ITZ Publishing

Cratering Search & Display Sectors Drove U.S. Ad Market Into Decline in Q4

Read the original post at: http://paidcontent.org/2012/03/13/419-cratering-search-display-sectors-drove-u-s-ad-market-into-decline-in-q/

By Daniel Frankel 

  

Driven down by big fourth-quarter declines in digital advertising, the total U.S. ad market grew only 0.8 percent for all of 2011, a report released Monday by research firm Kantar Media said.

According to Kantar, which is owned by global ad-agency conglomerate WPP, the fourth quarter of 2011 was the worst three-month period for U.S. advertising growth in two years. In fact, since growing 8.7 percent in the third quarter of 2010, ad revenue growth has decreased every month since, actually declining in the fourth quarter by 1 percent (see chart).

With traditional sectors like broadcast TV up 7.7 percent in the fourth quarter and cable up 2.4 percent, digital sectors were singled out by Kantar for stymieing growth of the overall market. Paid search, for example, fell 6.4 percent in the fourth quarter, and 2.8 percent for all of 2011, with financial, insurance and local service providers investing fewer dollars.

Meanwhile, internet display advertising decreased 5.9 percent in Q4, dragged down by smaller budgets from auto manufacturers, telecom providers and travel companies. For the entire year, display increased 5.5 percent.

Kantar attributes the decline in digital revenues to the migration of dollars into less mature markets like mobile.

“Some mature digital media formats were touched by the year-end tide of reduced spending. Whether this is an isolated occurrence or an early sign of digital dollars moving more quickly towards emerging and unmeasured digital platforms bears watching as 2012 unfolds,” said Jon Swallen, senior VP of research for Kantar Media Intelligence North America.

 

Mobile and the news media's imploding business model

Read the original post at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/mar/27/mobile-news-media-imploding

Smartphones will soon be the primary news source for most Americans. That's if anyone can still make money by reporting. 

Michael Wolff

 guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 27 March 2012 16.00 EDT

Get it while stocks last: the Guardian Android app. Photograph: Guardian

Pew research has a new survey showing that tablets and smart phones are now 27% of Americans' primary news source. The overwhelming share of this is phones, not tablets; and a reasonable view says this will rise to 50% in three years.

Makes sense: just as radio became one of the big purveyors of news because it was the medium that traveled with you, so should mobile.

But it is also a depressing development, portending, once again, the end of the world as we know it: the news business has been plunged into a crisis because web advertising dollars are a fraction of old media money. And mobile is now a fraction of web: the approximate conversion rate is $100 offline = $10 on the web = $1 in mobile.

In part, the reasons are purely mechanical: you can cram three or four ads on a web page, meaning an average web CPM (cost per thousand views) of $1.00 (if you're lucky) can become a rate-per-page per thousand (RPM) of $4.00 (versus $20-$40 CPMs in traditional media). Mobile CPMs are running at something closer to $0.25 – and we're only able to fit one ad on those miniature pages.

And to some extent, the problem defines the medium: who wants to pay for inattention and a cursory scrawl? (How much of mobile news is consumed by people behind the wheel, even?)

And yet, this resistance, or lack of interest, on the part of advertisers challenges the bedrock logic of marketing: follow your customers.

Brands and big agencies continue to announce their commitment to and excitement about the revolution at hand. They surely want to be seen as players and cool people. I don't know anybody in consumer marketing who isn't gaga about digital and mobile. But these are the same people and big brands who have doubled down on television, your dad's medium, making 2011 a golden TV advertising year.

Now, there's an optimistic and stubborn view that this must change, that agencies and brands can't hold on to the past for ever. Almost every digital executive and booster will, at this point in the conversation, outline his or her children's media consumption habits as anecdotal evidence in support of the coming digital ad boom. But, as it happens, the patterns seem to get only worse. According to a recent report by Kanter Media, broadcast TV was up was 7.7% in the fourth quarter of 2011 (up 2.4% for the year), while internet search advertising was down 6.4% (down 2.8% for the year); and internet display advertising was down 5.9% in the fourth quarter (and down 5.5% for the year). Mobile does not even get its own break-out category.

There is another bleak element here: a basic shift in how advertising is bought and sold. More and more digital space, both web and mobile, is moved through a real-time auction process: audiences (or demographic segments) are sold like soy beans. Curiously, for all other commodities, the auction process raises prices. In a virtually unlimited world of digital advertising space, it lowers them.

If the news business on the web is depressing, contributing to the existential angst that has gripped every established news organization, mobile turns the story apocalyptic: there is no foreseeable basis on which the news establishment can support itself. There is no way even a stripped-down, aggregation-based, unpaid citizen-journalist staffed newsroom can support itself in a mobile world.

Hence the new consensus about the pay wall – on the web, but even more optimistically on anything handheld. In a very short time, the industry consensus has moved from "it will never work" to "it's inevitable". It doesn't seem to matter that this has happened without any evidence that it can work, other than on the most incremental basis. It does seem to be, however, the only alternative – or roach-like adaptation, no matter how meager and clawing in the dirt – to ad-based oblivion for large news organizations. (And even so, they surely won't be large anymore if they are to be supported on a paid-for basis.)

And then, there is the share-based news economy. In this new model, news is essentially voted for – that is, it achieves its views and its values by being passed along in the social quick-stream. This model, at a $0.25 CPM, depends on mass appreciation – on numbers so large that it makes television news look like a targeted audience. All of the sins of ratings-driven television news are, accordingly, algebraically magnified. Shared news is, more often than not, insipid happy news (qv Facebook).

Finally, there is "disintermediated" news. This model assumes that roaches, in the form of individual obsessives and low-paid scriveners (a monkey-with-a-typewriter model), continue to produce the ever-rising content pool, which is then parsed and selected, not by editors and reporters, but by your self-selected peer group – through tools supplied by easy-to-use mobile and web-based platforms (qv Twitter).

The bleak or non-existent future for news professionals in a mobile-dominated world is further compounded by our remoteness from, and antipathy to, the thing that has always fed us: advertising. The news business began and thrived on the basis of an historic, if anomalous partnership between the immediate and the commercial. Freedom of the press had as much to do with department stores as with the constitution.

