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social media

Zoetica iPhone Application Launched Today

by Stephanie Schlegel on March 12, 2010

There is no limit to the quantity of iPhone apps out there. From apps that make silly noises to apps that calculate your tip on a dinner out, the selection is almost limitless. A new app, Zoetica, launched today offers a solution for those interested in the nonprofit world (an interest of mine). The Zoetica iPhone app aggregated nonprofit tech and social change blog posts, making sure the content is at your fingertips at all times. Continuing with the nonprofit theme, the application is free of cost in the iTunes store.

What makes Zoetica different than other news aggregators is that Beth Kanter, Social Media and Nonprofit expert, hand selects the blog feeds that are ultimately aggregated into the app, ensuring the user will receive the most relevant information in the space. The app was created through a partnership with AppMakr and is in itself an example of the possible use of such a tool for a nonprofit. The service makes app development possible for groups with limited budgets and limited tech skills, something many nonprofits can use. AppMakr offers different price points that allow for almost any marketing budget to include an app in the plan.

For more information about the application as well as possible uses for nonprofits, please visit Beth Kanter’s blog

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Facebook and Omniture Making it Easier to Monetize Social Media

by Kristen Nicole on March 3, 2010

How does the advertising industry get more involved with social media? By making a deal. Omniture has strengthened its partnership with Facebook to allow for the retrieval and study of more consumer data surrounding the behavior of Facebook users. The idea is to extend more optimized solutions for marketers looking to tap into Facebook’s large and still-growing user base.

The deal will first focus on the automation of Facebook media-buying, as well as providing access to analytics measuring customer engagement. The idea, however, is for the two companies to expand their relationship even further down the line. According to TechCrunch, that could very well mean some enhancements to Onmiture’s SearchCenter Plus, which is a client search engine tool for marketing management. It aids in purchasing Facebook Ads that will offer the best return for advertisers on the vast social network.

Acquired by Adobe for $1.8 billion last year, Omniture will also be able to offer side-by-side metrics for Facebook and its other media channels, giving greater recommendations on how to best spread a given marketing campaign within the social media realm. This is a powerful tool for marketers, as the ability to dig into the data surrounding consumer behavior is a major obstacle towards the development of social media-integrated advertising.

As the very nature of advertising changes with the growing adoption of social media, consumer data and behavior is key to segmenting the necessary demographics. With advertising having to take on new methods of accessing users effectively, there will need to be more cooperation from the soical networks themselves. Of course, this really just boils down to Facebook being able to better monetize its users and their activity. All that free social networking going on, something’s gotta give.

More and more advertisers and brands are seeking ways in which to creatively integrate their message with user activity, which can sometimes be quite convenient on the users’ end. Other times, as with Facebook Beacon, the users fight back with a vengance. As Facebook continuously seeks the medium between its own initatives and the concerns of its consumers, there’s always room for improvement and backlash.

Yet deeper analytics for Facebook activity is increasingly important as Facebook looks to centralize even more of your behavior on the site. Facebook has already launched a hefty virtual goods marketplace, and it’s now looking to implement a site-wide currency that would simplify and aggregate a lot of what’s already taking place on its platform. In many ways this is a good development, particularly as such centralization makes it easier for users to interact with Facebook apps, as well as each other.

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Social Media Making a Real Life Difference for Teen Pregnancy

by Kristen Nicole on February 26, 2010

Using social media to save lives, or generally make a difference outside of the online realm, is something we don’t often think about. We theorize about it all the time, for sure. Bu actual execution is far and few between, and hardly makes for interesting news coverage when there’s other things to talk about, such as a phising scam on Twitter or a new tool launched by Google.

Nevertheless, the real-life, game-changing stories are some of the ones that interest me the most. It’s partially because the real-world effect of social media changed my own life, as it offered an outlet to the world when I had few other options. It really is the ability to connect people that are in need of advice or information that lets social media become a powerful tool, and one man is out to prove that to the rest of us.

Jonathan Akwue of Digital Public sought a way to leverage social media for the greater good, connecting people that essentially don’t want to be identified. One group in particular were teen females avoiding or dealing with unwanted pregnancy. It’s a tough topic to tackle, but it was all the more reason for Akwue to turn to social media in order to provide a safe haven for giving people information in an environment that make it easier for an audience to access and connect with.

In this way, it seems like the Internet is a solution for many of our problems concerning limited access to information or the people that may need the information the most. Yet it’s becoming more and more evident that such social media tools can in fact be used for these purposes. The far-reaching effects of social media as we know it have penetrated our culture to the point where it is no longer a foreign concept, and can be readily utilized for the purpose of seeking like minds.

