Last week, Facebook unrolled yet another round of updates. One of those updates, the subscribe button, was smelling a bit like twitter…oh and Google+ (shocker).

I won’t go into details, but I will go into opinions. At first, my thought was “a subscribe button, why? Just another way to one up (or +1) Google+ (get it??).”

I don’t think I was the only one that assumed this was another way to top Google+’s circles and privacy settings, but Facebook mixed things up for a change by taking a a stab at Twitter as well. So, was there a motive behind this update… or is Zuckerberg just trying to prove that Facebook really is the lean, mean, social networking machine. Hm, probably both… but I decided to dissect a bit.

We’ve seen people get famous because of Twitter, and we saw those same people thriving in Google+. Could this be Facebook’s attempt to find their Guy Kawasaki? Could the number of subscribers soon become the measurement tool of “who’s who” in Facebook Land? I am willing to put money that Mark Zuckerburg is currently leading the pack…

Ok, so what will it take to become Facebook’s MVP?

-You’ve got to be super-popular. (High school all over again? ugh) Bring something to the table: original ideas, jokes, photos – you’ve got to find your shtick.

-It will probably help if you are already a YouTube star or online persona… (Easier said than done, huh? “Do something crazy, do something crazy!”)

-You’ve got to be able to cross that bridge from private to public that many are reluctant to do on Facebook. Facebook is private by nature, unlike Twitter.

-You’ll have to change the way you Facebook. It’s no longer just a way to keep in touch with your friends. To become Facebook famous, you’ve got to use it as a popularity tool.

So, are you opening your doors for subscriptions? Leave a comment with your Facebook name so I can subscribe! I want to see Facebook fame in the making…

What Makes the Best the Best?
Every year, U.S. News & World Report releases its top college rankings. But who needs stuffy college rankings, when you have the experts at Mashable taking a look at what may matter more to the next generation of college students – social connectivity!

Mashable took the 2012 top 10 listings and created an infographic displaying the social media domains for each of the colleges/universities.

Moment for Social Commentary on Social Commentary

After reviewing the Top 10 Lists and reasoning behind it. I found it really interesting and think that more colleges should take the lead.

To view the list visit: http://mashable.com/2011/09/13/social-media-universities-colleges

Yep, I’m Giving You Homework!

What made you choose your university and did social media have any component in that decision? Now once you’ve digested that little nugget, here’s something else to consider… If you plan on earning a degree in the near future, will social media play an impact on your decision making?

C’mon You Know You Do! And Here’s How You Can Do It.

On Sept. 8, at 4:30 P.M. EST. / 1:30 PST, the one and only Miss Oprah Winfrey will be answering questions on Facebook Live. To set a reminder for yourself and share your RSVP with your Facebook peeps, click here. Oh and one other thing, you can post your question to Oprah Winfrey and you may have the soul-melting pleasure to witness it being answered during the live Facebook event.

A Little About Facebook Live

As stated on the Facebook.com/FacebookLive (click the link to watch a quick video about Facebook Live) page, the purpose of Facebook Live is, this is “Facebook’s official live video streaming channel, provide a deeper look into our features, partners & employees. We bring you special guests, latest innovations, and live events from Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto.”

Pretty nifty right?

Have You Watched Facebook Live Yet?

Facebook has had several notable events already on its Facebook Live channel. but Oprah is surely a momentous occasion for the young channel. Are you planning on watching? Are you going to leave a question for Oprah to answer on her Sept. 8 Facebook webcast? Tell us!

Have you ever started talking to your friends about going to a concert or show and then tried to get tickets in the same area they planned on sitting, but couldn’t always coordinate in time? Or how about this one – you wait for what seems like an eternity for your friends to decide if you will go as a group to a concert or show, and a gaffe in communication happens where one set of people buy tickets but don’t tell the other set until it’s too late?

These things happen, I can personally attest to that.

