Sometimes the answer is in front of your nose. Stare.

Amplify’d from www.entrepreneur.com

Five Things You Should Know About Web Analytics Web traffic alone doesn't generate sales. Answer these questions as you track your web-site metrics. Print Email By John D. Leavy   |   July 11, 2011   |   20

Good website analytics take the mystery out of wondering who's visiting the company website and why. You don't need to be an online marketing strategist to use them, either. There are plenty of website analytics packages for sale on the Web, but you can get started free through Google Analytics.

Related: How to Decode Website Metrics to Pump Up Your Online Marketing

Here are five points to consider as you start delving into the numbers:

1. Do your website visitors already know you?

2. Are you bringing in potential customers?

3. Does your social media presence work?

4. Are visitors bailing from your homepage?

5. Are they looking at your product or service pages? Read more at www.entrepreneur.com

 

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Unlimited Movie Theater Movies, $50/Month

This is not that bad




Unlimited Movie Theater Movies, $50/Month: "

Would you drop $50 a month to see as many movies in theaters as you wanted? MoviePass is hoping you will! Me? I don't like going to the movies. Something about sitting in the dark with a bunch of strangers makes me uneasy. I'm always afraid the person behind me is gonna stab me in the back with a dirty needle. That or talk the whole time.

Still in beta, MoviePass uses a web-based HTML 5 application to let users find the movie they'd like to see, and check with the theater. This allows them to skip the box office (or those e-tick machines) entirely, and go straight to the ticket-checker.


Users who sign up for the 'unlimited' MoviePass can see an as many movies as they want for $50 a month. Imax and 3D movies will cost $3 extra per movie. And the company is currently preparing to launch a 'limited pass,' which allows subscribers four movies per month for $30.

Right now, only 21 San Francisco area theaters are on board. But the company plans to expand to other cities this summer, and hopes to have 40 percent of US theaters with their service by the time MoviePass goes national this fall.

Well -- would you go for it? Not gonna lie, I'm averaging about two movies a year so it's not for me. Unless -- UNLESS -- there's an all-you-can-eat concessions upgrade. Then I'd f***ing live there.

MoviePass: See unlimited movies in the theater for $50 a month [digitaltrends]

Thanks to Bear, who once ate four packs of Sour Patch Kid Watermelons during the previews and ran through the movie screen."

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Don't do what you love what a contradiction

It's common wisdom to do what you love. Management experts usually promise that happiness and fulfillment will follow. But that's not always the case as I read on this article in HBR. Here are three reasons you may want to avoid pursuing your passion according to them:

"

It's not your strength. You may love to do something you are just not good at. Because it can be hard to self-assess, ask for frank feedback from those around you to know where your strengths are.

You're too emotionally attached. Passion may cloud your judgment. When you care deeply about something, it can be hard to be take criticism or let others get involved.

It's a hobby, not a job. Sadly, you can't be paid for everything. What you love may not be lucrative. Instead find something you like that pays."



I Guess I'll just go with the wind...

Amplify’d from blogs.hbr.org

Don't Do What You Love

Last year, I finished directing a documentary film called The Work of 1000. Our heroine was Marion Stoddart, a woman who in the 1960s spearheaded a cleanup of the massively polluted Nashua River in Central Massachusetts — one of the most dramatic environmental success stories in American history. Amazingly, however, the river was her second choice for an advocacy project. She had originally wanted to help with the adoption of Korean children, and could have gone down that path, but she decided she'd get "too emotionally involved" to do a good job — and thus became an eco-pioneer instead.

Doing what you love can inspire great dedication and a sense of meaning — but sometimes, that passion can blind you to feedback (are you the only one who thinks it's a good idea?), make you miserable (who knew launching the initiative would mean managing a dozen new staffers?), or harm your financial prospects.

Dorie Clark is a marketing strategy consultant who has worked with clients including Google, Yale University, and the National Park Service. To learn more, listen to her podcasts or follow her on Twitter Read more at blogs.hbr.org

 

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CanYouDrawTheInternet Contest

Hey you! Yes Talented Graphic designer or Unborn Artist this is your time to shine and show the world your talents.



CanYouDrawTheInternet is a competition launched by UK-based digital agency Saint, ArtWeLove, Deviant Art, The Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, and The NYC Department of Education. The competition asks people to describe the Internet in a single image.



