Many people are outraged about Facebook’s new decision to roll out Timeline and cover photos, but if you look at the evolution of the internet as a whole – these are relatively conservative changes compared to the technology available.

Here are my tips for what you could be seeing and using on Facebook sooner than you think.

1. Group Photo Upload

I hate it when three or four of my friends upload photos to separate albums. Each album originating from their own Facebook page which I then have to navigate to, I also don’t want to have to create a group every time I want everyone’s photos to be in the same album.

So, why not add a ‘group upload’ facility in which you have the option to view all yours and your friends’ photos from one event in the same place. The author would be listed and people can be tagged.

Statistically, most people have a close-knit group of friends that they see regularly and are therefore most likely to have pictures with, and with Google+ exploiting this notion, I see it as a way forward.

You heard me right; Google+ is on to something.

2. Custom Design

This one is tricky – part of the reason for the success of Facebook is its structure, making sure no-one is alienated and making sure that all functions are open to all of its members. But I would like to see some more personalisation controls, much like a simplified version of Word Press.

Facebook has different core functions for many different people, however for a large proportion; these functions cross over with the ideologies of what is fundamentally a blog.

I recently started a blog because of these customisable functions – so Facebook…try and stop me.

3. Ken Burns Effect Cover Photo

Now, my natural instinct would be to suggest that you could put a video where your current cover photo…or maybe not. Facebook is visually static, I remember when I first saw an animated GIF and filled my MySpace page with them just like everyone else. It ended up being a horrific mix of cartoons and thrusting storm troopers that would completely destroy the uniform of Facebook (or any other website for that matter).

No. A slideshow of photos in your cover window with the Ken Burns photo effect would be a perfect fit.

4. Live Profile Pictures

The option to actually see people when their online – Of course this would include functions to be heavily limited to your friend group, but I just can’t be bothered to type chat sometimes – it’s a lot of effort  to sum up the nights TV in writing to four people simultaneously.

Give us a customisable area on the timeline where we can physically see our friends.

Alternatively, simulate the use of video messages. Leaving a private or public video on your friend’s wall could be massive if Facebook tailored its functionality and focused on making it an easy task. With so many webcams built into devices – it’s a quick and easy way to share messages.

So come on Facebook – good work so far, but now is the time in your life cycle where you need to think radically about what technology can achieve for your company and your customers.

You created one of the world’s most innovative and successful companies; don’t think we expect anything less from you.

What do you think about the current state of Facebook? Good, or getting worse? If you have suggestions how to make it better, please share below.

[Image: Coletivo Mambembe]

* * * This has been yet another awesome post on Social Media Revolver by James Duval. Social Media Revolver is a magazine style blog covering latest discussion, news and tips from Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn and other major social media networks. You can read the original article here: 4 Simple Ideas To Revolutionise Facebook.

Pinterest is a fun and useful tool for business and online marketing. The visually oriented virtual pinboards allow users to pin and share images they find appealing. With over 12 million active users Pinterest is growing quickly; in fact it is one of the fastest growing websites ever! The site is already being used successfully by many big brands.

According to Mashable Pinterest drives more web traffic to other sites than Google+, LinkedIn, and YouTube combined. See related post: Pinterest vs. StumbleUpon.

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest users can easily post images from other websites into their own account using the “Pin It” tool on the task bar. They also like, comment on, and/or “repin” content others have already posted. Users often have multiple boards. My boards, for example, include Marketing and Social Media, Products I Love, and I Workout. Many pinners create boards for recipes, craft projects they’d like to try, and wish lists. No doubt, you’re already thinking about the boards you’ll create.

Each user decides which boards to follow, putting the control of what content they see in the hands of the viewer rather than the sharer. (Unlike Facebook, for example.)

How Can You Take Advantage of Pinterest for Business? Follow These 10 Tips.

1. Integrate Pinterest with other networks. Pinterest allows you to sign in via Facebook or Twitter. You can share your pins across your networks, letting those who already follow you know they can find you on Pinterest, too.
2. Use images. To ensure that your blogs are pin-worthy, be sure to include an eye-catching image with each post. Pictures of any products you sell should be enticing to pinners who may want to pin, comment, or like. Infographics are hugely popular as well.
3. When you pin, ask if your followers would re-pin. Include a link to your website, blog, or other social media presence.
4. Try a creative campaign. Consider a contest where your fans create images to be featured on your Pinterest page. Allow voting on favorite items on a specific board. Try featuring how-tos, videos, and posts that show another side of your service or product (we love behind-the-scenes).
5. Clearly label your boards. Think about the audience that will view it. Individuals can choose to follow all of a users boards or just the ones that interest them. (Compare this to Twitter where many people manage two accounts, one for business and one for pleasure. On Pinterest your boards can be completely unrelated and won’t flood your followers’ streams with things they’re not interested in.)
6. Use Pinterest widgets on your website, etc. Pinners will recognize that red P logo anywhere. (See our Pinterest -button further down the page.)
7. If you’re a photographer or designer, consider using Pinterest as a portfolio.
8. Control who can pin to boards. You can create boards that only you can pin to or allow a few specific people to pin. Create a community board and anyone can pin to it.
9. What doesn’t get measured can’t improve. Unfortunately there are no brand pages as of yet and therefore no metrics, but you can use tools like Google Analytics to track the popularity of your boards.
10. Get inspired. Be sure to follow those that might give you further ideas for marketing campaigns.

