Archives for February 2013

The 3 Fundamental Social Media Rules of Engagement

February 20, 2013 by Leave a Comment

There are plenty of rules for social media engagement, and I have my own ever-growing list. But the more involved I get in social, the more I realize that there are three things that are absolutely critical:

1. Be Nice.

Even if you’re well-known among friends and associates for your cynical snark, the unkind are quickly ignored or worse in the social space. Don’t slam the competition. Don’t criticize your employer or colleagues. Don’t attack, even if attacked. No one comes away from social media fights looking good. If you disagree with someone or something, it may be not be easy to come up with a cogent argument for your position, but it’s much easier than doing damage control for your online reputation. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: ,

5 Reasons Pay-Per-Click is a Better Option Than SEO

February 14, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Ideally, every Web site should be supported with a good search engine optimization program. But once you’ve gone through the “best practices,” good SEO is very expensive. It certainly can be worth the cost, especially when compared to the damage bad SEO can do, but, especially for smaller organizations, pay-per-click often is a better option. Here are five reasons why: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Pay-Per-Click Tagged With: ,

Silk, an Interactive Art Generator

February 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Silk Interactive Art GeneratorSilk is a wonderful interactive site for creating art using patterns created by “silk” threads.

Click and hold your mouse on the screen canvas and pattern emerge and grow. Drag, swirl, zig or zag to add new patterns. There’s a controls for symmetry: vertical to mirror the pattern on either side, four-way to addthe  top and bottom, or none to disable symmetry completely. [Read more…]

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Google Enhances Adwords – for Google

February 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Are Google’s “enhanced campaigns” a benefit for Adwords users, or another way to charge more with less accountability? It was the latter when Product Listing Ads rolled out, a fact driven home to us when it became clear that Google itself didn’t know how PLAs integrated with or otherwise affected existing campaigns. At least, that’s what the Google Adwords rep told us.

So now we have “enhanced campaigns,” which supposedly will make campaign management simpler and campaigns more effective. Here are the three key benefits, per Google: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Pay-Per-Click, Search Engines Tagged With: , , ,

Facebook Fatigue? Not So Much.

February 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Pew Research has released a new study on Facebook use, and there’s a lot of distress and hand-wringing over “Facebook fatigue” because the study and most reports I’ve seen lead with:

61% of Facebook users have taken a voluntary break from using the site at one time or another and 27% plan to spend less time on the site this coming year.

Hot stuff, and just the kind of grist the media likes to mill these days, but it’s not so hot in context. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: , ,

Top 3 Super Bowl Takeaways for Internet Marketers

February 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment

1. Social media rewards the opportunistic.

The Oreo Super Bowl ad was pretty bad. The “cream vs. cookie” campaign has had its moments, but taking it from sibling rivalry to raging violence seems to run counter to the image Oreo wants as “America’s favorite cookie.”

I guess it was supposed to be funny that the fights took place in a library and everyone was whispering. But that joke got very old very quickly. Instead, it was just another example of the extremes advertisers go to when they run out of good ideas.

But Oreo saved itself by jumping on Twitter when the power went out at the Superdome. Beginning with the “You Can Still Dunk in the Dark” tweet, it rode a wave real-time consumer engagement and post-event PR that no amount of paid advertising can match. [Read more…]

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Facebook Facial Recognition Returns. Time to Check Your Privacy Settings

February 2, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Facebook is turning photo tagging and recognition back on, and, like a lot of these “features” that potentially affect privacy, it appears that the option is turned on by default. So, especially if you don’t want photos of people who may or may not be you tagged and presented as such, take a look at your privacy settings now. [Read more…]

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Wordplay with Visuwords

February 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment

VisuwordsIf you like playing with words, you’ll love Visuwords.  Might even learn something, too.

Type in a word and click enter. Or just click “Random.” Either way, a network of “synsets” (a node with a single word that represent a group of related words) pops up. Roll your mouse over a node, and a definition and synonyms appear.  Double-click on a node and it expands with more, related words.  Keep doing that and your browser soon is filled with a network of words that can improve even the most expansive mental lexicon.  (Found that searching for “vocabulary”.) [Read more…]

Filed Under: Cool Stuff Tagged With: ,