@BasilPuglisi

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

internet marketing

Publishing: A New E Book Revolution?

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Mike Matas: A next-generation digital book

The popularity of e books is undeniable. According to the BBC, the use of e books in the UK has quadrupled in 2010. What started with Amazon’s Kindle and continued with other publisher producing their own version, like Nook from Barnes and Noble, has gotten a tremendous push with the introduction of the iPad and the smartphone apps. Now you can have all your reading material on one portable device that can play videos as well.

Most of the e books still look like books, letters on a page, flipped with a drag of the finger, except the children’s books which have become somewhat interactive, as paper children books have been. Apparently it is easy for 3 year olds to figure out the interactive buttons on the iPad.

How about fully interactive books for adults? That is what Mike Matas presented at a TED conference in Long Beach, CA. in March 2011.  The young developer, who while at Apple, helped design the user interface and artwork of leading Apple products, has shown a demonstration of the first full length interactive book for the iPad.  The company he co-founded with Melcher Media, Push Pop Press, has presented a book called “Our Choice” by Al Gore, a sequel to “An inconvenient Truth”.

This is a book that takes advantage of everything today’s technology has to offer. It starts as a regular written page, with pictures. You can choose which page you want to see by scoring fast through the pages at the bottom. When you want to look closely at the pictures, you can pinch them out of their place and see them full screen. Then you pinch them down and put them back into the book.

The innovation continues when those pictures become narrated videos, which open and close instantly, without loading time. “Our Choice” has over one hour of documentary and interactive animation material throughout the book. Pinch it closed and put it back on the page, or keep it at the bottom for later view. All the photos are narrated as well. Some of them have interactive maps. And while it is playing you can scale it down and continue reading, you can zoom out and see where in the world the photo has been taken etc. You want to find more information about a statistic you read? Swipe right ahead to Google Earth and see how it will impacts different parts of the world, country by country. It has real interactive infographics, and an actual interaction that has been seen on the iPhone and iPad. When you blow on the side of the screen, it moves a wind turbine on screen that shows how much electri city is produced by the wind you are creating. In short – it makes the book come alive with all pertinent information about the subject, and a lot of interesting facts.

And the books are really portable. You can start reading at home on an iPad and continue where you left off on your iPhone, with all those wonderful features on a small screen.

Can you image how much fun reading and learning can be? Many smaller charter schools are already introducing tablets in their classrooms. How long will it be before the students backpacks will be thin and easy to carry?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV-RvzXGH2Y]

 

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Mobile Business: Have All Shoppers Gone High-Tech?

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No, likely not all of them, but a recent study has shown that shoppers are now regularly checking prices online before purchasing in-store. Aware that shoppers had been checking pricing on larger items online, such as appliances, furniture, or home improvement items for quite some time, it seems this has finally carried over to everyday items such as grocery prices or even deals at local restaurants before enjoying a night out.

Shoppers Interact with Retailers Via Social Networking Sites

Many shoppers and retailers report an increase in social interactions via Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites, that can lead to purchases later off-line. It seems shoppers have begun to utilize these methods far more often. It is actually quite a smart idea and seems to have swayed once again, more of the power over to the shoppers.

Consumers are actually doing a great job negotiating pricing on anything from shampoo to a new washer-dryer combo. They are achieving the incredible when it comes to getting the best they can for the money available to spend. So how are they doing this?

  • By visiting the social media sites for major or even smaller retailers to browse for specials.
  • By interacting with retailers or their representatives via social networks and suggesting lower prices, providing proof of lower prices elsewhere, or simply just negotiating a special deal for themselves.
  • By suggesting helpful tips to retailers from consumers point of views.

 This interaction has definitely proven beneficial to many shoppers and encouraged them to continue to negotiate purchases from the largest to the most insignificant.

How Did This Get Started?

It is truly a mystery exactly what caused this to become a more common occurrence but a few have made some great suggestions as to why.

  • Gas prices. Gas prices have gone haywire. While many consumers consider the cost in fuel that may occur when they have to price compare via physical footwork, they have taken to the internet to save on gas funds.
  • In-Store pricing deals. Many consumers utilize pricing deals in-store such as Wal-Mart’s price guarantee that says if a consumer can bring in another stores flyer, or a coupon targeted to a specific retailer, they will meet or beat that price. Some consumers rightly assume that if price guarantees are the name of the game, the game applies everywhere. Seeking out better deals from other stores, to get better deals at their favorites has become far more common. 
  • Many may have simply headed to a retailers social media site in effort to stage the time-honored effort of saving time itself by pre-shopping for the best deals.

