The Social 6: 8/31/12 News Roundup
The last 24 hours or so had a bunch of news (& views), considering it's late August. Here are some of the highlights:
#6: The #1 Oversight in Social Media Community Building
"No matter now compelling your content, how widespread your reach, how generous your reward, community attrition will be the undoing of any social media campaign leaving you to constantly rebuild sand castles at the foot of waves.To avoid this a brand of any size launching nay campaign must studiously walk through five stages:..."
#5: Facebook Sponsored Stories: Engaging Content is More Important than Ever
"Brands wanting to connect with fans need to be even more creative about the content they post, especially if you plan to use Sponsored Stories. Your fans still want to look smart in front of their friends, share funny photos and feel like they have a connection to something larger than themselves. Even if you pay for that positioning, these rules still apply."
#4: Bing rolls out a dedicated tool for searching your friend’s Facebook pictures
"Today, Bing announced and released ‘Friends’ Photos,’ a tool that allows you to search the social giant for specific pictures that your friends have uploaded....Bing’s recent redesign includes Facebook integration, but this new tool is a singular tool, unlike the right side-bar in the New Bing."
#3: Twitter launches 'Certified Products' to further encourage the apps it wants
"Twitter launched a new certified products platform Wednesday. The program is initially launching with three verticals Twitter says are “based on the needs we see from partners every day” — Engagement Products, Analytics Products, and Data Reseller Products...the 12 partners launching today are Attensity, ExactTarget, HootSuite, Mass Relevance, Radian6, Sprinklr, SocialFlow, Crimson Hexagon, Dataminr, Topsy, DataSift, and Gnip."
#2: Is Google selling off a portion of Motorola?
"Google (GOOG) supposedly wants to sell a portion of its recent acquisition of Motorola, and has hired Barclays Plc (BCS) to do the dirty work of finding a buyer. Google wants to sell the “Home Business” division of the messy ex-techno-giant, which it acquired for $12.5 billion in May. Bloomberg opines that this unit might net about $2 billion."
#1: I Am A President -- Obamamania Shuts Down Reddit
"In another social-media first, President Barack Obama took to Reddit today to become the first sitting head of state to moderate the site's "AMA," or, ask me anything, series.
The chat lasted an hour, and got so much attention that it shut the site down during his post."
The Social 6: 8/29/12 News Roundup
By all you know the drill: I share the stories y'all found most interesting over the last 24 hours. So if you disagree with the picks, you'll just have to comment/retweet/favorite things more tomorrow ;)
#6: Social media plays a huge role in product discovery for beauty consumers
This Andrew McDougall piece outlines how social media marketing is on the rise among larger beauty conglomerates such as P&G and L'Oreal.
#5: My Personal Social Story: Why Social Media Platforms Are Fads
April Rudin of The Rudin Group shares her story, which isn't really an anti-social media rant as you might think. Instead, April shows how "social" has always been present in her life, and where she thinks "social" will be going in the near future.
#4: Despite its falling out w/Twitter, Flipboard added 15M users over the past 8 months
While there hasn't been as much buzz around Flipboard lately, it's interesting to see how the adoption of their news aggregation apps haven't slowed down one bit - in fact, they're growing at a 300% clip.
#3: How to stop "social media shiny object syndrome"
Jason Keath of SocialFresh delivers a great piece (as always) summarizing a recent SocialFresh webinar, and outlines 8 steps to take to properly analyze social media shiny objects.
#2: SumAll Social Metrics Tracks Social Activity Against Web Traffic & Revenue
TechCrunch shares how SumAll, a data visualization firm, has launched SumAll Social Metrics, which can help a company track all of its social activity against KPIs such as web traffic and revenue. Another example of how the conversation is changing from how to get your company to engage, to how your company can monetize that engagement.
#1: How to be yourself on social media...without freaking out your boss
This Forbes piece by Dorie Clark (a writer you need to be following) on how to walk the fine line between representing yourself well online, and embarrassing your company. Dorie's tips are great ways any employee can start thinking about their own approach to social media.
