Social Media Archives - Page 5 of 8

Game Dynamics And The Influence Layer Of The Social Scenario On The Web

Seth Priebatsch spoke about’ The game layer on top of the world’ on ted.com last year.

He says that the last decade was the decade where the social network was built, this decade is where the Game Framework will be built.

The Game Framework according to him is the motivation tools that influence behavior. The loyalty schemes on websites and other techniques used to influence the people to take certain decisions are actually game dynamics in action.

One of the following slides that he shared was as follows:

It says that the last decade was about connections which was enabled by the Facebook Graph whose construction has reached a peak and a saturation point. The next decade will have a focus on the influencing behavior for which the construction does not have any set foundations and the work has just begun.

I totally agree to this point. If we correlate it to our SEO and other SEM campaigns for websites we can see a clear climb to this next evolutionary step.

When we work on our landing page dynamics to make a person take a decision to buy a certain product – we are try to influence his decision.

When the search engines integrate the social results in the SERPs it is kind of influencing the decision of the visitor.

When the most retweeted post becomes the most read post , it surley says a lot about the influence factor.

When we talk about posting a tweet, a blog post or a comment at the right time so that we have a maximum reach by keeping in mind all the continent time zones (Like the best time to post is when there are maximum users online i.e when people from Asia, America And Europe are online together) and thereby achieve the set goal we are working on having a better influence.

The latest which I just came across Man Proposes to Girlfriend via iPad 2 Engraving so you have boyfriends influencing their girlfriends online in a geeky way to say “I Do”

View the video to learn about :

1. How to build the game (Influence) layer ?

2. 4 Game Dynamics which help you to create that layer.

3. Appointment dynamics

4. Influence And Status (Influence Through Social Pressure)

5. Progression Dynamics (You move thru progressively in a granular fashion eg. Linkedin)

6. Communal Discovery (Everyone has to work together to achieve something . The communities which build around a blog are a classic example)

Its all about mind share and influencing people and getting influenced by people once you are on the social scenario of the web. Klout.com which analyzes and rates your Twitter account measures and determines ‘The Standard For Influence’ and scores accordingly. So, we surely are at the infancy stage of the influence dynamics which is used in Games .

Points To Ponder…

Is life becoming a Game
Or

Life has always been a game but we are learning to play it now more efficiently , effectively and globally?

The Importance Of Creating An Online Brand

Your brand online or offline is one of the most important building blocks of the whole business and marketing strategy. The brand is the reflection of the image that your products and services create after adding the promises that the company makes about that their products.

The brand is an inseparable component of your business which makes you stand apart from your competitors. Online this is very important especially at the intitial stages of establishing an online presence of your company as people online search for products and services on search engines and other platforms on the basis of keywords that are product oriented or services oriented and thus land on your site where they get information about your company.

If the logo, brand name , tag line , color combination are catchy and leave a lasting impression on the visitor then the foundation of a brand is set as all this will have a recall value.

For example: Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Nike, Reebok, etc do not convey anything about their services from their brand name but we relate to the services offered by these brands the moment we come across their logo anywhere. In a way your brand name becomes synonymous to your product.

“There are so many parity products out there that the only way to

differentiate yourself from the others is to create an aura, an image,

around your brand. Consumers need a road map; they need to find

a way to get from their need to a product purchase that’s simple,

easy, not full of a lot of noise, and most brands get lost somewhere

between the shelf and the consumer mindset.”

—Karen Benezra, editor of Brandweek

Branding creates an image, an identity, carves a niche for your company presence in that industry and makes you stand apart from the rest . Branding has the potential of generating these benefits for a company, product, cpmmodity, group or a person.

Creating an online brand image for your company is no easy task. It requires a lot of planning and people propagating the online presence need to create a certain mindset to put forward the brand image on every platform the company has an online presence on, the search engines, the social media, the domain name, the website, the forums they interact on etc. so that, though there maybe innumerable companies online offering the same products and services as yours , your company stands out from the rest. Just like Coca-cola and Pepsi both are colas but have their own identity.

The 3 main components of establishing an online brand are :

Advertising
Marketing
Public Relations

Advertising + Marketing + Public Relations = An Online Brand

Advertising:

Advertising is the first step that every company needs to take in order to present an individual identity and inform its users about its existence in that industry.

Marketing:

Marketing is the strategic decisions taken to reach out to the users i.e whether to start a PPC campaign or to start with the SEO campaign is a marketing decision . Although advertising and marketing may be the same in some aspects, there is a charateristic difference between advertising and marketing. The main goal of both is to enhance consumer awareness of a product or service and to form loyal target customers and increase sales.

The options of creating an online presence are many and what will be the optimum fit for your business type shall solely depend on the nature of your business, the online advertising budget, the willingness and the knowledge of your marketing team.

