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Sunday 30 October 2011

Fanpage On Facebook: 20+ Killer Templates To Spruce Up Your Page


Facebook has quickly become the number one social networking site in the world. Whether you use Facebook for business or personal use you know how important it is to driving traffic to your website or blog. Why not set yourself apart from the competition by sprucing up your Facebook page with one of these brilliantly designed premium Facebook fan pages? Displaying these unique templates allows users to bring customization to another level. So what are you waiting for…why not try one out? Check them here

8 Characteristics of Effective Social Media Campaigns

To ensure your social media campaign is an unqualified success in every sense of the word, here are eight characteristics of effective social media campaigns.
So you’re thinking about running a social media campaign. Good for you!
Social media can be a great way of increasing brand awareness, customer engagement and long term loyalty and generating a short term boost in sales, but it’s also a potential minefield and in the worst case, a bottomless pit into which you endlessly shovel money with nothing much to show for it.

1. Targeted

Social media campaigns come in all shapes and sizes and every campaign is unique. But what all successful social media campaigns have in common is a set of clear objectives and success criteria and laser targeting.

If you haven’t taken the time and effort to think through what you’re trying to achieve, the audience you want to engage with and what success looks like not your chances of success are going to be slim to zero.
  • Is your main aim to increase brand awareness by reaching out to a new target audience or is it more about educating, informing and engaging existing customers?
  • Do you want to activate key influencers and thought leaders?
  • Is your aim to generate buzz about a new product launch or event or to increase sales of an underperforming product line?
  • What actions do you want your target audience to take?
  • How are you going to monetise all that additional engagement and traffic?

2. Focused

 It’s truism in marketing that campaigns aimed at raising brand awareness are best left to the big boys who can afford to burn through enormous marketing budgets; this applies just as much to social media as to any other genre of marketing.

We’ve all seen the big budget social media campaigns that attract critical acclaim and generate acres of media coverage but leave the question “so what?” hanging in the air.
Take Gap, for example, who recently blew $25million on a US wide Groupon deal to generate an additional $11 million in revenue in the short term.  The jury is still out on whether all they have done is generate additional word of mouth awareness which they didn’t need and cannibalized their existing customer base or whether that engagement will eventually translate into increased bottom line profits.
There are very few small businesses that can afford to take such a long term and, some might say, wildly optimistic, view of the potential of social media.
Instead of throwing money at your campaign in the hope that it finds its way back to you in the fullness of time, ensure that your campaign is of the direct response variety and focused on a specific issue, customer pain point or a competitor.
It will be much easier to develop the right content and messaging and identify the specific actions you want your visitors to take, all of which will greatly assist in ensuring that you have something tangible to show for your efforts.

3. Measurable

As with all successful marketing initiatives, setting appropriate metrics so that you have a basis for measuring the success of your campaign is a must.

If you’ve set clear objectives and defined the actions you want your audience to take this should be pretty straightforward but do bear in mind that one of the great (and slightly scary) things about social media is that once you put your message out there you have very little control over what happens to it. That means your campaign may end up having completely different outcomes from the ones you’re expecting.
If you’re not hitting your targets don’t be too quick to write the campaign off as a failure.
Look closely at all your metrics to see if you’re driving value somewhere else.
For example, you may not have as many micro-conversions (email opt-ins, Twitter followers, Facebook fans and RSS subscribers) as you’d hoped for but the engagement levels for those you do have may be much higher or you may find that you’re seeing an increase in off-line sales.
Of course, if it looks like a turkey, walks like a turkey and sounds like a turkey, it probably is – in which case you need to hit the kill button pretty darn quick. But without the right metrics, how will you ever know?


4. Great Content

 Back in the day when social media was the new kid on the digital marketing block you could pretty much guarantee that any reasonably creative and original campaign was going to get lots of eyeballs and create an enormous amount of buzz.

In today’s crowded marketplace it’s not quite so easy. Which means that if you want your campaign to stand out, you’re going to have to work that little bit harder to get the attention of your users.
One thing still holds true, however: the cornerstone of any effective social media campaign is great content presented in an interesting and engaging way.
If you’ve done your homework on your audience, if you know what they are passionate about, their pain points, the type of content they readily share and what they respond to you’ll have pretty good idea of what is going to get them excited. Finding a different and intriguing way to deliver your content is then your secret sauce.


5. Simple

 

As social media campaigns become ever more complex it’s worth reflecting on whether this what users really want.
keep it
simple
and immediate
Creativity is a wonderful thing, but if you ask too much of your audience they will quickly get bored and move on.
Instead, keep it simple and immediate and offer something your users are going to value as a reward for their engagement. This doesn’t have to be anything expensive or even anything tangible, so long as your campaign is relevant, fun and engaging. Think Evian’s Roller Babies, the most watched online ad ever which generated over 60 million views and 54,000 comments or Johnson’s Facebook baby photo contest which generated more than 1 million visits, half a million votes and tripled the company’s fan base.