We continue to need some genius – or greedy so-and-so – to figure out how to make a connection between news and moving the merchandise. Or we are lost.

 

5 Ways to Enhance Your Facebook Timeline Page With Images

Read the original post at Social Media Examiner here:

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-ways-to-enhance-your-facebook-timeline-page-with-images/

By Tim Ware
Published April 9, 2012 

Are you wondering how to visually enhance your Timeline Facebook page?

This article provides five actionable tips you can employ now.

The Visual Opportunity

When Facebook moved the navigation into the left column and added the Photostrip, I wrote how you could optimize your Facebook page for visual branding.

And when Timeline was rolled out for personal profiles, I also wrote how you cancustomize your cover photo and profile picture.

With each new overhaul of Facebook pages, there have been increased opportunities for brands to use imagery to better promote their offerings and create visual interest, and Timeline for pages is no different.

Establishing a consistent look and feel across pages and personal profiles, Timeline for pages provides significantly more opportunities to create a visually compelling page, starting with the masthead.

Timeline page masthead: The cover photo, profile picture and custom tab images.

In this article, I focus on five key areas where imagery can be used most effectively:

• Cover photo
• Profile picture
• Custom tab images
• Highlighting posts
• Milestones

#1: The Cover Photo: Your Biggest Branding Opportunity

The most visually significant change in Timeline for pages is the addition of the cover photo, an 851 x 315 pixel area where you can upload a single image.

In creating your cover photo image, Facebook advises:

• Use a unique image that represents your page. This might be a photo of a popular menu item, album artwork or a picture of people using your product. Be creative and experiment with images your audience responds well to.
• Use the cover photo to bring a strong visual impact to your page by extending your brand with lifestyle imagery, product images or a description of your services.

For examples, see the Cairns & Great Barrier Reef cover photo (and profile picture):

Cairns & Great Barrier Reef uses an evocative photo to convey the beauty of the Great Barrier Reef.

Coca-Cola  cover photo (and profile picture):

Coca-Cola incorporates lifestyle imagery with its instantly recognizable brand.

Inhouse Advertising cover photo (and profile picture):

Inhouse Advertising uses the space for imagery and a description of their services.

What Facebook DOESN’T Want You to Do With Your Cover Photo

Facebook has strict guidelines about the cover photo:

• No promotions, coupons or advertisements
• It shouldn’t be primarily text-based or infringe on anyone else’s copyright
• No price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website”
• No contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your page’s About section
• No references to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features
• No calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends”

I strongly advise you to adhere to the above guidelines. Facebook doesn’t state what it will do if your cover photo doesn’t follow the rules, but I wouldn’t want to risk finding out!

#2: The Profile Picture: The Hardest-Working Image on Facebook

In the previous page format, the profile picture was your page’s “hero” image, a 280 x 540 pixel area in the upper-left corner of your page.

What Facebook still calls the “profile picture” is now a 125-pixel square image that is inset into your cover photo in the lower-left area. The profile picture now does triple duty:

An extension of the cover photo.

The thumbnail icon that accompanies your posts on your page and other pages.

The main brand image used in the Facebook app for iPhones and other mobile devices.

It’s important to take all three contexts into account when creating your profile picture graphic, making sure the image works nicely with the cover photo, as your brand’s 50 x 50 pixel icon accompanying page posts, and on the Facebook mobile app.

Here are some fine profile picture examples:

Ben & Jerry’s profile picture integrates nicely with the cover photo, and makes a great thumbnail icon.

Ben and Jerry's profile picture integrates well with the cover photo.

The Macy’s page both integrates well with the cover photo (check out how they turn the square white profile picture into a Macy’s bag) and works as a well-branded thumbnail image.

Macy's cleverly integrates the profile picture and cover photo.

The Amsterdam Printing page does an excellent job of integrating the profile picture so that it extends the cover photo, and provides a great brand icon.

Amsterdam Printing does a great job integrating the profile picture and cover photo.

The Old Spice profile picture appears to be semi-transparent with the volcano extending into it.

Old Spice's profile picture appears to be semi-transparent.

A clever integration of your cover photo and profile picture is the challenge. For a detailed tutorial on how to more easily achieve an effect similar to what Old Spice, Amsterdam Printing or Macy’s Pages do, read my tutorial.

NOTE: Although the profile picture is displayed at 125 x 125 pixels, Facebook requires that the image you upload be 180 x 180 pixels, which it then resizes. And, of course, make sure your profile picture graphic is a square.

#3: Custom Tab Images: Make Sure You Take Advantage of These

This is one of the major improvements of Timeline for pages. Facebook has moved the navigation to your Facebook and custom tabs back to the top, below the cover photo. Where before you had your navigation as tiny 16 x 16 pixel icons with the tab name in the left column, now you have a maximum of four tabs prominently displayed at 111 x 74 pixels PLUS the tab name below the image.

Here are a few important things to keep in mind about the custom image tabs:

• You can’t change or reposition the “Photos” tab (which displays the most recently uploaded image).
• You can display a maximum of four tabs (including the Photos tab). Your remaining tabs are displayed when the user clicks the “arrow” icon to the right of the tab images.
• If you opt for fewer than four displayed tabs, the “About” info occupies the extra space.
  

  Armani has only two tabs displayed.

   

  

  The New York Times displays three tabs.

• You can create your own graphics for any custom tab images EXCEPTFacebook’s own apps (Photos, Notes, Events, Videos, Links).

TIP: Use the messaging in your custom tab image in conjunction with the tab’s title that displays below the Image. For example, on the HyperArts Timeline page, the custom image tabs and tab names reinforce each other.

HyperArts uses the custom tab images and tab names to reinforce each other.

How to Customize the Custom Tab Images

To edit your tab images, just click the arrow to the left of the three or four images.

To edit custom tab images, click the arrow next to the number of available tabs.

IMPORTANT: Page admins will see ALL of their tabs revealed by clicking the arrow. Other users will see a maximum of 12 tabs (including Photos), with 4 displayed and 8 hidden.

Next, mouse over the custom tab image you wish to change, and click the “pencil” icon that appears in the top-right corner and select “Edit Settings” from the contextual menu.

Clicking the "pencil" icon pops up the contextual menu.

