App model - Are you really brining in more customers?

This is a mistake I would not want to make.

It turns out that the app OpenTable, draws customers to reserve and book at restaurants that are ON the app, but is not generating any extra dine-outs.

Restaurants have no choice but to pay for its presence on OpenTable,
in order not to lose the competitions.

It may have caused a bit of convenience for the users, but not much benefits to the restaurants. OpenTable ATE up all the margins.

This is not something I'd like to see in what I'm gonna do.

Why businesses don't like Groupon

Are you fed up with Groupon yet?

The truth is, businesses
1. need a model that gives them more control over discounts to suit their needs
(that is, CRM)
2. don't want to cut margins for something that DO NOT generate repeat businesses.

I pretty much like the quote of such indiscriminative discounts being
"the lowest form of marketing, as much as puns are the lowest form of humour"

How long will these Group-buy sites continue to live?

another 5-star guide - How to improve Facebook Edgerank

Another very useful guide on improving your Facebook "EdgeRank"
What you need to know - the 3 factors of Edgerank
1. Affinity - how much you interact with a friend ... reciprocally
2. More comments the better - and comments rate higher than Likes
3. Time matters. Old things go to the bottom

Therefore:

1. invite interactions with your posts
2. Create Forum/discussions (hence more comments and higher chance to appear on TopNews)
3. Images and videos thumbnails prompts people to click in itself. Add a comment to make it work.
4. So are links.
5. If something is ignored - move on. Or try reposting it (later?)
6. Don't be shy - ask people to Share and Like you. (nicely!)

***************

6 Tips to Increase Your Facebook EdgeRank and Exposure

By Jim Lodico
Published April 28, 2011

Ever wonder why you can have 548 friends on Facebook, yet only 15-20 show up in your news feed? It’s not that those other friends have stopped using Facebook; chances are they’re still there. It’s just that they aren’t showing up in your news feed.

If you haven’t noticed, there are now two settings on your Facebook news feed: “Most Recent,” which shows most of the content published by your Facebook friends in chronological order and “Top News,” which filters content based on EdgeRank.

Friends and fan pages with a high EdgeRank are more likely to show in your “Top News” stream. Users with a low EdgeRank may not even show in your “Most Recent” news feed.

For businesses or others looking to market, promote or just interact through Facebook, the implications of this change are huge. “Top News” is the default setting, so unless a friend or fan changes their default, it’s quite possible that they will never see your updates. No matter how good the content, no matter how well you manage your Facebook page, EdgeRank might be holding you back.

EdgeRank Defined

Facebook looks at everything published as “objects.” These can be status updates, links, photos, video or anything else that can be shared on Facebook. Every object receives a ranking (EdgeRank), which determines if it will show in your personal newsfeed. Objects with a high EdgeRank appear in your “Top News” feed. Objects with a low EdgeRank will not. According to a study conducted last fall by The Daily Beast, objects with a really low EdgeRank may not even show in your “Most Recent” news feed.

An object’s EdgeRank is based on three factors: affinity or the relationship between the creator and user, interaction with the object (likes, comments, etc.) and timeliness. Add the three factors together using a formula that only Facebook truly knows and you’ve got an object’s EdgeRank.

Unlike Google’s PageRank, which stays the same from user to user, every object is scored based on the individual Facebook user who may (or may not) view the object in their news feed.

Let’s take a closer look at the three factors that determine EdgeRank.

Affinity

An object’s affinity score is based on the interactions you have with the friend or fan who published the object. Friends or fans with whom you regularly interact receive a higher affinity score. Each time you visit a fan page, click the “Like” button, comment on a user’s status or look at a picture, you increase the affinity score with that user.

As The Daily Beast study points out, this affinity score only works one way. I can’t increase my affinity score in another user’s feed by constantly clicking on their “Like” buttons or looking at their pictures. Although doing so will increase the likelihood that you’ll see their updates, your objects won’t do better in their news feed until they return the favor.