6. The Right Medium For The Message

Having a great message is one of the things that makes great campaigns stand out from the rest.
But just having a great message isn’t enough – you also have to communicate it via the right channels. It can be tempting to just focus your efforts on the big 3 – Facebook, Twitter and Youtube – but if that’s not where your target audience hangs out it isn’t going to do you much good.
It also pays to remember that people tend to behave differently on different networks so think about the actions you want your users to take and match the medium to the message.
Example: if you want an immediate response you’d probably want to use Twitter, whereas Facebook is more suited to opinion sharing.
Finally, make sure that your social media campaign is fully integrated with all your other marketing, advertising and PR activities, both online and offline.
This will not only increase your campaign’s impact but also ensure that you aren’t putting out contradictory messages that will confuse your audience.


7. Memorable

 The most successful social media campaigns forge an emotional connection between the brand and the audience by providing not just great content but an experience.

Make your campaign memorable by telling stories that have an emotional resonance for your audience and they can immediately identify with.
Engage your users in an ongoing conversation, make it personal and show that you care about them and their custom and you will engender a powerful sense of belonging that will translate into long term loyalty.


8. Profitable

 For any small business, a positive return on investment is going to be a key campaign success measure.

There are plenty of siren voices that will say you can’t put a price on customer engagement. Ignore them.
If you’re a small business and you can’t demonstrate that your social media campaign is directly contributing to your bottom line it’s time to go back to the drawing board.
Of course measuring the long term impact of social media campaigns is an art not a science, but that doesn’t mean that you won’t need a plan for monetizing all that additional traffic and engagement and converting it to cold hard cash.

 by Love Neet at SocialMediaClub

Hoot.Me turns Facebook into a Study Room in Seconds


Ever thought your Learning Management System (LMS) chat room is really lacking features, especially for math courses? Wanted to find an Algebra study partner online at 2 a.m.? Need to host a virtual office hours convenient to students? A new startup on the market is offering free online space for studying, office hours, and group projects through a familiar interface for most students, Facebook. The new Facebook app called Hoot.me claims to, “Switch Facebook into Study Mode.” Hoot.me lets you host a private or public room without anyone having to be Facebook friends. It has an easy to use chat with a simple to use math editor built into the chat, with a convenient preview before you post. The ability to make it more personal with video conference for up to 8 people is a great addition, very similar to Google+ Handouts. The history of a room stays around for you to start back where you left off or invite users back to the same room later. Hoot.me says to keep an eye out on an update version soon with the ability to screen share and record sessions, plus additional feedback from users incorporated. Check out my tour and trial of hoot.me: http://wp.me/p10Pdu-uH . Why not give it a try today because it’s FREE!

by Josh Murdock at SocialMediaClub

Twitter Tool Helps You Know Your Followers

You can now get a broad picture of the type of people who follow you on Twitter following the launch of an in-depth analytics tool called Know your Twitter followers.
The tool, which was created by location technology service provider Schmap, allows you to view a summary analysis of your Twitter followers based on their bio, location and tweets to help give you an idea of the type of person who is following you.
Know your Twitter followers has both a free version and a paid-for version, which offer varying levels of analysis depending on your needs. The free service will give you a summary analysis of your followers. You’ll see stats on gender, marital status, likes and interests among your followers. A more in-depth analysis, which will cost between $4.95 and $149.95 depending on your follower numbers and whether the Twitter account you want to analyze is an individual or brand account, offers a more in-depth analysis.
To highlight how the tool works, Schmap analyzed the Twitter followers of a number of celebrities. Sarah Palin‘s followers are likely to be married, religious parents who enjoy reading books. The followers of Charlie Sheen, who set a record when he reached 1 million followers faster than anyone else, are likely to be iPhone users who tweet a lot and like to party.
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron is followed by a large number of lawyers, while chef Jamie Oliver is followed by a large number of teachers. Rather strangely, Twitter users with pets were not very likely to follow Tiger Woods.
“As individuals, we’re naturally curious to discover who follows our tweets,” Schmap’s chief executive Paul Hallett told The Telegraph. “This new service goes much deeper – to the commercial imperative of brands and corporations, ad buyers, the media, political campaigners, event promoters and local merchants to understand their audiences on this increasingly significant social medium.”
This type of information is often invaluable to brands and companies who want to find the best ways to deliver content to their followers, but for individual users, it’s a good way to understand a little more about the people who are following you so you can start sending tweets that might interest them on a deeper level and engage with your followers a little more.
The service has launched in public beta and you can test it out for yourself by visiting the Know your Twitter followers website.

by Kris Holt at Scribbal

Friday 28 October 2011

GetGlue Launches A New Real-Time Conversation Experience

Popular social TV app GetGlue just got even more social with the launch of a new real-time conversation feature, Tumblr sharing and personalized widgets. The new GetGlue features were announced by Alex on the GetGlue blog and they’re giving GetGlue users the opportunity to connect with their friends and other fans like never before.

