Vine Already Climbing Despite Setbacks

Twitter’s new affiliate, video sharing service Vine, has already been adopted by a number of brands despite some early setbacks.

A few businesses have posted videos on Vine: clothes retailer Gap has taken a “trip down #Gap advertising memory lane for [their] #firstpost on Vine. http://vine.co/v/b5PeYQOLuLj”, while broadcaster PBS has given followers a look into the lobby of their offices in Arlington, Virginia.

PBS also invited its Twitter followers to post videos on Vine during the new series of Downton Abbey with the hastag #DowntonPBS, promising that the best would be featured.

Here is the tweet on PBS's Twitter account:

The video sharing service has also been used by news broadcaster NBS New York, after a bystander sent them footage of a dolphin trapped inside Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal.

The app’s immediate popularity can be somewhat attributed to the influence of its parent company, Twitter, but is also largely thanks to Vine itself.

The service allows users to create videos quickly and simply which, despite their brevity, convey a lot of information. These videos require no editing thanks to the ability to stop and restart recording at the press – or depress – of a button.

After Vine was released, Matt Buchanan at BuzzFeed wrote an article recognising the gif-like appeal of the videos the service creates: Gifs are popular thanks to their instant gratification factor; Vine videos have a similar instantaneous effect, but can be created by simply recording real life.

Vine, however, is not without its limitations: there are a number of alterations that could be made to the service regarding privacy and content restrictions, as well as potential improvements to the app’s functionality.

The app currently has no privacy settings, meaning users can’t make their account private or block other users. All they can do is report content as inappropriate, which is a problem considering the content restrictions do not prevent people uploading some inappropriate video's (UPDATE: Vine Now Censoring content).

The Terms of Service does have some restrictions. Users are prevented from posting a video which:

• Impersonates another person or entity in a manner that does or is intended to mislead, confuse, or deceive others;
• Violates the rights of a third party, including copyright, trademark, privacy, and publicity rights;
• Is a direct and specific threat of violence to others;
• Is furtherance of illegal activities; or
• Is harassing, abusive, or constitutes spam.

Improvements have already been made to Vine which make the impersonation of “another person” less likely, with the introduction of badges on verified accounts, as seen on Vine Co-founder Rus Yusupov’s page:



There are some issues with Vine’s functionality which could be changed: videos can only be shared with friends as soon as they have been uploaded, so if you forget to share it with someone when you post it, it’s unlikely they’ll ever see it.

Users cannot share other people’s videos on Twitter which, although understandable considering the lack of privacy on the site, still loses Vine ground in its struggle with Instagram, which allows the sharing of anyone’s photos at any time.

Complications outside Vine’s control have also arisen: Facebook has cut off Vine’s access to its social graph, along with Yandex’s Wonder, after updating its Facebook Platform Policies page to restrict access to rivals.

So, Vine still has someway to go before it satisfies everyone, but the fact that a number of big companies have adopted the service early on shows that it potentially has a big future.

What do you think of Vine? Would you use it to promote your brand?

4 Improvements Twitter Should Make in 2013

It wasn’t just you – on Monday, Twitter was suffering from some “service disruption” largely due to the fact that it was Inauguration Day 2013 for President Barack Obama and the tweeting traffic was heavy. And while the outage didn’t affect all Twitter account users, so long as you could tweet from the iOS apps available on iPhones and iPads, Twitter via Google Chrome and Firefox browsers was inaccessible for several hours.

While engineers at Twitter worked as quickly as they could to get the site back up and functioning again, the time-out was enough to make me consider what features Twitter could, and should, be revamping to take 2013 by storm.

1) Courtesy Messages for Outages
The service disruption on Monday left Twitter users everywhere hanging on the hope that the site would be back up and running on browsers soon, with little more to do in the meantime but check their phones for updates and hit the refresh button every now and then. Just as airlines offer the ability to receive flight time changes and information via text messages or phone calls, a similar method should be employed on Twitter. Courtesy messages, complete with an estimated time clock on how long it may be before the site is back up, should be emailed or texted to all Twitter users in the event of an outage occurring. It may be some time before the site does go back up, but it’s comforting to know that the problem is being worked on and hey, it’s not just you or your computer!

2) Increase Tweet Character Limit to 150
It’s the happy medium between the original tweet character limit (140) and the Twitter bio (160). Since it was launched in 2006, I think Twitter deserves the upgrade, which may even lead to more organic tweets sent out on an even quicker basis – with users struggling much less to get around condensing their meatier tweets to the bare bones.

3) Enable Easier Scrolling Techniques
For anyone who follows or has a following base that falls well into the four digits, it can be difficult to scroll through the list in an effort to clean it out or find new people to follow. The same thing goes for your own tweets – should you want to categorize them, there is no tagging system available. In 2013, Twitter should create and enable easier scrolling and editing techniques. They may even want to borrow a page from Tumblr’s “mass post editor” book, which displays by month everything you post and allows you to categorize, delete, or change the tags on said postings.

