Facebook Timeline is here!

December 15th, 2011

Months after Facebook announced Timeline at the f8 Developer’s Conference, it is finally available to anyone and everyone, as announced on the Facebook blog.

Timeline has been available through signing up for developer beta access since f8 and over 1 million people got early access this way. The “Beta” label was officially removed from Timeline’s name on December 6, and now any Facebook user can opt-in to activate theirs now.

To opt-in, you can visit the Introducing Timeline page and click “Get it now.” Soon enough, you will also see an announcement about Timeline at the top of your profile when you go to view it.

To ease the transition from the old profiles to the new Timelines, Facebook will give you a 7-day review period where no one else can see your Timeline. This gives you one week to review all of the content that appears on your Timeline and customize it through hiding and featuring stories as you wish. To see what your Timeline will look like to someone else, click the gear icon at the top of your page and select ‘View as…’ and you can see how your Timeline looks to a Facebook friend or the public. But seven days after you upgrade to Timeline, it will automatically go live to all of your Facebook friends. Of course, if you don’t need or want the review period, you can publish your Timeline at any time.

Facebook Timeline is also now available on Android devices and on Facebook’s mobile website, m.facebook.com. While Timeline is now available for any individual user, it will not be available for brand pages yet. Facebook never actually confirmed that there would be Timelines for brands, but a rep told Mashable that “Consistency in both functionality and appearance is really important to Facebook…so we hope to make Pages more consistent with the new Timeline in the future.”

As per usual with any change to Facebook, many users are not happy. And where better to voice your opinion about a social network than on a social network? For most of this morning, “Facebook Timeline” has been a Trending Topic on Twitter as Facebook users rave, rant, and review their experiences with Timeline. Many people have expressed frustration or concern over the effects “frictionless sharing” will have on their privacy, others just don’t care for the new look. It will be interesting over the next few weeks to see how different types of tech adopters react to Timeline.

For more information on how to use Facebook Timeline, check out our introduction to Timeline and Open Graph.

Have you seen your Timeline yet? What do you think?

Posted in Our News | No Comments »

Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday (Let’s Fly Edition)

December 13th, 2011

Welcome to a special edition Twitter Tuesday double dose! It was such a busy week for Twitter that we are posting two Twitter Tuesdays this week. You can read the first one here.

Last week, Twitter launched a major redesign affecting Twitter.com, its mobile apps and website, and TweetDeck. Twitter announced the changes on Thursday in a tweet, using the hashtag #letsfly. The new design will be rolled out to users over the next few weeks. Let’s look at the changes…

Flip-flop: The change that may throw people off the most is that the stream of tweets is now on the right side of the screen instead of the left.

Tweet button: Twitter has redesigned the “Tweet” button and made it easier to compose a tweet from any page on Twitter.

Embeddable tweets: All photos, videos, and conversations are embedded directly into the stream as opposed to having to open them in a new pane. You can also now easily embed tweets on websites.

Tabs: everything on the website can fit into one of four categories that tabs have been created for: Home, Connect, Discover, and Me. The setup is the same across all devices:

  • Home: This is where the tweets from the people you follow will be and is the default view in Twitter. The team describes ‘Home’ as “your personal collection of Tweets, featuring the latest news, commentary and information from the sources you care about,” on fly.twitter.com
  • Connect: This tab houses all the interactions you have on Twitter. There are two viewing options for this tab: Interactions or Mentions. Interactions shows all correspondence with other users including @ mentions, retweets, favorited tweets, lists you’ve been added to, and new followers. Mentions shows mentions, and only mentions.
  • Discover: This page completely overhauled the previous grouping of topical tweets and hashtags. Emphasis has moved away from Trending Topics to more personalized topics, based on a user’s selected interests, location, and users they follow. This tab is broken up into Stories, Activity, Who to follow, Find friends, and Browse categories.
  • Me: This new profile page “puts you and your interests front and center.” Profile names are emphasized now instead of the user’s Twitter handle.

