Social Media Users Want to Be Heard

A look at user attitudes While social media users may not find social sites quite as trustworthy as traditional sources of news, according to research from Crowd Science they do see it as an important communications medium—for better and for worse. Users want to be heard. Overall, 45% reported liking when others notice them—leading some to stretch the truth or reveal too much personal information. Young people were especially vulnerable to activities that might haunt them later. But 36% believed others are simply interested in what they have to say. That shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to marketers, who know many users will tell all their contacts about good (and bad) experiences with products and services. Females lived up to their reputation as prime targets of marketers seeking the benefits of earned media. Among users over age 30, women were significantly more likely than men to think others wanted to hear what they thought. In addition, women overall were more than three times as likely as men to say online social media was their favorite leisure activity. Though not everything appearing on social media is trustworthy, nearly one-half of users responding to the survey claimed they could "easily" tell whether information they got from social media was true. Less than one-quarter disagreed. These savvy users believe they can spot the difference between the real deal and insincere efforts. While face-to-face contact with friends was generally preferred, about one-third of users said they would rather communicate by social media than by telephone. Source emarketer.com Social Media Consulting, Web Presence, Call Center Technology Book A FREE 1/2 Hr. Phone Consultation

Social Media Predictions for 2010

Social Media Predictions for 2010   With 2010 fast approaching, there's lots of talk about the social media predictions for the coming year. Although we don't have a crystal ball here at SocialMediaExaminer.com, we do have recent social media studies to support some very likely trends. David Armano recently published his social media predictions for 2010 on the Harvard Business Blog.  Here's [...] Read more... Social Media Consulting, Web Presence, Call Center Technology Book A FREE 1/2 Hr. Phone Consultation

Integrating E-Mail and Social Media

E-mail and social media are the top areas marketers expect to increase next year, and putting the two together is a growing trend. Full Article Social Media Consulting, Web Presence, Call Center Technology Book A FREE 1/2 Hr. Phone Consultation Social Media Consulting, Web Presence, Call Center Technology Book A FREE 1/2 Hr. Phone Consultation

An Open Letter from Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg

Image by deneyterrio via Flickr

by Mark Zuckerberg

It has been a great year for making the world more open and connected. Thanks to your help, more than 350 million people around the world are using Facebook to share their lives online.

To make this possible, we have focused on giving you the tools you need to share and control your information. Starting with the very first version of Facebook five years ago, we've built tools that help you control what you share with which individuals and groups of people. Our work to improve privacy continues today.

Facebook's current privacy model revolves around "networks" — communities for your school, your company or your region. This worked well when Facebook was mostly used by students, since it made sense that a student might want to share content with their fellow students.

Over time people also asked us to add networks for companies and regions as well. Today we even have networks for some entire countries, like India and China.

However, as Facebook has grown, some of these regional networks now have millions of members and we've concluded that this is no longer the best way for you to control your privacy. Almost 50 percent of all Facebook users are members of regional networks, so this is an important issue for us. If we can build a better system, then more than 100 million people will have even more control of their information.

The plan we've come up with is to remove regional networks completely and create a simpler model for privacy control where you can set content to be available to only your friends, friends of your friends, or everyone.

We're adding something that many of you have asked for — the ability to control who sees each individual piece of content you create or upload. In addition, we'll also be fulfilling a request made by many of you to make the privacy settings page simpler by combining some settings. If you want to read more about this, we began discussing this plan back in July.

Since this update will remove regional networks and create some new settings, in the next couple of weeks we'll ask you to review and update your privacy settings. You'll see a message that will explain the changes and take you to a page where you can update your settings. When you're finished, we'll show you a confirmation page so you can make sure you chose the right settings for you. As always, once you're done you'll still be able to change your settings whenever you want.

We've worked hard to build controls that we think will be better for you, but we also understand that everyone's needs are different. We'll suggest settings for you based on your current level of privacy, but the best way for you to find the right settings is to read through all your options and customize them for yourself. I encourage you to do this and consider who you're sharing with online.

Thanks for being a part of making Facebook what it is today, and for helping to make the world more open and connected.


Mark Zuckerberg

The Social Advantage

We have all heard countless stories involving a recent grad, a beer bong, and a ruined job opportunity. But Assistant Professor Barbara Nixon at Georgia Southern University is requiring her students to get social despite this. In her public relations class, students are graded on their social networking skills. "A student shouldn't be surprised about getting asked in a job interview: When you leave here today, I am going to look you up in Facebook and Google your name. How will my impression change?" She notes. There is not doubt that in WOM marketing, reputations matter. Cleaning up your social space is only part of the deal. When potential employers check up on social media, this is an excellent time to wow them with your prowess. Read more on Dr. Nixon's class and methods at The George-Anne Daily Comment at http://womma.org/word/2009/11/16/the-social-advantage/ Book A FREE 1/2 Hr. Phone Consultation

How Twitter Can Help--or Hurt--Your Business

Razorfish recently released a study of people who follow specific brands on Twitter. A whopping 97 percent of the study's survey takers said that their online experience with a brand "influenced whether or not they would purchase an item or service" from the company. 65 percent indicated that their online interaction with a brand changed their opinion of that brand. What do these results mean for your business? Even if you're a small company, the way you relate to customers online has an impact, so you'd be wise to have a strategy in place. Read more on the study here--and see us below for more advice on helping your business succeed. Visit http://FootPrintStrategies.com



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Using social Media

Social media is undoubtedly a powerful marketing tool. To get you started, here are our top tips:

1) Twitter

Twitter is a hugely effective free marketing tool for your business. It’s a micro-blogging site and somewhere that allows you to talk directly with your customers quickly and easily. You basically follow people and people follow you. You can tweet about yourself while keeping updated on the rest of the world.

