Sara Inés Calderón

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Facebook Becomes More Important to Red Cross Fundraising, Disaster Relief Efforts

[An Inside Facebook post]

Facebook is now at the center of the American Red Cross‘ efforts to keep the public informed about disaster relief, especially after a catastrophic event like the Chile or Haiti earthquakes, says Wendy Harman, the organization’s director of social media. It was particularly after the Haiti earthquake that she says the Red Cross mobilized and created a procedure for how to respond on Facebook.

“It happened after Haiti, we have sort of a procedure in place now. We immediately put someone behind a Flip camera to get a situation update and we try to update as frequently as we have information,” she explains.

Facebook’s recognition of its own importance to disaster relief is evident in its creation of a Global Relief Page shortly after the Haiti disaster.

On Facebook the national American Red Cross Page has about 202,000 Likes and Harman says the organization uses that audience very pointedly by not bombarding them. Status updates are crafted to be value-driven, offer useful and pertinent information. More often than not this comes from the Red Cross Disaster Online Newsroom on the web site, where Harman says people are more likely to find it. She and another employee run the Red Cross’ social media team, which took to Facebook in 2006, and initially included Flickr, YouTube and blogs in its social media repertoire.

Nowadays, however, Harman tells us that Facebook is becoming consistently important to the way the Red Cross shares information. Specifically the status update is used as the Red Cross’ most powerful Facebook weapon, mostly because the organization’s 700 local chapters and 30,000 volunteers across the country have been brought into the fold to share these updates, and thus, boost virality. The same holds true for talking back to fans; although her office may not directly talk back, she says Red Cross volunteers often will step in to help out on the Page. Harmon says the share button on the Red Cross’ web site also heavily contributes to its Facebook presence, a strategy highlighted in our Facebook Marketing Bible.

One challenge for the Red Cross, as well as other disaster relief organizations, is what to do with all of the feedback it receives from Facebook and other social media outlets, Harman says. “We’re not first responders, we don’t take individual calls for help,” she tells us. The Red Cross can’t respond when someone posts to Facebook that their cousin is trapped in Haitian rubble. The organization isn’t set up to help, and also, that same message could be shared with 10 different agencies. It’s an issue Harman says the Red Cross and other similar organizations are working to address.

As far as fundraising on Facebook, Harman explains that the Red Cross has yet to fully track such conversions, but believes the impact has been significant. The focus on Facebook increased after the huge response to text message donations for the Haiti earthquake, driven largely by social media. Currently the Page focuses more on giving the public the tools to fundraise locally. The Red Cross just published its first in-house tab and application meant to help its fans find the nearest chapter and donate. Later this year Harman tells us the Facebook Page will evolve further with a more advanced app meant to help users market and fundraise for the Red Cross.

[See the full post here]

sara ines, August 24th 2010

Posted in Facebook, Inside Facebook, Marketing, Social Media

3 Comments

Boxing Your Way To Bodacious

[A Guanabee Post]

I love to eat. A lot. Especially if frijoles and tortillas are involved. Loving to eat has forced me to find a way to do so without suffering the inevitable side effects of an overly voluptuous figure. Which, if you’re anything like me, means you have to fight genes that love to pack on the pounds and, in the worst-case scenario, could lead to diabetes. Hands down the best workout I’ve found over the years is boxing.

Having tried Tae Kwon Do, MMA, Muay Thai, weightlifting and American Kenpo, boxing is consistently the workout that keeps me strongest and the most trim. Boxing doesn’t mean getting your face smashed in, but rather, doing a boxing workout. These gyms are all over the place and the monthly fees are often much lower than what you’d pay at a franchise gym. Usually a boxing workout consists of: Running/jumping rope, lots of abdominal work (bikini body!), some time on the speed bag, the double-end bag, the heavy bag and then working with mitts. This equipment is available in any standard boxing gym to varying degrees of quality and quantity. It also helps to have boxing coaches that are willing to work with you.

