This week Facebook unleashed it’s new Facebook Places, a geo-location based feature that allows users to share where they are, check in on people around them, and find out about events and services offered in their area.
Partnering with other location-based networks such as Gowalla, Four Square, Yelp, and Booyah, Facebook has brought on a whole new dimension to Social Media that hasn’t had as much hype before. But will it stick?
Even though with partnerships and opening up its API data for developers to create other applications with this Places features, Facebook must overcome privacy concerns that people will like and adapt to this new feature. Users will automatically be “checked-in” to places and this news will post in your friends news feeds. The common concern users face is the question of, if this person was truly my friend, wouldn’t they already know where I like to hang out? Facebook stalking has just been taken to a new level.
My first perception of Facebook Places is this is nothing new… Four Square has been doing this for a long time and there are even geo-location social media sites that date back to 2006. But for the majority of internet and social media users, Facebook still hold the share of users time so intergrating with Facebook is a logical solution to push this new media.
What’s this mean for businesses and marketing? There is an opportunity to advertise your brick and mortar business to Facebook Places and the partnership subscribers when they are looking for things to do in their location. In addition, businesses will be promoted by the ability for user to share where they are and what they are doing. The integration with Yelp will eventually help ratings pull in for these places and businesses.
How do you plan on taking advantage of the opportunity that presents itself with Facebook Places?
Posted: January 8, 2010 9:20 AM
| Posted By : ICND Team
Related Categories:
Social Media
A Social Media Strategy Checklist
1. Spend more traditional ad budget on customer service
So many problems could be proactively averted if companies would simply treat customers as they should. In today’s social realm, word of mouth travels far and above the vintage physical conversation, and can truly influence users across the globe. By supplementing your products with excellent support and a pleasant experience, you will create brand advocates that will help, rather than hurt you. Imagine if United had cut back on a few TV commercials and actually helped their customers out. This seems like a no-brainer, but it is amazing to see the sheer number of companies that continue to treat their customers poorly, then try to fix by spending more dollars on advertising. In a McKinsey report, 67% of consumer sales are directly influenced by WOM (PDF), and the best form of reputation management is not needing to manage your reputation at all. Treat your customers properly, and you will see the results in social media and your bottom line.
2. Create sound company social media strategies & social media policies
The problem with most companies is that there is a lack of social media strategy and they are engaging because they think they have to. Sit down and put together a list of goals then work to find a strategy that will work to accomplish them. Don’t just Tweet because you saw it on CNN, don’t make a Facebook page because your competitor did. Come up with a list of goals and a strategy to achieve them. Tactics and strategies are crucial in social media, as Sun Tzu eloquently stated: “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”
3. Train & educate workers
Recently, there have been some social media meltdowns based on the lack of knowledge of some individuals acting on behalf of a company. Policies should be set forth to ensure that workers are not breaking terms of use, acting inappropriately, providing inaccurate information or a handful of other impending dilemmas. In addition, anyone who is allowed to speak on behalf of the company should have extreme comprehension of the networks, how they work and the overall company strategy. When executed poorly, social media has the power to severely harm a brand, and education is the fundamental factor that can prevent these problems.
4. Make a better effort to track mentions
One of the toughest aspects of Social Media Marketing is tracking the conversations that are occurring ‘in-the-wild.” Research and find a solution that will help you and your company achieve your social media goals. There are a number of good tracking systems on the market, the trick is to test drive them and see what will work for you. In addition to tracking mentions, tracking broad keywords and engaging customer who are looking for help can be a very profitable portion of your social media marketing campaign. When looking for tools, those that allow the archiving and exportation of data is something that can be a big help as you make your internal cause for social media.
5. Be proactive, protect your brand names
If you have a trademarked term, you can almost always stop name squatters from hijacking your brand name, but why wait for that to happen? Services like KnowEm allow you to reserve usernames across hundreds of sites and prevent those from stealing your brand. Taking a few minutes and a few dollars now can save you a lot of time and money to get it back later, so get out there and protect your brand.