Brand pages: Twitter brand pages will let brands customize a header to make their name and logo more prominent,  promote or “pin” a tweet to the top of their timeline.

Twitter for iPhone and Android: Much more focus is on the “Connect” stream and discovery engine, and the direct message and search buttons are gone. Both apps also have a new black-and-blue color palette.

TweetDeck: TweetDeck was acquired by Twitter last spring, in case you didn’t know. Along with the redesign, there was also a new version of TweetDeck released, finally out of beta stages. It no longer runs on Adobe AIR. The icon is now more consistent with Twitter’s, the tweet pane is expandable instead of forever expanded, and tweets have been slightly reconfigured.

For more information about the Twitter redesign, check out fly.twitter.com and Mashable’s full coverage of the redesign.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Articles | No Comments »

Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday

December 13th, 2011

So much has gone on for Twitter in the past week that there was way too much for one post! So today we will be posting 2 Twitter Tuesdays! The first part, this part, will focus on Twitter in the news. The second part will take a closer look at Twitter’s new redesigns, including Twitter.com, the mobile apps, and TweetDeck. Check back later today to read it!

Library of Congress to archive tweets

Last year, the Library of Congress struck up an agreement with Twitter to archive tweets to “build a unique record of our time” and the project has gotten a lot of attention recently. Every public tweet since Jack Dorsey’s first tweet will be archived, so tweets sent from protected or private accounts will not be added. The archive will be held by the library’s repository of historical documents.

“Tweet Seats” beginning to pop up in theaters

Haven’t heard of “Tweet seats”? They are a growing trend in theaters where there are designated seats for those who would like to tweet a performance. At the movies or popular music concerts, your neighbors may not mind you having your phone out; but at an opera or play, probably not. The seats are usually reserved to one side of the theater so that the glare from cellphones does not distract the rest of the audience. Seats are sometimes only offered on certain nights.

One theater that has provided “Tweet seats”, according to a Los Angeles Times blog, is the Lyric Opera in Kansas. For the final performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “HMS Pinafore,” there were 100 seats reserved for those who wanted to browse “content sent by the theater’s artistic director about the production, the scenery and whatever was happening on stage. Audience members were also encouraged to tweet questions in real time.” Shows on Broadway, such as Godspell, also have plans to have “Tweet seats” in the future.

Alec Baldwin will do a lot for Words With Friends

Last Monday, Alec Baldwin was kicked of an American Airlines flight for an “outburst” that started over a flight attendant asking him to turn his phone off as he was playing Words With Friends while the plane was still at the gate. Baldwin then went on a Twitter tirade about the flight attendant, declaring it would be his last flight with American Airlines, and using the hashtag #nowonderamericaairisbankrupt. Since, Baldwin has shut down his Twitter account. Words With Friends fans have united to support him. Zynga’s official statement, “let Alec play” was also a trending topic on Twitter.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Articles | No Comments »

Online Marketing for Small Businesses: 5 Tips for Website Content

December 9th, 2011

Last week eZanga discussed the importance of small businesses being connected online, despite the usual grumbling of ‘word of mouth’ clientele. Today we will talk about how to get started with ‘search engine friendly’ content, also known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

You have a website, you have your information, but do the search engines understand what you’re saying? Yup, that’s right, search engines are reading your content to decide how to rank the most relevance on the search engine results page (SERP). Search engines are able to index content with what is called a ‘spiders‘. Exactly as it sounds, the spiders crawl all over the world wide web deciding what makes the most sense with specific keywords and phrases. The more relevant your content, the higher you will be on SERPs.

Here are eZanga’s top 5 tips when writing content on your site:Small Business Web Content

1. Flash: Stay away from it! Search engines don’t like it, and although it looks nice and pretty it won’t be spider’d, which means no one will find your site. Flash also has a longer load time, which may deter people from staying on your site.

