A link for a good general overview of social media!

http://www.asaecenter.org/wiki/?Page=Social%20Media

Did You Know; Shift Happens - Globalization; Information Age

This video was shown to me by a friend-who thought that it would be informative and of interest to my blog.

This video goes to show that the power of the Computer and the Internet are growing exponentially. It also highlights the point that the population is growing, as well, especially in India and China. This is an interesting point for business and marketing.

It is interesting because a consequence of globalization, better travel/shipping and the internet, that a world market is more easily accessible, when and where it wasn't before. This means untapped market potential for a business that takes times to socially integrate and market their business properly, and it is only growing.

Are you using the power of the internet and social media to their full potential to benefit your business?

Social Media Strategy 2010

Social media checklist | What to do before engaging | Social media agenc...

North Social Branding Email

http://email.northcontact.com/t/ViewEmail/r/532D41DDFBF2404F/3300B65806F3A3BDF99AA49ED5AF8B9E

Without A Brand, Your Social Will Suffer

It’s pretty simple, if you don’t already have a strong brand strategy, then you’re not properly equipped to build long-lasting relationships on Facebook or any other social network for that matter. Take care of your brand first and you’ll live long and prosper on Facebook. So before you encourage your staff to quickly try to concept and launch a meaningful social marketing experience, make sure everyone is up to speed on your brand taxonomies (brand personality, brand values, brand equities, brand promise, your targets’ emotional and rational needs). Yes, Facebook is a tremendous marketing tool for developing deeper connections with your consumer and inspiring them to take action. We're huge fans of jumping right in, but you should consider yourself warned... If you don't have a brand personality, this lack of charisma will be magnified by social media. But to be sure your page doesn’t end up in the Sickbay, don’t forget to first figure out if your brand is funny, helpful, nerdy, or nice. The last thing you need is a split personality that makes your fans think you're from another planet. Cheers, The North Social Team

Pagemodo Review

http://pagemodo.com/

One of my complaints about Facebook is that you cannot really modify your page. That is where 3rd party application Pagemodo comes in. It is a design/template application that let's you add a custom look to your otherwise cookie-cutter looking Facebook page!

You can get one page (with small footer) for free, or you can pay for extra pages starting at $6.25 per month for 3 pages up to $33.25 per month for 15 pages. The pricing really is not that bad! However it adds to your Facebook page budget. This cost is coupled with advertising your Facebook page with their ad service, your regular website costs with set-up fee and monthly fees and any other social media marketing, such as Twitter or Myspace... and your online marketing costs are now compounding. Yet if you don't mind spending the money-it is a great way to make you Facebook page standout.

The setup of your page was fairly straight forward and easy. You just plug and play images and text into a template. The templates aren't too numerous, but considering you can customize the look, colour, images and text...you can still make a really nice little addition to your Facebook page. It is alright as far as a free online WYSIWYG application goes.

One problem I had was that there were not spots for links on your Pagemodo page. Additionally-I wanted mine to be a welcome page and Facebook did not seem to link to the Pagemodo page very well, when I wanted it to become the default landing spot on my page. Overall, I did like the look and feel and the price for free was just right!

David MacCoubrey on the Behance Network

David MacCoubrey on the Behance Network

This is a post of my portfolio if you want to check out what I do.

New Facebook Deals

http://mashable.com/2011/04/25/facebook-deals-screenshots/

http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-deals-launch-2011-4

Some more changes coming to Facebook-added firepower to the Social Media Integration experts and for your business. It is starting out in 5 cities-then it will spread if it works. One point of difference from other coupon sites, such as Groupon, is the ability to use Facebook credits to buy in. Social Media experts are going to be watching this one to see how it all pans out.

Various Profile Picture Sizes

http://www.personalbrandingblog.com/the-2009-personal-avatar-size-reference-guide/

This is a good link to let you know the profile sizes for various social media sites-from Facebook and Twitter to a myriad of blogs and other sites! Having these dimensions allows for you to have clearer, well placed images, as well as allow for you to maximize space to add extra information if possible.

He recommends http://mypictr.com/ for the less graphically knowledgeable social media butterflies! I haven't tried it, but am handing on the information.

Colour Scheme Generator

This is a good tool if you you are having problems with colour for your designs...check it out! Great if you have a mental block or just want to try something new!

The Colour Scheme Generator

http://www.youthedesigner.com/2011/04/05/20-color-scheme-generators-for-web-and-graphic-designers/

The Future of Social Media

This is an in depth look at the future of Social Media and the decline of traditional advertising. It is very informative and direct... an excellent video to watch!

