(* Source:  Zachary Sniderman *)

Posted by brian tiong at 09:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

 (* Source: Amy Mae Elliot *)

With Facebook’s ever-changing layout, and the fact that other social sites are encroaching on its real-time update strangle-hold, it’s easy to forget that there are some pretty nifty tricks you can pull using your humble Facebook status.

We’ve pulled together 10 great how-to tips that will help you get the most out of your status update, from official features to apps, Easter eggs, jokes and more.

Perfect for newer Facebook users, or anyone who is looking for a refresher, read on and let us know the ones you like in the comments below.

1. HOW TO: Add a Dislike Option to Your Status Update

“Like” buttons are everywhere on Facebook, and they’re everywhere on the web. But what if you want to update your status or share something that your friends can “dislike?” We know, your friends can choose to “comment” on your post, but where’s the fun in that?

The clever Status Magic Facebook app can add a dislike button to any status updates posted via the app. And if you wanted to really mix it up you can actually customize the second emotion to anything, such as “love,” “hate,” “disagree” or even “LOLs.”

2. HOW TO: Hide Status Updates From Certain People

Using Facebook’s general privacy settings (find these by hitting “account” on the top right of a Facebook page) you can select whether everyone, just friends or friends of friends can see your status updates. However, there is a way to narrow those options down even further.

You can select specific friend lists to see your status (relevant for work, special interest groups, etc.) or even individual people by name, which is useful for anyone organizing a surprise party.

To take advantage of these options, click the padlock icon just below your “what’s on your mind” box on your wall and a drop down menu should appear. Selecting “customize” will bring up more options such as “make this visible to” and “hide from” with the option to make your selection a default.

3. HOW TO: Pre-Schedule Status Updates

While SocialOomph, Sendible and HootSuite () offer the same kind of service, the simplest way to schedule Facebook status updates is by using the easy, free Later Bro service.

Just sign in with Facebook Connect, select your time zone, type in what it is you’d like to say, set the calendar and clock to when you’d like to say it, and presto!

4. HOW TO: Tag People in Your Status Updates

This was quite a big deal when it was announced this past September, but from the amount of searches on the topic “how can I make someone’s name go blue in a Facebook status?” it seems it’s not universally known.

To mention someone in a status update just type “@” (a la Twitter ()) in the status bar and start typing their name as it appears on Facebook. An auto-generated list will then come up with people in your social circle whose name starts with the letters you’ve typed. The feature also works with pages, brands, events and companies.

Hit the name you want, complete the update, click share and the name will become a hyperlink (you won’t see the @ symbol) and will appear in blue text.

5. HOW TO: Add Symbols to Your Facebook Status

Although there are plenty of emoticons that work with Facebook Chat, typing “:)” into Facebook’s status bar will not magically transform into a smiley yellow face. In fact, the only symbol you can create in a Facebook status update through the shortcut keys is a ♥, by typing “<3."

While this won't bother many Facebook users, others more used to punctuating their missives can copy and paste web-happy, universal symbols into the box, as you can see in the screengrab above.

PC users can also access some symbols by hitting “alt” + various number combinations (on a numerical keypad). So, while smileys are yet to hit Facebook statuses, you can annoy or amuse your buddies with symbols right now.

6. HOW TO: Turn Your Status Updates Into a Word Cloud

There’s a really fun way to visualize anyone’s status updates (even an entire country’s) as a word cloud. The Status Analyzer 3D app will look at what it is you’ve been chatting about lately and generate a list, and then a pretty, colorful, animated cloud as pictured above.

You can share the results with others on the social networking site by posting it to your friends’ walls or by adding it to your profile.

7. HOW TO: Have Fun With Facebook’s Humorous Language Options

While you can always change your setting into more sensible alternative languages, the site offers a couple of fun linguistic Easter eggs.

You can chose to have Facebook display upside down English, or, for anyone feeling a little salty, in “pirate.” Pirate essentially turns your status into your “plank,” your attachments into “loot” and instead of “share” it offers the option to “blabber t’ yer mates.”

Sadly, anything you type in the status bar won’t be upside down, or pirate-y. But with the use of some external sites you can achieve the same effect.

TypeUpsideDown.com and UpsideDownText.com are just two examples of sites that can flip your text, while the Talk Like a Pirate Day site can help you with your pirate translations.

8. HOW TO: See Status Updates From Around the World

If you want to get a glimpse of the thoughts of Facebook users from around the world’s, head over to OpenBook.

Created by three San Fran web developers with a serious privacy message in mind, the site aggregates the status updates of everyone whose privacy levels are set to “everyone.”

You can narrow your searchable results down by gender and keywords to find out what people are saying about a certain topic. Or you can just browse the recent searches.

9. HOW TO: See Your Status Update Stats

Have you ever wondered how many times you have updated your status on Facebook? The Facebook app Status Statistics, can tell you this and more.

The app analyzes your updates and gives you a tidy list of how many you’ve written, the average word count and how many times a day you post. In addition, it generates a graph that shows you what time of day or what days of the week you normally update.

Old statuses are also searchable via the app, so you can find that witty retort you made back in November 2009 without having to scroll back through your history.

10. HOW TO: Play a Trick On Your Friends in Your Status Update

We have a funny one to end on — a way to play an amusing trick on your Facebook buddies.

This clever link “http://facebook.com/profile.php?=73322363″ looks like it could be a URL for anyone’s Facebook profile, actually takes anyone logged into Facebook to their own profile page.

If you try it out, be sure to remove the link preview that Facebook auto-ads. Have fun, and don’t be too mea

Posted by brian tiong at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Ben Parr *)

His Majesty cannot be stopped, at least on Twitter. In just six hours, NBA superstar LeBron James’ Twitter account has surpassed 150,000 followers, outpacing the growth of other famous figures on Twitter, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

This morning, New Orleans Hornets’ point guard Chris Paul tweeted that James had joined Twitter under the username @KingJames. Since then, James has been amassing followers, and there have been countless stories and tweets about the arrival of the NBA’s biggest star to the Twitterverse.

James has been the center of the sports universe for the last week due to NBA free agency: any day now, he will decide where he will play next season. Some even speculated that he joined Twitter just so he could announce his decision through the microblogging network, but his publicist has shot down that possibility.

It took just eight hours for Bill Gates to reach 100,000 followers, but James has already blown past that mark. If his rapid rise on Twitter is any indication, LeBron James could soon become one of Twitter’s most popular users.

Posted by brian tiong at 05:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Jacob Gube *)

Jason says...

With so much content on the web, it’s nice to be able to rely on the wisdom of the crowds to help us discover noteworthy links and weed through all the stuff (and fluff) out there.

For designers who enjoy social media — or anyone interested in design news and resources — there are a number of sites and services for you to check out and participate in. Here are nine noteworthy social news and bookmarking sites aimed at designers and design enthusiasts.

1. DesignBump

This social news site’s interface will be familiar to those who use Digg (), Reddit (), or Mixx (). The concept is simple: Get enough votes on your links and it will be promoted to the front page.

DesignBump currently has over 16,000 users, with some famous design bloggers among their active participants.

2. Image Spark

This free social bookmarking service puts a unique twist on the format: Instead of bookmarking web pages that you find, you bookmark images. Popular bookmarked images are displayed in a gallery-style format so that site users can see them for visual inspiration on their own projects.

3. design:related

design:related is a community site that seeks to bring together designers from many disciplines. You can set up a portfolio on their site, share what’s inspiring you creatively, and submit news that members can vote on.

The site is a perfect spot for inspiration-seekers, and those looking to stay up to speed on important industry news in a single location.

4. DesignFloat

Established in 2007, DesignFloat is one of the first vote-to-promote social news-sharing sites dedicated specifically to designers.

The site has a broad range of categories for users to submit links to, including Graphic Design, Interactive Design, Industrial Design, as well as design-related topics like Photography. Each category has an RSS feed that you can subscribe to in case you’re only interested in specific topics.

5. Graphic Design Links

Graphic Design Links is another destination for creatives looking for socially promoted info. To help users see the most popular topics being submitted to the site, they have a Tag Cloud page.

Among the site’s submission categories are Illustration, 3D, Typography, and Web Design ().

6. The Web Blend

The Web Blend only has about 1,500 members, making it a comparatively small community — but smaller isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Some of its top users are popular design bloggers, such as Jad Limcaco of Designer Informer and Sneh Roy of Little Box Of Ideas. This smaller community gives members a chance to interact directly with some of their favorite content creators.

7. zaBox

zaBox covers a wide range of design industry news, resources, and tutorials. Like most social news sites, a story’s popularity is determined by the number of people voting for it.

It also offers bloggers the ability to integrate zaBox into their site, including a button for voting and submitting their stories to the web service.

8. FFFFOUND!

Visual bookmarking is a popular activity among designers. Collecting images for reference and inspiration later on can get you out of a creative funk in a jiffy.

FFFFOUND! is a web service where users can post and share images they’ve discovered on the web. The website is intelligent: It recommends images you might also like based on your bookmarking history.

9. Pixel Groovy

The amount of graphic design tutorials on the web is overwhelming. Pixel Groovy helps point you to ones that its community members like.

The community-driven site gives editorial control to their users, empowering them with the ability to vote on tutorials that they deem worthwhile to be published and indexed on the site.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Jennifer Van Grove *)

It has become standard practice for big brands and businesses to setup shop on Twitter and Facebook and use the social mediums to connect with customers.

That’s all yesterday’s news now. But the early adopter brands who paved the way for the rest to follow suit have become the success stories that the media, the public and the web companies in the limelight turn to first.

Zappos, Ford, Starbucks, Bravo, Tasti D-Lite and Best Buy are all names that come to mind. There’s no real secret to their success. Each did something innovative and identified a future trend just as the press cycle was heating up. Now they’re all riding the wave of rewards earned from their original risk.

In some ways, though, we’re still in the early days of understanding the relationship between businesses and social media. It’s now more crucial than ever to understand why it’s important to be an early adopter brand.

Good Press That Lasts

Early last year we profiled 40 of the best brands on Twitter and some of those brands have gone on to become media darlings continually featured in press coverage on the web/tech space. It was each company’s individual savvy or willingness to experiment that originally caught our eye, but it’s their ongoing tenacity that kept them front-and-center in the public’s mind.

Those brands with a genuine interest in customer engagement and a commitment to push beyond the expected have maintained a high profile social media presence that continually nets them advantages the rest don’t get.

One key advantage is that they’ve developed important media relationships. These relationships open doors for both parties. The press have immediate access to standby contacts anytime they need an extra quote or example for their upcoming piece. In return, the brands get an instant audience responsive to pitches on innovative social media use cases or quirky marketing campaigns. The cycle repeats itself until a particular story becomes saturated or eclipsed by a newer trend.

Right now there’s no brand mastering the press better than Starbucks. Their relationship with Twitter in the initial rollout of Promoted Tweets has ensured that Starbucks gets a major mention in every mainstream and new media article on Promoted Tweets. It is especially fortuitous for them that their sample Promoted Tweets screenshot served as the only visual representation of the official Twitter ad format when the news first broke. The company has managed to maintain this social media favor with the press for years now, also recently making a huge splash with their loyalty program partnership with Foursquare ().

Case Study Standbys

Ever sit through a conference session or keynote on social media where the presenter or panel did not use brand case studies to supplement their talk? Probably not.

The unwritten rule of public speaking is to always back up points with case studies as proof. For example, a few years ago Zappos’ approach to Twitter was so fresh that the company’s story became the case study on everybody lips. You may also recall that Ford’s social presence during the American car company’s financial struggles was also headliner material.

While Zappos and Ford are still no stranger to the social media limelight — their original successes will always guarantee consideration — the new names cropping up in case studies are the brands experimenting with trends happening right now. Take location-sharing services like Foursquare.

The fact of the matter is that Foursquare is still foreign to most, which means the Foursquare brand marketing from Starbucks, Lucky Magazine and the City of Chicago make for interesting material. Each case study can demonstrate the business potential of Foursquare’s experimental platform. It’s this cutting edge material that piques our curiosity and makes for a captive audience.

Now, should Travelocity find a way to translate their mascot’s Chatroulette activities into business sense, we could see a whole new crop of case-study worthy business uses emerge.

Favor From the Flavor of the Week

Brands open to social media innovation have found favor in the eyes of the most influential people on the web: The minds behind today’s hot startups.

Brand partnerships are crucial for these fledgling startups to maintain their edge over competitors, but it’s much safer for them to favor the friends they’ve made on their way up the ladder. Twitter (with Square by association), Facebook, Foursquare and even Chatroulette are all on fire right now. Each of them — with the exception of Chatroulette — have managed to find brand buddies they trust enough to include in their new feature testing phases. These brands get invited into a private fold that then translates into press coverage on launch and introductions to more people in the circle. Rinse, repeat.

Brands that are in Twitter’s good graces have been grandfathered in to Foursquare’s elite fold of trusted businesses. Just look at Starbucks, a Twitter-forward company now trying Foursquare, as a perfect an example. Another example is Bravo. The cable network has consistently taken an avant-garde approach to television and social media, but it wasn’t until their media deal with Foursquare that the network found its way into Twitter’s public graces. Now they’re a launch partner for Twitter’s long-anticipated ad platform.

This isn’t a coincidence or the result of one serendipitous moment. In fact, many of the top startups share the same investors, the same friends and the same brand relationships. Ultimately the inner circle at the top of the startup food chain has become a safe haven for sharing brands and ideas. Find yourself in this circle and you’ll find yourself amongst the elite of early adopter brands.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

At any given time, there are thousands of conversations happening on Twitter. I’m not referring to the back-and-forth banter between two or three people — I’m talking about the real-time discussions around particular topics, often denoted by a hashtag (such as #sxsw). Joining conversations that are relevant to your company or your personal interests can be a great way to gain awareness for your brand, add new followers, and network with people who share similar tastes.

But as hashtags have become more popular, they’ve also become a vehicle for spam. Most savvy Twitter business users already know not to use a hashtag on an unrelated tweet, or append popular hashtags to a tweet with the sole purpose of appearing in Twitter search results. Beyond being poor etiquette, it simply turns people off.

So what’s the best — and most authentic — way to participate in a trending Twitter conversation to build awareness, connect with influencers and grow your follower count? Here are four tips for tapping into the real-time stream.

1. Anticipate Conversations

The first step in participating in Twitter conversations is to anticipate which ones are coming down the pike. While it’s impossible to predict that something like #youevernotice will become a trending topic, it’s a pretty safe bet that #NCAAfinals or #adtechsf will have a large group of people following the hashtag before, during, and shortly after each event.

Consider what kinds of content you could build around relevant conversations that take advantage of current events. For example, indie fashion site Moxsie.com timed a Twitter-based “Fashion Police” contest around the #Oscars conversation. Thomson Reuters’ peHUB times its VC roundtable series around relevant industry event conversations such as #CTIA.

Think about which events, pop culture happenings or news are coming up that have a relevant tie-in to your interests, and be ready to participate.

2. Don’t Just Post – Engage

You can certainly drop your tweet into the fray and hope people will retweet it, but to truly participate in the conversation, you should actively engage — retweeting good content, following interesting people, replying to questions and posting more than just links to your brand content — so the community recognizes you and values your contribution.

For example, social media marketing consultant Amber Osborne (aka @MissDestructo) tapped the conversation around #fakesxsw, a good-natured send-up of the SXSW conference, to network with other people who couldn’t make it to Austin this year. Starting off as just a few funny posts, #fakesxsw spiraled into a full-blown phenomenon that even spawned its own website and Twitter fan page and generated more than 3,300 tweets.

Amber truly engaged in the conversation — posting clever fake panel topics, fake after-party announcements and other funny tweets. She also followed other participants, retweeted their posts, and got into numerous side conversations. In fact, she was the most active tweeter in the conversation. After five days of activity, she’d added over 200 new followers, made several new business contacts, and connected with a good number of influential professionals.

Because Amber had taken the time to become a trusted member of the #fakesxsw conversation, she also felt comfortable dropping in a few tweets about her client, Bruce’s Yams. The oddity of the product fit well with the parody theme of #fakesxsw, and very quickly Amber’s yam tweets were picked up by the other #fakesxsw participants. To her surprise, she didn’t have to say “Go and buy yams!” Because of her natural engagement, people were telling her that they were going out to buy yams — one even commented they would be filling a bathtub with them!

3. Move Fast

You can prep all you want for upcoming events, but to take advantage of unexpected conversations such as #fakesxsw or breaking news, you have to move quickly — the conversation might not last more than a day or two. Be ready to generate content that will give you entry into the discussion, whether it’s a blog post, a video or even a relevant contest.

A good example of being able to move fast comes from online video ad platform Jivox. The marketing director at Jivox watches relevant trade publications to see when large brands are changing agencies, knowing there will be a short burst of Twitter conversation around a big account win, and thus, an opportunity to engage with agencies and brands. He then uses Jivox’s DIY ad builder to convert one of the brand’s recent TV commercials into an interactive video ad to showcase Jivox’s features. When the ad transformation is done, he posts it to the Jivox blog and tweets it out.

For example: “Congrats to #Carat on the Smucker account win! Here’s an idea for turning their TV spots into interactive video ads: www.jivox.com/blog.”

Although it can be tricky to catch breaking news or a viral hit on the rise, once you do, be prepared to move!

4. Be Relevant

Going back to the point about not spamming the hashtag, the most important thing to remember is that your contribution should always be relevant to the conversation.

For example, Twitter app developer Tweetshare recently took advantage of the huge #sxsw following to showcase its Twitter fan page capabilities during the SXSW Interactive conference. Rather than getting an expensive booth at the show and limiting itself to on-site SXSW foot traffic, the company took its message to the huge audience following the #sxsw play-by-play on Twitter.

The company created a SXSW Twitter fan page using the newly-launched Tweetshare application and engaged with professional video blogger David Spark to film, post and tweet out more than 50 short video interviews from the conference. These videos were highly relevant to the SXSW audience — Spark interviewed conference speakers such as Randi Zuckerberg and Jeff Pulver, Twitter celebs like Gary Vaynerchuk and Sarah Evans, and well-known CEOs such as Jay Adelson of Digg and David Hyman of MOG to get their take on a variety of topics related to the interactive theme of the conference. The content was promoted exclusively on Twitter using the hashtag #sxsw, generating more than 20,000 views and hundreds of mentions and retweets.

And one final piece of advice from Amber Osborne: Don’t just be relevant — be yourself.

“Be passionate about people and people will be passionate about your product,” she says. “Engage and make yourself interesting (before your product), and people will be interested in those interesting little things about you — whether it be a product, your hair color or a tuberous canned vegetable.”

Posted by brian tiong at 08:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Ben Straley *)

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Ben says...

Your brand has 10,000 Twitter followers and 2,000 fans on Facebook. Does that mean your social media marketing efforts are paying off? Maybe not. As the old adage goes, it’s quality, not quantity, that counts.

Recent data that Meteor Solutions collected from across more than 20 brand marketer clients shows that the type of friends, fans and followers a brand amasses on social media sites matters more than the number. On average, approximately 1% of a site’s audience generates 20% of all its traffic through sharing of the brand’s content or site links with others. And these “influencers” drive an even higher share of conversion. These very important Internet users can directly influence 30% or more of overall end actions on brand websites by recommending the brand’s site, products or promotions to friends.

As this data shows, successful social media marketing isn’t simply about amassing thousands of followers, but instead precisely identifying the most influential members of your audience and recognizing them for their value. By directly engaging one influencer with exclusive opportunities, special offers, and unique content, you are indirectly engaging thousands of other people who are part of this influencer’s social sphere.

Sounds pretty enticing, right? But the challenge in crafting a successful marketing program that activates influencers is two-fold. First, you have to use the right data and traffic analysis tools to find out who your most influential followers are. Second, you have to connect with these people in an authentic, “non-salesy” way, and truly build a relationship with them –- because if you overly “sell” to your influencers, you’ll burn a bridge and potentially turn your biggest fans into your worst detractors.

Here are a few concrete tips brands can use to get started marketing with influencers.

