It’s the only Facebook like button that will lick you when you click it.
via Soshable | Social Media Blog http://soshable.com/i-love-this-facebook-like-button/
Friday, February 15, 2013
I Love this Facebook Like Button
via Soshable | Social Media Blog http://soshable.com/i-love-this-facebook-like-button/
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Do Not Trip Out While Traveling. Use Tripit Instead.
Most of us can agree that when traveling for work or when taking a vacation, it is definitely not about the journey and all about the destination. Planning, organizing, and coordinating a trip can make many of us trip out and possibly loose a few hairs, but the website Tripit, has come to our rescue and helps us keep the hairs on our head and our much needed sanity.
Tripit can be used online or as a mobile app that will make your short or long trips away from home a much easier process. They work with more than a thousand sites, from flights, rail, cruise, rental cars, events, restaurants, and hotels, to help make your travels a less stressful experience.
After signing up to Tripit, you will be given several options that will have them create an itinerary that has all of your trip details in one place. You can either choose if you want them to automatically create master itineraries for you or you can manually send your information by simply forwarding confirmation emails you receive to, toplans@tripit.com. You will also be given the choice to have your plans from your Gmail or Google Apps inbox automatically imported to Tripit. No matter which options you choose, all can be accessed anytime, either online or from a mobile device.
Tripit will also sync your itinerary with all of your plans to your calendar so you don’t miss your flight, an important event or special restaurant reservation during your trip. They also make it extremely easy for your travel plans to be sent to your friends, family members, and co-workers, so they too know when you will be away.
Although many of us would pay a lot of money to have peace of mind while traveling, Tripit is completely free. However, they do offer a paid service you can choose to use instead, called Tripit Pro, which offers you even more. For $49 a year (currently offering a free 30 day trial), Tripit Pro will alert you about flight delays, cancellations, or gate changes; it will provide you with alternate flights; organize your frequent flyer information in one place, and advise you when your airfare is eligible for flight refunds, saving you money. – Simply put, it’s more like having a personal assistant with you while you travel.
Whether you choose to go free or go Pro, Tripit will make your work travels or vacation planning a more organized and less stressful ordeal. It’s simple; Tripit takes away the all too often tripping out over traveling and brings back the much needed fun.
[center][youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S9PSyxzu9A[/youtube][/center]
via Soshable | Social Media Blog http://soshable.com/do-not-trip-out-while-traveling-use-tripit-instead/
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
A Proper Facebook Strategy Requires Constant Testing and Adjusting
Those who have been in internet marketing for a while realize that search engines are constantly changing. It’s part of the game of staying ahead of the competition to understand these changes and move with them appropriately. Despite this constant state, it’s nothing compared to the changes that happen on Facebook. From a business perspective, the only real winning strategy is to constantly be adjusting the practices, processes, and procedures used to find success.
On Facebook, even the goals are often changed. Unlike search where the goal is almost entirely about driving relevant traffic to a website, social media in general and Facebook in particular often see shifts in the goals for each individual strategy and the overarching strategy as a whole. Between traffic, branding, communications, and messaging, the major components of Facebook marketing remain the same on the surface but digging a little deeper reveals a need to shift with not only the changes that are constantly happening on the platform itself but also those that are happening within the community and the sentiment of the social media world.
One of our biggest focuses on Facebook is helping local car dealers make the most of Facebook. Just in the last month we’ve made adjustments to style, form, and techniques that are in response to the changes. This is an absolute must – a static Facebook strategy is not effective. What worked yesterday may not work today but may work again tomorrow. That’s the nature of the beast.
The most important thing to remember on Facebook is that there are two things to constantly monitor: changes in strategies that are posted on the various blogs (be careful here – more below) and changes in the results of the various campaigns that you run. It’s not just about watching likes and comments. It’s about watching reach (the truly important number in Facebook analytics) and following the sentiment through in a way that can guide future posts.
We must test. We must see what’s working today and make sure it’s still working tomorrow. We have to watch for fatigue; it’s easy to post great images of Mustangs on a Ford dealer’s Facebook page but eventually even the mighty stallion can get old and turn off fans.
We also need a willingness to try new things. Events, Offers, Questions – these can be effective depending on what you’re willing to offer for your business. Landing pages, video styles, advertising styles – all of these play important roles as well.
This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive guide nor is it meant to be a scare tactic. Facebook is not hard and it doesn’t have to be that time consuming, either. It does require attention and a system through which the changes and efforts can be tracked for true ROI.
Now, about those blog posts on strategies – take note but be skeptical. Everyone seems to have an opinion about what to do on social media to be successful and these opinions are often contradictory. There are very few overall strategies that have ever made me think, “Wow, that’s the one!” There are plenty of blog posts that make me think, “Hmmm, let’s give that a try and monitor the results.”
