How to Make an Epic Facebook Timeline Cover Photo

It’s a torturous choice–having to pick *just one* photo for your Facebook Timeline cover.

You’ve narrowed it down to 10. It’d be a shame to hurt any of your photos feelings by leaving them out.

Why not use all of them?

Pic Scatter turns an album of your photos into a photo collage. It’s just the right size and shape to fit your Timeline cover and will directly upload it for you, too!

Instead of hiding in an album, all of your favorite photos will be front and center right where they belong.

Visit www.picscatter.com to customize your Facebook timeline cover.

6 QR Code Mistakes You’re Making and How To Fix Them!

Over the past couple of months the folks at QRlicious had the privilege of watching and helping people create marvelous and intriguing QR code campaigns for everything from donation drives to enhanced product labels. Unfortunately, during this same time span they’ve also been victims and witnesses of the many poorly executed QR code campaigns that seem to be lurking around every street corner. You know the ones – small, black and white, scanning takes you to a full blown flash based website… Frankly, it’s embarrassing to the whole QR code industry. QRlicious has identified the 6 most common QR code  biggest mistakes you can make and how to avoid them!

Problem: Too small to scan!
Solution: Make it loud and show it proud! You want people to see and scan your QR code so don’t be afraid to amp up the size a little! Too many people are printing QR codes smaller then an inch or two and half centimeters. This can create many problems when trying to scan in low lighting and if your QR code has a lot of information (like a vCard) then it might not scan at all! Yikes! So make sure you are printing and displaying your QR codes as BIG as possible!

Problem: Ugly black and white QR code!
Solution: Chances are you know the solution to this and a good amount of you have probably already fixed this by getting yourself a custom branded QR code from us! Branded QR codes help you gain the trust of your audience and it gives them an idea of what they are in for when the scan your QR code. Customizing your QR code also helps you stand out from black and white QR crowd, which is going to become more and more important as adoption continues to rise among businesses and consumers.

Read the full article at Qrlicious.com

Crowdsourcing Explained [Infographic]

Crowdsourcing has attracted the attention of brand marketers as a way to engage customers using social media. The term has become popular with businesses, authors, and journalists as shorthand for the trend of leveraging the mass collaboration enabled by Web 2.0 technologies to achieve business goals.

Crowdsourcing is a distributed problem-solving and production model. In the classic use of the term, problems are broadcast to an unknown group of solvers in the form of an open call for solutions. Users—also known as the crowd—typically form into online communities, and the crowd submits solutions. The crowd also sorts through the solutions, finding the best ones. These best solutions are then owned by the entity that broadcast the problem in the first place—the crowdsourcer—and the winning individuals in the crowd are sometimes rewarded.

Financial Regulator Lays Out Guideposts for Social Media

The financial industry now has some clarity on the use of social media, something the industry has been wary of using in the past amid concerns about remaining within the bounds of complex rules governing public communications. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority says employees launching a communication platform must obtain initial approval by the company but not for the postings that follow, although these posts must be retained after publishing.

Have you mastered your social media strategy? Here are 10 things you should know.

Have you mastered your social media strategy? Do you know how to leverage the power of social media to create meaningful relationships, build your business and learn from your virtual mentors?

Ok, you can admit it. Social media is still somewhat of an enigma to most people and you may be one of them. Sure, we have our guru’s and a relatively small number of business owners who have experienced astounding success with their social media strategy, but the average entrepreneur remains baffled by the mystery of these communities.

10 Things a Solopreneur Should Know About Social Media

1. All social media are not the same. LinkedIn should be treated differently than Facebook, which is different from Twitter, which is different from Google+.

2. It takes time and frequency to build trust in any social media, just as in any relationship. Social media is a tool, not a destination.

3. Use all of your communities as a Business Development tool to source highly targeted potential clients/customers.

4. Use LinkedIn to establish Thought Leadership through the growth of a community of highly passionate and engaged people. You can even write a blog that is linked into Facebook, Twitter & Google+

Read the full article by Marla Tabaka on Inc.com

Measuring Social Media ROI & Goal Conversions with Google Analytics 5

First off, I want to preface this post with the fact that social media shouldn’t be done only with the goal of making direct conversions. Social media is about building new relationships, generating word of mouth marketing, and strengthening brand loyalty with your customers.

That said, I know that there are a lot of you who may be curious on the monetary value of your social media campaign, have clients that are asking the value of the social media services you provide for them, or simply want to learn more about how your social media strategy is leading to conversions.

The following are the steps you must implement to be able to see the return on investment and goal conversions for your social media campaign.

Read the full post by Kristi Hines at Unbounce

How Wells Fargo Tracks Twitter Interactions

In this video I interview Kimarie Matthews, vice president of social web for Wells Fargo.

Kimarie shares how Wells Fargo uses Twitter to improve customer support. You’ll also discover how she documents Twitter interactions to monitor customer sentiment and uses the data to develop a business case for social media investment.

Watch the full video interview at SocialMedia Examiner

Google+ Has Mark Zuckerberg’s Attention, Shouldn’t It Have Yours?

Have you started experimenting with Google+? Are you sitting on the sidelines thinking “I’ll wait until Google+ matures,” or letting the in-crowd like Robert Scoble, Scott Monty, and Chris Brogan figure it out before you test it. If either of these options sounds like you, know that Google+ isn’t another flash-in-the-pan social media site. Google+ is in the social media battle to win your time and attention as an individual and a marketer.

Need data to motivate you to jump into the Google+ fray? Google+ had 1.8 million total visits as of the week ending July 16, according to Experian Hitwise. While less than 0.5 percent of Facebook’s traffic, Google+ has Mark Zuckerberg’s attention. Why? Because he’s got a competitor that’s growing fast and has the potential and financial resources to keep growing exponentially without hurting its bottom line.

Read the full article by Heidi Cohen at ClickZ

 

Five Tips for Marketers From MTV’s Study of Millennials’ Digital Habits

It’s Not Just a Medium, It’s an Ingrained Part of the Younger Generation’s Culture.

MTV was Facebook’s No. 1 fastest-growing brand last year. As they experienced this meteoric rise in social media, they were also madly studying their audience to understand their movements and behavior in the social space, or what we came to call their “digilife.”

The study that emerged from that work turned over a plethora of fresh insights into what makes this generation tick (or should I say what makes this generation click).

The insights lead to some provocative questions for the marketers attempting to connect with this elusive crowd in its native tongue and on its digital home turf.

Here are some findings from the study, posed as a few key questions that marketers might want to consider as they strategize about how to connect to the latest version of consumers.

Read the results of the study at AdAge

Does QR stand for Quasi-Ridiculous? (an analysis)

I understand QR codes are the new “it” thing, the Taylor Lautner of calls-to-action. And indeed, given the increasing ubiquity of smart phones (41% in the U.S. according to new research by my client ExactTarget), many of your potential customers have the capacity to interact with your QR code.

But whether they will or not isn’t about technology adoption, it’s about design, relevance, ease-of-use, and suitability of purpose.

Read Jay Baer’s complete analysis on his blog Convince&Convert