Does Social Media help with Online Direct Marketing?

The debate over the importance of social media in the area of online direct marketing continues according to industry experts around the globe. However, the focus of this debate has now shifted to discussing about the best way it gives value to companies. However, there are still those who argue against the use of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook in their online direct marketing campaigns.There are plenty of marketers today who look beyond the hype of social media, in an attempt to get a better insight about the other marketing methods. They do this in spite of the focus that most companies place on the social media platform.From technology platforms to analytics, all companies face a number of challenges. Many hire outside partners in order to help them address these issues, but in most places the market is flooded with people think that social media is the only way to build a successful online presence.

Posted on: 11 May 2011 | 3:31 am

Social Media leads to more Targeted Advertising

Marketers are now saying that social media users’ demographics can be tapped into to bring about more targeted advertising, but are still unsure about how such sensitive information should be handled. But these issues too will eventually be settled.Social media sites tend to understand the audiences better, and because of this understanding of user behavior, they manage to collect important information each user. But this could also lead to collecting users’ private information, and advertisers should be very careful about using their users’ private information. This can be very important to the user, and this is why it is very important for advertisers to know how to handle it.Advertisers need users’ personal information to target them with specific products and services that are a part of what they are interested in.

Posted on: 10 May 2011 | 5:31 am

The Latest Trends in Social Media

Reports have shown that YouTube was the fastest growing social media site in the month of April for the second consecutive month. This online video sharing website now accounts for nearly 1 out of 5 visits to a social networking site. YouTube is now established as the third biggest site, overtaking Hotmail recently.However, Facebook on the other hand has lost market share of the number of visits for the second consecutive month in a row, dropping to below 55% of market share for the first time since last year.The fastest climbing social networking sites were Twitter, Yahoo!, Tumblr and Answers. MySpace and Club Penguin have noticeably dropped in market share.

Posted on: 9 May 2011 | 6:02 am

Social Networking Sites all set to change Traditional Media

Social networking sites have taken the world by storm and are all set to change the way that traditional media works. Today, social media has now started giving traditional media a direct link into what targeted audiences actually want instead of depending on assumptions made that are based on various demographics.Because of the rise in popularity of social networking sites, it has been proposed that there will be a drastic change in way media companies target audiences in the next 5 years. Social media has a very big impact on traditional media and is going to help free all of us of the assumptions that we make in traditional media.Traditional media basically targets audiences on the basis of age and gender demographics, which rarely gives an accurate depiction of what people actually want. Social media on the other hand, provides marketers with the opportunity to find out what people really want.

Posted on: 4 May 2011 | 5:18 am

How to get your Employees to comply with your Social Media Policy

Today, more and more businesses are using social networking and media sites to handle a large part of their business. But it is very important for businesses to execute a social media strategy. This involves cultural alignment, building a solid process and training employees so that all the necessary parts of the organization can participate as well. A social organization is truly social when it is active internally as well as externally. And this is where it can get complicated.Many of the major corporate PR blunders have occurred because of careless employees tweeting from corporate accounts. This is why it is very important to trust the person who you are putting in charge of voicing your brand. But what if the employees communicate from their own accounts?If you restrict your employees from using their own accounts, they will complain that it is their personal account and they have the freedom to use it as they wish, especially if the employee concerned isn’t customer-facing. But remember that every employee’s account is the face of your company, especially if you are identified as their employer in their profile.Here are some tips to get your employees to comply with your social media policy:Before getting started, it is important to first understand the culture of your organization and your employees’ usage of social tools. Understand what your organizations goals are and relate your social media goals with this.Train your employees and conduct regular workshops.Make a space like an internal blog, discussion group or wiki where your employees can find answers and ask questions.Highlight all the “Do’s” and “Don’ts” of your policy. Focus on all the positive behaviors and what people can do to driver their careers.Create a solid process. Make sure that each part of your organization is completely looped in. Find a good way to share information.All your employees will want to know what in it for them. Train them well in social media.

Posted on: 3 May 2011 | 4:59 am

Social Media Sites swamped with news of Osama Bin Laden’s Death

It was announced earlier today that Osama Bin Laden is indeed dead. This momentous news will go down in the pages of history. In years to come, you’ll probably be asked where did you get this news? Most people say that they found out about this from social media sites like Twitter.As US President, Barack Obama, announced this news today, he not only addressed the world through the TV but through Internet live streaming and social media as well. From the start of the speech, right to the end, Twitter recorded more than 4000 tweets per second.It has become increasingly common that the news actually broke on Twitter. The news of Osama’s death was released on Twitter even before the President announced it on TV. A few minutes after the media outlets began tweeting, the news was the most talked about in the US. Social media has played a very important role in bringing the world closer to the news, what with photos take from phones being shared across these sites.

