Facebook is said to be the number one social media platform worldwide, this is not a surprise considering the fact that Facebook has a close to one billion members. This is why Facebook has become a popular choice in terms of social media marketing. Apart from having a lot of members, Facebook offers a lot of features that will help their users depending on their chosen feature. Facebook indeed has captured a lot of users, and because of its member verification system in place a lot of business owners have been using Facebook not only to connect with their friends and families but also to advertise their business, products and services. With Facebook a lot of opportunities as well as requirements have emerged such as Facebook management.

The Change in Facebook

So many Facebook users including those who have used such social media platform to engage or gain clients for their business have grown used to using its social media interface. However, recent announcements done by the Social Media giant is going to change all that with its introduction of the Facebook timeline. Many people using Facebook have been reacting negatively to the introduction of the Facebook timeline including those who have been using Facebook for their business. This reaction may be due to the fact that people are afraid of change however in terms of business the new Facebook timeline will be able to bring a lot of benefits. Such benefits are the following:

1. Timeline Views – Through the timeline view branding could be incorporated, well timeline view is actually not new in Facebook, these are the text tabs found at the left side of the page it was redeveloped to display thumbnails rather that texts, allowing you to incorporate your company logo perhaps?

2. The Cover Photo – Facebook has incorporated a new feature in their interface and this is the cover photo, where you could use a unique photo as your profile’s header. Again another chance for branding as you could your company logo to be your Facebook pages’ cover photo.

3. Post Control – because of timeline you can now manage the different posts in your own timeline. You can highlight a post which you would like to be seen among your other posts. So if you have an important announcement it will not be pushed down by recent posts.

4. Easy Multimedia Inclusion – with the old Facebook interface incorporating multimedia in your post requires the use of your knowledge in HTML specifically that of the iFrame. In the new Facebook Timeline interface embedding multimedia is as easy as posting a message.

Conclusion

Change as they say is inevitable especially in the case of implementing the Facebook Timeline. The new features of Facebook Timeline introduced more opportunities for those who would like to utilise Facebook for business another alternative traffic source for SEO companies and SEO consultants.

It is very obvious that the popularity of many social media sites is increasing. More and more SEO consultants or SEO companies are recognising the importance of these social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. But how exactly Facebook management help you with your SEO Campaign?

The main reason why many SEO consultants and SEO companies are working on implementing a good Facebook management is the fact that Facebook is known to carry lots and lots of traffic to any website. It is even considered now as a big part of SEO. The success of Facebook to reach a lot of audience is undeniable. It does make a real sense why renowned SEO Consultants and SEO Companies have already integrated Facebook management in their search engine optimisation campaigns.

A good Facebook management strategy will obviously bring the rankings and SERP as well as traffic to where your goal is. The fact that Facebook is even considered best in the field of online marketing, SEO companies and SEO consultants have actually devised ways and means in order to turn Facebook users to leads. Any SEO company should never make Facebook management less important if they wanted to become successful online.

The question of why Facebook is very effective for SEO marketing can be answered by many of the benefits it offers. The platform that is being used in Facebook allows great interactions between people. Thus, marketing is never a problem when it comes to this social networking site.

All SEO consultants and SEO companies should do is to be creative in engaging Facebook users to click the link to their target website or to be converted in to potential clients or customers, making Facebook is one of the best ways to bring more traffic to a site. Having a good SEO campaign, plus a good Facebook management strategy will definitely bring you where you want. Getting more traffic means a higher rank, in which in return will guarantee good end result and of course high return of investment.

The social media giant CEO recently posted on Facebook that “the talented team at Instagram will be joining Facebook”. This after a deal from Instagram and Facebook has been reached to the tune of around one billion dollars ($1Billion) worth in cash and stocks. According to SEO companies and SEO consultants and social media managers that this move by Facebook is to maintain its dominance over the social media especially in the line of photo sharing among social media users, it is known that more than two hundred fifty million photographs are being uploaded by users via Facebook.

What is Instagram?

Instagram is a two year old company that is focused on providing photo-sharing services for its users. It is a diverse Photo sharing application that allows users to share Photos via different social media networks, although instagram is popularly used by many as a way of sharing photos via Facebook. Instagram was initially a mobile application for the iOS or Apple products but has later on provided availability of its Android version.

