Twitter
has made changes to users’ profile pages and individual tweets.
Pictures viewed on a profile page will appear in a light-box on the same
page and replies to tweets will all be viewed on one page.
Firstly,
when clicking on a photo on a profile page, the photo will now appear
on the same page in a pop-out box rather than taking the user to a
different page altogether. These images will also appear larger than
they were when shown on a different page. More content will also be seen in the media galleries on the left-hand side of a users’ profile. A Twitter blog postsaid that: “Media galleries now include videos from Vine,YouTube, Vimeo, and other partners whose videos appear in expanded Tweets.”
Also,
users will be able to see all replies that have been made towards a
tweet on one page, regardless of how many there may have been.
Previously,
a single tweet would only show a small number of replies that would
have been made. Now however, a user simply needs to scroll down to see
all replies. As well as this, by clicking on a reply, you will be able
to see any replies that have been made to this specific reply.
Seeing
pictures on the same page as a profile looks like a smart move for
Twitter. Being redirected to a different page just to view pictures
seemed to be an inconvenience to a lot of users.
The ability to
see all replies to a tweet will increase functionality. Businesses and
high profile users will save time looking through multiple replies they
will likely receive to tweets. It will also help with recollection not
needing to click through to find other responses.
What do you think of these updates to Twitter? Do you think they are useful?
Finding the courage to really be ourselves in this world is often a
challenge. But this is how we are going to find our niche and make money
online. What is it that really excites you and how can you know the difference
between a hobby and a passion? For instance with me I love Windsurfing and
Wakeboarding. These are my hobbies. I learned how to teach Windsurfing in my twenties thinking that this was the job for me but when I began I realised I
just wanted to be doing the Windsurfing, not teaching it. Windsurfing is a
discipline and an escape for me. I don’t want it to become a source of income. That would complicate it and change the tone I so love.
So when it comes to helping people make money online through their passion
this is something I love doing and if there is money involved for me then I see
that as a reward for value and a service I have provided for someone. If I do
not make money from it then that is ok because I love to do it. When I meet
budding entrepreneurs looking to get started in their chosen field or I speak
to a new business owner who has managed to turn an idea into a growing
enterprise I actually feel quite tearful! Sounds odd? Well it is said that if
you write down a list of all the possible choices you can think of for your own
passion that you would like to perhaps turn into a business it is the one that
makes you want to cry that you should go for.
Richard Branson once said that we should never go into business purely for
money. I agree with him. Have you ever tried a get rich quick scheme with the
promise of a fast buck? Or have you started a job purely because the pay check
looks exciting? I know I have. Well in the field of business we quickly become
unstuck if we are not really passionate about the niche and the service we
provide.
I was watching a John Demartini video the other day and he was talking about
why we tend to get so disappointed when a new love in our life suddenly hurts
so much after a period of time. Like meeting the perfect partner and falling in
love only to find out two years down the line they are human and have all the
same flaws and characteristics of any other person! He said it is because we
fell in love with a fantasy and this is why a business can often fail. If our goal
is a fantasy then when we hit the inevitable hurdles of business we are not psychologically
prepared. We can prepare ourselves for the realities of running a business by
making sure our chosen niche is one that makes our heart sing and that our
goals are based in reality and not on fantasy.
Once we have chosen our niche we can build a brand around it and begin our
journey working with social media to promote our service and build a client
base. It is the passion we have for something that makes us almost desperate to get
out there and help people with it! These are the signs we should be looking
for. But this of course requires us to be ourselves. It means knowing, not
believing but knowing there is no one else on this earth the same as you. There
is no-one else who has the same heart as you, so the passion that is in there is unique to you. The task
of speaking our truth, sharing our passion for the benefit of others is our
responsibility. The good news is it’s what makes us insanely happy! What will
you do today to begin the journey of sharing your passion with the world?
While most businesses are focused on going mobile, popular photo-sharing app Instagram is making its web debut. Two years after arriving on the iPhone, the company has finally started to roll out web profiles.
“People
have been asking for this for a while now and we’re excited to finally
start rolling them out,” explained Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom.
“We’re going to start out by launching to a small percentage of people
today and will roll it out slowly to everyone in the coming days.”
Currently,
when you share a link to an Instagram photo on Facebook or Twitter,
people can view that photo but not much else. For example, if someone
wanted to browse through your additional photos, he or she would have to
look you up on Instagram. The company’s new web profiles aim to resolve
that.
Bearing an incredible likeness to Facebook Timeline,
Instagram’s web profiles feature a rotating collage of photos where
your Facebook cover photo would sit. Below that, a small profile image,
short bio, and follower stats rest just above your photo history — which
is arranged in reverse-chronological order.
Instagram’s
web profiles also enable individuals to follow new users, like photos,
and leave comments directly from their browsers. To check if you’ve
received the new profile, just access your profile (for example, http://instagram.com/sproutsocial). Instagram details what new features visitors can expect on profiles still awaiting the update.
If
you’ve been neglecting your Instagram account, the new profile — which
puts an even greater emphasis on your photos — is a good reminder to
revisit and re-evaluate your goals on the platform. Photo sharing sites
like Instagram have revived storytelling through photos; make sure your story is ready.
We’re closer to seeing a widespread updated version of Facebook Messages.
In August Facebook announced
that it would be giving Facebook Messages a whole new look, but didn’t
announce when it would be bringing that look to users. Two months later,
most Facebook users appear to have still not received the update.
The announcement in August teased a new side-by-side layout to
messages, allowing you to see your most recent conversations on the left
side of the screen and see a whole conversation on the right. It also
allows you to insert photos and emoticons into messages.
Search and Navigation will also be improved in the updated Messages,
allowing you to search by sender’s name or keyword from the main
messages view, keyboard shortcuts will also be available to access some
of Messages functionality.
On Wednesday, Facebook user Interactive Swim posted a picture
of the welcome note for the updated Messages which recently hit its
page, indicating that the feature may be starting to roll out to
additional users.
A Facebook representative confirmed Wednesday that the updated
version of Messages will be rolling out to all users. But the
representative declined to indicate a time frame for that rollout.
