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Monday, January 31, 2011

http://ping.fm/r0Jto marketing campaigns in social media to target women http://amplify.com/u/ao5dt

http://www.webseoanasuccessful marketing campaigns in social media to target women

women-in-social-media.jpg



Recent studies point out that women use social networks more than men; indeed, Facebook & Twitter female users reach 57%, Flickr’s 55% and MySpace 64%.



Following those results, one thing is certain: the future of social media will be focused on women, and businesses wishing to promote their products or services will have a great opportunity to attract them directly via targeted marketing campaigns.



By appealing women through the usage of social media, companies are likely to get real time feedback on their new products, services and online campaigns. What do women talk about in social networks?



You’ll be surprised (or not actually) to find out that 62% of women talk about products. They are essentially interested about beauty products, then comes the food, the restaurants, and also the movies, the music or the entertainment.



Keeping that in mind, and within 4 easy steps described below, let’s see how to effectively target women and increase your business’s visibility and sales:

1. Conduct Research



Use social media tools like FacebookMyspaceTwitter and find out what do women do, what they like, what they want and you’ll get an idea of what they are looking for and how your business will be able to help them get it.

2. Use major social media



Use those powerful communication tools social media provide you with, and create a page or group in Facebook and Myspace, set up your Twitter account and make dreamy offers to promote your products or services.



But careful! Do not create pages and accounts that will sleep once created! Use your imagination and come up with many small actions and ideas that will attract and keep your target’s attention.

3. Use niche social network



Use specific audiences targeted social networks such as CafeMomTwitterMomsDogsterCatsterNingand by cleverly promoting your business after having studied what women do on those social networks, build up targeted marketing campaigns to effectively reach out to female users and find out if what you sell is worth.

4. Create your ways to interact



Instead of buying a traditional space to make a simple advertisement, create friendly and seductive applications, plugins, offer presents, discounts, make contests and viral campaigns and capture their attention as well as their profile’s friends’ attention to your products. In this way you will maximize your visibility and you will get potential new clients-customers.



So what is left to do is understand the strength of women in the online community though social networking, discover their habits and needs by searching for what they are doing on these sites. Figure out how your business can answer effectively to their needs in order to understand women’s powerful online implication in the success of your marketing campaigns.



original post:



http://www.webseoanalytics.com/blog/successful-marketing-campaigns-in-social-media-to-target-women/

7 must haves for seo friendly hosting services

In the Search Engine Optimization world many SEO professionals tend to focus on the onpage optimization or on the backlink hunting and they forget how important the hosting services are. Surely good hosting services will not boost your rankings, but it is certain that if you do not choose carefully you can get into serious problems. In this article we will focus on the 7 most important things to have in mind when you select hosting services.

1. IP Address of the Server



The IP address of the Server is a very important factor of SEO. Google’s Algorithm takes into account the country of the server by examining the IP address. Thus the results are affected, especially for localized search.



Additionally many IP addresses are considered to be untrusted due to excessive spam and thus they are blacklisted. Our advice on this is to choose trustful hosting providers and avoid changing IP addresses frequently, as it is generally considered a suspicious act.

2. Plugins and Updated Servers



Some of the plugins of the web server are very important for SEO. For example URL Rewriting modules affect the URL structure of the dynamic sites.



Additionally it is very important to keep your site’s server Updated (Web Server, SQL Server, Plugins etc) because in this way you will ensure that your site is secured. So make sure that your hosting provider patches the server regularly.

3. Uptime Percentage



Your server must be available 24/7 and able to handle a large amount of web requests. When it is unable to response you lose traffic and potential clients. Additionally if your site is unavailable when search engines try to crawl large amounts of pages, both the number of indexed pages and your rankings will be affected.

4. Load Times



The Web Server must be able to present the pages in the minimum amount of time. The speed is very important for the user experience. The total loading time depends on many factors such as the bandwidth, the hardware of your server and the type of content you serve. Try to reduce the loading time by optimizing your site’s code and additionally select a hosting package that will able to handle the web requests you receive.



Even if loading time is not directly connected to SEO results at the moment, it is certain that it affects the user experience and thus Google might take this into consideration in the future (Check Matt Cutts’ video).



On Friday, April 09, 2010 Google informed us that they use website speed in their ranking algorithms as one of their signals.

5. Avoid cheap hosting services



As a developer, I have seen in the past cases where hosting companies were responsible for the installation of suspicious javascript in all the pages of the site. Such companies usually offer very cheap services in order to lure more clients. Our advice is to select a provider that has a good reputation in the field, a strict policy against spamming and a clear Privacy Policy.

6. Number of sites hosted on the same Server/IP



The number of sites hosted on the same server affects the response time for obvious reasons. Additionally Google seems to look suspiciously servers that host too many sites on the same server. Determining the exact number is not an easy task but fortunately there are some Reverse IP Lookup tools you can use.

7. Other features in the hosting package



Before you select hosting services you must check the bandwidth limits and the other limitations, the number of email accounts that you are able to create, the number of emails you can send per day, whether you will have access on logs, how often they get backups, the number of subdomains you can create, whether is possible to add plugins etc.



