The Reason We Decided to Change Locations
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A New Beginning Awaits
Rockstar Digital - Marketing Consulting Agency
Rockstar Digital - Marketing Consulting Agency - Rockstar Digital is a business development and marketing agency specializing in full service communitcations: website, design, digital and social media content, from strategy to ongoing management. Based in Los Angeles.
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Basically Salient is beauitful from all around
Rockstar Digital - Marketing Consulting Agency
Rockstar Digital - Marketing Consulting Agency - Rockstar Digital is a business development and marketing agency specializing in full service communitcations: website, design, digital and social media content, from strategy to ongoing management. Based in Los Angeles.
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The Orange
Rockstar Digital - Marketing Consulting Agency
Rockstar Digital - Marketing Consulting Agency - Rockstar Digital is a business development and marketing agency specializing in full service communitcations: website, design, digital and social media content, from strategy to ongoing management. Based in Los Angeles.
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–@rjswope

—

YouTube‘s been around for a while — you’ve probably heard of it.

The video-sharing site went live in 2005, and has since become the go-to medium for uploading footage on the web. More than one hour of video is uploaded to the site every second.

Still, as seasoned as it is, it’s helpful to look back at the basics. Whether you’re a complete n00b or a longtime peruser hoping to finally dive in, we rounded up a few things to know before getting started.

Any essential steps we missed? Let us know in the comments. And check YouTube’s official tutorials for step-by-step videos on beginning with the site.

Setting Up an Account

Getting started is as easy as any other social network. From the homepage, click the blue “Sign In” button at the top-right corner of the screen. If you’re completely new, you’ll be taken to another login page asking for your Gmail information. Click the red “Create New Account” button in the upper-right. From there, fill out your basic information — name, email address, password — and click “Continue” on the bottom-right.

Uploading Videos

All right, you’ve got an account — now let’s get straight to videos.

Uploading is equally easy. Once you’ve shot and edited your video and it’s saved on your computer or connected through your USB port, click the “Upload” button to the right of the search bar up top. You can mark your video as “Public” or “Private.” It might take a few minutes to render, depending on the file’s size, but remain patient.

Using Analytics

The analytics tool, in short, lets you track how your videos are performing. Access it by clicking the down arrow next to the “Upload” button.

Categories include: number of video views and subscribers; number of minutes users spent watching each video; and demographics, including country and gender, of each viewer.

Subscribing to Channels

Channel discovery can be a little tricky, given YouTube’s now gargantuan size. The website does its best to promote the largest channels (based on ad sales) with good content. By and large, though, finding channels to subscribe to can be overwhelming.

The best way to discover new channels is by browsing through the subscription feeds of others. So if you’ve found a few channels you enjoy — a channel about video effects or comedy videos — take a look through which channels that channel is following. Chances are, your mutual interests will line up in your favor.

Most well-known content creators, too, give shoutouts to other channels they enjoy, so keep an eye out for that, too.

Understanding the Culture

Again, YouTube is a huge platform — huge. At one point in time, there was an overall “YouTube community,” but now, given the sheer number and diverse genres of content creators, it’s become a melting pot of individual sub-cultures, much like Reddit. Most close-knit YouTube communities revolve around users who collaborate or recommend each other’s content.

Some of the more well-known communities are based on location, like the British vloggers near London (charlieissocoollike, bing, TomSka and ninebrassmonkeys).

Others are defined by particular genre: gaming channels, tech review channels or video-editing channels.

Many times, these are stratified by channel size, so don’t go in expecting to be friends with huge content creators right away. The best way to operate as part of the community on YouTube is to reach out to content creators who have, say, twice your subscriber count. Try to make collaboration videos, watch each other’s stuff — things like that.

Handling Commenters and/or Trolls

Some people (ahem, commenters) view anonymity as a protective blanket that lets them say whatever they want. In most cases, it takes the form of callous bullying that stems from nothing and, at the end of the day, means nothing (see: trolling).

Always remember that last part when you’re uploading your own content. It’s classic YouTube. You can look at trolls in a number of ways:

1. Treat them like comedians treat hecklers.

Reply with something witty. YouTube isn’t strictly a medium for video — it’s a medium for personality. So if a commenter gives you material to say something clever, by all means embrace it; other viewers might find it entertaining. Remember, though, that replying to comments (especially in snarky ways) will encourage more. If a viewer sees that you tend to reply, he might be more inclined to troll.

