New Facebook Privacy Settings

The Get On Social team would like to announce that Facebook has revealed their plans to roll out a new series of sharing and privacy settings. These changes will affect every single one of the 1+ billion users on Facebook over the next couple of weeks. Facebook shared images of what these changes will look like.

In an effort to add more of an emphasis on privacy and improve on user efficiency, Facebook is adding “Privacy Shortcuts” as a main tab drop down:

New Facebook Privacy Settings For December 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Facebook added a feature that many users have been requesting for quite some time. This feature allows users to request to remove a photo that has been added to Facebook by another individual:

New Facebook Privacy Settings For December 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another significant modification has to do with the Facebook Activity Log. This log will now allow the user to see a much more complex outline of where the user’s photos and personal information is positioned throughout Facebook:

 

New Facebook Privacy Settings For December 2012

Sending Emails that Avoid the Spam Filter

Sending Emails That Avoid The Spam FilterThe Get On Social team is constantly asked by business owners and business professionals how to make sure that an email does not go to the recipient’s spam folder. In order to best answer this question, we turn one of the best email marketing companies in the game today: MailChimp. MailChimp must deal with this particular issue more times than we will ever dare to quantify. That being said, MailChimp provides the answer to this common question and we thank them for it!

Compliments of the MailChimp writing staff:

“How To Avoid Getting Your Campaigns Accidentally Junked

If you send email campaigns long enough, you will inevitably run into spam filter issues. We’ve found that on average, you can expect 10-20% of your emails to just get lost in cyberspace, mostly due to overzealous spam filters. You don’t even have to be a spammer to be spam-filtered. Innocent email marketers who send permission-based emailsto people who requested them get spam filtered all the time.

Unfortunately, there is no quick fix. The only way to avoid spam filters is to understand how they work.

Generally speaking, spam filters look at a long list of criteria to judge whether or not your email is junk. For example, they might look for spammy phrases like “CLICK HERE!” or “FREE! BUY NOW!”. They’ll assign points each time they see one of those phrases. Certain criteria get more points than others. Here’s a sample of criteria from Spam Assassin, one of the most popular spam filters out there:

  • Talks about lots of money (.193 points)
  • Describes some sort of breakthrough (.232 points)
  • Looks like mortgage pitch (.297 points)
  • Contains urgent matter (.288 points)
  • Money back guarantee (2.051 points)
  • Why Pay More? (1.249 points)

If your campaign’s total “spam score” exceeds a certain threshold, your email is sent to the junk folder. You’re probably going to ask “what’s the threshold I need to stay under?” Sorry, but the threshold is different for every server. It’s determined by the person who installed the spam filter software. If the person is really sick of spam, they’ll set the threshold extremely low. Just about anything will get spam filtered then.

Oh yeah, that list of “spammy” criteria? It’s constantly growing and adapting, because spam filters “learn” what junk looks like, every time someone clicks the “This is spam” button in their email program. Spam filters even sync-up with each other online, to share what they’ve learned. See why there’s no magic bullet?

Avoid these common mistakes

These are the most common mistakes we see new email marketers make, which result in accidental spam filtering.

  • Using spammy phrases, like “Click here!” or “Once in a lifetime opportunity!”
  • Going crazy with exclamation points!!!!!!
  • USING ALL CAPS, WHICH IS LIKE YELLING IN EMAIL (especially in the subject)
  • Coloring their fonts bright red, or green
  • Coding sloppy HTML (usually from converting a Microsoft Word file to HTML)
  • Creating an HTML email that’s nothing but one big image, with little or no text (since spam filters can’t read images, they assume you’re a spammer that’s trying to trick ’em).
  • Using the word “Test” in the subject line (agencies run into this all the time, when sending drafts to clients for approval)
  • Sending a test to multiple recipients within the same company (that company’s email firewall can only assume it’s a spam attack)
  • Designing HTML email in Microsoft Word, and exporting the code to HTML (that code is sloppy, and spam filters hate it)”

 

-The quoted section above was Written by MailChimp (http://mailchimp.com/).

If you are planning on launching an email marketing campaign, the Get On Social team highly recommends taking a look at all of the free solutions Mail Chimp has to offer. Not only does our firm successfully use Mail Chimp, but the majority of our clients have seen great success using Mail Chimp as well.

Thank you for reading and you are more than welcome to contact the Get On Social Team at any time with questions!

 

Google Worldwide Search Trends

 

Google 2012 Worldwide Search Trends

 

Today, which happens to be 12/12/12, Google presents the 2012 Worldwide search trends HERE.

