Social networks are a juggernaut when it comes to online marketing. You can easily reach more people by using social networks in promoting a product or service, while directly communicating with your target audience, something that traditional advertising can never do. With social media marketing still in its relative infancy, new tactics and strategies are still being formed as we speak.
One of the new strategies for online branding is presenting a strong Facebook page. Facebook is arguably the most popular social network on earth. And unlike Twitter (that other social network giant), Facebook balances content with a more visual bent, which makes it a better vehicle for online branding. read more
As we all know, every blog has a beginning. The beauty of the web is that websites can be stored in a permanent cache; effectively taking a virtual snapshot of the way the blog exists at that moment in time and storing it for later retrieval. Wouldn’t it be neat if you could go back in time and see what certain blogs looked like then? Well, it turns out you can. Archive.org has a public cache that stores snapshots of websites at regular intervals. It is called the Wayback Machine, and works just like a regular search engine; I tapped into it to bring you some blog history. You punch in the URL of the blog/site you want to look up, and they show you what dates they have stored in their database. The tool is not flawless, and many searches turn up corrupted pages or missing images, but it is really cool nonetheless. I did quite a bit of poking around on the database, and here are some of the snapshots I found:
The Blogs I Looked Up
From left to right, down the list in order, the blogs covered were Blog Herald, Boing Boing, Copyblogger, Engadget, John Chow, and Problogger. The thumbnails are in sequential order, so that you see the earliest snapshot of the blog to the most recent. To view each snapshot, just click on the thumbnail to load the full-size version of it. If you roll the mouse over each thumbnail, it will tell you what blog the snapshot is from and which date as well. This project was a lot of fun, and I could have gone on forever with it.
One thing that we can all take away from this example is the amazing amount of hard work and dedication the owners of these blogs have committed to their sites. We sometimes forget that everyone has a starting point, and everyone at one time was a nobody. Even Google. Now, I am gonna bet that after you read this post, you are going to head over to the Wayback Machine and start looking up all kinds of sites! Go for it.
When you think of a third world country, chances are you aren’t thinking of Internet access. You might be surprised to learn that many developing countries are working hard to provide Internet to their populations, often in surprising ways. The majority of these countries, particularly India and African countries, are also receiving a helping hand from the West, with Americans and Canadians helping to develop the technology required to access the Internet, even with a minimal infrastructure.
While only about 20% of people living in third world countries use the Internet (compared to 69% in the Western world), that figure varies greatly depending on the country. For example, India’s population features just 8% Internet users, while China has a whopping 36% of the population online. Brazil is pushing 40%, all according to TheEconomist. read more
Google Plus is the social media service that Google has recently released and it has been suggested that this service is a direct move against Facebook which is the leading social media website today.
Much praise should be given to the Google team for the constant innovations they seem to bring out; moreover the smooth roll out of Google Plus was also slickly done. Instead of launching it to the entire world, they selected certain countries first of all and then as and when issues arouse they solved them in a timely manner.
Also rather than launching the finished product with all its features, they did the release of Google Plus in a more progressive way so that people could get used to the new social media service without getting confused by to many features. read more
For businesses big and small, Facebook offers a great opportunity to connect with customers and build awareness. Collecting Facebook fans through the use of the ‘Like’ button is a great way to promote all you have to offer and target potential customers with offers and news.
However studies have shown that many fans will often ‘unlike’ a brand soon after a particular promotion or offer has ended. Other reasons why people unsubscribe like this include loss of interest in a business or product, page postings are uninteresting and a lack of postings to a brand page. Getting the most from your social media marketing campaigns, be they on Facebook or another social network, will rely on you being able to keep fans and attract new ones.
Of course it can be difficult to predict the buying behaviour of individuals, marketing tends to rely on demographics to target certain markets and consumers. And whilst not all promotions or offers you run will interest everyone, keeping your fans interested enough to stay with you will rely on you doing a little homework first. read more
Through the vast advancement of technology, people nowadays depend highly in the juices of technology. We are able to accomplish things fast and efficient through the high tech gadgets and machineries invented. We are also able to connect with different people in diverse culture and race through different social media marketing.
Businesses are one of the great benefactors of social media marketing. Because as we trace history, before we are having a hard time promoting our products and service because of the limited resources we all have. The most popular way of advertising is through the Trimedia (TV, RADIO and Print). Fortunately, many methods are available to help us generate more traffic and eventually translate the lead generation to our target audience. read more
Facebook Messenger 1.5 has landed on Blackberry with all its features. The social networking site has announced that the latest version of Facebook messenger has now targeted the top three Smartphone platforms- Blackberry, iPhone (iOS) and Android. Blackberry has iOS5 and thus is supported with the Facebook messenger 1.5. The Facebook Messenger for Blackberry is launched recently but for the android devices and iPhones it was released a few months ago.
The new version of Facebook Messenger is added with some great performance improvements as well as a few new features along with the support for the Blackberry platform. If you want to use the newest version of Facebook messenger on your Android smartphone, you can get it from the Googleís Android Market and if you want to use it on your iPhone, you can get it from Appleís App Store. The Facebook Messenger 1.5 for Blackberry is available on RIMís BlackBerry App World. read more
Facebook has rolled out a number of awkward changes in the past couple of months. While many, like the changes to the News Feed and the addition of that obnoxious ticker, were met with much criticism, others may get a bit of praise. This writer, in particular, has already crept her way into the development section and has had the chance to play around with the soon-to-be-released Timeline profile. Here’s what you should know.
The Cover Photo
Let’s start from the top, shall we? The new Timeline changes the way your “profile” looks to those who visit your individual page. Instead of having to tab down the list of links on the left sidebar, your information and personal updates will all show on one page. The most glaring addition is the new cover image. It’s huge and gives you the opportunity to share a moment in your life, set behind your smaller profile image. They’re not the same thing. Both show. The only rules are that you can’t use a copyrighted or promotional image. Choose something that lets your personality shine. read more
Google has done it again. There’s a new browser in town and Google has pulled out all the stops to bring users a seamless experience. Google Chrome is a popular new browser that combines a simple design with complex technology while providing searches that are lightning fast plus much more.
One of the best parts of Google+ Chrome are the extensions. They make interacting fun, easy and provide a fuller experience. Here are some of the best ones (in my opinion). They have all been tested and work as they were designed to. read more
For a business owner, Social Media presents a unique proposition. It is unique in the sense that the opportunities offered by Social Media sites like Twitter and Facebook are like a bait to bigger brand awareness. However, at the same time the viral nature of the Social Media platforms implies that a business would need a solid strategy to tap these media for business and brand promotion because an ill-conceived campaign, backed by a flawed Social Media strategy could become a major bottleneck to the areas of brand promotion, brand awareness and brand positioning.
There can be no denying of the fact that Social Media is one of the fastest media that can be employed to spread a word around. This is so true when you look at how successfully political situations from across the world have been advertised with a special mention going out to the Egyptian crisis of the Tahrir Square. On a similar basis, the natural catastrophic incidents like the Japanese Tsunami have been covered by the people who were on the ground and this has eventually resulted in a better understanding of the ground reality from the perspective of extending timely help and aid to the affected people. read more
Social networks are a juggernaut when it comes to online marketing. You can easily reach more people by using social networks in promoting a product or service, while directly communicating with your target audience, something that traditional advertising can never do. With social media marketing still in its relative infancy, new tactics and strategies are still being formed as we speak.
