Facebook Meets Instagram: What It Means for Your Brand

When it comes to Facebook’s $1 billion acquisition of Instagram, details are still coming into focus. In a public statement, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that Instagram will continue to grow independently — but further details about how the platforms will eventually weave together have not been provided. Nevertheless, the Instagram/Facebook combo presents new challenges to and opportunities for marketers.

Instagram is a place we go to communicate visually, to give friends a glimpse into our daily life — what we ate for lunch, which shoes we just bought, the view from the window at work. These posts not only fill our friends’ feeds with beautifully filtered photos, but also with artfully masked suggestions and influence.

As the popular photo platform gains steam, surpassing 30 million users, some companies are realizing that an artsy tilt-shift photo of the bag of chips you’re eating could be actually worth something.

Close to 1 billion members strong, Facebook has a powerful paid advertising program. And its support for brands has grown immensely in the past few months, with the rollout of Timeline for Brands and fan-based ads. Meanwhile, Instagram is emerging as a much smaller, but very powerful user-supported platform that brands are just beginning to embrace.

For brands, this acquisition is an opportunity to strengthen their digital ecosystems — by leveraging both platforms as a way to tell their stories, creating a more cohesive consumer experience and encouraging deeper engagement. Integration of Instagram into a brand’s Facebook communications has potential to create a more visual conversation via rich stories and conversations. The transparent personalities that brands have built thus far on Instagram could be fleshed out further by harnessing Facebook Timeline’s layout power to represent a brand’s lifespan of brand personification.

While Instagram doesn’t currently have an ad program, companies like Instagrid Network want to connect brands with Instagram users. By setting up programs that pay top Instagrammers to share photos of a brand’s products, inviting guest photographers to curate a brand’s feed, or promoting a certain hashtag, Instagrid is confident in its model to grow a brand’s following and establish the brand among influencers.

As branded Instagram content begins to work its way into users feeds, the big question is whether people will mind (or notice). These paid endorsements will be unobtrusive, and will look exactly the same as every other photo populating your feed. As Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom says, “It doesn’t feel like advertising when you open Instagram — it feels like entertainment.”

The idea of branded entertainment on Instagram has been an extremely successful tool for brands that operate their own accounts, such as Warby Parker and Anthroplogie, and Instagrid’s programs could help their accounts grow. However, these accounts have a transparency to them that disappears with users being paid to post images on their accounts, on the behalf of brands. For brands, this “product placement” model risks driving users away from them or Instagram in general, due to a perceived drop in authenticity and artistic integrity of the community.

Both brands and users will be carefully monitoring what happens next. Facebook and Instagram need to maintain their independence and authenticity as separate platforms in order to be successful and not push users away. Marketing efforts need to be carefully designed with the end user in mind.

The prospect of Facebook using its dominant presence to barge into users’ intimately curated Instagram communities has backlash potential. However, we see an opportunity for positive social benefits than can subtly improve the Instagram user experience and make it more dynamic — such as in-app tagging, personal and community-sourced albums, or a unified desktop presence for Instagram photos.

While this partnership will undoubtedly attract many new users to join the Instagram community, for brands, it’s important to keep in mind which channel is more relevant to the brand and its consumers. This acquisition can heighten the potential for success of branded content on Instagram, without affecting the artistic integrity of the platform.

While initially it may fall on Zuck to get this right, brands bear the real responsibility for developing the new Instagram and keeping the focus on user engagement. If they can do that, it will be a pretty picture indeed.

How to Use Facebook Timeline Pages

There was resistance when the Facebook timeline was first introduced, which was actually because changes are normally resisted. But this was actually a new opportunity for business owners. It has provided them a new way to market their business and an interesting manner to manage their page.

But how do you use the new Facebook timeline page? Before you can actually use the page, you have to upgrade it to the Facebook timeline first. When you upgrade it to timeline, you will be given ample time to prepare your page and familiarize the features. It will not be published publicly unless it is ready.

