YouTube Archives - One Social Media

Apple vs. Google – The Maps Edition

June 6, 2012 By Kelsey Jones Leave a Comment

Remember the days when Google and Apple used to play nicely together? Everyone got along and helped each other out when it came to navigation and map features. Remember when there was a sense of peace in the digital innovation world? Yeah… that’s gone. In the early days, Apple was okay with Google. The technology giant integrated Google-esque features such as Maps on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. It’s rumored that Apple will slowly be fading out these features for the introduction of…. (wait for it….)

Their own navigation system!! (Don’t worry, there are reports of a 3D map system like Google Street View as well).

This announcement of the new iOS Maps app is supposedly going to roll out at their Worldwide Developers Conference on June 11.

How will Google respond? They aren’t going anywhere and especially not going anywhere quietly. Google has its own new maps feature coming out and it (for a lack of a highly sophisticated, professional word) is going to be AWESOME.

Take a look at the video below for a history of the Apple vs. Google rivalry and what’s up next for these tech giants.

For more on the Apple vs. Google war, take a look at this recent Huffington Post article.

Kelsey Jones

Social Media enthusiast who loves reading about and experimenting with the newest forms of communication. I'm a news and political junkie who loves advocacy work, the Green Bay Packers and working in this fast-paced environment.

Filed Under: Social Media Trends, Tablets, YouTube Tagged With: apple vs. google features, best mobile search engine, Differences between Apple and Google, mobile apps, mobile navigation features, mobile search

The Language of Social Media

March 22, 2012 By Tom Hummer 1 Comment

In this video from the TED Education series, Terin Izil talks about the relationship between brevity and clarity in language. “Ten-dollar words are rendered worthless if they’re not understood,” she says. According to her, the secret to great communication is efficiency: get your point across in as few syllables as possible.

All you need to do is read the comments on this video to get an idea of the controversy it’s sparked. Some people think this is a dangerous idea, and that it would mark the death of artful language.

But despite the opposition, society has definitely moved toward simplicity. In National Treasure, there’s a scene where Benjamin Gates (played by Nicholas Cage) reads the following line from the Declaration of Independence:

“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

After he’s done, Gates says “People don’t talk that way anymore. Beautiful, huh?” and his friend, Riley, responds, “No idea what you said.” This conversation sums up the gap between the 18th century and now quite well.

Unsurprisingly, social media has definitely played a large role in this trend. On Twitter, for example, where users only have 140 characters to make their point, brevity is key. And that brevity often comes at the expense of interesting language. Even on Facebook, in text messages, and (shockingly) LinkedIn, punctuation and grammar are commonly thrown to the wind.

Since this new style isn’t going away anytime soon, the real question becomes: Is it good, or bad? Or neither?

As a social media professional with a background in literature, I’ve seen enough “LOL”s and “OMG”s to make Chaucer and Whitman roll in their graves. But surprisingly, the lack of engaging language in social media doesn’t bother me– after all, it’s about context. There’s a place for fancy, artistic language, and everyday communication isn’t that place. Izil makes that point when she talks about knowing your audience. A novelist’s audience expects different things than an online audience, because they serve different purposes.

The language of social media is here to stay. Rather than complain about it dumbing down the way we communicate, we should try to improve its efficiency. Remember– you can still read Shakespeare and Hemingway any time. But when connecting and understanding is the goal, simple is better.

Tom Hummer

Tom’s two biggest passions in life are writing and music. In his free time, Tom reads, writes, and works on musical projects.

5 Simple Ways to Optimize Your YouTube Channel

February 27, 2012 By Taylor Hinkle Leave a Comment

Being a Social Media Project Manager can be downright stressful! Let’s be honest, there’s A LOT to try to stay on top of, both for our clients and for our own company. It seems like there is a new social media platform, a new analytical tool, a new social media something popping up every week. As if that isn’t enough to try to keep on top of, it seems like the existing platforms are updating their own user interface just as often.

