@BasilPuglisi

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

Social Media Social Brand Visibility

Tumblr VS WordPress

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According to statistic reports, as of January 2011, the 4 year old site Tumblr.com has 20,873,182 users. For the same period WordPress.com, the older site (by 4 years), announced they have 20,787,904 websites powered by wordPress.com

This is the first time anybody overtook WordPress.com, and it became kind of big news among the blogosphere. To set the record straight, it is important to note that WoldPress.com numbers do not include the open sourced blog platform WoldPress.org, where people have websites they host themselves. The comparison is between the two hosting blog platforms only.

Still, it is clear that many individuals have been signing with Tumblr more than they have been signing with WordPress.com. Which one is better? Well, that depends on why you want a site or a blog and what you want to include in it.

What do they have in common?

  • Both are free.
  • Each site has free themes which can be easily installed.
  • Both can be customized.
  • Both can be updated from any computer or device that has internet connection.
  • Both allow you to name your page the way you choose.
  • Both are well known and popular, with good reputation.
  • Both have export capabilities. If you want to move your site, you can.
  • Both allow importing content from other content management systems.

Tumblr

Ease of use –

  • No installation or configuration of the program on your computer is needed.
  • User friendly dashboard
  • Easy upload of multimedia files
  • Custom designs (which do require payment) are cheaper on Tumblr than on WordPress
  • Easy to update from a mobile device
  • Has a built in community functions that allows following like-minded bloggers, reblogging what they wrote and “liking” it, which makes Tumblr a more community oriented site.

Functionality –

  • The server cannot be controlled by the user; it has to be hosted by the site. However, you can use a unique url that does not include .tumblr at the end.
  • The user has complete control over the content and can move his site or blog to another platform.

Design and customization

  • Has one basic layout and it must be applied to every page on the site. They now added page support to make the navigation between pages much easier.
  • Supports only 3rd party calendars and contacts, but it requires knowledge in coding.

Social Integration –

  • Built in. You can post and link to twitter automatically. You can also connect it to your Facebook page.

WordPress

Ease of use –

  • Downloading their program is necessary, but it offers many more options and settings.
  • The design and functionality of the page is more cumbersome and requires some learning.
  • Allows multiple pages, download of plug-ins, widgets and sidebars.

Functionality –

  • With WordPress.com the user has to use their server.  WordPress.org supports sites hosted by another server.
  • The site can be easily expanded to replace the current site.
  • People who have not designed the site but have administrative rights can post on the site without much effort.

Design and customization –

  • Many page layout options.
  • Ability to use different layouts for different pages.
  • Allows including native calendars and contact forms.

Social integration –

  • Can be done with the help of plug-ins.
  • WordPress.com has publisize allowing for sharing with Facebook Pages, Twitter, Yahoo, etc..

The ongoing consensus among experts is that Tumblr is more user friendly, fun and easy to blog. Its design is slick and simple, modern and big. It is geared more toward pictures and media than WordPress.

Both can be customized but WordPress is more extensive and flexible. If you don’t need an extensive e commerce site with forms, listings, heavy content and advertising, Tumblr is simpler.

But the biggest difference is in the ease of social integration on Tumblr that is built in, while it has to be added to WordPress.com with different plug-ins. Tumblr functions as a cross between a website and a Facebook profile, while WordPress is more dry and functional.

Some companies in entertainment, news and fashion have blogs through Tumblr. The Washington Post Innovations, Newsweek, The Huffington Post and Rolling Stones are some examples. Musicians and photographer seem to flock to Tumblr as well.

WordPress.com hosts sites of top brands like CNN, National football league and TED.

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Social Media for the Big Business Boys: DELL, IBM, Coca-Cola

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While in recent days small businesses have found themselves caught up in the world of social media and the prospects it can bring directly to their products or services, big business certainly has a brief history of their own in utilizing social media formats for marketing purposes.

So which companies are utilizing social medias these days and just how are they managing their social media campaigns?