We’ll start with a look at the new GetGlue Conversation experience.  Basically, when you check-in to GetGlue, the new Conversation feature connects you to other friends and fans that are checked into the same thing so you can have a conversation in real time.  According to Alex of GetGlue, “The Conversation is smart.  It shows all comments from your friends, but only interesting comments from other fans.  The Conversation also shows you filtered Tweets, so you can stay on top of what is going on Twitter without leaving GetGlue.”

GetGlue’s Conversation is a huge improvement on an already great service.  Now, GetGlue users can easily reply to friends, other fans and Tweets in one location, enjoying the conversation while checked-in to their favorite media, from TV shows to movies, music and more.
And that’s not all.  GetGlue has also announced that you can now share your GetGlue check-ins and reviews directly to Tumblr.  And Alex writes that, “The best part about the integration is how the check-ins appear on Tumblr – they are beautiful.”  Check out the image below to see how a GetGlue check-in looks when shared to Tumblr and let us know what you think.

 Finally, GetGlue has launched some new widgets that let you feature your check-ins and stickers on Tumblr, Blogger, WordPress or any blog or website.  Personalized widgets, available from the settings page, automatically update to show your new activity.  Check out the screenshots below.


What do you think of the new GetGlue features?  Will you be checking out The Conversation, sharing your check-ins and reviews on Tumblr or posting a GetGlue widget on your site?
UPDATE October 27, 2011: Real-time conversation has now been added on the GetGlue Android and mobile app as well.  Read more on the GetGlue blog.

by Megan O’Neill  at Social Times


INFOGRAPHIC: How UK Politicians Use Twitter, Facebook And Other Social Media Services

As you may or may not know, over 40 percent of British Members of Parliament are on Twitter. They seem to enjoy the power of sharing their thoughts quickly with a global audience as they recently voted against a motion that would have banned the use of Twitter during debates. Of course, having an active social media presence might help them out during elections, so it makes sense for them to engage directly with voters using Twitter and other social networking services.
A new infographic published by Yatterbox takes a look at how U.K. politicians are using social networking services. Yatterbox analyzed 29,571 social media updates from all U.K. politicians with a presence on social networking services and it turns out that Twitter is the most popular way for them to communicate with their supporters.
Of all the posts that were analyzed, 91 percent were sent using Twitter, while Facebook accounted for just
2.4 percent of posts. Most U.K. politicians joined Twitter between 2009 and 2010, but others are still joining up. Prime Minister David Cameron has the highest number of Twitter followers among MPs (1,845,141) followed by Labour Leader Ed Miliband (97,295) and Liberal Democrats Leader Nick Clegg (66,904).
Cameron recently joined Foursquare and LinkedIn. On the location-based service, he has 1930 followers and has left 9 tips, while he has 66 connections and 5 previous roles listed on LinkedIn.

Click Here for bigger View


via Kris Holt at Scribbal

Facebook Unveils New Security Measures, Details Security Features In Infographic

Facebook has announced several new security features that aim to keep you and your Facebook account safe. The social network is testing the Trusted Friends and App Passwords tools, while it has published an infographic which details some of the many security features that you can take advantage of on Facebook.
The Trusted Friends tool will help you out if you ever get locked out of your Facebook account. You’ll be able to select between 3 and 5 friends who’ll be able to help you out if you ever have problems in accessing your account. If you happen to forget your password and do not have access to the email address you used to sign up to Facebook with, your trusted friends can help you gain access to Facebook again. The social network will send access codes to the friends you have selected and they can give you that information so you can gain access to your account.
The App Passwords feature will allow you to set up passwords for logging in to third-party apps. Before the launch of this feature, you will have had log in to Facebook apps using the same login details you use on your Facebook account. This feature will let you create new passwords to use just for these apps so that you do not have to share your Facebook login details with third-party developers and their apps. It should certainly give Facebook’s more than 800 million monthly active users a little more peace of mind about keeping their accounts secure when using third-party apps. You’ll be able to active this by accessing the App Passwords section of the Security tab in your account settings.
Facebook has launched a bunch of security tools over the last few years, along with several back-end systems that are designed to keep your data safe. However, Facebook is aware that there may be some people who are not fully aware of all the security tools at their disposal, so it has published an infographic (which you can see below) to help you understand more about the security features you can take advantage of.
The social network has rolled out a bunch of security measures this year alone. It has teamed up with Web of Trust and Websense to combat malicious links; launched a two-step login process called Login Approvals; and added social reporting measures and a password reset option on its mobile website. The company also launched a guide to security on the social network in August.
However, it has not all been sunshine and roses for Facebook when it comes to security. The social network had to fix a security flaw that let advertisers gain access to millions of users’ personal data. More recently, the company resolved an issue with its cookies which, it was claimed, allowed Facebook to track your Web browsing data even after you’d logged out of the social network. This issue led to several lawsuits being filed against Facebook.
The Trusted Friends and App Approvals features should be available in the coming weeks.