Often I’ve done the work on my own, however, a good coach can help guide you towards your goals with appropriate baby steps. My current coach, José “Joe” Jiménez of the Jiménez Old School Boxing Gym in Denton, Texas, is exemplary of what a boxing coach should be. Jiménez trains everyone from walk-in prepubescents to out-of-shape parents to tip-top shape professional boxers and says that boxing has something to offer everyone. “You’ll be in the best shape of your life. Mentally, you’ll be tough, plus, it builds you up. It grows your confidence,” he told me. A former pro boxer himself, Jiménez has trained hundreds of people over several decades — both men and women — and has helped me go from and out-of-shape, winded bag of flesh to a much more toned, strong specimen with pretty good endurance.

It can be intimidating joining a boxing gym, as it does take some time to acquire the skills needed to use all of the equipment properly. Literally, it took me three months to learn how to skip rope, it also took me several months to learn how to use the bags and learn footwork. But that’s part of what makes boxing a great workout: You’re not just climbing a machine for 30 minutes, you’re learning, growing, improving and then once you get to the next level, you learn some more. Or, as Jiménez says, “What makes it unique is that it’s very hard to learn. If you accept the challenge, then the sky’s the limit.” Así que, ándale, get yourself to the nearest boxing gym and start working on turning those doughy arms into a bonafide gun show!

TIP LIST FOR FINDING A BOXING GYM

Make sure it’s a convenient location so you’ll actually go.
Maybe go for one free day and watch to see how much personal attention people get, ideally you’d want a little bit of personal attention at least once a week.
Make sure there’s enough equipment for everyone to use, otherwise you’ll never get your workout in.
Make sure the gym’s hours are convenient for you.
Look around at the people in the gym: Do they look like they know what they’re doing? Are they fit? If not, you might want to try the next one.

[See full post here]

sara ines, August 10th 2010

Posted in Guanabee, Latinos, News

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Facemoods Brings Emoticons to Facebook Chat, Gets Millions of Users

[An Inside Facebook post]

Israeli start-up Facemoods only launched in December of last year, offering a browser add-on that enables emoticons for use on Facebook’s chat service, among other web products. So far, it’s been a hit. We’ve watched as it has gained 4.4 million Likes on its Page — and around the same number of users, according to the company.

Facemoods is the brainchild of three entrepreneurs in Tel Aviv, Israel, who have bootstrapped their and employs 11, cofounder Arnon Harish says. Currently Facemoods has about 1.5 million weekly active users, and Harish says it’s growing quickly everywhere Facebook is growing, including places like India and the Philippines. Users currently share more than 1.5 million animations a day. The service is also available for major email services including Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail and AOL.

Users between the ages of 13-17 make up 40% of these users, another 40% are between the ages of 25-34 and about 55% are female, Harish adds. Geographically speaking, 20% of Facemoods users are in the U.S., 10% in the United Kingdom, 20% in Western Europe with the remainder in Eastern Europe and Asia. Such wide distribution has posed some developmental hurdles with regard to language, especially given Facemoods’ proclivity to utilize slang. In order to address this, Harish tells us the app tries to be as text-free as possible — and although the installer is in English, it is set to be translated into the 10 languages available on the Facemoods web site.

Installing the add-on is fairly easy and can be done at the company’s web site or Facebook Page; the browser add-on is compatible with both PC and Macintosh computers across popular web browsers. After downloading, completing the download instructions and restarting the browser, a Facemoods user can instantly begin using the app to chat. Harish explains Facemoods was designed so as not to interfere with the Facebook experience, although installing it adds a Facemoods toolbar to your browser. It’s this toolbar which helps the company collect revenue, incorporating various forms of advertisements; it also has a search function, several links to the company’s Facebook Page and the Zoosk dating site.

Using Facemoods while chatting is very simple, one simply must click on the yellow smiley face at the bottom of the Facebook chat window to pop out the Facemoods menu. Then a user may select from text animations, smileys, and other cartoons featuring the likes of Lady Gaga and Diego Maradona. Facemoods has other functionalities that allow for using the animations in email, as well as Facebook messages, and in a few weeks, Wall posts. And the company’s Supermoods feature allows users to enter their own text to see it displayed within the app’s animations.

