Sometimes it’s hard to understand just what to do with your social media accounts. You might have Facebook and Twitter, but they are either A) just sitting there or B) lacking focus. But there are some major companies that do social media right.
GrubHub: GrubHub has a great Twitter and Facebook presence, and both are different enough that they get people subscribing to both. Their Twitter account allows for more direct communication with customers and their Facebook has a lot of giveaways. But they also have a really funny, sarcastic tone of voice that fits right in with their 20s-30s audience.
DSW.com: DSW is also a winner when it comes to giveaways. They do weekly giveaways on their Facebook, offering free shoes for a lucky few from those who like and participate on their page. They also constantly share new shoes coming in to their stores, a good way to get people to return to the actual site or brick and mortar stores.
Starbucks: With over 25 million Facebook fans and 1.5 million Twitter followers, Starbucks has used social media to better its company. How? It’s let customer submit ideas for the company, as well as connecting together a community of volunteers with non-profit organizations. They do a lot outside of just promoting their coffee, which is what makes them so successful.
So with these few companies in mind, maybe you can think about what focus and way you can brand your social media accounts and reach out to your specific audience. Get some inspiration and roll with it!
Twitter is one of the most used social media outlets in the world and everyone from the average Joe and Jane to famous celebrities and businesses use it. In 140 characters an individual or business can share thoughts, opinions, even advertisements. Part of using Twitter means learning how to use hashtags (#) to create a common subject of discussion within the so-called Twitterverse. This created trends that many people latched onto and thus became popular. Here are a few trends that became popular in 2012.
The Olympics: a game the entire world gets involved in, it does not come as a surprise London’s 2012 Summer Olympics trended the highest last year.
2012 Presidential Election: from each candidate’s tour across the country all the way up to election night, millions of people tweeted about this very contested election, reaching hundreds of thousands of Tweets in a single minute.
The Super Bowl: we Americans love our football and the Super Bowl is the culmination of our love of the sport. Super Bowl XLVI saw the New York Giants duke it out against the New England Patriots, with many fans speaking for one team and against another on Twitter.
Hurricane Sandy: Super Storm Sandy hit the East Coast – especially the Tri-State Area – very hard and was a topic of much conversation before, during, and after the event. Topics ranged from emergency broadcasts, making preparations, well wishes, and simple forms of communication with the rest of the world.
Social networks are a funny thing. Today we view them as an evolving wonder of modern society that can be analyzed to reveal global patterns, new and powerful entities, and network dynamics. At the same time we fear for our privacy in the face of Big Brother while accepting that our online identity has a very real effect on our personal and professional lives.
But I’m no analyst.
I’m here to laugh at some social networking sites based on marketing gimmicks I find hysterical. Let’s start with old people.
EONS.COM
Ahhh, eons.com, a social network targeted at old people. Not a new service, not new content or delivery system for content, no no no. Just old people. Sure the guy from Monster.com was behind it and sure they might have had a user base, but whatever grandma! My mom is on Facebook and she just started posting status updates by starting with “@family” (sorry mom, I love you). I’m just saying.Could be totally wrong though, these old people seem to have trolling down to an art.
DIASPORA.COM
Still around (sort of) touting AMAZING features. Check out the wonderful ways you can connect to your friends!!!!
I suppose by being open source they had their window when Facebook’s privacy features were totally jacked up, but seriously, innovation is a good strategy. Companies that brand themselves as “the Facebook of blahblahblah” are one step ahead of “we’re straight up another Facebook, so roll with us for no reason.”
Hi5.COM
I’m going to go ahead and let their “coming soon” trailer that is up today speak for itself on why I find it a joke. Today, as in 2013. As in this video is real life. Dead serious.
BONUS FUTURE FAIL: TULALIP.COM AKA SOC.L
Microsoft saw Google+ totally blow up Facebook’s spot (yuk yuk) and decided “Hey! Kids love Microsoft right?? Why not us too?!” and decided to make…Pinterest.com. Only at first it was a secret project called Tulalip. I would say that’s a bad name, but that is really unfair because it’s a project codename and the dev can call it whatever he or she pleases. For sure the real name will be a winner.
And they called it soc.l and expect me to pronounce it ‘social’. No way, bro. That’s ‘sock-el’ through and through. I can only see a dyslexic, spanglish name for a site that’s into warm feet.