Pinterest For Business Infographic

Here is a great Infographic by Maria Peagler featuring some important things you need to know when using Pinterest for business purposes. (Sorry for changing the colours, Maria)

Pinterest For Business Video

This excellent video from Matthew Loop talks about the use of Pinterest in marketing your brand or business. Enjoy!

What About Your Pinterest Account?

Are you already using Pinterest in your business? Let us know in the comments below.

Social Media Revolver is on Pinterest

Click the button below to follow us. Cheers!

Pinterest For Business Book

If you want to learn more how to use Pinterest in your business, check out Pinterest For Business Made Easy from Kim Castleberry. [Yep, you guessed it, it is an affiliate link. Still, the book is actually very good!]

* * * This has been yet another awesome post on Social Media Revolver by Terra Fletcher. Social Media Revolver is a magazine style blog covering latest discussion, news and tips from Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn and other major social media networks. You can read the original article here: Pinterest For Business – 10 Ways To Pin It.

Every blogger should know that social media and SEO are fast becoming one big, messy and marvellous marketing discipline. Here is a collection of 50 blogging tips from my most recent and valuable posts on topics that are essential for a successful blog marketing effort. If you’re just starting out with a blog, these tips may save you a lot of time – and perhaps a little heartache as well.

Blogging Tips For Strategy

Blogging is a powerful tool to be used in marketing as well as presenting yourself as an expert, but you need to take notice of a few simple rules to make it more effective for you or your business.

1. Headlines are just as important as the blog post, and in some ways, more. It takes a pretty good one to capture the attention of readers who are scanning scores if not hundreds of Web pages every day.
2. SEO drives traffic, but a site must be optimized for conversion in order for that traffic to turn into leads and sales.
3. Companies err by concentrating on SEO and ignoring CRO, conversion optimization. The fatal flaw of an SEO fixation is that it takes your eye off the ball. SEO is about traffic. Traffic is important, but it’s not the goal.
4. The fundamental purpose of Internet marketing, and business blogging in this case, is conversion.
5. Publish regularly. Have a calendar based plan for your blog posts. Once a week is good, twice a week even better. The important thing here is that you stick to your plan.
6. Consider hiring an SEO specialist. This is one of the most important decisions you will make in your pursuit of online marketing success. (see points below)

Blog Design And Functionality

No matter how brilliant a website’s design, no matter how elegant its navigation, sooner or later visitors will decide whether to take action because of something they read. In the end, the effectiveness with which a website converts visitors hinges on words. If a new website is going to hit all the right notes, its content must be just as well crafted as its design and programming.

1. Primary SEO keywords should appear at the beginning of headlines. This helps readers as well as search engine crawlers.
2. Use bold text for keywords; again, this help readers in addition to strengthening SEO.
3. Use bulleted lists to the attention of readers and crawlers.
4. Insert primary keywords at the beginning of Meta titles.
5. Build a strong internal link structure on your site.
6. Optimize site images – this is an often-overlooked technique that boosts SEO and user experience.
7. The biggest error in corporate website content: inward focus.
8. The second biggest error: burying the lead under a pile of unimportant words. Give readers the point first of all, and then elaborate.
9. The third biggest error: poorly optimized or non-existent Meta content. Your site will seriously confuse Google and readers without proper optimization.
10. The fourth biggest error: Too much content. If you can say it in 1000 words, you can say it more effectively in 500.
11. The fifth biggest error: Lame or non-existent calls to action. If you don’t tell readers what to do next, they won’t do anything.
12. Corporate sites tend to have weak calls to action because they don’t take the time and apply the creativity to develop them in the first place.

SEO For Bloggers

While Title Tags contain only a very small mass – roughly 65 characters – they pack an unbelievable punch. Because of title tags’ enormous impact on SEO, social sharing and conversion, content marketers should know how they work, and how to put them to work.

1. Title tags are the most important piece of Meta information on a Web page in terms of SEO.
2. Title tags are also crucial for optimizing user experience and facilitating social shares.
3. Title tags may or may not include a branding message.
4. Title tags must always include the primary keyword phrases for the Web page it represents.
5. Title tags can be composed for conversion: snappy titles inspire social sharing. The decision whether to stress SEO or conversion depends in large part on the nature of the content.
6. Skilful use of H1 title tags boosts conversion without compromising the SEO integrity of title tags.
7. Title tags should be updated if on-page content changes relevant keywords.
8. The biggest factor in selecting an SEO partner: understanding their methodology. If the agency doesn’t have a formal one, or if the methodology is outdated, results inevitably will be poor.
9. The second biggest factor: understanding the SEO’s track record. Actions speak louder than words!
10. The third biggest factor: making sure there is a good fit. Every SEO has a sweet spot; if you’re not in it, results will lag.
11. The fourth biggest factor: the longevity and stability of the SEO. You don’t want to start from scratch after investing years developing a program with a partner who suddenly disappears.
12. The fifth biggest factor: great relationships. You don’t want to start over after investing years on a program with a partner who suddenly disappears.

