FACEBOOK

FACEBOOK

What it is: It is the most popular social network with over 800 million
users. People usually build profiles to keep in touch with family and
friends. Lately it has been used by businesses as a marketing tool. On
Facebook people can send and receive messages, chat online, post pictures
and share links and videos. They can also "like" a page. There are six types
of pages: local businesses, companies, products, artists, entertainment and
community. Facebook offers many options to interact such as the Wall, photo
albums, comments space and the "like" button, where people click if they
like the comment or post. If users don't like something or someone, they
have the option of blocking the person's updates or deleting the person from
their profile.

What do you need to know: Facebook is a great way to generate customer
loyalty and there are many ways to do it. But because it's a very personal
network, people don't appreciate when businesses overload their pages with
information or un-wanted promotions and they usually block the pages if that
happens. The best way to increase interaction is by sharing useful content,
asking customers' opinions and giving quick answers - Facebook users really
expect you to reply A.S.A.P. In other words, show you care about them and
they'll care about you.

Vocabulary you need to know:

Wall - page where people post and receive comments;

NewsFeed - page where Facebook shows the users what is going on with friends
and pages they like. It shows popular posts first and then most recent ones.

my motto is "Keep it simple" and "don't leave anything for tomorrow that can
be done today."

If you have any questions or comments please contact me.

Regards Gerald

Website: http://www.webcraft.ws
E-mail: gerald@webcraft.ws
Twitter: WebcraftGuru
Facebook: Webcraft Guru


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Facebook Good Way to Interact With Brands

Facebook Good Way to Interact With Brands

A brand's Facebook page can be more useful than its website, according to a
recent study.

Of the 87 percent of Facebook users who 'like' brands on the social media
site, 50 percent prefer the brand's Facebook page over the company's
website, a study by Lab42 found.

"Only five years ago, the term 'like' was just another word used to describe
one's preferences," reads the Lab42 blog. "In today's digital universe,
however, the notion of 'liking' something has become ubiquitous.

"Liking is one of the primary ways people exert their tastes and preferences
online, and it has created an entirely new type of conversation - one
between consumers and brands."

In fact, 82 percent of people polled described Facebook as a good place to
interact with brands, while 35 percent feel brands listen to them more on
Facebook.

Seventy-five percent said Facebook makes them feel more connected to brands
while 69 percent said they have liked a brand because a friend has done so.

Most Facebook users 'like' brands to receive something in return such as
promos, discounts or free giveaways. Only 14 percent said they clicked 'like'
out of loyalty to the brand.

Seventy-seven percent of users said they saved money after 'liking' a brand
on Facebook, with 66 percent saving $20 or more in the previous year and 17
percent saving $100 or more, the report found.

Other findings included:

. 46 percent 'liked' a brand with no intention to buy.

Of those:

. 52 percent wanted a free item.

. 46 percent 'like,' but can't afford.

. 24 percent 'liked' to help friend.

Seventy-three percent of Facebook users have disliked a brand because the
brand posted too frequently, they no longer like the brand or because of a
bad customer experience.

Forty-seven percent of social media users who don't like brands said
newsfeed clutter was the key reason, while one-third don't want to be
contacted by brands. Three out of 10 say they avoid liking brands because of
privacy concerns.

my motto is "Keep it simple" and "don't leave anything for tomorrow that can
be done today."

If you have any questions or comments please contact me.

Regards Gerald

Website: http://www.webcraft.ws
E-mail: gerald@webcraft.ws
Twitter: WebcraftGuru
Facebook: Webcraft Guru


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Facebook vs. Twitter

Ever wondered what kind of people are using social media in South Africa?

A recent study has shed some light on our country's techno-savvy, uncovering
some rather fascinating findings about everything from how active users are,
to times certain websites get the most visits, and even what exactly people
are getting up to at any given moment!

For example, did you know that the biggest percentage of South Africans on
Facebook are over 60? Yup, that's right!