There are various platforms available on the internet , for presence and promotion on the web. Some of them are as follows:

• Search Engines

• Email Campaigns

• Advertising Networks And Affiliates

• Web Directories And Portals

• Press Releases

• Social Media Sites

All these options when use should have a brand image and brand personality set by using the same logo, tagline, color combination and should deliver the same message for the product as only then with the constant presence and promotion of the product online an online brand will be established.

Public Relations:

The main tool for online PR is the social media presence of the company. The PR helps you manage your digital assets ( your brand image is one of them) created by advertising and marketing. That is possible only if you have a voice on the media where your target audience is available and keeping in mind the current trend it is the social media sites mainly Facebook and Twitter. The beauty of these social media sites is that they can be used as a marketing and advertising platform as well as for PR.

Social media used for public relations is a very powerful medium as it has an exponential reach and helps in establishing a WOM which gives a positive boost to branding.

As Dharmesh Shah CEO of HubSpot had mentioned in one of his conferences that “Brand is what people say about you after you’ve left the room.” Hence branding and WOM mouth also go hand in hand.

The role of PR is very subtle but very important as what is said about you is more valuable than what you say about your self but what others say about you mainly depends on the quality of your product or service, the way you advertise and market it and the way you discuss it on social media.

The PR activities have a very wide reach on the web and if it is positive it will boost the organic search engine presence too hence if advertising, marketing and PR are simultaneously managed and implemented then each activity will supplement the other in return and in the process help you develop a brand which will have a long lasting impression on the online users or visitors. A good SEO campaign in return will focus on building a brand presence for the company with every off page effort it makes to boost the rankings.

I have said it many times but will mention it again that:

SEO is what you say about your company, the social media voice is what other say about your company and when both these versions ar in sync a brand and credibility is established which has a lasting impression on the minds of the users.

Integration Of Social And Search Results In SERPS

Google posted on its official blog recently about the display of social search results being mixed throughout the search results based on their relevance (in the past they only appeared at the bottom). This means you’ll start seeing more from people like co-workers and friends, with annotations below the results they’ve shared or created.

The social search results currently are being dominated from Twitter as is the case in the Real Time Search results also. Improving the quality of search results and making the search results more and more relevant is a constant endeavor of the search engines. The relevant social buzz from a concerned social circle is a very logical signal which influences decisions in real life.

Now, this has been added to the virtual platform too and you can know what other people in your social circle connected to you are talking about related to the searches you make. The search results shortlisted by you get a backing if you get an opinion about it from a know person. This in fact makes you feel confident about your decision.

View the video for an example:

As always, you’ll only get social search results when you choose to log in to your Google Account. We’re starting to roll out the updates today on Google.com in English only and you’ll see them appear in the coming week.

From the SEO perspective how these social signals get incorporated in the algorithms by the search engines for rankings, only time will tell us. But the factors of popularity and authority of the social media accounts will surely be the factors which shall get woven in these algorithms.

According to me SEO is what you say about yourself or company , Social Media is what others say about you. When both these versions correlate then you win the confidence of the people and have a good word of mouth which with social media has become the world of mouth now . The marriage of social and search results has given birth to the concept of online reputation which has to be taken care of with great wisdom, honesty and intelligence.

Hence,

Think Before You Tweet And Pause And Ponder Before You Post.

Managing all the other UGC (User Generated Content) like comments, answers in forums, reviews, feedbacks, ratings, etc. is of equal importance as you never know how these may be incorporated in the social aspect of the search results in future. As all UGC are opinions and viewpoints of people which can be considered for further decisions.

It Is The Collective And Selective Voice On Social Media That Matters

Marketing is all about reaching out to your potential customers and marketing teams are always willing to experiment methods which will attract more footfalls to their store or more eyeballs to their website. Undoubtedly the marketing teams are allocating increasing budgets to online marketing rather than traditional marketing methods.

SEO, Social Media Integration, Uploading Videos, Writing Blog Posts, Participating in online communities, Sharing knowledge and views through guest posts are some of the ways we recommend and encourage our clients to have a quality web presence.

Companies are adopting social media for establishing an online brand, for customer support, for launching new products, etc. Whenever we have the social media training sessions and workshops the main question which often comes up is that:

What if competition uses it against us by spreading negative posts?

Undoubtedly Social media has a tremendous reach where a positive word spreads fast but the negative word spreads faster. But, when you have a social media presence atleast you can listen to what is being said about you. Just because you do not listen that does not mean people are not speaking about your brand. If you listen then you can put your point forward using the same media.

