Today Apple announced that it is shutting down Ping and you will be able to like and share to Facebook while you are in the iTunes store.
Facebook Exchange officially launched, and you will now be able to purchase Facebook ads through real-time bidding.
iPhone 5 Pre-Order sells out 20x faster then than 4 and 4S. Wow, goes to show how good Apple is at branding.
Check out my video from NYC last week discussing how Social Media helped grow the Tasti D-Lite franchise. If you’re looking for some statistics about the power of Facebook ads you can read my story on the Spin Sucks blog.
There is an additional approach to Social Media for those of you who are concerned about privacy or do not want to jump on the Facebook train. Internal social networks are starting to become the next big thing for large corporations and they are generating huge ROI for companies when it comes to business growth that is generated from the ideas that are shared internally between executives.
“Companies are using social networks to build teams that solve problems faster, share information better among their employees and partners, bring customer ideas for new product designs to market earlier, and redesign all kinds of corporate software in Facebook’s easy-to-learn style.”
In today’s world many people are working remotely, and the new challenge for an organization is competing with different time zones, conference calls and hundreds of emails to get their attention. What if you want to have your executive leaders brainstorm with the customer service reps, who work on the floor, to think of new ways to serve your customers? Some of the reps may feel intimidated talking to a 30 year veteran leading the company, either in person or on the phone. How can you overcome this and get them to talk one on one? Knock down the barriers, Twitter’s claimed success. Create an internal social network for co-workers to share ideas, collaborate, and even conduct training webinars.
The benefits of an internal Social Network:
Having to read less email
Seeing the avatar of your co-worker for instant identification
Feeling open to express your ideas in a Forum or to the CEO and not needing to wait for your idea to work its way up the ladder. Also not having to risk your idea being taken by someone else on its way to the top.
SMS alerts to let you know that someone has sent you a message, which makes participation more easily adopted
Being able to voice your opinion, communicate or learn 24/7
The disadvantages of an internal Social Network:
The cost of implementation
Getting your employees and executives on board to use the application, and to see the benefits of doing so on a regular basis
Training your network on how to use the application
At Engage121 we have created an internal social network inside our social media management software. Our tool mirrors Twitter’s functionality and allows you to post status updates to your organization, send direct messages to co-workers or publicly reply to updates. Enterprise accounts can allow franchisees to send messages to the franchisor, or an agency can message their clients internally as well.
Here at Engage121 our internal social network, Connect121, is a huge benefit to connecting with my co-workers and updating them on marketing promotions that are beginning today by posting a public update. They can reply publicly or privately to ask me questions on how this will affect our clients. Emails are becoming a less successful way for me to communicate and Connect121 enables me to get in front of everyone in my organization immediately, due to SMS alerts that can be set up to let someone know that there is an update.
Do you have an internal social network in place at your organization?
In this webinar Michael Chin, VP of Marketing at SocialFlow, teaches you how SocialFlow works and shows you how it can effectively increase your engagement on Twitter.
SocialFlow publishes your content (tweets) at the optimal moment; maximizing clicks, retweets, mentions and follower growth. There are many simultaneous conversations occurring on Twitter, making it difficult, if not impossible to break through the white noise and deliver your content.
We believe SocialFlow, through Engage121, can help you accomplish that task. We are now offering SocialFlow for free to all Engage121 clients for a 3 month period starting May 1st, 2012 until July 31st, 2012. Clients please refer here to learn how you can activate SocialFlow or call your customer experience rep.
Traackr helps you find the influencers who matter most to you, by finding the right people in the context of online conversations that are happening around your brand. Traackr finds the people who steer these conversations, and determines who they are and what they say. Traackr also tracks the content that you care the most about.
The Traackr platforms functions like a search tool. Depending on the keywords you enter, you get a different search result each time. You can zoom in as precise as you want or as broad as you want. The great part about Traackr is that it builds full profiles of the people it finds, down to the person’s geographic location.
How do you find the key influencers in your industry?
I ventured into NYC to meetup with our new partner SocialFlow to discuss how their application works and to hear some success stories from their clients. SocialFlow is now integrated into Engage121 and I wanted to let our clients know how they can benefit from this great application.
SocialFlow optimizes your Tweets by analyzing your audience and their conversations on Twitter in real time to post the right Tweet at the right time. By optimizing your Tweets using SocialFlow, you’ll earn maximum attention and get the most engagement from your followers.
Just a few hours ago, the redesign for Facebook Business Pages was unveiled at fMC (Facebook Marketing Conference) in New York. This new version of Facebook showcases the timeline format and cover photo that many personal accounts have already adopted. This latest format will allow you to build more “brand centric” business pages with a full image across the top and a more prevalent brand icon position.
The transition period for the new Facebook Business Page will happen over the next 30 days, with a total changeover occurring on March 30th. Engage121 is committed to ensuring that your business on Facebook is unimpeded by this change — that it only enhances your Facebook efforts. We have carefully reviewed the changes and your workflow will not be affected whatsoever. We do, however, strongly recommend you review and update your profile to take advantage of the new features to present your brand properly.