Level of Interaction

Different types of interactions are weighted differently on Facebook. Activities that require higher levels of user engagement get a higher score than those that don’t. For example, leaving a comment on a photo takes more effort on the user’s part than clicking the “Like” button. Objects that receive higher levels of interaction are more likely to show in a user’s newsfeed.

Timeliness

Most people don’t want to read yesterday’s news. Newer objects have a better chance of showing up in your news feed than older ones.

Armed with an understanding of these three elements, here are six tips on how you can increase the likelihood that your content or objects will appear in your friends’ or fans’ “Top News” feed.

#1: Publish Objects That Encourage Interaction

Unless they’re interesting enough to draw comments, simple status updates aren’t going to move you into Top News feeds. Publish content that naturally encourages click-throughs or creates discussion. Objects such as creative games that require a response (i.e., trivia or caption contests) open up opportunities to add highly weighted interaction and build affinity with new users.

Top News is Facebook's default setting. Top News only shows objects with a higher EdgeRank.

#2: Create a Forum

Ever notice how political content on Facebook can generate a ton of comments? Although it doesn’t take long to realize that Facebook and politics don’t mix, people love to debate and discuss hot issues. Make your fan page a place for constructive discussion on the latest industry topics. Although this approach takes careful management, objects from a fan page filled with healthy discussion are more likely to receive a higher EdgeRank.

Objects such as surveys require user interaction which can build EdgeRank.

#3: Make the Most of Photos and Videos

Photos and videos show up in the Facebook news feed as thumbnail images. Due to their size, they almost require interaction as users click on them to make them large enough to see. Be sure to add a comment that encourages users to open the photo and add comments of their own.

By their very nature, videos and pictures encourage interaction.

#4: Share Links

Links require interaction as users click on the link to view the object. While it’s good to share content from your own website, don’t be afraid to promote interesting content from other sources. Twitter users discovered long ago that the more content of value you share, the better chance you have of driving followers to your own content when the time comes. Again, a comment that encourages opening the link or leaving comments can go a long way.

An object that receives comments is more likely to show in the Top News feed and also builds affinity with users who comment.

#5: Keep It Fresh

The Facebook stream moves quickly. If you’ve got objects that aren’t getting a response, don’t be afraid to let them go and move on to the next thing. If the object is good but didn’t get the response you desired, consider repurposing it or sending it out again at a different time of day.

#6: Ask Users to Share

Don’t be afraid to ask users to share objects or click on the Like button—especially if you’re new to Facebook. It can take a little while for a Facebook page to gain momentum. Anything you can do to help it along will only speed the process.

Although the introduction of EdgeRank may make it more difficult to share information on Facebook, ultimately it still comes down to content. Publishing content that users want to share and interact with has always been vital to any Facebook marketing campaign. With the recent Facebook changes, that content may now need a little extra push to get it the attention it deserves.

You’ll find more here on enhancing your Facebook page and Facebook marketing tips here.

How have the changes to Facebook affected your approach to Facebook marketing? Leave your comments and questions in the box below.

5-star useful - Optimise pictures for search!

Very helpful advice - even your images can be search-optimised!!!!

1. use the right filenames (descriptive, precise, and include "emotional words" which people would search for
2. use alt tags
3. in a position close to the image, add descriptive text4
4. put important pictures on top headline
5. put pictures within posts (rather than sidebars, often interpreted as adds/add. elements)
6. pictures should be with good quality even in thumbnails (that's what they'd be shown on Search engines)...
9. Check how many pictures Google have indexed (see at bottom)

(For the two other tech ones, read on!)

****************

9 Ways of Optimizing your Site for Image Search

All the major search engines have their own image search engines. These may actually generate a lot of traffic. Here’s how you attract image search visitors to your site.

People may have different reasons for using image search engines. There are teenagers looking for pictures of their teen idols, iTunes users looking for an obscure cover of a 1960′s album, and bloggers looking for an image to use for their blog (in violation of all copyright regulations, of course!).