2. Block their ASS accounts.

You also have the ability to block any user from commenting. This is probably the best approach for commenters who are particularly obscene or threatening. If you use this too liberally, though, you’ll eventually find yourself with very few comments (and viewer interaction is key to getting your video high up in the search results).

3. Ignore them.

Probably the best course of action. Ignoring doesn’t encourage the heckler; it gives other viewers the chance to jump in your defense; and you won’t find yourself in a mud-slinging contest. To be a YouTuber is to have the skin of a rhinoceros, so don’t take anything too personally.

The Beginner’s Guide to YouTube
Rockstar Digital - Marketing Consulting Agency
Rockstar Digital - Marketing Consulting Agency - Rockstar Digital is a business development and marketing agency specializing in full service communitcations: website, design, digital and social media content, from strategy to ongoing management. Based in Los Angeles.
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When I started actually managing social media accounts, there were a lot of words being thrown around that I did not understand. Like….several google searches worth of not understanding. As a result, I had a lot of missteps when talking with the “uber-professional” crowds and we’re not out of the woods yet. You can follow along with the rest of our blogs by subscribing to the blog here

5 MORE words you need to know

6. Edge Rank

Edge rank is facebook’s news feed algorithm. Or…in laymans terms. Its what Facebook uses to determine what gets seen by who. Certain content does better with certain demographics, which is why its really important to know your market and create content that is both useful to them as well as engaging. Long story short…the more engaging your content, the more people see it.

7. User Generated Content

It does what it says on the box. This is content that fans/customers/followers have created that pertains to your brand/product/event. User generated content is great for built in engagement, gets fans excited, and can help give a fresh perspective. Its also great for those days when you don’t really have time to come up with content or are working on something spectacular and its just not time yet.

8. Shareable

Refers to how engaging a piece of content is and how apt your user base is to share it with their friends/followers.

To learn more about this, please head to our Shareable blog here.

9. Call to Action

This has been kicking around for years and it has the same meaning. This is when you ASK your user base to interract. Not always to check out a product or content, but asking your base to ask questions, comment, submit content, and share. Spurring them on to DO a particular action.

10. Social Graph

A social graph is more like a web of people. It shows who everyone is connected to and how, making it easier to point out who your key influencers, power users and brand champions are. It can get extremely complex but if you take the time to research and use it, it is an infinitely powerful tool.

Photo Credits:

1. StuffedWeb.com
2. Cornell University
3. Squidoo HQ
4. Weidert.com
5. ZDNet.com

10 Social Media Buzz Words You Need To Know (Part 2)
Rockstar Digital - Marketing Consulting Agency
Rockstar Digital - Marketing Consulting Agency - Rockstar Digital is a business development and marketing agency specializing in full service communitcations: website, design, digital and social media content, from strategy to ongoing management. Based in Los Angeles.
http://twitter.com/rockdig
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Mike Segar/Reuters – The Apple Inc. logo is seen in the lobby of New York City’s flagship Apple store in this Jan. 18, 2011 file photo.

Rumor has it that Apple will be launching their music streaming service iRadio at the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) 2013 next week.   With news about Warner Music Group hoping on board with Universal Music Group with streaming deal, there has been much speculation about whether iRadio will have the power to be the end all be all of a free, ad supported music streaming platform.  The arena is already pretty packed with Pandora, the newly released Google Play Music All Access, and the dominant player Spotify.

In my eyes, iRadio has the ability to take on the likes of Pandora and All Access, and definitely butt heads with Spotify.  One key factor to iRadio’s success is taking advantage of the data they have been culminating from every purchase.  Today’s world  is all about customization. Having previous iTunes Store purchase information, these radio streams would be most in tune with what the listener is looking for.

Another thing that bodes well for the success is the ability for people to directly buy an artist’s music after hearing it on the station.  I’m assuming that each track playing will have a button that linked up to the iTunes Store for purchase of the track.  I will be extremely interested in seeing the number of song downloads once iRadio launches.