Find Out Who Is In Your 1%

The first step in creating a marketing program that activates influencers is to find out who these passionate people are and where they hang out online. To find out, you need to use a social media analytics tracking and measurement tool that goes beyond “listening to the conversation,” measuring website traffic, clicks on campaign links, or conversions. There are new social media analytics platforms, such as Radian6 and ObjectiveMarketer, that allow you to pinpoint with precision which individuals are most actively sharing your brand’s links.

Find Out What Your 1% Likes to Share

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After you’ve identified these individuals, use your social media analytics platform to dig down into the content they like to share most often. Do they tend to share deals and discounts? Or do they prefer to share links to your branded entertainment content, like YouTube videos, social games and contests, or informational articles? At this stage, you can separate your 1% into groups, such as “shopping mavens” who love to pass along deals and discounts; “experts” who love to share new research, top-10 lists, how-to articles, and other educational content; “gaming gurus” who like to share information about contests and games; or “entertainers” who like to share movie trailers, YouTube clips, and social media apps.

Find Out Where Your 1% Goes to Connect and Share

Now you need to identify which social networks, blogs, forums, and websites your 1% hangs out on, and which methods they use to share your content (e-mail, social updates, tweets, etc.). One thing you’re likely to find out is that while Facebook and Twitter undoubtedly play major roles in the spread of your brand’s content, major social networking sites are not where you’re likely to find and reach your 1%.

Think about it — if you are someone extremely passionate about cars, are you really going to bore and alienate your family and friends on Facebook? Some of them might (and lose friends and followers in the process), but for the rest, they have a blog, post comments on other blogs, and interact with niche communities of like-minded influencers, advocates, and fans.

Finding these sites and communities on the web requires some sleuthing. Aside from digging deep into the traffic data provided by your social media analytics platform, another way to find these niche sites is to follow a number of active “experts” on Twitter in your topic of choice. Ask them where they go to learn about and share the content that matters most to them.

Find Out What Motivates Your 1%

Do your influencers share content about your brand in pursuit of fame, fortune, or a bit of both? Understanding what motivates your 1% to share is key to finding out what makes them tick, and what types of content they will respond to favorably.

For most people that spend time creating and sharing content, it’s not about fortune, it’s about fame. They share links with friends and their wider social network because it makes them feel important, special, and useful. That doesn’t mean influential people don’t like deals as a rule — they’re just like the rest of us in that regard. But they respond most positively to the attention and recognition they get from sharing useful content and valuable information with others.

For example, we’ve seen on several marketing programs that the percent of incremental unique visitors to a site from shared links more than doubled when the names of the top sharers where posted on an online leader board, and top-sharers were given access to exclusive content.

Make ‘Em Famous

If your data does indeed show that your influentials are more motivated by fame rather than fortune, then it’s time to recognize and reward them with incentives that are aligned with this motivation.

Use your company’s Twitter and Facebook pages to call out public achievements, like funny or useful YouTube videos on relevant topics posted by your top 1%. Blog about an interesting article, post, or tweet an influential member of your customer base has written, and let them know what you’ve done. And make sure to extend special offers or direct access to top company executives to your influential users. A big part of making these people feel special involves granting insider access to people, deals, or information that is limited to a select few.

Conclusion

By finding and reaching out to your brand’s biggest fans, you’ll get access to thousands of customers for the price of engaging a few. But remember that it’s a two-way street. Early on, engage these folks in a dialog around what they like about your brand and products, why they like it, what they’d like to see improved, and what types of opportunities and offers they’d be most interested in receiving. Give, and you shall receive.

Posted by brian tiong at 08:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Waggener Edstrom Worldwide *)

Waggener says...

Community managers, feel free to chime in with your own best practices, oddball stories and lessons learned and words of wisdom for the newer folks in your ranks.

1. Get Zen

Community managers have to have the unflappable calm so often seen in the mothers of multiple young children. Let the juice spill, the finger paints fly, the toddler scream. All is well. Develop your sense of humor and realize that 1) very few things that happen online are ever a big deal and 2) everything on the Internet is eclipsed by something else within a few minutes. Be sure to explain these concepts to your supervisors and reports, as well.

2. Leave Users Alone

So often, we jump in too quickly when a conversation we’ve started might actually need to simmer for a few hours without our intervention. People need to go off topic, trolls need to be smacked down by power users, sidebar chats need to occur, often without direct comment from within the organization. No one likes the idea that they’re being monitored all the time. Besides, if you’re like most community managers, you could use a break from the 24/7 social media addiction you’ve been nursing for the past couple years.

3. Stop the Marketing

You’re here to serve and support, not sell. You do represent the brand, but you’re not a promotional vehicle — and neither are your forums, comment threads, Facebook Wall, BBS, Twitter stream, email lists or other channels of communication you control. If someone in your organization thinks otherwise, correct them immediately; doing so will protect the integrity, trust, openness and fun in your community.

4. Be Yourself

An online community manager is so much a human extension of a URL that any clash between personality and brand image is not only a challenge — it’s an insurmountable obstacle. Once you know you are a fit for your community, that you represent its mores and aesthetics, be as comfortable in your own skin as you can possibly be. Don’t lapse into corporate-speak, and don’t be overly concerned about professionalism. Leave that part to the Poindexters who don’t have to herd cats in the wild.

5. Listen Less

It’s counterintuitive, but when we get so many channels for communication and each channel is filled to overflowing with user-generated signal, it stands to reason that we won’t be able to “listen” to all the feedback we’re getting from users, let alone respond to it all. Pick and choose what you listen to and whether you need to respond. Ignore those five tweets complaining about a small feature change. When users really start screaming and you actually need to make changes, you’ll know.

6. Show Your Face

As the designated “face” of your brand and community, you should be engaging in a text-based context with your users, absolutely. But if you’re working in the world of social media, you also have a responsibility to show up physically in certain contexts. Whether you’re staging a live meetup or an MMO video chat, you and other brand ambassadors should be literally visible. It’s not 1994; you can’t hide behind a screen name.

7. Level the Playing Field

Power users can be amazing resources; they can also be intimidating, arrogant and overly entitled. Make sure your big-deal users know that their contributions are valuable, but also be sure to treat quieter users with the same respect, even encouraging them to come out of the woodwork when it’s warranted. You should be using your influence to get the same amount and quality of interaction from all your users, not just pandering to the ones who make your job easy.

8. Be a Delegation Ninja

Who’s your best commenter, the guy who’s always online, always appropriate, always on-target? Make him your comment moderator. Is a power user in your community continually reaching out to welcome new members? Make her the Noob Ambassador. Find someone who really loves the brand to run a contest. Give your biggest advocates training, guidelines, responsibilities and perks; the extra time will allow you to find other ways to grow your community.

9. Stop Inviting People

Community isn’t a game of numbers. New user registrations can be great to show off to your execs, but be sure you’re getting the right kinds of users. You want to find people who are truly passionate about your community’s focus and who want to contribute interesting, unique content. New users who don’t care about that focus will quickly fall off, and attrition is a numbers game you definitely don’t want to play. Instead, focus on slow and steady growth among those who are most likely to be true fans.

10. Get Offline-Friendly Tools

Just because your sites are optimized for uptime doesn’t mean you should be. Test any tool you can find that will allow you to do your job while offline. Whether it’s scheduling tweets to go out in a few hours (or days) so you can take a nap (or a vacation), automating certain kinds of email responses or getting some new mobile apps to check your stats while on-the-go, most community managers need better tools for getting away from the desktop. If you’re a community manager and you’ve found great ways to take your work offline or automate your processes, we’d love to read your recommendations in the comments.

Posted by brian tiong at 08:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Matt Silverman *)

Matt says...

If you’ve already searched for some Fan Page inspiration and undertaken the task of building a custom landing page for your business’s Facebook presence, you may now be in the market for some features that will further engage your fans.

A nice feature of the modern social web is that it’s modular. You can plug in and customize pre-made pieces of software (often created by other users or companies), and mix and match what works best for you without a lot of technical know-how. Facebook works the same way with apps.

Many Facebook apps are built for casual use, like the social games and quizzes you may see your friends using in their personal feeds. But there are quite a few apps that are ideal for a business Fan Page. These are useful for customizing your page with greater detail, showcasing your content from other social sites and getting more information from your customers. Here are five essential Facebook apps that your business may want to take for a spin.

1. Static FBML for Your Page Sidebar

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We’ve already discussed how the Static FBML app can be used to make your Fan Page a unique destination. But this versatile plugin can also bring some interactivity to the column that appears on the left-hand side of your page.

Vertical, left-hand navigation is something users expect to find on most websites. They will be comfortable looking there for additional links, promotions and contact details. Moving a Static FBML box over to the left-hand column is a great way to exploit this valuable real estate. Here’s how to do it.

If you haven’t already done so, add the app to your Fan Page and make sure it’s functioning as a “Box” rather than a “Tab.” Add content to your box using standard HTML. Graphics cannot be uploaded to Facebook here, so you must reference them from a URL — likely one on your own hosted website or blog.

For a sidebar, think about adding some clean graphic buttons or icons that link out to other destinations your fans would be interested in, such as your company website, blog or Twitter account. This sidebar will be visible no matter what Fan Page tab your visitors are on, so consider using graphic elements that coincide with your existing logo and color scheme.

Once your content is added and saved, it will appear as a box on the “Boxes” tab. Head over there to ensure that your HTML has rendered properly. If so, click the “Pencil ()” in the top-right corner of the box and select “Move To Wall Tab.” This will display your content in the left-hand navigation of your page.

2. Promotions

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Contests and giveaways are a great way to engage people with your brand, especially on the social web. A chance at some free stuff is one of the top reasons people follow and friend brands in the first place. The Promotions app makes it easy to build and publish a contest on Facebook in a way that is inherently social and shareable.

Promotions is different from many Facebook apps in that the content you create for it lives on the developer’s website. This makes it a versatile tool, but you’ll have to sign up for a free account at wildfireapp.com.

Once you create an account and connect the registered app to Facebook, the promotions you generate on WildFire will populate the tab on your Fan Page. Promotions are easily built through a step-by-step process. Provide the dates of the contest, the types of prizes, the fields for the entry form, specific parameters about contest entry and rules, and upload any additional artwork you want to include.

A nice advantage of having contest data centralized on WildFire is that it can be sourced out to other social networks, and even to your own company website. Any changes or additions you make to your promotions will dynamically update on all of the locations where your customers and fans find you on the web.

Note, the cost to publish a basic promotional campaign through Wildfire is $5, plus $.99 for each day the campaign is active. Additional packages with more customization and publishing options are available.

3. Social RSS

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If you already have great content from your company’s blog or another social network that you’d like to bring to the fore of your Facebook presence, Social RSS is a smart tool.

You can configure this app to automatically pull in updates from any RSS or ATOM feed and display them as posts on your Fan Page, either on a dedicated tab, a wall tab (on the left side) or as part of your core news feed. It’s a useful way to automate your content and eliminate the need to republish things manually to your Facebook Page.

Take note, however, that fans on social networks are much more responsive to curated content. Especially on Facebook, where people connect to a smaller community of personal friends and family, an unfiltered pipeline of RSS content may not be welcome in all news feeds. If your core customers are already subscribed to your blog and other social accounts, a double-dose of the same exact content may trigger some to hide your updates or “un-fan” you. Consider relegating your Social RSS feed to a tab if this is the case.

Test () where and how an app like Social RSS is best implemented on Facebook, and adjust as needed depending on the size and response of your audience.

4. Poll ()

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Sometimes you just need a little feedback. That’s what social engagement is all about, right?

On Facebook, it doesn’t get any simpler than the Poll app. There’s no account to sign up for. Once you connect it to your Page, all the setup and data lives right in your settings panel.

A poll can be a casual way to get a read from your fans about a new product, a new page design, or your business in general.

In the poll settings, simply name your burning question (What do you think of our new spicy burritos?), list your choices (Delicious (), Pretty Tasty, Needs Work, Offensive) and select your publishing options.

Polls can be published to your Page wall/feed, live on a custom tab or be popped into your left-hand navigation where visitors can click anytime they come to your Page. You can invite your friends to take a poll, and they can easily share it out as they would any other post or app. Both you and your visitors can see the poll results without leaving Facebook.

Publishing a weekly poll about new products or changes in your industry is a great way to keep fans coming back to your Page and talking about your brand.

5. YouTube for Pages

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If creating video content is part of your business’s social media strategy (and we recommend it should be) you can squeeze more views out of your productions by dedicating a Fan Page tab to your YouTube () channel.

That’s exactly what the YouTube for Pages app does. To activate the app, you’ll have to set up a free account at the developer website involver. Once it’s connected to your Fan Page, simply input the YouTube channel you’d like to pull videos from (it could be your own or anyone else’s), pick a few more settings, and you’re all set.

The app “features” your most recent upload or favorite, and displays thumbnails for previous videos on a simple, clean interface. The videos play directly on Facebook () of course, so fans can watch without ever leaving your Fan Page. Just be sure to add the tab in the app’s “Application Settings.”

Posted by brian tiong at 08:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Orli Yakuel *)

Orli says...

 Don’t let anyone tell you it is easy to create a successfully engaging Facebook Fan Page. It is not.

It’s not an insurmountable task either. But it requires planning, time, some kind of HTML knowledge, design skill, and imagination. Originality doesn’t hurt either.

There are great tools and tips available that will help you create an outstanding page for your brand without an immense amount of time or capital invested. I’ve been working to improve our own Go2web20 fan page and I have some tips from my experience that I’m more than happy to share.

Let me start off by saying, Facebook itself is the only true obstacle in the whole page creation process. If they accepted all code formats, it would be much easier to create any page. It would open up the space to immeasurable possibilities and we would see a wider variety of amazing, unique pages. But unfortunately, this isn’t the case so you have to find ways to work with what you’ve got and then take it up from there.

Fan Page Profile Pictures

You might not know this but you can use a picture for your profile page as large as 200 x 600 pixels. The good thing about this is a larger picture offers better visibility of the campaign itself, which may include your company logo or a promotional banner of any kind. The downside to this eye-catching stunner is that it shifts the focus away from the rest of the page. This is why you need to plan your page first. Decide where you want the eyes of your visitors to go: on your image or on the rest of the page’s elements. You can play and preview your ideas, change them back and forth, and see what’s ultimately best for goals, your page, and its users.

Example:

Diverse Tabs

Facebook allows you to change the traditional boring tabs to be more exciting, original, and relevant.

If you want to change your page’s tabs, you will first need to add this FBML application to your page. Then, go to your page manager, find the FBML tab, and click ‘edit’. Within the box that opens, you will be able to change the tab name, and add HTML code. What I’d suggest that you do is to first create a main landing tab that will welcome visitors to your page.

Here’s what I did:

1. I gave the tab a name – Go2web20
2. Took a screenshot of my webpage and uploaded it to Flickr (optional)
3. Grabbed the screenshot picture code from Flickr and inserted it in the FBML body box (FYI: I slightly edited the code, changed link destination to lead to our site, instead of the Flickr page.)
4. I linked to my Website on this page since this is a big part of a fan page concept – to offer Facebook users access to my site in a new way.
5. Finally, I added the Facebook comments box to enable people to leave comments in regards our website. The fb comment code can be found at this wiki page in the examples section (thanks for the tip @eyalshahar). Again, all I did was to customize it slightly with the relevant information of our site. In my opinion a huge value add in terms of engaging my users and inviting conversations to happen here.

Page Dashboard:

Landing Page:

Now, since this is the tab you want new visitors to see and experience first, you need to set it this way on your admin page. Go to your page and click on ‘Edit Page’ > ‘Wall Settings’ > then on ‘Default Landing Tab for Everyone Else’ chose the tab which you want to present first when new users enter your Facebook page. People who are already fans of your page, will see the ‘wall’ first when they enter the page. The whole point of this landing page is that you make a informational welcoming page for new visitors that is interesting enough to be an incentive to fan this page. In a sea of fan pages this is important in terms of standing out and being innovative.

If you want you can also add even more FBML tabs, but keep in mind that overall, Facebook only allows you to display and offer up to six tabs maximum, including the first two that you can’t change. So make sure you chose your tabs wisely.

If you don’t want to mess around with FBML tabs, here are some alternatives (you can also add them as extras):

Twitter Tab – This application lets you bundle your ‘Twitter Updates Tab’ into your own profile or Fan page. The process is pretty easy: just add the application and follow the instructions.

This is the end result:

Flickr Tab – Same application but for Flickr photos. I found it more relevant to put this tab on my personal Facebook profile, but it is really depends on your brand’s goals and needs.

Example:

Foursquare Tab – I actually really like this tab, despite the fact, that I’m a Gowalla girl myself…

If you are creating a page for your company and want a Foursquare tab, here’s what you can do:

1. Create a venue for your brand/company/HQs on the Foursquare website (if you haven’t done this already)
2. Add this PlaceWidget application and follow the simple instructions.

And, that’s it. You now have a new tab on your page, Foursquare, and everyone can see how popular your spot is and read the tips visitors have left, furthering user engagement in a new way and offering visitors a chance to appear on your Facebook page and add their own tips.

Example:

Spotlight the People on your Team

If you go through all the trouble of creating your own brand page, make sure you spotlight your team’s players and say something about the people behind the curtain. It adds a personal touch to your page and builds a connection between fans and the people involved in the project. Again, with the help of the FBML tab, I’ve created a tab that tells more about my team at Go2web20 (it is was pretty easy since we’re just two people). But even if you have lots of people on your team, it is important to give some background about company management and staff accomplishments or to at least name one contact person that can be reached easily.

Example:

Participate on your stream – that’s the whole point

I have to admit that I’m not as active on my own Facebook fan page (insert shame here) as I should be. I blame both Facebook and myself. First, I take accountability for not checking the page as often as I should. But, I also blame Facebook for not providing the right tools to track comments and conversations on pages like the ones available for our own profiles. It is really up to you how often you check your fan page activity. But, don’t think you can now sit back and put your feet up. This is not one of those “build it and they will come” scenarios. Don’t take it for granted that you have a page available. No matter how great you’ve made it, if you aren’t active, it defeats the whole purpose of having one. A fan page requires maintenance. You have to be there for your page visitors. You have to talk with your fans. You have to answer questions, absorb feedback, and overall, make the conversation flow with consistent fresh content.

I really think Facebook never predicted the volume of pages people would create and the effect of these pages on businesses/brands. Obviously, Facebook isn’t currently providing the right type of support and tools for pages builders. Until Facebook reconciles these changes into their Facebook pages concept and tunes into the importance that pages have garnered over the last few months, we’ll end up with somewhat crappy looking pages that we’re creating with just about any and every tool we can muster up.

Posted by brian tiong at 08:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Tamar Weinberg *)

When we write about how companies or individuals are using social media in their marketing strategies, it’s usually in the context of a business to consumer relationship. However, business-to-business (B2B) marketing is really getting a boost from social media as well. According to a recent study, 60% of B2B marketers plan to increase social media marketing spending this year.

As we discussed earlier this week in the context of PR professionals and social media, even non-B2B-centric services like Twitter and Facebook can still offer great opportunities for B2B shops. Sometimes, the approach is the same as it would be in non-B2B marketing, sometimes it can be very different.

Figuring out how to best implement and harness social media in the course of B2B marketing can be difficult but we’ve put together ten tips to help get you on the right track!

1. Use Twitter Effectively

This may seem like a no-brainer, but plenty of businesses and even B2B marketers aren’t on Twitter. Get an account on Twitter and start engaging. While having profiles on other social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn can be equally important, Twitter remains one of the best ways to find and engage with others.

How do you do that? Start by searching for phrases relevant to your business and by monitoring those searches regularly. Look at what people are saying and join in the conversation. If people aren’t necessarily looking for your business offerings right away, start joining other conversations of interest. The more you build bridges, the more likely you are to be noticed.

Second, use hashtags. The #B2B hashtag, for example, will connect you with several other like-minded businesses who are also trying to leverage Twitter to build an online presence. Don’t overdo it, though. There are some people #who #tweet #like #this.