Some web content writers, as well as web designers view on-page SEO as a necessary evil to an effective content strategy on the web. However, when properly executed, SEO can actually enhance a site visitor’s experience, rather than detract from it.

Writing For Web

Web writers are a special kind of breed. Their jobs include writing AdWord ads, corporate bios, blog post titles, calls to action, display ads, Facebook fan page posts, landing pages, Meta descriptions, taglines, testimonials and tweets.

1. Writing AdWords ads requires more precision than perhaps any other form of Web writing.
2. Corporate bios require genuine creativity to be readable and relevant.
3. The art of writing brochures should not be lost, because it’s still a highly valuable business skill.
4. Landing page composition is too important to be a sideline job: great landing page writers are made, not born.
5. Several important (and not always understood techniques) go into writing a truly persuasive sales proposal.
6. Taglines are the most all-around demanding form of business writing there is. There’s a reason why brilliant taglines cost a fortune.
7. Twitter may seem like a frivolous medium, but great writing skill is required for effective business tweets.
8. “Different from” is universally accepted, but “different than” is not.
9. Avoid the expression “if and when.” Not even experts understand its meaning.

Social Sharing And Blogging

Social Sharing is the latest ‘add on’ in blogging and Twitter has become one of the most important social sharing platforms. Here are some practical tips how to make Twitter perform better for you.

1. On Twitter, define your purpose clearly before launching your page.
2. Make sure you have adequate resources to support your Twitter program. Many firms grossly underestimate the time and effort needed.
3. Select the right Twitter interface platform to support your program. They all have strengths and weaknesses.
4. Vet your Twitter followers and clean them up to avoid being buried under a mountain of spammers.
5. Learn the basic types of tweets and best practices for writing them before you start tweeting.
6. Don’t tweet on one or two themes all day long: variety helps attract followers.
7. Although you have 140 characters to work with, tweets at 100 characters or less can be very effective and draw retweets.
8. Avoid jargon and exotic abbreviations in tweets – the longer it takes someone to get your drift, the less likely they’ll be to pay attention to you.
9. Schedule certain types of tweets in advance to save time and make sure you’re getting the full message out.
10. Always respond to people who retweet your material and ask you questions.
11. Always be ready to lend a hand to fellow tweeps – giving to get works well on Twitter.

I hope these 50 tips will help you in your blogging endeavours. If you have any blogging tips of your own please share with us.

Brad Shorr works for Straight North, a Web development, Chicago-based agency concentrating in B2B, with clients in specialized niches such as credit card processing for gas stations and truck tracking systems.

* * * This has been yet another awesome post on Social Media Revolver by Brad Shorr. Social Media Revolver is a magazine style blog covering latest discussion, news and tips from Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn and other major social media networks. You can read the original article here: 50 Golden Blogging Tips For Business.

Social Marketing and Social Sharing are two of the hottest trends in marketing today. You share your business and personal stuff via multitude of social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, StumbleUpon, Pinterest and others. But when is the best time for doing that?

Social marketing eats up your time and resources so it would be a good idea to learn when exactly to do that,.. and when not.

This week I’m presenting the entire Science of Social Timing infographics series from those cool and clever people from KISSmetrics. This is a long post and these infographics are quite big, so please give them some time to load; it will be worth your while I promise. (All data is in Eastern Standard Time (EST). Click the images for a bigger view if you need to.)

Timing Your Social Marketing On Twitter And Facebook Is Crucial

This first infographic is about using Twitter and Facebook at correct times for marketing purposes. It makes a huge difference when you upload your material on your Facebook Page or post your tweets on Twitter. If your audience is not present at the time of posting your material probably goes to waste.

For instance, my Twitter feed consists of about 10.000 people and the time one single tweet is visible on the main view is only about 90 seconds before it falls below the fold. This does not leave much time for your message to reach your audience. You should make sure there are enough active people on the receiving end for your message make an impact.

TIMING TIPS: If you are targeting people in the United States your best bet is using the Central and Eastern time zones as they cover 81% of the US population.

The best days to post your tweets are Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. The best times are at noon and in the afternoon 5-6pm.

Regading Facebook your best day is Saturday and the best times are middle of the day and early evening at about 7pm.

Timing Makes Or Breaks Your Email Marketing Campaigns

Some might not agree that Email marketing is part of Social Sharing or Social Marketing, but regardless of the view it is still a very powerful tool for your business.

TIMING TIPS: Don’t send your Email campaigns between 10 pm and 6 am. It is considered a Dead Zone and most of your material goes unnoticed. The best times are usually in the morning and after lunch.

