1. Update website and social networks. The editors quickly updated the website to demonstrate they were aware of the breaking news – even though they did not have any details to report.

2. Source generation. Perhaps even better, they gave visitors an opportunity to share a tweet about the news-in-the-making – thereby generating a lead to their website and YouTube based PostTV where news would be available.

Shots fired at Capitol http://t.co/sg6QjpMGyj via @PostTV
— paolo pagani (@ppagani) October 3, 2013

Choosing Twitter is of coarse no accident, Twitter is perhaps the #1 way people are getting, verifying and discussing news these days.

3. Multi-media approach. The Post then live-streamed from the scene of the shooting from PostTV, their video initiative launched this summer. They also kept readers updated online and via Twitter – retweeting and sharing original posts.

Kudos to the Post and their digital staff. Our best regards to the families affected by this event — stay safe out there.

Within minutes, the network also thrust Broadcastify into the spotlight – giving users access to primary source information as the tragedy unfolded. What was once an obscure broadcast service providing live public safety updates about  emergency services via radio live audio streams  saw its listenership jump from 600+ listeners to 40,000+ listeners in just 15 minutes – all because someone tweeted the link to the Boston Fire Department’s live audio stream on the website.

The concerned public didn’t have to wait on their nightly network newscast to learn that the Mandarin Hotel was one possible location of a detonated device, see pictures from the tragedy, or learn which roads were closed to commuters as police investigated the reported explosion.

Through Twitter, the concerned projected their own response to the tragedy and  generated hashtags like #prayforboston and #staystrong to share concern and encouragement for those affected.

Although several mainstream media outlets use social media as a complimentary tool, events coverage provided by Twitter (and other social media) users around the world could soon turn the table on those outlets.

With this new feature, page followers can reply to comments made by other followers, and those  replies will be shown below the comments so it’s clear who’s responding to which comment. The most active conversations are shown at the top, and comments marked as spam are moved to the bottom.

Page administrators can now reply to a specific comment by clicking Reply under someone else’s comment – a plus for those who use Facebook for customer service and support.

Enjoy – and remember to activate the feature on your page, just go to-

1. Edit Page 
2. Go to Manage Permissions
3. Select Turn On Replies

Until next time, happy marketing!

Getting a positive (or negative) review on Yelp is not hard, but since a big chunk of Yelp’s 78 million monthly users are accessing reviews directly via their website or app, the challenge is getting your business at the top of Yelp’s search results. Here are five tips for improving your ranking on Yelp –

1. Get more reviews. Unless your business is the only one of its type in a particular city, having one or two reviews will not put your business at the top of a search for your business type. Ask your clients to review your business – try receipt marketing and use your enewsletters to ask for a review.

2. Get recent reviews. If you have a few old reviews and your competitor have a few recent reviews, guess what? Your competitor will rank higher in Yelp’s search results. Drum up recent fresh reviews through point-of-sale SMS marketing and solicitation, use QR codes or have a computer handy so your clients can write a review while you wrap up their transactions.

3. Claim your profile. Businesses have the opportunity to create and maintain their own profile on Yelp – get yours. Ensure that all fields are filled out with the correct address, keywords, service categories etc. If your listing is missing information, you could be missing out on referrals.

4. Advertise on Yelp. Promotion is great for businesses. Although advertising on Yelp won’t directly improve your ranking, it will attract the type of people who Yelp to your business. Yelp provide at least two great advertising opportunities on their Website.

5. Provide a (great) service people will want to talk about and let your clients know where they can talk about it – search ranking aside, you’ll find this is also the best way to get a better rating on Yelp.

Until next time, happy marketing!

Why are retailers using face-print for marketing?
According to independent researcher and consultant, Ashkan Soltani, the goal is to know customers and provide the right deals to them that will generate a sale. Some stores are now outfitted with digital signage/cameras that can estimate their customers’ sex and age – information that is then used to generate coupons and deals at checkout.

How can mainstreaming facial recognition improve business?
A key challenge for businesses is getting an understanding of their sales-cycle and what drives their conversion rates. Retailers today can turn to “enhancements” to make better projections and gain a 360° view into their customers’ habits. Data “enhancement” describes the workings of online-offline technology with the ability to observe your target’s online activities and learn how it influences their offline behaviors. For example, through this online-offline technology advertisers can know how many times Jane Doe needs to see an ad online before she walks into a store and actually purchase a product – the loop is completed as credit card companies share their clients purchasing data with Facebook and similar ad trafficking platforms. Even if customers pay with cash, stores can still track their return on investment (ROI) by matching customer profiles with face-print information. This insight is great for making projections and maximizing the value of a business’ advertising dollars.

Do customers have privacy concerns?
Yes, but our guess is that the concern about government agencies sharing the data they acquire for the public good (with retailers), is greater than the worry a customer has over being tracked and marketed to because they joined a social network.

The fact is, at over 800 million subscribers, Facebook is one of the world’s largest face-print database systems. Its effectiveness at remote biometric identification grew with the acquisition of face.com and Instagram. Connecting facebook’s database with sales and marketing data is a win for retailers and is changing the way we market to our target markets.