Also keep in mind that sooner or later you will face problems with your server. Make sure you that the selected company has a good customer support service and a group of experienced technicians willing to help you solve your problems.



http://www.webseoanalytics.com/blog/7-must-have-for-seo-friendly-hosting-services/
7 must haves for seo friendly hosting services http://amplify.com/u/ao5di
U.S. warns against blocking social media - elevates Internet freedom policies [28Jan11] http://amplify.com/u/ao489

U.S. warns against blocking social media - elevates Internet freedom policies [28Jan11]

Amplify’d from www.washingtonpost.com


The decision by Egyptian officials to virtually shut down Internet access to the country Friday marked an audacious escalation in the battle between authoritarian governments and tech-savvy protesters. It was also a direct challenge to the Obama administration's attempts to promote Internet freedom.


"The Egyptian government's actions ... have essentially wiped their country from the global map," James Cowie of Renesys, a New Hampshire-based company that monitors Internet data, said on the company's Web site.


"Govt must respect the rights of Egyptian people & turn on social networking and internet," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs warned in a tweet.


U.S. officials concede that Twitter does not a revolution make. But they believe that such platforms have accelerated the pace of protest movements, citing the rapid coalescence of the Tunisian demonstrations that toppled that country's longtime leader, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, and the Egyptian demonstrations that erupted this week.


"From now on, any and all dissent movements will have technology as a core component," said Alec Ross, Clinton's senior adviser for innovation.


The Obama administration has elevated Internet freedom in U.S. diplomacy, and Clinton gave a major speech on the issue last year. The State Department is currently working on plans to spend $30 million on Internet freedom projects, including software that enables activists to break through firewalls imposed by oppressive governments.


The increased U.S. focus on Internet freedom, however, has gotten mixed reviews from bloggers and analysts.


Some warn that repressive governments will respond to the U.S. actions by intensifying their own technological assaults on bloggers and dissidents. Activists also worry that those receiving U.S. assistance could be tagged as Western puppets by oppressive governments.


"Having the U.S. and other Western governments as major actors in the Internet freedom field could present a real threat to activists who accept their support and funding," Sami Ben Gharbia, a prominent Tunisian Internet activist, wrote in an essay last fall.

Read more at www.washingtonpost.com
 

Picture This - Amazon Appears Ready To Challenge Netflix [30Jan11]

Amplify’d from paidcontent.org

If these screen grabs unearthed by Engadget on Saturday are as legitimate as they appear to be, Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) could have a new rival on its hands courtesy of Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN). With apparent plans in place to offer streaming of movies and TV shows, Amazon may be on the verge of mounting the stiffest challenge Netflix has faced yet.

While Amazon has yet to confirm anything, it seems pretty clear what the company has in the works is making streamed content an add-on to its existing Amazon Prime service, which provides free two-day shipping on any products consumers buy from Amazon.

That’s a hugely compelling alternative to Netflix for a number of reasons. First, the $79 it costs to be a part of Amazon Prime is cheaper than $95 Netflix subscribers have to shell out. Amazon also has pockets deep enough to match Netflix on content spending, and may even be able to provide content Netflix doesn’t have.

How swiftly fortunes change: Netflix couldn’t seem to be flying any higher after last week’s gravity-defying fourth-quarter earnings. While those sky-high expectations for the company’s year-ahead will persist, confirmation that the long-awaited competition has arrived could impact Netflix’s stock come Monday.

Read more at paidcontent.org
 

Picture This - Amazon Appears Ready To Challenge Netflix [30Jan11] http://amplify.com/u/ao46p

Saturday, January 29, 2011

How to optimize your LinkedIn company profile http://amplify.com/u/anxq0

How to optimize your LinkedIn company profile

Boasting 90 million users, LinkedIn is one of the social media titans. For business professionals, it has become an essential tool for staying connected to their business network.



But for companies, there’s been little reason to pay attention to their presence there. LinkedIn has been about individuals, not organizations. LinkedIn Companies existed, but offered little in the way of functionality. That has now changed.


Friday, January 28, 2011

Social Media Savvy: A Week of Tips to Help Your Business http://amplify.com/u/anwaq

Social Media Savvy: A Week of Tips to Help Your Business

Welcome to BusinessNewsDaily’s five-day series of social media stories. We’ve talked to dozens of experts and now it’s time to share what we’ve learned to help you and your co-workers advance your social media skills, no matter if you’re an expert or a novice.



Read More....
Fast-Growing Companies Use Social Media More (But 'More' Is As Little As Just One Tweet) http://amplify.com/u/anvcf
LivingSocial is giving Groupon a run for its money, thanks to Amazon http://amplify.com/u/anvbr

Fast-Growing Companies Use Social Media More (But 'More' Is As Little As Just One Tweet)

America's fastest-growing companies are significantly more likely to use social media than their larger, established peers, according to two studies by the UMass Dartmouth's Center for Marketing Research.



The UMass Dartmouth center conducted longitudinal surveys of the Inc. 500, which lists the fastest-growing companies in the U.S., and the Fortune 500, listing the largest companies, to determine how many have adopted different types of social media. According to the UMass Dartmouth comparisons, 71% of the fast-growing companies on the Inc. 500 list said they have Facebook pages, while 59% use Twitter, 50% maintain a corporate blog, and 33% use bulletin boards.



