@BasilPuglisi

Content & Strategy, Powered by Factics & AI, Since 2009

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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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Can Social Media Redefine Traditional Business Intelligence Strategies?

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It seems that in recent years, social media has become a more frequently integrated element of a new company’s business intelligence platform or an existing business’s revamp of an old one. There is no doubt that the use of social media has begun to be a common format for business interactivity and in doing so, continues to contribute in leaps and bounds, to a company’s business intelligence.

Business ROI

One of the key goals of any business intelligence is to help attain a higher level of ROI. Business intelligence popularity continues to grow and is digitally multiplied with the use of social media networks and many available tools to manage them. This can make the time and money investment minimal, while providing maximum coverage for a company’s products and services. The promise of greater visibility, extended business decision-making opportunities, and the ability to reduce overall operational cost is why Business Intelligence continues to grow.

Options in Social Networking

There are incredible options in social networking and all businesses need to hash out the best options for their particular products or services. Overall Business Intelligence platforms can include an overall open choice in social network options such as a specific brand of blogger, or even a singular social platform like a Facebook Fan page. There are also options for platforms that include business intelligence features. Companies like Dundas and Lyzasoft offer their users Business intelligence platforms integrated with vital social networks.

The overall ability to instantly deploy business intelligence to help increase the end user experience will most certainly achieve greater functional and visual capabilities. This can also lead to yet more self-service business intelligence applications.  A large number of businesses now also use social media analytics tools to rate their own company’s brand awareness as well as utilizing it as a tool to fully examine the competitors.

Learning how to leverage business from social networking tools is a main focus in many high-end marketing campaigns, and that mass is likely to continue growing.

Business Intelligence Solutions Services

A responsible business intelligence solutions service provider will fully integrate the role of social media into a business’s BI to help increase its functionality and provide rewards for integration participation.

Thankfully, the collision course that companies are on with social media has a happy end-result. Companies need to remain continually savvy when it comes to all available options where business intelligence and social media can integrate to add communicative or brand awareness impact. Because of its unstructured nature, social media networks may be some of the most difficult elements to integrate into a business intelligence platform, but it is well worth the investment in time or money that is spent in doing so.

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Develop Your Brand with Daylife

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Providing consumers with cloud features including on-demand media options, DayLife is supplying their users with more features, functionality, and faster cycling. A comprehensive solution that is designed for digital publishers who may require the freedom to focus on creative experiences instead of constant publication input.

How Does DayLife Work?

DayLife provides a Publisher’s Suite that supplies the patented engine that helps users to analyze, ingest, and process digital media from the cloud. Uploading your media to the cloud begins a long process of collation, normalization, and data parsing. After the parsing process rich layers of intelligence and meta tagging data are incorporated into your content which will allow it to then become searchable.

Regardless of the type of content, DayLife dev’s assure users that their content will be processed and returned to them with added value. DayLife actually crawls the web like Googlebot, while retaining a direct focus on sites and content that provides high-value, frequently updated content.

Smooth Delivery

After DayLife’s system parses and analyzes the content, they will then deliver all of the power of media and intelligence straight to the user. Users can utilize their DayLife Dashboard, or APIs. The dashboard will provide a single user-interface to enable accessibility of the cross-referenced media. In turn, this enables further functionality allowing the creation, customization, and management of app deployment.

DayLife users also get full access to Publisher Suite APIs. These widely varied and well-tested APIs are customizable and best yet, have no hidden integration costs. However, Publisher Suite is not a CMS. It is designed to smoothly integrate with the setup you are already using.

Supply a Robust Source of Reliable Information

DayLife provides their users with a source of management, analysis, and content composition that will enable them to present their current content in more highly viewable and frequently utilized manners.  DayLife also has a variety of WYSWIG tools for specific platform accessibility.

DayLife technologies allows content creators, bloggers, publishers, and developers to try their own hand at helping to develop new user-end experiences by helping to leverage news-based content.

Who Can Use DayLife?

DayLife is an element of a business that may need to be handled by an IT department simply due to the programming languages utilized in creating the APIs. Those who have knowledge of languages such as:

  • RUBY
  • PHP
  • Cold Fusion
  • Perl
  • .Net

Although these languages are a bit more intensive than common HTML, users need not be IT specialist to learn how to manage them. Those with a general idea of what it takes to manage the above languages may be able to handle this element of their sites content aggregation campaign on their own.

