Tag Archive for mobile

Facebook Newsfeed Changes Ahead of F8

September 21, 2011 Molly White No comments

I woke up this morning to a brand new Facebook!  Even my iPhone app has updated to reflect some of these changes.

1) Last week Facebook rolled out smart lists. These lists include, acquaintances, close friends, your places of work, and schools, people in proximity to your location, and restricted people.

  • You can merge these lists with your current lists, and add or remove people to them at will.  This is vastly improved from old lists which were rather tedious to update and maintain.
  • the Restricted lists is like the limited profiles of old.  People on this list will only see what you post PUBLICLY and they are not aware they are on this lists.
  • If you click the left of the list names, a pencil icon appears and this will let you add or remove these lists from your favorites and rearrange the order in which they appear on the left side of your page
  • Just below my lists are my pages, a feature that was rolled out several weeks ago.

2) Next up is the instant ticker, this shows what people are doing on Facebook in real time, a little snapshot of activity to paruse while you are reading other updates.  I like this because I can now see if a friend comments on something while I’m reading work related content or vice versa.  Excellent news for my short attention span and as yet undiagnosed adult onset ADD :-)

Just noticed this little gem on the newsfeed ticker: when you expand upon the places check-in you get a Bing map, this doesn’t happen in the regular newsfeed.

 

3) I just noticed this little change, but the upper right hand corner that used to look like this: 

Now looks like this: 

  • The settings that were once housed under account now live under the little arrow

In the newsfeed itself, a screen shot that I failed to capture, your news is now divided into top news, and recent news, both showing up concurrently.  This change appears in my iphone app as well, as shown here:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notice, that in the Earlier today stories, there’s a little blue triangle behind the profile photo, that’s because Facebook has marked them as stories I might find particularly interesting.

In addition to these changes, the body of the newsfeed and the entire blue bar have changed.

 

The blue bar now travels with you as you scroll down the page, making search easier.

And photos are much bigger in the newsfeed.  Interestingly enough, I’ve noticed this change on friend’s photos only, not business pages.  These pictures are much more attention grabbing which is nice.  Looking at friends photos might be my favorite part of Facebook!

There are lots of other new changes coming tomorrow at Facebook’s Developer Conference, F8.  Word on the street is that Facebook will get heavy music, movie, tv, book, and magazine integration. In addition, the 500 character limit is said to be rising to 5,000!  I am so excited to see the changes coming!

So far I love all the changes. I check my lists compulsively, can see friends photos with more ease, and am always in the know thanks to the smart ticker.

What do you think?

 

 

 

 

Facebook, social media , , , , , , , ,

What To Do When an Earthquake Strikes

August 23, 2011 Molly White No comments
Baltimore DC Earthquake Damage

Don’t bother making or receiving calls on a land line of a cell phone. Instead check Facebook or Twitter immediately. And communicate via Messenger, Chat, texts, and email.

Seriously.

Today, I was at the Maryland Zoo, sitting on a short wall, waiting for a tram, when I felt the wall shake. I thought it was a big truck or something, looked around, saw nothing that could be the cause of the shaking, and by the time I could process that there was nothing I could see that would cause the shaking, the shaking had stopped.

My phone rang, I couldn’t answer it. I couldn’t call out either. But I could receive and send emails and texts and I could check Twitter and Facebook. Thanks to technology and the interwebs, I connected with my husband and mother, who informed me that Baltimore had been struck by a 5.9 magnitude earthquake. I was then able to reach out on Facebook and Twitter to find out how all of my other friends and family faired.

I also managed to scoop up several AWESOME Foursquare badges!

 

Twitter and Facebook, kept me in the loop and up to date with everyone.  And Foursquare sucked me back in with these badges.

Everyone’s fine, us East Coasters are being heavily mocked by those on the West Coast and this photo is making the rounds on the internet, depicting the damage from the quake.

Baltimore DC Earthquake Damage

Baltimore DC Earthquake Damage

 

The takeaway from this is if you don’t have a smart phone, good luck contacting your friends and loved ones in the case of a large scale emergency situation.  And ALL HAIL SOCIAL MEDIA!!!

 

Facebook, social media, Twitter , , , , , , ,

Ode to my iPhone

May 24, 2011 Molly White No comments

I’m more than in love with my iPhone, I’m fully addicted to it and couldn’t live without it. Why am I writing about it here? Because without it, I couldn’t do what I do, how I do it!

