A Complete Social Media Plan

A social media marketing strategy will fall face first if it doesn't have the right kind of plan. There are business owners who are constantly looking to make their social media strategies perfect. One way of doing so is by going back to the basics. You may have started out with your social media campaign just because your competitors did so. However, it will run out of steam once your immediate plan is fulfilled.

A Plan is Vital for Social Media Success

Here is what you need to do in order to make your social media plan, complete -

Approach

The approach should be properly discussed. If your approach lacks a uniformity across social media platforms, then you are bound to turn off a large section of customers and potential ones. Get down with your marketing heads and decide on the issues that need to sorted out. If you are wanting to keep it professional, then keep it uniform across platforms.

Content

The content is another important issue that you need to figure out. Now, there are three parts to this point: The What, the Where and the When. 

What - Content needs to be crisp and must reflect your approach. It should be interesting and must make the visitor happy to have found the content. 

Where - Where you publish the content is another important issue you need to figure out. The content must be published in a place where bulk of your customers are. This way, you will be able to get the requisite exposure.

When - You need to be absolutely sure about the timing of your audience. Networks like Twitter have a very small link-life and if your link goes unnoticed to some, there is a lesser chance that anyone would check it later on. Use a lot of tools that automate postings when bulk of the audience is online.

Reason

Throughout the campaign, keep questioning yourself on why you are taking a particular path. Keep experimenting with new stuffs and make sure that your campaign is completely different to what others have. 

All in all, a complete social media plan can never be permanent. Just like the social networks that come and go, you need to keep your plan open-ended for future growth!

Photo Credit - Image: jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Tips to a Rocking Facebook Experience!

Almost everyone has a Facebook profile these days. An average user has 130 friends in his/her list. However, there are many heavy users who have more than 300 friends in their list. They are often complaining about about how cluttered their newsfeed has become and how they wish they could make their list smaller. People soon created National Unfriend Day and what not! 

However, if you are on Twitter, Google+ and you blog often, then people from these networks are bound to drop in at your profile. And you like chatting up with them! But you don't want them to clutter your Facebook feed! What can you do? Well, here are some quick tips on how you can get back your Facebook account! 

Subscription

You can truly make some good use of this new Facebook feature! You can either subscribe to only important updates (let Facebook decide which ones are important), or you can unsubscribe from their posts altogether. 

Facebook will suggest you to unfriend them but then what the heck! They will not be hurt when they visit your profile!

Profile Review

This is very important. Often, users complain of being unnecessarily being tagged in pictures they don't want to (think x-mas wish, party pics, etc.). Turning on this feature will give you a complete control on what goes in to your timeline.

Even status updates with mentions will wait for your review! Just think about the possibilities!

Unfollow post!

Just cancelling the tag won't give you the peace of mind! Unfollowing the post will! Annoying comments of others may flood your notifications! So, why take so much of trouble! Just look for the Follow button just above the description! Hit it!

Close Friends

You may miss out on important status updates from your best pals. There are two ways to keep track of them! However, I will tell you the better route! 

Go to your best friend's profile. Look right and see the Friends tab. Click on that and select Close Friends. This will allow notifications to be sent to your whenever that person posts. 

Unfriend Finder

OK. Before I start off with this, a friendly suggestion - you'll not like finding out who removed you from their list. Either ways, there is no harm in knowing, right?

So, with Unfriend Finder you can get a separate notifications whenever someone deactivates (and then reactivates) their account and when someone removes you. This will also show you your pending requests to others. 

Publish Sync

This is one Chrome app that let's you sync to Twitter, Google+. I have found this app really helpful as all I need to do is simply check the box before posting. So, I can have a full control over what goes on Twitter or vice-versa.

Block Apps

If you don't like being invited from stupid games and other applications, then simply block them whenever you see them on your feed! They will not be able to send any request to your and your friend will never even realize this. Don't worry, you can turn them on later! Just look up in your Privacy Setting!

So, did you like the write-up? Do check out my wonderful sponsors and drop in your comment below! Thanks!

Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile NOW!

LinkedIn has achieved some stunning growth in the recent times. With 135 million professionals now having a profile on the social networking site, it's high time you did all the right moves to attract your potential employer or a business partner. How can you carry out these moves? Well here are the things that you need to focus on -

Profile Picture

The profile picture should be inviting but not informal. It should be professionally done and must have a clear, solo image of yours. This is the first thing that falls in the eyes of a visitor and so you need to focus on this!