There are countless articles circulating the Web about how to network on Twitter, how to get more Twitter followers, how to tweet, when to tweet, what to tweet, who to follow, what URL shorteners to use, Twitter SEO, and so on. With all of that information available, it’s not hard to imagine that Twitter users, particularly Twitter beginners, can go a bit overboard and actually end up driving otherwise willing followers away while thinking they’re following all the ‘rules’.
Are you guilty of the following Twitter networking faux pas?
Overzealous following
“Follow me and I’ll follow you back!” Have you heard this one before? Don’t be tricked into thinking that following magnitudes of people will make you an instant Twitter star. While there are many that follow the “you follow/I follow” mentality, be aware that this often leads to little substance.
Your time is much better served reaching out to thought leaders you admire and other professionals in your industry. If you regularly reach out to others (with the @ symbol), tweet about things relevant to your niche, and retweet thoughtfully, you will see your follower list begin to grow naturally!
Tweeting once a year
We’re exaggerating a little bit here, but twitter, much like blogging, can be a trap for some where they get really excited at first and tweet like crazy and then the excitement wears off and their tweets dwindle to once every couple of days, maybe once a week, and sometimes…months go by with no tweeting at all. Can you hear the crickets chirping? If you’re not using your voice, no one is going to listen to you! Be sure that you keep your twitter account active. This doesn’t mean you have to tweet every time you blink (which it seems that some people do), but try not to let too long go between your interactions on twitter or you’re likely to lose followers.
Tweeting TMI
TMI stands for Too Much Info, and this can be a scary line to cross if you’re tweeting, particularly if your tweets aren’t protected (which, if you’re looking to build a large following, it’s usually a good idea to go public), and if you’re representing a business, yours or otherwise. Twitter makes it so easy to express yourself that a hasty tweet in moment of bad judgment can occur without even realizing it. Even though you want to be yourself, unless you are a comedian known for your lewd jokes or a brazen celeb whose fans thrive on the drama, be mindful of what you say or what pictures you post. Potential employers, competitors, and other influencers take notice.
Tweet Spam
While it’s true that twitter can be a great way to spread news about your business, as in any venue where your voice can be heard, you need to maintain a balance between promoting yourself and sharing non-promotional things. If every tweet becomes “check out my latest item I listed on eBay!” or “click for the best deal on cell phone ringtones!” or “15% off with this special code!”, people are going to start seeing your tweets like they see ads and tune them out. Having your link in your twitter bio will draw traffic from your followers, and the more interesting content you give them when you tweet, the more they’ll trust you and be likely to click when you do share that occasional promotional tweet.
Conversely, if you are a business that uses twitter solely for product updates and discounts, be up front about your twitter account with followers and post wisely!
Tweet Fraud
Okay this title makes this sound like something truly awful (and if you are genuinely stealing someone else’s identity on Twitter, you probably aren’t reading this article right now), but the point here is be genuine. Twitter was created as a means for social interaction and connection with other people. If you are tweeting on behalf of a business, have a voice and give people the sense that you are accessible and real. By being genuine with your followers, you’re giving them the chance to feel a connection to you and feel that their voice also matters to you. Business is business, but at the end of the day, twitter is social.
Avoid these Twitter mistakes and you should be well on your way to developing a solid following of loyal twitter fans! Do you have any tips to add? By Lesley DeSantis
Facebook introduced the "People Talking about This" metric a few months ago.
Initially, many were skeptical of how useful it would be.
As it turns out, it's actually one of the best metrics you can use to gauge your Facebook marketing.
This one number tells you how effective your Facebook Marketing is on a weekly basis. And it's the key to virally growing your Facebook fan page.
Why?
Your "Viral Reach" is closely tied to how many people are "Talking about You".
So the more people that "talk about you", the more your Facebook page will virally grow on its own.
But there's a huge problem. Something is stopping you.
What's stopping you from virally growing your Facebook fan page?
EdgeRank.
Facebook EdgeRank 101
The truth is that it doesn't matter how many fans your page has. This is a harsh reality for your social media plan.
If you don't have engagement, then people will never see your updates.
Facebook's EdgeRank is an algorithm that determines how many of your Facbeook fans will actually see any updates.
It's made up of three parts:
1. User Affinity
The first part measures each individual user's engagement level with your page.
The more times a user Likes, comments, views, or responds to a question on your page, the more likely they will receive updates.
2. Status Weight
Facebook wants users to stay on their site as long as possible. So they give more credit to these types of updates.
Video is given the most, followed by photos, links, and then regular status updates.
3. Freshness
As a rule of thumb, most people have seen your status update within 4 hours.
So updating at consistent intervals and at the right time of day can pay off tremendously.
But be careful. Posting more frequently than once every four hours can actually hurt you in the long run.
How Do You Defeat EdgeRank?
The key to defeating EdgeRank, is by increasing your user engagement on each update.
Here are some simple tips that you can start doing today.
Use a Personal Tone.
Address your fans casually and be personal. Think about what your users are interested in, and use the vocabulary they would use.
Always put your audience's needs first. If you're posting a link to an article you just wrote, then specifically ask them "What they think about X", or "Do you like X or Y better?".
Always use a Call-to-Action.
You should always have a specific reason behind each status update. Don't just ramble or post garbage... this isn't Twitter.
If you want your users to take some action, then ask them to!
So try saying, "Tell me what you think", or "Like this update if you like X.
Spark an emotional response and debate.
People will feel compelled to respond when they have some deep interest.
The easiet topics that spark debate are sex, religion and politics. But I would urge you to avoid these for obvious reasons.
Instead, use current news stories or pop culture references. These inspire the same interest level, without the headaches and arguments.
Post during peak hours.
Finally, look at your Facebook Insights to determine when your best updates (in terms of Total Views) were posted.
If you can't find any patterns or clues, then you can't go wrong with the following schedule:
Early Morning (7am - 9am)
End of Work (5pm - 7pm)
Late Night (11pm - 1am)
Facebook use peaks during these time periods, and you'll have a better chance of exposing your content to more people.
Using these tips will help you immediately increase engagement.