Although this can be stressful, it’s also the thing that draws us to this profession. No two work days are ever the same. We are constantly learning, relearning, studying, and evolving with the social media world.

Realizing this fact made me think:

“No wonder companies are having such a hard time keeping up.”

A handful of updates to platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn go unnoticed by the general public, and major updates are typically slowly rolled out over the span of months to ease users into the changes.

With that being said, I have noticed a large number of YouTube channels that have been upgraded to the new channel layout (nicknamed Cosmic Panda) that look just plain awful. I’m not sure if people/companies upgraded to the new layout and then never got around to optimizing it or whether they just got confused and blacked out while in the process.

Either way, it inspired us to create this quick guide for how to optimize your new YouTube channel and get you back up to speed:

Taylor Hinkle

An award-winning photographer and web media specialist, Taylor has lead multiple social media campaigns for some of One Social Media’s most notable clients.

Filed Under: YouTube Tagged With: how to optimize a youtube channel, how to optimize my youtube channel, new youtube layout, social media tips, ways to optimize a youtube channel, ways to optimize my youtube channel, youtube tips

Social Media is for EVERYONE! : Old Spice Proved It

December 8, 2011 By Mike Bal Leave a Comment

We recently started working with Ergo Office Seating, an office chair supplier from San Jose California. Ergo supplies furniture dealers with high-end ergonomic office chairs, they don’t sell directly to the consumer. Keep that in mind. Ergo started their Facebook page and Twitter accounts from scratch. We also built them a blog and optimized their Youtube channel among other things. We made sure that Ergo’s slogan was represented across their designs, in their content and through their voice. In short, we have a well rounded brand rocking social media.

A lot of people would say that a B2B has no business spending this much time on social media. Here’s why those people are wrong.

Old Spice recently launched their 1 Man 7 Billion Gifts campaign where The Old Spice Man will be giving away 7 billion gifts from now till Christmas. Ergo Office Seating was selected to be one of the recipients based on their social media presence, voice and activity. Old Spice Recorded this video of the Old Spice Man sending his Christmas gifts to Ergo.

Simultaneously they had a crew film the delivery of the presents to Ergo’s Offices

Old Spice also posted on Facebook to their 1,778,338 fans and followers.

They also tweeted to Ergo. Once with the video message and then again in response to Ergo’s thanks

The video itself already has over 7,000 views.

The point is: EVERYONE should be on social media. No matter what business you’re in or what you do, you have an opportunity. This kind of exposure would normally cost you a big chunk of your marketing budget but on social media it happens for free AND they got delicious cookie cakes out of the deal!

Mike Bal

Hi, I studied advertising, I have a passion for creativity and I love working in social media. I try to write about the combination of traditional marketing, branding, and advertising strategies that can apply and work affectively with social media. I also enjoy music, batman and life.

How Social Media Can Lead To Sales

July 26, 2011 By Rob Wormley 2 Comments

If there’s one common question that every business, brand, or organization new to social media has, it’s probably “how will using social media lead to sales?” It’s a fair question to ask. The problem with this question, however, lies in how it’s worded. What businesses new to social media should be asking is not “how will using social media lead to sales?”, but instead, “how can using social media lead to sales?”

It’s a slight difference, but here’s why the second question is a better question for business owners or brand executives to ask: it shows that they already understand the fact that creating a presence on social media sites doesn’t automatically lead to sales.

Unfortunately, most business owners just can’t seem to grasp this truth—that just joining social media sites isn’t a guarantee of even one new sale for a company. Developing a social media strategy for your business and joining social media sites are two very important steps to take, but if you want to actually start seeing real results—i.e. actual ROI—then you’re going to need to walk a lot further than you might have originally planned.