In any case it has the appearance of an ugly Pinterest where users can make random image collages that don’t make any sense. As it stands, I have low expectations.
The Round-Up
So what should we take away from these well-meaning but ultimately failures for social networks?
Be innovative. Myspace and Friendster died because the brand and ultimately the user experience stagnated. Facebook is king for a reason. Zuckerberg doesn’t let Facebook go two months without some sort of change. It doesn’t even matter if the occasional change is deemed a downgrade, there is a buzz and people still go to Facebook to complain about Facebook.
Have vanity. People like to look nice. If your site is going to look like my Angelfire HTML projects from middle school, then you can show yourself out. Unless Hampster Dance knock-off sites are back…In which case let’s do this thing Hi5!
Names are obviously tricky. They should be simple, easy to remember, and most importantly EASY TO TYPE into a browser. Trying really hard to come up with a cool name is a lost cause. Facebook isn’t really that cool, and if someone just pitched me the idea of Pinterest as a title I wouldn’t jump all over it. But that has always been true of not just company names, but bands, places, even people! So while Twitter and tweeting is going to be silly for all times, it’s also really user friendly. Microsoft’s www.so.cl goes against these ideas and to me, is hurting itself big time by doing so.
Did you know that two thirds of all small business owners are using Facebook for their business? If you’re not there, it’s time to get on it! Here are some basic tips and strategies for setting up a successful Social Media campaign on Facebook.
1. Information
Page Name – The absolute basics: Pick a name for your page. It can be the name of your business, company, or website.
Username/Vanity URL – Claim your page name to have a good looking, easy to recognize Facebook URL, as well as to help people locate your page by typing in the URL. Edit this by going to the Admin Panel -> Edit Page ->Update Info -> Username. Make sure you’re happy with your selection, because it can be difficult to edit that information.
Page Classification – Is your page promoting a physical store, website, branded product, celebrity? Make this distinction in the Admin Panel -> Edit Page-> Update Info->Category. If it is a physical location, make sure the address, hours and phone number are all correct.
About Section – The About section contains different fields to fill out. Make sure these are all filled, using keywords if possible, because Google will index these pages for SEO. The Short Description box is the paragraph that is visible on your Facebook page, underneath the profile picture. Make it count with a well written description of your page.
2. Design
Cover Photo – Your Cover Photo is the large 815×351 image on the top of your Facebook page. This is where you will be making your first impression. With a photo or graphic image, show fans what you’re all about. Include some copy but not too much; a slogan or catchphrase works for this instance. Make sure your cover photo complies with Facebook’s Terms and Conditions, by not including sale or contest information. Update your cover photo seasonally or every so often to keep your page fresh.
Profile Picture – This photo is the small 160×160 photo that will show up next to your post or comments anywhere on Facebook. If you’re a brand or company, a logo is a good idea to use here. If you’re marketing a person, celebrity, author, use the person’s face here. Keeping this picture constant for consistency around Facebook.
3. Communication
Content Calendar- Now that your page is ready to go, start posting. Create a clear idea of what content you want to be posting to your fans. Keep it a mix of multimedia, including photos, videos, and articles. Take a poll on anything you want to learn from your fans. Ask your fans questions in order to prompt a response from them. Give commands, for example “Like this post if…” or “Click this link to…”
Respond-You took the time to make your page and post interesting and relevant content. Now make sure you respond to your fans! Whether they post on your wall or comment on one of your posts, engage them and have a conversation. Facebook is wonderful for dealing with customer service issues, whether positive feedback or negative complaints.
Create exclusive deals- Using Facebook Offers and regular posts, create deals for your Facebook audience only. This will help turn fans into customers and drive traffic.
Run a contest- Reward your Facebook fans and get the word out even more by running a contest on a Third Party App. Understand Facebook’s Term and Conditions about running contests. Read Facebook’s guidelines at http://www.facebook.com/page_guidelines.php.
4. Advertise
Page Ads- Create Facebook ads targeting your desired audience to promote your page. This will help you grow your Facebook page, promote certain deals that you’re running and show your posts to a larger audience. Learn more about Facebook ads at http://www.facebook.com/advertising.
External Site Ads-Drive traffic to your website with Facebook ads, targeting your desired audience. Keep the ad ‘s message relevant with the landing page, to keep your message consistent to the user.
