Archive for the ‘Social Media Marketing’ Category

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TMI makes you vulnerable to Cyber thieves!

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

Too much Information (TMI) is a very apt phrase to describe what goes on, on social networking sites. People share everything; not realizing that the information they share is all PUBLIC and visible to anyone and everyone.

Employers are searching social networks to research prospective employees. FBI is monitoring them to find criminals; and thieves are monitoring and actively searching social networks to find victims!

Yes, this was bound to happen when it is so common for people to share their vacation plans, their purchasing decisions, and so much more.

Vulnerability from cyber hackers can be reduced by doing the following:

  • Changing passwords regularly (every 2 weeks or 30 days)
  • Setting web privacy to “high”
  • Being careful when clicking on links posted by others
  • Reporting spam and accounts that may have been compromised to cyber hackers
  • Using robust security software to continually clean computer from viruses, cookies, and malware

But reducing vulnerability from criminals is even more important and easy. Just follow the NO TMI rule and DO NOT:

  • Share vacation plans
  • Advertise that you are alone at home
  • Advertise that your home will be vacant for the night or weekend or for any period of time
  • Discuss girlfriend / boyfriend location
  • Discuss specific plans for movies, dinner, etc.
  • Discuss college campus selection for kids

You get the point. Do NOT share any information which clues criminals on finding you and victimizing you in any form.

Social networking is fun but it can be dangerous too. BEWARE!

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Four effective and interesting ways to integrate Twitter in your website

Friday, October 16th, 2009

As social media marketing becomes an integrated part of one’s marketing strategy, effectively using tools like twitter, facebook and the likes becomes important. Website agencies who can weave the components together and make them interwork effectively gain an edge over other.

Utilizing twitter integration tools with your website increases its effectiveness and results in more hits and traffic. These tools will convert your website visitors into Twitter followers:

1.Twitter buttons: Twitter buttons provide a simple and effective way to quickly promote your twitter account on your website. Easy to integrate with around 40 different sizes and shapes, twitter buttons are a must have for any website today. And what more, the service also automatically creates html for you which can be embedded directly into your website.

twitter1
2.Twitter Widgets: Twitter widgets are a simple and effective way to show your twitter activity on your website. The widget can be configured to show your last few tweets on your website and can simple rest on your website side bar. Effective way to get your readers involved without wasting prime website real estate.

NETMC twitter widget
3.TweetSuite: Tweetsuite is a wordpress plugin which provides for a full featured tweetback service for your wordpress blog. It’ll allow you to track the Tweets associated with blog posts. Tweetsuite has some impressive functionality like the ‘Retweet’ and ‘Tweet this’ buttons. Also, it allows you to gather total conversation around a blog post. A must have plugin for any serious wordpress blog.

4.Chirrup: While tweetsuite works on wordpress blogs, chirrup is a service which can pull tweets from any platform. This is how they describe themselves:

  • “Chirrup fetches all of the replies from Twitter, and sorts them by URL so you can have a comment feed for each page in your site“.
  • What does this mean? This means that even a simple html website can be armed with a twitter based commenting system and gain advantage of Social Media.

NETMC chiirrup
More to come….get Twitter now (No, I don’t get paid by Twitter to promote them, lol)

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Social Media Revolution

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

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Social Media Marketing Spending Way Up

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

A new study based on the responses from 172 client-side marketers and conducted by the Association of National Advertisers was just released making a solid case for social media marketing. According to ADWEEK, “The study found that 66 percent of marketers have used social media in 2009, compared to 20 percent in 2007.”

Pretty big increase. But also an obvious reflex to our growing Web-made world. More than half of the respondents (55 percent) said they shifted funds from traditional media budgets to execute social media campaigns, while 48 percent said they took money from marketing communications budgets.

ANA president and CEO Bob Liodice said this of the results:

“As more media platforms become available, it is imperative that all marketers continue to assess their capabilities and select the platforms that are best suited to help them meet their brand’s goals and objectives. With this proliferation of media, marketers must work harder, survey the entire landscape available to them and create their brand’s most optimal media mix.”

Respondents were asked what they believed to be the most effective new media platforms out there today. Here are the results, in order of most popular:

1. Search engine marketing: 65% mentioned
2. Company websites: 59% mentioned
3. Search engine optimization: 55% mentioned
4. E-mail marketing: 45% mentioned

Most popular social media platforms:

1. Facebook: 74% mentioned
2. YouTube & Twitter: 65% mentioned
3. LinkedIn: 60% mentioned

Next year’s hottest new marketing channel:

1. Blogs: 34% mentioned
2. Mobile platforms: 28% mentioned
3. Social media: 23% mentioned

So what does all this mean to you? It means that social media and new media platforms are being used more and more for their effectiveness to target and engage the consumer. It means this is no longer a trend; it’s an essential part of any successful marketing program. If you haven’t already done so, it’s fine time to branch out and transform your offline brand to an online one.

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Social Networks

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Let’s get the bad news out of the way.

As a result of the poor economy and various difficulties at MySpace, paid advertising on online social networks in the US is expected to fall 3% in 2009.

But the drop will be short-lived.

eMarketer projects that US marketers will increase their social network ad spending 13.2% in 2010, to $1.3 billion.

“The expected rebound in spending will come as more companies focus on creating and implementing an overall social marketing strategy,” says Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report,Social Network Ad Spending: A Brighter Outlook Next Year. “And it is a clear indication that the experimental phase of social network marketing is finally drawing to an end.”

2009 is turning into a year of major shifts in the social network business.

“Facebook, once a distant second to MySpace, has outperformed its rival in nearly every measure of usage—and is on track to surpass MySpace in ad spending by 2011,” says Ms. Williamson.

US spending at MySpace is expected to fall 15% in 2009, to $495 million, while US spending at Facebook is projected to rise 9%, to $230 million. Consequently, MySpace’s share of US spending is projected to fall to 43.4% in 2009, while Facebook and other social network venues will increase their share.

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