There are people who love testing the patience of people around them and then there are people who appreciate and value it! Which group you belong to? Will you be screaming out from a brick-size book to make your point in a busy community hall? It’ll surely draw the attention of people but for wrong reasons. So, chart your information before you climb the dais. You’ll need more than just recitation to hook people to your facts.

That’s why people, all over the social networks, are going gaga over infographics. It’s a cocktail of information and design. Test of the drink depends solely on finesse of the blend. Variety is endless from simple Venn-diagram to interactive experiences (mostly Flash and JavaScript charts).

Why people are running after infographics?

Marketers, researchers, public presenters, politicians, non-profits or, even, your boss – infographics could be friendly to anybody. Obviously, that’s not just because of their stunning looks!

1. Scannable (not cannibal or cannonball!)

Everybody is busy and utterly impatient. So, you have to make your point clear to people who have a very slim span of attention. People on the web scan first and read later, if that interests them at all. Infographics by nature are very easy to scan. It, necessarily, does not pose as threat to people’s busy schedule. After all, you must have heard ‘an image speaks a thousand words’.  But for that, you need proper management and software training.

2. Portable

Think of a ‘thousand words blog post’ and a ‘standard resolution image, graphic or chart’. Which one is easier to embed? No doubt, majority of you will choose the second one. That’s the convenience with infographics.

3. Global

Written words have boundaries in sense of style guides. Infographics have almost none. A Venn-diagram or flow-chart can speak same language across the continents. They have global appeal.

4. Viral

Because of first 3 reasons, it’s easier to make an infographic viral. Every marketer knows what a viral content mean to their campaign.

However, it’s a minefield out there. Rolling out a chart-busting infographic is no easy task. Common mistakes are,

1. Stuffing too much information in a graphic. It’s nauseating.
2. Too big and lengthy. It’s easy to lose track.
3. Useless and spurious data. It’s boring.

How to move ahead safely and effectively?

1. Understand the subject you are talking about.
2. Work only with processed and legit data; don’t invent data!
3. Information comes first; then graphics.
4. Try to fit the design within a screen size.

So, it’s time you start using charts and graphics to spice up your social media interaction.

Related articles

• Learn how to make simple infographics for PR or for fun (publicityhound.net)
• Easel.ly Makes Infographics Easy… But Should It? (readwriteweb.com)
• Send Us Your Infographics! (soshable.com)

Who plans a wedding the day after taking their $100 billion company public? The same guy who wears hoodies in board meetings.

Thankfully, he wore a suit and tie to his wedding.

28-year old Mark Zuckerberg married long-time sweetheart Priscilla Chan, 27, on Saturday at a small ceremony in his Palo Alto home’s backyard. The couple, who met at a frat party in 2003 (a year before he launched TheFacebook), wed in front of less than 100 guests.

They weren’t told it was a wedding as the man who is so much in the public eye shies away from exposure of his private life. The guests were told that they were celebrating his “girlfriend’s” graduation.

The ruby wedding ring was reportedly designed by Zuckerberg himself.

We all know it’s nearly impossible to avoid the cosmic powers that social media holds and even though that may be the case, many industries just don’t mesh well with the world of social media. One cooperate field, however, that has found the marketing and advertising transition into social media to be quite simple, is the fashion industry.

Networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr have all transformed the way we engage with each other as well as our favorite brands. From skincare brands to big brands like Victoria’s Secret, the fashion world can’t get enough of sharing the latest styles and trends using social media as their portal, connecting their world with ours.

Whatever type of fashion trend you follow, it is meant to be shared because it’s what people see when they get their first impression of you (or in this case, your brand). Do it the right way, you’ll have much success. But, use social media incorrectly and you’ll never live it down!

There have only been three major fashion brands to pass the 5 million “likes” mark on Facebook (according to WWD). These names are Burberry with 9 million likes, Dior with 5.4 million and Gucci with 5.5 million. Crazy right? Now, of course that doesn’t shut out all other top name brands that are racking in social media fans by the second with the networking and advertising they’re producing.

With so many ways to spread your brand – including Twitter which can be used by trend setters to converge or using blogger outreach as a means for collaborations and launching ad campaigns – social media as a whole has become a force to be reckoned with.

