social media Archives - Page 2 of 5

Using Google+ to Maximize Web Searching

With over 343 million users, Google+ is rapidly changing the landscape of social media, web searching and search engine optimization (SEO). As Google continues to dominate the search engine market, Google+ profiles personalize search results through authorship and social searching techniques. By understanding how Google+ affects web searching through tools such as rel= “author” and … Continue reading “Using Google+ to Maximize Web Searching”

With over 343 million users, Google+ is rapidly changing the landscape of social media, web searching and search engine optimization (SEO). As Google continues to dominate the search engine market, Google+ profiles personalize search results through authorship and social searching techniques. By understanding how Google+ affects web searching through tools such as rel= “author” and Search plus Your World, you can use Google+ to become a leader in your industry and maximize your website’s potential.

Authorship: Rel=“author”
Web searchers use Google to find credible online sources. As a result, Google has emphasized authorship and given higher rankings to web authors with frequently updated, original content. With the rel=“author” tag, you can claim authorship of your content and build your own credibility by linking your Google+ profile to your website or blog posts in Google search results. If your website is properly tagged with rel=“author,” your name and Google+ profile picture will appear next to your website listing when it appears in Google’s search results. Through this, you put a name and a face to your website or blog posts, while also catching the attention of Google searchers. By clicking on your name or your picture, the user will be directed to your Google+ profile and have the option to “follow” you. Most importantly, rel=“author” establishes your credibility and if searchers have visited your website before or liked a post you have written, they are more likely to visit your site or blog again when they see your profile picture and name pop up next to the search entry. Depending on whether you are writing for your own blog, as part of a guest blog, or under a larger group, the ways in which to implement this authorship tag will differ.

Social Searching: Search plus Your World
Search plus Your World is a form of social searching that gives personalized results, based on the circles and contacts in your Google+ profile. Social searching incentivizes both businesses and individuals to remain active on Google+ and make as many connections as possible to maximize the possibility of placement in search results. For example, if you own an ice cream shop and are connected to Joe on Google+, then it is highly likely that your shop will appear in Joe’s Google search results for “ice cream shop.” Likewise, if your best friend, with whom you are connected on Google+, just posted pictures from her vacation to London on her profile, you may find her pictures popping up on Google if you do an image search for Big Ben or Buckingham Palace. Social searching levels the playing field of search engine optimization and places more emphasis on personal relationships than domain authority or other SEO techniques, so it is necessary to engage with followers on Google+ and continually develop new relationships to stay relevant. As of now, the Search plus Your World feature is strictly limited to Google+, and contacts from other social networks like Twitter and Facebook will not appear in the search results.

We predict that Google’s attempt to integrate social media with web searching will have an enormous impact on SEO and basic web searching. As Google continues to alter search algorithms to include social and personal features, it will focus on relationships through social media and increase the chances of appearing in search results without using other SEO strategies. Google may also tap into other social networks like Twitter and Facebook to develop even more personalized results. Overall, we recommend that you use Google+ to develop your online brand and credibility through authorship tags and forge new relationships through social searching to increase traffic to your website and blog posts.

If you have any questions or are interested in developing your social media and search engine optimization strategy, contact 1-855-PRMG-123 or info@theprmg.com.

Twitter Ads

As the world’s most popular micro-blogging website, Twitter has become an increasingly important tool for businesses to promote their products and services through word-of-mouth marketing and generate buzz about their brand. While businesses have used tweets, links, and hashtags since Twitter’s inception to engage with existing and potential customers, Twitter recently expanded businesses’ ability to advertise through Twitter Ads. Previously, Twitter Ads was limited to a select group of large companies and those who were invited to participate, but with a new self-service system, any business or individual can use this feature to promote tweets or accounts and increase followers.

For those not familiar with Twitter, here’s a brief overview. Twitter is a micro-blogging site that allows its users to communicate by posting short updates known as “tweets” to their profiles and “following” each other’s tweets on their newsfeeds. Every Twitter user has a unique username, known as a Twitter Handle, which is prominently displayed on the user’s profile page and next to every tweet the user posts. Tweets are limited to 140 characters and often include links to other websites, articles, blog posts, or hashtags. Hashtags (symbolized by the # sign) allow users to search for tweets with specific subjects or phrases, such as #JobInterview or #SmallBiz. You can learn more about Twitter from PRMG’s previous post.

