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Friday 28 June 2013

How To Use Google+ Hashtags To Help Your Business



Google+ introduced hashtags, along with a number of other new features, last month in an effort to make the Google+ feed a little deeper and more interesting. Hashtags on Google+ are very similar to those on Twitter and now Facebook: you can use them to find, start and join conversations about specific topics. However, Google+ hashtags are slightly different to their Twitter counterparts.

The Google+ stream interface allows for different kinds of hashtag engagement than on Twitter: instead of taking you to a different hashtag-specific stream, clicking on a Google+ hashtag will flip you through other similarly hashtagged posts in-stream. Like Twitter, Google+ will also show you related hashtags – other hashtags that have been used in posts alongside the hashtag originally clicked on.

Of course, you can search for a Google+ hashtag, just as you would on Twitter, and all the relevant posts will appear in the stream. Google+ gives you the option to arrange hashtagged posts chronologically, or see the “Best of” posts at the top of your stream. I’m not entirely certain what qualifies posts to make it into the “Best of” stream. Supposedly, it takes into account the amount of engagement a post has received and its timing, but it might also – considering it’s a Google product – take SEO into account (after all, Google+ does intuitively search articles for key terms on order to add hashtags).

Google+ will also intuitively add hashtags to posts if it thinks that they are relevant. Google explains how these hashtags will differ from those you add yourself in the support pages:

Hashtags with grey colouring are those used by the author of the post while hashtags with blue colouring are added by Google based on the content of the post.

 I advise that, even though Google will suggest hashtags, you include hashtags in all your Google+ posts. Make sure that they are relevant to the topic. It’s best practice to include three hashtags: the first three hashtags are displayed at the top of each post and affect what searches posts show up in, as well as what other posts they are related to. Order your hashtags by preference, starting with the one you think is the most important/relevant, as this will also affect searches. You can include more hashtags if you want, but the first three are given far more weight than the others.

Search for and use hashtags that are popular and relevant to join conversations. Be careful though, the way hashtagged posts are displayed in the stream, where you can flip from one post to another, puts posts in direct competition with one another: users with only enough time to read one article will flick between a couple before choosing their preference. It is imperative, then, that you check out the competition before you post your hashtagged content, as well as ensuring that your content is as attractive in the stream as possible (nice image, catchy title etc.).

Naturally, you’ll hope that your posts appear in the “Best of” stream. As this is mostly down to engagement on the site, the best way to achieve this is by posting good content. On the other hand, you should also be timing your posts to perfection to ensure that they appear high up in the “Most recent” stream. Experiment with timing: do you want to join the conversation at its peak and risk your post getting lost in the chatter, or do you want to enter conversations as they lull and risk an apathetic reaction? Of course, this depends primarily on the conversations you are joining.

Ideally, you want to be starting conversations, so staying abreast of news relevant to your industry and reacting quickly to it is an intelligent strategy. It is at this point that related hashtags become very important: if you can join a conversation with your first hashtag, then pique the interest of those in the conversation with your second, you can not just start a conversation, but lead it as well, taking it onto a subject that may help you promote your brand.

For example, say you wanted to promote your company’ new zero-emissions car, you could search #zeroemissions and discover what other relevant subjects people were talking about. Let’s presume, in the same week as you release your car, a bill gets passed in the US Senate pledging to cut national carbon emissions by 50% in 2015 and, as a result, #carbonemissionsbill becomes a popular conversation on Google+.

You could be obvious and post an article about the car with both the #zeroemissions and #carbonemissionsbill, or you could try to turn the conversation onto zero-emissions vehicles, by, for instance, asking the Google+ community how they think the car trade will be affected by the bill, suggesting that zero-emissions vehicles might be the way to go; that way, you can include both the #carbonemissionsbill and the #zeroemissions hashtags. After starting a conversation about the zero-emissions and the car trade, post an announcement article about your car, using the #zeroemissions hashtag but not the #carbonemissions bill. It’s a risky strategy, granted, dependent on a lot of things going your way, but using related hashtags on Google+ in such a way might turn out to be one of the least invasive but most successful advertising tactics on social media to date.

Google+ hashtags are still in their early stages and, even though everyone is used to them on Twitter, the Google+ equivalent is a new and different animal. The strategy I outlined above is so risky and untested that it may never work, but hashtags – the way they are displayed in-stream – open up a number of avenues for experimentation, providing businesses with a brand new way to drive conversations online.

How have you used Google+ hashtags to help your business?  

Wednesday 26 June 2013

Report: Almost 1 In 4 People Worldwide Are Using Social Media

Internet statistics and market research company eMarketer has released a report entitled “Worldwide Social Network Users: 2013 Forecast and Comparative Estimates”, which estimates that in 2013, almost a quarter of the World’s population will use social media.

