New Facebook For Marketing

After reading an article on Mashable, it appears that the new Facebook is going to be very well suited for business and marketers to jump right in. The author even went on to say that it will be beneficial for marketers. Here are some of the reasons he thinks it will benefit business.

Contextual sharing.
Meaning that instead of just "Like", now we are "listening", "reading", "watching", and "posting". He thinks this will add another level of relate ability.

Auto-Sharing.
This will automatically share almost everything you are doing on the internet while you are on Facebook. It will give marketers a better look at what people are doing.

Business Upside: Traffic & Data
All these new features will allow people to become more connected with Facebook. Which will in turn make businesses more connected with the Facebook users. This will be a great update for businesses that put a lot into Facebook.

Discovery: Now a two-way street
The early internet trends were all about searching and finding things on the internet. Now the internet is shifting to more of a be discovered type of system. People are looking for companies to seek them out and connect with the.

Overall I definitely think that this new Facebook update will be great for both business in social media, and just us regular people using it to stay in touch with friends.

http://mashable.com/2011/10/11/facebook-timeline-marketing/

#TV

Lately as I have been watching TV I have been seeing hashtags everywhere. The show promotes its own hashtag to see if they can get some buzz going around the show. One of the most prominent TV hashtags has been on post season baseball. They want you to go ahead and throw up a #postseason tweet. I also watch the show Workaholics on FX and they have a unique hashtag for every episode.

I really enjoy the idea of integrating live events with twitter. What it does is makes events that would otherwise only be social with the people in your direct area, are now social with the entire world. I think there is really something special about being able to share those exciting times with people all around the world. I really enjoy hear what people form other states and nations have to say about certain events as they happen.

Overall, I really enjoy the idea of getting together with everyone in the world to enjoy certain events. It really shows you just how flat the world has gone. We are just young kids and we are more connected with people around the globe that a lot of people 2 or 3 times our age. It really is the younger people's world right now. We have had the tech for so much longer.

10 Myths About Social Media

Here are the top 10 myths about social media according to Forbes.com

1. Everybody is on social media

2. Social news aggregators are dead

3. You cant do it all in house

4. You have to spend hours a day on Twitter

5. Social media is purely a broadcast channel

6. Social media can replace your website

7. You cant measure ROI from social media

8. Blogging is a waste of time

9. You have to be on every social network

10. Social  media will replace real life networking


These are all very solid tips on how to control and direct you social media usage in business into the most effective areas. When we get into the idea that exactly what everyone else is doing is exactly what we should be doing is when things start to go awry.

http://www.forbes.com/pictures/ejgi45k/myth-9-social-media-will-replace-real-life-networking

Droids aren't worth Two Cents

While Apple has been promoting their new iPhone 4s and software iOS5 Amazon has been cooking up a great little deal for all of those bored Droid fans out there. Right now Amazon is offering Almost all of the new Android phones for literally one cent. You might think this should never happen? But it is.

In my opinion this is a very slick marketing scheme by Amazon. .If they can capitalize on even a little bit of the smart-phone frenzy that the market is in right now because of the iPhone, they could win big. This is not just a little gift from heaven of a deal though either. What they will do is get you into a contrat. So right now the manufacturers are subsidizing the cost of the phones for Amazon and making sure that a ton of their phones are hitting the market at the same time that the new iPhone does. Overall, I think this is a good move by Amazon and the manufacturers to make sure that they are out in the public eye.

http://mashable.com/2011/10/12/amazon-android-one-cent/

Apple Users are Givers

In a recent study done by Mashable it was found that Apple users are more generous people. This was a very interesting concept. As I was telling my roommate abou the article he said "apple users just have more money". There really isnt much of a argument against that statement. Most of the people that I know that are heavy Apple users tend to have a little bit higher cashflow than some of the other people.

In the article they broke in down by machine. They found that even though there are many more PC users in the world Apple users still have a higher average giving. A mac user gives on average about $10 more that a PC user. More donations are made on the browser Safari than any other, iPad users give almost twice as much as other mobiles, followed by iPod and iPhone.