Before Twitter Ads, businesses focused on engaging with consumers by tweeting frequently, using popular hashtags, and sharing blogs and other links about their products, services, or industry. With these tools, businesses could build rapport with their followers, strengthen their online presence, and connect their websites and blogs to a social media forum. However, it was often harder to attract new customers, as businesses could not specifically target those they wanted to reach. Twitter updates could also be very time-consuming, and full engagement with followers could distract from other social media and marketing strategies. In addition, including too many links on a Twitter profile would seem like spam and deter Twitter users from following the business. Twitter Ads solves many of these problems and can improve the effectiveness of social media marketing.

Twitter Ads comes in two forms: Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts. With both Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts, businesses target a specific audience in order to drive traffic to their profile. Businesses choose a location—city, state, or country—to focus on, and then narrow to their target audience by filtering through specific genders, interests, and other criteria. For example, a music store can target people who like to play instruments and a golf club can target men who live in a suburban area. As a result, a business’s Twitter activity will reach those who are most likely to engage with the product or service.

After finding a target audience, the two Promoted approaches start to differ. Promoted Tweets work the same way as regular tweets, and they allow businesses to broaden their reach and inform the intended audience about special offers, press releases, and other information relevant to the business or industry. The Promoted Tweet targets the chosen audience and stays at the top of the Twitter users’ newsfeeds when they log in, whether or not the users are currently following the company. A Promoted Tweet is often better for a short-term approach, such as attracting business immediately for a one-day sale or special event, though it can also increase followers. Promoted Tweets can also be used to generate traffic to a blog post or article on another website. On the other hand, Promoted Accounts can be more beneficial for a long-term approach that focuses on building a stronger customer base or increasing brand awareness. Promoted Accounts use an algorithm to track potential followers with similar characteristics of current followers and appear on a side bar of a Twitter user’s profile in the “Who to Follow” recommendation section. Overall, Promoted Accounts are better for building and maintaining relationships. Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts can be used separately or in conjunction.

Because Twitter Ads is now self-service, businesses set a daily spending limit and can stop, start, or resume advertising at any time. This new system that Twitter uses is very similar to the Pay-Per-Click system used by Facebook Advertising and Google AdWords. Twitter only charges when a Twitter user clicks the link to follow the Promoted Account or engages with the Promoted Tweet through a retweet, follow, favorite, reply, or link. As a result, the business remains in complete control of its advertising budget and strategy.

Furthermore, with both Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts, businesses can track the success of their advertising with Analytics that show the increase in the number of followers or clicks-per-link, as well as how their budget has been spent. The Analytics feature separates increased traffic and activity that occur organically from traffic and activity that result from concentrated marketing efforts, demonstrating the effectiveness of the campaign.

As Twitter continues to gain in prominence, consider your goals for social media marketing. Do you want to expand your customer base by targeting a specific market? Do you want to further engage already-existing customers or spread the word about a new product or service? Twitter Ads may be worth the time and investment.

If you are interested in Twitter Ads or have any questions about your social media strategy, contact 1-855-PRMG-123 or info@theprmg.com .

A Quick Overview of Facebook Graph Search

Recently, Facebook introduced Graph Search, a new feature that combines characteristics of a search engine with an individual’s social network for personalized search results. With dual emphasis on online searching and social networking, Facebook Graph Search presents an opportunity for businesses to improve their social media strategies and better understand consumers, while increasing visibility and … Continue reading “A Quick Overview of Facebook Graph Search”

Finding Your Customers

Unlike a regular search engine, Facebook Graph Search allows businesses valuable insights into their consumer bases’ demographic information and finds general patterns in consumer behavior. It offers criteria to narrow down results from its one billion users to the specific audience your business will target. For instance, an auto dealership can search specifically for “People in New York who like SUVs,” or an Italian restaurant can search for “People in Connecticut who like pizza.” The results can also reveal characteristics about a customer base (Do more women than men like to drive SUVs? Do most people who like pizza also like Pepsi?), which your company can use to tailor services and marketing strategies to a target market.

Furthermore, if your business’s page has many comment and likes, you can search within your own network to find which consumers have been most actively engaged with your product/services through social media. Such information can help your business determine how to best engage existing and potential customers through Facebook.