To learn more about the benefits and concerns of facial recognition software technology, listen to “Using Facial Recognition Software” hosted by Kojo Nnamdi on NPR affiliate, WAMU.

There are many surprising facts in the study, here are our top 3:

1. The liberal north-east gives less than the assumed conservative mid-west. Salt Lake City, Memphis, and Birmingham, Ala., typically give at least 7 percent of their discretionary income to charity, meanwhile Massachusetts and three other New England states gives less than 3 percent.

2. Rich people are stingy, middle-class Americans are more generous – According to the report, households that earn $50,000 to $75,000 give an average of 7.6 percent of their discretionary income to charity, compared with an average of 4.2 percent for people who make $100,000 or more.

3. Californians do it more – $1 out of $8 given to charity comes from California!

Learn more about the study here.

A class-action lawsuit was filed against the social network to protect the privacy of users who did not opt to have their “likes” used as marketing. According to the NY Times, Facebook “…agreed to pay $10 million to a dozen research and advocacy groups that work on digital privacy rights, and $10 million to cover legal fees for the plaintiffs.” But a judge essentially threw out the settlement because it did not put an end to the Sponsored Stories ad product or state clearly how the parties arrived at the settlement amount – furthermore, there was no path to compensation for all Facebook users that have (unknowingly) been used in a Sponsored Story.

So where does all this leave advertisers? Still sitting pretty! The product has been such a huge success and a major contributor to Facebook ad revenues that we are sure Facebook will do all it can to settle the matter and keep the product intact. Since the product is already in existence, users will likely be asked to opt-out if they don’t want to be featured. Opt out rates are typically low and since users enjoy publicizing their likes and preferences on Facebook, there will be plenty of constituents to serve as brand ambassadors through the Sponsored Stories product.

Selling ads is a relatively new Facebook product. Now that the company is public, I expect it to grow and improve rapidly in order to satisfy shareholders. While the network is a vast database cataloguing the personal lives and preferences of over 3 billion users, Facebook has failed to provide marketers with the level of access and diversity of product that would deliver shared success from advertising.

So how would you know if Facebook is not a good place to spend your advertising dollars? Here are three things to consider:

1. Long-term ads perform better than short-term placements
There are a lot of people on Facebook, but they are not there to click on ads. It takes a long time for users to view and then click on an ad. The longer your campaign run-time, the better the results will be.

2. Awareness or action – there is a difference
What is the purpose of your campaign? If want to generate awareness of a product or cause you can do that pretty quickly through an ad campaign based on impressions (the amount of time your ad will appear because someone is looking). Alternatively, if you are trying to get someone to click, or “like “– or take some other action, your campaign will need a lot of time, and more money. Facebook’s CPC (cost you pay for each time someone clicks) campaigns work great – but slowly if you are a small buyer.

3. Friend, fan and follow – now what?
Growing your list of followers can’t be the only goal of our ad campaign. If that’s the case, your campaign won’t perform well – and your fans will not engage your brand beyond a “like”. A successful ad campaign will need a full engagement plan to keep fans and subscribers happy and spreading the word about your brand, service or cause.

Social media advertising presents a great opportunity for marketers to access a tremendous amount of information about their target audience. It’s really the next frontier for customer engagement and lead generation. Perhaps one of the best things that could happen to this new field is Facebook going public – I believe a top performing ad platform is finally in the making (fingers crossed!)

1. Your Page will feature a ‘cover’ image
Cover images should be sized 851 wide and 315 tall; smaller images will be stretched to meet this requirement – thereby distorting the image.

Your cover image should not include the following:

• Price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website”
• Contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page’s About section
• References to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features
• Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends”

You can still creatively use your cover image to promote events and themes (seasonal or otherwise). Here are some examples from Adidas, University of the District of Columnia, Puma Running and Tazo Teas.

2. Your profile image or logo will have less space.
Say goodbye to those elegant long profile images that marketers found useful for promoting their businesses. Your logo or profile image must now square and be at least 180 pixels squared.

3. Visitors can now send private messages to page administrators – and receive a private response.
This is a great update if you are using Facebook for customer service, but it also means Page administrators will need to keep up with communication sent to their page. Messages will be accessible via the updated admin panel. The Admin panel will also allow administrators to review all page communication (including posts), and also keep track of page analytics.

4. Photos, Likes and apps will have greater visibility.
The placement of these items is an improvement over the current design (scheduled for retirement). Two things to keep in mind about this update is that 1)  you should prioritize your most important app so that it is visible in the preview, 2) you can highlight other Pages you are connected with as well as the people managing your Page.

5. Page administrator can easily highlight posts they want fans to see.
The two main options for highlighting posts are –

1. Hover over a story and click on the star icon to make it wider
2. Click on the pencil icon to pin it to the top of your Page so that it’s visible regardless of new content.

Fans will also have the ability to filter page content  in three newish ways – 1) by ‘highlights’, 2) their friends activity as it relates to your page, and 3) by posts made by page admin (example to the right).

Happy Facebooking! And always, if you have questions, we are here to help!