In the past, the only people who knew about new movies coming out were those that actually went out and did their research with memberships to movie websites. Nowadays, it’s almost as if the movies come to you.

The most current example of this that I can reference would be the trailer for the new comedy Ted from the creators of Family Guy.  I never heard a peep about this movie, and this is coming from an avid Family Guy fan.  Out of nowhere I am being told by multiple people at work, “You have to, have to, HAVE TO see the trailer for the movie Ted!”  I checked Facebook on my iPhone and there were already numerous people on my friend’s list that had shared it, and it was almost TOO easily accessible.

While this is very convenient and helpful to fans such as me, it’s the impact on the movie creators that make this worth writing about. Social media marketing has made spreading awareness for a movie incredibly easier than it previously was.  Now the trailers literally sell themselves.

In marketing, if you have a good “word of mouth” flow from your business, you are in great shape from a marketing/advertising standpoint.  In other words, if you are running a restaurant, and the food is so good that every person that comes in tells his or her ten closest friends and family members, business is good.

The same goes for a movie trailer.  If the trailer for the movie Ted is so funny that people will want to share it on Facebook or Twitter, than more and more people will continue to share it and it will spread like wildfire through the social media networks without and promotional push from the movie company itself.  This widespread expansion of trailer discovery through social media outputs has changed the way movie companies have to construct their marketing plans from here on out.

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Do you often feel the sudden urge to text someone?  Do you use texting as your means of communication as opposed to actually calling someone?  Does the thought of leaving your phone at home and not being able to text someone frighten you?

If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions, then you might be addicted to texting.

According to lawmakers, texting is becoming a serious problem not only behind the wheel, but while walking.  Many states have already passed laws banning texting while driving, but recently New Jerseypassed a law making it illegal to text while walking.  An $85 fine will be issued to anyone who is caught walking while texting.  Apparently, texting seems to have similar effects to that of alcohol consumption.

According to New Jersey Police, there were 74 crashes last year involving pedestrians who were distracted by their own texting.  In a study by Stony Brook University, people have a difficult time walking in a straight line while texting.  This can be confirmed by examining the 117 violations and 3 deaths due to texting while walking.  People could also end up in jail…for texting.  If the fines are not paid, they don’t go to collection agencies; they become warrants for arrest.  Imagine going to jail for texting on your cell phone.

If people can’t pry themselves away from their phones for a few minutes while they walk down a busy street, then maybe they really do have a problem.  Nothing should be more important than your own safety.  A person being distracted by their own texting can also cost the lives of other drivers and passengers.  Not-to-mention, people feel the need to update their social media accounts, like Facebook.  Is this really necessary?

New York is also looking to bring upon this same ban, going even further to include listening to iPods while walking or running.  But is this ban on texting while walking going too far?  What does it say about people?  Are we not even trust-worthy enough to walk down a street properly?  And what does it say about the law?  Are all these restrictions on human life too much?

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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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So, a large number of the cognoscenti have gone downright apoplectic about Mark Zuckerberg daring to wear a hoodie to all-so-serious meeting of business bigwigs. The scandal.  What’s next?  White after labor day?  Red shoes on a Thursday?  How can our society survive without our sumptuary laws?  Perhaps the Mayans were right: the end is nigh!

Sarcasm aside, it really does show an interesting moment about social media and its place in society and Mark Zuckerberg—for good or for ill—is its personification.   Social media is not businesslike; it is not Chanel and it is not Brooks Brothers.  It is hoodies and jeans.  It is, by its very nature, more casual and much more direct.  It is not businesslike?

But should it be?  Businesses are certainly trying to make it that way.  They can ape a casual voice, but they still craft their voice in the same hyper-calculated way the make press releases or invoices.  Facebook, after all, is poised to conquer Wall Street.  Maybe it is time to change?

I think not.

Social media is powerful because it’s direct, personal, and casual.  By taking away its main selling point, it can no longer do its job.  It is a bit of a paradox, but being too businesslike will actually be bad for business.  Companies need social media to be a hoodie.

This is not the first time that an online entity has undergone a massive change in tone; in fact, the internet itself did it back in 1993.  Believe it or not, there was a time when the internet was not casual.  It had a genteel, rarefied tone that was aggressively monitored by those that used it.  Before America Online brought it to the masses, the internet was the sort of place where you were scolded for being rude and spam was unthinkable.