As always, if you have any questions regarding this new enhancement, please feel free to call your customer experience representative.
Below is a video and screenshots highlighting the features that will be available to business pages with the new Timeline design, such as a Cover Photo, new placement of your apps, and private messaging from your Fans.
You can see all of these features by visiting your Business Page and clicking “Preview” in the box at the top of your Page. In the next screen you will see “Welcome to Your Page Preview,” here you can eitherPublish Now and instantly change your Business Page to the Timeline design, click Start Tour to see the new features outlined, or Help to learn more.
I will walk you through the Tour now using my own Business Page.
This is what you should see when you visit your Facebook Business Page today if you are the admin.
By clicking Preview you will see the next screenshot.
By clicking Start Tour you will be introduced to the new features and design in Timeline.
As with personal profiles you will now be able to add a Cover Photo to your business Page. This is a great way to catch the attention of your community. I would recommend changing your Cover Photo often to highlight promotions or offers you have available.
There is no longer a landing tab for your page so non-fans will immediately see your Cover Photo, Profile Picture and 4 apps. Your Cover Photo is now the main way to tell a viewer about your company, use a photo that best represents what you do. The optimal size for a Cover Photo is 850 pixels x 315 pixels wide.
Make sure not to include any contact info, calls to action or about information on your Cover Photo, it is against Facebook’s Terms of Service, below.
You may need to change your profile picture if the current sizing does not fit the new design. Make sure that you are using a high resolution, high quality image that represents your company well. The boxshowing your #of likes will now rotate depending on who is viewing your page. If someone visits your page and some of their friends like your Page they will see their friends show first in the like box.
“Photos, likes and apps are now at the top of your Page. Photos show in the first spot, but you can change the order of everything else so people see what matters most. You can show a maximum number of 12 apps, so make sure to put your most important ones first.”
*I will recommend that you go through your apps to make sure they are all working, any apps that are no longer applicable I would remove. The prominence of your apps is now very important since there is no longer a landing tab, 4 apps will be all that is visible on the timeline so make your most important and engaging apps past of the first 4.
“Hover over a story and click on the star ( star icon ) to make it wider, or on the pencil ( pencil icon ) to pin it to the top of your Page, hide or delete it entirely.”
*Since Timeline shows all of your history, dating back to when you first created your Page, or started your company if you choose, I would suggest reviewing all of your posts and images to make sure they still represent your brand correctly. If you would like to hide them you can do so by clicking the Pencil Icon as mentioned above. You can also pin posts and they will be placed at the top of your timeline and it will stay at the top until you pin something else. This would be great if you launched a new product and your post contained a link to a video demoing how to use this new product.
“Keep track of your activity on your Page from the admin panel. Respond when people write on your Page timeline, and view your latest insights.”
*You will now see your Admin panel on your wall and you will now be able to make changes to your information and see your page insights in your timeline (wall), you no longer have to click “edit page” in the upper right and go to a new screen.
“Now people can contact you privately using messages. Notifications about new messages will appear right in your admin panel.”
*It will be interesting to see how this feature rolls out. For large brands, such as Starbucks, monitoring these private messages could become overwhelming and end up being one person’s entire job. It will make reaching out to your top fans easier, but they must message you first to open the line of communication.
That is the tour of the new Timeline for Business Pages. I am excited to see what brands decide to feature as their Cover Photo. I do think branding this design will be very helpful to market your business. Timeline will now show all of your history; Events, Promotions, Fan interaction, Tagging, Videos and Images all in ONE place. A person will be able to get a great sense of your company just by scrolling down your Timeline. On that note, make sure your page is the “Best of the Best” at all times and you are always wearing your Top Hat!
You can download a PDF from Facebook to see more highlights here. There are also many helpful articles outlining the new features and changes.
Key Changes:
*There is no longer a landing tab for Non-Fans, they will automatically be directed to your Timeline (wall). This places a HUGE importance on the Cover Photo, and the ordering of your apps in the new panel. This will now be the only way people will be introduced to your brand.
*Users will initially only see posts or interactions on the page from their friends, alongside posts from the page, unless they choose to click on “Recent posts by others.”
I watched the LIVE stream from the fMC conference today that Facebook hosted, it was exclusively for Marketers. Here are a few new, very exciting features that will soon be available to Pages.
Reach generator: Will help you make sure your fans see your stories. You will be able to take one of your posts every day and move it to the Facebook home page. The Reach Generator is meant to reach 75% of your fans on a daily basis, which will result in more engagement, more comments and your Fans telling small stories on top of your stories. Ben & Jerry’s reached 98% more of their fans using the Reach Generator for one of their campaigns.
Premium Facebok: It is the new way to distribute your content. You start with the page post, then the post goes to the right hand side of the Facebook homepage. TODAY when you tell stories and communicate the story to who you are connected to, that story with premium Facebook will be eligible for distribution in the Facebook newsfeed. This will also be available on Desktops & Mobile devices.
