Posts Tagged: Twitter

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21
Sep 09

Link roundup: read & recommended between September 16th and September 21st

Added to my Delicious bookmarks between September 16th through September 21st:

  • Foursquare Beats Twitter to Local Advertising Goldmine – Foursquare, however, isn’t wasting any time on monetizing and has just beat Twitter to the business services market. Today marks the launch of their beta advertising platform — Foursquare for Businesses — designed to provide retailers with an opportunity to highlight specials to Foursquare users who check-in nearby and get data based on the location-based campaigns.
  • Online Database of Social Media Policies – Database of 82 corporate social media policies
  • WordPress Super Cache – WP Super Cache is a static caching plugin for WordPress. It generates html files that are served directly by Apache without processing comparatively heavy PHP scripts. By using this plugin you will speed up your WordPress blog significantly.
  • Newspapers get the kind of communities they deserve » Nieman Journalism Lab – "… what seems to escape many journalists is the direct connection between their own indifference to interacting with readers and the parlous state of their comments. If my research has taught me anything — not to mention writing columns and a blog for 15 years — it is that the surest way to improve the tone of the debate in forums or comments is to get involved in them. Writers who do, both at the Globe and elsewhere, uniformly say it has a significant effect on the civility of the comments they receive afterwards.
  • Alvenda Lets Consumers Shop From Their Facebook Pages – Advertising Age – Digital – A hypothetical example of how it works: You create a gift registry on Target.com or Macys.com, and by hitting a button you can share your registry with all your friends on Facebook. They'll see the notification in their newsfeed — "Karen has shared her gift registry" — and, without leaving the newsfeed, Karen's friends can purchase off the registry. Users could also compile wish lists on retailer sites (or e-commerce-enabled brand pages) that they share with their Facebook newsfeed. Their friends will then have the option to pool their money to purchase items from that wishlist together.
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1
Sep 09

Link roundup: read & recommended between August 31st and September 1st

Added to my Delicious bookmarks between August 31st through September 1st:

  • HOW TO: Answer Tough Kid Questions – Whether you have children of your own, or simply look after or spend time with them, you’re very likely to find yourself in a situation where you’re stumped by the questions that they throw at you at any given time, and on any given subject matter. You probably know the answer, but do you know a child-appropriate answer for those extra tough questions? Whyzz does, and they can help quell those inquisitive minds with suitable answers for children whether you’re at home or on the go.
  • apophenia: Teens Don't Tweet… Or Do They? – The most salient visceral reaction that I got when looking at the teens' Twitter streams was that teens on Twitter seemed to fit into three categories: 1) geeky teens, tech teens, fandom teens, machinema teens; 2) teens who are in love with the Jonas Brothers/Miley Cyrus, musicians, or another category of celebs; 3) multi-lingual foreign teens with friends/followers around the world who seemed to participate in lots of online communities.

    While I can't make any meaningful conclusions until I spend more time with the data, it seems to me that the teens on Twitter – or at least the teens responding to the trending topic – are not representative of teens as a whole. That's not a bad thing. They're geeks and passionate creators and trendsetters and pop culture addicts. I don't get the sense that they're dragging their friends into Twitter, but rather, focusing on using Twitter to engage with other people who share their interests or people that they admire.

  • Seth's Blog: On becoming a household name – Being a familiar name takes you miles closer to closing a sale. People like to buy from companies they've heard of.

    It turns out that this is an overlooked benefit of banner ads. Banner ads are fairly worthless in terms of generating clickthroughs… you have to trick too much and manipulate too much to get clicks worth much of anything. But, if you build ads with no intent of clicks, no hope for clicks… then you can focus on ads that drill your name or picture or phrase into my head. 100 impressions and you're almost famous.

    A household name. Not for everyone, but for people who matter.

  • Neuromarketing » Collecting Visitor Info: Reward vs. Reciprocity – Most users confronted with a form won’t complete it. If they arrived at the site looking for some specific information, they will likely hit the back button and see if they can access it without the aggravation of form completion and without the risk of getting spammed later.

