On Friday the social network said it will offer targeted promoted tweets to uses in order to provide a well rounded ad experience.

According to Twitter:

“Synchronized Twitter and TV ad campaigns make brand messages more engaging, interactive and measurable.”

Thanks to its acquisition of Bluefin Labs the micro-blogging service now has the ability to closely monitor shared content in order to gain a reference point for television programming. The program works even if a user doesn’t explicitly reference the name of the TV show they just watched.

The program works by using revealing what TV ads a user just saw and then targeting promoted tweets around the same product.

For example, if you see a commercial for Dr. Scholl’s inserts you may find yourself staring down a promoted tweet for the same product.

Twitter is testing the TV ad to promoted tweet platform with only a handful of companies in the United States.

If the test markets for the product are successful we will likely begin to see across medium ad targeting on a more regular basis into the future.

The opt-in feature requires users to receive an access code on their smartphone via SMS text messaging.

Earlier in the month it was announced that Twitter employees were currently testing the Twitter two-factor authentication setup. The tests began after several high profile accounts including Burger King and The Associated Press were hacked and disturbing messages were posted to their accounts.

There are some limitations to the type of two-factor authentication being used. Specifically, many high-profile account users have multiple workers who access their Twitter account. Because two-factor authentication relies on an SMS text message to a single smartphone it won’t work for multiple users. 

According to Sophos Security researcher Chester Wisniewski:

“To do this properly, Twitter needs to go in the direction of Google+ and Facebook. They allow for “company” accounts and then assign regular users to be administrators. No shared passwords, and everyone can use two-factor.”

Twitter is already working on other types of added authentication and writes:

“Much of the server-side engineering work required to ship this feature has cleared the way for us to deliver more account security enhancements in the future.”

According to the study parents are three times more likely to share videos of their kids (27 percent) than a pet (9 percent).

60 percent of parents responded to the survey by acknowledging that they shoot at least three videos of their children per month. 44 percent of those parents said they share at least three videos per month. 

The study also found that 53 percent of parents shoot videos of their kids just so they can share them while 88 percent of parents will share the videos either way.

So dogs and cats doing silly and stupid things is popular, but not quite as popular as happy parents who want to show off their kids.

Here’s the infographic:

But managing all of those different accounts can be a big headache, and anything that makes your life harder will ultimately make you less effective. That’s why you need to read this post, because it is full of helpful tips (on how to manage multiple social media accounts) to make your life nice and simple.

Shall we get started then?

1: Chrome

If you have multiple accounts on the same platform, either because you have a separate personal and business Twitter profile or maybe you manage multiple Facebook accounts, it can all get rather messy. In particular, you have to log out and log back in for each account that you want to manage.

Chrome has a wonderful feature that lets you set up different profiles on the same browser. You can easily switch between profiles by clicking a button in the top left corner and each user profile has its own bookmarks, history and cookies.

This means that you can have a personal profile and a business profile and you can remain logged in to all of your various accounts in parallel. To use your business Twitter profile, simply launch your business chrome profile!

Get Chrome here if you don’t use it yet

2: Buffer

Buffer is a simple little app that lets you queue up your Twitter and Facebook updates in 2 clicks. It comes with a free browser extension (for various browsers, so you’ll certainly find one for your current browser) so you can right click on any page and queue it up to be tweeted or published whenever you next have a free spot (you set a schedule and it follows it).

If you like the idea of using Chrome to manage multiple social media accounts, Buffer integrates very well in this setup. You can set up a Buffer account for each of your Chrome profiles so that you are always logged in and whenever you see something interesting, just Buffer it!

It makes keeping your Twitter stream full much easier, as well as avoid you flooding your followers’ streams when you stumble upon a bunch of links you want to tweet. Instead of tweeting them one after the other, you can use Buffer.

Learn more about Buffer here

3: Cyfe

Cyfe is a marketing dashboard. Full disclosure: this is who I work for, but check them out anyway! This platform lets you create your own dashboard full of widgets that show you, at a glance, how your social accounts are performing.

You can access widgets showing your SERP rankings, Analytics data, Twitter and Facebook performance and even your own custom widgets, so it saves you checking each of your accounts separately. You can set it as your home page and get a quick-glance report each time you open up your browser.

Learn more about Cyfe here

4: The Old Reader

One of the hardest aspects of managing a healthy social media account can be thinking of things to Tweet about. If you only ever share your own content, people will lose interest, so it is helpful to use an aggregator to find good content. I personally find  ‘The Old Reader” to work pretty well.

You can set up a different account for each of your Chrome profiles. All you need to do is browse the latest posts, pick a couple of interesting ones and add them to your Buffer queue, then get on with the rest of your day.

Find the Old Reader here

5: Gmail/Thunderbird

This may or may not be a helpful tool set for you, it really depends on your workflow and how much you use your social accounts, but for me it is essential. If you have many social media accounts you will need many email addresses, which you can set up using Gmail.

Next, you can hook your emails up to Thunderbird (or Outlook if you prefer) so that you can manage all of your emails without having to log in to each account separately.