The number of social network users worldwide will increase from 1.47 billion last year to 1.73 billion this year. By 2017, eMarketer estimates that 2.55 billion people will use social media.

The majority of user growth will be in Africa, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, according to the report’s findings, while Asia-Pacific has the largest social media user base, with 777 million of Asia-Pacific’s inhabitants expected to use a social media platform by the end of the year. In fact, Asia-Pacific has 44.8% of the world’s social media users, more than three times Latin America’s user base, who sit in second.

The report predicts that by 2014, Latin America and Africa will have surpassed Latin America in second place, while North America will be surpassed by Central and Eastern Europe and, a year later, by Western Europe as well.

Penetration rates, however, flip user base figures on their head: North America and Europe boast the most impressive social network user penetration rates, while Asia-Pacific, Africa and the Middle East prop up the table at the bottom. In 2013, North America will more than double the Middle East & Africa’s penetration rates.

Between 2013 and 2016, the percentage of internet users worldwide who are active on social media will increase from 67.7% to 76.6%, reaching 78.7% a year later. eMarketer reasons that North America, Asia-Pacific – “specifically, Japan, South Korea and Australia” – and Western Europe have lower penetration figures than the worldwide figures overall because the “advanced countries in these regions tend to have more diverse internet user populations, as users often access the web for a variety of reasons such as shopping or searching”. Meanwhile, internet users in Africa, the Middle East, Central Europe and Eastern Europe are generally younger and more internet savvy, so are more likely to use social media.

For more statistics from the report, click on the link at the bottom of the announcement article.

What do you think about the findings of this report?    

Monday 24 June 2013

Facebook Updates Comment Sorting, Adds Like Button To Messenger

Last week, Facebook made a number of small, yet significant, adjustments to comments, introducing the ability to post images as comments and allowing users to sort comments either chronologically or by popularity. Facebook has also added a Like Button to Facebook Messenger for mobile devices.

There is a drop down menu to the bottom right-hand corner of posts with multiple comments, just above the comments box, giving users the option to sort comments by ‘Recent Activity’, or to view the ‘Top Comments’.

Facebook updated comments earlier this year so that they could be viewed based on popularity and engagement. Giving users the option to switch between ‘Top Comments’ and ‘Recent Activity’ is the logical next step.

In related news, Facebook Messenger now has a ‘Like’ button, so users can agree with, or express their approval of, messages with a single tap. Facebook has essentially branded approval on the app, ensuring that the Facebook like will become the accepted shorthand, as opposed to ‘k’, ‘alright’ or any other shortened affirmative.

What do you think of the changes Facebook has made to comments?       

Friday 21 June 2013

Instagram Launches Video Feature Similar To Vine


Yesterday, Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom announced that the new version of Instagram would allow users to record short, Vine-like videos on the app, describing the feature as "everything you love about Instagram — and it moves".

Facebook revealed that there would be an announcement about a big change to one of its features a week ago. The social media world quickly realised that the update would be an Instagram video feature, putting the service directly in competition with Twitter’s affiliate Vine.

Vine was an instant success when it came out early this year, climbing to the top of the download charts and capturing the imaginations of its 13 million users. Vine’s meteoric success was a wake up call to Facebook employees, who realised that they needed to quickly release a competitor using their affiliate image sharing service Instagram.

Although Instagram’s video creation software is similar to Vine in principle, it has many new and interesting features that set it apart from its Twitter-owned competitor. For example, Vine videos can only be up to six seconds long, while Instagram videos can be between three and fifteen seconds.

Instead of pressing the screen in general to record, users press a little record button near the bottom. Pressing the screen will auto-adjust the video’s focus, an improvement on Vine’s unfocused video filming. A ‘Cinema’ function improves the video even further by stabilizing the image.

Instagram allows users to not only add filters to their videos – the filters are similar to picture filters, but with new names – but also choose a cover frame to appear in the Instagram feed, or the Facebook news feed. Users can also edit their videos mid-record by deleting recorded sections.

Unlike Vines, Instagram videos don’t autoplay and they don’t loop, which, depending on your preference, makes them better or worse than Vine videos. Instagram also learnt from a number of Vine mistakes, releasing on both Android and iOS at the same time and incorporating hashtags from the start.

It is unlikely that Vine will be killed off by Instagram video but, thanks to Instagram’s 130 million-strong user base, ten times the number Vine has, it will probably become more popular.

What do you think of Instagram video?

Wednesday 19 June 2013

Facebook Is Asking You To Rate Your Friendships

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is asking users to rate their friendships in order to improve the content they see in the news feed.
 
