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Facebook’s ‘Life Events’ are the main event for digital marketers

October 4, 2011 By 6 Comments

The life-events engine behind Facebook’s new timeline may be the most powerful digital marketing tool ever created.  It allows Facebook users to record the milestones of their life. And, it allows digital marketers to deliver the most effective and  relevant just-in-time messages.

One of the biggest challenges for all marketers is getting the right message… to the right people… at the right time.  Digital marketers have typically had the advantage meeting this challenge by leveraging pay-per-click advertising (PPC) and display ads triggered by keywords appearing in on line content.  While these tactics allow better targeting than traditional media, they’re still limited by the universe of individuals searching with the right keywords and finding the right destinations.

Facebook’s new timeline overcomes these limitations by enabling and encouraging Facebook users to share their life events with others.  Facebook’s new timeline allows users to share information when they move, buy a home, add a vehicle, have a child, change their job and so on. The possibilities are endless.

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Filed Under: Facebook, google, Strategy, Web Tagged With: , , , ,

Social Media ‘To Die For’: Preparing for a zombie apocalypse

September 27, 2011 By 1 Comment

What makes  the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta more approachable, and more effective at one of its core missions?  A  hoard of zombies.

When CDC staff from the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response asked Twitter users what types of emergencies they were prepared for, answers citing tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes were numerous.  Answers were also humorous, prodding the CDC about the Zombie preparedness.  With this in mind, the team decided to boost their 2011 hurricane preparedness campaign by adding some deadpan  content to attract readership.  The result? A blog post entitled ‘Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse .’

“We realized this wasn’t the typically health message a federal agency like CDC might put out, but we really wanted to grab people’s attention because disaster preparedness is an important and simple way to save lives and property,” said Maggie Silver, a Health Communication Specialist for the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “To make sure people realized we were being tongue-in-cheek, we continually referred to ‘real’ emergencies like floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes throughout the course of our blog and social media outreach.”

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Filed Under: Facebook, Misc T, Twitter, Web Tagged With: , , , , ,

Be my guest: Five great reasons to guest blog

June 24, 2011 By 1 Comment

It may seem counter productive to write content for someone else’s website when the success of your blog depends on your ability to drive traffic to it. Nevertheless, guest blogging is a great way improve your blog’s traffic and community.

The more I get to know Marcy Massura, the publisher of this blog, more I like her.  It’s not because we have a lot in common. It is because she’s uncommonly interesting. When we disagreed recently on the value of guest blogging, she put her ‘blog where her belief is’ — by offering me this forum to convince you (her readers) that guest blogging isn’t a waste of time.  With that goal in mind, here are five great reasons to contribute blog posts to someone else’s site:

Guest blogging builds awareness. One of the best ways to improve the awareness of your blog is to become an occasional guest blogger for a blog that has a large following.  This is one of the reasons that I write a unique blog post for  SmartBrief on Social Media every six to eight weeks. The blog reaches more than 89,000 marketers looking to stay ahead of social networking trends in a fast-changing environment. Hitting the SmartBrief audience on a regular basis allows me to attract new readers for my Social Meteor blog.

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Filed Under: Guest Blog, Misc T, Web Tagged With:

Hat’s off to personal branding

June 15, 2011 By 6 Comments

More people recognize me as a cartoon character in a cowboy hat than by my actual appearance.  That’s about to change. I’ve swapped my cartoon avatars on Twitter and Facebook with an actual photo.

The more I get to know people online, the more I want to know their personal appearance.  This is why I tell everyone who begins on Twitter or Facebook to use a recent photo for their profile instead of a cartoon.  I’ve been breaking that rule myself until recently.  For the past two years, I’ve been using illustrations, rather than photos, for my avatar on Twitter and Facebook. These cartoon illustrations of me in my vacation cowboy hat have become part of the branding for my social meteor persona.

When I attend a Tweetup or social media event, individuals are slow to connect the real-life ‘troy janisch’  with my online ‘social meteor’ persona. In the past two months, I’ve met several online friends face-to-face. Each time, after introducing myself to them, I had to remind them that I’m the guy behind the cartoon.

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Filed Under: Facebook, Misc T, Twitter, Web Tagged With: , ,

Peddling Influence: Daytrading tips for Empire Avenue

May 19, 2011 By 12 Comments

If you’re ‘in the market’ for social influence, then Empire Avenue may be the destination of choice. If so, here are some helpful tips for daytrading.

Empire Avenue is a popular ‘social influence’ stock market game. It allows you to peddle the social influence by buying and selling shares of social media users. The ‘market value’ (connection score) of players is determined by the value they’re contributing to social channels (Facebook, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube), their blog and the empire avenue site.

The value of a player’s shares is based on three factors: their activity, their audience size, and their engagement.  As each of these change, so does the value of a user’s shares (measured in ‘eaves’ instead of ‘dollars’).

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Filed Under: Facebook, Misc T, Twitter, Web, youtube Tagged With: , , , , ,
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