You can then set up email alerts with all of your various social accounts that will instantly alert you to anything that you need to action.

Get Thunderbird here

About The Author
This post was written by Clive from Cyfe.com, the social media and business dashboard. For more info about Cyfe, please visit our website.

Lead image via serc

Even the best, most popular blogs in the world can get stale from time to time. Sooner or later, you’re going to get that nagging feeling that you’ve run out of things to write about. The next time you’re stuck for a blog subject, try one of these to get the creative juices flowing.

1. Pick up a magazine you’ve never read — and never would.

Next time you’re in Barnes & Noble, Borders, heck even Walmart, run over to the Periodicals aisle and grab a magazine that holds zero interest for you. The more obscure and specific, the better. (Don’t just grab an outdoors magazine, pick up one about bird watching or fly fishing.) There are magazines for every personal interest in the world, and the best thing about them is, the people who write for them are true enthusiasts. Wikipedia might give you a complete explanation of what model railroading is, but a magazine will immerse you in the model railroad culture, using jargon and knowledge that only insiders have.

If your budget is zero, try your local library. Most libraries carry plenty of current mags for you to peruse. If you want to take this idea further, sign up for a class on an unusual topic. Read a novel that’s way outside your tastes. Attend a trade show you might consider bizarre.

2. Scan the headlines. Every day.

Say you write a blog on sewing. Head over to your favorite news website and find a story that grabs your attention. Good news, bad news, doesn’t matter, as long as it’s something big that’s happening now and on a lot of people’s minds. Now look at that news story from your blog’s perspective. If you were to write about that news story on your niche-interest sewing blog, what might you say that would do justice to the story while remaining relevant and on-topic to the blog?

Find a common ground between what you already do and whatever’s happening in the world, and a whole new realm of content just might open up for you.

3. Do something crazy, then write about it.

We bloggers are sometimes a bit hermit-like in falling prey to the lull of writing, hunching over the soft glow of our laptops until all hours. But how much can you really come up with to write about by sitting behind the computer 24/7?

Lots of how-to bloggers will tell you to “just shut off the computer and go outside to find things to write about.” You know, head to the park, a museum, a movie, travel the world, blah blah blah. But anyone can do that. Instead, I say once in a while you should get out and do something outrageous. Do something completely bonkers and then write a story on your blog about your gonzo adventure. Jump into the fountain at the mall and pretend like you’re swimming laps. Go to the middle of downtown and belt out your favorite song at the top of your lungs. Crash a wedding wearing clothes that were fashionable in the 70s.

Just get out there and do something nuts. Your readers will love it — and might be inspired to do something outrageous of their own.

About the Author
Hope Rocha lives in Las Vegas, where doing crazy things is required by law. By day, she fights the urge to recommend DSL Internet Providers to senior citizens, while her dream is to one day sell yogurt to hobos in Guam.

Google Glass, by design, is a social product. Customers wear the glasses everywhere and therefore, they have the option to easily stay connected on the go.

With that real-time connectivity, it was only a matter of time before social networks jumped on-board.

Announced at Google I/O, the product is now receiving social connectivity via Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and collaboration platform Evernote.

Before those social networks jumped on-board, Google Glass was already connected to mobile-only social network Path.

Each of the social networking options will be available as “Glassware,” the new name for Google Glass apps.

Twitter is currently allowing Google Glass users (mostly developers), to tag their Tweets from Google Glass with the hashtag #throughglass.

The social aspect is also being picked up by other platforms. For example, Elle magazine is curating photos, videos, and read-aloud excerpts that can be shared in article and photos form via Google Glass.

Will you be trying out Google Glass with social media connectivity when it finally arrives to market?

The team at USF’s Online MPA took a close look at disaster response to determine what effect it receives from social media.

The team quickly discovered that many agencies are now using Facebook, Twitter, and even Instagram to help facilitate rescue and relief efforts.

Researchers examined three specific disasters: The Japan tsunami, the Haiti earthquake and Superstorm Sandy.

The study found that 1 in 5 people in need of help during a disaster reach out for help via social media. 76% of respondents also reach out to friends via social media when a disaster occurs.

The most surprising finding may be that 80% of Americans surveyed believe that state and federal agencies should be monitoring social media in order to find people in need.

Here’s a closer look at the social media disaster response survey:

While Google’s software platforms  ranging from Gmail and Google Maps to Google Docs and Google.com continue to receive praise the company has failed to keep up with its competitors in terms of media offerings.

To reach a level playing field with Apple and Amazon the company reportedly signed licensing deals with Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment. Those two media conglomerates make up a large portion of the mainstream music market and are considered must have partners for any serious online streaming partner. 

According to reports the Google music streaming platform will resemble Spotify by playing on-demand songs on desktop and mobile devices via subscription service.

Google has not confirmed the report but if true it would mean that the search giant will beat a Apple to the music streaming market. Apple is believed to be working on an iRadio feature that would also compete with the likes of Spotify and now Google.

A name for the new Google service has not been revealed at this time.

Are you ready to test drive a Google run music streaming service?

