8 Reasons Why Guest Posting Is An Advantage

Writing is a passion for many (like yours truly!). It’s a hobby that crosses back and forth from the personal zone to the realms of professionalism. The trend of micro blogging is as old as Web 2.0. Writers with an opinion to share, find it a very convenient and hassle free to voice them.

As time has elapsed and blog posts have gained popularity through their various topics and discussions (read comments), Savvy marketers saw this as a great opportunity and jumped aboard the bandwagon. At the same time search engines had changed their algorithms in a manner wherein importance was given to updates. Thus, staying in the news was a useful way of ranking on the SERPs. What better way, than to write meaningful subject matter that readers find relevant enough to share with their fellow peers.

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Social Media Marketing Tips For Bloggers

In our modern world, creating effective online marketing campaigns is no easy task when taken at face value. This is especially true for those looking to build a successful blog, continue to produce valuable content, attract readers, and maintain current fans. Luckily, this process can be broken down into manageable steps that will produce astounding results for anyone that is willing to devote time and energy into creating a world-class blog. (more…)

Why Blogging is Not a Viable Business Model

Here is Wikipedia on the topic of business:

So, does your blog satisfy the above definition of a business?

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Top 10 Best Social Media Blog Posts of 2011

Social Media Top 10 Posts

It’s the end of the year and I am very glad for the year we have had. We have made improvements to the website and our blog. Robert (Social Media Strategist) and Miguel (PHP Programmer) have joined the Branding Personality team, and our team has written about many social media topics.

Here is a recap of our blog based on the most popular posts this year:

#10: Social Media + Restaurants = Increased Foot Traffic
This post is geared to the Restaurants that want to benefit more from Social Media, but don’t know where to start. Most restaurants do ‘something’ with social media. But to our findings, most aren’t doing it consistent enough, frequent enough or interesting enough to profit from it. We plan on doing more outreach to restaurants specifically in 2012.

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WordPress Websites Rock and here are 6 reasons why

These days a lot of people start off using WordPress by signing up for an account on WordPress.com for their personal blogs, others install WordPress on their own domain. You start off with a small simple blog and then you start customizing it a bit. A plugin here, a sidebar widget there and now your blog is really rockin’. Within a few weeks you have added a couple of pages and a few more plugins and widgets and your little blog is looking more and more like a full fledged website! (more…)

Social Media + Restaurants = Increased Foot Traffic

Social Media Restaurants

Social Media + Restaurants, a successful combination. This post is especially for the Restaurant and Bar owners who aren’t taking advantage of social media marketing. Most restaurant owners are busy 24/7 and there is little time for them to learn the ins and outs of social media. But restaurant owners, you are missing out!

Honestly, it doesn’t take too much to send out a tweet or a Facebook post, which could really drive foot traffic into your place. Take a look at how technology is changing, and how people are using their phones now to find good places to eat, drink and hangout. (more…)

Facebook’s Privacy Overhaul: What you need to know!

It’s about time, Facebook! It took Mr. Zuckerberg long enough to realize that we want more PRIVACY! Since its conception, Facebook users have had issues with the privacy settings on their Facebook profile. Well here at last we have a little more control over what people can see and what they can tag you in.

In the next few days Facebook plans to roll out over a dozen new changes that make up two main categories: Profile privacy and the way in which users can share content. These major changes come after Google+ makes some headway to becoming the fastest growing social network in the world! (Check out our article on what Google+ is and how to use it) Essentially, Facebook has taken some of what Google+ offers and has integrated it into Facebook profiles.

New Privacy Settings

Facebook is done with the bulky privacy settings page and has now embedded them right on to the profile page. When you edit your profile page, a box on the right hand side will be there for you to edit your privacy settings, for that section. In addition, Facebook has taken the “View Profile As” page and moved it directly onto your profile page. Instead of going to the privacy settings to see this, it will now be on the top right of your profile page. You can now just type in someone’s name  too see what your profile looks like too them, according to the settings you have enabled.

Along with showing you what others can see, Facebook has enabled a privacy feature to let you review tags from Locations, Pictures, and Posts before anyone else can see them on your profile. This includes people that aren’t Facebook friends with you as well. Now anyone can tag anyone else, but that person must review it before it gets posted to his or her page.

Content Sharing

That’s just half of it. Facebook has made some serious changes to the way we will be able to share content. Facebook takes a page from the new entrant Google +’s book, on content sharing. Just like Google+, Facebook has upgraded its publisher bar to include location, tags, and control over who can see your content. As mentioned above, you can now approve tags by friends or you can have an approved list of friends that can tag you without your approval. Facebook Places has also been integrated into the publisher bar. Now you can just “check in” through a status update, as well as tag photos and videos from that location. With this comes the upgrade on Facebook’s mobile app for iOS and Android. You will notice that Places has been replaced with “Nearby”, a section where you can see recent check-ins around your current location.

