February 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Twitter’s Official Analytics Product (via @Mashable)

With Twitter Analytics, users will be able to see a plethora of data about their account; for example, information about which tweets are most successful, which tweets caused people to unfollow, and who the most influential users are that reply and retweet their messages.

In the images below, you can see how some of this data is charted. A bar graph over 6-hour increments shows you mentions, follows and unfollows, for example, and you can filter tweets by categories that are defined as “best,” “good,” and “all.”

In what will no doubt come as a blow to the third-party vendors that are already providing similar tools, we’re hearing that the product will be free and that Twitter has no immediate plans to charge.

Screenshots

(Via @Mashable)

Twitter, like many of the other social networks, continues to evolve, and expand their product offerings. We don’t think this will replace tools like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck, but it will make it easier for those using twitter.com to track their statistics and measure their analytics. What are your thoughts? Do you use twitter.com or a syndication tool like Hootsuite?

Filed Under: Twitter
February 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Have you seen The Social Inbox on Facebook yet?

via youtube.com

Facebook announced in November 2010 that they were introducing a social inbox that brought all the conversations into one conversation. Imagine one thread from texting, to messaging and email all combined into one spot for retrieval. Has your account been converted yet? The rollout began on February 11, 2011 according to this blog post See the Messages that Matter by Facebook.

As always I have the honour of hearing the next generations reaction and right now it’s a 50-50 split in our household as to whether they like this idea or not. Does this seem like a simpler solution to you?

Filed Under: Communication, Facebook
February 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment

How Small Businesses Are Using Social Media [INFOGRAPHIC]

via mashable.com

Which is your network of choice?

Filed Under: Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter
February 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Love it or Hate it, here comes the newest Facebook Page changes?

The long awaited changes appeared yesterday at 3pm on facebook.  They began with announcements in August 2010, concerning customized facebook pages.  We’ve been reading, watching and waiting to see how this would affect our customers.  The change from fbml to iframes affects applications not our customized facebook tabs.  That being said, yesterday’s facebook page change announcement does affect each page.  I’m going to detail out the changes for everyone first and then the only change for those of you that have a customize designed landing tab is the width (27 pixels smaller). 
You have the choice as to whether or not you want to adopt the new layout until March 10, 2011 when all pages will be converted to the new format.  Let’s take the tour with explanations:
1) Notifications ♥ Finally, we can be notified when someone engages with our facebook page.  This will ensure that our client’s communications are addressed promptly. Goto your page and then edit page > your settings

2) Post from your personal profile or as your page persona ♥ This is an excellent improvement.  When you are posting or engaging on facebook you now have the choice to be operating from your businesses perspective or yourself as an individual.  This will help with CEO’s and others that wish to keep their personal profiles more private. In the past many people have resorted to having two separate accounts on facebook which is against facebook’s terms of service.   Goto Account > use facebook as page
This option gives your business the opportunity to interact with other pages by making comments as your page on another page, see the activity from other pages on your news feed, like other pages and feature them on your page. These options will encourage positive association between businesses.  You can also feature people from within your ogranization to keep the personal approach to social networking alive.  Goto Edit Page > Featured
3) Page look and feel – what are your thoughts on these changes?
a. Photos – like your personal profile you can now showcase the most recent photos that you post to your Wall or photos that you tag your Page in will appear here. This area will not include any photos posted by your fans.
b. Navigation – links are now on the left, just like on people’s profiles.
c. Wall Filters – You now have two Wall filters. You can show posts by your page and top posts from Everyone, a new way for people to see the most interesting stories first. As an admin, you’ll have additional filters for viewing posts on your page.  To set a default filter for your Wall, go to Edit Page.
d. Customized Landing Tab – facebook shrunk the width of the page down to 493 pixels in width!  This will affect the appearance and we can help you make the change if you so desire.

There are some pretty significant changes taking place here and as stated in our prior post concerning the Places page and Personal Profile changes in layout, Facebook is definitely looking to provide consistency in each area.  In the spirit of the month of February I thought I’d put a few hearts where I thought the best enhancement were made.  Which components do you think are the best in this round of changes? 

Filed Under: Facebook
February 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment

10 David Ogilvy Quotes that Could Revolutionize Your Blogging

1. “The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife.”

How appropriate—both for internet marketers (who are often known for tactics that treat those they target as morons) and bloggers (who can at times talk down to readers).

The idea of treating your reader as someone who you value, as someone incredibly special to you, will take bloggers a long way.

Another Ogilvy quote that relates: “Never write an advertisement which you wouldn’t want your family to read. You wouldn’t tell lies to your own wife. Don’t tell them to mine.”

via problogger.net

This article is a great conversation starter for you to share your thoughts on customer service. Which of these quotes do you relate with the most?

Filed Under: Marketing
February 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

11 Social Web Facts that Will Blow Your Mind from HubSpot Blog

Each of us recognizes that the Internet and the social Web is growing quickly. However, it can be difficult to put this rapid growth into perspective. Sometimes you have to take a set back and look at some of the numbers to truly get an understanding of how the social Web has expanded.

The folks over at Pingdom compiled together some great statistics about the Internet’s growth. In case you don’t have time to look through their entire list, I have selected 11 stats that demonstrate the current state of the social Web.

11 Social Web Facts That Will Blow Your Mind

1. In 2010, 107 trillion emails were sent on the Internet. (Source)

2. At the current rate 36 billion photos will be uploaded to Facebook each year. (Source)

3. Each day 2 billion videos are watched on YouTube. (Source)

4. Each month 30 billion pieces of content (links, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook. (Source)

5. In 2010, users sent 25 billion tweets. (Source)

6. Worldwide there are 1.97 billion Internet users. (Source)

7. At the end of 2010, there were 88.8 million – .COM domain names registered. (Source)

8. As of December 2010, there were 255 million websites. (Source)

9. Worldwide, there are 2.9 billion email accounts. (Source)

10. The average Internet user watched 186 online videos per month (USA). (Source)

11. Every minute 35 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube. (Source)

Which of these statistics was the most surprising to you?

via blog.hubspot.com

Truthfully these numbers are astounding, and I still hear business owners say I don’t want to participate. My question is really?

Filed Under: Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, YouTube
February 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Foursquare – do you check in?

via foursquare.com

The first month of 2011 is closed and I’m thinking about how I still prefer foursquare over Facebook places for the ability to choose where the check-in is shared. It will be very interesting to see what happens as Facebook begins to really launch their location based service this year.

I’m finding it interesting to see who is adopting the ‘check-in’ habit. My kids are now beating me at checking into my own business and they are driven and competing for local business ‘mayorships’. The next generation being raised on the gaming industry take the badges offered here as a challenge.

Not surprising then that Wendy’s received the most check-ins. Are you using a ‘check-in’ platform? If so, which one and why?

Filed Under: Marketing