Facebook has released a new app called Pages Manager, which will allow you to create posts, view recent fan activity, and access engagement statistics from your mobile device.

Through Facebook’s current app, you must first log in to your personal account before you’re able to access any of the Pages you manage. This not only creates a security concern for larger companies, but it’s also inefficient.

Based on screenshots provided to 9to5Mac, Pages Manager is similar in design to the social network’s existing iOS app, but removes any features not related to Pages.

The app is currently only available through iTunes in select regions. Facebook has yet to comment on when the U.S. will receive access. It’s also unclear if the company has an Android app in the works.

While this adds yet another app to your already crowded iPhone, we expect that it will managing multiple Pages much easier for social media and community managers.

[Via: The Verge, Image credit: Ian Rutherford]

According to research from RJ Metrics, the average post on Google+ has less than one reply, reshare, and +1, which is way below activity on Facebook and Twitter.

The company looked at the public comments of 40,000 Google+ members and found that 30 percent of individuals who make a public post once never do so again, and the average time between posts is 12 days for active users.

Engagement is significantly lagging behind that of competitors. The Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 52 percent of Facebook users and 33 percent of Twitter users interact with the platform daily.

Google — which boasts 180 million Google+ users — argues that the research is flawed stating, “By only tracking engagement on public posts, this study is flawed and not an accurate representation of all the sharing and activity taking place on Google+.”

It’s possible that a majority of activity is taking place privately with specific Circles, but this isn’t the first time the platform has been called a ghost town. In January, comScore found that individuals spent 7.5 hours on Facebook, whereas the average Google+ user spent only 3.3 minutes on the site. Even MySpace — which hasn’t been a major player since the early 2000′s — has beaten Google+ with its users averaging eight minutes per month.

If you’re currently using Google+ to interact with your community and you’re happy, don’t change a thing. But if you find yourself going weeks without interaction, it might be time to invest your energy elsewhere.

[Via: Mashable, Image credit: Matt P.]

The bad news is that there are still some pitfalls. Whether it’s a problem specific to Timeline or simply a less than ideal approach to customer interactions, here are a few mistakes that we’ve found companies making on Facebook. Use Timeline more effectively for your businesses by avoiding what these brands have done.

1. Making Questionable Choices in Cover Photos

Changes related to Cover photos is perhaps the biggest source of trouble in the new Timeline layout. Facebook announced several new rules about how companies could use the visual storytelling elements. Now, direct calls to action and discussion of products, prices, and so on, are prohibited. But remember, just because there are new restrictions doesn’t mean your Cover photo should be boring. It’s the biggest image a visitor sees when arriving at your Page, and that first impression counts!

Many of the questionable photo choices are made by smaller companies that may not have the budgets to invest in a flashy, custom-made designs. For instance, DGdesign has a cover photo that looks like a copy and paste job in a basic photo editor. Another ineffective choice is the photo for Pardot. The image is more about trying to decipher text than being wowed by a powerful image. Especially for a marketing company, making a bad choice in your Facebook Cover photo will reflect poorly on your image.

To avoid trouble with your Cover photo, think simple. If you don’t have the resources to create a graphic yourself or to pay a designer, then don’t. Taking a photo of your team, office, or products keeps the focus squarely on your business. If you want to find a fancier image, check out Creative Commons sources for a photo that you can use for free (with the proper attribution). Just be sure that your cover photo will help you, rather than hinder you.

2. Overusing Internal Facebook Applications

Facebook has plenty of handy features to help keep your Page fresh and interesting, but be wary of too much of a good thing. Toyota USA used the Question app to conduct polls four times over the course of a single weekend. If you like the idea of surveying your fans, then space out when you ask those questions. Also, remember that your fans may not be able to converse about the polling answers. The Questions app actually offers less room for people to talk and share than an open-ended status post. All your fans can do with this app is press a button and watch other responses.

Another way your can overuse Facebook technologies is to make Pages for too many of your business branches and locations. Whole Foods Market, often a leader in the social media sphere, has unique Pages for several of its store locations.

While this is a good way to share information about store-specific deals or merchandise, finding the most relevant Page can be complicated. The main corporate Page isn’t even listed among the top search hits, and there’s no guarantee that your closest branch will be a top hit either. Be alert to the possible pitfalls of diversifying your Facebook presence too far.

3. Posting Repetitive Content

Your fans want to see material that’s new and relevant on your Page. Deviating too far from your core services for too long raises red flags for a reader. For instance, posts from Bank of America frequently seem to go on unrelated tangents that take over the company’s Page. The bank regularly tries to ask its fans about their volunteering. These posts usually have less fan engagement than the ones focused more directly on Bank of America’s business, or posts that are just about the company’s charitable efforts. If the content isn’t relevant and is repetitive, readers will tire of it quickly.

Another offender here is fashion company Forever 21. Its Facebook Page usually has several new posts a day, most of which are light on content and heavy on product photos. Updates usually are swamped with comments, but many of them criticize the items shown and several comments tend to be spam. For an effective and useful Timeline Page, quality should trump quantity every time.

Have you caught any mistakes happening in the transition to Timeline? Let us know in the comments!

[Image credits: Tuomas Puikkonen, Scott McLeod, Ksayer1, Feral78]

To that end, we’re pleased to present a new series on Sprout Insights: Spotlight on Startups. We’ll find the most innovative, useful start-up companies out there, get the inside track on what they’re doing, and tell you how you can leverage their products and services for your own business.

This week we’re pleased to cast the spotlight on Parking Panda — an online, parking-space marketplace based in Baltimore, MD.

What Is Parking Panda?

Parking Panda is an online, real-time marketplace for renting empty parking spaces. Its goal is to take the hassle out of finding parking spots in cities across America.

Individuals, businesses, and even underutilized commercial parking lots can list their available parking spaces for rent on ParkingPanda.com. You set your own price for the space, upload a picture and location, and Parking Panda adds the unit to its online inventory of parking spaces for rent.

People who need to park their cars can reserve suitable spaces by searching for their preferred locations on the site. There’s a mobile version available too, just in case you hadn’t reserved a space in advance but find yourself in need of a parking space in real-time. Users pay online with their credit cards, the providers of the parking spaces get paid, and Parking Panda takes a cut for providing the service. You might say it’s a win-win-win situation.