There will also be shoppers looking for pictures of cars, furniture, holiday destinations or clothing. If you are selling products or services it is the shoppers you are looking for. However, all of these persons may be potential future customers or subscribers. And they may become regular readers. You want that!

Note also that all the major search engines now include image search listings in regular web search results. If you have optimized your images correctly, you can get yourself a very attractive top 10 position by tagging your images correctly.

Help the search engine understand what the image is about

If you want your images to rank higher than others for a particular keyword phrase, you need to help the search engine understand what the picture is depicting.

You can do this by the following means:

1. Use descriptive file names

Make sure that the file name describes the image with keyword phrases searchers are likely to use.

Bad: www.yoursite.com/images/photo-356789.jpg
Good: www.yoursite.com/images/row-boat-by-lake.jpg
Good: www. yoursite/images/red-volkswagen-beetle-car.jpg

2. Use the HTML ALT tags actively

(If you do not know what that is, make sure you use the description field in your blog or content publishing software when adding an image).

Bad: <img src=”http://www.yoursite.com/images/6789stp.jpg” alt=”Image”>.

Good: <img src=”http://www.yoursite.com/images/young-woman-pc-reading-news.jpg” alt=”Young woman reading news on PC”>.

If you have a series of images, use variation:

“Blond woman reading news on PC”
“Black woman twittering on a Mac”
“Asian man with laptop on table”

Both photographers and webmasters are notoriously bad at using words for feelings, abstracts and the like — even if people do search for images that may be used to illustrate non-concrete topics. This is where you can gain a competitive advantage.

“Happy woman using PC to search the Web”
“Moody and cranky girl”
“Green background texture”

3. Add descriptive text close to the picture

In order to determine what the picture is depicting, the search engines will also look at the text close to the image.

Good: An increasing number of women are found to be searching the web on their PC when looking for news. <img src=”http://www.yoursite.com/images/young-woman-pc-reading-news.jpg” alt=”Young woman reading news on PC”>.

This text may also be used by the search engine as a snippet that describes the image.

4. Keep the most important images close to the top headline or title

Embedding the image close to the top headline (which should be very similar to the TITLE-field) will increase your chances of having your picture in Google News, as it helps Google match the content of the article with the image.

It is a fair guess that the same principle applies to Image Search.

5. Put the photos within articles and blog posts

The search engines have a tendency of ignoring images in sidebars and other places where they can be interpreted as ads or navigational elements.

Images in articles and blog posts have the greatest chance of success.

There are also other technical issues to keep in mind:

6. Do not add code to break out of frames

The Bing Blog recommends you to watch out for frame breaking:

“Sites that attempt to break frames make it more difficult for the image to display correctly within search. Make sure you’re testing your site against the search engines.”

If you don’t know what we are talking about, you are probably in the clear.

7. Use images that read well when thumbnailed

Use high quality pictures with high contrasts and clear, bright, colors. The search engines will generate small thumbnails to include in search engine results, and you want images that survive that reduction in file size.

If you are not a photographer yourself, you can buy royalt free high quality images from stock photo suppliers like Photos.com and Shutterstock for a reasonable price.

Google are looking for large size photos with good aspect ratios.

8. Make the photos accessible

Make sure that the directory that contains your images can be accessed by the search engine crawlers.

Check your robots.txt file or ask your IT people to do it for you.

9. Use the social photo sites

Upload some of your images to photo hosting sites like Flickr.com. Add links back to the relevant page on your site.

Flickr may generatate traffic on its own, and the search engines may also include Flickr images in their image search results.

Check how many pictures Google has indexed

To check what images Google has indexed from your site, use the following URL, replacing “yoursite.com” with your domain name:

http://images.google.com/images?q=site:yoursite.com

Note that it normally takes longer for the search engines to index pictures than ordinary text content.

See also our Search Engine OptimizationTutorial!