4 Ways Fitness Brands Can Use Facebook's Open Graph
Today Rose Yao shared on the Facebook Developers Blog some Open Graph success stories in the fitness category. Among the highlights featured include Nike+ Running, Livestrong, runtastic,and RunKeeper, among others.
Here are some best practices these apps employ in order to resonate:
#1: Make signing up easy. It's not just fitness apps that use Facebook Login to help drive easier sign-ups from mobile, but they are many cases of them doing it quite well.
#2: Make stories social. Fitness apps should add friend tagging, if it's relevant to their app. Nike gives a good example of this, allowing runners to tag who they're running with. On the whole, stories that tag others are more likely to be engaged with.
#3: Help users share achievements. Facebook offers explicit sharing functionality to Fitness apps (and apps in general), so app users can share milestones and other non-routine activity. RunKeeper is one example of an app using Facebook's explicit sharing API to ask users to post their completed activity, such as a new distance milestone.
#4: Make stories visual. Visual stories can often lead to better Facebook click through rates. Fitness apps can publish stories using the map layout for a more visually compelling narrative.
The Social 6: 8/25/12 News Roundup
As you may know, I’m a voracious reader and tend to share a good deal of news via my social platforms. Here’s a countdown of the top six most important articles I’ve shared in the last day. I curate this top six based on number of retweets, clicks, favorites, and mentions, so you guys are a large part of what ends up listed here .
#6: Most Organizations Still Fear Social Media
This Business 2 Community article by Troy Larson covers why many organizations are still wary of social media, and how to overcome that fear.
#5: USC promotes players' Twitter handles on depth chart, bios
Am I a football fan? Much to my father's shame, not at all. However, I do like this move by USC to include its players' Twitter handles in their 2012 season depth chart. Nice way to encourage players' use of social media.
#4: Social recruiting app Silp recruits 700,000 users, just 12 days after launch
The Next Web reports on how Silp, a Swiss startup that offers a social recruiting service, has seen tremendous adoption since its launch just 12 days ago, even to the company's own surprise. Robin Wauters shares just what happened.
#3: Social Proximity: could Reachable surpass LinkedIn?
The original title for this piece on ZD Net's Between the Lines blog was "Social Proximity: are LinkedIn's days numbered?" -- but I thought that was a bit inaccurate, so I reworded it for Twitter. Reachable, the company known as 7 Degrees, is looking to take a page from LinkedIn's playbook, and possibly take that concept to the next level. IBM's Gery Menegaz explains how.
#2: Kred Launches Kred Story to Help Visualize Influence for People and Brands
BetaKit reports on how Kred (PeopleBrowsr's influencer scoring tool) has launched of Kred Story, with the stated goal of visualizing an individual’s presence on social media as well as overall online influence. Kred CEO Andrew Grill announced the move, which should be a good way of reemphasizing that there is more than one influence scoring system around. I'm really not trying to make a pun here, but what Kred is doing has a good deal of credibility.
#1: *Great* study on correlation between Klout score & actual talent
Speaking of influence scoring, here's a piece on Klout by Piers Fawkes of PSFK for Mashable. PSFK underwent an extensive analysis of executives' Klout scores, to see whether or not scores had any correlation with company performance. The PSFK research suggests that Klout does matter in a somewhat directional sense, which is what I've been arguing some time. Regardless of what size of the debate you fall on, this is absolutely a must-read.
The Social 6: Stories You Missed This Past Weekend, 8/27/12
Social Media 101: Getting Started On The Top Social Networks - Business 2 Community
Reading this Business to Community piece made me feel like I was reading one of the earlier chapters of my upcoming book Going Social (shameless plug). Really nice set of tips if you're just starting out.
How Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope developed a winning social media campaign
I don't normally share Jewish news despite growing up as a Modern Orthodox Jew, but this crosses over into my love for leveraging social platforms to create value. This Clodagh McGowan (great name) on Brooklyn Ink gives great insight as to how the congregation used grassroots support to create a powerful campaign.
Big investors rethinking social media
This San Francisco Chronicle piece outlines how the stock market's treatment of Facebook, Zynga and Groupon has led many Silicon Valley insiders to rethink their investments in social platforms. I believe this to be ultimately a good thing, as investors will really be thinking about what companies are working on initiatives that can be monetized in the near future, versus companies that brag about how many users they have without a clear path towards building impressive revenue numbers.
How Instagram's New Geotagging Feature Can Be Used by Brands
While the title is somewhat misleading in that Instagram has had geotagging for awhile (its Photo Map is truly the new innovation), this article by Allie Snelius outlines some of the opportunities now available to brands.
She's 14, Going on 140 Characters
This New York Times piece really elicited a ton of clicks. It profiles Maude Apatow and her intense Twitter following of 67,000+. Pretty nice profile; I personally loved seeing how her famous director/producer father, Judd, uses Twitter to engage with her.
Barry Diller's InterActive Corp acquires About.com for $300M
Pretty big business move, as Barry Diller’s massive but surprisingly under-the-radar Internet conglomerate InterActiveCorp (IAC) has purchased About.com for $300 million in cash, according to reporting from the New York Times and Mashable.
The Social 6: 8/25/12 News Roundup
Social media in sustainability: your questions answered
This Guardian piece is a Q&A with Dana Poole, a global digital communications consultant with BP. The answers given here are useful not just for a social media practitioner interested in sustainability, but for anyone involved with social marketing in general.
Storytelling, One Frame at a Time
Want a compelling for how visuals elicit engagement on social platforms? Look no further.
Global communications agency M Booth developed this great Infographic from multiple data sources,which was then shared on Mashable, which I then pinned, and later tweeted. Don't you just love how information spreads these days?
Facebook releases update for iPhone/iPad app, claims it's twice as fast
I'll admit I was late on sharing this news: the new "5.0" version of Facebook's iOS app debuted Thursday on the App Store, debuting to largely solid if not spectacular reviews.
What's wrong with Microsoft's new logo, & how to avoid the same mistakes
Microsoft unveiled its new logo this past week, and many have called it an outright failure. While there's truth in the fact that a logo might have less power for a multinational conglomerate for which most people have quite established views already, it's hard to argue logos simply don't matter. This Entrepreneur piece by Jason Fell outlines what went wrong, and how to avoid those pitfalls yourself.
Multiple People Shot Near Empire State Building
I work a few blocks from the Empire State Building, and yet I found out about the situation via social media. Within minutes, the news of the shooting was seemingly everywhere. Yesterday's shooting was another case study in how quickly journalists need to get the story right, as there's such pressure to be the first to report on details.
Apple v. Samsung verdict, & what it means
As you've probably read, a judge had a $1 Billion+ settlement in favor of Apple in its case against Samsung. We'll probably be dissecting this case for awhile to come, but Rachel King's ZD Net piece begins to frame how Samsung and other phone manufacturers will have to steer pretty clear of designs and gestures originated by Apple in the future. When you think about it, isn't that better for us consumers?
The Social 6: 8/24/12 News Roundup
As you may know, I’m a voracious reader and tend to share a good deal of news via my social platforms. Here’s a countdown of the top six most important articles I’ve shared in the last day. I curate this top six based on number of retweets, clicks, favorites, and mentions, so you guys are a large part of what ends up listed here .
#6: Nicholas Sparks Beat Box Office Predictions After Social Media Campaign
While this is old news in that The Lucky One came out earlier in the year, Jason Boog of Galleycat shows how author Nicholas Sparks used social media to spark (sorry, I tried to avoid it!) increased word of mouth and box office receipts.