Along with this, you can also watch the video Google created called Zeitgeist 2012: Year In Review.

The Creative Advantage. Brand Marketing with a 50 Foot Duck.

Creative Marketing Campaign  50 Foot Duck Floating Down The Thames

Jackpotjoy, a gambling website in London makes international headlines by floating a 50 foot duck down the Thames River. The company states that their brand message “is all about having a bit of fun and we hope to inject a bit of that daft fun into everyone’s lives – whether that’s playing a game of bingo on Jackpotjoy.com or inspiring people to do something daft ‘Just for the Jackpotjoy of it'”. This brand message certainly does resonate as their marketing team inevitably brings smiles to every person who happens to see an enormous duck floating down the Thames River. Not only did the marketing team have a great deal of fun watching the surprised and uplifted reactions of the thousands of habitants by the river, but they also pulled of one of the most cost effective brand marketing stunts of the year.

 

On behalf of the Get On Social team, we thank you for reading!

Best Practices for Integrating MailChimp with Blog and Contacts

Best Practices For Integrating Mailchimp With Blog And Contacts
Mailchimp is great – especially with the free tier ( 2000 subscribers for free ) – using it is a smart decision. Here are some thoughts on how to get the most out of it:

Set up one or more lists

  • Perhaps you want to have a list everyone can join, and another just for your clients
  • Having two lists sounds like a great idea but it also means that if you want to utilize a two-tier approach you’ll need to curate and send two mailings which could mean more work. Of course you can send a “campaign” to more than one list. Just food for thought

Import your subscribers

  • You probably have already realized that mailchimp has a lot of tools to import your contacts from outlook, gmail, etc. I think you guys were using feedburner previously and I’m not positive if you have access to that list of e-mails or not, but you can always send a message out via feedburner if it is still active and invite your contacts to connect via mailchimp
  • Mailchimp offers an easy-unsubscribe link and you might get a few people who “jump ship” initially but it’s a good way to start your list.
  • You will see notices in Mailchimp about not importing contacts that you don’t have a relationship with or that aren’t yours (chamber of commerce lists) and that is good advice to heed.

Set up a subscribe widget

  • There used to be a wordpress plugin that worked great for subscribing people to mailchimp. I don’t know if it is publicly available but it would be important to install on your site to allow people to subscribe to one (or more) of your mailchimp lists. Gravityforms has one but GF is a paid plugin (worth it)
  • There was also a plugin that I’m sure is no longer publicly available which can be used to create an archive on your website of previous e-mails

Tie it in with your blog articles

If you’re already writing great blog content and have developed a good following. A few ideas about how to connect content:

  • The newsletter can have short articles that can be elaborated on in a blog post. The articles could also be related or a follow-up or precursor to a blog post
  • I would advise against just republishing blog posts via mailchimp verbatim. Newsletter content should generally be shorter and can have a “call to action” like “read more on our blog” or “read more and add your comments on our blog” or something like that. Sometimes people make the mistake of publishing the same exact content on FB, twitter, blog, and e-mail and it’s OK but I believe shows visitors that the company wants to make some effort to “reach out” but doesn’t value those networks enough to spend time curating the content for each one. So, if possible curate your content to fit each “media vehicle” you use to publish it

Why Seo Matters For Small Businesses

For small businesses, search engine optimization can literally be the difference between survival and shutting your doors. The Internet isn’t going anywhere, and digital spaces are only getting more crowded with your competitors, no matter what industry you are representing or what field you call home.

Search engine optimization, though, has proven to be an affordable and reliable tactic small businesses can use to promote themselves and get found among the sea of competitors. Make sure that when your customers go looking for answers to their questions, you are the name that pops up and the one that gets the sale!

Get Found In A Crowded Sea

The ecosystem online is getting more crowded with every passing day. Social networks, marketing websites, and digital and mobile apps allow businesses in any sector to endlessly promote themselves. Because of that, it is now more important than ever to adequately showcase what you can do, and where you can fit.

SEO can help small and medium-sized businesses rise above that crowded sea of competitors, and stand out in the crowd, so that when a customer has a need, you are there to demonstrate your products and your ability to meet their demand.

Become An Expert In Your Field

Google keywords in your industry; what pops up? Major businesses, respected organizations, and other experts in the field? It’s no accident. Through search engine optimization tactics and techniques, your small business can join that top-shelf quality of businesses and resources and really stand out from the masses.

You may already be an expert in your field, but it’s of no consequence if no customers realize that. SEO brings your expertise and focus to another level, and showcases your experience and benefits for thousands of customers to be able to peruse your products, and potentially make major purchases from your company.