Parking Panda is currently available in Baltimore, MD, and Washington, DC. It has plans to expand to more cities across the U.S. You can sign up on the site to be alerted when Parking Panda comes to a city near you. Check out Parking Panda’s video for a more detailed (and fun) explanation of how the service works.

What Needs Does it Address?

Nick Miller, Co-Founder and CEO of Parking Panda says that the “collaborative consumption movement” — an economic model based on sharing, swapping, bartering, trading or renting products — inspired the creation of this service.

If you’ve ever lived in a large urban area, he says, you’ve probably experienced the frustration of trying to find a parking space — especially in the downtown core of a large city. “We took something that is typically frustrating and boring — parking — and we made it easy and fun,” says Miller.

In the process he’s come up with an ingenious way to monetize a product (empty parking spaces) that typically would go unused. He’s also provided a valuable service for city dwellers who want to take their vehicles to events but don’t want the hassle of fighting over limited public parking spaces. In essence, this is a perfect entrepreneurial example of a service elegantly resolving a need.

How You Can Leverage Parking Panda

The most obvious way of leveraging Parking Panda is to actually avail of the service in the cities in which it operates. As Parking Panda expands to other cities, however, Mr. Miller says that, “we’re always looking for partners that can add value to our service, and where our service can add value to our partners.”

For example, Parking Panda provides a discount to businesses like restaurants, sports venues, and so on that display a Parking Panda link and logo on their websites. “This helps the businesses, their customers, and us,” explains Miller. He says that by displaying a link to the Parking Panda website, businesses encourage customers to visit their locations; parking spaces nearby can easily be located through a location-based link to the Parking Panda website.

Though the site doesn’t currently display any advertising, Miller doesn’t rule that idea out as the site expands to include more and more urban areas. By definition, users of Parking Panda are looking to park their cars to attend to an event, engagement, or errand, so the option to advertise complementary products and services seems to be a good fit all around.

Finally, Parking Panda may serve as an inspiration to other businesses, start-ups or entrepreneurs looking for creative ways to identify and address consumer needs that are currently not being met. As Nick Miller says, sometimes success can be found simply by looking at something that was a problem and figuring out how to turn it into a solution.

What do you think? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.

[Image credits: Parking Panda, Parking Panda(FB)]

In March, Google announced its plan to provide you with more relevant results through semantic search — which refers to the process of understanding the meaning of words.

Previously, if you searched for “kings,” Google didn’t know if you meant royalty, a sports team, or a TV series, so it displayed results for all of them. Moving forward, a box will appear and you will be asked to clarify your search and your results will be filtered based on your answer.

Once Google knows what you’re looking for, that box will become a resource itself, including descriptions and relevant key facts. If Google gets something wrong, you can report a problem directly from the box. The company will monitor corrections and update its database to prevent future errors. It will also generate a report for outside data sources like Wikipedia.

Going back to our example in our previous report: If you search for “the tallest buildings in the U.S.,” Google will not only understand your request, but will also return a more valuable list, including the height, location, and history for each building.

It’s important to note that this update will have little effect on Search Plus Your World. When you search for someone, the Knowledge Graph will identify Google+ Profiles as that person, but that’s about it for now.

Google’s Knowledge Graph is rolling out to English-language U.S. users on desktop, mobile, and table searches. Native Google Search apps and additional countries and languages are coming soon.

[Via: ReadWriteWeb, Image credit: Meneame Comunicacions]

AmEx is using cardholders’ purchase histories and location to determine the most relevant offer. Merchants can use My Offers as an opportunity to reach new customers, or you can extend the offer to everyone. Additionally, you’re able to create loyalty-based offers for repeat customers.

Staff training is not required since AmEx handles the processing of discounts. Your customers just need to swipe their card to pay; there’s no coupon required.

Currently AmEx is focused on attracting “as many small businesses as possible” and will not charge to participate. The company is focusing on New York and Los Angeles right now, and didn’t mention when it plans on expanding.

Considering the daily deals space is very crowded, it will be interesting to see how successful AmEx’s My Offers will be. The credit card company is no stranger to local initiatives as it has teamed up with social networks like Twitter and Foursquare in the past to support small businesses.

[Via: The Next Web, Image credit: Clemson]

Facebook

Previously, Facebook used this data to determine what appears in members’ News Feeds, but you were unable to view these insights or track your performance over time.

Facebook’s app ratings dashboard will display how individuals have rated your app on a scale of one to five stars. You’re able to view the ratings across several different demographics, including age and gender, country, and locale.

The negative feedback metric will show you how many times people have chosen to hide stories from your app, reported stories as spam, or blocked your app completely. Insights will also include the ratio of negative feedback to total impressions.

The new app ratings and negative feedback will also help determine which apps appear in the company’s recently announced App Center — which highlights apps with the highest ratings, engagement, session length, and voluntary sharing.

Additional insight into how your app is performing is extremely beneficial, considering prior to this you were only able to track your overall rating. When it comes to measuring growth, negative feedback can be just as helpful as positive.

[Via: Inside Facebook, Image credit: kliverap]

When deciding what image to include for your company’s Cover there are many factors to consider. One factor that is frequently overlooked, and can get you into trouble, is legality. It’s important to make sure you have legal permission to use the image you choose. Here are some great resources you can use to find the right (and legal) image for your Page.

1. Creative Commons

If you haven’t heard of Creative Commons you’re missing out. Whenever an individual creates something, be it written word, music, or images, it is automatically covered by copyright law. This means that if someone else wants to use or modify this work, he or she needs explicit approval from the original copyright holder. Creative Commons, however, is a system that allows creators who want their work to be shared and reused to grant permission without the need for direct contact with the publisher of the content. Some restrictions may still apply to the copyright, however, such as attribution.

The popular photo-hosting site Flickr offers and maintains one of the largest Creative Commons databases in the world and can be a great place to find images. If you are unsure of usage rights for an image you can always message the responsible Flickr member and get his or her permission directly.

2. Public Domain

While organizations like movie studios have worked hard to prevent it from happening, copyrights do eventually expire. Copyright expiration varies from country to country but once something is no longer protected by copyright, it falls into the public domain. This means that anyone is free to use the work, in any way he or she sees fit, without getting the permission of its owners or crediting its author.

