Facebook Rolls Out Social Search Feature

by Cadie Thompson

Source: Facebook.com

Facebook launches the new Graph Search icon.

Facebook unveiled a new social search feature Tuesday that will allow users to search their friends' content on the Facebook platform.

(Read More: Facebook Live Blog )

"Our mission is to make the world more open," said CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the event which was hosted at the Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif.

(Read More: One Thing We Know Facebook Is Working On (We Think) )

Facebook's stock took a hit on the news, while the search giant Google's stock got a bump. Yelp's stock also fell on the announcement.

"I think what you have here is a natural sell the news reaction, however, the stock has been one of the better performers of all the Internet names in the last couple of months," said Jordan Rohan, managing director and senior analyst for Stifel Nicolaus on CNBC Tuesday. "And I think as people realize that there are infrastructure achievements that may need to roll out first before the businesses can be built on the back of those, that's what matters."

He said that Facebook has a lot of upside in the long-term, in the near-term he said that mobile ads will help boost the stock.

The new feature is called Graph Search and is a social search tool, not a global web search engine like Google, that will allow users to search Facebook's social graph. However, users can only search content that has already been shared with them.

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Facebook's 'Graph Search' Moving the Stock

Facebook shares are selling off on its "graph search" announcement, with David Fitzpatrick, author of "The Facebook Effect, and the CNBC's "Power Lunch" crew.

"You can only search content that has been shared with you," Zuckerberg said.

The new feature delivers information with exact answers, Zuckerberg said. For example, if a user searches for friends who live in San Francisco, it will deliver only friends that fit that search.

Hinting at a possible move into the global search business, Zuckerberg said that while the Graph search currently only focuses on people, places, photos and interests, there will be more additions in the future.

"Facebook aims to be central in many, many ways, not just for playing games and looking at photos, they want to be much more useful to their users, which is just about everybody on the web." Rohan said. "In the Internet, being central is the first point of importance, once you're central you can do what Google has done and be the Internet's great toll-taker."

(Read More: Wah? Facebook Wants You to Pay $100 to Message Zuckerberg )

Rohan said that Facebook is currently only central for social endeavors, so the new search feature will help make Facebook's platform much more central for other realms, like recruitment, dating and recommendations for shopping.

Taking a cue from Google, the social network also plans to implement auto-complete search results, where the search engine will try and guess what the user is searching before the entire search is finished being typed.

Graph Search is currently in beta, however, the new feature will eventually appear at the top of each page as a larger search bar.

Facebook users who want to sign up for the waiting list for the beta version of Graph Search can do so on Facebook's website.

Article source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100381337

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Posted in: Facebook,how to make cash money,how to make money,Jackson Yin,Social Media Marketing,What can I do to make money

The 16 Most Important Social Media Updates of 2012 by Rachel Sprung

In the last 12 months, there have been tons of updates to our favorite social networks, several of which were extremely relevant for marketers and business owners.

Many of them were just little tweaks, but a lot -- 16 in our estimation -- had a huge impact on marketers' jobs. The latter are the ones we want to highlight;

not just to show how much can change in a year, but to emphasize how critical it is to remain agile as an inbound marketer so you can keep up with all these updates. Plus, if you're not already using some of these new features (or perhaps didn't know they existed), what better time to get started than the new year?

Here are the biggest social media updates of 2012, and why they were so darn important to marketers.

The Biggest Facebook Updates of 2012

1) Global Brand Pages

With users coming to companies' Facebook pages from all over the world, Facebook needed to do something to make marketing easier so community managers wouldn't have to either 1) keep up multiple brand pages, or 2) maintain one brand page with really untargeted content. That's why we were so excited in October, when Facebook announced Global Pages that allowed marketers to maintain just one Facebook page URL, but route fans to different versions of the page based on their location. Here, look at Facebook's own Facebook page, for an example:

This update makes the job of a social media marketer much more efficient and effective. Before, marketers had to manage multiple accounts in different languages, or decide which language they were going to cater to and settle for unhappy followers who couldn't understand the content. Now, you get the best of both worlds -- one page to manage, personalized content, and one centralized dashboard to measure it all.

2) Mobile-Only Facebook Ads

In June, Facebook launched an important feature for marketers who use sponsored ads. For the first time, they allowed marketers to pay for ads only in the Facebook mobile app, as opposed to the mobile app and desktop app combined.

Many companies may have known that their audience was predominantly using mobile over desktop -- or perhaps at certain times one is preferable over the other. However, they had to pay for both advertising placements to have the chance to reach mobile users. Now that these options are separate, marketers can now target their mobile audience differently than those accessing pages on their desktop. They can also see which platform performs better to understand where their advertising dollars should be going.

3) 9 More Facebook Targeting Options

In August, Facebook announced that they were going to allow advertisers to target their audience based on more criteria than before, including age, gender, gender the user's interested in, relationship status, education, college grad (college name, major), in college (college name, major, years), in high school, and workplace ... all in addition to the options already available including language and location.

