5 Minute Guide To Facebook Ads For Local Business

In today’s cut-throat business world, it’s crucial that you have a strong internet presence for your local business. One of the best ways of increasing your business’ overall performance is to become involved in social media by making use of Facebook ads. Here are a few ways your business can benefit from using Facebook ads.

Zeroing in On Your Target Audience

By far, one of the best things about Facebook ads is that you can laser-target who you want to view your ads based on criteria such as age, sex, interests and location. For example, if you run a local nail salon, you can opt to target your ads to women in your area who are interested in fashion, beauty, nail art or salons.

Experience Viral Marketing at it’s Best

Whenever someone ‘likes’ your Facebook ad or business page, it appears on their wall for all of their friends and followers to see. This ‘snowball effect’ is the ultimate in viral marketing as all of that person’s friends will see your page in their news feed and will

What To Expect From Twitter’s Acquisition

From the latest Korg news to Twitter, TwitterMusic is on the cards, but what can we expect from it? Social Media giant Twitter bought “We Are Hunted”, a music discovery software service, last year for an undisclosed amount. Founded in Australia, We Are Hunted moved to San Francisco and the company only has around 10 employees. Can this technology compete with the well-established music sharing and discovery apps already out there? The app has a lot of power behind it and with good strategic marketing it could just be the next big thing.

Stephen Phillips (Founder and Coder at We Are Hunted) has been tweeting tests with the hashtag #NowPlaying. The company’s website is, at the moment, ‘unavailable’ (a tell-tale sign of the takeover). Instead, a single information page includes a description of the company that says they are a software company who have developed proprietary search technology that scans the web continuously to find hot new music in the World today. Which sounds pretty exciting if you’re keen to be the first in the know. Artists will be sure to like that users can follow them straight from the app – creating an instant fan base.

According to sources, the application will launch with a quick tour through the basics of the app and will be open to non Twitter account holders. Powered by songs from SoundCloud and videos from Vevo, TwitterMusic will be a music discovery app that will aim to promote new artists and bands and broaden users’ musical horizons. There are four tabs on the app to select from:

1. Suggested – based on artists and users you follow

2. #NowPlaying – songs that have been played by people you follow using that hashtag

3. Popular – trending tracks of the moment as regulated by We Are Hunted’s charts

4. Emerging – for breakout artists and up-and-coming bands
Emerging Twitter Market

Will TwitterMusic be able to make a dent in the already strong market? It’s up against big-hitters like Pandora (67m users) and Spotify (24m users) and now FaceBook have announced their news feed will include the option of selecting “Music” to be the sole theme on the news feed. However, with the might of SoundCloud and Vevo, and possibly iTunes, given Twitter’s longstanding relationship with Apple, this could very well be a success. It will all depend on key early-adopters (there are currently 2.3m followers of the TwitterMusic account) finding the app useful enough and We Are Hunted’s technology being strong enough to deliver on its promise of the “hottest new music in the world”.

In terms of branding and marketing, the logo is a simple silver play button and the ubiquitous Twitter bluebird in the corner of the logo. Industry insiders are speculating that advertising might clash with the other players involved, unless TwitterMusic produces an integrated promotional campaign alongside Vevo and SoundCloud? If iTunes are indeed involved, don’t be surprised to see TwitterMusic on the next iPod advert.

The obvious drawback to this as a music discovery application is that you are relying on people you follow (or trending music) to open up your musical boundaries; yet the chances are that you follow them for entirely different reasons. That said, if the people you follow now aren’t exposing you to new music you appreciate, chances are you’ll follow more artistically similar users. Thus expanding the network of people exponentially, as people seek out those in the know. Win-win for Twitter!

Image source

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Facebook Addiction Disorder Symptoms

You may think that your need to check Facebook first thing in the morning is normal, but it’s possible that it’s a sign that you have Facebook Addiction Disorder.

Facebook Addiction Disorder, also known as FAD, is a real disease that affects many people. What starts as a small desire to keep in touch with friends and families becomes a major distraction that impacts every aspect of a person’s life.

If you possess any of the following symptoms, you may be suffering from Facebook Addiction Disorder.

1. Increased Usage

If you are spending more time on Facebook than ever before, it’s possible that you’re suffering from FAD. Those with an addiction feel compelled to be on the social network as often as possible. If you’re logged in first thing in the morning and are still using the site after you are laying in bed for the night, you may want to seek help.

