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

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If you don’t have a Twitter account for your blog or your website then you are missing out on a great marketing tool. Twitter’s approach to social media offers a unique way for people to interact, and can do wonders for increasing your readership or business when it’s used in the right way.

Here are a few ways you can use Twitter to help drastically improve your marketing and drive traffic to your website:

1. 1. Use hash tags to your advantage – Take a look at what the trending topics are and see if you can leverage any of them to your advantage. You’ll be able to reach a much larger audience that way and can engage in some pretty interesting and informative conversations by doing so.
2. 2. Participate in industry chats – Almost every niche will have Twitter chats from time to time where they do Q&A’s or have a general chat. This helps you learn more about what’s going on within your particular industry and helps connect you to other people that share your same interests. It’s also a great way to drive traffic back to your blog or website because people will inevitably end up visiting your profile, so you should always have a link to your site on your profile where people can easily find it.
3. 3. Follow the big dogs – There’s a reason that certain people are the top players within a certain niche market, and following them gives you a chance to learn from the best. Watch how and when they tweet and what they tweet about and let it help you refine your approach to Twitter and the tweets you’re sending out.
4. 4. Keep an eye on your competition – It may sound like a contradiction, to follow your competition, but it’s a great way to stay up to speed with what they’re doing, what’s working for them, and what isn’t working for them. It helps give you a cutting edge over them.
5. 5. Tweet often, but not often enough to be considered spam – Tweet at prime time s (11am, 3pm, and 7pm) when the most people are active on Twitter. Make sure that you establish a good presence on Twitter by keeping your account active and tweeting regularly, but try to avoid going on tweeting sprees where you tweet one thing after another for an extended period of time. You’ll end up spamming people’s feeds that way, which no one appreciates.

Twitter is a great way to increase your blog readership or website views, market a product or service you have, and engage blog readers or customers so that you create a relationship with them. The site can be a little overwhelming at first, but once you establish a presence you will quickly reap the benefits. So what are you waiting for? It’s time to get tweeting!

Annette Shaff / Shutterstock.com

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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.

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.

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• How Social Media Has Influenced Counting Crows Frontman Adam Duritz (mashable.com)
• Social media’s growing influence on sports (techi.com)
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• iTunes Ping (ibm.com)
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• 10+ random thoughts on Ping and iTunes (ouriel.typepad.com)

Time saving tools are always welcome to anyone with the job title social media manager. If you have this title, or something similar, it is very likely that you manage multiple social accounts everyday. Whether it is different social networks, multiple Twitter IDs, or brand clients, efficient tools are necessary to keep updates flowing.

A tool that is specifically powerful for anyone who is seeking a professional appearance and consistent messaging is Buffer. This powerful web app has the ability to create a stream of updates to social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn with only a few minutes spent each day. Updates can include links, messages, and photos which give great diversity across different types of social media channels.

How Buffer Sends Updates

For yourself or for clients, you may want to send updates at specific times to reach the maximum number of followers and engagement. For example, Facebook users might respond better after 5PM, you could schedule a post everyday at 5:30PM. Buffer will let you set a schedule for each account connected and then automatically send out status updates or tweets at those specific times.

Efficiently Add Content

As a social media manager for multiple clients, I have many accounts that I need to keep updated with relevant content from different industries. To do this I combine Buffer and Google Reader. To keep interesting content flowing from the social accounts I manage, every morning I add articles from the RSS feeds in my Google Reader.

My reader is set up with folders for each client containing RSS feeds from relevant blogs. I simply have to skim through the folders and add the best articles I find to each matching social media account using Buffer. A recent update to the browser extensions has included the add to Buffer button inside Google Reader which makes the process even faster.

How Buffer Helps Your Community

Having hundreds or thousands of followers is great, but how do you reach them all? Well you can’t really but you can increase your chances. Sending out updates consistently and at various times will help you reach people that you might not have otherwise. You will save a lot of time adding scheduled messages once a day rather than trying to remember to manually post throughout the day.

Using Buffer will also allow you to focus more on using social media to actually be social and engaging. Knowing that your content is scheduled to send, focus on reaching out to members and joining some conversations. Having an active and fresh social presence will be attractive to new members of your community.