Before this update, everything that a Facebook page updated would appear in a user's newsfeed just because of their language and location, even if it didn't really relate to them. With more nitty-gritty targeting options, social media marketers can target parts of their audiences with more personalized content.

4) Open Graph Opens Up

In January, Facebook announced that it was opening submissions for Open Graph applications. Open graph applications allow third-party developers to automatically share user engagement after someone gives them permission once. For example, if you read an article on the New York Times and have given the Open Graph application permission, it will automatically post your engagement with that app -- namely, what you were reading -- on your Timeline.

By using Open Graph applications, marketers now have a significantly larger reach than before. Think about it -- if one person is playing a game from Zynga and has 2,000 friends, a healthy portion of those 2,000 friends will learn about the game, and have a pseudo word-of-mouth recommendation for it, too!

The Biggest Twitter Updates of 2012

5) Tailored Trends

In June, Twitter announced Tailored Trends, which notifies a Twitter user about popular trends on Twitter based on what Twitter knows about his or her interests, followers, and location. This update allows Twitter to notify users about important topics that matter to each person, instead of the broad topics that only resonate with some.

Tailored Trends give marketers a chance to be ahead of the game. When breaking trends affecting the industry happen, Tailored Trends is a way marketers can immediately find out about it, and possibly even do some newsjacking. It can also help you decide what kind of content your followers might be interested in hearing from you.

6) Twitter Cover Photos

In September, Twitter announced a change to the layout of its profile pages. Similar to Facebook, Twitter now has cover photos on a user or company's profile page.

Marketers now have more real estate to promote their company and give followers a better feel of what the company is all about. Followers' eyes will immediately go toward the larger image that also promotes the username, location, and bio, which was far less visible with the old layout.

7) Targeting by Interest or Username

In September, Twitter expanded paid advertising to have the ability to target by interest or username. Before, you could target with a search term, but now Twitter allows marketers to get more specific.

When targeting by interest, Twitter looks at who the user is talking about, following, and what keywords he or she is using. When targeting by username, Twitter looks at other people who are similar to another username (and not just following them). This update allows marketers to segment during their paid advertising more effectively to reach a greater number of people with interests that are more aligned with the company. 

The Biggest LinkedIn Updates of 2012

8) New LinkedIn Company Pages

In September, LinkedIn announced a new design for their company pages. Before, all of the LinkedIn pages basically looked the same, with the exception of the unique logo and company information blurb. However, the new pages display Company Updates and Products & Services more prominently, provide space for a cover photo, a different layout for Jobs, and the option to better target your company updates to certain segments of your audience.

One of the best parts of this new layout is how much more visible your products and services are to page visitors -- that page was even redesigned to showcase recommendations in the sidebar!

9) Targeted LinkedIn Updates

In April, LinkedIn announced the ability to segment updates based on company size, industry, job function, seniority, geography, and including/excluding company employees. Using this criteria, advertisers can publish updates right to a user's homepage. Your company's LinkedIn admins will also be given metrics for number of followers targeted, impressions, clicks, shares, and engagement after 24 hours.

As a result of targeted ads, LinkedIn has seen a 66% increase in engagement. Marketers who are able to segment and personalize messages to their audiences consistently get better results -- what's not to love about the ad personalization bandwagon social media networks are jumping on?

10) LinkedIn & Twitter Break Up

In June, LinkedIn & Twitter announced an end to their partnership. Previously, users could post updates to LinkedIn through their Twitter accounts. The end of their partnership marks the end of users having the ability to do this. Users can still post to Twitter from LinkedIn, but they cannot post to LinkedIn from Twitter, affecting many marketers who had synced up the two for a more streamlined social media management experience.

So while marketers are still able to post to both networks, the change takes away some of the efficiency of having posts update to both accounts.

The Biggest Foursquare Updates of 2012

11) Promoted Updates

In July, Foursquare announced Promoted Updates. Before they were announced, companies could only reach users who had already checked into their business. But with the launch of Promoted Updates, companies had the ability to appear in people's "Explore" tab even if they had not been to the restaurant before. They could promote a special, share photos, or share another message encouraging users to come to their place.

This new feature has helped marketers extend their reach and appear in anyone's feed, even if they have never been in contact with the business before. For example, if you're a small coffee shop, your name may not be known by many people, especially in areas dominated by Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts. But if you have a promoted post in Foursquare, you have the opportunity to reach a completely new audience.

12) Ratings System

At the beginning of the month, Foursquare announced ratings, a new system they created to recommend places. They don't just ask people whether or not they like a location, but they use a combination of factors including tips, likes, dislikes, popularity, loyalty, local expertise, and check-ins from all over the world. When you go to the 'Explore' tab, you're able to see what the popular places nearby are based on these rankings.

Marketers have a unique challenge with this update -- unlike your typical ratings where people say how much they like or dislike a place, this ranking also takes into account other factors including check-ins, tips, and loyalty. It is the marketer's job to encourage people coming to your restaurant or location to leave tips and provide specials that will lead to customer loyalty. 