But what if a solution to these conundrums was available? What if you could let your friends know that you bought your tickets and then show them exactly where you’ll be sitting on a live seating chart? Or what if your procrastination can finally come to an end, because your friends purchased their seats and instantly notified you via Facebook?

You don’t need to wonder any longer. Facebook, Live Nation and Ticketmaster have created a system that can help take your purchasing anxiety down a notch or four.

Mashable recently reported how this new feature will work.

• You can view if any of your Facebook friends have tagged themselves into the seats they purchased
• You can tag yourself into the seats you purchased, so your friends can see where you are sitting
• Tagged seats are slight “virtual pokes in the shoulder” to friends contemplating going to the same show/concert; a direct cause and affect action will occur with more people purchasing tickets

Mashable quoted Ticketmaster’s e-vp of ecommerce Kip Levin, of likining this process back to the “olden” (cringe!) days of buying tickets at the record store. Anyone remember Peaches? Please tell me I’m not the only one!

This latest innovation from Ticketmaster was made possible by doing the smartest thing any company can ever do… they listened to what their customers wanted.

Now if they would only go ahead and listen to us about some of the service fees! Kidding. Well, kind of.

With over 9,000 Ticketmaster and Live Nation events already active with Facebook tagging,  have you participated yet or are you planning to? We want to know!

Mano a Mano in El Bano! Old Spice’s Internet Duel of the Century.

That’s right, he’s back! Isaiah Mustafa a.k.a. the “Old Spice Guy” is back to kick Fabio’s ass. Wait, what? Random, right? As it turns out, Fabio wants to be the NEW “Old Spice Guy” and he’s challenged Mustafa to an Internet Duel. This new campaign has been coined “Mano a Mano in El Bano.” Awesome, right?

They’re even being brazen enough to say that this is the Internet Duel of the Century, although as Mustafa points out in one video, (paraphrasing, here) “We’re only 11% through the 21st century. However, we haven’t had much going on in the Internet Duel departments in the 15th, 16th, 17th…” okay you get the picture.

We first brought the Spice to you back in August 2010… Now, nearly a year later, the campaign is following some of its old (okay not quite that old – it’s barely been a year) standards: responding to Twitter messages via video posted on YouTube, encouraging fan interaction in the form of votes (Mustafa vs. Fabio) via the YouTube and Twitter platforms.

Team Mustafa or Team Fabio?

Whose team are you on? Tell us!

Check out one of the videos now:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Who Doesn’t Love a Good Deal? Count Foursquare In on the Local Coupon Craze!

What does a once small social start-up company that’s grown exponentially over the past year do to keep up with the (profitable) Jones’ (aka LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter… I can keep going), to hopefully turn a profit? Daily deals, of course!

Coming as soon as Tuesday to Foursquare will be LivingSocial, Gilt Groupe and AT&T Inc., and if rumors are true Groupon will follow shortly. If Foursquare can  accomplish signing both Groupon and LivingSocial to its platform, this means infinite opportunities for local businesses to take their social networking, community interactions and discounts to a new level.

The Wall Street Journal Reports

Foursquare will begin making the deals available Tuesday. Chief Executive Dennis Crowley said it will get revenue from the deals it sells for its partners, but declined to specify the breakdown.Jake Maas, senior vice president of business development for LivingSocial, said the deal with Foursquare adds another distribution channel for his company, which already markets deals through websites and bloggers. “We’ll see where it goes, but we are optimistic,” he said.

“We are trying to see if our targeting works and how users will react,” Mr. Crowley said in an interview in Foursquare’s New York office. “The deals haven’t been heavily targeted with some of these providers.”

What Does This Mean for Geo Targeted Social Media Efforts?

This means big stuff. Imagine logging into Foursquare to check in at a local venue like you normally would, and see that not only are there x-amount of nearby deals, but there are quite a few “coupon” deals from the providers mentioned above. This means, that you no longer have to plow through the pile of email notifications sent out at 4 am or  have to worry about checking every single one of the dozens of daily-deal sites that are popping up left and right. Instead the major players are right there at your finger tips on your Foursquare app.