Computer manufacturing giant, Dell, utilizes social medias such as in the virtual word, Second Life, for customer engagement. Second Life users can visit Dell Island to check out their latest products. Their blog, Direct2Dell regularly generates over 3.5 million views per month. Along with nine of their official internal blogs, there are literally hundreds of departmental blogs that are available in six different languages.

Dell’s Ideastorm allows their users to either suggest or vote on current ideas encouraging social media interaction. Further encouragement comes from internal Dell developers who do utilize the suggestions made by users for future upgrades.

Dell currently has over 22 corporate accounts on Twitter as well as more than seventeen individuals who currently use their name @dell handles.

IBM, the first large corporation to encourage employee blogging now has literally thousands of blogs, 125 of them corporate blogs, that are directly related to just about every aspect of their business. They host their own forums for interaction and discovery, as well as Podcasting from a place called  developerWorks and Social Networking Now.

With their own ((S3N)) Team on Twitter and Rational Heroes community space they have dove into the social media frenzy with both digital feet.

IBM also supports Meet Mr. Fong on YouTube and machinima videos. The Virtual 3D world, Second Life, even houses the  Rational Software Conference/Hipihi and IBM Business Center.

Coca-Cola who has rarely spared any expense in advertising has certainly taken advantage of all aspects of social media marketing in recent years.

They have their own blog support at Coca-Cola Conversations for discussions on the company’s history, support for online video such as Diet Coke + Mentos or Cans Professional 3. 

They also have their own social networks in CokeTag Facebook applications and Sprite Sips. And as the others do, they also have their own spot in the digital 3D world known as Second Life, called  Virtual Thirst.

Although there certainly is no shortage of companies that are utilizing social media in their marketing campaigns, not all will be able to have the reach as other larger corporations such as those here. However, with little effort and a bit of dedicated time even the smallest business can build a social media fan base that will directly benefit their bottom line.

 

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EmpireAvenue: Social Networking or Social Training?

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EmpireAvenue is classified as a social network service site which is quite an understatement. Launched in July of 2010, this site resembles a stock marketing simulation game. Users are allowed to buy and sell shares of other users and their websites.

Alexa’s global ranking for EmpireAvenue is #15,209. Currrently statistics show that a disproportionate amount of users are childless, lower-income men under age 45 who do most of their browsing from work. The site is most popular in the U.S. as well as in Norway where it ranks at #705 with Alexa.

One more site with Facebook sign-in integration, getting logged on to begin using EmpireAvenue takes only a matter of moments.  Once in, fill in your profile detail, link up your other social media accounts and you are ready to begin trading.

Playing the “Game”

Highly customizable, EmpireAvenue allows users to set their interest, which in essence, are the same keywords and phrases you have used on your other social media sites to attract like-minded users. Once you have those set you will likely begin to see others buy shares of you.

Each player has their own portfolio in this created virtual economy. Users can increase their virtual worth by participating in the game as well as by building networking relationships with other users, as well as by interaction on integrated social media sites.

As you move along and buy shares of others, you will also see a ticker just like the NYSE bar that floats near the top of your screen. You can easily keep up with your shares of other users and their progress. The money on this system is referred to as Eaves, and although you begin with plenty, around 7 to 9k depending on how many social medias you integrate, you can also earn them or purchase them when they run low.

What Can This Do For Your Small Business?

The quick answer is that it is truly a gamers world, even those who have not spent years of their childhood immersed in anything and everything video game, have quickly flocked to massive social media games such as those found on Facebook. Since its beginning rankings show this site has steadily climbed in user numbers and participants.

A large part of personal branding requires consumers to get familiar with your product, service and you. Interacting with prospective clients or buyers in this manner can certainly increase your web presence, as well as increasing other users trust in you and your products or services.

Once your EmpireAvenue account begins to become more profitable this too can reflect on how driven you are as a business owner to succeed. In addition to that note, once your own account begins to gain recognition, you may have broken through the social media world as a serious competitor.