Interesting Shopper Statistics

There have definitely been some serious changes in the way consumers manage their shopping needs in the last few years.

  • There has been a 25% increase in price based shopping.
  • 62% of consumers report researching pricing online for the most basic items before they head to the store.
  • 80% of women admit to paying more attention to the prices on most things they buy.
  • 39% of shoppers research the prices of baby products before purchase.
  • 20% of shoppers report researching food and drink prices.
  • 33% of shoppers research their pet products prices before shopping in-store.

Online Shopping Statistics for 2011

  • 38% of consumers report purchasing online, up 5% from 2010.
  • 60% report carrying out more in-depth searches online before purchasing in-store, up from 52% in 2010.
  • 17% share that companies that provide social media interaction, or mobile applications for their stores do make price comparison shopping easier for them.

With sites like PriceGrabber, where consumers can set up alerts on pricing, even setting configurations to email or text message them when a price reaches a preset threshold, consumers are unlikely to forget that the entire retail world can be at their disposal when it comes to searching for, and finding the best deals available in the off-line shopping world.

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Who Are You?: A Life Balance & Social Media Practice

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Who Are You?: A Balanced Life & Social Media

A concept introduced at the #140Conf, Basil C. Puglisi believes that the engagement that takes place on the internet, specifically through Social Media, has identified an issue in our life balance. As a society in general we have become obsessed with objects and titles, social media has amplified this for some, if not almost all.

A Short Review:

Social Media is just another communication tool or stage. How we use this, in fact, should be no different than how we have socialized throughout history. However, this is both the problem and the opportunity.

Who are you? This is not only a great Social Media question but a great life question. I believe that some define their life by names, titles, employment and status, while others have a fuller more genuine approach to life.

How you answer this question may help define your life. If you answer with a name and a job title, function or status, then perhaps you are narrowing your life experiences and therefore in many cases, your social life and social media experience.

Social Media has a life lesson for us all, depending on the platform and how we use it, it may describe us better than we do ourselves. The key is in the balance to our message and the brevity with which we share it.

Social Media is a path with infinite crossings that move with life’s experiences. In many cases, when we get to know an individual in real life we are most bound to those that share similar interests and or experiences. While history is full of superficial affiliations based on money, power and title, one could argue that histories most influential people came from humble but genuine interactions. This is the experience that social media offers us, a chance to interact and learn from one another in real time.

If you think of Social Media Sites and Platforms as a communication tool, you find that each has its own purpose and in many cases its own crowds. Social Media is in fact a opportunity with which, “you get from it, what you put into it.” If you choose to talk only about work, you will find that the others you interact with will also be those that talk about work. If you are a mommy blogger then you will likely find that those you interact with will also be mommy or parent based engagements. If you choose to be a poster and only speak at people, then in turn you will find your connections limited to those that do the same.

Why Dating Sites are ahead of the Social Media Sites:

Treat Social Media as a genuine full experience, just like the one you want for yourself in real life.

Engage and be engaged, talk about what you do, how you do it, what your hobbies are, your education, family, issues surrounding your age, health concerns, vacations or lack of, your dreams and so on.

Many treat social media as if life was meant to be a secret! Life is something that happens all the time, you experience it just as everyone else does, secluding “who you are” will only hinder your ability to make genuine relationships and explore the power of people and humanity, in both its most tremendous aspirations and its disappointing moments.

Dating Sites have evolved to a science of compatibility, they are succeeding in their mission because they are not asking for a photo, name and job title only! Dating Sites want to know “who you are” with questions about everything from religion to sexual orientation. Social Media can learn from this practice and in fact, Facebook did by adding relationship status in its early development.

Who You Know:

It has been a long standing tradition that jobs and opportunities come from who you know, don’t risk not knowing or being known!

I once heard someone speak about how they didn’t want to know what restaurant that others liked, or where they had visited. Surprisingly, that same person today makes decisions on how to spend their money, where to go and who’s opinion counts based on those same topics. Social Media offers us shared experiences that provide insight to how we might experience something for ourselves, be it an event, location or product. If you do not share experiences and communicate, how can you learn or request advice without a basis for justifying or qualifying the response?