    It turns out that a reciprocity strategy works better – give them the info they want, and then ask for their information. In the impressively titled Embedded Persuasive Strategies to Obtain Visitors’ Data: Comparing Reward and Reciprocity in an Amateur, Knowledge-Based Website, Gamberini et al found that twice as many visitors gave up their information if they were able to access the information first. It’s counterintuitive, perhaps, but even though these visitors were under no obligation to complete the form, they converted at double the rate of visitors seeing the “mandatory” form.

  • Official Google Docs Blog: Use Google Docs & Google Checkout to Sell Online – The Google Checkout store gadget — a new offering just released to Google Labs — allows anyone to create an online store using a Google spreadsheet.
  • Social Network Marketing Expands Sphere – eMarketer – according to Anderson Analytics’ May 2009 survey—52% of social network users had become a fan or follower of a company or brand, while 46% had said something good about a brand or company on a social networking Website—double the percentage who had said something negative (23%).
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31
Aug 09

Link roundup: read & recommended between August 28th and August 31st

Added to my Delicious bookmarks between August 28th through August 31st:

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26
Aug 09

Link roundup: read & recommended between August 18th and August 26th

Added to my Delicious bookmarks between August 18th through August 26th:

  • NYT: Who's Driving Twitter's Popularity? Not teenagers – Another reason that teenagers do not use Twitter may be that their lives tend to revolve around their friends. Though Twitter's founders originally conceived of the site as a way to stay in touch with acquaintances, it turns out that it is better for broadcasting ideas or questions and answers to the outside world or for marketing a product. It is also useful for marketing the person doing the tweeting, a need few teenagers are attuned to.

    "Many people use it for professional purposes – keeping connected with industry contacts and following news," said Evan Williams, Twitter's co-founder and chief executive. "Because it's a one-to-many network and most of the content is public, it works for this better than a social network that's optimized for friend communication."

  • Teens Don’t Tweet, Or Do They? –
  • Marketers and SMBs Disconnect over Online Tactics – As a source of information about products and services, SMBs rely most on newspaper and magazine articles (43.6%) and direct mail, including letters, postcards and catalogs (43.5%). Ranked last are phone calls (27.4%) and radio/TV ads (32%). Online, referrals from friends and peers rank first (71.9%) among SMBs, followed by search engine marketing (57%), educational websites (44.5%) and email newsletters (38.2%). Last are ads to cell phones (8.1%), videos/podcasts (19.2%) and forums/chat rooms (20.2%). SMBs rated social networking at 27.8%.
  • Dell, Moonfruit Claim Twitter Campaigns Effective – Dell's Twitter account has driven $3 million in sales since it began operation in 2007, Dell said.

    Moonfruit, a website builder, also said Twitter campaigns have helped the brand. Moonfruit said it spent around 10,000 pounds ($16,400) on prizes for the campaign, and that it brought in more than twice that amount in a single month in new subscriptions

  • Stupeflix – Video production made easy – Simple mashup tool that promises easy remixing of photos, video, music and text.
  • A call for "marketing with meaning" – iMediaConnection.com – "Many marketers have realized that, at long last, when all forms of interruptive advertising have failed, the only decent thing to do is create marketing that people find valuable. " – Amen.
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17
Aug 09

Link roundup: read & recommended between August 5th and August 17th

Added to my Delicious bookmarks between August 5th through August 17th:

  • Facebook's Click-Through Rates Flourish … for Wall Posts – Advertising Age – DigitalNext – Sure, click-through rates for general display ads on Facebook have been criticized for being rather unimpressive, but click-through rates for content on brand pages' walls are as high as 6.49%, according to estimates from Vitrue, a startup that helps marketers manage their social-media presences.
  • 40 Superb Psychology Blogs | PsyBlog – Forty of the best psychology blogs, chosen to give you a broad sweep of the most interesting content being produced online right now.

    The list is split into three sections: first are more general psychological blogs, followed by those with an academic slant, followed by condition specific and patient perspective blogs. Other than that the blogs are presented in no particular order.