Here are my top 10 apps:

Facebook – Facebook, Inc.

Email

Calendar

Twitter – Twitter, Inc.

foursquare – foursquare

Springpad – Spring Partners

Camera+​ – tap tap tap

Instagram – Burbn, Inc.

Dropbox – Dropbox

Google Search – Google (docs)


The Facebook app lets me act as all of the pages that I admin, and not only post updates, but also post photos as those pages.  This is huge for me!

Email is pretty self explanatory, I use it more than I use the phone, and have to remind myself that checking and responding to email while driving is not safe!!

Lucky for me, I’ve got lots of appointments these days, plus the schedules of my 2 girls to juggle, not to mention my social calendar (insert sarcasm here).  Hence, the usefulness of the calendar app.

The Twitter app is my favorite of all the Twitter apps, I like it better than Hootsuite or Tweetdeck or any other Twitter app.  And the bonus is that it it’s free.  I can manage my own Twitter account, plus all of my clients accounts too, and get notified whenever someone mentions me or a client on Twitter.  It’s great!

Foursquare, oh how I love to alert the general public to my whereabouts and exciting life (again with the sarcasm) But honestly, I lurve me some foursquare!  I yearn to steal mayorships from my neighborhood foursquare nemesis (this is the first she’s hearing about this). I’m talking about you @RealtorMarney! Marney’s a real estate agent extraordinaire (she runs all her own social media and rocks at it BTW) and that woman is the mayor of my life here in Lutherville! And thanks to Foursquare, I’ve gotten free loot at Aveda, discounts at H&M, and discovered a delicious little lunch spot in a Towson Office building, Crush Cafe.  It really is a nifty tool that can be used to discover new places and save money while doing it.

Springpad is my note taking, moleskine replacement, task master, recipe storer, go to for anything not handled by Google (docs) and dropbox.  I can take meeting notes here, clip links, store recipes, wine labels, photos of articles, you name it, springpad can do it.  And then I can tweet them, share them on facebook, and access them offline if need be.  Springpad is magical.

And then there’s camera+, an app that makes the built in camera app look super lame.  It takes awesome photos and let’s me edit them, in app, all before storing them to my photo album. I can also share photos to my personal facebook and twitter account right from the app.  Thanks to this app, I no longer own a point and shoot camera.  This and my DSLR are all I need for vacation, special events, and the day to day photos I like to take.

Combine Camera+ and Instagram and my love for sharing photos is taken to a whole other level! Not to mention that as much as I enjoy sharing photos, I enjoying view other people’s photos even more.  Instagram is the perfect app to consume photo content on the go!

Dropbox and Google (docs) let’s me view and edit almost all of my files on the fly.  I store everything between these two sites/apps and can set up shop on anyone’s computer for the most part.  But used on the iphone, I can access anything, anytime.  No computer, no problem!

BONUS 11th app: Google Voice – Google
Were it not for Google Voice, I’d have a much higher phone bill and no way to discern personal from professional incoming phone calls. I can call people from my computer, home phone or cell phone and it always appears to be coming from my business number, 410-775-6187. I have visual voicemail, at no extra charge. And can send texts from my phone or computer, for free. It’s easy to use and indispensable.

So at the end of the day, each of these apps impacts how I work on a daily basis. I don’t know how I did what I do before that glorious day in February when I chased down my UPS driver to retrieve my iphone.  The phone I woke up at 3 in the morning to order and tracked it’s progress as it traveled from China.  All of my anticipation and excitement have proved more than warranted.  This phone let’s me do the best job I can for my clients.

Facebook, mobile, social location, Twitter , , , ,

WIIFM – What’s In It For Me?

May 18, 2011 Molly White No comments

Why Should People Like Your Brand On Facebook? Or Follow You On Twitter?

WIIFM, stands for What’s In It For Me?  It’s a simple principle that I learned when I was slinging copiers.  When you sell something your customer is thinking these 5 words and you need to be able to give them an answer.  The same principle applies for your social media sites.

You see and hear it everyday now, like us on Facebook, Follow Us on Twitter, or maybe it’s just a logo, or the simple F and T at the bottom of the ad. More often than not, the brand’s location on these sites isn’t listed and even less often than that do they tell you WHY you should like them or follow them. And after you see these ads, how often are you taking the time to go onto Facebook and Twitter, and find these brands to follow and like them?  Seldem, right? Right!

