While researching the new updates to Twitter’s third party app authorization process, something interesting caught my eye in the Google search results for “twitter”… Twitter itself came up as number one return, but Lance Armstrong’s Twitter account came up as number two- above the wikipedia entry for twitter, news, the twitter search engine, Twitter’s facebook page, reviews, and videos. Continue reading Lance Armstrong, Twitter, and Google – Why Link Building and SEO Works

Today I got this email from Twitter, alerting me to changes in their third party app authorization rules and URL shortening. I have included it here in full… Continue reading Twitter Apps and You – New Authorization Process

I have been closely watching the news and sentiment surrounding the launch of Facebook Places over the last two days. Like most new Facebook announcements, it has been greeted with dislike, distrust, and much harumphing and discussion in the user community – despite the fact that we all knew it was coming for months now. Continue reading Facebook Places

There are a LOT of tools for monitoring and tracking in Twitter. Tools that can track terms, occurrences, users, demographics, locale, etc as they happen according to a wide range of parameters. Here, I will only mention those tools that claim to measure SENTIMENT or the “feel” of the user on a topic – automatically. Many are free and some are only available as part of a paid subscription service. Continue reading 12 Tools for Tracking Twitter Sentiment

Last October Facebook announced plans to remove the application boxes and application info sections from facebook pages, as well as reduce the width of application tabs in order to slim down for a new sleeker look.

Sometime during the week of August 23rd, those changes will be going into effect. Continue reading Facebook is making changes to your Fan Pages

According to popular social media blog/news site Mashable (who have gained exclusive information), Twitter will soon be rolling out an official TWEET button for websites.

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, “but all those websites and blogs already HAVE magical retweet buttons conveniently placed next to articles to make sharing with my friends an easy and encouraged process” — to which I would say, “why yes, you are correct! …And I hope you retweet all of ours!” (…Go on, do it… you know you want to…)

What Twitter appears to be offering is a single source button with one line of code that counts ALL instances of retweets and shares across its vast network or users. Yeah. Pretty awesome. Continue reading Twitter launches new official TWEET button

I logged into my personal Twitter account on friday and was surprised to see a new “feature” in my top right info box.

Twitter was making suggestions on who I should follow (rather than suggesting related Twitter links, applications and definitions like it had done in this space before.) Continue reading Twitter: Who To Follow Suggestions

Today I received a free $50 credit from Facebook in my inbox to try out Facebook ads. So I clicked the link in the email and walked myself through the process of creating an ad – and snagged screenshots along the way.

While I didn’t actually end up completing the process, I thought I would share the images of my test walk through with you in order to give you a rough idea of the INITIAL process.

(Keep in mind that Captico can handle all of this as a part of our campaign/packages for our clients.)

Step 1: Design Your Ad

You can have your Facebook Ad link to any website you wish. In this example I chose to link to the Captico Facebook page as opposed to the Captico website because the goal of my fake ad is to get people to connect with us on Facebook as opposed to drive traffic to our website.

Next, I enter my title. I want to catch the eye of people who are interested in Social Media as our Captico Facebook page provides information specifically related to social media and Facebook news. The Body text I enter tells the reader exactly that.

I chose the Captico logo for the image, but you can choose anything you want.

Step 2: Targeting

This is where we choose to whom the ad will appear. In my example I have selected DC, MD, and VA because those are the primary locations where are clients come from (though Captico does serve clients alla cross the country). If you are a small brick and mortar store in Cleveland that sells radioactive puppies, you may only what to target to Cleveland and cities that surround it. You can be as specific or as broad as you wish.

Demographics will further refine who your ads appear to. I have specified users who are 21+, of either gender, who have “Social media” listed as an interest in their profile and who graduated college. You can get very specific here targeting hobbies, ages, gender, and even companies or schools!

Step 3: Campaigns, Pricing, and Scheduling

This final step will be familiar to those of you who work with Google AdWords and Keywords. Here you specify how much you are willing to spend per day (you are charged each time your ad is clicked) and how much per click you wish to “bid”.

You can also choose the dates and frequency with which your ad will appear.

Well, I hope this brief walk through helped lift some of the veil around Facebook Ads! Please feel free to contact us with any questions or to help get YOU started with a Facebook campaign!

______________________________

You may also be interested in:

How to add Facebook Like and Share Buttons to Your Website

Facebook: Like

Facebook Ditches Fans in Favor of Likes

Learn a little more about Captico and meet some of the team in this short video!

Continue reading Video: About Captico

Today I came across the latest third-party attempt to monetize Twitter for advertisers. Innovative Thunder marketers Christian Behrendt and Leif Abraham have set up what appears to be a very consumer friendly way of utilizing your sphere of influence on social networks to snag free stuff. You just have to spam your friends.

But is it spam when you talk about how much you like that new pair of “insert brand name here” shoes or how much butt your smart phone kicks? People like to share what they are interested in and research continues to show that people trust the opinions of their peers more than traditional advertising. Continue reading Twitter: “Pay With a Tweet”