Social Networking

Online Consumer Reviews Are Well Trusted

Wednesday, March 14th, 2012

The social media agency should be encouraged by the results from the 2012 Local Consumer Review Survey. Only 15% of respondents had said they did not use the internet to find a local business and 16% said they use the internet every week to do so. The ratio of that split was similar to the split when asked about using online reviews to determine if a business is a good one to visit. 27% regularly use online reviews and 24% never use online reviews. Most consumers, 67%, read between 2 and 10 reviews each week and only 7% said they read more than 20 each week. The final result is that 58% of customers trust a business that has an online review of it posted and these reviews are trusted by 72% of people as much as they trust personal recommendations.

Social media agencies need to be more focused on cultivating positive reviews than ever before. Part of this mission will require the social media agency to be more attuned to being present on sites that easily collect reviews and allow them to be searchable. Brands will then need to encourage customers to leave reviews. It may be possible to offer discounts or some exclusive item for reviewers. The temptation will need to be resisted, however, to leave fake positive reviews or to encourage positive reviews. A rumor of deception will take any good will among those that have had positive experiences and prevent any gains from positive reviews. Positive reviews only gain such a premium in a world where they are trusted.

Trustworthy Customer Reviews

Tags: advertising, consumer reviews, online reviews, social media, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking
Posted in Customer Serivce, Online Shopping, social media | No Comments »

Greystripe Updates Its Mobile Ads To Be More Social

Wednesday, October 12th, 2011

Greystripe, a leading mobile ad network, announced two new advertising units Wednesday which will makes its mobile ads more social and lucrative. These new units are called Ad Boosters. It is not yet known if the boosters can be applied to the same ads or if advertisers must choose between them. The first booster is geared for vertical industries allowing the advertiser to insert buttons for certain actions into the ad. The obvious application is a button within a retailer’s ad that allows the user to locate nearby stores. The button can have any design, usually the company’s brand, and its functions can vary.

The second ad booster allows for integration of the ad with social networking platforms. As of now the supported social networks are Facebook, Google+, Twitter and YouTube. The two new boosters can be applied at the bottom or within the ad itself.

These ad boosters join a lineup of boosters already offered by Greystripe. Advertisers already have the ability to add buttons for other actions, such as call the advertiser, coupons offered, buy or download more information. Greystripe does provide bundles at reduced prices geared for certain industries.

Mobile advertising is what’s hot these days and with the expected surge in mobile devices after this holiday season mobile advertising will become even more lucrative. The digital agency can use Greystripe’s new innovations to improve or even to begin mobile advertising. Greystripe’s advancements will also push other mobile ad networks to make more improvements.

Social Ads

Tags: advertising, Digital Marketing, Facebook, google, greystripe, Mobile, Social Networking, Twitter, youtube
Posted in Digital Marketing, Internet Advertising, Mobile, Mobile applications, advertising | No Comments »

Facebook Sets Up a Political Action Committee

Wednesday, September 28th, 2011

Facebook must be feeling defensive lately. Their latest small business initiative is a way to secure and increase their advertising base as well as to increase the use of their options for brands. Facebook has also announced the creation of a Political Action Committee, otherwise known as PAC, whose purpose is to lobby Congress about the importance of social networks and Facebook particularly.

According to The Hill Facebook has already spent $550,000 this year on lobbying efforts. That number has been increasing every year for a few years now. The PAC will allow employees and the company itself to contribute to the political campaigns of candidates that support social networking and digital innovation.

As long as Facebook represents the single largest and most influential online destination, this move is good for the digital agency. Congress has yet to settle the privacy concerns in digital advertising and the PAC may help promote pro-advertising opinions in Congress. Of course, there is concern this influence may not work for the industry but instead specifically for Facebook as Google’s anti-trust concerns increasingly comes to Congressional attention. The big payoff, with few of the risks, lies in devoting the PAC to the future of the industry and not in the issues specifics of Facebook competitors. The digital agency can probably breathe a little easier as it looks ahead to Congressional involvement in the industry.

Facebook’s PAC

Tags: congress, Facebook, google, Social Networking
Posted in Digital Marketing, Facebook, digital agency, social media | No Comments »

About How Men Share Recommendations

Friday, September 16th, 2011

AskMen.com and Ipsos OTX Media CT conducted “The Great Male Survey” and asked men how they tell their friends about purchases and other recommendations. The data is broken down by the answer given and by the age group of the men. Most men, regardless of their age, prefer to do the recommendations through non-digital means: in person or on the phone. If a face-to-face encounter is not an option, then older communication channels are preferred, such as over the phone or email.