WE WANT YOUR OPINION!

Now that Foursquare is bringing daily deals and coupons directly to you… Will you be more likely to use Foursquare daily, as a result?

We all want to be the best. From our family life to career path, becoming a champion takes time, dedication and most of all…. feedback. Blind action can cost your business money, customers and hours of precious time. Are people actually reading what you write in your blog? Do they take the tips you post and put them to use? Is social media really doing anything for your company?

Here are 3 ways to get more from your social media.  

1. Satisfaction Survey – You can’t beat an online survey. They are easy to setup thanks to services like Survey Monkey or Constant Contact and can be easily shared on social sites. When doing a satisfaction survey, be sure to keep questions unbiased by using numbered answers (1-5), steering clear of superlatives like best/worst and always offering an “other” or “not applicable” option.  
2. Open Answer – Just asking your social media users how to better improve your platform can give you lots of feedback. However, open ended answers also leave room for inappropriate responses, criticism and spam. When posting open ended questions on sites like Facebook or Twitter, try to construct them so answers are more than a YES or NO.
3. Awareness Survey – Asking your online followers how to better improve your social media can be like preaching to the choir. They already know what your social media platforms generally have to offer and while they can definitely help you improve upon it, often the people who ARE NOT on your sites need to be heard.

Feedback makes us better on many different levels. Knowing what others think of your business and what they would like to see can help you to reach that next level of success. When looking for your customer’s point of view, remember these 3 easy ways to get more from your social media.

There are many ways to use Facebook, and an armed man in Salt Lake City, Utah, found one more. At 36-years-of-age, Jason Valdez used his Facebook account in a way that I’m pretty sure Facebook’s creators never intended for it to be used.

Valdez kept friends and family updated about the predicament he found himself facing (the SWAT Team) after taking a woman hostage. The standoff lasted about 16 hours, and many a Facebook update was posted not only by the armed man, but by his friends and family too.

If you want to read all of the posts made by Valdez, visit Mashable. [Warning: graphic language is used by Valdez and his friends and family.]

The first time I saw the headline posted by a friend, I thought it was a joke. Then when my Mashable newsfeed showed, it, the story had wheels and I wanted to hop on and see what there was to see. So let’s take a look at the highlights:

• The gunman’s name is Jason Valdez, 36 years of age
• According to the Associated Press, “is no stranger to the law”
• Valdez’s convictions include aggravated assault and domestic violence in front of a child, a child and he has a pending felony drug charge which is what kicked the whole shebang off
• After police tried to serve Valdez with a felony drug warrant for a missed court appearance, he took a female hostage
• The situation occurred at a local motel, Western Colony Inn, and the standoff lasted 16 hours
• Valdez communicated with friends and family through Facebook by posting status messages and pictures
• One of Valdez’s friends was kind enough to reply back that a SWAT member was hiding outside in a bush
• During the standoff with SWAT officers, Valdez made six posts and according to police, “at least a dozen new friends” (not sure what that says about us as a society)
• A total of 100 response comments were made at Valdez’s Facebook account during the standoff, as well
• The first Facebook status message posted during the situation from Valdez, “I’m currently in a standoff … kinda ugly, but ready for whatever,” Valdez wrote in his first post at 11:23 p.m. “I love u guyz and if I don’t make it out of here alive that I’m in a better place and u were all great friends.” [As posted by the AP]
• Valdez even posted a picture of himself and his hostage, Veronica, whom he referred to as his “hostage”

In the end, Valdez refused to reason and come to terms with the SWAT team. He claimed that he was about to let the hostage go, when his friends alerted him of SWAT movement and the cycle began again. About 90 minutes passed before SWAT made their way to Valdez and took control of the situation. He shot himself in the chest, but at this time is still alive. Valdez will be facing new charges on top of the ones he’s already facing, and police are determining whether to charge his friends who posted SWAT updates on Valdez’s Facebook. Charges could also be brought against one of Valdez’s friends who encouraged Valdez to fire at police.