Click here for bigger view

Google+ Launches New Features, Lets You See What’s Hot On Social Network [Video]

Google+ has launched several new features that will help you find what content is popular on the social network. You’ll also be able to see how posts are being shared and have some fun with your photos through a new editing tool.
The What’s Hot on Google+ feature will help you discover interesting content that’s being discussed frequently on the social network. Since Google+ users are sharing and receiving more than 1 billion posts every day, it’s often difficult to keep up with the constant flow of information and content that’s being posted by the service’s more than 40 million users. This is where the What’s Hot feature comes in.
What’s Hot is available as a standalone stream that’s accessible from a link on the left of your home page and you’ll see hot posts in your other streams too.
Yonatan Zunger, the senior engineer on the Google+ team, shows how the new feature works in this video:


by Chris Holt at Scribbal

The Guardian Launches Twitter-Based Search Bot

Users can search for content on The Guardian‘s website by tweeting a question or keyword(s) to @GuardianTagBot. The bot will immediately tweet back a link to a search results page on guardian.co.uk.
For example, users could tweet, “@GuardianTagBot latest Occupy Wall Street news?” to pull up related stories in reverse chronological order (pictured below).
Essentially, it’s a faster way to get the news you’re looking for (on The Guardian, at least) from Twitter.
In an introductory post, Nina Lovelace, content development manager at the Guardian Group, warned users that TagBot was a search tool, and that it would struggle with personal queries such as “Will you marry me?”
“It’s not Siri,” she wrote.

Wednesday 26 October 2011

Spooky Sets Of Social Halloween Icons

Here is some social media Halloween Icons to use for your blog or site,
Enjoy

Vector RSS Icons

 Creative Nerds 

Three Styles Pumpkins


Halloween Buttons by Tricia-Rennea

 

Social Consumers and the Science of Sharing [INFOGRAPHIC]

If you’re buying a car, do you check Facebook? Or do you read up on Kelley Blue Book values and scour the company website for every spec, from horsepower to miles per gallon? What about music — do you check Top 40 radio charts or scope out what your Facebook friends are actually listening to on Spotify?
Social media has infiltrated the purchasing funnel, helping consumers make informed decisions, from what to have for lunch to where to go on vacation. Depending on the decision, sometimes you turn to your social graph, and sometimes you turn to Google. So, as a brand marketer, you want to know what online channels you should be targeting in order to reach the perfect audience for your product.
But regardless of what kind of consumer you’re trying to reach or what you’re selling, your SEO better be top notch — search is the most important influence on the web.
The infographic below, featuring data from M Booth and Beyond, analyzes the differences between high and low sharers and various purchasing decisions, helping brands to understand how should be targeting consumers.
What kind of consumer are you? Let us know in the comments below.



by Lauren Drell at Mashable

Reddit Hits 1.8B Monthly Pageviews, /r/Funny Subreddit Snags 1M Subscribers

 Reddit has hit several fascinating milestones as the social news website continues to grow in popularity. In addition to hitting 1.8 billion monthly pageviews, one of the site’s sections (or subreddits) now has more than 1 million subscribers.
Over the last month, Reddit has seen 28 million unique visitors, who have generated 1.8 billion pageviews. That is almost double the 1 billion pageviews Reddit had at the start of this year.
The /r/funny subreddit has become the first to have more than 1 million subscribers, while 265 sections now have more than 10,000 subscribers. However, it should be noted that every new registered account is automatically subscribed to /r/funny, so it’s unclear how much value should be placed on the subreddit hitting the milestone figure.
The site’s general manager Erik Martin told The Daily Dot that approximately 80 percent to 90 percent of Reddit’s traffic comes from people who view content but do not register an account on the website.
Reddit was recently restructured to give the company a little more operational freedom while still being owned by Advance Publications, the parent company of Condé Nast. The website has been hit by controversy in recent months over the Jailbait subreddit, which featured photos of underage teens in underwear, swimsuits and lingerie. The section was closed earlier this month.
Another popular subreddit called IAmA, where users are able to ask the creator of a thread any question, was shut down by its creator and moderator in August. However, the redditor backtracked on his decision and handed control of IAmA over to another moderator.

by Chris Holt at Scribbal

Amazon Third Quarter Profits Drop 73%

Amazon just released its third quarter sales, indicating that net income is at $63 million, or $0.14 a share, down from $231 million, or $0.51 a share a year ago. This is a 73% drop in quarterly profit from the third quarter of 2010. Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S reports that analysts expected Amazon's third-quarter earnings to land at 24 cents per share on a revenue of $10.95 billion.