Let Your Customers Find You

Graph Search also enables potential customers learn more about you. When a business appears in Graph Search, the search entry offers a paragraph of information, which includes the user’s friends who “liked” the business. This feature increases awareness of your organization and can help you build trust with prospective consumers by leveraging their friends as professional references.

Most importantly, Graph Search provides word-of-mouth marketing, augmenting Facebook’s importance as a marketing tool. If a consumer is searching for a restaurant in New York City, he could type a general search into Google and find 588,000,000 results. But with Graph Search, he can use Facebook to search for “Restaurants in New York City my friends like” and receive a personalized list based on Facebook pages for restaurants that his friends have “liked.” By increasing the search rankings and visibility of your company, Graph Search increases the value of each “like” your company receives.

In mid-April, Facebook began testing ads in the results for Graph Search, and currently, only a limited number of companies have been given the opportunity to advertise with Sponsored Results ads. We expect Facebook will soon expand to allow more companies to advertise and shortly thereafter will introduce targeted ads related to specific search queries (similar to how Google Ads works).

By combining the convenience of a Google Search with the trust friends’ recommendations, Graph Search has the potential to become a strong marketing tool for any business. To maximize the potential of Graph Search, you may need to rethink your current Facebook strategy (or create one). We recommend that you post new content often, have more conversations with your followers, and use the Search Results to better understand the effectiveness of your current strategies. Adapt your marketing strategies and products/services to entice your target customers, by utilizing the data that Facebook is now making available.

For help optimizing your current social media strategy, reach out to us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn— or contact info@theprmg.com to discuss setting up social media pages and creating an effective social media strategy that is tailored to your business.

Yahoo Buying Tumblr: and it’s good news for businesses

Yahoo buying Tumblr brings to mind an important question for businesses with an online presence: Will Yahoo make Tumblr better or worse? But first to answer a question that many have been asking — What is Tumblr? the confusing answer is a microblogging site where you choose the medium of your blog. The easy answer is it’s … Continue reading “Yahoo Buying Tumblr: and it’s good news for businesses”

Yahoo buying Tumblr brings to mind an important question for businesses with an online presence: Will Yahoo make Tumblr better or worse?

But first to answer a question that many have been asking — What is Tumblr? the confusing answer is a microblogging site where you choose the medium of your blog. The easy answer is it’s a website where you use a combination of photos or videos along with printed captions to entertain an audience with the attention span of a goldfish (although strictly speaking you can choose any combination of Text, Photo, Quotes, Links, Chat, Audio or Video). This means no long blog posts just something short, informative and entertaining.

As soon as Yahoo announced its intended acquisition of Tumblr, bloggers began screaming their disapproval. But these microbloggers are missing the point — Yahoo doesn’t want Tumblr, it wants Tumblr’s users (mostly Gen Y/Millenials) to start using Yahoo. Yahoo’s current demographics are older adults (Gen Y’s parents), and is having trouble diversifying their consumer base. Thus Yahoo will be wooing Tumblr’s users, and will be careful not to alienate them.

As Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer puts it, “We promise not to screw it up.” Yahoo will be keeping the layout that Tumblr has worked hard to perfect and David Karp, the current Tumblr CEO, will remain in charge with creative power, his current staff and current branding. In short, post-Yahoo Tumblr will be nearly identical to pre-Yahoo Tumblr.

So why all the hype? We all know that more of the same is bad for business, and we expect 2 major changes that might lure more businesses to Tumblr: Searchability & Advertising.

Yahoo remains one of the top 15 search engines worldwide. This comes from advanced search algorithms, experience and power. We expect Yahoo to impart some of this know-how to increase the searchability of Tumblr blogs— thereby helping to expand reach, influence, and the roi of your pages.

Advertising remains the best way to monetize social media, and Yahoo is forecasting a significant increase in the value of Tumblr due to ad-based revenue (remember in 2012 Tumblr had an annual revenue of $13 million but just sold for $1.1 billion). Bloggers will have the options to opt-in to ads which gets rid of the negative reception for consumers who associate ads with annoyance.

For all of us who have been watching major social networks as they integrate advertisements and sponsored posts, we can recognize the potential inherent in Tumblr advertisements. We know the value of a Facebook like is about $174.14, and with the continued expansion of social media networks and social media advertising, the value is poised to rise. Connecting with prospective/current customers has always been important, and Tumblr is no exception. Every generation has a favored social network and Tumblr will be critical for marketing to Gen Y and Z.