Professional Headline

This is placed right beside your image and acts as a sort of headline for your profile. This means that not only do you score some SEO brownie points but you help the visitor understand your specialties in a couple of words.

Location and Industry

Gone are the days when the location didn't matter. Google now wants you to make sure that the location is properly given in order to aid searchability. So, be very specific about the area and the industry. This also helps LinkedIn suggest you the right groups!

Other Relevant Information

Your job title as well as the past job title will help Search Engine find your profile whenever someone types in the job profile. You can even get some link-back to your blog and website, from the profile itself.

The best part about this is that it lets you put in your Twitter id which you can later do a host of other stuff with!

Profile Summary

Another way to earn some quality SEO points is by providing the right kind of summary. This gives the visitor(and the search engine) ample idea on what you do and the skills that you have. 

Let lose your creativity but treat this space like your own personal advertisement. And you know what they say about advertisements - the shorter and sharper, the better.

Recommendations

Write recommendations and ask for them from your current and past colleagues. This normally is a sort of victory lap and the more you earn them from your colleagues, the better will it be for your profile. 

Recommendations substantiate the claims made by you in your profile summary as they are from others. However, you need to be careful to display recommendations from only those who hold a lot of ground. For example, a recommendation from your boss will work more than a colleague from some other department.

Linking Twitter 

Social media has only one disadvantage - it sucks you in. So, with the right kind of tools, wouldn't it be nice if you could sync your professional tweets on your LinkedIn profile? Well, now you can! 

If you don't want the hassle of a different account, you can sync the tweets with a #in hashtag. Only tweets with this hashtag will show up. Just think about the possibilities! 

Take Away

Join groups, comment on them and meet new people and make sure that you meet those within the industry. You will definitely enhance your circle of influence! 

Let's connect on LinkedIn! Cheers!

DigitalFilipino E-Commerce Summit 2012

This article will serve as an invitation to readers who might be interested to participate in the coming E-Commerce Summit 2012 to be held on February 24, 2012 at The Peninsula Manila, corner of Ayala Avenue and Makati Avenue, Makati City from 9 am to 5 pm.

Hosted by DigitalFilipino Club, the annual event will cater conference programs with highly interactive sessions from experts in e-commerce players and industry practitioners. 

Conference Programs included are:

• E-Commerce, Search, Local, Mobile, Social Models and Trends for 2012
• Gillian Muessig, Founding President of SEOMoz
• State of E-Commerce in the Philippines
• Jack Madrid, Founding President of E-Commerce Merchants Trade Association of the Philippines and General Manager of Multiply Philippines
• State of Digital Marketing in the Philippines (Making Customers Buy)
• Donald Lim, Managing Director, MRM Worldwide
• PANEL: Using Local Payment Platforms and Financing Methods in 2012
• Erick Kaludan, CEO of ShopInstallment

Other topics being considered in the agenda includes (to be updated as soon as the speakers for the event is confirmed):

• The Filipino Online Shopper
• Extending your presence to the mobile device (Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Phone)
• Taking advantage of the 2nd Internet (new e-commerce opportunities with IPV6)
• Where are the Customers? (how come we have low sales despite creating a useful website and social media presence?)
• Getting your Start-Up Running and Attractive to Investors 

DigitalFilipino Club members are entitled for a free conference pass provided that the participants shall be limited to:

• Corporate members (3 representatives)
• SME members (2 representative)
• Individual members (can attend but slot is not transferable)
• Additional club member and sponsor delegates are entitled to 15% discount. 

Registration form for the said event is available HERE

Pinoy Meets Siri

The advent of iPhone 4S in the Philippines has received an overwhelming acceptance and appreciation to many. Me myself have tried the gadget and I've been wowed by the handset especially when I tried to take that shot from it's 8MP camera - digicam can just be thrown away now and talk to Siri to search in the web and send a message.  However not everything is really incredible especially when it comes to Siri. She cannot understand some of the words you say to her and she will lead you to ridiculous actions if not horrible!

Talking about Siri, I tried to search on the web about some of the useful tips or vids on how to get with her, so that one day when I got my own iPhone 4S (whew!), I won't lose my nerve talking to her and she will follow actions as instructed. Eventually this brought me to unexpected while some are totally ridiculous results. So I thought to post it here so that I have my own collection of Pinoy videos with Siri.

If you don't know Siri yet, she is the most  'intelligent' (so far) virtual assistant of iPhone (available on iPhone 4S only) that allows you to do things on your phone such as sending and reading text messages, calling, setting up a schedule, send emails, search on the web, setting up an alarm, unit conversion etc.

