We are live and ready to go at our new blog site, which you can find at www.socialmediamanagement.net/blog – we look forward to seeing you there!

Thank you again for your continued readership and support! We’ll see you on the new site!

The staff at Ann Michaels & Associates

Social Media Management Services

www.socialmediamanagement.net

At first glance, it appears that we will get a fuller insight into the campaigns, debates, and candidate information and updates. On Monday, Michelle Bachmann announced that she will run for President. The New Hampshire Republican Presidential debate kicked off, and social media was heavily involved, allowing people to share comments on Twitter, post pictures, etc. CNN, as usual, was very involved in the social media activity, offering video clips, behind the scenes pictures, and discussion on their Twitter stream. You can read more about it all in this recent article.

Even if you’re not an active participant in conversations during these moments, it’s useful to be able to do a quick search and find a wealth of information, both “authoritative” type news articles as well as online conversations. It’s a unique opportunity that generations of the past didn’t have access to, and may get more people involved in the process as we go through the election process in the next several months.

For the woman in this article, it could have potentially gotten VERY bad, but from her perspective, it may have saved her life. Imagine this woman’s surprise when she sets up a fake Facebook account in an attempt to befriend her almost ex-husband with the intent to get some “dirt” on him. She friend requested him on the site, and he accepted, and they began talking.

While she was interested in getting information out of him, I don’t think she ever expected to find out that he was plotting to have her killed! In talking with this “friend,” he admitted to planting a GPS in her car to track her so that he could find the “perfect” location to kill her.

Unbelievable! But, the story isn’t quite over…

This story was later updated to state that the husband was released from jail, as he indicated that he knew this “friend” on Facebook was really his soon to be ex-wife and purposely said the things he did to her because he knew it was really her. He signed an affidavit prior to this “friendship” starting and stated that ““I am lying to this person to gain positive proof that it is indeed my ex-wife trying to again tamper in my life.” He added, “In no way do I have plans to leave with my children or do any harm to Angela Dawn Voelkert or anyone else.”

Like I said, divorce can be ugly, and it looks like social media can make it even more messy.

We’ve recently launched a new website design, and with that change we will be moving our blog over to our hosting site. Don’t worry, it won’t happen until next week, but we wanted to make you aware now so you are aware.

You will be able to find our blog at our new address early next week, but we’ll keep this site open for a short time after to give you time to see this notice.

It’s also a good time to say THANK YOU for your continued readership! We hope you enjoy the information we share – we are thankful for all of our supportive readers!

It has been said many times that when posting to your business Facebook page, you need to vary the times and days of the week for the message to be seen by your fans; after all, they are logged into Facebook and varying times of the day, and for different lengths of time. Like email marketing, marketers are always looking for the “right” time to post information.

Even if you find that “magic moment,” your message may not be getting to the masses as well as you’d like. Like Google and SEO, Facebook has an algorithm that gauges the “strength” or popularity of your messages and assigns them an EdgeRank – the higher the ranking, the more of your messages get in font of your fans.

While a bit obscure, you can learn more about EdgeRank in this article. In its most basic terms, every message you post receives ranking based on how much it is “touched”, whether it is liked, shared, or commented on. The more it is “touched” the higher ranking it gets.

I also came across this article, which suggests that 50% of people who “like” a page do so quickly, but do not return to the page often, giving brands a false sense of numbers; while they assume they have 180 fans that are actively reading their material, many may simply like the page but never look at it.

It goes on to suggest that only 20% of a brand’s messages may be seen in people’s newsfeeds.

Tom Weber conducted an interesting study to try to crack the Facebook code. His article on the DailyBeast is a good read, and gives some insight into this topic.

One suggestion is to take a look at your Facebook page periodically to look at the number of impressions and activity that are associated with your posts. An example can be found below:

Take note of posts that have higher impressions and activity levels; this indicates the type of information your fans are interested in. It may also give you insight into the days of the week and times of day people are interacting with your information.

Not getting good impression numbers? Not sure what to share with fans? Some suggestions include mixing it up a bit – post a combination of company information, industry related articles and news items, and “fun” information, such as games, drawings, or contests. The iMediaConnection article also offered these suggestions, which are a great guide to get you thinking of new ideas:

• Asking open-ended questions
• Inviting opinion, comment and conversation
• Connecting organically to offline news, cultural or sports events
• Limiting brand and sales language and catalog-like copy
• Creating games, quizzes or surveys
• Soliciting user-generated content
• Posting photos and videos
• Including links in posts
• Developing limited time offers

What types of information gives you the best results? As a consumer, what types of information do you like to see most on brand’s pages? Like all things Internet, getting your message to the masses can be a challenge, but in the end, persistence can pay off. It may be frustrating, especially when you’re getting started in social media, but paying attention to how your readers respond will give you great insight into a successful social media campaign.

If you have a moment, I invite you to participate in this poll – I’ll post a recap of the results later this week. You can answer the poll through this link.

Hope your Memorial Day was a good one!

The top tier entries are common sense – the more your company is online in various places, the more exposure it will get. It’s interesting to note that as you look down the list, we get into generating qualified leads and reduced overall marketing expenses. These are two areas that are definitely beneficial, but not always thought of when making a social media management plan. Let’s look at one of the benefits, generating qualified leads, to see how engaging in social media can be helpful.

Generating Qualified Leads

This is true for both B2C and B2B companies. In the B2C world, consumers are relying more on peer recommendations than other information. Product reviews on websites were always a big hit with consumers; while still viable and useful, peer recommendations are taking this one step further. If a consumer sees that their friends and family are recommending a company or product, they will be swayed by this much more than anonymous feedback on the company’s site.

