Big news came in from the folks at Buffer and Twylah this week. The two companies partnered up to give your Tweets much more impact than possible before.

I’ve written about the magical Power Tweet before, which increases your engagement by 400%.

As of today, you can make this Power Tweet from Twylah even more powerful and send it through Buffer.

Buffer, if you haven’t come across it yet, is a super smart Social Sharing app. Any page that you read on the web and want to share with your friends and followers, just click the Buffer button right here on the page or via one of their handy browser plugins.

From there it will get queued up and posted for you at optimal times for maximum engagement.

How To Buffer A Power Tweet

If you head to your Twylah page and get the Twylah bookmarklet, you can start batching a bunch of Power Tweets, feeding them straight into your Buffer. Of course you can also add Power Tweets straight from your Twylah home page.

Buffer will then go ahead and share them for you well spaced out over the day at optimal times:

They will then sit nicely in your Buffer, ready to go out at pre-set times for you. Here is a bunch of Buffered Power Tweets, ready to hit the Twitter stream:

Why Buffering Power Tweets?

As, Buffer is now directly integrated into Twylah, it combines two stunning research findings together in one unbeatable marketing combination for you.

The impact from Power Tweets is as follows:

“Power Tweet pages, by themselves increase engagement (as defined by time spent with your content) by 40X.”

says Twylah Founder Eric Kim in the latest announcement from the company.

At the same time, Buffer found some similarly stunning results when posting updates for their users:

“On average, people who start to use Buffer, see a 200% increase in clicks on links, retweet rate doubles and Klout scores increased 3.5 points. The data refers to using Buffer daily for at least 2 weeks.”

Mentions Leo Widrich, Buffer Co-Founder to me.

The reason for this is that “Buffer helps users be active on Social Media more sustainably and as a result they post more frequently and at better times” explains Leo to me.

Altogether they can now help you get the best parts of both services.

Twylah makes your Tweets live longer

The great part about your Twylah page, is that it indexes all Tweets you posted via Twitter on beautiful separate pages. Those pages can now be found through Google and other search engines and also work as an archive of all the Tweets you have ever posted.

Now, if you start posting some Power Tweets, Twylah will make sure to surround each of your Power Tweet pages with relevant content from your previous Tweets. This brings them back to live and in front of the eyes of your followers, who might not have seen those Tweets otherwise:

Twylah is also a great opportunity to put into your Twitter bio. It will give your new visitors a chance to get a great view over your Tweets, instead of a boring Twitter stream of the last few hours:

If you are an active Social Media person, curious to get a bit of help on spreading the word for you, give Buffer and Twylah a whirl, I’m sure you won’t regret it.

What About You?

What do you think about the latest integration of the two apps? Do you think Buffering Power Tweets can have an impact for you?

Look forward to hearing your stories.

PS: If you click on the above Twylah link, you will get special treatment when signing up for Twylah and will get an invite in no time!

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We live in world and a social web that is a whirlpool of innovation and creativity.

Every day via the blogs I read, the tweets that I glimpse and the emails that arrive in my inbox, I see an array of ideas that makes my head spin with amazement.

Who would have thought that an online pinboard would attract nearly 20 million people a month sharing photos. It sounds like an idea that could have originated after a few drinks down at the local bar!

That is a social media platform called “Pinterest“.

Who would imagine that a social mobile app that can be shared from your phone to Facebook and Twitter, would attract 40 million users a month in less than 2 years, have a library of over 1 billion photos and then be bought by Facebook for $1 billion.

That app’s name is “Instagram“.

Who could have dreamed that a social media platform that allows you to upload your PowerPoint business presentations ( 9 million to date) and publishes them on the web for all to see would attract 29 million unique visitors a month and be snapped up by LinkedIn for $118 million.

This is a social media site called “Slideshare”

Sometimes the simplest focused ideas are the best and those ideas are increasingly in the mobile and social innovation ecosystems.

The Social and Mobile Media Addiction

We live in a world where we are can’t get enough of our mobiles and social networks where we publish media in all its formats that continues to define us and displays our lives to the planet of 7 billion people.

A startup called scan.me founded by Garret Gee, Kirk Ouimet and Ben Turley in 2011, was based on the concept of simplifying the creation of QR codes using a mobile iPhone and iPad app.

The idea was to use simple online and mobile tools to give users a better option for scanning QR codes, and to offer a polished option for businesses that wanted to create those codes.

In its first 12 months Scan.me had 10 million downloads!

How to Turn Your Instagram Profile into a QR Code

Scan.me has just decided, for a bit of technological fun to create a  ”ScantoGram” website that turns your “Instagram Profile” into a QR code.

Here is the Jeff Bullas ScantoGram which I created.