Posted on: 2 May 2011 | 5:16 am

Social Media plays an Important Role in the success of Organizations

Today, organizations have started to think different and have taken to social media to increase revenues. Social media contributes to millions of dollars worth of business annually. This is why many businesses have started using innovative and cutting-edge approaches to further their aims through social media.Surveys have shown that more than two thirds of companies are now using social media to handle their day-to-day business activities, and have received some very important results that contribute to their success.Most small businesses do not have the kind of budgets that larger corporate’s have for communications and marketing, which is why social media channels are now considered to be encouraging as far as generating value is concerned. Effectively using social networking sites, forums and blogs is a great way to increase annual sales. Such a boost can help companies expand and grow and invest in more businesses or hire more staff.Surveys have also shown that as many as 9 out of 10 companies are now using LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Of course, having a Facebook Page or a Twitter Feed is no guarantee of success, but if used to good effect, can bring in a lot of recognition. Social media helps business to spread their message through networks and connections.

Posted on: 29 April 2011 | 7:20 am

How Social media can benefit and Harm kids

Social media sites like Facebook can really enrich your kid’s lives, but they can also be detrimental to their physical and mental health as well. Reports on kids and social media have studied kid’s usage of social media sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, blogs and video gaming sites.Reports have shown that social media sites can be beneficial for kids as it helps them stay in touch, socialize, entertain and even do their homework well. These sites can enhance your kids’ creativity and help them develop various technical skills.However, on the flipside, social media can lead to depression, cyber-bullying and exposure to inappropriate content also. Too much time spent surfing through social media sites can lead to kids neglecting their studies, physical activity and even sleep!

Posted on: 28 April 2011 | 5:17 am

Facebook’s latest “Send” Button

There is a new button in the world of Facebook! And no, we’re not talking about the Poke or Like buttons. After years on end of sharing links to blogs, videos, articles and more private information, Facebook has finally rolled out the “Send” button that allows users to share links privately. By clicking on the button, users can now share information with each other through email without the mass fanfare of the Like button.Some of the early adopters of this Send button are People.com, Huffington Post and Gilt Groupe. Currently, the Like button is being used by nearly 2.5 million website to better expose and integrate their products on to Facebook’s vast platform. The Send button will enhance popularity.The Send button is Facebook’s attempt to be seen in a favorable way by the skeptics who feel that the site is going too far as far as sharing user’s private information is concerned. Facebook is also going to be launching major improvements in the future.

Posted on: 28 April 2011 | 4:02 am

Handling a PR Crisis through Social Media

Everybody makes mistakes. Companies, employees – everybody! Services sometimes don’t live up to expectations and products sometimes malfunction. Once the press gets an idea of your misfortunes, you’re just about done in for. The best way to maintain your reputation is through social media!Catapult your social media team into acknowledging online that your brand is aware of the allegations being made. Talk to your audience through Facebook and Twitter and don’t just limit it to this. When a PR crisis occurs, your business is at stake. Here are a few ways to use social media to overcome bad press:Let your boss do the talking: The public doesn’t want to hear from the employees in the case of a PR crisis. They want to hear from the head honcho – the big boss. So, ask your CEO or brand manager to show up in front of the masses and assume responsibility for the mistake made while at the same time offer a plan of action and a solution.Use YouTube: Apart from discussing the matter with your followers on Facebook and Twitter, you should also consider making a short YouTube video. In the video, ask a high-level executive like your CEO to address the situation and explain what your company is doing to make things right. Integrate this video in all the social networking platforms and circulate it through social bookmarking sites.Be Straightforward: Respect the public’s intelligence by admitting your mistake and telling them your side of the story. Be honest about your mistakes. Send out tweets, status updates and videos and demonstrate how honest and transparent you are and your followers will continue to support you.

Posted on: 26 April 2011 | 3:32 am

Want to measure your Social Media ROI? Here are 5 Tools!

Measuring your Returns on Investment from your social media campaign can be a bit difficult, what with all the real world business performance metrics failing to give accurate results.Measuring your social media ROI is indeed very challenging; however studies have shown that nearly 65% of the companies who use social media are also using engagement data as the top metric to measure ROI. 22% of the companies on the other use product revenue to define performance.Here are 5 tools to help you measure your social media ROI:Viralheat: This is a social media analytics tool that is enabled with Facebook, Twitter and Google Buzz and offers analysis based on sentiments to identify the moods. It helps companies to discover supporters and detractors who are talking about you. It monitors, informs and shows you which of these conversations are going viral. It also provides insights about your social media campaign.Social Networking Media ROI Calculator: This is a free tool that helps to calculate all the user’s social media efforts. It will provide you with a rough idea of cists, benefits, advertising and traffic values and PR values.Argyle Social: Lays emphasis on conversions and follows other unconventional routed to your normal “click-centric” metric. It helps users to measure and optimize their efforts and to decide which conversations they really want to achieve through social media marketing.Tweetreach: This will provide you with detailed reports on your users’ Twitter activity and will show the overall exposure, mentions, retweets, impressions and replies on a particular tweet.

