Courtesy of theverge.com

The Interactive Gun Map Situation

On December 22nd The Journal News published a detailed, interactive gun map online that showed the names and addresses of gun owners in the Rocklands area and surrounds. While technically this information is available to the public, the outcry was fierce and unrelenting.

Today, The Journal News and its employees are being guarded by a private security company, due to the negative backlash that they’ve incited. Not only have they made it easier for home invaders to do their job – they’ve also given them a method of knowing whether the home owners have guns or not.

This information can be used to either steal the weapons, or avoid them for basic B&E’s. The Journal decided this interactive gun map would be a good idea, in light of the recent shootings that have rocked the US. People should have a right to know if their neighbors own weapons. Of course, people have seen it as a gross violation of privacy.

Christopher Fountain’s Revenge

A blogger by the name of Christopher Fountain who runs a blog called “For What It’s Worth” – is a gun owner and was outraged by the audacity of the paper. In response to their blatant interactive gun map publication that in his opinion, has put many Americans in danger – he in turn published the personal details of the Journal’s editor and staff members.

The Journal is still trying to get hold of MORE details that would seriously put these innocent Americans at risk – including how many guns someone owns, what type of guns they are, and which are registered to the owners.

Mr. Fountain is working tirelessly to stop this invasion of privacy, that would make gun owners serious targets for thieves and violent crimes. The interactive gun map must be stopped!

People have been so outraged that a suspicious white powder was sent to the offices of The Journal News, an anthrax scare that turned out to be a threat and not the real thing. The whole interactive gun map publication has become a nightmare.

The Official Statement Released By The Journal News

“One of our roles is to report publicly available information on timely issues, even when unpopular. We knew publication of the database (as well as the accompanying article providing context) would be controversial, but we felt sharing information about gun permits in our area was important in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings,” Janet Hasson said, referring to the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in December.

Janet Hasson is the President of The Journal News Media Group.

Courtesy of now.msn.com

News From The Twitterverse

People on Twitter have expressed dark opinions about The Journal New’s decision to publish the names and personal details of innocent Rockland citizens. It seems that now, a whole can of worms has been opened thanks to the interactive gun map. Should the paper be held accountable? Here’s what people have been saying:

@Chester3424 says, “The inmates are taking over the asylum. #JournalNews #Gunmap Being used by #Prisoninmates to Threaten Guards. (Link)”

@InfoStuffinder says, “Ex-Burglars Say Newspaper’s Gun Map Would’ve Made the Job Easier, Safer | Fox News http://ow.ly/gz9rT #GunMap #Crime”

@blackdawgg says, “Here’s one of those #journalnews bastards info…please share!!! RT“@April_MG: No guns at this house, America! pic.twitter.com/LVhOpmFN”

Courtesy of twitter.com

@Lizardstomp says, “#JournalNews is wanting to post more gun owners names, I say its time to post the names and addresses of every creep at that paper”

@zapeters says “Let’s publicly condemn and exploit private gun owners, then add armed guards to our building for personal protection.”#JournalNews”

There has also been much outcry against the way The Journal News has compared gun owners to child sex offenders. How are they alike?

Social Media as a Media Accountability Mechanism

It’s been great to see how bloggers, and sites like Facebook and Twitter have responded to the interactive gun map published by The Journal News. If the majority is right, then it seems as though the Journal News has made a terrible mistake, and they didn’t truly consider the ramifications of their actions.

The online social community has said this of the interactive gun map:

• You have made it easier for robbers and thieves to target gun-free homes
• You have made it easier for robbers and thieves to steal certain guns
• You have exposed innocent Americans to violent physical and sexual crimes
• You have attempted to turn people against gun owners in the US
• You have compared gun owners to child molesters
• You are hypocrites to hire gun toting guards to protect yourselves
• You are cowards to not want to give an interview about your gun map
• You have exposed law enforcement personnel to threats, violence and harassment
• You have violated the nations trust and the privacy that we are entitled too

This is the sentiment coming from the online social community about the interactive gun map. Surely with this kind of backlash on their hands, The Journal News will step up and allow themselves to be held accountable for this serious lapse in judgement. It is a contentious issue.

One could argue that this entire interactive gun map issue was trumped up in order to rectify their ailing sales. There’s nothing like controversy to jump start newspaper sales again. Though this time, they may have gone too far.