The capacity of the web to develop relationships around niche user groups is another basic we rarely apply to the real-world benefits of social media, but there it is, staring us in the face. Akwue’s desire to reduce teen pregnancies resulted in a delivery method that targeted young teens and mothers in places they were willing to meet halfway, successfully making a difference for many of the individuals involved.

As social media increases its capabilities to improve targeting for the inclusion of geographic data, we’re likely to see more projects and programs that seek to utilize the web for similar just causes. I think we can mark this as a win for social media.

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Will Time Spent on Social Media Become Irrelevant?

by Kristen Nicole on February 25, 2010

How much time are we really spending on the social media, and would we even really be able to measure that? Nielsen released its report today indicating how much time we’re currently spending on social media, and it averages out to five hours per month for each user. That’s an 82% increase from last year, with the use of social media continuing to increase over the past three years.

The Nielsen study looked at social media users across ten countries, including The United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France, Japan, Australia, Spain, Brazil and the United States. It was actually Australia that won out, with its residents averaging over 6 hours per month spent on social media sites.

The stats are important to know, especially as social media becomes a hub for all sorts of intersecting channels of entertainment, correspondence and search. Nielsen’s blog post regarding this study also notes social media usage in comparison to other reasons for accessing the Internet, with social media and blogs dominating the list for the month of December 2009. Online gaming and instant-messaging were the next two reasons for logging on, giving us a good glimpse as to the reason why it’s going to be increasingly difficult to look at social media as a stand-alone category for these types of studies.

Online gaming and instant messaging are both aspects of web-based activities that are being categorically rolled into social media outlets. Social media sites such as Facebook are becoming platforms for several other facets of our online activity, whether it be a casual game or a conversation with a co-worker.

As services like Gmail incorporate chat tools, live-streaming communication portals such as Wave, and socially-engineered sharing mechanisms such as Google Buzz, the very definition of what constitutes as social media changes as well. Tack on the mobile factor, and you’ve got a pretty widespread look at what could be considered social media and its point of access.

Pretty soon it won’t be a matter of how long we’re spending on social media, but how long we’re spending on game-apps with social media, or link-sharing. How frequently are we posting to our wall or updating our status? This information will also become important as advertising continues to look to social media, offline and on, for marketing purposes.

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StuffBuff Invites: Fill Your Wallet this Holiday Season

by Kristen Nicole on December 14, 2009

StuffBuff Auction

StuffBuff launched its private beta last month, marking the onset of what the company hopes to be a new era in live auctions. Readily comparing itself directly to eBay and Craigslist, StuffBuff takes a more social approach to direct sales. The result is a series of products that bring live auction features to the web, and social networking integration options to help you carry your auctions with you across your online presence.

Seeing as the holiday season is now in full swing, we’ve had time to see that online shopping has increased from last year. Many are taking note of initiatives from the likes of eBay towards increasing holiday shopping sales, and the necessity for consumers to stick to their budget has a lot of people flocking to sites like eBay and Craigslist where they can find products at cheaper rates than full retail value.

The other factor to consider in online shopping this holiday season in particular is the level of interest in social media marketing. After dabbling in virtual goods markets last year, several retailers have re-launched similar efforts yet again. And the increased support virtual goods along with the growing level of acceptance consumers are demonstrating for virtual goods and other forms of social media marketing (which could include something along the lines of a Facebook app or a Twitter-run promo) gives retailers even more leeway than they witnessed in previous years.

All of these factors give StuffBuff ample ammo for launching its own auction service, which combines several aspects of direct market exchanges, social media integration and auctions. The ability to scan and catalog items based on their bar codes leverages technology towards the ease-of-use on the consumer end. Embeddable auctions for items you’re selling makes the auctions themselves portable and increases their visibility as you post them on various websites and social networking profiles. Multiple formats for auctions lends a sense of entertainment and convenience for participants, and easy payment options encourages sales.

The hope, of course, is that StuffBuff can gain traction and prove that its tactics are the most sensible for the way in which we currently utilize online outlets for consumer activity. The series of StuffBuff products so far supports that hope, as it considers convenience factors, time availability and current technological and social media trends. Adding an air of common sense towards the ability for an individual to empower their selling ability while still saving time and money is a major feat that StuffBuff is ready and willing to undertake.

As more of us cling to our budgets and seek better ways in which to leverage our social networks for the purpose of finding recommendations and products, StuffBuff actually wants to push new trends along and change the way in which we buy and sell products. Finding yet another way in which to monetize social media interaction could be largely beneficial for StuffBuff as well, as many other auction and classifieds services that operate as social networking applications still remain too limited to be effective.

Time will tell us if StuffBuff can pull it off. The concept is an interesting one, and the dedication to utilizing new trends and capabilities for making the use of its service easier puts StuffBuff in a good position moving forward. Feel free to try StuffBuff out for yourself. Click here and use BUB09 as the invite code upon registration.

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