People want to work with people. The day and age of robots is behind us, if most business owners speak about wanting real life interactions with real people, then the hiring process is going to require a more in depth look to social media practices in order to find a fit for a community, function or career. If a resume only outlines education, past employment and is followed by a credit check, then you have absolutely nothing to work with as a hiring manager. The purpose of interviews have been to take a look into the personality of the potential candidate and how they behave. “Who are you” is the most distinguishing feature for employment fit. Will you interact with the team, clients, product/service in a way that will be efficient, positive and successful?

Social Media may have gotten its first distinguishing mark from drunk college kids on the cover of Facebook, or rants about customers and clients on Twitter, but the very transparency that has scorned some, is the path to relationship solutions in business. The law prevents companies from asking personal questions in an interview or during the hiring process, but yet companies and education institutions all have unofficial policies to “google” the candidate before hiring.

While some choose not to engage, I argue that this practice is already starting to hurt them. Social Media offers the chance to humanize and qualify the candidate. It allows people and businesses to learn, do they (candidate) really care about this? Do they interact and network like they presented? These can be the distinguishing factors in fit for employment, education and other opportunities. Unless there is something to hide, you should be who you are, this is a best practice for both you and the employer.

A Sustainable Practice: You as a Brand

The greatest part of being a genuine engager on social media comes from the fact that you are investing in you!

While the last decade has been full of amazing technology, platforms and software, none has had the potential to empower people more than Social Media. While some have engaged from business accounts and company profiles, others have taken the initiative to learn, write and speak for themselves. These people have created their own brand, a sustainable practice that allows them to seek employment as who they are. This combination of learning, networking and sharing has positioned them to be successful in any roll, be it one representing someone, something or themselves.

If you build a following and engage an audience, it is likely because you share common interest, values and/or experiences. This has value, it speaks to who you are and why someone would interact with you. It is this practice that has value both in employment and in entrepreneurism.

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Yext: Pay Per Action Advertising

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Combining Internet advertising and local businesses is what Yext is all about. The company, founded in 2006 and operating out of New York City, offers local advertising technology to local businesses in the form of Pay-Per-Action phone calls, Yext Rep, and Yext Tags – a way to highlight listing on local sites.

With a seed money of $25,000, and 2 rounds of funding, one in 2008 ($3.5 million) and another in 2009 ($25 million), the site was launched in its present configuration in Sep, 2009. The company earned $20 million on 2009, their first year of operation.

Poised to replace Yellow Pages with online ads that result in phone calls instead of clicks, each ad has a tracking number that allows the company’s software to analyze the information. When a business signs up with them, Yext places their ads across the internet in local directories and search engines. Each customer gets his own inbox for calls, a transcript of every call and a full audio file that can be played back. When certain keywords appear in the conversation (they use speech recognition software licensed from IBM), the customer gets charged for it. Marketing calls, wrong numbers, job seekers and calls from outside the agreed geographical area are put in a junk folder and are not charged.

Yext has MapQuest, Yelp and Citysearch on board. In order to combat Google Places, which can prioritize listing the way they see fit for $25 a month, Yext launched Tags, which allows them to highlight your business in the lists. They also offer Reputation Management which enables you to stay informed about your business’s online reputation from one spot.

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ICANN: Domain Dispute?

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The Following Article was published in response to a issue raised in with two Real Estate brands in the Hamptons. It is issues like these that are at the heart of this publication and its mission. “It is my hope that when someone isn’t sure about digital media or the information that has been presented to them, they can turn to this blog as a source to verify or self educate so that they can make better more informed decisions”.

Saunders to Give Back Two Domain Names to Non-Saunders Agents published in 27East.com

ICANN – Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

To reach another person or a company on the internet you have to type a name or a number as an address into your computer. This address has to be unique so computers can find each other. Who regulates it and decides on a uniform system? Who decides who owns what?

From the start there were a few known addresses called top level domain (TLD); .COM, .NET, .ORG, .EDU and endings which denote countries: .UK, .FR, .LI (Libya) or .IL (Israel).  These are called country code top level domains.

Up until September 1998, the United States Government completely controlled the system. The entity which supervised the internet was called IANA – Internet Assigned Numbers Authority.

As the internet grew and became more commercial and wide spread, the US control became increasingly untenable. The Clinton Administration was looking for a way to make the governance of the domain system global and free.  One option was to hand over control to the UN, and indeed the UN pushed to have that authority under its International Telecommunication’s Union, but the Clinton Administration decided to privatize the domain name governance. It did so to keep the web’s critical system away from political influence and stifling bureaucrats.

