Say Cheese! Would a Facebook Photo Printing Service Fix the Social Media Giant?

Posted on August 10, 2012 by Nick

There is something about a Facebook photo album that isn’t exactly like a real photo album. I went to Florida to the all classic wonderful world of Disney. My father, just for this trip, purchased one of the new-fangled huge cameras to capture absolutely everything we did. Whether it was walking from my bed to the dresser or from monorail to theme park, you can pretty much guarantee photos were being snapped.

Personally, I like tangible items and when it comes to photos I want to be able to show people the real thing instead of a computer monitor. Anyway, we get home and I want to see all these thousands of photos my father took. What did mom do with them?

She put them on Facebook.

I asked my mom if she had plans to print them at all and replied, “Nope! Too many and many of them are terrible!” Well then I thought to myself, crap, if you can sit there and upload millions (not really, but bare with me) of photos, you can certainly sit there and pick the best ones out and have printed.

Then a light bulb went off. Facebook, as far as I know, is still scrambling for a little bit of cash, right? What if they were to implement a service in which you can pick and print photos right off Facebook? With the purchase of Instagram and the incredible power of a sharing network, Facebook has tremendous potential to reach outside of the social media box and change the consumer market for online photo downloads forever.

Zuckerberg hosts plenty of hacker events that permit improved programs that could potentially be attributed to the growth of Facebook. Not only would it increase revenue, but also it would probably make users a bit happier too. I would probably be snatching up photos left and right! If Facebook created a program that was similar to PhotoBucket the download program could be easily transferred to a flash drive and printed at your local pharmacy or grocery store.

I don’t even think it would be that hard for Facebook to do. Facebook alone as more photos on it than any other photo site, I don’t know why they haven’t thought of this yet! What are your thoughts?

Geotagging: The Way of the Now

Posted on July 16, 2012 by Nick

As technology advances, the amount of information shared increases dramatically as well. No longer is just sharing pictures something of the norm, it’s boring now!

Sharing your location is now what posting pictures once was. I’m not talking about Foursquare when people post that they’re at the library or “fishbat docks,” I’m talking about Geotagging posts and photos! How awesomely social is that? The fact that you can attach to your Tweet that you’re sitting at a local farmer’s market or at a Mets game is absolutely incredible

From a community managers point of view, this makes our job that much easier. Now we can track and see who is posting what, where. If we have a client that has multiple locations, and people post from our stores we can see that and use that as a future promotion and marketing idea. Location based posts, Tweets, and Check-In’s are truly what will transform the social media industry.

From a user’s point, it’s awesome too! Dependent upon your settings you can see who is around you and in your general area. There is an app called Waze which is a turn by turn navigation however taken to a totally new level. They made it social so that you can see people who are using it around you and even chat with them about traffic. You can post traffic reports, police officer locations, and even speed traps and camera locations. While you are driving, the app will talk to you and let you know about what is ahead so that you can avoid the mess of traffic or any commuter bike runs.

See, the location based social media will be forever growing. At this point in time, people are still iffy about using it because it is very personal information. However, once a majority of social media users start using it, it will quickly become a standard. I do encourage all to use your location based services. I also encourage community managers to start tracking and looking closer at your location based demographics.

Conventional Media vs. Social Media

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Nick

It’s pretty crazy to think that social media is taking over the world.

It is; whether we like it or not. It is forcing many other means of advertising and marketing out of the industry standard. Many years ago, radio and television advertising was the king of marketing. Today, it still holds its own but it is being beaten to death by the mighty stick of social media.

I was recently out of the office the other day and was conversing with a gentleman about his large disagreement with social media. Besides calling the fool a complete a total dope inside of my head, I thought to myself how much money that this guy could potentially be losing. A friend of mine wrote a blog disagreeing with how older people are not savvy enough to use social media. I agree with this, but at the same time, this gentleman just proved both of us wrong.

He was telling me how he has used radio “since it came out” (doubtful) and how every year he has seen an increase in sales. Maybe it’s just a great product? For confidentiality reasons I can’t tell you the product but it’s been around for a really long time and they refuse to use social media. It might be a timeless item, but at the same time, get with the times and get online!

I tried to convince him that it will only help his business that much more and that less and less people are listening to radio – or at least commercials. Every time a commercial comes on the radio, I hit the next station. Actually, I just bought XM radio for my dad so that we can avoid commercials totally. I digress; I tried to politely explain to the gentleman that if done properly, social media will increase sales of his product. I asked him a sort of dare-delish question and said, “You’re sales might still be increasing, but are they slowing?” To his surprise, he was taken back but answer, “Yes, how did you know.”

Needless to say, from that point on, I won and yet again gave conventional media a huge beat down.