So with this new question in mind—”how can using social media lead to sales?”—what’s the answer? I’d be lying if I told you it was a simple “a + b + c = $$$” equation. There are a number of factors that play a part in whether or not your efforts on social media will actually lead to sales. To help you better understand what some of these factors are and how they work together, I’d like to share with you a chart that I like to call the social media equation. Here it is:

If the chart above looks complicated, it’s because it’s meant to. Because using social media to make sales isn’t as easy as a lot of people want it to be. It takes things like time, consistency, transparency, interaction, and value. It takes real work.

You may know that you have a good product that you think a lot of people could use, but if you can’t take the time to genuinely care about your followers and show them that you have a good, valuable product, you aren’t ready to be on social media.

No one wants to see a video on Facebook or a photo on Flickr that looks like an advertisement. No one wants to see the same “great deal” tweet ten times in one day.

If you decide to take the first steps to create a presence for your business on social media, it can lead to sales. It just takes time, effort, passion, dedication, authenticity, patience, and above all—a good product.

Still have questions? Ask me on Twitter. I’m @robwormley.

Rob Wormley

As a social media specialist, Rob thrives in situations that require constant creativity. On days when Rob isn’t working hard to create, maintain, and strengthen relationships online, you might find him spending time with family, browsing through his nearest bookstore, or sipping on a cup of coffee at his local Starbucks.

3 Social Media Changes You Don’t Want to Miss

July 8, 2011 By Jeremy Anderberg 1 Comment

As a social media company, it is our job to stay on top of all the fancy new stuff that pops up every 10 seconds or so in our industry. Most of these changes don’t really mean much to you, our readers – they are new startups working out glitches, back-end programs that make our jobs easier, or simply new ideas that haven’t quite reached critical mass yet.

The last couple weeks, however, have brought about 3 major news items that are worth sharing. The first is the release of Google+, a social network that is Google-based and is supposed to be a new rival for Facebook. The second is a trio of information bits from Facebook regarding their chat features. And finally, YouTube is in the works of redesigning their user experience, and the early results look promising.

1) Google+

Currently in Beta Mode with limited availability, Google+ seems to be aiming at being a simpler and more user-friendly social network. Friends are organized into “circles” such as work, friends, family, acquaintances, etc. The rumor is that it will be open to the public as of July 31. They will also be rolling out business profiles sometime in the next few months.

Pros:

Seamlessly integrates with other Google Apps, especially chat.
Has built-in video chat.
Organizes friends better than Facebook, making it easier to find the ones you’re truly interested in following.

Cons:

Yet another social network to share content on.
Not sure yet of how it competes in the social world with the giants that are already present.
Has yet to integrate things like events (Google Cal?) or collaborative work (Google Docs?).

2) Facebook Chat

Facebook held a live event viewed by thousands of people online to announce their latest upgrade. The Facebook Chat feature has long been known to be a little glitchy, and not as easy-to-use as Google Chat or Skype. They seem to be trying rather hard to fix that problem. Their trio of items to note:

Group chat: You can now add multiple people to a single chat box, making things like weekend planning a breeze.
Chat sidebar: depending on your browser size, you may now have a sidebar with a listing of your friends and the ability to chat with them right there, versus just that little box in the bottom right corner.
Video chat: This is the biggie. Facebook has partnered with Skype to bring video calling to any of your Facebook friends.

Pros

Group chat seems like an awesome feature and will be easy-to-use. This will make life much more simple for a lot of people and even businesses.
The ability to video chat without having to download a program is huge. You now have access to all your friends, versus just those with the Skype program.
They capitalized on the best video technology out there (Skype) instead of trying to create their own.
You can leave video voicemails when your call isn’t answered.

Cons

You still have to download a plugin, and it may not be user-friendly for those who aren’t tech-savvy.
Still no group video chatting – that really would have been icing on the cake. It will likely be a paid premium feature in the future.

3) YouTube Redesign – Codename “Cosmic Panda”

This change might be my personal favorite. Virtually since its inception, the site has looked a little clunky, and not very user-friendly. All of that is about to change with this update. The overall design is slick and clean, and makes navigating much more intuitive. To activate the update for your account, visit www.youtube.com/CosmicPanda.