Stage 1: Scan to Gram

Scan to Gram has just been created and they recently did this at a company hackathon where they built out the super-super simple web app.

It allows a user to create a page with Instagram-ified QR Codes, which allow an auto-follow on Instagram.

As an example:

• Say there are 15 Instagrammers whose content blows you away.
• With Scan to Gram, you can create a page to share those 15 people’s content.
• You’ll then have a site, (eg. scantogram.com/jeffbullas) that you can share with others, and that will be filled with Instagram-ified QR codes.
• As you mouse over a profile the image flips and the QR code is revealed which you scan with your mobile scan.me scanning app.
• Anybody who scans those QR codes using a QR code reading app will auto-follow the person on Instagram.

To view my Scan to Gram website to see how it works click here.

This website is a bit of fun but it provides an insight into what potentially can be done.

They have much bigger plans to take the technology to a new level of social engagement.

Future Stage 2: QR Codes Meets Social Commerce

This is where scan.me says it will get super-exciting. They are planning to marry QR Codes with social commerce.

They haven’t revealed anything more than that at this stage and their simple Scan to Gram example and it may get your ideas and creative juices flowing.

The Scan.me venture is being taken very seriously and is getting some attention from the big boys in Silicon Valley.

In February Google Ventures and Shervin Pishevar’s Menlo Talent Fund invested $1.7 million in Scan.me.

So take a mobile app, make it social add some media and keep it easy and you never know what may happen

I will bring you more of this as it happens

What about You?

Are you adapting to this social mobile revolution.

How do you think social commerce will evolve. We are seeing glimpses of how it is panning out on Pinterest.

How will a social commerce QR code ecosystem pan out.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts.

More reading

• Awesome Facts and Figures on the Rise of the Social Mobile Web – INFOGRAPHIC
• 15 Reasons to use your Apple iPhone
• How 3 Mobile Gadgets are Transforming our Lives
• Social Media and Mobile the Perfect Addiction
• Why You Should Be Optimizing Your Blog and Website For Mobile
• Is Mobile Social Media Making Women Geeks?
• 7 Top Trends in Social Media

Using Twitter professionally for the past 3 years, I’ve seen my share of contests that were organized by both the bigger brands and smaller businesses.In fact, if you were to search with the phrase ‘RT to win’ on Twitter, you’ll find many interesting contests being held on a daily basis.

A Twitter contest is not only a great way to build buzz and increase brand engagement, but it also generates new followers and grows your brand presence.

There are even some who would suggest that Twitter contests are more effective at building engagement than any other online (paid) investments.

Clearly then, as Twitter grows its influence in social media, so too would the importance of Twitter contests.

There are several different types of Twitter contests.

1. Creative answer

In a ‘creative answer’ format, users are usually asked to answer a question from the organizers using a hashtag. The answers need to be as creative as possible, and the winners will be chosen by the organizers.

This format has been tried and tested in offline media over the years, where contestants usually have to write a creative answer within a certain amount of words (50 words, 100 words, 200 words, and so on). Twitter contest organizers have easily adapted this format, seeing that Tweets are already subjected to character limitations.

Here is one example:Back in 2010, KFC held a ‘creative answer’ Twitter contest. Winners were presented with a $20,000 scholarship by KFC. The applicants had to explain, in 140 characters or less, why they deserved to win and include the hashtag #KFCScholar in their tweets.To make this more relevant with the concept of advertising, we need to take a peek behind this $20,000 scholarship.

First let’s understand that the cost of this contest is the amount of scholarship. That’s $20,000. Then, throughout the contest, it was found that there were over 2,800 participants. So the average cost to gain 1 participant (or to gain 1 engagement) is $7.14! That’s not a bad amount to dish out in order to get 1 person to talk with your brand.

Amanda Russell (@arlp111) was the winner of the contest by tweeting “#KFCScholar Hey Colonel! Your scholarship’s the secret ingredient missing from my recipe for success! Got the grades, drive, just need cash”.

Essentially, from Amanda’s perspective, she is being paid $142.86 per character by KFC. I’m sure other participants were not shy about joining this contest because they were given a chance to get paid for tweeting 140 characters @ $142.86 per character.

2. Sweepstakes

A sweepstakes is a contest where winners are chosen at random or through a ‘lucky’ draw. Sweepstakes can come in several different forms as well, namely:

1. Retweet to win

One of the most popular contests on Twitter. As the name suggests, participants are required to Retweet to stand a chance of winning. After the duration of the contest has ended, winners will be picked at random. It is one of the simplest contests to set up.

There are two ways that organizers can do this:

a. Manually

Organizers simply post a tweet on Twitter asking users to Retweet if they were to join the contest.