Open rates and click rates are highest during the weekend.

What Is The Best Time To Publish Your Blog Posts?

When it comes to blogging timing is an important factor to the success of your articles. You should publish your posts at the time when most of your readers are active on the Internet.

TIMING TIPS: The best day to publish your blog posts is Monday. You should post them in the morning as usually articles get the most views and comments between 9 am and 11 am. If you are a comment junkie Saturday is the best day for getting comments on an average blog.

When Is The Internet Awake?

Do you think it would be useful to publish your material during the hours when most of your audience is awake and active? Of course it would be.

I came across this awesome visualization by New York based Art Director Bård Edlund about the times when Internet is either awake or asleep. You can use it to locate the time zones when most of your audience is alive and kickin’. See the wonderful live chart here.

TIMING TIPS: If you know where your audience lives try to publish your material at the time when most of them are awake. That’s fairly obvious isn’t it, but it is often over looked. If you are using Google analytics you can see this data under Audience > Demographics > Location.

Most of my blog readers live in the US, Canada and UK, so I usually publish my posts at 11 pm Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST) which is 9 am EST in the US. Mostly I do it on a Thursday but I should actually try to change it to Monday as Mondays give you the most traffic.

Let us know if you are using timing as a strategic weapon in your Social Marketing. If you have timing tips of your own, please share below.

[Clock tower image: FreePhotos.com Infographics: KISSmetrics]

* * * This has been yet another awesome post on Social Media Revolver by Kris Olin. Social Media Revolver is a magazine style blog covering latest discussion, news and tips from Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn and other major social media networks. You can read the original article here: The Secret Of Timing In Social Marketing #Infographic.

But what happens when you, all of your mates, their friends, … and the rest of the world get things going?

This Is What Happens In 60 Seconds In Social Media World

When you consider the entire Internet user community all of a sudden you’ve got stuff happening you couldn’t believe! Twitter people send 175.000 tweets, Facebook users share 700.000 messages and video fans watch 2 million YouTube videos! All in those 60 short seconds! Here is an interesting Infographic of all things happening on the most popular social media networks in a minute:

Here is another look with some more disturbing figures. Google gets hit by 695.000 searches, people send 168 million emails to each other, and Skype connects over 370.000 phone calls. Wow!

Check out this 90 second (hmmm..?) video on what happens in 60 seconds on the Internet:

What can you do in 60 seconds?

What can you do on the web or in real life in just 60 seconds? Let us know. The best answer wins 10 Twitter followers and a Retweet!

 [Infographic by David Fung for Social Jumpstart Video by YouOnGroup]

* * * This has been yet another awesome post on Social Media Revolver by Kris Olin. Social Media Revolver is a magazine style blog covering latest discussion, news and tips from Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn and other major social media networks. You can read the original article here: What Happens In 60 Seconds On Social Media Time? #Infographic.

When it comes to online marketing, social media has been a game changer. Whether you’re talking about the mostly defunct MySpace or the ever-growing Facebook empire, people have altered the way they show their support for products and services.

On the other hand, that doesn’t mean that you should stop using more traditional, Email marketing campaigns. In fact, if you take these two different strategies and you combine them, you can make a lot more headway when it comes to your marketing success.

Here are 5 great tips how to connect your Social Media Marketing with your Email Marketing

1. Use Your Social Media to Increase Your Email List

So you have an email list for your marketing; addresses of people who are interested in your company or products and who want regular updates. How do you traditionally recruit them? Flyers in the mail or at the store, voluntary sheets that customers can fill out? Simply put one of these on your social media page. That way really interested clients can sign up for more information, giving you a bigger list to draw on.

2. Include Your Email Link in Your Social Media

If you link your social networking media together with your emails, you can get more feedback from your marketing. If people who for instance ‘like’ your Facebook Page want you to email them with special offers, you have a tailor made solution present already. Additionally, while an email list isn’t very useful for getting comments, a social media page that’s included in the email marketing would give customers a place to voice all of their concerns.

3. Include A Link to Your Social Media in Your Email

In much the same way that customers can sign up for your mailing list on your social media marketing pages, make sure that you provide links to your social media pages in your email lists. This will increase your exposure and make sure that customers who are only on one marketing list have the chance to get onto both.

4. “Friend” Your Email List

While it might seem a little pushy, go through your email list and ask people to friend them. This allows you to take the first step, making social networking connections to increase your exposure even more.

5. Adjust Your Offers

Offers, coupons and free stuff are some of the best ways to get customers to remain loyal. And if you’re trying to join together your social media and email lists, then offer clients free stuff and additional benefits for joining both of these lists.

In addition to connecting your campaigns, it’s always important to be sure that once users get to your site they know what to do and it comes intuitively. This is where  conversion optimization techniques come in to help find out what works and what  doesn’t with your current landing page optimization.

Are you using Email together with your Social Media Marketing? Or do they play a separate role in your marketing plan. If you have any tips of your own, please share with us.

