@BasilPuglisi

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Klout has its users in a frenzy: Could Peer Index and Empire Ave gain ground? [OPINION]

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Klout @Users and @Brands, we screwed you all but we think we got it now!

Klout might have overestimated their own Klout just after a wonderful video was published less then 24hrs ago by the Wall Street Journal.

Today we’re releasing a new scoring model with insights to help you understand changes in your influence. This project represents the biggest step forward in accuracy, transparency and our technology in Klout’s history. Ash Rust

Klout which has been a leader in measurable social influence and impact had spent the better part of the last year promoting themselves and their scoring system as the leader in connecting brands with influencers. While Klout built its business partnering with some great companies and brands to reach influencers, it would seem that in one swoop they said you got screwed to both their clients and their users.

Klout’s position is that it has made changes to better reflect influence. In one comment, Klout  compares itself to Google and the need to update algos for the purpose of producing better Page Ranking results. In the mean time, Klout finds itself in a rough spot having to explain to its big brand clients that they in fact might not have reached the right people.

I imagine the conversation goes like this.  Sorry you paid for something and we were completely wrong, don’t count on us giving you your money back but we think we got it right this time…. @Klout

As you can imagine, Klout users have been upset by the change as well, both the comments section on the announcement page and over in #usguys (on twitter) users have been hammering at the disappointment in being lead down one road to only have their work and social influence styles tossed out because Klout mislead them on what they thought was important.

What’s worse it seems that Klout admits it is giving even weight to social networks meaning that those that have spread themselves out over many social sites may in fact be punished by using Klout and connecting it to more than just twitter.

Perhaps we have given Klout to much of a stake in how we as social users are evaluated, I suggest taking a look at other Sites like PeerIndex, EmpireAve and keeps your eyes peeled for SocialIQ by SooVox which all seem to provide a much more descriptive look at how and why you are measured in social influence instead of a number and a random chart or two.

One thing is for sure, Today Klout upset a lot of their top users and proponents while opening  the door for others to enter their market with a statistical example of why they can do it better than Klout.

If your looking for a more positive outlook and what this means for the future of how you use it, take a look at this post by BundlePost.

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How to Get More Comments on Your Blog

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Bloggers everywhere ponder the question. How can I get more comments on my blog? Assuming you already know the value of receiving comments at all, learning how to attract them can be half of the fight. It is important to remember that not all methods will work for every blogger, or that all suggestions will work for your type of content.

Encouraging Blog Comments

  • Ask for help. Blog readers are not always those seeking information, sometimes they are looking to impart their own knowledge. Asking for help on a topic is a great way to encourage blog comments.
  • Highlight someone. Blogs are not all about what you are, what you have, and what you know. Sometimes they are great forums for highlighting the skills and attributes of others. Take the time to highlight others and watch the comments pour in from that individual’s friends, family, and consorts.
  • Link up and put the other sites on notice. Linking other sites to your post can be an effective way to garner comments. However, not everyone is attuned to what it takes to monitor his or her sites for mentions around the net. Head to the site you linked and let them know that you have mentioned them in your article. Find their Twitter account and @mention them as well.
  • Mix up the media. If you commonly post text blogs, try to toss in a video blog, presentation, or slideshow post. If you do go the way of video blogging, do not begin with, “Today I want to talk to you about…” Just launch right in on your topic. Otherwise, your post may come off as patronizing or lofty.
  • Get Plugged in. By plugged in, I mean, get a plug-in. WordPress has a plug-in called Top Commentator Plugin. This plug-in will highlight your top posters and give them high-visibility backlinks. Once others spot it they may put more effort into commenting, even if only in the spirit of competition.
  • Host a comment contest. By offering a reward to the best comment post, not only will you gain more comments than usual, but you will also receive comments that posters have given their all. For you, this not only means more comments, but more high-quality comments.
  • Respond to comments. Make sure you reply with relevant responses to show that you have read the posters comment. Also, bring a lesson your parents taught you and make sure to say ‘Thank you’ to any blog commenters.
  • Filter spammy comments. Remove comments that are obviously there to create a backlink. When posters see many spam-like comments, they may feel your blog is too ‘unmanaged’ to deserve a comment that may go unnoticed.

There is no concrete method for garnering comments for your blog. It is more likely that a smooth combination of techniques will have far better results than using the same technique repeatedly.