Casey Brosten is the Project Manager at Rockstar-Digital.com.  After graduating from Marquette University with a Broadcasting degree, she left the cold Midwest to pursue her passion in working behind the scenes with independent acts in sunny LA.

Rockstar Op-Ed: Is the World Ready for iRadio?
Rockstar Digital - Marketing Consulting Agency
Rockstar Digital - Marketing Consulting Agency - Rockstar Digital is a business development and marketing agency specializing in full service communitcations: website, design, digital and social media content, from strategy to ongoing management. Based in Los Angeles.
http://twitter.com/rockdig
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5 (of 10) words you need to know

1. Social Media Optimization (is the new SEO)

Which networks are you on? How many profiles do you have? How are you managing them?

This doesn’t mean that you have to be everywhere. It means finding where your fans and customers are and using those networks, optimizing those networks, to target them.

This also refers to HOW you’re using these channels to promote awareness of your brand, event or product.

2. Content Marketing aka Inbound Marketing

Connecting with your audience without overtly selling to them. This includes posting items that are relevant both to your audience and your brand. This helps to create brand trust and customer loyalty.

Examples: Advice blogs (like this one), tutorials for a makeup company, party ideas for a vineyard, recipes for a food product.

3. Engagement

How are people interacting with your posts? How often? These are interactions with particular pieces of content, not your page.

Engagement factors include:

Facebook: Comments, Shares, Post Likes

Twitter: Favorites, Retweets

Pinterest: Pins, Repins, likes

Tumblr: Reblog, Likes

Blogs and web pages: Comments, backlinks, Social Media and link shares

4. Organic

Organic results (engagement, website hits, youtube views, etc) are unpaid interactions and search engine (think google and bing) results.

5. Viral

This is the new term for digital word of mouth. Usually results from a large number of people sharing a particular piece of content and increasing visibility for your brand, product or event  overall. To learn about Shareable content, check out our blog here.

Photo Credits:
1. Hubspot.com
2. Attach Media via Visual.ly
3. FingerMarketing.com
5. Flowtown.com

10 Social Media Buzz Words You Need To Know (Part 1)
Rockstar Digital - Marketing Consulting Agency
Rockstar Digital - Marketing Consulting Agency - Rockstar Digital is a business development and marketing agency specializing in full service communitcations: website, design, digital and social media content, from strategy to ongoing management. Based in Los Angeles.
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Facebook Polls Users On How Interesting Page Posts Are

Did you ever wish you could tell Facebook brands how useful their posts are. Seriously. It’s enough to like a post, but what if you wanted to rate them?

Facebook is constantly tweaking its News Feed algorithm, so users generally see the stories they will like, comment on, or share. Now the social network is starting to ask old News Feed users how interesting they find page posts in their News Feeds.

Sprinkled sporadically throughout the News Feed, Facebook occasionally asks users to rate how interesting page posts are. This does not seem to appear on user posts in News Feed, only posts from pages users have liked.”

– Hit the link for more:  http://bit.ly/13ZjR4E

Facebook Introduces Verified Pages

In a move of finally catching on, Facebook has finally introduced verified pages. This is going to be great for brands and major public figures and makes it easier for the user to find the real brand page instead of a community page or a fake one.

The new roll out includes a little blue check mark next to the name of the page as well as higher placement in Facebook’s graph and search. As of now, there is no way to actually apply for verification (like Twitter), so you either have to know someone at Facebook, or be a household name. Type in any of your favorite pages to see if they’re verified. I know we are!

-Hit the link for more: http://bit.ly/12Uta3e

Twitter Introduces Two-Step Authentication

How often do we hear that Twitter is getting hacked? Pretty often right? Whether it truly is hacked or if some celebrity is claiming it because they got WAAAY to drunk the night before, it has happened. Well, Twitter has decided to fix that with finally introducing a 2 step verification process, making the site more secure for the users and their info (only if they DON’T choose to broadcast it across the internet).

-Hit the link for more: http://on.mash.to/12Ufi8U

Twitter just added Lead Generation to Twitter Cards

No matter how big of a Twitter following you have, the email list is king. Why? Because it is a direct line to the consumer. Twitter is starting to understand that and has introduced a new line of Twitter cards to securely collect user’s emails with one simple click. This also comes on the heels of Twitter introducing 2 step verification that has been sorely needed.