The ICANN – Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a non-profit corporation was established. It was commissioned to oversee a number of internet related issues; managing the internet protocol address, assigning regional internet registries for countries, maintaining registries of internet protocol identifiers, management of top level domain names space and introduction of new generic top-level domains. Their principles call for helping preserve the operational stability of the internet, promote competition, and have a broad representation of the global internet community.

ICANN is located in Marina Del Ray, California, and remains in the same building where it started at the University of Southern California. Jon Postel who thought about an entity like that and was set to be the first CTO, died unexpectedly at the age of 55 before he saw it come to life.

At present ICANN is managed by a board of directors, composed of six representatives of sub groups that deal with specific section of the ICANN charter. They are supported by 3 organizations: the Generic Names Supporting Organization who deals with policy regarding generic top level domain, the County Code Names Support Organization and the Address Supporting Organization who deals with policy on IP addresses. There are advisory committees on different subjects like risk, finance, global relationships, IANA and structural improvements.

ICANN doesn’t control content and it can’t stop spam. It does not deal with access to the internet.

ICANN holds public meetings rotated between continents to encourage global participation in its processes. The resolutions, reports, and minutes of meetings are published on the ICANN website. In September 2006, ICANN signed a new agreement with the US Department of Justice for another 5 years.

Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy

One task the ICANN was asked to do is ownership dispute resolution for generic top level domains. Together with the World Intellectual Property Organization it drafted a policy that is known as Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy. This policy attempts to provide a mechanism for a fast, cheap and reasonable resolution of domain name conflicts, avoiding the traditional court system and relying on arbitration. According to their policy a domain registrant agrees, when he signs the domain contract, to be bound by the resolution of the arbitration.

The UDRP currently applies to .BIZ, .COM, .INFO, .NAME, .NET and .ORG and some country code top-level domains.

A complaint has to establish 3 elements:

  1. The domain name is confusingly similar or identical to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has the right to.
  2. The registrant has no right or legitimate interest in the domain name.
  3. The registration was done in “bad faith”.

A single arbitrator or a panel of three arbitrators  will consider factors such as whether the domain was registered in order to be resold, rented or transferred to the owner of the trademark; whether the domain name was registered to prevent the owner from  registering corresponding domain name, whether it was registered primarily for the purpose of disrupting a competitor or whether, by using the domain name, the registrant attempted to attract internet users for commercial gain, creating a likelihood or confusion.

Those services come at a price; from $1,500 for a single arbitrator to $5,000 for a panel. A very long list of the disputes brought to them is published on their wesite.

Much of the published arbitration has to do with famous cases: Madonna v. Dan Parisi who registered the domains MadonnaCiccone.com and Madonna.com. He was ordered to turn over the domain names to Madonna.

Robert de Niro claimed ownership for all domain names that include the word Tribeca plus any content related to the film festival. His dispute was with a domain called Tribeca.net. Rihanna.com came up for sale and the legal team of the singer filed a UDRP. Other famous arbitrations were conducted regarding ElitrModels.com, WWF.com and AirDeccan.com. All the information about procedures and timelines can be found here: http://www.icann.org/en/udrp/udrp.htm

There are other entities approved by ICANN which provide UDRP services: World Intellectual Property Organization, National Arbitration Forum, Asian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Centre and the Czech Arbitration Court Arbitration Center for Internet Disputes.

All their sites detail the procedures, timelines and prices.

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Tumblr Becomes More Sociable with Launch of the New Share Button

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The publishing platform known as Tumblr has officially joined the social networking class of tools alongside more popular Facebook and Twitter options. While the Tumblr button is very similar to other bookmarking buttons offered by a large variety of services, it does offer a significantly more advanced options for the display posted.

Customized Tumblr Display Flexibility

Tumblr developers have provided a short set of coding that is easily copy-pasted into any content that you would like to promote through their micro-blogging service. The difference is in the results. The new Tumblr button gives users total authority over how their content is displayed when shared via Tumbler.

Users can decide if their link appears as:

  • Videos
  • Links
  • Quotes
  • Photos

Further user customization includes attributions, pre-filled descriptions, and even specific selections of text if desired. Buttons can meet configuration standards for Ruby, JavaScript, or PHP.

Add the Tumblr Share Button Bookmarklet

Head to the Tumblr website and log into your account. Go to the Goodies Section, and you will see the new Tumblr share button. Drag it over to your toolbar. Now each time you see an interesting item worth linking, just click on the Tumblr bookmarklet and publish it.