The Biggest Google+ Updates of 2012

13) Hangouts on Air

In May, Google announced Hangouts on Air to the public to allow people to have hangouts with 9 other people while being broadcasted to an even larger audience. Not only can you broadcast to more people, but you can track how many people are watching at a time, and Google will upload your video to YouTube at the end of the Hangout.

Before this update, Hangouts could only really be used in a business setting for smaller conference calls between teams. However, by opening it up to more viewers, Hangouts now have a larger business purpose. Press conferences or company announcements now have a new outlet. Webinars, events, and conferences can now be broadcast to a larger audience. Interviews can now take place on a new channel. And hey, if you can't stand writing content, here's another medium for you to create marketing content ... without ever picking up the proverbial pen!

14) Search Engine Updates

In January, we all learned that Google is now integrating Google+ into search results. So whenever you search for something on Google, it uses information from Google+ accounts in your results, including photos and updates that you or others in your network have shared. Additionally, when you search for people's names in Google search, it pulls in people you're connected with or may be interested in connecting with based on your Google+ profile. Finally, after you search for a particular topic, a list of business pages appear on the right side of the business page.

For marketers, the takeaway is clear -- if you care about SEO, but don't really want to use Google+ ... tough cookies. If a potential customer searches for a company in your industry and you don't have a presence on Google+, competitors that do might be the ones that get the click.

15) Google+ Places Becomes Google+ Local

In May, Google+ decided to get rid of Google Places and put all of its energy into Google+ Local. By searching for a place or restaurant in Google+ Local, the contact information, reviews, and photos of that place appear in the SERPs. Google+ Local is also now integrated when someone searches for places on Google Maps.

If you're already using Google+, this should make your life easier -- and if you're not, here's one more reason to do it.

The Biggest Pinterest Updates of 2012

16) Business Accounts for Brands

In mid-November, Pinterest finally answered every marketer's prayers and announced business accounts for brands. And the process of setting them up is, luckily, really simple.

Even though you may not have heard about Pinterest until recently, it has actually been around for a while, and totally blew up as a marketing mechanism in 2012. This shift to creating dedicated business accounts is an encouraging sign of things to come from Pinterest -- we're thinking features like analytics (pinalytics, even?) might be a hot new addition to the already awesome platform ;-)

What other social media updates from this year rocked your marketing world? Which updates are you hoping to see in 2013?

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Posted in: how to make cash money,how to make money,Jackson Yin,social media,Social Media Marketing,What can I do to make money

5 Tips for Starting a Career in Social Media Today

So I take it you’re looking to start a career in social media? Well unless you’re one of the lucky few who can “blow up” with a viral hit, it’s going to take some hard work and passion. I should know- I’m not writing this from some ivory tower. I’m writing this with the belief that what I’m about to share with you will continue to propel me forward as well.  There’s a lot of opportunity out there in online marketing and I’m guessing you want in as well. Businesses are finally taking social seriously, and now is the time to learn the tools, theories and people to set yourself ahead of the competition. Are you committed? Are you serious? And most importantly, are you ready?


T- TODAY: Is it bad to start an acronym with the word itself? I don’t have the answer to that, but I digress… Social media is both an art and a science. To become knowledgeable, you have to both study and practice regularly, starting today. Read up from sources like Mashable or Social Media Today and listen to thought leaders like Michael Stelzner and Brian Solis. Trust that other people are smarter than you and use the internet to your advantage to learn from the best. After a while, you’ll begin to internalize the best practices and make them your own. When the ideas become your own, you can reflect them back into the world and help to grow the thinkers of tomorrow. For all we know, you may even write a book someday- but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

O- ORIGINALITY: If your plan involves being a copy of someone else, why would anyone follow you over them? Instead, bring your own dip to the party and be happy that a career in social media allows your creativity and personality to show through. There’s only one right way to change the oil in a car, but there’s countless ways to build a following on Facebook or Twitter. Experiment and find what works for you. Though it may take some time to find your niche, you can already cross off copying “that guy” with a million Twitter followers, because what he did to get there has already been done.

D- DATA: Data is your friend with online marketing- Learn to love it. Sooner or later someone is going to want to see behind the curtain of your work and you’ll need to come up with sexy-looking reports to show your progress. Previous generations have had to struggle finding and collecting data, so be thankful that now it’s just a click away. Find ways to interpret meaning from the numbers and use them to your advantage in future planning. Ask yourself “Why?” again and again, and test your hypotheses to see if you were right. You’ll know when you are, because the data doesn’t lie.

A- ALWAYS: Here’s a list of a few things you should always do: Create what you’d want to see, share your content, cite your sources, being engaging, network with like-minded individuals, stay on top of the trends, accept that your know nothing and continue learning, go to meet-ups, update your profiles, keep it classy, have fun, keep trying and most importantly- be yourself (I said it twice because I mean it).