How do you feel about the interactive gun map publication – right or wrong? Does the social internet have a right to be outraged about this move by the corporate-owned media? Have your say!

Courtesy of make-noise.com

#1: Address People By Name

Fans like to be acknowledged, so the next time you’re on Facebook, Twitter or your blog – address them personally. Show them you’re interested in their opinions, to get fans that come back for more.

#2: Give Them a Reason

If you’ve been publishing post after post, and have still not managed to get any comments – you need to change it up. Give your fans a reason to reply. The quickest way to do this is via a competition, a free giveaway or a really interesting question.

#3: Pay Attention To Each Comment

Comments are like gold on any social platform. To build a great community you need lots of them, so spend time answering each one to perfection. Most of all, don’t publish spam! Or your posts will scare real commenters away.

#4: Lend a Helping Hand

If a fan asks you a niche question, that doesn’t benefit you in any way – answer it! When you prove that you’re willing to help, people will find you more appealing and will continue to frequent your pages.

#5: Keep it Light and Positive

It should go without saying that negativity is not allowed on your pages. People are attracted to positive posts, so be encouraging, innovative and quirky to get their attention. Too much negativity will send your fans packing.

#6: Get Them Talking

Get your fans to meet each other and talk to each other to become a real community. It’s not just about you and them, it’s about everyone! Start by asking for opinions on other people’s comments.

#7: Go Above and Beyond

Pretend that your community is your online family. If a family member asks you to take a look at their blog – you should do it! Go the extra mile and your fans will do the same for you. You’ll never stop benefiting from it.

#8: Focus on Interaction

You need to be where your fans are interacting – so focus your attention there. Don’t get caught up doing other things, its people that are most important to social community building.

#9: Remember The Little Things

Get to know your community, and surprise them by remembering their birthdays and special occasions. A nice touch is to send them a discount voucher for something in a virtual e-card. It costs you nothing, and means everything to your fan.

#10: Giving To Receive

To keep your community happy you need to consistently give to them. Free stuff, great content, products, discounts, coupons, competitions, chances to win, exclusive sneak peaks – they need to form the basis of your online relationships.

Which tip do you use most often in your social community strategy?

Courtesy of blog.asp-software.org

With feedback from your target audience, you’re getting direct, honest answers to many of the unsolved questions that you have about your marketing plan. What products would sell better? Where should I focus my marketing efforts? How can I improve my fan to client conversions, and upsell to existing clients?

Imagine if you had real-time answers to all of these questions. It would drastically improve your sales. That’s why user feedback should be high on your priority list. Right up there with – driving traffic and monitoring social metrics – which incidentally, feedback from your fanbase can also improve. Let’s investigate how to get those answers you’ve been looking for.

The Facebook Feedback Goldmine

Assuming you’ve been working on expanding your Facebook community, and have gained a fair number of fans – it’s this audience you’ll want to target for feedback. There are several ways to get your Facebook community to respond to your feedback questions, but they all involve getting a high edgerank score first.

The Facebook edgerank system is not unlike pagerank for Google. It’s an algorithm that decides what your community gets to see in their ‘top news’ feeds. To put this in context, of the 600 million people that check that Facebook pages, only half of these ever bother to click on ‘most recent’ – the other homepage option that publishes the most current news.

Your first goal, is to make sure all of your feedback efforts are published in your fans top news stream. That way, they’ll see it, and are more likely to respond. Edgerank relies on affinity, weight and time decay to determine post relevancy. To simplify this, basically posts that are fresh, relevant and contain multimedia – are more likely to get a high edgerank score, and be published in top news.

• Ask a general question that includes an image or video and does not utilize the Facebook ‘ask question’ feature. You can also direct questions at specific Facebook fans – call them by name, and they will answer.
• Use the ‘ask question’ feature, and create one click answers in poll form.
• Use the ‘ask question’ feature and create one click surveys for your fans to answer.
• Get an app development company to create a branded app for you. This app can be a poll, contest, quiz, survey or trivia game. The key is to theme your questions around your niche to gain insight into your fans behavior. Make it fun, and they’ll return often to contribute.

Feedback on Twitter

Use a Twitter polls and surveys app to prompt feedback from your Twitter community. A great one to use is Twtpoll, which also allows your question tweet to go viral if your fans find it interesting.

