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DMI Blogs | facebook
facebook
Wednesday, September 8th, 2010
I watched a very interesting presentation from Charles Dowd (Head of Platform development in Facebook) at Blog Talk a recent conference in Galway. If you look at the presentation you’ll see how powerful Facebook currently is and how this will continue to grow in importance. Facebook is no longer just going to be www.facebook.com, Facebook is spreading throughout the web and will follow you wherever you go.
One change that hasn’t been released yet that Charles talked about was a Facebook bar which will start appearing at the bottom of pages you browse. On this bar you will be able to ‘Like’ content, see who else has liked the content, perform searches and much more. So Facebook will be with you at all times.
Facebook search is also going to be extremely powerful. With a Google search we have machines that index content and we have search engine optimisation guys that know how this works and can influence this indexing. But with Facebook the search results are weighted towards what content people like and the personalisation of this is what friends said they liked this content. This is a manually indexed search completed be real people that has real power. If you are interested to know where Facebook is going have a look at this video and watch it a couple of times if it doesn’t sink in. It’s powerful stuff.
Charles Dowd (Facebook) – The Facebook Platform from DERI, NUI Galway on Vimeo.
Well done to Charles on his new role. I worked with Charles many years ago in a software company and we had some fun times.
Where do you think Facebook is heading?
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Posted in eircom, email, facebook | No Comments »
Friday, August 27th, 2010
I recently audited a new client’s digital marketing strategy and implementation.
They were frustrated with the results of their efforts so far and wanted some advice and guidance on how to get better return for their investment. Their budget was significant but the return was negligible. Having reviewed their digital activities, I was struck by a common theme in each of the channels they were using. All of their activities had one goal, drive traffic to their site. In trying to explain to them what was wrong with their digital marketing I told them about an Aunt of mine.
I have an aunt who insists that all parties in a house should happen in the kitchen.
She emigrated from Ireland 40 years ago and when she returned last Christmas she stayed with my family for our new year celebrations. She has fond memories of growing up in Ireland and all of her memories are of being with her family in the kitchen. She insists that any gathering or event in a house should take place in the kitchen. Invariably after a few glasses of wine she carves off one of the guests in the sitting room and works them slowly towards the kitchen. Which is always empty and cold.
Much digital marketing is wasted when all it tries to do is move the party.
We try to move people from where they are online to our empty websites. We expend all of our budget, energy and efforts trying to move the party, trying to move the audience from one site to our site. instead of just join the party where ever it is happening.
The solution? Join the party.
Your target audience is active and engaged on the internet. Your challenge is to meet them there.
Meet them where? Meet them where ever they are.
Despite the fact that there are hundreds of TV channels available to us, we all tend to gravitate around 4 or 5. Similarly on line we tend to gravitate around 4 or 5 websites. Trying to move people from one of their haunts or introduce a new haunt is a very expensive and often wasteful activity. Better to find out where the party is happening and interact with your audience where they are rather than expending effort and expense in trying to move them somewhere else.
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Posted in Advertising, Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, adwords campaign, digital marketing institute, facebook, social media, youtube | No Comments »
Thursday, August 19th, 2010
It is here, well almost anyway. Last night Facebook launched their plans for their location based service called ‘places’. You will be able to ‘check in’ to businesses and other locations much like foursquare so that your friends will be able to see where you are at that time. You will also be able to add locations (such as your own house) and tag friends who are there with you.
Unfortunately the service is not launched over here yet. Facebook has said they hope to launch in the U.S in the next few days so when can we expect the feature over here? I had a look around online and there are no confirmed rumours of an official launch here in Europe so I guess we will just have to sit it out. Also only those mobile users with an iPhone will be able to use the service for now.
A great tweet as seen on another digital blog read “What do you get when you combine Foursquare with Facebook? Facebook.” I myself do have a foursquare account but I will admit to never actually ‘checking in’. With a Twitter account, Facebook account, numerous email accounts and some real life friends too I felt another account would be a bit cumbersome. However Facebook are slowly answering the call from the future for integration of all of these services. With a location based service within Facebook, I can see users who have never even heard of foursquare adopting this service quite quickly.
Where does this leave Foursquare, Yelp and other location based services? Current Foursquare users are unlikely to use both. The proposed Facebook service does allow you to pull your ‘check in’ through to Facebook but why bother when you can just do it all on Facebook. The real issue comes down to whether Facebook will make it both easy and safe to use.
Privacy of course has been heralded as an issue as Facebook have been put through the grinder recently. Check ins will appear by default on your profile and in the news feed for that place. Your friends can, by default, check you in without your explicit approval or permission. There are settings to customize all of this but it will all mainly appear in the ‘customize settings’ on your privacy page. Perhaps this should have been all made available when you first open new ‘places’ page to avoid the inevitable confusion.