That’s the key. Take advice but don’t set anything in stone until you test it thoroughly yourself. Facebook can be fickle, especially when the organic algorithm itself can punish pages for making the wrong moves, but you shouldn’t be too fearful of making a mistake or taking a step backwards. The benefits of a strong campaign or strategy greatly outweigh the potential negatives associated with mistakes, so by fearless but monitor and adjust accordingly. Anything short of regular monitoring and a willingness to change can result in the wrong results.
Related articles
via Soshable | Social Media Blog http://soshable.com/a-proper-facebook-strategy-requires-constant-testing-and-adjusting/
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
True Content Marketing for B2B Needs Bigger Budgets
This really shouldn’t even be a story. It’s one of those obvious statements that shouldn’t require explanation. If you take the title at face value and make it happen, you’re already a step ahead of most of your competitors.
Thankfully for blogs like this one, a story is required. There is a complete lack of understanding, particularly from the C-Suite, when it comes to content marketing that it’s no wonder why blogs like Soshable continue to thrive. You’re likely reading this because you need ammo. You don’t need to be convinced. You need help convincing upper management that there’s value in the hills of content marketing, than just about any portion of the budget spent on it would be worthwhile, that it’s an endless goldmine that goes completely untapped by most, and that it has an upside as every major player from Google to Facebook continues to adore the practices of true content marketing.
“True” is the important word here, but let’s assume that you already have that component down as well. Let’s assume that you realize that low-quality, irrelevant content that once worked well is quickly becoming detrimental to marketing. Let’s assume that you understand that creativity in entertainment and education are the keys and that quality trumps quantity every time.
You already know that the superstars of content creation are harder to find than an honest politician. You are well aware that the vast majority of the promotional tactics used today are ineffective or heading in that direction and that transparent, aggressive, and intuitive promotions are the only way to get a true bang for the buck. You also know the most important part of content marketing and internet marketing in general – that search, social, email, videos, white papers, and everything in between must be handled with a holistic approach rather than treating everything separately.
You know all of this already because you’re a seasoned internet marketing professional. You just need the bullet points to show the big wigs. Thankfully, Marketo has an answer for you in the wonderful infographic below. Aren’t you glad you found this blog post?
Related articles
via Soshable | Social Media Blog http://soshable.com/true-content-marketing-for-b2b-needs-bigger-budgets/
Monday, February 11, 2013
LinkedIn Wins the Twitter Email Trick of the Week
Oh LinkedIn. You’re so clever.
Face it. Humans love to talk about themselves, particularly on social media. For the first time in history, social media offers us a way to let our friends, family, and the rest of the world know about our accomplishments. We might not be winning Super Bowl rings or Oscars, but we are generating other accomplishments and we want our peeps to hear about it. LinkedIn knows this and used it to their advantage last week.
They sent out emails to the top 10% of their users. These users, the ones who had the most viewed profiles, were told of their accomplishment. They were given an opportunity to tell the world through Twitter.
They did just that.
On the surface, it’s a pretty neat accomplishment, one that only requires being active. It’s also something that we want – why go on LinkedIn if you’re not wanting to be found by that million dollar job? When you really think about it, it’s not as much of an accomplishment as a great marketing ploy by LinkedIn to get their name out there and into conversations on Twitter. Top of mind…
The math makes it seem less impressive. Even those who received the top 1% email might not have been as quick to brag about it had they realized they were one of over 2 million users to receive the honor.
It doesn’t matter. We got the email and it made us feel good. We wanted to share with our friends just how important we were. Math is useless in this equation. We won, so at the end of the day LinkedIn won as well. Very clever.
Related articles
via Soshable | Social Media Blog http://soshable.com/linkedin-wins-the-twitter-email-trick-of-the-week/
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Why the Automotive Industry Needs the Internet Sales 20 Group
Through two decades in the automotive industry (I think it might be three, technically, but I’m in denial), I can count on one hand the number of conferences I’ve truly supported. I speak at many events and attend a dozen a year, but I don’t truly support them. Some, like NADA (where I am right now writing this post) and SXSW (where I’ll be next month) are big enough that they simply don’t need my endorsement. Most could use any support they can get to expose them, but I often hold back.
Simply stated, I don’t throw my name at an event unless I truly believe in it. Such is the case with the Internet Sales 20 Group, a new entry in the automotive marketing field that is both innovative as well as profound. I spoke at the first one last year in Chicago and I learned very quickly that this event was… different.
The primary differentiator that absolutely blew my mind during the first event was the extreme level of participation from the audience itself. To even call the dealer principles and general managers in attendance as an “audience” isn’t doing the event justice. They were participants. In many cases, they were the ones leading the discussions, exposing each other to ideas that you don’t normally get from a generic conference and at times taking the conversations into new directions that tore down the standard conference speaker talk tracks and converted them into “shovel ready” actions that the dealers could implement immediately.