We’ll discuss this in the next point, but consider Twitter to be an informal medium. With social media, businesses can (and should) be human again. That’s why it’s safe to use Twitter not just for pure self promotion but to build a meaningful relationships with those who you are likely to do business with you in the future. If you feel comfortable using your business Twitter feed to talk about what makes you tick (versus purely promoting your business), you might be pleasantly surprised to see that your audience might very well be receptive to that messaging.

What’s great about Twitter, especially from a B2B perspective, is that you can follow just about everyone. Take advantage of the opportunity to follow your industry influencers, connect with potential customers, and keep a heads up on the competition.

A great example of Twitter usage from a B2B perspective is @salesforce. Salesforce has used its Twitter feed to share relevant news, to empower current customers, and to offer customer support.

2. Figure Out Your ‘Social Voice’

Social media works best when it is personal and authentic, and thus, it’s important to make sure that the way you communicate when using social media tools comes from a personal and authentic place.

Kevin Dugan, the Director of Social Marketing for Empower MediaMarketing recently wrote a blog post about finding your social voice. I spoke with Dugan about establishing a social voice, and he had this to say:

“It is critical that brands understand a social voice is different from brand voice. Social voice reinforces the brand voice indirectly. Social voice doesn’t follow communication guidelines or identity standards. That’s because a social voice equates to a person. A brand voice is anonymous while a social voice can be found on Google (). They must also have an understanding of the brand and a passion for it.”

Social networks are now helping to put the “human” back in businesses again. The traditional messaging of yore has been replaced by businesses who actually appear to show that they care about their customers. With a social voice, informal is perfectly acceptable. Having a social voice, as opposed to just a generic “brand voice,” is an important step when connecting with potential customers. Prospective customers want to connect with businesses who think just like them.

Just because your clients are other businesses doesn’t mean that the “social” aspect of social media needs to disappear.

3. Take Advantage of Opportunities on LinkedIn

LinkedIn () is continuing to get bigger and bigger — and it continues to be a great resource for businesses and employees to connect with one another.

One of the best things about LinkedIn is the Shared Connections feature. This feature makes it possible to find people — like potential clients — and then see what connections you have in common. Shared Connections then makes getting a virtual introduction that much easier.

Building up a strong LinkedIn network and being willing to introduce others (in good faith, of course — always use your best judgment) can also increase what opportunities you can get in the future.

B2B marketing is often built through trust and word of mouth. Having a shared connection is a great way to start establishing some of that trust from the very beginning.

LinkedIn also has a community of active participants. LinkedIn Answers serves as a knowledge base where business representatives can establish authority and expertise by participating in the ongoing discussions. LinkedIn Groups is an opportunity for business professionals to interact with other topics relevant to his/her interests. One business successfully used LinkedIn Groups as a way to build business leads. This business opted to engage in relevant industry discussion and offered business services when requests were made, thereby bringing in a highly targeted business lead. Actively participating in LinkedIn is often one of the best ways to not only help people out, but also to make a connection for your service and even generate leads.

Answering questions across LinkedIn Answers and LinkedIn Groups doesn’t mean to simply put out the marketing blurb, but to really engage and offer feedback and solutions. Again, social media is most effective when it is genuine.

4. Start a Blog

Social media provides the opportunity for companies to promote themselves but also to welcome commentary from a community of peers. By starting a blog, you give your readers an opportunity to see you with your social voice outside the typical corporate website’s newsroom. Blogs become platforms where you can announce new product releases, share personal company stories, answer any specific questions from your customers, and empower customers to achieve success with your products and service offerings. Blogging can also establish business professionals as thought leaders in their field, thereby aiding with client acquisition.

Blogs can build up qualified prospects through search engine rankings too. Be sure to update your blog regularly with valuable content and follow up with the comments written on each individual post.

5. Monitor Your Industry

Social media means that content is being posted everywhere, and businesses have a unique opportunity to gather intelligence to make well-educated and informed business decisions. Google Alerts is a great tool to keep up with what’s happening in relation to your company, your industry and your competitors. You can get updates via e-mail or in RSS (and even in real-time) about new search results or news stories for a certain query or topic.

Further, free tools like Social Mention and YackTrack will monitor the social sphere for other mentions of your business on social sites, especially. BackType will take that a step further and monitor phrases in comments on blog posts. All of these aforementioned services can be emailed to you in a daily digest format which your team can evaluate to find opportunities.

If you don’t already have alerts set up on these services for your company name, do it now. Also set up a more generic alert for your industry as a whole to see what people are talking about. If you want to see what your competition or other big industry players are doing, add those to the mix as well.

Monitoring can also be useful because you can then highlight the big stories on your own social media channels like Facebook (), Twitter (), Google Buzz (), etc.

6. Be Consistent and Don’t Be Afraid to Follow Up

While you don’t want to be creepy (see below), it’s important to not let potential opportunities slip by when using social media. If you’ve answered someone’s question on LinkedIn or on Twitter, don’t be afraid to reach back out to that person to ask if they have any follow-up questions or if you can send them more information. There’s an abundance of opportunity to strengthen a business relationship but it starts by initiating and then making sure that your business is fresh in your prospects’ minds.

Staying engaged and staying communicative is really important. Social media is not about setting it and forgetting it. It’s about being social, so don’t be afraid to reach out and check back in with potential leads you meet using social media. Similarly, don’t be afraid to direct message your followers on Twitter when an opportunity presents itself. They followed you because they want to hear from you. Use that opportunity to your advantage but don’t overdo it. Auto-DMs are a no-no.

If you’re going to blog, don’t leave that blog stagnant. Provide valuable content on a regular basis. Give employees of your company an opportunity to help build your brand. You can get a lot of great blog content by involving many company employees in the process. Similarly, get many employees of your company to utilize the social networks and to be continually responsive to customer inquiries. Remember, the more visible you are on the social networks, the more likely you are to be remembered when another business actually needs to utilize your services.

7. Leverage Your Analytics for Business Metric Measurement

After you’re involved enough in the social space, you’ll likely see tweets, retweets, traffic, and social network links that point to various parts of your company website. Take a look at your website analytics and start seeing where you’re making a difference, especially as it relates to ROI measurement. Don’t lose sight of your business metrics and start considering practical social media measurement to assess clickthroughs, popularity of links, and other important metrics.

As part of measurement, consider using URL shorteners. Not only do they make links more manageable (and limit the number of characters in a Tweet or Facebook message), they also can be a great way to track data as many URL shorteners provide valuable statistics about the performance of each individual shortened URL. Monitor this data throughout the process with your main website analytics package to see if your message attached to the shortened URL resulted in conversions.

When looking at conversion trends or successful tools in building leads with social media, reviewing analytics data is crucial. It gives you insight into content that performs very well in the social space but also through other marketing techniques, such as search engine optimization. Use the data as an opportunity to improve your content or your social media/search marketing efforts.

8. Find and Follow Industry Influencers

B2B social media marketing is often about connecting with the right people and about building relationships. Social media makes both of these actions simple and painless. Being aware of who the influencers in your industry are and then following them, whether it’s on Twitter, Facebook or their own blogs, is the first step to building a connection with those influencers. With a genuine relationship, these influencers may be able to help you make your mark in the social media marketplace. This is especially true of influencers who may already have your target audience at their disposal.

This doesn’t mean you need to retweet every tweet or share every blog post on Facebook, but it does mean that you should be aware of who the movers and shakers are. By following them and then reaching out when appropriate or just to get to know them further, you have a much better shot at getting some attention.

Even if you’re not necessarily connecting to influencers, social media affords the opportunity to connect with other people in your industry and your customers. Use the various social media platforms as an opportunity to connect with these industry colleagues and peers and build upon each other. Consider celebrating your colleagues’ or customers’ success. Make it known that you’re here to help them — not just yourself. Repeat this process with anyone of interest and you’re bound to attract eyeballs.

9. Use Social Media for Giveaways and Promotions

Sometimes, the hardest part of social media is sticking out from the sea of other users. Giveaways and promotions are a great way to help differentiate yourself and your business. Using Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, you can target your desired customer base and then let them know (if appropriate) about different promotions or giveaways related to your product. If you offer a service, consider giving a free year to a loyal customer. If you manufacture products, give some away.

Offer a coupon on your company’s Facebook Page and pair it with a lead-generation form for future contact. Let people know on Twitter about specials or contests that are going on and follow-up with those that show an interest. Perhaps you can have a retweet contest where you can monitor responses or host some trivia on your Facebook Page. You can also open an online survey to get feedback about your offerings and reward participants. The possibilities are endless. Creativity in this capacity breeds success.

Companies like Wildfire make it really easy to build these sorts of promotions directly inside your own social media channels.

10. Don’t Be Creepy

If you use social media like a keyword searching robot, you are going to come across as creepy and turn off potential clients. Don’t be creepy.

Use best judgment and common sense when approaching people using social networks. If you wouldn’t want to be approached the way you are approaching another user, don’t use that approach. It’s as simple as that. Social media etiquette isn’t much different than real life relationships, so what won’t work in “real life” probably won’t work online.

Respecting boundaries doesn’t mean you can’t still answer questions, engage and follow-up with potential leads, it just means that if it’s clear that the other party isn’t interested, or more importantly, if the context of their communication really doesn’t involve or seek out input from your company, don’t do it.

Context is really important in social media and it is something that is very, very easy to overlook. While we think that using keywords and Google Alerts are good methods for keeping atop of your field, that doesn’t mean you can automate your responses or just go into autopilot based on those alerts.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: three billion *)

Content is king. Actually, content is the king, queen and all the heirs apparent.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Greg Rollett via three billion *)

Today’s musicians, both mainstream and indie, are using social media to connect with fans, build anticipation, and generate revenue in new and unique ways. The products range from singles to mix tapes to digital six-packs, even oddly shaped USB sticks, vinyl, and the occasional traditional album.

But how are these artists reaching their new fan bases online through social channels? Much like the business world, social media promotion for musicians is still a very new game, with no exact recipe for platinum success.

There are however, some innovations being put forth, and a new connection is being formed between artists and fans — a connection that empowers both to give each other what they are looking for.

Fan-Funded Projects

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We have all heard about the success of micro lending organizations like Kiva, which use multiple small payments to contribute to a larger goal. The same process is being applied to creating an album or a music-based project.

One such project is the Washington D.C.-based indie hip-hop group Panacea. The producer/MC duo listed their project on Kickstater, a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, inventors, explorers, and others.

The project was posted on the morning of February 26th. According to Jeremy Calvery, the group’s Director of Digital Media and Promotion, “We were at $1,000 before the end of the first day. We had to increase the number of $200 packages from three to five over the weekend because people were e-mailing and literally begging for the chance to ‘buy’ the whole back catalog. Less than five full days from the first e-mail to the list, we had reached the funding goal of $3,800, which was set to be just a bit more than what the minimum press of 250 vinyl copies was going to cost.”

Another hip-hop outfit, the Get Busy Committee, also launched a project on Kickstarter. In their drive to raise $3,218, they included one premium pledge level at $1,000 — an investment that netted the donor a song about him or herself to be included on the record, as well as a platinum plaque. They sold this spot within 24 hours.

Using Video to Create Buzz

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Another approach musicians are taking is the use of web video series. Indie pop artist Mike Posner has been telling his story over the course of a video series titled “One Foot Out The Door.” Daniel Weisman, Mike’s manager, stated that he was attempting to create an income stream for Mike while he was finishing college and working on his debut album.

Daniel and his management company Elitaste were approached by the shoe company Puma about integrated artist campaigns. Puma ended up sponsoring Mike’s last semester in college, and provided a camera crew to follow him from classes, to the studio, to shows all over the country.

Daniel wanted to do something special for the Mashable () readers when I reached out to him, so fresh off the upload, here is the premier of Episode #10 of “One Foot Out The Door.”

Puma Presents: Mike Posner “One Foot Out The Door” Episode 10: California Love from Mike Posner on Vimeo.

Live streaming has also been worthwhile for big announcements. Underground artists the Kottonmouth Kings turned to Ustream to tell their fans all about their new album and when they could expect it in local stores.

The video was watched live and formatted like a press conference, with fans getting the chance to ask questions and share their feedback. It was a smart way to bring their fans into the experience and give back to the community that has supported them for 10+ years.

Creativity From the Fans

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Rob And Kal are a pop/rock act from the UK who are taking fans inside their studio and the music creation process. They call it Mubla 2.0, which Rob defined as “our interactive recording project where we come up with song ideas and you help us develop them with your comments, suggestions and musicianship.”

So far they have five songs in progress with fans like Adam saying, “I just feel the intro has a little too much going on and 2.33 to 2.56 I almost want the piano to play and pull at the heart strings.” Another commenter named Russell gave tips like, “Think drums and a bit more of heavier guitar would go down nicely particularly near end.”

This concept empowers fans and gives them a product they feel responsible for and connected to. The project can only strengthen the bond between fans and artists, and result in an easier sale when the time comes to release an album.

Reaching Out to Non-Music Bloggers

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Glasses Malone, a new artist signed with Cash Money Records, is turning to bloggers to get the word out about his new album “Beach Cruiser.” What makes his campaign unique is that unlike traditional artists who look to get their tracks on highly trafficked MP3 blogs and review sites, Glasses and his team are focused on adding value to bloggers whose primary focus is not on music.

A marketing rep for Glasses told me, “These bloggers are more open to running contests and integrated campaigns than traditional music bloggers because they are not accustomed to being pitched by a major label artist. We have found blogs that love unique and fresh content that will separate them from their peers and competition, and it is working out very well for us so far.”

Armed with a research team, they have been targeting biking blogs, college blogs, beach lifestyle sites and more, all with the hope of driving new traffic to Glasses’ site and generating some pre-album buzz.

Conclusion

---

No matter what the labels and corporations are doing, musicians are taking it upon themselves to use social channels to connect with fans, offer value, and create relationship. This has ultimately led to new business models and revenue streams from sponsorships, touring and live appearances, custom products, and social monetization through advertising.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Niels Bellaar *)

Niels says...

We love it when the online world and the offline world come together and share. It’s what we have seen from exciting brands like Red Bull and Apple and we believe many brands have the opportunity to port their offline activities to the online world. And today Diesel is doing such a thing.

At this very moment the world’s hottest fashion designers and brands are showing their fall 2010 collections at the semi-annual New York Fashion Week. Among these is Diesel who will show their Diesel Black Gold fall 2010 collection today at 5pm.

Many want to attend this fashion show, but only a few actually can. From Apple we learn that major offline presentations (the Apple Keynotes) are followed by many via streaming video. At the Diesel Black Gold dotcom you can tune into the live broadcast of the runway show, giving you the opportunity to be among the first to know about this fall’s hottest designs.

In addition Diesel invited not only their offline press relations to the runway show, but also several online fashion influencers. By doing so Diesel shows the importance of having an online presence and closes the gap between traditional journalists and bloggers.

Discussing what you’ve just seen at the live broadcast can be done at Diesel’s Facebook and Twitter channels. It really looks like Diesel is moving away from traditional marketing and towards a model which is more content driven, engaged and focused on consumer dialogue.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Jason Kincaid *)

Jason says...

If you’ve ever tried to use Twitter Search, you know that it’s got some pretty serious problems. First, the site only lets you search back through a couple weeks of tweets. Even worse, the service doesn’t seem to employ any relevancy algorithm to speak of — you just see the most recent tweets that contain your query’s keywords, regardless of who said them (which oftentimes yields junk and spam). Today Topsy, the startup that views tweets as the currency of the web, is launching a handful of new features that improve on the official Twitter search in almost every way.

Up until now, Topsy has been based entirely around links. When you visited the site, it would prompt you to enter a search query, and then would display a list of links most relevant to whatever you searched for. The links are ranked by the number of times they’ve been retweeted, and also by the influence of the people who have tweeted them;  the site actually keeps track of the number of retweets each user typically gets to establish their overall reputation. Now, Topsy is taking this reputation system and extending it beyond just links, allowing you to search for both photos and tweets that don’t contain links at all.

So what does that mean? Before now, if you ran a search for “Google Buzz”, the site would return links to articles and videos about the new service. Now, it will also surface tweets from influential Twitter users, even if they don’t include a link. That’s important for breaking news when a story may not have already been covered by a publication, or when there’s a tweet that’s important in and of itself (say, Bill Gates’ first tweet). You can view just these tweets using the navigation menu at the top of the screen, and important tweets will also be included in the site’s flagship web search, alongside links and photos (more on that later). You can filter these results by time, sorting by Hour, Day, Week, Month, and All Time (which represents 18 months of data).

This new search functionality for linkless tweets comes with one big caveat — it will only count retweets that use the native Twitter retweet functionality, which has been pretty controversial. Native retweets don’t allow users to append their own comments to a retweet, and they’re still only used around 10% as often as the “old school” retweet functionality. That said, the Topsy team says they will eventually be tracking all retweets, though it may take a while.

The other big addition to the site today is support for photo search. This searches the text of any tweet that contains a link to a photo, and then presents all matching photos in a thumbnail view similar to Google Images (as with links and tweets, these are all ranked according to Topsy’s reputation system). Because these are pulled in in realtime, the results can be more useful and timely than what you’d find on other image search engines. That said, they can also be pretty quirky. For example, I ran a query for “airplane” and got results of a guy hiding his head in a sweatshirt (on an airplane), a photo of an airplane safety manual, and a photo of a guy wearing a banana suit (again, on an airplane). Queries appear to work better if they’re related to a current event. But even if the results aren’t always perfectly on point, you can definitely have a lot of fun with them.

Finally, you can see the top trending items for all three search categories — web, photos, and tweets — in the “Trending” section, which sort of serves as a Digg for Twitter. And, for those who were asking for it, Topsy now supports RSS feeds.

This is a big improvement for Topsy, and I’ll definitely be using it as an alternative to Twitter’s official search. My concern, though, is that Twitter will probably be launching something similar in the future — its own search engine really hasn’t changed in years, and is ripe for an overhaul (especially since it’s now featured on the Twitter homepage). That said, Topsy has its search indexing over 18 months of tweets (search.twitter.com only has around two weeks of content), so that may help differentiate it from whatever Twitter releases.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Sara Inés Calderón *)

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(* Source: PSFK *)

Nike is giving us their taste in mobile marketing with True City, an iPhone app with the tagline ‘Making the hidden visible.’ It combines social elements with current mobile technologies to create a next-gen city and travel guide for six European cities.

With each city comes a host ‘tastemaker’ to guide users to lesser known community attractions. For Paris, it is BKRW founder Jay Smith. Of course Jay’s perspective alone is not enough, as an addition to each host there is a second tier of designated contributors and a third of so called ‘civilian’ contributors. Everyone is encouraged to add their own finds, geo-tagged, throughout a city. The best, or most popular, will have an opportunity to join the team of Nike insiders. It appears that Nike is reaching for an army of hyper-local, mobile-connected advocates.

Posted by brian tiong at 08:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Erik Schonfeld *)

Erik says...

The biggest U.S. music service on the Web in December was Vevo, a new entrant which is a joint venture between Google, Universal Music Group, and Sony Music. Dubbed the “Hulu of music videos,” Vevo attracted 35.4 million unique visitors in December, 2009, putting it above the 33.1 million visitors who went to MySpace Music, according to estimates put out today by comScore. Considering that Vevo only launched on December 8, that is a pretty good showing.

A closer look at the numbers shows, that nearly all of that audience came from YouTube, which hosts a Vevo channel. Of the 35.4 million visitors which comScore counts for Vevo, 32.6 million (or 92 percent) are attributed to YouTube. In one fell blow, YouTube has helped to push MySpace Music from the No. 1 spot.

Not only does this illustrate the distribution might of YouTube, but it also shows how professional content is still hard to beat, even on YouTube. The Vevo channel is already the most viewed channel on YouTube, with nearly 13 billion views across all Vevo and all of Vevo’s sub-sites, which include the individual artist channels for Lady Gaga, Kings of Leon, Timbaland, and many others.

Here are the top ten music services as measured by comScore in unique U.S. visitors for December, 2009. The only real startup is Jango (No.7), with 9.6 million, but the comScore numbers include some lyric sites it also owns. ToneFuse Music, No. 8, is almost entirely a collection of lyric sites. Rhapsody rounds out No. 10 with 6.5 million (Last.fm would be No. 11 with 6 million).

