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Woodland using print media to boost it’s Facebook profile..

Vince Buffon — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 12:30:57 +0000

I had made up my mind not to even think about work even if i get an SOS from a client – but, that was not to be. While i was engrossed in the thought of a perfect shopping day, i was drawn to the bottom of the page – a very cajoling print AD from Woodland. Great start, as i thought and made a mark of it – anyways, my ancient slippers were about to see the day light. Time for something really rugged – as Woodland says they are.

Now comes the part of my broken promise to myself. As i was about to shift to another shopping AD, i could not help but notice the word Facebook at the bottom of the page – A Facebook profile link of Woodland ….. www.facebook.com/woodlandadventure. Nothing wrong with utilizing the extra space on your AD when you have bought it, but it did pulled me into mulling over the change in the equation – Print media boosting the digital media for a major brand.

The next thing i know was that i was searching for my elusive scissors to get this AD ready for a scan – another one hour in blasting off the post. As usual, my dream of a day out was postponed….

No newspapers from next Sunday….time to Go Green..

How much is Social media costing your company?

Vince Buffon — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 09:39:00 +0000

Social Media has prompted more social debates than any other online segment in the last couple of years. Nobody has been left untouched from the infectious charm of social media networks – CEOs , Marketing bosses to hard core techies, everybody is finding some juice somewhere in their preferred social circles. Kings to clowns, Presidents to party-freaks , all are nurturing their own group of fan following – one tweet, one wall post at a time. Isn’t that engrossing and hyper-social without a dime out of your wallet.

But, whoever is a part of human society knows one fact for sure – “There is nothing called a Free lunch”. May be Karl Marx cannot detect it, but the pennies are slipping through the cracks somewhere. Somebody is paying for the hyper-involvement in the social networks.

(Image Credit: www.cartoonstock.com)

Who is at the receiving end?

It’s time for the big bosses to raise a brow….

The UK social media office engagement figures look like this -

2 millions x 1 hour / day = Social involvement during the office hours [Sample size = 1000 British workers]. = $23 billion dollars

Its is estimated that the US social engagement index during the office hours will be higher the British figure and China might be catching up fast – It’s a different reason china decided to ban Google, when in fact Facebook might be making a dent in its productivity as well as communist ideology on an hourly basis.

Well, let’s for a moment jump to the other side of the fence, where the employees are perched – The intelligence that you get out of the chorus is that the social networking is cost-free, global, knowledge-sharing university where years are saved every day – as employees, trouble-shooters and academia share the latest data, theories and algorithm – thus making every desktop a vibrant R&D hub – well, can you beat that?

Well, I agree with this cross-pollination potential of social and professional networks….

Once again, going back to the original spot. Looking from here, the corporate honchos would be in serious doubt whether millisecond is spent in knowledge dissemination and not personal frivolities…leaving it here for the moment….

As expected, it’s a spiraling debate with too many angles and intangibles….

Adios…

Facebook going for the ‘Top Kill’

Vince Buffon — Mon, 31 May 2010 12:11:48 +0000

Wardrobe malfunction is always a great PR tactic and let’s not call it a malfunction anymore – its a PRFunction. So, does the ‘Quit Facebook day’ really bothers the Zuckerbergs? If you have the statistics in front of you, you would be surprised by the silent mileage extracted by FB. The overnight anti-FB count read at 26521. Now if you want to count the kill after this ‘Quit facebook movement’, you can do that at your own risk – particularly if you are in the MySpace camp. The wardrobe malfunction does pay, even if you are the president.

A couple of things went right for Facebook at the same time – First it got a much needed facelift – Second it was splashed all across the TV channels that it was banned Pakistan and Bangladesh for hurting the national sentiments – Now that’s called the perfect recipe for a ‘Top kill’ PR campaign. Google would pay billions to be in FB’s shoes at this time…

Remember Starbucks – the maverick marketing team that changed the way cappuccino cups can be used as billboards… Lets get a glimpse of Starbuck-facebook tango –

So, now you know why the book has a new face…Its the new billboard. If Coffee can be sold here, then why not Ski rentals? Take a look for yourself…That’s economics for you and we know that it works, no matter how many people are after your ass…

Facebook Vs Google Advertisements: Which is apt for your business?