4) Let’s See Some More Trending Topics, Please!
The trending topics are typically tailored to where you are geographically and reflect the big stories in your area. But what if you’d rather see trending topics from pretty much everywhere – a little melting pot in the sidebar on your Twitter feed? The ability to get a brief “global” view of trends would be much more beneficial and provoke more stirring conversation across the board than say, #TellMeWhy, as a trending topic would.

Five Tips to Dominate Social Media

There are ways that you can dominate social media however something that you need to know before you start that it is not going to happen overnight. Dominating any specific niche that you might be interested in takes time, consistency and effort. But probably the most important aspect in getting any recognition with social media is gifting.

1. The most important factor that will get you results if you want people to start talking about you is giving stuff away. You need to have it all in a long term plan that you will not just have one valuable gift that you give to everyone for free, but rather a series of gifts that are all in the same theme and related to each other.
It takes some planning to get recognized as an authority on anything but probably the best way to get it started is by giving something away for free that has some decent value to it and not something that one can pick up anywhere online for free. The fastest way to fail on Facebook or Twitter is to be greedy and simply send out your URL day after day and expect people to be grateful for this.

If it costs money then it is not a gift no matter how cheap you might be selling it for. You need to make sure that you have some valuable information that if it is worth money then it is worth using somewhere for your specific niche that you might be interested in.

2. If you wish to dominate a social media niche you need to be specific and that means creating content which appeals to your target audience. You can reach your target audience in a number of different ways that range from liking or commenting on Facebook or making sure real Twitter followers are following you. But there are other ways as well, from small job websites to micro jobs and article submission the list, possibilities are endless. All of these mentioned services can be found for a very low price at MinimartJobs.com.

Content is king and there are various ways that you can do this that range from creating blog posts and videos which resonate with your social media buddies. When doing this you need to take extra care to use niche specific keywords. The only way you are going to know what you friends want is to ask and then do what you have to do and serve it up. The more frequently you can help others with your content the more easily you can develop a rep, and boost your authority.

Don't fall into the trap of trying to take social networks by storm without bringing anything to the table. This is a very bad mistake. You can only gain authority, or develop your expertise, by being a persistent creator. Bring your skills to the table, help people through your content and you can become popular on social media sites.

3. You need to make personalized connections. Social media is not about adverts that draw you in, that is something completely different. You should always place a strong emphasis on the personalized aspect of social media sites. You can send out personal, direct messages on Facebook and Twitter with ease and you do this by using first names. The only way that you are going to stand out from the hurried crowd is by adding a personal touch to your social media campaign which in the long run helps you dominate your market.

The reason is simple because people will remember you when you make it personal. You will make a firm impression on the minds of your Facebook buddies or Twitter crowd. In time you will slowly come to be seen as an authority in your niche. Personalizing experiences makes your job infinitely easier in the online realm.
You have to concentrate on being a person and not just another profile. Be personable will always have a real impact on social networks.

4. You have to be persistent and keep it going as this alone will make you stand out from the others. Few are tenacious enough when it comes to creating content and making strong personal connections with their target audience. If you can do this daily you will make a serious impact on individuals from within your niche. The only way that you are going to get results is to be consistent and keep it going on a daily basis so that people can rely on you which is what gets people talking. Don't stop no matter how hard you find the going from time to time. Persistence is a great secret to social media success. People who are social on a daily basis, individuals who chat to people persistently, really gain traction in their target market. The great secret to online success has always been and will always be consistency and you need to show up more than the other guy and you can become memorable because you stand out from the crowd. Simply keep at it and persist like heck and you will begin to dominate social media networks.

5. The last tip is about timing. You need to see when the best time is to connect with your niche. There is certainly no golden rule here but a study that was done showed that traffic increases by over 14% in the mornings and evening after work and also weekends. It obviously depends on what type of niche you are in but it speaks for itself because if you are trying to make an impression on work at home mums then posting a wall post at 11pm at night is not a good idea.

Social media has a big impact on your sales and your Google page rank. Try to spend 90% of your daily time dedicated to your business doing online marketing of which 50% should be on social media.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7461261

Call Friends for Free With Facebook's Messenger App

Now you can call your Facebook friends for free — if you’re an iPhone user, that is. The company has rolled out a new feature in the U.S. that allows Facebook Messenger app users to place voice calls with friends over the social network using their data connection or Wi-Fi.

The feature started rolling out in the United States Wednesday, and comes as a simple “free calling” button in the existing app. Users don’t have to update the existing Messenger app in order to take advantage of the feature.

Free calls are placed by tapping the "i" icon on the top right side of chat, and then selecting "Free Call" from your friend's contact card. Your friends will need to have Facebook's stand-alone Messenger app installed on their phone in order for the feature to work (otherwise the "Free Call" icon will appear grey and marked out).
Calls have a similar look and feel as traditional voice calls you might make on your iPhone.

Facebook started testing the feature in Canada earlier this month. The functionality was announced alongside an update to the company’s iOS and Android apps that allows Facebook users to send short voice messages to each other.