All these figures are up from 2009, when 61% said they used Facebook, 52% used Twitter, 45% maintained a corporate blog, and 28% used bulletin boards. In terms of rules governing social media use, 34% of the Inc. 500 said they have policies guiding employee blogging.



As noted the large, established companies on the Fortune 500 list indexed much lower in social media usage virtually across the board. The proportion using Facebook was 56% in 2010, while the number maintaining a corporate blog edged up from 22% in 2009 to 23% in 2010. In keeping with these disparities, just 20% of the Fortune 500 said they had rules governing employee blogging.



Interestingly Twitter was an important exception, with the percentage using Twitter increasing from 25% in 2009 to 60% in 2010; however, because the study set the bar pretty low for the Fortune 500 study -- just asking if there was a Twitter account with one tweet in the last month -- so it's hard to know just what this means.

LivingSocial is giving Groupon a run for its money, thanks to Amazon

LivingSocial’s traffic skyrocketed by 80% last week with a little help from Amazon, closing the gap between it and group-buying leader Groupon.



Before last week, LivingSocial had one-tenth of the web traffic of Groupon. Thanks to Google’s $6 billion offer and Groupon’s subsequent rejection of that offer, the deal-a-day service has been experiencing a new wave of growth. The second largest competitor in the space, LivingSocial, experienced an uptick in traffic as well, but nothing as dramatic as Groupon’s rise.


5 Quick SEO Tips to Help Freelancers Get Higher Search Engine Rankings http://amplify.com/u/ant5b

Thursday, January 27, 2011

5 Quick SEO Tips to Help Freelancers Get Higher Search Engine Rankings

Search Engine Optimization is a long-term process that heavily involves on-page optimization, link building and other SEO techniques. Generally acquiring quality links is harder and more time-consuming compared to the on-page optimization. That’s why on-page optimization is a great white-hat way to boost your rankings in a short period of time.



In this post, we will review five quick & easy SEO tips that can help you improve the rankings of your website in the major Search Engines.



Read More....

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Social Media Marketing Now Required for Business Growth http://amplify.com/u/anqcn

Social Media Marketing Now Required for Business Growth

Social media interaction can mean different things to businesses.  Some choose to use the platform for customer service and to announce news.  Others want to focus on things like:  building brand loyalty, networking, getting feedback, or deepening relationships.  While the ultimate (social marketing) goal is to do more business, social media is not about directly selling a product or service.



Read More...

The Social Ripple - Impacting Business and Life

Ripple Makers are a unique set of people that do something amazing to affect and impact others. We help facilitate change in something or introduce new companies, concepts, products etc.  But best of all a Ripple Maker understands that what they are doing can be guided. In the book we will bridge the gap on just how that can happen by design.



Read More....
The Social Ripple - Impacting Business and Life http://amplify.com/u/anqc3

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Ocean Experience Surf Camps Early Bird Specials

We hope these discounts will help your families join us this summer. Thank you for your loyal support.


Mahalo,



Ocean Experience Surf Camps Early Bird Specials
Ocean Experience Surf Camps Early Bird Specials http://amplify.com/u/anmeu

common link structure mistakes

The Link Structure of a website is one of the most important SEO factors. It affects how the pages point to each other and how the links are placed within the pages.



In the previous 2 articles we examined in detail several Common On-page Optimization mistakes and someCommon Web Development mistakes that affect the SEO campaign. In this article we will discuss about the common mistakes that take place during the development of the Link Structure of a website.



Here comes a list of things that you should avoid:



Read more...



http://www.webseoanalytics.com/blog/common-link-structure-mistakes/

common link structure mistakes

The Link Structure of a website is one of the most important SEO factors. It affects how the pages point to each other and how the links are placed within the pages.



In the previous 2 articles we examined in detail several Common On-page Optimization mistakes and someCommon Web Development mistakes that affect the SEO campaign. In this article we will discuss about the common mistakes that take place during the development of the Link Structure of a website.



Here comes a list of things that you should avoid:



Read more...



http://www.webseoanalytics.com/blog/common-link-structure-mistakes/
common link structure mistakes http://amplify.com/u/anm73

Monday, January 24, 2011

Social Media - Blogging - Internet Tools - Foodies: Best of the Week http://amplify.com/u/ank88

Social Media - Blogging - Internet Tools - Foodies: Best of the Week

Amplify’d from www.sweetsfoods.com

The Best of the Week is a series of roundup-articles published every week, touching principally themes related to blogging, social media and food.



Social Media - Blogging - Internet Tools - Foodies: Best of this Week
Where can you enter in this equation? It's simple: commenting regularly on my blog
Subscribe with a RSS reader or by Email to be updated
Internet Tools - Marketing - More Tech



* 15 Minutes Later - Internet Marketing Guide
Read more at www.sweetsfoods.com
 

7 Do's and Don'ts for Facebook Community Development http://amplify.com/u/ank7h

7 Do's and Don'ts for Facebook Community Development

As Facebook Fan Pages are considered a healthy starting point for social media engagement, more and more companies are searching for the best practices to adopt in order to build up the desired profile.