Posted on: 25 April 2011 | 5:59 am

The Pros and Cons of Social Media for the Journalism Field

Today, everybody seems to be tuned into social media, through their computers or mobile phones. Everybody seems to commending social media for its various uses. But what can the flipside be? Here we will talk about the pros and cons of social media.Pros of Social MediaAlthough a lot of people say that social media is killing our psyche, it is however in fact working wonders in a number of fields including journalism. It opens new windows for new opportunities in every field. The most important aspect of social media is that it is easy to access and made specifically for the audience.Getting the latest news on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter is easy now. However, it can work wonders for journalism in many different ways. Blogging is a reliable source nowadays. Blogs are probably the fastest way of spreading news and can do so even before a reporter published or broadcasts a story.Twitter is another great way of spreading news. In the latest Japan disaster, Twitter feeds were being used to coordinate relief efforts.The Cons of Social MediaThe Internet provides us with opportunities to interact with people across the world, who we would otherwise never be able to physically meet or chat with.The Internet has made it possible for a number of clubs, organizations and relationships to develop, where individuals meet and interact with each other or even conduct business online without having to meet each other in person.Sure this can be beneficial, but what we all seem to ignore is the fact that we are all losing the ability of communicating face-to-face! Physically meeting and interacting with people is now a thing of the past. Is virtual communication slowly overshadowing physical interaction?As far as journalism is concerned, can social media be considered as a boon or bane?

Posted on: 21 April 2011 | 3:43 am

Business Leaders share Tips for Blogging

Bloggers tend to be extremely passionate and versatile when it comes to writing. But most of them spend hours on end wondering what more can they do to make their blogs more reliable, popular and useful for their viewers. In the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration that took place, bloggers received some very useful answers about how Facebook can be used to boost their blogs.The Internet is largely used to search for all kinds of information, but it is also used to make many discoveries through the people you connect with. For instance, 92 percent of mothers who use Facebook use it to keep up-to-date with their friends and family. And, 50 percent of mothers who use Facebook use it to learn about various brands and to get recommendations through friends.Every day, nearly 1 million users are being added to Facebook, and bloggers can capitalize on this to feed their blogs through Facebook or by using the Notes tool. Here is how you can do it:Start by creating a page and posting all your blog stories in it.Then integrate all the appropriate social plug-ins on to your blog.Advertise to target other bloggers and build your business.Use the insight tools to get a better understanding of your audience.Apart from the financial concerns, there are plenty of issues to focus on. It is important to separate the personal identities from the professional ones and have a different page for each of these as well as on your personal profile.

Posted on: 20 April 2011 | 3:36 am

Ways to attract more followers on your Social Networking site

Social networking can seem very complicated to most of us, especially if you’ve got nothing but an empty Facebook or Twitter page with no friends and no followers. Building a loyal following takes a tremendous amount of time, but by taking a few simple steps, you’ll see your social media presence expand faster than you can imagine. Here are a few ways to attract more followers on your social networking site:Start by putting all your social media buttons and links on your website or blog. Make sure that all the Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn networks are clearly visible on your web pages with links to those pages.Add all of your social media links at the end of your emails, newsletters and any kind of electronic media. Invite people to become a “Fan” on Facebook or to “Follow” you on Twitter.Expand your followers through social media. Post a message on your Facebook page and invite people to follow you on Twitter. On LinkedIn, add all of your social networking links to your profile page.Place your social media links on all your print materials. Add these links to your postcards, business cards, newsletter or any direct mail.Write articles and blogs with great content to encourage people to share your work or respond to it. Social media helps you to interact with others and to share information. By communicating regularly with your followers, they will share your work with others and thus expand your network.

Posted on: 19 April 2011 | 4:07 am

Google’s Social Networking Mistakes

Larry Page, Google’s new CEO, is passionate about social networking, and so is Google! And he’s immensely interested in getting Google onto the social networking platform.Google has been repeatedly saying that Facebook is not a real competitor to them, in spite of many of the Google employees shifting to Facebook. Does Google get intimidated by Facebook? It seem this way, what with the whole frenzy of social networking tests and activities going on in Google.Google has been making several attempts to get it right as far as social networking is concerned. They’ve tried to buy out Friendster, but couldn’t do so, and now they are encouraging their employees to work harder in this area.Google had launched Orkut a month before Facebook came on to the scene and was the biggest social networking site at the time. But with the emergence of Facebook, Google has lost its top spot. Google feels that its future success largely depends on its social networking capabilities and not on email or search engine capabilities.