What are the Benefits of DayLife?

  • Users can easily enhance their news content by applying proactive and supportive measures such as relating links or headliners, on any created topic.
  • DayLife can help users to generate new content, provide helpful and relating links, quotes, photos, headlines, and timelines.
  • Enable the recirculation of content from available affiliate publications or other relevant content around the web.
  • Help to create and nurture the end-users experience.

 

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DBMEi Internships

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Digital Brand Marketing Education & Interactives has a NEW internship program. We believe that we have developed a program that might be of some interest to you and/or your students.

The internship program with DBMEi is designed for students that wish to learn how to write for digital publications, develop hands on learning in digital media and marketing. Interns learn through the “Read, Write & Share” philosophy in areas of Digital Media, Social Media, Content Development, Brand Marketing and more.

The basic program requires six publications by the intern spread out over three months. During this time the intern is required to conduct research in an area of interest under the supervision of a DBMEi contributing author. The Program is administered by the Executive Director to maintain the highest quality standards.

Interns not only learn about conducting research in digital media, but how to shape that content and use sources to reinforce their position. Then we work with them to teach them how to use Social Media and PR to create visibility and develop followers.

Learning Outcomes:

  • Learn How to conduct research in a digital setting,
  • Learn how to develop their personal brand and online reputation,
  • Learn how to format content to develop a reader’s attention and the search engines,
  • Learn how to develop a multi directional social media campaign to drive readership,

Those that complete an Internships:

  • Are invited to Contribute to DBMEi as a Author,
  • Receive a certificate of completion and a portfolio page,
  • Have a multiplatform personal social media presence the rest of their career,
  • Are eligible for development funding to a conference of their choice.

Twitter Teams Up with the Weather Channel Social

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On August 11th, The Weather Channel integrated weather forecast and news with the social media realm. Those who frequent The Weather Channel website for news on local weather can now sign into the site via their Twitter account to catch and share tweets from those in their area. Users can also spread tweets across TWC’s mobile, web, and television platforms.

Tweets gathered on the site can range from those provided by local news channel Twitter accounts, to individual residents reporting conditions in their areas. Although non-weather related information can also be aggregated by this system when weather related wording is used, the value in providing up-to-the-minute weather forecast for specific areas may even be lifesaving.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bg55iKtwxw]

Twitter Proves to Be a Powerful Tool for News on Natural Events

The East Coast has already been the recipient of Natures unpredictable temperament this week, and it seems they are to face it once again with Hurricane Irene bearing down. Along with Nature’s wrath, the deluge of tweets sent out within the initial moments during the quake proves that at least in 2011, US Twitter users quickly flock to the social media network in times of uncertainty.

Animated Map of Tweets from Eathquake

Weather-related events can certainly inspire tweet frenzies, TWC reports that:

  • Significant weather events can generate over 2 million tweets per day
  • Active weather events can initiate somewhere between 300 and 500 tweets per minute that are weather related
  • On average days, users in the United States send out around 200 weather related tweets each minute

Weather may be the ultimate social content, as it is always guaranteed to trigger conversation.

The Mobile World

In the mobile world, TWC has an iPhone app that features tweets on local forecast pages with feeds of real-time Twitter post from The Weather Social page. Users can participate in Twitter conversation directly from the app.

The Weather Channel TV Programming

During live dedicated programming segments, weather-related tweets will also show up before, during, and after broadcasted weather reports. During significant weather events, TWC Social will supply users with a powerful tool that will provide The Weather Channel with the ability to tell the full story on how weather events are unfolding in their local areas.

WiredSet

Powered by technology from WiredSet, the Weather Channel Social can analyze Twitter conversations using a platform that designates refined algorithms to help recognize social conversations about weather events in real time.

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The Power of Facebook Webinars

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The Power of Facebook Webinars

Webinars are fast becoming a vital source of communication for a variety of different industry needs. Some examples of trending Webinar needs include:

  • Online Education
  • Business Meetings
  • Brainstorming Sessions

This is just the foundation for many of the ways that companies are currently utilizing Webinars. Most businesses and institutions have little choice these days but to look for more cost-efficient manners to carry out communications with a group who are not within affordable geographical reach. Company’s developed and deployed only online may also have serious outsourcing needs that can include vital training for their businesses. Even in a superb economy, having a face-to-face with online employees is an expenditure nightmare.

