@BasilPuglisi

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

Visibility Marketing

Tweet Tools: Increase Your Twitter Productivity with TweetSpinner

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If your direct messages inbox is full of auto-follow spam messages or otherwise delayed or old information, you are probably like most other Twitter users that do not have TweetSpinner.

Direct Messaging Inbox Archiving

TweetSpinner provides more control over many important elements of managing your Twitter account fully, accurately, and lucratively. It will allow you to finally de-spam and archive those messages cluttering up your direct message, or DM, inbox.

The moment you log on you can choose to one-click archive your DM messages to quickly clean up that inbox 200 messages at a time. This archiving process saves them to your account so that you can browse through them when you have the time, while still keeping your DM inbox clean and clear. Users are allowed to set filters on what constitutes spam and even if those messages are preferred for archives or deletion. The archived messages are stored at TweetSpinner, not on your machine.

Follower Management

TweetSpinner provides highly sophisticated follower management and analytics with easy to configure filters that will help users locate the most receptive followers while ignoring spam accounts.

It will provide an ongoing and updated display of:

  • People you follow
  • The number and percentage that do not follow you back
  • People who follow you
  • Those whom you do not follow back
  • Ratio of friends to followers

Users with paid accounts then have the option to configure, or prune, their settings, as well as setting some fairly intricate options. Depending on the level of the account, the customization for auto-following, as well as auto-unfollowing, can be incredibly detailed. Keyword following and mimic following are also options within the user Follower Management tool.

Logging onto TweetSpinner is as easy as visiting their sign in page and creating your account. Simply authorize the account and you are on your way.

Profile Rotator

The profile rotator does just as it says. However, this one allows users to important colors and background images of items you utilize on Twitter. Simply change your design at Twitter and try the import feature once more. You then have two unique designs to choose from. These can be rotated on a schedule to keep your Twitter profile interesting and aesthetically pleasing.

Since Twitter only allows for a very small bio and a URL you can now add a bit more of a profile with TweetSpinner. You can create more than one which can also be set on a schedule to rotate to help your account maintain the ability to effectively express yourself to your followers.

Other features such as Smart Tweets will help to guide you into making the most out of your 140 characters or less and the DM Outbox options can help to send out far more personalized messages than before. Their rules-based DM system will make sure that when rules you pre-set are met, a correct trigger will return a personalized message to that user.

Site navigation is as easy as it gets with most management activity occurring from within the same page.

Who Uses TweetSpinner

Currently, users are predominately between the ages of 35 and 65 with global site traffic ranking hovering at 31,003. Most are professional females who are browsing from home. In Johannesburg the site has achieved a much higher ranking at #825.

TweetSpinner does offer a free version but most who will want to use this tool for a professional account will likely want to take a closer look at paid package versions that start at $16 USD per month and can go higher for Pro versions or those accounts purchased for social media agencies.

 

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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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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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The #140Confli: Fast, Informative & Interactive

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The #140Conf by Jeff Pulver is known for short presentations and interactions, but for Long Island it has turned out to be one of the most potent networking and learning experiences I have ever seen.

This fast passed, energetic event engaged the attendees, keeping it under 140 Characters @katcop13: summed it up in a tweet “The word ‘audience‘ is dead. It’s a conversation.”

The engagement was both real life personal interactions and throughout the twitterverse, so much so that @namnum: was the first to break the news “Just heard we are trending in NY!”

@Krochmal has been a great host, engaging the audience making sure that all attendees are getting an experience, even seeking out an entire room to find out what they are passionate about and what they are learning.

This event has featured few if any traditional presentations, many presenters and the panels made a successful effort to facilitate conversations between presentations and during the breaks. The topics included business, personal brands, success stories, the human element, startup issues, fashion, musical performances and this thing called Social Media.

While the event is still far from over, it has this professional wondering, whats next and where can we get more?

Latest Tweets from the #140ConfLI:

— Melissa_Kue Melissa Kuehnle

@farida_h Glad we got to finally meet face-to-face at #140ConfLI.

— KennyKane Kenny Kane

@Krochmal Did you host a talk show in a past life?

— treypennington Trey Pennington

“Hugs over handshakes…that’s what we do at 140 Conferences” @jeffpulver #140ConfLI

— longislandpatch Long Island Patch

LI social media rocks RT @jmolinet Follow the afternoon sessions Long Island 140 Character Conference live http://bit.ly/lStBmK

— PsgeToNirvana Lee Carlson

RT @dhfrench: “Don’t be afraid to fail; it’s how you learn.”-@elyrosenstock #140confli How true, how true….

— levyrecruits Steve Levy

@mzayfert “take the first step, make some noise, and change the world” #140confli

Social Media Can Change Lives, For Better or For Worse

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At this point, there can truly be no doubt about the fact that social media can and does change lives. It may not always be for the good, such as in the case of more than a handful of people who claim that status post on Facebook cost them their jobs.

Facebook Fail

Ashley Johnson, waitress at a pizza restaurant in uptown Charlotte N.C. found herself immensely frustrated when a couple came in for lunch and stayed three hours, which in turn forced her to work far beyond her usual quitting time. They also left her a tip she found offensive. Johnson did what many folks seem to do lately, she ran home and ranted out her frustrations on her Facebook page.

Unfortunately, like an increasing number of other random employees around the globe, she found out that the things you say on social networks, can and very well may, come back to haunt you. Managers at her company called her in to show her a copy of her Facebook page with the offending comments and explained to her that she was being fired for violating the policy that requires employees to never speak disparagingly about the company or its customers.