It does not matter if one social media profile speaks against you . The word of mouth becomes the world of mouth when a collective voice speaks about it in the same tone. There will be likes and dislikes, there will be positive tweets and negative tweets but eventually the majority along with the way you handle negative publicity on your social media profiles will matter the most.

If that is the fear that is stopping you to engage on social media then remember the basic Math rule learnt in school that when adding numbers always subtract and keep the sign of the larger number (Thats your collective voice - Know which voice should be ignored and subtracted and which voice has to be heard) . So, eventually it is the majority which sets the opinion and if majority of the people are speaking against your product then it is high time you did something about it and these social signals itself can be at times the true feedback you needed.

Trust me when such negative campaigns get converted to positive word of mouth due to the action taken by the company to accept their fault and make rectifications a whole new impetus of positive feedback is generated which adds more goodwill and online reputation. People like it when they are being heard or are being answered to.

Again it is not about numbers totally the authority voice in your industry matters a lot and they voice their opinion only when they totally accept a certain product and vouch for a service or when they are totally in disagreement of a product, service or viewpoint as their main aim is to safeguard the interests of the industry rather than getting personal.

Hence, don't just follow the herd, listen to the collective and selective voices.

Twitter Testing New Advetising Platform - Beta Stage

WebPro News interviewed David Szetela ofClix Marketing who is one of the few advertisers included the Twitter’s beta program for testing Twitter’s Ad. Platform. In his interview he mentioned that the program had similarities to the Google and Facebook Ad. programs but with some differences. Twitter some time back had introduced the concept of Promoted Tweets and is testing the Twitter Self- Serve Ad. System before going with it in a big way. it is a self-serve program with a little difference to it as currently you cannot start your ad. campaign on twitter like anybody and everybody can you do it on Google . In order to become a part of the Twitter Ad. Platform one needs to contact twitter to get embedded in the Twitter Ad. Program.

View The Interview:

The Ad. Program is based on the concept of the promoted tweet, where the advertiser can tweet something then contact Twitter to promote it when someone searches something related to that or he can also have somebody influential retweet that tweet and the advertiser can promote that retweet. How will Twitter Measure The Cost Of Advertising or Promoting The Tweet/Retweet:David Szetela said that the payment for the advertising will be based on a new metric called he Cost Per Engagement (CPE) and the engagement will depend on the following factors:

Retweet Of The Sponsored Tweet

Reply To The Sponsored Tweet

Click On A Link Of A Sponsored Tweet

When Somebody Favourites The Sponsored Tweet

If any of these actions take place the advertiser pays the agreed amount to Twitter. The second metric will be engagement rate (ER), which is similar to click-through-rate (CTR). According to http://www.emarketer.com/PressRelease.aspx?R=1008194 “Promoted Trends is seeing good traction in the marketplace, which gives us cautious optimism for Twitter’s fledgling ad products,” said eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson, author of the upcoming report “Worldwide Social Network Ad Spending: 2011 Outlook.”

Let’s see how this paid scenario picks up on Twitter and will we have a so called Organic Engagement V/S Paid Engagement on this Social Media for SMM like we have a SEO v/s PPC on the search engines for SEM? But one thing is for sure Twitter is growing.

Why Setting Up Of Targets Is Important For Business Performance

Every journey starts with a destination and time frame in mind. If there is no destination then that is called wandering. Business is also a journey which you embark because you want to achieve something – money, fame, knowledge, satisfaction for something done with the best of abilities, etc. When you set up targets at the beginning of the year you get a direction for the future and you get a chance to analyze and look back at the plus points and the minus points of the past year.

Once you set realistic and smart targets it is possible to chalk out a plan for achieving them. Hence , they give you a direction and you start thinking of how to make them real. Some of the things which get included in the plan are:

What resources you need to achieve the target?
What strategies you need to set to achieve the target?
What is the financial implication for achieving the target?
What improvements are needed in the existing structure of the organization?
What would be the KPPs – The Key Performance Parameters?
What attitudinal changes are required in the organization - as the first step taken in order to hit the target is to set a positive frame of mind that it is achievable and possible?
The whole team has to have that positive spirit?

The answers to these very questions give you the direction and you start seeing the path ahead. But, the targets should be smart , realistic , achievable and time bound as only then responsibilities can be assigned and valuable resources like time and money can be allocated. I believe that brain storming to set the targets on the basis of past performance and the future trends is a must at the outset of every year . The periodic review of the targets set surely give a clear idea about where the business is heading to and if inspite of a lot of effort and planning the targets become difficult to achieve then those situations tell you a lot about the market conditions and hence again you can gear the direction accordingly.

A Talk By Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg On : Why we have too few women leaders?

Sheryl Sandberg gave an encouraging talk at the TED Women Conference recently. She pointed out the main reasons why women lag behind despite qualifications, talent and capabilities and lose out on the much deserved positions as they go up the ladder.