2. Write Unique Content: Meaning, write consistent content that readers will find valuable and will ultimately link back to. You hear it time and time again, “Content is King”…nothing has changed. Keep the fluff to a minimum and make the content scannable. Not all readers ingest every word so the content must be clear and simple. Numbered and bulleted lists are great if you are trying to get a specific point across.

3. Keyword Density: Before you start writing, jot down words and phrases you think people would use to find what you are writing about. Circle the most important and try to place them high on the page, but don’t force and stuff them in. Keywords and keyword phrases should be sprinkled gracefully throughout your content. Search engines know when you are being spammy and that won’t help. Good rule to stand by: 1 keyword for every 50-100 words.

4. Page Links: Try to use links that will lead searchers to other parts of your site (as seen in first line). Links will also lead the spider to crawl other sections of your site.

5. Tags: Very, very important to have your title tag go along with your keyword phrases and general topic of the page, as it will be the title on the results page. Remember to keep this cohesive. This also goes for the description tag which should be no longer than 150 characters. This should entice searchers to click on the link. Make sure the description isn’t misleading, or your reader will leave. Don’t forget your alt-img tags on all relevant graphics on your site.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Articles | 1 Comment »

How QR Code Placement Can Backfire

December 8th, 2011

Here at eZanga, we love QR codes.  But we don’t love ALL of them. As QR codes become more popular, more people are experimenting with using QR codes without researching them thoroughly enough. The result can be a code that cannot be scanned, or that people just don’t want to scan. One of the most important aspects of a QR code campaign is where you place the code.  But even with good QR code placement there are other factors to keep in mind.  Here are some of the places we like QR codes, and what to keep in mind when using them to avoid QR mistakes.

1. T-shirts - QR codes on t-shirts and other clothing allows the code to travel and can also be a great conversation starter. But keep in mind that wherever the code is, people will be staring and getting up close to scan it. Also remember that the code needs to lie flat to be scanned. If you print the code too big, it will adjust to the curves of your body instead of lying flat.

2. Storefronts - QR codes in storefront windows can also be a hit or miss. The great part about having a code near your place of business is that once the code has grabbed someone’s attention and spiked their interest in your business, it’s right there. These QR codes can be especially great for offering specials or coupons. But take a look at the picture below from Main Street in Newark, Delaware. The code is so large and high up that it cannot be scanned from the sidewalk below. For a QR scanner to read that code, the user must be standing in the middle of the street. Not good. There is also no call to action or even identification, so it’s not even clear if the code is for the business on the upper level (Brew Haha) or lower level (Grotto’s Pizza).

3. In print - The last place we’re going to talk about is in print, anywhere. The biggest mistake I see with QR codes in print advertisements is leading the user to a virtual version of the advertisement. They just took time out to scan a code, only to receive no new information at all. Offer up different information on the code’s landing page and take advantage of all of the multimedia at your hands.

Tags:
Posted in Articles | No Comments »

Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday

December 6th, 2011

Elon’s iMedia Twitter scholarship

Elon University is taking social media in education to a new place: the application process. The iMedia program at Elon is holding a Twitter contest from December 1 to March 15, in which two winners will receive $3,000 scholarships. The scholarship will be for applicants of the M.A. in Interactive Media program.

The contest asks prospective students to tweet about how the iMedia program will shift their career in new directions. Prospective students have to compose a single tweet answering that question and include mention of the program’s Twitter handle (@elonimedia) and the hashtag #shiftimedia.

The director of Elon’s M.A. in Interactive Media program, David Copeland, told E-Net! News, “This year, through one of the most interactive social media tools, we wanted to offer prospective iMedia students a creative and fun way to realize the value of a master’s degree in Interactive Media.”

Twitter rolling out self-serve advertising platform

Twitter has begun rolling out a self-serve advertising platform that will allow advertisers to buy advertisements directly through Twitter instead of going through a sales rep. The platform is currently being tested with a handful of existing advertisers and is slowly rolling out to everyone else. The rumor mill has been talking about this self-serve ad platform for a while, and the platform finally arrived in November.