Give people a REASON to like you and to follow you and TELL THEM where to find you!  For instance, if I were to use print advertising, I would include, Like me on Facebook at Facebook.com/MollyWhiteMarketing or Follow me on Twitter @MollyWhite for all the latest news and information about social media for businesses!

So Why should people like or follow you?  What’s on your Facebook Page?  If you were a customer or client what would you want to see?

QR Codes

The most basic description of QR Cdoes is that they are a way to connect the non digital world with the digital world.  Using apps for your smartphone like ScanLife, RedLaser and others, your phone reads the quirky square bar code, and translates it to information.  It can simply be a link or it can be a complete set of contact information that can be instantly stored on your phone.

Old Navy recently held an in store Easter Egg Hunt, but instead of searching for eggs, you searched for giant QR code posters.  Scan them, and they took you to a page where you entered your email address, and then it randomly generated a message to let you know if you had found the “golden” egg.  I was at the store (surprise, surprise ;) ) while the campaign took place and even my 4 year old daughter got into the game and helped me to find all 15 codes.

A quick scan of some of your incoming direct mail pieces and ads in magazines will show that QR codes are becoming more and more common.  You can implement them in your marketing too.  Instead of listing your website in an ad, include the QR code for it.  Do the same with your social media addresses.  Use them on your business cards so that people can instantly store your contact info!  Have fun with them!  The possibilities are endless.

Connect with me to learn about all of the latest news and information in the world of social media!

Like Molly White Marketing on Facebook

QR code

Follow Me on Twitter

QR code

Add Me to Your Contact List

QR code

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Social Media + Smartphone = Lifesaver

March 29, 2010 Molly White No comments

On Thursday, March 25th, my 3yo daughter, Isabelle took a ride on the outside of the escalator and my friend, along with a custodian at the mall, yanked her to safety near the top of the escalator (the height of the escalator was about 15 feet). In the process, Isabelle hurt her mouth and jaw.

I took one look at her and knew we had to go to get X-rays because I was pretty sure her jaw was broken. At the time, I was unaware of the implications of a broken jaw. Our first stop was Patient First, where an X-ray was administered.  While it wasn’t clear that a break had occurred it was enough to prompt a call for an ambulance. We rode, back and neck immobilization braces and all, to Johns Hopkins Hospital’s pediatric ER.

Once at the ER, Isabelle was given a CAT scan, which revealed not only a broken lower right jaw, but also a dislocation. We were admitted and told that the surgeon would visit us in the morning. While we awaited the go-ahead for admission and the hour of midnight approached, I hooked up my computer, juiced my phone and used social media to alert my friends to Isabelle’s perils and situation.  I’d also sent out some texts and made phone calls earlier in the night.  While Isabelle FINALLY slept, I found comfort in the comments and conversations of my friends on Facebook and Twitter in the post midnight hours.

And from there, almost without thinking, I chose to use Facebook as my means to communicate the goings on of our brief hospital stay.  I used my status updates to fill in friends and family about when her surgery would take place and when the Doctor, appeared, just one hour after we left Isabelle’s side in the OR , to proclaim that he was able to set her jaw and fix the dislocation without making the expected incision and without having to wire her jaw shut,  I rejoiced, and shouted it out to all my Facebook and Twitter friends.

In return, I found an outpouring of support, and received numerous offers of help.  Upon our return home with strict instructions from the Doctor to keep her on a liquid diet and restrict her movement, I have found Twitter and Facebook to be a great outlet for my stress, and again, a great resource for comfort and support.

Armed with only my Droid, for the most part, I was able to inform and update every single friend and family member about Isabelle’s predicaments.  They got photographs of her injury, cat scan, and recovery. They were able to communicate with me directly, and yet in a non-invasive way. Their emails, posts, tweets, and texts could be read and responded to at my convenience.

Only seldom did I pick up the phone and have a conversation and for the most part is was a challenge to do so.  The texts, posts, emails, tweets, and messages were far easier to manage and maintain.

My communication has changed significantly in the last 24 months and will continue to shift.  More and more, I rely on the apps on my phone as opposed to the phone itself.  The ease of disseminating information on social networks lends itself naturally to communicating with a broad group of people.

The same can be said for businesses. Using Facebook and Twitter to dispense information to your customers and clients is fast, easy and effective. If my personal page had been a fan page, the insights column would have been blowing up. The information I was posting was timely and of interest to my friends and they therefore responded to it. That same concept translates for businesses. Having a fan page and a twitter address is only half of the package. You must use it to converse with your fans and followers.

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