Here are some of the videos of Pinoy dealing with Siri.

SIMPLE INQUIRY USING SIRI - In this vid, the pinoy user is asking simple inquiries to Siri and Siri will try to search it on the web and immediately display the answer on the screen

SETTING UP A SCHEDULE, REMINDER AND NOTE USING SIRI - This video is showing how Siri would set you up on a schedule and properly put your appointments in order. She would even tell you if there are conflicting schedules and ask you some confirmations. Siri seems easily got the Pinoy user talking to her in this vid.

SIRI READS TAGALOG MESSAGE - This is quite hilarious as Siri reads tagalog words. What's in the message is actually the 'bahay kubo' lyrics.

Okay, moving away from the serious vids, I went to this really funny and trending video of Filipino version of Siri - Vangie. The crafting of this video is indeed impressive that it was even featured in a national news  program in TV but this one is a total joke.

MEET VANGIE THE PINOY VERSION OF SIRI

VANGIE CHECKING THE LOCAL TRAFFIC CONDITION - A short clip of one of Vangie's feature - checking local traffic.

Going back, I found this video of ashleyslips and I was like, Woah, really? They are giving away an iPhone 4S?

GET A CHANCE TO HAVE SIRI BY WINNING IPHONE 4S - Yes! Globe Telecom is actually promoting their iPhone 4S offering and you have the chance to win iPhone 4S by joining this contest. watch this video of ashleyslips  to know the mechanics and as she nosebleed when she asks Siri to define the word 'life'!

That's all for now, I wish I could add some more videos in this post later.

Get your Social Media Strategy back on Track!

You found out that your competitors are now on Facebook(or Twitter, or Google+). You immediately create a profile page for your business there and follow certain people and drop a few links. And yet you don't get the required hits on your website. Worse, there isn't anyone to click on your promotional links. What is going wrong here? You were supposed to get additional traffic too? Yet your social media strategy is looking like a headless-chicken! 

Image courtesy - jm organ marketing

Here are the things you might have missed and need to figure out!

Target Audience

Of all the whole wide world, if you don't know where your target audience is, there is no way you can get your social media strategy off to a rocking start. A restaurant owner needs to focus more on FourSquare and Twitter. Similarly, a B2B company needs to focus on LinkedIn and Twitter. A big brand cannot afford to miss out on Facebook Pages. Tech enthusiasts should focus on Google Plus. Ask your marketing department to give you the right idea on the exact platform where a bulk of your target audience is.

Blog

You need to have a blog for your business. Having a blog can dramatically increase engagement (think SEO) as well as create a niche audience which wants to hear from you most of the time. You will know the exact number of people who are your loyal brand ambassadors and you can do all kinds of free publicity with them! They will be happy to return the favor!

Twitter Strategy 

Twitter has been phenomenal for businesses from the world over. If you are looking to engage with your audience, talk to them, track their opinions and make your brand viral quickly, then you can't miss Twitter. Take the help of tools and talk to people who truly matter - your audience! Be helpful. Share a lot and promote in a subtle manner!

Facebook Strategy

The biggest social networking site cannot be ignored! It has enabled companies to get closer to their customers and make them happy. Be it a coffee shop or a motivational expert, there are a number of success stories emerging from this website(do share your story below!). 

Overall strategy

If you are a business owner who is looking forward to a wonderful stay online, then you need to make sure to clear out doubts regarding your strategy. Will you be professional or will you be casual and personal when talking to a customer? Make sure that the marketing department is abreast with your branding strategy.

Conversions

At the end of the day, your conversion-rate needs to be high. This means that you need to convert your online customers into offline ones! You need to constantly review your campaign in order to increase this number!

Website

The design and the content needs to be thoroughly looked after. Try deep social media integration to your website as it helps in increasing the engagement level. Also, be sure about bounce-rate and do things that help in reducing it with the right content. 

Which Brands Rule Twitter?

Twitter has been a great place for brands to get in touch with the people who matter most - customers! You may have come across those brands too, may be even hired their services or bought their products. SocialFresh carried out an extensive research and finalized the best brands on Twitter. 

What attracted me to the race was that the ones with a lot of followers didn't win the top slot but the ones who were engaging. Those brands won who made sure that their customers were delighted by having them on their timeline! There are no Top 10 Brands, instead we have 12 with 5 Brands tied for No.8 Spot! 

Which brands have been the best of the lot? 

