CLUB246

CNN set to buy Mashable for $200 million USD

Joshua Trump — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 12:09:01 +0000

According to reports, international news giant CNN, a unit of Time Warner, is in talks to acquire the social news website Mashable for $200 million. Mashable, an American news website and news blog founded by Pete Cashmore in 2005, specialises in technology and social media. However the blog now also covers business and entertainment. Mashable is said to have over 15 million monthly visitors and 4 million social media followers across Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

The Reuters blogger Felix Salmon has learned from an unnamed source that CNN will buy social media website Mashable for more than $200 million. The source said that the announcement is expected for Tuesday.

There is also a social media hint about this acquisition. Reportedly, Adam Ostrow, the executive editor of Mashable, “liked” Salmon’s story for Reuters on Facebook.

However, according to New York Times, officials at CNN denied that an announcement would be made on Tuesday. Also, spokespeople from both CNN and Mashable declined to comment on the potential acquisition.

But if it happens, this will be CNN.com’s largest acquisition till date.

Last August, CNN acquired Zite, a company that made an iPad app to determine what its users want to read and view, for a price calculated to be between $20 million and $25 million.

If the rumours turn out to be true, this will be the latest in the chain of tech news site purchases. The trend began with AOL, when it purchased popular technology blog TechCrunch in September 2010 for estimated $25 million.

Following this, SAY Media, a digital publishing company headquartered in San Francisco, bought the web tech blog ReadWriteWeb in December last year; and GigaOm purchased ContentNext, paidContent’s parent company in February this year.

If CNN acquires Mashable, it will, however, be the highest amount paid for a tech news site.

Walmart Buys Facebook’s Birthday And Holiday Reminder App Social Calendar

Joshua Trump — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 12:01:59 +0000

It looks like retail giant Walmart has made another acquisition. The e-commerce giant has bought Social Calendar, an app on Facebook that allows you to get birthday and holiday reminders by email and SMS, and to post personalized photo cards and other virtual greetings on friends’ Facebook Walls on their birthdays.

Here’s the message posted on Social Calendar’s site: Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (“Walmart”) completed its purchase of Newput Corporation’s Social Calendar products, services and website. We remain committed to providing the highest level of service that you have come to expect with Social Calendar. Your service with Social Calendar will continue without any interruptions, and you will be notified in the future of any material updates or changes to your service.

As we’ve written in the past, SocialCalendar, which was founded by Raj Lalwani and David Jordan, lets you plan events among Facebook friends, get movie showtimes and integrate events into a public calendar. Users can also import and get email reminders about events, birthdays and anniversaries and lets users buy virtual good icons as presents for friends and to mark events on calendars.

In 2009, the company debuted a partnership with Hallmark cards (Hallmark also invested in Social Calendar), to allow users to send virtual cards and gifts as well. The app has 15 million installed users and around 400,000 monthly active users. Social Calendar cites 110 million+ birthdays, holidays, other special occasions added by users and sends 10 million email reminders each month.

It should be interesting to see what Walmart does with Social Calendar. The company recently launched Facebook app Shopycat, which suggests gifts based on social profile of a friend. We know that Shopycat will function as an online store itself on Facebook, allowing users to buy from Walmart without every having to leave the social network. Social Calendar’s technology could be integrated into this app.

Walmart has been on an e-commerce tear, acquiring technologies and companies that can help add personalization, mobile, social media and other functionality to the buying process. Over the past year, Walmart has acquired social media technology provider Kosmix, Small Society, and OneRiot. The company also recently invested in Yihaodian, a massive B2C eCommerce company based in China.

Microsoft to deliver CRM apps for iPad, iPhone, Android, Windows Phone

Joshua Trump — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:12:26 +0000

Some time between April and May of this year, Microsoft will roll out Dynamics CRM mobile clients and service simultaneously for the iPad, iPhone, Android, Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry devices.

