Business and Marketing

Have distinct recipes for video content, be adventurous with mobile, and sprinkle liberally with hashtags, social executives recommend.

Google's Kristina Hahn

Facebook's consumer packaged goods (CPG) business lead Eric Berman told a group of beverage marketers yesterday that there were many marketing techniques he and his colleagues just couldn't do during his years working at Unilever. “The Unilever paradigm was that the closer you got to the point of sale, the crappier your options were. But those limitations are now lifted,” he said. “If you love marketing, these are the golden days.”

Berman was joined at the eBev Conference in Atlanta by Kristina Hahn and Brad Keown, his CPG counterparts from Google and Twitter, respectively. They shared their thoughts on some of the key digital tactics of the day:

Video: “It drives me nuts when people put their videos in only one place,” Hahn said. “If it lives on Twitter and Foursquare, you can find it on Google. Use more placements to drive more views.” She went on to suggest that marketers develop content strategies for their video campaigns. “You can't just take your Super Bowl ad and run it on YouTube. We suggest the three H's of ‘Hub, Hero, Hygiene,' with Hub videos focusing on product, Hero being the Super Bowl ad, and Hygiene comprising regular content like recipes.”

Hashtags:All three felt that marketers were not making maximum use of hashtags to get more bang for their bucks. “When people tweet about something, they could be served an ad based on the hashtag,” Keown said. “It's a way to control the conversation. I highly recommend your putting hashtags on everything, even if it's not on Twitter." Hahn concurred: “Hashtags are not just a Twitter thing, they're an Internet thing.”

Mobile: More and more, it's becoming the medium that links the previous two tactics. “The amount of video people can consume online is mind-boggling,” Berman said when asked to name mobile moments of truth by moderator Adrian Parker, VP of digital marketing for Patron Spirits. “Most of us wouldn't have jobs if people didn't love brands and marketing." Keown urged marketers to become more adventurous with their mobile efforts. “Some are really trying to figure it out, others just want to follow,” he said. “But if you're not experimenting, you should be.”

Business Breaking News: 11 Collaboration Tools for Small Business

From online meetings to remote tech support, technology has made communicating with employees easier and more affordable than ever — so much so that even small businesses are prioritizing their communication strategies.

A study by IT association CompTIA revealed that small businesses plan to implement several communication tools in 2014, such as social media, video conferencing and Voice over Internet Phones (VoIP). These tools make it easier to engage not only with team members, but also with clients, customers and prospects. Here are 10 such tools to consider for your small business.

Whether you need to make voice calls or video calls, or simply chat and send multimedia messages, Google Hangouts makes all types of group collaboration super easy — regardless of your team members' locations and devices. From desktops to Android and iOS mobile devices, Hangouts lets you connect with up to 10 people from all over the world. You can make voice calls straight from your computer (calls to the US and Canada are free), as well as hold videoconferences and even live-stream meetings and events. The service also lets you keep a history of your Hangouts, so you can always go back to old conversations for reference. Google Hangouts is free. Paid subscriptions are also available to increase the number of people you can connect to in a single session. [8 Mobile Apps for Business Collaboration]

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