Facebook Apps: What to Know Before Allowing Access

Every day I log-in to my Facebook account, I see 5-6 apps requests and ask myself if I should allow the app to access my profile. I hope everyone faces more or less the same situation. Facebook has become bigger and increasing in size every day, so it become more crucial to understand privacy implications and how your personal identifiable information will be used.

So next time before hitting the 'allow' button on any app ask yourself these question to fully understand these Facebook apps.

How much access these apps have? 
Facebook recently launched a new control screen which allows user to learn more about the application and what information it requires to run. Some apps require your public information, e-mail address, interest, demographic information etc.

Depending on your personal privacy preferences, you should make sure you review the app’s permission requests. Remember that once you install apps, your personal information can be shared with those developers.

How much control do I have on these apps?
The new app install screen gives you more authority in terms of restricting access to apps, as well as controlling activity visibility in your friends network. The audience selector allows you to decide visibility of app activity.

So with this new app install screen you have more control over apps and how they access your infromation.

Facebook Timeline for Brands - New Timeline Releasing This Month

In September 2011, Facebook introduced a interesting transformation of profile pages for is over 800 million users with the Timeline format.

The Facebook timeline generates scrapbook like collages covering entire history of user on the social network.

At the time of launching of Facebook timeline for users, the company announced that it will roll-out the timeline for brands which inspite of being consistent with user timeline will not be a carbon copy.

It is expected that the facebook timeline for brands will be announced at Company's Feb. 29 Marketer Conference.

The new pages for brands will start in beta with a handful of partners and then be released to more marketers in stages, according to the sources.

More details will be unfurled at its first-ever fMC event, a day-long conference in New York on Feb. 29 that's specifically for marketers.

1600 Layoffs At P&G - Power of Facebook and Digital Marketing

Banking on the power of Social and other digital marketing tactics, Procter & Gamble Co. is planning to eliminate about 1,600 non manufacturing jobs, including some in marketing.

Chief Financial Officer Jon Moeller suggests that it would be within the range of the company's usual restructuring efforts and will result in $240 million annual savings. Overall the cuts only make up about 3% of the estimated 129,000 employees.


Chairman-CEO Bob McDonald said that he expects P&G's advertising costs to moderate as it moves more spending into digital media, where the sheer number of options and availability of largely free distribution drives down expenses.

Mr. McDonald said, "In the digital space, with things like Facebook and Google and others, we find that return on investment of the advertising when properly designed, when the big idea is there, can be much more efficient," 


He also cited the example of recent Old Spice campaign which generated 1.8 billion for P&G in free impressions. He said "there are many other examples I can cite from all over the world."

Social Media Marketing Cheat Sheet

Still struggling with various social media marketing networks? Designed for small businesses, the “cheat sheet” provides some basic tips, lingo and relative audience size for various social networking sites.

Social media marketing cheat sheet, Social Media Cheat Sheet

What Type of Facebook User You Are?

Most of us have presence on Facebook. We post, we share, we like, we comment and do much more on Facebook. So what type of Facebook user you are? Identify and have fun.

The Rooster - They feel that it is their job to tell Facebook "Good Morning" everyday. 

The 'Lurker' - Never post or comment on your posts but read everything you post. 

The 'Hyena' - Hardly ever say any thing. Then read your post and just LoL or LMAO. 

Mr/Ms Popular - Has 2000 friends for no reason. They are/want to have highest number of friends and flaunt it as their status symbol. 

The Gamer - spends most of the time in their Utopian world of  Mafia Wars, Farms. Generally these are found baking virtual cakes, growing up their farm, building up city.

The Cynic - World is the worst place for them to live. They are fed up with everything in their life and most of the time they are found venting out their anger/frustration on their wall. 

The Collector - Never posts/participates in any forum conversation but they join every group 
and become fans of the most random stuff. 





The 'Promoter' - Always send event invitation to things that you finally delete or ignore.

The 'Liker' - They know only like button on Facebook and use it to full extent. Most of the time they like your posts even without reading.

Drama Queen/King - They often post stuff like "I can't believe this!" or "How can you do this to me?" in the hope that you will ask what happened or whats wrong... but don't expect them ending the story. Their drama never ends.

The 'News Reporter' - Always update you about what they are doing and with whom. Even on deathbed they would think about updating their FB status first "Going to die soon". 

The Thief - Steals status updates and wall posts and posts it as their own. 
   