Y- YEARNING: There are plenty of jobs out there, but is this what you want to be doing? If I were to search Google and ask what you’re all about, what would show up? I’d hope to find employable social profiles and see some initiative on your part- Otherwise your talk is just fluff. It’s easy to say you have passion and drive, but if you’re truly passionate, then start putting your name out there. Spend the time to build a website, show the world the plans inside your head, and develop a deep understanding of all the social tools and the tactics that drive them. Faith is an action word my friend, so take the plunge and get started following your dreams today.

How are you getting started? Tell me in the comments below and share your success stories.


By Ryan Connors.  Article source: http://www.business2community.com/social-media/5-tips-for-starting-a-career-in-social-media-today-0301228

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Posted in: how to make cash money,Paid social media jobs,social media,Social Media Marketing,What can I do to make money

Five Factors to Social Media Success for Dealers

With a reported 141.2 million Facebook users in the U.S. and over 69 percent of businesses currently active on social media sites like Twitter and YouTube, dealerships are in heavy competition for the public’s attention. Successful social media marketing combines fundamental advertising principles with classic relationship building techniques. To create a social media strategy that’s both engaging and profitable, dealers must understand the following five factors for success:

Brand consistency

A successful social media presence should reflect the dealership’s showroom and website. Social media avatars, backgrounds, messaging, images, contact info, and overall persona should be consistent with the dealership’s brand. Brand consistency increases top of mind awareness and builds consumer trust. An attractive and reliable brand engenders loyal followers, setting the stage for new and repeat customers.

Authentic networking

In small towns, the businesses that thrive are the ones that everyone in the community enjoys doing business with. Successful networking, online or otherwise, depends on authentic interactions. Social network sites like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are ways to reach out to other businesses within your community. By subscribing, commenting, re-tweeting, sharing, liking, and following, your dealership is interacting with the community in a sort of online chamber of commerce.

Engaging presence

One of the biggest mistakes that dealers make is talking at their customers rather than engaging them. A one-way conversation is a fast way to drive customers away. Just as in small towns, social media participants prefer to “gather at the coffee shop” and join in on the conversation. Share information on your social networks that’s relevant, interesting, and adds value to your community. Monthly giveaways, photo sharing contests and other interactive promotions are great ways to attract new followers and initiating discussions on local topics, entertaining YouTube videos and celebrity news are good ways to activate your existing followers.

Integrated technology

First, integrating dealer chat on Facebook is an excellent way to seamlessly transition casual conversation into business interactions without being too forward. Providing direct access to your sales team should the need arise is typically perceived in context as helpful. Many dealers offer chat on their website, but some neglect to include it on their social media pages. Photo drop-ins with personalized photos from chat provider, Contact At Once! is proven to result in the highest number of online conversions.

Second, consider offering social media followers special, email-only content in the form of exclusive coupons and personalized video messages in return their email address. Many dealers have already discovered the power of customized video emails. Enhancing the social media experience with member-only video messages can be great for business. Video emails contain custom branded backgrounds, live links, and chat invitations for instant connection and can be used to announce secret sales events, new model rollouts and rebate offers.

Content that counts

Increasing website traffic is key to generating more online leads for your dealership. With its recent algorithm update (termed Panda) Google has made it clear that social media engagement and content freshness are two important factors in search engine rankings. Now more than ever, there is a direct link between content posting, social media interaction and organic traffic. Social media engagement impacts local search listings, and the fresher the content, the better the chance your dealership website has at attracting more visitors.

Parting shot

The debate rages on for some dealers as to whether or not social media can be used to increase online traffic and harvest sales. I’ll contend that if done in accordance with the factors outlined above, the answer to that question is: yes!

By Rachel Haro.  Article Source: http://dealermarketing.com/advertising-menu/internet-marketing-solutions/2767-five-factors-to-social-media-success-for-dealers.html

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Posted in: how to make cash money,social media,Social Media Marketing,What can I do to make money

How to Hard-Wire Your Site to Google

Until Bing turns into David and slays Goliath, the only search engine game in town is Google. While the other search engines can't be ignored or forgotten, when it comes to online search, Google will deliver the majority of your quality organic traffic. For webmasters and especially for online marketers, having your website virtually hard-wired to Google is a marketing Must-Do.


We are strictly talking about white hat stuff here, if you're seeking the opposite color, look elsewhere. As a full-time search engine marketer, I have learned a few things over the 10 years or so I have been working on the web. One of the most significant factors running constantly in the background has been Google. And the underlying fact that the more I intertwined my sites and content with Google, the more success I would achieve. There seemed to be a direct correlation between the two, making it a little more than ironic that the original name for Google was BackRub.


But this is not exactly rocket science territory here, Google is the biggest entity on the web, especially if you go the free organic traffic route. There are tons of ways to market online which don't involve Google at all, but for the purposes of this piece, I will be discussing ways any webmaster or marketer can better connect their site and content with Google. Plus, if it's not already obvious, also give you some reasons why this is a smart marketing strategy on your part.