6. Take the time to look your best
Use your social media profiles as extensions of your brand and of your website. Take the time to make custom backgrounds for Twitter or create rich Facebook tabs that support your current marketing initiatives. Just because your profile isn’t on your site, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t spend money trying to make it look good.
7. Really promote your social profiles off-site
Many times, simply slapping a social media badge in your footer is simply not enough. Analyze options on how you can leverage real estate on your site to accomplish your social goals. Whether it be a Digg Widget in your sidebar to help promote some upcoming stories on your site to Facebook Fan Boxes along with calls to action on a post-conversion Thank You Page there are plenty of tactics that could make sense for your company.
8. Advertise your social profiles
One of the hardest things to justify in Internet marketing is spending money without sending visitors to your website. Much like investing in design and development for social profiles, you should be securing budget for advertising on social media sites as well. For example, advertising Facebook pages is a quick and easy way to let targeted users know that you are participating in the conversation. While you may be able to leverage your site to gain some loyal fans/followers (see above), spending money for exposure to targeted audiences could be much more profitable in the long run.
9. Give people a reason to join in
“If you build it, they will come” doesn’t work in social media, or online in general. You should give users a reason to follow you and become a fan. Whether it is sweepstakes, breaking news, giveaways, sales or company updates, you should offer users something beneficial in exchange for their loyalty.
10. Reward loyal fans with exclusives
By offering fans items that are exclusive to the social audience, you can “demonstrate value” and make them feel good about following you. Not only would they get an exclusive deal/song/download/game, they also get the feeling that they are getting a special connection that not everyone has.
11. Explore more outlets
While Twitter and Facebook are making the biggest splash on the news scene, there are hundreds more social sites out there – many of which can help you achieve company goals. Look into other social media outlets that you may not be currently engaged in. From social news sites like Digg to social bookmarking sites like the new StumbleUpon to smaller niche social media sites, there are many outlets that could work for you, so give ‘em a try!
12. Don’t neglect your site
While all of the above points speak mainly of tactics that work off of your site, one of the biggest things to remember is that you can be social on your site. Things like blogs and forums were the original social media, so make sure to maintain and cultivate them and create good content that will perform well in social media. At the end of the day, your site is your ultimate sales tool, so take care of it! Where applicable try to bring social media in with things like Facebook Connect or Digg or Twitter’s API to harness the benefits of these sites on your own.
And that’s it! Try to work on these resolutions in 2010 and watch your social presence flourish. Have any other resolutions you’d like to add? Drop a comment below. Happy Holidays!
Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.
Greg Finn is the Director of Internet Marketing for 10e20, a publicity company that specializes in social media and search marketing services. He has been in the Internet marketing industry for over 5 years and specializes in Social Media Marketing. He writes in-depth about social media and internet marketing on the 10e20 blog
To talk with a Social Media Expert and get your strategy right, contact ICND today.
Posted: January 8, 2010 9:13 AM
| Posted By : ICND Team
Related Categories:
Social Media
What’s Working for Social Media Marketers?
JANUARY 5, 2010
Source: Emarketer.com
A look at effectiveness
A September 2009 MarketingProfs survey of business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers found that the marketing tactics most often used on social sites are not necessarily the best ones.
The most common marketing tactic used on Facebook was attempting to drive traffic to corporate materials through status updates, followed by friending customers.
But the most effective tactic for consumer-oriented companies was creating a Facebook application, which was done by less than one-quarter of total respondents. Both B2B and B2C companies also reported surveys of their fans as effective; fan surveys were the third-most-common tactic attempted.
Unsurprisingly, buying ads—even targeted ones—was the least effective type of social media marketing overall.
Like those on Facebook, marketers using Twitter were also most interested in increasing traffic. Driving traffic by linking to marketing Webpages was the most common activity on the microblogging site, followed by driving sales by linking to promotional pages. But again, the most effective tactics were different.