Posted on: 15 April 2011 | 3:41 am

Social Networking is popular amongst Seniors

Senior citizens has increasingly started turning towards social networking sites like Facebook to keep in touch with friends and family. Social networking amongst seniors has become so popular that many of the North Shore senior centers and councils are holding workshops to teach senior citizens about how to use Facebook. Many of these workshops are booked out!Many senior citizens are now creating their own Facebook profile pages and using it on a regular basis. Most senior citizens confess to using Facebook more than actually watching television! Social networking is a great way for senior citizens to keep in touch with their friends and family.What with more and more people going social, the only thing left to happen was the seniors joining up. And now that this seems to be the case can anyone argue that social network is not a phenomenon?

Posted on: 14 April 2011 | 4:00 am

Students hit Facebook the first thing in the morning

Studies have shown that most students head straight for Facebook the first thing in the morning; the minute they wake up. Surveys have shown that Facebook is the most popular social media platform that students go to for their daily social media fix; the first thing in the morning. Nearly 84% of students use this site before they go to any other site and nearly 96% of students say that they have to visit Facebook every day.These findings have established that Facebook is still the leading social networking site used by students, followed by YouTube, Twitter and then the other rivals. The biggest reason why students prefer to use Facebook as the leading social networking site is because:83% of them use social media because their friends use it too.3 in 5 students use social media because it is fun or provides them with knowledge.Half use social media to make their lives easier.

Posted on: 13 April 2011 | 3:38 am

Quepasa’s record doubles with its latest social media ad campaign

Quepasa Corporation, the founder and operator of quepasa.com is a popular social networking and gaming platform for the Latino community. Today, it announced the results of its social media advertising campaign that was sold through its reseller partner – Sony Pictures Television Ad Sales Latin America. This campaign was Quepasa’s first such campaign and has resulted in more than 13 million user engagements – which is a record-breaking success for the company.The campaign was designed to support the launch of a new Mexican consumer product. The campaign was brought about to promote the product through a broader media than television, Internet and radio. The campaign invited people to share their entries across social profiles in order to win points and prizes. What’s more, participants could also double their points by taking part is “high value” tasks.In just a matter of 6 weeks, the campaign generated more than 13 million engagements. The DSM technology was responsible for producing such powerful engagement numbers. By using the click-through method on a traditional ad display as a proxy for an engagement, the company managed to drive the equivalent number of clicks as that of when traditional media would buy more than 6 billion impressions. This is another good example of how social media can drive ROI for advertisers.

Posted on: 12 April 2011 | 3:13 am

Search Engines tap into Social Media sites to tailor the Search Results

Search online for a specific topic and you’ll get mixed results that could relate to or not relate to what you are looking for. This can be very frustrating form a browser. So, in an effort to get better and more personalized search results to online queries, most search engines have started tapping into social media sites for recommendations.This step is considered to be the most groundbreaking step in the last few years of online search, and has managed to make the online search experience a better and smoother experience. Internet searchers are constantly on the lookout for the best search results and should not be fooled by low-quality websites that take advantage of loopholes in the system. And what better way to do this than by using social media sites? Only one friend will know what their other friends want and can recommend the best and most tailored links.Online search has been a frustrating experience off late. And this is why introducing people is a great way to boost online search efforts. Every month, more than 500 million users on Facebook itself, share about 30 billion links, blog posts and other content with friends.By liking things and sharing things on Facebook, most of us unknowingly help our friends in their search queries. There is great potential in recommended links, which acts as a sign that a page holds good and interesting information. Pages that users like on Facebook are very powerful because users know that their friends will definitely check out the links that they like.

Posted on: 11 April 2011 | 1:46 am

Twitters latest Milestones!

The big guys at Twitter have started using their own social networking platform to share the latest milestones that have been met by the microblogging site.The promotional team at Twitter has unleashed a whole barrage of tweets that exclusively detail some of the company’s biggest accomplishments during the first quarter of 2011.Some of the most interesting, and impressive news shared includes:The first quarter of 2011 seems to be very big with more than a 41% increase in the number of Tweets per day globally, and a 38% increase in the number of Tweets per day in the US alone.From December to March, there was a noticeable 52% increase in the number of account signups, with a 57% increase in the US alone.Mobile growth on Twitter was huge. A 50% increase in monthly mobile signups was observed.The first quarterly increase in the number of Twitter users per month include: 104% Android, 55% iPhone, 72% iPad and 51% Blackberry.Twitter is now clocking the number of tweets per day at 155 million, which is up from 55 million at this same time last year.