And when you increase engagement on a daily basis, then you'll begin to virally grow your Facebook fan page.
The more people you get "talking about you" each week, then the better chance you have of meeting your social media goals.
Technology makes the magical possible, but it’s also making marketing complicated. With ad exchanges, hyper-local targeting, and endless mobile options, it’s easy to get tangled up in an alphabet soup of advertising technology. Just one look at Terence Kawaja’s ad-tech landscape induces tears of empathy for over-marketed-to marketers. Basically, the time for simplification is here.
Simplicity is what consumers want, what marketers need, and what standard-bearers such as Apple and Google have shown as the way forward.
What did Steve Jobs do when he returned to Apple in 1997? He simplified the product line and, by extension, Apple’s whole business. That worked out pretty well.
The same goes for Google. Every once in a while the tech giant cuts products to move forward with new offerings. Sure, some of their initiatives — say, wind energy or self-driving cars — may seem to come out of left field. But Google’s basic promise to consumers is to develop products and services that help them organize and navigate the world in a better, geekier way. (I’m talking about you, Google glasses.)
We need to learn from these examples. When advertisers obsess over brand impact, and agencies insist on slicing and dicing every impression, it’s hard not to wonder if we’re focusing on the wrong things. For all the efficiency we’ve gained with the burgeoning of ad tech, we’ve lost a lot in the way of simplicity. Keeping marketing simple — delivering compelling ads and content that consumers actually want to engage with — could take the industry a long way toward improving performance for both brands and consumers.
Here are three rules that brands can follow to simplify their marketing for everyone involved.
1. Put Consumers in the Driver’s Seat
Let’s move away from strategies and metrics that aren’t really relevant for branding. Brands always look for some kind of number and stat to justify their online spend — CTR, view-through, attribution, “likes.” Does that make sense at all? Did brands worry about measuring the impact of a full-page spread in Vogue back in the day? The issue is over thinking the numbers and not thinking enough about advertising in the interest of consumers.
Give people choice, control, and relevance in their experience. Don’t put a roadblock between anyone and the story, images, or video they want to see. Create intriguing, value-add experiences that are relevant to the page, that make users want to click, view, and engage. Make it user-initiated and easy to start and stop engagement. Instead of real-time bidding (RTB), how about trying real-time relevance?
2. Get in the Content
We’ve seen a recent surge in attention for the “native ad,” sponsored content, and branded-content meme. But it’s really nothing new. Ever watch soap operas on TV? Those started out as radio broadcasts that were literally created by consumer packaged goods companies. Since the dawn of digital time, we’ve known that the traditional ad concept had to change and that brands needed to move into the content-creation business and get their content seen.
But what if your stellar campaign assets are part of the one-third of display advertising that, according to comScore, goes unseen due to banner blindness? Even if you have awesome, entertaining, useful branded content like Red Bull or Unilever, you still need to surface it. How will your brand’s content be discovered by consumers who have literally zillions of content channels to choose from?
Focus your attention where consumer attention is focused: in the edit well online, on mobile, and on the tablet. Surface your content through advertising technology that gets you in the words and images where a relevant, immersive brand advertisement or content experience will really make an impression with consumers.
3. Simplify Your Strategy
Instead of doing one thing on mobile, another on tablets, and something else on desktop, consider putting mobile at the center of the design process, then refining and customizing everything from there.
Brands can now respond directly to how consumers interact with all kinds of devices. In an era where we swipe, expand, and share an ad or useful brand content, it isn’t enough to rely on the same old creative approach. Brands need to leverage their great assets with amazing creative executions in high-impact, exciting ways that are native to devices, contexts, and formats.
So let’s leave the purchase funnels behind, and stick with these three simple rules. Chances are people will thank you with ever-coveted, ever-elusive, real engagement.
When discussing Facebook, “Engagement” is a
very popular term, as it’s how we measure the success of a post. The
more activity and interaction a post has the more successful it is for
the business.
Now this concept of measuring engagement in recent
months has become more and more popular as brands and businesses start
to question the returns social media generates. Obviously any
advertising platform needs to achieve measurable results, and at this
point it seems “engagement” is the key metric for social media.
The
question then becomes what kind of posts generate engagement?
Facebook allows you to do text, video and image posts, not only that
but you can do pinned posts and highlighted posts. Recently they’ve
also introduced the concept of promoted posts where you can pay for
greater reach.
With all these different kinds of posts it can be
tough as a business owner to work out what kind of posts generate the
most engagement. Don’t worry though, you’re not the first business
owner worried about this, so I’ve decided to share some tips on how to
get the highest engagement on your posts.
As an Internet marketing consultant
I spend a lot of time strategizing with companies and also reviewing
competitors campaigns. In my experience and research here are some of
the key elements to a post that gets great engagement:
Key Element #1: Type Of Post
There
are 3 major post types, images, text and video. In my research and
experience image posts have achieved the greatest results. As Facebook
is a visual platform users generally engage more with pictures, so use
this to your advantage. Post images of your customers, images of your
products and images of your team.
Key Element #2: Content Of Post
When
posting on Facebook it’s important to ensure the content of your post
is something which your readers are interested in. Over the last few
months, the types of posts I’ve seen get most engagement are the “Like
If” style posts. For example “Like This Image If You Wear Prada On The
Weekend”. This kind of post entices the fan to like the post and can
also help with customer demographics research.
As a rule of thumb, choose post timings that meet
your current client behaviors, for example if you are busy in the
morning then post in the morning.
Now this is by no means an
extensive list, in fact I could go on for quite some time, but these 3
elements will help you to spike engagement with your fans. Leave a
comment below of what you believe are other key elements for enticing
engagement.
To be successful in social media and community management you need to keep track of the constant changes to that ecosystem. That’s because everything you know about Facebook, Twitter, and other social spaces today will somehow be different in six months.
Layouts will be altered, features will be added or removed, and new social networks may pop up.
So how should you keep track of all these moving parts? Here are six tips for staying on top of social media.
