5 Social Platforms to Put on Your “Fadar”!
Over the last several years lots of social platforms have come and gone. Some are slowly fading away. It’s really hard to keep track of where to spend your time and energy! 2012 will remain a big year for big players such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, and LinkedIn and similarly, we should also expect to see exponential growth for newcomers like Pinterest. However, as newcomers gain momentum, we will start to see other social networks fizzle off. Here are 5 social platforms we think you should put on your “fadar” (aka fading radar):
- Quora: The question and answer platform was predicted to be the next big thing in 2010. However, half way through 2011 the big buzz surrounding the site slowly started to fade off. The site still receives decent traffic, with an estimate of 500,000 users, however, as new social sites emerge Quora might not be at the top of social minds.
- Digg: The once beloved site-sharing website has been dying a slow death for several years. It hasn’t been able to compete with sites like Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter. It is my opinion that it is just a matter of time before it completely fizzles off. A few months ago it did launch a new version of the site, however, it doesn’t seem like users found it very appealing. A couple of years ago a great article would have received on average 3000 Diggs, now you’re lucky if you even get 100.
- Delicious: This social bookmarking site had everything going for it back in 2005. It was new to the scene and had no real competitors. What happened? As new bookmarking sites started to saturate the market Delicious didn’t reinvent quickly enough. Rumors are it might shut-down or sell its technology.
- Gowalla: This location-based site was once a fierce competitor for foursquare, both entering the market at about the same time 2 years ago. However, foursquare quickly gained momentum with over 1 billion check-ins to date, leaving Gowalla in the dust. Gowalla’s leadership has now joined forces with Facebook. According to industry insiders, Facebook has not purchased the technology, only the talent. Gowalla will slowly fade out.
- QR Codes: There’s a huge online debate about whether QR (Quick Response) Codes are slowly starting to die off before they’ve even had the chance to really take off. Some people may think, why would QR Codes be on the “fadar”? I see them everywhere? Well, that’s exactly my point. The ubiquitous use of QR Codes in often ill-conceived marketing efforts, is what might lead to its demise.
What do you think? Do you take issue with any of the above observations? Are there networks or tools you feel should be on the fadar?
Maryam Mehrtash
@socialmaryam
Tags: cool, Delicious, digg, facebook, foursquare, google, gowalla, LinkedIn, pinterest, QR codes, reddit, Social Media, technology, Twitter, youtube
What If…Your Twitter and Facebook Posts Were Deleted After 24 Hours?
What if … a new feature was introduced where Facebook Wall posts and Twitter tweets were automatically removed after 24 hours?
If you did not post anything new in a 24-hour period, your Facebook Wall and Twitter profile would be empty, showing just a blank page. If you’re managing a Facebook Page or a Twitter account for your company or client this would be a big deal. It’s equivalent to having a company website with no content.
Would this give you more incentive to publish content more frequently?
This hypothetical scenario isn’t very far from reality, considering the effective lifespan of the average Facebook post is 22 hours and the lifespan of the average Twitter tweet is 1 hour.
It’s a balancing act. Publish too infrequently and you’ll gain minimal benefit from your social media profile. Publish too frequently and you risk annoying your followers.
Keep this in mind the next time you are developing a digital strategy. Is your publishing frequency maximizing your impact online?
Victor
Digital Strategist
Photo Credit: JanetR3
Tags: facebook, lifespan, strategy, Twitter
What the Heck is Pinterest and Why Should You Care?
Quick. Take a stab at naming the top ten social sites.
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn… these ones come easily to mind, but it may surprise you to learn that Pinterest also makes the cut. Coming in at #10, it’s clear that Pinterest is gaining traction fast. It may be time to sit up and notice it, if you haven’t already been lured by its slick and glossy look.
What the heck is it?
The name explains the essence of what it’s about: ‘Pin’ items of ‘interest’. It acts like a virtual pushpin board for things found around the web. Users can create multiple boards, each dedicated to something of interest to them. For example, a board for travel, a board for recipes, a board for home decor. You get the idea. It’s social bookmarking, revisited & refreshed.
Although still in invite-only mode, in just one week alone last December (2011) Pinterest is said to have attracted 11-million visits. It’s growing at an incredible rate, seeing a 4000% jump in traffic from just six months ago. Monthly visits are said to be averaging 3.2-million.
The website is most popular with women aged 25-44, accounting for 58% of the userbase in the past three months (Experian Hitwise). Here are some thoughts on why those who like it, like it a lot. Indeed it must be onto something when it starts spawning copycats.
So why should you care?
There is a business case for participating on Pinterest. It is reported that Real Simple magazine is getting more referral traffic from Pinterest, than from Facebook. From a business perspective, there are many opportunities for building a fan base, building awareness for products, and getting more traffic to your website, but you need to go about it the right way. Pinterest states very clearly there shall be no blatant promoting and marketing on the site. So what can you do? Some ideas are expanded on here, but I think one truth for gaining traction as a business on Pinterest is to have smoking hot photos of smoking hot products. This will inspire members to pin them on their boards, and thus increase the exposure of the business through the image. (Images link back to the original site)
So there you have it. Some pretty compelling reasons to consider Pinterest as a serious player in your ongoing online strategy.