Pros

It just looks and feels so much better. That’s a big pro in our book.
Playlists are organized neatly on the right side and can be seen at all times.
Channel stats such as subscribers and views are now easily visible on the rop right.
You can change the video size manually, putting the viewing experience totally in your control.
It is easier to scroll through videos of a selected channel.

Cons

The “Featured Video” seems to be lost, so the video that people see when they land on your channel is likely just the most recent upload.
That’s about it for now! We LOVE this update!

What do YOU think of all these changes? What pros and cons have you found? What are you most excited to start using? Chime in here on the blog, or over on our Facebook and Twitter pages!

Jeremy Anderberg

Jeremy is a blog-reading, report-writing project manager. In his spare time he enjoys reading a good thriller, drinking a freshly brewed cup of coffee, and spending time with his wife.

Filed Under: Social Media, Social Media News, Social Media Trends, YouTube Tagged With: blogging, brand building, brand marketing, branding, des moines social media agency, des moines social media company, des moines social media firm, facebook, facebook marketing, joe soto, One social media, online marketing, small business social media, social marketing, social media, social media agency, social media blog, social media company, social media consultant, social media consulting, social media des moines, social media for small businesses, social media iowa, social media marketing, social media marketing blog, social media marketing services, social media new jersey, social media Pennsylvania, social media Philadelphia, social media services, social media strategy, twitter, twitter marketing

How To Create Buzz About Your Business Using Social Media [VIDEOS]

May 24, 2011 By Jeremy Anderberg Leave a Comment

Did you miss an episode of our weekly TV show “The Social Truth“? Fear not! We’ve uploaded all of our archived shows onto our YouTube channel. You can go to the site and check them out, or just watch them in the handy player right below. Make sure to tune in every Wednesday at 3pm CST. You can watch at www.onesocialmedia.tv OR right on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/onesocialmedia. We talk about the hottest issues in social media, give you training to optimize your own networks, and answer any questions you might (ask on our Facebook and Twitter pages) have as you try to navigate the digital world.

Jeremy Anderberg

Jeremy is a blog-reading, report-writing project manager. In his spare time he enjoys reading a good thriller, drinking a freshly brewed cup of coffee, and spending time with his wife.

Filed Under: Social Media, YouTube Tagged With: des moines social media company, One social media, social media des moines, social media for small businesses, social media iowa, social media marketing company, social media services

10 Reasons Why Your Competition Is Beating You On Social Media

April 29, 2011 By Rob Wormley 3 Comments

Although you might not want to admit it, I bet you’re paying attention to how your competition is doing on social media. Have you noticed lately that their social media profiles are growing a lot faster than your company’s social media profiles? It might be because of one of these ten reasons:

1. Your competition has a presence on multiple social media sites. While you’re spending all your time updating your company’s Facebook page, your competition is busy sending out tweets, uploading YouTube videos, connecting with potential leads on LinkedIn, creating a new album of photos on their Flickr photostream, and updating their blog. Your competition understands the importance and value of building an online brand presence through the use of multiple social media platforms.

Create a presence on all the popular social media sites

2. Your competition is updating their social media profiles consistently. Your competition’s social media profiles continue to grow because they continue to provide consistent, valuable content to their followers. They have maintained a loyal following thanks to the consistent updates they post on their social media profiles, and have even started attracting new followers.

3. Your competition is going out of their way to invite customers to connect with them on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Are you telling the customers who walk into your door about your social media presence? Is it in your brochures? Your quarterly newsletter? Your email signature? On the back of your restaurant menu? Your competition is going out of their way to invite customers and prospects to connect with them on their favorite social media sites.