The coming mobile components — something some Windows Phone users have been asking about for years — will be part of the Dynamics CRM Q2 2012 service update, Microsoft officials said on February 6. (February 6 is the day when Microsoft is releasing its preview guide for its next update, which Microsoft has committed to provide 60 to 90 days before a new update is available to on-premises and online users.)

All of the new mobile CRM releases will be ready at the same time and downloadable from their respective marketplaces on the same day, said Craig Dewar, Director of Product Management for Dynamics CRM.

Here’s a Microsoft-supplied screen shot of what the Dynamics CRM app on the iPad will look like:

The coming Dynamics CRM mobile clients/service starts at $30 per user, per month and supports the use of up to three devices per user. While this sounds pricey compared to the going rate for Office 365 and its component parts, it looks like it undercuts Salesforce’s comparable mobile-client offering, which starts at $65 per user per month. (Salesforce also has a free Mobile Lite CRM clientwith limited capabilities and connectivity, as does Microsoft, which still offers Mobile Express for Dynamics CRM.)

In addition to adding mobile support to its platform, Microsoft also is stepping up its cross-browser support for Dynamics CRM users. With the Q2 update, users will have a choice of Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox and Safari running on PCs, Macs and iPads. Here’s a chart showing which versions will be supported on which platforms:

The Q2 update also will add more social capabilities, making Microsoft’s social CRM components look and feel even more like Facebook- and/or Salesforce Chatter. Users will have the ability to like/unlike status updates on their Activity Feeds and get improved filtering capabilities.

Users of the on-premises version of the Q2 update also will have access to new Microsoft Excel Workbooks with pre-defined PowerPivot models and Power View Report templates to help them perform quick analyses in areas like product sales, customer demographics and sales pipelines. (Power View, a k a “Project Crescent,” is a new self-service business-intelligence feature in SQL Server 2012, which is due to launch on March 7.) Microsoft plans to add support for these enterprise capbilities to Dynamics CRM, too, at some point in the future, officials said.

Microsoft officials said last year that the company planned to deliver quarterly updates (two major/two minor) to both its on-premises Dynamics CRM product and its hosted CRM Online one.

The Dynamics CRM unit isn’t the only Microsoft division that is upping its cross-platform support.
Microsoft already offers OneNote for the iPhone and iPad; a SkyDrive cloud-storage app for iPhone; a Lync client for Android; a Lync client for iPhone and Hotmail for Android. Company officials said late last year to expect even more mobile cross-platform app support from Microsoft in 2012, especially on Android devices.

Why the iPad is a salesperson’s best friend

Joshua Trump — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 14:04:55 +0000

Recent studies from Forrester and Good Technology show that Apple’s iPad is doing very well in the enterprise, with new activations soaring. One company just deployed 1,300 of the Apple tablets across its sales force, because combined with the right software, it believes there is no better tool a salesperson can carry.

A recent report at InformationWeekdetails the story of Level 3 Communications, which recently equipped its entire sales workforce with iPads loaded with apps that provide access to pricing information; presentation creation; and display, corporate email, customer records and inventory checks. The iPad proved more than up to the task of supplementing and mostly replacing laptops.

InformationWeek goes into much more detail about what the iPads meant for Level 3, but the advantages for salespeople on the ground can be boiled down to three main categories:

1. Instant on. The iPad’s ability to instantly wake from sleep and pick up right where a user left off exceed that of even the fastest SSD-equipped notebooks, and it only sips power in tiny amounts in order to provide that functionality. That, combined with its superior portability, makes it the perfect tool for doing “quick checks between meetings, at an airport, or in a taxi,” InformationWeek says. With a laptop, five minutes in a taxi might not seem like enough time to make powering up worth your while; with the iPad, that’s a nonissue.

2. Connectivity. The iPad (at least the 3G models) provides always-on cellular network access, as long as you are within coverage range. Some laptops can offer that, but the process is still often more complicated than just tapping the wake button and being ready to surf, email or chat. But it’s not just cellular radios that make the iPad great for sales; built-in GPS positioning means salespeople can get locally relevant information, like clients or potential clients in the immediate area, in only a few short steps via task-specific software.