Facebook to Hit 1 Billion User Mark Soon, But Loosing Ground to Its Competitors

Two interesting news related to facebook are surfacing this year. On one hand facebook is going to hit 1 billion users mark by this summer while on the other hand it is loosing market share  to its competitors.

Currently facebook has more than 800 million active users, 50% of which log on to facebook everyday.

Increasing User Base
iCrossing, a UK based digital firm, made a scientific estimate using linear regression and came to a conclusion that Facebook will reach the 1 Billion user mark by mid-August 2012.

Decreasing Market Share
Although Facebook continues to increase its user base, it is loosing the market share to its competitors. Recently The Telegraph reported that Facebook usage in the UK has fallen by more than 7% in December due to emergence of new competitors like Google+.

Social Media Spends - An Increasing Threat for Paid Search Among SMBs

Borrell Associates conducted an extensive research detailing the social media phenomenon that’s prevailing among Small and medium size businesses. It details about how much SMBs are spending on social media marketing, what type of results they are expecting from this media and the overall effectiveness of this marketing model for SMBs.

Although lot of research has been done regarding adoption of social media among SMBs, this reports delves deep into various other aspects of this marketing model.


Social Media Adoption:

The report suggests that SMBs have already understood the current and future prospects of social media marketing and they already have presence on various social media sites which is between 45% and 75%.

Online Media Spends: 

Borrell's report estimates that with such adoptive nature of SMBs, soon Social Media Marketing is going to surpass Paid Search spends in 2012. 

In response to the question On which types of online advertising do you expect to spend money in (the coming year)? Social Media Marketing secured third spot.

So understanding the benefits of social media for businesses, it is advisable for SMBs to get ready for running a successful social media campaign for your business. 

Top 10 Viral Advertising Campaigns of 2011

The ten most popular viral advertising campaigns of 2011 compiled by AdvertisingAge and Visible Measures.

1. Volkswagen - The Force
    Agency: Deutsch, Los Angeles
    Views: 62.7 Million



2. T-Mobile: Royal Wedding
    Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, London
    Views:28.4 Million



3. Apple: Introducing iPhone
    Agency: TBWA Media Arts Lab
    Views: 27.8 Million



4. Fiat : Life Is Best When Driven
    Agency: Doner
    Views: 27.4 Million



5. Dirt Devil: You Know When It's Devil
    Agency: Filmakademie Baden- Wurttemberg
    Views: 26.4 Million



6. Old Spice: New Old Spice Guy Fabio
    Agency: Wieden & Kennedy Portland
    Views: 26.3 Million



7. Chrysler: Imported From Detroit
    Agency:  Wieden & Kennedy Portland
    Views: 22.3 Million



8. Google: The Web IS What You Make of It
    Agency: Google Creative Lab
    Views: 21.2 Million



9. Adidas: All In
    Agency: Sid Lee
    Views: 19.9 Million



10. Old Spice: Old Spice Man Is Back
      Agency: Wieden & Kennedy Portland
      Views: 18.6 Million

Using Social Media for Business - Step by Step Infographic Guide

Social media is an emerging tool to help business get needed exposure and reach target audience with less efforts in engaging way. Are you also planning to use social media marketing for business? Check out this interesting step by step info-graphic. 

via

Benefits of Social Media Marketing for the Business

Social Media is the hottest trend in marketing with big businesses to the local barber shop talking up Twitter, Foursquare, Groupon and Facebook. Is social media marketing beneficial for the business? This question haunts every business before jumping into social media bandwagon.

In this recessionary economy where investment of every penny counts, businesses want to get better results with low investment in promotion and nothing can be better than social media to serve this purpose. Compared to traditional marketing campaign social media marketing campaign is quite cheaper.

Benefits of Social Media Marketing:

• The main benefit of social media is helping business standing out in this highly noisy world. 
• As the search engines have tweaked their search algorithm and have started considering the social signals in the ranking, social media marketing efforts lead to improved search ranking.
• The search rankings, exposure and lead generation are interrelated so improvement in search positions can lead to better exposure and increased leads for the business. 
• It takes time to develop relationship which leads to business generation, but if proper efforts are given in social media marketing it leads to actual business.
• Most significant benefit of social media marketing is reduced overall expenses on your overall marketing efforts. Majorly its just a quality amount of time which you invest in creating and maintaining your social media presence. 

However everything and the above mentioned benefits of social media totally depend on Are you doing it in a right way?