Alert Blog Reviews

If you are new to the world of social media marketing it is helpful to know where to start networking.  The best places are the social networks that already have a large amount of traffic and members because social media marketing is a time consuming task.  Thus, you want to make sure that you narrow your markets down to the areas where you can have the largest impact which is why you may want to read about the top social media marketing websites.  College craze gone viral: The Facebook The Facebook started with just four schools in Boston and grew into one of the hottest social networks online.  By building a business profile and taking care to friend everyone you know you can quickly spread the word about your business via their profiles attracting people as they read their friends profiles.  Like most social networks, The Facebook can be used like a spider, once it gets going it continues to spread like rapid fire. The Celebrity network: Twitter Twitter is probably one of the most famous social networks due to the fact that celebrities use it on a frequent basis.  In the same way that celebrities keep their names fresh and current by ‘twitting’ so that their fans stay abreast of the activities, you can use Twitter to keep your business name, sales, and promotions fresh in patrons minds. Add in the fact that you can twit for your business and catch people while they are already outside of the home, and you have a slam dunk for getting customers inside your doors on a regular basis with an appealing enough Twit. The professional network: Linked In For those who are looking at social media marketing as a way to strengthen their business or start a joint venture the best social network on the web is LinkedIN.  Here you can find professionals from all walks of the world who you can network with to exchange advice, business ideas, and possibly even financial backing if you align yourself with the correct contact.

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Social media marketing top websites

2009 cannot be over quick enough for the newspaper business. The year was full of bad news, followed by worse news, which in some cases, ended in business ending news. The prognosis for the future is not real rosy either so what can the reeling industry do? One thing is to erect pay walls but we’ve heard enough on that one. One thing that the industry can do is embrace social media and in particular, Twitter, to get the attention of the digitally inclined. The Bivings Report decided to do conduct an imperfect study of the use of Twitter by the newspaper industry. To their credit The Bivings Report themselves noted that the study was imperfect which shows some considerable integrity and makes their findings of greater interest to someone like myself. Their blog states: …..we decided to closely analyze 300 profiles from the top 100 newspapers in the country as a way of getting a sense, in aggregate, of how the media is utilizing Twitter. Among the things we look at in the study are whether newspapers link to their Twitter accounts from their website, how often and the manner in which the accounts are updated and whether newspapers are using their Twitter profiles to interact with readers or to simply promote their site content. While the study isn’t perfect, the results provide a compelling jumping-off point for additional thought and discussion. So the results are just that: thought provoking. Here is a sample. Only 62% of the newspapers included links to at least one of their accounts from their website – A head scratcher for sure. Why wouldn’t you promote your use of Twitter? 56% of newspapers maintained a directory of their Twitter accounts on their website – Another curious thing since most major newspapers can have several accounts for individual reporters etc. Wouldn’t it make sense to make it easy t find these people. The study noted that the LA Times does a nice job of this . The average account has 3,447 followers if you removed 4 statistical outliers who had over 100,000 followers. Include the outliers and the average jumps to over 17,000 per account. Gotta love statistics! The Twitter profiles of the newspapers send out an average of 11 tweets per day. Tweet frequency varies from 1.1 (The Boston Globe’s Big Picture, The Denver Post’s Woody Paige, and The Akron Beacon Journal) to 95.5 tweets/day (The Boston Herald). 51% of Twitter accounts were updated primarily through Twitter’s web interface. The findings also showed that the interactivity of the newspaper Twitter users was not very high but it also was not completely void. The fear of most is that the newspapers were simply automating tweets but that didn’t appear to be the case. So this certainly shows some areas of hope for newspapers since they seem to be adopting Twitter as a resource to reach potential readers. It also shows that there is a ways to go before the full impact of a service like Twitter may be felt in the newspaper industry. Do you follow any newspapers? Do you care to do so if you are not currently? What would be your expectation of a newspaper’s Twitter feed? Give us your opinions as quickly as possible so we can put the print edition of Marketing Pilgrim to bed. Oh that’s right, we don’t do that. Sorry.