I will paraphrase Gerd Leonhard's timeline/terminology for to make it easier to understand:

12-18 Months-Privacy will become the issue as people learn to integrate with the changing social media role in advertising.

12-18 months-Digital Jetlag-people will have to adapt to the new social media powers that are almost overwhelming.

18 Months- Realtime Social Feedback will take the forefront of marketing.

18 Months-Population will have to realize that they are in a Socially Augmented Reality.

18 Months-The start of the Extreme Reputation Economy-where people take control and traditional controlled media is declining.

12-24 Months-Resistance to the media marketing trend will diminish changing the view on copyright and the way the population is in the state of media control.

12-24 Months-Intelligent Automated Social Agents-automated programs that help streamline media into categories that make it easier to access information.

12-24 Months-Mindshare & Market share-a the population realizes that intellectual property has divested, and begin to share the once guarded copyrighted items, etc.... they will find their market share increasing.

2 Years-One-way communication from a non-trusted source is 99% useless.

2-3 Years-The world will begin to have the Global Social Brain.

4 Years- Social Media advertising will be 30% of digital use.

4 Years-5 Billion users will be connected on the internet and mobile devices.

5 Years-1/3 of the population will be engaged in this Social Media Reality.

Leonhard also mentioned a few phrases of interest:

Businesses are going to have to get used to the fact that they are not there to create but to divest.

Also if people cannot find your business in Social Media-then your business does not exist!!!

Soon people are going to trust strangers on their media accounts more than they are going to trust CEO's.

Pretty much to sum up the Video-businesses better be braced to get in on this technology or their businesses will sink in this new social media age!

Social Media in Plain English - 24 Translation(s) | dotSUB

I thought that this was a funny little video to explain, in simplistic terms, why social media marketing is a good strategy to market your business. It didn't make me crave pickle ice cream though!

Social Media in Plain English - 24 Translation(s) | dotSUB

Walmart is jumping into the social media ring!

You know if Walmart is entering the market that there is definitely something to the product. This article explains that the term "social commerce" is much more than a buzz word!

More Media Marketing Tips-6 Branding Strategies for Your Facebook Profile Pic

Click here for: 6 Branding Strategies for Your Facebook Profile Picture

Some good tips-it creates more visibility of your vital information, can provide more instant information to grab a new potential client's attention and it makes your page look better. A good tip!

Social Media Marketing Tips-Creating an RSS Feed for your blog!

RSS Feeds are an excellent and easy way for your users to access your blog.

Social Media Website Critique #2-Twitter

Today, I am going to discuss the pros and cons of Twitter. The third largest (and growing) social media website is definitely a marketing powerhouse to be discussed further. As stated before, these critiques are only looking at the business capabilities of the site.

First off, we need some stats to view the Twitter phenomenon properly. I am using facts reported on the Wikipedia site about Twitter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

Twitter is estimated to have over 200 million users, just after its 5^th birthday. There are 65 million messages or 'tweets' a day generated. The tweets themselves are not allowed to be any longer than 140 characters long.

Pear Analytics a market research firm investigated Twitter in 2009 and reported some numbers as to the content of the tweets. 40% are pointless babble, 38% are conversational, 9% have pass along value, 6% are self promotion, 4% are news and spam. We will discuss these numbers a bit more later in this article.

As I mentioned before in this blog, Twitter can only boast a retention rate of 40% because most users leave after a month. So the website may only reach 10% of internet users. (Neilson Online, 2009)

In the U.S., 53% of Twitter users are women. 63% of all users are under the age of 35. Also 5% of all users make up 75% of all use! (Sysomos, 2009) 60% are Caucasian, 16% are African-American and 11% are Hispanic. And at last, 58% of all users come from a household that makes an average of $60,000 a year. (Quancast)

Twitter is a powerful marketing tool, because of it's amount of users and the fact that it forces users to create short and concise messages. The short messages can contain precise information to market your business or product. It is a fast and efficient way to advertise, as well as it is free. These short messages are perfect for a world that survives on mobile devices. Additionally, users are can provide feedback quickly and easily to aid in the marketing of your company.

However after looking at the numbers, I would not consider it as powerful of a marketing tool, as Facebook. The low retention rate means that your information may be falling on deaf ears. However, do not be discouraged, the more that businesses use Twitter for marketing, the more effective of a marketing tool it becomes. Also it is still fairly new and it may take the users a while longer to stop generating 'senseless babble'.

Twitter still holds a lot of water, when it comes to marketing to a large mass market...this is good for businesses that rely on mail order or online businesses, as Twitter can push people towards their site.

When coupled with couponing sites (the newest rage-I will talk about later in this blog), Twitter can also push people to your coupons.

