The Future of Social Media

In the past decade we have seen many changes in the world of Social Media and business. Twitter and Facebook have adapted to the world of business better than anyone could have imagined. In 2009, we saw the realisation of the influence that listening to consumers had on Social Media and in the ending of 2011, media went from being a simple broadcast platform to a sophisticated network of connections and rewarding engagements.

In 2012, we saw Social Media as a way of connecting with potential consumers and building brand awareness, and 2013 will be no different.

Looking at findings from various companies, it seems the Facebook is on the decline. It has been suggested that around 34% of Facebook users say the time they spend on the site has decreased over the past year with only 3% saying they will spend more time on the site in the coming year. Facebook need to re-evaluate their standing as a social network and focus on this rather than the many other things that have been reported in recent months.

Despite Facebook declining, it seems social media overall, will continue to rise. Social Media usage is up 38% over the previous year and is likely to increase to around 50% by the end of 2013. The increase in social activity is mostly down to smartphone users and we all know the mobile market is booming.

People’s expectations are changing. Social media is now more than just networking, its a way of successfully building a brand. There’s an old saying that all human behaviour is goal directed. We need a purpose that has to be obvious and in the absence of this behaviour, the task itself will not happen. This applies to Social Media and how are are going to act in the future. Without a direction in the form of a social media strategy, a business will suffer online.

A lot of companies will be weighing up the benefits of spending their time on social media because as well all know time is money. As said by a famous philosopher, all human behaviour occurs to gain pleasure or avoid pain. In the beginning, the purpose served by using social media was just the pleasure of connecting with people in a new and unique way. This soon had its difficulties when it comes to how much time one can devote to social networking activity and how to communicate online. Looking to the future, networking has to have some kind of tangible benefit otherwise it may not be worth it which is a very uncertain thing.

When looking to the future of Social Media, you will need to consider the following:

• Tribes – We as humans, by nature, are social despite the many years spent relying on mass marketing. We will be using social media as a way to have conversations and build a community or tribe that share the same interests.
• Relevancy – Something that will always be crucial to social media is how relevant the content is that you are sharing.
• SoLoMo – We are in a new era now where being Social, Local and Mobile are an important part of being on social media.

So, where is Social Media going? This, I cannot answer. Social media depends on its users, so really, the future of social networking is down to us!

Use Social Media To Drive Massive Traffic To Your Website

Social Media is now taking control of the internet world. Nearly anybody that has some type of computer or smartphone has some kind of social media profile. No matter if it is Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, Skype or Instagram or any of the other innumerable social media sites, billions of individuals use most of them and they are mostly all 100 % free.

How Do You Take Advantage Of These Social Media Websites For Your Business venture?
Just sit back and think of just how much you are putting in on marketing and advertising for new buyers or investors. Now all that investing for advertising and marketing was the best successful way of getting your business name on the market and producing leads to exchange sales. Now, it's a complete new picture. The web is a part of hundreds of millions of daily lifestyles and now you can get through to them all around the world without leaving your own home. Social Media, if used correctly is much more affordable and could be free in most circumstances for establishing relationships with potential partners or consumers. The perk to this is that it is equally as powerful as paid advertising if used the right way. With social media you can create a worldwide following like you have never seen before!

After Today, You Should Understand Ways to Utilize This Social Media To Your Benefit.
Listed here Are 5 Of The Best Social Media sites To Make use of For Your Business venture:

1. Facebook.
Having 1.06 BILLION regular monthly members on Facebook, this must be among your major social network tools to employ for your business promotion. Members can easily generate groups, pages, personal profiles, and may actually browse for individuals according to their profession. Presently are infinite options using Facebook which could require a complete book in order to describe completely. To get ideal payoffs when it comes to your business, you are going to most likely must develop a following to begin with on a relatively personalised degree along with your business venture, as opposed to just simply positioning an advertisement on there instructing individuals to explore your business as well as pay for regardless of what it is you are actually marketing. You should moderately reveal exactly how awesome your service or product is and also have a webpage committed to your work which many people can easily like and also track day-to-day to generate a ton of involvement, to convert in to future clients. Never simply just make use of Facebook in order to get consumers either regarding your business. Try to keep an open mind with all types of opportunities and you could also discover your future worker of the year or even dependable company companion on there. Be sure and make use of images, video clips, along with almost anything else that could possibly grab interest much more than only words.