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How Newspapers Use Twitter

Google sure knows how to make an announcement. In the past 48 hours or so there have been updates to how personalization of search occurs, the unveiling of several new real-time / social / mobile features but that isn’t all the Google has decided to unleash on the market. Yesterday’s event at the Computer History Museum was the site of the real-time search announcement that pretty much took the wind out of the sails (and sales?) of other competitors’ efforts to beat Google to the real-time punch. Honestly that would have been enough to have everyone reminded of who the big dog is in the search marketing house but Google didn’t stop there. ReadWriteWeb covered the event and tells us of 5 more areas that Google announced innovations including some Android specific apps that are pretty cool. Looks like everyone including Apple has been put on warning. Near Instant Voice Recognition – Need a quick translation from English to Spanish? A new product prototype offers the ability through your mobile phone via the cloud. Look for most major language translations by the end of 2010. Customized Suggest Based on Location – When you start typing a search on your mobile application would be helpful if your location would be used to make the right suggestions? Of course. A demo of this service during the event yesterday demonstrated on one phone that believed it was in Boston and one that believed it was in San Francisco. Upon typing the letters “RE” the Boston phone suggested searches for Red Sox, the local baseball team. The San Francisco phone suggested a search for REI, the outdoor gear outfitter. Google Product Search Tied to Local Inventory – Just like it reads. Mobile product search will tell you location of a product and its availability. Near Me Now – Google.com on mobile, starting today on Android phones, will offer top-level search categories like restaurants or stores on the front page. Click that button and you’ll see the closest-by search results ranked by user rating. Google Goggles – This is pretty spectacular and I suggest you go check out the quick video here. Essentially, you may use an Android phone to conduct a search based on a picture you have taken. You can even point your phone’s camera at a store and get the name etc etc. Really cool. Of course, this is one of the more experimental products right now so there are limitations but the talk is to be able to one day take a picture of a leave and be told what tree it comes from. Neat. So what else does Google have up its sleeve? Who knows but anyone who thought that they have been sitting back watching the world go by and waiting for the search wars to begin has been mistaken.

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Even More Google Updates

Last year I consulted with a local TV affiliate that wanted to build a localized social network. Part of the plan was to equip citizen journalists so that they could record and upload videos of news stories relevant to their town or county. We would have killed for the new YouTube Direct tool just launched by Google. Built from our APIs, this open source application lets media organizations enable customized versions of YouTube’s upload platform on their own websites. Users can upload videos directly into this application, which also enables the hosting organization to easily review video submissions and select the best ones to broadcast on-air and on their websites. As always, these videos also live on YouTube, so users can reach their own audience while also getting broader exposure and editorial validation for the videos they create. Of course, this is not just limited to news organizations. Any business, blogger, or nonprofit that wants to solicit user-generated video is going to find a way to use YouTube Direct. In fact, Google reports that ABC News , the Huffington Post , NPR , Politico , the San Francisco Chronicle , the Washington Post and WHDH-TV/WLVI-TV in Boston are already using YouTube Direct. What you need to know: Built on the YouTube API, this 100% open-source solution provides you with an easily-integrated audience engagement platform for your website The customizable interface allows you to tailor the look and feel of the tool precisely to your audience Visitors can answer your call for content by uploading their videos to YouTube via your site without leaving the page A moderation panel enables your editors to review and approve/reject all submitted videos, deciding which ones meet your organization’s editorial criteria All videos approved by your editors include a link back to your site when viewed on YouTube You can also learn more from this YouTube video–how appropriate:

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YouTube Directs Citizen Journalists to Upload Videos to Your Site