Top U.S. Music Services On The Web (in unique visitors, December, 2009)

1. Vevo: 35.4 million
2. MySpace Music: 33.1 million
3. AOL Music: 29.0 million
4. Warner Music: 23.3 million
5. MTV Networks Music: 17.6 million
6. Yahoo! Music: 16.4 million
7. Jango Music Network: 9.6 million
8. ToneFuse Music Network: 8.3 million
9. MSN Music: 6.6 million
10. Rhapsody: 6.5 million

Posted by brian tiong at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: PSFK *)

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(* Source: Leena Rao *)

Leena says...

We’re big fans of TripIt, a nifty site that creates customized travel itineraries from travel confirmation emails. Today, the service is becoming even more useful by integrating Yapta.com, an airfare and hotel tracking service, into its platform.

Yapta lets you track fares from most of the major domestic and international airlines, allowing users to select flights to track, and then be alerted when the price fluctuates. If the price declines after you purchase it, Yapta will help you get a refund or credit from airlines that have lowest guaranteed fare policies. Travelers can now forward their flight confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com and can choose to have Yapta start tracking their flights for airline refunds or credits. TripIt members can then link their account to Yapta in order to be alerted when they are eligible for a refund or credit based on an airline’s “guaranteed airfare” policy.

Yapta, which has been able to gain a steady group of consumer followers since its launch in 2007, is revealing a few compelling statistics about airfare price fluctuations. To date, Yapta has conducted approximately 500 million airfare price checks, showing that seat prices on 45 percent of flights will drop before the cabin door closes. Approximately 15 percent of these flights are eligible for a refund or credit and since May 2007, Yapta has identified over $250 million in savings for its members, an average of $334 per traveler each year.

Yapta stands to gain a new influx of users with the integration with popular service TripIt. It’s made Michael’s list of products he can’t live without for three years running, and is quickly gaining fans among frequent travelers. Yapta also offers a companion hotel price tracking service.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Leena Rao *)

Leena says...

Actress Kirstie Alley is venturing into the microblogging world with the bizarre launch of Phitter.com, a Twitter-like community site dedicated to helping consumers share tips on weight loss, dieting, fitness, exercise and living a healthy lifestyle. Alley has been publicly battling with personal weight gain over the past few years, and even sells her own branded weight loss products.

According to a release, Phitter.com is a “phitness phocused community that encourages members to talk, or Phit, about fitness, weight loss, working out, dieting, exercising, and healthy living while making new ‘Phriends’ and having ‘Phun’!” The site lets users write and post messages in 140 characters via the web or SMS. Similar to Twitter, you can send private messages to other users. And Phitter also integrated with Twitter to allow users to post directly to Twitter and to find Twitter friends who have already joined Phitter.

The site’s UI definitely needs some work, but the ambition of the site may resonate with folks who want to share the trials and tribulations of weight loss and fitness. Of course, there’s no shortage of social networks who are trying to serve the same purpose, including DailyBurn, WorkoutBOX, and ZodBod.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: MC Siegler *)

MC says...

Regular readers may know my affinity for Pearl Jam. The band, which released a new album, Backspacer, last year had a series of promotions with MySpace to promote the album. Now they’re turning to Twitter for some more.

The band has teamed up with the digital media house Culture Jam to launch a new site that easily allows you to tweet about about the Pearl Jam song “Just Breathe.” This site is actually a simple application that gets your Twitter credentials via OAuth. In exchange for the tweet, you’ll receive a code that will allow you to download the song on iTunes for free. Specifically, it’s a live version of the song that was recorded at Austin City Limits this year.

This free song isn’t without a slight catch. Not only will you obviously have to send the tweet, but in small print on the site, you’ll see that by tweeting the message you will also automatically follow the @pearljam account on Twitter. Of course, if you’re tweeting this, you’re probably into Pearl Jam, and won’t mind following the account.

On the site, there is also a way to buy a digital copy of the single and you can enter to win a limited run copy of the new album on White Vinyl LP (there are 15 of them available).

Culture Jam does these types of promotions for a number of musical acts. The use of Twitter in this regard is smart because there is a very low barrier to entry. As we discussed yesterday, a growing number of brands and venues are using Twitter to trade free goods and deals for promotion on the service.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: PSFK *)

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(* Source: Leena Rao *)

 

Leena says...

GROU.PS, a do-it-yourself social network focused on moderated online collaboration has steadily gained an impressive amount of users and added compelling features to its application. The social network platform has just hit 2 million users, adding another million members in just 6 months.

And GROU.PS has amped up its offering for publishers by launching Elastic Modules, which gives publishers the ability to change the way the data is displayed to their visitors. To date, the highest reach of look and feel customization was at the template level; the publisher could only change the skin of their site. Now publishers can actually modify the backend of the social network they’ve created.

GROU.PS counts Don Dodge, developer evangelist at Google, is among the community builders that have chosen GROU.PS as their online platform. “Don Dodge’s Startup List” is sort of a Crunchbase for Boston area.

The startup’s networks are attractive to users because it lets you run all of your group’s collaboration tools from one GROU.PS domain using a single login. The system supports wikis, photos, links, blogs, calendars, chat, forums, maps, profiles, and subgroups – each of which is available as a plug-and-play module for your community. These modules also allow users to pull in their data from other third party services (flickr, Digg, blogs, etc).

The startup, which has over 40,000 networks on its platform, also recently added ActivityRank Pipelines, a point and reward system that lets moderators of a social network measure and rank members’ content contributions and then extend moderation privileges to members based on these rankings. And the social network is launching a subscription model that will allow moderators to charge subscription fees to members (GROU.PS gets a 50% cut on any fees charges).

GROU.PS just raised $1 million in funding, bringing the startup’s total funding up to over $2 million. But while the social network is growing, it is still faces major competition form the leader in the space, Ning, which recently hit 37 million users with 1.6 million social networks created on the platform.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Robin Wauters *)

Robin says...

Italian writer, blogger and photographer Vincenzo Cosenza has for the second time put together a visualization that shows the most popular social networks around the world on a map, based on the most recent traffic data (December 2009) as measured by Alexa & Google Trends for Websites.

The first one, which we featured in June 2009, already painted a picture of Facebook taking over the world from the West, but the second one shows its relentless colonization even more clearly.

Facebook, with over 350 million users, is the undisputed leader of social networking in the English speaking parts of the world, and has been making strides in Latin-America, Europe and Africa as well. Based on Alexa data only, Facebook has even taken over Orkut in India, historically a high-flyer in those parts. Google’s social network remains the most trafficked in Brazil, however.

Facebook clone Vkontakte.ru has been able to resist and stop Facebook from becoming the leader in Russia. It’s worth noting that Vkontakte is largely owned by Digital Sky Technologies, which also owns a significant stake in Facebook, so you can see how they could potentially melt together in the future.

Hi5 has also seen Facebook take over most of the territories where it was leading, and has only been able to stop the social network from dominance in Peru, Portugal, Romania, Thailand and Mongolia. Meanwhile, QQ is still ahead of everyone else in China, where the number of Internet users is expected to double and reach a staggering 840 million by 2013.

Nowhere to be seen on the map: MySpace (which only leads on the Island of Guam).

Posted by brian tiong at 08:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: MG Siegler *)

 MG says...

Facebook has just released its list of top status updates for the year, and they’re pretty interesting. This is a new feature that Facebook plans to release yearly called “Memology,” the study of how memes are spreading on Facebook. Specifically, the Facebook Data Team looked at status updates in the U.S. for this year’s list.

For this list, Facebook grouped together similar items to make it a more comprehensive one. As such, the first item on the list should be a surprise to no one: “Facebook Applications.” The specific words that Facebook grouped together here include Farmville, Farm Town, and Social Living, they note. The fact that Farmville has 72 million month active users who update their statuses with info from the game was probably enough to give Faceboook Applications the top spot.

But below that, things start to get interesting. For example, “FML” is the number two term. As you likely know, this stands for “fuck my life” (or as Facebook puts it, “We’ll leave the “F” open to your interpretation”) and is a popular Internet meme in general for talking about why your life sucks. As you can see in the graph they included, FML usage rose out of nowhere to peak in May, then dipped, then came back in September. Facebook also notes that usage of the term was strong during Mondays and Tuesdays.

“Swine Flu” and “Celebrity Deaths” came in third and fourth place respectively, which isn’t surprising given how much news both created this year. Then things get pretty boring until number 10: “Twitter.”

Technically, Facebook included both the word “Twitter” and “RT” in this trend. There are a few interesting things about this. One, the two are obviously rivals as Facebook has seemingly been taking a lot of product cues from Twitter, and Twitter turned down an acquisition offer from them. Two, “Facebook” did not appear on Twitter’s year-end list, which we found suspicious and still think it may have been filtered out. Three, Facebook still manages to take a swipe as its much smaller rival:

Talk about Twitter took off at the beginning of the year. April showed a peak of activity and momentum, though mentions of the word “Twitter” decreased over the past few months.

There’s been a lot of talk about Twitter’s lack of growth recently, and Facebook is clearly playing that up here.

Update: Facebook continues to be moody about Twitter-talk. As they write to us, “Just had to object to your claim that we were taking a swipe at Twitter.” They continue on, “We also made very clear that the term RT (retweet) had grown to be very common. The mere fact Twitter made the list means it’s become one of the biggest trends of the year—and we openly acknowledged that.”

They also link to a post with more charts showing that Twitter talk did in fact decline at the end of the year. We don’t doubt that, but it’s still interesting that much of the blurb is dedicated to pointing out the peak activity and specifically the peak momentum earlier in the year.

Posted by brian tiong at 08:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Brian Solis *)

Brian says...

"Real-Time Responsibilities (fully transparent and disclosed) of a New Media team could include:

Content Producers - Creates content necessary for client/company interaction with customers, peers and influencers, including videos, images, Web pages, blog posts, policies and guidelines, tweets, wikis, comments, online experiences, profiles, etc. In many cases, connectors and industry experts/strategists wear this hat and assign the creation of important content to either content producers, other members on the team with direct experience, or simply produce it themselves.

Digital Sociologists - Observes the cultures, trends, behavior, associated with communities, networks, forums and compares the interactivity around keywords and brands to contribute to engagement strategies, customer service policies and improvements and product modifications.

Digital Ethnographers - Ethnography is the branch of anthropology that deals with the scientific description of specific human cultures. For those projects where a deep study of online culture and communities is critical, an ethnographer is ideal for documenting a descriptive study of a particular human society. As ethnography is based almost entirely on fieldwork, this role usually lives and interacts with the people who are the subject of study.

Research Librarians - Complements or augments in house or contract sociologists by analyzing relevant keywords used by customers, listening to and documenting conversations by content and sentiment, charting volume and frequency within social networks, identification and analysis of true influencers and tastemakers across media, blogs, and social communities, and presents data and charts for analysis by strategists.

Community Managers - Listens to conversations in social networks, forums, and the blogosphere documented by research librarians or through their own process, assigns relevant dialogue to appropriate team leads, manages the workflow and response status, and in most cases is the first line of response.

Digital or Social Architects - Digital or social architects are responsible for building the online bridges between company brand and consumers via widgets, sites, online dashboards, blogs, social newsrooms, social media releases, wikis, social networks, fan pages, forums, groups, and any other application, platform, or group responsible for hosting content, conversations, and interactivity.

Connectors - Informed individuals and teams that can connect stories to influencers and inspire activity, direction, and conversations. Connectors act based on intelligence, empathy, sincerity and the ability to truly “bridge” a story to someone else in a way that’s specific and compelling to them as an individual and also as it relates to their audience and social graph.

Industry Experts/Strategists - Someone has to act as the conductor to this all star orchestra. Qualified individuals have mastered the art and science of attaching new and traditional media to the bottom line of their business and also possess a deep understanding of and experience with customer empathy, market trends, and the governing technology that connects the people within desired market places.



These new, adjoined job functions create a new level of services that complement existing, traditional and necessary communications activities.

- Listening/Monitoring/Documenting – intelligence gathering and trend analysis

- Engagement in the networks and groups where relevant conversations are pervasive and warrant participation

- Content creation

- Conversation management and trafficking

- Influencer and tastemaker identification and networking

- Community management, empowerment, and cultivation

- Event hosting and franchising

- Story development and connectivity to “The Magic Middle” bloggers and Long Tail networks

- Humanizing company and product messaging and redefining the online journey and experience associated with the online presences associated with specific brand/products"

Posted by brian tiong at 08:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mike Johansson *)

Posted by brian tiong at 09:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Frank Striefler *)

 A great presentation by Frank...

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(* Source: Alison Driscoll *)

Not even a year ago, Facebook was still being dismissed as a silly site intended to help college kids slack off. Indeed, that is what helped the social network take hold with a large number of users, but it has proven its worth in business and by now, nearly everyone is on board. Companies of all sizes are scrambling to get on the site and reach both new and current customers with a Facebook Page, the Facebook preferred method for user interaction with a brand, company or public figure.

An effective Facebook Page not only attracts fans, but is sticky so that fans keep coming back and may even share the content on the Page. To do that, you need a well thought out Page that has some great applications supported by good, relevant content. Here are eight essential apps for your brand’s Facebook page:

Applications

1. Facebook Notes

This app was originally a Facebook feature that they then converted into an application; as such, it is sponsored and maintained by Facebook and less likely to break or be abandoned. Set this application up to pull in the RSS feed from your blog or other content source and it will automatically bring everything into Facebook and show all of your friends that you’ve posted a new Note.

This notification system is important for staying on their radar and is more visible than an RSS Reader, or mini-blog as I like to call it, but lacks many formatting capabilities; it’s best to think of Notes and an RSS Reader as working hand in hand. Start here to get content coming into your Page, then move on to the RSS Reader.

2. Blog RSS Feed Reader

I may have jumped ahead a bit with the Notes recommendation, but I am assuming that most companies have, or could have, a blog. If you don’t, work on that before Facebook, for many more reasons than I could get into here. But if you already have a blog, good news: there are tons of blog and RSS apps out there, but I’ve done the leg work and I found this one offered more functionality, better customization (you can pick an image to make your Facebook mini-blog look more like your actual blog) and a greater sense of control. It can be a bit buggy, but it’s worth persisting for the level of customization, and therefore attention grabbing potential.

3. Twitter App

Again, this assumes that you have a Twitter () account, but if you’re reading this and working on a Facebook Page, my guess is you do. Or you at least know you should have one. If not, set one up before adding this application to your new Facebook Page. This will automatically pull your tweets into your Facebook status, and it puts a cute little Twitter-themed box on your profile, so everyone knows you’re cool enough to be on Twitter. It also saves you time in updating AND ensures profile activity to keep you relevant.

4. Static FBML

Neither Facebook Pages nor Profiles allow any type of HTML in the main content section, but you can add FBML and HTML applications to add more stylized elements to a Page, like clickable images, anchor text and interactive content. The Static FBML app allows you to add advanced functionality to a page by placing a customizable box in which you can render HTML or FBML (Facebook Markup Language), giving you free reign over the space to add images, video, stylized text and almost whatever else you want. This app was developed by Facebook, so it’s fully supported and not prone to the problems of some third party applications.

5. Extended Info

In the Extended Info box you can use HTML to customize any kind of content and create numerous fields beyond the standard Information categories; you can also name the box anything you want so it matches your page perfectly. This app works much like the Static FBML application but is slightly easier to use. Although not developed by Facebook, it is highly ranked and provides a nice alternative or second customizable box option on a page.

6. Flash Player

This Flash application, also developed by Facebook, will add a box to your Page in which you can upload your own Flash files to achieve advanced customization and play any kind of Flash video, widget or game. It can be renamed to maintain the integrity of the page and keep the look and feel consistent with your brand.

7. Posted Items Pro

With Posted Items Pro you can embed multiple YouTube (), Yahoo, and Google Videos, music mp3s, sites, files, and more onto your profile and Facebook pages. You can add any variety of these elements, making it great for a media center or press section.

8. Something Unique

If you have the resources, add some personality to your profile with a fun, irreverent application that you create just for your Page. This could be tied into your brand in multiple ways; try to think of something that people outside of Facebook would appreciate or enjoy that will remind them of who created it and keep them coming back, like a game or contest.

Brands that get it right

In order to stay relevant on Facebook, you need to continually update your Page and use the site. The more actions you take, the more you appear in a fan’s News Feed. This keeps you in their mind, and in their friend’s Feeds when they interact with you. But updating content will do more than keep you on the News Feed; it will also help make your Facebook Page sticky by offering fans an incentive to remain a supporter and come back more than once; one of the best way to do that is to provide some unique benefit to fans: exclusive content, secret contests or insider access to information before non-fans.

If you have a good brand, product or service with a strong website behind it, building a Facebook Page should be fairly easy. But if you need a few examples or inspiration, check out these Pages that definitely get it right:

VS Pink Victoria’s Secret

PINK collection is aimed at college girls, so Facebook is a natural fit, and this Page nails it. They are my most frequent example when explaining effective use of Facebook. This Page makes good use of HTML and FBML apps and provides lots of contests and exclusive stuff for Facebook fans.

Britney Spears

A childhood favorite of many avid Facebook users, Britney is taking Twitter by storm and her Facebook Page is not far behind. Britney sends out tons of Updates to fans and posts plenty of sneak peeks on Facebook.

Zappos

Lots of videos means plenty of opportunity for laughing and sharing. Zappos is almost always mentioned as a social media success story, and they’re working on making their Facebook Page meet the brand image.

Target

Target has managed to break free of the Wal-Mart stigma and position itself as a hip and budget conscious alternative to mall stores. They’ve chose to direct visitors to their “Vote” tab, where not only is Target donating to a good cause, it’s encouraging fans to participate and spread the word to their friends with interactive voting.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Adam says...

The company has launched a Facebook app that brings together the biggest highlights from Jordan’s career, letting users vote for their favorite, which is then shared to their Wall. Each highlight includes commentary from a well-known sports journalist, and at the end of the competition, the highlight receiving the most votes will become a Gatorade label (the sports drink maker has already produced 6 commemorative MJ labels – this will be the 7th).

The app is part of Gatorade’s Facebook page, where the company has around a quarter million fans and shares lots of behind-the-scenes clips from its iconic commercials. Here, Gatorade shares the making of the commemorative bottles, shown in this 30-second spot:

Also worth checking out – the “Play” button on the main page for the Jordan app loads a spectacular visual display of Jordan’s career highlights. In all, a very cool promotion to celebrate the career of Number 23.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Christina Warren *)

Christina says...

More and more businesses are learning that adopting a strategy of incorporating social media to connect with customers is a great way to build a solid brand. Even companies that already have very successful global brands, like Audi are starting to use social media to enhance their presence and garner feedback from users.

Audi USA has partnered with TurnHere to promote its participation in the “Youth Mobile 2030″ design challenge and to engage with its fans via the company’s Facebook page.

Right now, Audi is gearing up for the Los Angeles Design Challenge, which will take place at the L.A. Auto Show. Southern California automotive studios are competing to design a youth-oriented concept car for the year 2030.

Using Facebook , Audi is posting videos of their design process, information about the contest as it progresses, and soliciting questions and feedback to find out what the fans would like to see in a car of the future. It wants its 300,000 fans to know that as a company, Audi listens to its customers and wants to engage in a conversation about the future.

I’m sure that whatever Audi ends up coming up with for their concept car will be stunning — I just hope the console has built-in Twitter and Facebook integration!

Posted by brian tiong at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Kyle Austin *)

 

Kyle says...

One online service that I’ve grown attached to is Mint.com. Simply, Mint.com is the most effective way to manage your money, rent, loans, bills, expenses, financial planning in the Web era (Personally, I love the email alerts when I go over my chosen budget). All of this has allowed Mint to become the most used online personal finance service on the Internet, with more than 1 million users.

It has also enabled the company to build a high brand affinity with its users. In addition to being a great service, Mint has harnessed user’s positive experiences with the service and turned them into brand fans on Facebook. As I’ve followed closely over the last several months, Facebook is making very steady progress in appealing to marketers. Fan and brand pages, check. Vanity URL’s, check. Mint.com is one company that has taken advantage of these changes.

