Here’s How Social Media Has Changed Everything

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From digital advertising to crowdfunding and social justice, ever since the inception of MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter social media has changed the way the world communicates. A newly released infographic “The Conservation Prism 5.0”  might be the key to grasping today’s complicated and ever crowded social media landscape. 

Originally launched in 2008 by Brian Solis, an author and digital analyst at Altimeter Group,  the aptly-named “Conversation Prism” — designed with creative agency JESS3 —  continues to be a popular frame of reference among the digital marketing community. 

The Conversation Prism is best described as a visual map of the social media landscape. While it hasn’t been updated since 2013, The Conversation Prism is an ongoing study in digital ethnography that tracks dominant and promising social networks and organizes them by how they’re used in everyday life. 

In the latest rendition, Solis removed 84 companies, added 141, and created four new categories: messaging, crowdfunding, travel and hospitality, and connecting IRL.

One thing that has remained the same is the center of the Conversation Prism….You! 

 

“It’s meant to remind the viewer that social media is about the people in the center of their online experiences. Social media is much more than a series of broadcast networks. You shape the experiences of others as they shape your online experiences,” Solis said in an interview with Mashable.  

The next ring indicates how “you” can interact with a network,  how  you can impact the networks, while the outer ring shows all the categories of the networks, which “you” can interact with to create your own brand and community. 

Check it out below! 

 

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3 Social Media Pro Tips To Gain Brand Exposure

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Social media has drastically shifted the way we communicate on an interpersonal level. From keeping in touch with the day to day lives of family and friends to dramatically shifting the way consumers choose products and services, some would argue social media has overtaken our daily lives. 

To mark this major shift in marketing, advertising and sales, we celebrated Social Media Day 2017 at the Red Flint Las Vegas Experience Center to gain insight and pro-tips from industry veterans. 

Offer a Win-Win

When there are a million and one apps, websites, and online boutiques its difficult to figure out exactly how to make your social media account stand out against the competition. Going into your social media strategy looking to not only sell your product, but also create a winning environment for your audience is paramount, Krista Whitley, CEO of Social Media Unicorn, a marketing and sales agency for luxury cannabis businesses explained.

Authentic Connections Matter Most

Creating a robust online community is a terrific way to connect one-on-one while building relationships with a larger audience and industry influencers.

Cat Goldberg, founder of Brainbuzz, shares “Social media allows you to be in front of your target customer’s eyes while also engaging them in conversation,” Goldberg says. “This authentic connection will make them more curious about you.”

Find Out What People Want and See That They Get It

“Just because you can post anything, doesn’t mean you should everything,” explained Richard Krawczyk at the June 30 panel.

In fact, Krawczyk believes positivity is the secret sauce to success when it comes to growing your brand online. 

“When you wake up in the morning your first  thought should be how many people can I help today,” he added. 

For more tips check out this recap in Inc. written by CTO of ROCeteer and Social Media Day Las Vegas panelist Heather Wilde. 

Becoming a Unicorn

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The first month of a new career always brings fear and excitement.

I’m glad to say that here at Social Media Unicorn it has been a lot more excitement than fear. Everyone is great! Not only is my entire team fun to work with, they all have an in-depth knowledge of the cannabis culture and the wants and needs of the community we serve. With that being said, I am starting a weekly blog to inform and educate about the new innovative products, services, and happenings within our community. Stay tuned each week to see what this Unicorn is getting into 😉

Just recently, we had the pleasure of hosting a patient appreciation day for Tahoe Hydro Company with the lovely people over at Medizin. They operate one of the premier dispensaries that cater to Las Vegas and the surrounding areas. Medizin, unlike many other dispensaries, is also involved in cultivation. They have some award winning flowers like Chloe, one of the most medically beneficial strains that is offered in Las Vegas. We had a great time representing Tahoe Hydro Company while we were there. THC is a boutique cultivator out of Carson City, NV, that is sure to fit the needs and wants of any consumer out there. They have award winning strains: Blackjack (S), Gelato 45 (H), Tahoe Hydro OG (I), all winning their respective categories at the 2016 Jack Herer Cup. THC also just entered the preroll game with the introduction of their STIX line, currently offering Tahoe Hydro OG. Needless to say, they know what they are doing over there at Tahoe Hydro Company. We passed out tons of Tahoe swag and educated patients on our products and specials. It was great meeting and creating future Tahoe fans! I loved hearing all the positive feedback regarding our products. Huge thank you to Tanya and the whole crew at Medizin for making my first patient appreciation day a success!  