There are events that pop up every year. Some are good. Some are pitch fests. I can say with confidence that the Internet Sales 20 Group is not a place for vendors to pitch to dealers. It’s technically not even the appropriate venue through which educators can teach dealers. It’s a conference that achieves the goal of so many conferences to turn a topic into a dialogue between the people who are recommending the strategies and the dealers who have to implement them.
The NADA Convention is the launching point for the spring conferences. Now that it’s behind us, the time for real action has begun. If you haven’t signed up for the Internet Sales 20 Group, you’re missing a real opportunity to succeed in 2013 and beyond.
Here’s my response when I attended the first one last year:
via Soshable | Social Media Blog http://soshable.com/why-the-automotive-industry-needs-the-internet-sales-20-group/
Friday, February 8, 2013
Use Hashtags Instead of Social Icons on Ads
If you ever want a crash course on the latest social media studies but don’t want to spend the money to do them yourself, just watch the Super Bowl. You have to assume that if companies are spending millions to produce and distribute 30 second spots for the big game, they’re going to research what’s working today.
This year’s big takeaway was a shift in the way that companies were presenting their social media. As described here, there’s even a debate about the winners and losers. The results of the research were easy to spot. Many advertisers decided that hashtags were the way to go social this year.
If you think about it, nothing could be simpler to understand. Hashtags are social network agnostic with the glaring exception of Facebook. Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, and countless other social networks apply hashtags to their streams to allow for tagging and easier searching. Popular hashtags often get featured on these sites. It’s a way to win bigger than simply posting a Twitter handle or Facebook page URL.
You should apply the same concept to your campaigns, particularly when interaction is a part of it (and it should be). It’s no longer about sending people to your profiles through your advertising. They won’t go. If they want to interact with you on social media, they’ll find you (at least they should be able to if you’re doing it right in search and on your website). They will, however, be willing to take part in a conversation. The best way to group conversations on every venue other than Facebook is through hashtags.
For Facebook, things are different and that deserves a blog post of its own, but for now if you focus on hashtags to spread your campaign messages in your advertising (print, television, and just about everywhere else), you’ll find that your social media interactions can improve. If you’re still posting your profile handle next to a blue bird, you’re probably not getting anything out of it and simply wasting space.
Related articles
via Soshable | Social Media Blog http://soshable.com/use-hashtags-instead-of-social-icons-on-ads/
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
The Psychology of an Internet Troll
Take extreme caution when becoming involved with online social forums such as chat rooms and even Facebook. The “Trolling effect” has been recognized by scientists as the shifting of our identities when we are online because we essentially have no worries of physical altercation or “real” social rejection since we are able to hide behind our computer screens. Recently, this phenomena has become one of the headlining issues within the online community, and many are concerned that the hateful words being tossed around without regard are contributing heavily towards depression and suicide rates.
It’s safe to say that certain social forums are more prone to having higher levels of “Trolling” than others. Facebook, for example, discloses a persons real name along with pictures and other information about who that person is in real life. Therefore, although people still feel less hesitant to speak on things they normally wouldn’t in face-to-face interactions and say potentially offensive things to others, these troll behaviors are mitigated substantially since others will generally know who this person is in real life. Chat rooms on the other hand allow users to enter with complete anonymity and essentially say whatever they want to whoever they want.
Check out the infographic below to learn more about the psychology of internet trolls.
Image compliments of Best Online Psychology Schools
via Soshable | Social Media Blog http://soshable.com/the-psychology-of-an-internet-troll/
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Teaching and Learning #AutoMarketing this Week at #DMSC and #NADA2013
It’s that time of year again. The annual meeting of the minds in the automotive industry descend on Orlando for a week of fun and frolic. Not really. Sure, there’s fun that is to be had at these events, but the real goal is to learn the latest and greatest offerings in the industry, the state of how the manufacturers are positioned for the year, and the best practices in the ever changing world of this robust industry, particularly when it comes to marketing.
This will be my 5th year to be going to these events. It starts off with the Digital Marketing Strategies Conference by First Class Educators and PCG. This prelude to NADA brings the savvy dealers to the table to talk to the experts in the industry. When it’s over, auto industry people from everywhere in the country will shift over to NADA.
I look forward to seeing old friends and making new ones at the show. Be sure to stop by the KPA booth if you’re attending. I’d love to shake your hand.
via Soshable | Social Media Blog http://soshable.com/teaching-and-learning-automarketing-this-week-at-dmsc-and-nada2013/
Friday, February 1, 2013
You Probably won’t See Any of the $20 Million that Facebook Owes Us
Facebook sent out an email and told users that they may be entitled to a portion of the $20 million due in a class action lawsuit if their names, profile pictures, or photographs were used in a “Sponsored Story”. It sounds like a lot until you realize that with 150 million US members, it’s very likely they’ll go to plan B and give the money to a charity that teaches proper social media use.