No.1 @JETBLUE

No.2 @SOUTHWESTAIR

No.3 @WHOLEFOODS


The brand with the most followers on the list is Whole Foods with 2,137,890

No.4 @REDCROSS

No.5 @DUNKINDONUTS

No.6 @STARBUCKS


Starbucks has been tweeting the longest than the rest of the lot and has the highest Klout score!

No.7 @PEPSI

No. 8 @AJBOMBERS

No.8 @BERGDORFS

No.8 @BLACKBERRYHELP

No.8. @CHIPOTLETWEETS


Chipotle ruled with over 63,598 tweets!!

No.8 @RSHOTEL

So, which Brand do you find the best? 

Facebook Timeline Faults and Why is it Scary

With the new Facebook Timeline roll out, you must be pretty excited about the new changes. By uploading your favorite Cover photo and updating a few life events, you must be having that new Facebook feeling all over again. Well, here is the bad news - Facebook Timeline can leave you potentially open to stalkers, not just those who are outside your friends circle, but those who are your current friends. How? Well, here is a personal experience -

Privacy

The new Facebook Timeline has effectively undone what Facebook has been trying to build. The previous version of Facebook profile wall could be completely blocked from certain folks. And friends could only see upto a certain extent of your Facebook posts. After a bit of scrolling, Facebook wouldn't show any more posts, even if you had posted something way back. 

With the current rollout, the entire profile will now be managed with MySQL giving you all the posts from any point of time on your Timeline. So, your night out with your friends 4 years back is now open to your current Boss and the posts which you wrote after your break-up can now be viewed by your colleagues(worst-case scenario!)

The Way Out!

There is only one. However, it's really cumbersome. You need to manually go to each post and turn the privacy knob. There are two ways to this torture -

• Go to your Timeline -> Visit your posts --> Notice the setting --> Update privacy setting

This will take a lot of time, especially if you post almost everyday. 

• Go to Activity Log --> Select "Your Posts" --> Go to your status --> Updating Privacy setting

This will clear out all the links and other stuffs that you have done and will give you just your posts. However, that being said, you will still have to manually update the privacy setting of each post.

Thankfully, the update won't change the existing settings with your albums. Just make sure to see how your profile looks to others through the "view as" tab. This will give you an idea on the posts/pictures you need to hide.

Hope this post has helped you to make your Facebook profile safe from stalkers. In case of any doubt, feel free to drop your comment below! Cheers!

Infographic: Evolution of Web Design

The aspect of the world wide web we have today in terms of functionality and design is indeed a result of a long growth and progress that many of us  witnessed through the years. 

And now that we are on the age of Web 2.0 where almost everything in the appearance of webpages such as buttons and banners are shiny, glowing and letterpressed and that the web has become dynamic enough to allow us create our own identity and speak on the web while browsing and sharing has never been easy as before because websites now have been formatted (at least mostly) to be  compatible with mobile devices especially smartphones and tablets,  It's just worthwhile remembering the transformation and diversity of web designs we have before and today! 

The inforgraphic below perfectly showed how web design has evolved over the years from the very flat and static, to stunning, dynamic and highly interactive designs.

Is Your Blog Fresh?

The freshness of a blog can go a long way in deciding how Google sees it. Yes! Google now wants your content to be fresh. If you are writing the same old stuff over and over again in the same old style that you have followed, then Google will definitely take note. But how can you make your content fresh? Well, it's very simple IF you are really keen in doing so.

There are a number of companies which are constantly changing their blogging structure to attrtact readers' attention. This is absolutely welcome! Then, there are those who engage with their fans by allowing their comments, howsoever negative, and continuing to create a dent in their brand image. How can you make your blog search-engine friendly? Well, the quickest way is by keeping your content fresh.

Read Up

The first step towards writing completely different and fresh content is by reading up on a whole lot of stuff. This will help you get the idea on the things that your market needs that will effectively put your blog on a new footing. Make sure to engage with fellow bloggers and interact with them on how they get the traffic.

Write

A lot! What you write will play a big role in deciding on the kind of freshness that your blog will have. Write in a way that helps readers get the idea quickly and they enjoy the write-up. Keep in mind that the article that you are writing needs to create a whole new impression in the minds of your readers. 

Listen

Never ignore your blog comments. If you want to provide fresh content, then the quickest way is by interacting with your followers and how they see your blog. This way, your business will definitely achieve the goal of "freshness".

In the end, you have to remember, there are hundreds of bloggers out there who are competing for the same audience. It is your writing which will set your blog apart from the rest! Cheers!