The idea behind Facemoods came to Harish and his co-founders as avid users of Facebook who simply thought that the chat function could be a better experience. As users of Windows Messenger and ICQ, Harish tell us that he and his co-founders realized there wasn’t much content on Facebook chat and so decided to fill that need.

As for Facemoods’ growth strategy, Harish tells us that the majority of growth comes from friends suggesting to friends, popular because one can only use the app with someone who is also using the app. However, Harish also says that taking the time to personalize content and Wall posts to specific countries — such as recent World Cup animations with unique music and animations several countries — has made a difference.

Another example of involving the Facebook community in the company’s development is the recent voting contest to determine the Facemoods Idol — the winner will become prominently featured in content and get her own Page; users are also set to name her in upcoming weeks. These types of community contests have been helpful and Facemoods will utilize them more in the future, Harish explains.

Facemoods’ secret to success is good content and in the spirit of good content the company intends to incorporate more personalization into its future products, such as tailoring content to specific country holidays, for example. Harish also tells us that, father down the road, Facemoods users may be able to create personalized animations for use on Facebook.

[See the full post here]

sara ines, August 4th 2010

Posted in Facebook, Inside Facebook, Marketing, Social Media

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Barbara Talks To A Professor Studying Latina Adolescent Suicide

[A Guanabee post]

At 21%, the suicide rate for Latina adolescents is twice as high as that of whites and blacks. That’s something Professor Luis H. Zayas has been studying for 20 years during his career as a social worker and developmental psychologist. Zayas, who’s of Puerto Rican descent, founded and now serves as the director of the Center for Latino Family Research at Washington University in St. Louis Missouri. He has a master’s in social work and a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Columbia–credentials that have allowed him to observe that Latina adolescents in the United States have a perfect storm of suicide factors: Immigration, poverty, low access to health care, language barriers, and a lack of extended family combined with cultural notions of a tight-knit family all culminate to create an acculteration clash right about the time of adolescence. Interestingly, this is true across all Hispanic groups in the United States — Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans, etc. — but doesn’t hold true for these groups within their home countries, which is to say, rates for these groups are higher in the U.S. Guanabee’s new Lady site Barbara spoke to Zayas about his most recent research which will feature in his book set for release next year, Letting Out Endless Words: The Suicide Attempts of Young Latinas.

Barbara: Dr. Zayas, how did you come to study the rates of Latina suicide attempts?

Luis H. Zayas: Dr. Paul D. Trautman (a researcher), in the late 50s, was studying this phenomenon among young Puerto Rican women, he termed it the “suicidal fit,” and I stumbled upon it in the mid-to-late 80s. When I joined the faculty at Columbia (University) to work on my Ph.D., I was able to see it. I was teaching students at a city hospital in East Harlem, or Spanish Harlem, that’s when I began to come face-to-face with this phenomenon. Dominican immigration to New York began (and) we began to see them also attempting suicide, so I began to think maybe it’s not just a Puerto Rican thing, because it’s also a Caribbean thing, as I had also heard in Miami about Cuban girls. I read a newspaper report that most of the suicide attempters in Miami-Dade tended to be young Latinas. Then I thought that this is more pan-Hispanic than anything else.

Barbara: You’ve been able to not only analyze data collected by others, but conduct your own studies, in the twenty-plus years you’ve been studying this phenomenon, what have you concluded?

Zayas: We always felt that some cultural factors played a part in the higher than average rate of attempts by young Latinas. Now I’m beginning to think about it really as a cultural idiom of distress—like “ataques,” “nervios,”, “susto.” [Latino cultural idioms for mental or psychological stress.] We’re beginning to think that these suicide attempts may be a form of nervios, but expressed differently— but we’re still working on that theory. The question is, why do they decide to do suicide attempts instead of doing something else?

Barbara: How does the typically low cultural status of young Latinas play into these suicide attempts?

Zayas: It’s a [low] status that they have and the expectations that are put on them for the sense of obligation to the family, but also the sense of what the boys can do that the girls can’t do. The kind of emphasis that is given on them to for chastity and things like that and decorum that are not expected of the boys. There’s a lot there that they must take care of — the younger siblings and so on.

