Where will social media show up next?

Today I attended a funeral and was told that I could have stayed at home and watched live streaming video instead. I turned around and looked. Sure enough, mounted up high on the back wall was a video camera. There really is no privacy any more. You can now attend some funerals from home or anywhere you can grab some wifi.

I am not sure if I am comfortable with that or not, but it does really show that all sorts of businesses are on the “live streaming video” bandwagon. Maybe caskets will someday be covered with advertising like race cars so people viewing will see their logos. How far will it go? No one knows for sure.

Some religious services are also streamed live. Not feeling well? No worries. You can attend services via the internet while sitting at home in your jammies.

If you can stream an event, people will watch, if you get the word out. You can stream events through several sites including You Tube, Livestream and Ustream. Google+ has hangouts, where multiple people can chat live via webcam and millions more can watch. Using this technology can, not only help grow your business, but actually change the way we all do business.

I can remember way, way back when I was in college. A professor told my class about how we would one day have a card, similar to a credit card, that would allow people to travel with no cash. Money would come right out of a person’s checking account. Every business would accept them. Of course, we know that debit cards exist now. But back in the day, that sounded crazy.

Online coupons that are scanned from cell phones at the cash register are already available. PayPal and credit card companies offer gadgets that connect to a cell phone. The business owner can simply swipe a credit card through the gadget. The client signs the phone with their finger to make a charge or payment. Can you imagine what might come next?

I talked to a friend the other day about business cards. He predicts there will be a business card where the image changes and maybe even has video. How far are we from that? There are already animated picture frames, why not a business card?

Even though social media is my business, I am hearing about new apps and sites every day. Some are great, some not so much. But the technology is changing daily. To stay on top of things with your business, you need to change with the technology and not fight against it.

Swinging out on Vine

At first I was apprehensive. Isn’t that the way with every new social media? I want to try it, but it’s different. Along with most people, I am not so good with change. And social media is constantly changing!

So, what is Vine, anyway? Think of Instagram with a 6-second video. In fact that’s what Twitter is calling it and they are the company who released it. It’s a video sharing app, but here’s the fun part… the videos are only a few seconds long and they are a continuous loop. 

Here's a link to a Vine video.

All you have to do to take the video is hold your finger down. Let go, reposition things, hold your finger again. You can take a continuous video, or start and stop several times. It is user-friendly, which makes it more fun and bound to be a huge hit.

How can you grow your business with Vine? I don’t mean to put down consumers, especially since we are all consumers, but the majority of people have the attention span of a gnat these days. A 6-second video is just what is needed to get a quick point across to the consumer.

Do you have an amazing product? Show it! Take one second from far away, get a little closer for a second or two, keep moving forward and adding to the video until you are close to the product. There’s your video.

Do you clean houses? Show a messy room for a second, a person dusting for a second, vacuuming for a second, etc. In the end, you show the clean room.

Have a clothing store? Show someone trying on clothes. Make it like a time lapse series. A person wearing one outfit, then another and another. There is your video.

Teaching your dog to sit? Same thing. Show it!

Once you create your video, you can share it on Vine, Twitter and/or Facebook. You can “like” and make comments on other people’s videos as well.

They are organized by hashtag (#), which categorizes the videos. Be sure to add a description and hashtag when posting your videos.

There is a bit of bad news for anyone without an iphone or ipod touch. It is not available for other formats just yet.

Instagram, the inauguration and growing your business

While those of us in Baltimore are still celebrating last night’s Ravens win, the rest of the country is getting watching the inauguration and enjoying MLK Day. According to CNN, this will be the biggest event in the history of Instagram. Never before have so many people been able to use their cell phones to send messages out to the while world.

As photo sharing programs grow in popularity, you too can take advantage of this media to share photos of your business. Millions of people are out there waiting to see your images. Make them interesting and engaging and you will surely succeed.

How do you accomplish that? One way is to add a comment that is a call to action. Pose a question that you hope will elicit responses. Put a photo of a product you sell and ask people about it. Try to make your photos interesting and not just a picture of an item with a plain background. Have someone hold it, shoot it from a bit of an angle, do something to make the photo come to life.

Blurry photos are never good. No matter what filters you add or what program you use, it will still be blurry. Take a little time to get it right.

A funny or amusing photo will often get people to comment or share the picture. Adorable animal photos are extremely popular as are funny baby pictures. Photo bombing pictures, where a person or animal seems to have popped up out of nowhere taking over the photo, are always a favorite.

If you are well-versed in Photoshop, it can make all the difference in the world. Using filters, special effects and cropping will enhance the picture. Effective use of Photoshop to add a humorous element to the photo will add a little magic to your image.

So on this inauguration day, think about ways you can engage and entertain your own audience with the passion that this day holds for Americans.

Great content gets great results

Most websites are full of words, but how good is that content? Some sites have SEO (search engine optimization) articles that, while they have all the necessary keywords, the articles either do not make sense or the keywords are over used. The articles seem wordy and walk around the subject, never actually getting to the point.

Conversely, sites with interesting, interactive or unique content will grab the attention of the reader and urge them to read more. People return to those sites over and over again.

One of the easiest ways to grab attention is to change the information on the site. Of course, that is how blogs work. Hopefully, you update your blog often to keep people coming back. Giving high value content entices people to the site.