Sign up and create an account, reserving your business name and start ‘tweeting’. You can tweet about your company news, point people back to your website and any useful blogs you might have, or even respond to tweets about your sector.

A useful ‘search’ function on Twitter will help you to find relevant people to follow or even target. For instance, at Boomerang PR, I follow PR Week but also lots of design and marketing agencies around Staffordshire and Cheshire. I’ve found lots of new business by tweeting about my services and sharing my expertise. I’ve also searched for things like ‘PR services’ and ‘web developer required’ to target others and introduce myself.

To make the most out of your Twitter account you can use more advanced tools like Tweetie, Hootsuite or TweetDeck. These will make using Twitter a whole lot easier and come with lots of useful features. Take for instance, Hootsuite – you can schedule Tweets to be posted onto your profile while you’re away from your desk.

Twitter has also recently introduced ‘Lists’ whereby you can organise all the people you are following, placing them into categories.

2) Facebook

If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s fourth largest.

As a business, you can start a Group or Fanpage where people can follow you, similar to Twitter, and become fans of your business.

Like Twitter, this is a fantastic free marketing tool to help build your online presence and get more people talking about you and your products or services.

Again, you can point people back to your website, your blog posts or even seek customer feedback. For example, on Creative Boom’s Fanpage, I often talk directly to my fans, asking their opinion on how I can continue to improve the website. As a result, I recently launched Creative Boom Hubs – regional versions of the main website to help create creative communities across the UK.

Facebook also has lots of Groups which you can target. We helped to drive thousands of people to Creative Boom by simply posting about our magazine on different group pages.

What’s more, Facebook has wonderful advertising opportunities where you can pick out keywords and target certain demographics to help you reach the right customers.

3) Linked In

Linked In is a business version of Facebook that is hugely popular and has over 50 million users worldwide.

It has some very useful functions like ‘Recommendations’ where you can encourage clients or colleagues to add a testimonial to your Linked In profile.

It’s also another social media network that has Groups. For Boomerang PR, I follow a Staffordshire Business Group and regularly talk online through the forums. It’s also a great way of keeping informed of any relevant business networking events going on in your local area.

4) Write your own Blog

Writing a blog gives you credibility, helps you to showcase your expertise and target potential new customers online.

What’s more, by integrating a blog into your current website, you’ll be providing fresh and relevant copy. And Google loves regularly updated copy, which will really help boost your SEO.

If you’re stuck for things to write then consider the following: you could comment on something in the news; provide tips and advice; share your expertise; review a product or service relevant to your industry or even just talk about your recent client wins.

Don’t forget to give your blog posts titles with SEO in mind. Think of what people would search for in the search engines. For instance, this feature would be ‘Top tips for social media marketing’. It’s another great way of being found through the search engine results pages.

5) Contribute to online conversation

Check out other people’s blogs that are within your sector and add intelligent comments/debate to their posts. It will give you further credibility and put you in touch with hundreds of potential new customers.

More importantly, it will build links back to your own website. Why is link building so important? It’s relevant for SEO and helps to drive more traffic to your website. The more traffic you have, the more potential customers you’re reaching. The more strong links you have, the more your Google ranking will improve.

Remember, social media goes hand-in-hand with SEO.

6) Use Multimedia

Have you considered using multimedia to boost your online presence? Websites like Flickr, Vimeo and YouTube are a great way to add more personality to your business.

If you’re a designer and you want to showcase your work, you can easily produce a video gallery of your work and post it onto YouTube. If you’re a photographer you can upload your work onto Flickr, a photo sharing site that also has groups, forums and online communities.

Or how about adding videos to your own website? You could demonstrate a new product? Or just talk to your customers direct by introducing ‘vlogs’ or video blogs. Creative Boom has a feature called Boom TV where me and my contributors talk about different themes, sharing our top tips and advice on a variety of subjects.

7) Connect all your social media

Once you’ve got your own Twitter and Facebook accounts up and running and you’ve started a blog or introduced YouTube videos, why not connect them all up?

You can use things like Twitterfeed to tap into your blog’s RSS feed and automatically post things onto Twitter and Facebook.

Just think of Twitter and Facebook as powerful tools that will drive traffic to your website.

Don’t forget to add some social media icons to your website so that people can easily follow you on Twitter or become your fan on Facebook.