  • Celeb Product Hawkers Fail to Sway Consumers – When respondents in the survey were asked whether the presence of a celebrity in an ad makes them more likely, less likely or neither more or less likely to buy the product, nearly 8 in 10 (78%) said it doesn’t sway them one way or the other. In fact, only 8% said the presence of a celebrity spokesperson makes them more likely to buy a product. This compares with a significant 12% who actually say it makes them less likely to buy a product.
  • Understanding How a Facebook Page Grows: New Research | Community Organizer 2.0 – Facebook Page growth is “not usually the result of a single chain-reaction event,” but rather the confluence of a large number of users. After looking at every Facebook Page with over 1,00 fans (as of August 2008), the report concludes:
    Pages accrue fans as a result of many different clusters of connected people becoming fans.
    The single most important action that creates these clusters is when a user becomes a Fan and broadcasts this action to their friends’ news feeds.
  • Why Teens Don’t Tweet | Mashable – Twitter’s different than Facebook or MySpace because Twitter is not about your friends. As I highlighted in my analysis of Twitter’s new homepage, Twitter is quickly becoming the epicenter of world events. Yes, you can update your status, but you can do that just as easily on Facebook. What you can’t do on other social media sites is learn about the #IranElection crisis in real-time.
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31
Jul 09

Link roundup: read & recommended between July 28th and July 31st

Added to my Delicious bookmarks between July 28th through July 31st:

  • Social Media Best Practices – eMarketer – In late 2008, MarketingSherpa surveyed social media marketers about the effectiveness of their practices. Large majorities rated social media marketing effective at influencing brand reputation, increasing awareness and improving search rankings and site traffic.
  • Managing Your Small Business’s Online Reputation – NYTimes.com – Local review sites are reshaping the world of small business by becoming the new Yellow Pages, one-stop platforms where customers can find a business — and also see independent critiques of its performance.

    How do you manage your reputation when everybody is a critic?

  • B2B Marketers Latching Onto Social Media : MarketingProfs – Most B2B marketers have begun using social media and more of them are planning to use "newer media" than ever before, according a new study by BtoB magazine and the Association of National Advertisers, reports BtoB Online.

    Nearly two-thirds (66%) of polled marketers said they use social media, up from 20% from two years ago. Among B2B marketers, 57% said they now use social media, up from 15% in 2007.

  • MediaPost Publications Study: Who's On Which Social Nets 07/28/2009 – More than half of social network users have associated their profiles with a brand, company or product. While much has been written about negative nature of Web 2.0 and blog posts, social network users are more likely to say positive things about brands, companies or products.
  • The Importance of Social Media Audits « Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang | Social Media, Web Marketing – Just as brands conduct audits of inventory, employees, and budgets on an often annual basis, they should also survey the landscape to find out what customers, influencers, partners and employees are participating on the social web. Audits are key for identifying priorities, benchmarking previous efforts, and planning for future efforts; the same applies for social media.
  • Why People Use Twitter – eMarketer – Men and women both used Twitter primarily to keep in touch with friends. Secondarily, men were interested in finding news and women in updating their status.

    Users under age 35 were more interested in broadcasting their status than their senior counterparts. Older users were more likely to use the service for work-related purposes.

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28
Jul 09

Link roundup: read & recommended between July 27th and July 28th

Added to my Delicious bookmarks between July 27th through July 28th:

  • Discovery Launches Facebook Connect Enabled Shark Week Promotion – Discovery is the latest company to launch a Facebook Connect enabled promotion that pulls in profile data into a custom generated video. This video is much more reminiscent of the Prototype game trailer that we previously wrote about. The promotion creatively depicts the viewers memories as they are being eaten by a shark. It also intelligently prompts a user to share the campaign after viewing the promotional video.
  • LinkedIn Gives You a Better Way to Brand Your Business – LinkedIn has just rolled out Custom Company Profiles to help you make your company profile shine bright and attract would be applicants with targeted content, better visibility, and more modules.
  • 7 Secrets to Tweeting Your Corporate Culture – Some people don’t like communicating with a company logo. But when a company offers a pleasant look and feel, and tweets out information of value to customers, then it is possible to connect with them. Here are 7 suggestions (along with some Twitter examples) for establishing a rock-solid corporate culture on Twitte
  • Red Cross Social Media Strategy Handbook – Handbook for Red Cross to familiarize stakeholders with the national social media philosophy, invite them to find, join, and participate in the national social media presence, and guide them in creating their own local social media presence.
  • Summer At MoMA – MoMa trip planning
  • Where in the world are those 18.6 million iPod touches? – Apple 2.0 – Fortune Brainstorm Tech – According to AdMob, Canadians have purchased more than 1.36 million iPod touches but only 805,594 iPhones.
  • How to Get In Tune with Your Readers Needs [and Produce Compelling Content] – For content to be compelling it needs to connect with needs of those consuming it.