The submissions to the site will be sold through Artwelove with the proceeds going to New York’s public schools.

Amplify’d from www.canyoudrawtheinternet.com

After a wildly successful campaign for Internet Week Europe, UK-based digital agency Saint is partnering with ArtWeLove, Deviant Art, The Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment and The NYC Department of Education to bring Can You Draw the Internet? to Internet Week NY.

See more at www.canyoudrawtheinternet.com

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a15z7b

Genious Popcorn with CAFFEINE

URL:  http://www.biofuelfoods.com/

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a146zj

With these easy steps you can start creating and setting Facebook Page instantly. These steps are the beginning of something greater than expected.

Amplify’d from mashable.com

HOW TO: Set Up a Facebook Page

There are 500 million active users on Facebook — it’s about time you get in on the action and start a Facebook Page for your business. After all, the best marketing reaches out to consumers where they already are, and people spend more than 700 billion hours a month on the site. Exposure to that many eyeballs could translate to a lot of business for your company.

Not tech savvy? That’s not a problem — the process isn’t too technical. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you initiate your Facebook marketing campaign.

1. Create Your Page

Local Business or Place Company, Organization or Institution Brand or Product Artist, Band or Public Figure Entertainment Cause or Community

2. Fill In Information

3. Add a Photo

4. Suggest Your Page to Friends

5. Import Contacts

6. Start Writing Content

To post a link the proper way, click “Link” and paste the URL. Click “Attach.” Once you “attach” the URL, you’ll see that the text and photo from the page you’re linking to will populate automatically. You can change the title, paste different text into the snippet, and change the pictures (if there are several options, indicated by the “Choose a Thumbnail” prompt):

7. Get a Vanity URL

8. Use the Tools That Are Available

8. Assign Other Admins

Now that your Facebook Page is all set, you can learn more about what to do, what not to do and when to post to get the best engagement. Read more at mashable.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a13th7

Google To Lease Chrome Laptops for $20/Month

URL:  http://mashable.com/2011/05/11/google-chrome-laptop-sub...

WOW, this is awesome! makes me want to go to school again

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a12gtw

Why Social Media Isn't Helping Online Retailers Find Customers?

This is the terrible thing someone could have ever done. Is kind of Like Mixed signals to entrepreneurs that are starting to use Social Media Marketing. Let me tell you is not that SMM is everything, but is a huge help when it comes to SEM (search engine marketing) the blogs that you write the Tweets that you send the specials that you have on facebook is a huge population that see's that and you are not reaching if you would only do Outbound advertising. Let's Face it, Social Media can help boost your position on the search engines and because the difference between the referrals from your work on SEO (search engine optimization) is more than the referrals coming from the SMM which is less doesn't mean that SMM is not working. We haven't find tools that can be more specific in the importance of SMM.



Just look at this, many of the people think that by just creating a Facebook account and a twitter they are doing social media. Just because you have a concentration in Marketing that doesn't mean that is going to work the same on SMM. Social Media is proven to be cost effective and with the right tools and the right person handling the social media efforts you will have great results.

Amplify’d from www.entrepreneur.com

Why Social Isn't Helping Online Retailers Find Customers

Online retailers in the U.S. reaped an impressive $176 billion in sales last year, an 11 percent increase over 2009. That pretty much establishes Web retailing as a legitimate tactic that should command respect from those who market and sell their wares exclusively within a brick and mortar environment.

But a new study finds that while online sales continue to compete well with physical retail establishments, most online merchants believe that social media-related marketing does little in the way of lifting sales -- calling into question what if any benefits businesses actually derive from participating in social media.

Sixty-two percent of online retailers say their return on investment is either unaffected by social media or that the benefits remain unclear, according to Forrester Research's The State of Retailing Online 2011: Marketing, Social & Mobile, which was released earlier this week to members of Shop.org, the online retail division of the National Retail Federation.

Although the online retailers polled say they are underwhelmed by the results of their marketing efforts within the social networking utility Facebook and microblogging platform Twitter, they do point to a number of benefits such as building brand awareness and improving customer service.

So, then, what works for finding customers?

A whopping 90 percent of online retailers said search-engine marketing was the most effective source used to acquire customers last year, while 49 percent pointed to affiliate marketing, or paying a commission for referred business. Further, 44 percent of online retailers cited organic search traffic as having helped them find customers, while email marketing and having a social network presence each garnered 18 percent. Ten percent of those surveyed also indicated that direct mail and sweepstakes were a help, whereas about 7 percent cited offline ads and remarketing -- that is, targeting website visitors who have previously visited your site with ads that appear across the Web. Finally, just 1 percent said microblogging -- a.k.a. Twitter -- helped them find customers.