Related articles

• Fashion PR Fridays: Fashion, Marketing & Social Media Links 5.18.12 (prcouture.com)
• Decoded Fashion Conference Highlights Fashion and Tech’s Tricky Relationship (betabeat.com)
• Social Media Is Taking Over Search & SEO (socialmediatoday.com)
• Models Now Shine on the Catwalk and on Social Media Networks (epiphanysearch.co.uk)
• Models Now Shine on the Catwalk and on Social Media Networks (epiphanysolutions.co.uk)

Last April, Facebook launched a ‘Journalists on Facebook’ page, intended to serve as a resource for growing number of reporters using Facebook for the purpose of finding sources, interaction with people and to publish stories. A couple of months later, Twitter introduced a similar initiative as well. ‘Twitter for Newsrooms’ (#TfN), is a guide for reporters on how to best use the microblogging site for the purpose of reporting. The endeavor elicited a mixed response from journalists and media pundits.

As online media and the Web continue to transform and challenge mainstream media and its established news distribution and revenue models, it is only natural to expect a permeation of social media into newsrooms and into the professional (and personal) lives of journalism practitioners. The tools offered by New Media enhance a journalist’s ability to tell a story – through text, audio, video, and photographs – unlike legacy news platforms. In the news gathering process, mobile-enhanced social media has been vital for finding real-time information from citizens, particularly those disaster struck or remote locations. The immediacy offered by digital media has compressed the news production scales. Today no self-respecting reporter can ascribe to the pace of work followed by his/her legacy news organization counterpart. Today’s online social world has accelerated the news cycle, many technology review and social media blogs are using social media platforms to report their news to the world, but they will have to enhance their technological skills in order to survive.

One of the most memorable examples of Twitter being the vehicle for breaking news would be live tweets by Sohaib Ather (@Really Virtual) a computer programmer residing in Abbottabad (Pakistan), of the dramatic raid on Bin Laden’s compound on May 2, 2011. Ather’s tweets may have garnered him overnight fame and the title of ‘the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it’, however, in the United States, the first indication of Bin Laden’s death came from another tweet by Keith Urbahn, tweeted more than hour before Obama’s official announcement of the news.

Depending on where one is coming from, the merits and drawbacks of online news sources/aggregators and participatory journalism in open to debate and interpretation. Sure there are incidents where lazy reporters will opt to search the Twitter timeline of a potential source and publish a tweet rather than obtaining an exclusive quote or stepping away from the computer to conduct a face-to-face interview. Some critics will even go so far as to equate e-mailed interview questions with belittling the importance of good interview skills and the ability to chase down a source.

If there is any real danger faced by journalism from the online and social Web, it is the temptation to succumb to the pressure to be first in order to keep pace with fast and interactive social media. This can potentially result in what would traditionally be considered sloppy journalism – stories based solely on rumor or gossip, unverified facts or the absence of complexity or context. Using multiple Gmail accounts can help journalists to communicate information more rapidly around the world. Apart from that, journalists will have to learn up-to-date technological skills in order to improve their efficiency.

paul prescott / Shutterstock.com

Related articles

• Social Media is big business for colleges (techi.com)
• ‘NYT’s David Carr at Internet Week: ‘Now It’s A Better Age Between Journalists and PR’ (mediabistro.com)
• Journalism Reloaded – What journalists need for the future (onlinejournalismblog.com)
• Social media helps transform the world of journalism (journalistjan.wordpress.com)

To keep its search results relevant and free of spam, Google introduced its latest update Google Penguin. With each update introduced by Google, websites should be optimized to get rid of spam and continue ranking well in SERPs. Every update developed by Google is aimed at maintaining its monopoly by providing relevant SERPs that are useful, informative and spam free.

While Google’s opinion of spam continues to vary over the years, it has done an excellent job of providing helpful content to internet users. With the advent of Google Penguin, website owners should pay attention to certain aspects of their website.

What websites should avoid

Google’s webspam teams led by Matt Cutts and Google Webmaster Tools have marked certain guidelines for websites to follow with the aim of eliminating spam from search results.

If you are genuinely optimizing your website for larger audiences, you should consider ways in which you can improve user experience and add more value to your website. You should also be able to acquire a loyal customer base and retain them for a long time. Some websites resort to tricks as they are not concerned about visitors and only want to make quick money. Others may have been misguided when adopting the following practices, now labeled as spam by Google.

Purchasing links to improve page rank is a clear no-no as it does not allow genuinely helpful pages to rank well. Websites cannot setup different pages for users and search engines or include hidden links, text and doorway pages. Redirects or cloaking are also a red flag with the latest Google Penguin update.

