Hashtags: Useful or Nuisance?

We have all seen them, use them or been annoyed by them when abused, something I call hashtag vomit. Users who don’t understand hashtags tagging their post with so many irrelevant and annoying hashtags you just want to move on without reading the post.

It started on Twitter, Facebook unsuccessfully tried to incorporate them in posts, LinkedIn gave up on them, Instagram and Pinterest users swear by them but few actually understand their use and purpose.

By definition, A hashtag is a type of label used on social network and micro blogging platforms to make it easier for users to find messages with a specific theme or content. In short, hashtags are like keywords allowing readers to find content related to a subject and should be treated as such

Social media “gurus” have been promoting hashtags as essential to social media posts and content success, advising marketers to use hashtags as a critical element of any high-performing social media update without educating their clients and the public about the way to effectively use them

The result has been hashtag vomit, what mainstream search engines would classify as spam. We have seen updates and content with plethora of hashtags, some relevant most irrelevant for the sake of trying to maximize potential exposure.

The question has long been, do hashtags actually work?

The answer is yes and no, depending on your purpose

Twitter recently released a study focused on direct response ads, which are intended to drive a specific result, like an app install or a website visit, suggesting that when these ads included a hashtag or mentioned another account, they didn’t perform well

Continue reading “Hashtags: Useful or Nuisance?”

October 7, 2014

FDA Social Media Guidance Controversy

Under the new FDA social media guidance, manufacturers would be responsible for monitoring their social media platforms for comments considered inaccurate, misleading or related to non approved or off label use.

They would also be liable when third party websites they have collaborated with publishes or do not filter articles, posts, ads or comments considered inaccurate, misleading or related to non approved or off label use.

All three major industry trade associations – the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) and the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) warn FDA of significant flaws in the agency’s proposed regulations on the use of social media.

Their contention being that information and comments published online by third party comes under the first amendment and they should not have to monitor, correct or remove them even if they are misleading

The first amendment argument has been widely used to justify misleading information in non regulated industries but in the healthcare industry, misleading information, even by third party can have wide ranging consequences on the health of patients, raise false hope and create undue pressure by ill patients on doctors. Continue reading “FDA Social Media Guidance Controversy”

May 1, 2014

Facebook Cut Posts Reach Now What?

In the past few year we have seen Facebook cut post reach several time. We can expect other companies to follow suit and artificially cut the organic reach of the posts brands and businesses publish on their page.

A couple of years ago Facebook announced that posts only reached 16% of a page followers, last October the average reach dropped to around 8% and it is predicted that before long, 2 to 3% reach will be the norm… Unless brands and businesses start to pay up.

You spent a lot of time, energy and invested a lot of money building a big fan base on you social media pages and now you find out that your fans are not yours but the social media company’s, they have been cutting the organic reach of your posts and now they want you to pay to reach them. It’s called “Pay for Play”.

That’s a tough awakening but not surprising, in time, most of them will become digital advertising platforms and less and less social. The writing has been on the wall for sometime now.

These platform were not purely social, they were tools to collect information and what do you do with information, you leverage it to generate revenue and now that they are publicly traded, they are pressured to generate revenue and profit. It’s business

Facebook has probably been the most obvious but make no mistake, it’s only the beginning, the others will follow

So what do you do?

You don’t put all your eggs in the same basket and when I say basket, I mean social media. As a rule, and that applies to blogs as well, you don’t build a presence focusing on a platform you do not own or control. Continue reading “Facebook Cut Posts Reach Now What?”

June 4, 2013June 4, 2013

Social Media For Business Mainly a Brand Builder

Social media for business study

Social media plays a significant role in small and medium-sized businesses’ (SMBs) marketing efforts, providing both free and paid exposure to a wide-ranging—and often receptive—audience.

According to a January 2013 survey from online magazine Social Media Examiner, Facebook continues to be the most important social network for most business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers worldwide, given its enormous user base. However, for business-to-business (B2B) marketers, there is a healthy competition among other

platforms. Among these marketers, LinkedIn tied with Facebook as the most important social network, while blogging followed 10 percentage points behind.

Interestingly, while YouTube was only the most important social platform for 4% of SMBs total, it is where the greatest percentage of businesses planned to make future investments. Nearly seven out of 10 marketers said they planned to increase their use of YouTube this year.

The greatest benefits of social media:

89% increased exposure
75% increased traffic
43% increased sales.

This points to social’s role as a brand builder, first and foremost.

