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Social Media Knight

Fighting our way into the social media realm

Digital Curator

Brand Identity Essentials

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Branding in social media

Remember what life was like before Facebook? It doesn’t really matter whether you do or not. Those days are gone, and they’re not coming back. The ways in which companies interact with their customers have changed forever thanks to social media.

NEW INTERACTIONS

Exactly what kind of impact social media will have on graphic identity design has yet to be determined. Preliminary indications point to a significant impact, one in which do-it-yourself tools allow customers to create and protect their own identities in spaces where they commingle with the graphic identities of companies large and small. On Twitter, Facebook, or any social networking site, who’s to say a company’s graphic identity has any more influence than an individual bloggers graphic identity?

Organizations will need to consider how their brands—as represented by their graphic identities—translate into these new channels. A focus on consistency and clarity is warranted. More importantly, designers can encourage organizations with whom they work to stay open to learning about the new constraints and opportunities presented by social media as they arise.

See Full Story on www.peopledesign.com

Social Media Strategy in 8 Steps

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Social Media Strategy in 8 Steps (Summary)

With all the new tools and platforms constantly emerging, it’s very easy to get fall into the trap of thinking about social media through a tactical prism instead of a strategic one.The best social media strategic plans are tools-agnostic, and set forth objectives and metrics that supersede any particular social venue.

Step 1: Build an Ark

Nobody should “own” social media strategy in your organization. Social impacts all corners of the company, and should be more like air (everywhere) than like water (you have to go get it). Thus, the first step in the process is to create a cross-functional team to help conceive and operate the rest of the strategy.

Step 2: Listen and Compare

It’s an old social media strategy chestnut by now, but “listen” is still good advice that’s often ignored. The reality is that your customers (and competitors) will give you a good guide to where and how you should be active in social media, if you broaden your social listening beyond your brand name.

See Full Story on www.convinceandconvert.com

Anthropologie hosts Pinterest contest to gain inspiration for summer

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Lifestyle brand Anthropologie is hosting a Pinterest contest to promote the discovery of new trends among home and decorating platforms for the summer by incorporating style insight from its fans.

Naming it a #PinToWin challenge, contestants are asked to pin inspiring ideas for all types of summer gatherings. Winners will receive $500 toward Anthropologie dining and entertaining products.

“Anthropologie isn’t just a brand, it’s a lifestyle,” said Apu Gupta, CEO of Curalate, New York, the company that provides Anthropologie with visual marketing and analytics. ”By connecting the brand with summer and getting people to envision and articulate their summer plans, Anthropologie connects consumers with the brand and pulls at their heartstrings.”

Anthropologie did not respond by press deadline.

Pinspired
Anthropologie released the news via Facebook and Twitter with a photo of a table setting and steps to participate.

anthro pic3
Anthropologie’s promotional tweet from May 27

The contest will last through May 30 and participants are required to fill out a short entry form in addition to qualify.

Anthropologie is seeking photos of anything “from cocktail parties to poolside lounging to patio suppers,” the ad reads.

See Full Story on www.mobilecommercedaily.com

4 Brands Using Twitter Video for Extended Storytelling Takes one-click video a step further

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Twitter has begun testing a new feature within its one-click video format that lets brands string together pieces of content, Adweek has learned.

The ‘view more videos’ option builds on Twitter’s one-click video that began popping up earlier this month from brands including Burger King and Volvo.

The feature appears to only be running within Twitter’s iPhone app and was not seen within the social giant’s website or Android app when tested by Adweek. However, a Twitter rep confirmed that the option to view more video is not limited to iOS and that users may start to see the option on other devices, too.

Now, calls-to-action at the end of the clip prompt consumers to view more videos. A click-through leads consumers to a landing page that pulls in a list of all of the videos that a brand has used.

While one-click video was initially limited to Twitter Amplify media partners, other initiatives from brands such as Universal Pictures suggest that these video tests are moving beyond this set of marketers.

The feature may seem like a small change, but a string of tweets from Budweiser yesterday shows the potential for brands to build narratives via these short video posts.

See Full Story on www.adweek.com

Twitter releasing trove of user data to scientists for research

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Twitter has a 200-million-strong and ever-growing user base that broadcasts 500 million updates daily. It has been lauded for its ability to unsettle repressive political regimes, bring much-neededaccountability to corporations that mistreat their customers, and combat other societal ills (whether such characterizations are, in fact, accurate). Now, the company has taken aim at disrupting another important sphere of human society: the scientific research community.

Back in February, the site announced its plan—in collaboration with Gnip—to provide a handful of research institutions with free access to its data sets from 2006 to the present. It’s a pilot programcalled “Twitter Data Grants,” with the hashtag #DataGrants. At the time, Twitter’s engineering blog explained the plan to enlist grant applications to access its treasure trove of user data:

Twitter has an expansive set of data from which we can glean insights and learn about a variety of topics, from health-related information such as when and where the flu may hit to global events like ringing in the new year. To date, it has been challenging for researchers outside the company who are tackling big questions to collaborate with us to access our public, historical data. Our Data Grants program aims to change that by connecting research institutions and academics with the data they need.

In April, Twitter announced that, after reviewing the more than 1,300 proposals submitted from more than 60 different countries, it had selected six institutions to provide with data access. Projects approved included a study of foodborne gastrointestinal illnesses, a study measuring happiness levels in cities based on images shared on Twitter, and a study using geosocial intelligence to model urban flooding in Jakarta, Indonesia. There’s even a project exploring the relationship between tweets and sports team performance.