5. Review
Fans- The number of fans is important, but what’s even more important is if your fans are engaging with you. Are they commenting, sharing and liking your content on Facebook? Measure which post types are generating the most feedback. Do your fans always respond when you ask a question, post a funny photo, or an educational video? Learn from your fans and go in that direction.
Traffic/Leads- Using a web traffic analytics tool, like Google Analytics, is important to track how many of your Facebook fans are generating conversions, like traffic, sales, or form fills.
Congratulations on setting up your Facebook campaign for success!
Mushki is the director of the social media team at Ajax Union. She can safely say that she is on Facebook 10 hours of every day. That’s a lot of hours. When she isn’t on Facebook, Mushki enjoys cooking, watching Game of Thrones reruns, and making reckless online purchases. She lives in Brooklyn and loves it.
Socl, pronounced “social,” is the new kid on the block of social media platforms. Launched Tuesday by Microsoft, the collage site seems to be a mashup of Pinterest and Google Hangouts with the availability to sign in via Facebook or Microsoft. The site offers the option to view user-made collages by interests, posts, or people. It also features a “parties” section that feels a lot like the Google Hangouts. Never the less, brands and users looking to boost online presence may be quick to snatch up some of the first accounts.
Ever wondered what the break down of social media users looks like? Well, here you go! Data was compiled by Flowtown in through the “Social Media Demographics Survey” to figure out the gender split, age groups, education levels, and income of people using Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Now that the storm of political campaigning has ended, both of the presidential candidates face social media scrutiny. However, Romney’s immediate scrutiny seems to be losing Facebook fans at an alarming rate of 847 friends each hour, totaling over 55,000 users that have unliked his his page. On the plus side for him, he has gained over 17,000 Twitter followers since election night. For Obama’s social media presence, he has gained over 804,000 page likes since the close of the election, in addition to the record setting most retweeted tweet on election night.
We’re all guilty of not following the rules all of the time, but here are 36 rules of social media brought to you by Fast Company that may be beneficial to stick with.
Have you ever wanted to pin yourself onto a board on Pinterest without sharing it with everyone else? The social media company has just announced that pinners are now able to deem one of their boards “secret” sharing it only with themselves and people they invite. The bummer is that you can’t apply this to your preexisting boards, but it’ll work going forward—which is great, because who doesn’t have a few guilty pleasure?
For the first time ever this year Puerto Rico has voted to become the fifty-first state. Reddit users were quick to respond with several clever new flag designs to try an incorporate a fifty first star. Puerto Rico will need to go through a long process before it officially enters statehood, but we couldn’t help but laugh at this clever Pacman themed flag.
Social media outlets can be a fantastic tool for networking and keeping connected with the world around us, but it can also be a bit distracting. Some schools and businesses monitor the use of such sites citing a decrease in productivity as the reason. We found an infographic with some surprising statistics taken from a poll on the subject. How much time do you think you waste on social media throughout the work week?
Remember MySpace? One of the first super popular social networking websites fell to the wayside after Facebook, and then Twitter, hit the scene. However, MySpace always maintained a special spot in the hearts of magicians as a music-sharing tool for unsigned bands and solo acts. And now, almost a decade after its hay day, MySpace, backed by pop-star-turned-actor Justin Timberlake, is getting a makeover. Redesigned with a look that reminds us of Pinterest, the website looks fresh. But can Justin Timberlake bring sexy back to the digital community that bit the dust?
If you’re like a lot of people, you rely on reviews of restaurants, salons, dry cleaners, dentists — you name it — to determine where you take your business. And why shouldn’t you? With all the options out there in the real world, why not read a few reviews online to figure out where you should go. I do, you do it, we all do it.
But what if a large proportion of those review were fabricated? Fictional? Well, a recent study claims that this might be the case. In fact, by 2014, 10% to 15% of online review may be fake. Business can now hire third parties to boost their ratings. Thoughts? Holler @ajaxunion via Twitter!
In a paper titled “Disclosing information about the self is intrinsically rewarding,” published by the Harvard Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab, it is revealed that humans devote up to 40 percent of their overall speech to telling others about their personal experiences. But why? Why do people love to talk about themselves? According to the study:
Self-disclosure was strongly associated
with increased activation in brain regions that form the mesolimbic dopamine system, including the nucleus accumbens and ventral tegmental area. Moreover, individuals were willing to forgo money to disclose about the self.
Translated into plain English, this means that talking about oneself releases dopamine, which is, according to Psychology Today, “a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain’s reward and pleasure centers.” In short, self-disclosure makes people feel REALLY GOOD.
