Never has a internet company had so much information about its users. Facebook knows your friends. They know where you go in real life and online. They know who you hang out with, who you talk to, what interests you, and they have a database of pictures of you that the FBI would die to get a hold of (and probably have already). Companies are built around the data that Facebook shares about you, but that is changing. Facebook is building a moat around their data and only lowering the drawbridge to those who are not a threat and who contribute to the “Facebook cause” by giving back some love through sharing….

The cold war between Facebook and Twitter continued Thursday and nobody was really surprised by it. Vine, the new video app by Twitter that allows looping 6-second videos to be recorded and posted to the microblogging site, launched with the ability for users to find their Facebook friends that were also using the app. That ability lasted a few hours on Thursday before Facebook shut down API access. “It’s basically an annoyance, a hindrance on an easy way to connect with all your existing friends using the service,” wrote Mike Isaac. “It would have been a good way to jump into a new product, rather…

With 81% of Americans using smartphones while watching television, it’s clear that we’ve developed a penchant for multi-screen consumption of content. Our computers have more than one screen. We often have our iPads sitting next to our laptops, which are sitting next to our desktops, which are across from our video games that are connected to our big screens. In short, we love screens. That doesn’t seem to be a trend that will go away any time soon. This infographic by Uberflip takes a look at some of the stats surrounding the multi-screen generation.  …

If there’s one word I hate using in marketing, it’s “engagement”. The term has been so overused and abused since the rise of social media that its meaning has become distorted. It’s defined in different ways and means different things to different people. Thankfully, the moves by search giants like Google and Bing as well as social giants like Facebook and Twitter have brought in at least a little uniformity to we should look for when trying to harness engagement. First and foremost, websites today must be engaging. That’s not to say that they have to be interactive; heavy websites that make people…

One of the biggest old-school truths that is obsolete today is the idea that you should follow everyone on Twitter that follows you. It was once considered “social media polite” to follow just about everyone who took the time to follow your own updates. This never included spammers or bots, of course, but when real people and companies followed yours, many gurus recommended giving them a follow back. The interactions and ways that Twitter has evolved over the years has brought it to the point that most businesses have corrected this old notion. As a social media society, we are more willing to not…

Facebook purists will pan this post. They will say that the best way to post to Facebook is to post whatever you’re doing or thinking right now, that “planning” posts is not only insincere but that it undermines the point of Facebook altogether. Their points are valid and noted. Now, let’s talk about reality. Busy people who have their own social media and potentially the social media profiles of sites and companies with which they work need tools. It’s true that the best way to post to Facebook is through the native interfaces – Facebook.com itself and their mobile app. However, there are drawbacks….

Americans crave football and appreciate a positive customer service experience. They pay, on average, about $100 a year for sports programming. Seventy-three percent of U.S. males and 55 percent of females watch football. How do they get their football fix? Sixty percent watch NFL football on television sets, and eight percent catch games on their computers. Twenty-seven percent of Americans watch between six and ten hours of football per week during the NFL season. The cable industry is thriving—it raked in 97.6 billion in revenue last year alone. So, how do consumers feel about the customer…

Google Authorship has been around for a while. It has helped many bloggers and journalists stand out by having their images appear directly in search results next to the articles they publish. It highlights the number of people that have them in their Google+ circles and gives a link to other writings by the author. This is nothing new. Google AuthorRank has been given much speculation for about a year now. The idea is simple – Google will give higher rankings to those who have demonstrated expertise in a particular field. If someone is prolific at writing about a subject and their writing is well…

It doesn’t matter whether you like Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga. The fact that the #1 and #2 most followed accounts on Twitter are about to flip positions is important for the sustained success of Twitter. The key to understanding why is in the audience. Today’s kids are tomorrow’s adults. One of the biggest reasons that MySpace was beaten out so easily by Facebook a few years ago was because MySpace did not grow its base up and down. It had a niche, the people who were in or just out of high school in the mid 2000s, and did not do enough to appeal to the next generation of young people nor the older people who…

More companies are looking at ways that will enable them to go green with their marketing efforts. However, their motivation isn’t solely driven by the want to improve the environment. These organization realize that the green movement can be good for business. From email communications to social media campaigns, the digital channel has made it easier than ever for companies to conduct their business in a more eco-friendly manner. And perks such as the following benefits are what’s driving change for many of those that have decided to sing a new tune:   Reduced resource consumption…