3. On-device demo. A laptop is an ineffective replacement for a catalog, and presenting a slide show on one is awkward. Using an iPad as a presentation tool, on the other hand, is natural. The tablet is easily passed around, can be read like a magazine, and can also output to external displays with less hassle and fewer steps than a laptop. And apps like OnLive Desktop and Iongrid make it even easier for iPads to sub in for notebooks capable of running desktop presentation tools.

Level 3 isn’t the only company to realize the value of iPads in the hands of a sales force. Sears, of all companies, announced in October it would begin rolling out iPads in 450 stores that same month, and TUAW noted at the time that Lowes and Pacific Sun were also expanding iOS deployments.

InformationWeek thinks 2012 will be a breakout year in terms of actual iPad deployments, just as 2011 saw a huge uptick in pilot programs. If that indeed comes to pass, we should see Apple easily beat the 40.7 million iPads it sold in 2011.

Facebook is the pusher and “Timeline” is the drug

Joshua Trump — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:07:25 +0000

You can run, but you can’t hide. Facebook’s biggest user interface overhaul since the Wall, theFacebook Timeline, is now becoming mandatory for all users. According to the company, over the next few weeks, everyone will get the new Timeline. And here’s the important part: when you do, you’ll have just seven days to preview what’s there now, and hide anything you don’t want others to see.

In case you’re unfamiliar, the Facebook Timeline makes it far easier for you to travel back through your Facebook posts – posts which normally disappeared off your Wall and into oblivion. The posts from these previous months and years are now accessible through new navigational elements on the right-side of your screen that let you quickly travel back in time to the day you were born.

You can fill in data from your pre-Facebook years using the new status update box, which now includes support for adding a specific year and various “life events.” These events include things like marriages, births, deaths, new jobs, trips and vacations, new homes, and other things you might want to record in the scrapbook-like Timeline.

With Timeline’s added ability to find older posts, including those from the days before your boss, grandparents, mom and dad were on Facebook, users will need to do a rapid cleanup on their profiles when the Timeline goes live.

Facebook explains how to hide posts you don’t want to appear on your Timeline (click the pencil to hide, delete or edit a post). You can also use the privacy drop-down to change who can see posts (e.g. “Only Me”).

In addition, the company is releasing a new tool today called Activity Log, which is where you can review all your posts and activity, from today back to when you first started using Facebook. Fortunately, only you can see your activity log.

Previously, users had to go out and get Timeline for themselves. Facebook was specifically trying to not push it too hard. It wouldn’t show News Feed stories announcing your friends had migrated, for example, as the company wanted the Timeline to be an opt-in decision that allowed people enough time to moderate their profile posts. Giving users seven days to do the same is somewhat an extension of that thinking, although could prove troublesome for irregular Facebook users who don’t realize they’ve been migrated, leaving themselves exposed when the week is up.

If you want to be proactive and get the Timeline now, go to the Introducing Timeline page and click “Get Timeline.” Or you can wait until you see an announcement at the top of your profile.

Want to know why cloud computing has not taken off

Joshua Trump — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:57:01 +0000

“The future of business is cloudy!”

“The cloud boom is well underway in the business world!”

“Enterprises are keeping their heads in the clouds!”

Any one of these lines could have easily opened this piece…and they would all be lies. Certainly, the business world at large is interested in the benefits of the cloud, but enterprises have been very slow to adopt a key element of cloud computing: platform-as-a-service or PaaS.

So what? For the business world to fully embrace the cloud, they have to overcome a huge hurdle –getting their “core”/legacy/custom-developed applications to the cloud. This is where PaaS comes into play. PaaS provides the necessary cloud capabilities that allow enterprises to fully embrace custom application development through lowered infrastructure costs, less strain on existing resources and the ability to push IT to innovate rather than maintain.

The primary problem, however, is that very few PaaS providers are actually building PaaS solutions with enterprises in mind. The enterprise wants PaaS…but no one seems to want to bring PaaS to the enterprise.