So although you might find your mom's comments and pictures totally
embarrassing, the older folk are the biggest group of users in the country.
Kind of impressive, don't you agree?

The South African Social Media Landscape 2012 study, produced by technology
market researchers World Wide Worx and information analysts Fuseware, also
shows that South Africa has crossed the age barrier, the urban/rural divide
and even the relationship gap.

Here are some more figures:

. 5.33-million South Africans are using Facebook on the Web

. 6.8-million people access Facebook on their phones.

. Twitter gets 100 000 new users a month, with a total of 2,43-million
South African users.

. Mxit is used by whopping 9,35-million people

. LinkedIn has grown substantially, but at a slightly lower rate, to
reach 1,93-million South Africans.

. Pinterest is the least popular (and youngest) major social network,
with only 150 000 users in South Africa.

. WhatsApp has become the leading instant messaging tool among South
Africans aged 16 and over, living in cities and towns, with a user base of
4,6-million.

. The youngest mobile instant messaging tool to emerge on the measurement
radar in South Africa, 2Go, has close to a million adult users

. The most common "Check In" sites for Facebook in South Africa are
airports and shopping malls.

. The biggest tweeting day of the week is a Monday, with an average of
9,6-million tweets sent by South Africans on the first working day of the
week. Friday is next, with 9.6-million, while Saturday is the slowest
Twitter day, with 8,4-million tweets.

. Both Facebook and Twitter have crossed the urban/rural divide. The
proportion of urban adults using Facebook is a little less than double rural
users while Twitter's urban penetration is a little more than double its
rural penetration.

. Both Facebook and Twitter have grown at a similar rate, at around 100
000 new users a month, for the past year.

my motto is "Keep it simple" and "don't leave anything for tomorrow that can
be done today."

If you have any questions or comments please contact me.

Regards Gerald

Website: http://www.webcraft.ws
E-mail: gerald@webcraft.ws
Twitter: WebcraftGuru
Facebook: Webcraft Guru


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Facebook Traffic Rules

Facebook Traffic Rules

Here are 10 statistics your Facebook Insights tell you about driving traffic
to your website:

1. The post type that drives the most traffic - Insights provides statistics
to analyze your content by post type; posts made directly on your page,
photos, links, videos, questions, posts from 3rd party apps. This data will
allow you to see which type of post generates the most engagement.

2. The gender and age of the people who like your page - Insights provides
statistics for how many females and males overall and the percentages of
each within 6 age brackets: 13-17, 18-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54 and 55+. This
data shows you which age bracket is most interested in your content.

3. Which countries liked your page the most - Insights provides statistics
for the top countries with the highest number of people who liked your page
during a specific period of time. This data provides a guide to making
decisions about marketing to different countries.

4. Which cities sent the most traffic - Insights provides statistics for the
top cities with the highest number of people who liked your page during a
specific period of time. This shows you which city has the most interest in
your content.

5. The most popular language of your traffic - Insights provides the number
of people who "Liked" your page during a specific time period broken down by
the top languages. This data show you the most popular language your
visitors speak.

6. Which post engaged your users the most - Insights provides the number of
unique people who have clicked on your post. The clicks are tracked up to 28
days after your post was originally published. You can view these statistics
for all post types or by a specific post. This data tells you which type of
post generates the most engagement from your traffic so you can create more
of that format.

7. Where your Likes came from - Insights provides statistics on "Like"
sources. You can see the number of times your page was liked, broken down by
where the like happened. Likes can happen in different places including your
Page, from News Feeds or on your website. This data can tell you which
source provided the most traffic to your page.

8. How many people unliked your page - Insights provides statistics on the
total number of unique people who unliked your page each day for a specific
period of time. This data gives you an idea of which type of post caused
people to unlike your page.

9. How many people your content reached - Insights provides statistics on
the number of unique people who were friends with the people who liked your
pages on a specific date - the number of uniques who have seen any content
associated with your page. This data tells you the total reach potential
your post had for your visitors and their friends.