B2C marketers had the most success with monitoring Twitter for PR problems (done by one-half of all respondents) and contacting users who posted negative comments about their brand (done by only 22.4% of total respondents). B2B companies also succeeded with brand monitoring, as well as with using Twitter invites for in-person events (the least common tactic of all).
Though some firms, such as Dell, have reported success in the area, the study found that driving sales was the least effective marketing tactic attempted by companies using Twitter.
Posted: January 8, 2010 9:06 AM
| Posted By : ICND Team
Related Categories:
Social Media,Smart Phones
Consumers Positive About Tech Changes
JANUARY 6, 2010
Source: EMarketer.com
Mobile phone is greatest change for the better
Americans looking back at the end of a decade have little love for trends such as reality TV, they are generally positive when evaluating the most basic technological and communications advances that have affected their lives, according to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
Respondents had the overall best view of cellphones, which 69% claimed were a change for the better. Sixty-five percent said the same of both e-mail and the Internet.
Other, more advanced handheld devices, such as BlackBerrys and iPhones, were also relatively popular, though one-quarter of respondents thought they were a change for the worse. Unsurprisingly, younger adults were more likely to be positive about the rise of smartphones, while users over 65 were more evenly split.
Online shopping was slightly less likely to be seen as a good development, at 54% of total respondents. But when it came to e-commerce, 24% of consumers said it made no difference—and younger adults disliked it at more than twice the rate of seniors.
“No difference” was also a major factor in consumer views of the marketing darling, social networking sites. Adults of all ages were notably ambivalent about the sites, though nearly one-half of those under 50 had a positive impression. Despite wide uptake in recent years, the largest group of respondents over 65 did not know enough to say whether social networks were good or bad.
Even active users of social media have registered mixed feelings of the medium with other researchers, however. Crowd Science reported that more than one-half of female users ages 12 to 21, for example, thought they spent too much time with social media.
Facebook has recently added some new features and made some changes that, from this reviewers point of view, helps the user experience quite a lot.
One of the most annoying things I found about Facebook is that my posts (which are ALL very important, and should be read and responded to) can quickly be lost in the "push-down" process of real time postings coming in. Translation: other peoples posts that come in after mine, push mine down and then OFF the wall. No good.
Now you can click on the "most interesting stories" deemed so by the Facebook team/machine. I'm guessing the stories are those posts that get the most interaction, but I could be wrong. "Interesting" is a relative term and I'm curious how a machine could figure that out.
You can also check out all LIVE FEED (which appears as a link at the top of your WALL) to view all the posts in real-time chronological order.
But before you get all misty eyed about Facebook's recent user experience facelift, consider that changes have been made to the "advertising" experience (and the way(s) marketers can advertise) as well.
See all changes at Facebook's official press release: Facebook News.
Posted: October 5, 2009 11:06 PM
| Posted By : ICND Team
Related Categories:
Blogging,Social Media
Source: Fox News, Associated Press. October 5, 2009
The Federal Trade Commission will try to regulate blogging for the first time, requiring writers on the Web to clearly disclose any freebies or payments they get from companies for reviewing their products.
The FTC said Monday its commissioners voted 4-0 to approve the final Web guidelines, which had been expected. Violating the rules, which take effect Dec. 1, could bring fines up to $11,000 per violation. Bloggers or advertisers also could face injunctions and be ordered to reimburse consumers for financial losses stemming from inappropriate product reviews.
The commission stopped short of specifying how bloggers must disclose conflicts of interest. Rich Cleland, assistant director of the FTC's advertising practices division, said the disclosure must be "clear and conspicuous," no matter what form it will take.
Bloggers have long praised or panned products and services online. But what some consumers might not know is that many companies pay reviewers for their write-ups or give them free products such as toys or computers or trips to Disneyland. In contrast, at traditional journalism outlets, products borrowed for reviews generally have to be returned.