Copyright holders can also relinquish their rights. For example, most content created by the U.S. government is considered public domain. Flickr, again, offers a great resource to find public domain images in an area it calls “The Commons,” (unrelated to “Creative Commons”).

3. Your Employees

While legally using other people’s work can be great, it may not fit your brand closely enough. Another way to get creative with your Cover image is to open it up to your employees’ images.

A great example is The Impossible Project. Impossible is a company that makes instant film for vintage Polaroid cameras. The team at Impossible uses its Facebook Cover photo to feature not only the company’s products but the work of its employees as well. This gives a fun, interesting, personal touch to its Page. The Cover image also gives you an instant impression of the people behind the Impossible Project and what the brand stands for.

4. Your Company Archive

If your company has been around for some time, you likely have graphics from old products or advertising campaigns. These can make for fun conversation starters and celebrate your company’s rich history.

Mobile phone manufacturer Motorola has embraced a similar approach by using old graphics throughout its Timeline to celebrate important dates and product launches in the company’s history.

5. Your Customers

Finally, another great resource might be your customers themselves. American wireless carrier Verizon took this route by offering its customers the option to submit photographs taken on their Verizon phones. Participants could win prizes or have their best picture featured as Verizon’s Cover image.

When it comes to choosing an image for your Facebook Timeline Cover, creative solutions can be fun for your customers and great for your brand. In each case, it’s advisable to consult with a copyright lawyer to make sure that you and the copyright holders of the images are appropriately protected.

[Image credits: John Fowler, Peter Shanks, The Library of Congress, The Impossible Project, Motorola, Verizon]

The email digest, which will start appearing in inboxes over the next few weeks, will look similar to Twitter’s mobile Discover tab. Each story will feature a summary below it to help you decide which ones matter most.

Similar to its mobile experience, you can continue reading a story by clicking on its headline, share your thoughts by tweeting directly from the email, or view related Tweets from people you follow.

The digest will also feature the “most engaging” Tweets viewed by the people you follow, even if you don’t follow those that created them. Additionally, you’ll be able to retweet, favorite, reply, or view the threaded conversation by clicking “View details.”

We’re not so sure how valuable this digest will be. It’s possible that it will help to extend the relevance of certain Tweets that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. It’s also fair to assume that many individuals will turn off email notifications.

[Via: Mashable, Image credit: Maria Hagglof]

This week we’re profiling a real-world Twitter Success Story from Party Biz Connect — a social media marketing company that throws “Twitter Parties” on behalf of its clients. Successes for Party Biz clients include impressive stats like a 32 percent increase in sales, a membership launch that generated over $25,000 in sales, and more.

What is a Twitter Party?

At Sprout Insights, we’ve written about the value of using Twitter chats for building conversations around particular topics. However, Karl Staib, owner of Party Biz Connect, wondered if there was something he could add to the chat concept to increase engagement with his audience even further. Karl says that, “when it comes to increasing engagement with your target audience, the more of the five senses that you an incorporate in your marketing, the better.” This realization led him to the idea of combining visually-based Twitter chats with teleconference voice conversations, and the concept of Twitter Parties was born.

“The object of a Twitter Party is to engage with people, earn their trust and let people share you or your business with their friends. It’s a great way to sell something without the hard sell,” says Staib. “The beauty of a Twitter party,” he adds, “is that you get the audio [teleconference] and visual interaction [Twitter stream] — that’s what gets people interested in what you have to say”.

Successes Worth Celebrating

The Twitter Party concept appears to be very effective for Party Biz clients. According to Mr. Staib, a recent Twitter Party for authors Danielle LaPorte and Linda Sivertsen, promoting their “Your Big Beautiful Book Plan” seminar, generated over 1,300 tweets and 67 unit sales over the course of the Twitter Party campaign. Party Biz Connect promotes Parties one week before and one week after the actual events.

Staib cites another example of a Twitter Party used to promote Internet marketer, Barbara Sher, and her new membership-based program. Party Biz Connect hosted her Twitter Party on April 28th. By midnight on April 30th, only two days after the Party (and still within the post Party promotion), Sher sold 147 memberships — over $26,000 in sales — from that one promotion.

The success of any individual Twitter Party will vary, of course, depending on the product, service, or individual being promoted. All of Staib’s clients are given a comprehensive plan to capitalize on the buzz generated from the Twitter Party and to keep the marketing momentum going even after the Party is over.

Takeaways From Party Biz Connect

One of the keys to successful selling is to make your sales pitch so transparent that it doesn’t seem like a pitch at all. This is especially true in the world of social media where overt selling tactics are generally frowned upon and avoided by the majority of the participants. Promoting your product, service or event around the concept of a party — where all of the participants get to know you by getting to know each other — is a novel approach which may work for your brand.

Have a Twitter Success Story of your own? If so, we’d like to hear from you.

[Image credit: Party Biz Connect]

The social network quietly introduced a redesign — which is being rolled out today — for its mobile site and iOS and Android apps that makes photos three times larger.

Taking cues from newly acquired Instagram, single images on Facebook now appear at full width so there’s less need to interrupt News Feed browsing by opening and closing photos.

One of Facebook’s major weaknesses going into its IPO was its lack of mobile adequacy. Although the company boasted more than 425 million monthly active mobile users in December, it was doing little in terms of advertising and ensuring retention.

Earlier this year, Facebook eliminated unnecessary steps needed to interact with News Feed items by placing the Like and comment buttons in a single bar below each post. The company hoped this would speed up content consumption and increase engagement.

Although some argue that there’s simply too much to pack into Facebook’s mobile experience, we think that members will be pleased with this latest design update. If anything, it’ll give individuals a better opportunity to gauge the relevance of a News Feed item before clicking on it.

[Via: VentureBeat, Image credit: Johan Larsson]

Specifically, the social network has increased the size of certain Sponsored Stories in News Feeds by adding a recent post from that Facebook Page.

Previously, you were unable to feature Page posts in the News Feed unless an individual’s friend took action on that particular post. Now, a recent post will be displayed with every Page-Like story.