Amazon has been focusing its spending on the tablet, among other long-term projects. It launched the Kindle Fire Tablet on September 28, which remains Kindle's biggest order day to date.
Despite a drop in profits, Amazon added more than 8,000 new workers in the third quarter, resulting in 50,000 full- and part-time employees. This is an increase of 136% over the past two years.
Amazon.com added more than 8,000 new workers in the third quarter, bringing its total employment to more than 50,000 full- and part-time employees for the first time in its history.
Fourth quarter net sales are expected to grow between 27% and 44%, or $16.45 billion and $18.65 billion. Operating income should hit between $200 million and $250 million, or between a 142% decline and 47% decline compared with fourth quarter 2010.

By Alicia Eler at ReadWriteWeb

Facebook Experimenting With Credits For Outside Websites

On October 21, the Facebook Developer blog announced that it had started working with "a few developers to test the ability to offer Facebook Credits on websites, with the goal of helping them offer a more unified app experience to users beyond apps on Facebook." Their preliminary Facebook Credits test uses the games UNO Boost and Collapse! Blast on Gamehouse.
Currently, Facebook Credits is the required payment method for Facebook apps. Facebook Credits became available as a payment option on mobile apps except for native iPhone or iPad apps. The e-commerce space is still up for grabs, ripe for fresh battles between Facebook and Apple.

Facebook and Gamehouse will keep an eye out to see how players react, which will determine how the Facebook Credits experiment will proceed. On Gamehouse, users signed in through Facebook will only have the option to pay with Credits; if not, they'll be able to pay through their usual methods of credit card or PayPal. This could skew the experiment a bit, angering some users who would prefer to stay logged in through Facebook yet pay through another method.
Right now, Gamehouse will still have to share 30 percent revenue from the sale of Facebook Credits. This is the same cut that Apple's App Store takes from developers who submit apps and games, and also the same as the Amazon Appstore.

Why Won't Facebook Allow Credits on Their Native App?

At last week's Web 2.0 conference, Facebook CTO Bret Taylor said "A few years from now, most every single person at Facebook is going to be working on mobile."
Yet when the Facebook Developer blog announced Facebook Credits for mobile the other week, it said that Facebook Credits would go mobile, but not on iOS. Using them on iOS would violate Apple's in-app purchasing rules. Still, very few iPad users will use the mobile website (m.facebook.com) entirely just because that's where their Facebook Credits are.
If Facebook won't allow its users to use Facebook Credits on the native iPhone or iPad apps, and the future is in mobile, how will Facebook Credits be able to grow?

Will Facebook Credits Become a Global Currency System?

Back in July 2010, we noted that Facebook was "standing at the food of a virtual cash mountain." That's when Facebook first expanded the Facebook Credits program out of beta, rolling out a path that could amount to the world's first global currency. Nearly a year later,
on July 1, all game developers were required to use Facebook Credits, reports AllFacebook.com.
If the Facebook/Gamehouse experiment succeeds, will this mark the beginning of Facebook's entry into building a micro-currency around its application platform?

Article From:  ReadWriteWeb

Tuesday 25 October 2011

REPORT: Google To Launch Music Store With Google+ Integration

Google is said to be preparing the rollout of a music download store that will have tight integration with its major social networking service, Google+. The store may be launched within the next 2 weeks.
Google Music, which The Wall Street Journal reports the store is tentatively called, is likely to allow you to recommend songs from its online library with your Google+ contacts. Your contacts will be able to listen to a song once for free and then purchase an MP3 of the song if they choose.
The store will be tied into Google Music Beta, a free service that allows you to upload your existing music so you can listen to it from any computer or your phone. However, Google Music may have to launch without access to the libraries of 2 of the 4 major U.S. record labels — Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group. The recommendation feature and download store will only work for music that’s been released by record labels which have agreements with Google.
Sony executives claim that Google does not do enough to combat piracy on YouTube and its Android operating system for mobile devices. Warner Music, meanwhile, apparently believes that Google Music is not worthwhile since it is offering its online storage feature for free and thus does not generate revenue for record companies. However, Google is said to have told record labels that the music service will generate enough revenue in download sales to make the service a worthwhile venture for them.
If Google does indeed launch a music download store, it will compete with the likes of iTunes and music streaming services such as Spotify and Rdio as it vies for your attention. However, harnessing the power of Google+, which has more than 40 million users, could help Google to gain traction in the digital music market and drive sales when you recommend songs for your friends to check out.