And even as social media may seem like old hat to many marketers by now, quite a few are relatively new to the platforms. About one-quarter of marketers said they had been working with social media for a year or less. And another 30% were 1 to 2 years into their social media marketing tenure. But SMBs have quickly caught on to how important social is as a marketing tool: 79% said they had already incorporated social media into their traditional marketing activities.

June 4, 2013June 4, 2013

More Women Have Accounts on Pinterest and Instagram

Women are more likely to have accounts on Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter

Women continue to lead over men on most social networks, according to a March 2013 survey of over 2,500 adult US internet users from internet advertising network Burst Media. Facebook remained the leading social network by a wide margin, and females were 6 percentage points more likely than male internet users to have an account on the site.

Google+, a social network which had been somewhat marginalized after a lackluster start, is proving itself in US user figures. The site had the second-highest number of account holders among both men and women, leading Twitter by approximately 10 percentage points for both genders. About one-quarter of male and female web users were on the site.

On Pinterest, the skew toward women has been well documented and remains firmly entrenched. More than one out of five female respondents had an account on the network, compared with 5% of men. About 6% of both men and women were on Instagram, with slightly more women on the site. On Twitter, penetration rates were also very close, at 17% of women vs. 15.5% of men.

March 28, 2013March 28, 2013

How Secure Are Your Passwords

I recently attended a WordPress workshop about website security. the presenter, from the firm Securi, gave us a demonstration on how fast hackers can find your username and password and crack a website open, I can tell you, that was a real eye opener.
The presenter showed us how a hacker can find a user name with software readily available online and how they could crack the site open by using software and password lists also available online.

A seemingly safe password containing uppercase, lower case, numbers, special characters took only minutes to crack. Never mind easy passwords like many still use like… password or 1234.

How strong is your password? Find out with this app and tell us how long it took..

Are passwords obsoletes, fortunately no, but we need to look at them in a different light. the key to secure passwords is uniqueness. I know, thatwas my reaction too, how can you find unique passwords.

The first step is to forget about common words, short terms, go for long strings and instead of thinking passwords, think long string, think passphrases, long strings take longer to hack and chances are, a hacker will give up.

The presenter recommended password management tools, companies that encrypt your log in information and safeguard your passwords

If you have a website, implement “fail log in limits”, applications that lock your site after a predetermined number of log in attempts, implement layered authentication, limit the number of users who have access to the site, keep software, plug ins, themes updated, remove any app you don’t use

The online world will never be completely safe, but it’s up to you to manage and reduce the risk

So, how long would it take to crack your password? Tell us in the comment section.

March 13, 2013

FTC latest online ad rules

Advertisers should think twice about placing promotional messages on mobile and social media platforms like Twitter if those ads require disclosures or disclaimers to avoid being deceptive or unfair, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Tuesday.

The updated guidelines for online advertising represent the commission’s attempt to catch up to more than a decade of fast-evolving new technology, from the advent of the mobile revolution to an explosion in social media like Facebook and Twitter.

This year, as in the last report issued in 2000, the FTC holds online advertisers to the same standards of honesty and full disclosure as newspapers and television.

But the limited space available on mobile platforms maintained by Twitter, Facebook and others means that it is difficult to place appropriate disclosures close enough to the ad, or prominently enough, to ensure users see it.

“Advertisers should make sure their disclosures are clear and conspicuous on all devices and platforms that consumers may use to view their ads,” the FTC’s Lesley Fair said in a blog post accompanying the 53-page report.

“That means that if an ad would be deceptive or unfair (or would otherwise violate an FTC rule) without a disclosure — but the disclosure can’t be made clearly and conspicuously on a particular device or platform — then that ad shouldn’t run on that device or platform,” Fair wrote.

And the FTC discouraged the use of pop-ups for disclosures since they are so often blocked.

“Most webpages viewable on desktop devices may also be viewable on smartphones,” the FTC said in the report. “Advertisers should design the website so that any necessary disclosures are clear and conspicuous, regardless of the device on which they are displayed.”

Twitter already requires celebrities and others who endorse products to disclose that they are being paid. Facebook had no immediate comment.

“Many of the themes about social media were already surfaced (by the FTC) a few years ago,” said Eric Goldman, Professor of Law and Director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law.

He said the FTC’s guidelines placed the burden more on advertisers and users who take payments, than on platform companies such as Twitter or Facebook. “I don’t see anything that specifically tells Twitter, Facebook or other platforms how they have to design their platform.”

“The guidelines don’t have the force of law. but the FTC is trying to let industry know what it expects industry to do, and when the industry doesn’t do what the FTC wants, the FTC tends to get cranky.”

Original article