Buffer has a great free version and also a pro version which is good for those that manage many social accounts. I am giving away 1 full year of Buffer Pro on my Facebook page, find the details here.

Related articles

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• Buffer Has Scheduled 10M Social Updates And Signed Up 180K Users (techcrunch.com)

In late April 2012, brand pages on Facebook were migrated to the new Timeline layout, making most social media plans for the year redundant. Authority social media websites like Mashable, Read Write Web, and many others ran a series of posts on making the best of the Timeline layout.

What benefit does Timeline have for brands then? For starters, it pulls the plug on landing tabs that brands used to increase the number of page likes and increases the value of visually appealing content through powerful cover images. Many brands have already created drool worthy Timeline profiles and are using them to increase customer engagement.

Here are three brands that’ve changed the way Facebook pages work with their well crafted branding strategies:

Coca-Cola

There is no doubt that Coca-Cola is a globally recognized brand that doesn’t need to work too hard to build a strong, engaged community, but their social media efforts resonate with their target audience through the young, upbeat cover image.

Notice that the “About” section doesn’t say anything about the brand, rather it’s about the “you” or the user. It’s a way of thanking the community for making Coke an integral part of our lives.

The key takeaways here:

• Use a powerful cover image – The cover image is among the most dominating features of Facebook Timeline. It’s also the first thing a user sees when they land on a page. Choose an image that reflects the USP of your brand. A high resolution image with clean graphics is the key to creating a statement with your cover image.
• All about the user – One of the key mistakes brands and businesses make is creating an “About” page that is only about the brand. Understandably, this is because they want to provide information about the business, but are your users even interested in knowing about the business? Or, are they interested in knowing what you can do for them? When creating an about page, make it more about the user and less about you.

For more great cover images, check out Sharpie and Ben & Jerry’s on Facebook.

Livestrong

The Livestrong Facebook page is a wonderful example for uniting the community by following the organization’s core work – empowering people to fight against cancer. By including important tabs below the header, users can head on over to view events, blog, and also share their story with the rest of the community. This not only saves time, but also helps build user engagement.

Another great example of Livestrong’s use of Facebook Timeline is the post starring feature, as shown in the following screen shot:

Starring a post makes it larger than standard posts, thus increasing their visibility. Starred posts are also likely to receive more attention and higher engagement than standard posts. The above post is a great example of how the community is helping a cancer patient fight the disease.

The key takeaways here:

• List the important stuff where your fans can see it – By choosing what tabs to display, you make it easier for fans to find information they need. They don’t need to spend time in finding it on your page. For an e-commerce website, these tabs could include a link to the e-store, customer recommendations or reviews, the company blog, or even sale events.
• Star important posts to increase visibility – Starred posts are nearly double the size of a standard post. Use this feature to increase engagement on a specific post.

Magnolia Bakery

If you can take your eyes away from the mouth watering display of cakes in their cover image, Magnolia Bakery’s use of Facebook Timeline should be an inspiration for local businesses!

First, the business information such as phone number is listed clearly in the “About” section, making it easier for users to contact the bakery, if needed. Second, notice how they’ve used Facebook apps such as the map feature, again making it convenient for users to get directions to the bakery without visiting an external application.

Another brilliant feature of Facebook Timeline is milestones. Brands can use it to highlight information such as foundation dates, important dates in the history of the brand, and so on, like Magnolia Bakery has done:

Use this feature to interact with fans and personalize their experience on your brand’s page.

The key takeaways here:

• Use apps that are relevant to your business – By including important information about your business below the cover image, you reduce customer effort and increase customer satisfaction rates. Think about why users are visiting your page and what they expect from the brand.
• Use milestones to highlight important events – Important events in your business’s history may be available on your website, but Facebook makes it way cooler with the scroll feature, where users can see these by clicking on a particular year. Personalize your brand for your customers!

Post the mandatory Facebook Timeline rollout, these simple strategies should now become a core component of your social media marketing plan.

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Whether you’re maintaining a personal or a business Facebook page for marketing or for branding, running out of things to post or share is a no-no. It is important to keep yourself visible and active among your followers, more so for business pages. That’s why when I chanced upon this Facebook app, I was nothing short of thrilled.