According to Sandberg “Women systematically underestimate their own abilities,” Sandberg stated before citing data that explained why. For example, men tend to cite themselves as the primary reason for success, while women tend to cite external factors. 57% of men are negotiating their first salary out of college, while only 7% of women do the same.

As an aspiring career professional many years back in the 1980s I always had the notion that women in the developed countries have more opportunities and succeed more than the women in the developing countries. But, today when I hear this talk I get the message that the scene was not very different there either. The problems and dilemmas faced by women are same globally and the choices that a woman has to make also have the same basis – Family + Career.

According to a survey by NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Service Companies- NASSCOM is the premier trade body and the chamber of commerce of the IT-BPO industries in India.) a few years back India had the most no. of highly educated unemployed women not because the jobs were not available but because Indian women valued education but did not mind giving up their careers to give full attention to the children and families and that it is done willingly with an element of duty and pride.

But, now with the power of the internet working from home is an opportunity that opens up the doors to doing justice to home and career with some amount of planning, hard work and focus. We have to stop blaming the society and men and start focusing on what we can do to realize our dreams and forge our way ahead.

I think that times are changing and gradually the society will have the much needed balance at the work places but only education can make the difference not only the academic education alone but the lessons we learn from our parents by observing them on a day to day basis and thereby form our perceptions to life. That onus lies on both the partners. As I think that every human being whether a man or a woman has a duty towards themselves, towards their families and towards the society as a whole.

I hope the fathers who have daughters listen to this and try to instill the much needed confidence in their daughters and as mothers we try to inculcate the right values in our sons to make them understand the importance of home and work equally so that later on they can do justice to the girls they get married to.

The Right Approach To Social Media With A Focus On Twitter

Social media is a conversational and a communication platform and everyone wants to know how it should be managed or how it should be used effectively as a communication tool so that the conversations generate a favourable link graph.

Since the search engines have announced the importance and influence of social media and the social link graph on SERPs everyone wants to work out a social media presence and strategy and blend the social media presence to positively enhance their SEO efforts and their search engine presence.

Firstly, since it is a communication platform all the rules of effective communication apply to social media conversations also. Since I am more of a Twitter person rather than a Facebook person, I would like to share with you about social media focusing on Twitter. According to me Twitter is one of the best and widely used microblogging platforms.

The points to keep in mind while using Twitter in order to improve your social link graph :

Follow authority people and peers of your industry.

No. of followers are important but what is more important is their interaction and their being interested in what you tweet.

Twitter is a conversational platform at a very wide scale. One tweet tweeted has the maximum possibility of getting Retweeted by each of your followers and then by each of their followers – A chain reaction so to say.

So, Twitter has a possibility of a very wide reach making your message reach to people in exponential numbers.

Participate in Twitter chats on topics related to your industry. This helps you to establish your identity and put your point forward gaining you important followers in return.

Use #Tags while chatting and posting topic related tweets to be in that timeline and be found in the Twitter search for that term.

the no. of retweets are increasing that means the people want to share what you are writing and your reach is widening.

The no. of mentions also means people are conversing with you and replying to you – That again is a positive influence.

On Twitter many start as an explorer trying to explore the Twitter social media potential , then they start sharing what they read by posting the related links i.e they tend to become curators . Both the stages have their own benefits.

If you balance on both that is share content from other sites and tweet links from your blogs and sites and post valuable info. based tweets then you make your social link graph more favourable.

Only blowing your own bugle amounts to being egoistic, if you retweet, share and post links of other quality content your followers shall always have that curiosity element and would surely want to read the tweets in your timeline and add you in their Twitter lists or subscribe to your tweets.

Getting listed in more and more no. of lists related to your industry and along with authority Twitter accounts adds the necessary goodwill to your twitter account.

If you observe the Twitter page all these parameters are available in your account and you can keep a daily track of all these parameters yourself easily.

Use Twitter influence measuring tool like www.klout.com to know where you are heading to.

Last but not the least be a natural when it comes to conversations as twitter interactions are like any other normal business conversations you might have over the phone, email or via any other communication tool to discuss something. The only difference is that you are reaching to a wider audience and everyone will have their opinion which maybe positive or negative.

Be prepared for the bouquets along with the brick bats. As people may praise you or they may even criticize and out rightly reject what you say, And, its cool as you cannot please all the people all the time and you should not even try. But, try to put you point forward if criticized.

Humble explanations are necessary but getting into dirty fights online give a very negative impression and may cost you some followers and more criticizm.

Please do not automate your tweets as that amounts to the height of insensitivity and it is better to have few focused and valuable conversations rather than just posting automated tweets indiscriminately . The human element is very much required in the interactions.

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