While this version takes up more space, it can be argued that it’s less noticeable than the previous iteration, which included a large profile image and a list of friends that have Liked the Page. The latest edition places more focus on the Like call-to-action.

According to Inside Facebook, the new design will also be applied to Page-Like stories that haven’t been sponsored — although an example has yet to be found.

The company seems to be trying to find a happy compromise between its advertisers and members. But while you might be pleased, it’s too early to tell how individuals will react to slightly enlarged ads appearing in their News Feeds. While the company hopes this will help to boost engagement, it could just as much be ignored.

[Via: Inside Facebook, Image credit: tanakawho]

Facebook

After years of policy changes and confusion surrounding members’ privacy the social network has introduced its Terms and Policies Hub. Here you’ll be able to learn more about your privacy, account security, and how your information is shared.

“Our hope is that this new resource will make our policies more transparent and accessible for the people who use Facebook by offering easy access to answers to specific policy questions ranging from platform to ads to content,” stated a Facebook spokesperson.

The hub is broken down into three main sections: Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, Data Use Policy, and Community Standards. It also links to information about bullying and intellectual property among other controversial topics.

Business owners will want to pay close attention to the list of options along the right column of the hub, which includes details regarding ads and Sponsored Stories, payments, Pages, and branding resources.

In March, Facebook began redesigning the Data Use Policy to include examples of how the policy influences your actions across the platform. Since then, it has received several small updates reflecting new features like Timeline and Activity Log.

A change that you’ll want to pay close attention to is the clarification that Facebook might begin displaying ads to members while they’re offsite. This means that members logged in to Facebook could see targeted ads on other websites. The social network hasn’t publicly addressed this plan; rather, the new policy simply opens up more doors.

Facebook’s Terms and Policies Hub will make it significantly easier for you to keep up with the social network as it continues to evolve. Whether you use the social network for business or personal reasons, it’s important to be aware of changes.

To learn more about Facebook’s new hub, the company is holding a live-streamed Q&A with Erin Egan, Facebook’s Chief Privacy Officer-Policy, at 12pm ET today.

[Via: TechCrunch, Image credit: Marcin Kargol]

However, for industries that are subject to strict regulatory rules, navigating social media is not as simple as creating accounts on Twitter and Facebook. It takes a greater investment of time and energy to stay within the letter of the law, especially when the law may not been evolving as quickly as social media.

The pharmaceutical sector is one example of an industry that must tread the social media world with great caution. Businesses have to adhere to rules about when they can directly mention their products and how they interact with possible patients. Here are some of the barriers that heavy regulation has created for the drug industry, along with some examples of how savvy businesses have overcome these obstacles.

The Regulator’s Power

Any advertising for the pharmaceutical industry is tightly regulated by the government. Since medicines require scientific and medical expertise to understand, drug companies were once restricted to promoting their products solely to doctors. In the early 1990s, as more patients began to take an active role in their treatment, drug makers began to advertise to consumers directly. As a result, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration introduced rules to require pharma companies to be truthful and accurate in those promotions.

The main challenge is the snail-like speed at which the FDA moves toward creating firm rules. The regulator has been slow to address new developments in direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising, such as online promotions and the rapidly changing world of social media marketing. The industry’s entry into social media has been tentative at best, since violating DTC rules can have serious repercussions.

The only recent hint of advice from the government was a report released in December 2011 entitled: “Guidance for Industry Responding to Unsolicited Requests for Off-Label Information About Prescription Drugs and Medical Devices.” This report deals with how the pharma industry should approach questions about unapproved uses of their products. The guide explicitly mentions interactions on Twitter and YouTube, but that’s the only direct acknowledgement of social media the pharma industry has received to date. That’s a very narrow subset of the social interactions you could have about a medicine!

Pharma’s Response So Far

While waiting for more information from the government, most pharma companies have been attempting to adhere to the DTC rules. Most of these companies treat social media as a channel equivalent to television or radio. This can take require a heavy investment of time, however, since social media involves interactions with the general public. These interactions can be much trickier to monitor than the Nielsen ratings!

For instance, one of the first pharma-run Facebook Pages — Psoriasis 360 from Janssen — closed down in March. A large number of posts didn’t meet DTC regulations because they mentioned the company’s prescription-only psoriasis medicines. This is prohibited in the pharma industry, so the offending posts had to be deleted. Janssen said the heavy volume of posts that were removed meant that it was no longer a viable place to foster conversation among patients.

Some Success Stories in the Field

Pharma companies shouldn’t lose hope, however. Bayer U.S. recently launched a Pinterest account that highlights the conglomerate’s many divisions. A variety of pinboards focus on sustainability, innovation, and events in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields. By avoiding direct discussion of products, the company can focus on safer subjects that are unlikely to create legal problems.

There are also success stories on Twitter. German drug maker Boehringer Ingelheim has a global Twitter feed filled with articles and retweets about more than just prescription drugs. The content ranges from studies about how doctors are using social media to press releases about the company.

Boehringer is very active in its use of hashtags and the company frequently engages with other Twitter accounts. It has very few tweets mentioning its medicines. This approach makes the company a good source of information for anyone interested in health care, which could explain why the feed has 10,465 followers.

What Can Your Company Learn From Pharma?

If you are also working in a rigid regulatory environment, there are a few lessons you can take away from the pharmaceutical industry. First, be sure that you understand your current legal restrictions. Stay in communication with your legal personnel and keep an eye on the news for any regulatory changes.

Also, be sure that your entire team understands the importance of following federal and state restrictions while continuing to build a social media presence. If everyone you work with is clear on the legalese and what you hope to achieve with social media, there will be less chance of legal infractions.

What legal and governmental challenges has your company faced in entering social media? Let us know in the comments!

[Image credits: Atlanta Scott, Noel Feans, mattza, Keoni Cabral, Luther Blissett]

Check out our articles below to find out more about each one and how they can help you with your social media goals.

And check in every day to Sprout Social Insights for more how to guides and breaking social media news.

How to Use Pinterest’s New Flickr and YouTube Attributions

One of the latest topics of interest and possible concern for Pinterest fans is guaranteeing that your pins are legal. The potential for legal action might be the only thing that could hold back the platform’s explosive growth, but the Pinterest team has wisely started moving to protect itself against those issues.