4. Your competition is posting a variety of content. Your competition isn’t re-posting promotional text from their website. They are creating Facebook photo albums of their last corporate event. They’re finding interesting links that relate to their industry and sharing them with followers. They are uploading client testimonial videos and behind-the-scenes video tours to their YouTube channel. Your competition is posting content that they know their followers will like. They aren’t worried about leaving out the promotional text from their website, because they are attracting new customers by providing value.

Create a Flickr photo gallery and share it on Facebook

5. Your competition is cross-promoting. Your competition is telling their Twitter followers about their Facebook page. They are ending every YouTube video by inviting viewers to connect with them on their other social media sites. They are embedding their Facebook page feed into their blog. They understand that their LinkedIn connections might not ever realize they have a Flickr account unless they occasionally share links to their Flickr photostream on their LinkedIn profile.

6. Your competition isn’t afraid to answer the hard questions. If you’re afraid to answer the tough questions that people might post on your company’s Facebook page, don’t be. Your competition isn’t afraid. In fact, they encourage their followers to ask tough questions, because they see it as an opportunity to strengthen their online reputation. Instead of ignoring or deleting tough questions that show up on their Facebook page, they’re being proactive. They’re taking the time to come up with a helpful, thoughtful answer that will show people how much they care about their customers.

7. Your competition is customizing their profiles with recognizable brand designs. You might understand the importance of presenting a consistent brand design when promoting your business in the physical world (you have a standard design or logo that appears on your flyers, your company shirts, your store sign, and your press releases), but you’re not (successfully) incorporating your company’s consistent design into your social media profiles. Your competition has taken time to design visually-interesting, customized designs for all their social media profiles.

: Customize Your Social Media Sites

8. Your competition is taking time to listen to advice, suggestions, and other helpful comments. Your competition is not only improving their online reputation by listening to advice and comments made by their followers, but they’re also using these comments to improve their business in general. They value the interaction that is happening on their social media profiles, and they are using suggestions made by followers to evolve their business in the physical world.

9. Your competition is utilizing social media tools to become the expert in your industry. Where are your potential customers going to learn more about your industry? If you think it is your website (or your competition’s website), you are wrong. Your potential customers are learning about your industry on places like Facebook and Twitter because it’s easy for them. Your competition understands that. That’s why they are going out of their way to provide valuable content and information to people on their social media profiles. They are becoming the experts in your industry.

10. Your competition has support from employees, clients, and other businesses in the community. Your competition is succeeding on social media because they have support from every employee who works for the company. Every one of their employees is promoting the company’s social media profiles in email signatures, at meetings with potential clients, and everywhere else. Your competition also has support from clients. They even have support from other businesses in the community who are interested in building a relationship online with them.

: Interact with other businesses in the community

If you want to start seeing better numbers on your social media sites, implement some of the strategies that your competition is implementing. Use this list to beat your competition on social media. Become the expert in your industry. Invite your customers to connect with you on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and any other social media site you use. Listen to what your followers have to say. Update your profiles consistently, and provide value. It’s worth your effort and your time.

Still have questions? Ask me on Twitter. I’m @robwormley.

Rob Wormley

5 Simple Things You Can Do To Improve Your Facebook Page

April 9, 2011 By Rob Wormley 2 Comments

One common question I often hear from businesses and organizations who are new to social media is, “How do I measure the success of my social media efforts?” It’s a fair question to ask in my opinion. Answering that question, however, isn’t always as easy as asking it. What’s hard for many businesses who are new to Facebook to understand, is that the success of their social media efforts shouldn’t (and can’t) be determined solely by the number of overall ‘likes’ their page has. There are many other factors that need to be taken into consideration when trying to measure the success of a Facebook page, or a social media campaign in general. Sometimes it’s important to recognize the quality of interaction that exists on a Facebook page, rather than the quantity of users who ‘like’ a page.

What I mean by that is this: you might not have as many Facebook fans as you would like, but what you do have is a number of loyal Facebook users who continue to consistently interact with you on your Facebook page. If you’re getting caught up in the numbers, you’re probably not paying attention to the great interaction occurring on your page. Measuring the success of your social media efforts sometimes requires you to ignore quantity (the number of ‘likes’ your page has), and instead focus on quality (the interaction from loyal fans).