So what does this mean for social media marketers? We can expect more innovation in campaigns, similar to the Dominos campaign mentioned by Kevin in his recent Foursquare post. Businesses have been crying out for this service for a long time and now that it is here it will have to be utilised correctly. There are great opportunities for developers as businesses can claim ownership of a particular location if it is their site. There will also be great prospects for the integration of offline and online campaigns as locations are made available.
This is the type of service that Facebook will need to continue to release in order to defy its critics that say its day in the sun cannot last. With over 500 million members worldwide, (we can now pinpoint these!) it is only a matter of time before Facebook release their business model for ‘places’ that will no doubt have some form of advertising. In my opinion the only direction Facebook is heading is up. So what do you think? Would you use this service? Would you forgo using Facebook for Foursqaure? Let us know your thoughts.
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Posted in Radical, facebook | No Comments »
Thursday, July 29th, 2010
What implications does the new feature of Facebook Questions have for our online reputation of our business or our personal brand?
In the last 24 hours Facebook has been rolling out it’s ‘Questions’ functionality – you will see it on the left hand side of your Home Page or at the top of your Profile or Business Page.
the Answers and Questions feature of Linkedin have been a great way to build online visibility and be a source of lead generation for a number of years. This move by Facebook is another example of them looking to have people spend more time in their company and become a source for information and research about questions we have.
One of the most powerful features is that you can post a reply to a Question as the name of your ‘Facebook Page’ – unlike when you comment on a Facebook Profile or Facebook Page.
Here is a quick video review of the Facebook Questions feature which I published today over on my Biz Growth Media Facebook Page.
You can also ‘follow questions’ and edit the answers to the questions that you respond to.
However one potential disadvantage is that when people click on the links to the questions you ask using the ‘Questions’ feature it will take people away from your Facebook Page.
If you are monitoring your online reputation on Facebook it will be important for you to start to listen to the questions being asked and answered.
When you post an answer or a question it will be seen by the whole of the Facebook community irrespective of your Facebook Profile privacy settings – so be careful what and how you ask and answer questions.
More details about Facebook Questions are here on the Facebook blog.
Remember the novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams where the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything was 42 – perhaps Mark Zuckerberg is looking for that book to be re-written – and the answer now being Facebook.
What are your thoughts about Facebook Questions?
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Access my FREE Facebook webinars about using Facebook Pages and Facebook Advertising
Access my guide to Facebook Pages best practice guide for colleges and universities
Perhaps Facebook not where your potential clients are networking online? If they are using LinkedIn you might want to access my FREE LinkedIn for business – make sure that you leave a valid email address so that you can access a discount off my forthcoming 4 week programme starting the 9 August 2010 called “LinkedIn for Business Leads and Profits”. The discount is valid until the 31 July 2010.
Share on Facebook
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Posted in Krishna De, facebook, social media | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010
The Digital Marketing Institute is currently looking to hire, on a part time basis, presenters and lecturers to meet the huge demands that we are experiencing in our various courses.
If you are an experienced digital marketing professional who would like to share those skills with budding and experienced digital marketers, then we should talk!
We are looking for people with experience in any or all of the following:
- Search Engine Optimisation
- Pay per Click Marketing
- Banner and other Digital Image marketing
- Web site Architecture
- Web 2.0 technologies
- Podcasting
- Blogging
- Social Networking
- Affiliate Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Web Site Analytics
- Dealing with Digital Agencies
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Planning Digital Campaigns
- Viral Marketing
The majority of our lectures take place in the evenings but a small percentage of them are during business hours.
We run courses in Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Galway, Kilkenny and London and also deliver in other areas on an ad-hoc basis.
For further details on the various courses that we run, please visit our web site and also the web site of our recently launched Postgraduate in Digital Marketing course.
Once you have had a look at various topics we deliver and feel that you would like to contribute, send along your details (a URL to your LinkedIn profile will do), along with a short description of your suggested lecture(s) to anthony@digitalmarketinginstitute.ie
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Posted in Jobs, Main Category, belfast, course, facebook | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010
Here are three new resources from Facebook that I think you will find of interest:
1. A new Page about Facebook Safety to provide you with updates and information to keep you and your family safe while using Facebook or surfing on the Internet. This compliments the Facebook Security Page.