This week we share some Dos and Don’ts for your Fan Page community development focusing on the savoir vivre of this media.



Read more...



http://www.webseoanalytics.com/blog/facebook-fan-pages-7-dos-and-7-donts/

Sunday, January 23, 2011

31 New Social Media Resources You May Have Missed

The cold snap may not have “snapped,” but all that winter chill hasn’t prevented Mashable from churning out another set of social media tools and resources.



Have a read through resources below for a perspective on Wikipedia’s short life and it’s prospective future, or how videos games are helping social good. Tech & Mobile has some tips for Ruby and some odd Apple patents. Business offers up some case studies and how marketers can optimize crowdsourcing.



Looking for even more social media resources? This guide appears every weekend, and you can check out all the lists-gone-by here any time.



read more...



http://mashable.com/2011/01/22/new-social-media-resources-16/
Why has Social Media gone Mainstream? http://amplify.com/u/bnfil

Why has Social Media gone Mainstream?

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="social media marketing"]socialmedia22.jpg[/caption]



The hype around social media just keeps getting louder. Every week a new campaign and a new platform is released. So why has social media gone mainstream?



Online networks, including social ones, evolve and take on a life of their own. In the real world, for multi-celled organisms to exist a number of cells must work together to make something bigger. When individual cellular components work together multi-celled organisms evolve and these can evolve into complex life forms over time. A branch of these complex life-forms evolved and eventually became humans. Human civilization has in turn evolved to where we are now because we have mastered the art of continually grouping together into teams, tribes, cities, and nation states to create something that is bigger than the sum of its parts.



read more....



http://marketsubset.com/effective-marketing-strategies/why-social-media-has-gone-mainstream/

Friday, January 21, 2011

5 Steps for Successful Social Media Marketing http://amplify.com/u/bnb3h

5 Steps for Successful Social Media Marketing

Let's say you've gotten the approval to get your company involved in social media marketing and are ready to launch your efforts. How will you define success?This is an important question, because a large number of companies have jumped into social media without any clear business strategy. Before the financial meltdown of the last few weeks, some companies had the resources to experiment with social media without worrying about financial accountability. But now, most businesses must demonstrate an ROI on any new effort.





Read more: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4359/5-Steps-for-Successful-Social-Media-Marketing.aspx#ixzz1BkElYfeP

For Publishers, Who Are the Gatekeepers of Social Media? http://amplify.com/u/bnb3a

For Publishers, Who Are the Gatekeepers of Social Media?

Amplify’d from www.foliomag.com

For Publishers, Who Are the Gatekeepers of Social Media?

Ten years ago, as the prospect of monetizing Web sites started becoming a reality for publishers, different departments butted heads over prime real estate: editorial wanted it for content; sales wanted it for advertising; marketing wanted it for promotion.

Today, as the emphasis shifts away from publishers serving their audience on their own Web domain into places that are daily destinations (such as Twitter and Facebook), publishers are again faced with the question of who controls what (and it's even more important today because social media offers the chance to directly engage with--or alienate--your audience).

That was a key debate at MPA's Social Media conference yesterday. "Should all stakeholders be given the capability to tweet?" asked Matthew Milner, vice president of social media at Hearst, and moderator of a session called Who Controls Social Media at Your Magazine Brand? "And is the ultimate stakeholder necessarily editorial, or marketing, or could it even be the technology department, which may ultimately own the cost of social media?"

For Time Inc., social media is very much an editorial enterprise (last fall, a survey by The Wrap found that five of the 10 magazines with the most Twitter followers were Time Inc. brands). The publisher even maintains a team dedicated to fine-tuning Twitter captions. "Social platforms can be remade in your own image," said Jim Frederick, managing editor of Time.com and executive editor of Time.

Still, the ultimate objective is to drive engagement and audience response, and at many organizations marketing has led the way and can offer lessons for editorial. "Editors, whether they want to admit it or not, are there to get people to click, to engage, to buy the magazine," said Patricia Cesaire, director of digital PR and marketing at Black Enterprise. "Twitter is ultimately an editorial product but business development and marketing have led the charge with educating editorial," said Frederick.

With 4 million fans, National Geographic is the third-largest media brand on Facebook but no longer gives advertising access to the wall, because there are audience ramifications with every move, according to vice president of social media Robert Michael Murray. "Just putting a Facebook ‘like' button on a Web page is huge-it systematically categorizes pages for future search. How do you take people along that progression? As publishers we can't just approach social media like other companies such as Zappos, where half the staff is on social media offering customer service."

While most organizations have editors posting on Facebook and Twitter directly, many are shifting toward dedicated social media editors or strategists. One editor (associate editor Jared Keller) handles most of The Atlantic's social media efforts and while much of the brand's recent success is attributed to becoming a "digital-first publisher," magazine articles and archives drive some of the best response online and some of its most prominent talent--including members of its "dream team of bloggers"--aren't exactly social media-friendly, including Andrew Sullivan, who doesn't use Twitter, and another prominent blogger who refuses to enable the comments function on his posts.

