Facebook Advertising, does it work?

Think about how you’re going to advertise on the web for a second.  You have relative success with Google Adsense, Overture(Yahoo’s PPC), and other various grass roots SEO schemes.  Exploring options through various outlets is a wonderful idea, and you have decided to try and see if Facebook advertising works.

With Facebook, being the giant in Social Media at this point, Myspace is dead to me as far as I am concerned(out dated, too much fluff and not enough get to the point mentality), it’s worth it to see what kind of people you can pull from the site.  Facebook, has a few various ways to get to the consumer, you can create specific pages for users to be “fans” of, PPC, and general word of mouth.

Example 1 - Say you own a small business that builds and sells computers, you need to get the word out to potential customers located in a specific area.  Now consider that you have 30 employees and you know 15 of them have facebook.  At first glance you have 15 people directly associated with the company, it sounds like a miniscule number that is located in the area, but if you have them posting status updates, potential fan pages of the company, or having an actual facebook account for said company, you can reach their friends.  Out of 15 friends, if atleast 10 of them have more than 100 friends, that’s a network of 1,000, and then you have those 1,000 second degree users seeing the advertisements that 10 out of the 15 posted.  See how it all adds up?  It’s viable, grass roots, and shows a company dedicated to the newest technology.  It also may take some time to get a grasp of, but in the end it’s worth it.  Because yesterday, those 1,00 second degree friends didn’t know you existed.

Example 2 – PPC, Facebook now has advertising, I haven’t actually used it yet, because at this point there are some issues I have with it, the campaign has no ad counter system, you can’t view reports to see who has clicked on your link.  It gaurenteed to get the impressions and you paid off of that.  You can select your target demographic and searchable options, but as far as I know that’s it.  Barebones, and if you sell houses, I would assume many people aren’t searching houses, it is localized however and viewable to people inthe location around you.  If you have some spare money around, try it out, and let me know how it works below.

Finally, this is where I ask the readers for help.  What have you tried SEO wise that has increased your sales?  Something work that you can’t believe did?  Leave it in the comments below!

Ubertwitter Beta 4 Now Open!

If you are in the hunt for technology, have a Blackberry and still haven’t found a great client to post Twitter posts to, then look no further.  Ubertwitter has released their latest installment today in their mega popular Ubertwitter mobile app.  I myself have tried others, Twitterberry to be exact, and I hated it.   I then downloaded Ubertwitter to compare each app, and haven’t gone back since.  Ubertwitter is hands down the best mobile app for Blackberry users who enjoy the Twitter experience.  Below is a list of new advancements that Ubertwitter has in their new Beta 4 App.

• Multiple Accounts – You can now configure multiple accounts, each with their own set of on-device preferences.
• You can now BLOCK people!
• Video Integration – We have partnered with TwitVid.com to offer you an outstanding video integration.
• Goto user – You can now enter twitter users name and go directly to their timeline
• URL Shortening – we’ve integrated with bit.ly so you can easily send those long URLs now and not bump up against the 140 limit
• MUCH faster photo uploads, significantly improving the user experience.
• Use of the internal GPS is now solidly supported with proper fallback to cell tower based location when GPS isn’t available.
• Icon Caching If you have and SD card, we will cache avatar icons on the card, increasing the speed of timeline displays and reducing network traffic.
• You can now select pictures and videos that have already been take and are on your device. The interface shows the most recent at the top and offers a preview so you can verify it is the picture/video you expected!
• When composing a tweet you can now insert symbols from a large selection of commonly available characters such as smiley’s, hearts, etc.
• Integrated advertisements – Please note, the ads are there to support the freely distributable version of ÜberTwitter. Users that purchase ÜberTwitter will not have advertisement in their version.
• We’ve streamlined the friends and followers lists
• You can now see both the number of friends, followers, and tweets sent when viewing the details of a tweet.
• Replying to a DM from the timeline will now correctly send a DM and not a regular tweet
• Fixed the bug in reply all where it would truncate some twitter user names
• Added reply all to the menu when viewing a tweet

The list below includes features and capabilities which just didn’t make it into this release (not enough time in the day!). We will be working on these for the next release though.

