We all know what countdown I'm talking about. In 2 days, more than 800 million people will find out how much the site they've been spending half their time on everyday will value at on the stock market.

The numbers are staggering - in billions.  Even the state's budget watchdog is speculating the increase to $45 a piece of share in six months and Facebook alone will generate $2.1 billion in revenue for the state through the 2013 fiscal year. Nearly 1 percent of all personal income in the state this year is expected to be related to Facebook. Source.

Facebook made another announcement to add 85 million shares more to its Friday IPO. This increases the number of shares being offered by 25%, to some 420 million.

As reports are swarming news of Facebook's IPO this coming Friday, and with all the numbers and guesses of the value of its share price and Facebook's annual revenue, I can't help but wonder are there any risks and adversities in this giant hoo-ha?

This is the tech industry's largest IPO made in history. Investors will try to get a piece of this pie but no matter how large the "pie" is, there are only so many to go around.  If that "pie" is all of the money invested in every investment vehicle, that means there is also a limited amount of money to go around. What happens when there is lack of liquidity, will it have an effect on the currency market? Source.

Users won't probably find anything different or new on Friday itself, but will going public change the user experience within Facebook in the future? Investors after all will be putting more pressure on Facebook to generate more revenue. Won't this create a ripple effect and be passed on eventually to the end consumer? Speaking of which, advertising is still an unresolved issue for Facebook in the aspect of mobile. (Of course, it is obvious they're on the right track at this moment.)

So, when share prices are released tomorrow morning and Zuckerberg rings the bell on Friday, will you be ready for it? Are you jumping on their bandwagon or taking on a wait-and-see approach? Share your comments.

And this, we mean not from your corporate page, but as an end-user yourself. Facebook recently rolled out a new "test" ads called "Highlight" that allows end-users to pay a few dollars to have one of their posts to appear more frequently to their friends. Highlight lets the average user select an important post and makes sure it gets seen by their friends. The exact details of how it will truly work is still grey and at the moment, it is only piloting on very few users, in New Zealand. (A more isolated country where Facebook seems to test features it doesn't want too many people to know about.)

This has cause quite a stir among tech and social media sites and blogs. Well there are always the positive and negative aspects of a new feature by Facebook. But is Facebook taking it too far this time?

Yes, there are posts by friends that sometimes require urgent response and this is an often sight we see on our newsfeed when friends require help or need answers urgently. This is also a form of additional revenue source for Facebook and something to attract more marketers to. (Since Facebook did warn investors that its ad business is in jeopardy as more users access via mobile where ads are less visible. Source.)

However, problems seem to surpass positivity of "Highlight" this time. First, the biggest contradiction is how this "Highlight" feature seems to go directly against statements by Facebook that it will never charge its users. Although this isn't a forced feature, the fact that users who have the option and afford paying the feature could anger the rest of the social network's user base.

"Highlight" could also end up disrupting the flow and relevance of news feed.

Facebook's news feed sorting algorithm is designed to show you posts by your closest friends or that have received a lot of Likes and comments. Highlight distorts this, and will encourage news feed spams if users are able to pay and highlight their posts anytime they want.

So, we have a burning question for you, would you pay to "Highlight" your post in your friends' news feed? Will marketers exploit this feature to their advantage using their own private accounts?

Source.

Retail expert Rachel Shechtman believes that the future of consumption needs to be more about content and community. She says that shoppers expect price, quality and service as modern need-to-haves. Source.

Do you agree?

The staggering evolution of social media has definitely changed the way how brands are marketing their businesses and reaching out to consumers. However, could the pressure of having a presence on the array of platforms cause a neglect to their original business strategy and emphasis - creating a good valued product for their customers?

We believe with the emergence of a variety of marketing channels, it is even more vital to have a product that is more meaningful, creative and gives the customers rewarding and enjoyable experiences.