1. BLOGS
There are hundreds of blogs focused on social media. Keep it simple by signing up to RSS feeds and spend twenty minutes every morning catching up on your social media news. Stick to blogs that are updated daily and focus on providing content in social media and technology.
Consider adding these blogs to your RSS feed to get started: SocialTimes, Social Media Examiner, TechCrunch, and SocialMediaToday.
2. WEBINARS
Webinars are often offered by agencies and make for good social media resources. You can find webinars by searching on Twitter or registering on directories that list the week’s webinars. You can also attend paid webinars that go beyond the basics. In either case, you can find a good starter list at webinarlistings.com.
3. TRENDING TOPICS
Yes, reading your blogs in the morning is effective but information travels fast so pay attention to what’s trending on Twitter, too. First, make sure that you check your Twitter trend settings. Certain settings will spit out tailored trends, which you should probably avoid.
Also, if you don’t understand why a certain word or phrase is trending you can check out whatthetrend.com for explanations.
4. NEWSLETTERS
Not all newsletters are spam. Some are actually worth signing up for. If you’re OK with getting a daily newsletter, check out SmartBrief. If you prefer a weekly roundup then take a look at SocialFresh. These newsletters curate the best social media content from the web and create original highly informative articles as well.
5. MEETUPS AND TWEETUPS
Whether in person at a meetup or virtually at a tweetup, chatting with like-minded individuals will keep you on your toes, help you predict what’s coming next, and teach you new things about how others are behaving in social media. To find a group of social media fanatics near you check out Meetup.com.
6. TRAINING AND CERTIFICATION
If you are serious about educating yourself in the social space you may consider signing up for a training program or certification course. Whether you are looking for a six-week crash course or an ongoing education program, resources are available. To start, you can check out WOMM-COM and HootSuiteU.
There
is no denying that social media is vastly growing day by day. It has
become the most successful medium of communication among the people.
The rise of Facebook and twitter has taken the online marketing onto a
whole new level; most of the companies are using social networking
sites as a key variable for their brand promotions. It’s fast and
highly influential way of promoting brands and products. It is more
cost effective than spending your budget on online advertising such as
banner ads or PPC (Pay Per Click).
We have compiled a list of techniques for promoting your brand on social media. A few of the major techniques are shared below:
Building Relationship with the users:
Creating a Twitter or Facebook fan page
doesn’t mean that your brand is promoted. Consider this as you are
entering into a party room and to make contact you need to socialize
with others or as we say engage with the user. Make sure that whatever
you are sharing is interesting and worth sharing, so it can build
interest of the users and project your brand image as an innovative
and outstanding idea that encourages users to interact and engage
themselves with the brand.
Update your content regularly:
This
is very important for any brand and product that there content is
always updated and is related to the market trends. Because users are
mostly not interested in the past details, they always look for the
latest and new offerings. So keep in mind if you are posting or sharing
anything be sensible and intelligent.
More Viral Promotion:
Always
keep in mind that whenever you are offering something new to your fans
make it viral to increase its value. Some of the social networking
sites like “Groupon”is following this strategy. Viral promotions can enrich user’s voice in social media.
Visibility:
Social
media will give you visibility and enhance your target market. It will
provide you a chance to present your qualities to the wider
audience.When users subscribe to your page or “like” your brand, they
can see all the updates and activities. If things are interesting the
users will repost or share your activity with his/her friends and try to
be part of the activity.
Respond Quickly:
Another important part of developing a better social media strategy
is to keep in touch with your fans or customers by responding them as
quickly as possible, so they feel themselves worthy and valuable. It
becomes very easy for brands to engage users and build their brand
loyalty among the people by responding early.
Conclusion:
At
the end, there are so many things that you can do to increase your
audience. Using social media platforms gives you an edge over your
competitors (especially from those who are not using social media).
Remember, you presence on social media platform is not the only key for
the success of online marketing, it’s the interaction with users that
counts.
You know you should listen to your customers and you are aware that
social media has been the new way for people to express their opinions
about products and services. But what are the platforms available and
what are the differences between each one of them? Here is a quick guide
for you:
FACEBOOK
What it is: It is the most popular
social network with over 800 million users. People usually build
profiles to keep in touch with family and friends. Lately it has been
used by businesses as a marketing tool. On Facebook people can send and
receive messages, chat online, post pictures and share links and videos.
They can also "like" a page - there are six types of pages: local
businesses, companies, products, artists, entertainment and community.
Facebook offers many options to interact such as the Wall, photo albums,
comments space and the "like" button, where people click if they like
the comment or post. If users don't like something or someone, they have
the option of blocking the person's updates or deleting the person from
their profile.
What do you need to know: Facebook is a great way
to generate customer loyalty and there are many ways to do it. But
because it's a very personal network, people don't appreciate when
businesses overload their pages with information or un-wanted promotions
and they usually block the pages if that happens. The best way to
increase interaction is by sharing useful content, asking customers'
opinions and giving quick answers-Facebook users really expect you to
reply A.S.A.P. In other words, show you care about them and they'll care
about you.
Vocabulary you need to know: Wall-page where people
post and receive comments; NewsFeed-page where Facebook shows the users
what is going on with friends and pages they like. It shows popular
posts first and then most recent ones.
TWITTER
What it is:
It is a platform that shows real-time updates. On Twitter you can
choose which updates you want to see and you can also use the search
engine to look up other people's updates on a specific subject.
Businesses can use Twitter to inform about their products and services
and to see what people are saying about them. Twitter was created in
2006 as a texting program and grew to be the only real-time information
platform in the world.
What do you need to know: Twitter is a
great way to spread the word about your business. People sign up for it
to get news before anyone else - so make sure you post there first. Many
times, news was on Twitter before it appeared on big media channels
such as CNN. Twitter updates can be only 140 characters long.
Vocabulary
you need to know: Twitter has a very particular vocabulary. Users are
called Tweeters and are divided in two categories: Followers-people that
see your updates, and Following-people that you choose to see updates
from. Also, the updates-or the things you write-are called tweets.
FOURSQUARE
What
it is: It is the first location based platform for mobile devices
(smart phones, iPods, iPads). It is not as popular as Facebook and
Twitter but it has been growing fast. People use it to "check-in" at
places and to show their friends where they are. They can also leave
comments and reviews about the place they are at.