Maintain Facebook Pages and Groups like a pro

It’s called the Post Planner. Simply put, it allows you to schedule Facebook updates on your profile, pages or groups like you can schedule blog posts in sites like WordPress and Blogspot. It also allows you to post to a number of Facebook pages and groups in one go and automate your RSS feeds for blog entries. But the best feature that got me interested in this app is that it suggests things that you can post and lets you put your brand all over your followers’ walls. You can even schedule repeat updates and specify time zones in case you have followers worldwide. Amazing isn’t it?

Brand like a rockstar

Introduced in March 2011 by developers Go West Social (by Joshua Parkinson) and Julie Cros, the FB Post Planner was actually intended to assist businesses and social media marketers in planning Facebook posts and strategies for branding and marketing. Its features allow for maximum exposure to target audiences with minimal need for management and maintenance.

This Facebook app allows you to easily add your logo, brand and website link in every post, perfect for those into internet marketing, affiliate marketing and other ventures that involve social media marketing and branding. Since FB updates can be scheduled, it ensures visibility within your FB community even if you can’t go online everyday. It allows you to regularly post viral content to establish online authority and maximize FB publicity.

Save time and effort

Posting Facebook content every now and then can be a drag, especially if you’re off to some good long vacation and have decided on an Internet-free escapade to some island in the Mediterranean.

With this app, you can maximize the time you spend on Facebook and do marketing with top efficiency. No need to spend hours or days pondering on what to say or how to break the ice with your audience. With over 5,000 status update suggestions, man, there wouldn’t even be an ice to break if you keep posting and sharing like a pro.

A little drawback…

But just in case you are wondering, this app isn’t free. As of press time, there are three packages that you can avail of, varying in prices and available features and functions: Pro ($4.95/month), Branded ($14.95/month) and Team ($24.95/month).

The Pro package only allows for posting to your Profile, posting to your Pages, and accessing the status idea database for 1 admin. The other two packages offer additional features: posting to your Groups, RSS feed syndication, post branding, and addition of website link to every post. The Branded package allows for 1 admin; the Team package allows for 5.

But not really…

Actually, Post Planner doesn’t really alienate those who just want to try the app before shelling out some dollars, since there is a free 30-day trial for those who just want to check it out. You can just install the app from the Post Planner website or try it straight from Facebook. When you go to the app, you’ll be faced with the usual “allow” pages until you see this, where you can check out the app and how it works, only with limited features..

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There is a huge effect of Facebook Timeline on brand pages as it opens a number of opportunities for those business entities who wants to market and build their brand online through the best social networking site. A successful fan page is one that allows the business to reach potential clients, connect with honest customers, and build an image of loyalty in their market of existence.

For getting these benefits, you must have to make use of Facebook timeline for the best advantage of your business. Its effect can be very fascinating as it is capable of attracting several customers with an ease. Thus, you have to use this element for the purpose of building good brand image of your business through the brand page.

Facebook timeline is now recognized as the newest way of viewing profile of an entity. It has the potential to generate different kind of reactions for the users of FB. There are some people who do not like this page, but, its liking is very high, and a number of people want to try this new timeline option. You can make use of new setting of your profile for the ultimate purpose of telling about your own brand to the world. You can have a start by just activating the setting of timeline in your profile. However, the page does not go live instantly. Facebook will provide some time to familiarize with the page, and know the numerous features of it. At that time, your fans and friends will see the old profile. They are able to see the new profile after the timeline page is published by you. You can make use of Facebook timeline for the best advantage of your business.

·         Update cover photo that attracts the potential customers: Cover photo is a new feature of timeline page in FB. This is an image that is visible on the top of the Facebook timeline page. This could be the best representation of your business with the help of fascinating photo. This could a symbol of your business to your fans and friends. This is a source that will allow customers to remember your business or portraits the profile of the business. However, you must be sure to put the photo that attract potential customers and make a unique mark for your business.

·         Best information of the brand: You will find a section in timeline profile in which you can provide general information about the company, address, name, and other details. You must fill all the information that is necessary. You can also add some catchy statements that can attract customers ultimately improving your brand image.

·         Use of numerous applications: After filling necessary information about the company; you can make use of applications for the best advantage of your business. You have the choice of selecting applications that you want to display on your page. You can customize those applications that are useful as advantage to your business. These applications could play a significant role in improving brand image through your brand page.

