Insight Marketing Design is excited to sponsor the October 15th program for South Dakota Advertising Federation with guest speaker Jeff Hayzlett, CMO for Eastman Kodak.
Jeff's keynote is "Redefining the Kodak Brand through Digital and Social Media." Here's Jeff to tell you more.
These past few days have been very busy for Facebook.
Last week they came out with Facebook Lite, which strips down some of the less "essential" features of Facebook and focuses on messaging, photos and videos and in many ways was a step toward offering users an experience similar to Twitter. Check it out here.
Then this afternoon Facebook turned on another new feature: Mentions.
Now when you are posting a status update you'll be able to "mention" or link your friends in your post. But not just your friends, you can also mention pages/brands that you are a fan of, events, and groups.
This feature is another step towards creating a more Twitter-like experience and we'll be watching and exploring how brands can use this feature in their social networking strategies.
To use the new feature:
When posting a status update type the "@" symbol followed by the person, place or thing that you would like to mention. As you type Facebook will provide a generated list of options to choose from.
So check it out! What do you think?
I've been spending a lot of time lately on Facebook. At work. Yes, I'm admitting it! Don't worry though, it was all work-related. OK, maybe not ALL. Anyway...IMD has started a Facebook campaign for one of our clients - KODAK. If you're not one of the half-million plus that saw them pop up in the ad column next to your profile, here they are!
Of course, there are all kinds of stats to show that users are clicking through, that they're getting viewed, etc, but I can tell you from my own experience that Facebook ads DO work! Why? Because they're targeted to each viewer's interests and activities, as reported by you - the viewer- in your profile.
I have clicked through on numerous ads, and have become aware of products that I didn't even know existed! (Pazzles, a custom cutting machine being the most recent. How AWESOME is this for a graphic designer!!! If only I had $600. Merry Christmas to me?)
From time to time I come across interesting websites and apps in my searches for new trends and ideas.
Lately I've discovered a number of items related to music, so I thought I'd share them with you.
First, my old standards. I've used Pandora and Blip.fm for quite awhile now and really like both.
Pandora works like so: you enter the name of a song or band, and based on the information about that item, Pandora suggests other songs that sound similar. You give songs thumbs up or down, perfecting your "station." You can also add additional tracks or artists to your station to broaden your station's range.
Blip.fm is what I use when I have a particular song in mind. If I need to hear Piano Man I can go and "blip" that song, meaning that I get to listen to that particular track right now. My blips are collected in my "station" and others can choose to follow my station and if they so choose give me props (I'm not really sure what I do with them, but really, who doesn't want props?).
Recently I discovered Last.fm, and was impressed. Last allowed me to sync my entire iTunes library and play count numbers to the service. It then created a station with my entire music library, meaning I can now remotely listen to my tracks. It also provides feedback and statistics on my listening history and suggests new music I may enjoy. Other features include iPhone apps for listening on the go and notifications of when bands you enjoy are performing in your area. I've only begun to uncover what this site can do, but I'm sold. Check out my music profile.
TidySongs is an amazing little app. It costs $30 but is totally worth it. The app goes through your iTunes library and updates all of your tracks with the proper titles, artists, albums, artwork, track number, date, etc. You can use its automated system or go through your tracks one by one. The best part is that for each track the service checks it gives you a percentage telling you how confident the service is in its answer. For example, common tracks typically have a score of 90% or above. But that bootlegged copy of Swedish techno may only score a 5% because the app struggles to find info about it on the web. I think it's great and I'll definitely be investing in the app.
Go try these out for yourselves! Tell us what you thought of each in the comments!
I recently read a story over on the consumerist blog - Bridal Gown Vanishes From US Airways During Flight To Wedding
To sum it up quickly, a bride-to-be was flying home with her wedding dress. Somewhere along the line, her dress was stolen from her checked luggage leaving her sans dress for her wedding in eight days.
Of course, you can imagine how the rest of the story goes.
Overall, it ends with the bride about $1,000 down with a dress she is not happy in, putting a severe damper on a day that should have been one of the highlights of her life. Oh yeah, one more thing...she's telling everyone she can about how terrible her experience has been with the airline and how much it ruined her big day.
Which gave me a thought...could someone have turned this situation around? When you think about it, yes, quite a few things could have gone differently.
First let's look at what the airline could have done better. With millions of bags and items traveling through their system it's not surprising that a couple of items get lost (or in this case it sounds more like stolen). So I'm sure the associates have dealt with this before, but couldn't they have done more? Make some calls, check with her departing airport...it seems unlikely someone could hide a wedding dress easily, let alone walk out with it.
But let's say that it's gone. What should the airline do now? Get some details. Assign someone to find the same dress. Where was it purchased? Who was the designer? Get in contact, get the dress over-nighted, and have it re-fit. Give the bride the cell phone number of the person who is tracking it down for her and give that person the bride's cell phone. Let them update each other on progress. This may seem like a lot of work, but look at the outcomes.
So let's assume there are 400 people at the wedding. How much would you be willing to pay for 400 people to hear the most positive reviews your company can get from someone they trust? How much would you pay to keep them from hearing the worst review? Probably a whole lot more than the cost of a dress.
