HootSuite, one of the most popular social media dashboards, launched tiered premium services on Wednesday. New accounts will be asked to choose from one of five levels – from free to $99 a month.

HootSuite also launched an enterprise version of the software priced at $1500 a month. Branded URLs using the ow.ly service will now cost users between $49 and $499 a month depending on the service plan chosen.

New users will be directed to one of the five plans. The migration for existing users begins next week. More details from HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes here.

Related posts:

1. Adobe's SMM Facebook success story
2. Facebook fan page tool creator Involver.com to charge

Change is coming to Facebook pages. Again. On August 23, Facebook is eliminating boxes (and their corresponding tabs) from pages and taking the width of custom tabs down to 520 pixels. The goal is to “simplify navigation for users, reduce complexity for developers, and enable us to build the next generation of tools.” Let’s take a look at these two first.

Bye Bye Boxes

As part of the developer roadmap announced in Oct. 2009, Facebook is removing “the ‘Boxes’ tab, boxes on profiles and Pages, and application info sections” from Facebook pages. The change will become effective on Aug. 23. Boxes were an easy way to add a “catchall” tab to your Facebook page – whatever didn’t merit one of the other six spots (or, really, four spots when you consider that the wall and info tabs are permanent) could be added as a box to your boxes tab. It also improved the likelihood that a user would see the content buried under your tabs.

Some common uses:

• Event listings for pages with less frequent events
• RSS feed listings – all your feeds in one area
• Popouts on the page sidebar – another easy way to jam in more information

As of Aug. 23, the only way to integrate applications into Facebook pages will be through the tabs at the top of the page. But don’t waste your time shedding too many tears. It’s likely that the vast majority of visitors to your page weren’t using your boxes. And they certainly weren’t clicking on that Boxes tab.

Most Facebook page visitors see one of two tabs – the targeted landing tab for non-fans, which is hopefully a custom tab giving them a quick synopsis and encouraging them to click the “Like” button, or the Wall that is the default page for all fans. Make sure any content hidden on tabs is also posted as part of your feed – it’s the best way to ensure your visitors are likely to see it.

The Skinny on Tab Width

Custom tabs on Facebook – most commonly created with Static FBML – are currently limited to 760 pixels in width. That’s known as the canvas size.

From Facebook:

“Application tabs (including static FBML tabs) will be the only way to integrate applications into profiles and Pages. Application tabs will shrink from 760 pixels wide (today) to 520* pixels wide to accommodate a slightly revised design. Boxes, info sections, and the Boxes tab will be removed in the near future.

In the longer term we are evaluating a number of new and interesting ways for you to help users express connections to your applications as a part of their identity. You can expect to see some of this thought emerge in future iterations of the profile.

*Note: We previously stated that profile tabs would be shrinking to 510 pixels. Our latest designs indicate they will instead be 520 pixels. We’ll keep this page updated with the latest information.”

Starting now, page admins can preview how losing 1/3 of the page will effect the look and feel of the page. In short, custom tabs are getting the same navigation sidebar on the left as the wall and info tabs. Properly formatted tabs now fit snugly inside the center column.

Our "Classes" tab formatted with Static FBML for the new 520 pixel tab size

Page admins should begin making changes to make their tabs compliant ahead of the change. No doubt major application providers such as Involver will be tweaking their applications to fit the new size. Currently, things aren’t pretty.

Involver's current YouTube tab viewed with the new tab width

Have you redesigned your tabs to fit the new width? Did you make any other big changes during the process? We’d love to see your tabs – share your link in the comments.

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The wonderful toolset created by Involver.com is about to become more expensive. Page owners utilizing one of Involver’s sample tools recently received messages allowing them to lock in the $99 per month price by June 30, though the message doesn’t say how much the price will be increased. From Involver’s email newsletter:

As always, Involver allows page owners to pick two applications to use on their Facebook fan page at no cost. Special pricing is also available for owners of multiple pages and non-profits.

Related posts:

1. Facebook fan page tool creator Involver.com to charge
2. Tips for successful Facebook fan page after Involver
3. Five tips for a successful Facebook fan page

What’s SEO and what does it do? Do I need it? What’s PPC?