News Corp.'s Jonathan Miller, who has led its digital efforts for a year years, is stepping down. This is just one of many executive moves since the company announced it would be splitting its traditional publishing business from the company's other properties. Miller's departure is just another sign that News Corp. is going through a pretty significant overhaul.
#4: Facebook Has 44% Fake Followers; Twitter Has 33%
The @facebook account on Twitter's following is 44% fake, and @twitter's number is at 33%. That's according to the new online tool provided by StatusPeople, a social media management company out of London, that looks at a Twitter account's following and estimates its number of fake, inactive, and authentic followers. I've tried this tool, and while I can't (yet) attest to their entire methodology, it's certainly a good place to start. From some of the accounts I've tested already using their tool, it appears that it's at the very least a good tool to get a directional sense of whether or not you have an inactive/fake follower problem.
#3: Mayor Bloomberg & NYC launches digital toolkit for small businesses
Mashable, Google, Tumblr, Weebly have partnered with the City of New York to provide small businesses a digital education program to, essentially, start kicking butt and taking names with respect to their digital aptitude. Rachel Sterne, NYC's Chief Digital Officer, will be teaching the Digital Toolkit's first course on September 20th. All in all, a really cool initiative to give small businesses some of the tools they need to compete effectively.
#2: 7 Ways YouTube Can Grow Its Platform
Is YouTube still one of the top social platforms, and the web brand most associated with video? Absolutely. However, it's important to continuously innovate and address its challenges to stay ahead. In my second piece for Mashable, I outlined ways that YouTube can accomplish just that, some of which are already in the process of being addressed (good for them!).
#1: 3 of 4 CMOs Say Social Media Impacts Sales
This Forbes piece shares results of a Bazaarvoice survey asking 100 members of the CMO Club how they feel about social media. While it's a pretty small sample size, over half of the CMO respondents represent brands with over $1 billion in annual revenue, so it's very interesting -- and important -- to note their results on how social media affects sales.
The Social 6: News You Missed Yesterday, 8/23/12 Edition
#6: How the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur Branded Himself Too Well - New York Times (blog)
Mike Michalowicz branded himself “The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur” back in 2008, yet now he's trying to rebrand himself -- and social media is pushing back! Very interesting story detailing #1 how to brand yourself, and #2 how to think about social media may play a part in making it difficult to rebrand if you're successful at #1.
#5: It's Not Too Soon to Think About Crowdfunding - New York Times (blog)
Another NY Times blog piece that resonated with many of you. Tom Szaky, CEO of TerraCycle, offers up some tips for social entrepreneurs looking to turn to crowdfunding.
#4: How Social Media plays a role in the B2B sales process
Kevin Jorgensen offers up a very useful Business 2 Community piece for understanding how social media fits into the B2B sales cycle.
#3: Progressive’s social media fail may be warning
Haven't heard about Progressive's recent social media crisis? The insurance giant had to deal with a social media firestorm in the past week after a consumer, Matt Fisher, used Tumblr to voice complaints about how Progressive treated his family poorly when the family tried to collect on his deceased sister’s Progressive policy.
#2: Thanks to Verizon's vacation blackout window, we know when iPhone 5 is launching
It's always fun trying to figure out when the latest Apple releases are hitting stores, and with the iPhone 5 it's no exception. Read this piece to get a sense of when you'll be able to purchase your iPhone 5 at Verizon.
#1: YouTube will be offering mobile ads
YouTube will at long last be actually offering up mobile ads, giving Google another revenue stream, and helping to lead the way in monetizing mobile. This is going to be huge. Mark my words.
The Social 6: News You Missed Yesterday, 8/22/12 Edition
Fifteen-Year Olds Create Reserverr, Hoping To Replace Your Calendar
Talk about starting off young: two fifteen year-olds have founded Reserverr, a site that helps users automatically books reservations free of charge. Billy Gallagher reports for TechCrunch on why this deceptively simple app could make waves.