Instagram’s worth

Instagram obviously is a worthwhile investment for Facebook having spent one billion dollars to a start-up company that was just established two years ago. The Photo sharing capability of Instagram is what Facebook seeks to enhance and incorporate in their social media features.

The Agreement

Instagram and Facebook agreed that the photo sharing application will be  independently developed, this means that Instagram will not be exclusively used for Facebook photosharing rather it will still have the capability to share photos through other social media networks. In addition the list of Instagram followers will not be incorporated with Facebook’s group thus maintaining control over their own list.

Conclusion:

With the incorporation of Instagram with Facebook, the social media giant hopes that their capability to provide users with better photo sharing experience will be realised, this is an investment that Facebook made for the first time in terms of acquiring a company that has a lot of user or follower base.

From the very beginning Google and Facebook have been on separate leagues from each other, recent events however have shown that the two internet giants have been steadily and slowly going into each other’s realm. With the success of Facebook in the world of Social media it was able to gather millions of users prompting a lot of online marketers to utilise such social media platforms to use such platforms to conduct online marketing and advertising processes. The viability of the social media platform in advertising and online marketing has influenced many to shift their online marketing strategies in order to capture a larger audience base.

Google’s Actions

Google, having seen the viability of having a social media platform, launched their social media platform dubbed as Google+. The features of Google+ are almost the same as that of Facebook, however, several months after its launch it still has to gain its own users base. With this move from Google, they have diverted from their own realm and have stepped into the realm that Facebook is currently dominating. For now we still have to see if Google+, its social media platform, will be able to surpass the current social media giant, Facebook.

Facebook’s Actions

Recently, Facebook has announced that they will improve their search engine functionality within the social media platform, in order to help users locate anything they want over the internet through the social media network. This project prompted the deployment of Facebook engineers in order to put the plan into a reality with a former Google engineer Lars Rasmussen at the helm. This, move from Facebook is also a move to divert from their own realm going to the realm of Google which is the search engine.

Conclusion

Based from the ventures of Google and Facebook it is clear that they are diverting or going on separate ways where the end line would be a meeting within their own realms. Facebook going into the realm of Google while Google going into the realm of Facebook. This is something for every SEO companies or SEO consultants to think about.

Every time we see an article post or a blog post, we are reminded of the fact that a visitor in your website will only need two seconds to click away from your website. SEO companies or Website Owners of course cannot help but accept this fact as this is just the nature of a website-user interaction, if a user does not want to go through your site content he or she will just need to click out of your website and you lose a visitor and may have increased your site’s bounce rate. This is why it is important for an SEO company or a content developer to immediately capture the attention of the visitor and make such visitor to stay within the targeted website. So how does one capture the attention of the visitor? There are several ways on how one can capture the attention of the visitor, the most popular method are by way of an interesting photos or an intriguing title. Let us focus on the latter method, how does one write a compelling title? Or how does one create a title that will capture the attention of the site visitor?

These are some of the different ways on how you can capture the attention of your visitors through your article post title:

1. The Title Must Imply that the visitor will gain something – your title must be written in such a manner that you will be implying that the visitor will gain something from reading through the article or your post. Gaining something does not necessarily mean financial gain, an instant prize in your title may even discourage your visitor, it means that you will be giving the user the information that he or she is searching for, example of titles that will imply gaining some benefit from your content would be “How to…”, “Top 10…”, for example “How to Make Compelling Articles”.

2. The Title Must Spark Curiosity – make your title intriguing enough that it would ignite the curiosity of your website visitor, one thing that you have to take into consideration though is that no matter how intriguing your title is, it must remain to be relevant with your site’s content.

3. The Title Must Be Presentable – presentation must always be taken into consideration when writing the title of your article post, sometimes the right choice of font color as well as the type of font would help in capturing the attention of the website visitor.

Indeed, the importance of having a great title, one that would capture the attention of the site visitor. This importance is rooted upon the premise that site visitors are drawn to reading through your content if your title would capture the visitors’ attention.