Before the FTC gave notice last November it was going to regulate such endorsements, blogs varied in the level of disclosures about these potential conflicts of interest.
The FTC's proposal made many bloggers anxious. They said the scrutiny would make them nervous about posting even innocent comments.
To placate such fears, Cleland said the FTC will more likely go after an advertiser instead of a blogger for violations. The exception would be a blogger who runs a "substantial" operation that violates FTC rules and already received a warning, he said.
Existing FTC rules already banned deceptive and unfair business practices. The final guidelines aim to clarify the law for the vast world of blogging. Not since 1980 had the commission revised its guidelines on endorsements and testimonials.
Cleland said a blogger who receives a freebie without the advertiser knowing would not violate FTC guidelines. For example, someone who gets a free bag of dog food as part of a promotion from a pet shop wouldn't violate FTC guidelines if he writes about the product on his blog.
Blogger Linsey Krolik said she's always disclosed any freebies she's received on products she writes about, but has stepped up her efforts since last fall. She said she adds a notice at the end of a post, "very clear in italics or bold or something — this is the deal. It's not kind of buried."
1. Reddit: Popular social news website with a large user base. Covers a wide range of news. Includes several topical sections called subreddits, which focus on specific topics like programming, science, politics and business.
2. Digg: The largest and most popular social news website on the internet. Covers all topics including politics, entertainment, technology and general news. Includes a separate video and image section.
3. Propeller: A social news site that covers all topics from technology to politics and entertainment. Operates in a similar fashion to Digg.
4. Fark: A community news site which allows users to comment on news articles. User submitted links will be posted on the main page once they are approved by the administrators.
5. Slashdot: Primarily a tech news site, Slashdot also covers topics like books, games, politics and entertainment. Users can submit stories and they may be published after editors approve it. A popular site that can send a large amount of traffic.
6. Metafilter: A community weblog which allows users to share links and discuss interesting websites/topics. Moderation is done through editors as well as peer pressure in order to prevent gaming.
7. I am bored: Covers general topics with a strong focus on weird and offbeat news. You can submit a link which may be posted after the editors approve it.
8. Mixx: A general social news sites which has a category for all types of news. Topics covered include business, entertainment, sports, health and tech. Includes the ability to create groups to share news with other users.
9. Shoutwire: General news site that is well populated with a loyal group of users. Topics covered include technology, politics, entertainment, lifestyle and sports.
10. Newsvine: A website consisting of community-driven news stories and opinions. Users have their own blogs and can write articles, save links to external content and vote/comment on other user stories.
11. IndianPad: A general social news site that with a large indian userbase. Topics covered include entertainment, sports, videos and tamil news.
12. Linkfilter: Covers all sorts of news. All links are posted and moderated by users. Links can be ranked on several levels: clicks, votes, age, or a combination of all three called points.
13. NewsCloud: A general social site with a focus on news in all topics. Similar to Newsvine, each user has their own blogs and can publish content to be voted up by other users.
14. Hugg: Hugg is a social news site with a strong focus on environmental issues. Also includes other categories like politics, science, fashion and technology.
15. Plime: A general news site which features a wide variety of topics ranging from religion and sports to technology or business. Odd news performs best in this community.
16. C2NN: An active social news site with a variety of topics including environment issues, business, politics, animals and offbeat. Similar to Hugg in focus but much more populated and active.
17. Kirsty: A general news site with a focus on fashion, entertainment and design on top of other topics like technology and food. Has a strong female user base.
18. Nowpublic: A participatory news network which focuses on citizen journalism. Each user has their own individual profile blog/page and can upload videos, images and news stories.
19. Stirrdup: General social news site with four broad categories: politics, technology, news and entertainment.
20. Searchles: A hybrid social news sites which covers all topics. Includes a video section and offers personalized filtering features and the option of joining groups made up of other users with similar interests.
21. Linkinn: A social news site that specializes in pictures and video. Covers a broad range of topics, particular offbeat and weird content.