This small group of sophisticated netizens only really grew in September, when a new crop of college students joined the online world.  Thankfully, this small group could be trained so that by November it was back to its lovely, Tea and Cake with the Bishop self.   Massive internet access altered this forever, and now the internet is the steaming morass of rudeness and obscenity we all know it to be, a situation decried as the eternal September.

It would appear, therefore, that the same businesses which removed the class from the internet wish for it to return.  As Cher lamented, however, you cannot turn back time.  We have gone from an internet of white gloves and tails to ones of hoodies and blue jeans.   Pandora’s Box has been opened and the Rubicon crossed.  Let’s get used to it.

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Facebook uses an algorithm called Edgerank to determine who appears on your top news feed. One person who consistently appears on my news feed is George Takei. Although he’s not a brand page, there are many takeaways from how he operates his page that brands and online marketing firms should take note of.

Edgerank takes into account 3 factors:

First is time. With more recent posts being priority, the timeliness of your posts and the consistency of your posts will create a strong engagement of followers.

The second factor is edge weight, which measures the likelihood that a story is created by an action is viewed. It takes into account how someone interacts (comment, like, share, read, etc) with a friend or a fan page. It also takes into account the type of post and gives more weight to media content (photos and videos).

The third factor is affinity, which measures your relevance to a friend or fan page. The more times you interact or the more connections you have with a friend or a fan page, the more Facebook will prioritize them in your top news feed.

So how does George Takei have such a great Edgerank score on my personal profile? First, he posts many pictures, which is proven to elicit more interaction and shares than text does. Secondly, he posts to his demographic. Instead of spending most of his time on his phone promoting himself, he shares content that he thinks would interest his fans. In my opinion, that is the biggest takeaway for managers of fan pages. Building up a strong Edgerank in your fans will ensure that when you do have something to say about your brand, your fans will actually see the post.

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With Mark Zuckerberg’s birthday coming up I thought it would only be appropriate to talk about Facebook birthday’s as well.

I don’t like posting my own information. Not my thing. My birthday can’t be seen, I don’t even have my full name up there. I find it hysterical when my birthday comes around and only a few people post on my wall. To me, that’s great! It means they actually remembered my birthday instead of Facebook actually reminding them.

It reminds me kind of a collection agency reminding its clients to pay its bills. “Remember, it’s your friend’s birthday today! Wish them a good day now!” No thanks. If I remember your birthday, I’ll give you a call or text. Don’t take it personally if you don’t get a comment or post from me wishing you a good day and hoping you get a bunch of presents.

Do we connect with people on social media that in reality we have no desire to associate with? Isn’t this a common notion we all deal with yet refuse to actually confront? How many times do we go through our “friends” and start purging the people we never talk to?

It really is crazy how many people think they are friends with everyone in the world but yet they hang out with maybe 10 friends at a time and no more. Generally these are the only people that will remember your birthday anyway. Do you really expect little Mark to remember your birthday when he moved away 15 years ago at the age of 6 and you found him on Facebook? Come now, are you crazy?

It would be a good experiment for everyone to try. Hide your birthdays and see who comments. Those who don’t aren’t worth your time. Don’t believe me? Try it.

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We’ve all seen them. Perhaps we’ve been prompted by various advertisements or accidently stumbled upon them. Either way, most people have found themselves in the midst of a business fair at one point or another. What is the value of these fairs? Do they actually make a difference for the company? Or are business fairs just a way for greedy people to collect free pens and businesses to waste time?

Local libraries and, more often times, colleges are home to these kinds of fairs; the kind where a large, once open space is riddled with table after table, voices carrying through the room as though some sort of celebration is going on. While the hustle and bustle can be exciting for some, the happenings are not of the celebratory fashion, rather a way for small or local businesses to gain trusting customers and clientele.

Most prominent at these fairs is the cluster of free junk tossed on top of tables as means of luring people in, then once there, as people pick through a pile of pencils, businesses have the chance to explain what they’re all about. While business fairs provide great advertising, are people truly interested in learning about the newest opportunities in their community or are they more excited about the tables full of free pens, cup holders, and Frisbees?

Thankfully, for businesses eager to thrive, the internet provides a valuable source for networking and advertising without the tiresome bore of standing all day at a business fair. Social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are like free advertising for your businesses. If businesses are considering a more serious route to truly promote their business social media marketing companies are readily available to help put together streamlined, creative, user friendly websites, help come up with promotional ideas, and crop up keywords to better advertise businesses. Millions of people use the internet each day. The likelihood of someone noticing your business online is exponentially higher than someone noticing your business at a business fair.