The first technique you must perfect is how to get your new content into Google's Index within minutes, if not seconds. These days with social media sites this can be easily achieved. It may be as fast as your latest Tweet or Google Buzz. Google News is another easy way to instantly get your content into Google. Press releases are another immediate way to connect your content with Google. So too is something as simple as making a video and posting it on YouTube which is Google Owned. (Note - Google has recently revamped the YouTube system and provided many ways webmasters can view the linking data and stats; great source of information for webmasters and marketers.)


Actually Google will index any new site or content fairly quickly these days so you don't have to worry about it. One method I like best is using a free blog from Blogger/Blogspot (which is also Google owned) and placing links here to be indexed within minutes. To keep track of what content Google is indexing, I usually set up Google Alerts for all my main sites and my main keywords. Whenever a page is indexed in Google related to my sites or keywords, Google sends me an email. Many savvy webmasters use these alerts to find and build link partners since these indexed pages will be thematically related to yours. Using Google Alerts will make it seem like you're totally welded to Google and Google's indexing system, every second of the day.


Needless to say, keywords rule the web and Google. You must attach your content to keywords people are using to find stuff on the web and build top 10 rankings for those keywords in the search engines, especially Google. Now if you're new at this, Google gives you some valuable keyword tools you can use to see how many searches are made each month for a keyword phrase and also gives you some idea of the keyword competition you will be facing. I like using these tools here: google(dot)com/sktool and also labs(dot)google(dot)com/sets. Besides, you must start your Google courtship off on the right foundation.


Next, you must realize Google is not really a search engine but a business. The main goal of this business is to supply quality content to web users so that these users will use Google over and over again, allowing Google to attach ads and make a profit. The key to getting and keeping Google's attention is fulfilling your part of this "quality equation" with superior content which surfers want and find helpful. Make this your religion and the SEO gods, including Google, will smile kindly upon your site.


Now like any religion there are some strict rules you have to follow. In a recent WebProNews video interview, Matt Cutts said Google has (200) signals it uses to rank content on the web. Most webmasters refer to these as ranking factors, but in truth, they are really signals that your site gives off... provide the wrong signals and it could spell lower rankings. So if you want to keep your site in Google's good graces, you have to follow some simple SEO on-page rules, such as placing your main keyword in the Title, in the Heading, in the Body and in the URL. Make sure your site is easily navigated by your visitors and especially by the search engine spiders. Keep your linking structure simple, with no links more than three clicks away from your index or homepage. In my opinion, getting quality related one-way backlinks is the most important way to get top rankings in Google.


In recent years, Google has gone out of its way to help webmasters understand all these simple SEO basics. And as far as I am concerned, one resource every webmaster should be using is Google Webmaster Tools. This is a whole suite of tools and information webmasters can use in correlation with Google. Recently, in Webmaster Tools Google has made available Click-Thru data on its search engine results so that you can find out how many impressions you're getting for a certain keyword and your click-through or conversion rate. Some webmasters are questioning the accuracy of these numbers but it will give you some indication of how well your site and content is doing in Google.


Perhaps, another just as valuable program is Google Analytics, where you're really giving Google access to all your site's information. You can use Analytics to measure different links/content on your site to see how well it preforms. More importantly you can use it to fine-tune your conversion rates in order to make more sales. I also use it to test-out different graphics, different salescopy, different site layouts... and so on. But a word of caution, don't just use Analytics, as an online marketer you want many sources of information, so regularly study your own traffic logs and raw site data. Even with Google and probably especially with Google, you should always cross-reference any data with other sources on your site and on the web. Lets not get too carried away with this Google worship thing.


I use both Google AdSense and Google AdWords with most of my sites. While as an online marketer, I know I can get 10 times more from an affiliate link rather than monies from AdSense... but over the years I have found having both types of links on sites don't significantly reduce sales. To explain further, I have tested my pages with and without AdSense, and it doesn't affect my affiliate sales even though I know I am losing some sales to AdSense. But overall, using AdSense adds to the competitiveness of my pages, if someone is looking for the lowest price and finds it in a Google ad they come away happy and will probably visit my site again or sign-up to my newsletter. Besides, AdSense is a very quick way to monetize pages which I don't have ready affiliate programs for on my sites. Plus, both AdSense and AdWords give you valuable feedback on your content's performance.


There are several other Google programs which I use to further connect with Google such as Google Docs, Google Knol and iGoogle. One must-have program is Google Accounts, which basically connects me with all my different programs within Google. I have found managing all your Google programs is much easier from this one location. I also like using Google Profiles and Google Buzz to get my content quickly into Google and onto the web. As you have probably guessed already, Google does have a lot of programs which webmasters can use to improve their content's performance. In the process, by using and intertwining your content with all of the Google programs highlighted here, you're really connecting with Google en masse.


While many marketing experts will say it is foolhardy to marry all your content to just one search engine, but I have found over the years, hard-wiring your site to Google really makes your content readily accessible in the most dominant presence on the web. Doing so not only gives your content the attention it deserves, but it can also help further your own goals. Actively positioning your site and content firmly within Google's many different facets can prove beneficial for any webmaster or online marketer. Just get that pre-nup agreement in writing first!