2. YouTube.
Including about 1 BILLION people and also 4 billion views a day, YouTube must be high on your checklist of social media internet sites to benefit from with respect to your business. YouTube is actually particularly pertaining to video clips. The entire idea regarding YouTube is simply to possess one of the most highly utilized resource on the planet when it comes to online videos of every style for the general public to see. Regardless if it is "how to" clips, corporation persuasion web videos, or perhaps maybe even merely recreation web videos, they are certainly entirely on there. Virtually just about anything you could wonder about will certainly be on YouTube due to various individuals make use of it daily. A bit of helpful strategies can be to create a few fair quality online videos concerning your market that might intrigue your target niche and place all of them on there. Before long should you possess an ideal, your domain WILL CERTAINLY become discovered and become sought-after with using web videos with YouTube. Create a channel within there for your business venture video clips and curious users that view your business venture will likely subscribe with you and also check out each of your video clips. Thus produce excellent online videos which individuals will likely desire to view throughout and make every one of them count simply because that might be the big difference when it comes to a load of possible sales.

3. Twitter.
Offering 500 million overall members, Twitter is really simply one more type of social network which must be checked out with regard to your business venture. Supposing that you actually desire to generate a fan base, this is definitely the internet-site to utilize. Twitter is simply about whom you follow as well as whom is following you. The more supporters you acquire, the more prominent you are with Twitter. The more famous you are regarding Twitter, the extra visibility you can obtain when it comes to your business venture on the web with everyone. You may more or less employ it like a kind of progress report with regards to precisely how famous your business organization is becoming plus whenever you publish anything on Twitter, all your fans will likely see it. How awesome is that? When it is really a very impressive post, your fans could also retweet it in order for their supporters to check out, gaining you a lot more visibility to web traffic! Most prominent individuals and establishments may possess upwards of millions of fans. Perhaps even a fragment of that may be all you require to boost sales regarding your business because of admirers becoming future purchasers.

4. Google+.
Having 343 million involved members, Google+ should be explored for your business venture publicity efforts with social media. Google+, to a great deal of individuals, isn't really the favored social media website for individual factors, but much more for business. Google+ possesses a bit of many things on it. A awesome aspect of it is you possess several circles that you could form. You may create an acquaintance circle, a fan base circle, and a loved ones circle. You may considerably sort the circles of individuals in your daily life through Google+ and also have hangouts along with competitions alongside several additional features. You could utilize your following circle similar to twitter and attempt to create a fan base for your market so you could get a lot of them become buyers of the things your company features. It is equally beneficial to own a Google+ profile due to the fact that it will link to YouTube as well as be extremely beneficial to your Search Engine Optimization within the Google online search engine. As a matter of fact, it is ticket to getting your unique or company photograph alongside your posts in the Google search engine results, and that strengthens the chance of a person clicking on it by 100-150 %! Google+ is simply just a really effective well-rounded social media resource to get web publicity.

5. LinkedIn.
Having around 200 million members, LinkedIn is definitely a social media site which must be taken very seriously, notably with its tie-ins to business. LinkedIn is a far more professional social media website that is primarily for businessmen as well as business women. You could seek individuals within a specific occupation and also connect to all of them in order to possibly establish a working collaboration that might be good for the two of you. You are going to even discover several possible prospects on LinkedIn by limiting results to who could be a bit more probable to take advantage of what the company provides. You can also conduct paid promotions and job promotions that appear considerably professional and also are modified to your preference. You can personalize them to a particular level to get additional interest too. How ever sizable your budget plan is concerning the paid LinkedIn advertisements, will decide just how you design it and the level of publicity the advertisement will get based upon just how much as well as when you prefer the advertisement to be presented. The promotions even go to a specific kind of individuals depending on the narrowing of the niche with provided variables such as age or line of work. Thanks to tons of market possibilities and possible leads you could receive from LinkedIn, it is the fitting location to promote your business organization and ought to be a must-have social media source.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7648204

Why Brands Should Be Human on Social Media

The success of any social program is ultimately determined by its ability to connect on a one-to-one, human level. But what does it actually mean to be human in social media?

Is it having a fun and engaging brand? Speaking in everyday, colloquial language? Establishing a more relatable — even intentionally non-corporate — online presence?

To an extent, but these are surface symptoms. The core issue lies much deeper, in the nuances of how we interact with one another.

Specifically, there's a phenomenon in linguistics known as "code-switching." It refers to when a person alternates back and forth between multiple languages in a single conversation. Recently, a team at NPR dived into this concept, elevating it beyond linguistics and identifying its prevalence and significance on a cultural and sociological level.

One writer, Gene Demby, points out how most of us do this every single day at work. We adopt a corporate tone when speaking to our superiors or coworkers. Then a friend or family member calls and we morph into an entirely different — perhaps even seemingly completely opposite — persona.