Invest In SEO and Invest In Yourself

Just like any other marketing or advertising campaign, an investment in search engine optimization is an investment in yourself, and your business. When you work with a company who specializes in SEO placement and strategy, you are investing back into your business and your future profits and customer loyalty and retention.

For many small and medium-sized businesses, advertising comes at a heavy cost, and they are reluctant to work too hard or spend too much money on it. They need to know, of course, that they will get a return on that investment. Rest assured that with SEO help from a quality company, your business will rise to the top and turn potential customers into actual, loyal and satisfied customers who return to your company over and over again with great experiences and more money!

 

On behalf of the Get On Social team, we thank you for reading!

If you have any questions, you are more than welcome to contact us.

Why Social Media is Important for Small Business Owners

Why is social media so important for small business owners? The sheer number of potential customers that use social media is staggering, that’s why. Facebook has one billion users. That’s right, one billion. It is so easy to create a Facebook business page that there is no excuse not to have one. Facebook has step by step instructions regarding creating a business page. If you aren’t sure how to create one, feel free to give Get On Social a call and we can help as well.

Twitter is the social network of the stars. Celebrities such as Alec Baldwin, Russell Crowe, and Arnold Schwarzenegger regularly interact with fans on Twitter. Twitter has over 500 million users. It is easy to create a Twitter account.

Clearly, these social media sites are important tools to spread the word about your business. Start by asking your friends and family to like your Facebook page and interact with you on your Twitter account. Ask your friends and family to spread the word about your pages.

Use these social media websites to provide information about your business. Offer special discounts to Facebook fans or Twitter followers. These discounts will drive customers to your door. Use social media to update consumers on new items as they arrive or new services you are providing.

With so many people using social media, if business owners do not use social media, it is almost as if they do not exist. The days of people using a telephone directory or reading an ad in a newspaper to find the business they need is over. People use the internet and social media to find businesses that fulfill their needs. Consumers need to know you exist. Social media is not the wave of the future. It is here now, and business owners must jump on board in order to have a thriving business.

 

Get On Social thanks you for reading and have a great day!

Testing Social Media Cross-Platform

Ubuntu

One of our Laptops, a Dell Studio XPS, running Ubuntu.

Today we’re spending some time testing Social Media cross-platform. Facebook, Twitter, and Google spend a lot of time working to make sure that their platforms work on different operating systems, devices, browsers, screen-sizes, and connection speeds.

It is also important for business owners to be aware of these factors, both with their websites and social media updates. When delivering a message with a call to action, try and limit any “roadblocks” that would keep interested and engaged users from completing your “conversion” – whether it be signing up for an newsletter, visiting your site, or buying a product.

Some “roadblocks” might be things like requiring a user to sign-in or fill out long forms, sending a user to a page that isn’t optimized for mobile devices, or when the call-to-action page is slow to load because of large images or normal sized images without a content distribution network.

At Get On Social we’re cognizant of all of these factors and can help you optimize your messages and increase your ROI and conversions.

Contact us today.

Does WordPress Run Better on Linux?

Does WordPress Run Better on Linux?

A Microsoft Ad for Windows Azure and WordPress

Windows Azure is Microsoft’s Cloud Computing platform. At Get on Social we typically recommend Amazon’s Web Services.

With Amazon’s EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) Web Services, you can launch both Windows and Linux based servers. In our experience, running Linux serves have outperformed Windows Servers.

Either a standard Linux configuration with Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP  (LAMP), or using Nginx as the server, or as a proxy for Apache, seem to outperform Windows by quite a bit.

A few days ago one of our clients even wrote about the difference:

Last week we moved our site from Windows to Linux.  That move significantly improved performance

It is understandable that Microsoft is trying to sell Azure around WordPress, since WordPress is the largest, fastest growing platform for websites.

Fix: Illustrator: Could not read the file because the plug-in could not understand this file

Today we were doing some graphic design work for one of our clients and came across a strange error with Adobe Illustrator:

Could not read the file because the plug-in could not understand this file

Fix  Illustrator  Could Not Read The File Because The Plug In Could Not Understand This File

The solution was fairly simple, and surprising:
The linked file that was attached was named `image.png` but it was actually a `jpg` file.

If you’re doing any work on graphic design projects with Adobe Illustrator CS5 and you come across this, try renaming the file or making sure the file’s content type is actually correct.

A similar error which is also fairly easy to fix is Adobe Illustrator Could Not Find The Linked File.