Promote your online actions offline

If you're active online with social media you should promote yourself offline as well. Physical advertisement works just as well as online for social media accounts and blogs. Advertising on social networks allows customers to be aware of your business

There are many ways to get your online self known and I'll share a few examples with you.

1. Sneak in your social media tools into your business advertisements. Show your customers that you're online.

2. Change your business cards to also show your customers of your online activeness. Some companies place a tracer code on each card and Facebook Fan page which allows those who use the code a certain percentage discount .

Business cards that have social media on them give people more options in connecting with you.

3. Advertise while you drive. Post a bumpersticker with your Facebook and Twitter account names. A good example of Twitter for mobile business is the use of Twitter by ice cream truck that update their locations whenever they change.

4. Put parts of online components to offline events. Take pictures or take video of customers using your product and post it on any social media site or all of the ones you have an account with.

5. Some have found that putting QR codes on their physical advertisement that it helps with business. QR codes are matrix codes that are readable by QR scanners, cell phones with cameras, and smart phones. The code is a big square with a bunch of black and white squares inside. The information in the code can be a URL, text, or of other data.

These are just a few ways that a business can benefit from social media. Other business have other ways of advertising that has worked for them. Using social media tools for your business allows you to reach a greater audience which leads to a larger customer rate.

If a business has yet to become involved with social media and are having trouble staying afloat businesswise I strongly suggest to give social media a shot.

Read more...

How Much Is Facebook Worth?

According to SecondMarket (an online marketplace), Facebook is valued at 40 billion dollars. Currently, Facebook is more valuable than eBay, which sits a a close 39.3 billion dollars. However, an article from Mashable states that while these numbers seem high, they are more expectations than they are real.

Social networks, not just Facebook, are huge right now. Most everyone uses them and whether they admit it or not, on a regular basis. How else does one explain why something in cyber-space would be worth so much?

My question is, how is a social network site worth so much? We don't pay anything to sign up, and really only pay money if we want extras on the games Facebook hosts. Technically in some form, we pay for the Internet, or the computer used to access the Internet.

Honestly, I sometimes wonder how long Facebook will be around for. MySpace was huge for a couple of years, then slowly dwindled away. I can recall when sites like Tagged, Bebo, and Hi5 were popular, but they soon faded away as well. So while Facebook may be the big player for now, whose to say that it will still be around five years from now. The future is uncertain.

Read more...

SMO and why you should use it

I doubt any of you have heard about SMO (a.k.a. "social media optimization") but in our day and age of social media SMO is very important concept.

According to a spjnetwork.org blog, SMO is using "social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to promote content on websites, blogs or across other social media."

SMO's ancestor is SEO, "search engine optimization". Instead of promoting whole ideas SEO uses words to promote material via search engines.

SEO is the old way but now we have SMO and it's looking like that's the way to go.

SMO uses the idea that ideas are more important than just single words. People with the same interests will spread those ideas to people they know.

You've probably never heard of him before but Rohit Bhargava is an important man.

Why you may ask? Well, Bhargava coined the term SMO and came up with a five point guide to increasing one's "virtual visibility" better known as your "brand".

However, his five point guide has been added to and is now an eleven point guide to branding yourself.

1. Link - Add links to everything you can when you blog.

2. Tag and bookmark - We all have the option here on blogger and on other sites like YouTube to add tags. Do it. Tagging makes you more visible in search engines, which points people in your direction and therefore increases your brand.

3. Make your content portable - This sounds a little confusing but simply having video, audio and PDF files that people can use will in the end bring more readers back to you.

4. Encourage mashups- A mashup often combines video, audio and mapping elements from various places to create something new.

5. Become a user resource- Post interesting information that people will want to read. Do this and you can make part-time viewers into full-time viewers.

6. Reward users - Give credit to those who deserve it. This not only builds their credibility but also builds yours as well.

7. Participate - Get involved in online conversations and forums.

8. Target your audience - Find your niche and stick to it.

9. Be original - Don't say what everyone one else is saying. Make it your own, use something new.

10. Be honest - This is simple enough, be truthful, honest, trustworthy, however you want to put it.

11. Be thinking in the SMO mindset 24/7 - Everything you've just read should be on your mind all the time. Use it to plan and organize.

We've been learning about branding ourselves a lot lately and I feel this is just more advice to help everyone out. Now get out there and make a name for yourself.

Read more...

Journalism Exchange Program at U of I

In the liberal arts college setting, a shift has been made to allow for students to get a more hands on education in the field(s) of their choice. Whether it be in a student teaching or mentoring program, or applied practicums in students medias, different majors stress the importance of getting 'real world' experience to help better prepare them for a professional career.

One state school has developed a program that focuses on giving its journalism students every possible opportunity to excel in a hands on field-experience program.

The University of Iowa's School of Journalism and Mass Communication has implemented a program called North American Environmental Journalism Project (VITAL), which is funded by the US Department of Education, to help give their journalism students a 'leg-up' on other student journalists.