What do you
need to know: Foursquare offers many tools to attract customers to your
venue and it is a great opportunity for a business to grow loyalty and
to get new customers. Facebook has a similar feature (Facebook Places)
but FourSquare lets customers write reviews right away and search for
places nearby. Businesses can use FourSquare to give away coupons,
prizes and virtual badges, making the whole experience feel like a fun
game. The platform offers a dashboard (a data report) where you can see
when and how many people went to your place.
What
it is: Websites that provide information about a business, including
location, hours of operations, amenities and customer reviews. Each
website has different features but they are all very similar in content.
What
do you need to know: Review websites are really important for
businesses. Google revealed that 97% of customers look online for a new
place to go. And they are influenced by other people's opinion. So make
sure you monitor every website and respond to each bad review you get
with an explanation. Customers really appreciate when a business' owner
takes the time to do it.
GOOGLE+
What it is: It is the
newer social network out there. It's still in beta phase (a testing
period) but it promises wonders. There has been a lot of talk about
Google's new platform but the network was opened to the general public
on late September/2011. It is very similar to Facebook but it's evolved
around Google tools.
What do you need to know: Nothing yet.
Google+ just launched its Business pages and while big brands and
professionals are crazy about it, customers are not there yet. Keep one
eye on it too. It could become a powerful network once it incorporates
all Google services.
Search algorithms have used machine learning and artificial intelligence to predict which of the billions of pages on the Internet might be most relevant to your search.
Google has spent so much time, money and effort trying to make their search engine the most accurate when searching on it, but what do people really care about when they look for information?
What really makes a search result the most accurate or best of all online?
Microsoft Bing is revamping its search engine to include a sidebar to enable you to obtain recommendations from users of Facebook when making a search on Bing. It is not just Facebook but they are planning to include many other networks.
Bing will be able to deliver results based on what your trusted sources of information (your friends and acquaintances) think.
They have made this move following the fact that "90% of people consult with a friend or expert before making a decision"
The sidebar appears on the right-hand side of all searches, so when you do a search Bing will suggest "Friends Who Might Know" about the topic based on the information in their Facebook, Likes, profile information, photos, etc.
This move takes searching online to a whole new level, you don't just rely on the information found about it because it seems to be the most popular or the most visited, but you are able to see who in your network may have a recommendation, a suggestion or the expertise to guide you on your search, based on their own experience and knowledge.
This will push companies to increase the quality of their customer experience, customer retention, the influence they have on social networks to gain more recommendations and to put even more effort to grow their brand awareness.
This is only one more step forward to what the future seems to look like when bringing social networks to search engine rankings and optimization.
By Milli Ponce
by Guy Kawasaki. The author of Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions.
On March 8, I introduced my tenth book. There are few processes that I enjoy more than a product introduction, and this one enabled me to try many social media techniques and online tools and services. After only a week, the book was on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. I have to conclude that at least some of that success was due to the promotional techniques I employed.
Here, I’d like to outline the 12 things that I did to launch my new book, including information about costs and vendors I used, as well as analytics. Though my “product” is a book, the methods I used can apply to product introductions in general. Hopefully this post will provide marketers with ideas for how to launch just about anything.
1. Facebook
A Facebook Fan Page is the quickest and easiest way to get a web presence for a new product. These pages are very valuable for building community and spreading the word because Facebook offers built-in capabilities such as commenting, liking, sharing and uploading photos and videos. Fan Pages are not as flexible as websites, but implementing social features is much easier.
The challenge with Fan Pages, and websites of any kind, is to attract visitors. One thing that I did was to offer a PDF version of my first book, The Macintosh Way, to anyone who “Liked” the page for my new book. (The rights to my first book had reverted to me, so there was no cost.)
There were a few costs involved. I used Hyperarts to design my Fan Page, which cost about $2,500. I used OfficeDrop to scan The Macintosh Way, which cost in the between $100 and $200.
2. Website
After two months, I revisited my decision to rely primarily on a Facebook Fan Page and supplemented my existing website with materials about my book. The resources I wanted to provide would have overwhelmed my Facebook Page with tabs. I wanted a way to provide my bio, pictures and bookstores without Facebook membership requirements. No matter how many people are on Facebook, it doesn’t have all the people in the world. Facebook is also a private business, which means they can (and often do) unilaterally make major changes with little warning to users. The lesson here is that while a Facebook Fan Page is great, its flexibility and capacity are limited. You’re also subject to the whims of the company.
My goal with the website was to make it as easy as possible for reviewers to obtain all the background information and pictures necessary to review my book. I even supplemented the picture page with photos of enchanting people (e.g. Queen Latifah), places (e.g. Istanbul), and things (e.g. 1964 1/2 Ford Mustang) to provide a subtle reference to the title (Enchantment). I contracted my buddy Will Mayall to make the book website, and you should expect to pay around $2,500 to create a simple brochure site from scratch.
In addition to resources for reviewers, I added audio and video to my website. Because I do many speaking engagements, it was easy to amass a collection of video and podcasts about the book. I provided them for two reasons. First, they are selling tools for potential readers. Second, reviewers can embed them on their websites and blogs for their readers. I used Craig Hosoda to edit my videos, which you can expect to cost a few hundred dollars per clip. When you’re speaking, if an organization is already recording your presentation, you won’t have to pay for a crew. If you have to pay for a crew, however, it will cost $1,500 or so, plus editing.
3. Review Copies
Most publishers send out 100 to 200 galleys/books to reviewers (this number will vary depending upon how well known you are, if you’re a first time author, the size of your publisher, etc.). These promotional copies go to recognized book reviewers and A-listers in a segment. I decided to target a different review audience. I own a site that aggregates RSS feeds from about 20,000 bloggers. I offered a review copy to all 20,000 people no matter what their blog topic; 1,300 requested a copy, and we sent one to anyone who asked. I also used eCairn to identify the key social media bloggers and offered a copy to them, too. Because I wanted broad adoption of the ideas in this book, my goal was to get reviews in as broad a spectrum of blogs as possible, instead of only the usual book review and business blogs.
