Now this is what I call innovation. Facebook has just done something which seems inspired by Google+. It has introduced the concept of Google+ circles in the form of Smart Lists. It has introduced three main improvements, which it is claiming will change the way you interact with your friends.

The three main improvements are as following:

1. Smart lists – Create them yourself and stay up-to-date with the profile info your friends have in common with you.
2. Close Friends and Acquaintances lists – You can see your best friends’ photos and posts at one place, and see less from people you’re not so close to you.
3. Better suggestions – You can add your friends according to your own preference.

Friend Lists are completely optional. If you don’t like lists, you don’t have to use them.

Smarter lists are now available on Facebook

Smart Lists

Initially, Facebook provided the following options to manage the lists:

• Work
• School
• Family
• City

I personally think that this will make things much easier as earlier it was very tough to scroll down the whole friend list to find someone.

Close Friends and Acquaintances Lists:

There are two important lists which have some special properties- one of them is Close Friends list and the other is Acquaintances list. The close friends list will allow you to choose only 5-10 friends that you think are your real close friends and will show/notify you even about their slightest updates. Whereas the Acquaintances List will only show the most important updates of theirs and yes you can add them to yourself.

Better Suggestions

When you add someone as a friend or confirm a friendship request, then you’ll be able to add that friend to any of smart lists- Close Friends, Acquaintances, and your own lists, making them easier to create and update.

Better Suggestions

See and Share

Whenever you feel like sharing something with a narrower set of friends, simply use this tool and pick one of your lists.

See and share on Facebook

According to me, this new sharing option has just made Facebook a lot safer and it will also resolve privacy concern of the users.

To sustain Leadership in the market, companies have to keep on adding something new in their offerings. Same is the case with social networking giant Facebook. To sustain Leadership in the social networking arena & to maintain popularity among its userbase, Facebook is adding something new to its product line every other day. Recently, it made some changes in its chat & notifications settings, which had a mixed response from the users, and now, Facebook has rolled out big time changes its privacy & sharing settings (few changes have been live & few would get live in the coming weeks).

All of these changes could well be categorized into two parts:

1. changes to its sharing functionality, and
2. changes to privacy settings on user profiles.

Let’s see how these changes would affect the user while using Facebook.

Changes to sharing

These changes are done keeping in mind how you can share your content with others or how you want your content to be visible to others. These sharing changes would fall under two sections:

1. Tagging/Un-tagging
2. Status updates

Tagging/ untagging in Facebook posts

Tagging is a very interesting way to share your photos, videos & experiences with your friends. But it becomes too irritating when some-one tags you in something which you don’t want to be a part of. Now, you would have the option to approve or reject before the picture or video actually gets published. So, you can control people tagging you in their content. Also, you can now approve or reject when someone tries to tag your content, even if they aren’t tagging you specifically. The major change in tagging option is of ‘tag anyone in your posts’, no matter you are friends with the person! Isn’t it interesting?

Shared with friends

This feature would make it possible for you to share your experience with a large group of people inspite of the fact that you are not friends with them. And you never know, once you share your experience with them, they can become your friend. So, with the Facebook tagging feature you can expand your social circle!

Shared with Custom

Another change is of ‘un-tagging’. We think that this is the most sought after option by the Facebook fans. Facebook has tried to improve this feature by providing more options like asking the photo uploader to remove the photo from your profile completely and blocking that person on Facebook.

‘Status Update’ has also come-up with few amendments. You can choose to share your update in three ways: share with public (previously everyone), with friends or customize your status update sharing. You can now decide to whom to share ‘What’s on your mind?’ (Never tell your boss what’s on your mind! )

Not only this, you can now add location & people to your Facebook updates. So, you can share your updates telling the world, whom you are with at that moment of writing the post & where! Now, you can add your location from anywhere, regardless of what device you are using.

Also, you can choose to add location to your photos, albums & videos. We must say these changes in sharing settings will make Facebook more user friendly, not sacrificing the privacy and fun to spend time with!

Changes to Privacy Settings

The biggest change to privacy option is the transfer of privacy controls from settings page to user profile page. Now, you can see the edit-settings option on the top-right side of your profile. The users need not jump on to cumbersome privacy settings tab to limit the visibility of photos and other things.

Also, the ‘View profile as’ option has also been shifted to your profile from privacy settings page. You can easily see how your profile appears to public & your friends.

View as Public

All these changes are again an attempt by Facebook to show the world, that when it comes to innovation, the company is always ready to play the game.

But, the game changers (customers/users) are always the king who decides the success & failure of the player!

So, let us know whether these changes in Facebook are what you desired for & whether you liked them or not?

This post was written with inputs provided by Neha Jain.