A questionnaire appears on the right-hand side of the user’s homepage, it asks, “how well do you knowfriend’s name”, giving five options:
 
  1. One of my best friends
  2. I know him well
  3. We sometimes meet
  4. An acquaintance
  5. I don’t know him
 
Facebook then promises that the answer will remain private (don’t worry, the questionnaire is not a sign that Mark Zuckerberg is retrograding Facebook into Facemash), and that it will help the company to show users “more interesting updates”.
 
The news feed ranks content based on the
EdgeRank algorithm, which takes into account who posted the content, when the content was posted and the interaction the content has already received.

The questionnaire will presumably help Facebook to better qualify the “Affinity” of the content, i.e. how close a relationship the user has with the person or brand who posted the content, and hence show content which is of more value to the user in the news feed.

It is unclear whether or not the answers to the questionnaire will change the content displayed in news feed immediately, or, rather, they will be used to instruct the
new news feed, which was announced in March.

Have you been asked to rate your friendships by Facebook?


Monday 17 June 2013

Why Advertisers Need YouTube



Youtube-video-marketing




A video marketing strategy on YouTube can benefit your brand's social media presence on other networks, too. When Old Spice ran its "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" campaign, it gained over 80,000 Twitter followers in two days and increased its Facebook engagement by 800%. What do these numbers mean? Well, for Old Spice, they meant a 107% sales increase.


This infographic by MDG Advertising illustrates the growth and consumption habits of YouTube viewers, and shows how your brand can turn content into revenue with a video marketing strategy.
What's the best YouTube video marketing campaign you've seen? Let us know in the comments section below.
Homepage image via iStockPhoto, dem10

Friday 14 June 2013

Social Media Promotions Of The Week: 14/06/13

This week’s SMPW is all about fan interaction, with all five brands featured thinking of novel approaches to engage their fans. Here are the five:

1. BurberryBurberry Kisses



High street fashion retailer Burberry has teamed up with Google to create Burberry Kisses: a campaign which allows fans of the brand to send their loved ones messages sealed with a digitised imprint of their kiss.

To seal their message, fans just have to either kiss their touchscreen device when prompted or pucker up for the webcam. Users can even choose their lipstick colour.

Burberry has set up a special site to send the sealed messages, with a map which displays all the messages being sent in real-time. The messages are sent using Gmail and they can be +1’d on Google+.

2. Skittles – Figurines


Skittles has released a new interactive viral video entitled figurines, which gives fans the choice of which figurine to smash next.

Each figurine has its very own video, which will be shown when selected.

The video has over 25,000 views on YouTube at the time of writing.

3. VanishVanish Tip Exchange


Detergent brand Vanish is inviting its fans to send in videos with helpful tips on how to get rid of tough stains.

There are 38 tip exchange videos on Vanish’s YouTube channel, some with over two thousand views.

The Vanish Tip Exchange app on Facebook asks visitors if they have a tip or a stain, then the community helps or appreciates accordingly.

4. Cow & GateDance Dance Baby

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Cow & Gate are looking for the next generation of dancers to star in their Dance Dance Baby advert.

The baby care company’s Facebook fans can upload a video of their child dancing onto a specially created app page. The dancing stars have to be between 9 months and 3 years old. The uploaded videos have been posted onto a gallery page.

The best dancers will feature in Cow & Gate’s upcoming advert.

5. JELL-OJigglevision

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American confectionery company JELL-O has created Jigglevision. Jigglevision allows you to write, hide and send secret messages on Facebook.

To read the message, the recipient has to hold a pot of red JELL-O over it. The JELL-O makes the message instantly visible.

Although Jigglevision is accessible via a Facebook app, it can be shared on Twitter or via email as well as onsite.

Which is your favourite SMPW this week?

Wednesday 12 June 2013

The New Google+ Dashboard Helps Businesses Manage Their Profiles

Yesterday, Google released a new dashboard for businesses and page owners on Google+, allowing them to update and change aspects of their online presence across a number of Google’s services, all from one place.

From the Overview tab on the Google+ Dashboard, business owners can change their information on Google Maps, YouTube and Search, as well as on other Google services. So, for example, if a company moved offices they could update their location on Maps via the dashboard, or even change their website URL information.

The Dashboard also has specific sections for businesses to check their “Google+ notifications, assign page managers, share photos and videos - even start a Hangout with followers”, according to Google employee Pavni Diwanji’s announcement post on Google+.