In the pop-up dialog, click “Change”.

This will open a new tab or window where you see the current tab image.

Click “Change” to select and upload a new image.

Once you upload the new image and see it displayed in this new tab/window, return to the original tab/window.

Click the “Okay” button. Done!

Create Your Custom Tab Images to Fit Your Overall Branding

Make sure you pay attention to how all the graphic elements in your Timeline masthead work together to form a unified whole. You can even “control” what the Photos tab image is by reuploading the image you want there after any other images are uploaded. This is a bit obsessive, but it’s within your power!

Besides opting to display only three tabs, the New York Times has a cool correspondence between the red stairs and the “TimesTalks” custom tab image.

New York Times Timeline masthead.

On the HyperArts fan page, I went for the fully integrated, obsessive approach.

HyperArts goes for full visual integration and semi-transparent profile picture.

The Armani page goes minimal, and I like it. Notice they opt for only two tabs, keeping it simple.

Armani keeps it minimal, to great effect.

The Evian page creates a very nice unified branding with a clean design and consistent pink/white palette.

Evian's page has a clean and focused look, from cover photo to tabs.

On the American Express page, we see visually unified, icon-based custom tab images.

American Express uses informative icons for its custom tab images.

Strive to achieve a unified, compelling and eye-catching effect on your Timeline page masthead.

#4: Highlighting Posts to Create Visual Interest

Many users and page admins have found Timeline’s new way of displaying user and page posts cluttered, confusing and counterintuitive. Where before users could view all posts—by the page or by other users—in a chronological sequence, in the new Timeline format this sequence is broken up and often hard to follow.

However, page admins can use the new “highlight” feature to bring a bit of order to the chaos!

Use the Highlight Feature to Create Visual Organization

You can highlight any page status by clicking the “star” icon that appears in the top-right area when you mouse over one of your updates. (To remove the highlight on a status, just click the Highlight star again.)

Highlight a page status to attract attention and provide visual organization.

When you highlight a page status, it then occupies two columns in your Timeline, breaking up the monotony of the two columns as well as attracting more attention to that particular status.

The highlighted status, with its strong image, expands to two columns.

Tip #1: If you want each month more clearly delineated visually, you can edit the date of a highlighted status so that it appears first or anywhere in the chronology you want it to appear.

Tip #2: If your status update includes a Photo Album, the update will display the first image and include below it a row of thumbnails of the other pictures in the album, as you can see on the Livestrong page.

Livestrong status update with Photo Album.

Highlighting is a great way to combat the visual chaos of Timeline’s layout.

#5: Create Milestones to Make Your Page “Sticky”

Another way to break up the two-column layout and create a more compelling experience is to use the new “Milestones” feature.

Brands can create Milestones—incorporating pictures and text—for various significant events in their histories. Check out how the Macy’s Page and the Ford Page use Milestones to visually organize their content and keep users on the Page with great archival photos.

Macy's uses Milestones to create a more compelling page.

Ford utilizes Milestones to create interesting content and add variety to its Timeline.

And The New York Times Page has a wealth of content from which to create Milestones, in both one- and two-column formats.

The New York Times makes great use of Milestones.

How to Create a Milestone on Your Timeline Page

To create your first Milestone, just click on the “Milestone” option where you create status updates.

Click "Milestone" to create your first Milestone.

Before you can create Milestones, you have to establish a benchmark date—birth year, company started, company founded, etc. Facebook makes this easy by displaying a pop-up dialog the first time you click the “Milestone” link.

Select one of the available options for your page subject's inception.

Once you establish an inception date, you can then create Milestones. Of course, I encourage you to utilize imagery in your Milestones and create as many as you want, the more the merrier!

The takeaway: Imagery takes center stage in timeline!

As you can see from the above examples, the new Timeline for pages format provides far more opportunities for visually branding your page. It’s up to you to take advantage of these opportunities.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR, Tim Ware                                                                                           

Tim Ware is the owner of HyperArts, a San Francisco Bay Area Web development company that also specializes in Facebook custom tabs and application development. 

 

7 tips & cheat sheets to help you implement the new Timeline

Read the original post on SocialBrite.com at http://www.socialbrite.org/2012/03/26/tips-cheat-sheets-to-help-you-implement-the-new-timeline/

Socialbrite has not yet switched over to the new Timeline — but we will by Friday!

It’s time to leap into action — the switchover happens Friday

Target audience: Nonprofits, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, cause organizations, brands, businesses, Web publishers, educators, journalists, general public.

Editor’s note: Facebook is switching over all nonprofit and business pages to the newTimeline format this Friday, March 30. Because so many organizations haven’t yet made the move, or are still figuring out the best approach, we’re devoting this week to help you get ready to make the transition smartly. Contact Socialbrite if you need help.

In this series:
• Tuesday: How to shape your nonprofit’s message in Timeline
• Wednesday: Tips on maximizing the new Timeline
• Thursday: What story should you tell in Facebook Timeline?

Also:
• Make Facebook Timeline about your community
• How to create Facebook Timeline covers for your nonprofit’s supporters to use
• 11 ways Facebook Timeline changes your content strategy

Guest post by Beth Kanter
bethkanter.org

If you are an administrator for your organization’s Facebook page, you’ve no doubt noticed the alert that invites you to preview the look of your new page with the option of publishing it for all the world to see. Between now and March 30, only page administrators can see the changes, if you haven’t set it live yet. On Friday, Facebook will flip the switch for everyone. Many large nonprofits and big brands already have.

Livestrong is one of the nonprofit early adopters that has published its brand page using the new format. Others are exploring and testing and fixing glitches or simply checking out the new features, like the administrator’s dashboard. Time is runnnig out, so you have a few days left to review the changes, figure out a strategy and implement the changes.

Recommendations on optimizing your new Timeline

Here are my suggestions:

1Strategy and work flow. Understand how the changes impact your editorial strategy and how you will administrator the page. I shared a couple of resources and tips that you can use to have a brief strategy discussion with your team. After you have identified how you will integrate your branding strategy, revise your editorial/content strategy, and administrative work flow, you’re ready to get into some nitty gritty.