Vince Buffon — Mon, 03 May 2010 12:21:32 +0000

Advertising on Facebook seem to be catching attention of internet marketers. Some predict it to give a real tough competition to Google’s advertisings. A lot more companies are reserving a part of their budget for Facebook ads. This trend has significantly started showing up ever since Microsoft announced its $240 million investment in Facebook.

Already there are many businesses who are trying to engage their consumers and potential customers by setting up fan pages on Facebook. The advertising on Facebook seems to be the next new big ‘IN’ thing.

But honestly are Facebook advertisements really worth all the hype they have created?
Here you can find both positive and negative arguments and enough data to support both the views. So instead of condemning one or the other, the best approach for a business would be to use both for targeting different specifics.

When to use Google and when to use Facebook advertisements?
If click-through is really important to your website, and you can see that more people are likely to reach your site by search engines or your business belongs to a certain niche, going for a Google ad campaign would be a better option. Facebook advertisements have not been successful for pulling in the traffic as yet. Also, many people have observed the irrelevancy factor in the ad placing of Facebook e.g. an advertisement to date singles in an area was shown on many married peoples profiles. This is sheer waste of the advertising money.

The USP of Facebook advertisements is the idea of “Engagement ads”. This means that the advertisement here is not just for display and getting clicks. These ads will allow the people to make comments, become a fan of the company’s fan page and also see how many from the friends list made comments on the page etc. The feature of thumbs up and thumbs down will also be available.

According to Facebook these advertisements will be better targeted e.g. a person whose status message mentions something about a burger may find ad of a local eatery selling pizzas and burgers. So this will be like a widget and help you collect business intelligence.

Traditionally the advertisements on social media site have had poor click-through rate but a better conversion ratio. So businesses should carefully strategize their goals and seek out a campaign that best serves to fulfill it.

Mind Reading Technology — The future of social media

Vince Buffon — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 13:23:35 +0000

In some ten years from now, social media could significantly change for the better. You wouldn’t need to strain your fingers to type things into structure or type the uniform resource locators in the browsers, or bear with annoying communications about useless products. In the future, social media will be easy and in all places.

The mind reading technology is one such technology that will make our lives (social media lives) very easy. Controlling an interface without using your fine motor skills will have huge implications for human computer communication. Imagine being able to tweet what you are thinking without having to pick up your phone, key in your message and hit send. Also, by just thinking ‘Facebook’ your screen will show a summary of your friend’s action stream.

How the system works?

The new mind-reading system works by displaying letters on the computer screen that flickers one at a time. When a person thinks of a letter, and then that letter flickers on the screen, brain waves propel a signal to the computer that it identifies. While this form of communication is at a very experimental phase and is also quite slow, it does work for sending short messages such as tweets for Twitter. Twitter messages are restricted to only 140 character limits, and you really have to think hard about what you want to say. However, with mind reading technology thinking is all that you would require.

This new form of communication is currently meant to help people who have restricted motor skills, and not lazy social media fanatics! There is also a scope of applying this technology to senses other than vision. In the future, this technology can also help read feelings and complex emotional states. And one day people who cannot otherwise communicate will eventually interact with the outside world.

Whoever said mind reading was impossible are in for a pleasant surprise!

Why is engaging in social media an absolute necessity?

Vince Buffon — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 04:57:08 +0000

If you read articles about ting strategies, you will be flooded with advice about why you should have a blog and a Digg account and everything else. Today, even my 85-year-old grandfather who does not own a computer asks “What’s a Facebook?” because he read about it the daily newspaper.

The first successful communication on the internet was implemented on 25 December 1990. In 1992 internet access was made available to the common public and its use exploded. Until recently, websites were a great advertising platform. However, with the introducing of the first social networking site in 1995, and its widespread use today, websites have started to become invisible on the internet.

If you come up with a new website on the internet, then you would probably have to spend a lot of your time and resources to bring your website on the first page of the goggle search engine. However, a simpler way to let people know about your website or your company is through social media.