When generating a social media plan,be sure to incorporate links to your social media sites so consumers can easily share the information they’re looking at. The easier you make it, the better it will be for word of mouth and exposure!

In the B2B arena, LinkedIn is proving to be quite successful in generating qualified leads. By joining groups in relevant industries, you can engage in discussion and showcase your business and expertise without a cold call or hard sell. You’re doing what comes naturally – talking about your business – while gaining exposure and lead generation. For those who hate cold calls, this is definitely a wonderful alternative!

What Else Does This Study Reveal?

This study takes a look at all aspects of social media marketing – how marketers are using social media, where the best success is, and more. You can watch this overview video below or download the free study:

Once you review the study, we’d love to hear your thoughts! What was the most interesting finding? Do you think the results fall into place with your tactics and success rate? We love a good discussion, so feel free to share your ideas!

I”ll admit I’m guilty of this myself! I came across an interesting study that looked at just this fact – why people, women really, become annoyed by their Facebook friends. Take a look at the study and see if you fall into one of these categories, whether it’s the annoyed or annoying group.

What are the top three annoying behaviors?

• Complaining all the time (63 percent)
• Sharing unsolicited political views (42 percent)
• Bragging about seemingly perfect lives (32 percent)

This was a fun read, and something to make me think about what I’m thinking as I read my Facebook wall.

What’s your biggest Facebook pet peeve? While not mentioned in this study, mine is definitely what I”ll call the cryptic poster – someone who will update their status with vague comments to pique others’ curiosity and of course elicit many comments. For example, a cryptic might post, “Sigh…here we go again…” so they get people concerned about what might be happening, and fill their wall with, “Oh no, what’s happening? Are you okay?” and “What’s wrong? Message me!”

Let us know what you think, and what (if any) pet peeves you have with Facebook or other social media sites. Just because this was a study done with women doesn’t mean you can’t comment  if you’re a man – we’d love to hear from you too!

I’ve seen many kiosks in stores and other businesses that encourage customers to provide their feedback about their experience right then and there. We shouldn’t be surprised that this concept has moved to the social media world.

I came across this video clip of ISnap Kiosk, which is a newer social media marketing tool. It looks like many of these feedback kiosks popping up, except this one has a new twist – you can take a picture of yourself, right at the place of business, and have it immediately sent out to your social media sites, such as your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Better than a geo-targeted check in, like Foursquare or Facebook Places, this kiosk makes it easy to share and go.

It’s great for businesses too of course. Aside from the most obvious – customers are posting pictures from your company and sharing them with friends – your company’s branding is included in the picture and those that use the kiosk automatically become fans of your page. Talk about spreading word of mouth and creating buzz! Simply having the kiosk will create buzz – once a friend posts a picture from here, they are apt to share with their friends, and so forth (Hey, check out my friend Bob – he was at this store, and look at the kiosk they have!”).

It looks as though this is aimed for the mid-sized to large businesses, so I can’t imagine it is cost friendly. It is also geared more toward service industries, such as hotels, restaurant, casinos, etc.  I will definitely keep my eye out for these iSnap kiosks in my area, just to see if they take off as another social media marketing tool.

Social media monitoring services don’t stop at companies and products – they also have the capability to monitor individual online reputations. Many HR firms, colleges, and lawyers are already using these services to learn more about new hires, people of interest, etc.

Parents have concerns about their child’s online safety and reputation, and with good reason. As a parent of a young teenager, I realize their immaturity and fascination with all things Internet. Our company offers individual social media monitoring with parents in mind, but there are a few reasons this can be more difficult than monitoring adults:

• Teens and preteens tend to use more than one email address: in our research, we’ve found that teens may create multiple email addresses for various reasons, whether it’s to create multiple accounts on a particular site or to keep parents in the dark about websites/activities/conversations they know would not be approved of.
• Teens don’t always use their real names: I’ve seen a trend, particularly on Facebook and Google Buzz (this seems to be popular among the young-teen crowd) for accounts to be created with first and middle names, or first names with symbols. Even though Facebook disapproves of using icons and symbols as part of name, it happens. Personally, when I first allowed my oldest to setup an email account, I watched as she set it up – she used her real first name with a very random last name. I asked why, and she responded, “Because you told me to never put my first and last names together online.” At least they listen sometimes.

The good news is that it’s not impossible to monitor your child’s online activities and/or reputation. The thing we have going for us, as parents, is the immaturity and not fully developed brains of our youth. They are technologically savvy, but don’t always think things through. You may learn about a new screen name, email account, or website account created by chance, especially if they use their “core” email address to create the account.

Monitoring the internet can be tricky, but if you have some basic information about your child’s online accounts (and really, you should have at least some of this), you can use a social media monitoring company or do some monitoring on your own through the search engines. Below are some tips you can use to make sure you’re looking in the right places:

1. Regularly search for your child’s email address and user account names to see if everything checks out online. Be sure to look at video and photo sharing sites, such as YouTube, Flicker, and Picassa.

2. Visit some of the more popular sites that teens use, such as Formspring, while you’re logged into your Facebook account. This will only work if you’re “friends” with your child on Facebook. Formspring is a good example of a site where it will show you which of your friends have an account on the site once you land on their homepage.

3. Keep up with the trends: learn which sites your child and his/her friends tend to frequent the most, and then stay on top of them. There are so many social media sites out there that it can make you dizzy trying to keep up with it all. The more teen/pre-teen friendly sites we’ve been hearing about lately include:

• Facebook
• Google Buzz
• Fantage
• Club Penguin
• Smeet

Our children need to learn how to navigate the internet safely; however, they cannot be shielded from it – this is the world they’re growing up in, and they will need these skills as adults. Keeping tabs will make this easier, and as a parent, we all need help – it ain’t easy being a parent!