Your company website vs. social media; it’s a battle as old as… Justin Bieber?

OK, so this is a very recent conflict in world of business, but unlike Justin Bieber, this battle hasn’t peaked (sorry Bieber fans L).  

Many social media theorists think social media platforms will eventually replace traditional company websites altogether. Website proponents say social media is simply a supplement to the company site.

So who’s right? Let’s take it to the ring for a winner

Round 1: Which is more Informative: Website. While both have the ability to offer information galore, websites allow for page upon page to be archived and in turn create more searchability for your company; graphics, timelines, charts and links can be easily displayed.

Round 2: Which is more Interactive: Social Media. When it comes to the “conversation” between consumers and businesses, social media is the microphone. If someone wants to ask a about a particular product, recommend it to a friend or see what others have to say about it: social media is the answer. While websites can offer plug-ins that do this, they are simply a window to the conversation going on in different platforms.

Round 3: Which is more Cohesive: Website. For most consumers it’s all about “the look” aka branding. Websites are the poster child for displaying a cohesive image in all marketing avenues. They can be morphed to offer a single, interactive, graphically appealing message that keeps the brand united. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have come a long way in stretching a brand’s singular look, but the traditional website wins this one by far.

Round 4: Which is more Accessible: Social Media. We all already live our lives through social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, LinkedIn and YouTube; so of course social media is going to win this round. Accessing a business through a platform you’re already on (Facebook wall, Twitter feed) then you will be much more likely to interact and ultimately buy then a website that has to be searched out. You see a friend recommend a site… then you go to the site.

So it’s a tie? How lame right? While both have lots to offer, the battle is still too close to call. As social media continues to develop and play a more pivotal role in our lives, we will see what the outcome is.

So how does your business come out in this battle? Website? Social Media?

Americans love a good deal. From TV shows like Extreme Couponing to an ever growing list of discount websites, our need to save a buck or two has turned the corner to obsession.

And it seems that every business has jumped the bandwagon in an attempt to get more business. No longer reserved for the occasional grocery product or pizza, sites like Living Social and Groupon make it easy for any type of mom and pop business to reach out to a wider variety of consumers.

But beware. Couponing can hurt your company just as much as it can help. When deciding whether to head down discount drive, remember these 3 cautionary points.

1.       Beware undermining your Product. Have you ever seen a coupon for a Lexus? Do they have a B1G1 deal at Tiffany’s? No. High end products and services typically don’t offer coupons because their demographic could generally care less about saving a few bucks. It’s more about the quality and the experience. Offering a discount would just undermine the product. Even if you don’t consider your product top of the line, your target audience could still fall under this mentality.

2.       Beware training your consumers for a deal. The pizza industry lives off coupons. Just think about it, if you are going to buy a pizza, do you order off the menu or off the coupon insert? If it’s not on sale, it’s not going to get much buy in. While this might work for pizza companies, most businesses (especially smaller mom and pop establishments) wouldn’t see any profits from this type of promotion. Instead, try focusing on getting a “sample” of your product or service out there that has them coming back at least two more times. Discounting yearlong member ships or a series of samples can lead to greater loyalty.

3.       Beware the Couponing Pro. Always watch out for the seasoned couponer. These people are ONLY looking for a deal and will not add new business to your company. All it takes is a ling posted on a “Mommy blogger” site to say good bye to any hope of better profits. That is why daily deal sites like Groupon and Living Social are great for the newcomer. They offer better control over the deal without alienating potential customers.

Just because a deal works for one business doesn’t mean it will work for yours and vice versa. Before you jump into the deep end of online couponing, take the time to really analyze your target audience, profit margins and brand identity.

Has your business offered a discount using an online site? Are you thinking about joining the trend?