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Google Webmaster Tools Offers Custom Search Engine Creation

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Google logo
Google logo ™

Webmaster tools. The focus of the update is to provide marketers with the option to run their own trials of custom search engines.

The custom search engines created by Google’s Webmaster Tools can be used on business domains and their subdomains making search queries for any content on the business’s site easier to locate. Users can search over one or more sites, tweak the look and feel of the business’s site, and even earn money with it using Adsense for Search.

Creating your Custom Search Engine

You do not have to be a coding expert to create your own custom search engine. To create your own search engine with Google’s Webmaster Tools simply click on the Custom Search link under the Google Labs section. Webmaster tools will then create a default custom search engine that will search only your chosen site. Set up your configuration options or grab the code snippet, as is, to add to your new CSE site.

Users can then continue on to a full custom search engine dashboard to apply settings that are more advanced. Once your CSE is up and running, you can click the Custom Search link inside of Google Labs to manage the settings without leaving Google Webmaster tools.

Benefits to Your Business

For those business that use content marketing, the utilization of Google-powered search engines on their home page can be as important as any other efforts that go into expanding their sites reach. Users who frequent your site will be able to easily find topics or archives articles and information that is relevant to current topics, or even if they just want to find and share older stories with their own networks.

Content marketing is a highly useful instrument in the toolbox of internet marketers. Brafton News reports that up to 82% of businesses are currently using content marketing as part of their internet marketing campaigns.

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Social Media Marketing Advice, Analysis, and Insight from #SMWF N. America

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On the 1st and 2nd of November, SMWF N. America comes to New York. This conference openly offers social media marketing advice and more in-depth insight into how your brands and business can use options like Facebook and Twitter to help create priceless consumer relationships, monitor brand reputations, build communities, and sometimes they work as forums that can help to sell products, services, or opportunities directly.

Many of the globe’s top social media aficionado’s will meet to help initiate discussions and analysis surrounding the many diverse factors that affect marketing development, take-up, and strategic effectiveness.

SMWF will provide coverage on many of the vital issues that surround our social media space. Discussions will feature coverage on:

  • B2C Social Media Activities
  • ROI on B2B
  • Integrating Relevant Channels
  • Social CRM
  • Social Shopping
  • Geo-Location
  • Measuring and Managing Reputation  top sociakl obe’tly.
  • ions, build communities, and sometimes they work as forums that can help to sell products, services, or o

There is much focus on how social media is changing customer behavior and conference focus will highlight these issues in full.

#SMWF will also feature a number of high-profile speakers that represent leading brands such as Hershey’s, Twitter, NASA, Coca-Cola, Tumblr, and more. SMWF was designed to be an effective forum for building industry connections and creating networks that can help to improve networking sessions.

SMWF plans to take connection-building to new and more sophisticated technological heights. The SMWF TwitterWall will also be a distinguished feature of the show. Related Tweets will be projected onto a massive screen for all to read and will allow delegates to access a stockpile of statistics, infographics and other relevant information to display to the crowd who the most influential show tweeters are.

With the free-to-attend industry exhibition as well as the Social Media Hub covering some of the most basic elements supporting the most effective uses of social media, this is an even that should be listed as a must for anyone in the area with an interest in utilizing social media as an additional marketing channel.

For more info on what you can expect from the shows visit the SMWF Agenda Page.

DBMEi readers can save 15% by entering discount code DBM15 when Registering here.

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Social Media is NOT a Marketing Plan, think Brand!

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It’s important to realize that Social Media is a tool, a very powerful one but far from a keystone for any business. Social Media tools like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are only as valuable as the brand and the marketing campaign.

  • A Brand is an identity that a company, organization or individual facilitates.
  • Marketing is the practice of delivering content to society in a manner that leaves a memorable impact or sparks action.   

This cannot be done by simply setting up a Facebook Page or Twitter Account, in fact the most successful consultants an agencies still struggle developing their own Social Media because they spend so much time on the brand and their campaigns. Social Media is part of the campaign, and anyone with a successful business or organization will tell you there was a lot that came before social media or a lot that was done in addition to social media.