Pinterest recently announced the addition of new mandatory attribution for images and videos pinned from Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo, and Behance. It has also added a button to Flickr that allows for direct sharing of photos. Here’s an explanation of what you’ll be seeing in your pinning routine as a result of these updates, along with a little more detail about the contemporary copyright rules that allow all this great media to be freely shared. [ Read More... ]

Create Your Own Twitter Home Page With Twylah

This week we show you how to create your own Twitter Home Page using a service called Twylah.

We’ve written about the need to beef up your Twitter bio to give your new Twitter followers an instant snapshot of what you are all about. But what about if you could display even more information about your favorite Twitter hashtags, trending topics, videos and so on, right from your own customized Twitter Home Page? Here’s how to use a third-party website called Twylah to do exactly that.
[ Read More... ]

Sprout Social partners with Zendesk for social media customer service

Sprout Social’s social media management tool and customer service help desk Zendesk are integrating to make it easier to communicate with customers through social media.

The 2-way integration allows you to create, track, and manage customer support issues from the powerful social media dashboard. If a customer tweets a support question at you on Twitter, you can make that a help desk support ticket in Zendesk with just one click, sending the entire conversation to Zendesk. The integration works in the other direction, too.

Communications back and forth are tracked in both applications, so it’s easy to coordinate between your social media and customer support teams. Before, you’d have to collaborate via instant message, email, or a separate project-management application. This new seamless relationship lets you respond to customer complaints and questions with your entire staff involved and kept in the loop. [ Read More... ]

Review: Belly, a New Kind of Check-In App

Apps and programs targeting check-ins and rewards are growing in popularity in this mobile age. One of the latest entrants in the field is Belly. The Chicago-based company is a universal loyalty program that offers customized rewards to customers and client analytics for businesses. Customers scan their smartphones or rewards cards at iPad-enabled registers to earn points at participating businesses. Those points convert into rewards.

With backing from Lightbank, the investment company supporting Groupon and Sprout Social, Belly has been adding lots of clients this year — with a big push to go national. In fact, it just received $10 million in series B funding from Andreessen Horowitz.

It might not be as established as Foursquare or Facebook, but Belly seems to have the potential to compete with any of those other platforms. What sets Belly apart from its rivals? Is it worth using, both for businesses and for customers? Take a look at the following pros and cons to help you decide if Belly is right for you. [ Read More... ]

Spotlight on Start-Ups: Share Magnet

At Sprout Insights, we comb the web to bring you the most up-to-date and actionable resources on how to use social media to grow your business.

To that end, we’re pleased to present a new series on Sprout Insights: Spotlight on Start-Ups. We’ll find the most innovative, useful start-up companies out there, get the inside track on what they’re doing, and tell you how you can leverage their products and services for your own business.

This week we’re pleased to cast the spotlight on Share Magnet, a paid-advertising start-up based in Manhattan Beach, CA. [ Read More... ]

Twitter Auto-DMs: Engagement or Annoyance?

Last month Twitter made headlines for its attempt to address the growing spam problem on its service. Twitter’s approach was to file suit against companies that use the Twitter API to automate the following and tweeting of other accounts based on keyword searches.

This raises an interesting question regarding the use of automation tools to manage a Twitter account. Specifically, what is spam and what isn’t?

The process used by these tools is not dissimilar to that used by many social media marketers. For example, some marketers send automatic direct messages (Auto-DMs) to new followers. But is this a useful way to foster engagement or is it just a less visible form of spam? [ Read More... ]

3 Reasons to Use Tumblr for Your Company Website

Finding the right platform for your company’s website depends on a number of factors, including your technical knowledge, content goals, and access to support.

Lately Tumblr has been making headlines with its newest forays into advertising. But while the blogging platform has caught the eye of advertisers, many brands use it as a destination website. Tumblr is ideal for sharing behind-the-scenes information, contest and product details, and other quick snippets of or media-rich content.

When you’re deciding what platform to choose for your company website, there are many options available to you. Here are three compelling reasons why Tumblr may belong at the top of that list. [ Read More... ]

How Messages for Facebook Pages Can Help Build Your Audience

This week we’ll take a look at how the addition of Messages functionality to Facebook Pages creates new opportunities for building an audience for your brand and marketing your products and services.

Back in December of last year, Facebook began testing Pages integration of the kinds of private Messages that individuals with personal profiles can send one another. The test was apparently successful, because the social network deployed the new feature to everyone along with the rollout of the Timeline for Facebook Pages.

Now that you’ve switched your Facebook Page to Timeline, you can use this feature as much as you want. It’s located in the Admin Panel at the top of your Page when you’re logged into an account that has administrative access.
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[Image credits: midiman, Belly, Share Magnet, Jim Capaldi, Tumblr]

In case you’ve missed any of it, here’s a recap of this week’s breaking stories. We’ve arranged them by category to help you quickly find the news you’re looking for.

Facebook

• Fashion Retailer Adds Facebook Likes to In-Store Hangers
• Facebook Tests Offers for E-Commerce Sites
• Facebook’s App Center Bases Discovery On Quality Not Popularity
• Want to Offer Paid Apps on Facebook? Enroll in Beta Program
• File-Sharing Rolls Out to All Facebook Groups

Twitter

• Upload Photos to Twitter Through TwitPic’s New iPhone App
• Twitter Updates Design and Functionality of Mobile Site
• Target Nearby Customers With Free Google Offers

Google

• Broadcast Live With Google+ Hangouts On Air
• Interact With Google+ Notifications Without Leaving Gmail

Other

• Tumblr Plans to Promote Creative Content on New Storyboard
• Sprout Social partners with Zendesk for social media customer service
• Foursquare Update Brings Promoted Specials to Merchants
• Microsoft’s Redesign Brings Social Search to Bing
• Yelp Introduces Mobile Check-in Comments
• Groupon Rewards Expands to All U.S. Businesses

[Image credit: Hans Dorsch]

Previously the rewards program — which launched last September — was being piloted with a test marketing in Philadelphia. Groupon Rewards integrates with your Point of Sale system to offer a customer a special deal whenever a certain threshold is reached.

Through Groupon Rewards you’re able to offer rewards in the form of exclusive Groupons to loyal customers. You can set your own spending requirements and rewards. For example, customers that spend $55 can receive a free spa treatment.