So finally!!! Much awaited Facebook updates have been rolled out. We are pretty happy to see these in particular. It looks like that Facebook has taken some cue from Google+ & a little bit from Twitter. We are going to talk about all the latest features in ‘Keep It Simple Silly’ way. Users who have already used Google+ will easily reckon these features.

View Profile As

Facebook has provided a special feature to their users where they can actually customize their profile according to the various users. Or more specifically, now they can actually decide that how their profile will look to different people. Click on the ‘Profile’ and then on the very right hand side of your profile you will get to see this option.

View Profile As...

When you click on ‘View As’, you will get to see a screen (Image Below), where you can actually type the name of the person and see that how your profile will look to that particular person.

This is how your profile looks...

Profile Control Options

Earlier when you wanted to edit your privacy controls, you had go to the ‘Privacy Settings’ and control the information from there. Now, every section of your profile has the button right next to it where you can instantly select with whom to share and what.

Inline Profile Settings...

Profile Tag Review

Now you can approve photos, videos or posts where you have been tagged. You can go to the ‘Pending Posts’ and control the tagging option right from there. So, instead of getting a notification every time, now it’s in your hand to approve that tag or not.

Profile Tag Reviews...

You have to turn on this feature (turned off by default). To turn on this feature, follow these steps.

Account -> Privacy Settings -> How Tags Work -> Edit Settings -> Profile Review -> Edit.

After following this procedure you will see this screen. Just TURN ON Profile Review there.

Profile Review...

Sharing Control Options

Now this is the complete rip off of Google+ feature. This option will appear only when you want to share something over Facebook. Now you can tag your friends and even strangers. Also you can add your location and select with whom you want to share it.

Sharing Controls...

So these are the main changes in Facebook privacy settings and sharing settings. We personally feel that by rolling out these features, Facebook has managed to reduce the security concern of users quite a bit.

Did you find these features entirely a ‘Rip-Off’ of Google+ and Twitter?

This article was written with the inputs provided by Jitesh Pandey.

Content, as they say, is still king. Copy plays a stellar role in any social media marketing campaign. You may have the best social media strategy and incorporate them in your blogs, tweets, scraps and pretty much anything that is social; however, without the proper social copywriting or content writing strategy and technique, all will be lost. Your entire effort will go into vain.

You need to woo your targeted customer with a well crafted user-centric approach that would lead to an effective two-way communication.

Well, there are few questions that need answers before any SMM campaign. And you need to get them right, if you want your campaign to be a roaring success

It is decision time now.

So, what do you want?

The first question you need to answer.

Is it just traffic? Creating a buzz? Aiming for a higher rank in the search engines? Selling a product? Promoting something? Looking for long-term brand loyalty? Enhancing your reputation? And the list goes…

You need to be crystal clear about what you really want with your social media campaign. Once you have a definitive answer to what you want, you can pass on to the next question.

Who do you want (to target)?

This is as crucial as the first question.   You need to know the specific and precise segment of demography, the right people to target your campaign.  So, what are the different sets of customers that you want to address? Do you want to confine your social media marketing campaign to just your old customer segment? Are you looking to expand your reach from the target you already have?

Think over it and get the answers right. Don’t rue over things at hindsight; it is no use crying over spilt milk. Go ahead only when you are bang on target. You can’t afford hits that miss. Period.

And then it finally comes to the “How to” question.

Once you get the ‘What’ and the “Who” right, you enter the most critical phase that can make or mar your campaign.  You have a plethora of choices and you have to get it right.

Tweets? Blogs? Articles? Whitepapers? Newsletters? Case Studies? Research& Reports? Press Releases? Content Placement? Link Bait? Buzz Content?

So, how will it be???

The answers can make all the difference (to your Social Media Campaign). Please tweet me @Robin_Goel, if you find anything more useful to make this post more interesting.

OMLogic Consulting has recently launched an interactive & dynamic website, designed and developed with cutting edge technologies. It is a CMS (content management system) based website with rich interactive features that would enhance the company to reach out to its users, clients and community easily.

The newly refurbished website is easy to use and more informative, with significant value additions to the old site. It provides information on our online marketing services and solutions – what we do (SMM, SEO, and PPC) and how we do (our unique approach to every project), in a clear and lucid manner.  We also allow you to have a detailed view about the background and history of the company – who we are (the founders and the leadership team) too.   The website addresses the company’s market segments and its reputation as one of the most promising and dynamic online marketing companies in the block.

A landmark addition to the website is Logic Junction, a dynamic and comprehensive knowledge hub that features blogs, white papers, news, PPTs, how-to articles, seminars, videos, and lots others, covering specific topics on online marketing. Our newly revamped Best Practice Case Studies section has examples of successfully implemented projects that could guide you in getting the most out of a dedicated online marketing campaign with OMLogic.