It is our recommendations: If you’re not currently on Tumblr, then at least advertise on it. Tumblr is poised to grow, and your company should be ready for it.

A CRM Overview: What is it? And do I need it?

CRMs are, at their core, fancy databases with the potential for a lot more— if you make time to use them properly. They have their hand in every aspect of business from lead generation to result analysis, but almost every company uses them differently. Before committing to any service plan, you must decide what aspects … Continue reading “A CRM Overview: What is it? And do I need it?”

CRMs are, at their core, fancy databases with the potential for a lot more— if you make time to use them properly. They have their hand in every aspect of business from lead generation to result analysis, but almost every company uses them differently. Before committing to any service plan, you must decide what aspects of CRMs are most important for your business. Below is a list of the common uses for CRMs:

Managing sales pipeline (including workforce and lead management)
Lead Generation
Database/server
Content/Project collaboration
Social Media Integration
Reporting/Insightful data about your business
Web/Social Media Metrics

Do you need all of these functions? Probably not.

After carefully considering the functionality of your desired CRM you arrive at the difficult part- which CRM is right for you and your organization. Salesforce owns the largest share of the CRM market, but has growing competition from high-end competitors who provide similar features where price is rarely an issue and from low-end competitors who offer less options at less than half the price.

Does my company need a CRM? This is a question that can probably only be answered by management. Do you have high rates of stagnant leads? Do you have insufficient levels of leads? Do you want to know which staff members are underperforming and why? Do you want to know if you have a strong and positive web presence? Do you want to make it easier for employees to collaborate remotely? Do you lack a centralized database of your company’s resources and expenses? If you answered yes to any of these questions then you would probably benefit from investing in a CRM.

The bottom line:

Salesforce does it all but you pay for more detailed analytics and they almost never give you upfront pricing guidelines. It’s hard to set up, and essentially you need an administrator to maximize your investment. Finally, you won’t see a decent return on that investment until you entire staff is diligently using the platform.

With Zoho you get more than you pay for (since the free version is rather extensive) but it is not as powerful as Salesforce/Sugar/or Sage and it can sync but can’t perform advanced web analytics.

SugarCRM is a great product with great prices but they require you to buy a minimum of 5 licenses which adds up quickly. It has all the basics (project management tools, social media integration, lead generation tools etc), but SugarCRM has fewer app/add-on developers. It is an appropriate alternative to Salesforce, however if you’re not a large company or if you have fewer than 3 employees using it, you’ll only waste your money.

SageCRM is a very powerful, ultra-customizable program with cloud or on-site options, but similar to Salesforce they do not provide upfront pricing guidelines. This is only for serious CRM users who have very tech-savvy staff or are able to hire a dedicated administrator.

Hubspot is a marketer’s dream with the ability to integrate with social media and Google Analytics, do SEO optimization, and provide you with detailed reports. However, it’s incredibly expensive ranging from $200-600/month.

Leads360 is a CRM for a niche. If you only plan on using a CRM to generate leads and manage your sales cycle then Leads360 is a very economical option for your sales team. The downside is that Leads360 does not support non-sales functions. Costs range from $25-65/user/month.

There are other cheap and easy tools to use that are more about managing your sales pipeline and less about reports, examples include Less Annoying CRM and Insightly; they’re very simple and very similar so you should use the customer reviews to pick one that’s right for you. For more of these options simply click through Google’s Chrome store.

5 Free Tools to Support Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

With the amount of social media programs available on the Web, businesses must be able to efficiently leverage time spent on social media marketing. This article will provide readers with a brief introduction to the social media services Eventbrite, Tweriod, WiseStamp, Disqus and Mr. Unfollowr. These five tools are quick to use, helpful and conveniently … Continue reading “5 Free Tools to Support Your Social Media Marketing Strategy”

1. Eventbrite — Eventbrite’s mission is to make events as easy to create, find and attend as possible. With this online service, businesses can create and promote events online. This tool allows users to customize event pages, integrate with email marketing services, connect with Facebook and offers the ability to scan QR-coded tickets for attendees with smartphones at the door. If your event is free, this service is free to use. For paid events, there is a small fee to sell tickets online.

