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The Beginner's Guide to Social Media

The Beginner's Guide to Social Media
Whether it's keeping up on the latest web memes on Reddit or Tumblr, following your favorite comedians on Twitter, profesionally networking on LinkedIn, or staying in touch with college friends on Facebook, social media has become an integrated and constant part of our everyday lives. To digital natives, it may be difficult to imagine a world where these tools aren't at our fingertips, but the fact is, new users join these services every day. For the uninitiated, check out our beginner's guides to get started on Tumblr, Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn and Facebook. 1. The Beginner's Guide to Tumblr This micro-blogging platform brings together bloggers, brands and tastemakers. If you're already comfortable tumbling, check out these our tips and tricks for power users: 2. It may not be the sexiest social network out there, but LinkedIn now has 161 million members in more than 200 countries, making it the world’s largest professional network on the web. Already have a profile? 3.

Using Social Media To Engage An Audience – A Case Study Engaging a customer base is of course a very important part of social media. It is vital, truly, to the overall success and long-term growth of a given company/brand’s following and fan base in the social media space. I say “of course” because there is the presumption that everyone reading this already knows this… at least they better. One such company/brand that truly understands and is reaping the rewards of engaging an audience via social media is Atlantic Station – an Atlanta-based mixed-use experience center mall that is one of the biggest outdoor mixed use malls in the entire country. At the end of last year their Facebook fan page likes were a little more than 13,000, which is respectable for sure but not where they wanted, nor needed to be. Now, they knew their target market is people in the 18-49 demographic, especially women, but they felt they were not reaching nearly enough of them via their social media efforts. Topics such as: (along with a sample post for each) Local content

Why traditional media should be afraid of Twitter As we’ve mentioned a number of times, Twitter has been gradually tip-toeing further and further into the media business for some time now. It has already become a real-time newswire for many, a source of breaking news and commentary on live events, and now — with the launch of curated “hashtag pages” like the one it launched late last week for a NASCAR event — it is showing signs of becoming a full-fledged editorial operation. It may not be hiring investigative reporters, but the areas of overlap between what it does and what media companies do is growing, and so is its attractiveness to the advertisers that media entities desperately need to hang onto. The NASCAR page may not seem like anything to be concerned about, since it appears to be just a typical grouping of tweets collected by hashtag. Twitter is curating information, just as media companies do Twitter revolutionized journalism once before, and news organizations responded with the social media editor.

10 interesting digital stats we've seen this week I've rounded up some of the most interesting digital marketing stats we've seen this week. Stats include mobile customer experience, mobile ads, basket abandonment, Facebook fan engagement and how social affects search rankings. Mobile and multichannel customer experience The Reducing Customer Struggle Report, published by Econsultancy in association with Tealeaf, has found that more than three-quarters (77%) of companies are boosting investment in the mobile channel this year.More than half (58%) of companies surveyed said their customers typically research their products on mobile devices for later purchase online. Some 43% of respondents said their customers purchase products directly using a mobile device and a similar proportion (41%) reported that they research products or services for later purchase offline. Multi-screen trends Mobile penetration worldwide Small businesses and mobile Following brands on social media Facebook fan engagement Shopping cart/basket abandonment

Tony Nicklinson, Paralyzed Man With Locked-In Syndrome, Sends First Tweet Using His Eyes Tony Nicklinson can only communicate with his eyes, but on Wednesday the paralyzed man connected with the rest of the world through Twitter. Nicklinson became completely paralyzed after a stroke in 2005 and suffers from locked-in syndrome, a condition in which patients can "think and reason" but don't have any control over voluntary muscles except "those that control blinking and vertical eye movements," according to a 2009 article published in the journal Nursing. But on June 13, he sent his first Tweet with the help of a computer that follows his eye movements, Gizmodo observes. Hello world. Channel 4 Dispatches filmed the 57-year-old from Wiltshire in England relaying the message as part of a segment about Nicklinson set to air on June 18, the Guardian reports. But there's more to Nicklinson's story than his journey to become part of a social network. And in March, the husband and father of two received approval from a judge to have his case heard, the Associated Press reports.

Inside GM’s Chevy’s Social Media Strategy Given all the material out there about GM pulling out of Facebook advertising, Digiday thought it would be interesting to get the carmaker’s take on what it is doing in social media. Digiday interviewed Carolyn Probst-Iyer, social media manager at GM’s Chevrolet, about a current Chevy promotion and the company’s overall social media strategy. Here is what she said. Can you talk about Chevy’s approach to social media? We offer compelling content related to the Chevrolet brand, our products and services as well as lifestyle content stemming from a vast variety of deeper integrations and programs that Chevrolet activates with the support of a large network of partners. Aside from engaging our communities with rich content, we aim to have an ongoing (two-way) conversation with our customers, fans and followers. What would you say the biggest challenge is with social media? With social media being “always-on,” the community dictates the pace you are going at.