And while online retailers say social-commerce marketing has been less than successful for their businesses, many claim they’ll continue to place more of their marketing dollars into social networking, citing the potential for improvements from those channels in the future. Read more at www.entrepreneur.com

 

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The 50 Most Valuable Brands

Apple is the queen of Brands, who would have thought that apple will become the best big thing, and will surpass Microsoft on sales Im just Happy that Google is next to it Remember once you go MAC you never go BACK.

Amplify’d from mashable.com

The 50 Most Valuable Brands Read more at mashable.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a11yt7

With Event Check-ins now available on mobile devices, you have another way to increase awareness of events such as store openings and special sales. Anyone invited to an event who responds as "Attending" or "Maybe Attending" will be able to check in three hours before the event starts and until it ends. When they check in, the action creates a story in their friends' News Feeds, spreading awareness of your business and your event in an organic way. http://amplify.com/u/b10636

Facebook Page Banning!

It's been a long time i have been waiting for this Facebook page ban tool. Now you can ban those obnoxious situations between Page and Fans.

Amplify’d from www.insidefacebook.com

Facebook Pages Can Now Sort Their Likes to Remove Pages and Unban Reformed Trolls April 13th, 2011

When Facebook Page admins click the Like count beneath their Page’s profile picture, they’ll now see the option to sort those who Like their brand into people, Pages, admins and banned users. From this interface, admins can remove Pages they don’t want to be affiliated with, and unban users who they want to return wall posting privileges to.

As part of the February 2011 Facebook Page redesign, Facebook began allowing Pages to Like other Pages. The new sort ability makes it easy for Pages to see which other Pages Like them, opening opportunities for alliances where Pages link to each other.

Now, admins of larger Pages can sort out all users and just see the Pages that Like them, making it easier to discover and remove offensive Pages.

By giving Page admins more flexibility as to how they handle moderation, Facebook is becoming a safer place for brands to set up shop and purchase ads. Read more at www.insidefacebook.com

 

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Add Questions APP to Facebook Page

Is so funny I encounter with this news. Today someone asked me How you engage with your client? Me a SMM - If social media is not engaging then what is it?

Amplify’d from mashable.com

HOW TO: Add Facebook Questions To Your Brand Page 1 day ago by Vadim Lavrusik 51

Facebook released a new version of Questions late last week and will soon begin to roll the feature out to Facebook Pages as well.

1. Sign In To Your Facebook Page

2. Go To Facebook’s Questions Page

3. Ask Your First Question

See more at mashable.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bx0l6

Facebook Slap to Groupon!

What we needed, Groupon, LivingSocial get Scared the Monster of Facebook is coming with all the power! Love it!

Amplify’d from www.insidefacebook.com

A Closer Look at Deals, Facebook’s News Feed-Based Answer to Groupon March 17th, 2011

On Tuesday, Facebook began signing up users for Deals, its answer to Groupon and other group-buying services. Subscribers will receive updates in their news feed and potentially by email about pre-paid coupons and experiences they can purchase. Businesses can work with Facebook’s Merchant Services team to arrange and promote Deals such as discounts on going out to a restaurant, the movies, or a wine-tasting tour.

Instead, the new Facebook Deals is indeed a competitor to Groupon, and doesn’t require users to share their location. Instead, they’ll be able to share the news of their purchase. Facebook can increase at will the EdgeRank, or news feed visibility, of both initial updates about Deals and these user shares about purchases.

However, users have grown to love the news feed because it shows them what they care about, not ways to spend money. Deals could be both, but Facebook must make sure not to place low quality offers above important updates from friends. Otherwise, it risks reducing the news feed’s perceived value to users, which could negatively impact the site’s long-term engagement rate. Read more at www.insidefacebook.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bvaru

How Japan is solving the Nuclear threat

This is the real news not sensationalism, not controversial, the real truth!