Immediate crisis management: A few essential checks

The first step in managing your website is to assess the damage done through analytics. Check your recent web analytics stats for the last thirty days to get a sense of how Google Penguin or any other update has affected your website traffic. If you have lost significant traffic from Google, you should check the organic keyword referrer report for the last 30 days to determine which keywords have lost most traffic. You should also manually check your website rankings by inserting the top 5-6 keywords.

To determine if your website was affected specifically by Google Penguin, you can log into your webmaster account in Google Webmaster Central. Contact the Google webspam team if you believe your website was incorrectly targeted. Use link tools and redirect tools to check if your website is running smoothly.

Long term plans for in-house SEO

One of the first steps you should take while planning long term in-house SEO is to set up guidelines for all employees of your company to follow. Based on extensive research of SEO best practices, you should work towards maintaining the right balance of keywords without compromising on content quality and relevance.

You should also create a financial estimate of the revenue you lost because of Google Penguin. Provide clear guidelines to your company’s IT and SEO developers to steer clear of any potential spam activities. Monitor your links closely and ensure that you report any suspicious activity on your website to Google customer support immediately.

Related articles

• What You Ought to Do If You’ve Been Punished by Google’s Penguin Update (quicksprout.com)
• The Three Keys to Automotive SEO Under Penguin (topdealerseo.com)
• What If The Google Penguin Update Inadvertently Killed The Web As We Know It? (webpronews.com)
• Google Penguin Web Spam Algorithm Update Feedback Form Now Live (searchenginewatch.com)

There’s good and bad about speaking engagements in Vegas. The good part is that the city is ideal with plenty of hotel rooms and conference space to make anyone comfortable and productive. The bad part is that it’s Las “Stays In” Vegas and attendees are often distracted from the business at hand.

That won’t be the case at the PCG Event tomorrow through Thursday. The attendees are there for learning and the presenters are professionals. I have been to the previous two and both were high on education, low on distractions. The only bad part is that I won’t be posting much on Soshable for the time – Brian Pasch tends to keep everybody pretty busy during his events even if we’re lucky enough to skip out on the 6am exercise program.

I’ll be discussing “SEO Techniques that Leverage the Latest Changes in Google’s Search Algorithm” that covers the Penguin update. It’s arguably the most important speaking engagement topic I’ve had this year.

KPA will have a strong presence at the event and is doing SEO Snapshots for those interested in consultations. With many of the attendees being PCG clients, we don’t expect to see too many bad things going on with the search engine optimization, but not everyone is with PCG so there will definitely be some who need help. We’re ready.

For Soshable visitors – see you Friday! Vegas, I’ll see you in the morning.

We’ve done it, just like most of our friends have done it to us. We’ve come across a viral video that either made us laugh out loud, cry like a baby or think about something we’d never really considered before; and we’ve passed it on – usually with a comment like “lmao” or “This is going to make you cry.” And some of them are just so simple: a little kid getting his finger bitten by his younger brother or a three second symphonic clip introducing a wide-eyed gerbil. These videos are getting millions and millions of views and it seems like almost no effort went into the production. Why can’t you do that and use it to promote your company at the same time?

Sadly, there is no magical equation for making the perfect viral video. A lot of it has to do with good timing and just the right people picking up on it. But there are some things you can do to help your viral video on its way to viewer stardom.

Identify Your Audience

Depending on what your company sells, you’re probably going to want to craft your ad so that it appeals to a desired age range. Are you looking to grab the attention of 40+ year olds or the teen market? Are you trying to engage the 30s group? According to an April 2010 article by eMarketer, statistics predict that the majority – 93 percent – of 18 to 24-year-olds are watching videos online at least once per month in 2012, followed closely by the 24 to 34 group at 91.1 percent. Grabbing the attention of these age ranges takes a fair amount of research into what’s popular, but luckily, there are a lot of ways to find out what’s hot these days. Just check out the top viral videos lists updated daily at ViralVideoChart.com and on YouTube, or visit social media sites such as StumpleUpon, Pinterest, and of course, Facebook.

Keep it Short

While video viewership is going up, attention spans are going down. Average videos are typically around 15 to 30 seconds long, and they usually start with a quick “hook” within the first few seconds. It could be a good joke, a seemingly impossible sports trick, or even an adorable puppy trying to howl for the first time. No matter what, make sure it happens within the first few seconds or your audience will assume there’s no point in watching the rest, no matter how long it is.