Even though the preferred channels are without advertising potential, or at least represent a small advertising potential, the digital agency should still be excited. 5% of the younger age group prefers to make recommendations over Facebook, with other social networks falling behind Facebook. That number, while small, still represents a significant number of men. The percentage also reflects a preferred method of communication, so the low ranking options are still often accessed, as preferred methods are not necessarily available.

The preferred methods reflect an ease of use. It’s easy to mention a certain lawnmower when talking to a friend about lawn care or everyday life. It is possible for the digital agency to inflate these preferences by making a digital recommendation more convenient or to imbue the recommendation with a status gain. Given the preference for email recommendations, ads need to be try to capitalize on this desire or to incentivize the public recommendation more than the private recommendation.

What is really encouraging about this data is the success rate. The most likely answer to “how effective is a Facebook recommendation from a friend?” was “somewhat” at 42%. 18% of respondents find Facebook recommendations more effective than “somewhat”. Men pay attention to what their friends are saying. Channeling into this sort of engagement needs to be a high priority for the marketing firm.

How Men Share

Tags: Digital Marketing, Facebook, internet, social media, Social Networking
Posted in Internet Advertising, advertising, social media | No Comments »

Facebook Updates Friends

Wednesday, September 14th, 2011

Google+’s big achievement was the Circles innovation. Circles allowed users to share content to only some of the friends on the network. Imagine being able to selectively share pictures from a night out without the fear of potential employers or family uncovering those shared items. A lot of the people flocking to Google+ did so citing this function. Facebook does have a similar function, but it was cumbersome to use and implement. Zuckerburg announced that only 5% of Facebook users actually use Friends. Posterous has even changed its platform from a light blogging service into a social network emphasizing this very advancement. Facebook announced on Tuesday that it is now revamping the Friends application to make it more powerful and easier to implement.

The question for the digital agency is whether or not this advancement makes pages stickier or not. Facebook is not currently at risk from either Google+ or Posterous, but without addressing this problem it seems possible that in time Facebook could face a serious challenge, most likely from Google+. Facebook will start the revamped Friends by creating smart lists, which are a list for ‘close friends’ and another for ‘acquaintances’. They are smart because Facebook will offer recommendations about whom should go into which list. The user then merely needs to accept the recommendations. Whether or not that is easy enough remains in the details of how Facebook determines the recommendations. If it works, then this should actually increase a user’s usage of Facebook. Many people self-censor themselves for fear of someone seeing inappropriate content, but an effective Friends system would eliminate the need for the self-censorship.

This change is not likely to increase Facebook’s user base. It will not hurt the user base, but it seems many people flocking to other services were doing so for reasons more than the Circles function. Despite this caveat, this development is still good news for the digital agency. People’s concerns about Facebook are still being (somewhat) addressed and those people will use Facebook more. Advertising on Facebook will remain and become even more profitable with this development.

New Facebook Friend Lists

Tags: Digital Marketing, Facebook, friends, google, social media, Social Networking
Posted in Digital Marketing, Facebook, google | No Comments »

LinkedIn Offers New Ad Types

Friday, June 24th, 2011

Like FaceBook, LinkedIn is trying to find ways to leverage its social network into its advertising options without compromising privacy. LinkedIn has announced two new types of advertisements to capture this effort. One of these changes is to display within the ad how many of a user’s contacts recommend or follow the advertising company. The other new advertisement shows relevant people from a user’s contacts within the banner ad. It is possible for users to opt out of being featured in these advertisements.

IconSpedia.com

While LinkedIn specializes in type of contacts that may limit its appeal to the digital agency’s client, the digital agency should think about how to incorporate LinkedIn. Because of its business specialization it may never be as successful as FaceBook, but its specialization makes LinkedIn a particularly viable option for advertising solutions. These new social media marketing features will help LinkedIn advertising attain stickiness and a level of affect that makes FaceBook so successful.

Mashable: New LinkedIn Ads Leverage Recommendations & Follows

Tags: advertising, Business, Business Networking, Business Review, Business Social Networking, Digital Marketing, Internet Marketing, Linkedin, Mashable, New Media, Online Profiles, Social Harbor, social media, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking
Posted in Business Social Networking, Linkedin, Mobile, Mobile applications, Social Harbor News, advertising, digital agency, social media | No Comments »

A New Twitter Competitor

Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

Sina Weibo is a Twitter-like service that is currently available only in China. In China it is huge and the plan is to move the service into English speaking venues with Sina English. Budweiser is already on board and one of the few differences between Sina and Twitter is geared to marketing. One of those differences is Sina content is also linked to its portal, so links to longer content can still create exposure for advertisements. The main marketing advantage is the layout. Videos and pictures are displayed below the tweet-like message, Sina also operates on 140 characters messages, so viewing the content is easier.