The key, though, is that both voices are still inherently us. As Demby writes: "Many of us subtly, reflexively change the way we express ourselves…hop-scotching between different cultural and linguistic spaces and different parts of our own identities - sometimes within a single interaction."

The implications of this in social media are massive. Social already blurs — and is on the way to obliterating — the line between professional and personal. Combined with our nature to code-switch, that means two huge shifts in how we need to approach social as brands.

Users Don't Approach Corporate Content Solely as Corporate People

Code-switching not only illuminates the fact that we express various aspects of our personality at different times, but it also reveals that all of these aspects are - at all times - fundamental parts of our makeup. By extension, all of these components of our personality come together to affect our decision-making, preferences, and actions.

In other words, when a user comes across your Twitter handle or Facebook feed, she doesn't suddenly transform into a "professional-only" mode that consumes, filters and reacts to content based 100% on her company and career.

No, her professional persona may take center stage, but her entire thought process is also influenced by the less apparent parts of her personality: the fact that she's a parent, enjoys rock climbing, is coming off a rough week or lives in a city.

As marketers, we need to embrace this fundamental nature of user behavior; namely, that people act, engage, and respond not solely as professionals, but as nuanced human beings. Users are not simply — and absolutely cannot be solely treated as — potential sales. Our campaigns, programming and offers must be built to connect with users on that human level — which encompasses, but is not wholly defined by — their professional status.

Learn the Art of Authenticity

Understanding the complexities of code-switching users and the need to connect on a human level doesn't mean we abandon our marketing objectives, though. We still have businesses to run and revenue to generate. But it does mean we rethink how we communicate and present our brands.

Think about it: If connection needs to take place at a human level, then our brands must also become human. Connection only occurs when there is a convergence between two parties who find something in common. If the user is approaching from a professional-and-personal perspective, and we only approach from a professional one, we've already limited how effective our engagement can be.

Being a humanized brand means learning the art of authenticity. It means being genuine, being passionate about whatever it is your brand is and does. Just like in everyday life, people respond most to others who are perceptibly and consistently real. And that's why it's an art, not a formula. Authenticity, in the long run, can't be manufactured or faked.

Every corporation, no matter how buttoned-up, no matter its product or service, has a unique personality. Being human in social media, then, involves identifying all aspects of that personality — even the less obvious or less corporate ones — and embracing them as a whole. From there, the surface symptoms we referenced at the beginning of the column — tone, language, aesthetics — will be easier to define.

The beauty, though, is that there's always room for a brand's personality to expand and express itself in new ways. Just as various parts of our individual personalities can evolve, brands can similarly introduce concepts and experiences that reveal more of what they're passionate about, without deviating from their key values, objectives or principles.

It won't happen overnight. It may even be painful. But discovering how to be authentic, to be genuine, is an exercise that will only help a business in the long run. At the end of the day, people connect most with real. And social allows us to connect easier and more frequently than ever before, making it the perfect place to start.

Image by Mashable

Top 5 Tips For Effective Email Marketing

Email marketing campaigns are an absolute staple of marketing strategies for firms of all sizes but while they may seem simple enough, they can sometimes prove tricky to execute efficiently. A well run campaign can increase the public's perception of both your products and entire branding by providing interesting and relevant content that entertains as well as promotes. On the other hand, everyone knows how annoying flaky emails are. If an email from a firm is doing nothing but trying to sell, it can be considered by it's readers to be spam. This guide will help you create an email marketing campaign that will keep readers interested and engaged with your brand, increasing your online outreach whilst also boosting sales.

1. Nail the Subject Line
One simple factor of email marketing schemes that can really make a difference to who actually reads instead of just receives your emails is having an effective subject line. For those who don't know, a subject line is that little sentence or preview that shows up in your inboxes, giving the reader information about what the email contains. This is obviously an essential part of your email and should not be overlooked as they often are. The subject line acts as a title or 'headline' for your email and as with a newspaper, the headline should entice the reader to give up some of their time to read the email. It is also worth steering clear from subjects that could be scan read as spam. For example, subject lines that rely heavily on words such as 'Free', 'Offer' and 'Deal' can have the ability to instantly turn away potential readers and condemn your email to the confines of the junk folder.

2. Keep the Content Relevant
In order to be effective, email marketing campaigns must offer something to the reader. In return for reading your promotional material, receivers of your emails will want something that benefits them in return. This can be anything that you feel will be interesting and relevant to your customer base. An example of this in practice is many online fashion retailers refrain from sending out plain alerts about price drops and new ranges but rather choose to include these aspects as part of a seasonal style update or 'look book'.

