If you have a website that requires users to register or login to take action, it’s time to consider implementing a social login option. That is, the ability to login to a website via your existing Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or other account.  A recent social identity study reveals a few compelling stats supporting this:

• 90% of consumers will leave a website if they forget their user name and password
• 86% are bothered by being asked to create a new account on a website, and most will then leave the site or not return
• 41% of users would prefer social login over having to create a new account (35%) or even using a guest account (24%) (the same question in a study 1 year prior returned the reverse results in terms of order of preference)

What’s more, 78% of social login fans share site content with their social network. So not only does the social login option increase the likelihood that visitors will interact with your site and prevent them from leaving, it can also help encourage your customers to promote your site.

Think about every opportunity you might have for this, even in regards to content that doesn’t exist yet. Can people leave comments or write reviews on your website, and if not, can you find a way to integrate that kind of feature? Giving users opportunities to interact with your site and engage with your brand is important itself, and social login would be the cherry on top to help get them to participate.

And can visitors purchase products from your site? If they see an option to login through, say, Facebook, eliminating their need to even think about a password, they’ll be more likely to jump into their account and buy. Beyond that, once they’re logged in, you have opportunities to allow them to easily share what they purchase or what they want with their social network. Tack on an incentive to them to share with friends for even better response.
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With their new “Search Plus Your World” feature, Google’s search results are undergoing a transformation that will drastically change the way search results appear to users.  The feature is now live on the Google Network, and will be fully rolled out to all users that are logged in to Google and searching in the English language.

What does the “Search Plus Your World” feature do?

The new “Search Plus Your world” combines Public, Personal, Social (Google+ only), and Private search all into one algorithm. Public results are just regular Google searches, while the new Personal feature compiles results based both on your past search behavior and social connections. The feature will also feed in relevant content that his been shared within your circles on Google+.

Here’s an image provided by Google that shows an example of the Personal Results feature. (Note: if you select the globe icon on the right it will hide personal results, and when the person icon is selected, personal results will be turned on.)

The left arrow above points to the section that states there are 50 personal results out of the 419,000 found for the search. Some of these 50 personal results will be blended into the first page of your search results.

Personal Results are compiled from these existing areas:

• Regular Web Listings
• Regular Web Listings  (boosted because of social behavior and social connections)
• Public & Private Google+ posts, photos, and Google Picasa Photos

In the image below (again provided by Google) we see more of the results for a search for “Chikoo,” the name of a Google developer’s dog. Chikoo is also the name of a fruit, and before the “Search Plus Your World” feature was implemented nothing related to his dog would have ever shown up in the search results. But with the new feature…
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New kinds of social media are popping up like wildfire, but which ones are catching the eyes of consumers?

We all know the social media big timers—Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn—but a new wave of alternative social media sites are worth looking into. Some have been around a while, but they can still help your business’ visibility and discoverability.
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• YouTube has been around since 2005 as a video sharing website. Recently, companies have been using this online tool to promote their services and advertise themselves. YouTube videos work because they are easily accessible and can be shared easily. Not to mention they help with Google Optimization.

• StumbleUpon was created to let users “stumble” through sites related to their interests. All companies have to do to become a part of StumbleUpon is submit their website and associated categories. From here, whenever a person clicks “stumble,” their website has a chance to pop up on the site. On StumbleUpon, a link to a company’s blog or specific product pages would be most effective.

• Pinterest (pictured above) is a different kind of social media site. A mix between StumbleUpon, Twitter, and Facebook, users can see images other users have “pinned,” or uploaded. You can “re-pin” an image someone else has already pinned onto your own boards. Users create boards and categorize them however they want, such as fitness, food, crafts, or weddings. Business can get into it, too. A bakery could utilize this site by uploading pictures of their wedding cakes and linking the pin on their website. Just one re-pin can reach hundreds of people. Uses of this site can be limitless to a company.

Last week I ran a little social media experiment… non-scientific of course. I tweeted and posted on Facebook that for every twitter Retweet (RT) or Facebook Like/Share I got on a specific post I would donate $1.00 to my Movember campaign.

I didn’t really have any goals besides donating some money “humblebrag” and seeing if I could get 100 RTs & 100 Facebook “Likes” in a day, and seeing if it in fact worked.

Below are my findings:
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•  Surprisingly, it was much harder to get Facebook “Likes” than to get RTs on twitter
• Going into this, I thought I would easily get to 100 Facebook “Likes” but that was not the case at all. With the new Facebook feed, there is so much more news being spread and posts get lost in the clutter much quicker if people are not actually sharing the post. It is important for something to be shared and not just “liked” if you don’t want the post to be lost in the clutter
• For any brand to show up consistently on Facebook they will need to either be constantly posting status updates, (spammy and annoying) or pay for advertisements on Facebook
• There is also the option of asking your friends to repost/share your status updates, not just like them, but again, that can come off as spammy
• twitter RTs were much easier to come by. I only have 370 followers (don’t judge) but most people were more than willing to give a RT for a good cause

Social media has become a huge part of every company’s marketing mix, whether you are a local business or a nationwide brand. It is important to have a branded Facebook page and a branded Twitter handle to communicate with your consumers directly. Many companies are utilizing Facebook to its maximum potential, but are you using Twitter to its full potential as well?

According to this article by Mashable, Twitter has over 100 million monthly active users, 50% of whom are signing in every day. That is a HUGE audience. But sometimes just pushing your Facebook posts to your Twitter account doesn’t cut it. So let me share some tips to help you maximize your success in the Twitterverse.