[Image: Kittikun Atsawintarangkul]

* * * This has been yet another awesome post on Social Media Revolver by Emily Murray. Social Media Revolver is a magazine style blog covering latest discussion, news and tips from Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn and other major social media networks. You can read the original article here: 5 Ways To Connect Your Social Media Marketing And Email Marketing.

Not that social media professionals are idiots (far from it) — but doesn’t this describe a lot of social media marketing programs? Here today, gone tomorrow? Lots of talking, tweeting, linking, liking, blogging, sharing … but precious little targeting, qualifying, converting, lead generating and selling? Shakespeare would never have approved.

Getting Serious About Social Media Engagement

One of the most important things to do, and one of the hardest things to do, is put a profitable purpose into your social media efforts. A number of daunting obstacles get in the way:

• A mindset that is comfortable with conversation but suspicious of selling
• The difficulty of crafting a coherent social strategy
• A fuzzy understanding of social media metrics
• Fear of coming off too strong, of alienating the firm’s social media community

Well, what follows are ideas, tips and examples to help you get past these issues; methods to help you get results that justify the expansion of your social media program and set the stage for long term success.

Divide and Target

A common social marketing problem is sharing the same info with the same basic audience across every platform. Well, just as Caesar marched successfully with a divide and conquer strategy, you can march toward profitable engagement by dividing and targeting; in other words, creating distinctive content on each platform calculated to attract a particular segment of your community.

Example:

• Use Twitter to broadcast daily or weekly specials to existing customers who may have no interest in conversation, but definite interest in saving money. The profitable purpose: incremental sales, loyalty building.
• Use your Facebook page in conjunction with a Facebook ad campaign to attract new customers with enticing offers. The profitable purpose: new customer acquisition, lead generation.
• Use your Google+ page to discuss important issues with industry peers. The profitable purpose: referral generation, knowledge building.

Of course, something totally different might be what suits your needs; no matter. The purpose of my example is only to present a format for articulating your tactics. Once you get a plan into written form, you’ll be surprised at how much easier it is to share and refine ideas.

Structure Offers to Match Audience Interests

Having any offer connected to your social media program puts you one step ahead of the crowd, but you can do much better than that. People you engage with are looking at your content from very different perspectives. Someone who is browsing doesn’t want a hard sell; someone ready to place an order doesn’t want a 40-page white paper telling him what he already knows. It is extremely difficult to create a one-size-fits-all offer — which is why so many of us fall back on lame alternatives such as “contact us for more information.” The winning approach is to craft offers specifically suited to the interest of each audience type.

Examples:

• For browsers — White papers, free downloads with tips or industry insight
• For serious shoppers — Free onsite consultations, free trial orders
• For buyers — Limited-time discount coupons, extended payment terms
• For customers — Extended warranties, loyalty program signups
• For researchers — Free specification sheet downloads, white papers
• For referrers — Referral rewards programs, lead exchange programs

If you have created a distinctive strategy for each social media platform, you can see how developing concrete offers around these audience types can put some very serious profitable purpose into your efforts.

Conversion Enhances Rather than Inhibits Conversation

The subject of concrete offers brings me back to the issue of mindset. Don’t buy into the notion that selling conflicts with conversation! The opposite is true. People who like to talk to you want to work with you and help you and perhaps, do business with you. If you don’t put concrete offers in front of them, you frustrate them, because you give them no easy way to act on their impulse to assist or inquire.

I don’t know about you, but I run into this frustration almost every day. A company’s social media page shows off a really cool product or a creative service that complements our agency’s service offering, but doesn’t give me an offer or a path to connect or a way to take the next step in the relationship.

If you are relying on a vague contact form embedded in a custom Facebook tab, or for interested parties to click through your Twitter page to your website and find a contact form, you are actually making their lives difficult. Every click and every pause to figure out what to do next is one less lead, one less prospect — and perhaps one less person interested in sharing conversation with you.

Concrete offers also help you from the metrics perspective. Many of the widely used social media metrics — retweets, likes, referred traffic, etc. — are nebulous. On the other hand, tracking downloads, form fills, completed orders, etc., is precise. Understanding what works and what doesn’t helps you test and refine offers — making people even more happy about their social media engagement experience with you.

Profitable Purpose On Google+

Here are a couple examples of how easy (and unobtrusive) it is to put conversion elements into a Google+ About page.

Example: SEOmoz

SEOmoz displays a link to its SEO software landing page, where interested parties can get a rundown on the product and order. They also have a link to their jobs page — don’t forget that recruiting is another profitable purpose of social media engagement.

Example: Raven Tools

What I’d like to draw your attention to is the Recommended links: Raven has a few good conversion links here, my favorite being “Raven webinars,” which takes you directly to a page where you can sign up.

Profitable Purpose On Facebook

Examples of smart conversion optimization abound on Facebook. I chose the following example because it covers so many bases.

Example: Ace Hardware

The top “Like Us Today” box has special offers for buyers, how-to’s for researchers, an opportunity to show off your project, and more. Ace gives people a reason to connect no matter where they are in the buying cycle, or not in the buying cycle at all. They repeat and expand on their offers just below — excellent techniques to draw people in and peak their interest.