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Google Search goes social with +1

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While Google may cover around thirteen percent of US display in online advertising marketing, Facebook may garner around twenty-two percent. Not surprisingly, it seems like Google has decided they actually do like the way Facebook allows users to share their interest, recommendations and ideas. So they have now added their own method of ‘liking’ or upvoting favored websites and other content. This method for helping to endorse chosen content and search results gives Googlers just one more way to endorse the products and services they enjoy.

Along with the recent algorithm change, Google execs say this is just one more way that they are heading off the pass between low-quality and irrelevant search engines results to see that their search engine queries cultivate the most useful and helpful websites that pertain to a users search results, and as quickly as possible. 

The Google Experiment

Testing out this new method for yourself is incredibly easy. Just make sure you are logged into your Google account and head to their experimental search page. Select Join this Experiment, and it is on.  If you are already participating in a Google experiment you will need to select the leave option on the current one to join the +1 experience. Now head to Google search and type in a search query. Once your search results appear, next to the title of the page will be a small, mostly blue edged box with a faint +1. Once clicked, the box will now display as solid blue and a text display just under the title will now show that you publicly +1’d a site.

Now those in your Google network only will also be able to see the sites that you have shown your +1 interest in. Additionally, if your friends have been there before you, and +1’d the same link, this will show up as well. Your Google account profile will also save a list of any site you +1 to your account details. For those who utilize their Google and Gmail accounts regularly, this could be a quite helpful tool for saving any site they may have a particular affinity for.

Pros and Cons of Up-Voting

Although for now, the results of +1’s will only be displayed publicly to those in your network, as well as a select random few public +1 voters, it may also be likely that if results from the experiment are positive, a global public will probably be next in their sights.

It is yet to be seen if having ‘friends in high places’ or highly reputable +1’s will make any difference, but it seems highly likely that if Google Labs does take this experiment to the global public, that having top-notch and highly reputable +1 friends could certainly make a huge difference in a web sites own popularity.

With the internet commerce of all types having such a large crowd of competitors this could certainly prove helpful on the local fronts rather quickly. Search engine queries for local businesses will, of course, display far fewer results then queries on a statewide, national or global scale. With far fewer competitors, favored local businesses will likely be quickly noticeable.

While up-voting may in fact give smaller businesses a shot at more public recognition, it may also leave another slot open for SEO tricksters and black-hat marketers to once again send to the top of the +1 pile those with enough resources and techniques to gain those +’s in perhaps not so organic manners.

Google Goes Social

Although quite an attempt was made at sending Google openly into the social media world with the inception of their Google Buzz system, it has had seemingly little effect or impact in the social media marketing world.

Google does plan to integrate their +1 system with Twitter as well, which will add another huge aspect of socially marketing and bookmarking to a users basic browser search results.

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Immediate Impact

Although Google has used social media interactions for years in its search engine displayed results, they seem to have definitely monitored and watched for important signals and statistics to give their regular users the ability to help promote more product-centric marketing.

By 4:00pm yesterday, even though shares had fallen by 2% this year, Google had risen by 11 cents to $581.84 per share on the Nasdaq.

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Foursquare – Location Marketing and Check-in Technology

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Although the knowledge of location marketing may be old news to some, to those who are just tuning into the usage of Smartphones and as well as other advanced mobile digital equipment, it may be an entirely new concept to others.

I did an article about FourSquare a few months ago, but in review I thought it be useful to take a bigger step back and reevalute this so new visitors could see a better picture, or blog! (Original Blog Entry – Promotional Social Interactive – FourSquare)

Simple Concept?

It is indeed as simple as it sounds. Location marketing is marketing that is targeted to people based solely on their geographic location. With GPS available on Smartphones, this type of marketing is not only much more realistic, but much more lucrative. With the huge influx of Smartphones and other similar mobile devices, location sharing services seem to be drawing a large crowd.

Foursquare was quite possibly the first location marketing and sharing service to succeed. With Foursquare, Smartphone users can check in with nearby friends and family as well as take advantage of possible discounts from other Foursquare members in the area. With a unique rewards system that encourages users to take advantage of its features, it seems to have no trouble keeping many users rapt.

Who is Taking Advantage of Foursquare?