1. Utilize free Twitter tools

There are a lot of free tools that can help you utilize Twitter to its maximum potential. My two favorite are Hootsuite and Tweetdeck. These tools not only provide easy management of multiple accounts or brands, but will also greatly help with the other tips proved below.

2. Set up relevant live searches

When using Hootsuite or Tweetdeck you have the ability to set up live streams of searches using whatever terms you desire.  As an example, lets say you are a hotel in the Chicagoland area. You can set up a search for “Chicago Hotels” in your Tweetdeck account. You will then have a live stream of all Twitter users tweeting about Chicago hotels, hotels in Chicago, etc. So if someone tweets, “What is the best hotel to stay at in Chicago?” you can quickly reach out to him or her directly with a response in a matter of seconds.
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Last week we shared news of the upcoming release of Facebook Timeline—a major update to the site that promises to summarize your entire life since birth. Instead of the old layout that stacks your profile updates, burying old but important news, the redesign staggers your Facebook activity in more of a scrapbook style, encouraging users to explore and share momentous occasions of their life. It’s a major change and one that has caused much uproar on Facebook–as all Facebook changes tend to do. Many users are threatening to close their Facebook accounts or–worse, yet (sarcasm noted?)–to defect to Google+.

Being marketers, our immediate questions here at envisionit media had more to do with the impact on business and brand pages (the specifics of which are yet to be released by Facebook). But before we can thoroughly explore those possibilities, I thought it best to experience Facebook Timeline for myself and figure out just how many Facebook users we might be losing.

The pure aesthetic changes are enough to draw you right in–you can now choose a strong main image that appears at the top of the page, behind your profile picture. This is called the “cover” and I already see myself swapping that out a lot based on my mood, recent events or trips I’m excited about, important occasions, or just to add some humor to my page. I think I’ll now also keep my profile picture pretty consistent–that is my personal brand, after all.
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If you aren’t familiar with F8, its Facebook’s annual developer conference where they announce any big changes they’ve scheduled for release this year. Well, they just held F8 today, and they announced some MAJOR changes rolling out in the next couple weeks that will surely change the Facebook experience as we know it.

Over the past week Facebook has released some changes you’ve probably already noticed, like the ability to sort friends into groups, a real time ticker, and the subscribe button. If you thought those were big changes you’re in for a treat when we tell you about the new “Timeline” feature they are rolling out.

The new “Timeline” is a revamped version of your Facebook profile that provides everything you’ve done since your “birth” into the Facebook universe. The timeline is a real-time stream that showcases all of your events, posts, and pictures all with a stylish new redesign.  It will also connect to any apps you may have on Facebook like Netflix, Spotify, and Nike +.

Take a look at this video to learn a little more about the new Timeline:

You can find even more info about the new Facebook timeline here.

As of right now we can’t be too sure of what this holds for Marketing efforts in the future, but stay tuned for more info on how to best utilize the new changes to Facebook once these features get rolled out to the masses!

It hasn’t even been a month since I started interning here at EIM, yet I feel like I’ve already learned so much. Prior to arriving at EIM, most of my experience with digital media involved managing social media accounts for various local events and businesses and maintaining my own personal blog. As a recent college graduate who studied media and communications for four years, I felt very much aware of the power of social media and how sites like Twitter and Facebook have been reshaping our lives and the way we do business.

But while social media channels can certainly play a great role in things like brand management and customer engagement, it is really just a piece of the marketing puzzle. It’s not enough to just make a Facebook and Twitter page for your business and wait for fans and followers to roll in. It is very important to make sure your social media efforts line up with your overall marketing strategy. It’s also useful to find ways to integrate your social media pages into other channels such as your website, newsletters, mobile apps, print ads, and even TV commercials (see: American Express)

As social media strategist Jay Baer puts it, “Social media is not a solo act. It’s best as part of a jazz combo.” And one very important player in that combo that I knew very little about before coming here was “search marketing.” While working closely with the Web Marketing Team here at EIM, I’m really starting to recognize the importance of search marketing. SEO, SEM, paid search, and search engines in general all play huge parts in gaining traffic to your company website and reaching your marketing goals, whether that means increasing product sales or raising brand awareness.
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With FourSquare hitting the 10,000,000 user mark this past week it’s time you do more than just claiming your business? You could go play real FourSquare with the hipsters in the park or you could start taking advantage of all the different features that FourSquare has to offer your business for free!

Create a FourSquare Special

When a FourSquare user checks-in, they are often times rewarded with some type of special. There are seven different types of specials including:
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• Swarm Special:
  • If 43 people check-in at your bar, everyone whom checked in will get 10% off of their bar tab
    • Can limit the frequency that this occurs and what number makes a swarm

• Friends Special:
  • Check-in with four friends and receive a free appetizer
    • FourSquare allows the number of friends that must be checked-in to be awarded the special

• Flash Special:
  • First 50 people into the store starting at 10:00 AM receive a coupon for $25.00 off of their purchase of $100.00 or more
    • Gives an incentive for individuals to come to your store at a specific time and specifically spend a certain amount of money

• Newbie Special:
  • On your first check-in, receive a free pedicure with the purchase of a manicure
    • Establish that relationship and hopefully gain a devoted customer

• Check-in Special:
  • A special every time a customer checks-in to your place of business

• Loyalty Special:
  • Every third check-in, receive a free desert with your dinner
    • Same concept as the Subway stamp card, reward your loyal customers for their loyalty

• Mayor Special:
  • If you are the mayor as of election day 2012, receive a free hour long party for you and 15 friends. All check-ins while mayor will be rewarded with 20% off of your bill.
    • Again, reward your loyal customers