Ironic? Yes.
Here’s the email:
| NOTICE OF PENDING CLASS ACTION AND NOTICE OF PROPOSED SETTLEMENT | ||||||||||||||||||
| ANGEL FRALEY V. FACEBOOK, INC. | ||||||||||||||||||
| You are receiving this e-mail because you may have been featured in a “Sponsored Story” on Facebook prior to December 3, 2012. | ||||||||||||||||||
| A federal court authorized this Notice. This is not a solicitation from a lawyer. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Why did I get this notice? This Notice relates to a proposed settlement (“Settlement”) of a class action lawsuit (“Action”) filed against Facebook relating to a particular Facebook feature called “Sponsored Stories.” According to available records, you may be a “Class Member.” | ||||||||||||||||||
| What is the Action about? The Action claims that Facebook unlawfully used the names, profile pictures, photographs, likenesses, and identities of Facebook users in the United States to advertise or sell products and services through Sponsored Stories without obtaining those users’ consent. Facebook denies any wrongdoing and any liability whatsoever. No court or other entity has made any judgment or other determination of any liability. | ||||||||||||||||||
| What is a Sponsored Story? Sponsored Stories are a form of advertising that typically contains posts which appeared on facebook.com about or from a Facebook user or entity that a business, organization, or individual has paid to promote so there is a better chance that the posts will be seen by the user or entity’s chosen audience. Sponsored Stories may be displayed, for example, when a Facebook user interacts with the Facebook service (including sub-domains, international versions, widgets, plug-ins, platform applications or games, and mobile applications) in certain ways, such as by clicking on the Facebook “Like” button on a business’s, organization’s, or individual’s Facebook page. Sponsored Stories typically include a display of a Facebook user’s Facebook name (i.e., the name the user has associated with his or her Facebook account) and/or profile picture (if the user has uploaded one) with a statement describing the user’s interaction with the Facebook service, such as “John Smith likes UNICEF,” “John Smith played Farmville,” or “John Smith shared a link.” | ||||||||||||||||||
| What relief does the Settlement provide? Facebook will pay $20 million into a fund that can be used, in part, to pay claims of Class Members (including Minor Class Members) who appeared in a Sponsored Story. Each participating Class Member who submits a valid and timely claim form may be eligible to receive up to $10. The amount, if any, paid to each claimant depends upon the number of claims made and other factors detailed in the Settlement. No one knows in advance how much each claimant will receive, or whether any money will be paid directly to claimants. If the number of claims made renders it economically infeasible to pay money to persons who make a timely and valid claim, payment will be made to the not-for-profit organizations identified on the Settlement website at www.fraleyfacebooksettlement. | ||||||||||||||||||
| In addition to monetary relief, Facebook will (a) revise its terms of service (known as the “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities” or “SRR”) to more fully explain the instances in which users agree to the display of their names and profile pictures in connection with Sponsored Stories; (b) create an easily accessible mechanism that enables users to view, on a going-forward basis, the subset of their interactions and other content on Facebook that have been displayed in Sponsored Stories (if any); (c) develop settings that will allow users to prevent particular items or categories of content or information related to them from being displayed in future Sponsored Stories; (d) revise its SRR to confirm that minors represent that their parent or legal guardian consents to the use of the minor’s name and profile picture in connection with commercial, sponsored, or related content; (e) provide parents and legal guardians with additional information about how advertising works on Facebook in its Family Safety Center and provide parents and legal guardians with additional tools to control whether their children’s names and profile pictures are displayed in connection with Sponsored Stories; and (f) add a control in minor users’ profiles that enables each minor user to indicate that his or her parents are not Facebook users and, where a minor user indicates that his or her parents are not on Facebook, Facebook will make the minor ineligible to appear in Sponsored Stories until he or she reaches the age of 18, until the minor changes his or her setting to indicate that his or her parents are on Facebook, or until a confirmed parental relationship with the minor user is established. | ||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||
| Your Class Member Number: 588404507 | ||||||||||||||||||
| To Parents and Guardians of Children on Facebook: The Settlement also involves the claims of minors featured in Sponsored Stories on Facebook. Please see the Settlement website for more information. | ||||||||||||||||||
| More information? For more information about the Settlement and how to take the actions described above, please visit www.fraleyfacebooksettlement. | ||||||||||||||||||
via Soshable | Social Media Blog http://soshable.com/you-probably-wont-see-any-of-the-20-million-that-facebook-owes-us/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)