10. Who is talking about your page - Insights provides statistics about the
percentage of people who share your info from each age and gender bracket.
The number of people who talked about your page is broken down by country
and city. This data tells you the number of unique people who shared your
post and the viral reach of your post.

If you have 30 people or more who have liked your Facebook Business Page,
you can access Insights to view your traffic activity.

my motto is "Keep it simple" and "don't leave anything for tomorrow that can
be done today."

If you have any questions or comments please contact me.

Regards Gerald

Website: http://www.webcraft.ws
E-mail: gerald@webcraft.ws
Twitter: WebcraftGuru
Facebook: Webcraft Guru


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Facebook for Business

Facebook for Business

Facebook, of course, is the biggie. If you want to build long-term
relationships with your customers, convert one-time buyers into loyal fans,
and attract new customers, Facebook is where you should spend the bulk of
your time.

According to Facebook, more than 900 million people are active on the
website - and users like and comment to the tune of 3.2 billion times every
day. A strong presence on the platform will help ensure you get a piece of
that action. How? When your biz has become part of the conversation on
Facebook, you're getting one of the most powerful kinds of advertising on
the planet - viral word-of-mouth.

To get started, here's the official word from one of Facebook's business
help pages:

Image 1:

You can create traditional ads or advertise special offers that fans can
claim to encourage participation on your page. Facebook tries to help your
business gain as much exposure as possible by making friends eligible to
view fans' interaction with your page.

What's really cool about Facebook is that the recent IPO has caused
Zuckerberg and Co. to ramp up the tools, advertising options, and customer
service offered to businesses. You get the sweet end of that deal, and you
can expect more gadgets and goodies to come in the months going forward.

my motto is "Keep it simple" and "don't leave anything for tomorrow that can
be done today."

If you have any questions or comments please contact me.

Regards Gerald

Website: http://www.webcraft.ws
E-mail: gerald@webcraft.ws
Twitter: WebcraftGuru
Facebook: Webcraft Guru


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Tactics for Social Media

Tactics for Social Media

Social media marketing has become an incredible power in the world of online
marketing. And why not? With an estimated 65% of Americans reporting that
they utilize social media sites, these types of networking hubs have become
the perfect place to reach out to any type of audience you wish to target.

Social media sites also allow businesses, big and small, to show a more
personal side of their brand. These sites open up different avenues to
creatively reach current and potential customers. Many brands put their own
videos, photos, articles and even coupons on their social media sites to
encourage engagement and boost sales.

However, each of these sites feature different ways to reach out to a broad
audience. In order to properly utilize this area of SEO, social media
marketing must be approached in a smart and strategic way. Some of the top
social media sites include Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Depending on the
type of business you run and the overall goal you have for your social media
campaign, not all of these sites may perfectly help you convey your business
message and overall philosophy. Below are some brief outlines of what types
of marketing campaigns each of these sites works best for, followed by some
helpful tips to boost engagement on each specific social media site.

Facebook

Facebook is a social networking site that allows companies to create "Pages"
to represent their brand. With the semi-recent transition to the timeline
format, Facebook brand pages read almost like a yearbook of accomplishments
for the company. Facebook is ideal for companies that are looking to create
a more personal and open relationship with their clients. Many companies
post photos and videos of new products, employee events and updates to their
page. Facebook also allows brands to host contests and conduct polls.

Tips for Engagement

1. Post at the Right Time of Day - Studies have shown that more people are
active on Facebook during the weekdays. Many studies have also shown that
posting between 11am-4pm EST is the most effective.

2. Ask a Question - Status updates that ask for the opinion of your fans
typically illicit more likes and comments. People like to share their
thoughts and feel that they have an influence on the brands they love.

3. Utilize Visuals, but Keep it Simple - It's important to not just make
posts that are purely words. Relevant photos, videos, and other graphics
have been shown to increase fan engagement. But it is important to keep
these posts simple. Fans tend to become less engaged if you post multiple
photos in a row, so choose wisely, and give your fans time to enjoy each
unique post.