Their Facebook page has grown extremely popular with more than 32, 000 followers and constant interaction. From Mint.com prize pack giveaways, to financial haiku contests, to updates on their latest blog posts, Mint leverages Facebook to the fullest.

Before the vanity URL gold rush I speculated that Mint would be one of the first companies to get their customized Facebook URL. And they were. You can now find them easily at www.facebook.com/mint. Yup, they beat the US Mint, the herb and Wrigley to the findable, SEO-friendly domain.

In addition, Mint’s Facebook admins have been diligent in integrating video and their other social media channels (i.e. Twitter) into the Facebook experience. They’ve also started to use Facebook as their de-facto HARO or Profnet service; allowing their PR and marketing team to track down users for stories that may fit a particular angle or be from a certain area. Anyone from Minn-e-sota?

Mint’s approach is not siloed within Facebook. Their aforementioned blog is extremely popular with more than 11,000 RSS subscribers. This visual-friendly post got 400 plus Digs.

It’s obvious that Aaron and his team understand the future of integrated marketing and are building a brand that has real staying power.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: InsideFacebook *)

Eric says...

Over the last few weeks, was all of a sudden getting popular on Facebook. Instead of just gaining a couple hundred users a day, he was gaining tens of thousands. But recently, .

Why? Well, first, we recognize that Slash is a great guitarist, and that people just want to be fans of him because they love him. Second, we recognize that he has a very active page — he’s constantly updating via text messages, even automatically sending his updates to Twitter via his page.

But we also recognize that he’s been active on Facebook for months, yet only recently saw a spike in new fans. So there is likely another cause, or two. We asked readers, and a few people responded to say they’d seen actual ads for Slash’s page on Facebook — apparently ads being run by Facebook itself. Slash may be benefiting from a larger effort by Facebook to promote celebrities.

“A few weeks ago, I noticed that Facebook replaced ads with fan page solicitations,” as commenter Jason F. told us. “I think Slash was one of them. I wonder if that helped seed the audience more diversely than organic growth ala Guns N’ Roses and Velvet Revolvers’ fan pages would have.”

What does Jason mean by “seeding?” Facebook fan page advertising is not itself necessarily the main explanation for the new growth. Jeff Widman, a Facebook marketing consultant who helps big clients grow pages, has more:

“The Highlight section of Facebook means if you can get a page rolling along at a good clip, you can keep picking up more fans. It’s a solid way for him to basically capture on Facebook all the people who already like him (and are friends with him). I’ve seen some major spikes with my clients when we try to push something hard all at once rather than dribble a little at a time. If they want to spend $1K on ads every month, I tell ‘em to blow it in one week every month.”

In other words, a little bit of growth can snowball into a lot of growth. So the answer to the riddle of Slash’s page growth could really be “all of the above.” First: He is already popular with the general public. Second: He has an active page. Third: He had ads running that apparently were seen by a lot of people. Fourth: Facebook’s viral loops — its highlights, as well as its activity stream — may have allowed the first three conditions to exponentially increase the results.

For page owners looking to grow, this is maybe another reason to buy those Facebook ads, and to think more strategically about ad spending patterns. Or, of course, to figure out who within Facebook decides to promote particular celebrities, as that person now appears to be the equivalent of whoever is in charge of the Suggested User List over at Twitter.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: InsideFacebook *)

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(* Source: Inside Facebook *)

Chick-fil-A and Pizza Hut were the first quick-serve restaurants to gain at least 1 million fans on their Facebook pages, but top fast food burger chain McDonald’s has closed the gap. It hit nearly 1.2 million fans by the end of last week, after adding some 250,000 fans on August 26th, and 400,000 more on August 28th.

Why the massive growth all at once? Quite likely, McDonald’s requested that Facebook fold some large unofficial fan Pages into its official Page. Facebook intends for Pages to be owned by companies themselves, so it has been helping various organizations do this already.

However, that is not to say that unofficial Pages accounted for all of McDonald’s growth. The official Page has been gaining roughly between 5,000 and 20,000 fans on more typical days in August. The steadiness of that growth suggests, first, that many of its “billions and billions served” were satisfied customers who wanted to express their loyalty by joining the page. It also suggests that some of the features on the Page are drawing additional people in.

The company actively posts few updates, and the ones they do post link to full-featured advertisements on its home site. Interestingly, the company has tried to duplicate some of these advertisements as tabs within the Page. For example, there’s an interactive ad on McDonalds.com about its Angus beef burgers, called Angus Axioms – on Facebook, that same interactive ad also appears on the landing tab. The Angus beef feature lets users browse the different elements of various styles of Angus burgers (browse your mouse over the bacon part and you’ll see a close up photo and a description of the bacon).

Chick-a-Fil and Pizza Hut have seen growth through highly customized integrations into Facebook, like photo contests and online ordering. McDonald’s hasn’t taken its page that far, but the rollup of its unofficial Pages shows that it cares — so watch for more from the company in the future.

Posted by brian tiong at 03:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Jeremiah Owyang *)

Jeremiah says...

Many brands are considering it, some have done it. Done what? Marketed on social networks (Facebook, Myspace, or private label social networks).

Why? Social Networks are attractive because consumers are connecting with other consumers and the trust tends to be higher. Secondly, there’s a tremendous amount of buzz from the media for this newest form of marketing. Lastly, there’s lots of folks using social networks (about 2/3rds of all North American youth use it daily, and about 1/3rd of NA adults use it as least once a month –data From Forrester Research, Q4, 2007)

What "Makes or Breaks" a social networking campaign? Is there an attribute(s) that makes social networking marketing campaigns a success?

Sadly, many brand are going to do it wrong, by wasting resources, or embarrassing their brand with a campaign that doesn’t fit the needs of a community. To help marketers do it right, and to save users from dealing with more bad campaigns, I’m going to do some research on the topic.

I’m a laaaazy (or is it efficient?) analyst, I use social media (what I cover) to help me with my research. Besides, the social collective is far smarter than some big headed analyst.

The following attributes are what I think are often found in successful social networking campaigns, but don’t let me be the judge, I want your input.

Meets a business objective: First and foremost, any marketing campaign or activity should match with a business objective, regardless of the tools being used.

Supports Community Goals: Every community is different, and each has unique goals (from supporting products, to each other, or to just be entertained) the campaign focus should therefore meet the needs of the community, before the needs of the marketer. Effective campaigns will first understand the core drivers, interests, and rituals of the community and learn how to meet those desires. (Expanded by Laurel Papworth)

Encourage Member Interaction: The most successful social networking campaigns and efforts involve the audience.

Quickly scale: Social networks are designed for information to quickly move from member to member, so campaigns that lean on these capabilities perform the best. These attributes known as Velocity, Viralness, and Spread are key.

Utilize Media: In some campaigns, the best way to get members to return is to offer them media. Depending on demographics and community needs, this could be audio, videos, or demos

Foster self-expression or communication: Members in social networks like to communicate with each other, or self-express. As a result, campaigns should satisfy these needs with the appropriate tools

Offer a satisfying User Experience: This encompasses the overall experience of the campaign, the content and navigation items should be where expected, the language familiar to the audience, and overall look and feel of the site appeasing.

Provide longer term utility: Successful campaigns have a longer term value, rather than a short term ‘disposble campaign”. These campaigns add value by being a useful application to the members, rather than just quick dose of entertainment.

Enhance Value as Community participants: As more people contribute or interact with the campaign, the value is increased. This can be in the form of content that is created by the community, contests, voting, or games.

Integration with other marketing activities: Successful marketing campaigns aren’t single channel, in fact they utilizie multiple channels and mediums to enhance the overall activity. The same thing applies to marketing campaigns on social networks, those that are promoted from other locations such as (corporate websites, email newsletter, blogs, podcasts) outside fo the social network have a great chance for success.

Maintain agility during the campaign: Social networks are living, breathing organisms made up of real people connecting with each other. Marketing campaigns also should share these attributes and show be flexible to change in-flight, yield to legitimate requests or complaints of the community. Those campaigns that reflect the same dynamic behavior as human interaction have a higher chance to be interacted –and accepted –by the community. (Submitted by Graham)

Company Participation: In some cases, companies that participate in the discussions or conversations will yield to a more successful marketing campaign. Activities can range from recognition, company interaction, or attention to members perhaps from a community manager (Submitted by Whitney McNamara, Esther Lim, Crimson Consulting, Warren Sukernek)

You add your attribute: Please leave a comment below, I welcome and respect your opinion. If you’re from a vendor in this space, feel free to leave your company name or email so I can properly credit you.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Inside Facebook *)

Posted by brian tiong at 09:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: eMarketer *)

Networking tools and privacy

Posted by brian tiong at 06:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: eMarketer *)

They do it all

Posted by brian tiong at 06:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mark Walsh *)

Mark says...

Giveaways pay on Facebook. Starbucks has surged past Coca-Cola to become the most popular corporate brand on the social network, powered by its recent free pastry promotion.

As of Thursday, Starbucks' Facebook page boasted 3.7 million fans compared to Coke's 3.5 million -- with their sites ranking 8th and 9th, respectively, among all pages, according to data compiled by Inside Facebook. (Fan pages for celebrities and prominent figures like Michael Jackson and Barack Obama generally top the list.)

A well-designed page, fun promotions and effective use of Engagement Ads on the Facebook home page have all helped Starbucks drive a large following on the social network, according to the Facebook-tracking blog. Promotions have played an especially big part lately.

Starbucks added 200,000 fans this week alone -- pushing it past Coke -- with its Free Pastry Day on July 21 allowing fans to print out coupons for complimentary pastries with any beverage purchase.

It's not the first giveaway campaign the coffee chain has run on Facebook. Earlier this month, it promoted the launch of branded ice cream by offering coupons for free pints through its Facebook application. Among other social media initiatives, Starbucks in May asked people to take photos of new outdoor advertising in several cities and post them on Twitter. And it used a YouTube video to promote its Election Day offer of free java to anyone who voted.

A report released earlier this week by social media platform Wetpaint and digital consulting firm Altimeter Group rated Starbucks the highest among the top 100 brands for its efforts in social media based on engagement across 10 categories including blogs, Facebook, Twitter and wikis.

"Free coupons can be a very viral way to do promotions on social networks, as long as it's a compelling offer," noted Justin Smith, editor of Inside Facebook. He pointed out that other companies such as Papa John's and Ben & Jerry's have also had success at making coupons available via Facebook.

What about erstwhile brand king Coke? The beverage giant's Facebook page, famously, wasn't created by the company but by a pair of Coke enthusiasts in Los Angeles. A case study of a brand "letting go." (Dusty Sorg and Michael Jedrzejewski have since been hired to co-manage the page with Coke's marketing team.)

The contrasting approaches of Starbucks and Coke to brand-building, however, suggest there's more than one way to bring consumers to a Facebook fan page. Then again, giving stuff away for free tends to draw a crowd anywhere. 

Posted by brian tiong at 05:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Giles Fitzgerald *)

Giles says...

Ted Baker’s new Born menswear range has launched a new campaign which will require dedication, stamina, and quite possibly ear plugs. In order to promote its new Born clothing range of shirts, polo shirts, T-shirts, and hoodies  - all aimed at a younger 18-24-year-old audience than its mainline brand - Born is setting a ‘Gig Race’ challenge. 

Contestants involved will have two weeks to attend as many gigs as they can, whilst blogging and twittering their exploits as they go. The eventual winner will walk away with £1,000 of Born by Ted Baker clothing and possibly a Guinness World Record for the most gigs attended in one week. As well as that Born has two tickets for his year’s sold out Bestival music event, featuring Kraftwerk, Lily Allen, Fleet Foxes and Massive Attack, to give away.

If you think you have what it takes to tackle this musical triathlon, then you can sign up via the link below.

www.bornbytedbaker.com

http://twitter.com/bornbytedbaker

Posted by brian tiong at 05:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Simon Beaumont *)

Wired magazine reports...

The iTunes music store sells single songs at approximately the same price, with artist presented in more or less the same way.

Apple’s app store, however, is still somewhat like the wild west (at least as far as music goes), where the rules are being made up in real time. Artists and labels can sell music alongside other digital offerings through the app store at any price from zero to $999.99.

As we suggested last summer, this creates an opportunity for artists and labels to distribute a new type of product, especially because the app store concept is spreading to other mobile phone platforms.

On Monday, six of the 20 most recently submitted music apps to appear in the App Store featured a single artist: Jason Carver, Jessica Harp, Jimmy Cliff, John Butler Trio, Kadence, or The Cribs. Each showcases music videos, photos, news, photo-jumble games, concert listings, and/or community features that let fans share photos with each other. And all of them were made with iLike’s iPhone app toolkit — as was Ingrid Michaelson’s app, pictured to the right.

Since iLike launched the service in May, about 250 of the over 300,000 artists with access to iLike’s dashboard feature have launched customized iPhone apps through the system.

“We’re encouraged by the positive response our create-your-own-app platform has generated, and this is only the beginning,” said iLike CEO Ali Partovi. (The company also announced a new version of its Local Concerts app on Tuesday, with concert listings based on your music library, push notification for shows, maps to venues, and concert information sharing.)

These artist-specific apps, which labels also develop in-house, place a constantly-updating tattoo on fans’ phones. It’s like having a music subscription, but in the sense of a fan club, rather than in the sense of subscribing to music in general as one would with Rhapsody.

Many of iLike’s music apps are free and promotional. Other apps contain full songs, and cost money.

Dave Dederer, former singer and guitarist for the Presidents of the United States of America and current Melodeo business development vice president, released one of the first of these, which charged $3 for four albums plus exclusive material. His company sells another $3 app containing streaming versions of top 100 hip hop songs in the iTunes store (iTunes link).

The app store broke the rules for selling music through iTunes, and the ramifications of that are beginning to be felt. Now that iLike has allowed app creation to scale across hundreds of thousands of bands, and other mobile platforms are emulating Apple’s modular app concept, the artist-specific app could — in addition to being the new MySpace page — become a formidable music format in its own right.

If that happens, the idea of buying a bundle of music won’t die with the album — it will survive with the app.

Posted by brian tiong at 05:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Christopher Mack *)

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(* Source: Ben Parr *)

Ben says...

Okay, so what happens when you get an invite from a friend about his or her wedding? You get a few invites, probably a link to TheKnot, and maybe a list of pre-approved things you can buy the couple. Even if you’re one of the bridesmaids, you’re probably just trying to figure out what the bride wants you to do over a series of frantic phone calls. Information gets lost, good suggestions go down the drain, and friends don’t get involved.

That’s why OneWed’s approach intrigues us. The wedding planning website has launched Wedding Pre-Party, a new website that essentially creates your own private (and organized) version of Facebook () where friends and guests can share tips, add photos, and keep informed about all the fun (and terror) leading up to the big day.

Organize Your Wedding, Bring in Your Friends

The site’s set up primarily in the form of a news feed – those who are invited to the a wedding pre-party website can add comments, propose a toast, add wedding tips (useful if you’ve been through it before), and provide stark and truthful info on weddings (on top of that, the bride and groom can ask for inspiration for new ideas). This conversation feed is a great feedback tool for you to reach your closest friends.

OneWed’s also made it easy for your friends to sign up by integrating with Facebook Connect. Thus, when they sign in, your picture and info will already be available. You can also invite friends via Gmail () or Yahoo Mail.

The site has a couple of other useful features for organizing the wedding. The checklist allows anyone involved in planning the wedding to add tasks, assign due dates, and categorize them. Even better, there’s already a set of standard wedding to-dos in the checklist. However, you might start crying when you see how long the list is (hint: it’s over 70). Nobody said planning a wedding was easy.

In terms of customization, OneWed’s Wedding Pre-Party tool is solid; you can add new webpages, like the story of your engagement or a gift registry, with very little hassle. You can also change themes and create a vanity URL so friends can easily type in your wedding website’s URL. The ability to designate specific users as bridesmaids or groomsmen also exists, which makes for easy categorization.

If you want to try it out without making your own wedding, OneWed has a “crashable wedding” -that, after you ask to be invited, will automatically allow you in so you can play around with it for yourself.

Socializing Life Events

This is the type of practical social media that can transform how we manage our personal lives. Weddings can quickly become messy and stressful affairs. Managing friends, appointments, and parties requires help and the ability to get things done in a streamlined fashion. OneWed is betting big that you want to get all of your friends involved in your wedding, while keeping it organized. We think their wager is spot-on.

OneWed follows in the footsteps of other social tools focused on making the events of your life social. thisMoment (), for example, creates vivid social media scrapbooks while Timetoast transforms a series of events into an interactive timeline.

Social media is incredibly effective at connecting friends for common causes. There are few times where those connections are more important than a wedding. OneWed’s Wedding Pre-Party platform effectively organizes your wedding while adding in the social element. It alleviates a lot of worries and saves time so you can focus on one thing: enjoying the best day of your life.

Posted by brian tiong at 06:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Chris Lynch *)

Chris says...

As Facebook expands its reach globally, international brands should appeal to local audiences with their public profile pages. At least, that’s the thinking of adidas, the German footwear maker, which launched a “Your Area” tab on its Facebook profile. It allows the 1.8 million fans of the adidas Facebook page to view content from their local countries where they buy sneakers and other products.

The page will target 13 countries with the Your Area tab, including the U.S, China, and several throughout Europe. While the features adidas packed into the new tab mirror that of normal profiles (such as “videos” and “news feed”), it makes the profile more interactive and engaging.

A list of the features include:

1. A News Feed with local content, featuring links, events and promotions.
2. A photo and video viewer, featuring adidas products (and the people who use them).
3. “adidas buzz,” a twitter feed about adidas products in your local area, including some promotions.
4. A link to the adidas store finder.

The page also helps local stores target their specific fans. Local adidas managers, for example, can feature products and post content to the page. They can also tag new products, and provide liks to the adidas e-store.

More here

Posted by brian tiong at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: b-side *)

We heading down to HCMC in Vietnam and were looking at the state of the nation in terms of social media.  Here are a couple of finds:

Bryan Pelz - Founder and CEO of Vinagame on Vietnam online advertising:

Huyen Chip on Twitter in Vietnam and a couple of clones:

Posted by brian tiong at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It’s festival season, so this may be a welcome addition to the gigantic directory of music-related information websites and applications already out there on the Web, particularly for live gig buffs. Setlist.fm is an awesome free wiki site (although they prefer to call it a “wiki-like service”) that aims to become the biggest repository of live performance track lists with the help of music fans across the globe.

The good thing about Setlist.fm is that the goal is to collect the real setlists, meaning which tracks artists and bands actually play at live gigs rather than what the setlist says they will. If you have any basic knowledge about the live music industry, you know that those are two completely separate things.

To submit and edit setlists, you don’t necessarily need to register, although the startup behind the site recommends that you do. Once you add tracks for a certain gig, say Metallica’s performance at the Sonisphere Festival in Hockenheim, Germany from last week, the back-end of the system will automatically check the web for a playable stream of the tune, YouTube videos and the lyrics. The site will also auto-generate statistics for artists and bands (example for Metallica) which gives you a good overview of their performance history and what their most played songs at live gigs are.

Setlist.fm comes with a decent internal search engine and enables visitors to easily share the setlist in their Last.fm event review or embed it on their own website or blog. For example, here is the setlist of U2’s concert at Camp Nou in Barcelona, Spain from the beginning of this month:

As an aside, this is most probably the first project that we cover that hails all the way from the tiny nation of Liechtenstein. Which goes to show good ideas can come out of countries with less than 40,000 inhabitants too.

Nice one!

Posted by brian tiong at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Daniel says..

Twitter seems to be the hottest thing in tech recently — if you look at TechCrunch, it averages at least 3 posts a week about Twitter. But the bigger question is, who is really using Twitter? Many of you might think that, as with most of the latest gadgets and technologies, teenagers are using Twitter, but you’re wrong, and here’s why. Matthew Robson, a 15 year old intern, over at Morgan Stanley, wrote a report on how teenagers are consuming media, and why Twitter isn’t the hot topic in high school halls.