There are several downfalls of this, and one of the most critical ones is the organizers won’t be able to provide much information about the contest with the 140 character limitation on Twitter. Some organizers will have use their blogs, websites, or set up a new landing page to give more details about the contest such as the rules, the duration, and the prizes.It will be tough to pick winners too as organizers have to manually copy and paste the participants or use software like random.org to pick random winners.

Here is a contest held by the National Lottery @tnluk, their tweet have been retweeted over 3000+ times.

Another issue with retweet to win contests is that an entrant does not agree by any rules before retweeting or specifically agree to enter the contest and be bound by their terms. This can have many legal implications.

b. Application

Alternatively, businesses who want to organize a Twitter contest (inclusive but not limited to ‘RT to win’) can also use an application. Binkd, an easy-to-use platform for promotions, recently just launched a free Twitter contest application that allows businesses to set up a branded Twitter contest efficiently. Using the application, users can set up a landing page with their company logo, give more information about the prizes, and more information about the contest. The winner of the contest will be picked automatically after the contest has ended.  By providing a dedicated entry form the legal implications of a manual contest is removed.

c. Follow to win

To get more followers, some businesses will ask participants to follow them to be included in the contest. All they need to do is to follow or retweet and follow. Winners will be randomly drawn after the contest has ended. Here is a contest held by @hairdazzle on Twitter.

Again, this bears the same legal implications as a manual Twitter contest.

3. Photo Contest

A picture is worth more than 140 characters on Twitter. For this type of contest, users will have to send in a photo and they will stand a chance to win a prize, usually in a form of a small gift or a voucher. Like the ‘creative answer’ contest, the winner or winners will be picked by the organizers. Here is an example of a contest: @LaTasca, a Spanish Tapas restaurant in the UK, recently gave away a £50 La Tasca voucher for the customers who have sent a Twitpic of their tapas.

KFC, who have had great success with their creative answer contest back in 2010, decided to innovate their contest format last year and chose instead to organize a photo contest. The contest prize was another $20,000. In this contest, users had to tweet a photo showing an example of their commitment toward education and how they are enriching their communities. The winner was Daniel Galuppo, who shared a photo of his trip to Vietnam, where he photographed orphans so that they can have a photo of themselves to keep.

4. Question & Answer

A question and answer contest is very straight-forward. Organizers of the contest post a question on Twitter and the winners would be selected based on either the fastest time it is answered by a participant, the most accurate answer, or through sweepstakes (if the organizer loses control of the contest and has no other way of selecting the winner)

While this is not the most innovative type of contest, if it is done frequently enough, it would help in ensuring that users continuously visit your Twitter account to check for random questions.

Twitter is a great platform to easily set up a contest, but there are also potential for users to abuse the contest such as creating several Twitter accounts to get higher chance of winning a contest. Hashtags could also be abused to make your contest look like spam.

As a tip, mentions of your account should be required in the tweet used for entering the contest. Twitter’s search does not guarantee that it will return every tweet with your search term, including hashtags, only mentions are all guaranteed to be returned .

A good contest needs to be prepared for everything and have clear boundaries, such as allowing users to join/retweet only once a day.

If your company is new in organizing a Twitter contest, it is highly recommended that you use an application instead because it will help in creating a strong foundation for your contest (which would help to ‘be prepared for everything’).

If you have missed it above, the Binkd free Twitter contest platform would definitely help you to build a quick and complete contest.

What about you?

What kind of Twitter contest do you enjoy entering the most? What Twitter contests have impressed you?

Have you run a Twitter contest that you would like to share.

Love to hear your stories.

Guest Author: Aaron Lee is the social media manager for Binkd.

More Reading:

Image by 91st Customs™ 2012

Pinterest has been grabbing the headlines recently as its network approaches  20 million users per month.

In March, Compete.com reported that Pinterest had received 18 million unique visitors with AppData reporting that the visual social network had received a record 4.4 million daily active users on March 18.

There are reports that Pinterest’s growth is slowing but just like Twitter and Facebook, reports of its demise maybe slightly premature.

The Power of “Low Friction” Photo Sharing

Pinterest’s value to marketers is that it provides an easy to use platform for “pinning” images, photos and videos to your Pinterest account while also posting and sharing to your networks to Facebook and Twitter in the same process.

Pinterest reduces the effort and friction to share images on the social web which crowd sources your marketing and the spreading of your brand images.

This “low friction sharing” includes links back to the original sharing location. Online stores such as fashion, boutiques, homewares and gift stores can take advantage of this to drive commerce as their products are highly visual and more likely to be shared.

To understand the power of visual sharing, on Facebook research shows that photos are shared 50% more than any other types of updates. This is why Pinterest is so powerful.

I experienced it the other day when an infographic was repinned over 70 times from my blog post “64 Marketing Tips and Tactics- Infographic” .

The question though is, does it drive sales?

Does Social Commerce Work?