2. Tweriod — This tool analyzes both your company’s tweets and your followers’ tweets to provide you with the best times and days to send tweets. By tweeting during time periods where you’ll receive the most exposure, you will make the most out of your efforts. Businesses should run a free monthly Tweriod analysis and use the provided data to schedule posts in programs such as HootSuite or TweetDeck. For more information on scheduling social media posts at the right times, please read our article, “Timing is Everything: When to Blog, Tweet and More.”

3. WiseStamp — WiseStamp allows users to create unique, branded email signatures through customized apps. For example, you can link your email signature to any social network, share your latest WordPress blog articles, include QR codes and much more. The free version of WiseStamp allows users to create one personal and one corporate email signature.

4. Disqus — For those who receive an excessive amount of spam in the comment section of their blog, Disqus can be very helpful. This free tool can get rid of spammers by upgrading your comment system so that users must create an account before they can comment. This program is compatible with WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger, Drupal, HTML and JavaScript. Also, Disqus has been approved by the Google Search Quality team to be organically crawled unlike any other comment platform.

5. Mr. Unfollowr — If you need to clean up your “following” list on Twitter, this free program will help you keep track of people who have stopped following your account. To join, just follow @unfollowr on Twitter and you will receive digests to your email or direct messages with a list of unfollowers. This is a great tool to remove inactive or unfruitful accounts and ensure that you aren’t losing any important business contacts or personal connections.

For more information, please contact The Public Relations and Marketing Group at (631) 207-1057 or johnzaher@theprmg.com. You can also visit our blog for more valuable articles, advertising spotlights and more.

How to Engage Journalists Using Social Media

A recent survey conducted last month by Text 100 Global Public Relations discovered that a significant number of journalists use social media and blogs on a regular basis when researching a business, brand or organization for an article. A total of 72 full-time journalists working in print, online and broadcast media were surveyed and the results found that, on average, journalists look at 2.6 social media channels for every story they research. Given these statistics, and the rapid rate at which social networking is growing, public relations professionals can use social media channels to engage with journalists and reach out to them in an outlet where they’re known to be active.

This article will explain the best methods public relations professionals can use to engage journalists through social media.

Maintain Social Media Profiles — Since reporters may look at several social media channels when conducting research, it’s important that your organization has a positive presence on all of them. By creating professional, thorough and favorable profiles for your business online, journalists will be able to discover the information that you want to be highlighted. For example, use social media channels to display media coverage, upcoming events, company news and anything else that you would like the public to be aware of.

For information on how to get your business active on social media, please see our article, “Getting Started with Social Media.”

Focus on Twitter — An important finding in this study was that Twitter is the best social media channel for public relations pitches and media relations. The survey found that journalists are far more likely to welcome contact on Twitter rather than LinkedIn, Google+or even Facebook. Public relations professionals can use Twitter to connect with reporters by seeking out their profiles and “following” them. Twitter is a great way to stay in touch with journalists and pitch stories, business news and upcoming events. Of the journalists surveyed in this study, 53% found that a company’s Twitter profile was instrumental in their research when writing an article.

For an overview of how businesses can use Twitter, please see our articles, “Secrets to Twitter Marketing” and “Twitter Unveils Brand-New Design and Special Features for Businesses.”

Create a Blog — Blogs are also an increasingly important venue to attract media attention. According to this survey, 63% of journalists found a company’s blog to be extremely useful in their research. By creating and maintaining an active blog, your business can establish itself as an industry leader and nourish an interactive hub of information about your organization. Businesses should provide useful information and quality content that relates to your organization and industry as a whole. For more information on how important blogging is for brands and businesses, read our article, “Should My Business Have a Blog?”

It is also important to keep in mind that while social media is becoming increasingly important, journalists still value press releases and phone conversations. While the media is increasingly turning to social media and online outlets for information, they still rely heavily on these more traditional methods of contact when covering a story. These social media techniques should be used to supplement press releases, media advisories and other traditional communications outlets.

For more information about engaging with journalists using social media, please contact The Public Relations and Marketing Group at (631) 207-1057 or johnzaher@theprmg.com. You can also visit our blog for more valuable articles, advertising spotlights and more.