If you look at technologies trending with teens right now, it’s Apple devices (iPhone, iPod), smart phones (Blackberry, Palm), and then social networks (Facebook and MySpace). At least that’s what I see from hanging out with 1,500 other teenagers in high school every day (I am 16 years old). But why not Twitter? Well, because Twitter is a different type of social network than Facebook. Facebook is about connecting people, and sharing information with each other. The way my friends and I see it, Facebook is a closed network. It’s a network of people and friends that you trust to be connected to, and to share information like your email address, AIM screen name, and phone number. You know who’s getting your status messages, because you either approved or added each person to your network.

With Twitter, it’s the exact opposite. Anyone can follow your status updates. It’s a completely open network that makes teenagers feel “unsafe” about posting their content there, because who knows who will read it. Sure, you get emails notifying you when you have new followers, but that doesn’t compare to the level of detail you get when someone on Facebook adds you, and you get their information.

According to June, 2009 comScore numbers, 11.3% of visitors to Twitter.com in the U.S. are ages 12-17. Internationally, in May, 2009, only 4.4% of visitors were younger then 18.

Twitter is also seen as more expensive to keep up with than Facebook. Most of my friends spend their time playing video games, watching TV, surfing online, and text messaging to actual friends who you know will reply back. In an economy like this, most parents don’t want to spend the extra money on unlimited texting to total strangers. So why spend money on sending SMS updates to Twitter, when you can send updates to someone you know will read it and reply?

Facebook has a more dedicated community than Twitter, which is why teenagers want to use it. Maybe the reason Twitter still isn’t considered mainstream quite yet is because Gen Y isn’t the early adopter this time around.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Leana says...

The gap between Facebook and MySpace is growing wider in the U.S. In May, Facebook finally caught up to MySpace in unique U.S. visitors and surpassed its rival social network by a smidgeon. Last month, Facebook left MySpace in the dust, according to June data from comScore. Facebook reached 77 million unique visitors for the month of June, rising from 70.28 million unique visitors in May. MySpace had 68.4 million unique visitors in June, dropping from 70.25 million unique visitors in May.

Facebook is steadily growing in the U.S.; the network gained just under 7 million unique visitors in June compared to a gain of 2.8 million U.S. unique visitors in May. In comparison, MySpace lost nearly 4 million unique visitors in June, compared to 700,000 unique visitors lost in May. While Facebook is growing both in the U.S. and internationally, MySpace appears to be stagnating.

The widening of the gap between the rival social networks network comes at a time when MySpace is under new management and recently terminated two-thirds of its international staff, laying off staff in countries where MySpace is being trounced by Facebook. MySpace’s international numbers were startling. For example, in India, where social networking is growing fast, Facebook had 6.4 million unique visitors in May, compared to 848,000 unique visitors to MySpace. In our most recent model of the true value of social networks, MySpace fell below Facebook, dropping from the top spot last year.

MySpace still generates more page views than Facebook. In June, MySpace had 32.4 billion page views in the U.S., but that number dropped 10 percent in a single month, from May (gulp). Facebook is catching up there as well, with 21.3 billion page views in June, a 12 percent increase from May. And worldwide, Facebook is already ahead. As we reported a few months ago, worldwide monthly page views for MySpace declined from 47.4 billion a year ago to 38 billion in April, a 20% drop. In that same period Facebook grew from 44 billion to 87 billion, a roughly 100% increase. MySpace’s user number growth has stalled out also, and developers are reporting that activity on MySpace is decreasing at a dramatic rate, as high as “half a percent a week.”

A decline in user numbers isn’t the only predicament that MySpace is in—there is speculation that the social network could lose one of its major revenue streams in the near future. In 2010, MySpace will be receiving its last “welfare payment” from Google (stemming from an advertising deal between News Corp. and Google struck in 2006), after which it looks like it will be cut off. Under the terms of the agreement, MySpace will receive $300 million over the next year if the network hits certain search pageview requirements, which considering the recent data on page views, may not happen.

Meanwhile, Facebook shows no signs of slowing down. The network successfully launched its “vanity URLs,” in June, with millions of users signing up for the new feature within days. The network also got some notice around its use during the Iran elections and protests, and around the new privacy settings surrounding its “Everyone” button.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mashables *)

Sharlyn Lauby says...

I spent many years of my career in the hospitality business and the first rule of thumb when dealing with customers was, “if a guest had a positive experience, they’ll tell 3 people and if they had a negative experience, they’ll tell 10.” That same idea holds true in the new media world, except the numbers have grown exponentially. Instead of it being 3 people – it’s 3,000, or instead of 10 – it’s perhaps 100,000. The numbers aren’t meant to scare you. But what should you do when something goes wrong?

Our goal, of course, hasn’t changed – work to increase the number of positive comments written about your company, product, or service and take care of those who have negative experiences. But, how do you make that happen in the social media world? What steps to you take to keep negative social media damage to a minimum?

Minimize the damage

Before we even talk about how to fix what goes wrong, let’s talk about the positives. One of the best ways to minimize social media damage is to proactively create an environment that encourages positive feedback. There are two main things you should do to keep the accolades coming.

1. Foster a positive culture. There are plenty of studies showing that if your employees are happy, they will deliver good service to customers. Not only does this minimize potential damage, but it leverages your brand in a very positive way. Keeping your employees engaged and letting them know how they fit into the corporate culture goes a long way.

Case in point: I recently returned from a conference in New Orleans where Harvard Professor John Kotter showed us an old video of a Roto Rooter employee who had pimped out his van to make his job easier. It had everything from pull down maps (obviously this dated prior to the Garmin) to a makeshift toilet. The point is, this employee created all of these conveniences for himself so he could spend more time servicing customers. How many of your employees are doing that?

2. Train employees on the proper use of social media tools. Your employees represent your organization, and if they have a solid, credible personal brand, it will carry over to the company’s image.

It’s not enough to allow employees to have Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. Organizations need to show employees the proper way to use them. For example, Zappos employees are not only encouraged to have Twitter accounts, but they receive training during company orientation on how to use the application. Again, if your employees use social media well, it will benefit both those employees and the organization.

Keep in mind, however, that someday the other shoe might drop. Many companies have fallen prey to negative press, so don’t put your head in the sand. It’s not about “if” something will happen; it’s about “when.” In this transparent, authentic and real-time world, expect a hiccup to occur. But be prepared.

In the end, the issue is less about the mistake that was made, but the reaction that came after. So, here are some tips to follow if you find yourself in a damage control mode.

1. Monitor social media sites 24/7

Daniel Ruby, director of marketing at advertising network Chitika, recently had an issue where McAfee flagged one of their ads, thus making their entire network have issues with aggressive McAfee antivirus alerts. Ruby credits Twitter for alerting them to the issue. “We actually found out from one of our publishers who was telling a reader via Twitter as well as the comments box on his site that our ads were why his site was giving McAfee users a red flag,” he said.

From there, Chitika could respond to concerned users (also via Twitter), and keep users up-to-date on the steps they were taking to fix the problem.

2. Respond quickly with a consistent message

No matter how proactive you are, customers will start to question your organization when they see problems. And, whenever there is an information void, those customers will tend to fill in the gaps with their own thoughts on what the cause may be. That’s why it is important to respond to issues quickly, even if the message is just, “we’re looking into it.”

Ruby elaborated that he “reached out to the publisher via his comments box, letting him know what happened and what Chitika was doing to resolve it.” He also kept him updated via Twitter (apologizing as profusely as one can in 140 characters).

Communication is key here. Make sure each employee knows the same message all the way down the chain of command. And, when that message changes, don’t forget to communicate those changes. This serves two purposes; (1) it gives the public a sense that you have your arms around the issue; and (2) it gives your employees a sense of unity – working together to solve a common problem.

3. Reply to the social media world

These situations are not contained to just a certain type of organization. For example, following a meeting of Ignite Phoenix in Tempe, Arizona that was attended by over 600 people, a number of attendees had their cars towed after parking in a privately owned lot. “The social media response was immediate and spread like wildfire. It went from Twitterverse to mainstream TV in just a day,” said Kris Baxter, the City’s Community Development Marketing Specialist.

The City worked some of the key organizers of the event to get the matter resolved. This was their first time reacting in real-time/social media environment, so they decided to tweet responses versus waiting for the newspaper.

Baxter explained, “Because we reacted quickly online to solve the problem, our reputation took substantially less of a hit than it might have. People who blogged and tweeted about the experience actually started writing comments such as ‘seems as though Tempe cares and is looking into it.’” Since then, the City has been working with the property owner to sign the lot more clearly and they’re redefining their towing ordinance.

4. Educate employees on proper messaging

In today’s technology age, a company’s brand image belongs to the consumer, so using social media tools to learn, communicate, and evolve makes for a better, more flexible company. “People have an infinite number of ways and places to talk about your brand (or any number of other topics), and if you don’t go where they are, you don’t know what they’re saying,” Ruby told me.

If you make a mistake, own up to it. Recently, for example, European furniture maker Habitat was caught spamming Twitter. Their response was an apology. No skirting the issue. No blaming a computer glitch. So in the end, the old cliché that honesty is the best policy still holds true.

5. Develop a Crisis Strategy

While I’ve spent the majority of this post talking about how to respond when crisis hits, it’s important to realize that sometimes the best response is no response at all. It’s easy to get sucked into the flurry of activity and turn a molehill into a mountain.

These can be tricky waters to navigate. Obviously, if you have a public relations firm, you want to tap into their expertise in creating a response strategy. But let’s say you don’t and something happens… what can you do? Jenni Brand from Bastille Marketing offered up some terrific suggestions:

1. Assemble a team of trusted employees who are willing to work round the clock (it won’t be for long – just a few days at most) to help you evaluate the situation and possibly respond

2. Assess the situation online by harnessing the tools that are publicly available, such as Google Search, Blogs, Technorati, Twitter Search and Who’s Talkin’. Also watch RSS feeds to the online publications of both mainstream and industry media sources.

3. Track these sources constantly to see what and how the situation is developing. Watch the “attacker’s” website or blog as well. They may change their tune or consumers may react negatively and post comments about it on their site.

Then assess the situation:

– Trend the volume of response and the type of consumer reaction over time: Is it growing or waning? Is it supportive or negative? How is this changing over time?

– Identify what your target audience’s reaction is. This will determine your response. Remember: your response could validate that there is an issue and may further perpetuate a negative situation.

I asked Brand how organizations should evaluate the need for response once organizations have all this info. Here’s her take on how to respond (if at all):

– If consumers are silent on the situation, continue to monitor but don’t respond publicly. Assess the need to respond on an ongoing basis – hourly, twice daily, daily, etc.

– If consumers are demanding a response, be sure that the initial upswell of outrage has passed and that the issue is, in fact, continuing. The online audience is fickle – if something more interesting breaks in the news, they may abandon your issue to move on to something more “important.”

– When responding, be sure to really listen and determine what consumers want – do they just want an apology/acknowledgment or do they demand change? Be sure to address these things in your response.

– DO NOT RESPOND too quickly, too thoroughly, in too much of a ‘corporate’ tone or via a press release posted on your website (as the sole response mechanism). These tactics are typically not well-received in the social media landscape.

People like Kris Baxter and the City of Tempe are the ones that “get it” where social media is concerned: “Our situation showed that social media is not only a means of getting out your positive, proactive messages but also a means to protect your brand and react to negative situations to resolve them quickly and positively,” said Kris. Well said.

Posted by brian tiong at 05:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mark Hefflinger *)

The founders of gadget news blogs Gizmodo and Engadget have teamed to launch GDGT, a gadget-focused online social network.

The site was launched on Wednesday by Pete Rojas, the founder of Gizmodo and co-founder of Engadget, and Ryan Block, the editor of Engadget.

The site will not produce original news content or reviews, as do Gizmodo and Engadget, but instead aggregate news and reviews, and allow users to post their own gadget reviews.

Users can also create profiles and list their stable of gadgets, as well as wish lists.

Block told The New York Times that the gadget blogs focus on only 5% of a device's lifecycyle, the "lust phase," while GDGT will address "the 95 percent of the time you own the product there is nowhere to go. We are building the place where you can live with your gadgets online in perpetuity." 

See site here

Posted by brian tiong at 01:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Scott McClelland *)

Jeremiah Owyang from Forester Research in Silicon Valley says...

All Social Networks

Techcrunch has listed out comscore’s numbers across multiple social networks, Sources: Techcrunch via Comscore, Jan 1, 2009

Compete has released stats in Feb, comments by Cnet. Unique Visitors, Total Visitors and rank information. Cnet, Feb 10, 2009

Nielsen Online shows that: Social networks and blogs are now the 4th most popular online activity ahead of personal email, Member communities are visited by 67% of the global online population, time spent is growing at 3 times the overall internet rate, accounting for almost 10% of all internet time, PDF, Nielsen Online, March

Nielsen reports that Social Networks 68% more popular than email 65% (but not by much), Nielsen, Cnet, March 2009

Techcrunch has an interesting application that shows which social networks dominate by country, June 2009

Facebook

Facebook has some very limited stats on their own website, view here, Facebook, often updated

150 million people around the world are now actively using Facebook and almost half of them are using Facebook every day. This includes people in every continent—even Antarctica. If Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia and Nigeria. Facebook is used in more than 35 different languages and 170 countries and territories. Source: Mark Zuckerberg, Jan 7, 2009

Facebook has 54.5 million monthly unique visitors, says Comscore, with a growth rate in the U.S. averaged 3.8% per month over the last year. Source, Comscore via Techncrunch, Jan 13, 2009

175mm users, with 600k daily growth of users, with the fastest growing segment “45% of Facebook’s US audience is now 26 years old or older.” Inside Facebook, Feb 15th, 2009.

Compare the dominant Facebook vs MySpace traffic, stickablilty, and engagement, Compete, Feb 27, 2009

Despite those that have over 100 friends, most only communicate with a smaller subset of friends, and the rest is broadcasting to others. Now there’s not enough data presented to see if if content actually can still spread across those that do not interact. Source originally from Facebook’s sociologist, Feb 2009

This graph from Compete data shows Facebook has more users than MySpace, note the ‘crossing of the streams’, Compete, March

Inside Facebook says: “the number of Americans over 35, 45, and 55 on Facebook is growing fast. In the last 60 days alone, the number of people over 35 has nearly doubled. Developers and marketers may want to think about how to serve this group of new users.” Inside Facebook, March

“Women over 55 remain the fastest growing group, and growth among the teen and college-age set has been relatively paltry. In absolute numbers there are now even slightly more members between the ages of 45 and 65 than there are 13-to 17-year-olds.” Wired Magazine, March.

Facebook Ranks as Top Social Networking Site in the Majority of European Countries. Facebook Captures #1 Ranking in Spain for the First Time in February, comScore, April

Facebook dominates US visitors over MySpace: “Facebook pulled in 70.278 million unique visitors in the states, compared to MySpace’s 70.237 million, according to data released by ComScore. That made Facebook the most popular site in the U.S., in terms of visitors. Just a month earlier, Facebook had a little over 67 million U.S. visitors behind MySpace’s 70.9 million.” PC Mag,, June 16

Hi5

60 million reported users, and Hi5 has introduced a gaming component. VentureBeat, Feb 5, 2009

LinkedIn

“the site’s traffic is up in the recession. It hit 36 million members last Monday and is adding them at a rate of about one member per second. According to ComScore, it’s gone from about 3.6 million unique monthly visitors a year ago to 7.7 million today, Adage, March 2

Microsoft: Live, Hotmail, Messenger

Number of active WL IDs: More than 500 million active Windows Live Ids. Number of Hotmail Users: More than 375 million active accounts worldwide. Number of Messenger Users: More than 320 million active accounts worldwide. As told to me by Microsoft in April

MySpace

76 million members in MySpace US, with a U.S. growth rate of 0.8% per month Comscore via Techncrunch, Jan 13, 2009

“The average MySpace user now spends 266 minutes (4.4 hours) on the site every month; a 5% increase over last month and a +31% increase year over year. MySpace says its users spend nearly 100 minutes more per visitor than the closest competitor.” Social media bible (who cites a press release), Feb, 2009

Compare the dominant Facebook vs MySpace traffic, stickablilty, and engagement, (repeated from the Facebook category above) Compete, Feb 27, 2009

Facebook dominates US visitors over MySpace: “Facebook pulled in 70.278 million unique visitors in the states, compared to MySpace’s 70.237 million, according to data released by ComScore. That made Facebook the most popular site in the U.S., in terms of visitors. Just a month earlier, Facebook had a little over 67 million U.S. visitors behind MySpace’s 70.9 million.” PC Mag,, June 16

Twitter
Having spent time with Ev and Biz, they don’t provide a lot of data and certainly not a total user count, as a result, we often have to estimate based on the following sources.

According to Compete, the growth rate for Twitter was 752%, for a total of 4.43 million unique visitors in December 2008, in the start of 2008, Twitter had only around 500,000 unique monthly visitors. Source: Mashable/Compete, Jan 9, 2009

Demographics of Twitter: Lots of stats here: 11% of online adults use Twitter or update their status online

Twitter users are mobile, less tethered by technology, Pew Research, Feb 12

Quantcast data on Twitter indicates that Twitter.com is a top 500 site that reaches over 4.1 million U.S. monthly people. The site attracts a more educated, slightly more female than male, young adult audience. Quantcast, March

Compete shows that Twitter is receiving 8million unique visitors in the month of March 2009. Compete (via Nick) March 10

Comscore data shows that “In February, 4 million people in the U.S. visited the site, up from 2.6 million the month before, according to the latest data from comScore. That represents a 55 percent month-over-month growth rate, compared to 33 percent growth in each of the two months prior.” Comscore, March

Unique visitors to Twitter increased 1,382 percent year-over-year, from 475,000 unique visitors in February 2008 to 7 million in February 2009, making it the fastest growing site in the Member Communities category for the month, Nielsen, March

“Worldwide visitors to Twitter approached 10 million in February, up an impressive 700+% vs. year ago. The past two months alone have seen worldwide visitors climb more than 5 million visitors. U.S. traffic growth has been just as dramatic, with Twitter reaching 4 million visitors in February, up more than 1,000% from a year ago.” Comscore, April

Xing

Xing has 6.5 million users, many of which have paid accounts.

2008 Stats

Need more? I have stats compiled in 2008 for AdultFriendFinder, Bebo, Digg, MySpace, Hi5, and many others.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Brian Solis *)

Twitter connects people through a rich and active exchange of ideas, thoughts, observations, and interests in one, highly collaborative and promising ecosystem. The Twitterverse advances micro interaction and connections through an expanding network of applications, engendering the potential for macro reach and resonance online and IRL (in real life).

Posted by brian tiong at 09:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

MG Siegler says... Time Magazine recently called YouTube one of the of the past decade, which was hilarious. Hilarious in that the site is by far and away the most popular site for video on the web, and has revolutionized the way we view videos, period. Today brings another amazing stat about the site: Every single minute, over 20 hours of video are now uploaded to YouTube.

Think about that for a minute. In that minute, nearly a days worth of footage will have been uploaded. And the pace is quickening. Back in 2007, shortly after Google bought the service, it was 6 hours of footage being uploaded every minute. As recently as January of this year, that number had grown to 15 hours, according to the YouTube blog. Now it’s 20 — soon it will be 24. That’s insane.

It’s true that YouTube is not making Google any money, but when a site has this much dominance over a market, one way or another, there will be a way to effectively monetize it. The big Hollywood studios are already showing an increasing interest in using the platform, as are others — like ESPN.

Meanwhile, YouTube continues to become a bigger part of Google’s larger social picture. Today, the service added a way to immediately record a video response to a video after you watch it. Sure, this is basically what Seesmic has been doing for a while now — but Seesmic doesn’t have 20 hours of video being uploaded every minute.

Posted by brian tiong at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

More than a social phenomenon, Facebook harbors a lively and growing ecosystem of game and other application makers, ad networks and retailers of virtual goods. What happens when businesses running on Facebook become bigger than Facebook itself?

