Twitter Gains Importance in Advertising and Marketing

Although Facebook will remain the most important social media marketing platform, the new business friendly features incorporated by Twitter will have an impact. Twitter based campaigns are economical and effective. This will help the micro-blogging site gain favor among brand marketers in the new year.

New Social Startups Emerge in Mobile Social Space

The popularity of smartphones is increasing rapidly. According to Nielsen, about 44% of US consumers own smartphones at present. This percentage is expected to rise significantly in 2012. This is likely to trigger the mobile phase in social networking.

While Facebook is a serious player in the mobile social networking space, in terms of technology and design it is not the leader. Many new startups like Milk and Path have emerged in this sector taking mobile social interaction to the next level. More such companies riding on Facebook are likely to come up in 2012.

High Expectations from Social IPOs

With Facebook and Yelp set to go public this year, 2012 is likely to be a big year for social IPOs. Although it is too early to predict how Facebook IPO will be priced, expectations are high. Success of the IPO will be good news for all the social companies in the market.

In reflection of the SOPA/PIPA blackout movement on the Web, I started to think about all of the popular big brand name players on the Internet that I frequent on a daily basis. I really got to thinking more seriously about it when one Tweet in particular caught my eye:

I thought about what my reaction would be if I could no longer Google my horoscope, Facebook or Tweet at my friends, YouTube Jenna Marbles videos, write a blog post on WordPress or quickly Wiki who, in fact, did shoot JR (not that I watched Dallas as a kid or anything…). I mean, crap! If all of these sites just disappeared, would we all just be left in the dark, asking for some social media maven to save us and turn the lights back on?

Other tweets in relation to the SOPA/PIPA blackout cracked jokes at the idea that if Twitter shut down (and there was a hashtag #IfTheyShutTwitterDown trending), people would actually have to socialize offline (GASP!).

But seriously now. I wonder to what degree social media has affected us. It definitely rehabilitates the never-ending debate over whether social media has killed communication or revived it. Whereas some people find themselves socializing more and collaborating with others, others are found tied to their computer screen and too lazy to go for a walk outside.

If social media no longer existed (after being immersed in it for 10 years), a lot would certainly change:

1. Creativity loss

For one, creativity would be harder to come by. There would be less mash-ups, remixes and no more user-generated content. People wouldn’t have access to DIY websites or tools, and many  would be scared of getting a lawsuit for borrowing or using content. In otherwise, you could kiss crowd-sourcing goodbye.

2. A change in politics

Remember Obama’s campaign? Much of his support came through his social media campaigning, and who knows where he would be today without it! And what about the Occupy Movement and the protests in the Middle East? Both began with a single blog post and a tweet. Without  social media, these movement may never have happened. Perhaps there would be less people power and more corporate and governmental control. Historians would be writing whole other story.

3. Less Lives Saved

Social media has, surprisingly, shown users just how far it can go to save lives across the globe. Social media saviours (users participating in an online social cause to better the world and humankind), would no longer have their place at Free Rice to donate food, there would be less of a chance to find an organ donor without the help of Twitter, and less monetary funds would be supplied through social media platforms towards the Haiti, China and Japan earthquakes.

4. More patience would be required

Let’s be honest: how many of you have freaked out over someone not replying to you within 5 minutes of sending a text? And how many saw a text sent to you but didn’t reply in time, only to send a response a few hours later with the “Oh sorry, I just got your message now” excuse? I knew it!

For 10 years we have been socialized into becoming instantly-gratified human beings, what with the ability to access the Internet on any portable device from any location (as long as your wireless connection is working). As a result, we have become more impatient with one another when someone doesn’t respond in time. On the opposite end, however, others have put less of an emphasis on timely responses.

5. No more stalking

Without social media, we would no longer have access to each others’ accounts (Facebook in particular), thus social media users would see a drastic drop in stalking statistics. We would no longer be asking ourselves, “I wonder if Bobby still looks as cute as he did in kindergarten” or “I wonder where Mary went to for vacation and if she is home now and if I can ‘coincidentally’ meet her at the club she mentioned in her Facebook status…” Yikes. Let’s just say communication would be a lot less entertaining intense (and perhaps safer!).

All in all, a world without social media is a different one indeed. Let’s just hope all goes well with the information blackout on the web, and that SOPA and PIPA will continue to allow us to treasure the social media evolution that lies so near and dear to our hearts… and at our finger tips.

Long live the social web!

