Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Bringing Facebook's structured status updates to the mobile experience


Image Source: digitaltrends.com




Updating a Facebook status used to be simple: One would just type something in the status update box—a myriad of stringed words ranging from “Today is a very nice day” to “I feel very cranky today, please don’t hang around me”—whatever reflects the user’s current emotions, activities, and whatnot. But with Facebook’s extremely dynamic nature, this simplicity was bound to change. True enough, by the start of 2013, the world’s largest social network introduced structured status updates, a more visual and organized way of letting other people know whatever users are up to.


Image Source: allfacebook.com


With structured status updates, users find a drop down menu that presents them several options such as “eating,” “feeling,” and “watching” which will then be appended to the status update. This new feature is considered to be a clever strategy which can be indexed in the graph search and later on leveraged to gather data for ad targeting. Unfortunately, this feature is exclusive to web and smartphone app users, thus leaving behind a sizeable number of mobile users which make up a great number of the Facebook user population.



Image Source: allfacebook.com


Facebook, greatly aware of the significance of the mobile demographic, tweaked its system to make sure mobile users don’t lag behind. Now everyone can get to enjoy the convenience of “structured updates” regardless of the device being used.

This move shows Facebook’s sensitivity to the growing mobile market, portending the social network’s future concentration with their constant system updates.

Social media marketers, such as John Bohan, keep abreast with whatever changes Facebook rolls out to ensure that they leverage these features toward greater customer satisfaction. More information about Mr. Bohan may be found at this Facebook page.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

The importance of spending time for social media


Image Source: aquavitacreative.com


Social media has effectively changed how companies communicate with and disseminate information to their customers and audiences. What was once the role of newsletters, advertisements, PR releases, and company websites is now being replaced by social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest, which are arguably better communication platforms as they allow the companies to interact directly with their customers.

However, although social media has gone mainstream, not all companies are getting in on the action; there are those who probably think that social media marketing is just all-hype and is actually ineffective. However, that line of thinking will only be true if social media marketing efforts are not properly integrated into other business processes—if they lack strategy.



Image Source: expertbusinessadvice.com


SocialMediaToday.com lists the following social media workflow and the amount time needed for them to be more effective so that companies can use or integrate them in their social media strategies:

• Updating social networks (4 hours).

• Planning, writing, and publishing blog posts (7.5 hours).

• Researching and planning internal and external content to share (4 hours).

• Curating and sharing content (2.5 hours).

• Engaging with the community (4 hours).

• Monitoring brand mentions online (2.5 hours).

• Developing campaigns, such as promotions or contests (2.5 hours)

• Promoting community growth (2.5 hours).

• Performing strategy management and adjustments (2.5 hours).

• Analytics reporting (2.5 hours).

• Allotting contingency time for damage control or unexpected problems (4 hours).

Social media is not just about scheduling tweets and replying to mentions, but rather a living process that demands proper care and management.


Image Source: examiner.com


John Bohan created Socialtyze to assist companies with their branding needs by harnessing the power of social media. Visit its website for more information.