All told, we sent out approximately 1,600 copies. This resulted in approximately 150 interviews and 200 reviews before the book was available. These reviews appeared in blogs that covered areas ranging from beauty products to dog training.
The amount you can expect to pay for something like this depends on how you count the cost of a galley or a book plus shipping. A good estimate is $10 per book or galley including shipping, so this cost $16,000, but my publisher paid for this, not me. I also compiled all the reviews on a webpage for two reasons. First, to create the overwhelming impression that reluctance to read the book was futile. Second, to acknowledge all the reviewers for their hard work.
The lesson here is to cover the earth with as many product trials as possible. Don’t focus on only the A-listers — “nobodies” are the new somebodies in the flattened, social networking world we now live in. You never know who’s going to make your product “tip.”
4. Email
I’m a big believer in email marketing. It cuts right to the point. People either open the email or they don’t. They either click through to a page or they don’t. They either buy or they don’t. Every step is measurable.
On the day that my book hit the stores, we sent out 160,000 emails; 130,000 of those email addresses came from thirty years of making contacts, and 30,000 came from AlwaysOn, as a favor. Building a quality pool of email contacts is clearly something anyone can replicate, but it takes time.
Of the 160,000 recipients, 3.75% clicked through to the order page. Email may be old school, but it’s cheap and effective.
We used Emailvision to do the mailing, which costs $1,000 per month for the service, plus a $4,500 setup charge. It was no cost — other than time — for the email addresses.
5. Pay Per Click
To tell you the truth, I don’t understand the black magic of pay per click (PPC), so I relied on a buddy from my Apple days named David Szetela. He ran a six-week program on Google AdWords, Facebook ads and Twitter (Promoted Tweets) for search terms such as “Dale Carnegie.” In addition to obtaining several hundred pre-orders, the Twitter campaign for Enchantment caught the attention of the Wall Street Journal, who gave me a nice plug.
We used Clix Marketing to manage the campaign, plus Google and Twitter placement fees. You can expect to pay as little or as much as you can afford on PPC marketing. You can create the campaigns by yourself and pay a few hundred bucks for the ad placements, or hire an agency and pay thousands for their fees and expanded ad placement. The lesson here is that PPC may seem like black magic, but it’s worth trying for a few thousand dollars to see if anything will stick.
6. Photo Contest
In order to generate awareness of my book, I ran a photo contest. I used a Facebook app that enabled people to submit pictures in five categories, and a popular vote determined the finalists. I selected the winners. The prizes were five Nikon 3100s and an Apple iPad. That contest resulted in 1,150 entries, 35,000 visits, 70,000 entry views and 10,500 votes.
What I learned was that people love photo contests. It’s an easy and inexpensive way to build buzz. Beware, however, the people who are professional contestants and people who game the system. At the end, manually pick the winners and don’t depend solely on popular votes. Also be wary of local contest laws, which may govern the types of contests you can run and the value of the prizes you hand out.
I used Strutta to design the contest app, which can cost about $2,000. The prizes (in this case a few Nikon cameras and an iPad) bumped up the costs about another $4,000 or so.
7. Quizzes
The quiz started as a final exam in the book, but I also wanted an online version so people could determine if they should to read the book. I created online versions for both Facebook and my website.
At first, I had only a Facebook version, but similar to my Fan Page, I realized that there are people on the planet who weren’t members of Facebook yet, so I also created a standalone website version. Here’s a mind blower: Approximately 700 people took the Facebook version, and 2,900 people took the standalone website version, even though it came out two weeks after the Facebook version. This is something to think about. Don’t focus all your energy on Facebook.
I used Wildfire, which costs about $400 per month, to create a self-serve quiz. I hired Electric Pulp to create the website version, something that costs in the neighborhood of $3,000.
8. Infographic
I love infographics because they can communicate so much in so little space. I wanted to create an infographic that would provide an overview of the book and act as a resource that bloggers could embed in their reviews. Many bloggers did in fact use the infographic I had made as part of their review. To make the graphic, I hired Column Five. Good infographics can cost up to $1,500 to 2,000, but it’s worth the return. Lots of bloggers like to embed infographics and they have the potential to go viral.
9. Badges, Buttons, Banners and Stickers
I created badges, buttons, and banners so that people could declare that they are enchanting. These badges aren’t exactly ads for the book — they’re more like a “seal of approval” that people can display. They do, however, link to the book’s Facebook Fan Page and allow people to promote the book. I also included the badges on other websites that I own and operate — essentially advertising one of my products on another. In the first few weeks, there were approximately 100,000 impressions of the badges around the web. Lesson learned: People like to embed badges and wear them on their clothes. This is a cheap way to gain exposure.
I used Samuel Toh and Ana Frazao to design the badges and banners. You can expect a cost of about $50 per badge for something like this. I liked the website badges so much that I asked Sam Toh to design a sticker for SXSW. Then my buddies at Walls360 printed 2,500 of them. You can see them in action here. These are no ordinary stickers. They are printed on fabric so you can use them over and over, which means they come at a premium and cost about $1 each. Disclosure: The author is an adviser to Walls360.
10. Wallpapers
Once you have an infographic and badges, you might as well go all the way and create wallpapers too. These wallpapers enable people to have book-themed desktops and homescreens on their computers, phones and iPads. I don’t expect many people to use them, but what the heck, right? I used Ana Frazao again for this project, and you can expect to pay about $400.
11. PowerPoint
If the topic of enchantment proves popular, organizations will pay me 50 times a year to give a speech based on the book. Therefore, skimping on a PowerPoint presentation or trying to make it myself made little sense. Joshua Bell doesn’t use a cheap violin and Yo-Yo Ma doesn’t use a toy cello, so why should I use a crappy PowerPoint presentation? Ana Frazao was my designer of choice on this project, as well, and the price for this can be around $3,600. But remember: A slide presentation is a window into your soul. Do you want your soul to look cheap and unprofessional?