Groupon Rewards is free for merchants; Groupon will take a commission from the reward vouchers. Additionally, the company does not require a merchant to run a regular daily deal in order to participate.

The company will automatically track consumer spending and will notify them when they’re eligible to redeem a reward. Its customer analytics will provide information on new and repeat customers, including how much is being spent and how frequently consumers visit your business.

According to CEO Andrew Mason, in the past two months, about 30 percent of merchants eligible to participate have signed up for Groupon Rewards. “Though the preliminary dataset is small, pilot results show that Groupon Rewards customers are more loyal than other customers,” said Mason.

Groupon believes that the addition of the new loyalty system will help drive repeat business instead of just attracting one-time visitors. It’s a crowded space, so it’s too early to tell how much success it will have. However, if you’re already taking advantage of Groupon’s deals, or interested in expanding your rewards offerings, then it might be worth looking into this program.

[Disclaimer: Sprout Social has financial ties to Groupon.]

[Via: Fast Company, Image credit: Groupon]

The review site has announced that members now have the ability to interact with check-ins through likes and comments.

Previously, there wasn’t a good way for Yelpers to share feedback with friends about their venue choices. Now, when a customer sees his or her friend check in to your restaurant, he or she can immediately recommend his or her favorite dish.

Check-in Comments differ from Tips — which is another feature of the app — in that only the customer and his or her friend can see their comment or like.

While this doesn’t provide much insight for business owners, Yelp’s app is a popular way for customers to connect with local businesses. Last quarter, Yelp was being used on an average of 6 million unique mobile devices.

Personal recommendations carry a lot of weight and can impact your customer’s decision to not only visit your venue, but what he or she purchases as well. Regardless of whether you can see the comments, it’s important to continuously provide excellent service.

[Image credit: roboppy]

This week, Facebook announced that it’s expanding this feature to give all Groups the ability to share files between members.

File-sharing rolled out to a small percentage of Groups yesterday and will become available to others over the next few days. A new Upload File option will appear within the Publisher — so the process is similar to how you upload photos and videos.

Once you have access, you’ll be able to upload most file types up to 25MB — excluding music files and executable (.exe) files. Documents can be public or private depending on the original privacy setting of the Group. Public Groups can’t make files private without altering the entire Group.

While the new Files feature doesn’t allow online editing — at least not yet — you can download the files, make edits, and upload the new versions. The previous version of a revised file remains available for all Group members to see.

Although we don’t see Facebook Groups replacing your need for cloud sharing services like Dropbox or Google Drive, it does offer an additional level of convenience — especially for clubs and smaller organizations.

[Via: Mashable, Image credit: EvelynGiggles]

Lately Tumblr has been making headlines with its newest forays into advertising. But while the blogging platform has caught the eye of advertisers, many brands use it as a destination website. Tumblr is ideal for sharing behind-the-scenes information, contest and product details, and other quick snippets of or media-rich content.

When you’re deciding what platform to choose for your company website, there are many options available to you. Here are three compelling reasons why Tumblr may belong at the top of that list.

1. You Can Get Started Right Away

Tumblr is extremely easy to set up and customize. There’s a very minimal learning curve, so you can begin using your new site in minutes. Upon sign-up, you’ll be asked to provide your email address, password, and your preferred Tumblr URL (yourbusinessname.tumblr.com). While you can start sharing content right away, we recommend that you customize your new site a bit first.

The platform offers you hundreds, if not thousands, of free and paid themes to choose from. You’ll want to find a theme that closely resembles your brand’s existing style. The option of choosing a theme significantly cuts down your dependence on hiring a designer, which can take a lot of time and money.

You’ll then be able to customize your theme a bit through the Appearance menu, which gives you options to change things like background and text colors. The “Pages” menu allows you to add multiple pages to your site — you can link to any other websites you have from here. For those who are a little more technically inclined, you can edit the custom style sheets (CSS) and enable additional features, such as a mobile layout.

2. It’s Designed for Fast and Easy Posts

Although there is a time and place for larger posts, Tumblr is perfect for short-form content and multimedia. It helps you build upon existing social media content when Facebook is too cluttered or Twitter‘s 140-characters is too limited. You can quickly upload photos and videos, brand yourself using snippets of text or quotes, and embed audio content — such as podcasts.

Tumblr also offers the ability to publish from your smartphone or AOL Instant Messenger. You can push updates from your Tumblr blog to Facebook and Twitter. You can even share the images you upload to Instagram with your community on Tumblr — giving fans an easier way to look through older photos.

Additionally, you can add the “Share on Tumblr” bookmarklet to the bookmarks bar in your browser to quickly share things you find on the web — a luxury that Pinterest takes full advantage of.

3. There’s A Built-In Community

Tumblr is made for discovering and sharing. When you publish content, it has the ability to spread to a very large audience. When an individual reblogs a post, it will appear on his or her tumblelog — a Tumblr blog — where followers can see it. If other people like your site, it will be displayed in their liked posts on their profiles. This type of transparency helps create awareness for your brand.

While it doesn’t offer robust analytics like Facebook, you can track the number of likes and reblogs through “Notes” — which appear on each post — as well as your total number of followers. Additionally, some Tumblr themes support Google Analytics, in which case you’ll just need to paste in a Google Analytics ID. If your theme doesn’t support it, Tumblr provides an easy solution.

You can also take advantage of Tumblr’s advertising offerings, including Highlights and Sponsored Products — which uses the Radar and Spotlight features to highlight content from its members.

Tumblr might not be for everyone; it definitely challenges you to get creative with your marketing and content strategy. But if you’re willing to try, create your Tumblr account and see where it takes you.

[Image credits: Tumblr, Donna Sullivan-Thomson, misocrazy, Southern Arkansas University]

Google

Leveraging its relationship with social networks, Microsoft will introduce several changes, including a three column interface design featuring standard, visual, and social results.

If you’re familiar with Bing, you won’t notice many changes in the first column, as it will continue to display standard search results. The second column, — referred to as Snapshot — will provide you with relevant information and services related to your search. It fuses results from OpenTable, FanSnap, and Yelp to help you take action and get things done.

