Posts Tagged: "Social Networking"

Frustration with registration and login isn’t limited to mobile devices, of course. As the web has become more participatory and an integral component of our lives, the average web user has accumulated dozens of accounts at different websites — each with a distinct username and password to remember. Even more problematic, many people try to cope with this problem by recycling the same password across multiple sites, thereby jeopardizing their online security. Social login alleviates this “password fatigue” problem and offers up benefits both for online users and online businesses and other websites.

Once you understand what to tweet, how to tweet and how much to tweet, you are quickly able to make excellent connections, increase your website statistics and search engine ranking, find some of your best brand advocates, and benefit quickly and efficiently from word of mouth marketing. In fact, next to YouTube, micro-blogging on Twitter is one of the quickest ways for information about you, your brand, your business, your products and your services to go viral. Before one can feel comfortable on Twitter, they must first understand the purpose of Twitter, realize the potential of Twitter and learn how they can use Twitter to meet their overall marketing objectives. Following, I will discuss and demystify 5 of the top myths about Twitter use for business and give you pointers on how you can get the most out of your Twitter account.

Social media is quickly become THE way to market your business. In the US, more than two thirds of all adults who are active online are also actively using social media today, However, there is still a whopping 57% of businesses who, for one reason or another do not understand the real impact that social media can have on their businesses. Gaining new and retaining old customers, sharing your products and services to a broader audience and giving your customers a voice, are just a few of the many benefits that using social media can bring to your business. There are many myths and misconceptions that keep business owners and marketers from reaping the benefits that social media. If you are one of these businesses, let me “set you free” to explore all that social media has to offer.

It seems that no matter where you go these days, the likelihood is high that you will see a “Free Wi-Fi” sticker on the front door of the establishment. Whether you are going for coffee, meeting a colleague for lunch, stopping at a rest stop or waiting for an airplane, you can pretty much bet that you will be able to check your email and surf the web while you are there. It is clear that most restaurants are starting to realize the power and potential of social media, not only for the use of their clientele but also in getting their message out in new and innovative ways. They are seeing that building larger online communities equates to higher numbers of restaurant sales. For this reason, media outlet Nation’s Restaurant News teamed up with an analytics and digital branding firm, DigitalCoCo to create the Restaurant Social Media Index (RSMI) highlighting the industry’s Top 100.

22% of social network patent applications are filed within one year of the youngest prior art cited against them. So speed of filing counts. If these applications had been filed a year earlier, then 22% of them would have avoided the youngest prior art cited against their independent claims. The applicants would have had correspondingly broader claims allowed. They would not have had to argue or amend around this prior art or abandon their applications altogether.

You have a business, a website and a traditional marketing strategy. But now you have decide to give social media a try. You feel that Facebook would be a good place for you to reach many potential customers within your target audience. But when you go onto Facebook you notice that there are both fan pages and groups available for use by businesses. But how do you decide which is best for your business? In order to answer this question, you must first know what each each, what they offer and what the difference are between the two.

The question remains in the mind of many, however, whether Zynga is a company worth investing in given its near complete dependence on Facebook for revenue. If you actually read the Zynga S-1 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission you will likely be scared out of your wits by the risk the company lays out in exceptional detail. Facebook is the primary distribution, marketing, promotion and payment platform for Zynga games, and the company generates substantially all of its revenue and players through the Facebook platform. Not exactly the kind of diversification that one would wish for, making Zynga completely dependent upon existing Facebook agreements and the extension thereof. You will likely also be underwhelmed by their IP portfolio, particularly their patent portfolio.

With social media, You Are Your Brand. But what exactly does that mean? If you are part of a larger firm or business, you may be using social media to promote the products and services your company/firm offers, but you are doing so as an individual. Social media is about sharing content and building relationships. The general voice of your company/firm would not work in social media, nor in face to face networking for that matter, without each individual representative of the company displaying their own personalities and adding unique insight which ultimately is what attracts new, potential clients.

What’s in a name? Well likely far more than most businesses realize. Your business name is how people will identify with your goods and services, so you want to have one identity that is all your own. Simple enough really, at least in concept, but making a mistake at the selection stage will prove costly. You really need to be picking a business name that gives you the opportunity to create a unified Internet marketing and branding strategy, from the domain name you select to your usernames and identity on popular social media and social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

It is still early to know whether this is irrational exuberance or whether this is a meaningful event for the companies that follow LinkedIn to IPO. In all likelihood it is a little of both, namely a meaningful event that demonstrates at least some irrational exuberance. With the economy and the IPO market having been in the tank for so long a little zeal never hurt anyone, right? In any event, regardless of what LinkedIn does from here on out the fury of trading and interest suggests that good things are on the horizon for the economy and perhaps for job creation as well.

LinkedIn announced this week that the professional social networking giant is now valued at $8.79 Billion, roughly 38 times sales figures reported in 2010, after it’s first day as a publicly traded company on May 18. This may be hard to believe by many because LinkedIn has never reported being profitable, nor have they ever made more than $250 million in any one year. However, within minutes of LinkedIn initially offering 7.84 million shares priced at $45, the shares doubled in price and at one point in the day LinkedIn’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) peaked in excess of $122 per share.

Social media has taken the world by storm. Everyone from college students, to politicians, to news media outlets, to business professionals, to small and big businesses, to musicians and artists and other individual people both young and old have jumped on the social media bandwagon. When creating a marketing campaign, no matter what the business is, social media is an obvious choice for those who wish to expand their reach beyond that of the local phone book. Be that as it may, given that social media is still quite new to the business arena, there are still so many opportunities missed because of common yet avoidable mistakes.

In the situation where there is a joint research collaboration everything is fine, people are happy and hope springs eternal right up until that moment when everything falls apart. Then you have issues associated with a law firm representing inventors of a joint collaboration might be conflicted out of the representation altogether because downstream patent applications filed by one or more of the collaborators creates a situation where the collaborators no longer have jointly aligned interests, perhaps as the result of double patenting issues. Ware explained several cases arising out of a common set of facts whereby multiple joint collaborators were not consulted on the filing of a joint application (or at least not enough to their liking), which created a double patenting issue for an after filed application. The law firm representing the collective was sued for malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty; the case settled.

Social Media has quickly become the fastest growing online phenomenon. Originally Social networking was for college students and artists and musicians, but increasingly businesses of all sizes have jumped on the Social Media bus. Small, medium and large sized business, retail storeowners, politicians, journalistic publications, law firms, chain stores, restaurants and businesses from nearly every industry have chimed in. Whether you have a brick and mortar retail location or are solely online, Social Media can help. But as with any business strategy one can partake in, all of your efforts including, time and money are wasted if you do not know what mistakes you should avoid in order to get the most out of your online efforts.

Over the last two election cycles it has become clear how important it is to have a social media strategy. President Obama masterfully used various Internet and social media communications to ride a wave into office, leaving the Republicans well behind. In the 2010 election cycle the Democrats tended to do quite well on Facebook, but the Republicans gained momentum and did much better on Twitter and enjoyed greater overall “digital energy,” at least according to research conducted by the EmergingMedia Research Council. It is safe to assume that Members of Congress are getting more involved with Social Media, and that trend should only continue to grow in coming years.