LinkedIn Answers Please

LinkedIn is stuffed with business professionals that love to give feedback on everything in your niche. All you have to do is post relevant questions in LinkedIn Answers, and wait for the response. Because of the nature of this platform, the feedback can be immensely valuable, as you get expert feedback for free.

The Youtube Agenda

If you’re going to focus on getting responses from a lot of people – besides Facebook – Youtube is the place to do it. Be creative, and personal, and film or create a video based around your question.

To boost responses levels you can run a contest that awards the person with the most valuable feedback, with something free and incredible. Every time you post a video, sit back and watch your comments area go mad. You get great feedback, your fans get something too. Win-win!

Remember that all content online depends on the way you optimize it for your fans, and for the search engines. Focus on building your social communities first, or you won’t get much of a response. To avoid this pitfall – start with video, and good luck!

How do you capture feedback from your social media fans? Is there a platform you’d recommend? Please leave your comment below, and let’s help small businesses become part of the informed 6%!

Courtesy of tastyplacement.com

When someone visits your business website, they are interested in acquiring more information on your niche products or services. In order to get that visitor to become a fan on Facebook, you’ll need to carefully consider where you’re going to place your Facebook button. The most effective way to do this, is to place it above the fold, towards the top of your page.

You never know which page your visitor will land on, so it’s best to have your social icons as a permanent fixture on each page. Use the ‘like’ button to instantly add fans to your Facebook community.

Depending on your niche, you’ll also want to include a strong call to action as part of your ‘like’ box, or above it. A simple “Find us on Facebook” will be fine. You also have the option of going for a larger, more prominent Facebook box, called the Facebook fan box.

This box displays the number of fans you already have, and their profile pictures – a strong motivator for browsing visitors. It also shows your latest feed updates, so the visitor can get a better idea of what your page is all about.

If you don’t have a fairly large community already however, you should wait to include this app, or it could be a deterrent instead of a motivator. The ‘become a fan’ button is commonly used in this instance.

Remember that the key to converting visitors into community members is to make your Facebook box or button very prominent. Keep it directly on the right or left of your visitors at all times!

Your Twitter button should be close to your Facebook button, and should share a highly visible spot on your page. You have a few options when it comes to choosing your Twitter button.

There’s the 2 click Twitter button, which diverts your reader to Twitter to sign in, and become a follower. The better option is the 1 click ‘instant follow’ button, that uses a pop-up instead and keeps your visitor on your web page.

Both of these can be effective when accompanied with a call to action like “Follow us on Twitter.” The final option is very popular these days, mainly because it does tend to attract more fans directly off your website.

The Twitter feed integration box, shows all of your visitors what your latest tweets are – and if they’re current, engaging and educational, you’ll get more followers.

If you’re serious about gaining more fans and followers, then you should include at least one of these visible update boxes. If you just don’t have the space on your website, that’s okay – the others will work as well if you make them an important page feature.

Which Twitter or Facebook button do you use on your website? How does it work for you? Please comment below, and share your experience with our community!

Courtesy of Pronthenetblog.com

Let’s take a look at how you can use social media to target your audience’s search patterns!

Audience Search Behavior

Your marketing techniques are going to change according to the data you collect on what your audience searches for most often. You can use this information to streamline your keyword research, and get more clicks on your products and services. But how do you do this using social media?

Facebook Audience Targeting

Facebook’s popular ad platform is an excellent way to target customers according to what they search for the most. In fact, the platform is so detailed that you can add everything from age, gender, relationship status and location – to specific keywords that are found on their profiles. Have you ever noticed how the adverts change when you update your posts, or add some new interest to the info section of your profile?

With this kind of capability a wedding planner could set up an advert to display to women, between the ages of 23-30, who are engaged in the planner’s area. This means more business prospects for the wedding planner – all thanks to Facebook’s excellent targeting capabilities.

LinkedIn Audience Targeting

With LinkedIn Direct Ads, you can do exactly the same sort of targeting as your ad campaign on Facebook, only to a massive business network. Streamline each advert to appear to the right person, when they’re ready to buy from you! Audience targeting is an excellent way to boost both traffic and sales.

Finding The Right Audience

In order to target audience searches you first have to find out where the bulk of your audience likes to hang out. From there you can determine who they are, and what they do. Use Facebook search to target niche groups in your industry, and Twitter search to isolate specific tags in your field. From there it’s just a matter of connecting with these people. Then the tracking and data collection can begin!