The vast majority of current PaaS offerings cater to independent software vendors (ISVs) rather than actual enterprise IT shops. At first glance, the differences between ISVs and enterprise IT seem to be non-existent, as both are typically focused on developing software to deal with business problems. But at a more micro-level, the differences are vast, placing a very different set of requirements on cloud computing and PaaS in particular.

Change. Change Never…Changes?

First, consider application and process change, a key cost-driver in any application development scenario. In the enterprise world, change depends on a variety of factors, both internal and external, from management decisions about go-to-market approaches to mergers and acquisitions to changes in government standards and regulation. This type of change is chaotic, to say the least, and is rarely planned for. Not to mention that these changes are always business critical, meaning that IT departments need to have the changes implemented yesterday.

From an ISV perspective, change is completely different – the change is usually controlled by product management and happens in a uniform and structured environment. Typically, the software products developed by ISVs exist to solve commodity-style business problems, like CRM or ERP. These business problems tend to be stable, as the implemented business processes have become industry standard, thus change is much more manageable.

As such, ISVs (and their PaaS solutions) do not need to deal with rapid, chaotic change, but rather planned product releases. The enterprise does not have this luxury, so ISV-style PaaS simply becomes too slow for the business when it comes to change.

The Management Gap

When it comes to managing the lifecycle of a particular application, ISVs take center stage – and they should, since their applications are how they actually make money. Product managers watch over individual product lines (or even specific applications), carefully selecting features to implement and managing version control with an iron fist.

The enterprise side couldn’t be more different – typically, applications are not the business’ revenue driver, but rather an enabler of whatever the primary product is, whether plastics or real estate. Despite the importance of these applications, which typically address a business-specific challenge or opportunity, enterprises tend to treat them with “part-time” product managers, usually made up of a mix of roles including business analysts, developers and stakeholders.

This means that the approach to managing the application lifecycle is night-and-day in both organizations:

- ISVs, through their full-time product managers, have near total control over specific application portfolios and keep a close watch on what makes it into an application and what features are cut. This controlled plan is the design behind most PaaS systems, making them ideal for the ISV environment.

- On the other hand, enterprises are often working to build application functionality for innovative business processes where the business is in ‘invent’ mode, requiring a more trial-and-error (aka “throw it at the wall and see what sticks”) approach. To compound this challenge, the professionals tasked with managing the enterprise’s application requirements are not full time product managers. This puts a special need on the PaaS tooling to provide excellent collaboration capabilities that make it easy to capture feedback to support changing requirements.

Even The Apps Are Against Us

Nothing is ever easy in the enterprise, so it’s no surprise that even applications themselves tend to work against the ability of businesses to properly deploy PaaS. In a typical enterprise, the majority of applications are “composite applications,” meaning that they are an extension of another application, system or (worse) older, legacy applications that are complex and inflexible. This makes integrating applications a nightmare, and can prove to be a huge roadblock for PaaS and the cloud in general.

ISVs have no such problems, however, as their business is based around providing a complete system of record, requiring no supporting integrations to deliver a working solution. For PaaS solutions, the ISV does not worry about integration capabilities, while this is a top need for the enterprise.

The Enterprise PaaS Wish List

So what can PaaS vendors do to actually enter (and stay in) the enterprise marketplace? There are a few simple wishes that every enterprise IT team has for their PaaS technology:

- Rapid, Simplified Development: Given the fluid nature of corporate IT teams, enterprise PaaS should provide a model-driven development approach to simplify application design and delivery and dramatically improve an enterprise IT team’s ability to understand and maintain an application.

- Change Ready: The only constant around enterprise applications are that they need to change, quickly and without incident. Thus, enterprise PaaS offerings need to understand that unannounced and unplanned change is the norm, not a rarity, and provide collaboration mechanisms to capture change requests easily. Thus built in change management and auto deploy capabilities that reduce the risk of change are paramount for enterprise PaaS.

