Category Archives: Posts
Pinterest Introduces Rich Pins for Businesses to Drive Purchases
Pinterest just became a whole lot more useful to businesses with the announcement of new “Rich Pins” on the official Pinterest blog today.
Instead of just linking back to the pin’s origin, each new Rich Pin will provide users additional information about that item aimed to better put them in a position to make a purchase.
There are three different types of Rich Pins, each with its own unique set of characteristics and opportunities for brands: Product, Recipes, and Movies.
Read my full recap post at Social Fresh: http://socialfresh.com/richpins/
B2B Brands Should Give App.net a Try (for Free)
Last August I signed up for App.net, the social network created by former iMeem CEO and serial entrepreneur Dalton Caldwell and a bunch of other really talented people.
Within a few minutes of using it I discovered a great community of brilliant, tech-focused minds who congregated on the site to connect about building.
Soon after joining the site’s first wave, I saw the community start to evolve with hackdays, community contributed projects designed to build the network, and I found myself learning a lot about how the internet is built.
While App.net hasn’t really gained momentum in the marketing community yet, I could see a prime opportunity for the right crop of brands to build a true community for a few reasons.
1. Targeted User base
The focus of App.net’s current users make it an ideal place for brands to connect with the early adopter, developer, and ‘technorati’ crowd. These highly specialized users are having discussions about companies like Rackspace, Data Sift, New Relic, Amazon Web Services and others regularly.
2. No Ads
You won’t find promoted posts on App.net, which means that brands are actually free to build a true dialogue with other users on the site. As App.net is a paid social network (users pay for monthly or yearly subscriptions) they’re proven to be willing to pay for software, but more importantly they’re seeking out the exchange of a higher value of content.
There are a growing number of publishers and brands on App.net already, including Adobe, CNET, ReadWrite, Ars Technica and more.
Here are list of others:
https://alpha.app.net/breakingnews
https://alpha.app.net/thenextweb
https://alpha.app.net/nybooks
https://alpha.app.net/laughingsquid
https://alpha.app.net/androidcen…
https://alpha.app.net/peoplesear…
https://alpha.app.net/lastfm
https://alpha.app.net/adobe
https://alpha.app.net/thenextweb
https://alpha.app.net/nybooks
https://alpha.app.net/laughingsquid
https://alpha.app.net/androidcen…
https://alpha.app.net/peoplesear…
https://alpha.app.net/lastfm
https://alpha.app.net/adobe
Try it FREE
Want to give it a try for yourself?
The creators of App.net have given me 100 free invites to App.net to give away, all you have to do is follow this link.
Bluth’s Banana Stand Takes over NYC and Seamless
There’s always money in the banana stand…
Photo via Alana Edmunds
‘Bluth’s Original Frozen Banana’ running a promo on Seamless with a delivery minimum: $250,000. The Banana Stand is only temporary, one of the popular long-running jokes from the show Arrested Development, which is currently running a number of promotions for the series’ reboot on Netflix, including the actual stand above.
Stream the new Daft Punk Album “Random Access Memories” Right Now!
Just released today as a special stream, Daft Punk’s new album Random Access Memories is available now to preorder, and drops on May 21.
To stream, click the link below, then click “view in iTunes” on the top left next to Daft Punk, then hit “play” on the cover art.
STREAM DAFT PUNK - RANDOM ACCESS MEMORIES
Offerpop Capitalizes on Wildfire’s Downfall in New Banner Ads
Looks like Offerpop is wasting no time in responding to the news this week that Google’s Wildfire Department was shutting down the one-off version of their social promotion builder. I was checking out an article online and noticed this meme-styled banner ad, with Wildfire branding pretty prominently featured as part of the joke.
ICYMI – Here’s the official word from Google on the closing of Wildfire’s standalone campaigns.
We want to do all we can to poise our customers for success when they begin using Wildfire. So that we can better focus on doing that, we’ve decided that we’ll be retiring our Basic, Standard, and Premium promotions after June 30th.
There are a lot of ways you can build promotions on Facebook.
I have used Shortstack Labs myself (disclosure: affiliate link) and wrote a review of it on Social Fresh a while ago. I love the easy plug-and-play approach to building promotions with their builder.
Still, many many of my colleagues rave about Offerpop and I agree, I think that Offerpop is extremely powerful and useful for any brand looking to run a great social campaign.