Make it Catchy

Think of a commercial, any commercial you’ve seen in the past few days. What comes to mind? Three guinea pigs rowing a boat? A singing falafel? Whatever it is, the reason that commercial stuck with you is because it’s catchy. According to the founders of the viral video production company Seedwell in a recent interview by Mashable.com, a good viral video is usually either incredibly cute, shocking/seemingly impossible or a parody of something recent and well-known. Whatever it is, you want it to be something that catches your audiences’ attention and sticks with them well after it’s over. And hopefully, it will also be something they’ll want to pass on to their friends.

Good Title and Thumbnail

A lot of your viewing audience is out there trolling through the almost endless pages of videos available on the web for something to watch, and they aren’t taking the time to watch every single video in turn. Instead, they’re looking for interesting titles and intriguing thumbnails – the little freeze frames from your video that give the viewer an idea of the content. When preparing your video for the internet, make sure you pick a thumbnail image of your video that makes you think, “I need to watch that.” To get an idea of good thumbnails, flip through a site like YouTube or Ebaumsworld and see what other people are posting. These are also good sites for finding catchy titles. You only have a second or two to grab your audiences’ attention, so you want the first things they see – title and picture – to be as attention-grabbing as possible.

Promoting Your Product

Throughout this process, you’re probably wondering how you’re supposed to promote your business with this video. The answer is with subtlety. While watching any of the videos on the links provided above, you’ll notice that products typically aren’t mentioned directly in the film. Instead, they usually appear in small boxes at the bottom of the screen. Some companies choose to have the ads pop up in a contrasting bar at the bottom of the screen, while others might already have their video in letterbox format (a black bar across the top and bottom of the screen) and the ads appearing in the dark frame. It’s easier to integrate your marketing message this way, and your video avoids the stigma of being tagged as a blatant commercial. And if your video really catches on, you could sell additional space on the video to other companies.

Above all, remember that viral videos are all about entertainment. If you aren’t entertained watching it, your potential customers probably aren’t either. Just be sure to keep it short and catchy, geared toward your audience, and your products subtlety advertised. Add a good title and thumbnail and you’re on your way to viral fame.

So, a large number of the cognoscenti have gone downright apoplectic about Mark Zuckerberg daring to wear a hoodie to all-so-serious meeting of business bigwigs. The scandal.  What’s next?  White after labor day?  Red shoes on a Thursday?  How can our society survive without our sumptuary laws?  Perhaps the Mayans were right: the end is nigh!

Sarcasm aside, it really does show an interesting moment about social media and its place in society and Mark Zuckerberg—for good or for ill—is its personification.   Social media is not businesslike; it is not Chanel and it is not Brooks Brothers.  It is hoodies and jeans.  It is, by its very nature, more casual and much more direct.  It is not businesslike?

But should it be?  Businesses are certainly trying to make it that way.  They can ape a casual voice, but they still craft their voice in the same hyper-calculated way the make press releases or invoices.  Facebook, after all, is poised to conquer Wall Street.  Maybe it is time to change?

I think not.

Social media is powerful because it’s direct, personal, casual.  By taking away its main selling point, it can no longer do its job.  It is a bit of a paradox, but being too businesslike will actually be bad for business.  Companies need social media to be a hoodie.

This is not the first time that an online entity has undergone a massive change in tone; in fact, the internet itself did it back in 1993.  Believe it or not, there was a time when the internet was not casual.  It had a genteel, rarefied tone that was aggressively monitored by those that used it.  Before America Online brought it to the masses, the internet was the sort of place where you were scolded for being rude and spam was unthinkable.

This small group of sophisticated netizens only really grew in September, when a new crop of college students joined the online world.  Thankfully, this small group could be trained so that by November it was back to its lovely, Tea and Cake with the Bishop self.   Massive internet access altered this forever, and now the internet is the steaming morass of rudeness and obscenity we all know it to be, a situation decried as the eternal September.

It would appear, therefore, that the same businesses which removed the class from the internet wish for it to return.  As Cher lamented, however, you cannot turn back time.  We have gone from an internet of white gloves and tails to ones of hoodies and blue jeans.   Pandora’s Box has been opened and the Rubicon crossed.  Let’s get used to it.

Just so we are all on the same page, Apple Ping is a social media platform for music.

Ping is an underestimated platform that really has an incredible amount of possibilities for those who really love music. Not only does it allow for people to share what is in their libraries, but it also allows for people to see updates about a specific artist and even concert updates. It imports their Tweets and you can see what everyone is saying and listening to.

