by mtraphagen | Jul 8, 2011 | Facebook, Google, Social Media
We are beginning to see confirmation of what I suspected was the real reason Google invested so much time and money into Google+ and now is giving it to us for free. What’s in it for the Google? This: Click the image to zoom to full size. Notice all those little...
by mtraphagen | Jul 6, 2011 | Facebook, Google, Social Media
I had this post all set out in my mind, and then I read “Why Google Has the Hammer to Make Businesses Use Google Plus” by Jay Baer, and realized he said all I was going to say and so much more. Here’s one of many killer quotes from this must-read...
by mtraphagen | Apr 28, 2011 | Facebook, Social Media
In my social media consulting for clients of Virante Inc., by far the most frequent question I get is “how can I increase my number of followers/fans?” Here are the top tips I share with our clients regarding building a large (and engaged!) Facebook fan...
by mtraphagen | Apr 27, 2011 | Facebook, Social Media, Twitter
UPDATE: Since this post was written, Trunk.ly was acquired by AVOS, the new owners of Delicious, and the Trunk.ly service was discontinued. It’s happened to me time and again. Something comes up in a conversation, and I recall that at some point in the past...
by mtraphagen | Apr 25, 2011 | Facebook, Social Media
Today Facebook significantly upped the ante in its bid to dominate the way people share content on the Internet. The Facebook Like button (as an add-on for any web site) just had its first birthday a few days ago, but today Facebook gave birth to its baby brother: the...
by mtraphagen | Apr 5, 2011 | Facebook, Social Media
Yesterday Facebook announced an update to their popular iPhone app. The principle new goodies in this update are: Check-in to events using Facebook Places. See checked-in friends on a map. Unfriend friends from within the app. Among the many long-awaited improvements...
by mtraphagen | Mar 31, 2011 | Facebook, Google, Social Media
Yesterday Google announced the experimental rollout of its +1 search social recommendation feature. (See Google +1 Is Google’s Like Button for details.) For the present, you can only use this feature on Google’s search results page, to “plus”...
by mtraphagen | Mar 30, 2011 | Google, Social Media
Google’s +1 button allows Google search users to “like” both individual search results and AdWords ads in the search results. +1 shows up as an icon to the right of search results and ads (see illustration at right). If you are logged in to your...
by mtraphagen | Mar 29, 2011 | Social Media
The comment thread of this otherwise humdrum book review has gone viral in just a few days. Scroll down to the comments, where the author of the book being reviewed, Jacquelin Howett, responds to the reviews criticisms of her book. The reviewer actually gives pretty...
by mtraphagen | Feb 23, 2011 | Analytics, Social Media
Wildfire makes available a free tool that lets you compare the performance trends of up to three brands on Facebook and Twitter. Start by entering their Facebook page names and/or Twitter IDs on the Wildfire home page: Clicking “Compare” takes you to a...
by mtraphagen | Feb 15, 2011 | Facebook, Social Media
Social Mention (www.socialmention.com) appears to be a viable tool for those who need to track a brand or topic across the wide variety of social media networks available today. While nowhere near as comprehensive as many of the sophisticated pay tools available,...
by mtraphagen | Feb 3, 2011 | Analytics, Facebook, Social Media
If you administer a Facebook Page, Facebook Insights provides an abundance of useful metrics. There is one crucial metric that is not visible in the basic Facebook page analytics Insights dashboard: Shares of your web site’s contents that originate not from your...