Tumblr Improvements

The Tumblr site is undeniably showing improvements in GUI as well as functionality. Customization options give users immense control over how their shared content is displayed, even offering an improvement in blogging systems.

Tumblr Users

Tumblr’s site has achieved an overall traffic ranking of 50 on Alexa, with a US traffic ranking of 25. Users do show an extended amount of time at around seven minutes. Predominantly users tend to be childless females between the ages of 18 and 34 who enjoy browsing Tumblr’s site from work or college.

Overall improvements of the Tumblr site including the social bookmark sharing tool addition is likely to bring Tumblr just what they were looking for with this upgrade, an increased share of social bookmarking users who enjoy and benefit from their available services.

 

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TweetStats Real-Time Twitter Statistics

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There seems to be an entire industry devoted to creating Twitter tools. Some are highly effective and worth the few moments it may take to register or login to their respective systems. Others tend to make a quick debut, likely via Twitter or another social media, and then quickly fade into the background as a victim of not enough features, or too complicated or spammy of a registration process.

With so many social media marketers standing up to take notice of every rise and dip in statistics, many may use a variety of tools to gauge how their marketing efforts may be influencing their brand awareness and subsequent sales.

There Be Fairies Furnishing ur XML

Along with a rather unique loading message, TweetStats supplies one of the first third-party Twitter applications to those who wish to find out basic statistics about their account including:

  • Tweets per month
  • Tweets per selected day
  • Tweet density
  • Aggregate hourly and daily tweets
  • Interface statistics

Users can even check out their Tweet Clouds to see which words are most frequently used by them or in reply to users tweets.

Monitor the TweetStats of Other Users

TweetStats can also be used to monitor the status of other Twitter accounts as well. Users can check on the stats of their favorite brands, closest competitors, and up-and-coming companies they may have an interest in.  It can be used as a highly effective tool for those who may want a birds-eye view of their toughest rivals’ social media campaigns.

Who Uses TweetStats?

Alexa says most users spend around a minute on page views and around four minutes on site examining their Twitter statistics. With a page rank of 14,884 in the U.S. statistics show that most users are Hispanic, highly educated, childless females, ages 25 – 34 who tend to browse from work. An unusual stat for TweetStats shows that in the city of Königstein, Germany, TweetStats page ranking is at #31. Lifetime TweetStats statistics show a lifetime steady growth in popularity for this social media tool.

FEATURED USERS!!!

This is an impressive affordable way to increase your twitter followers, it uses banner advertising on the tweetstats site to allow you do twitter follwer advertising for as little as $40. The system will generat an impression count, a banner from your twitter account and then pay with Credit Card or PayPal and your campaign is underway. This is a wonderful little feature that can help you increase your twitter followers and because it’s tied to tweet stats, you can count onthe fact that they are quality followers.


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Main Stream Social Media: Foursquare, Twitter and the NYC Mayor

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If you needed proof to how much social media is becoming the mainstream media, here’s a little tale:

Mayor Bloomberg, of New York City, made April 16 the official “Foursquare Day” in the city of New York.

Foursquare.com, a location based application that offers its subscribers the ability to “check in” through their smartphones and text messages, into an establishment to tell their friends where they are at the moment. By doing so users get prizes, collect virtual badges and redeem them for free stuff. They can also meet other users whom they don’t personally know but are at the location at the same time, and, as they say, let serendipity take its course. Foursquare has more than 8 million users.

So Mayor Bloomberg visited the Manhattan office of Foursquare, a social media platform, and made a proclamation through Twitter: “I’ve officially declared 4/16 @Foursquare Day in NYC #4sqday,” he tweeted and posted on Facebook as well. Together he reached at least 100,000 followers (70,680 on Twitter and 30,660 on Facebook).

Why this date? 4/16 – four squared. And the company is trying to get other cities around the world to declare it so for next year.

What a way for a mayor to boost his city’s economy.

A day later we learned the results: 3 million people checked -in in New York City alone and a lot of activity in charities they support. Foursquare events collected food, donated money to Japan disaster victims, supported the Red Cross, Humane society and more. On their blog they write “We love the fact that 4sqday helped contribute to these causes in a spontaneous, grassroots way” Mayor Bloomberg.

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Mobile Advertising is Expected to Reach 5B in 2015

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Whether you are aware of it or not, the iPad and its clones have created a revolution. They are changing the using habits of computer users. Tablets are expected to outsell desktop computers as soon as the end of this year. Coupled with the rapid rise of smartphone sales, it can potentially result in millions upon millions of additional mobile searches, sites visits and transactions done on mobile devices.