Vonage launched an app in 2010 that allowed Facebook users to call friends for free, however, the app required that both parties have the Vonage for Facebook app installed on their devices in order to do so.
Messenger is one of several stand-alone apps developed by Facebook. The company often uses the apps to test new features with power users before deciding which features to include in the traditional Facebook app for the social network's general audience.

Will you use Messenger to call your Facebook friends? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, akinbostanci
Article Source: http://mashable.com/2013/01/16/facebooks-messenger-free-calls/

No.1 Hunting App Pealk Secured By LinkedIn Rival, Viadeo

Professional networking site Viadeo has announced that it has attained the “#1 Hunting App”, Pealk.

Viadeo is a site which is similar to LinkedIn and has around 50 million worldwide users. Professionals use the social network to enhance career prospects and discover business opportunities.

Pealk was designed so that HR and managers of businesses could extract desirable profiles from LinkedIn accounts. The app gives users the ability to thoroughly search through results in order to find the right candidate for a particular role.

Pealk was once associated with LinkedIn but in the summer of 2012 had their API access pulled when LinkedIn claimed that they had been abusing their access and had breached the network’s Terms of Use.

The video below was made when Pealk was used by LinkedIn.



Because Pealk was built and formed on LinkedIn, after it’s exile from the social network, the company suspended the app indefinitely. Viadeo today however have acquired the app for what will likely be a price much less than the founder of Pealk would have hoped for.

In a press statement, the CEO of Pealk, Boris Golden said that: “We’re very proud and pleased with this buyout, which we consider to be the happy ending to an exciting adventure.”

“It’s also the beginning of a new adventure for us, since there are plenty of applications just waiting to be invented that will give professionals more ways to unlock Viadeo’s full potential!”

Do you use Viadeo? What do you think of their acquisition of Pealk?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Facebook Replace Menlo Park Like Sign With Poke

Facebook have replaced the ‘Like’ sign in front of their Menlo Park headquarters with a ‘Poke’ sign.

Poke is Facebook’s most recent standalone app, taking its inspiration from self-deleting messenger app Snapchat.

The new ‘Poke’ sign displays the same poking finger symbol as their old Poke function, which allowed users to instantly connect with their friends without the need for messages.

The new Poke app is a complete rebranding of the original Poke, only retaining the name and symbol. With it, users can send messages that delete themselves from the sender’s phone, the recipients phone and all servers after a few seconds.




“To celebrate the launch of our new Poke app, designers Sharon Hwang, Tim Belonax, Ben Barry and Mike Matas—together with the team at New Bohemia Signs—had a little fun changing the sign in front of our Menlo Park HQ,” says Facebook on its Design page.

The sign is an obvious publicity stunt from the Facebook team, who are marketing Poke as a way to “share fun moments” with your friends “or just say hello”.

It is unlikely that the Poke app will ever have a place in the business world, where all correspondence needs to be documented.

Do you think Poke will become popular?

Leave your comments below.

Internet Marketing - Social Marketing Online

Social marketing online is very popular and is a great way to get traffic, sales, and backend customers for free. Sometimes the traffic quality isn't too great, but you can still a few visitors who will like what you have to offer - and will buy from you. This happens all the time online.

In today's lesson, I want to share with you some social marketing tips that you can use to get traffic back to your site, and to possibly get more sales from the people who do visit your site. These techniques are simple and easy to do, and you can be up and running and doing them within the next 10 minutes. Here's the first social marketing strategy:

1) Promote everywhere
If you have a LinkedIn page, a Facebook page, or a Twitter page... be sure to promote it everywhere. Put it on your blog, your website, your email newsletter, forums, offline stationary, and etc. The more you promote yourself this way, the more people will find you, and the more they will be more inclined to connect with you on the social media sites.

Try your best to develop a following. Make sure that the content that you put out on your blog or site matches the kind of traffic that you will be getting from the social networking sites. If you're a food blogger, make sure you write about food and the images and recipes of the dishes you're making.
If you sell internet marketing information, make sure your content is important and good enough to keep people coming back to your site for more tips on how to make their business successful. You can do a lot of things to make your social marketing efforts good - so be sure to take note of this. Here's another social marketing tip:

2) Try to rank high on the social bookmarking sites
Sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, and Delicious are excellent sites to build a community on and get traffic from. You should strive to make your submitted content to appear on the first page of the search results. This is how you can get thousands of hits to your website within 24 hours... for free.

But it's no easy task. You will have to form an alliance with a group of people and help each other out when it comes to having their information seen by the people on these social sites. But just because you may get a ton of traffic from the social bookmarking sites, it doesn't necessarily mean that you will get sales.
Social media marketing is big right now and I think now is the time to jump on it and start capitalizing on it right away. The more you do social marketing, the more results you will see - just like how it is with anything that you see online. So make your efforts count.

I'm confident that you'll be able to swing social marketing in your favor the more you do it. It's not hard at all - it's just something that you have to get used to doing, and when you become comfortable with it - you will become an expert at it. So keep your head high while marketing.

Good luck with marketing with social media and networking sites today.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7445311