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New FTC Guidelines Affect Bloggers & Social Media Marketing

admin — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:21:46 +0000

Under new FTC guidelines released this week, bloggers and other “word of mouth” marketers who make an endorsement must disclose if there are material connections with the seller of the product or service. A material connection can include payments or free products received by the endorsers.

According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) press release (5 Oct 2009):

“The post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service. Likewise, if a company refers in an advertisement to the findings of a research organization that conducted research sponsored by the company, the advertisement must disclose the connection between the advertiser and the research organization. And a paid endorsement – like any other advertisement – is deceptive if it makes false or misleading claims.”

Given the core of social media is transparency and honest discussion, most bloggers and word of mouth marketers agree with this policy. We have a published disclosure policy on this blog and have encouraged other bloggers and social media marketers to do the same in the past. However, for social media marketing, the method for disclosure is not as straight forward. We occasionally send tweets about our (Seven Aspens’) clients and/or their products. How do you disclose in a 140 character Twitter message?

With potential hefty fines looming for violators, this is a good time to review your policies, ensure compliance and learn the best practices. To assist in the education process, the Word of Mouth Marketers Association (WOMMA) is hosting a free webinar Thursday, October 8, to help explain what the new FTC regulations mean for marketers, advertisers and bloggers. Additionally, the Social Media Business Council provides a great Disclosure Best Practices Toolkit.

Dallas Twestival to Benefit The Women’s Museum

admin — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 02:44:35 +0000

What is a Twestival?

A Twestival or Twitter-Festival is a global series of events organized by volunteers around the world under short timescales via Twitter, which brings people offline for a great cause. The first Twestival Global happened on 12 February 2009 with 202 cities around the world hosting events and rallying fundraising efforts around one cause, charity: water. $250k+ was raised on one day through these events and online donations which resulted in 55 wells with 17,000 people impacted in Uganda, Ethiopia, and India.

Twestival Local

Twestival Local events are taking place in cities around the world between 10-13 September 2009. Twestival is an international movement where people meet offline for one night, have fun and do some good for an important cause in the process. Twestival Local gives cities an opportunity to select a local cause to support.

Dallas Twestival

The Dallas Twestival will be held on September 12 @ 6:00PM @ Mockingbird Station. Proceeds will benefit The Women’s Museum at Fair Park – a home for programs and exhibits where people can honor the past and explore the contributions of women throughout history. Purchase tickets online – hurry quantities are limited.

Hope to see you there!

A Simple Way to Keep Up With Your Tweeps

admin — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:36:57 +0000

If you are on Twitter, as you follow more and more people, it can be difficult to keep up with your close friends. There is a really simple solution to keep an eye out for their latest tweets.

Using iGoogle and RSS Feeds to Track Tweets

iGoogle lets you create a personalized homepage that contains a Google search box at the top and your choice of any number of gadgets below. All iGoogle pages start out with a Home tab on the left side of the page and you can add new tabs to organize your content. The first step is to add a tab for your Twitter Friends.
Next, with that tab open, click on the “Add Stuff” link in the upper right hand corner.

On the Adding Stuff page, at the bottom of the left column you should see:

Click on the link.

In another tab on your browser, go to the Twitter page of the Twitter user you want to track.

For example, to track Dallas Marketing’s tweets, you would go to http://twitter.com/dallasmarketing

On the bottom of the right sidebar, under the Following images, you should see:

Right click the link and choose “Copy link address.”

Window back to the iGoogle page, click the “Add feed or gadget” link, paste the link and click the Add button.

Click the “Back to iGoogle home” link on the top left and your feed should be on the page.

Simply repeat for all your Twitter friends that you want to track. Another use for businesses - set up a tab to track your competitors, customers and alliances or partners. Then just pop over and check on your Twitter tabs a few times throughout the day as you work to check in on everyone.

Follow Dallas Marketing Services on Twitter.
You follow, we follow back.

Twitter Goes Gray – Oldies But Goodies on Twitter

admin — Wed, 06 May 2009 13:37:46 +0000

By now most everyone has heard that more than 60% of US

Twitter users fail to return the following month. But, how about the graying of Twitter?