22. Earthfrisk: Covers topics like humor, politics, entertainment and business. Combines a social network and group features with digg-style news voting.
23. Truemors: A social rumor news site which focuses on the publication of “true rumors that are relevant, informative, and interesting.” Users can post links anonymously via text, voicemail, web or email. Editors moderate content.
24. StumbleUpon: A social network and browser toolbar which allows users to channel surf the internet. Technically not 100% a social news site, although users can submit webpages to be rated by other users. Here is a guide to StumbleUpon.
25. Linkswarm: Covers a wide range of topics from celebrity gossip to funny media, science and politics. Focuses on pop culture and bizarre news as well.
Niche Social News Websites
Here are social websites which focus on a specific niche. For best results, only submit to them when your site falls within the same niche or covers the same topics. Or else you’re likely to be marked as spam.
26. Sphinn: Sphinn is a social site for search and interactive marketers. It’s designed to allow you to share and discover news stories, read and take part in discussions, discover events of interest and network with others.
27. Dzone: DZone is a free link-sharing community for developers. Other topics commonly featured include web design and programming.
28. Tweako: A user-powered site and social network with a focus on guides and tutorials in all categories like computing, technology, and the Internet.
29. Autospies: A social site that focuses on automotive news, car reviews, auto show photos and videos.
30. Design Float: A social news site for design-related content. Topics covered include business, freelancing, advertising, digital art and branding.
31. Ball Hype: A site that aggregates content from thousands of sports blogs. Users can submit stories and votes will determine if they make it to home page.
32. YCombinator Hacker News: A news site that focuses on technology, startups, business and entrepreneurship.
33. SWiK: A community driven resource for people who use open source software.
34. Buzzflash: A user driven progressive political news website that allows you to submit political stories.
35. DNHour: DNHour.com is a user-powered news portal built specially for the domain name industry. Most members are generally from the domain name industry, which includes domain name owners, companies or professionals.
36. PlugIM: PlugIM is a user driven internet marketing community. Topics covered include search engine optimization, products, business and marketing.
37.Showhype: Operates in a similar way to Ballhype. Stories come from two sources — users and aggregated content. Users can also submit a link to a story that they’ve found or write their own article on ShowHype.
38. Small Business Brief: A niche social site which focuses on small business news. Topics covered include marketing and sales, website development, management and entrepreneurship.
39. Hypediss: Social news site with a focus on design, fashion, urban culture and art.
40. Chictini: Product-oriented social site which a focus on new trends and styles. It’s possible to submit news stories although most of the submissions feature products from online retailers.
41. DotNetKicks: DotNetKicks.com is a community based news site that focuses on topics like NET development techniques, technologies and tools including ASP.NET, C#, VB.NET, C++ and Visual Studio.
42. Lipstick: Reddit-style social news site for celebrity gossip.
43. Hubspot: Social news site for marketers, entrepreneurs and business professionals.
44. Winelifetoday: A niche social site for wine lovers. Topics covered included news and opinion articles to do with wine.
45. iliketotallyloveit.com: Allows users to publish and share products with the broader public which they find cool, innovative, exceptionally beautiful, or just weird. Included with every item is a link to an online shop where it can be purchased.
46. Wordsy: A niche social news site for people who love reading and books. Topics covered include small presses, fiction writing, authors, book awards and poetry. (Note: Wordsy has suspended its site since Dec 2008)
47. Value Investing News: A niche social news site that covers stocks and investment news. A small but active community.
48. Teenwag: Focus on celebrity gossip. A hybrid social network with digg-style voting. Users can submit links to be voted up by other users.
49. Muti: Muti is a social bookmarking site inspired by reddit and Digg but dedicated to content of interest to Africans or those interested in Africa.
50. Tip’d: A social media site for finance, investing, and business topics. Tip’d users vote on stories they like by clicking the ‘Tip it’ button that appears next to each story, and then can comment by pressing the ‘Discuss’ link below the story.