Although there are certainly specific demographics, usage can also vary depending on aspects of each locale. The statistical answer is that only around 4% of web users were utilizing the location-sharing services available to them, however, this still amounts to around 38.9 million people, certainly no small market. It is predicted that location-sharing services are expected to double between the years of 2010 and 2015.

Currently primary users are mostly younger men who use it to check in all around town to some of their favorite places, or with their favorite people. Over 70% of reporting male internet users between 18 and 34 say they have previously or currently use their location-sharing services capabilities. Females around the same ages report about a 64% usage of the same services.

Foursquare Highlights

The lady hunter. Wheretheladies.at uses Foursquare to do one simple thing, locate the ladies in the locale. Foursquare will actually retrieve public data from locations nearby and direct you towards the one with the highest density of ladies. Talking about tracking down the ladies! However, I think this is just technologically advanced enough to be considered unique and cool, and not stalky and worrisome.

  • National Foursquared?

The National Archives and Records Administration has been Foresquared. You can now check in at the George W. Bush library with Foursquare. You can now say you have step foot into the place where all former presidents have deposited some of the most important papers and archives associated with their terms. The claim is that by joining Foursquare with the National Archives, social medias can help to invite users to learn more about their nations history.

  • Check into Dinner

While McDonalds and Dominos have reported relatively good check in responses, there has been no real measure taken of just how good, and why it mattered. Even these corporate giants have no idea how many additional people, or extra sales the check in offer even generates.

  • The Best Check in Ever, The Big Game

The Superbowl has Foursquared itself too. On the recent Superbowl they created a special Foursquare badge that has fans checking in and being given a code that can be redeemed at NFL shops for up to 20% off of their merchandise.

  • Foursquare My School

Syracuse University became the third school to gain its own badge that users were able to unlock by checking in. Harvard and Stanford Universities also have their own badges as well.

There is no doubt that this kind of marketing capability could mean endless possibilities, and an endless flow of people in your area looking for your own products or services. It seems like it is just a matter of technology in mobile devices becoming more common in worldwide users, that may be preventing Foursquare from turning into a widespread GPS type of service that only directs us to where we actually want to go.

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Basil C. Puglisi to present for SMC part of Social Media Week 2011.

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Feb 7, 2011 marks the beginning of Social Media Week 2011 in New York City, and as with every great week of events one organization sets itself apart from the rest.

Social Media Club is excited to be hosting Social Media Camp during Social Media Week NY 2011.

The event is open to people who work with small businesses, job seekers, and even those people in bigger businesses who do marketing and communications. We hope all of these people will come together to learn from each other.  Everyone who attends is a participant and hopefully a teacher too.

Basil Puglisi is joined by Amy Vernon of Blue Glass Interactive and Mardy Sitzer of Bumblebee Design & Marketing. The group will be facilitating the “Content is King…” session at 10:30am on Feb 9, 2011 at the Roger Smith Hotel.

The Session will examine how content is developed, executed and managed in the digital world of Social Media, as well as other digital medias. The session will look at how content is organized and tips for protecting your content while going viral. Expect this event to be fast passed and exciting as all three presenters have a rich history with Social Media including extensive blogging.

Basil C. Puglisi runs the blog Digital Media Marketing Educator which can be found at basilpuglisi.info or brandmarketingeducator.com. The blog looks at Digital Brand Management and how companies, organizations and individuals can maintain a proactive approach to brand through original content.

Internet Marketing: Watch out, get educated and be an informed consumer!

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University of San Francisco is offering Certificates, and Master Certificates in Internet Marketing, but beware of the rookies trying to sell you, or teach you about what they themselves barely seem to know.

If you find the advertisement on Facebook it seems to lead you to the website usanfranonline.com, however it opens up like any other early year 2000 capture website. It looks to convince you that they are the source for internet marketing, however the website and brand presentation fail on the most basic level. Once you spend a few minutes looking around and realize that nothing is interactive (with exception to the video) you start to get the feeling you landed on an infomercial (and you kinda did).

