Designing a landing page is a challenging job, as it requires more than JUST DESIGNING GOOD GRAPHICS. At the end of the day what the product marketer or product owner needs is a high converting landing page. There are various do’s and dont’s that applies while designing a landing page. After hours of surfing through internet, I found some really interesting resources that varies from teaching you to start designing a perfect landing page to techniques of creating high converting ones’.
Whether you are an internet marketer, social media enthusiast or a blogger; an insightful social media blog read suffices all your needs. I am counting down 5 top social media blogs that have proved to be most indulging ones in social media giant ‘Facebook’. All of them present the absolute Social Media thought leaders for me. Here is why they are worth being called so!
Noted by Time Magazine as ‘one stop shop’ for social media; Mashable has over 838,400 fans on facebook. Founded by Pete Cashmore, the website’s primary focus is social media news, but also covers news and developments in mobile, entertainment, online video, business, web development, technology and gadgets. It can be a great insight or resource for your next blog write-up.
Mashable- social media blog
Popularly known as ‘your guide to the social media jungle’, this blog has endless case studies, interviews and reviews to help businesses discover how to best use Facebook, LinkedIn, and twitter strategies. Undoubtedly, Social Media Examiner enjoys the second highest fan following on Facebook.
Social media examiner - social media blog
You might recognize Mari Smith for her fantastic smile; however she’s more known for her advice on learning the art of Facebook and Twitter marketing. With more than 60,994 fans on Facebook, no doubt she’s one of the most sought after social media speaker.
Mari Smith - Facebook Marketing Expert
One of the highly recommended social media blog in the online marketing community, Copyblogger offers great online marketing, copywriting and blogging advises. This social media blog now enjoys more than 10,000Facebook fans.
Copyblogger is the highly recommended social media blog
Run by Fransisco, South Mouths strives to help people and businesses create better online presence through social media. Social mouths have one of the most detailed and exciting corporate strategies.
Social Mouths is the fastest growing social media blog.
These are the top blogs on Facebook; do you have your own list of great social media blogs? Please feel free to post it the comments!
Sources : http://cdn.socialmediaexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/ck-sme-agorapulse.png?9d7bd4
Source: douglaswray
I have already acquainted you with IFTTT in an earlier post and there have been several improvements to the application since then. If you have tried it then you pretty much know of it as a luxury that saves both your time and effort.
I heart IFTTT so much that I am counting down some of the great recipes that are hard to disregard.
Text to escape - ifttt
Ever got yourself into never-ending arguments between friends or a date so bad that you just couldn’t wait to leave? With this IFTTT recipe, you can text IFTTT and receive a customized phone call to get you out of any awful situation. You can create a number of messages for different situations you expect the need to escape from.
When Facebook profile picture changes, update Twitter profile picture ifttt recipe
This IFTTT recipe can come handy if you want to use same profile picture across social networks; you can automate the process by forcing twitter to update your profile picture when you change your Facebook profile picture.
Send email attachments to Dropbox - ifttt recipe
Do you have corporate email accounts that are constantly running out of web space for email attachments? With this specific recipe you can back up all your attachments to Dropbox not having to archive them manually.
Receive a text message, if it’s going to rain or snow
With this recipe you can let web be your virtual umbrella so that you’re not caught in rain or snow. You can easily receive notifications from all of your favorite services.
Backup Facebook Tagged Photos to Dropbox - ifttt recipe
When you are tagged in someone else’s photos on Facebook, they control the exposure. If you want to make sure to get a copy of these photos; so that you can even go through them when you’re offline, it’s when this particular IFTTT recipe comes real handy. This recipe automatically pushes your Facebook tagged photos to a pre-designated location on your Dropbox.
Thank #FF - ifttt recipe
Friday follows or #FF is a great way for Twitter users to share their favorite Twitter users with their own followers. Now when you get mentioned in a #FF by another Twitter user to thank them automatically!
Tweet about the new YouTube video upload
Do you run a product specific channel on YouTube? If yes, then this IFTTT recipe lets you automatically update your status on Twitter once video gets uploaded on YouTube; saving your time from having to open Twitter and update the status separately.
Do you use IFTTT? Feel free to share your favorite recipes in the comments.
Pinterest, a two-year old social wishlist that lets users collect and manage their interests is already becoming a significant source or traffic for retailers’ websites. A data from Compete indicates Pinterest’s traffic has increased more than fourfold between September 2011 and December 2011, bringing in 7.51 million visitors in December alone. While there’s no action for potential customers to buy your products directly from the site, Pinterest has the marketing potential to pin popular images (with links back to the original source) that can get repined on hundreds of other users’ boards.
One of the best ways to get your company noticed is to start following the big names on Pinterest. This is a proven method on Twitter: When you follow popular figures, and they follow you back, other twitter users get the message and follow the leader.