2Take the tour. Block out an hour to sit down and take the tour and preview your page. I would print out a copy of this useful guide published by Facebook that summarizes the feature changes. Go through the tour and take notes. See if your old profile image works with the new format. You might also want to check out how some brands have already implemented the changes. Mashable has this post on preparing for your new page.

A new feature, pinned posts, stays at the top of your page for 7 days. Think of them as your old landing tab.

3Bye bye default landing tabs. You’ll also notice that the landing tabs have now disappeared. This is a change that some nonprofits do not like. But there is a new feature called “pinned posts,” which are posts that remain at the top of your Timeline. Think of these pinned posts as your old landing tab. A pinned post stays at the top for only seven days. So this is where you’ll have to figure what your weekly call to action is. Looks like the emphasis is squarely on engagement vs. getting new likes.

4Profile and cover images. Many nonprofits may not have the graphic designer resources and will needed to take a DIY approach, while others will need to provide their designers with nitty gritty information like image size for the cover image. Here’s aquick cheat sheet. Also keep in mind that there are some important rules around the cover image about what information you can or can’t include.

5Administrative dashboard. Facebook has given us a nice administrative dashboard that lets us see our metrics and fan activity in an easy-to-scan screen. If you aren’t measuring how your content is engaging and resonating with your fans as part of your content strategy decision-making, hop to it. Here are some tips and ideas to get you started. Remember, to get the best results you need both real-time and trend data.

6Private messaging to administrators. Your page administrators will be able to communicate privately with fans using the page identity. This will make it easier for a team approach to managing your fan page community. It will be good think through how you will handle and manage private communications with fans.

7Prepare for your launch. Plan out how you want to launch your brand to your fans. What are you going to say about it? How are you going to get the word out on your page and other channels. I put together a small pinboard of the resources in this post to help you plan for the change this week.

What’s your plan for switching to the new format?  Share in the comments below.

Beth Kanter is a visiting scholar with the Packard Foundation. Republished frombethkanter.org.

20 free, awesome social media monitoring tools

Read the original post on the excellent blog http://www.socialbrite.org here:

http://www.socialbrite.org/2011/01/11/guide-to-free-social-media-monitoring-tools/

 

 

 

Take the pulse of the social Web by hitting these rich targets

Ready for a listening program? There are a wealth of free monitoring tools to choose from.

 

10 social media monitoring tools: a downloadable flyer

Free monitoring tools may fill your needs if you work for a small nonprofit or your business has no need for more sophisticated services (coming tomorrow). Just remember: Free monitoring tools aren’t really free — they require an investment of staff time and analysis.

 

And a word of advice: Don’t begin with the tools. Begin with a strategy — a social media game plan. Think of this as a multi-step process: Listen, learn, engage, act and measure. Listening is only the first step — you need to take action on what you discover. (Socialbrite can help you with an integrated approach to social media.) 

(And so can ITZ Publishing!)

Here is our Guide to Free Social Media Monitoring Tools. Have your own favorites? Please share in the comments.

Monitor social campaigns

Wildfire: How is your brand performing in social?

1Wildfire, a startup focused on creating interactive promotions on social sites, last month launched Social Media Monitor, a tool that tracks and compares how brands are performing on Facebook and Twitter. Wildfire allows companies, small businesses, marketing agencies, nonprofits and bloggers to create their own branded interactive campaigns — including contests, giveaways, incentive-based surveys and sweepstakes — and to simultaneously publish them in multiple social networks and on their websites. More than 65,000 users have done so. As we understand this, the basic tools are free and Wildfire also sells premium services.

Monitor social networks & blogs

Social Mention: Widgets & social search

2Social Mention is a social media search engine that searches for keywords on social media platforms — including blogs, comments, bookmarks, events, news, videos and microblogging services — and provides metrics around keywords and “sentiment.” It also provides graphic illustrations or charts showing mentions per day or week. Download the free search bar for your browser and monitor anything from your brand to your cause. They also offer APIs and provide coding for your own keyword monitoring widgets.

Alternative:
• Collecta lets you enter any search term to receive real-time results for mentions in social media, in blog comments and on news sites.

Google Reader: Begin with a dashboard

3Social media monitoring begins with a dashboard. (See our Top 10 social media dashboard tools.) A good choice to begin your monitoring is Google Reader: Subscribe to the RSS feeds of top blogs in your sector, competitors’ sites, news sites, Twitter searches and more, all in one place. You can even subscribe to searches on sites like Flickr and YouTube, so you’ll get an update on any new image or video that matches your brand or cause. If the page you’re on doesn’t seem to have an RSS feed, try Feedyes.com. We also likeFeed Informer, which lets you splice multiple feeds together into one and filter for duplicates.

Alternatives: Bloglines, Netvibes.

BlogPulse: Take the pulse of the blogosphere

4BlogPulse from NM Incite is an automated trend discovery system for blogs that analyzes and reports on daily activity in the blogosphere. You can keep on top of key phrases, top blog posts, videos, key people news sources and more. But its real power lies in the options you have to track blog conversations based on topics or keywords. See which blogs, news posts, etc., are fueling the most conversations about your brand online.

Other blog monitoring services that should be in your arsenal:
• Technorati
• Google Advanced Blog Search
• IceRocket

Alltop: Identify the top blogs in your sector

5Alltop, Guy Kawasaki’s online magazine rack – or, more precisely, topic-based directory — lets you search for influential blogs in a given niche or subject. Add the feeds to your RSS reader and you have a more targeted monitoring process.

Monitor Twitter & Facebook

Hootsuite: Simplify your social efforts

6We’re fans of Hootsuite as a free tool that enables nonprofits and cause organizations to update multiple social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook) from a computer or mobile device. The free version lets you work with up to five social networks and two RSS feeds but is limited to one user for your organization’s account; it stores stat history for 30 days and is ad supported. For the paid version, see 10 paid social media monitoring services for nonprofits.