The video featuring Joe Laratro is the hardest thing I have ever had to watch, here is a individual that is mildly known for being an internet marketing source dragging through one of the worst video pitches . What’s so bad about it? Well in case you didn’t fall asleep yourself, let’s look at how it failed.

  • Video Length: 3:30 Seconds

Well if you can keep them that long, then great.  Unfortunately for most an initial pitch might want to meet the industry standard of 60 seconds.

  • Background: Blurry fake back drop, of what one can assume is San Francisco

Video Media is Social Media, how about a real shot of the San Fran Campus, perhaps a real scene which helps deliver the real feel to what’s going on. This next one really hammers home our point.

  • Message: Speech? Joe is reading off a teleprompt at best! What is worse he is doing a bad job of it, his eyes and facial expressions make me want to cry for him. Let’s try genuine, you know the most important part of Social Media and Internet Marketing back in 2009 till now!

Does Joe Laratro not know enough about what you’re talking about to have real pitch to the camera? If this doesn’t come second nature to him, then he shouldn’t be doing this!

If you are going to do this, let’s get a video shot in documentary style and have him talk to the side angle as if you where addressing someone in the room.

Summary:

While I am sure that Joe Laratro knows something about internet marketing, it’s a lot like watching a newspaper try to launch their first website, cumbersome at best. In this case, it is possible that their program could teach you something, and it better if it’s endorsed by USF. When you visit their main website, it at the very least shows signs of branding and web development that are only few years outdated (i.e. they have social bookmarks at the very bottom of the site, but nothing that allows you to see and interact with what they are doing with the most basic tools in twitter or facebook.

It’s great that someone in academia is trying to get into the digital world of internet marketing, just wish they had learned how to do it for themselves before trying to teach others.

Consumer and Business Lesson:

Do your homework, don’t take anything at face value, while the website may seem impressive even if it does show signs of Social Media and modern internet marketing, dig deeper and find out how they are using it so you are at least prequalifying them before tossing your money away.

In the end this is about protecting your brand, seeing the big picture and looking beyond the fact that the tool works. SEO doesn’t sell anything, SEO or Social Media create exposure which will lead to websites and calls. You have to make sure during execution that the brand image is consistent and shows value to meet a need.

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Sidenote: While this may seem personal, I have never met Joe Laratro or attended any of his meetings. I was drawn to this publically available media based on two concerns.

First, There are many people who have jumped out of the woodworks claiming to be SEO or Social Media experts and business owners should be aware of the most basic tools to determine if someone is credible.

Second, I spent years in student affairs and hold a Bachelors and Masters from Accredited Universities. I  have also studied online with Capella University and Walden University for Doctoral Level classes. I believe in online learning as a tool and when you toss together a program as vague and questionable as USF has here it makes all future programs and online degrees look bad.

***Note my upcoming book will look at this in detail***

How to Protect Your Digital Brand Online

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One of the first things the small or large business manager needs to learn is how to protect your digital brand online. Your digital brand is comprised of everything that is online about you so it is important to know what is already there before going any further.

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Damage Control

One of the easiest things to do is to go to a search engine such as Google and perform a search for your name. Googling yourself will give you a good place to start if you need to do some housekeeping on the web. You may be surprised at what you find and see the need to start performing some damage control.

Social networking is the way many people communicate these days and almost everyone has or has had a Facebook or MySpace account possibly beginning in their college days. If these sites do not project you or the brand that you represent in the way that you would like to be perceived, either clean up the site or take it down. Be aware that traces may remain on your friends’ pages.

Don’t Forget About the Good Old Days!

Go back through old history that you may have forgotten and delete comments and pictures that project you in a less than favorable light. You may still appear on your friends pages so if there is something particularly bad, contact your friend and ask them to remove it for you.

Training to Protect Your Digital Brand

When setting up social networking sites for your business, it is important that the people responsible for setting up these accounts realize their possible impact on the digital brand. Twitter can be one of the worst offenders as many business rush to have a brand presence on Twitter. An untrained employee can cause irreparable damage by tweeting unprofessional comments that may poorly reflect on the digital brand.