Photo credit: http://gizmodo.com

Google understands the importance of social media marketing and has been putting in a lot of effort in making Google+ a success. The efforts include heavy promotions, including TV ads, and the integration of the social product with its core services. Continuing this trend, the search giant has launched a new update that fuses Google+ and the core search engine. The latest update is called ‘Search plus Your World’.

In short, ‘Search plus Your World‘ means a greater degree of automatic personalization of search results. Signals drawn from users’ Google+ Circles will be used to emphasize the things shared by the users themselves and their friends. The regular search results and personalized ones will appear side-by-side. Photographs shared either on Google+ or Picasa will also be pulled up. This will happen even if the images are marked private, but in such a case they will be visible only to the owner.

For instance, if you search for ‘Harry Potter’, the regular search will throw up links to the films, books and fan sites. However, if you are logged in to Google+, the results will also include the pictures of Harry Potter shared on your profile and relevant blog posts shared by friends. The images will appear both in the regular search and image search.

Although this seems like a small step, it signifies bigger future changes. Integration of Picasa and Google+ is just the beginning. In the coming years, we may also see results from Google Contacts, Docs, Gmail, Wallet, Voice and more.

A recent report from Enders Analysis, a research service provider, indicates that Facebook is catching up in the battle for eyeballs. According to the research firm’s estimates, in 2012 Facebook’s display ad revenues will rise to $5.3 billion, while Google’s will hit $2.5 billion. In spite of the social networking giant’s lead in display ads sector, Google will remain the biggest advertising player on the internet with expected revenues of $35 billion.

Both Google and Facebook have their own advantages. The search giant has a wider reach than Facebook, but when it comes to usage and engagement rates, the latter seems to be winning. The report suggests that a large number of publishers will depend on either or both of the internet marketing platforms for revenue and audience growth.

Google recognizes the rising importance of social space in the world of adverting. This is the reason why the search giant has made several attempts to develop a social network of its own. The company’s latest and most successful attempt is Google+, but so far it is not developed enough to pose a serious threat to Facebook.

For an internet marketing company, the biggest drawback of the feature is that private messages won’t generate news feed. This means that if people use the feature for asking general question or talking positively about the company, the firm will not be able to benefit from the possible positive effect of other people viewing this interaction.

The feature will allow people to send private messages to page owners regardless of whether or not they ‘Like’ the page. Although users are free to send messages, page administrators can not initiate a private conversation unless the users have made a comment or post on the page. Earlier page owners could send messages to users who ‘Like’ their page through the ‘Send Update’ feature, but this was disabled in September. However, whether or not to accept private messages is in the hands of the owners.

Until now users did not have any way of contacting page owners directly. Now Facebook not only features page owners, but also offers links to their profiles. This enables fans to send private messages to the owners. Although it is not yet accessible to everyone, Facebook has confirmed that a feature that enables private communication between pages and people is being tested.

One such recent development was Google updating the search function to its social networking site just a few months ago. The function allows users to search through the content available on Google+.

Earlier, the search result pages on Google+ featured four tabs – Everything, Google+ Posts, People and Sparks. After the latest tweaks, the pages feature two different tabs, each featuring a number of options. The original options appear under the first tab. If you choose

‘Everything’, your search results will include content from Google+ posts, People results as well as Sparks results. You can narrow down the results by choosing one of the three content sources. For instance, the ‘People’ option allows you to search for content from particular people. Similarly, you can specifically search for content from Google+ posts.

The second tab allows you to choose content sources for the search. The options under this tab include – from you, from your circles, from everyone. Other than the search itself, the search box has also been tweaked. As soon as you type a term in the box, a pop up window featuring possible Pages and People matches appears.

Another major change in search result pages is the presence of trending topics on the far right. This feature appears on a majority of social networking sites. It can help in increasing the engagement levels at the site. It allows users to check out what other people have to say about the hop topics.

Facebook, the social network that has encouraged heightened individualism for Internet users, is not so much concerned with you anymore as they are with your friends. Fan acquisition, a term noted by Mashable’s Stacey Politi, has become the main drive behind Facebook’s new business strategy.

According to a recent comScore report, fans are 40 to 150 times more likely to expend branded material in their personal news feeds than on the actual fan page. This insight drove Facebook to create the “Page Insights” feature that incorporates new metric tools intended to consistently remind business owners about one of the big players in customer acquisition: engaging content.