Link Building in 2013: Panda Packs a Punch

The recent Panda update was yet another step taken by Google to clean up its search algorithm and further eliminate spam. This update set out to punish those utilizing black-hat tactics and specifically those with poor content. The main focus of the Panda update seemed to be on quality content, as the effects of it were most devastating for those using content farms and spun articles to acquire links.

It also seems as though Panda put a heavy emphasis on relevancy, penalizing those which possessed links to sites way outside of their niche. One of the more famous sites to get hit by the Panda update for these very reasons was J.C. Penny, which can be seen in this article from the NY Times. Although many sites such as J.C. Penny were caught by Panda, there are those who evaded the update and continue to exercise black-hat schemes.

Black-hat Link Building

Black-hat practices, in regard to link building, aim to gain as many links as possible through minimal effort.

One of the primary strategies utilized by black-hat link builders is the use of spammy comments. They will place comments in posts located on other sites that have nothing to do with the actual post; instead the comment just promotes their site and contains a link. This has led to many webmasters implementing moderation into their comments section. Also, it appears that Google has caught onto this as well and these types of links are not as powerful as they once were.

Another tactic black-hat link builders have turned to is creating link farms. A link farm is a site that is created purely to produce links for another site. Some of these sites are well constructed and look legitimate. However, when examining the external links on such a site you will see that they all point to the same place.

Along with these clever schemes, black-hat link builders exploit guest posting. They produce low-quality content and target sites that publish such content with no regard for relevancy. Sites like this tend to raise a red-flag for Google and usually get penalized along with the sites linking to them.

While these strategies will produce quick links, the links obtained are not organic and Google will not reward these types of links. Some of these tactics may produce results in the short-term and some may even go unnoticed for a prolonged period of time, but in the end Google will continue to update its algorithm and eventually expose and punish such shady practices.

White-hat Link Building

On the other hand, there are those who attempt to follow widely accepted white-hat link building strategies.

White-hat link building, for the most part, involves two major aspects. Those two aspects are quality and relevant content. White-hat practitioners aim to produce useful, high quality content on relevant niche sites where it will provide value to the audience.

This type of link building takes much more time and effort, and follows the classic philosophy of quality over quantity. The reason it takes longer to obtain links through white-hat link building methods is because it is much harder to produce interesting and stimulating content; and then, find the best and most applicable location for that content.

There is a reason that although these white-hat techniques are harder to execute and take longer to implement, many link builders still elect to pursue these strategies. This is because this type of organic link building is beneficial for the online community as a whole, which is something Google tends to embrace. The goal for Google is to make navigating the web easier for the user, and they are not going to punish something that does exactly that. This is why these types of link building processes are the future of SEO.

While black-hat link building tactics offer short-term results, Google eventually is able to pin down these types schemes and disciplines them accordingly. White-hat link building practices provide a mutually beneficial situation for the link builder and the internet community as a whole and Google approves of these techniques. If you are implementing any sort of link building projects for your website or blog, I strongly suggest you take some time to thoroughly consider which camp your own strategies fall under before you’re the next victim of a Google algorithm update.

About the Author
Andrew Dennis is a writer at the relevancy-first link building company Page One Power. When he’s not writing about link building best practices, he prefers playing indoor soccer and pick-up games of basketball at the local gym.

Image via t r e v y

Twitter on Monday announced the acquisition of big data analytics firm Lucky Sort.

Lucky Sort is a firm that focuses on natural language data-mining and visualization tools that are used by various online partners.

The company StockTwits is powered in large part by the data provided from the Lucky Sort system.

Lucky Sort will begin to shut down its services over the next few months and the company’s employees will transition to new roles at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters.

Among the company’s employees joining the team at Twitter is Lucky Sort CEO and founder CEO Noah Pepper.

In a post regarding the acquisition Pepper writes:

“In building Lucky Sort we had an enormous amount of support from friends, employees, advisors and investors. It has been uplifting to have so many people help us and it highlighted just how much business is a social endeavor.”

Twitter has been putting a lot of focus on big data firms in recent weeks. The social giant recently purchased Ubalo, a company that aims to make large-scale computing more accessible and easier to manage.

Do you think Lucky Sort is a big win acquisition for Twitter?

Interviews have the potential to be so much more than just another element to add to your blog. When conducted correctly, an interview can produce a post that is truly one-of-a-kind and unique within your niche. Crafting quality interviews require care, consideration and these 5 essentials.

Research to Save Your Life

Do you want your interviewee to clam-up on you? Then by all means, ask the same old interview questions they’ve heard a thousand times, or better yet, prove your lack of knowledge by requiring clarity on the most basic aspects of their history.

The most important aspect of an interview takes place long before you ever say “hello” – it’s the research. Your goal as an interviewer is to ask a question they’ve yet to be asked, or better yet, get them to contemplate something in a way they’ve never thought of before.

When crafting your questions, keep your audience and theme in mind and never position yourself for a yes/no response. For example asking, “Are you able to comprehend the magnitude of your viral following?” won’t be as insightful as, “What have been your feelings about the massive size of your audience?”