We have incorporated features that provide you updated and expanded tidbits and information, which would be of immense help to entrepreneurs, businesses, academics, students and other online marketing aficionados. It is a user-friendly website, both in the presentation as well as in the content. Even a layman or an internet marketing novice can easily browse through it and get the required information.

We are committed to add new features to the website, on a regular basis. The brand new website will update you on interesting and important online marketing specific knowledge & information.

The site is still held on the same old domain, www.omlogic.com.

In today’s time, every business house, irrespective of size, is definitely looking at social networking channels to market itself. Initially, when social media sites came into being, the idea was to network, gossip, connect and share. They were nothing less than a revolution in communication and brought people closer.

Marketers have discovered great potential in these social media sites and online tools in terms of generating leads, creating a strong brand presence and reaching a large segment of the market. Recently, I got a call from a friend who lives in small village in India. He asked me to create a Facebook Page and a Twitter account for his shop where he sells mobile phones. Well, I am not promoting his shop on this blog, but his request took me by surprise, considering there is hardly any internet connectivity in the village. Heck, this guy didn’t even have a mail id, so why would he ask me for such a favour? His plan was that whenever his village is blessed with broadband connectivity, people will find his shop if they google the village name or if they join relevant friends on social networks.

Earlier, when marketers promoted their website, seeing themselves on the first page of search was their only goal. Then, in addition to that, came content ads and search ads for lead generation. I am sure by now, you are clear about what Social Media can offer to marketers, it’s potential in generating huge relevant traffic, branding, customer feedback, larger market share and, of course, leads and business opportunities. I have seen many marketers focused on creating brand presence even before launching their website. Although very channel and idea has its own useful period, in the current scenario, the usefulness of social media marketing cannot be decoupled from the overall marketing objective.

Social Bookmarking is still doubted by many marketers for its ability in supporting their Online Marketing campaigns. Marketers always tried escaping from the use and important of Social Bookmarking and often considered it as a time taking unnecessary activity. They would rather find investing their time on Facebook and Twitter neglecting usefulness of Social Bookmarking sites. Guys, I am very serious about Social Bookmarking as an essential online marketing and link building tool

There are always some questions in the mind regarding Social Bookmarking, like…

• How a Social Bookmarking can promote my site?
• What are the correct ways of Bookmarking posts?
• What are the best Social Bookmarking sites?
• Is it possible to Bookmark all of my posts?

These questions are not new, I often hit by these questions numerous times speaking to my clients, colleagues and friends. Whenever I talk about Online Marketing and Social Media Marketing contributing major portion of it, I don’t forget to explain them the importance of Social Bookmarking. Well, this article may help you find answers to these questions.

Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to share, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web resources and contents. In social bookmarking websites, users create and store bookmarks of their choice. These bookmarks can be viewed by others and that let them know about new services and latest concepts which are making news in the online world. For example del.icio.us, Digg, Furl, Reddit and Stumble Upon are some of the most popular social bookmarking websites.

Descriptions may be added to these bookmarks in the form of metadata helping other readers understand the content of the resource without first needing to download it for themselves.

Social bookmarking is a great way to direct visitors to your blog or site. First, you have to build a site that is worth reading. Build on your blog content, and make sure that these are up to date as well. Of course, everything in print must be interesting if you aimed at making online readers your regular visitors. Millions of people use these Social Bookmarking websites daily to search for information on various topics. Naturally, when it comes to promoting your site or the content, the idea of bookmarking is to post links back to your own website pages on these traffic heavy websites.

Social bookmarking is a not only a powerful tool but you must be careful and not to become a social bookmarking spammer. Social bookmarking spammer will find himself in trouble getting his account banned and in result negative reputation over the web.

A one way link is created to your site, everytime a website is bookmarked. Most social bookmarking websites have high page rank scores and are considered to be authority websites in the eyes of the search engines. Resulting in your bookmarks being indexed very quickly and the relevant back link will be added to your overall link count.

The best thing about Social Bookmarking is that you can always re-bookmark your website or an article with different titles and description. By doing so, you will figure out the best title that can gain the most attention and visitor to your website, which may ultimately convert all the traffic to sales.

Social bookmarking sites are becoming increasingly popular to use as an alternative to search engines. By submitting your content to these sites, internet users are able to find your information without having to visit to search engines. The concept of searching in a social bookmarking site is very similar searching in search engines. Tags are used as keywords for search engines, so that when a user is searching for information related to your content, your information will appear in the search results.

Since there hundreds of social bookmarking web sites, you probably want to be a little selective regarding your content to be submitted to. There are many sites offering news and resources in specific categories for e.g Health Ranker is best considered in resources related to health, fitness, and medicines. However, there are many sites offering content from large category to choose from.

Click here for the list of Social Bookmarking websites.

Imagine, you start your day sitting down with a cup of coffee… you search your company name online and the top result is someone slamming your company, your brand or you.