This post is much more about their awesome ad than their software, so I won’t dive into details there.
One last thing…Note that Wildfire is not Livefyre, which is the company I work for. Some people get us confused.
Livefyre’s suite of real-time products are defining a new breed of web and mobile experiences that boost website traffic, increase user engagement and drive revenue.
As the sixth largest network online, Livefyre is powering real-time social experiences for leading brands including American Idol, AOL, Bravo, CBS, Conde Nast, Dow Jones/WSJ, FOX, Newsweek/Daily Beast, Showtime, Sports Illustrated and The New York Times.
Join me for a Twitter Chat with RIT Students #ritsm
This week, I’m excited to be a guest panelist for the Social Media for Marketing Communication class at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
I went to college in Rochester, attending Nazareth College and worked for the local Gannet paper, the Democrat and Chronicle, so it’s great to be able to speak with a group of students from this area.
Taught by Mike Johansson and Dr. Raj Murthy, the class and accompanying Twitter Chat will have a group of juniors and seniors discussing social community management, social media marketing and social crisis communications.
The Details:
Date/Time: Tuesday, April 23, 3-3:50 p.m. EST
Hashtag: #ritsm
Moderator: Prof. Mike Johansson
The panel lineup includes:
Shelly Lucas – Senior Manager, Social Media, Dun & Bradstreet, Austin, Texas
Blaise Grimes Viort – Vice President of Community, eModeration, London
Nick Cicero (Myself) – Lead Strategist for Livefyre and West Coast Editor at socialfresh, San Francisco
Simon Jenkins – Social Media Specialist, Red Rocket Media Content Marketing, Portsmouth, UK
It’s back! SUxSW Volume 3 Submissions Open Today
SXSW’s Music Festival has been a historical springboard of exposure for thousands of bands to record labels and publishing companies. But the world has changed, musicians can’t rely just on album sales or touring alone…you need to diversify your career if you want to make money in the music business world. SXSW has expanded and with the interactive and film components as well as music, there’s a lot of people to throw your name at.
For the past two years I have been working to help promote the wealth of musical creativity that exists within the Syracuse community, and I’ve been pleased to work with The Bandier School and the iSchool to create the SUxSW Mixtape.
This mixtape was distributed and promoted online through social networks, and also via QR download cards passed out throughout SXSW. (Also featured on a number of blogs, radio shows, and even Syracuse.com)
The success has been huge. The first year, we received tracks from more than 50 students and alums, and in the end the Mixtape had more than 2,000 downloads from more than 50 countries! Last year, we had 60 submissions, and more than 10,000 Mixtape Downloads.
Because of all this, we’re doing it again. So we need any and all CURRENT AND FORMER SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS who are pursuing a music career in some way shape or form to submit your act’s track to our mixtape. We’ll be offering the collection as a Free Bandcamp download as well as getting exposure for a number of places to be announced.
We will be accepting submissions from current and former students who want their band (or music) featured on the compilation. Starting now and ending March 6th, you can submit up to (but no more than) 3 MP3’s to suxswmixtape@gmail.com
BTW – if you’re wondering a little about who I am or my industry experience, you can check out my about page, but here’s a short list of clients in the music industry I’ve worked with:
- American Idol
- Ford Motor Company
- AMC Television
- Kendrick Lamar
- Cyhi the Prynce (G.O.O.D Music)
- Universal Music Group
The coolest part about this promotion is that we create a Syracuse-branded mixtape in just under a week that showcases the diversity of Syracuse’s music scene to the entire world. Wouldn’t you want to be a part of that?
To listen to previous mix tapes visit here: http://suxsw.bandcamp.com
Once again: Starting now and ending March 6th, you can submit up to (but no more than) 3 MP3’s to suxswmixtape@gmail.com
Include the following in the body of your email:
Name
Band/Artist Facebook
Band/Artist Twitter
Band/Artist Blog/Website
Brief Bio (Optional: No more than 60-70 words)
Get the word out. Tweet, Facebook, Blog, Share, this is to show the world the talent in Cuse!
This is one of my favorite cuts off last year’s track by Chemicals of Creation.
Burger King Twitter Account Hacked
Oh my. Burger King’s account appears to have been hacked and now suspended by Twitter, after reaching 100,000 followers ironically.