It’s a [low] status that they have and the expectations that are put on them for the sense of obligation to the family, but also the sense of what the boys can do that the girls can’t do. The kind of emphasis that is given on them to for chastity and things like that and decorum that are not expected of the boys.

Barbara: How do parents fit into the equation?

Zayas: There’s a lot in what I’ve written about the mother’s role, but it’s only because fathers are hard to get into treatment with their daughters–or even into research. They are not exonerated in my book. Fathers harbor a lot of guilt a lot of times because of their emotional or physical absence; a lot of times they communicate with their daughters through their wives, and a lot of times the mom gets the brunt of the girls reaction.

Barbara: What role does Catholicism play, as far as “Catholic guilt” and things like that?

Zayas: It’s hard to say. It’s melded together in a way that sometimes you can’t distinguish the culture from the religion or the religion from the culture. You never really know quite at what point culture and religion meet. Most of the girls in our studies have been Catholic, about 70%, and the others are a mix of other Christian denominations so that there is something there.

Barbara: What are the treatments for these young women and their families to prevent suicide attempts?

Zayas: I recommend family therapy. Get parents and children talking to one another because I don’t see it as a problem that the girl has. I see it as a systemic problem of the family. More often than not, it’s a situation thing related to feeling nurtured and having the sense that somebody is looking out for you and understands your feelings. Also, one of the distinguishing features of those who did not attempt (suicide) is that the non-attempters could understand where their parents were coming from, too.

Barbara: What’s next in your study of Latina suicide attempt rates?

Zayas: How culture plays a part. What we want to do in our next study is study black girls, white girls and Latinas and use the same means to find out why they attempted, even though the rates are different. Can we tease out what the cultural elements are?

[See the full post here]

sara ines, July 19th 2010

Posted in Guanabee, Latinos, News, Texas, Uncategorized

1 Comment

Levi’s Uses Events Marketing for Sales Promotions

[An Inside Facebook post]

Levi’s has begun to use some interesting event marketing on Facebook to promote sales on its web site, as well as its stores via its Facebook Page and profile advertisements.

As we’ve noted previously, Levi’s has been particularly active on Facebook, working with the company to premiere the social plugins on its web site and using the Facebook to promote its presence at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin earlier this year.

The profile advertisements ask users to RSVP to a sale, for example a recent ad read: “RSVP ‘Yes’ for 30% off at Levi’s Castro Store this Thursday (7/15) – Sunday (7/18) only! Plenty of street parking.” There’s also an option to Like the ad.

Visiting the event’s landing page reveals that thousands of people have responded to the ads, which apparently aim to convert Facebook fans into brick and mortar customers. The page includes obvious information — such as time, location and sale information — but also a Wall, a list of people attending (with thumbnails) and maps with store locations. On the Wall Facebook users discuss their favorite products, give thanks for the sale or just generally enthuse about the promotion.

Levi’s is also advertising Internet-only sales on its Facebook Page. Links provided on status updates and Wall posts take users to the company’s web site, which also implements Facebook social plugins.

So, conceivably, it’s possible to participate in the entire cycle of Levi’s Facebook marketing by responding to the event advertisement, which appears in the activity feed, then responding to a status update or Wall post and Liking something on the web site, which also appears in the news feed.

What’s not included in this campaign is a location-based service tied to advertising, like what you services like Foursquare providing — some sort of way for users to “check in” to Levi’s using a mobile device and share that information back with friends. Perhaps we’ll see something like that, soon? Facebook is already working with McDonald’s on something similaras part of its forthcoming location-based service.

[See the full post here]

sara ines, July 19th 2010

Posted in Facebook, Inside Facebook, Marketing, Social Media, Uncategorized

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Work For Us App Brings Job Hunting to Facebook

[An Inside Facebook post]

Facebook can now be a job board with a new application, Work For Us, which allows Page administrators to install a tab on their Page to collect potential hires’ information.