Erin
Tags: facebook, pinterest, strategy
5 Tips On How to Filter Through The Fluff!
Marketers are constantly inundated with information on the #digitalmediasphere – felt like a hashtag was appropriate for this post! The amount of information our brains have to consume on a daily basis is mind blowing, literally. According to Mail Online, each person is drowned with “174 newspapers’ worth of information every day.” FastCompany also published an infographic in September 2010 based on the book The 24-Hour Customer, indicating that we will generate more data in the next 4 years than in the history of the world, adding that the average person is connected 12 hours a day to some form of digital media which translates to 34 billion bits of information per day (an equivalent of two books).
The biggest concern for marketers is the ability to sort through all the fluff and not get bogged down. Recent studies are showing that the level of information we are being asked to break down can cause increased stress levels. So how do we keep on top of the abundance of information and still keep our sanity? Learn how to filter through the fluff and manage your time. Here are 5 tips that can get you started:
TIP #1. BE SELECTIVE. Don’t follow every single person on Twitter who follows you, or subscribe to every blog with the word “digital marketing” in it. Be selective to what you subscribe to and who you follow. Similarly, don’t feel the need to subscribe to every single news outlet, most likely they all end up publishing the same stories within 24 hours of each other anyway. By being selective you can start filtering through the noise and choosing what you really want to focus your brain cells on.
TIP #2. TAKE TIME OFF. Set aside certain time periods when you are active on social media, reading the news, updating your blog, and so on and so forth. We spend most of our waking hours connected to some form of digital media. Sometimes it’s nice to tune out. Take a break and set rules and regulations. For example, when you are at the gym don’t be the person on the treadmill who is replying to emails and tweets. It’s okay to not reply back right away. Let your body relax and do something else. You can set time limits for yourself of when you are on and off, even computers need down time.
TIP #3. UTILIZE DASHBOARDS. Dashboards help aggregate various accounts and create search tabs to sort through specific content. Hootsuite is a great dashboard that allows you to do both. You can add all your social media accounts to this one dashboard so that you don’t have to keep switching between tabs or windows to get up-to-date on all the new content. You can also create search tabs with specific keywords such as “online marketing” or “search engine optimization” and Hootsuite will then aggregate content based on that filter. That way you can sort through the fluff without actually having to do it yourself, the dashboard does it for you.
TIP #4. ACTIVATE GOOGLE ALERTS. There are a ton of free tools available online that help you filter through the data, Google Alerts is one of them. Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results based on your queries. You get the most up-to-date information sent directly to your mail box.
TIP #5. CREATE YOUR OWN READER. Setup a RSS Feed Reader or News Aggregator by adding your favorite blogs, and websites to it so you can keep on top of the latest content without actually having to visit the site. Feed Reader or News Aggregator software allow you to grab the RSS feeds from various sites and display them for you to read and use.
Hopefully these tips will help you stay on top of your content, and help save you a little time and stress!
Maryam Mehrtash @socialmaryam
Tags: data, digital, facebook, information, marketing, Social Media, stress, Twitter
The Big Idea of Technology Driven Advertising
Remember the days when you’re on vacation driving down the highway with billboards flashing in your face? Or ads interrupting your musical paradise as you drive away in your convertible? Some made you laugh, others you didn’t even notice.
For the most part those days are gone. The future of advertising has changed forever. It was only ten years ago when advertising was driven by media placements and campaigns. Then the dotcom era started along with YouTube, and it slowly became about creating a complimentary online campaign to a brand’s TV campaign. Now, it’s about experimenting with an abundance of apps and networks that a customer pulls out of their pocket.
The acceleration of innovative change since the smartphone has led to onslaught of new apps. Combine that with powerful social communication tools and our society has forever changed the way we communicate. Today, advertising is not just about creative; it’s become a creative tool for business operations. We believe advertising has become a technology driven creative service that provides brands the opportunity to increase the effectiveness and impact of creativity.
Technology is the vehicle that drives the creative and key message, but in most cases it doesn’t determine what app or network the brand should be on. Nor does it determine what the creative and key message is. For example, we focus on the client’s objectives to develop the big idea based on the insights produced in our research. The big idea always has to drive your creative, not the technology.
One company particularly, is demonstrating how the combination of social and mobile can be a very effective combination to enhance the delivery of a big idea.
American Express has been one of the most active businesses in 2011 partnering with both Foursquare and Facebook to offer integrated seamless deals. Realizing that Groupon could be a major threat to their business, American Express started with a big idea: “American Express takes what you ‘Like’ and gives what you love.”
With this idea in mind, American Express launched two integrated social and mobile initiatives. The most recent one is a new Facebook “Link, Like, Love” app that allows Amex cardholders to sync their card to their social graph. This provides customers with personalized deals based on brands they’ve liked on Facebook. What’s the best thing? The customer does not have to purchase the deal. It’s automatically synched to the cardholders account.
On Foursquare, American Express is doing something similar. Instead of personalized social deals, the customer receives mobile check-in credits applied to their accounts within a few days after they tap “load to card”. The point is, every channel and every medium offers different benefits, but successful campaigns are always designed with one thing in mind, a big idea.
Even the food trucks are finding success by focusing on key messages. For instance, several food trucks in this recent Mashable article have been successful in either:
- Celebrating major milestones
- Crowdsourcing recipes on Facebook
- Building awareness and excitement during dead times
- Offering deals
- Promoting relevant holidays with timely advertising via mobile
Mobile is here now. It’s the future. But it’s only a tool; it’s not an idea. Let us help you establish that big idea.
Tags: American Express, Amex, facebook, foursquare, mobile, Social Media