There are social networks and there is commerce and the popular thinking used to be that  they don’t mix. In fact there have been stories circulating on blogs that Facebook is great for engagement but not good for sales.

In digging deeper that appears to be a misconception and social commerce is alive and kicking.

Boticca.com is an online boutique for unique jewelry and fashion accessories by top emerging designers from around the world and has been using Pinterest for quite a while, where it has pinned visually enticing images of its products arranged in categories (boards) with links to the product purchase page.

Boticca Pinterest Page

Their activity on Pinterest is sizable with 67 categories (boards) that average over 700 followers for each board with 2,869 pins (products). As the quality of the photos they have used for their online store is high definition then these HD images ensure that they are also compelling on Pinterest.

Pinterest is really a product catalogue linked to their online store behind every image.

Once you click on that link it takes you to the product on Bottica’s online store where you can continue to review the product further and then make a purchase.

Bottica Facebook “Page”

Bottica’s Facebook page reveals over 26,000 “likes” that also features a prominent Pinterest “Tab” which is powered by the Facebook Pinterest App.

This Pinterest Tab which is effectively the Pinterest site embedded in Facebook allows you to access the online store directly from Facebook. Omni-commerce is evident here. You can buy from Facebook, Pinterest and the ecommerce store.

It recently researched from its own store data which social network drove more social commerce. The results are fascinating and this is from a real store with real numbers.

The 5 Insights on Facebook vs Pinterest

Boticca traced the sales , average sales, conversions and engagement of 50,000 visitors from Pinterest and 50,000 from Facebook.

Here are  5 things Boticca learned about marketing on Facebook compared to Pinterest

1. Pinterest users spend more when shopping at $180 vs $85 by Facebook users
2. Pinterest users spent 65% less time on the site than Facebook
3. Pinterest influenced more sales (10%) than Facebook (7%)
4. Pinterest has a 51% lower conversion rate compared to Facebook
5. Pinterest acquired 86% new users vs Facebook at 57%

The Infographic

Source: Bottica.com blog

What about You?

Are you using Pinterest for your online store? Do you have images that you could be pinning to your Pinterest acount? Do you think it would help your online stores sales and spread your brand. Look forward to hearing your stories.

More Reading

• 64 Pinterest Marketing Tips and Tactics – Infographic
• 30 Resources, Tips and Tricks for Marketing Your Business on Pinterest
• Why Business Should take an Interest in Pinterest
• Pinterest Drives more Traffic than LinkedIn and Google Plus
• 7 Ways to Use Pinterest to Promote your Business – Plus Infographic
• What is Pinterest and How Can You Use it for Marketing your Business?
• 6 Social Media Networks to Watch in 2012 – Plus Infographics
• Social Media Sharing Trends in 2011- Infographic
• 7 Top Trends in Social Media

Social media has long ceased to be a setting for primarily “social” interactions and discussions.

Now social media platforms and services predominantly function as devices for businesses, entrepreneurs, and freelancers to market their skills on the web to a clientele that numbers in the hundreds of millions. Yes, the web is a marketer’s paradise, where the smallest idea can reach countless people in the amount of time it takes for you to tweet it.

But in case you haven’t noticed, the blogosphere is a big place, filled with entrepreneurs and ambitious self-starters who want to share their unique vision with the world. There might be a dozen small online enterprises specializing in selling supplementary educational apps to college students, all looking to be the biggest player in the market.

In other words, there’s some serious competition in the realm of social media.

You could have a solid and commercially viable idea, but if you don’t have the marketing savvy to harness social media, then you honestly don’t have much of a chance. You’ve got to find a way to stand out among the masses if you want to get anywhere in this business.

If you don’t mind, I’d like to offer the following pearls of wisdom in the hopes of boosting your chances at success through social media marketing.

Don’t shy away from the big and bold

Human beings, especially those of us who spend too much time on the web, tend to have short attention spans. This general impatience among web users has fostered the most distilled and concise marketing tactics ever devised, where whole campaigns rise and fall upon on the successes and failures of social media usage.

A cleverly designed infographic with a hard hitting topic paired with vibrant colors and easy to understand language may launch a graphic designer from obscurity to celebrity overnight. On the other side of things, an ill thought out Twitter campaign (think of the recent McDonald’s fiasco with the #McDStories) could backfire on you as soon as you launch it, completely reversing whatever momentum you had built.

The lesson here is simple: stick to big and bold ideas that can be translated into equally big and bold graphics, images, phrases, and titles. You want to grab your potential reader from the get go with the best that you have to offer, and that might mean taking a risk to stand out among your peers. If there’s some hot topic that other social media users might see as too controversial, be the pioneer and dive into it.