Rodale encourages employees to be social on their own (the company will be hosting training seminars in the near future), but direct access to the audience should be limited depending on the publisher's strategy, according to Sasha Smith, executive director of creative services. "Everyone should understand social media, no one goes around bragging, ‘I don't know how to use Microsoft Word,'" she said.

Panelists said that every social media interaction should have a defined purpose, from driving content to driving magazine subscriptions and publishers should give the audience the chance to interact, rather than just force content on them. Also be aware of audience overload--Fitness, which is prepping to launch a cover contest on Facebook next month, tries not to push anything out more than twice per week.

Read more at www.foliomag.com
 

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Playboy Magazine On iPad in March - Uncensored http://amplify.com/u/bn6ct

Playboy Magazine On iPad in March - Uncensored

Just another reason to get an iPad.

Amplify’d from mashable.com

The entire back catalog as well as new issues of Playboy magazine will become available on the iPad in March 2011, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner revealed via Twitter.


Furthermore, Hefner confirmed on Twitter that Playboy will be coming to iPad in uncensored form, which makes sense, as we doubt many would be ready to pay for a watered-down version of the magazine.

However, Apple is notorious for its strict policy of not allowing adult content on the iOS platform (Playboy’s official iPhone app, for example, has no full frontal nudity), which makes us wonder how exactly Hefner and Playboy plan to pull this off.

Steve Jobs once said very clearly that he doesn’t intend to allow porn on the iOS platform. Allowing full frontal nudity on the iPad would definitely blur the line between innocuous adult entertainment and pornography; we’ll have to wait and see how Apple feels about Playboy’s plans.


When you’re as big as Playboy, you can try to persuade Apple to place additional measures of protecting minors from accessing adult material, and it’s quite possible that we’ll see something along these lines in March. Such a move by Apple would open a Pandora’s (Pandora) box of questions: would Apple allow other adult apps and magazines on the iOS platform under the same rules? How far would it go in terms of nudity and adult content?


What do you think, should content such as Playboy be allowed on the iOS platform? As always, share your opinions in the comments.

Read more at mashable.com
 

Why should organizations be on twitter ? http://amplify.com/u/bn66k

Why should organizations be on twitter ?



Should your organization be on twitter?





There are people in corporate who roll their eyes at the mention of twitter. But twitter certainly is the medium of today. Read on to know how twitter can help and contribute to corporate communication.





You can put your ideas out there:

It can serve as a learning ground. You can put your ideas out there to the people who understand you and know what you are talking about and get instant feedbacks. It is a micro world where you can test your ideas at very low cost and at times are spared of re-inventing the wheel.

Read more......



http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/eric_schmidt_all_googles_strategic_initiatives_in_2011_are_mobile.php








All of Google's Strategic Initiatives in 2011 are Mobile

In the latest Harvard Business Review, guest contributor Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, writes about the company's plans for the coming year, saying "as I think about Google's strategic initiatives in 2011, I realize they're all about mobile." It's notable that Schmidt didn't say "mostly," or "many," of its initiatives are about mobile - he said "all" of them are.



Eric Schmidt: All of Google's Strategic Initiatives in 2011 are Mobile
All of Google's Strategic Initiatives in 2011 are Mobile http://amplify.com/u/bn65t

How to Create Your Social Media Policy - Legally Speaking [20Jan11]

Great article, read the rest at openforum

Amplify’d from www.openforum.com
Nina Kaufman, business attorney, infopreneur, and the brains behind AskTheBusinessLawyer.com, to get straight-forward clarity about the issue.
What should businesses consider when creating social media policies?

Nina Kaufman: Social media policies are, in many ways, an extension of general employment policies that have been around for decades. Employers use them to set ground rules and expectations with their employees. However, it takes a delicate balance. As a business owner, you want employee and social media policies to set a professional tone for your company. But you want to avoid making them so draconian that employees fear they've dropped into a George Orwell novel, and look for the first opportunity to get another job.
Social media can be a powerful business tool in the right hands, and a powerful business nightmare in the wrong ones. One vital consideration: can you trust your employees to be mature and accountable?  For some companies, it may be enough to tell their employees to "be responsible, accountable, and ethical."  Others may need more hand-holding detail, such as not using and tagging the company logo on your Facebook page where you have uploaded debauched photos of yourself at a college fraternity party.
Is there any way that social media policies can infringe on an employee's rights?
NK: Many of the social media guidelines merely mirror what is already acceptable in the off-line world: don't blab confidential client information; don't share company trade secrets; be careful about where, when, and how you choose to badmouth your employer.
While companies tend to shy away from placing restrictions on employee activities outside of the workday, there's a growing awareness that employees need guidelines. With the Web 2.0, bad stuff can happen just as easily outside company time. Many financial institutions, for example, have prohibited their employees from using social media because of the great concern that confidences may be divulged, or that an employee may say something "out of compliance" with securities regulations.  That said, it's one thing to have a social media policy, and quite another to spend time trolling the Internet to enforce the behavior.
Should employers ask employees to "sign off" on the policies or is it enough that the employees read the policy?