    Whether those needs are for entertainment, news, inspiration, community, instruction, intellectual stimulation, a laugh/or a cry etc – if your content meets the need it goes a long long way to being compelling – after-all, who pays attention to something that has little relevance to them?

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24
Jul 09

Link roundup: read & recommended between July 23rd and July 24th

Added to my Delicious bookmarks between July 23rd through July 24th:

  • B2B Marketing On a Budget: Thought Leadership with John Watton of ShipServ – Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog – The next interview in the B2B Marketing thought leader interview series is with John Watton, VP Marketing at ShipServ, the leading e-marketplace for maritime shipping (and also a Marketo customer). Over the last two years, John has revolutionized the company's marketing strategy using Marketo Lead Management, introducing social media engagement, and leveraging the best practices he garnered over two decades of marketing at communications and high technology companies such as Cramer Systems (acquired by Amdocs), Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and Ariba. You can follow John on Twitter @jwatton.
  • Twitter 101 for Business — A Special Guide – Twitter launches new guide for business
  • Build a better bond with bloggers – iMediaConnection.com – Sponsoring bloggers and the conversations taking place online is big business these days. So big that businesses, according to an article in the June 21, 2009 PARADE Magazine, "spend about $1.6 billion a year on 'word-of-mouth' advertising, promoting their goods to bloggers and to people who use social-media websites like Facebook, according to the research firm PQ Media."
  • 10 Ways Universities Share Information Using Social Media – Universities are constantly exploring new ways to use social media to fulfill their missions of engaging and sharing knowledge with their constituents. Below are just 10 highlights of how universities are using social media for public affairs.
  • 10 Ways Universities Are Engaging Alumni Using Social Media – Universities across the country are beginning to use social media tools to engage alumni and build a network of graduates with a shared affinity for the institution.
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22
Jul 09

Bookmarks for July 22nd

Added to my Delicious bookmarks on July 22nd:

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21
Jul 09

Link roundup: read & recommended between July 16th and July 21st

Added to my Delicious bookmarks between July 16th through July 21st:

  • iPhone Games: Idea Attracts Coke, Audi, but not Many Others – Advertising Age – Digital – there are only a few handfuls of branded games in the App Store. Those include Coca-Cola's "Happiness Factory," released last month; Miller Lite's "Round Runner," launched in May; Ford Motor Co.'s "Flex Photo Lab," out last October; Audi "A4 Driving Challenge," released last August; and Pizza Hut's ordering and game app and Nissan's "Cube Party Roundup," both introduced last week.
  • Twitter leaps 1,989% YOY | MarketingCharts – Twitter.com was again the fastest growing site for the month, increasing 1,928% year-over-year, from one million unique visitors in June 2008 to 21 million unique visitors in June 2009. Facebook remains #1 for overall visitors as well as time on site.
  • New Study Finds Correlation Between Social Media and Financial Success – Those brands that were the most engaged saw their revenue grow over the past year by 18% while the least engaged brands saw losses of negative 6%.
  • SEOmoz | CAPTCHAs' Effect on Conversion Rates – With CAPTCHA on, there was an 88% reduction in SPAM but there were 159 failed conversions. Those failed conversions could be SPAM, but they could also be people who couldn’t figure out the CAPTCHA and finally just gave up. With CAPTCHA’s on, SPAM and failed conversions accounted for 7.3% of all the conversions for the 3 month period. With CAPTCHA’s off, SPAM conversions accounted for 4.1% of all the conversions for the 3 month period. That possibly means when CAPTCHA’s are on, the company could lose out on 3.2% of all their conversions!
  • 10 Rules For Advertising On Facebook – 'Rules' for Facebook have pretty good crossover for marketing/branding/advertising presence in other social media channels. Some really good advice here.
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