Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’

Social Media’s Top 5 Trends

Friday, August 20th, 2010

So, what ARE the latest social media trends right now? Let’s allow Mashable to dish. For the full article, click here.

1. Social Scanning:  Smartphone owners have the world at their fingertips. As grandiose as that may sound, advances in mobile barcode scanning technology have given rise to applications that allow for comparison shopping, QR code place checkins and ultimately a social experience around product barcodes.

What this means is that at any given moment, any smartphone owner can pull out their device, fire up a barcode scanning application, scan a code and complete activities or gain access to a wealth of immediately relevant information. Really, what we’re seeing is the convergence of social media and barcode scanning to create “social scanning.”

These scans aren’t inherently social in nature, but because they can double as verifiable place checkins, they can also possess the social properties of a checkin: location-sharing with friends on the same service or via social network distribution.

(more…)

Quit Facebook Day — May 31, 2010

Friday, May 14th, 2010

So, apparently Facebook users are ticked off. A lot. So much, in fact, they’ve done everything but declare a national holiday. What they have done, however, is make May 31, 2010 Quit Facebook Day, complete with a website stating the reasons behind their en masse sign-off and offering to send users an email reminder on the 31st to delete their account.

Some of the reasons cited (directly from QuitFacebookDay.com:
For us it comes down to two things: fair choices and best intentions. In our view, Facebook doesn’t do a good job in either department. Facebook gives you choices about how to manage your data, but they aren’t fair choices, and while the onus is on the individual to manage these choices, Facebook makes it damn difficult for the average user to understand or manage this. We also don’t think Facebook has much respect for you or your data, especially in the context of the future.

For a lot of people, quitting Facebook revolves around privacy. This is a legitimate concern, but we also think the privacy issue is just the symptom of a larger set of issues. The cumulative effects of what Facebook does now will not play out well in the future, and we care deeply about the future of the web as an open, safe and human place. We just can’t see Facebook’s current direction being aligned with any positive future for the web, so we’re leaving.

The site then goes on to sympathize with the public, claiming they “understand this is a difficult decision…. facebook is engaging… facebook is addictive…”

For me personally, I will not be quitting facebook this month, or even next month. I like Facebook, I’ve reconnected with people I thought I’d never hear from again and I believe that if I were as passionate about these issues as these people are, it would mean I’m spending too much time on Facebook, period.

You can read more and decide for yourself on QuitFacebookDay.com.

Will you quit or stay committed??

Facebook Marketing doesn’t hold back.

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

“Facebook may not have made any big announcements about local business marketing at last week’s f8 conference, but the company is certainly stepping up its efforts in that area. Today, we discovered that Facebook is sending out window decals with text-to-Like SMS instructions to select local businesses.

Twitter user B.J. Drums, who works with the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, California, sent us proof that Facebook is officially getting into the local business marketing fray.

The company received both a window decal and an accompanying letter (see below) that encourages participating businesses to place the decal “prominently on your window or sales counter, since businesses that promote their Page off-Facebook tend to see a 20% or greater increase in connections.”

The sticker in question includes a very prominent Like icon and the iconic blue Facebook branding, as well as a call to action that reads, “text like MuseumofMakingMusic to 32665.”

Facebook is even gifting beta testers with $25 in ad credits to help drive home the utility of the service and propel businesses to participate in on-site advertising as well.

This first step toward serving local businesses is an extremely smart maneuver very much like Google’s Place Pages offering. Also, the day that Facebook correlates your physical location in the real world with their local business Pages does not seem too far off.

If Yelp, Google, Fousquare and Facebook all get their way, local business windows will be covered in window decals. Realistically, one decal will prevail and we tend to think Facebook’s more than 400 million userbase and the value of an instant Fan will make Facebook’s offering especially appealing to local business owners.”

Story courtesy of Mashable.

Evaluating the Buzz

Friday, February 12th, 2010

googlebuzzGoogle’s recent release of Buzz has been surrounded by hype and questions. Only a couple days after its release, it remains to be seen if this new social networking tool will actually take off.  Could it really become one of the social networking elite, or fall flat like Wave?

What is Buzz all about?
Currently, it shares a spot somewhere between Twitter and Facebook. It can be open to the public like Twitter, or updates can be private like Facebook. The API is open to developers in the same way Twitter is, but access is limited to those who own a Google account (similar to Facebook). You can send out short text updates to your followers, but it also has built-in media sharing capabilities such as: Twitter, Flickr, Blogger, Google Reader, Picasa, and YouTube. It only takes one click to tie in each service, as most of those services already belong to Google. You can have Buzz send out an update whenever you post to any of these services, or you can choose not to share. And just like Twitter and Facebook, Buzz is available on your phone to share from anywhere you happen to be. (more…)

Social Media Revolution

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

I came across this video about a month ago and was so impressed by it, I went ahead and pulled the stats out to use in client interaction. Take a few moments to take this in… well worth the time out of your day to see the real impact social media is having on the world as we know it.