Through the third column, Bing aims to make your search experience more personal and relevant. Similar to Google’s Search Plus Your World, Bing’s social column will combine results from Quora, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and so on.

Once you have authorized Bing, you can even start asking questions to get recommendations from Facebook friends. Bing will even suggest people who might know about the topic based on their Likes, Facebook profile, and any photos they’ve shared. You will also have access to relevant information from experts and enthusiasts from other social networks — including Google+ — around the topic you’re searching for.

Bing has also introduced an Activity feed in the sidebar so you’re able to see posts and queries you and your friends have shared. This activity also shows up in Facebook, so you can comment on it from either platform.

This is certainly a major step for Bing, and will have a huge impact on anyone who regularly uses the search engine. However, it’s too early to tell if this will successfully drive traffic, or how it will affect Google’s popularity.

The new interface will be released over the next few days across the U.S. You can sign up to receive an email notification when it’s available.

[Via: The Next Web, Image credit: Brynn Evans]

Facebook

Previously, Facebook only supported free apps, but you were able to charge for in-app downloads — such as virtual goods or digital media — which required Facebook Credits.

The company is kicking things off with a beta program that lets you charge Facebook members a flat fee to use your apps — including both HTML5 apps and apps on Facebook.com.

“Many developers have been successful with in-app purchases, but to support more types of apps on Facebook.com, we will give developers the option to offer paid apps,” stated Facebook in yesterday’s blog post.

According to Facebook CFO David Ebersman, the social network is looking to support payments for other types of apps, not just games. Additionally, it’s considering lowering the 30 percent revenue share it charges developers for non-gaming apps.

Although a majority of transactions will continue to be driven by in-app purchases, this is a big step for the social network. A step that actually goes against the trend of moving away from paid apps toward free ones.

Few details are available at this time regarding how many developers will be involved in the beta. For those interested in participating, you’ll have to sign up to receive more details.

[Via: TechCrunch, Image credit: Paul Downey]

Similar to Apple‘s App Store or Google Play, Facebook’s App Center will give people a new way to find social apps.

Unlike its predecessor, which Facebook shut down last year, the App Center won’t list every available app. Instead, it will highlight those with the highest ratings, engagement, session length, and voluntary sharing.

New apps will be displayed depending on consumers’ habits. For example, if an individual plays a lot of games, he or she will see more game recommendations. Those that prefer Open Graph apps like Foodspotting will see more like it.

You will also have access to a new category of Insights metrics, which measure the quality of your apps. You’ll be able to measure how changes you make impact user enjoyment and engagement. Previously you were only able to see your app’s overall rating and couldn’t track it over time.

For your app to appear in App Center, you must follow a set of submission guidelines and wait for review from Facebook. If you submit before May 18th, you’ll receive priority for appearance when the App Center launches.

The company is still finalizing the App Center’s design, but it’s scheduled to roll out over the next few weeks. It can be accessed through Facebook.com, mobile web, and Facebook’s iOS and Android apps.

[Via: Mashable, Image credit: Andrew Feinberg]

This raises an interesting question regarding the use of automation tools to manage a Twitter account. Specifically, what is spam and what isn’t?

The process used by these tools is not dissimilar to that used by many social media marketers. For example, some marketers send automatic direct messages (Auto-DMs) to new followers. But is this a useful way to foster engagement or is it just a less visible form of spam?

An Experiment

Advocates may argue that Auto-DMing is a form of engagement that shows personal interest in one’s followers. However, the goal of this practice appears to be increasing click-through rates for links or growing follower numbers.

To get some more insight, we conducted an informal experiment. We used a dummy account to follow many individuals interested in the field of social media. We then sat back and monitored the account.

What we found was interesting. After following 938 different accounts, we received 68 direct messages from 54 different accounts. Some people even sent the same message more than once.

Here are some of the more common examples we received (links and names removed):

• “Got a social media question 4 me? Or get lots of answer in my book”
• “Networking is the way to wealth they say, want to also connect on LinkedIn?”

In some cases it was hard to tell these messages apart from actual spam attempting to phish our account data. We replied to every message we could with a question or witty response that would hopefully prompt an additional response. Of the 32 responses we were able to send, a total of two people responded to us. Any people who would call that real engagement are kidding themselves.

Professional Perspectives

For an additional perspective, we turned to some working professionals in the field to get their opinions. Kate Gardiner runs the freelance web strategy firm Distill. Her clients have included PBS Newshour, environmental group NRDC and Al Jazeera English.

Kate used to employ the practice of Auto-DMing as a way to acknowledge her audience. She said that it helped raise follower retention, but her teams eventually abandoned the practice when they found it didn’t significantly increase click-through rates. Kate says, “We found we did better putting our great content for people to engage with consistently. While it took a lot more time and effort it seems to be worth it.”

Next we spoke with Leah Jones, a Vice President at Olson PR. Leah’s take was not far off from Kate’s — although she made a point of saying that anyone who has ever employed Auto-DMing didn’t do it under her direction. She had this to say: “Spam outside of email is in the eye of the beholder. If all of your users feel it’s spam then it’s spam. I don’t see anyone on the receiving end of Auto-DMs who want to receive it. It offers very little value if any.”

For Kate and Leah at least, using Auto-DMs was not a viable strategy to engage followers on Twitter.

Everything In Moderation

Automation of social media is not always a bad thing; in many ways it can be a huge help. The practice of pre-writing and scheduling tweets in platforms like our own Sprout Social can help you optimize the release of your content. This creates consistency that your readers can rely on and helps ensure the maximum number of people see your links.

One the most valuable facets of social media is that it allows us to connect with other human beings in a meaningful way. Too much automation can defeat that benefit altogether. It can even lead to frustration from followers if they reach out to your brand for a response and find that there is no one onboard the ship. You’ll get much further by publishing and sharing great content — and being more human with your followers — than you ever will by sending Auto-DMs.

[Sources: Twitter, Beth McShane; Image credits: Jim Capaldi, Mai Le, Highways Agency]

To that end, we’re pleased to present a new series on Sprout Insights: Spotlight on Startups. We’ll find the most innovative, useful start-up companies out there, get the inside track on what they’re doing, and tell you how you can leverage their products and services for your own business.