Google’s dominance is still grabbing most of the internet advertising dollars. But with over 100,000 apps and growing, even Google is trying to get a foot in the door of the applications market. Google is also doing some very interesting research on the user habits of mobile connectivity.

Google reported that display ads on Youtube increased by 50% from 2009 to 2010, selling 2 billion views per week. It is well known that Youtube is one of the most accessible and viewed mobile app.

At the end of 2010, Google surveyed 5,000 US adult users of smartphones and published some interesting statistics:

–          Activity on smartphones:

  • 81% said they use it for browsing
  • 77% did a general search. General search includes general information, search for local establishments and specific retail information
  • 68% were using different apps and
  • 48% use it for video viewing

–          Search patterns:

Action orients searches: The first on the list are the big search engines. The next most visited sites are the social media sites, after that comes retail and video content. It’s amazing to find that 90% of respondents indicated that their search resulted in direct action. One in four recommended a product to others as a result of a search.

Local information: 95% of users said they use their smartphone to locate local establishments. 88% of those follow it with action within a day. 75% say they contact an establishment as a result of the search, 61% made a phone call and 59% physically traveled to the business.

Purchase driven searches: 80% said they use their smartphone to assist them in shopping, in activities such as looking up competitive pricings. 75% of those end up making a purchase in the store.

That is why the U.S. is expected to grow to $5 billion spent on mobile advertising by 2015, according to research done by Smaato/mobileSquard. They point out that more than half of smartphone users in the U.S. did not yet see an ad on their phones yet – that is approximately 160 million users in the United States alone. Of those who did see an ad, 59% clicked but didn’t buy, 16% clicked and completed the purchase on a computer and 25% clicked and made a purchase. With the growing popularity of tablets and smartphones these number have a lot of room to grow.

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How Online Customer Preferences and Feedback Has Changed

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It has only been a couple of years since integrated log-ins began to creep into our everyday tasks online. Although it began on a smaller scale, such as the 2008 integration of Yahoo and Google ID’s with Zoho, from this small test in integration preferences, an entirely new beast grew.

Logging in via third party is no longer a delightful surprise in most cases, indeed, the lack of integrated log in can actually deter visitors from signing up, or logging into your site, especially when there are like options elsewhere that have the nifty one-click integration option. This type of log in integration is referred to as a type of social log-in service. Although Google came out strongly by quickly adding early integration for all of their available applications, it seems that the wind in Google’s social log-in services sails may have shifted.

Facebook Takes the Lead

Janrain, a web company that tracks social web data, states that since the first time they began reporting on these statistics in January 2010, Google has been overtaken. During the first quarter of 2011, 35% of users chose to use Facebook as a log-in option over all others. In the last quarter of 2010, the number hung around 27%.

However, this may not be indicative of overall users. When given the option on 350,000 different sites, users will choose not to integrate their Facebook account, but will choose other methods, or manual log-in instead, at a rate of 65%.

How is This Changing the Consumer Voice for Business

It may be difficult to determine who benefits the most, even though this new aspect of social media marketing seems to have perks for all. Social log-ins are appealing to businesses as they can help to personalize content, interactions, and brand awareness. Social log-ins are an attractive option for users who seem to love the feel of interacting with those of whom they make regular, or significant purchases from.

While Urban city guide sites like Yelp give consumers the ability to review products or services of any company on site, it seems most users these days prefer to simply Facebook ‘Like’ a fan page to show their loyalty to brands they enjoy, as well as to gain benefit by keeping more up-to-date on sales, or enjoy social chatter on the latest in the industry.

A recent study showed that while 20% of people claim they prefer to click a Facebook Fan pages ‘Like’ button to show their preference for local businesses, only 13% report being willing to write a review for the same business.

Turning the Tide

Although this may indeed turn the tide a bit on how users will begin to review local businesses, this is certainly not now nor likely to be the end all spot to find all of the pertinent information that users may be searching for.

The same study also showed that 52% of adult users under 35 will still check three or more websites when researching products or services locally or online. The main site still searched is Google at 63%.

At this point, the type of business will still rank high on the users list of what sites need to be searched. While those considering larger purchases may prefer the interaction that Facebook provides, users who may just want to check out how good a restaurants’ dishes are may still prefer the detailed review style of Yelp.

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