Have a Conversation

You should strive to make the process as personal as possible whether you are in-person, emailing, phone interviewing or using Skype. Ease interviewees by encouraging them to think of the experience as a typical, back-and-forth conversation; the direct quotes can be detailed later. Setting this type of mood can get people to open up; they will be able to focus more on the discussion, and less on crafting perfect, quotable sentences.

Just let the conversation flow and strive to grasp the feelings and meanings behind his/her statements. When quote-worthy comments come about, repeat the quote for clarity and get confirmation from your interviewee; “So what you’re saying is…”

Leave the Map at Home

While your research fully prepares you with a comprehensive lists of questions, allow (in fact, encourage) discussion to navigate off of your mapped path. Some of the most interesting tidbits can be discovered while going off on exploratory tangents. In the end, you’ll always come back to the script, but don’t rush the process of the scenic route.

Other important things to note: after preparing your questions, edit the order so that the interview naturally builds on itself. Whenever possible, provide yourself with smooth transitions from question to question to keep things flowing mid-interview. Also, even if they are related, remember to never ask more than one question at a time (i.e. “How have you been handling this busy schedule? Aren’t you exhausted?”). Most likely in the process of answering, one of the two will get skimmed over.

Marketing Still Matters

As organic as the interview process is, it also hosts plenty of corners for classic marketing.

Gain some hype with teasers leading up to the release of the interview, and get your following involved by allowing them to submit questions for you to ask on their behalf. When looking for guests to interview, seek out someone that you can provide with a win-win (i.e. do they have a new book or latest project that needs publicity?); cross promote wherever possible.

Most interviews fall flat because they live up to be just that, interviews. For a post like this to be successful, it stills needs to retain the quality of any other post, the only difference being your info is coming from this unique and specified source. Try branding the interview around a specific theme and in preparation, create a vignette of talking points to surround your branded topic.

Go Ahead, Go Off the Record

Don’t be afraid to ask off-the-record questions at the end of your interview. It goes without saying that they should be crafted with respect and your common sense. Remember that all recording devices need to be turned off; pens should be put down with your hands preferably visible (both psychological and situational, this move encourages trust).

Asking an off-the-record question should always be in an effort to satisfy the piece, not your curiosity. For example, you might seek clarity on personal feelings toward a past situation, just to aid you in setting the tone of the article. Be sure not to ask any of these types of questions without first confirming that you do, in fact, have their permission to ask them an off-the-record question. In short: forge ahead, but tread politely.

Regardless of the medium in which the interview was preformed, there has yet to be a better way to say thank you than the handwritten note. While permitting your interviewee to review your draft before it is published is enthusiastically not recommend, be sure to reach out once the interview goes live with an update and one final thank you.

Happy Interviewing!

What have been your experiences conducting interviews? Share your stories below.

About the Author
Kelly Gregorio writes about marketing trends and blogging tips while working at Advantage Capital Funds, a provider of merchant advances. You can read her daily business blog here http://www.advantagecapitalfunds.com.

Image via Blog Growth

Improve your skills, learn from your peers, and grow your contact list, all in the name of more success, with any one of these five blogging meetups to come in the summer of 2013:

1. NYC Bloggers Meetups

While there is an endless list of skills that will come in handy for bloggers, they all aim to lead to the generation of revenue, and that’s exactly the focus that the NYC Bloggers meetup group takes in its events! Every meetup takes a different approach to a new skill, but everything that is passed on here is meant to be able to be implemented quickly and easily the moment that you get back to your desk, making this group an invaluable one if you’d like to take your blogging endeavors to the next level through the end of 2013.

When and Where: This very active group gets together a few times each month in locations in and around New York City; with things only picking up during the summer season, you’ll have the opportunity to take in one or more events, depending on your circumstances.

2. Haven Conference

Focused on women, but open to anyone who blogs in the DIY/home improvement niche, the Haven Conference provides a unique opportunity for web workers who want to learn more about the work they do, both online and offline.

For three days, you’ll rub shoulders with others who participate in your niche, including some of the very best in the business, giving you the opportunity to learn, build new skills, and grow your virtual rolodex, all at the same time.

When and Where: This year’s Haven Conference will take place at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in sunny Atlanta, Georgia, from August 1-3, 2013.

3. WordPress DC Meetups

If you blog, it is very likely that you do so using the WordPress platform, and the WordPress DC meetup group aims to give webpreneurs in the Washington, DC area a better handle on that platform than they’ve ever imagined having! While simple and intuitive by nature, there are endless possibilities to take WordPress to new levels if you understand what lies under the hood, and that’s why each meetup of this group takes a different focus, helping you to become a more well-rounded blogger than you’ve ever been before.

When and Where: This meetup group gets together on a regular basis in Washington, DC; if you plan to stay long enough to check out the other sights that the nation’s capital has to offer, you can find great rates on accommodations via Cheaphotels.org!

4. WordCamp Vancouver

Sticking with the WordPress theme, those who enjoy working with the world’s most popular blogging platform would do well to check out a WordCamp event. Casting its gaze on everything from writing to coding, this year’s WordCamp Vancouver conference will do just that, giving you a handle on everything it is to be a popular, successful blogger – and web developer!