End DoshDosh reviews.
That about covers every subject and category any business or aficionado could ever possibly want to blog, microblog, or bookmark. Join them and then sign up for Digsby or Ping.fm to handle all the posts from one place.
Now if we could only find a way to write content without having to think or spend time doing so.
Squidoo. It's been around awhile. But it keeps getting better.
For those of you who don't know, Squidoo is like a wiki, allowing you to post and write about your "expertise", though they don't use that terminology any more because it turns out...most people don't believe themselves to be experts. Unlike a wiki, however, users aren't allowed to edit your work (but in some cases, they're allowed to comment). Your page (or as they call it a lens because it brings a particular topic into focus) can be fleshed out similar to a microsite. Squidoo allows you to pull in content via a RSS, so first and foremost, you can give your Blog content legs by syndicating it here.
Other syndication tools include pulling in your clipmark's content.
And that's just the beginning. There's roughly 80 "modules" you can choose from, including many of the same apps you can intergrate into your LinkedIn page (like SlideShow), WordPress blog, and many other popular social media outlets.
The other cool thing about Squidoo (which makes it unlike Wikipedia and other wikis) is that it allows you to monetize your content. After all, content is king after all, and Squidoo uses your content to run Google Adsense as well as Amazon product boxes (and intextual pop up ads...hate to tell them that people and Google hate those things). Once you reach a certain penetration or traffic (not really sure about this) Squidoo will share the money it earns off your content with you. Wherein, you can decide to keep it for yourself, donate it to charity, or a mix of both. Cool.
Check out InterCoastal Net Designs' lens on Social Media Marketing, and get a taste of what you can do with Squidoo.
It's a very rare occurrence that you have the number of followers on your website, blog, or social media outlet that really gives your content (your comments, posts, pictures, videos, whatever) the reach it deserves. After all, the whole point of this stuff (Internet Marketing) is to get MORE and MORE people finding, reading, and BUYING your wares (services or products). Right? So even if you get 10,000 unique visitors a day, you could always use more.
So, don't make your readers have to come to your website (or your blog, or your social media outlet) to review your content. Allow your users to pick up and share your content to their friends where their friends are.
This post itself, from this blog, has over 30 ways to easily broadcast our ICND content. From the "retweet" box in the top left corner, to the "share this" button (which as numerous broadcast opportunities) on the bottom right hand corner. To the Technorati, Delicious, and Reddit badges. And don't forget the RSS feeds.
This blog, through the RSS feed, is pulled into our company LinkedIn group, as well as on our Squidoo Lens, among other places. And, with the aid of the RSS, our loyal readers can also pull in our content on their own blogs, pages, lenses, iGoogle page, where ever.
So give your content legs. But always make sure you're driving that interest back to your core (usually your website). And if you care anything about SEO along with your brand, make sure you embed keyword rich links. Because along with getting more impressions and readers, you can also get some killer backlinks.
Remember it's not the size of your tool, but how you use it. Web tools and apps are great ways to save time and money, and to get more bang for your effort. Want the ReTweet Code, or the Share This code? Give me a shout on the Digsby Chat box (another great tool) that's embedded in the right hand corner of this page (if you're on our website...wink, wink.)
Posted: June 19, 2009 11:47 AM
| Posted By : ICND Team
Related Categories:
Social Media,Web Tools
Sweet Lord...some one has done it (I think). Segmentation be damned. Much like Digsby, Ping.fm gives you access to your favorite social media outlets from one dashboard, but unlike Digsby, Ping.fm allows you to POST and review from multiple social media accounts, including but not limited to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace, Flickr, Blogger, WordPress, FriendFeed, Vox, TypePad, and dozens of others. Plus, you can pull in your IM accounts, like Aim and Gtalk.
So instead of creating multiple accounts (we you need to do to really get mileage out of your social media marketing efforts) and then logging in and out of each one every day, set up an account at Ping.fm and pull in your accounts to one place. It even let's you post to Facebook Fan pages that you're already and ADMIN for.