The app’s basic version is free for 30 days and allows brands to post jobs on their Pages and automatically create Facebook ads advertising these jobs; Facebook users, on the other hand, can apply for jobs right on this Facebook tab and socialize on Facebook with their potential future employers.

The app was created by Work4Labs, which specializes in recruiting and human resources and according to our AppData tool Work For Us already has almost 11,000 monthly active users, including some listed on the company’s site: Accenture, Monitronics and Amadeus. New and innovative apps are frequently discussed in depth in our premium service, Inside Facebook Gold.

The company has several tiers of service plans, which vary in the number of job slots that may be posted each month and the corresponding number of Facebook ads that will be generated. The Free version, for example, includes 1 monthly job slot, unlimited users and no Facebook ads, whereas the Max version (the most pricey plan) includes unlimited jobs, $1,500 in free ads and unlimited users for $499 a month. Other plans range from $9 monthly to $199.

From a user standpoint, the app is pretty simple. Take SPG Creative & Marketing as an example; one just visits the Work for us tab on a given Page and sees and easy-to-read list of available jobs. Clicking on the job title yields a more substantive description and one may Share the job or Like it to help Facebook friends who may be looking for a new gig. There’s also a search box to more easily sift through the openings and the option of searching for an internship, temporary or permanent job.

[See the full post here]

sara ines, July 5th 2010

Posted in Facebook, Inside Facebook, Marketing, News, Social Media

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Kraft Foods Focuses Messaging on Facebook

[An Inside Facebook post]

Global food giant Kraft Foods has set its eyes on Facebook, pumping up at least three campaigns for Wheat Thins (crackers), Oreo (cookies) and Crystal Light (flavored beverage) in recent weeks.

The Facebook and Twitter campaigns are paired with television and music venue sponsorship. Specifically, Kraft Foods is the main sponsor of the 2010 Lilith Tour, which is a music festival celebrating women on tour across the U.S. through the summer. Crystal Light is the sponsor of the tour in part to promote its new Crystal Light Pure Fitness sports drink mix.

Overall, Kraft Foods has total revenues of $48 billion, markets products in more than 160 countries and has several brands that exceed $1 billion revenue annually, including Oreo.

Of the three Kraft products, two directly tie their products with Facebook promotion for live music sponsorships. Levi’s was present in a big way at the Austin, Texas South by Southwest festival by co-sponsoring a venue, the Levi’s/Fader Fort, with what the company reported were good results. We’ve written about similar campaigns in the Inside Facebook Marketing Bible.

Odwalla followed with a similar promotion at the Coachella music festival in California. While Odwalla gave out free tickets to Coachella on Facebook, the company also set up a booth to promote its “Living Flavor Vending Machine,” meant to provide a stage for both musical acts and fans to perform at the actual festival.

Crystal Light has seemingly taken music promotion to a new level by becoming a primary sponsor of the Lilith Fair, promoting its products both on Facebook and Twitter, as well as the actual concerts with its “Refreshing Oasis” booth that includes massage chairs and free samples. Mary Garris, senior associate brand manager of Crystal Light said in a press release that the company’s presence at the Lilith Fair was important to concert goers’ hydration, and since Crystal Light is a powder to be mixed with water, the mix “helps women enjoy drinking the water they need.”

Meanwhile, Wheat Thins and Oreo have been dedicating more time and attention to Facebook. The New York Times reported that Oreo has given its Facebook Page a “global look” and Wheat Thins has been rewarding tweets about its crackers by awarding fans free product. On Facebook Wheat Thins has been promoting its sponsorship of the Bonnaroo music festival in Tennessee and supplementing it with a YouTube channel, Facebook presence and Twitter monitoring to the theme “The crunch is calling.”

Oreo is changing up its Page to be less “American-oriented” to reflect the fact that many comments on Facebook come from other countries, apparently half of the 5 million fans are outside the U.S. This is reflected in the company’s weekly selection of a “world’s fan of the week.”

That a large, global company like Kraft Foods is just now pushing its social media presence is perhaps a bit surprising, although earlier this year we wrote about Proctor & Gamble’s push to be more “bullish” on Facebook, too. That two global conglomerates are pointedly beginning to focus energy and money on social media is a tangible testament to Facebook’s growing marketing power.