-Hit the link for more: http://tnw.co/12UeFMA

Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments!

Here’s what you missed this week
Rockstar Digital - Marketing Consulting Agency
Rockstar Digital - Marketing Consulting Agency - Rockstar Digital is a business development and marketing agency specializing in full service communitcations: website, design, digital and social media content, from strategy to ongoing management. Based in Los Angeles.
http://twitter.com/rockdig
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What is EdgeRank?

EdgeRank is the Facebook algorithm that decides which stories appear in each user’s newsfeed. The algorithm hides boring stories, so if your story doesn’t score well, no one will see it.

The first thing someone sees when they log into Facebook is the newsfeed. This is a summary of what’s been happening recently among their friends on Facebook.

Every action their friends take is a potential newsfeed story. Facebook calls these actions “Edges.” That means whenever a friend posts a status update, comments on another status update, tags a photo, joins a fan page, or RSVP’s to an event it generates an “Edge,” and a story about that Edge might show up in the user’s personal newsfeed.

It’d be completely overwhelming if the newsfeed showed all of the possible stories from your friends. So Facebook created an algorithm to predict how interesting each story will be to each user. Facebook calls this algorithm “EdgeRank” because it ranks the edges. Then they filter each user’s newsfeed to only show the top-ranked stories for that particular user.

Why should I care?

Because most of your Facebook fans never see your status updates.

Facebook looks at all possible stories and says “Which story has the highest EdgeRank score? Let’s show it at the top of the user’s newsfeed. Which one has the next highest score? Let’s show it next.” If EdgeRank predicts a particular user will find your status update boring, then your status update will never even be shown to that particular user.

Caveat: There actually appears to be two algorithms, although this has not been conclusively proven. The EdgeRank algorithm ranks stories, and a second algorithm sorts the newsfeed. This newsfeed algorithm includes a randomization element and a keyword aggregator. Zuckerberg mentioned in an interview with TechCrunch that Facebook users found it eery how well Facebook knew what they were interested in, so they started randomizing the newsfeed slightly.

The numbers on this are frightening. In 2007, a Facebook engineer said in an interview that only about 0.2% of eligible stories make it into a user’s newsfeed. That means that your status update is competing with 499 other stories for a single slot in a user’s newsfeed.

How does EdgeRank work?

EdgeRank is like a credit rating: it’s invisible, it’s important, it’s unique to each user, and no one other than Facebook knows knows exactly how it works.

At Facebook’s 2010 F8 conference, they revealed the three ingredients of the algorithm:

1. Affinity Score

2. Edge Weight

3. Time Decay

Affinity Score

Affinity Score means how “connected” a particular user is to the Edge. For example, I’m friends with my brother on Facebook. In addition, I write frequently on his wall, and we have fifty mutual friends. I have a very high affinity score with my brother, so Facebook knows I’ll probably want to see his status updates.

Facebook calculates affinity score by looking at explicit actions that users take, and factoring in 1) the strength of the action, 2) how close the person who took the action was to you, and 3) how long ago they took the action.

Explicit actions include clicking, liking, commenting, tagging, sharing, and friending. Each of these interactions has a different weight that reflects the effort required for the action–more effort from the user demonstrates more interest in the content. Commenting on something is worth more than merely liking it, which is worth more than merely clicking on it. Passively viewing a status update in your newsfeed does not count toward affinity score unless you interact with it.

Affinity score measures not only my actions, but also my friends’ actions, and their friends’ actions. For example, if I commented on a fan page, it’s worth more than if my friend commented, which is worth more than if a friend of a friend commented. Not all friends’ actions are treated equally. If I click on someone’s status updates and write on their wall regularly, that person’s actions influence my affinity score significantly more than another friend who I tend to ignore.

Lastly, if I used to interact with someone a lot, but less so now, then their influence will start to wane. Technically, Facebook is just multiplying each action by 1/x, where x is the time since the action happened.

Affinity score is one-way. My brother has a different affinity score to me than I have to him. If I write on my brother’s wall, Facebook knows I care about my brother, but doesn’t know if my brother cares about me.

