Articles: Social Media

Info about Facebook, Google Plus, Instagram, Pinterest and all the other social media platforms as well as general info and advice

Facebook

Facebook went down this week sending many of their billion plus users into a tailspin. Some apparently even read books!

Facebook is also doing more with interpreting users’ psychological traits – trying to get even cleverer at measuring your personality based on your likes etc. They claim that they know users better than their friends do from 70 likes. More than 150 likes and they claim to know a user better than parents or siblings do. But it takes 300 likes before they know you better than your spouse. Users average around 227 likes so the spouse still wins!

You can do a free online test that will help them match their results and refine their methods for measuring everything about you (if you really want that or think it is a good idea).

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/internet/news/article.cfm?c_id=137&objectid=11392500

Facebook, Privacy

Teenager Text Acronyms

A CNN report noted in the NZ Herald lists 28 texting acronyms (abbreviations) used by teenagers.

Most relate to sex and drugs so we haven’t published it here – if you want to see it go to

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/internet/news/article.cfm?c_id=137&objectid=11375622

But be warned, it could shock you if you have teenagers.

A much more complete list of all acronyms (including these) is at

http://www.netlingo.com/acronyms.php
or
http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/textmessageabbreviations.asp

Something else useful for the Xmas lunch conversation!

Facebook, General Interest

Facebook Privacy Changes

Facebook is updating it’s privacy policy yet again. This time in terms of how it targets you, the user, with paid advertising. They are trying to explain things in more simple terms so hopefully more people will understand it. Well, maybe they will, if they read it!

In the July-September quarter, Facebook reported nearly $3 billion in advertising revenue, a 64 percent increase from a year earlier!

For more info see
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=11358595\

Facebook, Facebook

Preventing Bad Online Reviews

We hope that your great service and product means that you only get positive online reviews.

But to minimise the risk of bad reviews, in the US there have been cases of hotels adding a “non disparagement” clause into their terms and conditions and/or check-in forms. This means the guest agrees (with or without reading the fine print) not to write a bad online review of the property. The hotel could then sue if they did!

Every month 280 million visitors check out Tripadvisor reviews. 89% of people say that online reviews are instrumental in their decision. The introduction of no-review policies and rules would certainly change the importance and credibility of online reviews in the decision process. It could well mean the demise of some online review sites as they would no longer represent the whole picture..

See the article “Could lawyers Destroy Tripadvisor?“

Tourism Industry News, Tourism Market Info, Tripadvisor

We will help spread the word about your product – write us an article

We have Google Plus page and a Blog for Great New Zealand. We will put an article on these for you.

We know there are some great innovative tourism products out there as well as some more traditional ones with interesting “back stories”. Or people in the industry with interesting passions and “back stories”

If you write us a short article of up to 300-400 words about an interesting aspect of your product or background, we will put it on our Great NZ Blog and Google Plus page. Links from the article to your site are considered worthwhile citations in the eyes of Google and can help with your site rankings.

The content of your article that we will publish is likely to be about an innovative product, local history of your area, or something interesting about your background etc. Articles should focus on providing information, tips, items of interest, tell a story and provide additional value – they should not just be a listing for your business.

For example, you might be a B&B or restaurant with an olive oil plant and tastings. Tell us about your olive oil in that case.

Or a dive company writing about the marine life where you take your dive tours.

Maybe you have a heritage building with an interesting restoration story or history. Or some interesting cuisine speciality or location.

Human interest stories welcome – if you have a real skill or passion about something related to your business or tourism, let us know about it.

What is your point of difference?

Anything considered – let us know what you would like to write about and we will let you know if we like the idea and would like the article. When we publish your article it is free publicity for you.

The article will go on our Tourism Blog at http://www.greatnewzealand.co.nz/blog/

Your article will also be posted on our Google Plus page at
https://plus.google.com/+GreatnewzealandCoNz.

Please note – if you follow us on Google+ and let us know if you have a Google Plus page, then we will mention you too.

General, Google Plus

Buying Facebook Likes

We received an email from a company called Domain Services offering to sell us

500 Facebook Likes= $30USD
1000 Facebook Likes= $50USD
2000 Facebook Likes= $90USD
5000 Facebook Likes= $200USD

They also offered us Twitter followers stating that “Followers will help you to make your page look more popular on social networking sites.”

Yes, followers will help, but buying likes, followers or reviews is against the terms and conditions of most social media sites and they actively police it. This practice could see you penalised by Facebook, Twitter, TripAdvisor, Google and others.

Don’t be tempted by this!

Also don’t be tempted by sites or emails offering to submit you to many thousand search engines. Bad practice that can negatively impact your site traffic!

See our other articles on this at http://www.netaction.co.nz/may-2013-newsletter/

Facebook, Google Plus, Scams & Dodgy Stuff, SEO, Tripadvisor

Get Forgotten by Google

Google, Facebook and other online organisations hold a great deal of information about you.

In Europe, courts have ruled that people have the right to have their information forgotten by Google, Microsoft and other online organisations.

Mostly so far it is people getting negative information forgotten (removed), but maybe it means in the future you will have the right to have everything about you forgotten by providers. Continue reading →

Facebook, Google General, Privacy

More Ads on your devices?

There is huge revenue being made from ads on your search results and devices. These are geographically and demographically targeted to you based on what Google and others know about you and your friends.

As mentioned above Facebook is also releasing its own advertising network. And Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia and use of Windows 8 on Nokia products should boost their ability to deliver their own Bing Ads.

So I predict that we are at the beginning of a Pay per Click battle between Microsoft, Google, Apple and Facebook, with each trying to make as much revenue as they can from these.

If you think there are a lot of ads now, I think you ain’t seen nothing yet. It is just the beginning as these companies try to maximise returns for shareholders!

It may just bring the cost per click of ads down though – Google Adwords have been getting way too expensive for many businesses to get a decent Return on Investment from them.

Facebook, Google Adwords, Google General, Mobile Sites, Tripadvisor, Yahoo