What should every social media policy include? What are the key elements to a solid social media policy from a legal perspective?
What risk do companies take if they don't have a social media policy?
Read more at www.openforum.com
 

How to Create Your Social Media Policy - Legally Speaking [20Jan11] http://amplify.com/u/bn64w
The Rise and Fall of Yahoo: The Infographic http://amplify.com/u/bn1ed

The Rise and Fall of Yahoo: The Infographic

t’s no secret that Yahoo is in a troubled place. And has been for awhile. We just learned of the news that Yahoo is looking to sell bookmarking service Delicious and “sunsetting” a number of other web services. Preceding this debacle was a massive round of layoffs that affected over 500 employees. Many have tried to pinpoint where Yahoo went wrong (i.e. product strategy, leadership etc.), but this infographic, titled “The Rise And Fall Of Yahoo,” gives you a play by play of the company’s history, acquisitions, highs, lows and more.



The Rise And Fall Of Yahoo: The Infographic

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

12 Tips for Developing a Successful Twitter Campaign http://amplify.com/u/bmwms

12 Tips for Developing a Successful Twitter Campaign

Twitter is one of the most popular social media, that if it is used correctly, it can help you drive quality traffic to your website or blog and build a loyal group of supporters. In this article we will focus on how to build asuccessful twitter campaign, how to maintain and increase your followers and what you should do in order to increase the traffic of your website.



http://www.webseoanalytics.com/blog/12-tips-for-developing-a-successful-twitter-campaign/
Starbucks starts accepting mobile payments nationwide http://amplify.com/u/bmwl8

Starbucks starts accepting mobile payments nationwide

Starbucks Starts Accepting Mobile Payments Nationwide



Nearly 6,800 company-operated Starbucks stores in the U.S. will begin accepting mobile payments Wednesday. Customers using the Starbucks Card Mobile app on their iPhone, iPod touch or BlackBerry will now be able to use those devices as tender.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Social Networking - The Future [05Dec11]

by Mark Suster

Amplify’d from techcrunch.com

1. The Social Graph Will Become Portable

Facebook will succumb to pressure and over time make this available to us to allow us more choice in being part of several social networks without having to spam all of our friends again.  I know in 2010 this doesn’t seem obvious to everybody but it’s my judgment.  Either they make our social graph portable or we’ll find other networks to join.  I predict this will come before the end of 2012.

2. We Will Form Around “True” Social Networks: Quora, HackerNews, Namesake, StockTwits

Since 2006 I have been lamenting what I see as “the Facebook problem” – they are trying to lump me into one big social network.  Nobody exists in one social network. I have the one with my friends where I want to talk about how wasted we were at the party last weekend that I don’t want to share with my family network where I share pictures of the kids with my parents and siblings.

I don’t want either of these mixed with the business social network in which I want to maintain the appearance that I’m “all business”

3. Privacy Issues Will Continue to Cause Problems: Diaspora

What I realized in working with so many startup technology firms is that even if you don’t give permission to third-party apps to access your information much of it is available anyways as long as somebody you’re connected to is more promiscuous with third-party apps.  Also, all of those “Facebook Connect” buttons on websites are awesome for quickly logging in, but each gives those websites unprecedented access to your personal information.

I believe that privacy leaks will cause a longer-term backlash against misusing our information but in the short-term not enough people understand the consequences to be alarmed. Diaspora was created in direct response to the growing concerns about Facebook privacy and lock-in.  Whether or not Diaspora will take off is anybody’s guess.  But a lot of people would love to see them or similar players emerge.

4. Social Networking Will Become Pervasive: Facebook Connect meets Pandora, NYTimes
5. Third-Party Tools Will Embed Social Features in Websites: Meebo
6. Social Networking (like the web) Will Split Into Layers: SimpleGeo, PlaceIQ

One of the most interesting trends in the last few years has been watching the Internet split into layers.  At the bottom end of the stack is storage (S3) and processing (EC2).  At the top end is the business logic created by startups and established technology companies.  I’m going to write a whole post on BothSid.es in the next few weeks on the layering of the Internet and the most important layer that will emerge in the next few years.  We know that the layering of the PC era led to huge innovation at each layer in the stack and I expect the same to continue to emerge on the Internet.  But for now suffice it to say that we’re already seeing this happen in social networks.

One interesting layer is the “mapping layer” that is emerging in mobile social networks.
7. Social Chaos Will Create New Business Opportunities: Klout, Sprout Social, CoTweet, awe.sm, (next gen) Buzzd

We know that Twitter is leading to customer service opportunities for businesses but the opposite is also true.  If you don’t manage what is said about you in social networks it could be detrimental.  Products such as Sprout Social and CoTweet are emerging to help businesses better track and communicate with their customers and leads.  Products like awe.sm (I’m an investor) will help you manage the efficacy of your social media marketing campaigns.

8. Facebook Will Not be the Only Dominant Player

Read more at techcrunch.com
 

Social Networking - The Future [05Dec11] http://amplify.com/u/bmldk
HOW TO: Build a Social Media Education Program for Your Company http://amplify.com/u/bmla8

HOW TO: Build a Social Media Education Program for Your Company

Nice steps... must read ....

