While Pinterest remains wildly popular with the visual social sharing crowd, the bulk of its usage revolves around sharing things like recipes, craft projects, pictures of celebrities, and home improvement ideas - none of which are the sort of thing that generate revenue for the...
Have you seen the new Twitter profile options? Twitter CEO Dick Costolo was on the Today Show last week to announce the changes, and surprisingly few people have jumped on the opportunity to date. The new profile has a header similar to the Facebook cover...
In this image-happy world of social media, we are surrounded by professional-looking infographics and visually stunning pictures that accompany most of the content we consume on a daily basis. It's become more and more important to be able to create these amazing images in order...
Very Serious Writers may scoff, but there is a thriving community of fan fiction writers online. What is fan fiction? It's fiction written using characters and/or the setting from another author's work. (Or not necessarily another author. Fan fiction is written by fans of not...
They used to be called "fans," but now they are simply Facebook users who "Like" your Facebook page. (For simplicity's sake, I will be referring to them as fans.) But how do you get them? When a Facebook user visits your page, what they see there will convince them to Like it...or not. After all, PC Magazine posted an infographic that shows that purchase intent is increased by more than 50% when someone chooses to follow your brand in social media, and social media makes marketing efforts more effective, as well. So just what is it that turns your customers or potential customers into Facebook fans?
Brand storytelling is hardly a new idea. One of the earliest examples is the Wishbook from Sears and Roebuck. In 1895, the Sears Wishbook hit rural Americans mailboxes offering a new concept – a variety store that allowed frontier families to order everything from guns...
Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, LinkedIn, Google+...
In the growing avalanche of apps for smartphones, a couple of video sharing startups really caught fire this year, and the result is making video junkies very happy. In the dark days before SocialCam and Viddy hit the net, uploading video was clumsy and slow....
Spammers are nothing if not inventive, and social media sites have given them fertile-and lucrative- ground. The genius in the spam is hiding in plain sight. The best spam is friendly, inviting, and deeply ordinary, exactly like the links that millions of unsuspecting people click...
Artists can utilize social media for two completely different purposes: finding inspiration for new works and getting exposure for completed works. This is true no matter what type of artist you happen to be. Musicians can collaborate via YouTube; painters can display their works and...
There are a number of social games out there on a variety of platforms - although the most popular seem to be those played on Facebook and smartphones. If you're reading this, chances are you play at least one of them: Words with Friends, Scramble...
Pinterest has a reputation for being popular with the ladies. I suppose there's a reason for that; Forbes reported that 97% of Pinterest users are women, and that 47% of women who use social media have made purchases based on Pinterest recommendations. But that doesn't...