When and Where: If the early heat of summer is weighing on you, take a trip way up north to the beautiful city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and attend that town’s WordCamp event on August 17, 2013.

5. Bloggy Conference

Blogging and social media are inextricably linked, and that isn’t a fact that’s likely to change any time soon. With that in mind, the Bloggy Conference aims to tackle both of those facets of brand building and networking, giving you the inside track on skills like writing, connecting with others in your niche, making personal connections with your readers, and much more!

When and Where: End your summer on a positive professional note from September 13-15, 2013, by attending the popular Bloggy Conference in rustic Sandusky, Ohio!

You can find a few more meetup ideas here.

Social media management software company Expion examined all brand mentions for top beer brands and found that between April 24 and May 6 the Dos Equis brand was the top mentioned beer product.

The marketing geniuses at the beer manufacturer were helped along by the ‘Dos de Mayo’ campaign which helped it earn 4,746 brand mention. The next closest mexican beer manufacturer was Corono with 464 mentions.

According to Expion CMO Mike Heffring:

“For consistency’s sake, Expion is tracking only @ mentions of each brand, which may be why some of the numbers seem low. We feel that @ mentions are the best representation of users engaging or responding with the brand messages.”

The #DosDeMayo hashtag generated 1,979 mentions on Cinco De Mayo with 227,668 mentions of  #CincoDeMayo overall.

Here is the most popular Cinco De Mayo tweet from Dos Equis:

The line to his #CincoDeMayo party started forming on Ocho de Febrero.

— Dos Equis (@DosEquis) May 5, 2013

Bud Light, Miller Light, Guiness and other beers received barely any Twitter mentions during the same time period.

As expected mexican manufactured beers scored better than other alcoholic beverage on Twitter during Mexico’s independence day.

In describing the new app update Foursquare says:

“Love checking in and seeing that you’ve passed your record for weeks in a row at the gym? Now we’ve made it easier to share the insights you see after you check in on Twitter, Facebook, and more. Just tap the share button to show off your 30-week gym streak, an awesome special that you unlocked, or a great tip from a friend.”

When a user checks in they are shown how many similar businesses they have checked into recently and now data from their account can be shared with a users social networks. 

Foursquare has been repositioning itself as a local search app more along the lines of Yelp than the original Foursquare application. Foursquare now offers tips and information about local businesses via the Explore feature.

Relevant tips still require Foursquare users to check-in at locations which explains why the company is putting more emphasis on developing a share friend version of its platform.

Twitter launched Twitter #Music about a fortnight ago, a new service and app to discover new artists and music through Twitter. The system uses a platform which was acquired last year by Twitter, oWeAreHunted, but has been refined and expanded through integration with Spotify and Rdio, two large music streaming services.

Currently, the system extracts songs from iTunes, Spotify, and Rdio, but other sources will be added in the future. By default, users can only listen to short snippet of songs – 30 seconds – directly from iTunes but for Rdio and Spotify, you will need to use your credentials to log in.  Based on the recent acquisition of “We Are Hunted” by  Twitter, the system will help us to discover new songs and artists based on custom criteria, including the artists followed by us or our followers.

Users can also search using specific fields and listening to real-time view of their followers. Of course, the songs will be tweeted directly from the application. The service is currently new and is in its initial stages, hence some log ins do not work at this time. From the official profile of the staff, we read that #Music will change the way by which people search for music. In addition, it has been announced that there will be suggestions to the user depending on his/her musical tastes.

Four sections of the app and website that will be launched soon:

• The most popular songs [Emerging]
• Emerging songs [#NowPlaying]
• Suggestions based on who you follow on Twitter [Popular]
• What the people you follow on Twitter say they are listening to [Suggested]

The challenge of the major Social networks begins! Google+ counts on Play music in many markets. Then the agreement with iTunes, Spotify,Rdio and Twitter was born – Twitter #Music, the new music streaming service made ​​by Twitter that will allow you to chirp to the sound of music!

Twitter and music ‘asssociate well together’. Did you know there is a micro-blogging platform study that indicates that many accounts with the most followers are those of the singers and that at least half of the users follow an artist?

The aim of the platform is to increase user engagement, encouraging them to be more active on the network, giving them additional means to express their interests. It’s also a move that can become a new source of revenue, especially advertising.

Twitter #Music has not only been launched on the web at music.twitter.com, but the app has also made its mark on the iTunes App Store. We wish we could ask to try Twitter #Music to have a handson perspective on this subject, but we cannot.  As of yet it hasn’t been made available in India and many other parts of the world, and it only works in some countries like Great Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and of course, the United States.  We hope to see something more and on all platforms in the near future.

But if you are eager enough to check out what it really offers, you could try using a U.S. or a U.K. proxy.

Summing up, so you reckon that Twitter # music is a necessary service? Or at least a service that will add to the micro-blogging platform’s user base?

About the Author

Clement Almeida is the managing editor at www.bloggercent.com. He also has an interest in watching movies, proven by the large number of movies in his library. An active person he has taken a new step towards blogging and hopes to use his skills in this venture.