Twitter Demographics

Citing comScoreMatrix, eMarketer recently published a Twitter Demographic breakdown that shows the largest percentage of tweeters are age 25 – 54.

So, 45-54 year olds are the most likely to visit Twitter.

Guess that means you can forget those Mother’s Day cards for Mom and Grandma – just send them a tweet.

Follow Dallas Marketing Services on Twitter.
You follow, we follow back.
Twitterific.

Do You Need A Wingman? Twitter Does – Now There’s Something to Tweet About

admin — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 13:22:01 +0000

Apparently Twitter needed a Wingman to answer to the most common question of the Twitterverse, “How is Twitter going to make money?”

The Twitter Wingman

According to Wired’s Danny Dumas and Steven Leckart, Twitter is introducing the Wingman, a handheld, pager-like device for all things Twitter on the go. So Tweeps, give it a look and, of course, then tweet about it.

Follow Dallas Marketing Services on Twitter.
You follow, we follow back.
Twitterific.

New Study Shows Marketers are Moving to Social Media

admin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:38:28 +0000

A new study shows that marketers are slowly making the transition to social media marketing with 63% stating they will increase their social media marketing spend in 2009.

clipped from www.emarketer.com

Let’s talk about budgets.
It took a while.

Even though tens of millions of users were flocking to social media sites every day, most marketers stayed away. They either didn’t understand how to join the conversations—without sounding like shills—or they were frightened away by the prospect of associating their brands with questionable content.

But things are changing.

Companies are learning how to leverage social media and tap into the rising tide of consumers participating in social network sites, blogs, wikis and Twitter.

According to the “The ROI on Social Media Marketing” report by Aberdeen Group, sponsored by Visible Technologies, marketers have developed the tools and methodologies to drive marketing ROI by listening to and learning from customers and prospects.

The money is following the methods.

Aberdeen found that 63% of the companies in their survey (defined as best-in-class) planned to increase their social media marketing budgets this year.

Are you engaging with social media brand evangelists?

“Companies use multiple approaches to identify the individuals who wield the greatest amount of influence in any given topic area and to track changes in their influence over time,” said Jeff Zabin of Aberdeen. “Best-in-class companies engage these top influencers as brand evangelists, and then track the impact of their words and actions in terms of return on marketing investment.”

eMarketer estimates that social network advertising alone will rise over 17% this year to $2.35 billion, up from $2 billion in 2008.

New Twitter Directory: WeFollow-A User Powered Twitter Directory

admin — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 13:39:58 +0000

WeFollow is a new user powered Twitter directory by Digg’s Kevin Rose. With a sleek interface and #hashtag directory, it is catching on fast.

Add Yourself to the We Follow Twitter directory

We Follow lists the most popular Twitterers by categories created with #hashtags. Adding yourself is simple: Sign in to your Twitter account, visit WeFollow, click on the “Add Yourself to WeFollow” button

then simply add 3 hashtags that describe you or your Twitter topics.

What, pray tell, is a hashtag?

A hashtag is a way to create groups of content on Twitter - they function like tags on other social media sites, like Flickr. So, when you tweet, if you are speaking about the subject of marketing, and you use the word marketing, add a #hashtag – #marketing – to add additional context and metadata to the tweet.

#hashtag.org tracks tweets by hashtags in real time, so check it out too. This is a great way to find others to follow with similar interests. Looking for tweets on Dallas? Here’s the Dallas tweet directory on #hashtags.org.

Dallas Marketing Services is a marketing blog
published by Seven Aspens Consulting

Plurk: A Social Journal for Plurking~Micro-blogging on a Timeline

admin — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 15:50:42 +0000

Micro-blogging platform Plurk is a social journal that puts “your life, on the line.”

A timeline that is. Plurkers add plurks (up to 140 character updates) to their Plurk timeline via text, instant messaging or the web. The timeline can then be viewed and commented on by other Plurkers that have been granted access.

So, about now you have to be thinking -“Oh, it’s Twitter with a timeline.”