Amplify’d from mashable.com

In the past few years, businesses have increasingly dedicated resources to creating social media strategies in hopes of boosting site traffic, sales and brand engagement.

Joining social networks like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, companies have struggled to create unique user experiences and provide value for followers, while also meeting management expectations and program goals.

The biggest social media challenge for businesses in 2011 will be to rethink their social media strategies to make them sustainable and scalable. We spoke to representatives at Dell, Intel and Constant Contact to discuss how building social media training programs has helped their companies do just that. Read on for their top tips.

1. Choose the Decision-Making Team

2. Ask Questions and Set Goals

3. Benchmark Employees

4. Set the Curriculum and Refresh Often

5. House Training Materials Centrally

6. Get the Word Out

Read more at mashable.com
 

Sunday, January 16, 2011

8 ways to increase the relative traffic of your site

Do you still have in mind the reason of your website’s existence?

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High volume of traffic is not the key, if the user bounces, your website has probably failed. Driving relative traffic to your site is vital for your Business. Have in mind that only 0.5% to 8% of the traffic is converted in to sale. The average is around 3.5%.



You want traffic or sales? Consider the quality vs. quantity of your visits and plan your next step.



http://www.webseoanalytics.com/blog/8-ways-to-increase-the-relative-traffic-of-your-site/
8 ways to increase the relative traffic of your site http://amplify.com/u/bm7wx
20 Facts about Social Media that will make you go wow ! http://amplify.com/u/bm7vs

20 Facts about Social Media that will make you go wow !

In 2010, the internet saw some radical changes on social media, internet usage and the way content is being populated and exchanged online. Looking at the figures, you’d think – Damn! When did this really happen?



http://mccollinsmedia.com/internet-socialmedia-facts/

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Facebook for Websites: Social Plugins for your Blog and Business http://amplify.com/u/bm2zg

Facebook for Websites: Social Plugins for your Blog and Business

Social plugins for your blog and business.Facebook offers webmasters and bloggers a lot of options for integrating their platform onto websites. Consider the number of users that are logging into Facebook on a daily basis and staying logged in throughout the day while perusing the Internet.





Read more: http://blog.kissmetrics.com/facebook-social-plugins/#ixzz1B81Gh6iv

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Why Social Media Has Gone Mainstream

January 10, 2011 by Mark R Cameron







socialmedia2The hype around social media just keeps getting louder. Every week a new campaign and a new platform is released. So why has social media gone mainstream?



Online networks, including social ones, evolve and take on a life of their own. In the real world, for multi-celled organisms to exist a number of cells must work together to make something bigger. When individual cellular components work together multi-celled organisms evolve and these can evolve into complex life forms over time. A branch of these complex life-forms evolved and eventually became humans. Human civilization has in turn evolved to where we are now because we have mastered the art of continually grouping together into teams, tribes, cities, and nation states to create something that is bigger than the sum of its parts.



Networking and collaboration is fundamental to what it means to be human. In our bodies are atoms working together to create cells and cells working together to create our organs. In our brains neurons work together to create our thoughts, feelings and language. In your company people are working together – to create something bigger and more exciting than the sum of its parts. We can take this thinking and look at the development of the personal computer and see a very similar pattern emerging.







Before anyone had a computer or a smart phone, everything was a social event. Meetings were face-to-face, or over the phone at least, and communication in general was human to human based. In the last 30 years things have changed. Initially, the personal computer made everything a private and secluded affair. Games, for example, could be played without the help of another human and work could happen sitting in front of a screen. The advent of the early Internet showed how powerful many computers networked together could be, but from a personal perspective ‘computing’ was an insular activity.



The first social networks, forums and blogs worked with a huge number of anonymous users. While this was a step forward in person-to-person networking, the anonymity allowed people to behave in ways that they would never dream of in real life. This left many of these networks to be the domain of the very early adopters and special interest groups. The ‘rules’ that govern effective social networks were yet to be developed.



What has happened recently, particularly with Facebook, is that it has become far easier to transport your real identity around the web. This means that increasingly people are joining new social networks with their ‘real identity’: their real name; their place of work; and other details that define them as a person in a movement – sometimes referred to as the ‘Open Web.’ Naturally this makes people think more carefully about

what they say and how they behave on social networks – because they ‘own’ their comments the common rules of society come into play. When a person’s reputation is attached to what they say it makes them think carefully about what that comment might mean to others.







Of course people can still misbehave in social networks, like they can in real world networks, but the networks are now being governed by majority rule so this behavior is quickly dealt with. This makes cooperation and collaboration much easier and because of this the barriers to entry are dropping at an astronomical rate. Companies can now start to feel more secure in setting up their own networks knowing that majority of users will join to get value out of the information that is provided and quickly deal with other users who lessen the overall value

of that network.



So when thinking about why social media has become so widely adopted and pondering about where it is going avoid getting distracted by the leaps in technology. These are important, of course, but it is the behavior of the network and the developments of new social norms that are really driving the progress. Every individual in this massive network is doing what he or she is pre-programmed to do – communicate, collaborate, and continue the march of our civilization’s evolution.