Those are some of the most common questions I’m asked when I begin working with clients small and large. Let’s start by defining them:

• SEO means Search Engine Optimization In short, this is getting a site to rank better in search engines using techniques that are both technical and marketing oriented. Some SEO is performed onsite, other aspects are performed offsite.
• SMM means Social Media Marketing Though this is a broad category including everything from blogging to YouTube to Foursquare and all of the social networks, we can understand it as using social tools on the web to foster interest, engage our target market and ultimately achieve goals – whether those goals are brand awareness, fundraising, sales, thought leadership, etc.
• PPC means Pay Per Click Advertising! The most common PPC campaigns are through Google AdWords, and this group is also commonly known as SEM or Search Engine Marketing, as many of the ads appear among search engine results.

Did that solve all your problems and answer all of your questions? All ready to go and handle your web marketing? No?

Let’s work with an analogy to understand how these various marketing tools can fit your needs.

Imagine you’ve just moved into a new home, built from the ground up just for you. Now, it’s time to plan your garden. Your budget is tight, what with the new mortgage and all, but you know what you can afford and what results you’d like to see. You want to invest in things that will grow over several years, but you’d also like things to be pretty this summer. And you want to bring a bit of the garden back inside with you, so some herbs are in order. Grab your trowel and gloves and let’s get working.

SEO & Apple Trees

Your first purchase is an apple tree. This tree might cost more than all of the other plants and flowers in your garden, but it’s worth it to you because you’re in this for the long haul. The small sapling doesn’t look like much now, but you understand it’s an investment. That said, it’s not as simple as dropping this glorified twig into the ground and letting it fend for itself. You have to maintain it and meet its basic needs, with water and a bit of fertilizer if you want to go the extra mile, but you know it will in time bear fruit. It takes a few years to mature. Unless it contracts a disease, your fruit tree will continue to provide you with tasty treats. If you really want fruit now, you’re going to have to buy a mature tree.

Search Engine Optimization is like an apple tree. The time and money invested in optimizing your website will continue to bring you results for as long as you have the site. Barring major changes in the way that search engines rank sites (and these changes do occur), SEO doesn’t expire and often costs less to maintain – as long as it gets a healthy start. Unfortunately, like our apple tree sapling, SEO doesn’t bring results overnight. Although technical and marketing changes can make vast improvements in site ranking relatively quickly, SEO is a cumulative – it may take months to see clickthroughs from targeted traffic while the site’s rank continues to rise for relevant search terms. If you want the ranking associated with a powerful domain name, your best bet might be to buy that domain name – but it can get costly quickly.

Social Media & Basil

While you love your garden, you really enjoy bringing a bit of the outdoors back inside with you. You want a close relationship with Mother Nature – and for you, that means fresh herbs for the dinner table. To that end, you’re growing basil.

Though you’ve started from seeds, cultivating each plant, it doesn’t take too long before you’ve got some leaves to harvest. But, if you really like basil and want to enjoy it more often, you’re going to need quite a few basil plants. If you took all of the leaves off of one plant as soon as they were large enough, you’d kill the plant. But if you have five plants and harvest them in rotation, you’re going to have vibrant plants and a steady supply of basil. That means having to buy more seeds and growing more plants at the start, even though by the end of the season you might have more basil that you bargained for.

To further complicate matters, there are several types of basil available and you’ll need to know which plants will give you what you’re looking for – depending on if your goal is pesto or spicy Thai food.

Social media tools are like basil plants. Each network has a niche that it’s best suited for and some media types work better than others for different markets. To get the most out of it, you need to know which tools will help you achieve your goals.

While social networks don’t take as long to develop as search engine optimization ranking, they do take time and commitment – if you pester the first people to join your Twitter feed or Facebook page by constantly begging them to invite their friends or retweet your posts, you’re going to kill your following. Grow your network slowly – and, dare I say it, organically – instead of paying for leads or spamming your potential clients.

If you want to cast a wide net and see results more quickly, you will have to invest more resources initially. This might mean employing a wider array of social networks and media sites to create more entry points for potential followers. The downside here is that you might eventually have more interaction than you could anticipate – which means more to manage.

PPC & Snapdragons

The basil and the fruit trees are all lovely, but your basil doesn’t have any flowers and your sapling is healthy but doesn’t have the immediate eye candy you were looking forward to this summer. In short, you need cheap flowers and you need them now.

You might want snapdragons. Very colorful, with a relatively low cost and short life span. They’re annuals, meaning that they won’t be around to flower next year, but that’s okay by you. You just need something nice to show your mother-in-law this weekend.

While you’re going to put some money into pretty snapdragons, you’re not going to blanket every speck of open soil with them. Their value and beauty are fleeting, so covering the backyard with them would be a huge waste of your budget.