by Chris Holt at Scribbal

Clingle Lets You Leave Private Text, Audio and Photo Messages for Friends at Check-in Locations

The world, it seems, can’t get enough social check-in service variants based on such services that launch on a regular basis. The latest calls itself Clingle by MyCityWay. Its “Clings” are bits of media (text, audio, photos) that users can leave for friends (other Clingle users) that are unlocked when these friends check-in to the location. It is a bit like a private geo-cache. Information can also be broadcast to friends in real-time. And, of course, like other social-geolocation services, deals can be searched for and badges can be earned.

However, if you are in the U.S., the only place Clingle is available is New York City. Outside of the U.S., the service also works in India and Singapore. Clingle states that support for additional cities in the U.S., UK and other countries is coming soon. The only phone supported right now is the iPhone. However, as you can see in the screenshot to the left, support for Android and BlackBerry is planned. You can find the free Clingle iPhone app at:
Clingle (iTunes App Store)
More information about the service is available on the service’s website.
Clingle.com

Wikipedia and Social Media Marketing Techniques for Websites

Social Media on the internet is a vast platform, and is being used rampantly as a social platform, to share news and views, comments and likes, and other discussions. Anyone with no regard to age sex or community, even borders can participate in such social discussions and networking. Journalism has also undergone a significant transformation in the way it shares stories and news.
Wikipedia is one of the most commonly used social media platform. The journalists of today’s era are using Wikipedia mostly to get a glance of top stories and news; to get new contacts and new forums. This does not only signal a new age for social media but also a new creed of journalists who believe that socially altered news and views are valuable objects of news. This is particularly true in the case of journalists belonging to the UK.
The Wikipedia is also on the road to launch a “Love” button by the week coming up. This will allow users to appreciate stories by using the love button, thereby sending virtual beer, cats and more. This feature is supposed to be called WikiLove, this feature seeks to reinforce positive affirmations amongst users. Thus amidst likes, dislike, share and comment, Love is going to be the rage on social media platform, the prelude being taken on by the most popular social media channel – Wikipedia.
The WikiLove feature is a simple one that puts up a heart icon on the user page, clicking it will display a menu that will allow users to send a virtual gift and a crisp piece of note. Another remarkable feature will be the option to create new gifts apart from kittens and beer.
The company explains this innovativeness as am urge towards quality as well as reliability; thus the development of such sophisticated tools aiding users to socialize various conventions. Every act needs appreciation and reinforcement if it is acceptable. Thus reinforcing good work with barn stars and badges, sending across appreciation with beer and kittens, has hailed the social media world. The ultimate destination which social media in general is seeking to achieve is not far now, where the world communicates and interacts, on one common platform – the World Wide Web.
The Wikipedia in just few years has emerged as one of the most popular websites. This social media website has grown up to be predominantly positive and neutral source of reliable information.

Via: Bosmol

Official Barack Obama Tumblr Blog Is Launched

President Barack Obama has added another social media service to his arsenal with the news that he is now on Tumblr. The official Tumblr blog for his 2012 re-election campaign appeared Monday and was announced in a tweet on the @BarackObama Twitter account.
The account is the official home for the Obama 2012 campaign on the service and will be used to share stories, photos and videos from campaign supporters. At the time of this writing, there are 2 posts on the blog. One is a photo of a campaign member preparing a package to send to the campaign’s Ohio offices, while the other is a post that welcomes supporters to the blog.
The welcome note reads, in full:
HI, TUMBLR.
It’s nice to meet you.
There are lots of reasons we’re excited to be launching the Obama 2012 campaign’s new Tumblr today. But mostly it’s because we’re looking at this as an opportunity to create something that’s not just ours, but yours, too.
We’d like this Tumblr to be a huge collaborative storytelling effort—a place for people across the country to share what’s going on in our respective corners of it and how we’re getting involved in this campaign to keep making it better.
It’s possible because of Tumblr’s submission feature.
You can send us a few paragraphs about how your latest phonebanking gig went or why you’re in for 2012. Share the latest chart you saw that made you go “woah.” Ask a question. Upload a photo of 2012 t-shirts or signs you see out in the wild. Pass along jokes, particularly if they’re funny. And if you’re among the Tumbl-inclined, send us posts you’ve published on your own Tumblr that we should look at re-blogging.
There will be trolls among you: this we know. We ask only that you remember that we’re people—fairly nice ones—and that your mother would want you to be polite.
Thanks, Tumblr. We’re looking forward to getting to know you.
The blog encourages supporters to get updates from the campaign, donate to the campaign and submit stories, photos and videos to share with others. Getting Obama to join Tumblr is a big coup for the microblogging service, which recently closed a $85 million funding round and added Russian-language support.
In addition to having presence on Tumblr and Twitter (where he is one of the social network’s most popular users with more than 10.7 million followers), Obama has a Facebook Page and a YouTube account, which are also used to promote the president’s re-election campaign. The campaign began in April by asking Facebook users, “Are You In?”