Alternatives:
• Tweetdeck
• Seesmic
• Cotweet

Twitter search options

7If Hootsuite or one of the other Twitter dashboard services doesn’t meet your needs, you have lots of other options to keep tabs on the Twitterverse. Here are a few:

• Twitter Advanced Search is the best way to ferret out tweets about a targeted sector. Look for keywords, search by location, date or with other filters.
• Track is a little-known Twitter feature that lets you track keywords and have them sent directly to your mobile phone as soon as they’re posted.
• Monitter lets you monitor Twitter for key words, phrases and topics being discussed online at a glance (though we still prefer Hootsuite for this).
• Twazzup is a dashboard program that monitors Twitter, Twazzup will let you know wheneer your keywords are mentioned in a tweet.
• PostRank analytics lets you uncover your influencers, identify which social networks give you the greatest traction and benchmark yourself against the competition.
• Pulse of the Tweeters uses data mining and sentiment analysis to mine millions of tweets and find the most influential people on Twitter around your cause or sector.
• Twitscoop lets you search and follow what’s buzzing on Twitter in real time.
• Twilert sends you emails when it sees keywords on Twitter that you specify.
• Sideline from Yahoo! allows users to create and group custom queries by topics of interest.
• PeerIndex is another option to help you discover authorities and opinion makers around a particular topic.
• MyTweeple checks out your Twitter account and analyzes who is following you back — a good way to monitor reciprocal relationships.
• MentionMap is a visualizer tool that lets you assess the most influential Twitter users in various sectors.
• Twitterfall is a great way to keep up on conversations about an event, or an online chat, using hashtags. You can also use its geolocation panel to see discussions in a geographic area.

Facebook Search: Explore FB conversations

8There are rich conversations taking place about your sector on Facebook right now. So don’t overlook Facebook Search as a monitoring tool. Unearth the people on Facebook who are talking about your brand or cause. Use the Facebook search field and then choose “Posts by Everyone” in the left navigation. You may find new Pages to Like and new people to interact with.

• Openbook may also be useful in turning up mentions of your brand in Facebook status updates.

Monitor upcoming events

Plancast: Stay on top of upcoming events

9Like many of my colleagues, I’ve ditched Yahoo’s Upcoming and moved to Plancast. You can subscribe to get an RSS alert on any new event that matches keywords you select. Keep track of events thrown by your competitors, or stay on top of conferences you may want to attend or co-sponsor.

Monitor with alerts

Google Alerts: Your real-time personal assistant

10Nearly every plugged-in user these days knows about Google Alerts. When Google’s vast army of bots discover a new blog entry or news story that contains a keyword or phrase you specify, it will send you an alert in a time frame you designate: immediately, daily or weekly. What’s more, you can receive alerts via feeds sent to your RSS reader. Enter the topic you want to monitor, then click preview to see the type of results you’ll receive. Keep current on your brand, cause, sector or industry — and, of course, mentions of your own name. Also keep in mind that Google Alerts tracks only content indexed by Google.

Related:
• A new service, Google Realtime Search, lets you search the social Web (chiefly Twitter) and create email alerts for search terms.
• TweetBeep is sort of a Google Alert for Twitter. It uses search.twitter.com site for mentions of up to 10 keywords or phrases you specify and will send you emails.

BackType: Track comments & influencers

11BackType Alerts is a free service that sends you email updates whenever a search term is mentioned in a comment. Somebody trash your brand in a blog comment? You’ll want to know right away. BackType will also show you your Twitter influencers who are sharing related links.

Update: BackType was acquired by Twitter in 2011 and is now closed.

Yahoo Pipes: Mash up your content feeds

12Yahoo Pipes is a powerful tool that lets you aggregate and remix content from anywhere online. Its visual interface makes it fairly easy to use. You can use it in innumerable ways — for example, to track Twitter for mentions of your brand, to monitor multiple feeds or to alert you only when feed activity meets a certain activity threshold. For a good example of Yahoo Pipes in action, look at this Social Media Firehose tool, which lets you track your brand or product mentions across a slew of social media sites.

Northern Light: Roll your own search alerts

13Remember the days when editorial filtering counted for something? Northern Light Search has been around forever, it seems. A business research tool, it indexes more than 800 news sources and publications, like the Wall Street Journal and PBS NewsHour, and some 1,600 authoritative industry blogs. They write: “We have editorially honed the content to include only business sources and to exclude the shopping and other consumer sites that clog your results on other search engines.” It offers support for full Boolean queries as well as saved search and alerting capabilities. You can create Search Alerts via email or RSS to help you track subjects you care about.

Monitor with social search

Addict-o-matic: Check the buzz about a topic

14Addict-o-matic lets you instantly create a custom page with the latest buzz on a given topic. The browser-based tool offers a one-stop customized site for seeing results across multiple social media channels.

Alternatives:
• Guzzle reads hundreds of feeds on social media sites every second to help you keep abreast of stuff you care about.
• Buzzoo is a buzz aggregator drawing from multiple sources.
• BuzzFeed sports a robust buzz-detection algorithm.
• Twendz, a free tool from Waggener Edstrom, piggybacks off Twitter Search to offer user sentiment in real time.
• Social Seek will tell you who’s making the most noise about your brand.
• How Socialble? sizes up how visible your brand is on the social Web.
• Mon.itor.us is a free website, server and traffic monitoring service.
• See more choices under Twitter, above.

MonitorThis: Browse 26 search engines

1577elements’ monitorThis is a meta-search engine (remember those?) that let you comb through 26 search engines to look for blog posts, news articles, photos, tags and tweets on a specific subject. You may be surprised by some of the results on the more obscure search engines.

Alternative:
• Keotag lets you search multiple search engines, create social bookmark links around a topic or see who has used your brand as a tag.

Monitor comments & forums

Comment Sniper: First mover advantage

16If you have the staff to help manage your brand’s reputation in a deep way, then Comment Sniper is worth a look. Comment Sniper offers you a way to build targeted traffic to your site at no cost by giving you the opportunity to be the first to comment on relevant blog posts about your brand or sector. You set up blogs you want to monitor, and Comment Sniper sends you a desktop notification or text message to your mobile device whenever a new post goes up. Check this tutorial on how to make the process more efficient.

coComment: Keep track of conversations

17coComment is a Web service and Firefox plug-in that helps you keep track of blog comment threads. Whenever there is an update, such as a new follow-up comment, coComment notifies you instantly. It’s a handy service that saves you the trouble of checking back on blogs that don’t offer a comment notification feature.