You’ll also notice they differentiate their social media platforms: Twitter to get home maintenance tips and advice; YouTube for inspiration on home projects. Shakespeare would have been proud!

Profitable Purpose On Twitter

As long as we’re talking about Ace, let’s take a look at what they’re doing on Twitter. First, they say true to their Twitter brand promise by tweeting a link to helpful advice, which provides truly detailed information:

A Helpful Tip for Researchers

But Ace sprinkles in tweets to attract a different segment, buyers, who are taken to a page where they can browse or make a purchase:

Linking to an E-commerce Page

Finally, Ace tweets socially, reaching out to people who are interested in engagement:

Small Talk Is Good for Business

I wrote in an earlier post here about the business value of small talk in social media. Ace is wise to include this type of tweet, not because it leads to direct conversion, but because it keeps people coming back.

Wrap Up: Know The Rules, And Then Break Them

Critical readers will observe that Ace’s Twitter activity, which hits multiple audiences, runs counter to my advice to target each social platform to a specific audience segment. As in most things marketing, there are no hard and fast rules; Ace no doubt shaped and built its content through trial and error, through careful listening, through diligent measuring of results. In the end, the important thing is to do what works. However, you stand a much better chance of finding the right formula if you start with best practices, if you keep your strategic focus on conversion and profitable purpose.

What Do You Think?

How are you making your social media engagement activities profitable? Do you separate your social messages according to you target audience segments or do you use the same basic message for all?

__________

(Note: Brad’s agency is one of the leading Chicago marketing firms focusing on B2B. Their clients are in highly specialized niches, such as rebuilt Allison transmissions and heat resistant gloves. These firms place a high value on ROI in all activities, including marketing.)

* * * This has been yet another awesome post on Social Media Revolver by Brad Shorr. Social Media Revolver is a magazine style blog covering latest discussion, news and tips from Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn and other major social media networks. You can read the original article here: Purposeful Social Media Engagement.

Super Bowl is also the most exciting advertising event of the year. Super Bowl XLVI broke yet another record with 111,3 million viewers in the US alone; and this makes the event very appealing to advertisers.

This year corporate advertisers paid on average US$3.5 million for a 30 second commercial! You can see one of them on the right, featured as our Video of the Week. And the tickets aren’t cheap either! The average price paid for one Super Bowl 2012 ticket was $3,985. What a game!

Sunday’s game was as exciting as ever, and for awhile it looked like it would go to New England Patriots. Eventually Giants turned their game around with Eli Manning’s amazing 38-yard pass to Mario Manningham with only 3:39 left on the clock.

New York Giants won the game 21 to 17 bringing them their fourth Super Bowl championship. Incidentally their previous 2008 Super Bowl victory was also against the Patriots.

Super Bowl 2012, the Social Media Game

Ok, that was the game on the football field, but how about on the Internet? Let’s have a look how these two teams stack up on the Social Media arena.

New York Giants

Home town – East Rutherford, New Jersey
Coach - Tom Coughlin
Quarterback – Eli Manning

Facebook 1,8 million likes
Twitter 252k followers
Google+ 139k in circles

TOTAL: 1,83 million fans

New England Patriots

Home town - Foxborough, Massachusetts
Coach - Bill Belichick
Quarterback - Tom Brady

Facebook 3,1 million likes
Twitter 326k followers
Google+ 140k in circles

TOTAL: 3,5 million fans

As you can see from the figures above the winner of the Super Bowl Social Media Showdown is suprisingly not the Giants! It is the New England Patriots who dominate the social medias by a huge margin.

Patriots’ social media audience is about twice the size of the Giants. The biggest difference is on Facebook where Patriots have over 3 million Likes, whereas Giants have managed to gather ‘only’ 1,8 million. Patriots are winning across the entire social field as also their Twitter and Google+ accounts have gathered more audience than the Giants.

Tom Brady Facebook Page

When it comes to Quarterbacks it’s a win for the Patriots again! Tom Brady has 1,3 million Facebook fans, which is almost as much as the entire Giants team!

Eli Manning has to settle for 447,197 Likes. Manning’s Facebook Page is actually extremely poor, and it makes me wonder what those almost half a million fans get out of it. ‘Nothing‘ would actually be the answer here, as you can see if you clicked the link.

So, congratulations to the New England Patriots for winning the 2012 Super Bowl Social Media Showdown!

How did you like last Sunday’s game? Did you think Giants deserved to win? And how about them awesome commercials?

If you liked this article, or if you are a Patriots fan, be a good sport and click some of those Social Media sharing buttons below.

* * * This has been yet another awesome post on Social Media Revolver by Kris Olin. Social Media Revolver is a magazine style blog covering latest discussion, news and tips from Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn and other major social media networks. You can read the original article here: Super Bowl 2012 Social Media Showdown.