See Full Story on arstechnica.com

Are You Wasting Your Time on Twitter? Four Ways to Make It Count

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You’ve just sent your latest tweet out into the giant black hole known as the Twitter stream.

Now what?

Are you confident that the time you devote to marketing on Twitter actually pays off? And if it is paying off, how exactly?

I’ve met more than a few frustrated small-business owners who want to take advantage of all the great benefits social media marketing offers, but they just don’t know whether their time investment will get them anywhere.

Here’s the deal: If you want to see results—and I mean real, tangible, increase-your-bottom-line results—you have to have a plan of action. You need to know which activities to concentrate on so that your next tweet won’t get caught up in the current and wash away.

Here are four actions that will help you get more out of your Twitter marketing.

1. Get your website on board

The thing about marketing with social media is that you won’t make sales. I know: What’s the point, then? But before you throw you social media marketing plans in the trash, hear me out.

Twitter can land you more clients or customers, and it can help you make more money. Just not directly. If you want results from Twitter, you need to have a crucial piece of marketing in place and in top condition: your website.

Twitter is where you’re going to meet new prospects, offer helpful advice, interact, and make a positive impact. But it’s not where transactions are going to take place. After you’ve built a relationship on social media, you need to help those prospects make the transition onto your own turf: That’s where followers turn into buyers.

Your website will reinforce the brand your followers got to know on Twitter, and it will expand on that foundation by exposing people to your products or services. Your website is where you can make offers and close sales, so it’s vital that you’ve spent time creating compelling copy and a seamless visitor experience.

See Full Story on www.marketingprofs.com

Useful and Easy Gets More People Sharing Your Content

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Content marketing is an efficient way for companies to acquire new users. However, in the craze for content creation we risk forgeting the basic goal is, mostly, to generate more shares. Below are some of the lessons that we learned from working at mention on the daily online presence strategy of more than 200,000 companies.

1. Make it useful. This should go without saying, but it’s often forgotten. Your content is meant to be useful for your readers and customers. By constantly asking yourself “would it be useful to them?” you will create more powerful content people want to share.

2. Make sharing easy. The more easily shareable is your content, the more people will share it. This means using tools like ShareThis for content published on your blog and services like Click to Tweet that let people share your articles in seconds. Giving them rich content and media that improves the sharing experience itself, like images, quotes, or infographics, is also an important part of this optimization process.

3. Give them a good reason to share. You will increase the number of people sharing your content by giving them a good reason to share. Our webinars always include a special incentive, worth almost $1,000 (not too shabby), for the people who shared the most during the event. That leads to thousands of shares. Offering a good reason to share is a practical way to build excitement.

4. Reward people to encourage repeated shares. Sharers are like users. You’ll often find that the most engaged users are also the people sharing your content the most. By simply thanking all of them for sharing, using a tool like mention, you’ll dramatically increase the frequency of shares, turning your sharers (and users) into brand ambassadors.

See Full Story on www.entrepreneur.com

Here’s the entire Internet live, in one real-time infographic

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Here’s the entire Internet live, in one real-time infographic
Image Credit: John Koetsier

The Internet is a big, big, big place.

In the 200 seconds I watched the “Internet in real-time” infographic, Google ran almost a million searches and sucked up over $300,000 in revenue. Facebook users uploaded over a terabyte of data, liked something over 10.5 million times, and posted 11 million items.

People watched 78,385 hours of Netflix content, and Android users downloaded over 250,000 apps. Amazon shoppers spent over a half a million dollars, and 690 emails were sent.

Here’s the live infographic, go get mesmerized for a minute or two.

See Full Story on venturebeat.com

Here Are 80 Deeply Personal Things That Facebook Knows About You Right Now

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Beck Diefenbach / Reuters / Reuters

Nobody knows how to get you to willingly share your personal information quite like Facebook, and in light of their revamped privacy policies, here’s a by-no-means comprehensive list of what the biggest social network in the world knows about you (if you let it).

1. Your full name.
2. Your birthday.
3.Your religious views.
4. Your political views.
5. Languages you speak.
6. Your screen name (lol).
7. Your cell phone number.
8. Your favorite quotations.
9. Access to all the contacts inside your personal email account.
10. Your picture, personal photo albums.
11. Your high school.
12. What year you graduated high school.
13. If you didn’t graduate high school.
14. Your hometown.
15. Your college.

16. What year you graduated college.
17. If you didn’t graduate college.
18. Your employer.
19. Your past employers.
20. When you got engaged.
21. When you got married.
22. When you got divorced.
23. When you broke up.
24. When you were in an open relationship.
25. When it was “complicated.”

See Full Story on www.buzzfeed.com

6 Ways to Get More Pinterest Followers

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Do you want more Pinterest followers?

Have you optimized your profile, website and images for maximum exposure?

A strong Pinterest community tells others you’re a trusted source of inspiration.

In this article you’ll discover six simple ways to quickly increase your number of Pinterest followers.

#1: Verify Your Pinterest Profile

A verified Pinterest account is an important step in building your following. It’s fairly easy to do and instills trust because it confirms your account is the real deal, not a knockoff. In turn, that makes your Pinterest profile more attractive to existing and new followers.

When you’ve verified your Pinterest account, people see a checkmark next to your brand’s URL in the Pinterest profile. This checkmark especially stands out on mobile and in profile searches.

j.crew verified pinterest account

A verified account checkmark on Pinterest’s mobile app.

In addition to building trust, verifying your account gives you access to Pinterest’s analytics dashboard so you can see how your pins are doing. When you know what’s working and what’s not, you can make changes as needed.

The more you give people what they’re looking for, the more followers you’ll get.

See Full Story on www.socialmediaexaminer.com