Social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace.com, Twitter, LinkedIn.com, etc. are very popular and so are great sources of promoting your website and products.

Gone are the days of “have a website and advertise”

Today, it is too costly to be noticed on an internet that is already full. Social media is the only way for new websites to get traction. If Darren Rowse, the guy behind ProBlogger, or Brian Clark, the guy who founded Copyblogger, talks about your website, then it’s visible. If your website comes up on the front page of Digg, then it’s visible. Once your website starts getting incoming links and lots of regular traffic, then you can use traditional SEO practices for staying visible.

Some of the companies that benefited from social media are:

Rubbermaid: A survey conducted by BazaarVoice reported that when the company Rubbermaid added customer reviews to their website, their sales increased and returns of their products decreased.

Fog Creek software: This company has achieved great success with no advertising because its founder has built an amazingly popular blog about writing software.

Nike: This company allowed customers to build and order custom shoes on their website. This move was a great hit with people and generated a lot of profit for Nike.

Will social media survive in the long run? Not sure. But today and for the near future, you can’t do without it. You have to jump in even if you do not fully understand it, or you will go the way of print media.

Can the Yahoo handshake help Microsoft Vine?

Vince Buffon — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:09:44 +0000

After Bing, it is Vine on the Horizon for Microsoft. Is anybody taking notice? Not Google for sure.

To begin with Vine is still in beta phase and is available by invitation only at vine.net. At first glance, Vine looks like a personal alert system where your group of friends and families get to know about your whereabouts and anything that might warrants an alert.

Vine will get you your personal dashboard and you can receive about important alerts and vital information including articles from 20,000 news and public safety sources. You can send and receive alerts as you wish – from anybody in your group or from any of the sources mentioned above. The good part is that the Vine personal alert system is connected to your mobile. So if you are in an alien land and there are no phones – and you need to contact your friends and family immediately, Vine comes in here – You can send a mobile alert to your family and friends from your computer.

Sending an alert is also location and device agnostic – you can send an alert from your mobile phone or even e-mail or other applications.

The Yahoo factor!

Those of us who keep a tab on the search engines have a fair idea about the Bingoo! , but it is still a blackbox stuff as far as Vinoo! is concerned. But, considering the social spread and Web DNA of Yahoo, Vine should be getting a jump-start by utilizing Yahoo’s existing podium. It remains to be seen as to how far hand goes in the glove with Vine and Yahoo. The radar must be working overtime in the cellars of Facebook & MySpace.

Pricing & Availability

The basic service is free

If you want to receive alerts on your mobile phone standard messaging charges apply

Vine is currently available only in US.

Microsoft Vine in the news

***”It’s been awhile since Microsoft introduced a game-changing social Web application, but Vine — a service that’s debuting today with a beta test in Seattle — could be a contender.” Seattle Times

*** Microsoft debuts Vine in Seattle: Twitter+Facebook on steroids — Seattle Times

* **Microsoft announces Vine, a location-based service for emergencies — VentureBeat

* **Microsoft Vine To Connect Family, Friends When Crisis Hits — TechCrunch

* **Meet Vine, Microsoft’s superhero software — CNET

* **Microsoft’s Vine: Emergency Social Networking — PCWorld

* **Microsoft throws a Vine to disaster victims — The Wall Street Journal

* **Microsoft’s deep-rooted Vine isn’t just another social network — Tech Blog Plus

System Requirements for Microsoft Vine Beta

Operating system: Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (32-bit edition only), Windows Vista (32-bit

or 64-bit editions)

Processor: 1 GHz or higher

Memory: 1 GB of RAM or higher for Windows Vista, 512 MB for Windows XP.

Hard disk space: 100 MB for Vine and 500 MB for the Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.5

with Service Pack 1

Resolution: Minimum 1024×768

Internet connection: Broadband Internet access is required (provided separately); charges may

apply

Browser: Internet Explorer 6 or later, Firefox 3.0 or later

Graphics or video card: A graphic card with Microsoft DirectX 9 and 128 MB of graphic memory

is recommended