[See the full post here]

sara ines, July 5th 2010

Posted in Facebook, Inside Facebook, Marketing, News, Social Media, Twitter

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Fan Appz Building White-Label App Business for Marketers on Facebook

[An Inside Facebook post]

Since its founding in 2008, Santa Monica, Calif-based Fan Appz has built its Page management business around an enterprise and free version of its self-serve Page management software. It has most recently created a professional version for small- and medium-sized businesses that includes tools to enable users to create top 5 lists, quizzes, polls and other features on their Facebook Pages and other social media profiles.

As part of our ongoing series on companies that provide services to Page owners on Facebook, we recently spoke with founder Jon Siegal for more information.

“When I founded the company the business idea was, ‘Let’s build a suite of applications to help businesses and brands attract and retain customers, but do it using social media,’” he tells us. “We decided that we were going to build an application that businesses and brands could use to build and engage and grow their fan base, a suite that people can use to be productive right out of the gate.” Of the company’s many competitors, some have taken a similar approach, while others have opted to provide more customized services, focused on larger brands that want the special attention.

When Fan Appz hit the Page management scene in 2008, MySpace was still the number one social network in the US, but it was clear to Siegal that it would be Facebook that would transform how people interacted with businesses. Along the lines of what many other marketing-focused companies have thought, he tells us that Fan Appz wanted to offer companies a way to manage their social media marketing 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — something that’s hard to do if every campaign is custom built.

“If you’re into building custom software for people, it’s going to cost more and it’s going to slow you down,” he explains, noting that the company’s larger clients had three core goals: acquire an audience, grow that audience and make money from that audience.

Although the company didn’t share a lot of specific data, here are some key stats:

Its larger clients include the NBA, NASCAR, comedian George Lopez and the Tonight Show
It reaches more than 40 million Facebook users among tens of thousands of clients around the world
The company claims it has seen increases of 7 to 10 times in the number of video plays on a Facebook Page, a 55% click rate to web site increase and a quadrupling of customer sign ups on web sites
The products are built in English, but clients cab input their own content — so Fan Appz products are used in just about any languages you can think of — anything from Turkish to Hebrew.

When we asked what that expansion might include — integration with mobile or geo-location — his reply was unsurprising. “We want to build the integrated suite to where (customers) can reach out to fans wherever the fans are. If there’s something new down the road, we’re going to be there.”

For more information about page management companies and the tools they offer, see our Facebook Marketing Bible.

[See the full post here]

sara ines, June 23rd 2010

Posted in Facebook, Inside Facebook, Marketing, Social Media

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As AT&T Gears Up Social Media Customer Service Efforts, A Look at Its Facebook Activity

[An Inside Facebook post]

In the face of the launch of iPhone 4 and unrelenting customer dissatisfaction AT&T has set aside resources to focus more on its customers on social media. This discontent is registered by an average of at least 10,000 mentions of AT&T on social sites each day, the company told AdAge this week – if not more — so the company is responding by ramping up its social media customer service resources.

AT&T is now set to advertise its “social media customer care” on monthly bills and web sites to get more customers to take their service problems to social media outlets. Here’s a closer look at what the company has been doing to date on Facebook — but first, a little background.

The new focus is essentially an effort to shape online conversation about the AT&T brand, as AT&T’s Susan Bean said in the AdAge story: “We discovered that for social media to be successful we really needed there to be customer care. Otherwise all anyone would want to talk about is: ‘solve my problem.’”

AT&T’s service problems have generated some pretty specific criticism. Chris Foresman from Ars Technica created an extensive list, noting that Verizon’s 3G coverage was “impressive” by comparison. These criticisms include: Offering a 3G MicroCell to supplement bad service at a cost of hundreds of dollars, no monthly data rollover, an extra charge for tethering, added fees for any type of extra feature, security issues with customer data and generally bad customer satisfaction.

