Posts tagged Facebook
Making money by updating your status and tweeting
Jan 15th
A new Twitter and Facebook based social marketing platform for retailers will reward users for Tweets and Facebook updates of products they’re about to purchase
Remember how we said that 2010 was going to be the year that people start making money out of social networks? Well one company, Snatter.com, is intending to make the task a little easier for consumers.
Snatter.com promises to revolutionise social media marketing campaigns for retailers by rewarding users for Tweets and Facebook updates of products they’re about to purchase.
The free site will allow retailers to build social media buzz around their website and specific products or services.
The concept is simple. In exchange for a posting a Facebook or Twitter status update about a specific product or service, the user receives a discount on the purchase they are about to complete. Each update contains a link allowing their Facebook friends and Twitter followers to do the same.
Retailers can integrate Snatter to the final stage of an online shopping process.
“Just saved 20% on PRODUCT at @RETAILER http://link via @snatteroffers – Can’t wait to play with my new toy” (sample Snatter Tweet/status update).
Grahame Cohen, Founder of Snatter said, “In the past marketers have sought to draw on the power of Twitter by paying prolific Twitter users to post favourable comments about a particular product or service and often link to it. But users often see through these updates and consider them to be spam because the update has only been posted by someone in exchange for a monetary award.
“Snatter is different because users are only offered discounts on the products they’re about to purchase and receive no payment for doing so. It’s a completely transparent service.”
Snatter updates will also act as conversation starters on Facebook and Twitter. Many Twitter and Facebook users already actively update their followers and friends on purchases they’re making. With Snatter, they can continue to do so but also be rewarded for the buzz they are generating around a product or service.
Google and Bing now include Facebook and Twitter updates in their main search results so Snatter messages actively increase retailers’ reach.
A Snatter campaign not only offer retailers buzz, but it can also be used as a means of generating new sales. Many retailers currently offer discount codes but they are often promoted via websites that are affiliates of the retailer, so every sale using a discount code loses the retailer both the discount and the commission payable to the affiliate. Snatter takes no commission but therefore expects retailers to offer greater discount values than currently offered via discount websites.
“Snatter also provides retailers a perfect mix of social buzz together with the ability to increase sales volume through marginal discounting,” added Cohen.
The Snatter website is currently offering retailers the ability to request beta accounts to manage live campaigns during the controlled launch period. An API offering greater flexibility and integration of existing shopping catalogues and cart systems is to go live shortly.
When technology reaches its limit
Jan 15th
From Bruce Townsend, Actinic
I’m suffering from Facebook Fatigue and Twitter Block. I don’t know what to say any more. I need inspiration, and guess what? Technology isn’t providing it – quite the reverse. There seems to be something horribly soporific about my laptop screen, and the longer I sit in front of it, the duller my mind becomes.
Come to think of it, I don’t recall ever getting a great deal of creative inspiration when sitting at my computer. Doodling on bits of paper, yes. Or bouncing ideas around with friends and colleagues. Even catnapping and daydreaming. But not sitting at a PC. Maybe I just haven’t got the right software, or my brain doesn’t work the right way. But that’s how it is, for me at any rate.
Perhaps it’s no great surprise, though. When did you last see Google make an intuitive leap, or Excel have a hunch? The truth is that even the best data-mining applications and the most advanced artificial intelligence programming cannot approach the subconscious creative power of the human brain – especially multiple human brains interacting together.
So I say ‘vive la technologie!’ and long may it advance. But if we try to rely on it too much, our ideas may dry up and our marketing stagnate, while more inventive, free-thinking competitors forge ahead.
Email versus Twitter – which has the best conversion rates?
Dec 17th
Email will not be defunct in 10 years, but either will social networks
Email generates 86% of all online sharing activity, making it the preferred consumer sharing method by far, while Facebook and Twitter are the next most preferred channels for sharing, but only represent a fraction of all activity.
So, that little statistic counters the mountains of research that has surfaced this year declaring that email marketing has been replaced by social networks.
Benchmark data from millions of sharing activities on the StrongMail Influencer platform has identified email and blogs as most effective social channels for direct marketing conversions.
