ianhillmedia

May 07, 2013

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Our Top Referrer Has Been Facebook Mobile Recently

Just an FYI, mobile is already here.

April 26, 2013

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How Facebook’s Business Plan Impacts News Organizations and Others With Pages

A random thought for this morning:

Facebook’s business plan, like that of most online companies, is based on selling its user data to advertisers. To succeed, it must do everything it can to encourage users to share as much data as possible.

News organizations and other businesses with Pages are not users. We are potential advertisers whose posts often discourage users from sharing information on Facebook. Business Pages regularly share links to other web sites that take users off Facebook entirely.

Therefore, it’s in Facebook’s best interest as a business to discourage Pages from sharing links. From a broader business standpoint, it’s also in Facebook’s best interest to limit the reach of Pages maintained by businesses that do not advertise. Those of us who oversee Pages for businesses have found that happening over the past several months.

I’m not hating on Facebook for this. It’s business.

In response, businesses that want to be successful on Facebook should adjust their strategies to treat the social network as a subscription service. Budget money to pay for Like ads every month. Like ads have the greatest ROI, which is understandable. They serve to promote use of Facebook.

Discuss.

March 09, 2013

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10 Questions to Answer Before You Join Another Social Network

It begins with a tweet or a status update on Facebook. Before you know it, you’re posting behind-the-scenes photos from your office on Instagram. Soon you’ve curated those photos into a board on Pinterest, or you’re recording a podcast and posting it on SoundCloud. Maybe you’re even re-blogging GIFs on Tumblr or meeting some of your fans through a Google+ hangout.

Then you look up from your computer at the clock on your office wall. You’re shocked to find that 8 or 10 or 12 hours has passed. You’ve barely started exploring all the ways to engage with your audience online.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you’re probably not alone. While there are a multitude of opportunities to engage with audiences online, there are still only 24 hours in a day. You can easily find yourself stretched too thin when you’re trying to manage accounts on several social networks.

So how can you determine where to best spend your limited time and resources? I worked with Kate Myers of NPR and Libby Peterek of KLRU to develop 10 questions you should ask yourself before you create your next social-networking account. Your answers can help you decide if jumping on the network hyped as “the next Facebook” is worth your effort. Click the headline of this post to learn more from the PBS MediaShift blog.

March 01, 2013

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7 Steps to Effective Engagement

Earlier today I gave a presentation on using social media for engagement to the California School Public Relations Association spring conference. You can check out that presentation here:

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the streaming media to play during the presentation. Here’s the audio: And the video, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in social media and engagement: