Losing Likes on Your Page? Don’t Worry, It’s Just Facebook Cleaning House

Facebook is cracking down on something they deem harmful to the integrity of their site, and your fans may be in danger.

You may have experienced a small dip in the total likes on your Facebook page in the last couple of days and yes, it does mean that people are fleeing your page. Why have you suddenly become so unpopular? You haven’t really – the fans fleeing from your page aren’t actually real fans.

In fact, they’re part of a subset Facebook likes to refer to as likes “gained by means that violate our terms.” To you and me, that means fake or fraudulent likes.

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Sorry, Marketers, You're Doing Facebook Wrong

If you’re looking to take a day off from posting on Facebook, choose Wednesday, but don’t rest on Sunday or you’ll miss the best opportunity of the week.

That’s the advice from Buddy Media‘s “Strategies for Effective Wall Posts: A Timeline Analysis,” a report based on activity from 1,800 of the world’s biggest brand pages from April 1 to May 31.

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What Is 'Native Advertising'?

Like Gangnam Style, the term “native advertising” was fairly obscure until mid-August and then all of the sudden it was everywhere.

Well, not everywhere, but it seemed to be in advertising circles and blogs where various experts got to tee off on the matter. Suddenly, would-be social media gurus had a new pet term to throw around to make others feel behind the curve. But is there actually any substance behind it, or is native advertising just the latest buzzword in an industry that specializes in creating buzzwords?

The answer: It depends on who you talk to. Native advertising appears to mean different things to different people.

What Is 'Native Advertising'? Depends Who You Ask

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Data Scientist: The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century

When Jonathan Goldman arrived for work in June 2006 at LinkedIn, the business networking site, the place still felt like a start-up. The company had just under 8 million accounts, and the number was growing quickly as existing members invited their friends and colleagues to join. But users weren’t seeking out connections with the people who were already on the site at the rate executives had expected.

Goldman, a PhD in physics from Stanford, was intrigued by the linking he did see going on and by the richness of the user profiles.

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The Myth of Online Conversion for Everything

Many people buying digital media are looking to see an actual purchase consummated online as part of their online advertising campaign. In most cases, this is not, actually an achievable or relevant goal because relatively few goods are actually purchased online. No one buys cars, snacks, movie tickets, sodas, pet food, and many other categories of products online. In fact, even some products you may buy online: electronics, clothing, toys, etc. the vast majority of people purchase in the physical world.

A massive amount of product research and learning happens online, but the actual purchase typically happens in the physical world. In fact, as more and more of our media consumption moves to the Internet, the place we learn about products will increasingly be the web.

More Here: Jon Steinberg » The Myth of Online Conversion for Everything

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Twitter study: Hashtags and URLs can double engagement

Twitter’s research into how journalists can best grow their followings uses data to confirm what you’ve probably been told at a dozen social media seminars: Be a firehose of information about your beat, use hashtags and @ mentions as much as you can, and share what you’re reading.

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10 Best Pinterest Practices

In the world of social media there are few mediums that go untouched, but there are those that are significantly more prominent than the others.

Facebook and Twitter being the reigning kings and others trailing behind with users unsure of what to do. However, Pinterest is proving to be an extremely useful tool for businesses to engage in.

So why should you be be interested in Pinterest. Recent new data is showing that it has now become the 4th largest referral network after passing Yahoo and now only sits behind Google, Facebook and Twitter.

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Report: 15 Percent Of Social Media Ratings, Reviews, Facebook Likes May Be Fake By 2014

As more consumers rely on social networks for recommendations and reviews, more and more of that content, including likes on Facebook, is being paid for by brands, with a report from research firm Gartner projecting that 10 percent to 15 percent of social media ratings and reviews will be fake by 2014, going as far as to predict that the Federal Trade Commission will bring litigation against at least two Fortune 500 companies for such conduct over the next two years.

According to Gartner, the FTC ruled in 2009 that paying for positive reviews without disclosing that payment qualifies as deceptive advertising.

Read on: Report: 15 Percent Of Social Media Ratings, Reviews, Facebook Likes May Be Fake By 2014 - AllFacebook

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13 Tech Trends to Adopt Before the Year's End

What tech trends are you watching closely in the second half of 2012?


Thirteen young entrepreneurs shared which exciting innovations they’ll be watching closely in the second half of 2012, and whether or not they’ll be putting time — and money — aside to pursue them.

Raul Pla talks about how YouTube isn’t being utilized enough, Vanessa Van Petten believes Pinterest is going to be the website to watch, along with other image-based social networking, search and sales websites. and Henry Glucroft thinks Augmented Reality is really a game changer.

Read on about what all 13 have to say: 13 Tech Trends to Adopt Before the Year's End

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Community-Focused Innovation: The Secret To Reddit's Success

Fresh from its own presidential moment, Reddit is hitting the road on a tech-finding, community-building mission. Here, Alexis Ohanian and Erik Martin talk about the key to Reddit’s culture.


When President Obama showed up on Reddit’s “IAmA/AMA” question and answer forum in late August, the site had 200,000 readers clamoring to join the conversation, and the company’s engineers were working in real time trying to keep the site from breaking during the user deluge. The President answered questions from the Reddit community about campaign finance reform, deciding to go forward with the troop surge in Afghanistan, and his favorite basketball player (“Jordan--I’m a Bulls guy”).

Read On : IAmA Community-Focused Innovator: The Secret To Reddit's Success | Co.Create: Creativity \ Culture \ Commerce

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Data Is Useless Without the Skills to Analyze It

Do your employees have the skills to benefit from big data? As Tom Davenport and DJ Patil note in their October Harvard Business Review article on the rise of the data scientist, the advent of the big data era means that analyzing large, messy, unstructured data is going to increasingly form part of everyone's work. Managers and business analysts will often be called upon to conduct data-driven experiments, to interpret data, and to create innovative data-based products and services. To thrive in this world, many will require additional skills.

Read it Here: Data Is Useless Without the Skills to Analyze It - Jeanne Harris - Harvard Business Review

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The 3 Worst Ways to Use Social Media to Grow Your Business (And What You Should Do Instead)

New media has changed the way we interact and communicate.

To understand and adapt to these changes, "social media experts" popped up to help organization's evolve their marketing communications accordingly.

But while their intentions might be good, their results aren't. Because having more Twitter followers and a high Klout score won't necessarily help you get more website traffic, bring in more qualified leads or increase sales.

The tools and technology may have changed. But the underlying marketing principles still apply.

Read about the 3 of the worst ways to use social media to grow your business, and what you should do instead, here: The 3 Worst Ways to Use Social Media to Grow Your Business (And What You Should Do Instead) | Social Media Today

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5 Ways Your Business Should Use Twitter Hashtags

Assuming you already have a Twitter account dedicated to your small business, you should also be investing in hashtags as part of your social media strategy.

But let’s back up a bit, in case you’re unsure what a hashtag even is in the first place. Designated by a number sign (#), the hashtag is paired with a word or phrase to perform a variety of functions. Twitter users attach hashtags to tweets as search mechanisms, categorizing tools and marketing tactics.

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Should I Outsource My Social Media Management?

Over the past few years, we've seen monstrous shifts in the way small businesses engage their customers, and with those shifts has come a new responsibility for owners: Director of Social Media.

Small business owners rarely get a break from the constant stress of being responsible for...well, everything.  As an owner myself, I know what it's like to live and die by checklists and face the daily barrage that comes with being a small business owner.

So when the opportunity to outsource arises, it's important to consider all the options and risks in order to make a good judgment.

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How to Develop Your Digital Strategy

Constructing digital strategies on behalf of clients makes one thing clear: Clients are often confused about what digital strategy is and how to actually develop one.

When defining and developing strategy, marketers and agencies must ensure that their clients understand that strategy follows structure, it follows people, and it follows an idea. Second, they must make sure that clients get that profit and ROI are outcomes, not the strategy itself. If you’re wondering what developing such a strategy looks like, here are the key steps.

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Organize Around Execution, Or Perish In The Modern Web

The best way for brands to achieve results in the modern web is to organize teams around execution, eliminating micro management and unnecessary approval processes. Why? In many ways marketing is now something that’s won at the edges as much as it is around the “big idea.”

Executing in a daily, consistent fashion will help a brand gain the critical traction necessary to win modern marketing channels. Especially if competitors can’t organize their marketing in this way.

With that, I wanted to share a few ideas regarding why it’s important to organize your team around execution:

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Facebook Reveals the Sleazy Business of Fake ‘Likes’

Facebook might be one of the most uptight sites on the internet, requiring everyone to log in with their name and picture and birthday and to generally behave themselves like a nerd in study hall. Yet it still has a slimy underground where people do slimy things, the company conceded Friday. Facebook says it is removing fraudulently generated “likes,” which helped make some businesses on Facebook appear more popular than they really were.

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