Saturday, April 30, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
14 Status Updates We Wish You’d Kept To Yourself
All Facebook
I call it viral narcissism: There are those of us who are compelled to volunteer the strangest, oftentimes most personal bits of info about ourselves to an open forum of literary voyeurs.
I have been stupefied by some the postings I’ve read. Some folks just share way too much on Facebook but in all honesty, I love it. I have had some of the the best side-splitting belly laughs from postings that were innocently written, not meaning to solicit humor at all.
Then again, there are those postings that I wish some people would have just kept to themselves. You be the judge:
1. I can fart “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” followed by the ‘Three Blind Mice!”
2. My daughter has a penchant for eating baby powder.
3. My mother-in-law wears three bras just to keep her boobs from drooping down to her waist.
4. Massaging baby pee on your temples is a surefire way to get rid of migraines… no, it actually works, I’ve tried it.
5. I haven’t brushed my teeth in three days and I swear my breath doesn’t stink!
6. My chin hairs are growing in at a death-defying rate, I think I might have to shave them off with a razor just like a guy.
8. Although Parmesan cheese smells like throw up, and makes me gag whenever I smell it, I still love eating it.
9. Why are my husband’s toes so hairy?
10. I can’t believe what my son told me after he dropped his hot dog on the ground, picked it up, then tried to eat it. He said, “Ma, you can’t taste the germs on the hot dog!”
11. I was a bed wetter til age 19.
12. I think Danny DeVito is sexy.
13. Scott is my brand. Charmin complicates things back there.
14. Charlie Sheen is just so misunderstood.
Readers, what are some of the worst status updates you’ve seen on Facebook?
Photo courtesy of the Associated Press
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Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Facebook Launches Three New Sponsored Stories
Sponsored is one of those features that I had always ignored. Not anymore!
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential List Includes Zuckerberg, Page & Assange
Social Media News and Web Tips – Mashable – The Social Media Guide
Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Julian Assange are among the tech names featured on Time’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
The list, which was released on Thursday, also includes a number of people whose use of technology propelled them into the spotlight, including key Egyptian revolution figure Wael Ghonim, Newark Mayor Cory Booker and the ever-present Justin Bieber.
Zuckerberg’s inclusion on the list should come as no surprise given he was named Time’s “Person of the Year for 2010,” a distinction that many thought would go to Assange, who is the founder of WikiLeaks. In returning to the role of CEO at Google, Page also became all the more significant, with his collegiate graduate adviser writing in Time that he expects Page “to pursue things that seem unreasonable and unreachable — until the very moment they become a reality.”
Elsewhere, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings made the list, with (the now very partial) Kevin Spacey writing that Hastings has “changed how the entertainment business reaches its audience and how that audience is able to access content.”
Angry Birds developer Peter Vesterbacka and Charle Chao, developer of “China’s Twitter” — Sina Weibo — round out the tech influentials selected by Time.
More About: cory booker, julian assange, larry page, mark zuckerberg, reed hastings, time
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How to Make Social Media Sites Work for You?
Search Engine Journal
Facebook recently surpassed tech giants like Google and Microsoft in customer engagement, the statement not only elicits awe but is also enough to prove the growing clout of social network marketing. If industry reports are to be believed, there are more social networking accounts today than the total number of people in the world, with 4.5 billion active accounts. People are yearning to be a part of the social networking phenomenon; this has led to the unprecedented dominance of social network marketing in the advertising world which is forever on the lookout for new mediums to get advertorial messages across.
A recent market study revealed that marketing spending on social networking sites has ballooned to several billon dollars with Facebook taking the largest share of the pie with anticipated revenues of $3.8 billion in 2011 and $150 million for Twitter. These figures should be enough to elucidate to the budding entrepreneur why he needs to use social media to gain an edge over his competition. The best part of social media marketing is that it offers an incredible opportunity to build rapport where the marketer is no longer associated with pesky commercial breaks but is an active engager in the relationship. If you are interested in making social media sites work for you, here are some simple yet remarkably efficacious strategies
Ask for feedback from clients
While you will need a strong stomach to digest some of the unsavory comments, you would be surprised at the sheer popularity of the technique; after all, everybody enjoys offering their two words of advice. You do not have to choose something overtly controversial or an aspect of your business which is bound to result in a backlash.