Twitter

Twitter is a 140-character playroom for celebrities, brands, politicians and
many others to express their thoughts and promote ideas in a quick and
simple way. Twitter gives you the ability to design a personal page with a
photo, 140-character biography and complete control over the background
wallpaper. Twitter's simplicity is why so many people use it to quickly
catch up on news from friends, their favorite companies and even their
horoscope. Twitter is ideal for companies that wish to share quick links
back to their website or blog, promotions, and reach particular groups or
people through the use of hashtags and direct messaging.

Tips for Engagement

1. Pay Attention to Hashtag Trends - When you are exploring your Twitter
homepage, pay special attention to the lower left hand corner of the page.
There you will see a small list of terms marked with a "#" and labeled
"Trending Now." These terms are called "hashtags" and they are used to group
together tweets sent out on the same topic. Be sure to pay attention to
these and when you see any that pertain to your business, include them in a
Tweet with a link back to your website.

2. "RT to Support!" - The "Retweet" is a great way to increase engagement
and gain more followers. When someone "retweets" something you post, it
becomes visible to all of his or her followers, and it can continue to move
from there. Adding "RT to Support" or some other variation like #RT or
#Retweet will help encourage others to retweet your post and therefore lead
to more retweets and visibility for your brand.

Google+

Google+ is an interesting combination of professional and playful. In some
ways, it works like Facebook, allowing you to provide status updates and
post on your friends' pages. However, it has some other features unique to
Google+ that allow it to be used as a purely professional resource as well.
With Google+ you can separate people into different groups making it easy to
create targeted messages based on who you want to see them. Google+ is best
for companies that wish to target different types of people and also for
those looking for a social networking site that combines playful and
professional.

Tips for Engagement

1. Use the "Circle" Feature - This feature allows you to group people on
your friends list and send specific marketing messages to them.

2. Comment Often - Be sure to engage with others. When someone shares an
article pertinent to your industry, thank him or her and share the link on
your own page. Hopefully they will return the favor.

3. Be Sure to Checkout Hangouts - Different brands will host video chats or
"live-streaming hangouts" to help connect better with fans. Attend often and
consider hosting your own.

By utilizing these social media sites for the correct purpose and in the
right way, you can significantly impact your online marketing goals. Knowing
the direction to go in will help you work smarter, not harder and put you
far ahead of the competition.

my motto is "Keep it simple" and "don't leave anything for tomorrow that can
be done today."

If you have any questions or comments please contact me.

Regards Gerald

Website: http://www.webcraft.ws
E-mail: gerald@webcraft.ws
Twitter: WebcraftGuru
Facebook: Webcraft Guru


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Learning From Facebook's Mistakes

Learning From Facebook's Mistakes

Observers of Internet trends often pronounce that privacy is a fiction and
that it is futile to try to reclaim it. Whether that perspective is correct
or not does not matter when faced with a Complaint issued by the Federal
Trade Commission (FTC). The Facebook Complaint and Consent Order recently
issued by the FTC provides valuable lessons for how to stay out of the FTC's
crosshairs. Internet attorneys, businesses, consultants and advisors should
study what the FTC views as deceptive in order to make necessary adjustments
to business plans and operations.

In the U.S., there is no federal law that requires a website to have a
privacy policy. However, California requires any website that collects
personally identifiable information from California residents to have a
privacy policy. Therefore, in practice, based upon the California law, most
websites would be required to have a privacy policy. As far as the FTC is
concerned (which operates on the federal level), there is no absolute
requirement to have a privacy policy, but if a website does have a privacy
policy, failure to comply with the policy will be considered a deceptive
practice in violation of the FTC Act. As will be explored below, the FTC is
not shy at splitting hairs, in search of deceptive practice claims.

Below is a discussion of some of the more significant and relevant claims of
deceptive practices alleged by the FTC Complaint. It should be noted that in
the FTC Consent, Facebook denied all allegations.