Because Facebook’s algorithm ensures more relevant content to appear on every user’s news feed (relevancy defined by likes, shares, comments, etc.), it encourages interaction not only amongst the first degree of influence, but the second and third as well.

Thus information passing from one person is exposed to another, encouraging friends of fans to more than likely visit a brand’s store, website and even more motivated to purchase than the first degree of influence (or un-influence).

Interestingly enough, according to Stacey Politi’s Facebook Analytics Fans Report, the average friends-of-fans group for the top 100 Facebook brand pages is 34 times larger than the initial fan group (meaning corporations have greater influence amongst its second-degree connections).

Another metric Facebook has introduced earlier this year is “People are talking about this.” This measuring tool permits the page administrator to know what type of content has proven to be the most compelling and interactive.

The more engaging content posts are, the more likely they are to lead to yet another important factor in fan acquisition: virality. Virality helps to analyze the success of individual posts, as well as investigate how people are connecting. And how we are connecting is an even bigger indicator of what type of content is deemed (by its users) as more appropriate to post to a particular social network.

By gaging fan behaviour (and ultimately the act of sharing), marketers can allow for better understanding fan and friend conduct, where they need to be and when, and what type of content they’ll get the best reaction out of from not just you, but your friends too.

If you have any questions or comments about fan acquisition, we’d love to hear from you.

In fact, every Thursday morning I meet with 20 local business professionals in Oakville, Ontario and the first question they all ask me is, “What should I be doing with social media?” Social media just seems so much easier than dealing with Adwords or hiring an SEO company. In reality, if it was that easy, B2B companies would be taking it more seriously.

In a recent survey by Accenture, only 7% of companies surveyed said that they were heavily involved in social media while 9% were not using social media at all. So what is stopping social media from pushing through the envelope?

Resources – Most companies try to “fit” a current employee into the social media sphere.not realizing the volume of additional work attached to the position.

Skills – We receive several “social media” job applicant resumes per month. They all look great on paper but when we check out their blog, Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter accounts, we can see that would still require a lot of coaching.

Tools – Using the proper tools to measure its effectiveness can be expensive.

Budget – If you are already spending money on PPC or SEO, adding Social media to your toolbox may be stretching your finances.

Awareness of Benefits – Most companies are doing the same old tired strategy of feeding their blog posts into social media sites and thing that that covers it. There is so much more to it.

Thinking of starting a social media campaign? Give us a call for a free consultation including a competitive analysis.

Its Google’s attempt to become the Blackberry™ of the social web.

To say that the Blackberry™ smartphone has been unable to keep up technologically with the Apple iPhone is an understatement. However, Blackberry™ is still the weapon of choice for businesses for a variety of reasons.

Google’s latest venture into social media, Google + Business Pages, is Google’s attempt to carve out the same path as the Blackberry™, to become the social media choice for businesses.

How do they intend to do it?

According to Google:

People search on Google billions of times a day, and very often, they’re looking for businesses and brands. Today’s launch of Google+ Pages can help people transform their queries into meaningful connections, so we’re rolling out two ways to add pages to circles from Google search. The first is by including Google+ pages in search results, and the second is a new feature called Direct Connect.

By introducing Pages into their search results, they force businesses to join the tribe or get left behind.

According to Pamela Parker from Search engine Land, ” When businesses create a Page on Google+, they can link the page to their web site URLs and also to their AdWords account. When that’s done, +1s for any of the linked URLs — on web sites or landing pages for AdWords ads — will all accrue to the brand, making the numbers much larger. Previously, +1s were specific to individual URLs and only accumulated when people +1ed the URL in organic results or an AdWords ad that used that URL as a landing page.”

In other words, it offers more opportunities to build brand reputation and that is where Google search results have been heading for some time now.

For all the hype about social media, for many businesses, its still all about search and as Comscore points out in their latest report, Google still rules the that kingdom with over 65% market share.

In this video, as an internet marketing firm, we cover how to use the Facebook and Google+ left side bars and photo strips to drive your fan volume and opt ins for free value creating offerings such as eBooks.

Below you will see a quick example of how the photo strip can be used in Google+ to increase your followers and circles:

Below you can see an example of how we use the Facebook left side bar and photo strip to maximize opt ins:

View the video below to see how it’s done and to gain access to the tools to implement these enhancements on your profiles:

After watching the video, for additional support on the implementation of your photo strips, download the Google+ Photoshop template and Facebook Photoshop template.

If you need support with the implementation or need any assistance, feel free to connect with us. We’d be happy to help.