CloudBurst Consulting

The New York Times has published a fantastic infographic laying out all the different types of personal information available from your Facebook profile.  Facebook has a history of underhanded policies meant to allow any third party to access a lot of personal information without a user’s knowledge.  There was the whole “Beacon” debacle where things you bought online could automatically be shared with everyone you are connected to on the social networking site.  Recently, they’ve rolled out new privacy rules, controls and related policy.  In fact, as the Times’ chart points out, the new privacy policy is longer than the US Constitution (minus the amendments).

In total, there are 50 settings with over 170 options for controlling how your information is shared.  Some of it, you can’t control as third parties are allowed access to your info through your friends’ profiles, which you don’t have direct control over.  Definitely check out the infographic, it’s an informative and unsettling read.  For marketers, it’s a thin line between having accurate demographic info and invasive data collection.

Facebook made an announcement a few weeks ago at a developer conference that has everyone talking – Open Graph API – which is another step toward making the web more social.

This social plugin will allow any page on the web to have all the features of a Facebook page – when a user becomes a Fan of the page, it will show up on that user’s profile and in search results.  Additionally, that page will be able to publish stories to the stream of its fans.  

And even though Facebook indicated that the announcement was more about developers than advertising, it is obvious that this is of great interest to marketers.  When the “like” information is posted on the person’s Facebook profile, marketers will be able to use the information to target advertising within Facebook.  And, marketers could then have the ability to distribute things that are happening off of Facebook on their websites, landing pages, etc.

It’s an opportune time to ensure that your company has advocates!

It should come as no big shock that a study has been released that illustrates the cost-effectiveness of inbound marketing channels.  What may not be immediately obvious: Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click advertising are only half the story – social media and blogs are the other two.  That makes it easy to determine whether you’re covering your bases.  If you’re only doing one or two of these things (assuming you’re doing them correctly), you’re probably missing out.

Don’t think like Homer, you’ll never get anywhere unless you take the first step.

Here’s the full study.

At the recent International Auto Show in New York, Hyundia unveiled an interesting little perk to go with the 2011 version of its Equus luxury sedan.  Instead of finding the traditional automobile manual in the glovebox, it’s been replaced with an iPad (although it’s not clear whether the device offered will really be a genuine iPad, however, the presentation showed an almost identical device). 

Nobody reads a 300-page manual, commented the CEO of Hyundia North America, John Krafjik.  “Instead, they’ll have a gorgeous color touchscreen loaded with the manual electronically, as well as photos of the whole Hyundia lineup.”  Interesting – now instruction manuals are serving as a brand awareness device 🙂

In addition to numeous apps that will be included, Equus owners will also be able to book a service online with the iPad.

So, if you’re interested, the car will be on sale in the States towards the end of the summer and priced somewhere around the $50,000 range … hum – think I’ll just spend the $499 and get the iPad without the car.

Twitter has finally announced how it plans to make money.  It seems to be in the form of paid ads that exist at the top of Twitter search results.  Only one ad will be displayed per search, and not 10 like on Google and Yahoo search result pages.  It’s called Promoted Tweets.  There’s a nice break down here of the features detailed so far.  The bottom line seems to be that companies aren’t sure how they might use this, outside of reputation management – especially in a PR crisis.  Although most businesses and regular folk alike didn’t know what to use Twitter for when it launched in mid-2006, and that doesn’t seem to have harmed them.  This is only the first part, Twitter apparently plans to reveal more details later on.

What do you think?  Will your business be interested in using Twitter’s new Promoted Tweets advertising?

Remember the good old days when people would ask if your business had a website … the answer would often be “no, we don’t need one.”

Flash forward … now the question is, “Does your company participate in social networking?”  Most of the time the answer is the same “no” along with “we don’t understand the benefit of social marketing nor do we have the time or resources to participate – people can just go to our website for information.” 
So let’s see if the following information might serve to give people proof that social networks are here to stay:  Marketers haven’t stopped talking about a recent ComScore report that gave us a new appreciation for how people are finding information.  Google, of course, was #1 for the month of February and YouTube ranked #2 with Yahoo coming in at #3.  Facebook and MySpace had an interesting showing of 18th and 19th place – what does all this mean?