The page will look absolutely different from the previous fanpage you have. The first noticeable change is the cover. This is found in every page. This is the first catchy image you will notice every time you visit a personal or a business account. How the entire page is organized is also different. Your most recent updates will appear just below the About section. Your activities can be monitored easily as well.

The setting up stage of your fanpage is simple. You can easily follow the steps laid by Facebook to you. However, it can be challenging as well. There is little that you can customize, which is why you have to do it right. Make sure that your cover looks good, captivating even. It is important that it looks appealing for your target market. A great cover can attract more fans. You can consult a social media management team to link it to other social media networks.

Although your cover can cause a stir, it is also important that you update your page regularly. If your page will not have activity for a certain period, it will not be visible in the home page of your fans. Thus, no marketing campaign takes place. If you want people to notice your fanpage, you need to interact with them.

You can start communicating with them by airing your views on significant concerns. If you do not want to stir controversy or debate, you can ask questions about it instead. An example would be asking the views of your fans on transgender and beauty pageants.

Aside from social issues, you can also posts videos that went viral, amazing photos and links that your fans may be interested in. In addition to that, you may also invite your fans to join contest. Facebook users always love winning something. Sharing the post in their timeline can be included in your mechanics.

Finally, interact with your fans. If they have query, take time to answer them. If they have complaints, respond as quickly as you can. You can even assign someone to monitor your page. You will be surprise with the number of fans liking it if you spend some time interacting with your existing fans.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6996899

Social Media Networking: Building Your Twitter List of Followers

Tweeting won't work unless you have a list of Twitter followers to tweet to. That's the reason why you have to try to get as many people to follow you as possible.

As your Twitter profile begins growing, there are many ways in which you can add people to your list. But the important thing for you to know is that you can get a lot of Twitter followers when you start out itself.

Here are some ways in which you can ensure you have a Twitter base of followers even if you have just started out today.

1. Look in your existing list of contacts. When you sign up on Twitter, you get the option to notify people from your existing email inbox. Twitter's system will log in to your Gmail, Yahoo! or MSN or other in boxes and find people from your contacts who are already on Twitter. These can be added to your list. Also, people in your list of email contacts who aren't on Twitter will be sent an email asking if they would wish to join Twitter. You can get your initial Twitter followers in this manner.

2. When you sign in on Twitter, you can look for people who are in the same niche as you are and then you can follow them. This should be an activity you must do when you log in for the first time on Twitter.

3. Thirdly, there are various Twitter directories where you can find Twitter users sorted by category. This is a great way of finding like minded people and sending them invites. Two of these directories are TwitDir.com and twitterholic.com. You could also check out the yellow pages of Twitter on Twellow (available at twellow.com).

You won't go very far with your Twitter marketing unless and until you are keen about what your followers are up to. After all, your main playground in Twitter is your follower base and hence you need to be aware of their interests and preferences.

Thankfully, there are various tools that can help you keep tabs on your Twitter followers. Here we shall take a look at some of them.

Twellow (twellow.com)

This is like the Twitter Yellow Pages. It contains an exhaustive directory of Twitter users along with the categories and niches that they belong to. This makes things easier if you have to locate someone and follow them or ask them to follow you. Twellow also helps you to find people who are very active on Twitter and have a high ranking. This certainly means that these people are tweeting with the right earnest.

Social Too (socialtoo.com)

This tool helps you keep tabs on how many new people are beginning to follow you on Twitter each day and also how many people have left following you. You might not need such a manager when you are just starting but as the volume of your Twitter followers increases, this tool can become very useful.

Marketing Pilgrim (marketingpilgrim.com2008/01/internet-marketing-experts-twitter.html/)

This tool, which has more than 500 Twitter users in the Internet marketing niche itself, is a great niche if you are looking at this particular category of Twitter users. You can get access to a lot of blogs and other networks where these people are active.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6968806

Google+ Grew 27% in March, Logged 61 Million Visits

Countering perceptions that Google+ is a ghost town few actually visit, total visits to the social network actually grew to 61 million in March, up 27% from the previous month, according to Experian Hitwise.