If you find untrue content on the web that is unflattering to your brand, you can ask the webmaster of the site to remove it. Many will do that just to avoid any possible legal consequences. Depending on your circumstances you may want to check the web for fake sites that are plagiarizing your content or products that can affect how people see your brand. The important thing is to stay informed so you can perform damage control.

Create a Positive Online Image

An online presence is a must for a brand to be successful in today’s competitive marketplace. A positive impact from your digital brand can be expected if you stay on top of the situation and take control. Make sure there are many positive images of your digital brand online which also helps bury any bad content that may exist.

Make sure that those who are trusted with the responsibility of maintaining these social networks are aware of the language, tone, and values that you want your digital brand to project. This is how to protect your digital brand online and make it work for you.

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What is Groupon? How Does it work?

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Groupon – a deal a day website, brings buyers and sellers together through a web and mobile application that offers the customers a great deal, while businesses get a large number of new customers.

Groupon Picture

The idea behind it is the power of group buying. The deal Groupon does with businesses specifies a minimum number of buyers. If enough people sign up, the deal will become active. If less than this minimum of people sign up, the deal is canceled. This way, businesses can offer great deals because they rely on valium.

The company offers one deal per day per a certain geographic location. It doesn’t cost the merchant a thing, but he has to share in the profits with Groupon. There are certain businesses that Groupon is staying away from; shooting ranges, abortion clinics, plastic surgeons and strip clubs, top their list.

The company sends scouts to different cities to research the businesses, and when they identify the potential, salespeople approach the business. By helping shoppers save while letting local businesses advertise, Groupon seems to have tapped into the intersection of the internet’s social media and physical shopping.

An example – 1,600 people in one day bought skydiving lessons in Chicago, getting a 44% discount on the $229 price. The company making the offer normally sells 6,000 lessons per year.  On one day they got 25% of their yearly business. They sacrificed some profit, but got lots of new customers.

And it sure feels like they hit a nerve. Groupon’s spectacular rise since 2008 turned meteoric in 2010. What started in Chicago with the first deal – half price off pizza in the building where their office was located – turned within a few short years into an amazing success. Groupon has expanded to 35 countries, growing their subscriber base by 2,500%, from 2 million to over 50 million.

With the sign of this huge success came attempts to buy them out. In October Yahoo was rumored to try and buy Groupon for $3 billion. A month later, Google offered $5.3 billion. Google was rejected in December 2010.

They now have a few competitors:  LivingSocial, Group Swoop and Scoop Street have tried to cash in, as have social networks like Facebook, with Places, and Foursquare, with Deals.

The main market of Groupon is composed of young, educated women. Deals are often focused on health, fitness and beauty.

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Social Brand Visibility: Connotea (Great Academic Tool)

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Connotea has been in operation since 2004, but is not widely known because it caters mainly to scientists, researchers and clinicians’ communities. It is a free management service; it is a social network bookmarking service, similar to del.icio.us where users can save links to their favorite sites.

Although it is aimed primarily for the scientific community, it is growing among other academic disciplines; it incorporates special functions for academic resources.

Connotea is linked to a number of scientific sites and collects metadata for the page or article being bookmarked, including author and publication information. When saving a page to Connotea, users tag the articles with keywords of their choice so they can retrieve the information easily.

To make it easier on researchers the site has the capability to export the references in RIS format to a citation manager program, which means it is possible to save references without bibliographic software. It also allows easy sharing of bookmarks with colleagues.

As for the social aspect of this website, it recognizes what people have bookmarked and alerts them to related material. It also provides RSS feeds that allow users to keep track of interesting articles published by the websites they have bookmarked.

Each user can comment any number of times on any bookmark in his library, and comments from different users are combined to display a chronological, and conversational, thread about a resource.

References can be accessed from any computer, and can be saves with just one click, without leaving the page you are viewing at the moment.

Essentially you can create a library of important articles for research and study. There is nothing to download to your computer and there is no need for cutting and pasting. References can be public, private or shared with a selected group.

As of November 2010, Connotea had about 40,000 visitors a month and has 6,557 sites linking in.

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