The numbers were not staggering, but when you consider that the average donation is that much higher. You have to consider how much more money that is after you factor in the volume of the donations. All I have to say is that how do they know that much? and Im proud to be an Apple user.

http://mashable.com/2011/10/12/apple-users-donate/

Twitters Tweet

You would never imagine that Twitter would not own the rights to the word 'Tweet', but in reality they did not until this week. Twitter has been in a long legal battle with a Iowa based company named Twittad. The two companies have been duking it out for the past couple years over the iconic word of tweet.

The issue has come about because after twitter had been around for a while Twittad trademarked the word tweet. The company Twitter claimed in court that they were in the inventor and popularizer of the word long before Twittad had the opportunity to trademark the word. This argument did not work with the judge. So the dispute had to be solved out of court in order to appeal to both parties. After a long batte and who knows how much dough, Twitter now has the exclusive rights to the word 'Tweet'.

http://mashable.com/2011/10/10/twitter-tweet-trademark/

Upgrading Facebook

A couple of weeks ago Facebook underwent to pretty major updates. They almost completely changed the way that the timeline works. They added a ticker, made the pictures bigger, and did some weird things with the incoming updates I dont fully understand. When the update first came out I was generally opposed to the whole idea of the update. Mostly because it seemed so cluttered and full of unnecessary info, but little did I know thats exactly what Mark Zuckerberg wanted.


Now that Ive been using the new Facebook more Ive realized that that is exactly what Ive been doing. Using it more! With all the new and fresh info pouring in at me all the time Ive found that Im spending more time on it and enjoying it more that I had been before. The worst part about it that it happend so unknowingly for me. Maybe its not that im spending more time on it, but Im definitely enjoying the time that I am spending on there much more. The update has caused the timeline to be much for rich with new information as opposed to just scrolling past the sames things over and over. Also it is all in a much more visually appealing format.

iPad more iPopular?

Yeah I know, great title right? According to Mashable.com the iPad is now driving more web traffic than its older brother the iPhone. In August of 2011 Apple's mobile devices accounted for 58% of all mobile web traffic! What one would think right away is that the iPhone would be at least 80% of that, but that is not the case at all.

It turns out that iPads accounted for 46.8% of Apple's mobile web traffic and the iPhone only accounted for 42.6%. This figure was very surprising to me, mostly because I see so many more iPhones that iPads.

In my opinion this is because of the difference in what the two devices are designed to to. The iPad obviously being larger and more powerful, acts much more like a computer, and making a much better interface for browsing the web. The iPhone is much smaller and does much more short time period research type of browsing. Tablets are the new way to go!!

Long Overdue Facebook

People have been waiting for over a year for this. The Facebook iPad app. In the article I read on the situation the author described waiting for the iPad app like "waiting for BigFoot". I literally cant imagine what that might feel like. The app came out a few days ago and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. From what people are saying it is very obvious that Facebook put a lot of time into this app. Mostly because people will be spending a lot of time on it. They figure the average user will spend about 8hrs a month on the mobile Facebook.

That has always been something i had never understood about the iPad is how it didnt have a Facebook app. It seems so obvious that it would have one. Some analysts from the article are saying that this app may even boost iPad sales its that good. He said that one of the reasons some people opt to go for other tablets is that it was more expensive and didnt mesh well with their social media life.

The release of this app has got to be like a second birthday except for those who developed the current Facebook apps for iPad. But thats just competition, and in this market they will just have to adapt or offer something that the real Facebook app cant (whatever that may be).

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/at-long-last-facebook-releases-an-ipad-app/?ref=socialnetworking

Classic Carnegie Refreshed

'How to win friends'

Is the title of the NY times article I read discussing the new book by Carnegie for those looking to win people over in the digital age. The classic book 'How to win friends and influence people' has been read by I'm sure almost every person ever (exaggeration). But easily one of the most influential and widely known business books of all time. The classic book is filled with personal stories of Dale and what he has learned about what people want to hear. It is still one of my favorite books I've read.