Posted on: 8 April 2011 | 3:54 am

Would Organizations benefit from granting employees access to Social Networking Sites?

Many organizations and public bodies have shown concerns over allowing their staff members access to social networking sites. But are they right or wrong?Many people believe that organizations that use social media gain certain benefits by using these internal systems to generate a sense of loyalty or a sense of community within the organization, but still others believe that embracing social networking in the organization can result in breach of practices, especially with privacy.This leads us to the question that does allowing your staff to access social networking sites from work impair productivity or breach privacy?Or does granting access to social networking sites provide for more useful communications and demonstrating to your staff that you, as the organization, trust them to use this technology in a healthy manner?

Posted on: 7 April 2011 | 3:57 am

Hackers Target Social Networking Sites and Mobiles

The biggest threat to your online activities would come from the lack of adequate security measures taken on mobile web browsers and social networking sites, and from high targeted attacks against organizations. This is a conclusion made by an Internet security threat report recently.Today, hackers are banking on gaining trust from their colleagues and are using this to launch online attacks. The biggest online attack came in 2010 and was known as Stuxnet. It largely targeted all the industrial control systems and has been dubbed as the most sophisticated malware to ever exist. It proved that malware can even be used to disrupt any vital infrastructure, such as the water pipelines, electrical power supply grids and financial trading systems.In 2010, targeted attacks were not only restricted to large multinational companies, but also included a number of smaller organizations as well. With smaller companies attempting to reduce the number of helpdesk calls being made, attackers are increasingly finding the opportunity to install software on their computers. This is why organizations should manage technologies that can control and manage these attacks centrally.And with more and more people using social media for business as well as social purposes, it is important for businesses to implement security measures.

Posted on: 6 April 2011 | 4:03 am

Dis your friends with Facebook’s latest iPhone Application

Facebook has recently updated its iPhone application, which mainly focuses on the Facebook Places application and also gives users the ability to “unfriend” contacts from their phones.With this application, you can now check out various events like TV shows and concerts and other stuff that you may like. You can also view various venues on a built-in map. The application is not what you would exactly call as groundbreaking, but it still is a good update.If you want to “unfriend” someone in your contacts list, all you have to do is click on the arrow in the top right corner of the person’s profile and you’ll get a new menu with the option.

Posted on: 5 April 2011 | 3:46 am

Google’s +1 not a hit

Google’s latest attempt to implement social networking elements into its search engines appears to not be making a mark. Google is struggling to overcome the serious threats that are posed by the Facebook and Microsoft search collaboration.Google’s latest social search feature, +1, was released on Wednesday and has received weak reviews. Many users feel that it is potentially confusing to their browsing experience, it is too weak to overshadow its strong and already established competition and it has a weak social graph anchor.From the public’s point of view, the +1 feature looks like a copy of the Facebook “Like” button, which makes Google look more like a follower than an innovator. This move is not considered to be revolutionary. It’s being seen as a move made by Google to catch up with what Facebook has already done.While Google still remains the leader in search usage and advertising, it does not have the kind of social networking and social media influence that Facebook and Twitter have.

Posted on: 1 April 2011 | 4:02 am

Cyber-bullying leads to new levels of depression

In the days gone by, kids and teenagers used to have to tackle bullies in schools and colleges by enduring taunts and being pushed about. But kids could escape this nightmare after school; in the warm comfort of their homes. Not anymore!Bullying has reached new levels and has grown beyond school playgrounds. Bullying is now reaching our homes. Even in the safety of their bedrooms, kids are no longer free of the threats and taunts that cruel bullies like to dish out. And this has been made possible through social networking sites and online gaming sites.Cyber-bullying is latest way to be mean online and harangue other kids and teens your own age. From cell phones and computers to social networking sites, cyber-bullies use any medium to harass, threaten or humiliate people. Apart from making people absolutely miserable, cyber-bullies can hide behind their anonymity and don’t really have to face their victims. Yet, the impact is just as traumatic, as sending messages through social networking sites can spread quickly.The Internet takes bullying to a whole new level and online bullies don’t give other students a chance to heal or to move on because there is always a chance that a harassing email can be forwarded to thousands of other people just for kicks. Since teenagers spend most of their time online, this can be very devastating to them and can lead to new levels of depression, and in some cases, suicidal tendencies.

Posted on: 31 March 2011 | 3:46 am