When you have something that’s being used by half a billion people, it’s bound to have a huge immediate impact. So can your business when it is featured on your Place Page.
 
Facebook Places is a smart-phone location check-in feature that will allow you to share your location, find the location of your friends, and discover new places based on other Facebook user recommendations – much like Loopt, Foursquare and Yelp! provide.
 
Facebook Places has exploded as a habitual way of connecting. With people migrating their location check-ins to the network where they spend most of their time already – Facebook, it is a suite of advertising tools that provides you a way to list, claim and advertise your business.
 
You can grab your friend’s attention to your Place page by adding a story about your place page that talks all about your business on your profile. Data that you can collect on users and amount of times they check in will prove extremely valuable in tracking customers and advertising spend. What this means is that the customer that comes in every day can now be tracked and even incentivized to get a free gift for every tenth check-in. It’s like the digital/social version of the loyalty card.
 And more so, people are talking and telling others about your business therefore this has the potential for generating new referrals!
 
Offering coupons and special offers for people who check in is a natural way to tap the power of using online tools to drive offline sales. You can also make this more appealing and catchy by creating polls and inviting comments about your business. You can reward those who bring potential customers to your place page or share their experience with your business by offering them exclusive discounts or special offers.
 
All in all, Facebook Places is here to stay and I predict that advertisers will start becoming creative for leveraging Facebook Places.

Facebook could release updates to services within the next several weeks that would allow its more than 500 million members to personalize offerings from news feeds to business and location-based applications, according to sources.

Third-party companies involved with the latest update have been told to have their application programming interface (API) integration ready to go by Aug. 19.
 
Third-party developers say the API will provide deeper integration through a one log-in toggle that takes members across a variety of applications, similar to Google's OpenID API that allows users to sign in to third-party Web sites using their Google Apps user account.
 
The ability to seamlessly move from one application to another also provides a clear path for advertisers to target ads. The integration would also fortify Facebook's search feature. The app will likely provide advertisers and companies that have Fan pages on the site with a little extra zing. The services will offer more than a geo-location check-in feature similar to Foursquare.

Ok so on Twitter, of course I'm following more strangers than I'm following friends. Maybe because some of my friends aren't on Twitter. Maybe because I don't want to follow friends on Twitter, I want to follow others who will become friends. But Twitter seems to think that instead of following strangers, people will find tweeting more fun if they can find their friends on Twitter. So they added a Find Friends feature which allows you to find Facebook and LinkedIn friends to Twitter.

You can find which of your friends are on Twitter using the Twitter Facebook. You can follow them instantly or add them to a list. Of course you can also post tweets directly to Facebook's pages when posting to your Twitter profile.

Twitter LinkedIn shows you which of your Linkedin connections are on Twitter. You can follow them and also post tweets on Linkedin.

Ok so! If you are my friend, now I can be your friend also on Facebook, and connect on LinkedIn, AND follow you on Twitter.

Uh but why do I NEED to connect with my same friend everywhere???

I call Social Networking, Social Brandcasting. Brandcasting means simply “casting” your brand out there in the social networks, period!

However many businesses are still not able to see the value of Brandcasting.

Brandcasting on Social Networks has the following key benefits
•    You can reach more people through popular sites like Facebook & Twitter due to the sheer volume of users each of them has

•    You can continuously promote your services and company events without spending any money on printing collateral, direct mail pieces, etc.

(Note: Although social networks are “free”, social networking is not free, but that’s a topic for another blog)

•    You can brag about yourself and your products or services and no one will think less of you.
You can do "horizontal" brandcasting which is to everyone and everywhere across the board, same message, same positioning. In horizontal brandcasting, you would use common messaging to promote generic messages about your brand or products and services.

Then you can do the "vertical" brandcasting where you position different messages on different platforms. In vertical brandcasting, you use different methodologies to reach different audiences. You may choose to reach a specific age demographic or you may target market using geographic area, etc.

The other important aspect of Brandcasting is the need to balance quantity (number of followers, fans, connections) with quality (what you say, how you say, and the persona you create of yourself or your company online, etc.). Quantity AND quality matter and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Brandcasting is a powerful strategy and social networks are the vehicle for executing that strategy to get visibility for your company or products and services. Isn’t it time you got started on your Brandcasting campaigns?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) means preparing your website for Search Engines. With Search Engine Optimization,a company website can be found in the "organic" or non-paid rankings of search engine results for various keywords. Not all keywords will result in your website being on the 1st or 2nd page of leading search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

I say that a website without Search Engine Optimization is like a car without gasoline. It's dead in the middle of the Internet superhighway, going nowhere, bringing no one to it, and doing nothing of much. When a website is optimized, it becomes the gasoline that allows the website to run on the world wide web.
 
Social Media Marketing on the other hand is a strategy used to share content, invite interactions, and communicate key messages about your company to get visibility. With Social Media Marketing you get a "buzz". Popular websites like Facebook and Twitter allow quick sharing of content which drives traffic and brand visibility.
 
To get succesful online, you cannot choose one or the other. When done properly, Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing can help you maximize your online investment and increase your visibility.

Businesses doing only one or not doing anything with their websites have no chance of being found.