I’ve got some exciting news! I have finally decided to change the domain name of this blog. The old name (facebook-advertising-marketing.com) is not really reflecting the scope of this blog any more. Facebook is just one, although important section covered in this blog, but a lot of the articles are actually not Facebook related at all. It also has the name ‘facebook‘ in it which is not really a good idea if you are not, well … Facebook.

So, the new name of this blog will be: (insert drum roll here)

http://socialmediarevolver.com

Pretty cool name, eh? I got lucky with this one as it’s quite hard to get a proper domain name (without hyphens) with the words ‘Social‘ and ‘Media‘ in it. I already owned social-media-advertising.com but even though it had a Page Rank 2 and three good keywords in it it was a bit boring. I think SocialMediaRevolver packs a lot more punch, and it ‘s easier to remember and type without those pesky hyphens.

#SocialMediaRevolver tag trending in Brisbane, Australia

This new name will serve the blog a lot better as it is not all about Facebook anymore. We’ll be covering the whole exciting spectrum of the social media world from Twitter and LinkedIn to video marketing and blogging for social impact. There will be a How To -section as well; Social Media news, -tips and -tricks, …and of course the important Facebook stuff. We’ve got lots of exciting articles lined up from our awesome guest bloggers as well.

How to change the domain name of a Word Press blog?

That is a serious question!

At the moment I am right in the middle of this rather unpleasant process of moving everything over to the new domain. The main goal here is not to loose the links to URL’s of the old articles. Also we don’t want to lose any of that important SEO juice the posts have gathered over time.

Luckily I’ve had lots of valuable help from some clever social media professionals. Thanks JG, Jane and Kristi! Follow these guys, they know some serious stuff!

If you are subscribing to the RSS feed or email delivery of this blog, don’t worry FeedBurner will recognize the name change and it will be business as usual.

As soon as the migration is done and everything is up and running I will let you know how I did it and how the whole process went. Wish me luck!

Let’s get the ball (or the cylinder in this case) rolling

As some of you would know it is quite tricky to break in a new domain name, so if you want to help me out it would be great.

I have a temporary homepage set up at the new blog address, so if you could please go and click on those Twitter and Like -buttons it would be much appreciated!

Click here to see the page: http://socialmediarevolver.com

You can also click those buttons right from this post if you like:

Tweet #SocialMediaRevolver

Thank you for your support!

Cheers,
Kris, admin

PS. Let me know if you have actually pulled the same stunt, or if you are planning to do it in the future.

* * * This has been yet another awesome post on Social Media Revolver by Kris Olin. Social Media Revolver is a magazine style blog covering latest discussion, news and tips from Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn and other major social media networks. You can read the original article here: Is It Wise To Change Your Blog Name?.

…and then you lose that page!

Has this happened to you? It sure did happen to me; twice…and let me tell you it does not feel good!

The first time was in September last year when I lost my Facebook Page I had created for the readers of my blog. This one you are reading right now. I had some good interaction happening with the Page and there were hundreds of fans who had Liked the Page.

Then one rainy morning I received a blunt email from Facebook saying that they had deleted my Page. Bang! Just like that. No warning, no nothing. Just one evil click of Facebook tech’s mouse and my Page was gone forever.

Hello,

You created a Page (“Facebook Advertising | Social Media Marketing“) that violated Section 5.6 of our Statement of Rights & Responsibilities, which says:

“You will not use our copyrights or trademarks (including Facebook, the Facebook and F Logos, FB, Face, Poke, Wall and 32665), or any confusingly similar marks, without our written permission.”

This Page will not be reinstated. Continued misuse of Facebook’s features could result in the permanent loss of your account.

If you have any questions or concerns, we encourage you to review our Statement by visiting http://www.facebook.com/terms.php.

The Facebook Team

The email didn’t actually reveal why my Page was deleted, but it said that you can’t use Facebook, the Facebook, F-Logos, FB, Face, Poke, Wall or 32665 with your Facebook Pages. Based on this my guess is that I lost my Page because of the name I’ve given to it. I had created the page for my blog which was, and still is, called Facebook Advertising | Social Media Marketing. Hence the logically identical name on my Facebook Page.

What the email did say clearly though was that my Facebook Page will not be reinstated! They didn’t even offer me a possibility to explain myself, fix the problem or reply to their email. I actually tried to reply but they never got back to me.

What bugs me the most was that I could have corrected the problem very easily. I had not yet applied for the custom URL so I could have just changed the name and everybody would have gone home happy. But nooo! Click, bang! You’re dead and that’s the end of it!

(Just in case you’re wondering what that cryptical 32665 is, it is the number where you can update your Facebook status by texting FBOOK 32665).

Facebook is seriously protecting their rights

Facebook is very protective of its intellectual property and it is determined to safe guard it with a vengeance. You may have heard about cases where Facebook has sued different parties for taking their name in vain. For instance they sued Teachbook.com for using the word ‘book‘ in their name. Yes, you read that right. Facebook thinks they own the copyright to every book-word on the planet!