I understand, however, that ignoring the numbers isn’t always easy for some businesses and organizations to do. For that reason, I’m offering five simple things you can do to improve your Facebook page. Here they are:

1. Add Value: I just got done reading a great new book about social media by author Jeffrey Gitomer, who explains that “the purpose of your online presence (especially on social media) is not to sell, it’s to attract people who want to buy” (Jeffrey Gitomer, Social BOOM!). Wise words coming from someone who is actively creating valuable content on his social media sites. It’s important to understand that people who connect with you on Facebook aren’t necessarily interested in buying from you (at least not right away). What they are looking for is value. They want to connect with you because you have something to offer to them besides your latest product. You have insight. You have advice. You have knowledge. You have expertise. Start offering valuable content on your Facebook page, and you will not only see an increase in the amount of people who ‘like’ your page, but you will also see an overall increase in the interaction that occurs on your page.

2. Add Variety: If you aren’t sharing photos, videos, or links on your Facebook page, you shouldn’t be surprised that your numbers aren’t where you want them to be. Providing consistent updates on your page is great, but it can only do so much. You need to start sharing other forms of content with your Facebook followers. Upload photos from your last event. Upload customer testimonial videos. Share interesting links, or links to your blog with your Facebook community. Once you start adding variety to your Facebook page, your numbers will most likely go up, and the amount of interaction occurring will also increase.

3. Engage When Your Followers Are Listening: Knowing when your followers are listening can be an extremely effective way to increase your Facebook numbers, and improve your Facebook page. If you’re wondering why no one is ‘liking’ or commenting on content that you are sharing on your page, it might be because you aren’t engaging with your followers at the right time. Your followers aren’t always logged into Facebook at the same time you post an update. I recently read a great report from Buddy Media that looked at the best time of day (and best day of the week) to share content on a Facebook page. I was surprised with some of their findings, and I’m guessing you would be too. I encourage you to download the report yourself if you are interested in learning more about how to engage when your followers are listening. There are a lot of great graphs like the one below that will help you understand their findings:

4. Cross-Promote: Your Twitter followers might never know that you have a Facebook page, unless you tell them. The people who visit your company website won’t look for you on Facebook, unless you show them you are there. Your company needs to make sure every separate audience you have online—your website audience, your blog audience, your newsletter audience, etc—knows that you have a social media presence. You need to cross-promote whenever you have the opportunity to do so. Cross-promoting is one of the easiest ways to increase your numbers on Facebook, because you are inviting people who already interact with you others places to join you on Facebook too. Need examples? Click on the photo below to see all the ways we cross promote on our site.

5. Respond: One of the best ways to improve your Facebook page is to respond to questions your followers ask you on your page. Ignoring hard questions is the easiest way to lose Facebook fans and damage your online reputation. If you have decided that you want your company to have a presence on Facebook, then you need to be ready to address questions or concerns that your followers have. It’s easy to delete a question or comment from an unhappy customer and move on, but it won’t help you in the end. Your Facebook followers will think much more highly of you if you actually take the time to answer their questions, and let them know you care. Responding to questions or comments on your Facebook page will show other non-fans that you have something to offer them that your competition doesn’t. It’s worth it.

I hope you are able to take at least one of these five tips and start incorporating it into your Facebook page. When you do, come back to this blog post and tell me if you saw any changes! I’d love to read your comments. Just remember, measuring the success of your social media efforts isn’t always about the numbers. Sometimes, it’s beneficial to think about the quality of interaction on your page, the loyalty of your followers, and the value you are providing to your Facebook community.

Still have questions? Ask me on Twitter. I’m @robwormley.

Follow Us

Recent Posts

Categories

Join a Webinar

FREE EBOOK

Success Stories