Friday 2 November 2012

New Tool Visualizes Facebook Analytics in Real Time



PageLever, which provides analytics tools for brands with Facebook Pages, has introduced a new tool that lets you visualize user engagement on those Pages in real time.
Such data is updated by Facebook every 15 minutes or so, but only as raw data. PageLever Now, however, gives you charts showing which status updates are hitting and for how long.



In theory, being able to see this data in perspective in (almost) real time will let you manage your Page more effectively. If a status update is getting unusual traction, for instance, you can amplify its effect by buying a Promoted Post. By noticing the ebbs and flows of post reactions, you can better schedule status updates to maximize your impact. As an added plus, the tool ranks your recent posts not in chronological order, but by engagement so the posts with the most fan reaction rise to the top.


Typically, page managers have had to wait about 48 hours to get such reports from Facebook. Google started providing real-time analytics to page managers last September.

Pricing for PageLever Now starts at $99 a month.

Wednesday 31 October 2012

A Beginner’s Guide For Businesses on Pinterest


Pinterest is currently the most successful social media site at promoting sales. Visitors directed to a business’ site from Pinterest are 10% more likely to purchase something than from any other social media site.
Use Pinterest to keep followers up-to-date and to promote new and existing products and services that your company provides.



1. Before you start, ask yourself these Questions:
  • What catches your eye on Pinterest?
  • What images relating to your business can you pin?
  • How will you make the most of Pinterest?
Have a look through some of the pinboards on Pinterest. They can be relevant to your business or not. Find out what the most successful and interesting images are.
Work out how you can best illustrate the unique selling points of your business on Pinterest. There is a reason Pinterest is such a successful marketing tool: images are popular and eye-catching, they draw a visitor’s attention.
Pinterest’s celebration of the interesting and unique means that smaller businesses can compete on the site with larger businesses.

2. Perfect your Profile and Attract Followers:
Use an interesting image relevant to your company as your profile picture. Make your description concise and clear. Make sure that the ‘Pin It’ and ‘Follow’ buttons are obviously placed.
Put links to your website and other social media sites on your profile. All your social media profiles should be interlinked for ease of access. Follow other pinboards and profiles related to your industry.
Videos can be pinned on Pinterest, but it is not really necessary to do so. Only YouTube videos can be embedded. Use your other sites to promote video content. You can learn how to manage all your social media sites quickly and effectively with Ezeesocial.
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3. Perfect Your Pins:
Most importantly, make sure the images you pin are eye-catching.
Keep in mind how big your images should be: 300 pixels is too small, 554 pixels is too wide. Pins are not limited by height, but visitors won’t want to keep having to scroll down to see them.
Pin original and unique pictures to ensure your profile gets the most traffic. If you see another pin that you think will interest your followers, then repin it.
Make sure the file name of each pin contains a key phrase, descriptive of what the image depicts. You are allowed a 500 character description with each pin, make sure these are clear and concise.
Create pinboards for specific subjects and name them appropriately. Have a variety of pinboards to keep your visitors interested and diverted. Make sure your pinboard names have appropriate key words in them: pinboards do appear in Google Search.

4. Promote Sales:
Edit pins to add links to your website, or do a purchase page for the product shown in the pin image.
Create catalogues of your different product lines, or specific new ranges that you are selling.
You can add a price banner to your pins by putting ‘$’ and then a price in each pin’s description. A visible price ensures that people following the link to your page are more likely to be customers. Of course, it can dissuade people from clicking.
Bear in mind, Pinterest is a social media platform, not an advertising and marketing site.

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5. Keep Followers Following:
Comment on the pins you repin, and read the comments on yours. You can monitor your target audience by reading and even responding to their comments.
Create exclusive pinboards for new ranges, and give your followers offers exclusive to Pinterest.
Host competitions: invite fans to pin images to win prizes. For example, create a competition where whichever follower posts the best image of their favourite product from one of your ranges, wins. Make sure the prize is stated. Competitors would need to put a specific hashtag in their pin’s descriptions to enter.
How do your promote your business on Pinterest?

Monday 29 October 2012

6 Ways to Download Tagged Photos and Albums From Facebook


Storing all your photos in one online basket is never a good idea. Should you want to migrate to another social media account or delete your profile or if your friends are about to delete their profiles, you’ll want to ensure albums and tagged photos amassed over the years are backed up. Plus, since you can never be too careful with the media you entrust to social media sites, use these six online tools to download tagged photos for safekeeping.
  • Social Folders (free up to 2,000 files downloaded) — Sync photos from Facebook, Flickr, Photobucket, Google Docs, Twitter, Instagram, Picasa, and more to a folder on your desktop. Use SocialFolder to move files easily from one website to another, or send and receive files to/from your friends.
  • Pick & Zip (free) — Download albums, photos tagged of you, and videos from Facebook through this free software. Pick which media you’d like to back up, and the software will compress the video and images into a .zip file or .pdf.
  • Facebook2Zip (free) — Log in to Facebook; then, in addition to your own photos, select which friends you’d like to download albums from, choose albums, and Facebook2Zip will download the photos into a .zip file.
  • IFTTT Recipe (free) — This won’t download the photos you’ve already been tagged in, but it will save photos you get tagged in from here on out. Every time an image is linked to your Facebook account, IFTTT (If This Then That) will add that file to Dropbox. Think this recipe is cool? There are plenty of other nifty automated commands that IFTTT can do for you.
  • Move Your Photos (free) — This Chrome browser extension makes migrating to Google+ easy, by exporting Facebook photos to Picasa. Share photos with any of your Google+ circles instantly from Picasa or download them to another backup source.
  • PhotoLive (free) — Install this browser extension into Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Opera and download your own photos or those of friends. We like PhotoLive because the extension doesn’t have any Facebook log-in buttons — the extension doesn’t keep track or store any user activity.
If you’re not interested in entire albums, you can always download each Facebook photo manually by opening up the image, hovering over the window, and clicking Options > Download, which will give you the highest resolution possible.