Not all the developer revenue is from advertising. San Francisco-based Zynga, the top developer on Facebook with more than 41 million users, according to AllFacebook.com, makes much of its revenue from the sale of chips for its Texas HoldEm Poker or weapons in Mafia Wars. Zynga is expected to break the $100-million-sales mark in 2009, split between Facebook and MySpace. In addition to Zynga, there are at least a half dozen other companies in the $10 million to $50 million range, as well as many smaller players.

"It wouldn't surprise me if apps on Facebook generate more revenue this year than Facebook," said LivingSocial CEO Tim O'Shaughnessy, whose app is Facebook's most popular at the moment, thanks to its "Pick Your Five" feature. "The overall platform is in the hundreds of millions of dollars."

Lisa Marino, who runs West Coast business development for RockYou, estimates developers will earn $300 million from Facebook this year primarily from three streams: virtual currency, branded sponsorships and ad-network inventory. "These are three strong revenue models that Facebook isn't participating in but that might overall be bigger than what Facebook brings in revenue," she said.

No charge for developers
Unlike News Corp. unit MySpace, which took a hard turn toward commerce in 2008, Facebook has stressed ubiquity of its platform over revenue. Its strategy is to become a conduit for as much of the world's communication as possible and part of that has been to not charge developers to use the platform, no matter how much revenue they generate from it.

That's about to change. Facebook is testing a payments system with some of its developers that would enable one-click buying of virtual goods and services on the Facebook platform, with Facebook taking either a percentage of the transaction or a flat fee. In addition, Facebook is testing a service to allow users or advertisers to buy and trade "credits" or a virtual currency to facilitate commerce. Spokesman Brandon McCormick said three tests of the system will commence in the coming weeks.

That the developer community will soon overshadow the platform in revenue is a sign that Facebook is growing up as a platform, but it also presents a conundrum as it attempts to develop its own advertising business. Facebook profile pages, and the stream of social connections and information they contain, have proven a tough environment for advertising. Display ads in social networks are some of the cheapest inventory in the business. Facebook is pushing "engagement ads" -- surveys, quizzes or games that encourage interaction, but a big chunk of its revenue comes from a pre-existing ad deal with Microsoft.

Applications, on the other hand, have proved fertile ground for commerce. "Once the user goes from their profile into the app platform, whether to play a game, send a virtual gift or check stocks, then its not about connecting with people; it's about having fun or saving time and money," said Buddy Media CEO Michael Lazerow. "There are a lot of different ways to monetize that."

Pennies add up
While there are plenty of ad networks and companies making branded applications and games, the biggest source of revenue in the applications come from small payments people make, say in games like Mafia War to restore health more quickly. Unlike advertising, the payments business has grown internationally along with Facebook's audience. Players in Singapore are plunking down pennies along with users in the U.S. As a game gets big, it starts to add up. The top five "megahit" games make between $1 million and $3 million a month.

Adding a payments system would allow Facebook to dip a toe in the developers' strongest source of revenue, and for the first time create a business relationship between Facebook and its developers. "In the past they've made it hard to give them money even if we wanted to," Mr. Lazerow said.

Max Levchin, founder and CEO of Slide, creator of SuperPoke, Top Friends and Funspace, believes there probably should be a commercial relationship between Facebook and the developers that rely on its platform for their business. "As long as they add to the bottom line, developers will pay the price."

Posted by brian tiong at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

 (* Source: Alison Driscoll *)

Alison Driscoll is an interactive copywriter and social media consultant who specializes in Facebook. She authors a blog at alisondriscoll.com.

Not even a year ago, Facebook was still being dismissed as a silly site intended to help college kids slack off. Indeed, that is what helped the social network take hold with a large number of users, but it has proven its worth in business and by now, nearly everyone is on board. Companies of all sizes are scrambling to get on the site and reach both new and current customers with a Facebook Page, the Facebook preferred method for user interaction with a brand, company or public figure.

An effective Facebook Page not only attracts fans, but is sticky so that fans keep coming back and may even share the content on the Page. To do that, you need a well thought out Page that has some great applications supported by good, relevant content. Here are eight essential apps for your brand’s Facebook page:

Applications

1. Facebook Notes

This app was originally a Facebook feature that they then converted into an application; as such, it is sponsored and maintained by Facebook and less likely to break or be abandoned. Set this application up to pull in the RSS feed from your blog or other content source and it will automatically bring everything into Facebook and show all of your friends that you’ve posted a new Note.

This notification system is important for staying on their radar and is more visible than an RSS Reader, or mini-blog as I like to call it, but lacks many formatting capabilities; it’s best to think of Notes and an RSS Reader as working hand in hand. Start here to get content coming into your Page, then move on to the RSS Reader.

2. Blog RSS Feed Reader

I may have jumped ahead a bit with the Notes recommendation, but I am assuming that most companies have, or could have, a blog. If you don’t, work on that before Facebook, for many more reasons than I could get into here. But if you already have a blog, good news: there are tons of blog and RSS apps out there, but I’ve done the leg work and I found this one offered more functionality, better customization (you can pick an image to make your Facebook mini-blog look more like your actual blog) and a greater sense of control. It can be a bit buggy, but it’s worth persisting for the level of customization, and therefore attention grabbing potential.

3. Twitter App

Again, this assumes that you have a Twitter account, but if you’re reading this and working on a Facebook Page, my guess is you do. Or you at least know you should have one. If not, set one up before adding this application to your new Facebook Page. This will automatically pull your tweets into your Facebook status, and it puts a cute little Twitter-themed box on your profile, so everyone knows you’re cool enough to be on Twitter. It also saves you time in updating AND ensures profile activity to keep you relevant.

4. Static FBML

Neither Facebook Pages nor Profiles allow any type of HTML in the main content section, but you can add FBML and HTML applications to add more stylized elements to a Page, like clickable images, anchor text and interactive content. The Static FBML app allows you to add advanced functionality to a page by placing a customizable box in which you can render HTML or FBML (Facebook Markup Language), giving you free reign over the space to add images, video, stylized text and almost whatever else you want. This app was developed by Facebook, so it’s fully supported and not prone to the problems of some third party applications.

5. Extended Info

In the Extended Info box you can use HTML to customize any kind of content and create numerous fields beyond the standard Information categories; you can also name the box anything you want so it matches your page perfectly. This app works much like the Static FBML application but is slightly easier to use. Although not developed by Facebook, it is highly ranked and provides a nice alternative or second customizable box option on a page.

6. Flash Player

This Flash application, also developed by Facebook, will add a box to your Page in which you can upload your own Flash files to achieve advanced customization and play any kind of Flash video, widget or game. It can be renamed to maintain the integrity of the page and keep the look and feel consistent with your brand.

7. Posted Items Pro

With Posted Items Pro you can embed multiple YouTube, Yahoo, and Google Videos, music mp3s, sites, files, and more onto your profile and Facebook pages. You can add any variety of these elements, making it great for a media center or press section.

8. Something Unique

If you have the resources, add some personality to your profile with a fun, irreverent application that you create just for your Page. This could be tied into your brand in multiple ways; try to think of something that people outside of Facebook would appreciate or enjoy that will remind them of who created it and keep them coming back, like a game or contest.

Brands that get it right

In order to stay relevant on Facebook, you need to continually update your Page and use the site. The more actions you take, the more you appear in a fan’s News Feed. This keeps you in their mind, and in their friend’s Feeds when they interact with you. But updating content will do more than keep you on the News Feed; it will also help make your Facebook Page sticky by offering fans an incentive to remain a supporter and come back more than once; one of the best way to do that is to provide some unique benefit to fans: exclusive content, secret contests or insider access to information before non-fans.

If you have a good brand, product or service with a strong website behind it, building a Facebook Page should be fairly easy. But if you need a few examples or inspiration, check out these Pages that definitely get it right:

VS Pink Victoria’s Secret

PINK collection is aimed at college girls, so Facebook is a natural fit, and this Page nails it. They are my most frequent example when explaining effective use of Facebook. This Page makes good use of HTML and FBML apps and provides lots of contests and exclusive stuff for Facebook fans.

Britney Spears

A childhood favorite of many avid Facebook users, Britney is taking Twitter by storm and her Facebook Page is not far behind. Britney sends out tons of Updates to fans and posts plenty of sneak peeks on Facebook.

Zappos

Lots of videos means plenty of opportunity for laughing and sharing. Zappos is almost always mentioned as a social media success story, and they’re working on making their Facebook Page meet the brand image.

Target

Target has managed to break free of the Wal-Mart stigma and position itself as a hip and budget conscious alternative to mall stores. They’ve chose to direct visitors to their “Vote” tab, where not only is Target donating to a good cause, it’s encouraging fans to participate and spread the word to their friends with interactive voting.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Robin Wauters *)

Robin reports...

Sharing links on Twitter can be quite a pain when you need to input a web address that consumes most of the space you have at your disposal for your micro-message. The startup realized that quickly and automatically started shortening long URLs to make its users save on space for their 140-character updates.

To get this implemented, Twitter went with TinyURL, a service that shortens URLs down signficantly (but not extremely) and at the time had been around for years already. It never gave a reason for this choice, but it did provide TinyURL with a lot of exposure and a lot of extra traffic.

Those days are over. Apparently, Twitter has silently replaced TinyURL as its default URL shortening service with bit.ly, a competing service that launched quite recently and not too long ago raised $2 million from several prominent angel investors.

This is actually not that much of a surprise. Betaworks, the startup accelerator behind Twitter related companies such as Summize (acquired by Twitter in July 2008), is also behind bit.ly, and it just happens to also count early Twitter investors and advisors Chris Sacca and Ron Conway as their own backers.

Which obviously prompts this inevatible question: does the move signal Twitter paving the way for an outright acquisition of the URL shortening service provider?

Posted by brian tiong at 09:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Jason says...

Ning’s social network-building platform is getting a huge boost today, with the private beta launch of Ning Apps, a new suite of applications and features that Network Creators will be able to deploy across their networks with only a few clicks. The news has been a long time coming - network administrators have long been asking for features that could enhance their networks. But because of the nature of Ning, which houses hundreds of thousands of unique social networks, Network Creators were often requesting totally different things. Now they’ll be able to make everyone (or nearly everyone) happy.

At launch, Ning Apps is offering 90 new features to Network creators, built by 52 different developers that encompass a wide variety of web services. Network creators will now be able to integrate live video chat through TokBox, condunct contests with Wildfire, and create Wikis. Even better: network admins will be able to easily integrate monetization options, selling merchandise through Cartfly and tickets through Amiando and other ticketing apps.

Ning is likely going to be a very enticing platform for developers, too. Unlike social networks like MySpace, when a Ning network creator chooses to deploy an application, they have the option of deploying it to all of their users at once. And with some networks reaching more than 500,000 members, that translates into a huge jump in users. The applications are based on the OpenSocial standard, with some modifications to make them suitable for network-wide deployments. Still, even these changes are pretty minor - Ning says that developers have been porting their applications from other social networks in just two to three days.

Access to applications is beginning to roll out to a small number of Network Creators tomorrow, and will be available to everyone by the end of the month. At launch, all of the applications will be free to install (though some of the apps that involve money, like Cartfly, will take a revshare at the time of transaction), but Ning may well decide to deploy premium applications in the future.

Before now Network Creators have had access to some added functionality through third party applications. But Ning didn’t support these, and some of them were eventually removed from the site entirely. CEO Gina Bianchini says that Network Creators installing applications through Ning Apps can have ‘absolute confidence’ that the applications will work as advertised.

Aside from the launch of Ning Apps, things seem to be going quite well for Ning. The site recently saw the creation of its 1 millionth network (of which 200,000 are active), and is seeing 85,000 to 100,000 new users per day across all of its networks.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

 (* Source: Brian Solis *)

Mark Zuckerberg

Brian says...

Not to be outdone by the news of Twitter's astronomical growth, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg announced that the popular social network has hit a noteworthy milestone, the welcoming of their 200 millionth user.

To celebrate the moment, Zuckerberg commented, "When we built Facebook in 2004, our goal was to create a richer, faster way for people to share information about what was happening around them. We thought that giving people better tools to communicate would help them better understand the world, which would then give them even greater power to change the world."

Indeed, Facebook and other social mediums are empowering those who possess the ability to emerge and shepherd as true leaders at any level. Social Networks represent the larger impact beyond mere communication efficiency, they serve as a catalyst for organized connectivity, inspiration, and action, ultimately shifting our culture for how we consume and share information and potentially engender positive change.

To celebrate "change," Facebook is also creating a space in the network where people can share their stories about how Facebook has helped them make an give back. Facebook is also collaborating with 16 charitable and advocacy groups to create gifts that are available now in the gift shop.

General Statistics:

It took 20,000 years for the world population to reach 200 million people

It would take 46.5 years for 200 million babies to be born in the U.S.

200 million would be the world's 5th most populous country, bigger than Brazil, Japan, and Russia

Facebook Statistics:

General Growth
* More than 200 million active users
* More than 100 million users log on to Facebook at least once each day
* More than two-thirds of Facebook users are outside of college
* The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older

User Engagement
* Average user has 120 friends on the site
* More than 3.5 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide)
* More than 20 million users update their statuses at least once each day
* More than 4 million users become fans of Pages each day

Applications
* More than 850 million photos uploaded to the site each month
* More than 8 million videos uploaded each month
* More than 1 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) shared each week
* More than 2.5 million events created each month
* More than 25 million active user groups exist on the site

International Growth
* More than 40 translations available on the site, with more than 50 in development
* About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States

Platform
* More than 660,000 developers and entrepreneurs from more than 180 countries
* Every month, more than 70% of Facebook users engage with Platform applications
* More than 52,000 applications currently available in the Facebook Application Directory
* More than 5,000 applications have 10,000 or more monthly active users
* More than 8,000 websites have implemented Facebook Connect since its general availability in December 2008

Mobile
* More than 660,000 developers and entrepreneurs from more than 180 countries
* Every month, more than 70% of Facebook users engage with Platform applications
* More than 52,000 applications currently available in the Facebook Application Directory
* More than 5,000 applications have 10,000 or more monthly active users
* More than 8,000 websites have implemented Facebook Connect since its general availability in December 2008

Posted by brian tiong at 09:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Richard Yu *)

Editor’s Note: Social networks are taking off in China. The following guest post by George Godula. David Li, and Richard Yu explores how Chinese social networks are pursuing different business models than their American counterparts, relying more on micropayments and the sale of virtual goods. George Godula is the founder of Web2Asia, an East Asian incubator and also a consultancy for Western startups trying to enter markets in China, Japan and Korea. David Li is a developer of social networking applications such as Growing Gifts, and he also was the developer of OnChat, an early in-browser graphical avatar chat system. Richard Yu is a Seattle native living in China, where he consults for Shanghai-based web startups while writing his blog.

Despite China’s massively growing internet market, international giants like Google and Facebook are having trouble making gains with the 300 million Chinese online users. China’s netizens are on average very young – 66.7 % of them are younger than 29 years old and 35.2 % of them are teenagers—with social networking and entertainment applications being the most popular.

While companies like Facebook struggle to conquer market share in China and to create viable business models everywhere, their Chinese clones have built lucrative cash machines literally earning billions of dollars a year. Unfortunately, adopting Chinese methods may not help American social networks due both to cultural differences in Chinese user behavior and industry practices. Below is our analysis of the Chinese social networking scene.

Chinese Social Networking is Dominated by Local Players

Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) have long played the dominating role in Chinese Internet life and still continue to be one of the most popular online platforms for social interaction. Registered user accounts, which are mostly anonymous, surpass 3 billion (users have multiple accounts) and 80% of Chinese sites run their own BBS. However in the last year social networking services, most of which require real name registrations, have shown explosive growth in China with 19.3% of netizens using them regularly.

Despite the popularity of social networking in China, the social networking market is dominated by local Chinese players, and Western networks have trouble adapting to Chinese culture and user expectations. Facebook does not rank among the top 15 asocial networks in China while MySpace has only 6 million users (vs. the goal of 50 million users after 2 years initially proclaimed by Rupert Murdoch).

Meanwhile, China’s leading social network Qzone, which is targeted at teenagers, may even be the largest in the world. Tencent, Inc., the company that runs Qzone, recently announced group revenues of over $1 billion in 2008.

As ad sales slump in the recession, only approximately 12% of Qzone’s revenue stems from online advertising with the rest coming from virtual item sales such as applications and avatars. Internet ad spending in China is expected to reach $1.7 billion in 2009, which is about 4% of total ad spend. In comparison, the US is estimated to spend $25.7 billion reaching consumers online through advertising. These comparably low online budgets in China are largely spent at four large news portals, which earn the majority of online ad revenue. This forces most “smaller” portals to find more innovative ways to monetize their traffic.

51.com, which targets working class adults from rural parts of China, is the second most popular social network in China with 130 million registered users. Concurrently, Chinese students flock to Xiaonei with approx. 40 million users. It is backed up with $430 million in funding from its parent company Oak Pacific Interactive and investors like Softbank. Kaixin001, which skyrocketed out of nowhere to 30 million registered users from the middle of last year, targets white collar workers in China’s largest cities by employing controversial invitation techniques and copying apps directly from Facebook.

Yet the astronomical growth of China’s social networks can be attributed as much to its massive market size as to its cultural norms and values. Social networking apps can hit hyper-viral levels in China due to a higher tolerance of intrusive app invitations. It is not uncommon for apps to essentially force new users to invite people and perform tasks before being able to join their friends online. Once friends have joined they are required to interact much more with the apps and advertisements than on Western applications. While this model is not replicable for the US market, certain aspects of this strategy/cultural mindset are necessary if companies like Facebook or Myspace want to compete in China.

Open Social Networks are Not So Open in China

In the middle of 2008, Myspace was the only social network to support OpenSocial in China. Despite Google’s effort, the adoption of OpenSocial was slow among the major social networks. Eventually, other platforms caved into the partnership with Google and gave half-hearted support to OpenSocial. Apart from some of the large social networks mentioned previously this included City!N, Yiqi.com as well as the business network Tianji and BBS Tianya. Other social networks such as Douban, Hainei or news portal Sohu had originally announced to join OpenSocial but then never implemented it, choosing an F8 style API instead. Today, only one of the top 50 apps in China’s social networks runs on OpenSocial despite the hard work put in by the Google team in China.

When Xiaonei and 51.com at first opened their own platforms, their terms of services outraged the developer community with clauses that practically blocked all monetization opportunities and a shared user base with their own websites. The developers launched several public protests against the social networks including the website www.anti-opensocial.com to rebel against hypocritical support for these “fake open” platforms. The executives from these social networks did respond quickly to the developers demands and changed the terms of service to more reasonable terms, allowing limited monetization opportunities for the developers.

Unfortunately, most social networks continue to ignore “Open Social” practices, opting for the more familiar “Guanxi paradigm” in business practices with third parties. The term ”Guānxi” describes the basic dynamic of gaining influence and receiving favors within social relationships, and is a central concept in Chinese society. For social networks, this means that rather than developing an open ecosystem, they focus on dealing with third parties individually and face to face. New Open Social Networking platforms (or better put, “selectively opened”) such as Yahoo’s Guanxi, Tencent’s Xiaoyou and Tianya court established third party app developers like Five Minutes while largely ignoring the wider developer community.

Additionally, ad sales are also strictly controlled by the social networks themselves even though 51.com set a threshold of a $35k fee to be paid for app developers to operate their own ad revenue -based applications (which until now no developer was willing to pay).

Keso, China’s most widely read tech blogger, who we asked to contribute to this article through China’s online expert panel BloggerInsight, summed up the situation by saying “Despite an open platform strategy, Chinese SNS are still competing with each other on the application level”.

Imitation of Facebook was only a Launching Point

Chinese sites are notorious for their C2C strategy, or “Copy to China”. This applies to the app market in the same way as it did to the social networks and all other Web 2.0 and eCommerce services. A year after Facebook introduced the F8 open platform, Xiaonei.com followed suit and announced its open platform in July 2008. The developer group xCube on Xiaonei attracted individuals and companies interested in third-party apps. Yet Chinese outsourcing developers such as Apptz and Ismole armed with experience working on Facebook applications made significant inroads by launching several apps and attracting millions of users in just a few short months.