Summary: Facebook Timeline is very useful in brand pages of the companies as they are helpful in building brand image of the company. Using it wisely can be a very helpful activity to improve the brand image of the company.

Related articles

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A report from Reuters recently came out stating that marketers are entertaining the idea of spending a higher percentage of their marketing budget on social media campaigns. According to Lions Gate Entertainment Corp Chief Executive Jon Feltheimer, studios will look to spend less on TV ads and more on online promotions. The Hunger Games (over 5 million fans on Facebook) is used as an example of a successful movie that relied heavily on social buzz. According to Feltheimer, their marketers saved $15-$20 million by taking an online-heavy media approach.

Almost every big-budget movie these days has a robust Facebook and/or Twitter following. Many studios are handling their movies’ social media accounts in-house or hiring an online marketing firm to assist them with their social media marketing efforts. On social media, you can precisely target individuals who would be interested in your movie instead of throwing the dice on a TV ad. Additionally, you can hit fans and followers with multiple posts, instead of just once on TV. Not only can you keep the messages flowing as they lead up to a movie’s release, but you can also re-activate fans and followers during the DVD/Blu-Ray release and any sequels. Finally, there’s the simple fact that full 2-minute movie trailers can be viewed at any time online, as opposed to 30 second TV spots.

It’s no surprise that people talk about movies on social media. Right now the most buzzed movies are The Hunger Games and The Avengers. In fact, during the opening week of both movies, my Facebook news feed was full of friends talking about those two films. Beware, though – poor social media reviews can also doom a movie. According to experts, Bruno was one movie that was done in by negative social media buzz. I guess that’s one good thing about running television ads – your TV can’t tell you how bad a movie is.

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Big corporations, small businesses, non-profits, and even politicians are seeing the value in social media, which means that the surge in social media marketing and advertisements will only continue to increase.

According to a report from the Royal Bank of Scotland 9 out of 10 medium to large-sized businesses in the UK will maintain or spend more on their social media budget for 2012. Borrell Associates stated that the total local online social spend in the US will grow from an estimated $1.1 billion in 2011 to $7.8 billion in 2016. Also Research from The Pivot Conference and Brian Solis found that two-thirds of marketers surveyed were already conducting social media advertising activities, and 18% more planned to do so in 2012. Why should this matter to you?

This is relevant to anyone who uses social media in any capacity because they are going to get bombarded with social media advertisements. Consumer Reports stated “The average American is exposed to 247 commercial messages each day.” Advertisements will always exist just the channels that are used to broadcast the messages to us will change. These results from Nielsen show the market of Social Media:  Over 80% of all Americans use a social network. Americans spend more time on Facebook than any other U.S. website and nearly 23% of online time is spent on social networks. Big corporations have already started and will continue to increase the money they spend on social media.

With this paradigm shift in marketing a lot of companies are going to approach consumers with ads, ads, and more ads. I am privileged to work for a company that does not use advertisements at all. I work for TerraCycle, an eco-friendly company that turns waste into products. Since the inception of TerraCycle not a single dollar has been spent on advertising, the company has strictly relied on PR, blogs, and social media. In this era that we live in this statement sounds absurd and unrealistic but the truth is that TeraCycle gets major coverage in media because we have a business model that depends on the people. With more than 25 million people collecting waste in 20 countries, TerraCycle has diverted billions of units of waste and used them to create over 1,500 different products. For marketers to succeed in this consumer-driven economy, they must tap into the minds of the people not by speaking AT them, but speaking WITH them!

Social media creates a 2-way channel of communication, which is virtually non-existent with other media formats like TV, radio (save for talk-radio), and even traditional (non-2.0) websites. Social media marketers should not be seen as marketers in a sense, but should adapt and socialize with those that they are trying to influence. It’s always been true that people do business with people and companies they trust.

How many times have you asked a friend for their opinion on a movie, a restaurant, a book, and so on? As humans we do this all the time and if businesses use social networks to network and become friends with those in their market they can build trust and at the end of the day this builds business. The TerraCycle brand gained massive awareness through building support the grass roots way and this is truly the best way to build lasting support and relate to the consumer as opposed to just marketing to them.