Alternatives:
• Commentful is another Web service that helps you keep track of blog comments.
• Omgili (Oh my God I love it) forum search engine lets you find communities, message boards and discussion threads about any topic.
• co.mments helps you keep track of conversations.

BoardReader: Monitoring 50,000 forums

18Not all forums and message boards are indexed by Google.BoardReader is a community search engine that crawls forums, blog posts, images and microblogs. It’ll also let you know when a new forum starts specifically to discuss your brand or organization.

Other forum search & alert tools:
• Boardtracker
• Big Boards
• Yuku Find

Monitor trends

Google Trends: Take the long view

19Google Trends gives you a measurement of the impact that bloggers or a campaign has on a brand. The tool measures the level of interest in specific topics based on searches people conduct over a period of time. One interesting facet is that you can compare multiple sites in the same sector and see the geographic regions where a keyword is most popular.

Related: With Google Insights for Search, you can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and other properties.

Other choices:

• Trendpedia blog search from Attentio
• Social Trends from Viralheat

Monitor Web pages

WatchThatPage: Keep a watchful eye

20Sometimes you’d like to know when updates take place to an important Web page — say, your Wikipedia page or key pages on your competitors’ sites. Instruct WatchThatPage to keep tabs on any Web page, and you’ll receive an alert any time a change is made to the page.

Alternative: Copernic Tracker ($40)

More free social media monitoring tools

Several companies offer free, limited accounts for commercial tools through the “freemium” business model — not just a free trial but an ongoing free basic service — including:

• Alterian SM2 allows you to search up to five terms with a total limit of 1,000 results, however, there are no real-time alerts, geography or language filters or advanced searches.
• Trackur
• Looxii

JD Lasica works with nonprofits, social change organizations and businesses on social media strategies. See his profile, visit his business blog, contact JD or leave a comment.

 

Eleven Ways Facebook Page Timelines Change Your Content Strategy

 

Check out the original post by John Haydon on http://socialmediatoday.com at:

http://socialmediatoday.com/johnhaydon/462416/eleven-ways-facebook-page-timelines-change-your-content-strategy

The new Facebook page timeline layout changes the way your organization needs to think about content. Previously, a Facebook Page content strategy was primarily focused on two things:
 

1. Custom Tabs – The the content strategy for custom tabs (landing tabs) focused on engaging visitors with a clear call to action in mind. For example, custom tabs to encourage users to join and or share a fundraising campaign. Custom welcome tabs were also used as a way to convert Facebook fans.
2. The News Feed – The the content strategy for the newsfeed focused on engaging Facebook fans in the hopes that greater awareness would be spread through virality. For example, you’d post a photo and a fan would like it, which automatically posts an update on their newsfeed for their friends to see.

The Newsfeed hasn’t changed, and so to some degree your content strategy is still about what’s happening “now”. But Facebook Pages now make it about the past present and future as well!

Here are a 11 things to consider in your new Facebook content strategy:

1. Your Second Website - The timeline allows visitors to your page to interact with a story that has a beginning, a middle, and it now. Facebook users can flip through the pages in your story in a variety of ways (as shown below).

Now don’t get me wrong – the NewsFeed is and will be where all the action is. But Facebook users will soon start seeing your Facebook Page in the same way they see your website. They’ll visit to see what’s new, what’s important, and what their friends care about.

2. Tell A Story In Your Cover Image – Think of your cover image as taking the place of the default landing tab (more on that below). The purpose of your cover image is to create a powerful first impression that will convert.

Beth Kanter has put together an amazing collection of orgs that are using cover images effectively.

Rotate Your Cover Image: You can keep fans interested by frequently rotating your cover image, communicating freshness, spontaneity and dynamism around your brand.

3. Soft Sell – Facebook says that your cover image should not be used for calls to action like “Donate now” or “Sign our email list”. You also can’t include any contact information like URLs, or reference any features on your Facebook page such as the like button.

4. Simplify Your Profile Picture – The new profile picture (AKA avatar) is now 180 pixels square. This means that you can no longer include a call to action (as some organizations did previously).

Because this image will be as small as 30 pixels square, it’s best to use only your logo. You don’t need to include the name of your organization in your main avatar because the name of your Facebook page travels with your avatar everywhere on Facebook.

5. Complete Your About Section – The about section has more prominence just below the cover image. This will include your address and contact information if you have a Facebook Place, or just a brief description if you have a Facebook Page (as shown below).

6. Create Milestones - Up until now, anything posted on the Facebook page was automatically tagged with the date it was posted. Milestones allow you to select any date in the past.

Picture for Milestones can be up to 843 pixels by 403 pixels.

7. Direct Attention with Highlights and Pins – Up until now Facebook admins had little control over how posts were displayed on their Page. and visitors to that page would see updates in either reverse chronological order or in an order determined by Facebook’s Edgerank.

Pages now allow you to control feature specific posts on your page through Highlighting or Pinning. Highlighting turns any page story – which normally occupies a single column – into a full-width story (as shown below). This is perfect for large horizontal photos (dimensions for highlighted photos are 846px by 403px.

Pinning allows you to give any Page story more attention by moving any page story to the top of your Facebook Page. When you pin something on your page it remains at the top of your timeline for seven days, or until you unpin it, so it’s a good idea to think about what you want to feature at the top of your page each week (shown below).

8. Focus on Photos – Again, Facebook Pages are now much more about your visual story told over time, rather than what’s happening now. As much as possible, it’s best to focus on telling that story through images photos and other visual content. Think Pinterest.

9. No Default Tabs – You’ve probably heard by now that Facebook pages will no longer have the ability to set a default tab for nonfans. Default tabs in the past were primarily used as a way to increase fan conversion rates on a page. Now you’ll have to do that with your cover image, highlights, and other ways to make that first impression.

10. No Hard Sell Messaging – Facebook Pages also have a messaging feature which allows visitors to send you a private message. It may be really tempting to sell them on why they should donate or volunteer, but it’s better to use these opportunities to nurture a relationship on their terms. Keep in mind, they are messaging you – not the other way around. Also, you are limited to two messages for every one they receive.

11. Not About You – At first glance you might assume that the story you’re supposed to tell your organization’s story. But this is not an interesting story, nor is it the real story. The story you must tell has to be bigger than you. It has to be about the cause. It has to be about your community.