Amplify’d from mitnse.com

News Brief, 3/18/11, 10 AM EST

Spraying of spent fuel pools at Units 3 and 4 is still underway. Visual inspection of Unit 4’s pool showed water in the pool, and so efforts have been temporarily focused upon Unit 3. While efforts at using helicopters to dump water onto the pools had been largely unsuccessful , army firetrucks used in putting out aircraft fires have been employed with some success. The elite Tokyo Hyper Rescue component of the Tokyo fire department has arrived on scene and is conducting missions of roughly two hours in length, during which they spray the pools for 7-8 minutes, wait for steam to dissipate, and spray again.

Visual inspections have been conducted of both the central spent fuel pool, which contains 60% of the facility’s fuel, and the dry cask storage area. Water levels at the central pool have been described as “secured”, and the dry casks show “no signs of an abnormal situation”. More detailed checks of these areas are planned for the future.

A Japanese government agency has released the results of radiation measurements at dozens of monitoring posts. See the data here: http://www.mext.go.jp/component/a_menu/other/detail/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2011/03/18/1303727_1716.pdf.

As a result of these radiation measurements and the ongoing work, the Japanese Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency upgraded the event to a 5 on the INES scale. This is the same level as the Three Mile Island accident, and two steps below Chernobyl. Read more at mitnse.com

See more at mitnse.com

 

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Tripple Tag on Facebook comments

This is awesome now you can tag more people in a conversation an even untagged yourself from a mention on Facebook (is like Twitter but BeTT-eR!) Im telling you Facebook should hire me! I bet they had this opus on for a while though i knew we needed this since 2007.



Facebook is on Fire or let me say #Winning

Amplify’d from www.insidefacebook.com

Facebook Expands @ Mention Tagging to Comments March 11th, 2011

Facebook users can now tag their friends, Pages, Groups, and Events in comments to news feed stories and wall posts to create linked mentions. This will help users carry on conversations with other commenters and allow them to easily reference different entities on Facebook.

Later Facebook began showing tag suggestions whenever a user capitalized a letter in an update or post, but later removed the feature since it interrupted users who weren’t actually trying to tag anything.

Update 3/12/2011: We’ve noticed that users can not untag themselves when tagged in comments, whereas they can untag themselves from tagged news feed or wall posts. This means the @ mentions could be abused to associate a user with content they might object to.

See more at www.insidefacebook.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bu1q9

Facebook Increases # of Visible TAB Apps on PAGES Finally!

I was so nervous how my customer will find the tab, Must of the users of Facebook are not that tech savy and is realy aweful to them to not see what they use to once they go to a PAGE. Remember not everyone likes CHANGES!

Amplify’d from www.insidefacebook.com

Facebook Increases Number of Visible Tab Apps on Pages, Changes Tab Reordering February 25th, 2011

By Josh Constine Add Comment » Share

Facebook has increased the number of tab applications that are visible above the fold in the navigation menu of Facebook Pages. It also now only allows Pages with more tabs installed than fit above the fold to reorder their tabs.

Facebook began the rollout of a major redesign of Pages in mid-February. This moved tab applications from a horizontal bar above the Page’s wall to a vertically stacked navigation menu beneath the profile picture.

To reorder tabs, Page admins can visit their Page and click the “More” button, then the “Edit” button, and can then drag and drop the tabs. This allows them to place the tab apps they want to receive the most traffic at the top of stack beneath the wall and info tabs that can’t be reordered. Tabs can be removed from this same “Edit” option, or through the full “Edit Page” admin interface.

However, if Pages don’t have more tabs than fit above the fold, their admins won’t have a “More” button and therefore can’t reorder their tabs. In order to gain this functionality, they must add enough tabs that they get a “More” button, reorder their tabs, and then remove the unwanted tabs.

To learn more about Facebook Page management best practices and access our walk-through and strategies for redesigned Pages, visit the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network’s comprehensive guide to brand marketing on Facebook. Read more at www.insidefacebook.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bru12

Why Most Facebook Marketing Doesn't Work

What I think is that for us marketers it gets really hard to keep up with all the new things the social networks are doing. Let's face it Facebook and Twitter as the main social media sites change dramatically every 2 seconds part of their development sites. And even though they publish their information it doesnt give you time to actually grasp the use of their services because of the constant changes.



Though i might say they are getting better on their services they are also playing with US the consumers. They are just going by trying every little thing without actually understanding the frustration of a full time SMM. Places like Amplify.com and Nutshellmail.com to help you send your message without all the hassle of going to your FB page and realizing there are no TABS.