The platform allows advertisers to easily buy promoted tweets, trends, or accounts. With the platform, advertisers can choose a product, set a price and duration and pay with a credit card through their web browser. Since it is still in test mode, only tweets and accounts can be purchased right now.

Xeni Jardin live tweets mammogram

It may no longer be Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but Xeni Jardin, technology writer and co-editor of Boing Boing, raised awareness last Thursday by live tweeting a mammogram appointment. Since two of her friends were diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year, she went to get a mammogram as a precaution, but has since found out that she has breast cancer.

Jardin’s experience was full of social media influences. She tweeted pictures (or as she called it, “Instagrammed her mammogram”) from the clinic of the equipment and of herself in the robe the center provides that she said “make you feel like its gonna be ok.” She also created the hashtag #myfirstmammo. Finally, she even found the Pink Lotus Breast Center via Yelp and mentioned their Twitter account in her tweets.

Since getting the results of the mammogram and confirming the results that she has breast cancer, the support from the Twitter community has been huge. She continues to tweet about what is to come and is encouraging her followers to go get mammograms.

#Cainwreck

You’ve probably heard that Herman Cain has suspended his bid for presidential nomination. However, you may not know that in his announcement, he quoted lyrics from a song from the Pokemon movie and ironically referred to his new website as “Plan B.” In the Twitterverse, fodder like that doesn’t go unnoticed.

The Twitterverse started talking about the announcement before it even happened, with the hashtag #possibleHermanCainAnnouncements trending. Once Cain’s announcement started, the tweets didn’t slow down. His quoting Pokemon got so many people talking about it that several topics about and characters from Pokemon began trending. The Twitterverse also came up with #Cainwreck to refer to the announcement and the hashtag trended.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Articles | No Comments »

Introduction to Online Marketing for Small Business

December 2nd, 2011

Almost every business should know the importance of online visibility today (hopefully). With search engine marketing, social proof and social media marketing, you can’t help but wonder how  smaller ‘mom and pop shops’ should be tapping their marketing resources online, especially with their heavily word of mouth customer base.

Small business owners quite often dismissively say, “No I don’t need to be online, my company works on foot traffic.” As they may be partially correct, they don’t understand the gravity of an online presence and how it can greatly impact the future of their business.

So let’s talk about that first– the future of small businesses. Eventually orating reviews and recommendations will become almost completely extinct as the Millennial Generation gets older. So even though word of mouth isn’t completely dissipated just yet…chances are you will have to adapt to survive in order to create a legacy, so why not start now by cultivating a community and building brand trust?

Where should a small business venture first? Answer: Search.

Since we are still a society who google’s first to find answers, and uses social networks to interact with friends, family, and colleagues, it only makes sense to market your business on a search engine. Prospective customers need to be able to find your business before they can talk about it.

And that’s the beauty with Pay Per Click–putting your business in front of your target market at the exact time they are actively searching. Another great thing about PPC advertising is the ability to track your ROI down to the penny. You know exactly where your budget is going and where to allocate it at all times. Of course, there’s a little more to it then just ‘advertising on a search engine’  but that’s usually why you hire someone to handle the targeting, budgeting and bidding for you.

Voilà! PPC has allowed you to hone in on your target market and increase your visibility. Your base knows who you are and what you do…so now you must interact! Interaction will help you uncover customer feedback, reviews, recommendation while also allowing you to humanize your business.

Visit out Social Media for Business series where we discuss the 3 Ways to Interact on the major social media channels.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Articles | 2 Comments »

3 Ways to Interact on Tumblr

November 29th, 2011

A social media revolution seems to be happening all around us. But as companies are rushing to embrace social media, they frequently lose focus.

Everyone says that your business needs to utilize social media more, but how many people tell you how? This post is part of a series on different ways you can use social media to interact with your customers.

Tumblr, if you have not heard of it, is a microblogging site that has been said fall somewhere between Facebook and Twitter. Like Facebook, you can ‘Like’ posts.