Today, consumers are more aware of what it means of a socially designed product. These new breed of consumers are more picky and they have higher expectations of a well-designed product. An evidence for this? Look at the rising growth of products and services like Apple, Airbnb, Pinterest and of course, Facebook, these are more than just social media platforms, they are socially designed to give customers a simplified yet rewarding experience. Design is their USP and they use it to secure a competitive advantage.

It is no surprise why consumers are behaving this way today. They have access to the Internet wherever they are (mobile) and whenever they want, they have the opportunity to compare and review products of all kinds. (The Internet has probably also taught us what a well-designed user experience means too.) In addition, the new term "influence" is an important aspect for brands to take note of. Friends' recommendations take higher priority now than advertisements and promotion campaigns.

We think this is a call to action for marketers to recognize this new era and make an effort to evaluate if your good or service is indeed customer centric and rewarding for your customers.

Design is more than just marketing today, it is a competitive advantage for businesses and a source of customer satisfaction and loyalty. At this moment in time, this will be the route to recruit and increase your sales.

Source.

What is your stand? Share your views. And, have a lovely creative weekend!

Are we shifting our media channel usage from computer to mobile? Yes. Is this a rapidly growing change? Yes. Are marketers like yourself affected? Definitely.

Facebook has been quick and flexible in response to the trend of their growing mobile audience. Among their well-known mobile acquisitions, their most recent, Glancee, probably is the cherry on top of the cake. Does that mean your business should be thinking of how you need to create a mobile Facebook experience for your brand as well?

There was a recent release of Facebook mobile statistics and usage.

In general, 6 key pointers can be picked out here:

1. Active Facebook mobile users have reached over 500 million and are still growing. Is this something business on Facebook should be aware about?
2. Mobile ad growth is currently at $17.6 billion and is expected to take off higher.
3. Popularity: The Facebook mobile app is 3^rd on iPhone and 4^th on Android.
4. Time spent accessing Facebook via mobile: 441 minutes. How can a business tap on this?
5. Facebook app traffic to mobile apps and games as of February 2012: 60 million.
6. Unique visitors in US: 78 million vs 158.9 million who access via a computer. (That is a whopping half!)

Source.

These figures are staggering and probably something marketers should be aware of. When your customers spend more time on mobile today, it is important you provide the same experience they get as when they access your page via their computer. Your customers are still king. What we need to remember though, that your content is just as important. Engagement and service comes next. The big picture at the end of the day still, is whether your business is social. Mobile is merely another platform.

Running a business seems more difficult than easy today, even with the plethora of marketing platforms and ideas to develop on. What do you think? Share your comments.

As a social media agency and a Facebook user myself, I'll be lying if I said that I'm not overhauled by the consistent changes Facebook rolls out on my newsfeed. It'll be almost impossible to guess what the social networking giant will come up with, the very next day. But with all these features (trending articles, sponsored stories etc.), privacy concerns among fellow users are on the rise.

In a recent report by Consumer Reports, social privacy was analyzed and broken down into over-sharing by users, underuse of privacy controls, over-collection of data, over-sharing of data by apps and cyberbullying or harassment. Although the report did raise questionable alarming privacy concerns, this one of the many reports that have surveyed users of Facebook and social media about their privacy being tapped on and misused.

How is Facebook dealing with this, or if they are at all? How will this affect your company as you continue to market via Facebook ads?

When Robert Scobble, a well known Tech startup enthusiast tried posting a comment about the nature of tech blogging scene, he was prompted with this:

Is this Facebook's way of censoring? Source.

Sweden recently released a new rule against social media advertising that works similar to email and text advertising.  Users are to decide for themselves what advertising reaches them.Source.

As mentioned in an earlier post, with the chance of social media becoming a bubble, the presence and rising privacy concerns should have been foreseen by marketers and the social networking sites. Of course, with the use of any site on the Internet, I think as individuals, we should make an effort to set our own privacy settings and be responsible for our online presence.