Content does not have to be words. Everyone loves a good photo or piece of artwork. Add graphics, photos or infographics to your pages, follow up by using Instagram and Pinterest to promote them. You will see more activity on your page.

By using Google Analytics, you can see what social media works for you and what does not. Just add the code to your website and you can start using this tool free of charge. If you use Blogger for your blog, there is a built-in Blogger version of Analytics that is already in use. You can find it in the “overview” section and it is called “stats.” If you use social media, you really need to make sure it is working and if not, change what you are doing.

Social media year in review

This has been the most spectacular year for those of us involved in social media. The entire industry has grown in leaps and bounds. More entrepreneurs and companies are using it to help grow their businesses. Athletes, musicians and individuals are so involved in social media that they use it multiple times every day.

Here are some of the highlights of 2012:

• Facebook stock goes public. Mark Zuckerberg gets even richer.
• Facebook buys Instagram for a big pile of money.
• Obama is called the “cool” president, has impromptu visit on Reddit and crashes the system.
• Infographics are on the rise, using pictures and words to get a message to huge numbers of people.
• Twitter had a record number of tweets during Super Storm Sandy.
• Angry Cat and other fun memes flood social media.
• Pinterest becomes 6^th most popular social media.
• Finding lost kids is enhanced with social media. Since it is incredibly fast, it gets the word out almost immediately.
• Gangnam Style goes viral. Do you know how to do that dance?
• Find lost pets, rehoming pets. Gets the word out faster and to more people than traditional methods.
• The new MySpace – it’s bigger, better than ever and making a comeback.
• Instagram changes policy, people get angry, Instagram changes it back in a matter of a couple days.
• School shooting in Newtown, CN has social media ablaze with outrage, gun control opinions, tributes and an outpouring of emotions.

No one wants to read text these days. That’s why this list is a list, in bullet form. Infographics are snowballing in popularity because the graphics make it simpler than a paragraph of words, to get the information to the masses. People all over the world want instantaneous information and they do not want to spend a lot of time reading it.

The best thing that happened in 2012 with social media is that people now take this method of communication seriously – more now, than ever before. So, here’s to the end of 2012 and to watching social media grow even bigger than anyone ever imagined in 2013!

Instagram chief bends to pressure

The people have spoken. After the deluge of people bombarding instagram over their recently announced policies to take ownership of all photos beginning Janaury 2013, they have scrapped the idea.

Instagram CEO, Kevin Systrom wrote, “The concerns we heard about from you the most focused on advertising, and what our changes might mean for you and your photos.”

While claiming that people misunderstood his intentions, Systrom continued, “Because of the feedback we have heard from you, we are reverting this advertising section to the original version that has been in effect since we launched the service in October 2010.”

Once again, this is proof of how powerful social media is. In just a matter of a couple days, the photo sharing app changed its plan. The announcement was made, people were appalled and began deleting the app or simply stopped using it.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, purchased the popular Instagram in 2012 for about a billion dollars in stock and cash. With over 100,000 million users, he could not afford for everyone to switch to another way to share photos.

Twitter is ramping up its photo sharing feature. It is now more flexible and user-friendly to compete with other apps. People can post pictures directly from the Twitter app. I often use this photo sharing feature when I am posting on Twitter.

When using a photo app to grow your business, there are so many options. During the past two days, I tried a number of other apps, but didn’t find anything that I liked as much as Instagram.

While Pinterest is a nice app, without the photo editing options Instagram has, it has a different focus. Pinterest is more about sharing photos you see on websites and less about promoting your own photos.

Since I am one of the multitude of Instagram users, I am thrilled that they will be changing their proposed plans. And I feel good about using the app again.

Instagram’s latest policy may cause them to go extinct

After all of the great times we’ve had with Instagram, the latest news might be the end of the popular app. Starting mid-January, Instagram, which was recently purchased by Facebook, has the rights to use any photos posted on the app. They can even use the photos for the purposes of advertising their product or selling photos without even giving any credit to the person who took the photo. What’s up with that? 

This is a perfect example of how social media can create change in a company. People have about a month to start bombarding Instagram with angry messages about how they want their photos to belong to them and not to be used or sold without compensation. 

Recent updates have given more options to the Instagram app. They added another photo style and changed the look of the program. This is supposed to make it more attractive to users. But the idea of the program selling photos without compensating or even acknowledging their users seems a bit unfair. There are plenty of other companies, like Hipstimatic, will be happy to have new users switch to their product.

I noticed that a few of my Facebook friends posted that they closed their Instagram accounts today. National Geographic has suspended posting photos as of this evening. I have a friend who is a photographer for them and he makes crazy money on each photo. Knowing that Instragram can use photos for free that after they pay tons of money to their photographers is going to keep them from posting anything. Their pictures were honestly the most amazing things I’ve seen on Instagram [not including family stuff].

This situation is quite a big deal in the realm of social media. A lot of people promote their businesses by using this app, but are not going to give Instagram free access to photos they pay to use themselves.

You have until January 16, 2013 to quit using the app or accept the fact that your photos are no longer your own. There are other, not as popular photo apps, that can be used instead. Whether Instagram changes their policy may depend on complaints and whether or not people jump ship and stop using this app.