- Built-In Scalability: For the enterprise, many apps are born on the “edge” of the business where innovation often takes place. In many cases these tactical applications become mission critical. A good enterprise PaaS solution will allow the department to begin the development process and, when the time comes to scale the app, the PaaS solution will do the work automatically versus needing IT to rewrite the application. This means an enterprise PaaS solution must fit both the department and corporate IT team’s needs.

- Streamlined DevOps: Enterprise PaaS must eliminate complexity and automate the process of moving applications from development to production and all the steps in between. Additionally, it must provide built-in mechanisms to roll back changes and monitor application performance in order to easily identify issues.

- Universal Application Support: Delivering a wide range of solutions to support innovative business needs is key for the enterprise. The ideal PaaS solution will make it easy to deliver application functionality across a variety of device form factors including desktops, tablets and smart phones. The key requirement is to simplify the design process and make it easy to deliver highly usable interfaces for each form factor while reusing existing business logic and data.

- Simplified Integration:

Integration is a key need for enterprise PaaS, specifically to address the composite nature of most custom applications. In many cases this means that the PaaS solution needs to run on–premise in a private cloud set-up. In addition to supporting a private cloud, the PaaS solution must make integration a key element of the solution where it is easy to define, secure and monitor the performance of integrations.

So can PaaS make the enterprise stop and listen? Absolutely – the benefits are there and businesses, especially in today’s economy, are pining for faster delivery and lowered IT costs. But enterprises and ISVs are not the same organizations…so why should they be forced to use the same cloud?

Online Ad Spending to Surpass Print for First Time in 2012

Joshua Trump — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:17:31 +0000

For the first time in U.S. history, marketers are projected to spend more on online advertising than on advertising in print magazines and newspapers.

According to a study released Thursday by eMarketer, online advertising is expected to generate $39.5 billion in sales this year — a 23.3% increase from 2011 — compared to a spend of $33.8 billion on print.

That’s impressive growth, especially since 2011 also witnessed a 23% jump in online ad spending, according to eMarketer’s calculations. Online ad revenues should continue to grow over the next half-decade, albeit at a more modest rate, as shown in the chart below. Total online ad investment is projected to hit $62 billion by that time.

The forecast for print is foreboding. Marketers are expected to continue cutting their print advertising budgets for the next half-decade, spending $32.3 billion in 2016, 10% less than what they invested in print ads in 2011.

Spending on TV promises to be largely unaffected by growing online ad budgets, although the gap between the two is set to narrow significantly. U.S. marketers are expected to spend $72 billion in TV advertising in 2016, up 18.6% from 2011.

Overall, it looks to be a healthy year for the ad industry, with total U.S. ad spending forecast to grow by 6.7% to $169.5 billion. eMarketer attributes the bump to investment in campaigns ads and mobile advertising. Total ad spending is set to reach nearly $200 billion by 2016, of which online will account for a third.

Thanks to Lauren Indvik of Mashable for this data and article.

How to Train Your Brain to Focus

Joshua Trump — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:08:01 +0000

Next time you are sitting in a meeting, take a look around. The odds are high that you will see your colleagues checking screens, texting, and emailing while someone is talking or making a presentation. Many of us are proud of our prowess in multitasking, and wear it like a badge of honor.

Multitasking may help us check off more things on our to-do lists. But it also makes us more prone to making mistakes, more likely to miss important information and cues, and less likely to retain information in working memory, which impairs problem solving and creativity.

Over the past decade, advances in neuroimaging have been revealing more and more about how the brain works. Studies of adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) using the latest neuroimaging and cognitive testing [PDF] are showing us how the brain focuses, what impairs focus — and how easily the brain is distracted. This research comes at a time when attention deficits have spread far beyond those with ADHD to the rest of us working in an always-on world. The good news is that the brain can learn to ignore distractions, making you more focused, creative, and productive.

Here are three ways you can start to improve your focus.

Tame your frenzy.