Sharing online content via email generates the highest conversion rates, while Twitter is the most effective channel for extending reach, according to the December 2009 “Social Influence Benchmark Report “, released today.
However, according to Q3 2009 data, while email dominates the sharing activity, each email shared by an influencer only generates 0.41 additional clicks.
Conversely, sharing via Twitter generates more than 18 clicks per post, which translates into a 1,837% click-through rate versus 41% for email.
This impressive click-through rate firmly establishes Twitter as the most effective channel for amplifying a marketer’s program across the social web.
Peer-to-peer emails generate a 36.8% conversion rate, compared to just 3% for Facebook. Conversions from Twitter programs remain very low, but trends within the data suggest growth in Q4 2009.
Embedded links for sharing via web pages and blogs turned in the second highest conversion percentage at 20.5%.
Read more here.
Facebook privacy tools launched. Now the backlash begins.
Dec 10th
Is Facebook really handing over control of privacy to its users? That’s the social network’s stance with the launch of new tools.
Users welcomed their new lease of empowerment with open arms but some quarters are verging on the side of caution claiming the move simply allows Google to wipe their hands of future problems.
“Let’s get one thing straight: Facebook is forcing users to choose their new privacy options to promote the Everyone update, and to clear itself of any potential wrongdoing going forward,” said Jason Kincaid on TechCrunch.
“If there is significant backlash against the social network, it can claim that users willingly made the choice to share their information with everyone.”
He adds, “That’s why there are all of these notifications informing users about what these privacy features do. And it’s why there’s now a Privacy Center.
“The vast majority of users will ignore this information the same way 80% of them have ignored privacy settings in the first place. But Facebook will still be able to claim that it did its best to get their informed consent.”
Kincaid’s claims have been backed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
“These new “privacy” changes are clearly intended to push Facebook users to publicly share even more information than before. Even worse, the changes will actually reduce the amount of control that users have over some of their personal data.,” said the Foundation.
Kincaid went on to predict future problems with prospective employers stumbling over Facebook users’ potentially sensitive information.
He added that problems would be compounded when Facebook starts sharing status updates with the search engines and other third parties.
“Bing will be getting access to Facebook ‘Everyone’ status updates in early 2010. Google will only have access to Fan Pages at first, but don’t be surprised if they cough up the cash for access to the status updates too,” he wrote.
“In other words, if users do wind up sharing far more than they intended to, Facebook can’t do much to repair the damage.”
The bottom line. Will usage of the site diminish? Kincaid doesn’t predict this will happen.
But the private nature of the site – which made it popular in the first place – has now gone.
What Google’s ‘real time’ results will mean for SEO marketers
Dec 8th
Managing your brand reputation has never been so important.
Google has now added those ‘real time’ results it has been talking about all year, which means users will now see feeds from Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other fresh content in their search results.
Google announced an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in their search results a couple of months ago saying that it believed their search results and user experience would greatly benefit from the inclusion of this “up-to-the-minute data”.
At the time, Vice President of Search Products and User Experience, Marissa Mayer said, “In the past few years, an entirely new type of data has emerged — real-time updates like those on Twitter have appeared not only as a way for people to communicate their thoughts and feelings, but also as an interesting source of data about what is happening right now in regard to a particular topic.”
But what does this mean for SEO marketers and how will having someone’s Twitter feed or Facebook status in Google’s search results help users find what they are looking for?
Users will get results as they are being produced out there in the world wide web. Online social-networking rivals MySpace and Google will be providing feeds of all public updates made by users.
Google said on its blog, “Search is a natural starting point for discovering the world’s information, and we strive to bring you the freshest, most comprehensive and relevant search results over an ever expanding universe of content on the multitude of devices you use to access it.”
The search engine believes that this is an “important step in the evolution of information access”. And while that may be true in some instances, I can’t help thinking that having such results turn up in my search queries will be distracting and irrelevant.
On the other hand, it’s good news for marketers who have Facebook Fan Pages and those brands who Twitter. Just using the right key words will see you show up in those Google search results for free.
All sounds good in theory but marketers will have to be incredible diligent in not only what they are posting on social networks, but what their own customers are saying about them as their conversations are about to become a whole lot more visible.