Facebook Offers: Publishing the offer as a story, then it will go on the right hand side of the Facebook home page, and it can be in the newsfeed. Remember this is mobile friendly. Macy’s published a Facebook Offer in their newsfeed and since it is available on a mobile device, it gained them huge rewards in sales.
Reminder: If you would like to drive traffic to your website Facebook is now offering a reminder to your community to your website when they log out of Faceboook. 1-800-FLOWERS used this feature and it drove sales on their website.
Once you had read over all of the Timeline features and you have decided what photo to use for your Cover Photo, read through all of your old posts, featured a post and highlighted a few key posts then you can hit PUBLISH at the top of your page. This is what our new Timeline page looks like:
Will you be Publishing now or waiting until March 30th?
Guy Kawasaki (former executive for Apple) was “awe-inspiring” at IFA, driving “real” meaning to the Social Media discussion and debate over usability. He explained social media “practically” and elaborated on how social media enables us to “tell a story” about our brands like no other platform can.
He began by explaining that to transform your brand into a masterpiece, such as Apple did, your brand must successfully accomplish three factors in the social media: Likeability, Trustworthiness and Quality.
Guy suggested that by using these three factors, you can add personality to your brand and emotionally touch your consumer. As all of us iPhone users know, we do not own an iPhone exclusively for its millions of apps that enhance our lives, but because of the sleek and elegant design. It’s sexy; it makes us feel sexy, intelligent, productive and successful. The aura around Apple products makes you feel that you will not live another day if you do not own one. As brand proprietors, we should all aspire to do this for our brands.
You might ask…How was that message conveyed when it is attached to a piece of technology? By putting a story behind the message and finding the right people to tell that story; not just twitter users with 10,000+ followers, but those with only fifteen. They are the tweeps who have the time to write about your product and become passionate about your brand.
Guy also mentioned, “Solving problems”. Guy explains the Apple problem/solution… “You’ve created your computer company because the only way you could access a computer was to visit a library, you thought there must be a better way, so you launched Apple.” Your computer company has just solved an everyday problem.
Guy also explained the importance of input and reciprocation. Start with asking your customers for their support, even if they’ve already given it to you. After they’ve re-tweeted you, proceed to say thank you, then tweet them a link to a customer survey. People want to help you; you just need to let them know how. They want to feel that their input matters and is valued. After you’ve received their input, keep in mind, it’s CRITICAL to reciprocate… ask how you might help them; this becomes your opening to the continuing dialogue.
A few more takeaways:
ENGAGE & DO IT FAST: Each post lasts 2-3 hours, so hurry!
SELL YOUR DREAM: Enchant your customer; don’t focus on money/product dump; tell a STORY to sell your product.
REMOVE THE SPEED BUMPS: Make it easy for your customer to connect with you, especially online.
“Social Media is a means to an end; the end game is enchantment of your customer. Social Media isn’t the only way, it’s ONE GREAT way.”
I would love to hear your takeaways, please post them below.
- Jennifer MacDonald, Director of Community & Client Engagement
Wow. We are thrilled. Engage121 made it to the short list as a finalist for Digital Company of the Year for the 2011 Mashable Awards . This is our second year of being part of the Mashable Awards. Last year we were nominated as a finalist for 5 Superior Social Media Management Tools.
Mashable describes Digital Company of the Year as:
This category honors the reader’s choice for the top traditional (non-digital) company that has excelled in the digital space in 2011.
Thanks to all who voted for us. Voting for the finalists will continue until December 15th so please continue to show your supportby voting daily here
Our friends at eMarketer posted a news article* that highlights the increasing importance of Review Sites in driving local store traffic.
We weren’t surprised that 70% of consumers search online sources before visiting a local business or restaurant. Even my Mom does Google searches before heading out.
So after the common Google glance and other search results, can you guess what is the next most popular online resource for tips on where to spend your cash? My first guess was Facebook. Wrong!
Online Yellow pages are the next resource, followed by Review Sites….then Facebook. (See chart of research results).
At Engage121, we have integrated the top 41 (and counting) Rating and Reviewsites into our social media management application, along with 20 social platforms and publishing tools.
So if you need to “listen” to what’s being said about your local business or global brand, we’ve got you covered. As important, Engage121 enables our clients to “engage” most of the conversations discovered through our application.
Article Excerpt: “Some 70% of consumers checked an online source before visiting a local business or restaurant, according to a survey from local content and advertising network CityGrid Media conducted by Harris Interactive in March 2011. Google was the top source, 13 percentage points ahead of online yellow pages. Consumers also checked review sites (13%) and Facebook (12%). “
For more information on rating and review sites and Engage121, please contact Jack Serpa, executive vice president of Engage121, at 203-849-7246, jserpa@engage121.com, or @jackserpa.
“Photos, likes and apps are now at the top of your Page. Photos show in the first spot, but you can change the order of everything else so people see what matters most. You can show a maximum number of 12 apps, so make sure to put your most important ones first.”
