Future Searches

Is Yahoo! Likely to go After Facebook for Illegal Use of Patents?

Patents in the online world can be fuzzy, with companies paying others to use patented techniques that have since become the norm in their field. But they do still exist, and Facebook is using two patents currently owned by Yahoo! that might become relevant in the coming months. Yahoo! will likely try to strike a deal with Facebook before the company goes public, so expect to see Facebook pay big to get the right to use these patents.

Yahoo! has seen itself passed over in recent years by some of the giants, including Google and Microsoft, and Facebook is poised to win big as it starts selling stock in the company in the near future. As Yahoo! struggles to keep up, the company may turn to legal issues to take a chunk out of Facebook before the upcoming initial public offering.

What Exactly is Facebook Using that Yahoo! Owns?

Two major patents are in question, and although one is not at the heart of Facebook’s business, it may expand into this area in the future and will want to secure the right to use both patents to protect itself in the future.

Harnessing Social Media to Build a Personal Brand

The days of customers dealing with faceless big businesses are coming to an end. People like to deal with other people, and even corporations understand that now. Just think about some of the most well-known companies and the names associated with them. The late Steve Jobs was the face of Apple. Bill Gates, to many people, is Microsoft.

Sometimes, the person that represents the brand isn’t a CEO or a manager. Many game developers rely heavily on their community managers. Ask a gamer about Pitch Black Games, and most of them will mention Sanya Weathers, a community manager that has served several companies, and is highly regarded.

Socialising as a Brand

When you’re in the public eye, representing a company, you need to be careful. Social media marketing is not the same as social networking on a personal level. This is something that is easy to forget. You might post about “Lolcats” and your favourite, perhaps slightly tasteless YouTube videos on your personal account, but do you really want your customers to see those posts? Just imagine if you went to Elle Macpherson’s brand page on your favourite social network and saw links to online petitions, games, and funny Occupy Wall Street memes. If your political leanings weren’t the same as Macphersons, there’d be a good chance she’d lose a customer.

Eight Tips on How to Get the Most out of your Facebook page

Social networking sites particularly Facebook has become an important advertising platform for small businesses, brands and even celebrities. Facebook is undoubtedly the most popular social networking site boasting 800 million active users and an annual revenue of no less than $4 billion.

For marketers, Facebook provides a genuine opportunity to attract people and get free publicity. With Facebook’s growing importance as a marketing tool, companies and online marketers can no longer ignore the social networking site’s importance. So if you’re planning to setup your business’ Facebook page then here are 8 sure fire ways you could optimize this platform.

1) Use your business name, logo and/or trademarks

Using your real business name, logo and/or trademark is just appropriate when you’re starting out with your Facebook marketing campaign. Small businesses and/or brands should thrive to use their Facebook page to gain name recall advantage over their competitors.

2) Write a catchy, descriptive Facebook bio

A company’s bio is the most critical component of a successful Facebook marketing campaign. An excellent Facebook bio is one that is catchy at the same time descriptive so that fans and supporters can get to know your small business or brand better.

Tips for Writing an Effective Facebook Advertisement

There is only one reason to place an ad on Facebook – to gain attention and attract website traffic. So what motivates readers to do that? How do you write an ad that gets those fingers clicking? Here are a few tips that should help.

Target Your Ad

There’s no use firing off an ad if you don’t know where to aim it. Facebook will give you choices about where your ad appears and which type readers will see it, so you need to think hard about who your target customer is. There is no need to advertise to those who would not be interested in your product, whether that product is a service, a blog, merchandise, or something else. If you’re paying by the click, you want those clicks to be from the right people.

How old is your ideal customer, where do they live? Do they have children, are they married, what is their occupation? Should they have special interests or hobbies? Narrowing down these demographics are key to successful marketing. Make sure your add appeals directly to your target customer with words or graphics so every click counts.

Social Media Past Twitter & Facebook

There can be little doubt that social media is one of the most important recent innovations for both the business world and its’ customers. The speed at which it has been adopted means that businesses simply cannot afford to ignore social media platforms.

That being said, there is a problem that threatens to damage all the good work businesses have put into becoming active members in the social media community. While there is no doubt that Twitter and Facebook are the major players, their very dominance can lead to a false sense of security as well as a business’s social media strategy becoming stale and static.

The truth of the matter is that there are a number of other key players that most businesses need to be aware of so that they can ensure they are covering all the bases and not getting a nasty surprise that can have a negative effect on their brand’s reputation.

Linkedin

Probably the other major player after Twitter and Facebook, Linkedin is arguably the most “professional” of social media platforms and is a superb resource for networking. However, even if a business feels that their core audience lies beyond its typical user, it should still maintain a presence, especially if the business provides B2B services.

Google Adwords versus Facebook Adds

Facebook is a social addiction. There is no powerful mean at all to connect and share! We are online all time; while working, travelling, resting…even while weeing & pooing. People spend more time at Facebook than they do at Google. Does it make Facebook a better online advertising channel than Google?

The answer is No. Being the most busy website doesn’t make Facebook the best advertising place. It’s all down to the purpose of the visitors. Facebook users are looking to socialize rather than buying a specific product. Advertising a new product on Facebook; similar to Google Adwords placement-targetted ads, can boost awareness; especially for a specific target group however when it comes to purchasing something, Google search comes to our minds.

Google can have less views however people use Google to find what they need. They perform a search about a topic and are willing to click on links during their visits.  Google users are more likely to be close to the sales stage on the marketing funnel and perform an action. Since Google’s core function is search, advertising your products on Google would bring more sales and leads than on Facebook.