Creating a Social Media Campaign for your online business as part of your online marketing efforts entails additional benefits as well as additional responsibilities where SEO companies and SEO consultants invests in. This is due to the fact that social media campaign entails constant communication with your followers or fans, and because of the need for constant communication there is also a need for constant or regular monitoring. Social media monitoring is  a tedious task because there is a need for you to constantly or regularly check your social media accounts for any updates like comments, queries or posts by your followers or fans. Although a tedious job social media monitoring is necessary when you start your social media campaign and to be successful in your monitoring you can start with the following guidelines:

1. Formulate a Clear-cut objective – ask yourself on why would you conduct social media monitoring, by laying out your objectives and goals you can determine the extent of your monitoring. Whether you want to conduct social media monitoring for early “damage control” whenever some unscrupulous people are spreading wrong information about your company or your purpose of monitoring is to build an online community focused on your company, it is important to set your objectives and goals.

2. Identify Monitoring Points – after setting up your social media monitoring objectives it is time for you to identify the different aspects of social media that you would focus your monitoring process. This is important because social media have a broad scope that a person could not constantly monitor at the same time. Thus, you have to identify your monitoring points, which part of social media would you give your preferential attention and which part could be of your least priority.

3. Develop your contingency plan – although you are focused on the positive effects of your company’s presence in the world of social media you should still understand that there are some unscrupulous people who would like to destroy your company, this is why setting up a contingency plans such as backup social media accounts in case your original account was hacked, is very important.

4. Monitor to Communicate – do not forget the main goal in setting up your social media account and this is to interact with your site visitors and clients in real time, therefore whenever you conduct social media monitoring make sure that you respond to the different questions or queries that are being posted in your social media account, interact with your audience.

Social Media monitoring is a process or an additional responsibility that emanated from social media campaigns, whatever your purpose is in establishing a social media campaign the process of monitoring is imperative.

It is no doubt that in the world of online marketing and social media, Facebook, has proven to be the top social media platform of choice for purposes of creating social connections or business connections. Through Facebook page system business owners can create Facebook Pages that may allow owners to create their community based on their chosen niche. When your Facebook page is on its infancy stage there might not be much activity in your page, however if you promote your page properly “likes” would come in and you will soon discover that your community is already growing. If you reach the point where your posts would already become viral, you would then experience a lot of activity in your web page and because it is in the nature of every social media platform to create interaction between and among the site members then you might later on receive a lot of queries that needs to be answered, not to mention posting regular updates and photos in your Facebook page. Doing all these things could really prove to be tedious however doing it right will make it all worthwhile because it will allow you to build your reputation to the community that you have built and of course it would attract more visitors to your Facebook page. To do it properly you might find the following to be useful guidelines:

1. Quick response – the purpose of social media is to facilitate communication and since your Facebook page is part of the social media platform your clients or fans would expect quick responses about their queries, do not let the day pass without answering their queries. If you think you cannot be online for a considerable amount of time, posting a notice on your fan page wall would suffice to warn your clients who would be asking their queries, to not expect any quick responses due to the reasons that you have stated.

2. Moderate Interaction – there may be some members of your fan page that may abuse their privileges as members of your community. Some might spam other members or some may enter into altercations with other members of your page. If this happens it is within your right as an administrator to moderate the information flowing in your group wall, you can delete posts and remove members who are found to be abusing their privileges.

3. Be an Authority – when posting answers to queries of your fan in your fan page it would be best if you answer the questions with the right resource, you need to be an authority of your fan page, it is your role as an administrator to give only correct and accurate information.

In Facebook management, you have to remember that your fans are what would keep your page alive so interaction should keep on flowing, however do not forget your role as the page administrator by performing proper Facebook management strategies you will not only keep your members in your page but also convince more members to join your Facebook fan page.

Wednesday morning is a momentous day for Facebook and its Fans because for the first time, the Social Media giant is going Public by filing their IPO. What is an IPO? IPO stands for Initial Public Offering, this is considered to be the first sale of a private company of its stocks to the public. With Facebook launching to popularity after reaching its half billion registered users it is no wonder that the social media giant is truly an income generating endeavor.

How Much is Facebook’s IPO?

According to previous announcements made, Facebook’s initial target is around five billion dollars ($5 Billion) however it is predicted to increase due to the demand of various investors interested in Facebook stocks. This target is considered to be the highest IPO that would emerge from Silicon Valley even topping Google’s $2 Billion initial target when it opened its IPO.