This may sound confusing, but it’s mostly common sense.

Edge Weight

Each category of edges has a different default weight. In plain English, this means that comments are worth more than likes.

Every action that a user takes creates an edge, and each of those edges, except for clicks, creates a potential story. By default, you are more likely to see a story in your newsfeed about me commenting on a fan page than a story about me liking a fan page.

Facebook changes the edge weights to reflect which type of stories they think user will find most engaging. For example, photos and videos have a higher weight than links. Conceivably, this could be adjusted on a per-user level–if Sam tends to comment on photos, and Michelle comments on links, then Sam will have a higher Edge weight for photos and Michelle will have a higher Edge weight for links. It’s not clear if Facebook does this or not.

As a sidenote, Facebook may actually rank the act of commenting, liking, visiting a fan page, or even fanning a page differently depending on the source. For example, becoming a fan via an ad may have a lower Edge score than becoming a fan by searching for the fan page and then becoming a fan. This makes intuitive sense–the one user is hunting for the page and generally will care more about page stories than someone who had an ad thrust in their face. There is no conclusive proof of this though.

New Facebook features generally have a high Edge weight in order to promote the feature to users. For example, when Facebook Places rolled out, check-ins had a very high default weight for a few months and your newsfeed was probably inundated with stories like “John checked into Old Navy.” Generally, after a few weeks or months Facebook dials the new feature back to a more reasonable weight.

Time Decay

As a story gets older, it loses points because it’s “old news.”

EdgeRank is a running score–not a one-time score. When a user logs into Facebook, their newsfeed is populated with edges that have the highest score at that very moment in time. Your status update will only hit the newsfeed if it has a higher score–at that moment in time–than the other possible newsfeed stories.

Facebook is just multiplying the story by 1/x, where x is the time since the action happened. This may be a linear decay function, or it may be exponential–it’s not clear.

Additionally, Facebook seems to be adjusting this time-decay factor based on 1) how long since the user last logged into Facebook, and 2) how frequently the user logs into Facebook. It’s not clear how exactly this works, but my experiments have shown time-decay changes if I log into Facebook more.

How do I check my EdgeRank Score?

Anyone who claims to check your EdgeRank is lying to you. It is completely impossible.

You can measure the effects of EdgeRank by seeing how many people you reached. You can also measure how much engagement you got (which impacts EdgeRank) using a Facebook analytics tool.

But there is no “general EdgeRank score” because each fan has a different affinity score with the page.

Furthermore, Facebook keeps the algorithm a secret, and they’re constantly tweaking it. So the value of comments compared to likes is constantly changing.

Lastly, fan pages never appear in the newsfeed–stories by/about the pages show up. So I really don’t care about the EdgeRank score of the page, I only care about the EdgeRank score of the status update (which is affected by the EdgeRank score of the page).

There will never be a 3rd-party tool that can measure EdgeRank. Too much data is private–eg, if a fan leaves a comment on my page’s status update, I can’t know how tightly he’s connected to the other fans–and the more tightly he’s connected, the more his comment impacts the Affinity Score of the status update for the other fans.

How can I optimize my fan page for EdgeRank?

It’s hard to trick an algorithm into thinking that your content is interesting. It’s much easier to rewrite your content so your fans leave more likes and comments.

Take your stodgy press releases, and turn them into questions that compel your fans to engage.

Here’s some examples:

• “Click ‘like’ if you’re excited that we just released our iPad app.”

• “Fill-in-the-blank: All I want for Christmas is ___. Our latest Christmas special is X.”

• “Yes/No: I brushed my teeth last night. We just announed a new brand of toothpaste.”

• “On a scale of 1-10, I think Obama is a great president. Watch this video of our CEO shaking hands with Obama.”

All those likes and comments will increase the Affinity Score between each fan and your page, boosting how many fans see your status updates in their newsfeed.

Source

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Rockstar Digital - Marketing Consulting Agency
Rockstar Digital - Marketing Consulting Agency - Rockstar Digital is a business development and marketing agency specializing in full service communitcations: website, design, digital and social media content, from strategy to ongoing management. Based in Los Angeles.
http://twitter.com/rockdig
http://facebook.com/rockdig