All in all, these first few weeks have been an adventure and a blessing. I’m so lucky to be surrounded by people who are so passionate about cannabis. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for me as a Unicorn. Be sure to tune in next week for my next post and mark your calendars for our upcoming events!

Las Vegas Social Media Day – Fri. 6/30

Follow Tahoe Hydro Company on IG @tahoehydroponics

Get updates from Medizin at http://medizinlv.com 

3 Lessons Learned as a New Unicorn

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3 Lessons Learned as a New Unicorn

A new job always comes with a learning curve, and being a Unicorn is no exception. Within my first month, I’ve learned three very important lessons that will always stay with me.

 

Find What Works For You

Over the years, the adult-skill that I have struggled with the most has been time management. Having ADD can make managing my time particularly difficult, but since I joined the Unicorns right before 4/20, it was crucial that I had my schedule under control. I’ve combed the internet for any and every “hack” involving time management – and what I learned from it is something we all already know, that everyone is different.

For me, it’s lists – I’ve found that I respond best to visual reminders and cues. “Out of sight, out of mind” is practically my accidental life motto. How do I use this to my advantage? Write. Down. Everything. If it’s something I need to do, I write it down. It doesn’t matter if I need to do it immediately, or in a few weeks – if I don’t write it down I’ll forget it. Every morning, I write (and prioritize!) a new list of tasks that need to be completed. When something inevitably comes up, I add it to the end, and reprioritize if needed. While this might seem like a lot of unnecessary and repetitive work to some people, it allows me to function ten times more efficiently, ultimately making me better at what I do.

Be Honest With Yourself

New people and new environments can be truly intimidating – pair that with a need to prove yourself, and before you know it you’re enthusiastically saying “yes!” to everything that is asked of you. This is when you need to be honest with yourself, in order to be honest with your co-workers. The amount of work that you initially agree to will set the precedent for the workload that you are able to handle – but I’m not saying that’s a bad thing!

Being honest with yourself also means challenging yourself. Just because you’re not particularly excited about the new project doesn’t mean that you can’t absolutely crush it. And on the opposite end of the spectrum, don’t turn down projects simply because you’re afraid to fail either. Failure is simply an opportunity to learn and grow.

Never Settle

Super cliché, I know, but hear me out. Now, before you go out and quit your stable office job in order to pursue your dream of being a nomadic juggler, that’s not quite what I’m suggesting. “Following your dream” sounds great in theory, but the reality is that “following your dream” doesn’t always pay the bills.

What I *am* saying is don’t lose sight of your end goal. Figure out what you’re best at – what you undeniably excel at doing – and pair that with your biggest passion. That is your end goal. It’ll probably take time, hard work, and patience to get there, but persevere. Being content isn’t good enough. You deserve to be truly happy.

Entrepreneurs – Avoid These Pitfalls of DIY Marketing

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Doing the marketing for your brand in-house has a small benefit but can come with big problems. Why? Because if you and your team aren’t specialists in the digital world, and dedicated to a content strategy, your campaigns will eventually 

Below are the top three pitfalls that first-time marketers make when developing their “DIY marketing” strategy. Take them as a lesson or a warning – it’s your choice! 

No Content Strategy

Everyone loves pictures of cute dogs and cats, but that doesn’t mean those types of posts will do well on your brand’s social media accounts. Without a central theme and set of values that you know your audience will appreciate, how can be sure that your content is really sticking? Get content planned weeks or even months in advance – only then will you have your social marketing “handled.”

No Graphic Support

Photography and graphic design might seem easy at first, but start comparing your creations to a pro’s, and you’ll quickly realize that it’s hard work that you can’t handle by yourself. You might be able to swing a couple of good brand photos with your iPhone, but is that really how you want your company to be represented to the world’s savviest consumers? Professional help in this area is not hard to find, so support your local graphic designers and photographers by letting them make your product or service shine a little brighter. 

No Budget

One of the biggest reasons that new businesses fail in the cannabis industry is failure to invest in the right channels at the right time. Business owners who can’t afford a small Facebook Ads budget, or a booth at a local event, unfortunately cannot afford the cost of doing business in the modern era. Luckily there are clever solutions out there if you know who to talk to! 

Luckily, there’s hope for failed Do-It-Yourself marketers. It’s called hiring an agency. 