Facebook Interest Lists: The social newspaper done right

See the original post on Venture Beat here:

http://venturebeat.com/2012/03/08/facebook-interest-lists/

Jennifer Van Grove

Steal from the best, but make it your own, as the saying goes. Facebook has done just that by co-opting two concepts made popular by others in an effort to make its social network the first place people go to consume the news they care about.

Facebook introduced a new feature called Interest Lists on Thursday as a way for members to turn the site into their own personalized newspaper, featuring only the sections of their choosing. The lists are an intelligent hybrid of Twitter’s list feature and the social news movement, popularized by Flipboard and others.

Interest Lists, created and named by people for people, are topic-themed collections of Pages and public figures on Facebook, and are akin to specialized news feeds for your favorite topics. The company has categorized lists in mostly traditional sections such as News, Music, Business, Sports, Politics, Lifestyle, and Entertainment, with the idea being that they will comprise the sections of your Facebook newspaper.

Interest Lists are yet another extension of Facebook’s Subscribe feature, introduced last September. They live on the left-hand side of the page for easy one-click access. If a story within a particular Interest List you subscribe to is seeing a lot of engagement, however, Facebook will push that story to your News Feed. Recent stories from Interest Lists may be also highlighted in the News Feed on occasion.

The feature is pure genius — even if it does take inspiration from Twitter. Here’s why: Facebook users can either package up the celebrities or things they care about into convenient little buckets, or they can let friends, strangers, and media organizations do the dirty work for them and just happily consume the curated content as it rolls out. And because Facebook appears to have recruited partners to seed lists for its new toy, there’s already a smattering of top-notch lists across a variety of categories just itching to be subscribed to on day-one.

Then there’s the journalist and media crowd. Both groups will love Interest Lists because they promise more exposure for their stories, more subscribers, more traffic, and new audiences that could become regular readers. I’ve previously called Subscribe a gift for publishers and journalists because it’s the ultimate in self-promotion tools. Following that logic, Interest Lists is the gift that keeps on giving. The lists are cyclical in nature. Facebookers ad you or your publication to a list, your personalities and stories net larger audiences, those audiences subscribe to the lists in question, and the cycle repeats itself. There’s also the opportunity for publications to play curator for their readers.

As for Facebook, the Interest Lists are absolutely a home run. Interest Lists have the promise of better distributing Facebook content to the social network’s 845 million monthly active users. More content, that people have an expressed interest in, means users will spend even more time on Facebook, and share, “like,” comment, and engage more, activities that will distribute content farther and wider. Engagement and time spent on site are bottom-line metrics that will eventually translate into more advertising dollars as businesses pump money into Facebook’s enhanced ad-products to draw the attention of these captive eyeballs.

The real kicker is that Facebook’s social newspaper experience, unlike the myriad of apps toying with the same notion, works independently of a person’s platform. On web, mobile, PC, or tablet? No matter. It’s just Facebook, so the experience stays the same and you can continue to get your news sections uninterrupted wherever you are. And because Facebook has made the lists an integrated part of the standard experience, users who forget about visiting sections will still be exposed to list content. The same can’t be said of Twitter’s lists.

Kudos, Facebook.

Photo credit: arvindgrover/Flickr

 

Adobe Study: Social Media Undervalued Nearly 100%

Read the original post on Information Week's The Brainyard at:

http://www.informationweek.com/thebrainyard/news/social_networking_consumer/232700096/adobe-study-social-media-undervalued-nearly-100

David F. Carr | March 22, 2012

  

Web analytics tend to undervalue social media by emphasizing the last click that leads to a purchase, instead of the first click that builds awareness.

Social media drives nearly twice as many sales as it's commonly credited with, according to a study conducted by Adobe.

The latest Adobe Digital Index report argues that the Web analytics that marketers typically use to judge the value of a campaign underestimate the impact of social media because they attribute a sale to the last click a user made prior to coming to the site where the purchase will be made. However, if you shift the frame of reference from "last click" to "first click" analysis, the value of a social media click turns out to be much higher. That is, an analysis sophisticated enough to detect a user's first visit to a retail site and correlate it with the subsequent visits that lead to a purchase proves that social media can be the thing that gets the consumer interested in the first place--even if the visit that results in a purchase might not come from a click on a social media site.

Facebook Apps In Action

(click image for larger view and for slideshow)

For example, a visitor interested in buying a new watch might click through to a jeweler's website from a Facebook advertisement, or a Facebook link posted by a friend. After mulling over the purchase for a few days, that same person might return to the site after searching for the name of the retailer on Bing and make the cash register ring. First-click analysis would give credit for the sale to Facebook, while last-click analysis would give it to Bing. Adobe simply suggests they both deserve a share of the credit.

By last-click attribution measures, the average value of a social media click to a retail site is about 60 cents. That's the average of all the purchases, diluted by the number of people who clicked but didn't buy. However, the average value of a first click from social media is nearly double, $1.13. The first click value of a Facebook visitor is a little higher, compared with other social media sites, at $1.28 in the retail example.

The numbers cited here all are from the retail example in Adobe's analysis, but examples from the travel and media industries also are included in the full report.

Search clicks still turn out to be more valuable overall. A first click on search is worth $3.85, while a last click is worth $2.78 in Adobe's retail example. The Adobe report points out this doesn't necessarily mean that search provides a better return on investment. To determine that, you have to factor in how many clicks you got and how much it cost you to attract attention in each medium.

Still, the continued primacy of search reflects the idea that search is an expression of intent, where someone who enters a product or product category name into search is likely to be shopping for that product or product category.

That might be good news for Google and its plans for combining search with social media.

Follow David F. Carr on Twitter @davidfcarr. The BrainYard is @thebyard and facebook.com/thebyard

Frugality is the New Black?

Originally posted here:  http://promotionalcodes.net/pages/frugality/

Frugality is the New Black

Quick cost-cutters like couponing, buying generic and repurposing are more popular among American families today than they have been in decades. For instance, last year, Americans redeemed an unbelievable $3.7 billion in coupons. That’s $300 million more redeemed savings than they earned in 2009 when the economy was still reeling from recession.