It’s not so much a platform like Facebook where you can comment on people’s walls and such, but you can comment on songs and albums that people recommend or are in your library that you recommend to others. Then you can then hear a short little clip and if you like it that much, a click of a button and it’s yours for no more than $1.29. Crazy right?

Not only is a social media platform, but its online marketing at its best! It’s unbelievable. People can recommend things for you to buy and ultimately make Apple even more money. We don’t normally hear about Ping as often as we should. It is the Facebook of the music industry and I think people are missing out.

I have been a music buff since the day I was born and it is a huge part of my daily routine. For instance, right now I’m listening to some Doobie Brothers and the Allman Brothers band on my iPad. Ping is recommending me artists and songs galore along with other people who have similar interests in music. As much as Spotify allows you to listen to music much like Pandora does, it does not give you the same connectivity that Ping does.

I think its wild. Social media has taken over all aspects of life whether we like it or not. I enjoy it. It’s fun, its connective; it’s something that is ever changing and ever developing. Sometimes it’s creepy that it can know everything about you, but at the same time, the ease of finding a song that could be your new favorite is out of this world. I love it, and it would be a “Genius” idea for everyone to get involved.

Related articles

• How Social Media Has Influenced Counting Crows Frontman Adam Duritz (mashable.com)
• Social media’s growing influence on sports (techi.com)
• Can You “Handle” Social Media? (techvert.com)
• iTunes Ping (ibm.com)
• Here’s Proof That Social Media Blunders Have Real Consequences (businessinsider.com)
• 10+ random thoughts on Ping and iTunes (ouriel.typepad.com)

There are many new businesses that are making waves in financial technology to help ensure our lives are made easier. Here are 7 companies that are truly innovative in the way they do business.

1. Klarna

Klarna is a Swedish-based e-commerce company that offers businesses the ability to receive payments and consumers to buy items, via online storefronts. Klarna creates a trustful relationship by offering customers the option to pay for goods after they are delivered and also allows buyers to verify their identities using basic personal data. Again, this allows for a safe and trustworthy relationship to be built, which is the core of Klarna.

2. CoverHound

CoverHound provides consumers a new way to shop for car insurance by using a comparative shopping platform. CoverHounds platform offers consumers the ability to choose which car insurance best suits them through comparing instant, accurate and actionable rates from leading insurance carriers. Without selling consumers data, CoverHound uses relationships between insurance carriers and agencies to enhance users’ car insurance policies.

3. Giftly

Giftly enables consumers to conveniently use their debit or credit cards to send and receive thoughtful and personalized gifts to family and friends. It is a newer kind of gift card, by turning ordinary debit and credit cards into gift cards that allows recipients of a “Giftly” to choose where he/she will spend it. Those sending a Giftly can choose up to 3 businesses where it can be spent, a personalized photograph or note, the amount, and send it via email. The recipient can then easily make purchases from the businesses listed using a credit or debit card that has been registered or redeem the Giftly via computer or smartphone at giftly.com.

4. ZipZap

ZipZap is a global cash transactions network that allows merchants to offer customers the ability to buy products online using cash. ZipZap also enables consumers to pay bills and add money to prepaid cards or mobile accounts online, using their local currency. ZipZap has over 700,000 payment centers that permit cash-preferred consumers to conveniently purchase items online and make payments with cash in their very own neighborhood via a CashPayment center.

5. BillGuard

BillGuard is a free service that offers users a place to collectively post billing complaints online. It checks and monitors your bills for any bad charges that have occurred without your knowledge and sends you an alert when one happens. BillGuard uses the same security measures as your bank to ensure that your information and data is kept safe, private, and secure.

6. Dwolla

Dwolla is a new payment network that works with financial institutions to offer merchants, non-profits, and consumers a cheaper, safer, and better payment experience, both online and via mobile devices. Users can send friends money through social networks, purchase products with a mobile phone, etc., safely and securely. Dwolla is an e-commerce company that is only offered in the United States.

7. Virtual Piggy

Virtual Piggy creates a safe and secure shopping environment for merchants and parents to help teach children responsible spending. Virtual Piggy provides a tool that enables children, 18 years and younger, to make purchases online that are controlled, approved, and monitored by parents. Merchants can offer a parental control mechanism, through Virtual Piggy, on their websites that gives children the ability to purchase products online, which is compliant with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.