The data comes after Google CEO Larry Page claimed in a state-of-Google blog post on Thursday that Google+ now has 100 million active users, 10 million more than the figure he shared with analysts in January.

Page didn’t outline how he defined “active.” The level of activity fell under scrutiny after comScore released data showing that users spent just 3.3 minutes on Google+ in January compared to 7.5 hours for Facebook.

Google, which took issue with that data, asserted that 50 million users access “Google+-enhanced” products daily and that 100 million do so once per month. However, “Google+-enhanced” includes YouTube, Google Play and the company’s homepage.

Pinerly: Hands on With the Newest Pinterest Analytics Tool

According to various reports and studies, Pinterest is driving a serious amount of traffic. It’s an exciting tool, not just for connected consumers, but for businesses of all shapes and sizes.

Analyzing how well your content is doing on social media sites is a crucial part of any social strategy. New startup Pinerly wants to help people — be it brands, blogs or individuals — do just that for Pinterest.

Pinerly aims to fill a gap in the current market and become a comprehensive Pinterest analytics dashboard. The service opened up to beta users less than a week ago, but has already signed 35,000 users, including major brands.

The service currently offers basic data, for example, how well “campaigns” (Pinerly-tracked pins) are doing. But the company has ambitious plans to really drill down into analytics, offering detailed information about pin performance, in addition to other useful tools, such as the ability to schedule pins.

We have had a play with Pinerly. If you like what you see and you haven’t yet signed up to the waiting list, head over to the Pinerly homepage to do so. You can also follow the founding Pinerly team — Rick, Vlad and Slava — on Pinterest.

Shout out in the comments below what features you’d like to see the service offer. As Pinerly is a company that prides itself on listening to user feedback, we wouldn’t be surprised if some of your suggestions make it into the alpha service.

Marketing and Facebook: A Potentially Profitable Combination

Facebook: The social media network that many advertisers and marketing companies see as their ticket to riches. It's a feasible theory; with citizens of all areas of the social graph being users of Facebook, a marketing company can easily cater to an extremely large amount of demographics very easily. On top of that, Facebook is essentially accessible from anywhere with the mobile digital world becoming only bigger and bigger. So what is the true, definitive way to advertise on Facebook, appeal to members of every area of the social graph, and get a more than decent social media ROI?

To begin with, the advertiser ought to make sure that the advertisement is eye-pooping. Seeing a woman smiling with the product is not at all appealing to people of today's day and age. Most users of Facebook are easily stimulated. They like quick flashes of info, sudden flashes of color, whatever will quickly satisfy their never-ending hunger for fast stimulation. So how does one achieve stimulation on a marketing level? With an absolutely ridiculous amount of color. For example, say that a French art museum wants to advertise its wonderful art collection on Facebook. Rather than showing off some simple, polygonal painting in black and white colors, show one of the more ridiculous abstract pieces, one absolutely dilated with color and insane images. The more ridiculous and unusual, the better. Because that is what users of Facebook look for. They want things to be so incredibly outrageous that even a typical boring, lazy lorry driver will find them interesting. So that's the first key- ridiculousness, stimulation, and a whole lot of color.

And then there's the idea of product descriptions. Typically a Facebook ad is a boring picture located above a boring description of whatever the picture advertises. It's all very drab and unappealing to the common eye. In today's society, when it comes to reading, readers want one thing and one thing only- Humor. There is nothing that makes a Facebook user happier than getting a good laugh out of something stupid. Even the cheesiest, corniest humor in a description will increase the appeal of the product, guaranteed.

So in the end, what it all boils down to is quite simple. Lots of color, lots of stimulation, and a bit of dumb humor. With these keys, an advertising company is guaranteed to increase their social media ROI and their product sales with ease.