The Facebook Blog UPDATE on December 12, 2012: We've updated our controls for managing your content. Learn more here. Today we're announcing a bunch of improvements that make it easier to share posts, photos, tags and other content with exactly the people you want. You have told us that "who can see this?" On Your Profile Your profile should feel like your home on the web - you should never feel like stuff appears there that you don't want, and you should never wonder who sees what's there. Inline Profile Controls Before: Most of the settings for stuff on your profile were a few clicks away on a series of settings pages. Going Forward: Content on your profile, from your hometown to your latest photo album, will appear next to an icon and a drop-down menu. A side benefit of moving most settings to inline controls is a much shorter and simpler Settings page. Profile Tag Review Before: Photos you were tagged in would show up on your profile as soon as you were tagged. Content Tag Review View Profile As…
5 Vanity Metrics to Stop Measuring (And Better Alternatives) There is without a doubt no shortage of data for each action you take in your marketing campaigns, nor is there a lack of tools to help you measure them. The problem is, some metrics are more obvious than others. They stick out right in front of your face as soon as you log into your analytics tool, puking an “up-and-to-the-right” graph in your face. Beware of vanity metrics. Instead of getting caught up in the low-hanging fruit, ask yourself: "What does this graph mean? Should I continue doing something, increase the time or money I spend on a certain channel, or even stop doing something altogether?" Here are 5 vanity metrics you should stop obsessing over and their much better alternatives. 1. Did you know that only 3% to 5% of your Facebook Page’s “fans” see the content you post? What to Measure Instead: % Feedback and Impressions Use Facebook Insights, Facebook’s free analytics tool, to check which posts generate the highest level of engagement. 2. Who is engaging? 3. 4. 5.
Introducing Social Media Publishing from iContact | Email Marketing Best Practices Written By: Rob Call, iContact Product Manager How do you connect your customers, evangelists, friends, and partners to your brand, message, products, and services? While email marketing is a great place to start, no online campaign is complete without a social media component. Whether it’s a lack of time, resources, or knowledge, small businesses are struggling to find a single tool that combines ease of use, flexibility, and value into one familiar package. iContact’s new social media publishing and tracking tools are here to help. For some time now, iContact customers have been able to post messages to Facebook and Twitter that accompany an email. Publishing directly to Facebook and Twitter through iContact is a quick and convenient way to stay in touch with your social audience. Scheduling and posting is great, but we can’t forget tracking. iContact has helped countless small businesses promote their products and services through the power of email marketing.
A selection of 50 of the best reports in to social media Although social media has advanced rapidly in the last couple of years and is starting to be embraced by everybody from small businesses to large international brands it is still an industry that is finding it's feet. There has however been some excellent research carried out and I put a bit of time in to finding some of the best reports, pieces of research and generally useful information to help compile this list. I'm sure there are many more that I've missed and if you have compiled some research yourself feel free to leave a link in the comments. Twitter Case Study : Doubling sales through Twitter NPR Twitter User Survey 2010 The Pew report in to American usage of twitter Exploring the usage of Twitter around the world Harvard research finds that men mostly follow men Sysmosos take an in depth look at some of the numbers behind Twitter Twitter in higher education 2010 Twitter Statistics around the world for 2010 Twitter's international growth and stickiness Facebook Social Media In General
Altimeter Report: The 8 Success Criteria For Facebook Page Marketing Report Snapshot (full report embedded below)Altimeter Group conducted research, and gleaned input from 34 vendors, agencies, and experts, to determine success criteria and develop a roadmap for Facebook page best practices. We found Eight Success Criteria for Facebook page marketing, and then tested the maturity of 30 top brands across six industries. Our heuristic evaluation revealed that brands fell short – nearly half of the brands we reviewed (14 out of 30) did not fully leveraged social features to activate word of mouth, the hallmark behavior of social networks. Within this immature landscape, a few brands were on the right track to successfully harnessing Facebook page marketing. Brands like Pampers, Macy’s, Kohl’s, and AXE increased engagement and activated word of mouth through advocacy and peer-to-peer interactions, or solicited business call to actions that result in transactions. How should brands approach their Facebook page marketing? About the Altimeter research team.
12 Reasons Your Business Blog Is Failing Let's say that a couple of months ago, you decided to really start drinking the inbound marketing Kool-Aid, and you took the plunge: you started a business blog. You put in the time to get it going, published a few posts, and waited for the leads to start rolling in. So why haven't you noticed a difference? What happened to the results? So many new bloggers adopt the simple "if you build it, they will come" mentality. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. Is your blog suffering from these failures? Image Credit: Divya Manian
Most Users Click 2 Minutes After Content Is Shared [Infographic] Successful inbound marketers should always be promoting the content they create via such tools as email and on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. But what happens when that content gets shared? When do users click on it? What's the shelf life of the share? How do others share it with their networks? AddThis, a 5-year-old bookmarking and sharing service, recently crunched its large pool of data (it reaches 1.2 million users monthly) and pulled it into the following infographic to highlight some interesting sharing trends on the web. Which data point did you find most interesting?