It’s no surprise that U.S. consumers tightened budgets on more than just luxuries during the downturn. Beyond foregoing vacations and remodels, Americans also reduced budgets for gas and groceries to make ends meet. What is surprising is how these habits have only increased despite the steady return of the economy and consumer’s faith in its growth. Hopefully, these smarter spending trends signal more than just a frugal fad. In the meantime, families can continue to enjoy couponing up to 25% off their monthly grocery purchases and finding alternatives to blowing transportation budgets at the pump.

Economists often consider drops in spending on necessities like food and gas as an indicator of consumer cynicism over the health and prospects of an economy, but vibrant frugality-minded online communities say otherwise. Borrowing half as much and quadrupling savings rates, the average American consumer is building a post-recession portfolio that puts their family’s security first.

Check out our infographic visualizing the encouraging frugality trends that have endured the recession:

 

 

Source: Promotional Codes

Facebook Timeline Cover: 40 (Really) Creative Examples

First posted on http://www.hongkiat.com. Read the original post here:

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/creative-facebook-timeline-covers/

By Alvaris Falcon Filed in Inspiration

Just if you didn’t know, Facebook Timeline is the latest feature that was introduced in the recent Facebook Conference, F8. It’s generally a complete overhaul of the profile page with the new ability to view your status updates in a list sorted by time, hence the name.

With this new feature comes a new way of introducing yourself though graphic other than profile photo, and we call it Timeline Cover. And yes, what you can expect is thousands of facebookers try to be creative with their new timeline cover, spawning the hype all over the web.

In this showcase we’re gonna show you 40 awesome and creative timeline covers which either inspire you, amaze you or just make you burst out into laughter.

Also, at the end of the article, we are going to throw in a Facebook time PSD template to guide you creating one accurately. Have fun with them and enjoy being creative with yours!

Facebook related articles:

• 20 Facebook tips/tricks You Might
• 10 Tips & Tricks For Your Business’s Facebook Fan Page
• Better Facebook Fan Page: Essential Tips, Apps and Examples
• more..

 

Kay Int Veen. Nice use of Polaroid-style photo to introduce the profile owner! The new Facebook Timeline is actually a virtual board for you to show off your creativity, so toy around with it and show to others how creative you are!

Aly Moffatt. Creative photo with creative usage. You won’t know what’s happening by just looking at her photo in status page, but you will get shocked once you see her profile/timeline page!

Andrew Grojean. Yes, this is a timeline cover, see carefully. What a neat and amusing trick!

Nirajan Bom Malla. One of the timeline cover’s tricks that went viral is to use the screenshot of other social media site as the cover. Google+ in Facebook, will this be possible in future?

Antonio Fadda. Brilliant combination of the profile photo and the timeline cover, and yes, it’s creative.

Delphin Hauchard. Nicely adjusted profile photo and the timeline cover, what a great way to show the best moment of life.

Dustin Thaxton. Willing to show not just the single best moment of life? With timeline cover and some Photoshop works you can get more great moments of life glued onto the cover!

Eduardo Calvo. I just like this one. It’s creative, amusing and warmful at the same time.

Emanuele Bartolomucci. Very sleek way of introducing the timeline feature and the profile owner.

Enk Shahbaz Mehdi. People might start selling the timeline cover’s space as ads, will it be possible?

Oliver Alexander. And the Internet does not disappoint you, Enk Shahbaz Mehdi, but I think this was intended to be a good joke. Anyway, poke if interested!

Eyal Shahar. Fake 3D is one of the best tricks to show off your design skills, inspiring work!

Fabio Maravilla. Such a neat and detailed trick! Look at the smallest piece in the profile photo, cute!

Florim I. Qerimi. I thought it was some sort of hypnotism at the first time I’m looking it.

Gianmarco Carrieri. What a simple and sweet integration of profile photo and timeline cover.

Giuseppe Draicchio. You will never know he is doing the contact with the extraterrestrial creature by just looking at his profile photo!

Manoj Varghese Mathew. Feeling less creative? Just draw what you can think of, and it will become a creative cover!

Menteş Nihat Baran. I’m always curious about the difference between touching the alien’s finger and touching the God’s finger.

Helbert Campos. Nice blending between the real life photo and cartoonic graphic, you can even see the page owner’s shadow rendered in the profile photo!

Jeremy Bronson. It’s a big head! But wait, whose head is it? Nice one indeed.

Jerome Vadon. A beautiful way to introduce yourself with a sleek background and some sexy fonts.

Jessica Barnard. Vintage means viral, don’t you know it?

Johnny Gigantic. Probably a masterpiece, except that you won’t get much meaning by just looking at his profile photo.

Jörgen Bröms. With such a serious looking profile photo, you won’t expect his timeline cover to be so amusing.

Robert Falkén. A simple message cloud will tell that you are creative.

Lanfranco Nantele. Another nice attempt with message cloud, but in a more artistic way.

Leo Lee. What will happen if I touch on the profile photo?

Louise Lundberg. The reaction of the photo is just awesome.

Maarten Walraven. You wouldn’t know a shark is approaching him if you didn’t see his timeline cover!

Nagaraj Vijayarangan. And this guy is not as lucky as the one showcased above.

Maurizio Mazzanti. He’s trying to understand what’s happening with his new timeline cover.

Mohammad L. Azzam. Stay hungry, stay foolish, stay creative.

Murat Çizer. I like this one, to be honest.

Niels Langeveld. Perfect integration between the timeline cover and profile photo, it’s royal!

Oliver Elsner. If you want to show your creativity while remaining the professional look, go for this style.

Ori Hasson. You know, classic game never stop to impress people.

Richard Kårström. If my eyes are still functioning well, I can see a guy coming from it.

Rudolfo Nobre. There’s certainly some physic between the timeline cover and the profile photo.

Scott Lamb. It feels good for sure.

Tom Lambie. I’m sure I am a geek as I understand this joke.

Bonus: Do It Yourself!

So you have enjoyed the entire showcase, and would like to get really creative on your timeline cover? You can actually do it now! ... you can activate the feature by walking though some very easy steps.

We want you to focus just on the cover’s design, so we’ve created a Photoshop template exclusively for you to do the instant design and preview. Download it to make your editing process absolutely easier!