Gannett buys social media ad company Blinq Media
Traditional media player Gannett, which counts USA Today among its properties, announced that it had acquired Blinq Media, an up and coming firm which develops social media ad campaigns. This is just part of the ongoing trend of traditional media firms buying up rising tech companies so they can broaden their digital expertise, especially on social and mobile channels. I'd rate this as a smart move; the traditional media companies that continue to modernize themselves will win, and the ones that don't will eventually go away. Period.
Predictors of In-App Purchases? Not Having Paid Apps And Playing Lots of Games, Apsalar Finds
In-app purchases are turning into the primary way that many mobile developers make their living. In fact, the majority of the top 25 highest-grossing iOS apps are free to start playing! Analytics company Apsalar conducted a deep dive into mobile apps and spending, as Kim-Mai Cutler of TechCrunch reports.
Dave Kerpen & Likeable Media in Inc. Magazine
Very happy for my friends Dave and Carrie Kerpen, who are featured in this month's Inc. Magazine. The Inc. story features how Dave and Carrie built Likeable Media, the social media and word of mouth marketing agency. Pick up the magazine to read their story, as well as some of the fastest-growing small businesses around. In case you can't tell, I *love* the magazine.
Social Media Fan Advocacy & Loyalty Software roundup, courtesy of @JasonFalls
Social media thought leader (I don't throw that around too often) Jason Falls offers up some great analysis on fan advocacy and loyalty platforms, including 500 Friends, Brandsforce, Zuberance, and more. If you want to understand how to build advocacy and loyalty, and how they're related but different, this is a must-read.
‘Leaked’ iPhone 5 Video Reveals Radical New Design
Gee, there's serious interest in the iPhone 5 launch. Are you honestly surprised? This quick Mashable clip links to the "leaked" video for the iPhone 5 teaser, which indicates a relatively substantial deviation from the iPhone 4 and 4S.
The Social 6: Stories You Missed Yesterday, 8/21/12 edition
#6: Internet and Attitude, a Powerful Combination
The NY Times Room for Debate typically has some interesting conversations going on, and this piece by Spencer Ackerman of Wired.com isn't any exception. Nice discussion of Russia's Pussy Riot controversy, and how social platforms like YouTube and Twitter played major parts in the story.
#5: Coca-Cola worried about Ottawa Public Health campaign
Jessica Smith writes in the Metro about a compelling story: some Coca Cola managers in Ottawa have written letters to the city's Mayor, expressing their misgivings over Ottawa Public Health's planned social media campaign about sugar-sweetened beverages. Key takeaway from this piece: just because you can raise social media awareness for your business or cause's issues, doesn't mean your opponents can't use "going social' tactics to respond in kind.
#4: A Hidden Evil of Google Plus
Margie Clayman writes a really nice Business 2 Community article talking about how Google Plus' privacy settings have had a negative impact on Google Analytics, and getting to know your customers better. Kind of interesting how Google's social platform, in some ways, hurts site owners when it comes to going social with customers!
#3: PR and Social Media: A Beautiful Relationship
This Business 2 Community piece was shared my good friends at DKNY on Twitter, letting it reach a pretty sizable audience -- many of which found this pretty interesting! Laura Szatkowski writes from the perspective of a young PR person building a career, and noticing how social media can really benefit a PR career. Worth a read for PR mavens in the making, but also for young people in general.
#2: Here’s Why Zuckerberg Needs to Stay as Facebook’s CEO
This piece by yours truly elicited considerable interest, especially considering how many investors and pundits have looked for reasons why Facebook's stock has sunk so low. Zuckerberg is really not the problem, which I outlined in this piece that a number of you found interesting.
#1: For World Humanitarian Day, Beyoncé Helps Makes Social Media History
Did you know World Humanitarian Day was August 19th? I admittedly missed it, and personally, I think it ought to be a bigger deal. MTV News Australia shares news about how Beyoncé collaborated with the United Nations to help raise awareness for World Humanitarian Day, and how social media played a part.
