get with it: a guide to social media marketing

Halloween weekend has arrived.  It’s time for corn mazes (maize mazes, HA), costume parties, haunted houses, and scary movies.  Have  you picked up a bag of Halloween candy for those pesky trick-or-treaters?  And then a second bag after you ate the first bag?

Some Halloweenies took their love for social media out on these innocent pumpkins.

We continue to learn that comments on YouTube videos are often more entertaining than the YouTube videos themselves.

For instance, I get a kick out of this YouTube video of a little girl encouraging her reflection.  But oh, the comments are even better.

Adrian Holovaty decided to take fabulous YouTube comments to the next level by creating the YouTube Insult Generator.

Type any fairly popular phrase into the YouTube Insult Generator to receive a creative slew of insults to berate your loved ones with.

I typed in the name of the world’s greatest actor, Will Smith.  The following is the result.

PS - you quitted!

Obama has started his own Tumblr blog.

Jackson police reported in August that a local man logged onto his Facebook page while robbing a business.

To which we all responded, “duuuuuuuude.”

Mississippi police were led to Andrew Smith, 30, when his Facebook page was found open on a computer at the scene.  Smith was charged with 2 counts of business burglary.

Smith’s preliminary hearing was held yesterday.  I wonder if Smith’s lawyer can still look her children in the eyes.

Burglary of a business carries a maximum seven year prison sentence.  Facebook asininity carries no prison sentence.  Unfortunately.

Post by Sarie Drake

Looking for a free tool with which to create and edit YouTube videos?  Try YouTube’s own video software tools.

Whether you’re looking to create an animated video, add transitions and effects to your current scenes, or work on a video from different locations (cloud editing), YouTube offers the programs to help.

These well-kept secrets are becoming less secretive as YouTube improves the features of each tool.

Set aside ten minutes to test out each tool, and find which one suits your needs.  Then run with it!  You’d be surprised what you can come up with.

Post by Sarie Drake

And this, ladies and gentleboys, is why you MUST utilize social media marketing.

This infographic shows the flow of social media content to the top pages of Google’s rankings.

Even if you’re already paying for SEO, it’s crucial to spend time (and sometimes money) on social media marketing.  Optimization and link building is not enough anymore.


Get with it.

Sean Parker, Facebook Co-Founder, has joined Twitter.  His first tweet is an apology to his pally pal Mark Zuckerberg.

HA.

Since joining Twitter 2 weeks ago, Parker has been all up in it.  Over a hundred tweets already?  You’d almost think he’s trying to anger his Zuckerpal..

If you’re looking for an extra method to help brand your company, consider editing the photostrip on your Facebook page.

As you continue to add new photos to Facebook over time, the custom images you created will get pushed out of the strip to make room for the most recent ones.  To prevent this, hover your mouse over the photos you don’t want in your photostrip until a small x appears in the upper right corner.  Click the x to remove the unwanted photos from your customized photostrip.

Change the images as often as you wish, to coincide with sales, specials, and holidays. 

Keep in mind! You cannot control the order of the photostrip photos.  Each time the Facebook page is refreshed, the 5 images will change order.  Keep this in mind when designing them.  Don’t make a boo-boo like this:

Well guess what HyperArts, I’m not comfortable with ReTweeting Her Rapist.  Find another sucker.

The NFL is all up in social media this year.

I have found myself rather entertained when following the #buffalobills on Twitter during Sunday games.  The happy, the angry, and the very drunk can all be found tweeting away from 1pm to 5pm.

The NFL is taking advantage of the passion that fans feel for their teams by putting a 150-person crew in charge of the NFL’s social media program.  The goal is to keep the NFL on fans’ minds Monday through Saturday as well.

The NFL is working with social enterprise software Buddy Media to get the most out of their social media regimen, and it seems to be working.  Mashable reports that the NFL Facebook page has 474% more active users now than this time last year.

The last time I used a SwearJar was in Hurlbut Church Youth Group back in the glorious decade known as the 90s.  My fellow Sunday Schoolers and I had to put a quarter in the jar every time we said an abhorrent word like “crap”.  It was actually total crap.

Anyway, that SwearJar idea has gone digital.  Twitter users can sign up for SwearJar and pledge an amount to donate each time they tweet a curse word.  The end of every week brings a “pay up” reminder email from SwearJar, like a virtual collector.  But don’t worry, no one gets their legs broken here!  SwearJar is just for fun, an easy way to regularly donate to charity.  All money raised is donated to UNICEF. (I’m still partial to the heifer project, but potty-mouths can’t be choosers.)

If you want to blog, bro, go for it.  Just do it.  Stop pondering it, stop Googling it, stop shaking that Magic 8 Ball.

When I speak to aspiring bloggers, I often note the hesitation they have in choosing a blogging platform.

There was a time when I thought WordPress was the only choice for blogging.  It has a customizable design, is eminently search engine friendly, allows plug-ins and add-ons, and, you know, all the cool kids are doing it.

But not every big league chew company is using WordPress.

Rolling Stone has a Tumblr blog.  So does Newsweek.  So does Jon Arbuckle.


I am a Tumblr girl at heart.  Perhaps WordPress has more professional features than my Tumblr blog, but the creative and artistic nature of Tumblr fits this blog.

Don’t be afraid to use the platform you like most, whether it be Tumblr, Blogger, or WordPress.  If your blog is well-written, it will get traffic.
 
                

I was going through some comments I’d received on a WordPress blog today, and decided that some of these pearls were too precious to hoard. 

And lo!  The angel Sarie decended from her blog and shared her jubilant comment-song with the people of Narnia Earth.

The esteemed comment-author “Phylis Escober” poetized this observation just yesterday.  I’m quite sure it’s also an exerpt of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Like almost everyone else on planet Earth, McDonalds has a Twitter account.  And this Twitter account gets more action than your mom after a box of wine at Bingo.

Now, you may be asking, “Sarie, why would a respected corporation like McDonalds even respond to Twitter handles like @dogboner and @fart?”

Well, it’s important to take care of your customers.  And something tells me these guys might be McDonalds’ best customers.  In fact, they probably work there.