Here are the 10 big figures on Pinterest with maximum followers, the list is inherently subjective:-
Ben Silvermann currently has 882458 followers
2. Jane Wang: 2183950 followers
Jane Wang has got 2183950 followers
3. Christine Martinez: 992204 followers
Blog: http://www.milestostyle.com/
Christine Martinez has got 992204 followers
4. Emilee Richardson: 399690 followers
Blog: loveemileejean.blogspot.com
Emilee, a life style blogger has 399690 follower
5. Inge Falappino: 412376 followers
Falappino, a DIY enthusiast has 412376 followers
6. Joy Cho: 824657 followers
Blog: www.ohjoy.blogs.com
Joy Cho currently has 824657 followers
7. Evan Sharp: 694500 followers
Sharp, among 3 founders of Pinterest has 694500 followers
8. The Perfect Palette: 242537 followers
Blog: www.theperfectpalette.com
The Perfect Palette currently has 242537 followers
9. Victoria Smith: 476436 followers
Blog: http://www.sfgirlbybay.com/
Victoria currently has got 476436 followers
10. Sha Hwang: 162748 followers
Sha Hwang has got 162748 followers
While you are at it, don’t forget to check out http://pinterest.com/ishuinterest/!
Have you come across any interesting Pinterest accounts worth following? Let me know what you think of the selection, and feel free to suggest other top users.
Ever wish that you could automate some of the actions that you find yourself doing from one web service to another over and over? Yes, you can!! With IFTTT you can actually put the internet to work for you by creating a task that fits the structure: if this then that!
There’s simply no catch; IFTTT is a way of making all those different web tools or app services you’ve signed up for actually work for you. It lets you create your own social curation tools that can automate actions on social media networks or applications after an action occurs on a separate social network or application. For instance, when I have a mention on twitter I can automatically thank for the mention, greet my new followers or when I have a new video upload in YouTube I can tweet about it at the same time.
IFTTT works with a number of programs like twitter, Facebook, your web based email, Gmail, Flickr and so on; which it calls ‘Channels’. Currently, you can connect to 39 channels and create numerous tasks by carrying out ‘IF’ instructions on items in the programs.
How does ifttt work
If you have a new follower on Twitter, send them a direct thank you message automatically.
Note: You will be required to activate the channels, before you prolong creating tasks!!
How to create a task and a recipe in ifttt
IFTTT turns your favourite web services into Lego blocks and enables you to save time curating content and automate activities such as monitoring your brand online. Your imagination is the only limit of what you can achieve with this great tool.
Pinterest has been one of the hottest social networking site; it garnered 11 million visitors in the week of a dec.17 alone. The site has also cracked the current list of top 10 social networks and it’s technically ‘invite only’.
Pinterest is a virtual pinboard that lets you share, discuss and organize interesting things you find all in your life such as pictures and videos. You can create pins in any imaginable topics, from table cloths to trendy rides to Nasa missions; possibilities are endless. Once you know your interests, you can manage them in pinboards.
Organize all your interests in pinboards
Pinterest currently has a rapidly growing user base that tweets and shares pins across the web that are beginning to spread like wildfire. People use pinboards to decorate their homes, plan their weddings, collect inspiration for designing projects, and organize favorite recipes and so much more. As your interests or ‘Pins’ can be managed in almost 32 wide categories.
Add pins to your pinboards
Add a $ or £ to the pin description and Pinterest will automatically add a price banner to the photo. The pin will then appear in the gifts category, within the pin, remember to link to the website where fans can buy. Just remember to remove the pin once you’ve sold out!
boost your business by selling pins
It’s no secret that all Pinterest manages all pins in thumbnails, so the pin needs be just attractive as the content it’s linked to. That’s right when adding a pin, you can link it to your website or ‘post a pin from a URL’. With sites like Pinterest it’s not only possible to promote yourself but also get encouraged.
Installing pin it bookmarklet in Google Chrome
Pinterest is also available through an official iphone application or you can also use the mobile version in m.pinterest.com.
iphone application for Pinterest
When you create your Pinterest account, you can choose to connect your Twitter and facebook accounts, along with your personal website. Not only do the account widgets appear below your profile bio, but you can also choose to share your pins across the networks or embed them into your website.
Social angle of Pinterest
At present Pinterest is invite only, you can join by either requesting an invite directly through Pinterest or receiving an invitation from a user that is currently registered on Pinterest. Once you request an invite Pinterestsends you an invite within a few days. Feel free to leave a comment here and I’ll try to send as many invites as I can. Happy Pinning!!
Request an invite in Pinterest
Use Google Blog Search for better and fresh search results
I first came across this simple and effective blog search engine from Google through ‘Social Media Examiner’, thanks to their fantastic list of ’12 Social media tools recommended by the pros’. Google blog search is a special Google blog search engine that indexes nothing but blogs, whether you’re looking for internet marketing tips, book reviews, sports news, recipes or anything else, it provides information in any topic.
What it’s good for?
Search results include all blogs, not just those published through Blogger; the blog index is continually updated, so search results are always fresh and up-to-date. You can search not just for blogs written in English but in any of the 35 specific languages using the advanced search options; also by default search results include blogs written in all languages.
Google blogs core feature is that it shows you not only how many different blogs have written about a particular topic, but also within what period of time. It also blends in some of Google’s trends prowess to show you how a story’s prominence has increased or decreased by the hour. What I like most about it is that it features the most popular stories in the blogosphere on Blog search homepage.
Getting listed in Google blog search:-
If your blog publishes a site feed, then you can set up automatic pinging for your blog or manually submit your blog for inclusion. Google periodically crawls and refreshes manually added blogs.
Google blog search is an ideal tool to explore the blogging universe more effectively; it’s never been so easy to find relevant blogs for writing ideas and to comment on.