The team at Potomac College recently examined the most sought after degrees in business and as expected they can all offer something to enterprising up and comers in the connected space.

As anyone who has ever started a new website can tell you there is a degree of entrepreneurship that can’t be understated. From learning about online marketing to building partnerships with other company’s to developing a strategic point of attack for your content or products, understanding how to build a business is an important first step. 

With the rapidly increasing number of e-commerce sites a degree in e-commerce has also emerged in 2013. From data mining and analytics to understanding the global products markets this degree is most definitely the future of B2C.

Throw in degrees in marketing, finance and economics and you can quickly see how all of the degrees can be used in various ways via the online market.

Take a closer look at Potomac’s 7 most popular business degrees of 2013 and let us know how you think they can be used in the online business sector.

Via: Potomac College

The social media giant has boomed in the last half decade or so, with more than a billion users to its name. The magnitude of the impact it can have on people has not gone unnoticed. The harmful stats are sure to throw anyone for a loop. From Facebook depression to stalkers, from a loss of productivity to slander – the problems that are part and parcel of the social media network are aplenty.

Parents are often left scampering to figure out ways to keep their kids safe online, while employers are wondering what to do with employees who can’t leave the network alone. Some put up blockades on internet connections with apps and software only to realise that the person they’re trying to keep away from Facebook has found a back door (and in the case of teens and employees there’s always a loophole or a backdoor).

What’s one to do in this situation? We’ve taken some of the most significantly harmful stats that we could find and put them together in the form of an infographic for the average Joe on the internet. Whether you’re an employer or a parent, you’re going to find the numbers on Facebook misuse both interesting and disturbing.

Do you see any familiar problems in our stats? Is there something you’d like to add to our little list? Check out the image and tell us what you think.

Source: MobiStealth

Image via Imperfect Women

Have you noticed the number of posts on Google.com that now feature Google Authorship? Every time you see a post with an authors name attached and their picture you are witnessing the start of Google+ SEO magic.

Getting started with Google+ optimization for SEO is simple and surprisingly not time consuming in the least. 

Use Your Keywords

When you post a URL to Google+ a link will show to your article and above that link you can write a post update. In the update section you should introduce the article in 1-2 sentences while focusing on your keyword. For example, if your article keyword is “proper SEO” you might write: “Proper SEO practices are hard to master, here is an article that explains search engine optimization in easy to understand terms.

Link To Your Actual URL, Not A URL Shortener

There is absolutely no reason you need to use a URL shortener with Google+ since you can write in the post update window for far more than 140 characters. If you are going to use the full URL for your article make the URL look pretty. WordPress users can change the permalink structure below their titles. The general rule of thumb is to use a URL that has your keyword right at the start of the title and the start of the URL. Combining your keyword in the description, in the title and in the URL will show search engines what to look for.

Get Added To Google+ Circles

During my current days as the editor of a large scale online content company I have learned one thing to be true about Google+ authorship. People with thousands of circle connections seem to rank better for a lot of terms. Since more people are likely to share your content you are likely to receive authoritative rankings for semantic searches. Don’t spam people but create engaging content and maybe even put your Google+ follow button below articles on your personal websites.

TAG PEOPLE AND BRANDS

Authoritative ranking has swept through the socially semantic web and you can take advantage of that movement. If you write about Coca Cola be sure to tag the company’s brand page via Google+. If you write about a person, city or other data do the same. You are more likely to receive authoritative mentions if you religiously tag your Google+ posts. This is also a great way to earn yourself more Google+ Circle inclusions.

MAKE THE POST PUBLIC

Search engines will not publicize your private posts and therefore make sure your website posts are placed via a “Public” posting and not to one of your circles. Public posts mean more exposure by a larger audience and therefore the higher possibility of your post being shared and crawled by search bots.

Companies like White Chalkroad Road SEO offer other ways you can get your social search into the hands of the people you want to see it. For example, paid advertising campaigns on social networks can hyper-target users.

Essentially the trick with Google+ is to not over think the SEO involved. To be success with Google’s social network you simple need to find your keyword and use it responsibly in posts to your followers.

Be sure to link your Google Plus profile to your articles and soon you should start to see the positive effects of your efforts.

]]> http://www.blogherald.com/2013/05/04/optimizing-google-posts-for-offsite-seo/feed/ 0 http://www.blogherald.com/2013/05/03/spotify-acquires-songza-competitor-tunigo/ http://www.blogherald.com/2013/05/03/spotify-acquires-songza-competitor-tunigo/#comments Fri, 03 May 2013 20:54:30 +0000 James Johnson http://www.blogherald.com/?p=27127 Spotify has acquired Tunigo, a music platform that is powered by the Spotify API.

Employees from Tunigo will move to Spotify’s offices in Stockhom and New York City.

In the short term the Tunigo app will remain as its own entity within the Spotify eco-system.

The move echoes an industry shift towards stronger music discovery practices. Twitter most recently purchased We Are Hunted in an effort to gain access to the music discovery sector.  Tunigo however is more closely related to apps such as Songza and 8tracks. Those apps curate playlists and then suggests lists to users based on genre, theme, and mood.

The company has a staff of 17 people and before the acquisition had raised €2.4 million.

Tunigo was built on the premise that pressing a single button can generate the perfect playlist for music lovers in real-time.

Since Spotify debuted its app platform in November 2011 the Tunigo platform has remained a top ten app.

A spokesperson for the deal notes:

“The acquisition fits into our overall strategy around music discovery, basically helping our users make sense of over 20 million tracks.”

Tunigo CEO and co-founder Nick Holmstén further adds:

“Tunigo helps users find great music for every moment, and we’ve been working very closely with Spotify over the past few years. This is the perfect match from a music discovery perspective. We’re passionate about music and technology, and looking forward to further innovating within the music discovery space.”

With Apple edging ever closer to iRadio and other competitors emerging in the music discovery space the Spotify acquisition of Tunigo couldn’t have arrived at a better time.

A few months ago I made the decision to outsource my technical moments and I did so by allowing fully managed services to handle my businesses technical details.

In my path towards freeing myself from technical hiccups I broke up my outsources technical help.

WEB HOSTING WITH FULL SERVER MANAGEMENT

If you’re like me and you loathe SSH commands a fully managed server setup might be the way to go. I chose to use a fully managed WordPress hosting company because all of my websites run on WordPress. Using my new host they take care of WordPress updates, security patch fixes, server upgrades, nightly backups and pretty much everything else. No longer do I spent hours on server hardening and attempting to find WordPress code mistakes and memory leaks caused by junky plugins.

If you hate command line code and you want to free yourself from a lot of stress and headaches I recommend a fully managed support system.

REMOTE ACCESS SUPPORT

There are a lot of capable remote access programs on the market but I constantly find myself troubleshooting issues for my employees. After a while I realized that I wasn’t up-to-date on security protocols, newer and better technologies and more. I hired a company with a focus on email and remote access services to handle my company’s encryption keys and other data.

If you use various pieces of technology such as a Windows computer at home, a Mac at work, and an Android device for mobile on the go you might find it easier to allow an outside agency to handle syncing your devices. If you have employees and you don’t want to answer a billion questions this type of outsourcing makes sense.

IT business support can be surprisingly inexpensive, especially if you take into consideration all of the hours you’ll save by having someone else handle technical headaches on your behalf.

DESKTOP SUPPORT

I work in front of my computers for 12-16 hours a day and that means I run into a lot of issues. I can renew my IP address, format my hard drives, even troubleshoot some mid-level issues. With that being said I no longer allow PC and Mac issues to escalate. For a small monthly fee I was able to hire a tech company that provides 24/7 computer support. If something seems off I now call my “computer guy” immediately.

My desktop support choice included the ability to allow for remote updates by a technical expert. Not only do I have someone to fix my PC issues as they occur, I have someone who pro-actively makes sure my system is up-to-date.

Just running diagnostic checks and periodic reviews of my system was enough for me to be happy.

Important Note: I encrypt all important data files on a secure drive to keep those files away from prying eyes. I setup an update schedule with the tech firm I use so my system is only open to a technician at certain times.

CONCLUSION

I use to spend 10-15 hours a week managing my company’s server, troubleshooting my email server wouldn’t connect with my Android phone and worrying about if and when my next desktop crash would occur. These days I pay a small fee just to ignore the very technical aspects of my company that use to drive me insane.

]]> http://www.blogherald.com/2013/05/02/why-you-should-outsource-your-companys-technical-needs/feed/ 0 http://www.blogherald.com/2013/05/01/free-webinar-programs-for-personal-and-business-use/ http://www.blogherald.com/2013/05/01/free-webinar-programs-for-personal-and-business-use/#comments Wed, 01 May 2013 04:30:41 +0000 Angus Shaw http://www.blogherald.com/?p=27064 If you need to host a quick webinar with your business colleagues, study group at school, or anyone else for that matter, you might want to consider some of the very capable free applications available for general use.

Webinar programs allow users to share screencasts, chat with friends and even connect to customers. While there are numerous business, educational and personal webinar apps in the market, we focus this time on several free yet competent options.

MeetingBurner

This webinar program is one of the most popular in the market. The program allows users to host up to 10 people in a webinar at no cost and with no ads. MeetingBurner offers impressive features including Skype connectivity, fast screen sharing and reliability. MeetingBurner also provides real-time session analytics.

AnyMeeting

This is my personal favorite webinar application. While the free version does display ads, it is also capable of supporting up to 200 attendees at no cost. The AnyMeeting webinar software supports screen and application sharing alongside messaging, VoIP, and even polling support.  AnyMeeting allows sessions to be recorded and shared via social networks, which makes it perfect for training and other purposes.

Vyew - Google Chrome Plugin

Using Vyew is a simple process in which the user downloads a specialized Google Chrome plugin. Once installed, the application can support up to 5 parallel webcam streams. Joining a Vyew webinar can be accomplished in real-time and screen applications can be offered as shared resources. Vyew also offers Google image search and YouTube integration.