Think Foundation:

Ask an architect, builder, or perhaps a homeowner about the importance of foundation, they’ll all agree that while how it looks is important, the value is in the foundation. The same is true for companies, organizations and individuals. Think of the job search environment, HR professionals will tell you how sometimes the most talented people get missed because of things like poor resumes and grooming.

Brand is the key to building anything that you want to be memorable or spark action. This means thinking about the basics and it all starts with a mission.

  • What is the purpose of what you do?
  • What need are you meeting?
  • How will you meet that need?
  • What will that experience be like?
  • Why  do you meet this need better than others?

Now think about the marketing campaign, and remember it’s not just about introductions, it’s also about follow up and retention.

  • Who is your target audience?
  • When do they have this need?
  • Where are they when they have this need?
  • What value are you offering?
  • What will make them talk about or share what your offering?
  • Why will they buy from you? Now and in the future!
  • How will you use these efforts to become more efficient and responsive?

Think Campaign:

Once you have answered the basic questions, now it’s time to think about the campaign and decide how and where to execute it. Marketing takes time and the brand will develop its ultimate identity from the consumers, so when you think about the campaign think in six month intervals.

Do not confuse marketing campaigns with advertising. The marketing campaign is the process by which you answer the questions above and meet the purpose of those answers. Advertising is the components of the marketing campaign.

Advertising is in the same structural campaign issue as Social Media, both have costs associated with them. Advertising may require you to buy ad space, generate flyers, purchase pay per click ads on search engines or social media sites. The same is true of Social Media, it cost time, either yours which is likely better spent on your business, or the marketing agency, consultant or local self proclaimed guru.

Each type of Advertising or Social Media investment should work together for the brand in a manner that accomplishes the campaign mission.

If you make commitments in advertising and social media do so with specific intent and purpose, do not stick with the product (advertising or social media) if it is not where you are getting traction. However, do be prepared to come back to it at a later point. If your purchasing advertising space it had better be brand specific, but have a fresh new look every month.

Social Media as a Tool:

Social Media is great for a lot of things, once you have a brand and a plan that is. Social Media accounts like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn require a lot of resources, well if you’re using them correctly that is.

Facebook garnishes a lot of everyday activity, but did you know that it’s highest value comes on Saturdays? Facebook is a networking event that never ends, the highest value for Facebook is the ability to interact, or engage and once you stop the value in it is diminished almost completely.

Twitter is one of the best sources for specific information or content, the limit to #140 characters does a great job at reducing the amount of useless or irrelevant words. Likely when you search for something in twitter you’ll find it, if it’s there… are you? Twitter’s highest value comes from our societies need for instant gratification, the answers are short, to the point and in the most successful brands, come almost instantly.

LinkedIn is for professionals, so leave you beach photos, family photos and weekend adventures on Facebook. LinkedIn is for professional networking and problem solving. This social media tool is a great place for the actual business owner or professional to get hands on with who they are and what they do. LinkedIn allows for a transparent look at who the people are you connect with. The profile page can include work experience, education, social media sites, websites, ongoing blog entries, twitter feeds and more. It is the most efficient way for someone to get an entire look at the professional  they are communicating with. Why is this important, well LinkedIn helps identify needs, if you have a product or service that can meet that professionals need, you likely have a client. The groups feature is also a great place to learn and showcase your expertise.

Summary:

Connecting a product, service or talent with consumers and clients takes a lot more than just a social media account. Given the limited resources that most businesses and organizations face, it is far more important to think about the brand and the campaign first, then find out if and which social media tool fits into that plan. Social Media is a powerful marketing tool, enter into it with a long term plan, a purpose and brand expectations above sales expectation. As Arthur Germain, a fellow professional asks his clients and professionals “what is your brand story?” because social media does not change your story, it helps carry it.

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New Google Newsletter and Mobile Adwords Features

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Google Adwords launched new features in September 2011. These new features are geared towards making site clicks and even subscriptions to site newsletters or blogs easier to accomplish. Being able to get signed up to internal site options from the external source of a Google browser could go a long way in increasing traffic for those who utilize these methods.

AdWords Subscribe Option

Adwords now provides an option to allow Google search engine users to subscribe directly from a PPC ad. The option to subscribe to newsletters or email lists can be displayed on top or side ads.

All ads are displayed with “Privacy Info” that lets the viewer know that information shared in the input boxes will be shared with the advertiser.