By Titus Hoskins.  Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/4178336

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Posted in: Google,Google ranking,Social Media Marketing

Google adds social tools for businesses

Google is buying a company that specializes in social media marketing as it intensifies competition with Facebook for ad dollars and attention.

Google Inc., owner of the world’s largest Internet search engine, said it is acquiring Wildfire Interactive Inc., a startup that helps companies market their wares via social media.

Google will pay about $250 million plus performance incentives for Wildfire, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Companies such as Salesforce.com Inc. have been buying startups that specialize in social-media marketing, seeking to capture a bigger slice of advertising budgets devoted to reaching consumers who interact over the Web. Google has stepped up its efforts in social with Google+, a service it started last year that competes directly with Facebook Inc., owner of the biggest social network.

“It’s a platform for brands to manage their pages, apps, tweets, videos, sponsorships, ads, promotions and more, all in one place,” Mountain View, California-based Google said in a blog posting today about Wildfire. “The ultimate goal is better and fresher content, and more meaningful interactions.”

Meanwhile, Facebook’s stock is at another all-time low.

The stock has been falling since Facebook released quarterly earnings Thursday for the first time as a public company. Investors were disappointed despite second-quarter results meeting Wall Street expectations, with revenue one-third higher than last year.

The stock lost $1.44, or 6.2 percent, to close Tuesday at $21.71. It is 43 percent below its initial public offering price of $38. Shares briefly hit $21.61 during the day. The previous low was $22.28, on Friday.

Facebook began trading publicly in mid-May following one of the most anticipated stock offerings in history. But since then, investors have been concerned about its ability to keep increasing revenue and make money from its growing mobile audience. Many analysts hold positive long-term views.

Wildfire, with investors such as Summit Partners and fbFund — whose capital comes from Founders Fund and Accel Partners — has customers such as PepsiCo Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. Wildfire’s services can help clients boost interest on Facebook and other social sites, including Twitter Inc. and Google+.

“Over time the combination of Wildfire and Google can lead to a better platform for managing all digital media marketing,” the company said on its website. “Wildfire will operate as usual, and there will be no changes to our service and support for our customers.”

Salesforce said on June 4 that it would pay $745 million for Buddy Media Inc., which helps companies create social-media campaigns. Earlier this month, Oracle Corp., the world’s largest maker of database software, said it is buying Involver Inc., the third acquisition in two months aimed at helping customers use social-media tools.

By Bloomberg.  Article source: http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20120731/business/707319647

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Posted in: Google,Social Media Marketing

How to Use Social Media for SEO (Post-Penguin)

As a business owner and marketer nowadays, you should know how to use Social Media for SEO purposes. This article will show you how.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and social media marketing shouldn’t exist in separate planes. Marketers know that there should be an element of SEO in every online activity. But as social media marketing matures, it is becoming clearer and clearer that it has an impact on a site’s SEO.

It is common knowledge that Google now incorporate “Social Graph” in their algorithm. In fact, Eric Schmidt of Google has confirmed that social media activity is a ranking signal for Google search. Many SEO gurus already predicted that soon it will be one of the main factors in the Google algorithm as links become less and less reliable.

Social Media plays an important role in how people use the internet these days. In the next couple of years, it is estimated that 65% of all US Internet users will use social networks. So it is not surprising to know that Google’s crawling, indexing, and ranking are directly influenced by tweeted links, public Facebook shares and likes, and Google +1’s.

Now that Social Media has established its importance in SEO, “How should we use social media to improve our rankings?” The better you understand the nature and strength of the connection between the two, the better you can focus your efforts on activities that get results.

Create accounts and manage

It wouldn’t hurt to create accounts and profiles in different social media sites. Of course, those accounts should ultimately link to your site and pages via your profile or status updates or tweets or whatever you call it. Make “real” accounts and use them as a real person would. If it is still not happening, sooner or later Google will easily disregard spammy social media accounts.

Install social sharing buttons on pages/posts of your website

People do not have the right to complain that social media does not work for them when they do not even have social sharing buttons on their web pages. The point of social media is…well… to become social and share. If your personal Facebook account is full of musings of life, the universe and everything in between, why not give others the opportunity to easily share your posts and pages?

Content and Credibility: The King and Queen of Social SEO

It is very important to interact with your followers, friends, and subscribers in a fairly personal way. This creates credibility and may, in turn, cause some seriously beneficial social signals. Google likes very credible sources and they judge webpages/sites based on those signals created through social media. It should be mentioned that if your content is great, rest assured that people will create floods of social signals to your benefit. Google will eventually pick up the trend and consider positively.

Why Social Media is not that much of a huge factor in SEO yet

The main reason why Social Media is still not the main factor for determining search results and rankings is the fact that it can be “gamed”. Google may consider social signals but still struggles to identify spam shares, tweets, and +1’s. However, it is certain that they are working on it.

Penguin and Panda updates may not be intended for Social Media control but it is best to get used to ethical social media practices as the next update could impact the Social-SEO connection.