Social Media Without the Browser

Monday, December 21st, 2009

feedalizrTwitter, FaceBook, MySpace, Digg, these are all great websites.  People use them to reconnect with friends, let people know what they are up to, offer customer discounts, and more.  Some people don’t use their computers for anything but these services and others like them.  While Google sees this fact and is moving forward with their idea that the browser should be the OS (Chrome OS), applications are popping up everywhere to help you maintain your statuses, and update your systems easier.

With the power of Adobe Air, every desktop can get some simple applications that tie into your different social media accounts.  One great one is feedalizr.  It can connect to FaceBook, Twitter, Flickr and more.  With this one application, you have access to all your favorite social media without waiting for your browser to load, and eating up your RAM with a ton of different tabs.

If you happen to be using Ubuntu Linux, you may be interested in some of the upcoming changes for the upcoming 10.4 release.  This next release is supposed to include a new feature called the Me Menu.  If you have twitter and Facebook accounts, this new menu is going to allow you to update your statuses and also tie you into the Ubuntu One online storage.  Pretty rad.

The line between offline and online is blurring more and more, and it’s interesting to see how this affects software development.

The Seven Deadly Sins of Social Media

Monday, December 7th, 2009

Picture this: you are at a beautiful wedding. the bride is gorgeous in white, the ceremony has begun, the couple are seconds away from officially becoming “man and wife” and…. the groom pauses to post a tweet?

This really happened over the weekend when Dana Hanna paused momentarily, pulled out his cell phone and tweeted the following:

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So, this begs the question: at what point does the speed demon of social media become a train wreck? The internet abounds with examples of destructive social media endeavors, but the one we’ll share today is the Seven Deadly Sins of Social Media.

The Seven Deadly Sins of Social Media

Let’s get at it. This list is in no particular order of importance. There is no hierarchy of social media sins. And for those reluctant to reform, you can’t simply choose the least of the seven evils and get away with it – they are all bad. (more…)

Use your social media manners!

Friday, December 4th, 2009

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As with anything, there is a time, place, and etiquette surrounding social media. Without some simple guidelines, social media has and will get completely out of control. Here’s some genius ideas to keep you and your brand worry free and always looking your best.

Social media mimics real relationships — in many cases. Would you do the following within real face-to-face relationships?

  • Jump on the friendship bandwagon without properly introducing yourself?
  • Consistently talk about yourself and promote only yourself without regard for those around you?
  • Randomly approach a friend you barely talk to and simply ask for favors — repeatedly?
  • Introduce yourself to another person as “Pink House Gardening?”

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may need a refresher course on social media etiquette — and perhaps real-life etiquette also. Here are some egregious sins that you must not perform on social media sites. Avoid these violations and learn how to manage and maintain online relationships on a variety of popular social media sites. (more…)

Are Facebook Fan Pages effective? Survey says yes!

Monday, November 23rd, 2009
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Facebook Fan Page Benefits
Still need convincing? Here are 6 reasons why you should consider creating a Facebook fan page and the search engine marketing benefits it can bring:

1. Pages are public.
Most of Facebook is behind a login, preventing search engines from indexing. However, some Fan pages are not behind a login and thus search engines can index the page. Hopefully, people will stumble on the result in SERPs, visit the Facebook page, and then get to your site via the link (see reason #2).

2. Pages include links.
Because the pages are public, you can get some nice facebook.com link credit. You can’t use an anchor text, but hey, it’s free.

3. Send “updates to fans”.
One of the greatest features is that you can send “updates” to fans whenever you want. It’s a nice way of building a database of interested users. Send messages about new products, updated website, etc.

4. You control the page.
Making the page before a Fan or a competitor is critical. You want to be able to send the messages, edit or remove sections, and control the information to an extent.

5. News feed.
When a someone joins a Fan page, it’s published in their News feed for all their to read (unless they have turned this off). It makes someone joining your Fan page somewhat viral.

6. It’s free and easy.
Making a Fan page takes just a few minutes – add some information, URL, and upload the logo and you’re done. You can make your page here.

Finally…
PR is currently one of the few forms of marketing thriving during the recession so 2009 will inevitably see Facebook fan page activity increase as companies compete in the current climate. We will check back in 6 months time to see how the top 25 Facebook fan pages have changed, if Obama is still leading the way or Homer can steal the crown…keep you posted!

Thank you Mashable!

Facebook Etiquette

Friday, August 28th, 2009

Zoom Creates has been a whirlwind of busy-ness this week, so blog posts have been taking a bit of a back seat. One of the things we’ve been doing is honing our social media strategies and skill sets. With that in mind, I am going to post a video that speaks volumes about Facebook Etiquette in an extremely delightful way. Please do enjoy!

Video compliments of Tango.