Explore all avenues of social media

Social media doesn’t just mean Twitter and Facebook. I know, I know: they’re by far the biggest players in the industry, they have the most users, and they’re the easiest services to make inroads with. Just because they’re the kings of the industry, that doesn’t mean that they’re the only viable social media services in your marketing campaign.

Tons of niche social media services abound, many of which probably go unnoticed by other web marketers who spend all their time tweeting and friending people. The enthusiasm behind Pinterest is just one example of newer social media services taking a chunk out of the figurative pie. Services like Spotify or Instagram, which have niches in music and pictures respectively, are other targeted social media tools that have massive potential for marketing campaigns.

Have the content to back up your pitch

Most importantly, be sure that you can deliver on whatever it is that you pitch through various social media platforms. I said earlier that you should aim for big and bold messaging in order to grab your reader’s attention—and I stand by that. But if you promise your readers the rainbow, you better have it waiting for them on the other side of that link in your tweet. Otherwise you run the risk of coming off as some spammy service that wants nothing more than a few more followers.

Of course, you don’t have to worry about delivering on your social media pushes if you have the content to back it up. Most people in web marketing take a great idea, test it, develop it, and then think of a way to market it to the masses online effectively. This is how it should be; you let the product speak for itself. You get in trouble when you think of a clever social media marketing scheme without anything beyond the pretty infographic or the witty tagline.

What about you?

How do you develop and execute a successful social media marketing campaign?

Do you use social media services other than Facebook and Twitter to get your message out there?

Let me know!

Guest Author: This guest post is contributed by Angelita Williams, who writes on the topics of online courses. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: angelita.williams7 @gmail.com.

More Reading

• 30 Resources, Tips and Tricks for Marketing Your Business on Pinterest
• Why Business Should take an Interest in Pinterest
• Pinterest Drives more Traffic than LinkedIn and Google Plus
• 7 Ways to Use Pinterest to Promote your Business – Plus Infographic
• What is Pinterest and How Can You Use it for Marketing your Business?
• 6 Social Media Networks to Watch in 2012 – Plus Infographics
• Social Media Sharing Trends in 2011- Infographic
• 7 Top Trends in Social Media

Image by nickwheeleroz

I walked into an electronics store the other day and happened to pass the television department.

The 70 inch televisions with high definition flat screens were displaying videos so compelling that for a minute or two I just stood there watching images so sharp and mesmerizing that I just stopped and watched.

The vibrant colors and  high contrast were almost hypnotic.

It was only ten years ago and a flat screen TV half that size was $20,000.

Now everyone has at least a  42 inch plasma or LCD screen and that is in the smallest room in the house!

The Visual Sharing Addiction

Reality television, lifestyle and cooking shows have taken food to new levels of visual and visceral appeal and taking photos of food and sharing them on Facebook or Instagram seems to becoming a standard activity these days.

Generation X and Y would rather watch a video or an infographic in small snack size bites of information than read a paragraph of text.

Several  key factors seem to be driving this visual sharing revolution.

• Broadband access whether it is fixed or wireless (images and videos no longer take hours to upload)
• Social network platforms – that make it easy to upload images and videos in seconds
• Smart phones with cameras (high definition is now the norm)
• Apps that make it easy to shoot and share (Instagram)

This increasingly visual generation is creating opportunities for creative people to engage with friends, colleagues and customers using images and videos.

Pinterest has over the last 6 months, become the social network with buzz, which provides a visual platform that offers the ecosystem to experiment, play and trial images as a means of engagement and even selling.

It is even being used to drive people to landing pages to capture information and buy.

How do you use Pinterest to Market your Business?

Here are 64 marketing tips and tactics that you can apply to your Pinterest account to get you started and refine your strategies.

Source: Maria Peagler: Social Media Online Classes

So How About You?

How are you using Pinterest? Have you even heard of it before? Are you finding it driving traffic?

Is it working for you? What has surprised you about Pinterest?

I look forward to hearing your stories..

More Reading

• 30 Resources, Tips and Tricks for Marketing Your Business on Pinterest
• Why Business Should take an Interest in Pinterest
• Pinterest Drives more Traffic than LinkedIn and Google Plus
• 7 Ways to Use Pinterest to Promote your Business – Plus Infographic
• What is Pinterest and How Can You Use it for Marketing your Business?
• 6 Social Media Networks to Watch in 2012 – Plus Infographics
• Social Media Sharing Trends in 2011- Infographic
• 7 Top Trends in Social Media

In today’s digital world and social web I would be almost considered a dinosaur.

My generation grew up on personal computers that weren’t connected to anything but the power outlet and the laptops were the size of small cars.

I wasn’t brought up on a diet of iPods, iPhones and the Internet.

Today’s i-generation that is attending college and university have known nothing but Facebook, YouTube and Google almost since they were able to read and write.

