Video: Facebook IPO Overview

Posted by on Jan 27, 2012 in Blog, Social Media, Video | No Comments

GOP Social Media Matrix

Posted by on Jan 20, 2012 in Blog, Infographic, Social Media | No Comments

Nice PR Stunt RuPaul

Posted by on Jan 7, 2012 in Blog, Social Media | No Comments

TV hostess, singer, and supermodel RuPaul* was at the Red Arrow Diner in Manchester, NH this morning. Why you might ask? She told Politico, ”I’m going to N.H. on a mission to spread love and set the record straight: contrary to recent reports, I am not Ron Paul. And I am not running for president of the United States. I hope to meet Ron Paul in person so we can be seen together to put the rumors to rest once and for all.”

*I have to admit I had to use Google to determine exactly who this individual was :) .

Facebook Memology 2011

Posted by on Dec 7, 2011 in Blog, Research, Social Media | No Comments
Facebook Memology 2011

Mashable has a huge round-up of year-end 2011 Facebook stats. Most popular memes, movies, sport teams, shared news stories, you name it. Interesting read.

Twitter’s Self-Serve Ad Platform Launches

Posted by on Dec 2, 2011 in Advertising, Blog, Social Media | No Comments

We all knew this was coming, cause it was a long time in coming, but today it is here (at at for a limited number of firms):

Twitter’s long-awaited self-serve ad platform was quietly introduced in November with a “handful” of advertisers, according to the company.

The program, which Twitter announced in April 2010, is available to anyone with a credit card who wants to take advantage of Promoted Products. However, the option isn’t yet open to the public.

[....]

Twitter has indeed been taking its time with the initiative. A year ago, the company rolled out a turn-key advertising solution that lets marketers express their interest in advertising. However, such potential advertisers were not able to actually buy ads until last month. The timing of the self-serve ad platform was not a surprise. Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has stated that the company planned to introduce such a program before year’s end.

At this point it is important to note that eMarketer estimates that Twitter generated $45 million from ad sales in 2010 and will earn around $139.5 million this year. So clearly with a few hundred million users there is a ton of upside here for Twitter if they can figure out a ad business model that just remotely works.

Google+ Launches Branded Pages

Posted by on Nov 10, 2011 in Blog, Social Media | No Comments

Google has finally unveiled brand pages for Google+, allowing businesses and brands to join Google’s growing social network.

“So far Google+ has focused on connecting people with other people,” said Google SVP of Social Vic Gundotra. “But we want to make sure you can build relationships with all the things you care about—from local businesses to global brands—so today we’re rolling out Google+ Pages worldwide.”

 

Google Plus Goes Corporate

Posted by on Nov 8, 2011 in Blog, Social Media | No Comments

Google had officially banned brands from using Google Plus (Google+) since its launch in June. That all changed Monday when they unveiled a new feature which, for be frank, makes it similar to rivals Facebook and Twitter.

The new feature, called Google+ Pages, marks a long-awaited policy change, finally allowing other businesses and brands to be able to create profile pages and adding other Google+ users to their “circles” (that’s Google’s version of Friends and Followers).

“So far Google+ has focused on connecting people with other people,” wrote Google SVP of engineering Vic Gundotra in a blog post announcing the news on Monday. “But we want to make sure you can build relationships with all the things you care about—from local businesses to global brands—so today we’re rolling out Google+ Pages worldwide.”

The few brand pages that have popped up so far are understandably bare bones, but  Mashable offers a compelling vision of what a fully-developed brand page might look like in the near future.

The real question at this point is to what extent brands will help Google grow its audience and engagement. The company has reported 40 million Google+ users have joined in the five months, giving it a faster rate of initial growth than either Google or Facebook.

It should be interesting to see what happens.