“Kim now charges as much as $25,000 to simply mention and link to a brand or company in a tweet. It’s so effective a tool that businesses have begun including Twitter clauses in their contracts with the family, committing the girls to a set number of tweets about their product.

‘I see a Twitter clause in almost every contract,” says APA’s Brian Dow, who works with the family on the majority of their commercial interests (WME represents the Kardashians as their talent agents). “It’s like having a photo run in a magazine. It’s another impression for a brand and another medium.’” (Hollywood Reporter)

The question becomes – once  people realize tweets are paid for – essentially ads – will that matter? Maybe. Maybe not.

See Social Media Plans

The problem was the execution of the commercial. Both the copy and the direction.  After a serious intro about the problem in Tibet, suddenly Timothy Hutton brightens up (bad direction), and says, “But they can still whip  a mean curry,” or something like that. “Whip up a mean curry!” The tone of those words just defeats and trivialized what they had just set up.

A smoother, more in tune  transition  was called for. Something about how the culture and tradition of  Tibet is seen in wonderful Tibetan restaurants like this one….then something about Groupon making it easy and affordable  to enjoy and support these restaurants.

Their intention was commendable. But the execution pretty much negated it and sullied their reputation.

“ They are also more interested in exploring content they discover on Facebook — they click on 5.3x more links to external sites than the typical Facebook user.”

In other words, they are more likely to go to your website – which means more chances to have them join your list.

See Facebook’s suggestions: http://on.fb.me/9axsRw

I don’t know why Google wouldn’t do that considering that search is its strength – and Google Profiles right now are nowhere. Yet it would be the biggest challenge to facebook pages or profiles if people knew their Google Profile would have priority in search.

Source: New York Times

Now mind you I’m not talking about job-seeking, even though that is one of its primary objectives.

In fact, studies show that small-business owners are more likely to use LinkedIn than employees working for a corporation. And tests show that links from Linkedin yield better results than links from other social media. In a recent contest involving 2,350 business related links from 12 marketing and social media sites, 55% came from Linkedin, 13% came from Facebook, while Twitter referred 11%.

So how do you make money using Linkedin? In fact, it is tricky. Out and out selling will get you either banned or ignored. There is a more sophisticated way to monetize Linkedin (and it doesn’t depend on your network. It can be done even if you have a small number of network contacts).

To find out all about, check out my Free, Step by Step Webinar: How to Cross the Bridge from Linkedin to Web Profits at http://www.yourlaptopbusiness.com/free-linkedin-webinar.html

Of the 2,350 directly referred urls, 55% came from Linkedin, 13% came from Facebook, while Twitter referred 11%.

Since Linkedin clearly has so much potential to drive business-related traffic, the question for marketers is how exactly to take advantage of that. That will be answered in a FREE webinar, entitled “Crossing the Bridge from Linkedin to Web Profits.”

To register for this free webinar on attracting more business using Linkedin (space is limited), go to http://www.yourlaptopbusiness.com/free-linkedin-webinar.html

For details on the blog -off contest, go to http://communitymarketing.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/06/linkedin-drives-more-direct-blog-traffic-than-facebook-twitter-or-google.html

 

Now you might say, “can’t the museum staff tag its own collections?”
In fact it does.

But the point is that curators and museum visitors see art in  different ways.
According to  Shelly Bernstein, the museum’s manager of information systems:

“The way curators and museum professionals see an object isn’t necessarily the same as the way a student or the general public would think to describe it.”

When visitors click on the object, they are encouraged to apply any keywords that come to mind (vulgarity not included).The museum then adds the tags to its online database.

The museum also uses tagging to encourage visitors to register online.  Registrants can participate in a game of “tag” to see how many tags they can come up with, object by object.

I applaud the museum for using an effective, easy way to employ social media tools to increase engagement with its target audience.

If you’re looking for effective ways to use social media (or other marketing tools) to deepen the interaction between your target audience and your products or services, click consulting services.

From an article posted on my blog, I quickly received about 100 visitors, evenly divided between Digg and StumbleUpon as the source of the visitors. The real eyeopening statistic was time spent on the page. StumbleUpon visitors: 10 seconds, Digg visitors: 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Now that is a huge difference. People who spend more time on the page have more time to engage with the site.

What accounts for the difference? My instinct is that people using Stumbleupon have a browser’s mindset. They are willing to take a few seconds to view a page in the course of browsing through websites.

Digg users arrive with a reader’s mentality. Digg was  conceived as a site to post and vote for  news items that you think others might want to read.

So while these results are very preliminary, as of now I’d say if you had to choose between Digg and StumbleUpon to  spread the word, choose Digg.