2. Fake Relationships

Those suffering from FAD have a need to constantly build their number of friends. This is usually the result of low self esteem, and they fill this void by making more virtual friends than real friends. If you don’t know who the majority of your Facebook friends are, it’s a sign you have FAD.

3. Withdrawal

If you ever feel symptoms of withdrawal when you cannot be on Facebook, it’s a major sign of FAD. If you feel anxious when you cannot be on the social network, you need to receive help.

4. Topic of Communication

If you are constantly talking about Facebook, it’s a sign that you have FAD. The majority of your conversations should not revolve around Facebook, what you saw on Facebook or what you did on Facebook.

5. Notification Excitement

If you receive email or mobile notifications every time activity happens on your wall, and you receive a euphoric feeling every time a notification appears, you need to seek help. While it is nice to be communicated with, it should not be the most exciting thing that happens throughout your day.

6. Oversharing

Those who are addicted to Facebook also tend to overshare. If you find that you are changing your status update or profile picture at least once every hour, it means that you are spending too much time on the site. Plus, oversharing can lead to harm. There is no need to tell all of your Facebook friends every single detail about your life, as some of them may use this information against them.

7. Lost Relationships

If you have lost real relationships—or worse, jobs—due to Facebook, you’ll want to seek treatment. The use of Facebook should never replace family, friends and careers. If you are not spending time with your family, if you no longer attend Girls Night Out because you’d rather sit on Facebook, and if you have been fired because of Facebook (or at least been reprimanded for your use during company time) you have FAD.

Facebook Addiction Disorder is a serious illness, and if you don’t seek treatment, it can spiral completely out of control. The best thing to do if you believe that you are suffering from FAD is to meet with a psychologist, as they’ll be able to address your situation and help you work through it.

Facebook Addiction Disorder

How To Add Image To Every Post On Your Blogger Blog

Would you like add image or signature to every blog post in blogger blog? This post will show you how to do it in just a few easy steps! :)

To add a signature or image, first, you need to have image or signature and upload it somewhere like Flicker, photobucket or in your FTP. Then follow the below steps..

1. Go to your blog inside the Blogger Dashboard and click on design.

2. Then click the Edit HTML button.

3. Check the Expand Widget Template box.

4. Find by Click CTRL-F and copy and paste the line below in the search box to search for it in your code.

post-footer-line post-footer-line-1

You will get:

<div class="post-footer-line post-footer-line-1"></div>

4. Under that line, paste the below code and change IMAGE URL to the url address of your signature image (it’s the Direct Link of your image).

<img alt='flower' src='http://www.imagesource.com/flower.jpg' style='border: 0;'/>

5. If you want to create hyperlink (clickable) for this image, then paste the below code and change both src & href url of yours.

<a href=’http://www.xyz.com/flowers’><img alt=’flower’ src=’http://www.imagesource.com/flower.jpg’ style=’border: 0;’/></a>

You are done!

Source:sociablweb

How To Gain More Blog Traction With Less Effort

The average blogger spends around 3 hours on getting his article read. Recent studies from blog polls show that the outcome is about 40-80 visitors a day.

So, how can you create more traffic for your blog, without wasting critical time you could use for creating good content?

In this article i will give you some tips and tweaks that help you get more traction with less effort.

1. Don't prostitute for views

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/facebook_likes

We could also call this the “Don't be angry at friends that don't like to read your articles” rule.

Everyone has this one friend who completely ignores your social media activity.

This doesn't mean he/she doesn't like you, it just means that a given topic might not be that interesting to him/her or just there's just no time to engage in it. So, don't make reading your articles a favor, find the people who appreciate your writing.

If you want to attract a certain group of readers, write something they care about and then share it with them.

2. Link building is dead

Back in the old days setting links on your website created huge traffic on your blog. This way of SEO is dead. Since the new Google penguin update (release April 24th) it seems like Google doesn't care that much about link velocity any more. They are now confident enough to prefer good written content on certain topics to articles with a lot of interlinkage. This is something many SEO people in my surrounding noticed when their SEO businesses started struggling last month.

There is no need for link spreading anymore, being particular about what and where to spread matters again. So stop the link spamming.

3. Get your articles on Newsgrape

If promoting your content consumes so much time, why not let somebody else do the job for you?

The Newsgrape platform has a wordpress plugin to automatically sync your content with a large community without having duplicate content issues.

What happens with your article:

1. Newsgrape connects your articles with similar ones. Meaning: If somebody reads a topic connected to yours, they will see your article pop up at “related articles”. Cool about that: They are more likely to be genuinely interested and appreciative of what you have to say.