I am not kidding, it’s very possible that conversations about you and your company are taking place across the web on various social networks 24X7. A single negative feedback can cost you millions. Hard to believe? Look for Dominos or America online. That’s a pretty big reason to worry, when your customer determines your success.

They say, with power comes responsibility. In the case of social media, prosperity brings threats to businesses. You have to be on your toes while running an inbound marketing campaign, as you don’t want to miss any of the conversations online about your products or even about yourself.

Now, let’s get to the source of the problem and some precautionary steps:

Why you should care about ORM?

1. Your customers are online taking keen interest in your deliverables.

2. Several positive reviews bring more sales prospects while a single negative review will bring down your actual sales.

3. Your competitors are more interested in you than you yourself.

4. People miffed with you (for no reason, maybe) are online.

5. Future of your company in online.

What actually happens Online?

1. A dissatisfied customer posts a review about your products or service on social media sites like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and the result shows in the first page of Google overnight.

2. A single review is enough to start a conversation and that will be enough to give you a headache.

3. Your competitors will see this little conversation as a Golden Opportunity to take the discussion to the next level, making matters worse.

4. Non-response to a query seeking necessary information about your products makes you a picture of poor marketing and customer service.

5. Your past employee, frustrated at your policies / remuneration is enough to cause turbulence in your business and brand image.

6. False information and misrepresentation about your products and service.

Key to Manage Online Reputation:

The above are some of the major causes of a sullied online reputation. But hey, for every problem, there is a solution out there. Online reputation can be protected by just being cautious, alert and following some necessary steps:

1. Create a sound social media plan for your business to be present on major social networks where your customers are online.

2. Maintain consistency throughout all social networks where you are present; with same level of information and services you provide.

3. Don’t overlook the importance of SEO as it helps improve your page ranking and makes your site rank well on various keywords.

4. Don’t run away from discussions. Instead, enter the discussion and try to get the issue resolved by offering active customer services.

5. Maintain a corporate blog and share useful insights about your company, services, and achievements, even social and corporate events. This allows people to get to know you better, builds loyalty and diminishes animosity and scepticism. Sun Microsystem’s CEO blog

6. Don’t just advertise about your products and services. Offer the opportunity of reviewing and rating your products to your fans, friends and internet users. Starbucks did it right with “My Starbucks Idea.”

7. Twitter and Facebook are great platforms for building a community around your product or brand. It makes it a lot easier for people to discuss and find information about you by just visiting your profile or page, best example being, Zappos

8. Listen to customer feedback and act accordingly. Thank the customer for his positive feedback and get the problem resolved if he has a negative feedback.

9. Don’t hesitate to promote your content through Videos, Images, Blogs, PPT and PDFs on various social media sites like YouTube, Flickr, Slideshare, Scribd etc.

10. Don’t enter a war of words, if someone presents false information about you or your brand to promote negativity. Instead, calmly ask him to remove his comment or, get into the legal action if you are sure about his intent.

11. Come up with better customer support service and offer rewards through contests and gift coupons. Contests and promotions are an equally important aspect of inbound marketing as they are of outbound. Eg Dell offering discount coupons on Twitter.

12. Ask your employees to blog about their learning and achievements while working with the company as customers are always keen to know the company from inside.

13. Treat your customers as a part of your company; you cannot survive without them. Enter into some social cause and invite other members to lend a helping hand…Like Aircel with their initiative “Save our Tiger”.

Tools to monitor online reputation

1. Google alerts and Yahoo alerts can be used to track conversations happening around your brand online.This tracked information is supplied to you based on your targeted company keywords through email.

2. Sometimes the most important conversations don’t happen on blogs. Forums and message boards can also host conversations about your brand and you’d never know about it. Boardtracker makes your work easier with providing conversations happening on forums around your product or brand.

3. Technorati is the leading blog search engine indexing millions of blog posts in real time. It also tracks the authority, influence and popularity of blogs.

4. Monittor and Twitter Search can track conversations happening on twitter about your company.

5. Social Mention – A social media search engine that searches user-generated content such as blogs, comments, bookmarks, events, news, videos, and microblogging services and even more, with user sentiment and tonality of discussions.

6. You can use paid tools such as Reputation Defender, Trackur etc to monitor your presence online.

Maintaining Online Reputation is not a tough task, it is a bit challenging though. Being active, with smart marketing skills will do the business for you. However, don’t expect to move mountains in a day. Instead, give yourself some time, and expect better results in a longer period.

“Because a negative message is more viral than the positive one”

We understand what it takes to manage online reputation while everyone is on a mission to move you out of the playground. If you are worried about managing your online reputation, whether as a company, campaign or as a celebrity, get in touch with us and make yourself ‘authentic’ in the eyes of people.

Mail us at info@omlogic.com or join us on Facebook