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Wednesday, 30 May 2012

Facebook Rolling Out ‘Trending Videos’

Facebook users have encountered “trending articles” popping up in their news feeds for the past few weeks. This new feature highlights articles that are popular with your friends, ensuring you don’t miss a hot story because it gets pushed down to the bottom of your feed.

Now, Facebook is reportedly doing the same with viral videos.

A new “trending videos” feature is being rolled out to some Facebook users, according to a report from TheNextWeb. Once you’ve got the new feature, it will auto-populate with videos your friends are watching on Facebook’s Open Graph apps.

Facebook has been experimenting with trending articles, giving the feature a less invasive redesign late last month.

However, plenty of Mashable readers found the feature cumbersome and annoying. One, David Holley, called it “obnoxious as hell” because it didn’t seem to actually highlight articles that his friends were reading. How could Facebook do a better job of highlighting popular articles and videos in your news feed? Let us know in the comments.

Friday, 25 May 2012

Get The Most Out Of Social Media Marketing

One of the marketing advancements that is gaining grounds is social media marketing. This marketing style takes advantage of the internet to promote products and services.

The people's fascination and involvement with social media has made it the perfect tool to get people to notice the new products being sold and services being offered.

Social Networking sites are now not just for updating family members and friends about what's going on in a person's life. It is not just for communication. Today it is also for advertising.

Advantages of Using Social Media Marketing


Social media marketing offers has several edges over traditional marketing strategy. Its first edge is that the internet has taken over people's lives. Almost everything that people do is done through the internet - communication, education, commerce, and socializing.

The internet created a virtual world, a different realm where people are spending more and more time each day. It created a virtual society that has several virtual communities called the social media. These social networks are rife with marketing opportunities, opportunities that are just waiting to be explored and taken advantage of.

Social media marketing does not require a huge budget. One of the considerations of a company, especially a starting one with just little capital, is the budget. Using social media marketing there is virtually no additional money that needs to be shelled out.

What are just needed are a bit of skills and a whole lot of creativity. To capture a market, the interest of that particular market would just have to be piqued for it to subscribe to the product and service that is being sold.There is not a lot of fuss needed in social media marketing.

What is just needed is to put up a social network accounts or several social network accounts and run it. No need to do costly production, no need to undergo lengthy strategic planning, no need to prepare kits and materials, and there is no need to deal with several people. The job can be done by a single person, who could be the owner or an employee.

For the ecologically concerned people, social media networking is the best way to market a product. Number one it does not use a single paper. This means less garbage and would lessen the demand for paper, which would also translate to the reduction in the cutting of trees. Less tree cutting equals more oxygen and more oxygen means healthy ozone. That is why eco-minded people will be into social networking.

Making the Shift


Making the shift from one paradigm to another is not easy. It is also with using social networking as a marketing tool. For people who are used to using traditional means, shifting to social media marketing would be challenging.

However, it is a very effective tool for marketing. It is also cost effective. Small business enterprises and micro business enterprises would have more advantage in using social media networking.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7059522

Wednesday, 23 May 2012

5 Hidden Features of Facebook

It’s a little like Facebook’s version of the Easter egg extra you can find in a DVD of one of your favorite movies. Only instead of getting inside director’s jokes that you might not have known otherwise, these features are here to make the experience of having a profile on Facebook one you can customize deeper while still protecting the privacy of. And that’s saying a lot considering that not every Facebook user has yet to convert their home page to the timeline and tailor it to fit their professional and personal needs.

Maybe you already know about these options and maybe you don’t. But employing a “blink and you miss it” tactic can have you missing out on some great opportunities for your account.

1) Facebook Email

Under your contact info tab on your Facebook About page, you’ll find alongside any other email addresses you have featured one that features your public username followed by @facebook.com. Before you worry that there’s a special inbox to your Facebook email filled with messages that you haven’t been receiving, keep in mind that this address is for your Facebook messages inbox (that tiny conversation bubble sandwiched between the friend requests and notifications symbols at the top left hand corner of your page. Any messages you get to the username@facebook.com address will be added there with a little red number that will pop up as a reminder of how many you have.

You can also send messages to the @facebook.com address without using Facebook. Traditional email systems like Gmail can receive and send these messages. Responses sent out via username@facebook.com are formatted to look like they came directly from the social media site with your profile picture, name, and message all included.

2) Custom Username

We spoke about this one a lot in the first of the five hidden features. A Facebook username can be created by logging into your account settings tab and clicking on the bar marked “username” which customizes the web address for your profile, making it look a little something like (to borrow the name of the company I own) https://www.facebook.com/mycorp.

The trouble with the username is that you can only change it once. Until recently was the opportunity made available to switch it over a second time and it’s doubtful that third time will be the charm here. When creating a username for your account, it’s suggested to use a variation based off of your own name which makes it easier for friends to find you and to list your account on a professional networking website or on a resume. You can also use periods when creating said username.

3) Life Events

Yet another reason to make the switch over to the timeline if you haven’t already! On the Facebook timeline you have the option to write a status, post a photo, check in to a place, or create a life event. Life events are open to everything from the school you attended to the places you’ve travelled to and even with the relationships you have with other Facebook users. While you might not feel inclined to feature all of your life events that Facebook offers the ability to feature (first tattoo? new license?) you still have the option there to write about and share with close family members and friends.

4) App Settings

This one might not be a hidden gem on Facebook but it makes for an interesting timeline of its own to see just how many apps you’ve authorized to interact with your account. Under the account settings tab is where you can find and clean out the app settings if they no longer apply to being used with your profile. Kind of like viewing a blast from your Facebook past if you were really into the apps. Pieces of Flair or Bumper Sticker, anyone?

5) The Facebook Archives

Under the account settings tab, click on general settings. Underneath “language” you should be able to find a button marked “download a copy of your Facebook data.” Here’s where you can get a copy of your Facebook history downloaded featuring the posts you’ve made on your wall, the photos you’ve shared, the names and email addresses of your friends, and more.

There’s even an expanded archive download available that includes as Facebook puts it, “historic info like IP addresses we store about your logins to Facebook.”

Definitely far from a blink and you miss it moment.