Written by Mhairi Petrovic, January 31st, 2012
Wondering when to Tweet for maximum effect, what time to post to your Facebook page so that the more people will see it? You’re not alone. Here is a great infographic from KISSmetrics to keep you on track.
Written by Corrie Scott, January 27th, 2012
Starting this month, Facebook is 
updating its advertising program by making changes to Sponsored Stories. Sponsored stories first appeared in 2011 as a way to turn your friend’s actions and posts into promoted content for brands. For a breakdown of how these ads used to look, check out this Mashable post that does a great job of explaining it. Today, we’re going to talk about the most recent changes that Facebook will be making to these stories.
The big change: Facebook Sponsored Stories will now appear in user’s newsfeeds. Facebook says this won’t be nearly as intrusive to their 800+ million members as it sounds. The ads will be marked as “sponsored”, they will be strictly regulated so that users will see no more than 1 ad in their newsfeed per day, and they will only contain content about friends or pages with which the user is already connected. This gives your ad better odds of being seen by those who would be interested in your business – the types of people you want to like your business page.
Also, Facebook users can’t opt out of sponsored stories, everyone’s getting them. They can, however, delete individual ads from their newsfeed, but that’s less likely to happen because the ads only show information about friends or pages they already interact with on Facebook.
Why this is so great for marketers: It allows you to get your content front and center on people’s newsfeeds, mixed in with all the organic content generated by people’s friends and page likes. Also, the ‘sponsored’ tag on the lower right hand side of the ad is unlikely to be noticed until after the user has processed the ad. If it’s even noticed at all. It’s a pretty small tag, as you can see from the screenshot below.
Another potential benefit for marketers is that this is another way to target Facebook’s 800m+ users, half of which return to the site daily. With sponsored ads appearing in newsfeeds and the right sidebar, as well as traditional Facebook ads, the amount of potential daily impressions for ads will skyrocket. This could go one of two ways for advertisers, 1. Ad prices will decrease because of increased supply, or 2. Ad prices could increase because the addition of sponsored stories could increase demand for Facebook ads. Time will tell which one ends up being true.
Either way, there’s bound to be the usual protests surrounding any change on Facebook, but we have a feeling that will die down pretty quick. Personally, I don’t mind seeing relevant ads on Facebook, and I don’t think it will make a big difference whether they appear on the right sidebar, or within my newsfeed. Highly targeted ads are nice because they inform me of deals or pages I might not have known about otherwise. However, Facebook will need to be careful about maintaining a good ad to organic content ratio. Sponsored ads would quickly get annoying if they began overtaking the newsfeed. I know I can’t be the only one that would think that way.
Written by Corrie Scott, January 25th, 2012
Our website was recently hacked; every time we searched Out-Smarts’ name on Google, spammy content about sales on Microsoft products appeared where our company’s description should have been. It took awhile to sort everything back out, so we really appreciate this post by Christine Rondeau of Bluelime Media. If you’d like to see the original post, click here.
Dealing with Hackers and Spammers
Having a WordPress site is loads of fun. Being able to create content, make your own edits and upload images and documents without having to contact your web designer is an absolute delight. However, dealing with hackers and spammers is not that great. Granted hackers and spammers do attack non-WordPress sites, but they seem to be targeting these more frequently. There are of course ways to protect yourself.
How do you know if your site has been hacked? If you notice weird spammy words in your website content, in your Google search result or if you’re site redirects to a strange url, then you’ve been hacked. If you’re not 100% sure, try Sucuri SiteCheck. It will scan your site for malware, blacklisting and out-of-date software for free.
How did this happen? Hackers either managed to figure out your FTP password or they used a vulnerability in either the WordPress core files or a plugin.
Here are a few things you can do to prevent this from happening:
If your site has been hacked, then you’ll need to clean up the files. I normally delete the WordPress core files (everything but the wp-config.php and wp-content folder) and re-install everything. I also do a manual scan of the theme files to make sure that hackers haven’t messed anything up. If this feels a bit intimidating, you might want to contact Sucurri Security. For a small fee they can clean up infected sites and you can also hire them to scan your site and keep an eye on it annually.
If you’ve been blacklisted by Google or spammy words appear in Google search results, you’ll need to log into your Google webmaster tool and submit your site for reconsideration once it’s clean.
Although spammers are less harmful, they are equally as annoying. If you’re site is new and you haven’t publicized your email address, you might want to install the email address encoder plugin. This plugin will simply scramble your email address making it harder for harvesters to grab it. If on the other hand your email is already out there, then I’m afraid that once it’s on a spam list, there’s not much you can do.
Spam comments can also be detrimental with more and more evidence pointing to the fact that these are not simply generated by robots but actual people. The first thing to do is to install Akismet which will do it’s best to trap spam comments. But Akismet alone is insufficient.
Be warned against comments that seem harmless. They might praise your work or congratulate you on your blog and let you know that they are bookmarking it right now. These types of comments are simply tests to see if you will accept them or not. Once you’ve approved them, then they’ll attack your blog much more fiercely.
Finally, one of the most effective ways to reduce spam is simply to close comments after a few weeks. Most readers leave comments on newer posts. Closing off comments automatically after a few weeks is very simple. Log into your WordPress admin, go to settings > Discussion and check the box that says “Automatically close comments on articles older than __ days” and enter the number of days you want to use.