Frenzy is an emotional state, a feeling of being a little (or a lot) out of control. It is often underpinned by anxiety, sadness, anger, and related emotions. Emotions are processed by the amygdala, a small, almond-shaped brain structure. It responds powerfully to negative emotions, which are regarded as signals of threat. Functional brain imaging has shown that activation of the amygdala by negative emotions interferes with the brain’s ability to solve problems or do other cognitive work. Positive emotions and thoughts do the opposite — they improve the brain’s executive function, and so help open the door to creative and strategic thinking.

What can you do? Try to improve your balance of positive and negative emotions over the course of a day. Barbara Fredrickson, a noted psychology researcher at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, recommends a 3:1 balance of positive and negative emotions, based upon mathematical modeling of ideal team dynamics by her collaborator Marcial Losada, and confirmed by research on individual flourishing and successful marriages. (Calculate your “positivity ratio” atwww.positivityratio.com). You can tame negative emotional frenzy by exercising, meditating, and sleeping well. It also helps to notice your negative emotional patterns. Perhaps a coworker often annoys you with some minor habit or quirk, which triggers a downward spiral. Appreciate that such automatic responses may be overdone, take a few breaths, and let go of the irritation.

What can your team do? Start meetings on positive topics and some humor. The positive emotions this generates can improve everyone’s brain function, leading to better teamwork and problem solving.

Apply the brakes.

Your brain continuously scans your internal and external environment, even when you are focused on a particular task. Distractions are always lurking: wayward thoughts, emotions, sounds, or interruptions. Fortunately, the brain is designed to instantly stop a random thought, an unnecessary action, and even an instinctive emotion from derailing you and getting you off track.

What can you do? To prevent distractions from hijacking your focus, use the ABC method as your brain’s brake pedal. Become Aware of your options: you can stop what you are doing and address the distraction, or you can let it go. Breathe deeply and consider your options. Then Choosethoughtfully: Stop? or Go?

What can your team do? Try setting up one-hour distraction-free meetings. Everyone is expected to contribute and offer thoughtful and creative input, and no distractions (like laptops, tablets, cell phones, and other gadgets) are allowed.

Shift Sets.

While it’s great to be focused, sometimes you need to turn your attention to a new problem. Set-shifting refers to shifting all of your focus to a new task, and not leaving any behind on the last one. Sometimes it’s helpful to do this in order to give the brain a break and allow it to take on a new task.

What can you do? Before you turn your attention to a new task, shift your focus from your mind to your body. Go for a walk, climb stairs, do some deep breathing or stretches. Even if you aren’t aware of it, when you are doing this your brain continues working on your past tasks. Sometimes new ideas emerge during such physical breaks.

What can your team do? Schedule a five-minute break for every hour of meeting time, and encourage everyone to do something physical rather than run out to check email. By restoring the brain’s executive function, such breaks can lead to more and better ideas when you reconvene.

Organizing your mind, and your team members’ minds, will yield a solid payoff in the year ahead. Adding “high-quality focus” is a great place to start. Try holding a no-multitasking meeting and see what happens when everyone in the room gives their undivided attention. Have you ever tried this in your organization? If not, do you think it would fly?

Small Business Social Media Success Stories

Joshua Trump — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:04:51 +0000

Are you curious what small businesses are doing to achieve success with social media marketing? Look no further.

This article highlights nine small businesses of various sizes and industries that have transformed their online presence with innovative social media marketing practices.

You’re guaranteed to find inspiration for your social media marketing efforts here.

These tactics will work for just about any business—from solopreneur to multi-employee manufacturer. So let’s dive in!

#1: JarvieDigital Photography

Scott Jarvie takes world-class wedding and nature photographs and he has trained a number of photographers using his unique methods. He’s even had a photographic method named after him: The Jarvie Window.

The Jarvie Window has generated interest in Scott’s photography around the world.

As a photographer, you would expect Scott to have exceptional photos on his site, and he does. But he uses them on both Facebook and Google+ to create personal engagement and promote his products and services. In fact, Scott hasdeveloped different engagement strategies for each platform.

