A few days after the official launch of ‘Stribe’, a new web tool to give websites a five-minute social make-over, its creators talk about the importance of social traffic on the web.
Launched on Tuesday after 6 months of private beta testing, ‘Stribe’ opens its social network platform to everyone, making social sharing easier for websites and enabling them to generate more traffic.
Priding in its simplicity, Stribe promises the entire installation process to comprise only one added line of code to a web page.
After installing, Stribe toolbar is completely customisable. You can change the logo, description, colours as well as the background to mach your site.
Stribe can be included as a widget in your sidebar, or as a standalone social bar on the top of the page.
Guest
The New York Times made a feature of Facebook’s privacy policy in an extensive review of how, when, and where you can make your private stuff private on the world’s largest social network. It turns out that Facebook’s privacy policy is now so complicated that it’s longer than the Constitution of the United States. Take a look at the infographic (which doesn’t quite explain how to hide those pictures of last weekend from your mum) here.
Sony has announced that there are plans for a new online store for music, film, books and other digital content, set to be released next year.
The announcement came at a management strategy meeting in Tokyo on 19th November and the new service, temporarily dubbed “Sony Online Service” is planning to take on Apple’s iTunes store (who presently dominates with over 70% of the global digital music market).
Who says you can’t buy friends? An Australian online marketing company is selling friends and fans to Facebook members after offering a similar service to Twitter users.
Advertising, marketing and promoting company uSocial (usocial.net) said it was targeting social networking sites because of their huge advertising potential.
“Facebook is an extremely effective marketing tool,” Leon Hill, uSocial CEO, said in a statement.
“The simple fact is that with a large following on Facebook, you have an instant and targeted group of people you can contact and promote whatever it is you want to promote,” he added.
The issue of copyright has dogged YouTube since its launch
YouTube has lifted a block on users viewing official music videos after the website reached an agreement with songwriters’ group PRS for Music.
In March, the service blocked thousands of music videos to UK users after failing to reach agreement over fees.
YouTube, owned by Google, is paying an undisclosed lump sum to PRS, backdated until January and lasting until 2012.
Adam Shaw from PRS for Music told the BBC that he was pleased that an agreement had finally been reached.
Know your audience
Many marketers now comfortable with social media and the power of online product reviews have also started to lose their timidity about approaching bloggers.
In fact, some women bloggers report marketers may be becoming overeager.
Ketchum, conducting a survey of registrants for July’s annual BlogHer conference—billed as the largest gathering of female bloggers in North America—found that nearly one-half of respondents were contacted by PR professionals weekly. A further 30% got such messages on a daily basis.
Some of that contact, however, appears to be unwanted. Respondents to the Ketchum study indicated that marketers were not doing the necessary research when looking to stir up online word-of-mouth about their products.
The right kind of contact
Blogging has become a major social media marketing phenomenon over the years—so much so that even the US Federal Trade Commission is considering rules for bloggers to follow when working with marketers. Worldwide research from Text 100 shows just how close that relationship has become.
Nearly nine in 10 US bloggers told Text 100 they welcomed contact from PR firms or corporations with information, comments or suggestions. E-mail was bloggers’ preferred means of contact, especially in the US.
eMarketer
Measurement remains a challenge
The social media marketing bandwagon is filling up, according to the “2009 Marketing Industry Trends Report” from Equation Research. The survey of US brand marketers found the majority already using social media.
Some marketers were planning on adding social media activities over the next year, including 15% of respondents in businesses with fewer than 50 employees and 24% of those whose companies had at least 500 workers. But most brand marketers interested in social media were already using it.
Facebook will give users greater control over information given to third-party applications following pressure from the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
Specific changes include an update on Facebook’s privacy policy to give better clarity on subjects such as reasons for the collection of date of birth and how its advertising programme works. It will also be encouraging users to review their privacy settings to make sure the default selections reflect their preferences.
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