Keyword-based advertising (pay-per-click campaigns) are like the annual flowers in your garden. They provide results right now and have a relatively low investment cost as compared to maintaining social media projects or site-wide search engine optimization. Unfortunately, advertising only works while the ads are in place – once an AdWords campaign ends, your premium slot on content networks or search results pages evaporates.

Finally, to dispel a myth, purchasing advertising through Google does not increase your ranking in search engine results. Those results are organic and cannot be bought.

What do you need in your web marketing garden? It depends on what results you need and when you need them.

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In September, I had the privilege of presenting for the Israel Translators Association at their annual general meeting. I was flattered when the ITA contacted me again asking me to give a similar presentation for their annual conference in Jerusalem.

I’m told that translators have some interesting challenges when it comes to marketing. Although companies regularly employ in-house translators to deal with localization, a big chunk of the market is handled by freelancers who own their own business. In many cases, the client doing the hiring cannot independently evaluate whether or not the work done is of a high quality, so it isn’t as easy as providing a portfolio of previous work. Often, clients don’t understand that translators have specific areas of expertise – much like marketing and technical writers – and that hiring someone isn’t as simple as finding someone who can read and write the languages in question.

So what works well? Having excellent references. Demonstrating your understanding of a particular market segment (think med tech, or legal, or software). Exhibiting superior communication skills – after all, a translator is hired to communicate on behalf of a client or company.

I hope my presentation can shed a little light on using today’s web tools. While this presentation has been tailored to the needs of freelance translators, I think many of the strategies and action items are relevant to professional service providers.

Related posts:

1. An introduction to social media marketing
2. Using social media tools – a case study
3. Using Social Media Tools for Corporate Branding: A Case Study

I had the pleasure of presenting at Nefesh B’Nefesh on Tuesday afternoon to a wonderful group of immigrants to Israel – some who came very recently and others who have been here much longer than I have.

My presentation provided ideas and strategy for using web-based tools to compliment traditional methods when you’re searching for a job. It’s my opinion that many of our tried-and-true methods of reaching would-be employers have a web-based corollary.

To be sure, the elements involved take some skill, industry-specific knowledge and time, but I think they can play a role in our job search today.

I finished my presentation with tips to continue your personal branding when you find employment – cataloging achievements and building connections along the way.

You can view the presentation slides here. Nefesh B’Nefesh also videotaped the seminar, and I hope to make that available here on the blog shortly.

Related posts:

1. Using Social Media Tools for Corporate Branding: A Case Study
2. An introduction to social media marketing

Our next two sessions of social media marketing classes are beginning in mid-December. This time, we’ll be teaching in Jerusalem and Herzliya. Please see our Classes page for more information about the courses and to read reviews from past attendees.

Hope to see you there!

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1. Coming in September: Social media marketing classes and more
2. Upcoming social media marketing classes: Haifa and Netanya
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Pixel/Point Press is pleased to be participating in the Modiin Business Fair at Azrieli Mall on Friday.

We will be offering free, 15-minute consultations to help you explore how social media might fit the marketing needs of your business. Please contact us via email at kelli@pixelpointpress.com to let us know when you’d like to meet – we will be available from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. – or drop by our table to find an open slot.

Stop by to take part in a tweetorial as well – a brief tutorial about Twitter – and learn more about our upcoming classes.

We look forward to seeing you and learning more about your business!

If you can’t attend the fair, you might consider one of our upcoming classes – Hands-On Twitter and Facebook on Oct. 25. A few spots remain in each class – take both for NIS 400 plus VAT.

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1. Two new classes – Hands-On Twitter and Facebook on Oct. 25

After teaching more than a dozen classes across Israel on social media marketing, we’re happy to be able to follow up on the most common requests our students made – hands-on classes that specialize in Twitter and Facebook.

Join us for hands-on classes with two of today’s most popular social media tools. These two-hour quick courses will walk you through, step-by-step, the social networking facets you need to begin reaching out on the Web.

Registration is first come, first served – class sizes are limited to ensure individual attention and time for questions. If the courses fill as quickly as our SMM classes, we’ll offer additional classes – let us know if a different time or location might suit you.

For more information or to register, please contact us at classes@pixelpointpress.com.

Location:

Both classes will be held at JBS Business Class in Talpiot, Jerusalem. Directions are available here.

Date and Time:

• Sunday, Oct. 25
• Hands-On Twitter: 12:30-2:30 p.m.
• Hands-On Facebook: 2:40-4:40 p.m.