Like Twitter, you can ‘Follow’ users and ‘Reblog’ their posts. But unlike Twitter, Tumblr does not have a 140 character limit. Actually, Tumblr tries not to limit you in any ways.

The platform has a heavy emphasis on ease of use and multimedia. It also does not limit the type of posts you can create. There are seven types of posts: text, photo, quote, link, chat, audio, and video:

Tumblr is popular among younger users, looking for humorous pictures and animations. Because of this, Tumblr has been underestimated in business use. But Tumblr has been especially important for the fashion and design industries and it’s time other industries follow. Here, we take a look at how certain activities on Tumblr will help your business.

  1. Supplement or personalize your brand. – You can use your company’s Tumblr blog as an extension of your brand. A presence on yet another social network can just add more depth to your brand’s story. One possible way to do this is to use a Tumblr blog as a “behind-the-scenes” look into your company, similar to Mashable HQ. Mashable uses Tumblr to post pictures of employees, of the office, company news, and anything that can convey what the atmosphere is like at their headquarters.
  2. Emphasize multimedia and utilize tags. – It’s been reported that half of all Tumblr posts are image-based. Take advantage of this and put extra effort into finding excellent pictures or other multimedia for your Tumblr posts. Not only will the great pictures make users want to reblog your posts more, but they will less likely to be passed over by people only paying attention to the pictures on their dashboard.
    Tumblr also has a tag feature that makes it easy to track certain topics. Users can explore and track tags from their dashboard. Unlike Twitter’s hashtags, tags are separated from the rest of the content and at the bottom of the post. Because of this, you don’t need to worry about using too many (as long as ALL of them are actually relevant to the post). It won’t make anything hard to read or put you over a character limit.
  3. Highlight the best of your brand. – Use Tumblr to squeeze more life out of your content from elsewhere. Because of the emphasis on pictures and tags explained earlier, Tumblr can be use to re-purpose posts and use them to bring more people to the original content. For example, you can take your best blog posts, pick out an attention-grabbing picture and the post’s best paragraph or a description, and post that on Tumblr with several relevant tags. Just keep in mind that your audiences are different on all platforms, so only highlight content that your Tumblr audience will be interested in.

Follow us on Tumblr

Other posts in this series:

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Articles | No Comments »

Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday

November 29th, 2011

Kansas teen’s “mean” tweet stirs First Amendment controversy

From the back of the audience of a speech by Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, 18-year-old Emma Sullivan tweeted “Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucks, in person #heblowsalot.” As controversy heated up over this situation, the public has showed her support by also using the hashtag #heblowsalot. Since that first tweet, she has amassed more than 14,000 followers (while the Governor only has 3,379!) and tweets about gratitude for her supporters and her disbelief that she is now making headlines.

Governor Brownback’s office spotted Sullivan’s tweet during routine social media monitoring and contacted the Youth in Government program Sullivan was participating in. Sullivan was called into her principal’s office, scolded, and ordered to submit an apology letter to the Governor. Sullivan refused to write such a letter. Later, the Governor was the one issuing an apology, admitting that his staff overreacted to her tweet.

Rihanna reaches 10 million followers

Rihanna is the most recent celebrity to reach 10,000,000 followers on Twitter. She will be the 8th human, 6th woman, and 5th female musical artists to reach this number. The last million followers have all been acquired in the past 27 days. MediaBistro.com reports that the next celebrity to reach this milestone will likely be Taylor Swift, likely right before Christmas.

Ashton Kutcher kicked out of Top 10 Most Followed on Twitter

Following his recent blunder and handing over of his Twitter feed, Ashton Kutcher is no longer one of the top ten most followed users on Twitter. Kutcher is (was?) one of the most famous celebrity personalities on social media and was the first to reach one million followers. But he has been knocked out of the top 10 by Selena Gomez. According to Media Bistro, he’ll have to fight to defend position #11 as it looks like Oprah Winfrey and Ellen Degeneres should pass him by the end of the year.