3. Layout and Design
As with all marketing campaigns, online or otherwise, the way your content is presented will play an important role in determining how well it is received. While the design practices of email marketing could take up an entire article, there are some key points that are worth adhering to. Font size is one important factor to get right. Too small and people may struggle to read, too big and it may not work well on smaller screens. As a rule of thumb a font size of around 30pt works well for headers while main body content should be no lower than 14pt. Images should be used sparingly as many email clients do not display images by default. Emails should be as accessible in a plain text format as well as a full blown, CSS styled document.

4. Go Mobile
More and more people use their smartphones as their primary device for reading emails, especially when on the move. For this reason, it is important that your email marketing is just as readable on mobile phones of all sizes as they are on a desktop computer. While it is straightforward to ensure that your text is accessible on mobile phones, feature rich emails may require slightly more attention to come over well on mobile devices. For example, contact forms and calls to action should be optimized for touchscreen use.

5. Time it Right
When your customers receive your emails will undoubtedly have an immediate effect on whether they read them. Too early in the morning and they may be lost amongst a storm of the daily emails that some choose to subscribe to. Too late in the day and they may be disregarded in post-work abandon. The optimal time for your emails will depend somewhat on the demographic you're attempting to communicate with. A combination of experimentation and speculation may be the most efficient way for working out what's most effective for you.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7539813

Facebook Introduces Emoticons To Status Updates

After the relative failure of status update prompts, Facebook has begun rolling out new options for users who want to tell their friends how they feel. The new feature could prove to be beneficial for Facebook marketers, as users can also update their status with activities.

Some users in the United States of America have been given the option to add emoticons to their status updates. There are a number of emotions to choose from, each illustrated by a round yellow face, similar to the ones used on Skype.


To choose an emoticon, users have to click on the smaller section separated from the main status update text box which asks “What are you doing?”. A drop-down box will appear, the first option of which is “feeling”, providing users with a number of different smiley face emoticon options.

Users don’t just have smiley faces to choose from, there are also a number of tiny pictures emblematic of different activities. For example, if a user selects “eating” from the drop-down box, they can choose to display an ice cream cone if they are eating ice cream, or a slice of pizza if they are snacking on a hot piece of quattro formaggi.


As well as the “feeling” and “eating” options, users can choose from “drinking”, “watching”, “reading” and “listening to”. Users can name the films, TV shows, books and artists they are enjoying, which could potentially provide Facebook marketers with extremely useful targeting data.

Chosen artists, films, TV shows and books will appear in the status update as a picture (if one is available), a description and a link to the corresponding Facebook page. Users who want to know more about a band that their friend is listening to can just click on the link in the status update.

Facebook is currently testing the new feature, so it is only available to a few users in the United States. Whether people will be more willing to share their feelings in image form is yet to be seen, but Facebook do intend to roll out the feature to the rest of the United States soon. There is no news concerning international users, so those of us living outside America will have to be without for the time being.

What do you think of the new emoticons?

How to Switch Back to Old Gmail Compose (Temporarily)

Response to Gmail's new compose feature has been less than celebratory. Many users are confused by the minimalist design and hidden tools, preferring instead to interact with the typical icons and options from old Gmail compose.

But Google rolled out new Gmail compose to all account holders Thursday, rendering it the default. It seems Google no longer offers users the choice to work in the old compose window — at least, not explicitly.

To "temporarily switch back to old compose," tap the Compose icon as if you were creating a new email. Then click the arrow on the bottom-right of the window. Select the option from the drop-down box that reverts your interface back to the old design.

But who's to say Google will keep that option around for long? You may prefer to dive into the new Gmail compose, anyway, since it's becoming more mandatory by the day.

What changes would you like to see in Gmail? What works? Share your opinions in the comments below.

Facebook Testing 'Post-From-Any-Page' Button

Facebook is testing a new button on the top of its homepage that allows users to post directly to Timeline regardless of what page they're on.

The button was first spotted by Mashable reporter Alex Fitzpatrick Friday morning. After clicking the button — which resides at the top right-hand side of any Facebook page, next to home button and the small icon of a user's profile picture — a prompt pops up that looks very similar to the one we're used to seeing for posting a Facebook status.

Because it lives on the top bar, you can access it even when you're visiting another profile or brand page.

In the picture below, you can see he is on my Facebook page yet he can still post directly to his. Typically, you have to be on the homepage or your own page to post a status update.

The new feature was spotted on a page that has yet to be switched to the new Facebook news feed or be given access to Graph Search, its smarter search engine. We haven't seen any other pages with the feature just yet.