What this message foremost represents is as I always say: Concise, precise, dynamic interaction with your USERS.













So What Does Work?



Promotions and Consistent, Lightweight Engagement



Make sure your fans get something in return for liking your page with promotions likes offers for fans that they can easily redeem. The more lucrative the deals offer, the more sharing with friends with happen. Fans want things like exclusive products/services, drastically discounted prices akin to Groupon type deals, and early notification and registration for upcoming events, ideally exclusive to fans. Promotions should make the fan feel like they are a brand insider, not just a standard consumer.



A big secret of Facebook marketing is that it is easy and cheap to drive promotions using ads targeted only at your fans that link to landing tabs that deliver the offer and encourage fans to share to their newsfeed.



A brand on Facebook should be like a casual friend or neighbor and not try to suck people into heavy levels of interaction. What do you do with a friend? Comment on their photos, like their status, vote on their outfit. These types of interactions take seconds, not minutes, and definitely not hours.



A brand on Facebook should offer their users regularly updated, simple to interact with engagement features. Each of the engagement apps should be fully branded, and run in a separate tab with traffic driven from wall posts, newsfeed and Facebook ad units to increase engagement. Start with a personality quiz. Then two weeks later put up a poll. Then try a trivia app. For special events, put up a gifting app for Valentine's Day, or for the holiday season, a holiday song card.



Some brands, like media properties and well-known consumer brands, get an immediate fan base for this type of lightweight engagement. For the rest, building a fan base on Facebook is no different than building a mailing list in the previous generation of the Internet. It takes consistent engagement, and builds over time.



Methods to accelerate growth include tying Facebook ad campaigns with engagement apps and driving traffic from the homepage. The apps should still be lightweight and fun, with the conversion goal of getting the user to like the brand.



The point is to regularly put up new, fresh engagement features that are easy and fun for users to interact with, that they will want to post to their wall and share with their friends. Then users will interact with your brand just like they interact with their friends on Facebook!

Amplify’d from www.readwriteweb.com

First, deep campaigns don't work. Digital agencies love deep, expensive campaigns on Facebook, with tons of pages, interaction, and art. It fits in with how agencies build microsites and websites, and justifies the $100,000-plus price tag that they like to charge. Examples include lightweight games, prediction contests, treasure hunts where you include friends, and such. Unfortunately for agencies and the brands that drop a lot of cash, Facebook users decidedly don't like deep campaigns.

Facebook users are very sophisticated, and there is no way a single campaign is going to compete on game mechanics with CityVille. If you want to build CityVille, it might work. But, even Netflix pulled their Facebook app. You're better off putting up a bunch of funny videos from around the world and leave it at that. Read more at www.readwriteweb.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bqsm6

Facebook Splits Search results into categories

Now we are able to see exactly what we are looking for before finishing the complete word into categories.

Amplify’d from www.insidefacebook.com

Facebook Splits Typeahead Search Results Into Categories February 17th, 2011

By Josh Constine Add Comment » Share

Facebook now splits the instant typeahead search results that appear in the drop-down beneath its ever-present search bar into profiles, Pages, apps, groups, Events, and Questions. This helps users find the most relevant results, regardless of category.

See more at www.insidefacebook.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bqrh2

Amplify’d from mashable.com

YouTube Wants Non-Profits To Make Amazing Videos 18 hours ago by Zachary Sniderman 1

YouTube is launching its 5th Annual DoGooder Non-Profit Video Awards with a brand new award aimed at spurring online participation. The competition is a collaboration between YouTube and See3 with participation from Flip and NTEN.

A group of judges will whittle down the entries based on the message, use of video, quality of video, creativity and emotional appeal. Once the final 16 videos are chosen, the YouTube community will then be able to vote for their favorites starting March 7.

The contest is also syncing up with YouTube’s Non-Profit Program, a support page and dedicated channel for non-profits. The program offers tips, how-tos, and the ability for non-profits to include special features like a “donate button” on their channel. A non-profit video must be registered with the program in order to be considered.

The Non-Profit Video Awards look to be a clever play by YouTube to encourage and promote the way non-profits use video while establishing itself as a the go-to resource for charitable online video. Read more at mashable.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bqrdm

Americans and Valentine’s Day – How They’re Loving (or Not)

Amplify’d from blog.lab42.com

Americans and Valentine’s Day – How They’re Loving (or Not)

See more at blog.lab42.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/aq296