Then they notified her that she had also violated another policy that states that casting the company in negative light on social networks is cause for termination.  Does your company have this policy?

Twitter Triumphs

There are also many stories like those of Kevin Smith, not to be confused with Director Kevin Smith, who found a great job through his moderate and initially half-hearted Twitter efforts.

He wasn’t just looking for another job, there were plenty of those, he was looking for a better job. Freely admitting that he was usually slow to latch onto social medias, Twitter felt a bit different. Kevin openly admits that his first efforts on Twitter were little more than a bit of pathetic whining on the internet in 140 characters or less. However, he also quickly realized that whining into the world wide web wasn’t likely to help him better his position in life.

As many months of job applications, interviews, and trolling job boards went by without the results he was looking for, he began to notice a pleasant trend on Twitter. People of all kinds with a variety of influences, who had the same interest as he did, willingly followed him on Twitter, even through his whiney blurbs.

As he began to become more involved in a Ruby programming language following on Twitter, he noticed that a notable player, and fellow Ruby enthusiast that worked for a nearby company, was on his list. Checking into the company and finding a resounding message, he felt a bit of hope. He followed his followers lead to their company website and sent in his resume.

After a bit of impatient waiting, he shot a message to his Twitter friend to ask if his resume had been received. He was a bit upset to find out it had not been. So while he sent in his second copy, his Twitter friend ran to the office of the person who received resumes to make sure it went through. This time it did, and thereby began his relationship with his current company.

He learned an interesting thing after being hired. Many companies now search out the social media input of future prospective employees. Although Kevin’s rants had been lighthearted and nowhere offensive in nature, you may now have an idea of how a negative social media influence or character, may have prevented one more opportunity, and likely with Kevin none-the-wiser. However, the hiring manager did say that having interacted with Kevin over Twitter for months before hiring him, also made it feel a lot more like hiring a friend than a literal stranger.

The Jury is Out

Actually, they are just about to be sequestered in the case of Casey Anthony, a Florida mother who is charged with the murder of her young daughter. Heard about it? Most people have. Although the story itself would have certainly drawn national media attention, the fact that almost three years later the case, and the discussion of it, is still carried on daily on sites like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter, as well as full emotionally charged discussions on just about every news post since the story began, has been an ever-present cause of concern for Anthony’s legal team.

Although it is certainly unlikely to be the last case in which the line of questioning for potential jurors include such queries as:

  1. Do you use YouTube?
  2. Do you have a Facebook account? Do you ever post status updates?

The Anthony case has been a virally charged one from the start, but any potential alteration in the flow of the court hearing due to social media interruptions such as jurors posting Facebook statuses or tweeting opinions on this case is unlikely. Because of the large investment the state of Florida has in this case, many aim to see that social media does not enter into the courtroom, at least not without permission. It seems that most understand how one slight slip may cause justice to lose on a technicality once again.

Has this Changed Our Human Make-up?

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your glass-half-full/half-empty outlook, people haven’t changed entirely that much. Even before base media such as radio and television, people still wanted to be heard, to share their messages, and their stories. They just did so in books, magazines, and newsprint.

If you could remove the chatter and noise of our 21st century culture, you may also find that marketing and advertising hasn’t changed all that much either.  What has changed is how we are exposed to them. Obviously, from the previous stories, we also know that social media and its resulting benefits or its detriments are almost entirely up to us. So while social media certainly hasn’t changed the fact that we want to succeed, make our marks, and leave the world a better place for our children, it has certainly changed the format in which we have the voice to do so, each and every one of us.

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TED – Ideas Worth Spreading

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One of the great things the internet has to offer is the ability to facilitate sharing of knowledge and ideas. The different Wiki’s (Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikileaks) are proof positive that people want to share what they know for the benefit of all.

Another great thing the internet has spawned is TED – Ideas Worth Spreading.

It all started in 1984 in a conference of experts from three fields: Technology, Entertainment and Design. They gathered to share ideas, delivered in short speeches, at a conference. It was so innovative and successful that it continues strongly today with two Annual TED conferences. One in Long Beach/Palm springs in the spring and TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh, UK in the summer.

The goal of TED, which is owned by a private nonprofit foundation and curated by Chris Anderson, is to foster the spread of great ideas. It aims to enable the great thinkers, the greatest visionaries and most inspiring teachers of the world, spread their ideas by providing them with a platform.

In the desire to create a better future, today’s TED invites the most interesting speakers, no matter what their field, to present the “Talk of Their Life” in 18 minutes or less. Those talks are photographed and released free online so millions of people around the world would be able to gain a better understanding of the issues facing the world.

Whether it is a talk by Sir Ken Robinson, who spoke about education in 2006 and said that schools are killing creativity,  (and 300 million people viewed it online), or Shai Agassi, the driving force behind a bold plan for an electric car, or Randy Pausch’s last speech at Carnegie Mellon University, when he knew he has only 3-6 months to live. The speakers are always fascinating. TEDTalks proved so popular that a new website had to be constructed in 2007 to accommodate all the traffic.

Over the years, speakers have included Jane Goodall, Al Gore, Billy Graham, Frank Gehry, Bill Gates, Bono, Annie Lennox, Quincy Jones and many more interesting people. All that information is available on their website for free viewing.

TED has also established TEDPrize which grants the winner $100,000 and “One Wish to Change the World” using TED’s powerful network. Past winner include Bill Clinton, Bono and Jamie Oliver.

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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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