Although a business fair can certainly be valuable, about half of the people roaming around are not truly interested in getting involved with any of the businesses. It would be difficult for a car company at a business fair to convince somebody to buy their products when most people simply rode there on a retro bike eager to pocket free stuff. Overall, local businesses need to collectively work at discovering the opportunities that allow them to thrive. While yes, it’s exciting and important to put yourself out there in the local community, the World Wide Web additionally offers so much more. Instead of putting company names on pen caps to attract attention, today these businesses have the option to catch the eye with attention-grabbing websites instead.

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It makes sense that anyone who wants to go into marketing should have at least a basic understanding of social media, but is it a skill that every businessperson should have?  Michael Kempner, head of the PR firm MWW (which I applied to but didn’t hire me, so I’m not bitter at all), said that he feels that social media should be required for all MBA students.

At first, this seemed to be somebody working in social media making a bigger deal of it than it should be the sort of self-aggrandizement we’re all guilty of when it comes to our careers.  However, as I thought more and more about, I found myself asking whether social media really is that transformative of a medium.  And, as I started thinking about it, the more I thought that it might just be.

I know that I could also have drunk the Kool-Aid, as I work for a social media marketing company as well.   However, when you actually analyze the uses of social media and their effect on society, I think you’ll agree with me.  Based on this, mastering social media should be important for every business (even the farming community), and here’s why:

• Businesses need social media for internal communications as well: if you can’t talk with your employees, you can’t do anything.  Social media is a great way to work out new ideas with employees in a way that can be easily seen and understood while still recorded.  Imagine instead of having people read the minutes, they can see them as they’re written out?
• Social media shortens the time for everything: every business person needs to be cognizant of the effects any action will have the press.  With social media at our disposal, this effect is heightened; we don’t have the luxury of deadlines or bylines.  Everything is immediate and anonymous.
• Social media advertising is big, and getting bigger: as social media continues to mature, people are using it more and more for marketing.  While marketing is not the only part of business, without it you can’t sell anything, so if you’re not on top of marketing trends, there’s nothing you can do with your company.

What are your thoughts on the topic?  Do you feel that social media really is that big of a deal, or is it just much ado about not much?

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It’s no secret to those who know me that I love college football. The excitement that comes with each Saturday during the season is something that is hard to explain to the yet to be initiated. I have a few teams that I pull for (I am a notoriously huge University of Miami fan), but there aren’t many major college football programs near where I live on Long Island. Due to this, my brother and I adopted the Rutgers Scarlet Knights as our semi-local college football program. This is why the tragedy of Eric Legrand was something that hit home with me.

For those of you who don’t know, Legrand was paralyzed from the neck down during a Rutgers football game in 2010. He was able to battle back and lead the Rutgers football team out of the tunnel a year later. While he still hasn’t fully recovered from his terrible injury, he is using social media to help inspire others who may be going through hard times. Legrand is using his unfortunate situation to motivate others to reach their maximum potential. Social media doesn’t have to fill your life with Facebook ads and marketing message, it can be used to open up your views and inspire you.

Legrand’s former coach, Greg Schiano, recently became the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and made Legrand one of his first signings. Legrand’s dream of becoming a member of the NFL finally came true, and although his role with the team is still unclear it is a story that will serve to inspire many. Life can be tough, but never give up fighting. Even when your dream seems out of reach keep moving forward. It worked for Eric Legrand and it can work for anyone.

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Bing has unveiled a new social aspect to its search results that is very interesting. Normally when people type in their search terms they are expecting their results to be a list of web pages and articles that are relevant to their query. Bing wants to make your expectations from a search much more than that; they want to give you thought leaders when you enter search terms.

This is done through the use of a new “Friends Who Might Know” sidebar. The new look to Bing makes it seem as if the search engine has been using moisturizer, as everything is now much smoother and more seamless. Say you entered the search term “football” into Bing, the “Friends Who Might Know” sidebar will be filled with your posts from your Facebook friends that relate to football, as well as a few “topic experts” that may interest you who are outside of your circle of friends.

Currently the new feature is only integrated with Facebook, but the plan is to open it up to content from Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and Quora. This is very different than Google’s Search Plus Your World as it isn’t limited to just one social network and it seems as if Microsoft is truly trying to create better search results, not just trying to push its social network like Google was.

Will this get more people to use Bing and create a threat to Google? Almost definitely not, but it may force Google to actually create a “social” search integration that is worthwhile and useful. Gone are the days of just looking for webpages, now you’re going to be looking for people and engaging content.

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