Photo: PennOlsen.com

Even though this service will make itself more of a marketing platform, digital agencies should remain cautious. Consumers are notoriously cautious about gumming up their processors with another app that offers a redundant service. To answer the redundancy question, Sina supporters point to the explosive growth Sina has had in China. However, Chinese affords more communicative potential in 140 characters than English does, and the inline display advantage is also mitigated by using apps instead of visiting the web page. The good news Sina does offer the digital agency is competition. Twitter will now have external pressures to develop, especially the in the realm of the pro-marketing differences that Sina offers.

The Wall: Can Twitter still be beaten? Chinese rival to launch in the US

Tags: Business Networking, China, digital agency, Digital Marketing, Ingenex Digital, Internet Marketing, iphone, New Media, Sina, Sina Weibo, social media, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking, SocialHarbor, Twitter
Posted in Business Social Networking, Mobile, Mobile applications, Twitter, social media | No Comments »

LinkedIn and Twitter Join Forces

Friday, November 13th, 2009

Earlier this week, social networking mega-sites LinkedIn and Twitter joined forces. Why it didn’t happen sooner is anyone’s guess.

Both companies, now synced, earn ample benefits from their respective partners, such as data exchange and worthwhile business intelligence. LinkedIn users will able to update their statuses more frequently and appeal to a younger demographic. Twitter can gain access to LinkedIn’s influential and growing user base.

In your LinkedIn settings, you can link your account to Twitter to allow for every tweet to be posted as your LinkedIn status, or just the ones that include either the #li or #in hashtag.

Where this ends up is anyones guess, but for now, enjoy the new networking feature.

Tags: Linkedin, Microblogging, New Media, Social Networking, Twitter
Posted in Business Social Networking, Linkedin | No Comments »

Number of Social Networking Users Doubles Since 2007

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

With Facebook and Twitter grabbing national news headlines, it may not be all that surprising to hear the number of users on social networking sites has doubled since 2007. However, the numbers are staggering to look at.

Almost 1/3 of the US population - 55.6 million adults to be specific - visit social networking sites at least monthly. This according to the latest report from Forrester Research. That number was 15% in 2007 and only up to 18% last year in 2008.

This puts the popularity of social networking among adults higher than instant messaging, streaming music, and reading blogs. Here is the complete breakdown from Forrester’s report:

The most important thing to keep in mind is that the tools driving these online activities (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn at the moment) are constantly evolving. It is imperative for companies and their team members to be in position to benefit from these new technologies. If you simply cannot allocate the time and resources within to keep your company in the conversation, look for custom outsourcing options. You do not want to get passed up and left behind in the social conversation on the web.

Tags: Facebook, Forrester Research, Social Networking, Twitter
Posted in Business Social Networking, Facebook, Linkedin | No Comments »

Facebook Usernames and Vanity URL

Friday, June 12th, 2009

Facebook goes live with their username vanity URLs on Saturday at 12:01am (in your time zone).

So you might have seen a warning about this at the top of your Facebook page within the last couple days. Facebook is calling them “usernames” and people in the industry refer to them as “vanity URLs” but you don’t realize how important this can be!

On a first come, first serve basis, Facebook will be allowing you to customize your profile URL. For instance, if you are the first to claim “facebook.com/johndoe” that URL will point to your Facebook page. This will NOT change your name or anything else within your profile, it simply makes it much easier to point someone to your Facebook page.

Why do you NEED this?

Facebook is viewed as extremely important by search engines. Meaning if you can grab “facebook.com/yourname” it will go a long way toward establishing your name on the internet, and within the search engines. For instance if your LinkedIn URL is “linkedin.com/in/yourname” and your Twitter URL is “twitter.com/yourname” and then you can do the same with uber-popular Facebook URL, you will own the search returns for “yourname”

Straight from the Facebook Blog:

We’re planning to offer Facebook usernames to make it easier for people to find and connect with you. When your friends, family members or co-workers visit your profile or Pages on Facebook, they will be able to enter your username as part of the URL in their browser. This way people will have an easy-to-remember way to find you. We expect to offer even more ways to use your Facebook username in the future.

Your new Facebook URL is like your personal destination, or home, on the Web. People can enter a Facebook username as a search term on Facebook or a popular search engine like Google, for example, which will make it much easier for people to find friends with common names. Your username will have the same privacy setting as your profile name in Search, and you can always edit your search privacy settings.

I promise you this is big new in the social media world, and there will be heavy competition at 12:01am to claim the most lucrative names. There has been lots of buzz about this all week, so don’t hesitate. Make sure you grab yours, and solidify your name and space on the internet.

Tags: Facebook, Facebook Usernames, Facebook Vanity URL, social media, Social Networking
Posted in Business Social Networking, Social Harbor News | No Comments »

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