But there is still a bigger opportunity here! What if the store the bride bought the dress from was on Twitter and was following her updates and learns of this situation? They fly a tailor down to her wedding with a replacement dress. How impressed would that bride be? How many people would she tell that story to? She’d probably mention your company in her speech! And of course when she goes back home she’ll be telling everyone about you.
How good would your company feel if you were able to turn a bride's nightmare into a dream fulfilled? How many future brides would want to work with your company after hearing this story?
This is the power of social tools on the web and we'd like to help you use them. Give us a buzz.
Above: Gary V records the "Thunder Show" live from Big Omaha
I've just returned to the office after attending the very first Big Omaha tech conference. What a great event.
The conference was executed seamlessly, which one would not expect, this being the first of its kind ever held in Omaha.
And there were some big time speakers too...HUGE!
These plus other great speakers delivered solid advice, answered questions, and really motivated everyone in attendance to "Crush it" (line borrowed from Gary V).
I found Ben Rattray's presentation the most interesting. His main point was that there are too many big problems in the world for us to be focusing on the trivial. Instead we need to get smart people to put their brains to good use.
Overall I found the show to be very beneficial, even if I did feel like the least "tech nerdy" person there. See you at BigO 2010!
My younger brother Grant posted the following question to my wall last night:
Well, Grant, your answer is the subject of Facebook 101: Lesson 3 - Importing Your Flickr Account.
Disclaimer: Today's lesson focuses on Flickr, with whom you may or may not have an account. You will also find this information helpful if you have any of the following accounts:
If you do not have an account with any of these services you'll still want to follow this lesson as I'll quickly cover where you can adjust some of the privacy settings for your profile wall.
Step 1:
When logged-in to Facebook, navigate to your profile. By either clicking the Profile button or your name.
Step 2:
Just below the share button in your status update area is a Settings button. Yep, click that.
You will have a list of options pull up for you. Let's quickly roll through some of your options here.
The Available Sites are sites that Facebook can be set up to monitor for activity. For example if you have YouTube set up, Facebook will post an update to your profile every time you upload a new video.
Imported Sites are sites that you already have set up to receive updates from.
There is an option for Profile Story Comments. Checking this box means that if someone comments on one of your updates it will be visible on your wall. If you would like to turn this off, un-check the box.
The last area is Stories Posted by Friends. Here you can decide if friends can post messages on your wall and also who can see those messages. I leave my settings as networks and friends being able able to see posts made by friends, just because I wouldn't want someone to post something to my wall (even if they were a friend) that some potential employer or client may be turned off by (safety first). The final check box allows you to determine if posts from friends will automatically be shown on your wall, or if a visitor to your profile would have to turn them on in order to view.
Ok, back to the lesson.
Step 3:
Click on Flickr, enter your User Name and then click Import. That's it! Click on the wall tab to view your latest Flickr update.
As always, I want to drop a bit of experience knowledge on you about the topic covered in this lesson. I've found that the import tool of Facebook tends to be a bit on the slow side. Don't expect that it will immediately update after every upload or action you take on any of these services. Usually the update happens within one day, but I have had multiple times when updates will never show up.
So my advice would be that if there is something really important/cool that you want to share with your friends use your status update, link, video, or photo share option and run the risk of something showing up twice.
There are also applications available for Fickr that can display your latest photos on your profile, but to my knowledge they will not post updates for you when you upload new photos, so I prefer the import method.
Again, if you have more questions we'd be happy to provide answers. Check back soon for our next Facebook 101 lesson.
In case you missed them, here are links to our other lessons:
Facebook 101: Lesson 2 - Integrating Twitter
Facebook 101: Lesson 1 - The News Feed
Clara (@clarafied) joined Twitter a couple of weeks ago and requested a lesson on how to make her "tweets" update her status on Facebook.
Note if you have never heard of Twitter, or don't have a Twitter account, this information probably won't make a lot of sense. Sorry, Clara was the first to ask.
But the steps used to add this feature are similar to those used to add any Facebook Application, so who knows, you may learn something new.
If you have a question about Facebook (or Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube, etc) that you would like answered leave us a comment or drop us an email (info@insightmarketingdesign.com).
To answer Clara's question:
Step one:
While logged in to Facebook type "Twitter" into the search field and click Search Facebook.
Step 2:
You will be brought to a Search results page. Click on Applications.
Then click on the first listing called Twitter.
Step 3:
Click the Go to Application button, then Allow Twitter access.
Step 4:
Login to your Twitter account. You will be brought to a screen that shows your "Twitter Stream." If you would like, this is where you could send updates to Twitter from Facebook. But Clara wants her "Tweets" to be sent to Facebook from Twitter. That's easy from here, just click the Allow Twitter to Update Your Facebook Status button. Which will bring you to one more screen where you again Allow Updates. That's it, you're all set.
FYI - All of your Twitter updates will now become Facebook status updates except Tweets that start with the @ symbol (meaning you are responding or directing a Tweet towards someone in particular). This is actually handy and good to know (because a reply may not make sense as a status update).