On Scott’s personal Google+ profile, he is highly engaged through sharing resources and commenting.

On his Google+ business page, Scott features his photo services.

While Scott is a premium photographer and trainer, he demonstrates his expertise and generosity to photographers worldwide through sharing resources on his website and through his social sites.

Scott not only shares valuable resources, he also promotes the work of his students—a great way to show social love.

Key Takeaways

Differentiate your social strategies on your personal profile(s) from your business pages.
Freely share resources with your fans as a way to grow your fan base and your perceived expertise.

#2: The Prospecting Expert: A Consultant

Steve Kloyda founded The Prospecting Expert, a business-to-business consulting firm that helps salespeople with their prospecting skills. He has developed a powerful social presence through the use of video and podcasts.

Steve provides valuable content through a regular podcast show and video channel. Notice also the use of social sharing buttons.

One thing Steve understands is branding. Through the use of his photo and logo, he has created a consistent look and feel across all of his social channels.

Steve’s brand is instantly recognizable. Notice also the friendly picture—important when your face is your brand.

One ninja trick executed by Steve is the creation of an iPhone app for distributing his content. While it could cost from hundreds to several thousands of dollars, the marketing benefit of having your content delivered straight to your users’ mobile devices could be invaluable.

Let your customers directly access your content on their mobile devices with a customized app.

Key Takeaways

Start a podcast or video show for delivering your content.
Keep your branding consistent across all of your social platforms.
Develop an app for delivering content to your mobile customers.

#3: Coconut Bliss: An Ice Cream Company

Coconut Bliss is an organic dessert company based in Eugene, Oregon. Their products have become widely popular due to their social media practices.

Coconut Bliss conveys a fun, social brand through rotating photos on their home page.

Technorati discovered in their 2011 State of the Blogosphere report that bloggers use photos more than any other type of media (80% use photos, around 50% use videos and many fewer for all other formats). Coconut Bliss makes an effective use of fun and friendly pictures to show customers eating their dessert products.

Coconut Bliss integrates photos across social platforms.

Coconut Bliss makes an effective use of promotions to engage their fans. In this year’s Veggie Awards, they were able to partner with VegNews to offer a unique prize to Coconut Bliss fans while also getting partnership in a much larger promotion to all readers of VegNews. Two smart strategies: contests and partnerships.

Key Takeaways

Invest in a decent camera and learn how to take captivating pictures.
Integrate photos across all of your social platforms.
Make strategic use of contests and partnerships to grow your fan base.

#4: JamaicansMusic: An Online Music Channel

Casey Hibbard highlighted JamaicansMusic in a Social Media Examiner post, but they have some unique social practices worth emulating. After all, they have achieved astronomical growth through smart social media practices—1.5 million new fans in 4 months!

When visiting the JamaicansMusic website, one instantly gets the feeling that this is a social company. In fact, there are three different places on their home page to connect socially.

Make it easy to connect socially, especially if there are multiple offers on your home page.

By providing contests, free music, games and other valuable resources,JamaicansMusic has given their Facebook fans lots of reasons to revisit their page—and tell their friends about it.

When playing this creative songwriting game, JamaicansMusic offers fans more ways to connect socially.

Key Takeaways

Provide fans multiple reasons for returning to your site by offering games, contests and valuable content.
Give visitors lots of opportunities to connect socially.

#5: SEOMoz: A Software Company

SEOMoz is a search engine optimization and social monitoring service provider. One thing that distinguishes their site is the use of gaming mechanics to spur participation from their writers and site members. Each post, comment and Like generates points that help distinguish the experts from the crowd.

Gaming mechanics encourage site members to actively participate if they want to rank well against their peers.

Not only does SEOMoz invite social engagement on the first visit, they also use social proof to earn the trust of visitors. See the recognizable brands in the image below.

If you’ve done business with name-recognizable companies, ask if you can tell others. It provides significant social proof for your business.