You probably wouldn’t let a football coach perform your open-heart surgery. Don’t leave your marketing in the hands of an amateur – even if it is yourself. Talk to our Unicorns today to see how we can level up your digital marketing strategy.

The 5-Point Social Media Strategy Anyone Can Master

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Doing social media strategy yourself is a learning process. There are new rules, trends and influencers to follow any given week. You’ve got to understand algorithms (as best you can, anyway) and principles of copywriting, photography and public relations. It can certainly be a lot to remember! 

Whether you manage your brand’s entire social presence, or just have a say in the process, you should know these five guiding principles of social media.

Be Authentic

The first rule of social media is to be authentic! Whether that means embracing your goofy side once in awhile, or telling the truth when your brand has a crisis, the idea is the same.

Engage Regularly

You might think that posting on Facebook about once a week, when you feel like it, is an adequate strategy. While this is the bare minimum to keep a page active on the platform, it won’t help your account gain any users. For the most part, you’ve still got to actively engage with other humans on Facebook in order to see success. That means:

  • posting daily or multiple times daily;
  • inviting your personal contacts to Like your page and asking others to do the same;
  • engaging and adding value in Groups; and, likely,
  • running Ads to generate traffic. 

Plan Ahead

So you wrote a month’s worth of blogs, tweets, and Instagram posts, but now your 30 days is up and you’re out of material. The content planning process is literally never ending for social media managers. Remember, you’re playing the long game, and regular (even daily) authentic engagement is a must to stay relevant in a sea of trendy new accounts. 

Use Spell Check

Typos? Grammar slips? Plain poor phrasing? None of these things make a pretty social media share. Yet, so many are too trigger happy and hit “post” before their content is on point. Run post copy, graphics and spelling past a colleague or friend that you trust. Sometimes all you really need is a second set of eyes on your work. 

Be Cohesive

Our last piece of advice is to stay consistently on-brand with all your social media postings. Use the same colors, symbolism, voice and phrasing in ever post. By doing this, you’ll avoid confusing your audience like many brands do trying to capitalize on the latest memes and trends. Instead your fans will recognize your posts seconds before they even see the brand name. 

Maybe you know all this already, but for some reason your social strategies just haven’t been sticking lately. Your content may just need a nudge in the right direction, or a second creative opinion. 

Brands and individuals making their mark in the cannabis industry, we’ve got your back. Call a Social Media Unicorn to help give your project some much-needed direction. 

The Best Types of Posts For Each Social Media Platform

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When it comes to social media, far too many brands make the mistake of posting the same exact content on every single platform. This is ill-advised because there are so many diverse groups on social media, and they all hang out in different social environments – and respond to different stimuli as well.

We put together a guide for DIY marketers to help you plan your approach to each top platform. 

Facebook

From humble beginnings, Facebook has become extremely diverse and dynamic. Not only is every demographic present on the platform, it’s also now been segmented into Groups. People and brands providing quality content to their audiences are holding on to their organic growth and influence on the platform, even as Facebook continues to try and monetize almost every interaction. 

One thing is for certain about the Facebook algorithm – it favors video posts. Heavily. A strong video content strategy will help you acquire more fans organically. Otherwise, set aside a small budget and learn to optimize Facebook Ads with amazing photography and graphics and some clever copy. 

Instagram

It’s changed a lot over the past year, but Instagram is still the place to be for the hippest and most social-savvy people in the world. It’s where trends are made, and visual content is king. You can repurpose some of your Facebook content here, but really make the captions pop. Professional photography is almost a must these days as outstanding “pinch-to-zoom” resolution photo posts are becoming the norm (especially delectable close-up photos of  cannabis products).

There are lots of “tricks” and theories out there for how to hack this platform, but really, Instagram runs on a few key principles. If you engage genuinely, post regularly, and utilize the proper hashtags. How you get there is up to you – as long as you make it absolutely beautiful.

Twitter

The original microblogging platform is far from dead – in fact, Twitter remains one of the most active platforms for breaking news and commentary on current events, as well as conversations amongst journalists and influencers.

That being said, all your content on Twitter should be newsworthy and put on display the unique voice and vision of your brand. Image and video posts, polls, memes and hashtags are essential parts of the Twitterverse you should know about. Research hashtags being used by your target niches, incorporate them into your tweets, and remember to always engage authentically.

Snapchat

On Snapchat, anything goes. The people following you are doing so for one reason: to catch a glimpse into what you’re doing all day. Again, authenticity is key. Using Snapchat gives you the opportunity to build your brand its very own personality from scratch – or, start building your personal brand as a living, breathing embodiment of the company.