Mobile Landing Pages

A recent study found that 61% of mobile browsers are not likely to return to a site that does not provide a good mobile experience. In response, Google initiated a shift in their policy that will now reward mobile sites with good optimization. Users with good mobile optimization who promote their sites with Google Adwords will now receive better performance. The ads created will drive traffic at a lower cost if they directly link to your site that is optimized for mobile users.

How Will This Affect Me?

If you are a business owner, whether or not you use Google Adwords, the time to optimize your site for mobile users is now. Even without the use of Google Adwords to promote a site, knowing that over half of mobile browsers will never return to your non-optimized site should be enough to push you into sprucing up your site to accommodate users on mobile devices. Getting rid of flash heavy content is a great step towards optimizing for mobile usage.

How Do I Optimize My Site for Mobile?

Google has offered a few suggestions to help you get your site optimized for mobile usage.

  • Keep the layout and design simple
  • Prioritize your content
  • Use markedly mobile features
  • Make your site easy to convert

If you want to know how well your site functions on mobile devices, grab your device and load up your site. If it is frustrating for you to navigate, you may want to make the changes required to encourage mobile use of your web pages.

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Summify Your Social Media Networks

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Keeping up with the most vital information in your industry was never made easier than with the inception of so many options in social networking. However, if you, like many others, find reading your Facebook and Twitter feeds to be increasingly more difficult as your network grows, it may be time to consider some of the options in news feed aggregation.

What is Summify?

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/15436623]

Integrated Ease

Instead of actually trying to keep up with lightspeed tweets and Facebook shares, the best thing you can do to save time, energy, and frankly frustration, is to head over to Summify and use their one-click integration options to log in via Twitter, Facebook, or Google.  You can choose to use only one network, or you can easily collaborate all three with a few more clicks.

From there you can configure how your summary is generated or you can sit back and wait for it to arrive in your inbox.

Inbox News Updates

Summify will determine by taking notice of your “Likes”, your trending topics, and the information in the industries you have the most influence, and make a daily progress report for you that is sent directly to your inbox. Users can choose to have this sent several times per day if desired.

Top tweets and the most often shared content will also be displayed along with those users names. See others in your fans or followers networks who have showed the same interest and utilize quick one-click buttons to add them to your network instantly.

View it as an email or as a webpage. Using the webpage option will give you far more interactive options.

Benefits of Summify

A very obvious benefit that makes Summify different is that this update will be sent to you per your desired frequency and will require no more effort on your part to configure than your original choices.  However, when you receive your emails you are given the chance to further refine your selections. Further benefits include:

  • Time Saving
  • Filtering Unneeded Info
  • Multi-Account Capability

When you receive emails from Summify you should open your articles from there. When you do, you are given the option to select a thumbs-up, or a thumbs-down option. Selecting the negative will prevent this type of content from being aggregated for you in the future.

Who Uses Summify?

Summify has seen a huge jump in user numbers in the last three months. Currently ranked at #5069 in the US, this aggregation option is beginning to be used widely on mobile devices due to its smooth compatibility with most options.

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Social Networking Statistics in Latin America

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Although Latin America makes up only 8.2% of the world’s population, they are the second largest consumer of social media.  The online behavior of Latin Americans is evolving right along with the rest of the world, but in many cases, a bit faster. The most popular social network by Latin America users is Facebook, while the most popular social network by time on site in Latin America is Orkut.

Latin American Social Media Statistics

  • Argentina and Brazil are currently among the world’s leading countries for Google+ usage.
  • Latin America has 118 million Facebook users with Bogota, Buenos Aires, and Mexican all holding top ten positions on this particular social network.
  • One-quarter of time spent online in Chile and Argentina is expended on social networks.
  • Latin America has 8.6 million LinkedIn users.
  • Users in Argentina spend 9 hours per month on Facebook; this is second only to users in Israel who boasts the top slot for user engagement.
  • There are over 55 million Twitter users in Latin America.
  • 14% of all Facebook users are Latin American.
  • Orkut is still the leading social network in Latin America by choice even though some statistics might show otherwise. Orkut has been a dominating social site since 2006.

Recent studies conducted by Synthesio show that social medias are also beginning to take on significant potential for agencies, consultants, and brands in Latin America.

How do Latin Americans Use Social Medias?