Where do you see the most self-disclosure? Where, in fact, do you see virtually nothing but self-disclosure? SOCIAL MEDIA. FACEBOOK. TWITTER. PINTEREST. All anyone does on social media is talk about themselves, and what they are doing, and who they are with, and what they are eating! Harvard’s study basically reveals why social media is so popular. Self-disclosure feels rewarding.
Now, to capitalize on this information! By encouraging social media users to share their thoughts and feelings about your service or product, you make them experience increases in dopamine, which they can then associate with your product or service.
This infographic reviews some of the risky information that people share on social media networks. Much of the information posted seems innocent enough, however, malicious hackers, identity thieves and cyber bullies can use this information against you, and it’s easier than you think.
One can’t say, as a whole, whether or not women like to shop or even if they handle the majority of household shopping. However, women do control 85 percent of purchasing in the United States. In line with this statistic, brands have taken notice and often approach marketing with a focus on the females in the audience.
When it comes to online marketing, and social media marketing in particular, the same is true because not only do women control the market, but they are far more active on social media than men. Recent data suggests that women are 55% more likely to buy from companies that they interact with on social media than those without an active online presence. Furthermore, over one third of women believe that the number one reason to login to social media accounts is to remain privy to coupons and deals offered online.
An important fact to keep in mind when crafting women-focuses campaigns, is that increased social media engagement results in increased real-world engagement for many of these women. In other words, Facebook activity from a brand may inspire women to visit that store, not necessarily buy online. So offer incentives to buy online if that’s your goal.
Recently, an article at Mashable.com appeared about the ill effects of social media for marketers. Among others, one of its headings states that “Social Media Is Useless for Business-to-Business Companies.” The argument centered around the idea that social media marketing won’t persuade upper-level business people to buy services or products from another business because a certain level or professionalism isn’t evident in social network etiquette – if business executives are even active social media users to begin with. The article suggests that B2B success is about building relationships, and those relationships are not truly built via social media. Ajax Union begs to differ.
What do you think? Can business relationships be created and nourished through online social communities? Is LinkedIn not a choice example of a successful B2B social network where business owners connect and grow? Are face-to-face interactions not bolstered by Facebook?
And what about the benefits of social media outside of direct communication and networking? Active Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts positively promote your website to search engines through link building and robust online presence.
If you still aren’t convinced that social media is useful for B2B companies, get in touch with Ajax Union today. Click here.
In this interview with Klout CEO Joe Fernandez he discusses how companies can use your Klout score to determine employment, how hotels can look into your Klout score to determine upgrades and special treatment, and other ways a Klout score can affect your life more than you might imagine.
The San Francisco-based social media analytics company Klout recently quadrupled its measurement variables, which means your Klout score may have changed quite a bit. What Klout does is collect data from your social networking profiles like Facebook and Instagram. Then, that data is analyzed and each user is given a Klout score which represents the reach and strength of their online influence. The number of followers or fans a person has, the content they contribute, and how their followers and fans interact with the content all contribute to Klout score, which is ranked 1 to 100.
Recently, however, Klout has made certain factors more important in determining score. Who is following you and how you interact with them matters more now than it did in the past.
Blogger Emily Price put it well when she said: “For instance, a like on your latest cat photo from Barack Obama will mean a lot more than a like from your coworker.”
Speaking of the President, with the new analytics system, Barak Obama’s Klout score increased from 94 to 99, while Justin Biebers falls nine points to 91.
It’s beyond apparent that social media is a driving force socially, economically, culturally and even politically! We should not underestimate the power of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and all their online relatives as catalysts for change. However, those using these media for brand growth, personal voice or political advancement should take note: Images and Video rule the social media sphere. Videos are 12X more likely to earn a share than plain text links, and photos are 2X more likely to be “liked” than text updates. Additionally, Instagram, arguable the most image-heavy platform, is set up to eclipse Facebook due to its wild growth. In April of 2012, Instagram grew by 40 million users in ten days. The President of the United States even has an Instagram account! Pinterest, another image-heavy social platform, has more brand followers than Facebook or Twitter. Online marketing advice for the day? GET VISUAL!
Sometimes it’s hard to understand just what to do with your social media accounts. You might have Facebook and Twitter, but they are either A) just sitting there or B) lacking focus. But there are some major companies that do social media right.