People are participating and finding the information they seek from their peers (who they trust) in social network communities.  So how do companies compete for people’s attention in this new environment?  Get involved: It is important to ensure that a company’s information/message/promotion, etc. can be a part of relevant social communities in order to create a road back to their website. 

A recent study conducted by gigya is extremely compelling when observing that some of the top media properties were already seeing a dominant increase in referral traffic from social networks.

Get your customers attention and make it easy for them to talk about, engage and
become an advocate for your company – use social marketing opportunities so those
conversations can take place.

Amidst the noise about a certain new device from Apple, you may have missed another bit of fruit-related news: iAd.  Apple is apparently going to be releasing a mobile advertising platform, most likely the results of its acquisition of Quattro Wireless (after a failed attempt at AdMob).  There aren’t many details known but some are speculating that there will be a location-based element to the targeting, allowing advertisers a nifty way to refine their ads to users on the go.  Supposedly we’ll know more on April 7th.

In related news, sales of smartphones (or “superphones” if you’re Google) are set to eclipse regular mobile phone sales (“feature” phones) sometime at the end of next year.  It seems mobile is set to become the battleground for the next surge in interactive advertising soon, perhaps fulfilling years of empty predictions.

2011: The year mobile advertising comes into its own?

[Image credit: InventorSpot]

Increasing your client base, boosting your company’s credibility and telling people (and potential clients) about your business is what blogging is all about … however, there are companies out there that are blogging-challenged and very afraid of jumping into the blog world.

For instance, you might say “what in the world should I write about?” Well, who knows your business better than you!  Write about what’s happening in your industry, discuss your business, do case studies of client’s that you’ve helped – the topics are endless.

However, don’t forget that business blogs must be professional above all else.  Discrediting a competitor is not the place to air these types of comments.  It is important to share lessons and even focus on the positive in the negatives.

Of course, blogging should be a long-term commitment (although that word scares most people) so don’t be afraid that you might run out of ideas – never fear, ideas will come to you even if you do have temporary writer’s block.

Don’t forget that blogging doesn’t assure that you’ll start getting traffic and search engines will start to notice you.  You’ll need to start interacting on social media sites like Twitter or Facebook – posting interesting comments will engage others which will encourage them to check out your site.  You need to be present and active in order to drive traffic!

Are you afraid you won’t have the time to blog?  Well, not a problem – choose a posting frequency that fits into your schedule.  You can even consider using someone to outsource some of the writing posts if you have some extra funds.

Any investment of time and efforts into proven marketing strategies can only help build your business and create new (and engaged) customers.  So just be fearless and blog on!

State Farm agents have been using and testing Facebook for over a year now. They’re gotten to where they now understand the most effective ways to engage their audience on that platform and rolled out Facebook training throughout their whole organization. What did they learn and are now asking all of their agents to apply?

• Facebook is not the place for direct sales tactics
• Engage your current clients through Facebook through regular updates of info that would be genuinely useful
• Be an expert resource: post helpful tips and answering user questions (even if they’re not your client)
• Be available: continue to monitor and update your Facebook Page’s feed regularly (can’t just “set it and forget it”)

One great example mentioned in the article had to do with the increased amount of activity due to the recent snow storms in the Eastern US.  Many of the people affected by those storms had issues they’d never had to deal with before.  Local State Farm agents posted info on Facebook about ways to minimize damage and protect homes against an unusually high amount of snow and ice.  Some agents even received phone calls from people that weren’t even their clients (yet), proving that providing helpful info can position a company as the expert;  more available and useful than their current providers.

In related news, Facebook beat Google again last week: it surpassed the search giant to become the number-one visited website in the United States.  It’s clear: your customers and potential customers are using Facebook – are you?

According to a recent study from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center For Marketing Research, Fortune 500 companies increased their involvement of public blogs from 15% in 2008 to 22% in 2009.  That is a significant increase and a more interesting figure is that 35% have a Twitter account with four out of the top five companies posting regularly.  Integration, of course, is the key and 86% of the Fortune 500 company blogs link to their Twitter account along with three in ten blogs include a video blog with 19% featuring podcasts.

Since these companies pretty much drive the American economy, do you think they understand the importance of social media in the business world?  I’d say a resounding “yes!”