There are many social media tools that you can use to gather this data. Each platform has its own analytics apps that you should be using already. Don’t forget to check on Google Trends to see which keywords are currently the most trending. Targeting audience searches is about leveraging the right keywords, at the right time – in ads, articles, blog posts, product descriptions – in all content.

It’s only when you begin to track your audience behavior that you can start to understand what they search for the most on specific sites. Join communities, do guest posts on their favorite blogs and continue to consistently target their favorite places on the net. Eventually they’ll find you more often in their searches.

How do you target audience searches? Leave us a comment below!

Courtesy of authoritydomains.com

Remember that being a savvy social media manager means being able to handle the bad, as well as the good.

We addressed the various things that can happen on your social media pages in our recent blog post on managing negative feedback, but today we’re going to take a closer look at how to respond to these ill sent comments.

How do you know when a comment has been posted that was originally meant as constructive criticism? It can be hard to decipher the meaning in some comments, but you should be open to letting the good ones slide by.

There are a lot of pros that don’t publish any sort of criticism at all, which you could do. If you still feel the need to reply to the comment, thank the person for their suggestion and say that you’ve taken it under advisement. That way you don’t dismiss it completely, but you don’t let it run rampant on your blog or Twitter page either.

For whatever reason, a community member might decide to leave an unfavorable comment on one of your pages. When this happens, ask yourself if you deserved the candid response, and if you think so – then publish it, along with an apology.

If however you didn’t deserve the comment, delete it and if necessary, block that person from your social media pages. It might sound draconian, but there is a fine line between a comment that is merited, and one that’s just plain nasty.

We’ve heard of many controversial bloggers who have been plagued by people that troll their blog, leaving ten to fifteen horrible and derogatory comments wherever they can. This also happens on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Even if you have sparked a bit of controversy yourself, this is the kind of comment you want to erase as soon as possible. These trolls do this for attention and for arguments sake. Sometimes they even do it for competitor websites, to ruin your reputation online. Never respond – just erase and block. If the problem continues, report the user to the platform you’re on.

You’ve probably received a question disguised in emotion on one of your pages, and have thought that it is negative feedback – but that’s not always the case.

If someone doesn’t know the complete story about a product or service, and starts ranting online about you – its up to you to reply immediately and set them straight. If there is a legitimate question in a comment, always reply –unless it’s baiting you into a comment fight.

Work on your responses, and don’t be afraid to delete comments or block people who push you too far. There will always be negative feedback with the positive – just remember that it’s the way you react to it, that sheds either a positive or negative light on your business.

Have you ever received a negative comment on a social media platform?
How did you respond to it?

Courtesy of webpagefx.com

Without a schedule that clearly states what you need to do, and when you need to do it – time can get away from you. Hours will be spent working for no real returns. You don’t want that to happen! So this post is all about creating and sticking to a schedule when you launch your social media program.

Preparing Your Daily Work Schedule

This is it, it’s time to put together a comprehensive work schedule based on a few key factors. The first, is how long you should be working with social media on a daily basis. The second, is where your focus should lie in that first week.

The third, is ensuring that your page data from each social media platform is ready to go. Then based on your assumptions, you’ll work within the confines of your schedule for the first week to see how it works out.

Learning To Adjust Your Schedule As Needed

To remain current and relevant when using social media platforms, you need to be willing to adjust your schedule as needed. If you see that your Twitter page is doing really well, but your Facebook page seems to have some sort of foreign illness that is pushing people away from it – you need to sort that out.

Review each pages data on a weekly basis and study the results. Draw educated conclusions from the data, and adjust your schedule accordingly. If you continue to do this – in 3 months your social media campaign will probably be better than anyone else’s in your field. Tweak and adjust – that’s how you streamline a social media program, and create a well-oiled communication machine.

Stick To Your Time Limits

No matter what – stick to your time limits. The number one problem with social media is that it’s very easy to become completely immersed in it – and as a result lose hours of your day at a time.

If your schedule gives you 2 hours a day to work on your social media program, then 2 hours is all you have. Set a reminder on your computer, or download a mini alarm clock app for your desktop. Have it go off in exactly two hours.

Create a daily calendar that sets out what you have to do for the day, and how long you have to do it in. Set goals and milestones for yourself. If you’re a visual person, print out a daily schedule and pin it to your notice board. Keep each page compartmentalized, and work on it as an individual. Soon your blog community will be up, and your social media pages will be humming with traffic.