1. Facebook privacy pages offered options to restrict profile information to
"Only Friend" or "Friends of Friends". However, even when such options were
selected, Facebook often still provided profile information to an
application that a Friend was using on their Facebook page. Such information
included a user's birthday, hometown, activities, interests, status updates,
marital status, education (e.g., schools attended), place of employment,
photos, and videos. Even though Facebook allowed users to restrict this
access through other pages, Facebook nevertheless represented, according to
the FTC, either expressly or by implication, that access could be limited to
"Friends" or "Friends of Friends" on the Profile Privacy Page, and did not
indicate that further actions would be required to restrict access to
applications of friends.

LESSON: As seen by the above claim, a disconnect between the Privacy Policy
and the technical personnel implementing strategies can result in a claim by
the FTC for deceptive practices. Furthermore, statements in a Privacy Policy
must be vetted to verify that they do not claim, or appear to claim, a
higher level of privacy than is actually provided.

2. In November, 2009, Facebook changed its privacy policy to designate
certain user information as "publicly available" which change applied
retroactively to information provided by users prior to the change. For
instance, many users selected privacy settings to (i) restrict profile
information from applications used by a Friend, (ii) restrict their Friends
List, and (iii) restrict access to profile pictures and pages from users
using the "search" function . To implement the privacy changes, Facebook
required each user to click through a multi-page notice, known as the
"Privacy Wizard." According to the FTC, the Privacy Wizard did not disclose
adequately that users no longer could restrict access to the
newly-designated publicly available information via their profile privacy
settings or that their existing choices to restrict access to such
information via these settings would be overridden.

The FTC alleged that the Privacy Wizard, either explicitly or by
implication, indicated that users would have "more control" over their
privacy settings, above the prior settings. Which the FTC claimed was not
the case. Facebook did not adequately explain that the new changes overrode
prior settings as to name, profile picture, gender, friend list, pages, or
networks. The FTC claimed that Facebook's failure to adequately disclose
these facts, in light of the representations made, constituted a deceptive
act or practice.

LESSON: Changes made retroactively to prior privacy settings without
informed consent, amounts to an unfair act or practice. The FTC requires
that (i) material changes to a Privacy Policy be conspicuously disclosed,
(ii) users affirmatively opt-in to material changes that affect personally
identifiable information previously collected, and (iii) material changes to
Privacy Policies be explained clearly and truthfully. As a note, the
simplest way to obtain affirmative consent is the next time a user comes to
the website, he or she is directed to an explanatory process and given the
option to consent to the new changes.

3. The FTC Complaint states numerous examples of statements from Facebook
that even though non-identifiable information is shared with advertisers so
that they can provide advertisements targeted to the particular user,
personally-identifying information is never provided to an advertiser
without prior consent of the user. However, the FTC noted that if ads were
clicked, then Facebook would provide to the advertiser a unique ID that
Facebook assigns to each user. Apparently, advertisers could use the ID to
identify the person. Then they could match criteria that they had selected
for serving ads to that person. (e.g., if the ad targeted 23-year-old men
who were "Interested In" men and "liked" a prescription drug, the advertiser
could ascribe these traits to a specific user), plus the date, time and ad
visited. Over time additional traits could be identified.

LESSON: This Claim is the easiest to understand and comply with. Personally
identifiable information can only be disclosed as set forth in a Privacy
Policy or in a manner otherwise consented to by the user.

BOTTOM LINE: Privacy Policies must be carefully drafted, and be clear and
accurate. Management and technical personnel should review and confirm the
contents of the Privacy Policy. Privacy Policies should be regularly
reviewed to verify that procedural or technical changes are reflected in the
Privacy Policy. Material changes to a Privacy Policy that affect previously
collected personal user information require affirmative consent from the
users. As a result of the FTC Consent, Facebook is now subject to detailed
scrutiny and reporting for the next 20 years. It's important to keep up with
changing Internet laws.

If you have any questions or comments please contact me.

Regards Gerald

Website: http://www.webcraft.ws
E-mail: gerald@webcraft.ws
Twitter: WebcraftGuru
Facebook: Webcraft Guru


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