FBWebinars

As Facebook continues to step up their game in many areas, FBWebinars has added another element to the social networking giant that can provide business owners with a system that incorporates automated and recurring presentations, videos, webinars, and VSLs. Utilizing all of the viral aspects of Facebook, list building features make creating a FBWebinar a snap.

Currently still in their Pre-Launch phase, FBWebinars has an Alexa ranking of #61,602 with the larger part of its visitors coming in from the United States at 76% with a local traffic ranking of #15,661. Most users are males over the age of 35 with mid-level incomes.

What Can Users do with FBWebinars’ System?

With the FBWebinars system, users can promote any service, product, training or other webinar needs, as well as the products of any others, with their permission of course, or even create your own to promote many affiliate products or services.

Users on the basic account can add five custom webinars for their own products or services, and using pre-screened options do not count against your basic five.

The Future of Business and Educational Communications

Harnessing the educational or selling power of a webinar, with the mass marketing capabilities of Facebook certainly adds a few elements of ease to Webinar creation. Many users have already become loyal fans in just the short time FBWebinars has been in open beta. If your business or institution regularly relies on Webinars for communications, you may want to have a look at a review or two, do some research, and see if your webinar needs can be more efficiently met on the FBWebinar system.

With new updates popping off left and right, FBWebinar.com seems to be continually improving, at a rather fast rate. New methods such as the Viral Traffic Generation method and incentive programs are offering users innovations in Webinar technology previously unseen. You will not know until you investigate, but even without the impending updates, the current platform may be the perfect tool for your organization to launch products or services, create educational and training presentations, and improve your online marketing campaigns.

FBWebinar Updates

FBWebinars has already implemented a few new upgrades.

FBWebinars Incentives – This program will offer users a gift when they invite a designated number of friends to attend their webinar.

FBWebinars ‘Done for You’ – FBWebinars’ goal is to provide its users with a consistent stream of the newest and most profitable webinars with the highest conversion rates. Let FBWebinars help you to turn your webinars into sales, traffic, and a powerful tool for list building.

Click Here to get your account now!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkpJdmxTX-g]

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Facebook buys Push Pop Press: Facebooks?

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Facebook has announced this week the purchase of Push Pop Press, a fact that raised eyebrows and posed questions about where is the company going next.

Push Pop Press, started by two former Apple employees, Mike Matas and Kinon Tsubteris, aimed to change how the future books will be read. They presented their innovation at a TED conference in  Sept. 2009  by using their first published book, Al Gore’s “Our Choice”. The book provides an interactive experience that has not yet been seen. You can read the book like a traditional book, flip pages in real time. You can tap on the pictures and they will enfold to a full screen, and pinch them down to size. You can watch the pictures turn into videos about what you read, photographed in the actual locations, and you can see statistical information. Not only that,  you can play interactive games with the book, by blowing on the screen to see how fast the wind turbines move in the picture. AND you can do it all instantaneously without waiting for it to download. The book, readable on iPad and iPhone won Apple’s Design Awards.

Now people are wondering what is up Facebook’s sleeve? Are they branching out to new business that is not social media? Are they planning to start making and publishing books? Selling them through their site and competing with Apple, Amazon and Google?

On Push Pop Press’s website it says: “Although Facebook isn’t planning to start publishing digital books, the ideas and technology behind Push Pop Press will be integrated with Facebook, giving people even richer ways to share their stories. With millions of people publishing to Facebook each day, we think it’s going to be a great home for Push Pop Press.”

Some experts say the move to buy the company’s technology might be linked to Facebook’s entertainment platform. After all, for years Facebook has been saying they are not only a social network but an entertainment distributor. Facebook has a very robust gaming platform with hundred of million of users playing video games. Earlier this year, Facebook has started testing streaming movies in partnership with WB.

Or it might be that the purchase was to swoop up the talented engineers behind the company who clearly understand the tablet market better than Facebook.

Be it as it may, the Push Pop Press team will cease publishing books but the Al Gore book is still available for sale on their site with the proceeding going to charity.

People are lamenting the loss of such an innovative idea, but I have a feeling we haven’t seen the end of it yet. Facebook, which was started in college and for college students, might have a plan to revolutionize future education, by working on the future of school textbooks. Electronic books which can be updated and improved without having to print any single copy.