Key Takeaways

Build gaming mechanics into your site to increase social behaviors (Liking, commenting, posting). It will increase engagement and the SEO benefits are huge.
Remember the important benefits of social proof.

#6: Ana White: Carpenter

Ana White is a carpenter billing herself as a “homemaker” who has a website to empower women to do carpentry projects. With over 51,000 Facebook fans, Ana has created a massive following among women (and quite a few men) who love her easy-to-follow blueprints for do-it-yourself furniture projects.

Ana’s Facebook page has over 51,000 fans. Her fans post tips and projects here frequently.

Since late 2009, Ana has been publishing free how-to guides for furniture. She also asks her fans to post pictures of their success stories—the very thing people love to do (talk about themselves). As a result, she has a very popular site where most of the posting comes from fans. Very smart!

Are you doing this??? Your social media is suffering if you answered yes

Joshua Trump — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:48:40 +0000

“A good video can make all the difference.”

~Brian May

IF A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS, you could say that a video is priceless.

We live in a time when a single video can tell your story, tip your brand — or change our world. Cases in point: JK’s Wedding Entrance Dance, Will it Blend?— and We Are All Khaled Saeed.

Over two billion videos are downloaded every day on Youtube. That is roughly equivalent to the programming that the three major television networks put out. In one year. And, in my estimation: user-generated videos are just getting started. As these tools (such as smartphones) become more pervasive — and they are — an increasing number of people will produce video content.

Predicting the success of a video is next to impossible. Who would have ever guessed that “Charlie Bit My Finger” would have garnered more views than five Superbowl commercials? However, there are some guiding principles to help you produce winning videos, whether they’re for your personal brand, your business — or your cause. Here they are:

1. Keep it Short & Sweet.

People, particularly in social media, have shorter attention spans. Studies show that attrition rate after 30 seconds is roughly 82% (unless the video is compelling or celebrity-driven).

2. Start Strong.

A Jupiter research study found that people decide — in the first two seconds — whether or not they will watch the remainder of a video. It’s important to capture their attention in those two seconds, not necessarily with stagecraft. Strive to be compelling and given them a reason to keep watching. Have you ever watched thoroughbred horses break out of the gates? It’s so jaw-dropping that we cannot help but keep watching! Break out of the gates in your videos!

3. Make One Point (and No More Than Three).

Nielsen reports that humans can only process, and retain, three simple messages in a short span of time. Do not overload the viewer with granular facts and minutiae. You needn’t make them an expert. Just pique their interest. Pick 1-3 concepts you want to convey and use anecdote, humor and color to bring texture your videos.

4. Entertain, Inspire, Inform—or, Ideally, Do All Three.

Frame messages in the interest of the viewer. The fact is that people care less about your product, brand or cause than they do about how it improves their lives. Stay viewer-centric and seek to leave them informed, inspired, entertained—or all three. Humor is powerful, engaging and effective—if you can pull it off.

This relates to the point above, but it warrants its own coverage, because it’s essential to understand in this “word of mouth economy”: in a single click, People can share your content farther and faster than ever before. Here’s a litmus test: Produce content you’d be compelled to share with your family.

People have sensitive antennae in social media. These channels were created as a very refuge away from corporate marketing. people know contrived when they see it, and it can do more harm than good. Speak with a “human voice.” Mean what you say. If you’re interviewing someone, ask them to be honest (even if it means they aren’t uniformly positive; it will be more credible.). If you try to message people, you will never reach a wide audience. If you win people’s hearts, you can reach the world.

Ask yourself: What do you want the viewer to do? You need to move people to action, otherwise you may achieve non-financial outcomes (video views) in lieu of financial outcomes (conversions/revenue). tell viewers what you want them to do. And, if it’s possible to edit the video with a graphical outro, do so.

A single video that resonates in the hearts of enough people can achieve breathtaking results for you, your business or your cause. You have never been more empowered to have a voice, build a business or change the world.

The question is: will you?