Facebook allows you to now pick and choose who sees your status updates just like Google+. You can choose to share a status with the “Public” which is anyone who can see your profile, or you could choose groups of particular people to share your status update. Clearly a move that needed to happened since the arrival of Google+.

Untagging

The last of the privacy changes is the ability to now untag yourself from Facebook content. They have come up with three new options that include untagging yourself from photos, asking the photo uploader to take down the photo, or block that person on Facebook.

Google+ must have really shaken up the industry this summer, for Facebook to revamp all their privacy settings, after it being criticized for so long. This summer of Social Media has been quite an interesting one to follow. What else can we expect to be taking place in the near future?

Foursquare Phenomenon: Are you Checked In?

I’m sure by now you have at least heard of this foursquare business. Where people “Check-In” to the locations in which they are currently at. Its been sweeping the country in droves and becoming larger by the day. Well, just incase you don’t have a clue as to what I’m rambling about; let me let you in on the big secret.

What is FourSquare?

Foursquare is a location-based mobile application that makes cities more interesting to explore, and new places easier to find. It mixes reviews, maps, social media, and fun all into one place, right on your phone! By “Checking In”, users are able to share their location with others, as well as collect points and badges to compete against their friends. It’s really just a big interactive location based game, that lets people know where they can find their friends or find out where the hippest places in town are located. What’s great about the application is that it allows you to bookmark information for certain places as well as leave tips for those users who haven’t been there yet. So if you had a great dish at a restaurant, or you want to let someone else know how to beat the lines, just leave a tip for that location and everyone who looks at that location can see it!

Badges and Points?

What are these so-called badges and points? Let me explain, by checking into locations, Foursquare awards you points based on their established point system. You earn at least one point for every “check in” you make, but every “check in” could be different. Lets say you are at a place for the first time, or you’re the first of your friends to visit a place, or maybe it’s your first time at a certain type of place. Each of these scenarios can bring different point values. So it encourages you to get out and explore new places, in order to rack up those points! As for badges, they are based on a few different things. For example, it could be based on the number of people checked into one place at the same time, or based on the number of similar places you’ve visited within a certain time frame. There are virtually badges for everything! Foursquare has new ones coming out daily to keep it fresh and keep people engaged in the game.

How does it work?

When you open the application on your phone, foursquare uses your phones built-in gps system to find out exactly where you are located. It then brings up a list of places based upon where you are currently located. For the most part, the current location you are in will show up on top followed by a list of places within a certain range of your location. From this list, you can select a location and “Check in” adding pictures, comments, tips, as well as statuses. Your friends, as well as the owners of these places can then see what you’ve posted.

So there you have it, the FourSquare basics to get you started. Now all you have to do is sign up, add some friends and see how many points and badges you can rack up.  Be sure to “Check in” to our blog and find out more about FourSquare discounts and deals next time…

5 SEO Tips to Get Higher Rankings

Search Engine Optimization, a big scary phrase that frightens a lot of business owners who are new to expansion through the Internet. For most, they barely understand what it means, let alone know how to do it. Well don’t fret; we’ve got some really easy tips that can get your page ranking higher in no time. (more…)

Facebook teams up with Skype for Facebook Video Chat

I don’t know if you have gotten the new Facebook chat yet, or if you have, if you’ve even noticed the video button near the top of the chat window. Recently, Facebook announced that it has teamed up with Skype to bring users a new Video Chat feature in their newest chat update. Facebook is excited about this new service, and thinks that this will be a huge hit. Now users can simply call their friends right on Facebook and have conversations face to face.

In order to use this new feature, you need to set it up. To get started, first you must visit http://www.facebook.com/videocalling. Once you’ve arrived at the page click on the “Get Started” button. This will begin the installation process, where you will be asked to download and install the new video chat plug-ins. This should take only a few of seconds, it may ask your permission to install depending upon the browser you are using. Yes, Facebook Video Chat is supported on all browsers, so there is no need to worry.

Once you have finished your install, open up a chat box to call a friend. There are two ways to initiate a Video Call. You will now see a Call button on the top right of your screen in-between the Message and Poke Buttons. You can click there to start a video chat with someone, or you can also start a regular chat with someone and then click the video button in the top right of the chat window. It’s really that simple, no need to worry anymore about people’s skype names or ichat names anymore. Just simply find them on Facebook and click the video button to begin chatting face to face!

Here is a video brought to you by Facebook on their new Video Chat!