Dallas Cowboys cheerleader gets national attention after tackle

During the fourth quarter of the Dallas Cowboys’ game against the Miami Dolphins on Thanksgiving Day, Cowboys cheerleader Melissa Kellerman (@MelissaRae) was accidentally taken down by tight end Jason Witten. She got right back up and later took to Twitter to let everyone know she was okay, tweeting “I’m not the best at Jason Witten trust falls. ;) ” and “Not hurtin’ today, like some of ya’ll thought I would be. Our TE isn’t as tough as he looks…That or I’m WAY tougher than I look. ;) ”

The controversy started when CNBC’s Darren Rovell reported in a tweet that the team made her delete her account after comments made about the incident.  Then a campaign to bring back Kellerman’s account, @BringBakMelissa, popped up on Twitter and fans began voicing their opinions (mostly angry) on the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders’ official fan page on Facebook. Since wall posts are no longer allowed, fans took to commenting on other posts.

The director of public relations for the Cowboys, Rich Dalrymple, stated that the team has “never gotten involved with individual Twitter accounts or suspended one,” and that Kellerman deleted the account herself because she was “overwhelmed by the number of responses.” After being tackled, her number of followers tripled quickly. Her account has since been put back up, but as private so fans must request to follow her.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Articles | No Comments »

Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday

November 22nd, 2011

Twitter provides insight on cardiac arrest

Researchers at University of Pennsylvania have performed two recent studies that look at how social media, Twitter in particular, “can be used to help save lives and disseminate information relating to cardiac arrest.” In an article from The Daily Pennsylvanian , one of the researchers explains that they wanted to look at Twitter to “monitor what’s happening or understand what’s happening in non-emergencies, so that when emergencies happen we can be better prepared to use the tool to provide up-to-date accurate information to people.”

One study looked at over 60,000 tweets relating to cardiac arrest, CPR, AEDs, and resuscitation over the span of one month. Only 25% of the tweets had “real information”, such as about real symptoms, locations about events, or articles. These tweets were categorized as either personal, information sharing, or related to news media.

A second study looked at questions being asked on Twitter about cardiac arrest. The researchers found that people tweet questions about  CPR and proper procedures. In the future, they hope to look at what happens when they send information back to the people asking questions.

Another Chris Brown tirade

Last Thursday, Chris Brown had another one of those meltdowns he’s become so famous for. After someone tweeted about his assault on ex-girlfriend Rihanna in 2009 (super touchy subject for him), he went on a profanity-filled tirade ending with a vow for the AMA’s: “I wake up thinking of living my life….. YOU wake up thinking of me! NOW I REALLY CANT WAIT FOR THE AMA’s! u dont have to respect me now… but u will.” After his rant, he deleted his entire timeline, which now only has 2 tweets.

This incident is one in a long list of Twitter fights Brown has gotten himself into. Earlier this year, he got into it with B2K’s Raz B, Tyler the Creator, and Odd Future’s Frank Ocean. The “best of” the most recent episode of this series can be found here.

Simon Cowell has a new medium for insults

That’s right, Simon Cowell is on Twitter, and it didn’t even take 24 hours for him to get into his first Twitter fight. After tweeting “I love being on Twitter. Thank you for allowing me to beat the other three judges in the popularity poll. Paula looked like she’d sucked on a lemon.”

Piers Morgan, who used to work with Cowell on Britain’s Got Talent, responded “Save your breath Simon. Nobody’s watching X Factor. My show’s about to start.” To this, Cowell simply said “Look up the word ‘deluded’ in your dictionary.” At this point, Morgan pointed out that Cowell isn’t as popular as he thinks, with Morgan having over 1 million followers more than Cowell. But Cowell is apparently on a mission to have the highest follower count.

At least another judge from X Factor USA is on Twitter. After all, the show does have a partnership with Twitter.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Articles | 1 Comment »

[Older Posts]
[Newer Posts]