And all the books a student needs, from kindergarten to post graduate, can be seen on one, easily carried, tablet.

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XY Do: Facebook buys e-book maker Push Pop Press Plans to Integrate its Tech

TripAdvisor: TripWow Provides Impressive Presentations for Many Uses

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When creating this product, TripAdvisor relied heavily on the in-house developers at TravelPod. Their main focus was to provide slideshows that displayed unparalleled production value. However, their most vital concern was that the tool provided the greatest functional ease possible with current technologies. It seems as if they have succeeded. The presentations produced by this software are amazingly vibrant, professionally presentable, and utterly impressive.

How to Use TripAdvisor – TripWow

To begin, users can choose from a variety of themes such as Family Vacation, Flying, Outdoors, Backpacking, Celebrations, Romantic, and more. Once the user has selected their theme, or skipped it altogether, their next option is one of the most shining aspects of this tool. Users can now retrieve their photos from Flickr, Facebook, Picasa, TravelPod, or their local computer.

Choosing the Facebook option to test its capabilities, forty-seven photos were uploaded in less than twenty seconds. Then it allowed the selection of photos individually, or by rows. The preview button makes this a fail-proof option in creating the perfect slideshow, as quickly as it can be done. To top it all off, you can now view your slideshow, make changes to it, and then download it to your machine or device. Users are even given a link where their slideshow will remain indefinitely.

Social Media Sharing

If the presentation itself isn’t impressive enough, and it is, than the quick one-click option to share your slideshow on Facebook, email it to your entire contact list, embed on your site, or to send it to other social networking sites like Myspace, Twitter, and over three-hundred and forty more social networking and aggregate sites.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAyKFuTO_ow&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL]

Open Options

Although TripAdvisor does target locations which allows for users to designate where their photos were snapped at, this doesn’t mean this tool has to be limited to sharing your family’s weekend road trip alone. Other uses could include:

  • Marketing Presentations
  • Training Slideshows
  • Travel Logging
  • Visual Campaign Management

There are certainly other options that could be helpful to many industries. A small business owner that owns a Roofing company could take photos of each roof they have completed, and build their highly professional and presentable slideshow to embed to their website.

Regardless of the business, most people will agree, seeing is believing. If your company makes a claim, and can provide visual proof of their integrity and workmanship, they are more likely to garner visitors from those websites that cannot.

Although many small business travel agencies have begun using TripAdvisor to advertise some of their greater destinations, no big names have picked up on this nifty tool as of yet. Considering the social media options and present-ability of their finished products, I would expect that to change in the very near future.

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Google AdWords: Call Metrics & Click to Call

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Since Dec. 2010, Google has allowed placement of phone numbers in AdWords text body.  Their rational was that most people seeing the ad know they are one click away from the advertiser’s site, where they can find all the information without bothering anyone. They thought people would be unlikely to call instead of clicking the mouse.

Others thought that displaying a local phone number, especially if it is  for location based services such as a dentist, have their own benefits.

Google realized they might be losing money, if people do call instead of clicking on the ad, so they’ve added Call Extensions. Those are types of ad extensions that allow advertisers to include additional information about their businesses and specials in their text ads. Call extensions works differently whether or not you’ve enabled Call Metrics.

Call metrics allows advertisers to track phone calls that come from the ad. This is done by generating a specific phone number for this specific ad. With the popularity of mobile gadgets there’s a growing benefit for advertisers to receive calls from mobile users. In this platform, calls generated, duration of the call and the area codes of the callers are noted so advertisers will have information about the location of the calls. The Call Metrics is free to use, but by setting it up the advertiser started paying for the calls as they did for the clicks.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIJ36uUxJBw]

There are metrics available to see how effective it is and how many people call instead of clicking. If you did enable Call Metrics, Google assigned a custom phone number to the ad and displays it on both desktop and mobile devices. Vanity numbers (which include letters and numbers) are also allowed.

But In July 2011, Google announced click-to-call enhancement in AdWords ads which will affect charges for the ad. All non-clickable numbers in the ads will be converted to a click-to-call numbers, and they will start to incur extra charges when the number is clicked.

If you didn’t enable Call Metrics, your phone number will appear as a clickable phone number for users of smartphones using Google search, voice search, Google mobile apps or Google maps.

If you are using Call Metrics, and you have a phone number in your ad text, only the newly clickable phone number in you ad text will show. That is done to reduce confusion for users not knowing which number to click.