The one year olds today are finding that the toy of choice is often an Apple iPad that makes learning and entertainment intuitive.

Digital devices dominate!

A Glimpse into the Future

So if you want to see what will be influencing tomorrow’s leaders, you need to look at what the college students of today are using to engage with brands, the devices they are using to communicate and the social networks they think are important.

Digital Media IX recently completed a study of 2,000 college students to try and discover what digital media, brands  and devices are important.

Here are the top insights from that research.

1. The Top 6 Social Networks for College Students

It was no surprise to see the top three of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter scoring above 60% usage. Facebook at 97% continues as expected to be the defacto social network of choice for almost all students.

The study also revealed that LinkedIn is important for senior year college students as they start considering a career.

Pinterest is still a girl thing with 55% of college women using it with only 5% of men on the visual social networking platform.

What I found surprising was Google+  at over 20% with women counting for 60% of the participants.

2. How Students Engage with Brands

I wouldn’t be tearing down your website anytime soon if you want to engage with college students. It is still the primary digital platform that they visit to to obtain information. The Facebook page engagement is primarily limited to “likes” for entering a contest or to incentive.

Over 50% engage with a video, mostly through YouTube.

More than one-third of students download apps sponsored by a brand, high lighting the growing importance  of apps and mobile in engagement.

Twitter, though the least popular was revealed to be a powerful marketing medium with those that “Tweet” influencing a broad group of friends which amplifies the influence.

3. Smart Phones

As expected the smart phone is the most important thing to carry around. What was surprising was the level of dominance the Apple iPhone has for this generation at 58% .

It also appears that the Blackberry (8%) has been usurped by HTC at 11%, with Samsung also rising in usage.

This survey reveals the power of the Apple brand for the younger generation.

4. Mobile Apps on Students Phones

In the survey college students identified 800 unique mobile apps but nine apps represented nearly half the responses (as listed below in the graphic).

The top three apps were Facebook, Twitter and weather. The rise of Instagram and Pinterest over the last 12 months was also evident.

As expected Sports apps were the favorite of men.

5. The Top 10 Digital Brands for College Students

The pervasive influence of Apple is on display for all to see here with it ranking in three of the top five digital brands.

DigitalMediaIX developed the DMIX ratio (DMIX/R) to provide understanding of brands and how they are influenced by the various forms of digital media.

Also factored in were Facebook “likes,” Twitter Followers, and YouTube Channel Views, weighted to reflect their relative importance.

You can view the top 50 digital brands at the Digital Media IX website

What About You?

Do any of the results surprise you?

Could you use any of the information revealed to assist you with your marketing.

Look forward to hearing your feedback and comments.

More Reading

• 48 Significant Social Media Facts, Figures and Statistics Plus 7 Infographics
• Awesome Facts and Figures on the Rise of the Social Mobile Web – INFOGRAPHIC
• 15 Reasons to use your Apple iPhone
• How 3 Mobile Gadgets are Transforming our Lives
• Social Media and Mobile the Perfect Addiction
• Why You Should Be Optimizing Your Blog and Website For Mobile
• Is Mobile Social Media Making Women Geeks?
• 7 Top Trends in Social Media

Image by sparktography

I was recently travelling through Italy and having an iPhone allowed me to share what I was experiencing in real time to my Facebook timeline and to Twitter.

The photo that you see on the right of the sea side town of Camogli is the evidence.

This didn’t require waiting to get back to the hotel room and using my laptop connected to a socket in the wall.

It was as simple as taking a photo using the app, hit the filter feature you want and select which social network to share it on and your photo is visible to the world and the web.

All it needed was a mobile visual app called Instagram.

The explosion of intuitive and easy to use apps is taking usability to new levels and is also a revealing glimpse of what the web may look more like in 5 years.

The Visual, Mobile and Social Web

Five years ago the web  was highly text based and tied to desks and offices. Since the launch of the iPhone the emergence of apps and even more mobile devices such as tablets, the mobile revolution is having a major impact on how we use and interact with technology.

The last 2 years have seen some of the most explosive growth of software, ideas and billion dollar businesses in history with socialized apps and mobile devices leading the way.

The evidence:

• Today on Facebook 300 million photos will be uploaded
• Monthly mobile users on Facebook totals 488 million
• Instagram is heading towards the 100 million users milestone in just 2 years

The social and increasingly mobile web is transforming  how we share our our experiences.

Here is an infographic that shows how we are using Instagram and it also reveals how it has grown since its birth just 2 years ago

Courtesy of: Online Colleges

How About You

How is the mobile revolution changing how and where you use the web? Is it creating changes in your behavior?

Are you taking more photos? Are you sharing more on Facebook and Twitter?

What has been your best Instagram moment?

Look forward to hearing your stories and experiences.