Business owners ask me which is better; Facebook or Twitter. I tell them that ideally they need to be on both. Here are the top three reasons your business needs both, Facebook and Twitter:
 
Twitter:

• Very good viral marketing tool
• Allows you to quickly share information
• Content can be found in Google's search results
• Increases brand awareness
• Drives traffic to website when links are used
• Distributes time-sensitive information fast and furious

Facebook

• Good for brand recognition, especially for recognized
• Allows sharing a variety of content including photos,  links, videos, and more
• Allows large number of followers and fans to market product and services.

A presence on both networks allows you to optimize your online presence. Don't settle for one or the other. Leverage both; Twitter and Facebook to get the biggest bang for your marketing dollars.

So Twitter's growing and recent statistics show that over 60 percent of Twitter registered accounts are from outside the US. Not surprising if you've been playing on Twitter and have seen the growth in your own non-US followers.

In addition to the fact that Twitter is available in several languages such asFrench, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish, I think that it's growth can be attributed to it's simplicity and accessibility.
 
If you are a US business owner, you are wondering how this can help you if over 60% Twitter users are outside your "target" market.
 
So then let's take a look at the numbers.

Assumptions:

1. Twitter has 50,000,000 (50 million) users
2. Twitter has ~ 60% users outside of the US so US based Twitter users = ~ 20,000,000 (20 million)
3. Twitter's active users are approximately 21% so US active* Twitter users = ~ 4,200,000 (4.2 million)
   *Active users are those who follow at least 10 people, have 10 followers, and have at least tweeted 10 times

Based on the above assumptions as a US business owner, you have access to 4.2 million users through Twitter. Agreed that every state has a different number of Twitter users.

But let's just assume that each state had an equal number of Twitter users.

That means that if you want a "local" audience, you have access to 84,000 Twitter users in your state alone. Drill that down further and especially if you are in a metro-area, you can safely assume that your audience is at least 50% of the 84,000.

Now think about how much money you are spending on the "local" yellow pages, direct mail, and local advertising campaigns. Then compare the "cost" of those traditional methods and then compare the cost of doing online marketing using experts (like us).

Have you arrived at the same conclusion that Ford, Dell, and other companies have arrived at?

It's a fact! Social networks provide GREATER REACH at LOWER COST.

It's time to move beyond the excuses like "no-time", "no-money", "no-skills" and it's time to outsource your social media campaigns to companies like ours who provide hassle-free management, lower cost implementation, and results. We've got your Internet Marketing needs understood and have finessed solutions that work.
 

I read today that a 16 year old filed a "hacking" complaint against his mother. Apparently, this 16 year old from Ark forgot to log off the computer and his mom decided to log in and check into what he was doing as well as allegedly wrote things on his wall which could be "slanderous".

Hmmm….How many things are wrong in this story?

In the first place, what's apparent is that there's no trust between the mother and her 16 year old son. If there was trust, there would be no need to "hack" in. Also,if the kid forgot to log out, is that really called hacking?
 
So parents shouldn't check up on their kids because that'd be a violation? What if the 16 year old, MINOR, was being cyber stalked? Next thing you know, kids will begin complaining about that phone that allows parents to geotrack their kids. And why would the kid need to go to the courts is totally beyond me.

And as far as the mother goes, why any mother would have to resort to breaking in is beyond my comprehension. And even if she had to do "secretive" monitoring, why would she herself post something that would be slanderous to her own child?
 
Yes, I know this blog is not on a "business-related" topic but as a parent AND a social media practitioner, this news item really really bugged me and I wanted to report it so that other business owners who are parents take note and know their rights…..
 
 

So when I talk about Social Networking, invariably the question comes up "Is quantity important or should we just focus on quality?"

Yes, quality is very important but so is quantity.

Why you ask?

Well, here are two logical reasons for your consideration:

• Big numbers attract bigger participation: Right, wrong, or indifferent, people follow the leaders. If you have 10,000 followers (or fans or friends), people want to follow you because you appear to be "influential". Think about it for yourself; would you be more inclined to follow someone who has 2 followers or someone who has 2000?
   
• Bigger numbers give you bigger reach: Say you have 5000 followers and you post a general tweet. Now say only two of your followers pick up the tweet and retweet it (repost it) for their followers. And say those two followers each have 5000 followers. That means that your tweet just got visible to 15000 people in a jiffy. Whether all 15000 read your tweet or not, it's there for people to see. That's huge! Your reach through social networks is dependent on the followers and friends in your network. The more you have, the bigger the reach.

So yes, quantity is an important dimension when conducting social networking. Focus on quality AND quantity and you'll see the benefits of social networking grow exponentially.
 

Reporters love social media just as much as you and I do. Yep, a recent study conducted at the George Washington University showed that reporters are relying on social media sources when researching stories. 89% of surveyed reporters said that they use blogs for story research, 65% depend on Facebook and LinkedIn, and over 50% rely on sites like Twitter.

The logical step then for all business owners is to integrate their Public Relations strategy with their Social Media strategy.

Although reporters aren't going to simply rely on social networks for their stories, given that they are looking there means that your business needs to be there. Half the battle is won when you simply show up on social networks. The rest depends on how well you leverage the social networks to promote and brand your company and its products and/or services.
 
A comprehensive strategy is one in which all facets of marketing are covered. When implementing your social media strategy, to get a bigger bang for your buck, remember to integrate public relations with social networking.