I just did this myself recently and the influx of spam comments has been reduced dramatically.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, January 18th, 2012
A lot has changed the five or so years that Out-Smarts has been focused on social media marketing. For a start, most people now know what Facebook is, many are even using it for more than “being social”. Studies show that 60% of all Canadians are using social media and 44% of small to medium sized business decision makers use social media, but are businesses using it the right way to build their online presence strategically? In many cases, they’re not. Here are the top 10 mistakes that companies make when using social media.
There’s over 800 million people using Facebook, and over 200 million Twitter users - not to mention, a similar number of folks on LinkedIn, and yet many businesses still dismiss social media as a flash in the pan. Your business has the potential to take advantage of this massive online hub; ignoring it is a huge folly. You don’t have to start with a presence of your own if you’re not comfortable. Using social media to listen to, and learn from, others in your industry can be a valuable research method, and it is also a great way to get a feel for how social media is used in your sector.
Back in the early nineties when I sold Internet technologies, lots of companies weren’t convinced that the Internet would take off, so they ignored it and hoped it would go away. Many were left scrambling at the last minute to catch up online and some didn’t survive. A hundred or so years ago many naysayers dismissed the phone. The same story is now replaying with regard to social media. Don’t stick your corporate head in the sand – social media isn’t going away and the sooner you accept that, the less risk to your business.
I’ve read a few articles recently that write off social media off as a tool that’s only useful for small to medium sized businesses. Many large, established businesses use this as an excuse because they have done things the traditional way for so long that they know no other way. However, pioneers like Whole Foods, Southwest Airlines and Ford are proving that social media can be a driving force for larger organisations too, if it’s done right.
Many organisations get a young intern to maintain their social networks because this person has hundreds of Twitter followers, or is on Facebook all the time. However, just because you are familiar with using these tools socially doesn’t mean you know how to use them for business. I am not saying an intern can’t do it, but you should make sure that they understand your goals, mission, audience, brand and such first, so that they can represent you appropriately online.
Point 4 leads me nicely to point 5 – not approaching social media from a strategic perspective. Only 8% of companies surveyed in a recent Forrester report are using social media in ways that tie in with their corporate objectives. Again, companies often embark on using social media for the sake of using it rather than using it from a strategic perspective. Before your company sets out on the social media path you should ask – who is your target audience, what is your message, which tools are right for your business given your brand and mission, and how can you use social media to augment your everyday activities. If you do that, your social media efforts are more likely to amount to something.
In the old business world, marketing was all about corporations; all activities centered around the product and service, and not the consumer. Every message had to be vetted – which took time and meant the the company was in control. Many organisations take this approach to social media, and then wonder why they are spending lots of resources but have few results and little return to show for it. They aren’t succeeding because they need to re-engineer their approach. These days, it is not about you, but rather, it’s about your audience and every social touchpoint should reflect that. To be effective in social media you need to focus on your target audience, be able to move faster, and to communicate in the moment before content gets outdated.
This is the biggest faux pas you can make with social media. Never use social media to blatantly sell. It is okay to promote your offering, but in your face selling is off putting. Here at Out-Smarts, we use the 80-20 rule – 80% of our posts are aimed at adding value, and only 20% are promotional.
As with any other business function, you should set goals and objectives before you start rather than haphazardly setting up your social shop (as it were). What is it that you hope to achieve? You may want to build community with your target audience, extend your reach to new communities, use social media as a conduit to extend the reach of your content, drive traffic to your website, etc. Whatever your goals are, you should document them, quantify them and make sure that they are achievable.
Many companies have no idea whether their social media presence is benefiting them or not, nor are they able to respond to what is being said about them online. Once you’ve determined your goals, you should put in place tools that allow you to measure your success and to listen effectively. These might include free tools – for example; for web traffic analysis you can use Google Analytics, to measure your Facebook following use Insights, for Twitter use counters or paid tools like Radian6 that allow you to monitor and measure engagement.
Up until recently, many businesses have looked on social media as a stand alone approach rather than considering it as a way to complement and augment their entire marketing strategy. 2012 is going to be the year when the penny drops and companies realise that the best social media projects are those that complement their real world activities.
Written by Corrie Scott, January 11th, 2012
It’s a new year, which means a deluge of posts about 
the “top this and that of 2011”, and here we are throwing another one into the mix. But, we really wanted to share with you our most read blog posts of 2011. Hopefully you’ll find some bits of wisdom, or a key takeaway, from the following list:
1. Create a Custom iframe Tab for Your Facebook Page
2. Tumblr: The Easiest Way to Blog
3. 10 Easy Ways to Get More Links to Your Website
4. Add Social Media Icons to Your Sidebar Without Using Widgets
5. What You Need to Know About Facebook’s Promotion Guidelines
6. Using Social Media for Recruitment – Part 1
7. Connecting Your Social Media Accounts
8. Steps to Change Your Twitter Handle
9. How to Protect Yourself on Facebook
10. How to Get More People to Like Your Facebook Page
There you have it, our top 10 most read blog posts of 2011. Happy reading!