• Notification icons on the homescreen! We have heard you loud and clear, we will be adding this.
• Integration of a high functionality third-party photo service – We are VERY excited about this as we believe that it will bring an extremely rich photo sharing experience to our users.
• Integration into the BlackBerry browser such that URLs can be included directly in a tweet from the browser menu.
• Saved searches – integrate the new Twitter saved search API. Searches saved via the Twitter web site will be useable on ÜberTwitter and vice versa
• Twitter name menu – Type ‘@’ and a list of your friends automatically pops up allowing selection

Personally, I think its going to be a great deal of goodness for us users.  About the only gripe I have is their posting images portion.  It goes directly to their image hosting client rather than Twitpic.  I prefer Twitpic, because it houses all the users’ images together, rather than just at random.  It’s a small gripe because I have to still do that part manually, but a gripe nonetheless.

Also, Ubertwitter has said they will have a free version and a payable version.  Another concern I could potentially have is that if they release the free ad version(Money app), will I get free updates for the rest of it’s existence or will I have to keep paying for new releases?  Either way I’m excited it’s here and can enjoy posting about various things that happen in the daily world!

If you haven’t atleast tried it, give it a test.  It’s worth it.  Get it here at http://www.ubertwitter.com/

5 Twitter Must haves.

If your like me and enjoy the stuffing out of Twitter, then I must be compelled to tell you about all of the programs out there to help you gain the extra step and help get you’re name out there.  Being a member of Twitter is simple, all you have to do is either via web or txt, post something about what you’re doing.  For the normal person, it’s an ultimate fast track to instant life blogging.

For a business however, Twitter has become an all important tool in creating immediate free ads, as well as connecting directly to the consumer.  In this day and age, as we move further away from print related media, and latch on to web driven media, Twitter has emerged as the now giant leader in direct business to consumer marketing.

If your a business directly involved in this case, you can search, be searched, and tag you’re products, so when something is searched you can attain eyes.  It’s really turning into a giant of Social Media, and is justifiably user oriented for ease of use.  So if you are a simple user looking to attract new followers, or a business hell bent on getting you’re name out there.  Check out these applications below, to try and ease some of that burden for you.

1.  Twellow – The end all be all Twitter directory.  If you’re looking for a specialized “tweeter” or just looking to increase you’re following amount, this is the place to register.  You can also search by special fields to find people with you’re exact interest.

2.  Tweet-r – If you’re looking for a general desktop application to use Twitter with, so you don’t have to keep refreshing the often buggy website, you can then get the scoop on what people are saying by searching.  However, the king of desktop publishing for Twitter AND Facebook is listed below.

3.  Tweetdeck – The absolute, king in desktop publishing.  You can add multiple accounts and update Facebook at the same time.  All the while searching for keywords, searching for users and doing everything you need to do in order to create an easy experience for you.

4.  TwitThis – If you have a blog(like me).  This is a great way to post you’re blog articles or images, in order to get people back to your site.  While social media is booming, you can certainly get ahead of the curve with this site.

5.  Read My Tweets – This site is another great catalyst in getting you’re name out there.  Make sure others read your tweets while they read the ones you post as well!  Get it, and get you’re name out there.

Hopefully these 5 links above have given you insite into creating a system healthy for you yourself, or the business you work for!  Get going today!

HubPages.

I’m inclined to tell you about another awesome site I discovered a little while back. It’s called HubPages, and it’s basically an extension of your own web pages. Which in turn makes it easier for more people to see you’re sites as well as help index them for adsense. Personally I love it, I’m just always so willing to share little tips and secrets to create an easier word for anyone who is willing to listen. So check it out and help my pages out while you can!

ArtInMotion

WebMediaClayton

The Consumerist: Shoppers Bite Back

I must, must, must give this site props.  It’s a read I visit daily to hear whats going on in the crazy world of big business.  If it’s something you’re interested, head over there and check out what they have to offer.  It’s all very interesting!

http://www.consumerist.com