What’s your social media schedule like?
Do you use any specific apps or programs to help you manage your daily tasks?

Courtesy of webpagefx.com

Without a schedule that clearly states what you need to do, and when you need to do it – time can get away from you. Hours will be spent working for no real returns. You don’t want that to happen! So this post is all about creating and sticking to a schedule when you launch your social media program.

Preparing Your Daily Work Schedule

This is it, it’s time to put together a comprehensive work schedule based on a few key factors. The first, is how long you should be working with social media on a daily basis. The second, is where your focus should lie in that first week.

The third, is ensuring that your page data from each social media platform is ready to go. Then based on your assumptions, you’ll work within the confines of your schedule for the first week to see how it works out.

Learning To Adjust Your Schedule As Needed

To remain current and relevant when using social media platforms, you need to be willing to adjust your schedule as needed. If you see that your Twitter page is doing really well, but your Facebook page seems to have some sort of foreign illness that is pushing people away from it – you need to sort that out.

Review each pages data on a weekly basis and study the results. Draw educated conclusions from the data, and adjust your schedule accordingly. If you continue to do this – in 3 months your social media campaign will probably be better than anyone else’s in your field. Tweak and adjust – that’s how you streamline a social media program, and create a well-oiled communication machine.

Stick To Your Time Limits

No matter what – stick to your time limits. The number one problem with social media is that it’s very easy to become completely immersed in it – and as a result lose hours of your day at a time.

If your schedule gives you 2 hours a day to work on your social media program, then 2 hours is all you have. Set a reminder on your computer, or download a mini alarm clock app for your desktop. Have it go off in exactly two hours.

Create a daily calendar that sets out what you have to do for the day, and how long you have to do it in. Set goals and milestones for yourself. If you’re a visual person, print out a daily schedule and pin it to your notice board. Keep each page compartmentalized, and work on it as an individual. Soon your blog community will be up, and your social media pages will be humming with traffic.

What’s your social media schedule like?
Do you use any specific apps or programs to help you manage your daily tasks?

Courtesy of instigatorblog.com

What I mean by this is that they are spending so much time on gathering new followers, fans or connections – that they forget to foster the community they already have waiting in the wings. Remember the entire point of gathering a community is to use it. If you find yourself with an unbalanced strategy, here are a few things you can do to sort it out.

Scan For Active Community Members

Check your LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter profiles for community members who are active on your pages and reach out to them. You can do this by either asking them a question directly, giving them an exclusive discount offer, or by sending them a free digital product for being such a great member.

This will motivate the rest of your community to interact with you – which will re-open the dialogue of discussion that could lead to sales! Keep watch for loyal community members and reward them for their trouble, they don’t have to post on your pages you know. You could even set up a monthly ‘best member’ competition, for followers who post often.

Involve Your Community in Your Marketing Goals

Many of the people in your community will have businesses of their own, or work in fields relevant to your business. Your community knows that as a business, it’s your goal to sell products. Trying to hide this fact will only make you appear sneaky and dishonest. Instead why not use your community to make sales?

I’ve seen some amazing results from businesses that have reached out to their community and motivated them to sell their products for them. Start a small incentives program that involves your community. Promise them free products, or massive discounts if they can find you new projects, or are directly responsible for product sales. Works every time, and it will bring your community closer – and constantly checking your posts for tantalizing proposals!

The Jackpot Generosity Rule

You’ll find thousands of sites out there that will tell you to either split your sales goals in two, or make them a third of your strategy. That means half (or a third) of your posts will be marketing messages, and the rest will be open dialogue between you and your community. Over the years we have discovered though this is a sound strategy, it is a lot less effective than the 15% rule.

If your pages are only 15% sales pitches, then your community has a real reason to return there, because they’ll find genuine content that interests them. If you make it all about your community, and less about your sales target – your sales will increase based on brand loyalty and communication alone. We call it the ‘Jackpot Generosity’ rule, and it works. So resist the temptation to bombard your community with sales messages, and instead focus on improving their user experience.

These are just a few ideas on how to rectify your unbalanced social media strategy, and to make your community more susceptible to sales messages when they are posted. How do you turn your community members into paying customers? If you have any great tips, we’d love to read them right here!