Posts from June, 2012

What is it really that makes you a “fan” of a brand or company on Facebook? Is it different than what makes you continue to be a fan of a business page? These are questions we deal with frequently in our line of work and and we often struggle to help clients understand that while both are of equal importance, capturing a “like” and keeping a “like” often require two separate (and sometimes diverging) strategies.

While studies have shown that that 40% of people “like” a company or brand on Facebook to receive discounts and promotions, it is important to understand what keeps a customer a fan of your page.

Consumers use Facebook to interact with friends, be entertained and express themselves. Thus, businesses need to engage consumers on Facebook in a way that keeps them entertained because it serves as an exceptional opportunity to mobilize fans, get introduced to their friends and potentially transform them into dedicated and loyal brand ambassadors.

In determining Facebook strategy, it is important to test out what works for your fan base on your page. Do so by experimenting with the time of day you post and monitoring what days and times receive the most interaction from your fans. Make sure you’re checking your analytics to find out what fans are clicking on and what fans are hiding from their news feed.

Though Facebook can be a great tool for self-promotion and selling, it’s important to be extremely careful about when and how you do so. You want followers to engage with your business, and if you’re constantly promoting your business or selling, followers are not going to want to engage.

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With over 10 million monthly users, Pinterest has become the hottest social media tool of the moment. If used correctly, it’s possible for you to harness this potential for the benefit of your business in a big way. Just in case you’re not convinced, here are some quick facts to prove that Pinterest shouldn’t be ignored:

• Over 80% of pins are repins = exposure overload!
• Pinterest reached 10 million unique visitors faster than ANY website
• Pinterest drives more traffic to websites than YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn combined
• Pinterest earns more revenue per click than Facebook or Twitter
• Research has shown that customers report actually like a brand better after viewing a brands Pinterest profile

Now here’s the low-down on how to maximize the potential of Pinterest for your business:

• Keep an eye on what is being pinned from your site! Check to see if items from your website have been pinned by copying and pasting this link and entering your website URL here: www.pinterest.com/source/yourwebsite.com
• Always make sure your “About” section is filled out completely.  People want to know who you are!
• Repin! Pinning others pins will help you gain a wider following
• Use keywords in your pin descriptions so people looking for your goods or services can find you easily
• Organize your boards in an order that will attract “likes” to your page (see where the arrow is pointing below)

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A few weeks ago, I was working on a web application that uses jQuery Mobile.  This app contained an unusual form that would make an AJAX call to validate the user’s input, grab some data, and display a confirmation message in a div.  The web application uses that input later to customize their experience.  None of this was a problem until we realized that a user might want to go back and change their information during the same visit.

If you’re a web designer or web developer and have ever worked with jQuery Mobile, you may already know where this is going.  When the user returned that form, the AJAX call would fail to update it, even though I could see the request succeeding in Firebug’s network traffic tab.  After considerable frustration and a big cup of coffee, I noticed that jQuery Mobile reloaded the page containing the form the second time around, despite the existence of a copy it cached in the DOM only seconds ago!  This resulted in two distinct copies of the form trying to use the same ID’s: a sneaky, invisible doppelganger and the visible one.  The script was only able to poll and update the hidden one, because it was higher in the DOM, resulting in AJAX calls containing stale data, and useless DOM updates.

Data-ajax decorator to the rescue!  Putting data-ajax=”false” on an element such as a form or a link prevents jQuery Mobile from using its caching magic when the user performs an action that would take them to another page, and instead reloads the DOM.  In this case, it also banished the doppelganger form, allowing everything to work correctly.