How Your Facebook "Likes" Could Bring Down NDAA, CISPA, And Other Bad Ideas Guest post by David Seaman This may sound obvious to my readers, but to me it wasn't an "obvious" realization at the time: social media is extraordinarily powerful. As you can see above, my personal YouTube channel (which has been mostly dedicated to raising awareness of NDAA and dangerous "cybersecurity" bills like CISPA), has attracted more than 415,000 video views - as much as, if not more than, some of the popular evening cable news shows. Is this due to the importance of the subject matter? Is it due to my brilliant ability to title videos well? The popularity of that channel comes down to people, lots of people who care about the issues I discuss, "Liking" the videos when they watch them. Your Facebook Likes, Google+ "+1s," and the links you tweet out to your friends on Twitter carry even more influence. The results were immediate and shocking: an avalanche of new traffic, and new users trying out our credit card deals sorting tool, and best of all... it was good traffic.

20 TV Shows With the Most Social Media Buzz This Week Buzz surrounding the ESPN broadcasts of the 2012 UEFA European Football Championship almost entirely dominated cable TV chatter this week. But while soccer fans may be rowdy, basketball fanatics are this week's clear social media champs. When the Thunder met the Heat for Game 3 of the NBA Playoffs, there was a perfect storm of trash talk and gloating (the latter from Heat fans) that totaled more social media impressions than the top five EURO 2012 games combined. Miami beat Oklahoma City 91-85, bringing the series standings to Heat: 2, Thunder: 1. Despite the Los Angeles Kings' first 2012 Stanley Cup championship title, buzz over last Monday night's hockey finals didn't really compete.

NBA Social Media Awards a Pro Sports First [EXCLUSIVE] A longtime pacemaker in social media use by professional sports leagues, the National Basketball Association is putting on its first ever NBA Social Media Awards later this month. The televised awards ceremony will recognize players, teams and fans who excelled at leveraging social media for engagement and entertainment this season. Awards will celebrate social media success on platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, according to league representatives. The June 20 ceremony will be televised on NBATV. Fans can visit the official social media awards website to see the full list of categories and vote for their winners. The Ultimate Fighting Championship has handed out quarterly bonuses and recognized social media engagement among its fighters, but the NBA's June 20 event will be the first time a major American sports league has dedicated a full awards ceremony to social media.

Sprint Takes Twitter to Times Square Sprint is interacting with consumers in Twitter via a Times Square billboard. Using the theme of “Unlimited Love Unlimited Evo,” the campaign is meant to build buzz around the new HTC Evo 4G LTE. The cross-platform campaign was created in partnership with Team Sprint — agencies Digitas and Leo Burnett. Sprint’s new campaign for its HTC Evo 4G LTE cell phone is centered on a digital billboard located in Times Square, which encourages visitors to tweet #evolove to @sprint with what they love. Select Tweets will receive a direct response, with the board detailing where in New York the object of their love can be found. For example, if someone Tweeted his love for art, Sprint might tweet back about the current exhibits at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, displaying the location of, and walking directions to, MoMa on the phone’s map in Times Square, Dave Marsey, group director of media for Digitas, explained.

Survey: 1 in 3 Facebook users getting bored with the social network | Technology News Blog "Facebook fatigue" is leading diehard social networkers to grow tired Are you just not as drawn to the social network comings and goings of your friends and family as you once were? If so, you're not alone: According to a new poll by Reuters and research firm Ipsos, roughly one-third of Facebook users are feeling pretty "meh" about the social network these days, and the sentiment seems to be growing. The survey focused more on the potential monetization of Facebook than current user habits, but the data was telling in several ways. According to the poll of over 1,000 Americans, 80% of Facebook users have never purchased a product or service because of what they saw on the site, meaning that whatever advertising techniques companies are currently employing to grab your cash simply isn't working. Unsurprisingly, the survey found that users between the ages of 18 and 34 were the most active, while just 29% of people over 55 considered themselves regular users. (Source) More from Tecca:

Who owns your social media accounts? As businesses see the employees who started their social media accounts and strategies start to move on to other work, the question of who owns social media is on the rise. In the last couple of years, this has led to a number of high profile lawsuits in the states. Two prime examples of recent lawsuits over social media accounts include: EdCommIn 2008, EdComm's founder, Dr. It's not a clear cut issue but in order to avoid these issues and be proactive, lawyer Pedrum Tabibi has a number of steps businesses can follow: Social media policyMake sure you address the issue of ownership. It's very important to tailor these provisions to your companies values and don't make them too broad. Unless you work with an expert, you can't write a policy that will properly protect the company.

Reddit: A Beginner's Guide Update: This post was updated October 2013 to reflect current statistics and tools. To the uninitiated, Reddit looks like a mess — text links, comment threads, points, upvotes, downvotes. At best, posts seem contextless — at worst, totally random. But spend some quality time with "The Front Page of the Internet," and you'll find it's an essential resource, a self-correcting marketplace of ideas that's nearly impervious to marketers. Simply put, Reddit is a message board wherein users submit links. This type of voting system was popularized by Digg, which launched in late 2004. If you're ready to tap in but not sure where to start, check out our overview below. Live the Reddit Culture If Facebook is your hometown, think of Reddit as a foreign country. That's OK. Reddit is extremely self-referential. Comments are key. Thus, the community can self-regulate in ways that Facebook and Twitter cannot. You won't figure it out on day one. The Front Page and Subreddits Multireddits Image: Reddit Android

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