Month: October 2012

I was listening to music at work on Songza. I clicked through many different song lists such as Halloween music and Kids music. During lunch break, I went on Facebook and realized that all songs that I’ve listened to were shared on news feed. It’s not a big deal letting others know what songs I’ve listened to. Rather, I find the fact that not being aware of my activities were transparent to everyone disturbing. Sometimes when I read articles on Yahoo!, they were automatically shared on Facebook. Honestly, I wouldn’t want to share with people of everything that I’ve read. If I found the articles interesting to share with others, I would be more than happy to share. Randomly posting activities on my behalf is quite annoying. Because of these automated sharing features, I always log off Facebook before visiting any of those sites.

It might help businesses to increase online awareness if its activities have more exposure in social media. In fact, I found out about Songza through news feeds on Facebook. It’s not that I mind a lot about sharing my offline activities with others, but it’s the fact that I feel forced to be consent with sharing—If you don’t agree to the terms and conditions before using the app, you can’t use it.

It’s a trend that more and more businesses employ automatic sharing features. These features enhance communication and connectivity of the online community. However, from a users’ perspective, I would appreciate it a lot if I have the option to choose when to share.

Have you notice that many giveaways hosting on Facebook condition entry upon “liking” a post, “checking in” to a place, or other Facebook features? Many organizations host this kind of giveaways to increase brand awareness by boosting up the number of likes to reach more consumers.In the summer, I shared a photo on Facebook to enter into a contest for a chance to win $30 gift certificate from a restaurant. I have also liked pictures to enter many giveaways. I believe that many of you probably also entered these kind of contests as it’s easy to enter and does no harm.

But, have you wondered if these kind of contests are LEGAL on Facebook?

If you read the guidelines for Facebook features,  these kind of automatic entry contests are illegal. Facebook prohibit users to administer promotions that condition entry or registration upon taking any action using any Facebook features other than liking a page, checking in to a place, or connecting to your app. It is also illegal to announce winners through Facebook such as wall posts or chat.

For those of you who is considering of administrating Facebook contests, it’s a good idea to check out the guideline. The consequence of not following the rules could be termination of the Facebook Page.

A few days ago, I took the time to look through all of  my e-mail inbox and junk mails. Most of the emails are random newsletters, spam, or social network notifications, and they were never read.  E-mail Marketing campaigns claim to help connect with customers and increase customer base through sharing. There are two e-mail marketing organizations that is worth mention–

MailChimp provides free e-mail marketing service for organizations that have less than 2000 subscribers. It provides over a hundred design templates, integration with social networks, and tracking. Users are also allowed to segment its consumers according to its preferences.  It is very attractive to organizations that don’t have a professional IT department.

Its promise to offer free basic service forever allows users to upgrade its e-mail marketing plan to use more features as their businesses grow. It supports an email list up to 50,000.

I highly recommend MailChimp for those who considers sending newsletters and don’t have much knowledge about technology. It’s very user-friendly. It only requires a few quick steps to send bulk email out.

Constant Contact targets small organizations and non-profits. It offers a 60 days free trial that can reach up to one hundred emails. It provides the same features as MailChimp and, in addition, real-life coaching support. Constant Contacts also offer other services such as event organizing manager, social campaigns, and referral system. In my opinion, Constant Contact is a good one-stop service for small organizations.

Ever since the original video Gangnam style releases a few months ago, people create different versions or parodies of the original video. Gangnam style reaches over 462 million views and is one of the most viewed videos on Youtube. Not only does the video bring Psy a lot of fame, it also creates marketing opportunities for businesses.

Facebook introduced a new feature in the states that allows users to pay to make their posts more prominent in the news feed. As users’ activity on Facebook grow, more and more posts are bombarding the news feed. That means your friends are less likely to notice your posts. For hose who want to make their posts more prominent, this feature is perfect for them.

To use this feature, you need to pay $7 as monthly fees. This feature is open to a selected group of people in the states and several other countries to test users’ reaction–popularity, criticism, etc.

It seems to me that pushing your news feed could be useful for promotion purposes. For example, you can announce to people that there is an ice breaker event for your school club tomorrow night. I am somewhat concern about future new feeds. Will it become all promotional posts or posts from the same few people?  If so, Facebook will defeat its mission to “give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected” as the feature limits non-paying users’ ability to share.  Honestly, I would be quite discouraged if news feed shows up promotional posts every time I check out Facebook. If all paid posts are pumped to the top while non-paid ones are pushed to the bottom, friends might miss personal updates, give less responses, and therefore discourages frequent updates.

H&M, an international-wide retail company– Its website is one of the most interactive and encourages customization in the retail industry that I’ve ever visited.

You can create your personal account. Within the account, there is a feature called ” Dressing Room”. It works the same way as dolling up a Barbie. You click on the clothes that you like, and it will appear on the model. The feature provides over 10 different models of different races and styles. For each model, it comes with three different hairstyles. You can also personalize the dressing room by changing the background color.