Although Latin Americans, like any other global population, uses social media to maintain cultural, regional and familial ties, the Synthesio study also shows the other elements most enjoyed by Latin American social networkers.

A social network named Sonico was created in 2007. This site was displayed in only Spanish or Portuguese. Unfortunately for Sonico, US competitors quickly overwhelmed it when they introduced their sites in the proper language formats.

Are Politics a Factor?

A ComScore survey showed that in April 2010, the Venezuelan audience on Twitter increased by 4.8% when Hugo Chavez joined the social network himself. The Brazilian campaign for president in 2010 also caused a frenzied deluge on social networks when candidate and subsequent winner, Dilma Roussef, acquired the services of the same web agency that had represented President Barack Obama during his 2008 campaign. The day that Roussef made an appearance on TV to send a message to her compatriots, Twitter messages peaked at over 90,000 during the period of 24 hours.

In the past year, Latin America’s social networking markets have seen an 88% gain in user engagement. Statistics like this should show us why it is so vital to incorporate social media marketing into every advertising campaign created for anything from the smallest startup, to the world’s largest enterprises.

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My Birthday Wish: October Breast Cancer Awarness Month

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It is my birthday wish that those that I influence and
support along with my friends and family will use my birthday as a reason to
donate to the “Susan G. Komen for the Cure”, October 21st is my
birthday and is also Breast Cancer Awareness month.

I was inspired by the story of Charity: Water, the founder
one day asked others to take their birthday wishes and use the money they would
have used for Cards, Gifts or events and donate the money to a cause. I was so
moved by this concept that I decided to ask DBMEi readers, friends and family
to do the same for me. As a October baby and a passionate supporter of the
American Cancer Society, I thought there would be no better cause to support
then the Susan G. Komen for the Cure as part of Breast Cancer Awareness
Month.  I was first introduced to the
foundation when I attended the SMX East where the evening event raised money
for this foundation.

Facebook Changes & Facebook Timeline: Successful Social Media Disaster [OPINION]

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Often the missing element in successful social media is emotion. Why do millions flock to social media every hour, but only a few engage?

Traditional businesses have missed the mark, and Facebook’s recent changes are an example of how important it is to hit the mark, even if it seems contrary to your brand.

Facebook’s changes in September 2011 should mark the most “Successful Social Media Disaster” of the Social Media Revolution. At every turn the top topic inside of Facebook is Facebook’s changes. While the overwhelming majority are quick to criticize, most have failed to realize that the change is creating the most talked about event in social media history, well in social media anyway.

How did Facebook create a “Successful Social Media Disaster”

Anger! The keystone to successful social media is emotion. While thousands of would be social media experts flood our networks with useless posts every day, the small group that manages to actually capture our attention are the ones that are unconventional and tap into our emotions.

Facebook did not make its changes slowly, it didn’t even transition people into the new features. Facebook’s policy was a flat out “here you go, deal with it”. This change and introduction captured one of the key emotional states in social media. While others lay claim to Google+ being the big winner having opened their G+ network to everyone in the same week, all the talk or buzz is Facebook!

Opening the Google+ network to everyone should have been an event that created buzz for Google. This G+ buzz should have lasted over the course of at least a few weeks, allowing it to capture articles and feedback from both followers and critiques, but Facebook’s move cut that off cold. G+ might get a mention here and there among the articles, but Zuckenburg has stolen G+’s thunder and managed to evolve his social network in one swoop.

The purpose of this article is not to support or criticize the changes to Facebook, but to highlight the importance of emotion in social media, and how Facebook has used it to trample Googles G+ public launch. How Facebook uses this to their brands advantage is another story. Most politicians claim there’s no such thing as bad PR, only bad PR managers and brand storytellers who fail to capitalize on the spotlight. This would seem to be the case with Social Media, most are better having something being said then nothing at all, then you can direct and capitalize on being talked about in one fashion or another.

Enter Facebook Timeline:

This new feature looks to be the family, tree and life story publication of YOU! No Publisher needed!

Get Timeline NOW! Click Here!

***Your timeline is now live — Developer Release****

****Please note: During the developer release, only other developers will be able to see your new timeline. Everyone else will see your old profile.***

PS: Looks like there’ll be no way to hide who you are ever again!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CYATYjk5N4&feature=player_embedded]

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