Twitter’s New Photo-Sharing Service

Twitter has begun rolling out its new photo-sharing feature to the masses.

The new Twitter photo service, which replaces the functionality provided by TwitPic, Yfrog and other photo-sharing services, is part of both Twitter’s photo and video revamp and Twitter’s new integration deep within Apple iOS 5. The photo feature is powered by Photobucket, a fact that is impossible to miss on tweets using the new Twitter feature.

We took Twitter’s new photo-sharing feature for a quick test drive. Check out the pics and let us know in the comments if you can access this new feature yet:

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Camera icon

That means the service is live on your account. To post a photo, click the icon.

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7 Success Secrets Of The World's Largest Blog

Huffington Post is a blog that was started by Arianna Huffington as a left- leaning blog and  now has 20 vertical areas including religion to technology and it is about to add travel. It is interesting to note that they have just hired a technology industry veteran (not a traditional media publisher) Greg Coleman as their their president and and chief revenue officer who has previously worked for Yahoo and AOL.

Some of  the numbers for Huffington Post to provide some perspective from its entry 5 years ago to its current success.

• Over 50 million page hits and more than 12 million unique vistors in May according to Compete.com.
• Moderates 3 million comments a month using 30 moderators
• 50 Editors
• 21 Verticals

So what are some of the secrets behind the success of  Huffington Post?

1. Passion

Arianna Huffington revealed at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York that the secret to success is ‘Passion’ and the “obsessive compulsive nature of the web” is what first attracted to her to blogging and the ability for people to make a difference on the Internet by just pure persistentence and passion.

2. Social Media

They use social media and SEO (search engine optimization) tools to spread and share content virally fast and global. Each editor has SEO tools to optimize the content and social media tools right at their desks so they can connect their content to social media channels via Facebook connect or Twitter. The blog also allows readers to easily share the content with their followers and friends

3. Experiment Fast and Often

They can do this online and fast as they try different ways to grow the business from piloting different verticals and  experimenting with different ways to ways to share the content on social media. In other words fail fast, cheap and often.

4. Focus On Powerful  Niche’s

Huffington Post developed a focus on powerful emotive niche’s  that provided a large enough audience to attract traffic. As well as politics Arianna started with entertainment, media, living and style.

5. Create Content Cost Efficiently

It is believed that the Huffington Post provides a platform for for 2,000 bloggers both known and unknown that she doesn’t have to have them on the weekly payroll

6. Source Resources

A venture capital company (Softbank Capital) invested $5 million into the blog site in Agust 2006.

7. Develop Powerful Partnerships and Networks

The Huffington Post has forged powerful partnerships with other big names in content areas such as Rolling Stone, Variety and Yahoo and has had influential politicians and celebrities contribute to the blog such as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Madonna.

via :http://www.jeffbullas.com

5 Twitter Tips To Help Your Business

Twitter has redefined the way we communicate with each other and millions around the world are using it to connect with people, share information and form business partnerships. If you are a business owner, Twitter can help expand your business.

There are, however, right and wrong ways of using Twitter. Businesses who are looking for quick cash would be ignored and cast aside by the community. Business reputation might even be poor within the Twitter community. In order to get the most out of Twitter, you must think about what you can do for others instead of what others can do for you.

Here are five tips when using Twitter:

1. Connect with the right people

What is the point of having 2000 or 20,000 followers when none of them care about what you have to offer? Connecting with the right target audience will help you improve your relationship with them and send qualified traffic to your website.

2. Provide Value

The more value you provide on Twitter, the more you get out of it. People follow you for a reason, so make sure you don’t disappoint.

3. Network with others

Don’t be shy to communicate with others and respond to their updates. Twitter is a networking site. It’s a many-to-many communication service. It’s not just about you! Start talking to the people who interest you and build a relationship from there.

4. Know the limits

If you are a business owner, you should know that what you say on Twitter could help or harm your business. Don’t say anything you don’t want others to hear about in a professional situation. I suggest having a set of guidelines so that anyone in charge of the business profile would know what to do and what to avoid.