Admit It, You Hate Them!

A funny checklist but somehow true to the statement that "YOU HATE THEM!" Can you add some more?

☑ Kim Jong Il
☑ Khaddafi
☑ Osama Bin Laden
☑ Saddam Hussein
☐ Internet Explorer

Philippines Holds Guinness Record For 'World's Biggest Secret Santa'

Globe Telecom in partnership with Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), brought a new Guinness record to the country as the collaboration for the attempt to break the record for the World's Biggest Secret Santa gathering also known as "Kris Kringle" was successfully achieved today, December 18, 2011, Philippine standard time.

The big event which was participated in by Filipino families and Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) across the four countries including Philippines, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong became a big accomplishment after surpassing the current record with an outstanding 3,500 OFW families who partook in the said event.  

United Kingdom was the current Guinness record holder of  the “kris kringle” with 1,562 participants only which was dethroned now by the Philippines. 

Prior to the event, Ms. Rizza Maniego Eala, group head for International Business of Globe Telecom said “The project was made because many of them have been away from their families for several years so thought of a simple, yet meaningful way to bond, stay connected to loved ones in the Philippines and celebrate Christmas even from thousands of miles away.”

Globe Telecom received the Guinness World Record certificate  after representatives from Guinness Book of World Records finally verified the official count.

Memorable pictures in the said event are shown below:

Sources: Gulfnews.com, Manila Bulletin, Globe Telecom Facebook, Globe Telecom Twitter

Freeze Your Monitor With Google's "Let It Snow" Effect

It's Christmas and Google has always got to share with us in this one of the most celebrated event of the year! We've been flabbergasted by this powerful search engine before by adding cool effects in Google search like the "Do a barrel roll", "Google Sphere", "Google Gravity" and many more and this time, it's time to do the "Let it snow"!

Go to Google.com and key in the words "let it snow" (without the quotes) in the search bar. After the engine displays the result, snowflakes will start to fall on your screen. Your monitor then will start to frost until the display is almost completely covered. You may noticed that the search button before becomes the defrost button which you can click to go back to the normal view. Don't click this yet as there is one last step to enjoy this effect. While your monitor is still frozen, click and drag your mouse on the screen. See what happen. The images below are screenshots of my own trial of this awesome effect!

"Let It Snow" by Google

Click and drag mouse while the whole screen is frozen

Globe Outsets iPhone 4S Postpaid Plans Today

Globe starts offering iPhone 4S today, December 16, 2011, as part of their Globe postpaid plans revealing their pricing and consumables with lots of freebies!

At plan 1799, you'll have the iPhone 4S 16GB with a cashout of P4,800 only. Availing the unit in Plan 2499 or Plan 3799 lets you have the unit for FREE! See the table below for the complete iPhone 4S postpaid plans available from Globe.

Globe iPhone 4S Plans

For consumable postpaid plans, the fee will be charged on top of your monthly service fee. The table below shows the amounts available for consumables - postpaid plan:

Globe iPhone 4S Consumables

With a minimum of three (3) freebies consumable monthly, there are reasons to enjoy getting the iPhone 4S unit. You'll get 3, 5 and 7 freebies of your choice for Plan 1799, Plan 2499 and Plan 3799 respectively.

Globe iPhone 4S Freebies

Interested customers who may want to get this unit can submit a reservation here: http://iphone4s.globe.com.ph/iphone4sApplication

Smart Unveils iPhone 4S

Smart Communications finally revealed their latest offering, iPhone 4S, today, December 16, 2011, for both postpaid and prepaid. The highly anticipated smartphone comes in a most affordable offering yet from one of the biggest networks in the country.

It is quite surprising that Smart is giving away this amazing phone for just P999 per month with plan P999. At plan P2999, you'll have the iPhone 4S 16GB phone for free! See the table below for the complete information.

Smart iPhone 4S Postpaid Plans

If you want an unlimited data plan, you'll get one iPhone 4S 16GB with cashout of only P12500 under Plan 1500, but you'll get it for FREE for both plan 4000 and plan 3000.

Smart iPhone 4S Unlimited Data Plans

Couldn't get much enough? Add more to your plan by availing these bundled services available:

You may rather prefer to have the smartphone without being locked up for two years, Smart is also offering the phone in prepaid with the folowing price deals:

• P33,200 for 16GB
• P38,200 for 32GB
• P43,200 for 64GB

Apply now for a reservation by redirecting to: http://www1.smart.com.ph/postpaid/iphoneapply