SEO is not dead but social sharing is merely in its infancy and will continue to grow. Human nature of being social makes it unstoppable and internet search companies have no choice but to adapt. As for us, marketers and SEO’s, we need to keep tab and continuously update ourselves on how to use social media for SEO.

Article source: http://www.bestwaymakemoney.org/how-to-use-social-media-for-seo

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Posted in: Google ranking,how can make money,how to make cash money,social media,Social Media Marketing,What can I do to make money

How a Scottish Home Brewer Used Social Media to Get Global Customers

If you run a small business or you’re thinking of starting one, a big challenge you will face is getting customers. Without customers, you can’t pay your bills, and you have no hope of convincing anyone to invest in your company.

And it’s a Catch-22 for most entrepreneurs, because they probably think that they need capital to build the product and sales force required to get customers. The difficult reality for most start-ups is that they have to get customers before they can raise outside money. And this puts start-ups under pressure to make the cleverest possible use of their scarce founder’s capital.

And one way to get the biggest bang for the buck is to use social media. This comes to mind in considering the success of Scotland’s James Watt -- who is nothing if not a business renegade. When he started beer-maker BrewDog, after quitting work at a law firm after two weeks, he knew clearly what he didn’t want to do. But what’s most interesting is how he figured out what to do instead and how he used social media to get customers.

BrewDog’s co-founders started the company because they were bored with their conventional jobs, disliked conventional beer and the conventional corporate cultures they represented, and wanted to do something they loved.

As Mr. Watt explained in an interview, “Law — in a word — is dull, and there was a big part of me that totally panicked thinking @!*& is this it?’ The last thing I wanted to do with the next forty years of my life was to sit behind a desk, sorting out paperwork and other people’s problems, constrained by a nine-to-five and a smart casual wardrobe. When I quit, I didn’t know what I would do, but literally a week later [co-founder] Martin Dickie and I started experimenting with beer, so I wasn’t stuck watching daytime TV for long.

As Mr. Watt said, “The idea to start our own brewery certainly wasn’t something we consciously set out to do.”

“I guess like any good idea, it just had this natural flow about it that . . . kept rolling and has never really stopped. BrewDog officially began in April 2007, but it was some months before that, when [Mr. Dickie and I] were having a beer that BrewDog was ‘born.’ The subject of monotony and the fact that all supermarket or big brand beers taste the same was the topic of conversation.

“[With Mr. Dickie] having just finished a degree in brewing, beer often took precedence in our conversations, but this time words became actions, and we decided to try and create our own beer as a means of remedying the stuffy ales and fizzy yellow lagers that had come to dominate the UK drinks market.

“That evening we set up a makeshift and pretty sketchy looking brewery in Martin’s garage, and created the first batch of what has now become known the world over as Punk IPA.”

Their next move was to see if anyone in the world would like what they had brewed. Mr. Watt continued, “From here we took our pilot beer to a series of open tastings and — by chance — were discovered by the late beer guru Michael Jackson at an event in Glasgow. Upon tasting our beer, Michael told us to quit our jobs and go into brewing fulltime. This is exactly what we did.”

Mr. Watt said, “For us, everything comes back to one simple thing, one overarching ambition, one guiding light: to make other people as passionate about great craft beer as we are. We want to show people there is an alternative to monotone corporate beers and introduce them to a completely new approach to beer and elevate the status of beer in our culture.

Its marketing approach also reflects this anti-corporate bias. As Mr. Watt explained, “Whether it is wrangling with industry regulators, pushing the boundaries in high ABV [alcohol by volume] brewing, smashing bottles of generic beer with a baseball bat, or doing a Saturday morning tasting at a local street market. This is why we work sixteen-hour days and why we only hire the most committed and passionate craft beer fans to work at BrewDog.”

BrewDog produces very clever and humorous videos that are inexpensive to produce and tend to attract many viewers through viral growth. Mr. Watt noted that a one-page magazine advertisement in the United Kingdom might reach a few potential customers for $8,000; however, BrewDog was able to reach 250,000 people around the world with a humorous YouTube-style video that it created for $2,400.

If you’re a start-up with your back against the wall, you could do worse than using BrewDog’s tactics to get customers without spending too much money 

By Peter S. Cohan WALL & MAIN

Article source: http://www.telegram.com/article/20120702/COLUMN70/120629665/1002/BUSINESS

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Posted in: how to make cash money,social media,Social Media Marketing,What can I do to make money

Opportunity To Earn Good Income From Social Media Jobs

If you do a google search “paid social media jobs”, you will find that there are lots of people interested in Social Media jobs and the positions are filling fast.

Facebook is the biggest social media and networking platform on the planet with over 600 million users. It’s the Internet’s largest social network site with millions of active users and over 300,000 being added up everyday. Facebook has quickly become a leader in the Social Networking space today!

Facebook’s success provides plenty of opportunities for canny entrepreneurs to profit, and is also a virtual goldmine for Internet Marketers who know how to get traffic from Facebook and then turn all that traffic into real money. Facebook is really an internet phenomenon that smart marketers can’t ignore.