If you would like your Call Extension number to display, you need to delete your phone number from your ad. You will receive an additional line of ad text. The phone number will still be displayed without the need to take up text space.

If you didn’t use Call Extension and you have a phone number in your ad, it will convert to click-to-call automatically. You don’t have to edit your ad to make the phone number clickable. But, if you want to maximize your ad space, you should consider using Call Extension  to free up more space. You will be charged for the calls either way.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88VTa0GfBiE]

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Is Google Plus (G+) the key in the transition to Web 3.0

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A Google account has become the most powerful tool that any entrepreneur or small business owner could ever hope for. While Google’s general public brand has been tied to Search, Google has been building a monopoly that can and will change the shape of business, politics, and education forever. In fact, Google is Web 3.0!

Google has many, many tools and products in its offering, most of which are free! If you have not taken the time to look around I suggest you spend a few minutes and start to familiarize yourself with them, they will save or make you A LOT OF MONEY!!!

Google recently made a few updates, but the top bar has been around for longer than most realize, it is in this bar that Google is writing the book on Web 3.0.

What is it that makes Google such a force? Why is Google Plus or G+ such a big deal?

As seen above, Google has captured the “cloud” era ahead of schedule. Without even looking at the advanced features or Google Apps, one can create and store documents on their google account, set appointments organize and share a calendar, find new information and search for products, solutions, books, or even watch a movie or a how to video.

Social Media has changed the way that people interact and use the web, in fact web 2.0 was all about social media. Websites, software and plug-in updates that allowed people to interact with one another and turned a one directional internet into a multi directional web. In web 2.0 not only can you talk back to the media or information source, you could share it or pass it around. The individual web user could claim the brand of a company for better or worse. Dell had individuals that were not related or employed by the company providing customer support in the forums, and Milton’s Scrabble lost thousands, arguably millions in its brand because two other developers claimed the brand in Facebook.

Web 3.0 has been branded the “cloud” era where information, both public and personal is stored on the world wide web and accessed via data plans, Wifi or traditional cable and dial up. This includes massive files for things like high definition media, entire company databases, etc. This is really not something that is new, just look at how startups like Patch Media use google to simulate a traditional IT infostructure or Saleforce.com to organize track and distribute leads, sales and work. With only one main hub in NYC, Patch Media delivers people and content without traditional overhead in over 800 communities around the United States.

Google Plus bridges the gap between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0

In Google Hangout people interact in a real time public space. Others now have to rethink how they look, speak and the body language or facial features that they use. (The innovative marketers and advertisers will need to think how to get a coke can on the desk during that hangout, how to get a new movie poster on the wall behind that person on the hangout etc.)

Google Hangouts has a game changing advantage for those that know how to present, speak and are truly genuine in public. Users should be aware that this new social tool is a lot like “Larry King Live” and you better be prepared for questions that you may not want to answer.

Google Plus has an A symmetrical sharing system, which means that we can send to others but not get a share in return. G+ from its creation allows users to separate professional and personal lives and even organize beyond the largest separation issue that has plagues social users. This interface along with many other features makes Google Plus the most advanced social media site/tool/software that has ever been created, but all that pales in comparison to why Google is so powerful in web 3.0.

If you are in a space where you are using social in a way that allows you to network and share both your personal life and professional life, what could be better than the Google suite of products? You can share and update documents in real time, video conference, make appointments, develop leads, search out information, shop and buy products, services and so on…

A small business now has an IT Dept. in one place. They can seek out support, generate leads, share reports, organize their schedule, promote their business with video, learn from other videos, advertise in Search, not to mention capture the power of social or viral activity. The digital business can now provide face to face support in a familiar environment something that many still crave.

A teacher or tutor can instruct a class or group from half way around the world, share documents, collect home work in real time. A educator or small college can now reach millions and take online learning into a space that captures the best of brick and mortar with distance learning once only done through text based posts.

A politician can capture and organize moral entrepreneurs, organizations and supporters from an account that brands who they are, what they are doing and interact with them with little or no technical experience or knowledge.

The shift in the world economy has come from millions of individuals competing with large corporations and brands that once held a monopoly on professional marketing, networking and talent. Thanks to a Google account you can now work with the best talent, develop a impressive network and generate a brand that is professional, technologically competitive and organized.

 

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