Who will be the Lead left?

A “lead left” is the underwriter’s name that will appear on the top of the Initial Public Offering prospectus. According to recent reports Facebook is looking at five book runners and is inclined to pick Morgan Stanley as its “lead left”, the other book runners are JP Morgan, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and Barclays Capital. Morgan Stanley is the company behind the successful IPO launch of different internet companies like Groupon and Zynga which may have helped them in being selected by Facebook as the “lead left”.

Stock Market Effects

With the announcement of Facebook’s IPO caused a media frenzy as well as stirring up investors, which increased the shares of different social media companies like Linkedin and Ren Ren, furthermore this event has increased the competition in Wall Street. For Facebook the IPO once it formally opens to the public it would have an idea on what the company is really worth.

It has been made public as of now that Google are definitely against the SOPA act, and they definitely have just reason to be. Although they are with the SOPA movement, you won’t be sent to a black screen, Google has used their staggering traffic to the best of their ability.

If you log onto Google.com, you will notice at the bottom of the page there is a message from congress which states “Tell congress: Please don’t censor the web”, and by clicking this link, it will take you to another section of Google in which you can sign an online petition to stop SOPA and PIPA, on top of that… information about the two bills are available. More importantly the effects of these bills are explained which is something that is hard to find. Then there is a community section that proves the growing community that are opposing the movements. Internet giants such as Facebook, Twitter, eBay, PayPal and of course Google, not to mention the countless others who are opposing the censorship of the internet.

The Effects

According to Google, SOPA and PIPA will do more harm than good. This is because it will force internet businesses to closely monitor everything linking to their site and if they are in violation of any new laws according to SOPA and PIPA, then it could potentially mean the end of the business, which will leave a huge number of people jobless.

It would be different if SOPA and PIPA actually worked, according to the big G!, these acts won’t stop online piracy. The regulations written in these bills wont successfully shut down their sites, they will simply transfer them to another domain and continue until they are caught again.

Conclusion

Anyone who works on the internet frequently has had their work stolen and pirated before. Whether you’re a writer or film maker, it happens so often and there is not much we can do about it. We do need a bill or law to prevent online piracy. However we need one that will work and not end up crippling the internet as we know it. This change will have a huge effect on social media and could potentially put a stop to it, not to mention SEO and PPC as the algorithm will be a completely different and most likely biased, and that is if it hasn’t been banned by a government.

SOPA is the stop online piracy act that many sites are partaking in. Sites such as Wikipedia, eBay and even Google are protesting this act, Wikipedia are even taking their site down for the day and so are many other sites. This will show how much the bill will affect the average joe and help to raise awareness about the act.

Whether you are for, or against SOPA, we really need to consider both sides, especially before we jump into any rash decisions like take our site down for the day because of SOPA. Granted, if this act does become approved, then the internet will be a completely different place for every user. Many huge sites are taking action against SOPA and if you are against the act, you must think abou what will happen if you join the blackout movement.

Points To Consider

The first point would be the obvious “am I going to make a difference”. The chances are that you won’t. As blunt as that may be, it is the truth. Compare your impact to what a site like Google would have. If Google blacked out their site for the day, then it would have a massive effect on users of the internet. It is the most popular site on the web so there would be a devastating impact, if anything would get the word out about SOPA, then no doubt it would be by Google. That said, your site is most likely no were near as popular… Unless your name is Mark Zuckerberg.  Consider how much money you would lose to having a website down for a day, it can be fatal for some sites, this loss would need an indefinite gain, and unfortunately since there isn’t, then I feel it would not be a wise move to blindly jump on the SOPA band wagon, in terms of blacking your site out.

Another point would be to think of other ways you can help the cause. You can raise awareness from other methods, whether you’re for SOPA or against it, there has to be something you can do, this is where you can use your own personal experience and creativity to “fight the power”.

Conclusion

There are many reasons in which why not to jump into the SOPA act, whether you are a supporter or not. If you are not getting traffic on a scale of Facebook, Google and Twitter, it is unwise to jump into a decision like that. The best thing you can do is use your skills, whether you are a plumber or a SEO company, there is something you can do to help your side of the argument.