This program is a negotiated exchange consortium with seven different schools from the United States, Canada and Mexico. The program allows for students to study, report on, and develop an awareness for environmental journalism, with special emphasis on water resource and water sustainability issues. The program also hopes to allow for students to gain a sense of cultural awareness and still enhancing their journalistic skills.

Members of the student exchange program focus on projects in specific areas of concern in their given geographical region. The students research these issues and then post forums in a website to share information and publish their work. Some may also work with broadcast news/production and shoot, edit, and stream video on news and campus TV stations.

With exchanges between schools on the North American continent, the goal is to promote awareness for issues going on close to home and to form a sense of community among the students involved.

The University of Iowa has chosen this program to focus on environmental journalism, but students do not have to a background in biology or environmental issues in order to participate.

This program, however, is not unique to its kind. Other small liberal arts institutions also encourage study abroad courses during the semester, or for partial semesters. But this program in particular focuses on cultivating students' abilities in a specific area to give them hands on experience for their intended profession. Getting real, hands on training makes students applying for their first jobs in a given field more attractive candidates to employers...which is the goal of any school wishing to educate students eager to enter the workforce.

Check out the YouTube clip below for more commentary about this program:

Read more...

Beatles Finally On iTunes

The Beatles is one of the most well known bands out there. And until recently if you wanted to listen to them you had to purchase the card copy album to listen to a few of your favorite songs.

It has been a long process to get the Beatles to sign over to have their music for sale on iTunes. They felt that the digital music didn't do their catalogue good enough justice.

They have been one of the bands to holdout on joining the iTunes network yet they are not the last. AC/DC has no desire to sell individual songs in replacement for whole albums.

Evidently the Beatles had rumors over the past few years that they were going to sign on to iTunes and now they finally have.

iTunes didn't wait one second either to advertise this. The entire iTunes store's main page is filled with Beatles albums and songs. Not only can fans purchase individual songs and full albums for their music players they can also purchase live concert film.

They are taking full advantage to promote this because it took so long for the Beatles to agree to let their music go digital.

This is a great way for the newer generations to experience the hit music their grandparents and parents talk about. Our generation would not think to buy an entire album. A single song on the other hand, yes we do that. So by hearing one song they may be inclined to purchase more.

Along with this it gives the older generation a chance to reconnect with one of their favorite bands. There may have always been those select favorite songs and now they can purchase them for their iPods.

It may encourage more people to want to be Apple owners because they can purchase Beatles music on iTunes for cheaper than purchasing the who album.

Apple didn't give up on hope that the Beatles would eventually sign their music over. That's how good business works you have to be resistant for what you want to benefit the customer and your business.

Read more...

Bloggers' jailed for controversial content

Bloggers around the world have been imprisoned for controversial content of their blogs within the last few years.

Many of the bloggers have simply state their opinions in their blogs.

Believed to be the longest imprisoned bloggers, Egyptian Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman withthe blogger name Kareem Amer, for ridiculing religion and the leadership of Egypt, was released recently.

Because of the political importance behind his case, international support was given to Amer regarding the freedom of the people.

Many

bloggers around the world have experienced similar situations. According to a report released by Reporters Sans Frontières the number of bloggers arrested went from 59 to 151 between 2008 and 2009.

On top of the the 151 percent increase of imprisoned bloggers, one blogger died and 61 were phy

sically assaulted.

Omid Riza Misayafi is understood to be the one blogger to lose his life while imprisoned. His death is still a mystery.

Below is a video about just one of the many corrupt areas that are struggling to incorporate the new social media with traditional values.

IRAN: A Nation Of Bloggers from ayrakus on Vimeo.

Read more...

Learning to Bundle

Bit.ly, a site that lets people shorten and share links, recently added a new tool to its website. Users are now able to "bundle" URLs.

What does this mean? Here's an example:

I have created numerous videos during my internship with the Simpson College Athletics Communication Department. These videos have been placed on YouTube for people to view.

However, I want to share the links to a few of my videos on Facebook so my family can view them without searching on YouTube. Bit.ly lets me package the links together into one convenient URL.

How do you do this? It's really simple.

Type in a URL like you normally would in the "shorten your links" box on Bit.ly. Then, add a space and another URL.

You can keep doing this until you have the amount of links you want. Then, press "bundle."

One URL will be created. For the group of three links I wanted to share, my URL is: http://bit.ly/cPDOQw

This means, instead of sharing all of this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSsb6FXS-A8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPaeSM-_Luo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy8hDVVvZPM

Bit.ly shortens and bundles it to this: http://bit.ly/cPDOQw

Once the bundle is made, I can share it on Facebook.

Facebook isn't the only use for the Bit.ly bundle. It can be used on Twitter, where it would be extremely useful due to the limited amount of characters Twitter allows.

It can also be used in e-mail.

Journalist Jolie O'Dell of Mashable described the usefulness of bundling perfectly in her article "Bit.ly Introduces Bundles: Multi-Link Sharing With One URL":

"You can tweet a string of YouTube videos, e-mail all your Thanksgiving recipes, post a collection of study materials to Facebook – all with just one short URL."

Overall, this is a great new resource for link-sharing addicts.

Read more...