by Kris Holt at Scribbal

Monday 24 October 2011

Twitter Shaking Over SF’s Earthquake

A magnitude 3.9 earthquake struck the Bay Area Thursday mid-afternoon, causing unknown damage. However, a flurry of tweets rumbled across the Internet informing the world that the quake hit almost 22 years since the last huge earthquake in 1989.

The quake rocked along the Hayward fault line near Berkeley at 2:41 p.m. local time. Tweeters reported feeling the quake across San Francisco — interrupting meetings, Gadget Lab podcast and overall productivity as the tweeters seemed compelled to share their experience on Twitter.
According to Mashable, one user tweeted about the “gently swaying artwork at the San Francisco MOMA”. Almost 24 hours have passed and tweeters are still commenting on how California had orchestrated a statewide earthquake drill earlier the day of the earthquake.
OSM reports Twitter is the unofficial earthquake warning service as reported during the Virginia earthquake in late August and the horrific magnitude 9.0 that caused so much destruction in Japan last March.
It may be hard to believe, but Mashable also reports the speed of the Internet indicates it is ”becoming increasingly common for Twitter users in outlying areas to read about quakes before they experience them.”

The Evolution Of The Blogger: Which Type Of Blogger Are You? [Infographic]

Blogging has roots all the way back to the early 1990s, when forum members would keep accounts of their day-to-day activities and in 1994 the first real blog, Justin’s Links, hit the web.  Blogging has come a long way since the ‘90s, with over 156 million public blogs in existence as of February 2011.  Everyone is blogging, from moms to techies to artists and politicians, and a fun infographic from Flowtown examines the blogging ecosystem.

‘The Evolution of the Blogger’ was actually created last December but it has seen a random burst of viral activity this month so we thought it was worth sharing with you.  The infographic is designed as a flowchart, flowing through the history of the blog and exploring how all of the different “types” of bloggers have come to be.
We begin with the early categories of bloggers—the Emo Blogger (that favored LiveJournal), the Angry Blogger (that used the web as an outlet), and the obsessive blogger (that wrote about a single area or topic).  These blogger types paved the way for a variety of other bloggers—political bloggers, travel, tech and food bloggers and more which, in turn, paved the way for Apple fan boy bloggers, gaming bloggers, activists, DIY, fashion, art & design and other topics.  Today we’ve got bloggers blogging about virtually everything.
But we’re not at the end yet.  Microblogging sites like Twitter and Tumblr have led to a new generation of bloggers, and it’s only just the beginning.  Check out the infographic below and let us know what you think.  What kind of blogger are you?  Where do you think the future of blogging is headed?


Via Megan O'Neill at SocialTimes

Google CEO Larry Page Becomes Most Circled Google+ User

Google CEO Larry Page is now the most-circled Google+ user, having usurped Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the top of the rankings.
Page has been circled by 602,373 people at the time of this writing, compared to Zuckerberg’s 599,124. Page posts on Google+ fairly regularly, but Zuckerberg has not yet shared any public content on the social network, which was launched in June.
Zuckerberg was the most-circled user of Google+ since the very early days of the social network, which now has more than 40 million users. I’m sure Google will be pleased that one of its own has taken over the top spot from the figurehead of its biggest rival.
Other popular users of Google+ include Snoop Dogg (who has been circled by 485,802 users at the time of this writing), Britney Spears (547,483 circles) and will.i.am, who has been circled by 402,172 people — he also held the first Google+ On Air Hangout.

by Chris Holt at Scribbal

Sunday 23 October 2011

Google+ to Support Google Apps in Next Few Days


Google has announced that Google+ will support Google Apps accounts within the next few days.
Google SVP of social Vic Gundotra said Google Apps support was coming “imminently” during a Q&A at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Gundotra made it clear that “imminently” meant within the next few days.
The reason Google didn’t launch Google Apps support during the original release of Google+ was because the company thought “it would have more time.” Google+ beat their expectations, though, and has forced them to scramble on what is Google+’s most-requested features.
Google also announced that Google+ will soon support pseudonyms, though nobody should expect that to roll out in the next few days.

by Ben Parr at Mashable

What Google+ Brand Pages Could Look Like [PICS]