Business and page owners can also access AdWords Express and Offers campaigns on the Dashboard, while from the Insights tab they can check top keyword searches pertaining to their business, common locations requesting directions on Maps and how their posts are performing on Google+

Google has been trying to bring together all their products for some time and the new Google+ Dashboard goes a little way towards achieving this.

Do you like the new Google+ Dashboard?    

Monday 10 June 2013

Google Reportedly Finalising Talks To Buy Waze For $1.3 Billion

File:Waze logo.png
After rejecting advances from Apple and Facebook, Israeli traffic monitoring and navigation company Waze is reportedly in the final stages of a $1.3 billion deal with Google, who are looking to consolidate their position as king of the app mapping systems.

A number of conflicting reports have been published over the last few months: at first it was believed that Apple were the frontrunners in the pursuit of Waze, but after the company’s mapping software was so poorly received, the rumours died down. Facebook then emerged as favourites, supposedly offering Waze’s founders $1 billion, double what Apple had offered the company, for the rights to the navigation software.

The talks, however, were unsuccessful, especially after Google reportedly swooped in and offered Waze a deal they couldn’t refuse: $1.3 billion in cash upfront, as well as the agreement that Waze would remain a separate brand, Noam Bardin would continue on as CEO and the company’s offices would stay in Israel for at least 3 years – there has been some suggestion that Waze and Facebook’s negotiations broke down because Facebook wanted to move Waze’s offices to the States. The article by Israel-based publication “Globes”, who first reported the story, has been corroborated by a number of Israeli sources.

Waze is an optimal route navigation app, which tracks traffic congestion and road blocks using social updates: Waze’s users, or “Wazers”, share real-time traffic information and road alerts with each other. This information is then visualised on Waze’s road map, with other users and points of interest marked. To create the map, Waze gathers GPS data from Wazers, informing others of slow routes and traffic. Wazers can also mark road blocks or mobile speed cameras on the map hands-free.

Waze and Google could be a match made in heaven for people sick of cluttered roads on their commute: Google’s almost faultless mapping technology, when combined with Waze’s social navigation data, will almost certainly make negotiating traffic far easier.


Do you think Waze will improve Google maps? Do you use Waze already? Is it good? Will you use it if Google acquires it?       

Friday 7 June 2013

The Importance Of Knowing Your Audience On Social Media


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To create a successful social media strategy for your business you must know your audience. Social media is all about communication and conversation, how can you have a proper conversation if you don’t know anything about the people you are talking to? Before you create or post any content, you need to know who will see it. If you only know a little about your audience to start off with, using that to your advantage when creating a strategy can help you not only engage with your audience, but also understand more about your audience as a result. Here are the questions you should ask yourself in order to help you get to know your business’ audience on social media:

1. Why?

Posting content without prior knowledge of its potential audience is just a Random Act of Marketing: you might have some success, but your content won’t have anywhere near the same amount of engagement as content posted with a targeted audience in mind.

For your social media strategy to have any success, you must first work out who you are trying to reach and then the best way to reach them. Be aware that different networks will have different audiences, so make sure you create content which suits each social media site.

2. Who?

So, knowing your audience on social media is of the upmost importance. After the ‘why’, though, comes the ‘who’: who are all the people following you on Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook and Google+? Who are all the people sharing and engaging with your content? Who is retweeting you on Twitter and repinning your pins on their Pinterest boards?

You need to work out who engages with your content in order to work out what sort of content they are more likely to engage with. Find out what demographics your fans belong to: their age, gender, professional status, location and income. For example, if your fans are predominantly of a younger demographic, they might be more likely to share funny or fashionable content.

If you’re not sure who your fans are on social media (bear in mind we haven’t got to the ‘how’ yet) it’s a good idea to find out what demographics your brand appeals to outside of the world of social media. Your customers in the real world will give you a great insight into your fans on social media. However, there are other variables that need to be taken into account, so don’t just presume that your fanbase is made up purely of actual customers: you may discover a completely new support base online thanks to your adoption of social media.

Always be aware that the number of people engaging with your content is miniscule compared to the number of people who aren’t, but could be. There are those that see your content but don’t engage, as well as the millions who haven’t even see your content yet. Make sure you don’t just create content to please the people engaging with it already, create content that will attract new fans and followers: after all, you want to be building your support base, not just maintaining what you’ve got.

Having worked out who your fans and followers are, and what makes them tick, you should work out who the most influential people within your fanbase are. Find out which of your fans have the most followers themselves, and which fans get their own content shared the most often. If you can identify the influencers within your fanbase, you can engage with them more frequently and perhaps create a few brand ambassadors.