More Reading

• 48 Significant Social Media Facts, Figures and Statistics Plus 7 Infographics
• 20 Stunning Social Media Statistics Plus Infographic
• 30 Terrific Twitter Facts and Figures
• 50 Awesome YouTube Facts and Figures
• 50 Amazing Facts and Figures About Google

Image by Jeff Bullas: Camogli in Italy (March 2012)

Generally people don’t like change!

The majority of us like routine and familiarity.  Mess with someone’s habitual routine and watch them start to sweat, stress and squirm.

They also say that a change is as good as a holiday but is all change good?

Facebook’s new timeline is now live on both the personal profiles and pages and it has taken the known and familiar and replaced it with a very new design.

Steve Jobs said in an interview with Wired magazine in 1997 “People think that design is how it looks, but it goes much deeper than that, it is actually how it works”

So does the new Facebook timeline design “work”?

The impact for business is that it needs to evaluate the implications of these changes to ensure that they maintain their engagement and utilise the stronger visual format that the brand “pages” now have.

So the changes are in place and the dust has settled, what are the implications for the managers, administrators and users of the “new”Facebook timeline “page”.

Is Facebook’s Timeline User Friendly?

Is it a failure from a usability and design perspective? One study by Simple Usability looked at how viewers scanned and interacted with the new Facebook timeline and by recording eye movements and actions while users browsed online, they could see exactly what elements each user was drawn to, distracted by and engaged with.

Here are their key findings.

1. Cover images aren’t as important as you may think

We all love great photos but the usability study that looked at how people interact with the Facebook page showed that other than to orientate themselves with what Brand page they were on users paid little attention to both the cover and profile images.

“I think timeline like that works much better for a personal than a product page, I just think because it is a banner with a main picture, it just looks like advertising.”

2. Your company and its history is interesting

There are 2 key elements here that tell your company story. The “About” section and the Dynamic “Timeline” which can go back to when the company started and this new feature of the Facebook timeline is that you can post updates that are dated such as when your company or brand was established.

The research showed that users were very interested in this “About” section on Facebook but usually found it difficult find on a company’s official “website”

Feedback from one the users in the test group “Just the general information, I like to know a little bit about their background… I liked the bits where it said founded and a little bit of information on when they started and what year, I thought that was interesting. The websites, it’s not obvious on there but I liked seeing it on here.”

Scroll down to the beginning of Ben and Jerry’s Facebook page and you will see photos and information that reveal a great story about their humble beginnings at a renovated gas station in 1978. (thanks to Jacinta from the digital agency “Croagh INK” for pointing out this great story timeline to me)

It is certainly worth considering placing the important dates in your organisations history on the timeline. This will make the brand authentic and real.

3. The Timeline needs to remain current

Regular updates keep the sequence of the Facebook page connected and tell a story over time. The study showed though that no users scrolled back more than a month.

Users appeared to be put off by the breaks in the “Timeline” as the new sections loaded and stopped scrolling.

Users feedback -“When it started loading February..I thought it had finished, because you know with timelines, it stops at a certain bit… so I thought that’s it… because there is a big gap and the big gap is quite misleading because there is more stuff later on.”

4. Users take notice of friend interactions with a brand

The research also showed that seeing which of their friends already liked particular page split user opinion on whether they themselves would also like the page.

A status update or a comment from a user’s friend was more likely to create motivation to interact withe page especially if it was recent.

5. Pinned posts aren’t obviously different to users

The study also showed that the layout doesn’t differentiate the posts.

Few of the pages were utilising the pinned posts at the time of testing. Those pages that did had little effect; no users realised the pinned post was intended to be highlighted.

Clearer definition of pinned post as a feature would help or a unique use of content that works with other elements of

6. Users aren’t interacting with apps

According to the study un-expanded app positions are the most important real estate.

Other than to click through and see photo albums, the majority of users failed to interact with the row of apps. More importantly, nearly all didn’t spot the arrow which makes all of the available apps visible.

Participant in the research said “I never even noticed that arrow, maybe it should be set out slightly differently.”

Takeaways

The study suggests that much in the new “Timeline” layout is flawed. Even following Facebook’s guidelines for creativity and opportunity isn’t enough as users are navigating as if using established design formats.

According to the study, here are the major takeaways:

1. Brands should also make full use of new functionality – such as the Timeline and cover Image – to engage users, being aware that the latter has to be used imaginatively and not just considered to be a Facebook ‘billboard.’

2. Page managers should consider how promotions, competitions and themed content can be contained within a specific timeframe that doesn’t require excessive scrolling.

3. There is also no longer the opportunity to set a default landing tab or application, so brand managers should think about how the cover Image and pinned post functionality can support and reinforce competitions and campaigns.