2.
Newsgrape informs readers with certain interests that articles have been written about those given topics. This means, if you write something of popular interest, you have the chance of attracting over 5000 currently active readers on the site.

4. Automate your social media appereance

Its good to have a constant information flow about your website going on out there. But don't waste every single day on setting up new facebook and twitter updates - use tools to automate your appearance. Of course there are thousands of plugins for wordpress, but i will give you two powerful tools you can use with any blog:

Twitterfeed  - is the most automated system to do so. It creates twitter, LinkedIn and facebook updates by crawling your feeds. You can customize your updates a lot, for example how often and how many articles it should publish and define prefix/suffix etc.

Buffer - You have a productive week ahead of you? Fill your Buffer with twenty to forty updates, define the frequency and you are set to go.

Of course you can connect your social media accounts with Newsgrape as well.

To wrap it up

Don't prostitute, no SEO bulls%*&, connect with distributors and last but not least automate your social media appearance.

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Top Wordpress Advertising Management Plugins

WordPress blogging platform is in demand because of easy to monetized through advertising. Whether you use pay-per-click advertising, affiliate marketing, or your own system, there are many ways you can generate revenue from a WordPress blog. There are many ways to generate revenue from Wordpress blog like Google adsense or affiliate marketing.

Wordpress also allows for the use of plugins that can make easily implementation and management of your advertising placement without editing your code manually.  Here is the list best WordPress ad managing plugins that can successfully generate revenue from your website.

Ad Manager

Light, and at the same time advanced advertisement manager. Provides you the ability to select context conditions for displaying ads, like page location / location index / page or user class.

Simple Ads Manager

Simple Ads Manager is easy to use plugin providing a flexible logic of displaying advertisements.

Features

• Flexible logic of advertisements rotation based on defined weight of each advertisement in group (Ads Place)
• Custom default ad for each Ads Place
• Codes of Google Double-click for Publishers (DFP) supports
• More flexibility of displaying ads by using Ads Zone selector
• Allowed types of ad's codes are HTML, javascript, PHP
• Outputting ads as widget
• Outputting ads as shortcodes in any place of single post/page content
• Outputting ads in any place of theme template using functions
• Customizable outputting ads as block of ads
• Automatic outputting ads in single post/page if allowed
• Customizable limitation of displaying advertisements by types of page
• Customizable limitation of displaying advertisements on single post/page by post/page ID (IDs)
• Customizable limitation of displaying advertisements on single post page or category archive page by category (categories)
• Customizable limitation of displaying advertisements on single post page or author archive page by author (authors)
• Customizable limitation of displaying advertisements on single post page or tag archive page by tag (tags)
• Customizable limitation of displaying advertisements on custom type single post page or custom type archive page by Custom Type (Types)
• Customizable blocking of displaying advertisements on single post/page by post/page ID (IDs)
• Customizable blocking of displaying advertisements on single post page or category archive page by category (categories)
• Customizable blocking of displaying advertisements on single post page or author archive page by author (authors)
• Customizable blocking of displaying advertisements on single post page or tag archive page by tag (tags)
• Customizable blocking of displaying advertisements on custom type single post page or custom type archive page by Custom Type (Types)
• Schedule of displaying each advertisment if allowed
• Customizable limitation of displaying advertisements by hits
• Customizable limitation of displaying advertisements by clicks
• Statistics of hits
• Statistics of clicks (your own advertisment image mode)
• Customizable accuracy of bots and crawlers detection
• Counting revenue from ads placement, display ads and clicks on advertisements

Ads Manager WP/BB

Use this plugin to quickly and easily insert Any Ad code Unit to your posts and BuddyPress sections including Forum topics.

Ad Code Manager

Ad Code Manager gives non-developers an interface in the WordPress admin for configuring your complex set of ad codes.

Some code-level configuration is necessary to setup Ad Code Manager. Ad tags must be added (via do_action) to your theme's template files where you'd like ads to appear. Alternatively, you can incorporate ad tags into your website with our widget and our shortcode.

Also, a common set of parameters must be defined for your ad provider. This includes the tag IDs used by your template, the default URL for your ad provider, and the default HTML surrounding that URL.

Once this configuration is in place, the Ad Code Manager admin interface will allow you to add new ad codes, modify the parameters for your script URL, and define conditionals to determine when the ad code appears. Conditionals are core WordPress functions like is_page(), is_category(), or your own custom functions that evaluate certain expression and then return true or false.