OpenMeetings – Free and Open Source Webinar Software

We love free and open source software at BlogHerald and OpenMeetings is a web-conferencing software package that offers the open-source type of connectivity we have come to love. OpenMeetings is hosted on a users own server and provides sharing for screen, mic, and webcam. OpenMeetings also offers a whiteboard during webinar. There is no limit on the number of users who can participate. Keep in mind that this is server side technology and therefore its scale is dependent on your own servers ability to handle user load.

Those are just a few of the free webinar programs offers online. The team at BestWebinar has compiled a list of webinar programs you should probably give a test run to before you get started.

Okay, corny I know, but on April 30, 1993 the internet’s daddy Tim Berners-Lee and his employer CERN made available for free the very software that would eventually become what we now refer to as the internet.

In a statement released on the CERN website, the agency on Tuesday said:

“By making the software required to run a web server freely available, along with a basic browser and a library of code, the web was allowed to flourish.

Berners-Lee hosted the world’s first public website on his NeXT computer, and today CERN revived that website on the very same NeXT computer that ushered in the web generation.

We have come a long way since 1993, when WAIS and Gopher powered servers and easily accessible internet was just a pipe dream. Yes it is absolutely true that “internet” systems existed before CERN and Berners-Lee took them public but it was their software that gave birth to the internet as we know it today.

Here is the original world wide web page published on the NeXT computer:

The Twitter self-serve platform allows account administrators to run their own campaigns by promoting accounts or individuals Tweets to specific groups within the social network. Advertisers can also track the results of their campaigns via Twitter analytics.

The self-serve platform provides pay for engagement activities which includes favorites, replies, and retweets.

Twitter started the advertising platform as an invite-only option. Twitter used feedback to adjust the platform before taking it live. 

Self-served engagement advertising is already a popular option on Facebook and LinkedIn. With Twitter’s focus on conversations, it will likely be a popular advertising solution for the micro-blogging service.

The move also marks one of Twitter’s first attempts to offer reasonably priced advertising that doesn’t cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

If you are interested in Twitter self-serve advertising you can sign up here.

The company is currently seeking out advertisers who want to re-target ads to Web users based on their check-ins and to serve up interstitial ads via the Foursquare mobile apps platforms.

Foursquare has had a hard time raising money lately, relying on a funding round based around loans instead of outright investments. Many analysts have questioned whether or not the Foursquare business model is feasible.

Under the new system, users who check into stores might see a pop-up for that store’s products immediately upon check-in. Users might then see the same or similar ads the next time they are sitting at their desktop or using their notebook. 

Foursquare hopes to launch the retargeting platform next month. Foursquare is currently asking for $50,000 per expenditure.

Foursquare is likely to come under fire for retargeting because of its focus on user tracking; however, many apps now retarget and the practice is becoming more commonplace.

Pop-up ads, in the meantime, are expected to surface in June or early July. Foursquare is asking for interactive ads since they perform best on mobile devices.

Do you think Foursquare can still pull itself out of the dumps and turn itself into a different, more involved internet-based platform?

Many websites consider allowing guest posting in order to help boost their ratings. On the other hand, some websites choose to guest post on other sites in order to help boost their rankings. In both of these cases, you can watch your ratings go through the roof so long as you execute your posts correctly.

For this reason, you might want to think about how guest posting can help your SEO value out. There are several different reasons behind how guest posting will help you, and it is important to understand how it can benefit you. By understanding how guest posts can help you, you will be able to make sure that you use them efficiently.

Traffic

The very first reason that guest posting is a great SEO method if you own a website business or service is because it will help drive traffic to your website. The number one aim of any guest post is to drive traffic back in your direction. By reaching out and contributing to another site you will get a payback if you are careful while writing out your posts.

Credibility

At the same time that guest posts help to drive traffic to your website, they also help to boost your credibility. When people think that you are credible, they are more likely to purchase a product or a service from you.

Guest posting makes you look like a web authority if you put up enough posts around the web. Therefore, you should take advantage of open directories and offer advice to the public. Not only will this help you reach out to your target audience, but it will help make you a sound voice among your target audience.

You may not be able to directly observe the difference, but when people start to view you as an expert, they will travel to your website and you will see sales conversions on the rise.

Subscribers

In addition, when people like you, they will subscribe to your blog, your guest posts, and possibly your business or service newsletter. The more subscribers you have, the more outlets you will have to offer them valuable information about promotions, sales, and other similar events.

Once you get an email name on a subscriber’s list, you increase your chances of making a sale, increasing regular traffic, or selling a service twofold. It is the first way that a consumer displays interest, and it gives you a wider target audience to work with.

Back Links

Finally, at the very least, guest posting is great for building back links that are natural and reputable. Back links can be hard because they have to be natural and logical, but with guest posting you do not have to worry about these facts.

Every guest post is special and proves that you are a knowledgeable source; therefore all of the links will be valid. If you are worried about back links and their legitimacy, guest posting is the number one method to use.

Featured images:

•  Image by My Blog Guest

Simon Bliss blogs about SEO and social media. He’s used guest posts to drive traffic and acquire subscribers to his blogs.