Social Media Publishing 101

An Overview of HootSuite, Tweetdeck and Social Oomph Social publishing programs are essential for managing a business’ social media presence, especially for those who maintain multiple accounts. The primary function of these programs is to allow users to organize and schedule posts in advance on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. By using these programs to schedule … Continue reading “Social Media Publishing 101”

An Overview of HootSuite, Tweetdeck and Social Oomph

Social publishing programs are essential for managing a business’ social media presence, especially for those who maintain multiple accounts. The primary function of these programs is to allow users to organize and schedule posts in advance on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. By using these programs to schedule posts and space out your content, businesses can ensure that they have a consistent presence on social media. This article will provide an overview of the three major social media publishing platforms: HootSuite,TweetDeck and Social Oomph.

While all of these programs are free to join, provide helpful URL shorteners and allow for multiple social networking accounts, each of the three has certain benefits, disadvantages and unique capabilities. Depending on your organization and personal preferences, one of these platforms may be better suited for your needs than the others.

HootSuite

HootSuite, which many consider to be the leading social media dashboard, allows users to manage multiple networks, schedule updates and create custom analytics reports to monitor your success. Using HootSuite’s unique social networking dashboard, users can connect multiple social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and WordPress, in one place.

Advantages — HootSuite’s greatest strength is that it provides users with excellent custom analytics reports to share with clients or colleagues. Through these reports, users can track brand sentiment, follower growth and also incorporate Facebook Insights and Google Analytics right in their dashboard. Also, while Google+ is currently unavailable on these publishing tools, HootSuite will be given first access to Google+ business and brand pages. This is so important because, when this update is unveiled, users can update all of their social media pages, including Google+, in one place. Also, like Social Oomph, HootSuite users can schedule messages in bulk to save time by uploading a CSV file. HootSuite also has a mobile app so users can access their dashboard for free on iPhones, iPads, BlackBerrys or Android mobile devices.

Disadvantages — The most notable disadvantage of HootSuite is that the free version only allows users to manage up to five accounts and there is a limit of 10 columns on your dashboard. This can be a major setback, especially for users who need to maintain multiple accounts on each social networking platform. To avoid this problem, users can upgrade to the premium version for $5 per month.

TweetDeck

TweetDeck also allows users to manage multiple social media accounts, schedule posts and organize social networking feeds. This real-time browser can connect you with contacts and information across Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, FourSquare and more.

Advantages — One advantage is that all of the features on TweetDeck are free – there is no premium, paid membership like HootSuite and Social Oomph require for certain features. With a free membership, TweetDeck users can manage and post to an unlimited number of social media accounts, unlike HootSuite, where basic users are limited to only five. Also, many users agree that TweetDeck’s dashboard is the cleanest and most user-friendly of the three, although this depends on personal preference.

Disadvantages — On May 25, 2011, TweetDeck was bought by Twitter and since this acquisition, many users have complained about missing features, bugs and certain tools not working properly. Apart from these technical problems, there are two major setbacks with TweetDeck. Unlike HootSuite and Social Oomph, there are no analytics reports or bulk scheduling capabilities available. This is a huge disadvantage, especially for businesses, since they cannot monitor the effectiveness of their social media marketing strategies.

Social Oomph

Social Oomph performs the same functions as the previous two programs but unlike HootSuite or TweetDeck, users have the ability to “Auto-Follow” and “Auto-Direct Message” users. Depending on one’s personal preference, this feature could either be seen as an advantage or disadvantage, as further discussed below.

Advantages — The benefit of using Social Oomph is that this service has the most detailed and informative analytics reports, especially for those who are managing several social media accounts. Like HootSuite, you can also schedule posts in bulk but only Social Oomph makes this process simpler by allowing users to upload posts from a Word document. Social Oomph’s “Replies Digest” is another unique and useful feature, especially for businesses. This tool will send you a daily email with any @Mentions of Re-tweets your business has received. This email is extremely helpful for businesses to easily monitor interactions on Twitter and respond accordingly.

Disadvantages — Unlike TweetDeck and HootSuite, there is currently no smart phone app available for Social Oomph. As mentioned previously, Social Oomph is the only service that allows users to set up “Auto-Follows,” “Auto-Direct Messages” and “Auto-Responders,” but this tool is only unlocked when users upgrade to premium accounts. There is a biweekly cost of $3.97 for Social Oomph Premium. “Auto-follow” refers to being able to follow someone on Twitter automatically if they have followed you. “Auto-Direct Messages” and “Auto-Responding” refer to sending Twitter users automatic, prewritten responses. While some users may see this as an advantage, since this practice is only available on Social Oomph, it has its flaws and most social media users look down on auto-responses. It’s far more powerful to interact with users on a more personal level rather than just send them computer-generated responses.

