What’s New This Week in Social Media

April 15, 2012 2 Comments

Things change fast in the digital world. Here’s a few things that caught my attention this past week and what’s ahead moving forward into this week.

Google + has a new look

Google Plus rolled out a new look and feel to their platform last week, moving toward what they say is a “more beautiful Google” in their official blog.  Here’s their video on the changes. See what you think.

Social Media Strategy Summit

I’m headed to the Social Media Strategy Summit in Chicago this coming week and will be live tweeting from the events. The sold out event is ranked number 2 of the top 5 business events to attend this year, so I’m very excited about being there. Speakers from Intel, Bit.ly and McDonald’s will share their knowledge in a number of seminars and break out sessions. Check future blog posts to find out what I learned.

Facebook buys Instagram

Reports are that Facebook purchased the photo sharing tool Instagram for $1 billion in both cash and stock this week. In an attempt to build on the photo sharing already inherent in Facebook, the purchase of Instagram will allow users to share photos based around their interests as well as share them to other social networks. The app has a number of filters that allow you to transform the look of your photos, then share them with your network. Instagram has been available on the iOS platform since October of 2010, but it just launched an Android version last week which I downloaded and am anxious to try.

Pinterest Introduces Board Covers

Pinterest edit board coverNow you can choose which photo displays as the cover on your Pinterest boards. Hover your mouse over the board and choose “edit board cover.” Scroll through the photos on that board and choose your photo. Marketers should use this opportunity to display their most important messages in this space.

What new developments have caught your attention?

Filed under Business, Facebook, social media Tagged with , , , , , ,

Facebook Timeline for Brands: What You Need to Know

February 29, 2012 Leave a comment

Facebook Timeline for Brands

Facebook rolled out its Timeline for Brand pages today in conjunction with it’s Facebook Marketing Conference. If you admin a brand page you probably noticed the message on top of your page allowing you to preview the new layout before it’s applied on March 30, 2012.  Here’s what it means for marketers:

New Page Layout

If you’ve activated Timeline for your personal page you already know what it looks and feels like. There’s space for a cover photo at the top and the page is divided into two columns – posts on the left and activity on the right. According to presenters at Facebook for Marketers today there will be the ability to feature a post at the top too, so if you have an important message it won’t get pushed down by other messages in your feed.

Use the cover photo to your advantage. This is the place to highlight your brand and any campaigns going on in your business. Keep in mind the Facebook  terms of service and don’t place any calls to action or contact information in the timeline cover photo though. Instead, place that information in your About section. Ideal dimensions for your cover photo are 850px high x 315px wide. Remember to leave a space for your profile pic on the left side.

Milestones

Just as with Timeline for profiles, Timeline for brands will allow admins to add milestones to the page. Add the date your company was founded and any important changes along the way. People like to connect with behind the scenes announcements and photos and see important milestones along the way. Pages that depict these important events continually have higher engagement rates so make sure to add these important events to your page.

Messages

Fans will now have the ability to message brand pages directly. This is an important update and a long time coming! Now our fans can connect with us privately rather than by posting messages directly on the wall. This feature will be especially helpful for customer service issues. Be sure to respond to any messages your receive quickly – just as with posts on your wall.

Reduced Visibility and Function for Tabs

This could be the biggest disadvantage for Timeline for brands. Facebook tabs are now moved from the left sidebar to across the top and we’ve lost the ability to set a default landing tab.  There is room for three additional apps above the fold. Since it’s possible to swap positions with other apps (Likes, Map etc.) my recommendation is to place your three most important apps after photos and assume the rest won’t be visited.  The disadvantage here is that even with this placement they are overshadowed by the cover photo and are no longer the first thing new visitors see when they come to your page.

Marketers using reveal tabs to offer discounts or coupons to fans will likely see less engagement on these apps as visitors will have to click through themselves. Since most visitors will not return to your page once liked, there isn’t much room for engagement here. Takeaway lesson: it’s more important than ever to engage through the newsfeed. Also use your cover photo for important messaging or campaigns rather than relying on landing tabs.

Friend Activity

When fans visit your page they’ll now see their friends interactions with your page near the top of the feed. That will give a much more personal feel to their experience with your page and is designed to help reinforce that word of mouth referral power. Remember though that a negative mention will appear there too, so as always it is important to address issues as they occur.

Have you activated your brand page yet? What are your thoughts? Comment here or send me a message on my new Facebook brand page at Carmine Media.

Filed under Business, Facebook, Marketing Tagged with , , , ,

Social Media Wish List for 2012

January 1, 2012 2 Comments

Wish List

Photo courtesy of Plindberg on Flickr

While 2011 was a banner year for social media growth in the business world, those of us in the profession are still struggling with measuring the results of our efforts. In the hopes that 2012 will bring us functional tools for analyzing all that data, here’s my early wish list for Santa in 2012. If you have a recommendation for a tool for any of the items mentioned on my list, feel free to comment and post your links. I welcome your suggestions! And Santa, I promise to be good all year.

Fan Interest Graphing

Facebook insights, for example, gives us information on our fan page demographics such as age, gender, where likes came from (external referrers) and such, there’s still no good way to see and graph the interests (likes) of our fans. Say for example, a majority of your fans are interested in skiing. Providing content on the topic could help keep them engaged and sharing. So far none of the free services I’ve found give us a way to access this data so it’s included here on my wish list.

Social Media Dashboard

While tools like Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, Social Mention and Google Alerts allow us to track and analyze Key Performance Indicators (KPI), I’d like a tool that allows me to aggregate all my social media accounts and posts on one dashboard and then share that dashboard with fans and followers. If you’re interested in tracking dashboards, Barry Hurd’s blog post on Social Media Dashboards give a good outline of the tools available now for tracking conversations. Here’s your chance to make a suggestion if you have a favorite tool for tracking, or for setting up a magazine-like page for all your streams.

Trending Data

I’d like a way to see what was trending in, say, New Orleans, for a date in the past. Twitter’s trending tools allow us to see what’s trending now, and what’s trending in a particular location, but not both location and date specific. At least, I’ve not yet found a good tool to do this. Any suggestions?

Ranking System by Industry

Even though there’s a lot of eye rolling when it comes to discussing metrics like Klout in the social media communities, it does offer some valuable insights. The problem lies in measuring everyone against everyone else, Justin Beiber included. I’d like to know how my clients measure against others in their industry. Since Klout uses the influence of your followers as part of the metric, B2B companies looking to engage with small, niche businesses will naturally have lower Klout scores than B2C companies able to engage highly influential followers. Again, if you have a suggestion feel free to let me know.

Social Media Workflow Tools

I know that Hootsuite allows for post coordination under its paid version, which I’ve not tried. I have heard good things about BufferApp.Com and it looks like collaboration tools are included in the free version. Scheduling posts to fan pages is part of the paid version. While the free dashboard Tweetdeck does allow scheduling to all accounts collaboration tools are absent. Any suggestions?

As the year progresses I’m sure my list will change as fast as the landscape of social media changes. As always, I welcome your comments and ideas here, on Twitter @suereynolds or on Facebook.

Happy New Year!

Filed under Business, Facebook, social media Tagged with , , , , ,

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