Social Media Marketing is still in its infancy. And the great advantage you get you here as there are not many set rules. You can experiment with different methods and techniques, which can be further fine tuned and incorporated with your own ideas.

There are many ways to market on Facebook. Today almost anyone who has a Facebook page, can make money in a variety of ways. Some ways are free and some would cost you money. While Facebook ads could be one of the most targeted and profitable ways to market on Facebook, you can also use Facebook in a lot of other ways to market your products and websites.

With half a billion Facebook users and thousands of online communities to choose from, Facebook has brought potential customers much closer to you. Unlike any other Online Marketing Social Media Industry today, Facebook Fanpage is pointing to an untapped market, virtually making it limitless and filled with a world of potential.

Most people like the freedom of working from home. You can put some time and effort into it and earn some serious cash working from your home. With this massive flood of new Facebook users, business owners, advertisers, it takes hard work and persistence to be able to make a decent amount of money on Facebook – specifically making money online from the comfort of your home.

As an Internet marketer one of your main promotional goals should be to dominate social networks simply by attracting followers or friends and thus you can quickly build a list of valuable leads.

You know you will be writing about something that is of interest to a large group of people. There are also Facebook Groups that allow people from all walks of life to come together around a common cause or activity to express their views. One of the best features of groups is the ability to send messages directly to members’ inboxes. This way you will be able to form a community and help your brand image in a big way.

Did you know that businesses all around the world are hiring people just like you to help manage their social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube?

There are thousands of businesses around the world and in your local area looking to hire people just like you to work on simple tasks such as:

• Posting Facebook comments

• Moderating Faceook groups

• Uploading photos and tagging people

• Generating Facebook ‘likes’ and followers

Most of these jobs don’t require any prior experience and the only skills you need are a good knowledge of how to use Facebook.

Do you like to spend time on Twitter? Would you like to get paid to do simple jobs such as ‘tweeting’ and ‘following’ on Twitter?

There are thousands of people just like you are getting paid great money to work online doing simple tasks on Twitter.

There is a lot of money in it, and the best part is that you don’t need any prior experience or specialized skills. All you need is a few spare hours per week, a computer with an internet connection and a good knowledge of how to use Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.

Article source: http://cmvlive.com/business/small-business/opportunity-to-earn-good-income-from-social-media-jobs

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Posted in: how can make money,Paid social media jobs,social media,Social Media Marketing,What can I do to make money

Home Businesses Will Turn To Social Media

As conventional website adoption slows with surging social media use, a study by research firm IDC predicts that Facebook and other social networks will become key online platforms for home-based business promotions and commercial activity.

The IDC study found that about 40% of home-based businesses today use social networks to promote their business. While social networking is still more often used to supplement websites rather than as a substitute for them, roughly 20% of home-based businesses currently promote themselves on social networks and don't have a conventional website.

In another sign pointing to rising social media use, IDC found that nearly 40% of home-based businesses selling online do so without a website of their own, leveraging the high traffic provided by major online marketplaces like eBay, Amazon.com, Craigslist and others.

IDC also sees a significant home-based business opportunity for software engineers, app developers and website resource providers since relatively few home-based businesses with websites currently practice search engine optimization or optimize their websites for mobile device users.

"Websites have provided a relatively inexpensive way for businesses to efficiently reach local and international markets since the 1990s — and yet less than half of home-based businesses currently have them," Justin Jaffe, research manager for small/medium-sized business and home business research at IDC, said in the report. "Social networks have made online promotion less expensive and complicated, and Facebook and other social networks will become increasingly key players in empowering the marketing and commercial activity of home-based businesses."

Facebook, however, is still devising a strategy to make money from its ever-rising number of mobile users, which has helped result in its disappointing short life as a publicly traded company.

By DOUG TSURUOKA, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

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Posted in: Home Business,Social Media Marketing

Facebook CEO Turns 28, IPO Could Be $100B Gift

This is a big week for Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg, who is celebrating his 28th birthday Monday.

The social media star is just days away from being chief executive of one of the most valuable companies in the world.

Facebook is expected to start selling stock to the public on Friday in an offering that values the company at nearly 100-billion dollars, which would make it worth more than such iconic companies as Disney, Ford and Kraft Foods.


At 28, Zuckerberg is exactly half the age of the average S&P 500 CEO, according to executive search firm Spencer Stuart. With eight years on the job, he’s logged more time as leader than the average CEO, whose tenure is a little more than seven years, according to Spencer Stuart.

Even so, the pressures of running a public company will undoubtedly take some getting used to. Once Facebook begins selling stock, Zuckerberg will be expected to please a host of new stakeholders, including Wall Street investment firms, hedge funds and pension funds who will pressure him to keep the company growing.

Source: http://miami.cbslocal.com/2012/05/14/facebook-ceo-turns-28-ipo-could-be-100b-gift/

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Posted in: Social Media Marketing