3. What?

There are actually a number of ‘what’ questions you need to ask yourself when researching your social media audience. The first, and arguably the most important, is ‘what are people saying about your company?’ Not only will this give you an insight into what your audience want from your company and from your social media presence, it will also help you better engage with customers and monitor what they think about you. You should always be monitoring sentiment analysis to get a better understanding of your customers and how your brand is perceived.

You should also find out what your fans and followers are saying on social media in general. Very often a throwaway tweet or Facebook status can give you a great insight into what a customer’s wants are. By monitoring what people say and post, you can also find out what your audience’s interests are. Create content that will pique the interests of your audience and make them more likely to engage with you.

What networks are your fans on? If your audience is far more active on Twitter than on Pinterest, and you don’t have enough time to manage both, focus on posting content and engaging with followers on Twitter to make the most of your social media presence. In answering this question you may also discover more about your audience, as different demographics prefer different sites. Of course, this means that if you have a similar number of fans on Pinterest and Twitter, they won’t necessarily be the same, so you should tailor your content to the site it is posted on and the people who will see it.

The final ‘what’ question you should ask of your audience, a question that is getting more and more important as mobile social media use increases, is ‘what devices are my fans and followers using to check their social media?’ It is no good posting image-laden content if all of you followers are on mobile, as they won’t get the full impact of a large image on a phone.

4. When?

There is only one question in this section, but discovering its answer is vital to the success of your business’ social media strategy: when are your audience active online?

Don’t post your content in the evenings if your audience is using social media in the morning, as they won’t necessarily see it; post when the majority of your audience is active on social media so that they are more likely to see it and interact with it. Ideally, of course, you will be able to post content regularly throughout the day but, if not, work out the best strategy in order to get the most views, engagement and reach.

5. How?

So, the burning question: how do you find out all you need to know about your business’ audience on social media? Well, you can always ask. Ask questions on Twitter and Facebook about what your customers like and dislike, what makes them tick, or create surveys to discover more about your fans and followers.

Take the time to research your audience. How do your followers describe themselves in their Twitter bios? What have they liked on Facebook? Don’t forget to measure the success of your own campaigns within your audience.

Another important question to ask your followers is how they found out about you. This can give you a great insight, not only into the minds of your audience, but also into how successful your social media presence is. Again, you can use a survey to do this.

There are a number of analytical tools which you can use to make researching your audience easier: Klout can help you work out which of your fans and followers are the most influential, while Followerwonk can help you delve into the details of your Twitter followers.

How do you research your social media audience?   

Wednesday 5 June 2013

Twitter Improves Profile Editing

Twitter has made profile editing easier, allowing users to drag photos from their desktop and drop them directly in the header image or profile image slot.

Twitter engineer Patrick Ewing announced the update with a tweet, in which he embedded the explanatory video above. The video suggests that Twitter are pushing for all users to have a profile picture instead of the anonymous egg.

Users can edit all their profile information from the ‘Me’ tab by clicking the ‘Edit Profile’ button. Having selected a profile or header image, users can reposition them with the mouse within their respective frames.

Twitter’s changes improve site functionality, making creating and editing accounts easier and more intuitive. Also, with all the editing options available onsite, users will spend more time on Twitter as they won’t have to navigate away to select photos from rivals Facebook, Google and Instagram – sites ideal for searching out, uploading and storing photos.

There have also been reports that Twitter is testing a new conversation view, with a line through threads of mentions and replies.

What do you think of the new Twitter profile editing options?    

Monday 3 June 2013

Facebook Tests Private Messaging Option From The Home Status Box

In order to increase messaging rates on the site, Facebook is testing the option to send private messages from the status box on a user’s home page.

Facebook is currently testing the private message option with a small group of users. At the moment, private messaging is accessed either via the left-hand toolbar, or through a small icon on the top right of the page. Neither icons are very distinctive, meaning users are less likely to use the service.

According to multiple sources, users will be able to alternate between posting status updates and sending private messages to friends, supposedly via the drop down menu to the bottom left of the box which already contains the “Public”, “Friends”, “Only Me” and “Custom” recipient options.

However, the multi-functionality of the box could cause problems: users could accidently post private messages as status updates or send status updates as private messages. Presumably, Facebook will alter the appearance of the status box when in private messaging mode, just as it does when the “Only Me” option is switched on.

Facebook is competing with Google and Apple, among other brands, for top billing in the cross-platform messaging service stakes. Google has just incorporated all its messaging services into the new improved Hangouts feature, making all forms of messaging on the site and the app far more accessible.

Facebook are hoping that by making private messaging easier on the site, users will prefer the service over Apple’s and Google’s alternatives, hence bringing more traffic onto Facebook and increasing the likelihood of users being exposed to advertising.

Who do you think will win the cross-platform messaging war?