A few weeks ago, Mashable contacted some ad agencies and asked them to imagine how brand pages on could change in light of that platform’s planned redesign.
Just as Facebook was announcing its tweaks, though, Google was on track to add brand pages to Google Plus. Though it looks like that will happen any day now, the integration hasn’t been announced yet. Meanwhile, a handful of brands, including Ford, are already enjoying the possibilities.
There are several barriers to designing brand pages for Plus. For one thing, it’s hard to stand out the way Plus looks now. The somewhat rigid format has a leveling effect. But Colin Murphy, director of social for Skinny, one of the agencies that accepted our challenge, says there are potential advantages to Plus, too. “A primary gripe among Facebook and Twitter users is that brands bombard them with messages they don’t want or care to see,” said Murphy. “In its current form, Plus doesn’t solve that problem, but Plus Brand Pages might, if they implement Public Circles.”
Skinny outlined how this might work with a hypothetical example for Mini, the auto brand. In this case, a Mini Countryman fan could join the Countryman circle and see just Countryman updates in her feed. “This level of selectivity isn’t possible on Facebook or even Twitter, unless of course you are a fan or follow the specific product you’re interested in — but there’s a major drawback to that method because the user has to seek out content streams,” Murphy says. “With Google+ it’s all in one place, and the all the admin has to do is feed pertinent content to the appropriate circles.”
In addition to Skinny, Fantasy Interactive created some fictional Coca-Cola and Starbucks brand pages. Are these on the mark? We’ll know soon enough, but in the meantime, let us know what you think of these agencies’ vision of how Google+ can accommodate brands.






Microsoft YouTube Channel Hacked



Computer giant Microsoft’s official YouTube channel appears to have been hacked Sunday morning. All of the official videos, including recent ad campaigns, have been removed from the account. In their place are short clips soliciting advertisers, not surprisingly, as the channel has some 24,000+ subscribers.
As of 1:30 p.m. ET, four videos have been uploaded to the account, all time-stamped within the past two hours. A fifth video, most recently uploaded, seems to have been removed. The video, “Garry’s Mod – Escape the Box,” featured what appeared to be an animated gunman shooting at the inside of a construction box.
The channel’s description reads, “I DID NOTHING WRONG I SIMPLY SIGNED INTO MY ACCOUNT THAT I MADE IN 2006 :/.”

Via Mashable

Saturday 22 October 2011

Tumblr Is Now Available In Russian

Tumblr is now a little easier to use for people in Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and several other countries as the microblogging service has added Russian language support.
This is the 8th language that Tumblr supports, following the addition of support for Italian in February and Spanish in August. The others are English, German, French, Japanese and Turkish. Support for other languages is on the way.
Tumblr hit 10 billion posts last month (there are now more than 11.7 billion posts) and around 37.5 million posts are added to the service every day on almost 32.2 million blogs that are hosted on Tumblr. The company raised $85 million in a funding round last month at a reported $800 million valuation.
If you would like to start using Tumblr in Russian, you can do so by changing your language settings on the Preferences page.

STUDY: The Popularity Of Social Networks Throughout The World

If there’s one thing that social networking services can do, it’s embarrass politicians. If there’s another, its that they can bring together people from all over the world and allow them to communicate with each other in a way that was not possible in previous generations.
Some networks are more popular than others in certain countries and Royal Pingdom has studied data to view the countries in which certain services are more popular than others. Google search statistics were used to compile the data and search results from the last 90 days were used.
The study covered 11 social services including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Foursquare. It was found that Facebook is most popular in Turkey and Venezuela; Twitter is most popular in Venezuela and Brazil; and Google+ is most popular in Taiwan and Hong Kong. It should be pointed out that the stats included in the analysis don’t reflect the number of users of a service in each country, but merely indicate how popular social networks are based on how often people search for them.
The U.S. is in the top 5 countries for LinkedIn, Tumblr and MySpace search frequency; the U.K. is in the top 5 for LinkedIn and Bebo; and Brazil is in the top 5 for Twitter, Orkut, Tumblr and Bebo. Meanwhile, Venezuela and Turkey are in the top 5 for both Facebook and Twitter.

Interest in Facebook

The 5 countries with the highest level of interest in Facebook are Turkey, Venezuela, Tunisia, Colombia and Dominican Republic. Taking a look at a map of global hotspots reveals that the social network is especially popular in Latin America and countries in the Mediterranean.

Interest in Twitter

Venezuela took the top spot for countries that are most interested in Twitter, followed by Brazil, Indonesia, Turkey and El Salvador. Again, there is a strong level of interest among Latin American countries in Twitter, but it seems to be searched for more often in North America than Facebook is (bear in mind, many people access the Facebook website directly rather than by searching for it).

Interest in LinkedIn

The countries that have the highest level of interest in LinkedIn are the Netherlands, India, the U.K., Singapore and the U.S. It also appears to be searched for regularly in Canada and Australia.