Another example is where Facebook is suing the holders of 25 domain names referred to as typosquatters. These are websites which URL’s resemble facebook.com type wise. For example facemook.com or facefook.com. Facebook is accusing them of infringing its precious domain name. This I can understand, but if these websites have totally different agendas and don’t even resemble Facebook it’s a bit of an overkill.

Facebook expert Mari Smith took down her popular WhyFacebook.com blog in late 2010. According to Mari, Facebook was on a mission to reclaim all domain names which contain the word ‘facebook’. It looks like Facebook has actually taken possession of Mari’s domain as it now redirects to the Facebook homepage. This cause of action actually makes me worry as I too have the name ‘facebook’ in the domain name of this blog. So far they haven’t contacted me so perhaps I’m safe.

For now.

Once bitten, twice shy

The second time I lost my Facebook Page was about a week ago when Facebook took down the Page I had created to replace the one I lost earlier. This time I made sure I didn’t have anything related to the Facebook -name in the Page and so it was called “Social Media Marketing Advice”. You’d think that would have been ok? Again, here is another grim email:

Hello,

You created a Page (“Social Media Marketing Advice“) that violated Section 5.6 of our Statement of Rights & Responsibilities, which says:

“You will not use our copyrights or trademarks (including Facebook, the Facebook and F Logos, FB, Face, Poke, Wall and 32665), or any confusingly similar marks, without our written permission.”

This Page will not be reinstated. Continued misuse of Facebook’s features could result in the permanent loss of your account.

If you have any questions or concerns, we encourage you to review our Statement by visiting http://www.facebook.com/terms.php.

The Facebook Team

Ok, what is going on with me and the Facebook Team?! Are they determined to kill everything I put up there? The Page was called Social Media Marketing Advice so why on earth would that qualify for a take down?

After closely reviewing their terms of usage (again) I came to the conclusion that this time they took the Page down because I had used one of the popular F-logos in my graphics. Now come on! Everybody and their butler use them all over the web!

You can see the infamous F-tile (among other famous social media logos) at the bottom of the image I used on my custom landing page. Doesn’t this make you wonder if it really was necessary to kill my Page?

Luckily I still have my Twitter account alive and kickin’ for the service. Twitter is not nearly as picky on these infringement issues as FB.

In their terms Facebook states that if they remove your content for infringing someone else’s copyright, and you believe they’ve removed it by mistake, Facebook will provide you with an opportunity to appeal. Well that’s all great, however, they don’t provide any links to this procedure on their emails. You will have to look for it and dig it out from their legal mumbo jumbo docs.

By the way, the Facebook’s DMCA counter-notice form is here should you ever feel the need to use it. I think I will actually give it a go and see what happens. I’ll keep you posted on that.

What you need to do to keep your Facebook Pages safe

If you are managing Facebook Pages which violate Facebook’s terms and conditions I would strongly advise you to clean them up or get rid of them. Especially pay attention to trademark infringements and copyright issues. For example if you have a Facebook Page called Google AdSense Advertising chances are it will be deleted without notice sooner or later; and you will risk losing your entire Facebook account.

Here is the entire 5.6 section of Facebook’s Statement of Rights & Responsibilities. It deals with protecting other people’s rights on Facebook. If you are suspecting that you might be violating other parties’ rights read this through and fix the problems before it’s too late.

1. You will not post content or take any action on Facebook that infringes or violates someone else’s rights or otherwise violates the law.
2. We (Facebook) can remove any content or information you post on Facebook if we believe that it violates this Statement.
3. We will provide you with tools to help you protect your intellectual property rights. To learn more, visit our How to Report Claims of Intellectual Property Infringement page.
4. If we remove your content for infringing someone else’s copyright, and you believe we removed it by mistake, we will provide you with an opportunity to appeal.
5. If you repeatedly infringe other people’s intellectual property rights, we will disable your account when appropriate.
6. You will not use our copyrights or trademarks (including Facebook, the Facebook and F Logos, FB, Face, Poke, Wall and 32665), or any confusingly similar marks, without our written permission.
7. If you collect information from users, you will: obtain their consent, make it clear you (and not Facebook) are the one collecting their information, and post a privacy policy explaining what information you collect and how you will use it.
8. You will not post anyone’s identification documents or sensitive financial information on Facebook.
9. You will not tag users or send email invitations to non-users without their consent.

For the time being I’m done with creating more Facebook Pages for myself. Instead, for this blog I’m now managing a Facebook Group as well as a LinkedIn Group.

Facebook has upgraded their Groups recently and they are not that sensitive to all kinds of rules and regulations. Actually, in some cases Facebook Groups work better than Pages.

Have you had similar experiences with your Facebook Pages? Have you perhaps suffered a loss as well? Let me know and let’s frown together.

[skull image: Simon Howden]

* * * This has been yet another awesome post on Social Media Revolver by Kris Olin. Social Media Revolver is a magazine style blog covering latest discussion, news and tips from Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn and other major social media networks. You can read the original article here: Warning! This Is How You Lose Your Facebook Page.