The future of the Social Web will see openness and ownership of communication adopted on a much greater scale as the tools to do so become more wide spread and easier to adopt. The potential economic benefits of social media will force this to happen. Companies can and will want access to increasingly granular data about their ’stakeholders’ – employees, supporters, and consumers. Knowing what individuals are saying, how they are behaving and who is influencing them is critical and valuable information.



With Facebook’s release of its new developer tools in April this year, there has been an even bigger push towards the Open Web – something that many market analysts are predicting will make the eventual float of Facebook bigger than that of Google’s IPO. The rules governing online social networks are beginning to mature. Unsurprisingly, they closely reflect those that exist in offline world.
Why Social Media Has Gone Mainstream http://amplify.com/u/blvbv

Why should organizations be on twitter ?

Why should organizations be on twitter ?







Should your organization be on twitter?



There are people in corporate who roll their eyes at the mention of twitter. But twitter certainly is the medium of today. Read on to know how twitter can help and contribute to corporate communication.



You can put your ideas out there:

It can serve as a learning ground. You can put your ideas out there to the people who understand you and know what you are talking about and get instant feedbacks. It is a micro world where you can test your ideas at very low cost and at times are spared of re-inventing the wheel.



Meet like-minded people who are walking the same road you are:

Foe an entrepreneur or as professional s who are keen to develop potentials and figures on bottom lines, twitter serves as a great learning medium. Its micro blogging aspect enables us to wade through the information and many a times we find more than what we are looking for, seed ideas which can then be developed. It is the best way to connect to people like you who speak your language, discuss your ideas and many a times give the ideas both spark and currency.



Information in micro blogs:

You can get a lot of information relevant to your industry in the fastest way in tweets of 140 characters that are micro blogs. These tweets contain the links to the blogs and other content containing the information.



Great communication and recruiting tool

You can communicate with potential buyers, sellers, clients, recruits that relate to your business. It is a very effective way of spreading ideas, information and content. Companies have found it a very useful tool for recruitment too. It can serve as a great platform for you . If you follow the right people, it can replace Google and email as a primary information source.



Enhances your power of creative thinking

You need to follow right people from your industry and soon it will be like plugging into this enormous cloud of stimulating snippets, conversation, thoughts and ideas of people from all over the world. You think and rethink. It all helps you think creatively, when you meet people who have different point of view than yours on the same subject. Traditional media allows only a select band of voices in but here anybody and everybody gets heard, if he has a point.



It is a great medium of marketing:

You have written this great piece about your product or services. You post it on your site. Your followers will read it and if the retweet it .Your information goes to a bigger number. If scribes find the product or service interesting and write or tweet about it , you’ve hit the jackpot as far as marketing of your product or service goes because good services, applications and products ‘can’ go viral- reach millions of people if you are networked and use twitter optimally.

These are a few of the points that should be considered by the corporate world when deciding on , if they should be on twitter.



There are several collateral advantages if your business is on twitter. It cannot be dubbed as a ‘time wasting tool’ without knowing its advantages. Some more of its advantages include:



It is a great search tool:

In some respects it is better search tool than Google. Google uses algorithms to dig out information. Twitter harnesses the mass capabilities of millions of mind. Twitter is the world consciousness, mass of human intelligence of millions of twitteratis who are all providing you information that is new, relevant, valuable and entertaining. As more people join it , the better it will get. Follow people you admire and respect and enjoy and reap the benefits of information they provide.



Twitter is not a broadcasting tool:

It is not a transmission or broadcasting tool. The best thing about this medium of communication is that it aids conversation, encourages conversation. People respond to the information or content you provide. You get reactions instantly. It is a two way communication. You can share and discuss with hundreds and millions of people in real time.



Corporates can adopt a more human tone and reach people:

Twitter changes the tone of communication. High and mighty corporate czars on twitter adopt the same tone as you as me on twitter. They are more approachable.



Companies can reach their customers and interact with potential clients and customers on real time basis and it all improves the image of the corporate house as being reachable.



Twitter helps create communities.

Twitter helps create communities. These communities may be around a particular issue, event, ideas, subjects, cultures or geographies. It is easier to market to the ones who you think will listen to you. It is a kind of segregation that sometimes marketers dream of.



It is a level playing field

Both for a company with a heritage of 20 years behind it and a start up which is a few months old, it is a level playing field. Use the right techniques and you can notch up millions of followers who will have ears for you. Having a loyal following build up slowly is better than buying the followers, which some companies do. Have something substantial to say about your company, people are listening, the world is listening.



Long attention span to help your marketing:

They say Twitteratis have a memory of a goldfish. Unlike what people believe, causes and issues, especially marketing campaigns can be kept alive for a longer period of time on twitter than on other mediums that too at a lower cost. The frequency can be more. You can keep reminding people about the special schemes and discounts and connect to them on a one-to –one basis.



Thus twitter is the communicating medium of today and tomorrow. Its cutting edge feels adds to your arsenal of communicating mediums. To know more about twitter, maintenance of a twitter ac and other details, please contact our team at http://www.vistasadindia.com. We can help you bring your business communications to web 2.0 level.