Also, if you have a Tweet that you would prefer did not end up on Facebook, you will need to remove those updates manually. It's easy to do by navigating to your Profile page, locating the Update, and selecting Delete.
Again, if you have more questions we'd be happy to provide answers. Check back soon for our next Facebook 101 lesson.
In case you missed it here's a link to the last lesson:
Facebook 101: Lesson 1 - The News Feed
I've thought of writing a series of posts on "How better use Facebook" for some time, but since the latest re-design I find myself re-learning. So now seems like a perfect time for me to share some of the hints I have uncovered.
Lesson 1 - The News feed
I have to admit that when rumors started circulating about Facebook operating more like Twitter, I got excited. As a person who has their Facebook open and visits it constantly throughout the day, I was expecting to no longer have to hit the refresh button to discover the newest bits of information. But alas, this was not the case (although they say they are working on it). What they gave me was a "river of news" that was not so much a flowing river, but a picture of one. Items "flowed" in order, but I still had to hit refresh to look for the newest information.
This new feed forced me re-create the filters that I had already set up for friends. Previous to the new redesign, I like many of you I'm sure, had certain friends that I wanted to know more about and others who updated so often I was just tired of hearing from them. So I had a number of filters turned on that functioned along the lines of "hear more from this person" or "give more importance to new photos." These were great and really helped me streamline my Facebooking, but now they are gone. SO, I'm going to show you a few ways that you can set up some "filters" and other lists that will help you keep track of those friends who you really want to hear from.
The best thing I have figured out to fix this problem is to set up friends lists.
You may or may not have noticed that there is a list of options on the left hand side of your news feed. You can see that I have created a few lists already, but I'm going to walk you through the process here.
You'll notice that at the bottom of this list their are two options, "more" and "+Create."
If you hit the more tab...
You'll see some additional options come up. I'll take a quick minute here to explain what these are.
The top items listed on mine as family, high school, etc are my friend lists. Once you have these lists created you can click on them to find the most recent information about the friends in that list, which I find very handy.
Hitting the Photos button will bring you to a new feed that will show you the most recent pictured posted by all your friends and gives you a interface at the top to upload your own. Links and Video work similarly and will bring you to a feed of all of the recent links or videos your friends have posted.
Where it says Sioux Falls, SD and Southwest MSUS you will probably have something different. These are the "networks" that you belong to. It could be the town or region that you identified when you first signed up or it may be your college or employer. Either way you can be in a maximum of 2 networks at any given time. Perhaps another lesson will be dedicated to networks and their function in Facebook.
Public Profiles will take you to a feed with the most recent information from pages that you are a "fan" of, and serves as a way for you to stay connected to brands, organizations, and celebrities. We'll definitely have a post on becoming a "fan" of something.
Everything after public profiles will be different services that you have signed up for like iLike, Mafia Wars, etc.
As it says at the bottom, you can drag these items around as you see fit but be aware I have noticed it takes awhile for your new order to take affect. So if you do change it, just change it once and don't worry if it doesn't seem to work right away, give it a couple of hours and everything should work itself out.
To create our friends lists we're going to go ahead and hit the Create button at the bottom of this list. You'll see a window pop up on your screen that looks something like this.
Go ahead and type a name for your new list.
Your list could be named anything, but you'll probably want to use something that will give yourself a hint about who is in that list.
Once you've named your list hit return. If you misspell a word or want to change the name, simply click on the list and hit the edit button that appears to the right of the name.
Now with your list name selected type in the friends you'd like included in this list in the box provided on the top right. As you select friends with a "check" you'll notice they will appear in the Currently in list: area.
To remove someone hit the "x" after their name in this area.
When finished hit the save button an you're done!
So how is this helpful? Now instead of seeing the most recent updates from all of your friends you can check into specific groups to make sure you don't miss something from those friends you care about the most.
Also, friends lists can be maintained via the Friends button found at the top of your page. You can also select friends lists to add new friends to when you invite them or accept their friend request.
There is a second tidbit I have to include in this post regarding the News Feed. That's how to stop receiving certain types of updates (example: Amy took the "which chipmunk are you?" quiz and is "Simon") from friends or how to turn off updates completely for certain friends (they'll never know and you can still be their friend, you just won't have to hear about them every day!).
To do this find the offending update in your News Feed and hover over it with your mouse pointer.
You should notice that a small Hide button appears in the upper right hand corner of the update.
If you click on this button you should receive a set of options.
Options:
Select Hide (friend's name) or Hide (quiz or other type of update you're so totally over) to hide all updates from this friend or to hide all of these types of updates.
(I promise Leah I didn't hide you!)
Don't worry if you make a mistake, you can always go to the bottom of the page and change these settings back by going to the bottom of the page and selecting the Edit Options button.
Hopefully you've found this post informative and at least somewhat helpful. If you have thoughts, ideas, or questions, please leave me a message in the Comments section of this post.
Also, if you have topics you would like covered in our next Facebook 101 lesson or other Social Networks you'd like us to cover, please leave a comment, Twitter us (@IMD296) or send us an email (info@insightmarketingdesign.com).