So, in short, you should always share the awesome adventure that is your business with the world. Having partners in the industry who know the rules and trends on each platform will strengthen your influence even more. 

Hire us today and learn to finally rock social. 

3 Photo Booth Apps For Your Next Event

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From music festivals to industry conferences, having a photo booth activation is a great way to get interactive with your guests and attract attention to your brand. Here are some of the top photo booth apps we’ve seen popping up at parties across the nation. 

 PHHHOTO

"We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back" – Malala Yousafzai #INTERNATIONALWOMENSDAY #PHHHOTO by STELLIA

A post shared by PHHHOTO® (@phhhoto) on

Nope, that’s not a typo.  PHHHOTO is a next-generation camera app that shoots instant moving pictures your event attendees can instantly share with friends across social platforms.   

HotPoint App & Lightbox

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Moving visuals are definitely on trend.

The HotPoint App takes this concept to the next level, adding a voyeuristic element allowing those at home to “watch in” on your event.

Already featured in some of the hottest venues across the nation in cities including Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, and New York.

Launched in 2014, you can now bring a Lightbox to your city and have the whole town with #FOMO (fear of missing out) on your next event. 

 

Simple Booth

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Offering branded images to major companies like Adidas, Disney, and Red Bull, Simple Booth brings the sauce when it comes to reach.

Almost all of Simple Booth gallery views occur on mobile devices, so we optimized the new galleries to be mobile-first and fun to play with. Infinite scrolling allows new images to load on the fly, so you can keep scrolling just like you would a social feed.

The best news is there are many options on the market, so if these didn’t work for you let us know what does in the comment section below!

4 Free Apps for DIY Graphics That Look Totally Pro

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Stunning and aesthetically pleasing designs and graphics always see better results on your social media. We rounded up the top DIY graphics apps, these apps will add some sizzle to your mundane photos and escalate your followers’ counter.

These apps will also allow your creative side to display its imagination.

 Over

Your social media photo game isn’t perfect until you have the Over app on your device.  This app will turn your phone into a professional graphic designing studio and will surely evoke that waning right side of your brain.

Over is very easy to use and doesn’t create much hassle for beginners.

The app has features like adding text with a gazillion font and colors options, you can select the background and cut/paste the images.

Pixlr

Pixlr is a robust browser photo editor, for all your editing needs. Have full control over your images, including layers and effects.

This user friendly interface is like having a whole Photoshop software in your device, it has the usual text adding feature on photos along with certain effects, overlapping images, impressive borders etc.

The app is sure to give your photo a boost of liveliness offering full creative powers to its users. 

 

VSCO CAM

VSCO Cam has become  extremely popular because of its DSLR type effects. VSCO Cam has built in tool to edit certain aspects like brightness, contrast etc.

The app also has features like collage creation, templates, captivating borders,  overlays and text on image. Through VSCO cam you can save and download your edited image and can share directly on social media in-app.

Studio 

Studio gives your photo just the right amount of touch and makes it look as if they’ve been edited by a professional.

Studio gives the option of many outlines to choose from. You can crop the image in layout, the app has fun stickers, striking and trendy word art, which you can place anywhere on the photo to create graphics. You can also adjust light, shape and filters.

“What Instagram Did For Photography, This App Will Do For Design,” Mashable said in an app review. 

Here Are 3 Apps To Step Up Your Social Media Engagement

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Social media has impacted our lives both personally and when it comes to raising your awareness about your business or brand.

With a whopping 600 million users on Instagram, another 1.68 billion on Facebook, and 319 million on Twitter many people are using social media to their advantage either for their business or own personal life.   So if they can do it, why can’t you?

Here are three helpful apps to step up your social media game!

Canva

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A call to action can help boost engagement. Turn your product pics into graphic masterpieces with Canva.

Created in 2009 out of Sydney, Australia the app has gained massive success thanks for its easy to use editing system and the fact that it’s FREE. Learn more on their website.  

 

 

Instafollow

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Instafollow or it’s Twitter equivalent, UnfollowerStats, allows you to check when people follow and unfollow your social media accounts. This is optimal for businesses who want to familiarize themselves with what posts are and aren’t working with their demographic.

Currents

Google’s Currents is an app that helps the average joe keep up to date with the newest trends in what’s happening around the world. This app helps many social media influencers, especially journalists and political commentators, remain relevant when they post.

What’s your go-to app for engagement?