From a corporate point of the view, the safest bet would be to ask your consumers about what they would like to see added to your product line or you could even ask for ideas for a promotional campaign. This should certainly get you scores of responses and while implementing the most popular ideas, you will know that your audience will certainly appreciate them.
Create a snazzy video
A video can not only inform but also entertain; in fact, offering your followers a video that is catchy and points to your product or the values of your company or can in some way be associated with your establishment is the fastest way to garner their attention. Contrary to popular belief, it does not take a lot to create a video; a simple video camera with the most basic functions should do, you also do not need an Oscar winning directorial venture to ensure the popularity of your video.
Any useful information about your product that is not a blatant marketing ploy will find favor with your consumers. For instance, if you sell fire extinguishers, a video on how to use one, or a clip that shows how to spot potential fire hazards around the home or even a hilarious take on fire and its damages will certainly be appreciated.
Host a contest
This is a tried and tested technique that always yields rave results. Many companies and even individuals have used this approach to exponentially increase their fan following on social media sites. Ideally, like all other marketing measures for social media, your contests should also reflect on your business or product in some way, try to get as creative as you can. For instance, a site that offer cameras and photography related services can start a contest where the participants have to send in a funny picture with a caption. Since it’s a contest, you will need to offer a prize to make things interesting, in the photograph contest, the prize for the most hilarious contribution can be 3 months of free film development services or a camera etc.
Use a social cause to your benefit
Using a social cause is another fantastic way to show your followers that you care while putting your business in the spotlight. Many corporate houses have recently started ‘donate for Japan’ campaigns; they are encouraging their followers to send in donations to sites that can ensure that their contributions find their way to the people of the tsunami ravaged country. However, you do not have to necessarily wait for a catastrophe; any social cause that shares some common ground with your business venture will work wonders. For instance, a site that offers toys and kiddie supplies can encourage donations to a foundation that helps children from poor households etc.
Offer something free
This is the oldest trick in the book albeit one that can still yields fabulous results. Offering free widgets, content, applications, etc can greatly accentuate your fan following a social networking site. For instance, if you offer internet marketing products on your site, the lure of a free auto responder or even an e-book on the niche will often prove irrepressible to most of your followers.
With free promotion on a social media site, it is imperative to remember that everything you do and every word of content that you put out should communicate your brand to your followers. So, ensure that your messages and profile page are optimized for niche specific keywords and reflects positively on your venture without being blatant advertisements.
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
How to Make Social Media Sites Work for You?
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How To Measure Facebook Page Engagement
All Facebook
Are you trying to figure out how much your fans really like you or your brand? This guide outlines a few things you should never miss when monitoring your Facebook page performance.
Monitoring Active Users
While most companies pay attention to the number of fans as the greatest metric of success, measuring your active users is much more important. Fortunately, Facebook provides detailed information about daily, weekly, and monthly active users on your page. You can find this information in tFacebook’s insights area. While these numbers will differ from one page to the next, the most important thing is to strive to increase the number of active users you have.
The best way to accomplish this is to post regular high-quality updates that get users to post comments and likes.
Daily Story Feedback
While engagement numbers include the number of impressions you get on each post, your ultimate goal should be to boost likes and comments on each posting. Compelling content that drives people to respond to your posts is important to boosting your overall numbers. Ultimately, the more your fans engage with your content, the more people that will see it. One of the best ways to accomplish this is by asking questions which generate a significant response from your fans.
You can monitor all interactions on the main insights page as pictured below.
If you aren’t receiving comments or likes (relative to the size of your overall fan base), there’s a good chance that you’ll begin to see your post impressions drop. As such, comments and likes are the most important metrics to focus on.
Top Stories
Rather than just viewing overall content, you can also view the success of each individual post. Facebook provides data for each individual posting that you can view at the bottom of each story you publish (as highlighted below).