Cost:

• NIS 225 +VAT for either course; take both for NIS 400 +VAT

Details:

• Classes are taught in English
• Participants need a laptop – Internet access is provided
• You will receive a cheshbonit mas

Hands-On Facebook:

• Settings: Account, Privacy and Applications
• Profile and Inbox: Custom URLs, sharing content and etiquette
• Applications and Features: Photos, Videos, Groups, Events, Notes, Links, Credits, Chat, Pages, Real-time search
• Marketing: Ads, Pages, Connect, Business Accounts, What is FBML?
• Facebook Lite: Which one should you use?
• Help: Troubleshooting your Facebook problems

Hands-On Twitter:

• Your account: Your username, real name, profile, image, background, link to your site, etiquette
• Follow: Blogs, importing e-mail addresses, search, third-party referrers
• Get followed: Sharing content, asking questions and answering others
• Learn the lingo: Retweets and via, hashtags, direct messages, favorites, blocking
• Make it easy: Using third-party apps to tweet, group and track your traffic
• Help: Troubleshooting and mistakes to avoid

Both classes will be taught by Kelli Brown of Pixel/Point Press.

Please contact us at classes@pixelpointpress.com for more information or to register for classes.

Related posts:

1. Upcoming social media marketing classes: Haifa and Netanya
2. Coming in September: Social media marketing classes and more
3. Social Media Marketing classes starting soon

A post today at Mashable.com has got me in a bit of a tizzy. The post discusses results of an August 2009 survey by Mzinga and Babson Executive Education.  There’s good news and bad news on the social media front. First, the good news:

86% of professionals in a variety fields said that they have adopted social media in some way.

Social media’s uptake as part of a complete marketing strategy is heartening and reflects estimates early this year that a larger portion of dwindling marketing budgets were being allocated to the social media sphere.

But now, the bad (and in my opinion, it’s really quite bad):

In fact, 84% of respondents said they don’t currently measure the ROI (return on investment) of their social media programs. Even less encouraging, more than 40% of respondents said they didn’t even know whether they could track ROI from their social tools.

I’ve already heard several arguments to explain the phenomenon.

• Companies are allocating so little to social media that it’s cheaper not to track results.
• You can’t measure the quality of the interactions, so it’s irrelevant to track social media ROI.
• You can’t measure the impact of branding and thought leadership.

In my opinion, these arguments just don’t hold water. And I think it’s downright scary that companies are investing in tools that they can’t (or, more accurately, don’t think they can) track. Social media marketing ROI breaks down into two basic categories: concrete financial outcome complete with hard numbers and softer trending that may or may not have stats to back it up.

What’s really behind this issue? In my opinion, it’s that most companies, consultants and non-profits don’t have concrete goals that can be measured within a social media campaign. It never ceases to amaze me how many clients we’ve had that can’t specify a goal for their SMM efforts. Common responses include:

• Getting the name out there. (Out where? What’s the target market? What number of new site visitors is considered a success?)
• Driving web traffic. (Unless you make your money off of page views that you sell to advertisers, Web traffic alone won’t make you any money.)
• Engaging our users. (Let’s be specific – is launching a blog and getting readers and subscribers enough? Are comments critical to you? What about how often your users share your links?)

Without concrete goals, there is no way to track your strategy’s ROI. I understand that it takes more time and costs more, but if your strategy is a success, don’t you need to know that? If your traffic comes entirely from LinkedIn, do you need to keep posting in Facebook? If your PowerPoint presentations on SlideShare.net go viral, but your YouTube videos are a flop, do you really want to keep putting time and money into producing video?

Our intial consultations include working through what might appear to be a simple worksheet. After a lot of experience, we’ve found it to be an extremely useful technique that encourages our clients to quantify (or at least qualify) their goals. We cover:

• Campaign goals that can be measured
• Target market(s)
• Other influential sites
• Competition – both direct competitors and others vying for your audience’s attention
• Content
• Media to be generated in house
• Media to be crowdsourced from users
• Networks to be used for distribution
• Resources available for this campaign – financial, people power and time to build a buzz

Are you getting ready to launch a social media marketing campaign? What tools do you have in place to track the effects? What benchmarks will you use to evaluate the outcome? I’d love to hear your thoughts on SMM strategy and the importance of tracking ROI in the comments below.

Related posts:

1. Adobe's SMM Facebook success story
2. Social Media Marketing classes forming now
3. An introduction to social media marketing