The new title by Dale is focused directly at the new digital age, and how to be influential to people through digital media. The concept is very interesting. What is really going to push this book home is the brand power that is carried over from his original book. The people that will most likely be reading the book are all those older men who read the original, and are now looking to stay competitive in the digital world.

Overall, I feel that the book would be worth a purchase for someone looking for tips in digital marketing or your presence ont the internet. Dale's original message was very simple, you just treat people well. So I'm sure this book will have a similar feel and take on the social world. Thanks Dale.

http://offthedribble.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/n-b-a-players-use-twitter-carefully/?ref=socialnetworking

NBA Lockout Tweets

The recent decision to cancel the first two weeks of the NBA season is completely ridiculous. And possibly the only thing more ridiculous than the call to cancel the first to weeks is what the players will say about it.

NBA players a renowned for their sharp arrogent comments. The article references a time before when Patrick Ewing said: "Sure, we make a lot of money, but we spend a lot too!" in the 1999 lockout. So you can only imagine what the players will say when they have such a direct to the fans platform as twitter.

Although many of the players have a reason to complain, the people with the biggest reason to complain are those people working for a small salary for the NBA and its stadiums. With no NBA those people have no jobs, and they dont have 10 million dollars sitting around like im sure plenty of these NBA players do. The low level NBA workers will be the hardest hit by the lockout.

So instead of making it all about themselves, the NBA players have been keeping their tweets pretty classy. Mostly they are apologetic,  not only to the fans but to anyone involved with the league as a whole. One thing that was noted by the article is that the Tweets have been quite coordinated feeling. Many of them using the same verb-age and hashtags. Thats just one more way Twitter is changing the world.


#freebasketball





http://offthedribble.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/n-b-a-players-use-twitter-carefully/?ref=socialnetworking

Viva La Social Révolution

When you think of a revolution lots of images come to mind. Many of them for me consist of great battles of patriotism, freedom, and the fight for a better world. Never would i think of Twitter or Facebook. But those medias are shaping our social world.

The first time it was very evident was earlier this year in Egypt and throughout the middle-east. We saw huge revolutions happening everywhere to fight the government. Tens of thousands of people would show up out of no where to come together and protest. It turns out the entire logistical side of the revolutions were fed by social media, namely, Twitter and Facebook.

Right now the social media revolution is happening right here in the USA. We see thousands of young people showing up to protest the corporate world that they are all a product of (maybe I'll argue this another time). Except this time they are not using Twitter as Facebook as much, because they want to remain mostly anonymous.

With protecting their futurers on their minds, anonymity is crucial. So the prostesters have switched to a new more anonymous version of Twitter called Vibe. This allows them to post to the stie purely to express their ideas, not being attached to any one person. This is a very interesting development in Social revolutions, and one that will likely continue to others.

Viva la Vibe.




http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/anonymous-messaging-app-vibe-gets-boost-from-occupy-wall-street/?ref=socialnetworking

Keep your Social Media Safety on

I read an article on Mashable about a Google engineer going on a rant about one of his products, Google+. He is a software engineer at Google and had a lot of negative things to say about the company and their management. He posted the 5,000 character rant on his blog, which he intended to only be seen by people within the Google company. Instead he let it slip.

In the blog he complains about Google's lack of ability to put together a decent platform. Not being a techie, I dont know exactly what that means, but I do know its a major bash to one of his companies biggest new products. Google+ had a large dip in users when people found out that almost no top managers at Google actually use the product. So im sure after seeing this even fewer people will want to stay on board the Google ship.

This is a problem that any company can learn from with social media use. Not only does the company itself need to stay on the straight and narrow, but so do all of the companies' employees. When you have an employee visible to everyone saying bad things about your product, it can do nothing but tarnish your image.

Keep it classy social media users.





http://mashable.com/2011/10/12/google-engineer-rant-google-plus/