5. Listen to your audience

Twitter is up 24/7. That means that you have constant access to what folks need, want and are talking about. By listening to what they have to say on Twitter, you can create new products, improve your existing ones, and find new partners.

Twitter is not for everyone. If you are not willing to spend the time and effort, you are better off not using it at all. Managing a Twitter account properly takes time, and you shouldn’t cut corners in that regard. By providing real value to your followers, you can not only build relationships but also drive thousands of qualified leads to your business for free.


via :http://bit.ly/hQGp2T

10 Social media marketing on a budget questions

Social media marketing on a budget requires thinking through your business and marketing strategy first. Here’s a set of ten questions to help you lay the groundwork.

1. What are your top-level business and marketing goals? Do you want to expand your pool of prospects, increase sales, or develop loyal fans?
2. What are your organization’s internal strengths and weaknesses? What can you offer prospects and the public in terms of social media content that will set you apart from your competitors?
3. What resources, both human and financial, can you apply to handling social media marketing? Who will create your social media marketing content and who will take care of the related technology and distribution?
4. How much time do you have, given your limited resources, to dedicate to another project? Working on a budget, it’s a sure guess your employees aren’t sitting around waiting for something new to do. If social media is another item for employees to do in their “free” time, it won’t get done.
5. Who’s best capable of online social interaction? Understand that the person with the most available bandwidth may not be the person most capable of representing your company in social media forums.
6. Is any one in your organization interested in performing these tasks?Bear in mind that it may not be the person you expect or desire.
7. Are there other areas where you can save resources to use in social media marketing?
8. What type of social media oversight is required? Do you have a set of social media guidelines? Is additional support or management needed?
9. What non-promotion content can you use? On social media, you should keep your promotion ratio to other content at a one to ten ratio. Too much self-promotion and readers will leave.
10. Have you gotten permission to use customers and the public’s images and other materials? Be on the safe side and ensure that you’ve got permission to use the creative commons.

via: http://heidicohen.com

The Panda Effect Is Affecting Your Ecommerce – What To Do?

Have you been watching Google alterations lately? In case you were engaged into your projects, the Google algorithm has been changed with respect to Google panda.

What is Google panda?
The websites created the keyword focused articles posted in huge volumes on the internet have been penalized for such activity. The ranking has been altered due to this. This modification is known as Panda update. The hardest hit section includes the webmasters working with shallow content or loading the internet with keywords in form of multiple articles. Some genuine websites have also been trapped in the content farm web.

Panda update and you?
The low quality websites have been targeted that have copied content or are not useful. The websites working hard to keep their content clean may get better ranking for their high quality task. Google is trying to clean up its algorithm so there is an enhanced experience for its users.

• Linking will never remain simple: SEO and link building experts have to scrape out possible duplicate content on your website.
• Do not put all your bets on the same engine for ranks: You have to focus on improving your website on an overall basis. Just depending on the Google ranking may have given you a negative impact.
• Google Adsense awareness: The text and links involving advertising gimmicks need to be evaluated before you begin to exploit them for generating revenues.
• Getting quality links will not be the same: Using the article based websites to get organic links for your website will need some pondering now.
• Stay away from spam and try to keep your website as clear as possible to ensure thepanda effect is not changing your hard earned rankings.

All poorly managed pages having repetitive articles and irrelevant content has to be removed, because it will have a long term impact on your overall ranking. You need site management to tackle panda effect. Your years of hard work can be compromised if you miss out on simple ways to take your genuine website out of these ranking lows.

What can I do to save my work?
How to react to this massive change in the algorithm would be your biggest problem. SEO, link building and everything web related maybe affected. You can choose the social media as your approach to mend things on time so your trade is not suffering on a large scale. You can get your product descriptions and market image in balanced mode. Google can be really taxing in their algorithms. You can reverse the effect of Google panda on your website with a strategy to improve content quality on the website.

Slow and steady effort to get quality content on your pages that is relevant will ensure you are not tagged under content farm.

via:blackidsolutions.com