At about the same time, the apps space also felt the power of C2C with copies of popular apps on Facebook such as “Friends for Sale” and “Parking War” popping up on just about every social network in China. Other leading social networks such as 51.com and Comsenz!’s Ucenter Home (similar to Ning.com) launched their own open platform soon after Xiaonei’s effort.

Chinas 51.com first social network in the world to open up payment API

While Chinese social networks started out as mere clones of existing sites, they’ve managed to innovate the business models to create a very lucrative market by cementing the relationship between application developers and the site’s user base. Happy Farm, the most popular app in China reportedly collects well over $75k a month through installations on various platforms, and according to Chinese application tracker, Appleap, the value of the total social network’s apps install base is approx. $4.5 million.

Opening up the payment system was one of the most anticipated announcements from Facebook’s developer conference F8 2008 but the company failed to create an integrated ecosystem for users to buy and sell apps. China’s socail networks took the great leap forward in this area when 51.com became the first social network in the world opening up its payment system to third party developers in 2008. Users pay money to 51.com and receive virtual coins which they can then again spend on third party applications. The revenue is split 50/50 between the social network and the developer.

Facebook on the other hand currently does not offer developers access to its payment system. If a third party application redirects Facebook users to their own website and payment processor, they usually lose the advantage of Facebook’s trusted brand name and the majority of potential revenues.

At the same time, companies like Becomedia are cooperating with 51.com to bring OfferPal-style cost-per-click/cost-per-action (CPS/CPA) for virtual currency models to China. CPS/CPA is one of the fastest growing sectors of Internet ads in China. This means revenues for the developers by trading their virtual currency for hard cash.

Season Xu from Five Minutes, the maker of China’s most popular app, confirmed the three basic revenue models for apps in China: shared ad revenues, income through virtual currencies, and customized development for branded applications. However he and Herock, a leading figure in the Chinese tech blogosphere whom we also spoke to, expect a consolidation in the app development market soon with larger companies taking over and benefiting from effects of scale, rather than individual developers still being able to produce top apps.

What can Facebook and Western social networks learn, if anything?

If monetizing a social network is so easy, then why hasn’t Facebook opened up its payment API to third party developers? While the aggressive and intrusive hyper-viral aspects of the apps in China may not be replicable in a Western Market, the problems for creating a more viable business model run deeper. Western companies cannot innovate in the same way due to institutional problems stemming from their own struggle for an identity and revenue.

Facebook has just recently announced a “credits” system, but it seems to miss the mark. The new system demonstrates little incentive for users to shell over money, and does not speak to the same need as paying for a social application that all your friends are already on and talking about. Facebook may be afraid to become a marketplace for applications, because they are reluctant to be labeled as a social gaming network or a social app store. Instead, they are a self-styled guru of dynamic human interaction. If they opened up their platform to become an apps store, their major revenue streams would put them into a pigeonhole, calling their $15 billion valuation into question. They obviously don’t want to be labeled as a “gaming platform” either, and don’t want to fully depend on selling digital trinkets.

Like during the American gold rush in 1849, where Chinese merchants prospered while most prospectors went bust in search of striking gold, it appears that building viable, scalable businesses for Social Networking sites may still be an ancient Chinese secret for Westerners.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

 

Leena says...

Startup Nomee aggregates social networks and websites into a free Adobe Air powered desktop application that helps you manage these networks and sites into a single interface. The nomee personal all-in-one dashboard aggregates all your favorite social networking sites (you can manage profiles from up to 100 networks including Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and Digg ) and RSS feeds, giving you one place to organize your online relationships, share your information, follow newsmakers, and even publish your own news.

Nomee is designed to simplify social networking by organizing all of your online relationships in a single location, making it easy to focus on who you want to connect with, when you want to connect. With the help of Adobe Air, Nomee also brings news updates to users in a pretty simple interface. In addition, Nomee lets you customize the information you want to share, pointing your contacts to the web sites you want them to see. It also alerts your contacts when you post updates or new content, including providing custom updates to different friends and business associates.

Nomee also allows you to follow your favorite celebrities, sports teams and other interest areas through downloading its exclusive nomee newsmaker cards. You can become your own nomee newsmaker by collecting links on your nomee card and posting it for download from your blog or website, so your fans can track you.

Managing all of your social networks, celebrity obsessions and RSS feeds in one place is not a new idea. FriendFeed aggregates all of this information into a website. But the adoption of Adobe Air into the application gives it a different twist. Nomee, which can be run on a PC or a Mac, isn’t your conventional website, its actually a rich internet application separate from your browser.

Here’s a screenshot:

Posted by brian tiong at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Don’t place ads—build brands.

Posted by brian tiong at 05:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Michael Arrington *)

What was a bad situation in November 2008 is starting to turn outright ugly - Facebook is now well over twice the size of MySpace, according to recent worldwide Comscore data. And what’s worse, MySpace is losing audience while Facebook absolutely hockey sticks: MySpace lost 2% of users in just one month, while Facebook grew by nearly 40 million members in February alone. MySpace currently has 124 million monthly unique visitors, compared to Facebook’s 276 million.

That’s a 16.6% growth rate at Facebook in one month. This simply doesn’t happen with sites that already have hundreds of millions of users. It was less than a year ago that MySpace and Facebook were the same size.

Comscore says more than 1 in 4 people with Internet access visited Facebook last month. They’re sixth overall in terms of top sites in terms of unique users, and third (after Google, Microsoft and Yahoo) in overall page views.

MySpace continues to see executive departures, and it isn’t clear that founders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson will be staying on after their contracts terminate later this year. We expect more defections by the summer, and a possible reorganization of parent entity Fox Interactive Media.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: eMarketer *)

(* Source: Scott Lachut *)

It’s no secret that social media is a driving force in the way big businesses are marketing themselves to consumers. These networking tools create open channels of communication between companies and customers, giving a face to formerly impersonal corporations through employee blogs, Twitter updates and playful Facebook applications. Customers are able to engage with the brands they buy in meaningful ways never before thought possible (or allowable) by sharing their experiences in a variety of ways ranging from feedback and innovations to photos and video.

But simply saying your business uses this methodology doesn’t guarantee instantaneous success. The demographic that is reached in this manner represent a savvy audience of users that value authentic interaction and thoughtful use of these technologies or they’ll choose to opt out of the loop. With that in mind, Samir Balwani, blogger and social media marketer, has assembled an insightful list of ten big brands that are effectively using web 2.0 tools, along with the lessons to be learned from each example. We have included the abbreviated list below:

1. Blendtec on YouTube
2. Burger King’s “Whopper Sacrifice”
3. Starbucks asks customers for their ideas
4. Sun Microsytems CEO blog
5. IBM employee blogs
6. Zappos on Twitter
7. Comcast on Twitter
8. Ford’s Public Relations
9. Graco on Flickr
10. Dell’s multi-platform approach

Mashable: Presenting: 10 of the Smartest Big Brands in Social Media

Posted by brian tiong at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Erick Schonfeld *)

Posted by brian tiong at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Robin Wauters *)

People generally love sharing things, and Twitter has made broadcasting updates to anyone who cares to care on what you’re doing, wearing, reading, commenting on, eating, using, etc. a breeze; in 140 characters or less, even. It’s only natural to see so many users also share which music they are listening to at any given moment on Twitter, as this has been a fairly popular use of status feeds on other social networking and communication services for years (Facebook, Skype and Windows Live Messenger leap to mind).

Here’s a number of ways to use Twitter for just about anything related to music:

* Blip.fm - dubbed the “Twitter for Music” when we first reviewed the service, it got its own API in late 2008. Blip.fm enables anyone to start their own music station and broadcast tunes to Twitter and other status sharing services where people can interact with the choice of music.

* Twiturm does much of the same - upload music and share it with all your Twitter followers in a heartbeat. Intended for artists who want to share their own music, hence the name (”Twitter Ur Music”).

* Twisten.fm - Escape Media Group linked its music discovery service Grooveshark and its URL shortening service TinySong with an application that crawls Twitter for messages about music (and “then you listen to them”).

* Twt.fm (anyone see a naming pattern here?) - type in an artist, track, and your twitter username. Twt.fm will then generate a track page for you using your twitter page design and you’ll be able to tweet it to your followers.

* Tweetj - include a #tweetj tag in your tweets when you’re listening to music and it’ll be posted to a public playlist. The playlist allows you to discover new music and immediately purchase tracks on Amazon.

* A similar service is WiiZZZ (yes, that’s the actual name) - it allows you to listen to entirely random songs that have been posted and shared by Twitter users on any given day.

* Play Twitter - allows you to easily play mp3 files directly on Twitter or Identi.ca. MP3 links will automatically become playable right on the page.

* Tra.kz - this “URL shortener for all things music” was cooked up by MixMatchMusic and does exactly what you suspect it would do and therefore competes with the above mentioned TinySong and alternatives like Song.ly.

* TwittyTunes - Firefox extension that comes with another Firefox extension, Yahoo’s FoxyTunes, and allows you to instantly post your currently playing songs to Twitter with just a click.

* LastTweet - enables you to embed a widget with your latest tweets into your Last.fm profile

Also worth checking out, even if not directly related to Twitter: Nabbit (”connects your cellphone to your radio”), MuseBin (music news and reviews in 140 characters, like Blippr but music only) and Twones (the “social music feed”).

Did I miss any other apps, tools and websites worth noting?

Share them in the comments and I’ll be happy to update the post.

Update: it’s not Twitter-specific, but you can use Favtape to put together your own playlists / online mixtapes and share them on Twitter.

Posted by brian tiong at 11:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Erik Schonfeld *)

Erik reports...

What if you could peer into the thoughts of millions of people as they were thinking those thoughts or shortly thereafter? And what if all of these thoughts were immediately available in a database that could be mined easily to tell you what people both individually and in aggregate are thinking right nowabout any imaginable subject or event? Well, then you’d have a different kind of search engine altogether. A real-time search engine. A what’s-happening-right-now search engine.

In fact, the crude beginnings of this “now” search engine already exists. It is called Twitter, and it is a big reason why new investors poured another $35 million into the two-year-old startup on Friday. Twitter is not the only company trying to solve this problem. Facebook, FriendFeed, and even Google are trying to crack it, but Twitter has a decided advantage in that it is capturing the vast majority of the real-time thought stream on the Web (because more people enter their thoughts directly into Twitter’s database than any other, and are doing so at an increasing rate).

What makes Google and other search engines so valuable is that they capture people’s intent—what they are looking for, what they desire, what they want to learn about. But they don’t do a great job at capturing what people are doing or what they are thinking about. For thoughts and events that are happening right now, searching Twitter increasingly brings up better results than searching Google.

Whether you want to know how people are mentally gearing up for this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona or what they are thinking about today’s Ireland vs. Italy rugby match, searching Twitter will give you a pretty good smattering of sentiment and opinion. It is also a lot faster at getting out the essential details about breaking news, such as the Mumbai attacks or the plane that landed on the Hudson.

Twitter’s search engine is powered by Summize, a startup it acquired last July. But it also developed a feature called Track, currently disabled but coming back soon, that allowed people to follow the mention of specified keywords. John Borthwick, an investor in Summize (and thus now an investor in Twitter), explained in a blog post earlier this month ago why he thinks that “Twitter search changes everything.” Excerpt:

Imagine you are in line waiting for coffee and you hear people chattering about a plane landing on the Hudson. You go back to your desk and search Google for plane on the Hudson — today — weeks after the event, Google is replete with results — but the DAY of the incident there was nothing on the topic to be found on Google. Yet at http://search.twitter.com the conversations are right there in front of you. The same holds for any topical issues — lipstick on pig? — for real time questions, real time branding analysis, tracking a new product launch — on pretty much any subject if you want to know whats happening now, search.twitter.com will come up with a superior result set.

. . . How is real time search different? History isn’t that relevant — relevancy is driven mostly by time. . . . This reformulation of search as navigation is, I think, a step into a very new and different future. Google.com has suddenly become the source for pages — not conversations, not the real time web. What comes next? I think context is the next hurdle. Social context and page based context. . . . Twitter search today is crude — but so was Google.com once upon a not so long time ago.

Twitter may just be a collection of inane thoughts, but in aggregate that is a valuable thing. In aggregate, what you get is a direct view into consumer sentiment, political sentiment, any kind of sentiment. For companies trying to figure out what people are thinking about their brands, searching Twitter is a good place to start. To get a sense of what I’m talking about, try searching for “iPhone,” “Zune,” or “Volvo wagon”.

Why can’t Google simply index Twitter? It does, but its search results give more weight to links than to time. It could create a new search product along the lines of Blog Search or News search that is geared more towards Micro-messaging services such as Twitter, FriendFeed, and the rest. But what it really needs to go beyond simply indexing Twitter after the fact. IVP partner, and Twitter investor, Todd Chaffee, suggests:

If they were really smart they could partner with Twitter and make Twitter their real-time feed.

Doing that would require Google to “affirm Twitter’s dominance in this category and the importance of the Twitter data stream,” contends Borthwick. But so far, Google has pretty much flubbed this opportunity to open up real-time search. It bought Twitter competitor Jaiku, only to shut it down. And now it is hoping to create a counterweight to Twitter’s growing strength in real-time data by open-sourcing Jaiku. Good luck with that one.

Listening to Twitter’s investors gives a good sense of how they think Twitter can become a game-changer in real-time search. While it is instructive, it is also important to note that much of this vision has yet to materialize. Twitter’s current search is extremely crude, as Borthwick readily admits. It simply brings up the most recent Tweets with the keyword you are looking for. There is no ranking or clustering beyond that.

An undifferentiated thought stream of the masses at some point becomes unwieldy. In order to truly mine that data, Twitter needs to figure out how to extract the common sentiments from the noise (something which Summize was originally designed to do, by the way, but it was putting the cart before the horse—you need to be able to do simple searches before you start looking for patterns). But what is the best way to rank real-time search results—by number of followers, retweets, some other variable? It is not exactly clear. But if Twitter doesn’t solve this problem, someone else will and they will make a lot of money if they do it right.

Posted by brian tiong at 02:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Robin Wauters *)

Robin says...

I’m not going to discuss the economic meltdown and its devastating effect on technology companies and internet startups in this post, but rather something that crossed my mind earlier this morning: “Web 2.0″ seems to become more and more a void (and an avoided) term. Of course, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is definitely apparent.

So why do I say it’s fading? For one, because the number of startups that contact us and include the term Web 2.0 in the subject line or message is visibly dropping (and that’s a good thing), and I hardly ever see it mentioned anymore on other technology blogs and news sites either. That’s not really tangible, so I took a look at the number of mentions of the phrase across the web, and they seem to be decreasing significantly, reflecting my feeling on this.

Judging by Google Trends, which shows how often a particular search term is entered relative to the total search volume across various regions of the world (and in various languages), the term started being used at the end of 2004 when Tim O’Reilly organized the first edition of the Web 2.0 Conference. Search queries for the term started picking up in the middle of 2005, when TechCrunch was started - with the tagline “Tracking Web 2.0″ by the way - and the number kept increasing until the end of 2007. After that, the trend is clearly downwards, falling back to the level it reached in early 2006 today. If the trend continues, there should only be a handful of people left who scour search engines for “Web 2.0″ by 2011.

Also noteworthy: take a look at the geographic regions that have generated the highest volumes of worldwide search traffic for the term over the years - it’s Asia, with the top 5 regions being India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia (in that order). Furthermore, Google Trends pegs the number one language in which people search for stuff related to the topic of Web 2.0 to be Russian before English.

And just in case you’re curious: “Web 3.0″ doesn’t seem to picking up much.
Let’s all rejoice.

Google’s “Insights for Search”, a beta service that analyzes a portion of worldwide Google web searches from all Google domains to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you’ve entered - relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time - gives an even better overview:

Posted by brian tiong at 02:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Jason Kincaid *)

Jason reports...

In an effort to monetize the growing number of music videos on its site, MySpace has just launched a new pilot advertising initiative that places attractive overlays at the bottom of some clips, allowing users to buy the song they’re listening to or immediately jump to the artist’s homepage.

The new initiative stems from MySpace’s partnership with Auditude, a content detection and management company that can identify copyrighted content and serve relevant advertising, even on user-submitted video. Now Auditude is applying the technology to music videos, which in the past have largely relied on banner ads and static text links to music stores for monetization.

On Wednesday the site, in a partnership with Warner Music Group, placed an overlay ad on a video for My Chemical Romance’s cover of Desolation Row. Users were presented with the option to buy the song either on Amazon, or (in an interesting twist) on a vinyl disc. Over the 24 hours that the ad ran it posted an impressive 1.2% click-through-rate (significantly higher than rates seen on typical banner ads), encouraging MySpace and Auditude to expand the program to more videos. Today the site began displaying advertising on U2’s new single Get On Your Boots, with plans to expand the program more broadly in the near future.

Much of the overlay’s success probably stems from the fact that it doesn’t look too much like an ad - it actually shows informative content like the album the song came from, the year it was released, and a link to the artist’s profile. I wouldn’t say I like having it there, but MySpace could have done a lot worse. And frankly in the current economic climate it’s encouraging when companies can find advertising methods that actually work without being ridiculously annoying.

YouTube launched a similar program three weeks ago, allowing content owners to insert overlays for products into their videos (MySpace’s overlays are significantly more attractive, but they both serve the same purpose). YouTube wouldn’t provide any exact numbers, but a representative confirmed that in general the site has seen significantly improved clickthrough rates when ads are embedded in videos themselves, as opposed to appearing in surrounding banner ads.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mike Arrington *)

Great article from Mike... with so many social networks out there today.  Keep up with all of them requires more people. Digital P.As anyone? 

Posted by brian tiong at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Michael Arrington *)

Sounds like another great music application only to be held back by those people that promote music called "The Labels".

MOG has a history of doing cool new things around music. The service today includes a media player plugin that records and analyzes your music habits, a website that has a dedicated page for every artist, album and song with user generated reviews and posts, and an advertising network that provides revenue for 300 top music blogs. Users can also stream music via an excellent front end to Rhapsody.

All of that brings about 5 million unique visitors a month to their network, and the company says they should bring in about $5 million in revenue in 2009.

Now they’ve created a new music streaming product that breaks away from Rhapsody and its limitations. Like competitor ilike, which also uses Rhapsody, users can only stream 25 songs per month for free. That doesn’t compete well with free streaming services like MySpace Music, iMeem, Last.fm and others.

The new service, dubbed Mog 3.0 internally, is a fully free music streaming service that lets users play whatever songs they like on demand. The user interface is as good or better than LaLa, a service that we love despite the fact that streaming isn’t completely free. Founder David Hyman and VP Product T Jay Fowler gave me a demo of Mog 3.0 earlier today.

The service combines the ease of use of LaLa with free, which is enough to get our attention. But it also has a recommendation service that rivals Pandora when it comes to discovering new music.

The interface is genius. Users search or browse songs, artists or albums and then start listening to the music. More songs from that artist are suggested and added to the results as you play the songs. And if you move the slider to the right (see image to right), related music is added as well. That lets the user decide if they want a playlist-driven on demand music experience, or to change things up and add Pandora-style related music to the mix.

It doesn’t stop there. Users can also create playlists with the best tool on the market - it’s easier to create and share playlists than even Project Playlist offers, and users can associate a name, description and image with each playlist as well.

MOG plans to make other changes to the service as well, including adding streaming music to content pages, and creating user profiles that highlight the music you listen to and like. It brings in the best social aspects of Last.fm.

The product is compelling.

But it will quite possibly never launch.

MOG has label deals with Sony BMG and Universal locked up. They’ll provide streaming music rights for free in exchange for a revenue share. But Warner and EMI remain on the sidelines, and MOG says they won’t launch unless and untill they have all four major labels under agreement.

I, for one, really hope to see MOG 3.0 launch sometime soon. And if the last two labels don’t jump on board, MySpace should strongly consider buying MOG. MySpace has label deals locked up but their product continues to have unacceptable technical glitches. The music player is very slow to load and songs have an annoying tendency to skip during playback. Perhaps the MOG team can put that right for them.

More screen shots below - top image is the playlist tool, below that is a user profile page.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Valeria Maltoni*)