2. A Facebook Page for PR professionals where the Facebook team share what they have learned about creating social content, promoting events, optimising Pages, and integrating with tools off of Facebook – it looks as though this will be a great resource for PR an marketing people alike. Check out the hour long video recording of a live event held last week at Facebook HQ in the US with information about using Facebook advertising and live streaming
3. A Facebook Page for the Media where they are providing guidance and tips for media outlets in terms of best practices and tools to drive referral traffic and increase engagement on your site. They are recommending all journalists should have a Facebook Page, and provide tips about running events, adding Facebook social plugins and how to use Facebook search to monitor conversations.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Access my FREE Facebook webinars about using Facebook Pages and Facebook Advertising
Access my guide to Facebook Pages best practice guide for colleges and universities
Perhaps Facebook not where your potential clients are networking online? If they are using LinkedIn you might want to access my FREE LinkedIn for business – make sure that you leave a valid email address so that you can access a discount off my forthcoming 4 week programme starting the 9 August 2010 called “LinkedIn for Business Leads and Profits”. The discount is valid until the 31 July 2010.
Share on Facebook
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Posted in Krishna De, facebook, google maps, social media | No Comments »
Friday, July 23rd, 2010
With multiple channels springing up across the digital dashboard, messages must be tailored to resonate with audiences on email and social sites. Research suggests a look at simple demographics does not give a clear indication of how audiences differ; engagement in these channels is personal and depends more on psychographic characteristics.
According to ExactTarget’s “Subscribers, Fans and Followers” report, there is little cannibalization among the three channels—instead, there is significant overlap across email, Twitter and Facebook audiences. Research conducted during April 2010 clearly suggests that online users engage with brands only via marketing emails, but nearly a third subscribed to emails in addition to being fans of brands on Facebook. The vast majority of social media fans or followers were also email subscribers.
“Consumers don’t silo their engagement with brands to a single channel, instead they tend to ‘layer’ marketing channels on top of one another to meet their different objectives,” said Morgan Stewart, principal, ExactTarget’s research and education group, in a statement.
Overall, 94% of daily email users subscribed to marketing messages. Two-thirds of daily Facebook users were brand fans, and about four in 10 daily Twitter users followed a company or brand, showing that email is still the preferred channel for brand engagement even among heavy users of social media sites.
Users also engage with a greater number of brands via email.
But analyzed psychographically, ExactTarget found different patterns of engagement. Email appeals to just about everybody. Groups that had the greatest focus on becoming fans of brands on Facebook tended to be younger, but also shared a motivation for entertainment and the ability to publicly show support for brands. The report suggests using Facebook for both informative and entertaining communications would be most effective.
Twitter appeals most to consumers who want to feel up to date and in the know, suggesting information about new products and services or other brand initiatives would be of interest.
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Posted in Email Marketing, Twitter, facebook, google local | No Comments »
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
Did you hear the news? Yesterday Facebook announced that now some 500 million people are actively using Facebook from across the globe.
I recently noticed a post from Jeremiah Owyang asking the readers of his blog for their input on Facebook marketing best practice.
Here is the feedback I shared:
1. Understand the online habits of your community – identify when your community are online so that you can time your Facebook update so that it has a chance to appear when they log on in their feed on their home page without too much scrolling. This simple online visibility tip could increase the possibility of them engaging with your update
2. Manage the frequency of posting – Take care not to publish content too frequently to your Facebook Page – if all people can see on their Facebook home page feed is your updates not their friends they may ‘unlike’ your Facebook Page or hide your feed
3. Don’t forget to promote your Page – When starting a Facebook Page we have found that also investing in engagement ads (on the home page of Facebook) has assisted in increasing the visibility and number of people joining your community quickly
4. Post relevant refreshing content – Keep your competitions relevant to the community on your Facebook Page. This may seem obvious but it is often overlooked. Your competition does not have to be for something that has an expensive price tag – but it is something valued by your community. Note – if you are hosting a competition or give way, make sure you comply with the guidelines for promotions and competitions (there are many brands who don’t and risk their Facebook Page being deleted)
5. Make it easy to do business with your app – When adding applications make sure you test it for useability – too many clicks as part of the process and people won’t add your application and if it’s not easy to use and does not add value (or fun) to them your Facebook app will remain a secret.
But what ideas would you add?
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Access my FREE Facebook webinar about using Facebook Pages
Access my FREE Facebook webinar about Facebook Advertising
Access my guide to Facebook Pages best practice guide for colleges and universities
Perhaps Facebook not where your potential clients are networking online? If they are using LinkedIn you might want to access my FREE LinkedIn for business – make sure that you leave a valid email address so that you can access a discount off my forthcoming 4 week programme starting the 9 August 2010 called “LinkedIn for Business Leads and Profits”. The discount is valid until the 31 July 2010.
Share on Facebook
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Posted in Krishna De, facebook | No Comments »
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