Sort of. Plurk, like Twitter, is a free social networking and micro-blogging service. But, a look at The Plurk Rule Book sheds light on the differences pretty quickly, such as:

“Only add REAL friends to your friends list” & “Limit your friends list to your closest buddies” (as opposed to collecting as many Twitter followers as possible)

“Try not to plurk more than 30 times a day – it’s annoying” (Oh, is it ever)

Plurks can be:

Qualified with color- -coded words for visual expression of thoughts (thinks, feels, etc.)
Submitted freestyle without qualifiers – the Plurk FAQs says this is “great for older or more expressive users.”
Simple plurks or Advanced plurks. Advanced plurks can use additional options such as being sent to a specific segment of plurkers.
Responded to by other plurkers with the responses nested in the plurk on the timeline, similar to blog comments

Text links can be added to plurks by simply typing the URL followed by the desired text in paranthesis – example: http://dallasmarketingservices.com (A great source for free marketing ideas) would result in: A great source for free marketing ideas. Plurk automatically converts a URL that ends with .gif, .jpg or .png into a thumbnail of the image and adds the thumbnail to your timeline.

Like other social networks, Plurk provides the ability to add friends, fan other users and create groups called cliques. Plurk also has a Plurk widget that can be added to a blog or website to display your latest Plurk activity.

Privacy settings include timeline visibility by friends only, FOF – friends of friends, or the world. Plurk recommends only using the public settings if “you are over 18 and understand the risks that come with sharing your lifestream with people you may not know.”

Plurk was launched in May 2008 and has a growing, loyal community. Find out more from the Plurk FAQs or sign up and start plurking today.

Social Media Site, Pownce, Closing Down in Two Weeks

admin — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 03:13:50 +0000

Social media site, Pownce, announced today that it will be closing the site down in two weeks.

According to the Pownce blog, they will “be closing down the main Pownce website two weeks from today, December 15th. Since we’d like for you to have access to all your Pownce messages, we’ve added an export function. Visit pownce.com/settings/export/ to generate your export file. You can then import your posts to other blogging services such as Vox, TypePad, or WordPress.”

Pownce entered the social media world about the same time as Twitter, and although many Pownce users felt Pownce had superior features, Twitter’s meteoric rise in popularity makes for tough competition.

All the World’s A Twitter

admin — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:25:14 +0000

Twitter is one of the fastest growing social media sites on the internet.

The free service is very simple: users access Twitter from a computer or cell phone and post short messages (less than 140 characters) called tweets to a network of users. Twitter account profiles can be marked private or public. Users can follow other users, receiving those users’ tweets whenever a tweet is posted.

Twitter Users: According to Wikipedia, as of July 2008 there were 2,200,000 registered Twitter accounts. To locate users, enter their name or a location in the Twitter search bar to view a list of profiles.

Who’s on Twitter? Barack Obama has 59,523 followers and will follow you back (sorry, John McCain isn’t on Twitter) or search the Top 100 followed users, Top 100 followers, or other Top Twitterers lists at TwitDir to find Twitterers across a broad spectrum of backgrounds. <

Dallas on Twitter: A search for “Dallas” on Twitter returns approximately 1200 users. Dallasites on the Top 100 list include:

♦ Cali Lewis at 16th with 17,773 followers
♦ Bloggers Blog at 35 with 14,756 followers
♦ Woot at 41 with 13,022 followers

Dallas businesses on Twitter include Southwest Airlines, Dallas Morning News, and The Dallas Stars.

Twitter Business Use: Many businesses, such as Dell, Whole Foods, Starbucks, AT&T and Jet Blue, have found Twitter to be a useful communication tool and a marketing and PR engine. A user group from TI, self-named the Texas Instruments Tweeple, is a great example of a business collaboration use of Twitter.

Getting started: Setting up a Twitter account in simple and free.

To customize a profile page, go to the Design tab under Settings to upload a background and customize text colors.

Once you are up and running, get the most out of Twitter with the Mashable list of Twitter Tools listing over 140 Twitter tools.

Follow Dallas Marketing Services on Twitter
and catch our most recent update in the left sidebar of this page.