Ad Code Manager currently works with Doubleclick for Publishers by default. However, all logic is abstracted which means that you can configure ACM for any ad provider relatively easy. Check providers/doubleclick-for-publishers.php for an idea of how to extend ACM to suit your needs.

AdSense Manager

AdSense Manager was replaced by Advertising Manager, however that is no longer developed. In response to a number of queries I have updated my most recent version of the plugin to work with the latest WordPress and released it here. Unfortunately, if you upgraded to Advertising Manager you may need to reimport your ads.

AdSense Manager supports most Ad networks including AdBrite, AdRoll, Project Wonderful and plain old HTML code.

Ad Injection

Ad Injection from reviewmylife injects any kind of advert or other content (e.g. Google AdSense, Amazon Associates, ClickBank, TradeDoubler, etc) into the existing content of your WordPress posts and pages. You can control the number of adverts based on the post length, and it can restrict who sees adverts by post age, visitor referrer and IP address. Adverts can be configured in the post (random, top, and bottom positions) or in any widget/sidebar area. There's support for A:B split testing / ad rotation. And the dynamic restrictions (by IP and referrer) work with WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache and WP Cache.

Adsense Custom Placement

Well, this plugin was made specially to help people using wordpress insert adsense or any other advertisement in the wordpress blogs in whatever position[1] in whatever post[2] they wished.

[1] above and below content, above and below post titles [2] positions as in below post 2, above post 4, below post 5 whatever position does the blogger wish.

AdRotate

Get the most intuitive ad manager and start making money with your website. Add and manage the ads from the dashboard and show a random banner, or multiple, on your site. The plugin supports unlimited groups for banners allowing to tie certain banners to different areas of the website. Easy management from the dashboard allows you to quickly oversee, add and edit banner code or renew/delete and add new ads. Previewing of banners when editing them. And even some statistical values. Receive a periodic email when banners are (about to) expire(d) informing you to take action.

Advertwhirl Advertising Manager and Ad Rotator

Advertwhirl(pronounced Adver-Twirl) is the ultimate WordPress plugin to manage advertising campaigns for your site. Advertwhirl not only allows you to manage exactly how and when ads are displayed on your site but allows you to serve your ads to external sites and smartphone apps. Manage ads for your guest posts and get a return on your hard work. Incentivize your guest bloggers to create great content by giving them a share of their posts ad slots. Advertwhirl is being actively developed and supported by Mobile Sentience. Already the most comprehensive advertising manager for WordPress with true integration with Adsense, Groupon and others Advertwhirl is updated frequently with many exciting and new features to come.

WP125

If you've given up the low-paying and slightly obtrusive ad networks used by many new bloggers, in favor of selling ads directly, you may have been frustrated with the excessive time involved managing your ads. Not only do you have to find advertisers to sponsor your blog, you have to manually edit your template to put the ad in, and then head over to your favorite calendar app to set an alert to remind you when to take the ad down.

Time consuming practices like those are a thing of the past. The WP125 plugin can help you manage your ads more efficiently, leaving you with more time to write new posts. The plugin adds a new "Ads" menu to the WordPress admin, featuring submenus for tweaking display settings and adding and removing ads.

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Facebook Vs Pinterest : 5 Things We’ve Learned [Infographic]

Boticca is an e-commerce platform who display and help sell the wears of international jewelry design trail blazers. It’s no surprise that these leaders of internet trade have slipped easily into the sphere of social media and continue to provide their designers with a well cultivated online stage on which to dance.

After a short period of mastering the art of social media Boticca.com were able to collate data about their customers and decided to share with us their thought-provoking findings.

They focused their energies on the social platforms Pinterest and Facebook, both of which are really useful in terms of sharing ideas, getting their designers noticed and entrenching the brand in the minds of their consumers.

Boticca then took a sample calendar month, 15th of March until the 15th of April 2012 and a sample of social users, 50,000 from Facebook and 50,000 from Pinterest and pit them head to head in terms of consumer trends.

Here’s some of the eye opening information they had to share:

Pinterest users spend loads more than those on Facebook.

Pinterest seems to make people more likely to buy.

The rate of new users joining Pinterest is rising much quicker than the users joining over on Facebook.

Facebook users spend more time on the site, perhaps window shopping?

Facebook is the winner when it comes to conversions.

This infographic was created and brought to you by Boticca.com.

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