This week we’re pleased to cast the spotlight on Share Magnet, a paid-advertising start-up based in Manhattan Beach, CA.

What Is Share Magnet?

Share Magnet is an advertising platform that brings together businesses (“advertisers”) that create ads (“magnets”), with individuals who are willing to share those ads on their social media networks (“sharers”).

The business model is pretty straight forward. Businesses create magnets — short, text-based advertisements promoting their products, services, landing pages, and so on. Advertisers decide on a total budget for their ad campaigns, and Share Magnet takes a percentage off the top. Advertisers then decide on the value-per-click that they’d like to assign for the remaining balance of the campaign.

Advertisers choose the demographics (gender, location, and interests) of the members they’d like to share the ads. Magnets will only be seen by sharers if their demographics match those that the advertisers have specified. The “Share Magnet Wizard” steps sharers through the entire process of claiming magnets they’re interested in. Sharers can customize the magnets to suit their own styles, and post the magnets to a variety of social networks from within the platform.

When the total budget has been used up, the magnet disappears from the “Matching Magnets” section of the site. Sharers can cash out (to their PayPal accounts) whenever they reach a minimum threshold in their Share Magnet accounts. Advertisers can view and renew any of their campaigns, or create new ones, at any time.

What Needs Does it Address?

Share Magnet’s marketing proposition is that the popularity of social media and the amount of time we spend sharing information with each other is, in essence, a form of advertising. We let the people in our networks know about the best movies we’ve recently seen, the best restaurants we’ve patronized, and so on.

According to Share Magnet, since we’re already using social media as a potent referral engine, businesses might as well capitalize on this, and individuals might as well benefit financially from at least some of their referral activities on social media.

Although similar services have been around for a while, according to CTO and co-founder, Ben Stewart, Share Magnet is different because it’s completely transparent. “Our sharers can see the entire size of the campaign, how many people are sharing, even how many clicks are left in the campaign, in real-time,” says Stewart. “Advertisers have access to the same information as well”, he adds.

How You Can Leverage Share Magnet

Whether you’re a business looking for an effective advertising platform or a publisher of social media content looking to monetize your efforts, Share Magnet may be of benefit to you.

Stewart says that “people are not looking at Facebook ads like they used to.” Recent data suggests that he’s right. Ads posted from Share Magnet, on the other hand, show up in your social media update streams, “so your networks automatically see these ads as coming from a trusted source,” says Mr. Stewart.

The result, says Stewart is that “Share Magnet ads tend to get retweeted and reposted as value added content.” It’s not uncommon, says Stewart, for ads to continue to get clicks for the advertiser, even after the budget has been used up.

As for sharers, Share Magnet provides a way for them to monetize some of their social media content. “We limit our sharers to a maximum of 10 areas of interest to make sure they’re only posting content they have some affinity with,” Mr. Stewart says. That way, content is less about advertising and more about promoting, he says.

Have you ever used a social-media based, pay-per-click advertising platform? Share your experiences in the comments below.

[Image credits: Share Magnet, Share Magnet (FB), J. Nathan Matias, 401K]

Previously, Google has focused on pre-paid offers — similar to Groupon Now — but the company is now offering free coupons, which will encourage new customers to visit your store or restaurant. It’s important to note that Offers are free only during a limited-time trial period.

Through Google’s new self-serve version you can set specific times for when and how long an Offer — which can be for money off, a percentage discount, or a free product — should be valid. Additionally, you’ll have access to stock photos and other tools to help personalize your message.

These coupons won’t solely rely on your social media or word-of-mouth efforts to bring in customers. Consumers can now use Google Maps for Android to find offers. Google will also alert those that opt in when there’s a nearby Offer. There’s no word on when iOS and other platforms will receive this functionality.

While there are several daily deals and offer products to choose from, the integration with Google Maps makes this an attractive option, despite that feature being limited to Android devices. If you’re interested, you can get started today.

[Via: TechCrunch]

Originally introduced at the Facebook Marketing Conference in February, Facebook Offers allows local businesses to send discounts and promotions directly to customers through News Feeds.

Facebook has confirmed that Offers will include a promo code or special link for members to click through for a discount on off-site purchases. You can provide a single, unlimited discount code to encourage sharing, or you can generate a unique, single-use code to encourage fans to Like your Page.

Although Offers are free to run, you can pay Facebook to expand your reach. You can buy Sponsored Stories that promote your Offers to friends of those that have claimed them, or you can purchase standard sidebar ads.

The adoption of e-commerce Offers should be easy, as most sites already have a place to enter promo codes at checkout. And, unlike brick-and-mortars, cashiers won’t have to be trained on how to redeem them.

Currently, Facebook is testing e-commerce Offers with a small number of businesses. If successful, it could roll out to the self-serve interface; however, there’s no time-table for when it will become publicly available.

[Via: TechCrunch, Image credit: Stephen]

Twitter

Previously, anyone visiting mobile.twitter.com was unable to see the redesigned version of Twitter, which was rolled out last December. The updated mobile version now has a consistent design and includes what’s trending in the Discover tab and access to Direct Messages and Tweets in the Me tab.

According the Twitter, this week’s changes affect more than just the look. In an effort to make it more like native apps for the iPhone and Android, the new interface “uses one-third less bandwidth than the previous iteration.”

Twitter’s motivation behind the update is to attract global audiences, especially in emerging markets. “We will continue to make Twitter the most accessible way to connect with the world, even with the weakest signals and the simplest devices,” stated Satya Patel, Twitter’s VP of Product.

[Image credit: Coletivo Mambembe]

The 2-way integration allows you to create, track, and manage customer support issues from the powerful social media dashboard. If a customer tweets a support question at you on Twitter, you can make that a help desk support ticket in Zendesk with just one click, sending the entire conversation to Zendesk. The integration works in the other direction, too.

Communications back and forth are tracked in both applications, so it’s easy to coordinate between your social media and customer support teams. Before, you’d have to collaborate via instant message, email, or a separate project-management application. This new seamless relationship lets you respond to customer complaints and questions with your entire staff involved and kept in the loop.

Sprout Social previously added task assignments and tracking for responding to social media engagement in its S2 release. This new feature in partnership with Zendesk is a natural next step in making it much easier to provide customer service through social media channels.

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