12. Thank You Slideshow
It takes a village to finish a book: publisher personnel, book designers, beta readers, web designers, graphic designers, and more. You would be amazed. I tried to list all of them in the Acknowledgments section of my book, but that felt very 1.0. So I asked my buddies Brad Jefferson and Andrew Jacobson at Animoto to create a thank you slideshow for the team behind my book.
You can expect to pay up to $50 per month if you use the professional version, with which you create your own slideshows (Brad and Andrew did mine as a favor to me). However, for the small amount of trouble of collecting pictures and laying them down to a music track, you can show some gratitude to the people who helped you launch your product. It’s worth the time and expense!
Conclusion
While my new product is a book, you can apply these ideas to almost any product introduction. Every one of these vendors did a great job for me, and I would use them again in a second. Of course, when I’ve provided cost estimates in the past, there are always people who say, “You paid that much for that? I could have done it for a third of the price!” Yeah, well, there are two things to consider.
First, I’m providing ballpark numbers for what people should expect to pay — I didn’t necessarily pay all of these prices.
Second, and more importantly, even if I did pay these prices, I didn’t have the bandwidth or desire to shop around, check out vendors and negotiate. Time is money and I was plenty busy making three speeches a week around the world, parenting four kids and being interviewed three to five times per day. And there’s a lesson in that too: If you try to optimize every decision and you define optimization as doing things as cheaply as possible, you might end up with a steaming pile of crap. The big picture is to launch a product as big and fast possible and to succeed — not save the most money.
Luckily for you there’s an easy fix to make sure everyone sees your tweets. Simply put a character before the @ reply and suddenly Twitter thinks you want the whole world to see this tweet. Experience has proven that using a ‘.’ before the @ reply is about as unobtrusive as it gets (and only uses 1 extra character from the 140 allotment).
For example:
Because I included a ‘.’ before the @ reply, now my tweet will be seen by ALL of my followers, not just those who also follow @Sprout_Insights.
Problem solved.
An Alternative Solution
The fix, above, is elegant but it still takes up 1 potentially valuable character. You can obtain the same goal, not losing any extra characters and still having your tweet readable by all of your followers by simply rearranging your tweet so that the @ reply is not at the very beginning:
So, what do you think? Useful tip? Still not sure what this is all about? Or glad to know there’s a way to make your tweets seen by the widest audience possible? Either way, why don’t you let us know by leaving a comment below.
Businesses are beginning to realize the significant role Pinterest marketing can play in getting high quality traffic and more exposure for their products quickly. There was a bit of skepticism if Pinterest would manage to generate enough buzz online or fall into the category of social networking sites puffing up and then fizzing out.
It's now safe to conclude that Pinterest could perhaps go on to play a more influential role for businesses than what Facebook or Twitter may have had. Having said that Pinterest marketing should not be an alternate promotional strategy but a mandatory one!
So, how do you get high quality traffic fast using Pinterest marketing?
Start by figuring out what you intend to promote. It's important must understand the difference between Pinterest and other social networking sites to craft this idea. Twitter has a restriction on the content you can post and although there are text extenders and links that can be inculcated in a tweet, the basic concept of making short posts work well as the platform is for updates. You can tweet about an update for a product or tweet about some related news.
With Pinterest, the marketing strategy can get highly diverse. It can be product centric, customer centric, innovation centric and several other types. What Pinterest offers is also not a feature that can be enjoyed on Facebook. For example, the idea of following people you would want to notify about your business and content. You can create a Facebook page and that would be available for people to like, comment or provide other feedback but you can't reach out further than that to get more targeted traffic.
Pinterest marketing gives you the opportunity to take your pin boards and pins across to all the people you want to. That way you get targeted traffic, not to mention the traffic is also extremely high quality traffic that generates sales. A fashion wear brand would definitely reap more benefits if the followers of their pins and boards are concerned about fashion and not just a random like from anyone.
Pinterest marketing should not be juxtaposed with Twitter and Facebook marketing strategies. The platforms are different. Pinterest calls for a more specific approach. Do not just create a page for your business. Instead focus on a specific topic. For example, a mobile manufacturer may want to create a board for a specific mobile phone model and put up interesting pins for the viewers to share with interest. That's how you can get high quality traffic fast and easy!
This is a fantastic video from Black Box Social Media. It has some very eye opening statistics about why Social Media has taken over as THE marketing medium...
Twitter, Facebook, and other social media can help generate sales and build brand. But they're confusing. Here are some fast tips to help sort things out.
Social media marketing is necessary. If you want to reach your market, you need to be using social media. Three-quarters of Americans now use social media. Social media is growing three times faster than the Internet overall, said Shayne Huston, Director of Innovation, CDS Global, which provides marketing, technology, customer service and fulfillment solutions to parent company Hearst as well as other business clients.
Huston spoke in Second Life, part of a Smarter Technology series of educational talks. Keep your eyes on the overall goal. "The overall goal is to generate sales, increase interest in product and services, increase brand recognition, and create fanatics about your company," Huston said.
Go where your customers are. People have different preferences where they want to receive messages: Some prefer e-mail, some Facebook, some Twitter, some prefer other channels. You need to send your message where different people in your market want it, not insist they come to you.
Even within a particular channel, you have to be on-target. For example, most adults have three primary e-mails: One for work, one from home, and one where they direct bulk mail as a means of avoiding spam. Marketers need to be sure they're sending to the right address, Huston said.
"It's something that people can be irritated by, if for example you're sending work information to their personal e-mail rather than where they want to see it," he said.
Select your focus. Figure out which channel makes the most sense to use as your primary channel. Use all channels, so you can get to everyone, but use secondary channels to redirect people in your market to your primary channel. "As the saying goes, all roads lead to Rome. That's where your main communication will be, that's where the call to action and information for building your brand will be," Huston said. At CDS Global, the primary channel is the CDS Global Blog.
Companies can disseminate blog content, and links back to the blog, through other channels, including Twitter and even Skype. That's what CDS Global did. "We saw that we were tripling traffic to the blogs. Then we did a little experiment -- we stopped Twittering, Facebook, and LinkedIn pointing to our system. Within three days, we saw traffic dropping 50%," Huston said.