So, read, review, and post from one place and give your fingers (and your staff) a break.
If you're a business or organizaiton that hasn't yet taken the plunge in the realm of social media, or have started something and can't quite get it off the ground, make sure you contact a social media marketing company that has the expertise to consult and direct you to the next level. Read more about social media marketing.
Posted: June 15, 2009 2:47 PM
| Posted By : ICND Team
Related Categories:
Facebook,Social Media,SEO
I have to admit. I'm not very enthused about Facebook's decision to allow users to create Vanity URLs for their profiles (and pages...though I haven't seen any for those yet. Not sure who is eligible, and when the rest of us will be?)
Of course, it just makes sense that a person can give out easy-to-remember static looking URL's to their family, friends, and clients/customers instead of a long string of variable gobbledeegook. But, I knew - as an SEO professional - that the mad rush to SQUAT on the best keyword phrases would ruin the usefulness of Facebook's move.
Can I blame anyone for the rush? Nope. The opportunity is there, so why not take it? I blame Facebook for allowing the opportunity to be there in the first place. How fair is it that some unrelated person, business, or organization can steal (take) your name, your identity, or more likely, YOUR MAIN KEYWORD PHRASE?
First come, first serve. And that's all that qualifies you to choose your URL "username".
And the change is permanent? So no swapping. Once you're TheKiKi, or MyrtleBeachSEO, you're that until death do you part. Does that mean the squatters can't unload the goods? Not sure, but money talks so there's always a way around such obstacles, like swapping account logins. And is Facebook monitoring for copyright infringement of identity theft...or can anyone swoop in a take Nike, McDonalds, Coke...or even Barrack Obama or Kobe Bryant?
In the coming weeks (probably much less than that) you'll see Facebook pages inundate the SERP's. And the 'why' is obvious. Facebook hit critical mass some time ago, and continues to balloon. Think of how many times you see Wikipedia pages in the SERPs.
I hope that Facebook makes good on its promise to combat blatant squatting. And, I hope that Google and the rest of the Search Engines do their due diligence with their own algorithms. After all, the premise of the page URL's text [ALWAYS] properly defining the focus of the page went south when the first black hat SEO salesman crawled out of the mud.
Maybe I'm peeved that someone got to my name on Facebook before I did? I can only imagine how annoyed I'd be if someone snaked the name of my business.
So let's have some fun, and you tell me whose side Facebook is on. The common man (and thus small business) or the Superstar and million dollar brands.
And watch what happens. Do you think Facebook would let you - oh common man - set something up like that for yourself or your business?
Now start searching for things that you KNOW what have been snatched up right at midnight Saturday morning, like Disney or Myrtle Beach (yeah, Myrtle Beach...I know there are plenty of companies licking their chops over that one).
Find any other glaring inconsistencies in Facebook's new vanity URL's. Let us know. Disgree with me...well you can let me know that too.
Barring the inuendo, it's all about how you use your tool(s)...your web tools.
So, everyone (mostly...there are some nay sayers) see the benefit of social networking and social media. But tapping into Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Delicious, Digg, Reddit, StumpleUpon, Friendster, ClipMarks, Ning, Wikis, blogs,...you get the idea - can be exactly as it sounds. Time consuming.
Really, when you take it down to brass tacks...you create a profile, and post, respond, gather, and repeat. [let's just set the what, when, and how aside for the moment]. And every new outlet you tap into means just that much more time.
And that's where the tools come in.
There are hundreds of "border town" apps and browser tools that have sprung up in the wake of the Social Media phenomenom. Twitter does a good job of advertising those that are Twitter-centric - like Twitmatic, Twazzler, Twellow, and Topsy. And Mozilla Firefox browser is great for putting the best toolbar apps at users disposal. And of course, Facebook, Apple (iPhone), and Google (iGoogle) also do a great job of distributing and shopping apps to their users.