Twitter also connects well with other media sites, such as MySpace, LinkedIn, etc. This is good when you want to create a good flow between all of your media outlet sites. Twitter also allows for good Twitter stats pages so you can monitor your marketing campaign with Twitter.

Twitter has been developing better video and photo integration technologies. As well, Twitter is currently updating it's homepage, however, as of March 5^th, 2011, they were having problems with their new look. Generally Twitter has an uptime rate of 95%, which is fairly good.

Some drawbacks of Twitter are that your message may be lost in the wave of senseless babble, as well your message may be perceived as spam, if not implemented properly. Hard core pitches, over tweeting, bad word choice and auto-generated responses may create a spam image for your business. If you use a professional, this should not be a problem.

Other issues are that your followers are harder to pin-point, unlike Facebook. It is hard to find out who, what and where your followers are. This is not good when you want to market your business close to home.

Overall Twitter is an excellent addition to any social media arsenal. It is just good to know who want to reach and what you want from your campaign before you proceed.

Social Media Website Critique #1-Facebook

This part of my blog will focus on the pros and cons of various social media websites. This post will focus on social media giant Facebook. Since its inception in 2004 it now has, over 500 million users worldwide, making Facebook the largest of the social media sites.

To get started, here are some interesting statistics-note these numbers were taken from their stats page at http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics. Most people on Facebook have an average of a 130 friends. People spend 700 billion minutes on Facebook a month. 200 million users access Facebook through mobile devices, with these 'mobile users' being twice as active on Facebook as 'non-mobile users'.

Facebook boosts 70 different language translations and 70% of users are outside of the U.S. Facebook is truly a global community.

In a business sense, here are a few more stats-Facebook users install 20 million applications a day. Since they added social plugins in 2010, an average of 10,000 websites integrate with Facebook each day, with over 2.5 million websites integrated now!

So with all of that said and done let's get to my critique part of Facebook Pages. Just to get it out of the way, I am basically only looking at the business capabilities of the social network.

Example of Facebook Page

The first and major draw of Facebook is the fact that it is the largest of all the social media networks. This creates a large target market for a business. An additional draw of Facebook is the high use by mobile users-this creates a on-the-move approach to marketing. For example, a flash sale for the afternoon is advertised to your contacts on Facebook for your business and these people will be reached on their mobile devices wherever they are! The hope is that since they are already out and about-they will stop in and spend money at your store.

Another draw of Facebook marketing is that after your Business Profile Page is created - you can advertise on the side of people's Facebook pages in targeted areas for a somewhat reasonable price. This advertisement would push people towards your page and inform people of your product or service. This is an excellent strategy for brand recognition and market penetration in a targeted area. Additionally these ads are paid as you go - so it is good to help out with strict marketing budgets.

The newest marketing buzz is about the power of the 'Like' button on Facebook or an embedded badge on your website displaying the like button. It is good because it is another way to spread the word of your business to people that might not otherwise have heard of your business.

If someone likes your site-this 'like' and your business name/page is posted to their contacts 'news feeds' for all to see. The like button also holds some credence in marketing, as a consumer is more likely to listen to their friend's opinions on a business, than the traditional spokesperson or some paid celebrity pitching a business or product.

Placing your product photograph's up on your Facebook Business Page is easy and a good way to let your contacts know what stock your business is carrying. As well, it is a good way to promote new arrivals or seasonal goods.

Facebook Pages also are readily accessible through search engines, increasing visibility for your brand. The easily embedded profile badge is another way Facebook makes it easy for your business website to be integrated with the social media website giant.

And lastly the way videos are easily integrated into Facebook-it allows for more in-depth video integration with your contacts if needed.

Now for some cons: One of the first problems I have with Facebook Pages-is the fact that they are not easily changed to match your corporate identity. You must conform to the look and feel of the”Facebook” look. This is a drawback when trying to create image recognition with your target market. Inversely it creates a level playing field for a new or small businesses that cannot afford big budget branding campaigns.

The look itself is very plain and basic-with a place for user posts and a photo area. It is good because it takes little user knowledge to access your information...but is boring to the eye.

Another issue I have with Facebook is that it acts “cagey” sometimes. I understand that this is hard to avoid, as it is a very large site and it is hard to monitor every little bug on every portion of the site. However-it can be very trying, especially when trying to time manage and maintain productivity when marketing. For example, I had to invite friends to my page three times because of site 'bugs', which was very time consuming.

This is all that I have to say today on the subject. I will probably revisit the topic in the future. So for now, I state that Facebook is a definite must when social media marketing and is really a good media outlet!