Applications like Digsby can send individual updates out to multiple channels.
How do you figure out what your primary channel should be? Often, it's just a case of watching what you're already doing, and picking the channels that have already proven most successful for you, Huston said.
Offer deals. For example, you might give Twitter followers a 5% discount for visiting the site on a particular day. Do the offers regularly -- for example every Monday or Wednesday -- so people in the market know to watch your Twitter stream those days. Make unique offers for each channel. Layer offers: For example, you might offer a 5% discount on Twitter, followed by a 10% discount to visit your Web site and provide information.
Train your people in using social media. People can get in trouble with the most seemingly innocuous statements. For example, one company sent out a message supporting a local sports team. But the city where the company is based has two sports teams. Fans of the other team were alienated, Huston said.
Have people ready to field customer-service complaints. This is important during special events, such as a Twitter interview with the CEO. You'll inevitably get customer-service complaints. Have staff ready to intercept and deal with those complaints, so they don't divert the main conversation.
Learn from negative feedback. Critics will help you improve your company.
Measure ROI. Services like bit.ly, Digsby, and Google Analytics can measure traffic, and serve as tools to tell you how well you're doing.
This is THE piece of software I now use for generating traffic... I started running it at the beginning of January this year and it has built me a following on the new accounts I set up of over 40,000 people. Yes that has happened in 8 weeks! As I was discussing recently, Social Media is an incredible opportunity to get free traffic to your website products and services. Tweet Attacks does this for you on Autopilot.
Once people are following us on Twitter it means we are able to send them messages and free gifts. This will mean we are able to sell them products, services and offer value. Whatever our niche or market may be Twitter is a way for us to access hundreds of thousands people. It means we can communicate and market to people in our particular niche. But Twitter is not going to be around forever! I know it is massive at the moment but all social media morphs and changes as time moves along. Its parameters will change, people’s needs change and new and better ideas will emerge. This is why we MUST take advantage of this opportunity that is there for us RIGHT NOW! Tweet Attacks is the opportunity.
So when it does change, when its rules change and when a new medium emerges we will have our database we generated from Twitter. As long as we are continuously offering value and great service to our list of subscribers it will be an asset we will have forever. So Twitter is the medium within which we can draw thousands of people every day to our websites.
So how does it work? Tweet Attacks will go into our Twitter Accounts and follow people with a specific interest we have chosen for us on autopilot. It also allows us to send Direct Messages or DM’s to people we are following. It also has a search function that means it will search for any term within Twitter such as ‘How can I lose weight fast?’ Tweet Attacks will then send an automatic response and will continue to do so each time a new person sends out a similar tweet. This is very powerful indeed meaning we are finding instant clients for our products and services. We can also set it to send Tweets to our followers on a continual basis or to whatever timescale you would like to send tweets out to your followers. So in a sense our followers becomes a database of people we can communicate to on a continual basis.
As we are building our following using Tweet Attacks our database will be increasing everyday in turn. Remember our database is worth $1.00 per month per person. So every day Tweet Attacks will be making us money. For the small investment of setting it up with no ongoing monthly cost it will pay for itself very quickly.
So why bother to have a software to do something we can just do ourselves? We can message people straight from Twitter and we can do all of our following from our Twitter account. Well our following needs to reach hundreds of thousands for us to see the types of return we are looking for. To do this manually not only becomes a full time commitment but we will need to do this across several Twitter accounts. Why more than one account? We can only reach a certain amount of people with one account. One of my associates built up 500 Twitter accounts which were making him $9,000 every month from the database of subscribers he had generated from his followers.This was solely from using Tweet Attacks to generate his traffic.
The best way to set up new accounts is by using the Tweet Attacks account creator http://tweetattacks.com/twitter-account-creator/?e=willowmcintosh this will set new accounts up for us and manage all the accounts once they are in action. It is possible to set up accounts manually however if you are going to do it this way you will need to use an IP cloaker. This will hide your computer’s IP address. There are several pit falls to setting up accounts manually which will lead to your accounts being suspended. This doesn't mean we will actually be banned from Twitter altogether but if you set up more than two accounts without hiding your IP address it is possible that accessing Twitter from your own computer will no longer be possible. Also we can always set up new accounts if any do get suspended. But it is very time consuming and frustrating to build an account only to have it taken away. This is why I recommend account creator to firstly get hands on help in how to safely create multiple accounts but to also avoid the pitfalls that will lead to suspension. Here is the link again - http://tweetattacks.com/twitter-account-creator/?e=willowmcintosh
(A word of caution. When using several Twitter accounts on Tweet Attacks it is important to use separate proxies for each account. It is ok to run 3 Twitter accounts at the same time using Tweet Attacks but after 3 accounts you will need to use proxies. A proxy will hide your IP address from Twitter so it cannot see you are building multiple accounts from one location. The proxies are added into Tweet Attacks which means you can build several accounts at once every day). If you need more assistance with this please email me and I can explain this to you further.
If the risk of account suspension is putting you off and the idea of multiple accounts appears to be using Twitter rather than working with it in the conventional sense I do understand. This of course crossed my mind at first as well. However I have come to realise using software means we have much more time to work on our products and services. It also means we can offer value and service to many more people much faster. As I say, when Twitter changes its parameters or even stops altogether the chance will be gone.
I have an old computer set up that solely runs Tweet Attacks full time. I can access it from anywhere using a free remote control program such as www.logmein.com. It’s amazing to oversee! Each day you hit ‘Account Statistics’ and you can see the incredible growth it has generated. Then look to your autoresponse account and see the new subscribers that have been added that day, new clients ready to receive your news, emails and products.
So in conclusion Tweet Attacks is a fast track way to build a massive and targeted following quickly across several Twitter accounts. All this can be done on autopilot. Making use of Twitter to build a database that will make you money for evermore is not to be put off. Put it into action today and I would love to hear how you are getting on.
More content will also be seen in the media galleries on the left-hand side of a users’ profile. A Twitter blog postsaid that: “Media galleries now include videos from Vine,YouTube, Vimeo, and other partners whose videos appear in expanded Tweets.” 