To really get the most mileage out of your social media, you need to increase the exposure of your posts, and cut out the monitoring time with tools that really pull it all in and tie it all together. From time to time I'll post a Cool Tool of the Day, like Digsby (still one of my favorites) and Technorati (a standard) and even Topsy (a new kid on the block, even for social media).
Keep checking back in to see my random picks. Or feel free to send my your picks.
Or, if you're a business that want's to cut right through the suspsense, give drop us a line about or social media package and get every you need the knowledge and the know how to kick start your marketing with social medial.
I'm always talking about segmentation and how it's important to try to tie all your internet marketing efforts together. So, here's a great way to pull in your favorite and must have information via RSS feeds onto your iGoogle page. Some people don't use iGoogle - but a lot do.
If you don't, check it out. iGoogle is a great interface where you can pull in alot of Google-owned info, functions, etc into one page - including gmail, blogs (blogger.com), orkut, google notes, google videos, gadgets, widgets...you get the idea. It's your own personal webpage and there are gadgets that pull in your facebook and twitter stuff. So you can get a lot of you do right from one screen (at least from a monitoring point of view).
But I digress. If you're using social media as a marketing tool, you want to make sure that your posts don't stay segmented. You don't want them only to LIVE within that one channel. You need to give your readers (and accidental readers) the ability to pull your stuff into where THEY want to read. And THEY may be using iGoogle.
So without any further ado. Here's how to add an rss fee to your iGoogle page. (I'll use this blog's RSS url for the example...besides you need to stay updated on what's cooking in Internet Marketing any way, right?)
Return to the iGoogle Homepage, you should now be able to see the new Gadget (and if you added ours, you should see all of the posts from the InterCoastal Net Designs Internet Marketing Blog).
Click on the top-right small arrow, and then on “Edit settings”.
Select how many items you want it to display, and “Save”.
Posted: June 2, 2009 3:26 PM
| Posted By : ICND Team
Related Categories:
Facebook,Social Media
So, kudos to Facebook on changing how they allow and implement businesses into their social networking site. (Yes, I know they did this some time ago). But, it's like jumping through flaming nuclear hoops to try to organize the whole effort. Here are some important questions to ask before you embark on Facebook Business Page Creation.
If your business is a one person show, then no big deal. You create a business account (from Facebook's home page, scroll to the bottom and look for the link on the right hand side. The line reads, "To create a page for a celebrity, band or business, click here."
Now, the first thing it's going to ask you is, "do you have a personal Facebook account."
Facebook doesn't like faceless group pages. After all, it wouldn't be "social" networking if it was just a bunch of marketers babbling back and forth to each other. But I digress...
If your business or organization has more than just one employee, picking a personal account to attach to your new business page is more important than you think. After all, there are no such things as permanent employees (unless you sign your own paychecks).
So, what if you assign your business's Facebook to an employee who suddenly leaves the company? You definitely don't want control of your group page going over to an ex- or discruntled employee. So really put sometime and effort into answering that question, or you'll be deleting your business page more times than you'd like to admint (trust me).
The next thing to consider is who to name as ADMINS for your business page. You should have a least one besides the creator (the owner or the president, or some other executive should always have ADMIN status, even if they don't use it). Having multiple ADMINS prevents your organization from ever losing complete control of your business page (unless of course you get rid of every single one of your ADMINS all at the same time).
ADMINS can make changes to the account, and post content from the BUSINESS (not from their personal accounts). This helps delegate social networking responsibilities across multiple employees (especially if your organization needs to cover multiple topics).
You can easily assign ADMINS by logging into your CREATOR account, and clicking into your FANS page. There will be a button beside each fan that allows you to name them as ADMINS. So, tell your employees or members to become FANS of your Business Page first, then you can upgrade them as ADMINS.
Remember, not everything that is FREE means it's not complicated. If you need some help getting your Social Media Marketing campaign off the ground, contact Intercoastal Net Designs, an Internet marketing company.