Immediately after conducting a search, users will be able to see live updates from people on sites like Twitter and FriendFeed, as well as headlines from news and blog posts published just seconds before.
When they are relevant, Google will rank the latest results to show the freshest information right on the search results page.
The real-time search enables users to discover breaking news the moment it’s happening, even if it’s not the popular news of the day.
Users can however filter their results to see only ‘Updates’ from micro-blogs like Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook and others. Latest results and the new search options are also designed for iPhone and Android devices.
But marketers, while they may not be able to stop consumers saying not so nice things about their brands, can at least monitor what is being said about them more easily with a new ‘hot topics’ element to Google Trends that will show the most common topics people are publishing to the web in real-time.
Since social media came about, companies and brands have been learning how to leverage it and tap into the rising tide of consumers participating in social network sites, blogs, wikis and Twitter. So in some ways Google is helping make this a bit easier.
But Google says it still has a way to go, “Search is still an unsolved problem and we’re committed to making it faster and easier for people to access a greater diversity of information, delivered in real-time, from across the web.”
This has me worried a lot about brand reputation, but may create some jobs in ‘reputation management’ I suppose. The advantage is, at least, that marketers will be able to listen into the conversation which could deliver a whole new world of insights for their brands and perhaps help them improve. The bottom line is, don’t annoy your customers or the whole of cyberspace will know about it one way or another.
Reputation, reputation, reputation is key to online success
Dec 1st
When it comes to doing business online, you can mess with your location as much as you like – but don’t risk your reputation.
If you build a good reputation on the web, people will link to you. If people link to you, other people will follow those links, and you will build up your traffic and your business. And the more good quality and relevant links you have, the higher you will rise up the search engine listings. More and better links means better rankings on Google, too.
Whether buying a house or opening a shop, there’s an old saying that the most important factors are location, location and location. But how does this work out on the internet?
Your web server can be physically located in a data centre almost anywhere in the world. Potentially, you can run an online business as effectively from a beach in Majorca as you could on Oxford Street.
One of our customers a few years ago even succeeded in managing his store while halfway up Mount Everest!
So when it comes to doing business online, you can mess with the location as much as you like. But the one thing you don’t want to mess with is your reputation.
If by action or inaction you manage to damage your reputation, the world can hear about it very quickly; via Facebook, MySpace, Digg, del.icio.us, Twitter. There is an endless list of media by which disgruntled customers can spread their complaints about your business. Do you monitor them? Would you know?
On the internet it’s not location, location, location; it’s reputation, reputation, reputation that counts.
That means selling a quality product at a fair price, and looking after your customers. It also means watching what’s being said about you in social and interactive media, and taking every opportunity to intervene positively and turn disappointed customers around.
Will email be defunct in 10 years?
Nov 19th
The jury is out on the future of email, according to new research from TalkTalk, in collaboration with the University of Kent.
The research found that email could become obsolete in 10 years, replaced by instant messaging and social network sites.
These sites, such as Twitter, Facebook and MySapce, are seen as more fashionable and faster and easier to use, plus they can be accessed from anywhere with mobile phone technology.
Although 15 to 24-year-olds do use email, they use instant messaging and social networking sites more often, according to the research, and on the flip side, older generations are more reliant on email and don’t find it as easy to shift to using the latest communication technology.
OneNewsPage.com asked its users to respond to the following question:
‘Will email be defunct in 10 years?’
The respondents were evenly divided. Fifty per cent agreed it would be defunct, the other half disagreed.
The survey was conducted by OneNewsPage.com over two days. The question was displayed on www.onenewspage.com 57, 604 times, and 240 people answered the poll.
But despite the results, I have to say that I do not think that email will ever be ‘defunct’. How would businesses run without email? Haven’t the advent of smartphones proved how much we rely on email – always having it with us?
Email will never die. Dan Grabham from TechRadar magazine agrees. He told Sky News, “Email won’t completely die off – it’ll probably still be used for some important purposes such as sending crucial files to someone particular.
“But it’s clear that for quick, direct communication Twitter and other social systems are easier to use and can garner a far quicker response – not least because inboxes continue to fill up with unstoppable junk.”