It seems like every month another news organization toys with the idea of charging for their content. But, we always rejoin, you’ll ultimately sacrifice your audience if you charge for news content. However, the Boston Consulting Group says that may not always be the case—in fact, even Americans are willing to pay for online news . Well, sort of. The average amount an American was willing to pay for news was $3—and not $3 a day, but $3 a month . Not exactly the profits Rupert Murdoch dreams of, is it? The survey also found that people were more willing to pay for news that was: Unique, such as local news (67 percent overall are interested; 72 percent of U.S. respondents) or specialized coverage (63 percent overall are interested; 73 percent of U.S. respondents) Timely, such as a continual news alert service (54 percent overall are interested; 61 percent of U.S. respondents) Conveniently accessible on a device of choice And good news for newspapers: “consumers are more likely to pay for online news provided by newspapers than by other media, such as television stations, Web sites, or online portals,” especially since these other media have so much free competition. Interestingly, while Americans were more likely to pay for sites that offered access to multiple papers, only national and local—not major metropolitan-based papers—have that level of appeal. (I’m not sure which category The New York Times and Washington Post fall into here.) Marc Vos, a Milan-based partner and leader of BCG’s media sector in Europe, tells newspapers that they “should be experimenting with paid online content. It will take trial and error to find what works.” The prospects aren’t so bleak everywhere. In addition to 1000 US respondents, the survey also looked at results in Germany, Australia, France, the UK, Spain, Italy, Norway, Finland. While Australians also wanted to pay only $3 (USD?) for their news, other countries saw higher rates. The New York Times said that this may be because Western Europe has more consolidated news offerings, where news in the US is a very fragmented industry. However, before Western European news sites get all excited, note that the highest amount on the survey, in Italy, was $7 a month. What do you think? What would you be willing to pay for news? Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!

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Consumers Willing to Pay (Pennies) for News

By Laura Christianson – Follow her @BloggingBistro As I skimmed my Twitter stream, only three tweets enticed me to click through to the blog post: All three of these tweets are brief, unusual, punchy, and they feature strong nouns: vampire, bacon beer, Krazy Glue. Entertaining teasers seem to be in short supply on Twitter. Normally, my Twitter stream brims with two main types of teasers: Steroidal: Boost your sales 500% in 1 week! http://hyperlink.com Put-you-to-sleep: Read my blog post about my book tour http://hyperlink.com We can do better than that, people! I created a simple system I call “Twitter Teasers,” which helps me get more mileage out of my archived blog posts. First, I created a table in Word (Excel or any spreadsheet works, too). I assigned my assistant (my 13-year-old son) to go through my blog’s archives. He copied and pasted each post title, URL, and date published into the table. Here’s a sampling: Next, I composed Twitter teasers – short previews of each blog post. I’ve discovered that my most-clicked teasers include one or more of the following elements: WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?) – Reader-centered; they use the word “you”: Do you have a business portrait? Need ideas for blog posts? Try Google’s Wonder Wheel. Do you want to increase your blog’s readership? Personal – First-person, quirky, slice-of-life: My teen son discovered that I have the original Boston albums… on LP. I need your help choosing my new business portrait. Our favorite pizza joint used the good, old-fashioned cold call to sell us 2-for-1 pizzas on a slow night. Questions – Questions implicitly promise answers that deliver useful information, controversy, or entertainment. Want a quick, easy, free way to get quoted in multiple media outlets? Are 40.5% of tweets truly “pointless babble”? Do people frequently misspell your name? Strong Words – Action verbs, specific nouns, and as many details as possible packed into one tightly-written sentence: MySpace for Babies? If you have a child aged 0-5, does he have his own social media site? Important things to know if you plan to market to Gen Xers and Yers. Why there are no clocks in Las Vegas & other marketing ploys you can use to grow your biz. I draft my teasers in hootsuite http://hootsuite.com, because: It shows me exactly how many characters I have remaining. It shrinks the links to my posts. It allows me to pre-schedule tweets. I limit my teasers to 122 characters (including the link), so my fellow tweeps can re-tweet them. In the table above, you’ll notice I’ve highlighted several teasers in yellow. In HootSuite , I track the clickthroughs for each teaser, and I highlight the most popular ones so I remember to re-use them. I note the dates and times I post each teaser so I don’t overuse a particular teaser… and so I remember to re-run it in a few weeks. Often, I split-test my teasers – I write several teasers for a single blog post, tweet them at various times of the day over the course of a week, and check my stats to see which teasers get the most clicks. Crafting Twitter Teasers takes time, but it’s time well spent. Teasers ensure that fresh, engaging content appears daily in your Twitter updates, and it’s a great way to lure more traffic to your archived blog posts. © 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips . Get More Mileage Out of Your Blog Archives with Twitter Teasers Related posts: Grow Your Blog Readership with Twitter High and TweetLater Can the retweet button help you write a better blog? Would you Prefer More Twitter Followers or Blog Readers?

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Get More Mileage Out of Your Blog Archives with Twitter Teasers