Facebook posts

For most, Facebook is an internet tool for keeping up with our friends and family while broadcasting the “interesting” things that are happening in our own lives. For businesses, it’s a relatively-untapped marketing tool that has a world of potential but that often doesn’t offer the results that are promised. People don’t want Facebook to be a marketing tool and Facebook is obligated to them more than businesses (for now). The key to success with Facebook is EdgeRank, the algorithm that Facebook uses to determine how high on a user’s feed your posts will appear. Chronology has a little to do with…

Modifying board games has been a “thing” for a couple of decades now but in the last couple of years it has become somewhat of an internet sensation when people change board games to match various internet properties. It’s a fun distraction and relatively common, but this one stood out as exceptionally creative. The folks over at uFunk put it together. You can download a full-size version here. In the meantime, check out this “Social Media Monopoly” if Risk isn’t your game. …

When Facebook started rolling out their plan to put online stores on their platform in November, 2010, many believed that “F-Commerce” was the next big thing. It was heralded as a competitor for Amazon, a socialized shopping experience that allowed consumers to go to Facebook to find all of their favorite brands and buy products directly from the social network. The concept was flawed from the start and the cracks are starting to show as Gamestop joins a growing list of retailers who tried F-Commerce, only to abort quickly. Their Facebook store lasted 6 months, longer than many others like Gap,…

Pinterest is starting to enter into the social media in ways that most sites only dream about. Other than Google+, it’s the fastest growing social site in the last year with 329% growth in the last 4 months of 2011 alone. We get more questions on our social media podcast about Pinterest the last month than we get about Facebook. Why is the spotlight shining so brightly on this relative-newcomer to the social world? The answer is pretty simple. With a base target audience of 25-45 year-old women, the site is a mecca for things like fashion, recipes, and male pectorals. This exposure has gotten the attention…

Has Western culture grown too attached to their social networks? It’s possible, according to a recent study led by Wilhelm Hofmann at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. While the nuts and bolts of the study were far from a compelling, comprehensive bit of scientific research (205 adults were put into a heavily-weighted situation and were told to describe their “conflicts” via text) it is apparent just looking at how we go about our lives on a daily basis that many of us are indeed addicted. This video by SourceFed gives us the details of the study. …

In a great economy, it’s hard to start a retail company and get attention in industries where the major players have already hit the field. Things are rebounding around the country to some extent but it’s definitely not what most would consider to be “great.” That isn’t stopping one Southern California shoe company from making a splash by using the most important ally for growing businesses: social media. There are many huge companies in the women’s footwear industry that make it challenging for new companies to break through. A decade ago, success stories in this industry were few and far between….

They just passed 62 million users by adding 625,000 new users per day. Now, Google+ is predicting that they will have over 400 million users by the end of 2012. Are the numbers reliable? Some say no. Not really. Those who sign up through Android 4 must create or attach their Google+ account whether they intend to use it or not. At last count, there were nearly 700,000 Android devices activated daily. For their part, Google is attributing the holidays, recent television commercials that they’ve been running since Thanksgiving, and celebrity brand appeal for their success. Still, many tech bloggers…

In the past, the best way to review the year was to look back through newspaper headlines and pick out the stories that were thought to be the biggest. It wasn’t an exact science and required intuition and subjective reasoning to decide what was most important to the people that year. Today, social media gives us a relatively-accurate indicator about what the general population finds interesting enough to discuss. 2011 was loaded with major events from falling regimes to natural catastrophes. Celebrities made foolish mistakes. Politicians tanked their careers. Tech companies rose. Tech…

The unraveling of the AT&T merger with T-Mobile was not entirely bad for the fourth largest mobile carrier in the US. They get $3 billion. It isn’t enough to keep them afloat for more than a year or two, but it does buy them time to find someone else. It gives them time to formulate a plan-B. Unfortunately, they don’t know what plan-B is for them. It was shortsighted of Deutsche Telekom to go into this without a plan-B. Putting all of one’s eggs in a single basket makes no sense when so much as at stake. The company has to regroup quickly. First, they have to make themselves valid by improving the infrastructure….

As Christmas and other holidays lurk around the corner, it’s time to take a lighter view. Why? There’s so much stress in western culture surrounding the holidays. Sometimes, it’s good to take a moment to simply smile (and maybe even laugh). This graphic by our friends at Flowtown takes a look at what Facebook might look like if the updates were coming from up north. Click to enlarge. …