Right now AT&T’s main Facebook Page provides some clues as to why the company may be expanding its attention to social media. This Page promotes all manner of AT&T promotions, but also has tabs dedicated to the iPhone, Customer Care and New Wireless Plans, among others.

The 614,700-plus Likes on the Page allow for frequent complaints about service on the Wall — complaints that are quite often answered by comments. Page administrators are also very active on the Page’s discussion boards, which would seem to suggest that AT&T already had an active social media presence.

AT&T runs at least two other active Pages on Facebook. AT&T Latino only has about 560 Likes and basically promotes its main services, but in Spanish. The company’s AT&T Share Page, which is specifically for wireless services, has about 288,000 Likes and promotes a variety of specials. There are Facebook-specific deals on phones and other merchandise, a tab for users to go green and sign up for paperless statements, the Page promotes new phones, World Cup activity, AT&T specials, the iPhone 4 and information on its plans. There’s also a Customer Care tab.

AT&T hasn’t been the most active brand on Facebook, until recently

In December AT&T launched an interesting Facebook integration for its BlackBerry Bold 9700 that pulled personal information and photos and created a fictional suspense/action trailer for the fake movie “One Step Ahead” starring the Facebook user. The trailers were also being promoted with Monday Night Football television commercials. The company has also previously paid special attention to minorities with its Facebook marketing, particularly African-Americans and Hispanics.

Ultimately, AT&T’s social media efforts will only help the company so much. The fact is that iPhone users have no reason to be inherently loyal to AT&T — they’re just unable to obtain official support for Apple’s phone on other networks in the US.. In the face of such widespread service problems problems, it would seem that AT&T’s most logical move is to improve service, otherwise the company could hemorrhage customers if and when another company can supply the iPhone or other smartphone models catch up. To that end, AdAge reported that AT&T has plans to invest $18-19 billion to improve its networks.

[See the full post here]

sara ines, June 23rd 2010

Posted in Facebook, Inside Facebook, Marketing, News, Social Media, Twitter

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Facebook’s Video Stats Show Growth in Uploads and Views

[An Inside Facebook post]

Facebook disclosed this week that more than 20 million videos are uploaded to the social networking site every month, helping to generate more than 2 billion video views over the same period.

The pace at which people are uploading videos to Facebook has started to grow a lot more quickly in 2010 than it did in 2009, which isn’t surprising considering that Facebook itself has quickly grown to what we believe is now around 500 million monthly active users.

NewTeeVee reported that in March of 2009 Facebook reported an average of 12 million video uploads a month, or 415,000 a day, and that about 40% of these came from webcams. Facebook said that 14 million videos were being uploaded every month, as of September last year. The number increased by 2 million in the span of six months in 2009, and eight months later it increased by 8 million more uploads.

There’s also some comScore’s Video Metrix tracks online video views andfound that 178 million U.S. users watched a video in April. Of these Google ranked first in the number of unique viewers (YouTube), followed by Yahoo!, Fox Interactive Media, Vevo and Facebook.

Facebook ranked fifth, with more than 41.1 million unique viewers watching an average of 5.6 videos. By way of comparison, Google/YouTube had more than 136.2 million unique viewers watching an average of 96 videos. However, Facebook beat out CBS Interactive with 39.2 million uniques watching an average of 8.1 videos, Hulu with 38.7 million uniques watching an average of 24.7 videos, Viacom with 38.4 million uniques watching an average of 10 videos and the Turner Network, 32.5 million unique visitors watching 9.4 videos on average.

Facebook users may be watching fewer videos per person because they are busy doing other things, like commenting on status updates, browsing friends’ photos, and playing games.

Whatever the case, it seems Facebook’s video uploads are growing much faster now than they have been. This is probably related to more than a quarter of Facebook’s users now accessing the service via mobile devices(devices that more frequently than ever come equipped with video cameras).

[See the full post here]

sara ines, June 10th 2010

Posted in Facebook, Inside Facebook, Marketing, Social Media

Sara Inés Calderón

3 Comments

Boxing Your Way To Bodacious

TIP LIST FOR FINDING A BOXING GYM

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Barbara Talks To A Professor Studying Latina Adolescent Suicide

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