For more information about social media publishing, please contact The Public Relations and Marketing Group at (631) 207-1057 or johnzaher@theprmg.com. You can also visit our blog for more valuable articles, advertising spotlights and more.

What Businesses Should Know About Facebook Timeline

Facebook has rolled out significant changes and improvements to how users view and interact with businesses with the new Facebook Timeline. With Facebook Timeline, Facebook pages have an entirely new design and businesses can enjoy more control over what content is front and center, and what content is hidden on their page. In this article, … Continue reading “What Businesses Should Know About Facebook Timeline”

Facebook has rolled out significant changes and improvements to how users view and interact with businesses with the new Facebook Timeline. With Facebook Timeline, Facebook pages have an entirely new design and businesses can enjoy more control over what content is front and center, and what content is hidden on their page. In this article, you’ll find an overview of brand new Timeline features such as the cover photo, apps, direct messaging, the activity log and more.

Choose a Cover — The most visible change in Facebook Timeline is the cover photo. The Timeline cover displays an 851×315-pixel banner across the top of the fan page, making multimedia a stronger element than ever before. Since the cover image is very large, it’s essential to choose a cover photo that is eye-catching and reflective of your organization. For example, a restaurant may want to display a popular menu item while a retail store may feature a popular product. It’s important to keep in mind that covers are not permitted to display any calls to action, references to pricing, contact information, a Web address or text such as “like this page” or “visit our website.” It’s essential to focus on the image and choose a photo that entices users to scroll down to learn more about your business. For details about cover photo guidelines and restrictions, please click here.

Complete Your About Section — Directly under your cover photo, two key metrics will be visible: your number of likes and the number of “people talking about this.” Under these metrics, you’ll find your About section. This section is where you can include a brief description of your business and contact information. To the right, you’ll see photos, pages that you have liked and any custom landing tabs. As the following paragraph will explain, any custom landing tabs that you have previously installed will be completely reformatted. Facebook has removed the ability to set one of these tabs up as the default image when a user arrives at your page.

Apps — Perhaps the biggest change to this new format is that default landing tabs, or customized tabs that non-fans would see first instead of the wall, are no longer allowed. With Timeline, users will always see the main page first and they will have to click through to view custom apps. In this section, you can add your custom pages, contests, promotions, coupons or media. However, these will not get the same amount of exposure as they did on traditional Facebook pages. Since these tabs will no longer be the first thing users see when they visit your page, they may not be as powerful or engaging.

Direct Messages with Fans — This new feature is a huge advantage for businesses. For the first time, Facebook users can send private messages to the owner, or Admins, of a business page. With the old layout, the only way fans could communicate with business pages was publicly, through the page’s wall. By making it possible to communicate with business owners through private messages, businesses can handle any complaints or personal matters out of the public eye, making this a better experience for both parties.

Share, Star and Hide Stories — One of the major features of Timeline is that businesses have more power than ever to share, “star” and hide stories surrounding their fan page. For example, by “starring” posts, you can choose which updates you want to drive the most traffic to and highlight historical or successful posts by you and your fans. On the other hand, you can hide or delete posts that are embarrassing, out of date or negative. Users can monitor all of these updates in Timeline’s new activity log.

Activity Log — Your activity log will be an organized list of your posts and activity, from the current date back to the very beginning of your page’s history. Through your activity log, you can control what information goes on your Timeline and what information you’d prefer to hide. You can also mark certain posts as spam and hide posts from appearing on your Timeline, but that you’d still like to store in your activity log. For more information about the features of Timeline’s activity log, click here.

How Should I Begin — To switch to Facebook Timeline, visit the Timeline for Pages preview manager, where you can walk yourself through the features discussed in this article. When you’re comfortable with how Timeline works, click the “Publish Now” button at the top of your page to show your new design to the public. If you prefer to wait until March 30th, Timeline will automatically become publicly visible and you will have to adjust your page at this time.

To find out more about Facebook Timeline, visit Facebook’s Timeline: A New Kind of Profile.

For more information, please contact The Public Relations and Marketing Group at (631) 207-1057 or johnzaher@theprmg.com. You can also visit our blog for more valuable articles, advertising spotlights and more.

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