What Google’s Social Search means for search engine marketers
Nov 4th
The recent deal between Google and Twitter means that the search engine giant will now able to use Twitter data to provide more relevant searches for Google users.
This means that search engine marketing strategies now have the potential to be tailored to specific demographics and target audiences.
In short, according to Highposition.net, Google Social Search will enable anyone logged into Google Profile to find real time search results from others in their social networks.
Although results from microblogs are in the public domain and therefore searchable, Google Social Search will make relevant results about local issues more prominent.
If plans go ahead to incorporate Facebook and Linkedin with social search capabilities, results from microblogging sites will be easier to find. This will improve and refine search results by increasing time-based relevancy, resulting in a more favourable experience for the user.
As far as search engine marketing goes, Google Social Search could be used to target a wider audience. However, there is an underlying worry that this will generate more spam as far as the user is concerned and therefore backfire in marketing terms.
As search engine marketing harnesses the potential to reach more people through optimization using social networks, the end result could be a massive spam machine, which Google will ultimately have to filter out to retain prominence as the preferred search platform.
Of course, all of these applications are still in Beta stage to discover how they can be made more user friendly. With any luck, one would hope that these improvements will allow a refined feature for businesses.
If a user is logged into their Google Profile and uses Social Search to find a local service, those trusted and recommended by their contacts should be promoted. At the same time there will undoubtedly be scope for business advertising, likely through Google’s Adwords platform.
It is often said that the internet forms a global community to the detriment of local alliances, but using applications such as Google Social Search, it also has the potential to bring back local issues and support local businesses through easier internet searches for relevant information.
Meanwhile, why is the ‘Google Doodle’ Wallace & Gromit? It’s their birthday today!
Facebook and MySpace partner to take on Twitter – it’s war!
Oct 28th
Traditional social networking rivals Facebook and MySpace have said they are in talks about sharing content.
Facebook has reportedly said it’d be happy to feature content from MySpace now that the two are moving in different directions.
The Telegraph newspaper quoted Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sanderberg, “Facebook is focussing on building the best technology which helps people share content, while at MySpace they are focussing on more a content-led strategy.
“We would like to have their content, as we already do with many other sites, shared across our network because it is good for our users.”
MySpace boss Owen Van Natta – who left Facebook in April to lead News Corp’s social network – confirmed the talks by adding that Facebook is about “core communication” while MySpace is about “congregating around popular content”.
He said that Facebook was no to be a large part of MySpace’s future.
Seems odd to me, but Facebook has more than 300 million users now, while MySpace lags behind with 124 million so it’s not surprising the site is looking at ways of appealing to more people.
In the past 12 months Facebook has extended its dominance in every territory in Europe, but that doesn’t mean it’s terminal for MySpace. The battle certainly isn’t over yet and a combination of the two would be mutually beneficial because ultimately, it would attract more advertisers and give them greater opportunities to target a wider and more diverse audience.
The question now is, I mean about this Yahoo/Microsoft style partnership, is whether it’ll come up against regulatory approval. And what does it mean for Twitter – the current social media darling? It means a while new war.
Facebook undergoes another makeover. Will it help you?
Oct 26th
Facebook has undergone yet another homepage makeover. Last Friday the social networking site quietly rolled out some fairly significant changes to the way information is displayed on a users’ homepage.
The updates make the default feed more like it was before the last major homepage overhaul, but as usual the changes aren’t without some issues, and they have sparked more backlash among the Facebook community.
When Facebook changed the homepage earlier this year, it went to a more Twitter-like feed of real-time status updates. Basically, every status update from your network of friends is displayed in as it is entered without any filtering.
The new Facebook homepage News Feed brings relevance back to the main feed. Rather than displaying everything from everyone, the News Feed uses a Facebook magic algorithm to display only the posts and status updates that your network is interested in. The more likes, comments or interactions a post within your network has, the more likely it will appear within your News Feed.
Robert Scoble, a technology evangelist and social networking guru, described the change on his blog “This makes Facebook much more useful because you only see the items that your friends have found important enough to comment on or “touch” in some way. Overnight my news feed went from something that looked pretty cold and lame to something that has tons of ‘warmth.’”
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