While viewing each post’s insights will provide a decent amount of feedback, your top posts will help provide the most insight on what type of content your fans are most responsive to. Overtime you should be able to post similar content that generates greater responses from your fan base and effectively boost your overall engagement and reach. By clicking on details next to the “Interactions” area pictured above, you can get to the top posts area.
I prefer to sort by Feedback (as pictured below) in order to determine what posts were most effective. Replicating this content should hopefully result in a greater response from your fans.
Like Acquisition Channels
While the first thing you should focus on is increasing engagement among your existing fan base, you’ll want to also expand your reach. This comes through optimizing your various fan acquisition channels. Fortunately, Facebook provides detailed information about where your new fans are coming from. By visiting your insights area and then navigating to the area labeled “users,” you’ll be able to view the new likes sources chart (pictured below).
You should focus on two things: your largest sources and those sources with the greatest room for improvement. For our page, our blog is the greatest source of new fans. As such, we focus on optimizing the placement of likes around our website. For some pages, suggestions are the greatest source. For those pages, asking fans to refer their friends to your page can have significant results.
Monitor And Adjust
As you monitor your insights, you can make adjustments to the types of content you post over time. This can include the types of media (photos, videos, links/articles, status updates, etc), the time of day, and the frequency of posting. I highly recommend exporting this data to excel or another spreadsheet tool in order to track your performance over time. Alternatively, you can sign up for a free account with our AllFacebook Stats product which lets you track your page performance and your competitors’ page performance over time and export that data if necessary.
Do you have any questions or suggestions for other page administrators? Please post them in the comments section below!
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Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Facebook Upgrades Its Commenting System
All Facebook
Larger News Feed Stories
One of the most significant upgrades is an increased size for comments in the news feed. The result is that those publications which implement the new comment service are likely to have an increased conversion from news feed exposure. Just like the Facebook like button, comments will soon become a significant source of referral traffic from within the site.
Comments API
While Facebook has had a comments application programming interface for a while, the new commenting system now officially has its own API as well, documented on the site’s official developer blog. Careful application of these specs ought to enable the mining of comment data to reward active visitors, and also to display some of the most active conversations. While this isn’t yet a replacement for Echo, I’m sure there are a lot of developer who look forward to deeper access to Facebook comments.
Dark Color Scheme
While I’m not sure which color Facebook has chosen that will match most dark sites, it will definitely blend much better than having white comments on a black background, which is even worse.
Login With Hotmail!
If you are still using Hotmail, it may be time that you upgrade to a more modern email system, such as Gmail or even Yahoo Mail. However, if you think getting free email is a unique thing, there’s a chance you may still have Hotmail. Fortunately for you, you’ll now be able to use your Hotmail account to post comments within the upgrade comments plugin. While there’s no official blog post with details for developers, I’m guessing there will be something published later today or later this week so you can implement all the features on your own website.
What do you think about these improvements to the commenting system, readers?
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The Winners & Losers of Social Networking [INFOGRAPHIC]
Social Media News and Web Tips – Mashable – The Social Media Guide
The course of social media never did run smooth — not for long, anyhow. And for some Web 2.0 companies, it’s running less smoothly than ever.
It goes without saying that Facebook is the network du jour, but even though the reigning champion’s user stats keep soaring, social networking as a whole might be leveling off. Nevertheless, there are still scores of other highly competitive social sites that are waxing and waning; and different networks and apps are more popular in specific geographic areas, with certain genders or age groups, and even among various social classes.
For example, Plaxo is the network with the most users over the age of 65. Facebook is more popular with women, but Digg and Reddit tend to be more popular with men. LinkedIn is the “richest” social network, but Plurk outranks it when it comes to well-educated users who have graduate degrees.
Check out this infographic from social media agency Ignite, and let us know what you think in the comments. Do these findings line up with your own perceptions and usage habits?
Click image for full-size version.
Lead image courtesy of iStockphoto, BeholdingEye.
More About: infographic, social media, social networking, stats
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Manish Mandhyan, CRCM, CAMS
Ph: +919163619999
Skype: mmandhyan
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