Don’t Be a Twit When You Tweet

Posted on June 17, 2012 by Nick

To tweet or not to tweet? That is the question.

The amount of tweets that are published each day is amazing. With over 150 million tweets per day, it’s an unreal amount. Out of those 150 million, what constitutes as valuable or invaluable, and how many of those are deleted? Who passes off information for something that a celebrity tweets or something totally invaluable to the advancement of society?

When I tweet, I tweet valuable information pertaining to the industry in which we all have interest in: social media marketing. I normally post tweets with articles or retweet other people’s articles who have re-tweeted mine. Often I have conversations with some people who have concerns or comments about an article that I wrote. There is usually criticism, but we work it out and come to a general understanding and move on our merry ways. It’s a way of networking and helping each other out.

I have friends though who tweet about using the bathroom or mowing the lawn. Is that valuable? Not to me it’s not, nope. I don’t want to be at work and have my Twitter feed get blown up with garbage that doesn’t pertain to me. Thanks anyway though folks. Are you posting important information or silly non-pertinent information?

This brings me to my next topic: celebrities and politicians who post things that they will eventually regret in the future. What’s even better than people making fools out of themselves is websites that achieve these tweets after they have been deleted! It’s hysterical. People, regardless of what status they are, need to be careful of what they tweet because it can always come back to haunt them; especially if their tweets are public and not private.

As community managers, we have the duty to be posting on our client’s behalf. Of course the client approves what we post, but what happens if we post something on a whim and it gets backlash from our users? Do we delete the post and handle it accordingly? I think it all is dependent on what type of post it is and the voice of the brand in general. Is it in the voice to make a rebuttal and defend what was tweeted, or take down and appease?

So, the moral of the story: don’t be a twit when you tweet, and be careful! Your thoughts?

Facebook Unveils Scheduling Service

Posted on June 4, 2012 by Nick

Community managers; here is the answer to a free weekend!

Facebook has rolled out its new scheduling service and it’s about time! Finally Facebook is making the lives of community managers of social media marketing firms just a little bit easier.

You can choose the date and time of your post. No longer do we have to worry about missing a post because of a meeting or a weekend. However, there are some glitches still.

For example, you are unable to schedule a post unless the page has a definitive launch or start date on the timeline. Without that, for some reason Facebook says, “No, you have to tell us when you started before you can schedule a future post.” Silly, right? That’s all that I have seen so far as far as glitches go. It’s a small inconvenience that is easily fixed, but what’s the point?

Facebook is also giving different administrative rights to different administrators. Every manager can have a different role. This is a good thing for clients so that they can manage who is an administrator and who isn’t. It also allows community managers and directors to determine which intern, if any, have certain rights and privileges. At the end of the day, everything done online is sensitive to each brand.

It can also lead to an increase of revenue for Facebook! With managers now less focused on timely posts, they can focus more on advertising and spending more money in the Facebook ad platform. It is important for them that they keep a float as investors are very concerned on the possible “Facebook Flop.” I’m glad to see they are getting themselves together.

Welcome to the real world Facebook! You have made our lives that much easier and no longer do we have to bring our laptops on weekend trips. You’re the best! For all of us that do work to no end, what do you think of this newfound freedom?

Apple Ping: A Social Media “Genius” Idea

Posted on May 16, 2012 by Nick

Just so we are all on the same page, Apple Ping is a social media platform for music.

Ping is an underestimated platform that really has an incredible amount of possibilities for those who really love music. Not only does it allow for people to share what is in their libraries, but it also allows for people to see updates about a specific artist and even concert updates. It imports their Tweets and you can see what everyone is saying and listening to.

It’s not so much a platform like Facebook where you can comment on people’s walls and such, but you can comment on songs and albums that people recommend or are in your library that you recommend to others. Then you can then hear a short little clip and if you like it that much, a click of a button and it’s yours for no more than $1.29. Crazy right?

Not only is a social media platform, but its online marketing at its best! It’s unbelievable. People can recommend things for you to buy and ultimately make Apple even more money. We don’t normally hear about Ping as often as we should. It is the Facebook of the music industry and I think people are missing out.

I have been a music buff since the day I was born and it is a huge part of my daily routine. For instance, right now I’m listening to some Doobie Brothers and the Allman Brothers band on my iPad. Ping is recommending me artists and songs galore along with other people who have similar interests in music. As much as Spotify allows you to listen to music much like Pandora does, it does not give you the same connectivity that Ping does.

I think it’s wild. Social media has taken over all aspects of life whether we like it or not. I enjoy it. It’s fun, its connective; it’s something that is ever changing and ever developing. Sometimes it’s creepy that it can know everything about you. At the same time, the ease of finding a song that could be your new favorite is out of this world. I love it, and it would be a “Genius” idea for everyone to get involved.

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