your employees to acknowledge co-workers and customers on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google+ this season And remember social media is a platform to build communities. Gratitude goes a long way in establishing trust in your professional relationships. Thank you for reading this article. We invite you to connect with Engage121 on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google+.  

Facebook recently announced that their community has reached 2 billion monthly users. Most importantly, among these 2 billion are no doubt each and every one of your customers! As we know you will agree - your business needs a Facebook Business Page to reach these customers. Facebook Business Pages have features designed specifically to help your business connect with people and cost-effectively advertise your company. A Facebook Business page is essentially a new channel to reach not only existing customers, but also prospective customers. And it’s free. With your Facebook Business page you can professionally represent your business and reap these 7 benefits: Get found - easily: Facebook has a built-in search engine that many consumers use to research companies they want to do business with. And, equally important, Google indexes your Facebook Business Page so you will be more easily found on Google, too. You’re going places: When you set up a Business Page, you officially become a “place” to which people can check-in and mention – both are great for local, social awareness. Advertising power: Only Business Pages may place ads on Facebook. And with customized website ads, you can drive new leads to your website at rates that many local businesses find very attractive. App functionality: Business Pages can utilize apps which allow you to create custom tabs, forms, polls and surveys. These types of posts encourage people to respond and connect with your business. Social validation: The strongest credibility you can achieve is a written testimonial. Facebook allows customers to write reviews – right on your page. Generating this “social proof” should be an important piece of your marketing plan. Scheduling: You can schedule posts on a page, which allows you to periodically plan your posts thoughtfully, based on events that you know will be happening. Become a detective: Facebook's “Insights” provide measurements of activity on your page, so you will learn what topics, products and ideas are of interest to your customers and prospects. Facebook has created a robust tool to help you professionally grow your business; take advantage of a Facebook Business Page! If you’d like help creating your Facebook Business Page, our dedicated social media specialists can help you jump start your social media success today. Click here to learn more.