4. The relationships and interactions a user’s friends have with a brand are now more prevalent than ever before, as such brands should focus on nurturing positive brand mentions wherever they may be on Facebook.

SimpleUsability MD Guy Redwood said:

“But is clear that the average user doesn’t fully understand the new layout, or interact with it in the way intended. The mechanics of obtaining ‘Likes’ has become more difficult for brands, they now need to drive engagement more than ever. Page editors no longer have the ability to set targeted landing tabs or applications for non-fans. In the past you could direct people onto a particular tab to encourage likes or interaction with a promotion“.

How About You?

What do you think about the new timeline for Facebook?

Do you find it confusing? How do generate “likes” now with the new page?

How are you using apps and which ones are you making visible?

Do you think it is a user friendly design?

Look forward to hearing your stories.

More Reading

• How To Take Your Company’s Facebook Fan Page from Zero to 40,000 Fans
• The Top 10 Brands on Facebook and What You Can Learn from them to Grow your Fans [Plus Infographic]
• Starbucks And The 4 Keys To Social Media Engagement
• The World’s 10 Most Popular Company Facebook Pages
• 20 Interesting Facts, Figures and Statistics Revealed by Facebook

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What do you use as your daily Social Media dashboard every day?

Most likely not Twitter.com I am guessing.

Yet, in recent months, there were a great number of browser extensions released, specifically for Twitter.com. They help you create a much greater experience right inside Twitter.com.

What I like best about this is that you are in charge regarding how many bells and whistles you are adding. You can basically fully customize your own Social Media dashboard.

So here are my top 5 finds you can use to make Twitter.com a truly powerful Social Media tool for you:

Tool #1. Klout for Chrome

Function: Find top users more easily

There has been a lot of discussion around Klout in the last few months. One aspect, where it helps me greatly to make my daily Social Media life more efficient, is deciding how to best interact.

When I only have a few minutes at hand every morning, being able to glance through my Twitter stream with everyone’s Klout score next to their Tweets is a great filter. It helps me make better decisions and at the same time deepen my most important connections:

Tool #2. Buffer

Functions: Optimal timing, multiple accounts posting and old school retweets

Another extension I am using every day is Buffer’s Chrome extension. It puts a brand new Buffer button right into Twitter.com next to your Tweet button. If you click it, you can conveniently add any new Tweet to your Buffer to be posted later on at a better time:

The extension also allows you to Buffer your retweets, either posting them now in old school retweet style or later on, when more of your followers will be online.

There is plenty of more places you can now Buffer from on Twitter.com. Personally, I love going through my Twitter lists of top Social Media experts, Buffering everything that’s handy, without flooding my followers.

Tool #3. Pocket

Function: Save your best article finds to be read later

How often does it happen to you, that you come across a terrific article, but can’t read it right now because you are just too busy? From now on, instead of letting it go into Twitter’s limbo, just save it to be read later on with Pocket’s browser extension:

This way, you can save any article you are finding on Twitter to a reading list available any time later on for you. Personally, I found this to be a terrific way to just spend a few minutes browsing, and “pocketing” everything worth exploring later on:

Tool #4. Tweet Filter

Function: Unclutter your Twitter stream from the noise

One problem I have on Twitter is that it often takes lots of Tweets to glance through, until I spot one that is worth reading. And a lot of the time, it’s not even the people, it’s just that I am looking for certain things throughout the day.
With Tweet Filter, you can easily customize this for your own Twitter stream, getting rid of those Tweets that don’t add any value for you at that moment. Filter out words like “4sq, twitpic or award”. Whatever happens to add little value to you:

Tool #5. Embedly

Function: Get full media previews right inside Twitter.com
The last goodie I have for you to really make Twitter.com as powerful as it gets is a neat extension called Embedly. It allows you to expand any Tweet to show you the full article or video view right inside Twitter.com:

I find this to be a huge time saver. You don’t have to click through and see if the headline is really what you expected, but you can just read the first few paragraphs right where you discover that content:

5 Quick Workflow Tips To Optimize Your Day On Twitter

Adding those 5 lightweight solutions to your Chrome browser have saved me hours of time every day. In case this helps you at all with your personal workflow, here is how I approach every morning on Twitter with just 20 minutes per day:

1. Glance through Tweets spotting the best ones using the Klout extension.
2. Previewing the articles I like best with Embedly right on Twitter.com
3. Saving those I want to go into more detail with Pocket to read later on
4. Adding the best Tweets straight to my Buffer as old school retweets.
5. Filter out any words that annoy me with Tweet Filter (this is something I don’t do daily though)

How about You?

I am really curious, have you discovered Twitter.com as your personal Social Media dashboard already?

Let me know if you know of any other ways to enhance your Twitter.com experience

More Reading:

Image by rgddesigns