With the pervasive growth of social media, it is even more important today that we be aware and in charge of how we are allowing social media into our lives. Nonetheless, we don't want to leave you hanging and feeling helpless so here is the link to find out more about Facebook privacy settings: http://www.facebook.com/help/privacy

How do you feel about the privacy controls online today? Share your views.

"While creating a social brand is a necessary endeavor, building a social business is an investment…" - Brian Solis, Principal at Altimeter Group.

Today, with the fast growth and evolution of social media, it is more than just having a linear presence on the social media platforms. Yes, in order to stay in the rat race, of course it's only necessary for businesses to shift their businesses onto these platforms. Social media has become part of a marketing strategy for these businesses.

However, what many businesses to date have yet to realize that it is more than just shifting your business strategy into something social. Many businesses today are creating a social brand from themselves, they remodel their existing marketing practices to new media. Restructuring to become a social business, is what is more fitting today.

So what is a social business? A social business is something that embraces introspection and extrospection to reevaluate both your internal corporation as well as external processes, systems and opportunities to transform into a living entity that adapts to market conditions and opportunities. Do you realize social media is never a mentioned term here in this description?

"Social media isn't owned by marketing, but instead the entire organization."

To be a social business, it involves the entire company. It involves the business thinking outside of the proverbial social media box to see what others don't, the ability to improve customers' experiences through the evolution of a social brand into a social business. Doing so will translate customer insights from what they do and don't share in social networks into better products and services.

The potential and opportunities of social media can aid your business in doing just that. It's more than just marketing, it's about building relationships with your customers that improve experience and in turn, teaches the business how to re-imagine products and internal processes to better adapt to changes and seize new opportunities. This of course will drive revenue and sales, as long as you know what your customers want.

While creating a social brand is valued at the moment, being a social business is about competing the future.

Source.

Maybe this will give you a slight inspiration about what it means to be a social business. The success of the Coca Cola brand didn't just come; their 34 million fans on Facebook didn't just appear. They had a social media policy 2 years ago that worked till now.

Here's how they did it

The internet bubble aka dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble during the period from 1995-2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the Internet sector.

With Facebook announcing their IPO soon, and with the booms of Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter, is history about to repeat itself with social media?

The term disruptive companies (e.g, Spotify, iZettle)are on the rise, and they are popping up constantly, trying to make money off the existing large valued companies.

Social media and technology are constantly evolving and developing and many people are more than keen to bank on it to make money. But maybe we should pause and look at the bigger picture, is there a social media bubble growing and should we be wary of the aftermath?

Source, SimplyZesty.

Advertisers today realize the importance of having viral campaigns and videos. Although it's sometimes short term engagement, the reach is impressive. But what exactly does it take to be a successful social viral campaign or video? What does it take to stand out from the noise?

Since it's Friday today, we've decided to end off with a viral video campaign by Domino's Pizza, a brand that has truly explored the boundaries and potential of social media.

To improve road safety, Domino's Pizza in the Netherlands introduces their talking scooter

Brands that undertake such bold campaigns with social media, do you think they should have fun like this or maintain a form of professionalism? Share your comments!

In December, a social media service popped up from nowhere and became the fastest in history to break through the 10 million unique visitor mark. It was a very different but creative platform where users could share and "pin" images on virtual pin boards. Pinterest was the new hype and boy did it peak. Today, it has become the 3^rd largest social network in US.

In the beginning, it was merely a platform for individuals to share their interests via visually appealing images. Now, marketers have been quick to tap on the potential of this growing social media service. After all, research have found that Pinterest does drive traffic back to a business website.

But if you're reading and wondering if your business should get Pinterest, let us just offer some pros and cons of Pinterest before you make a choice if having Pinterest for your business is necessary at all.

YAY

1. Pictures speak a thousand words. Photography is the content marketing jewel of 2012. It's the subtext of the recent headlines regarding Facebook's purchase of Instagram and also the fact that Facebook Tagging is now the world's largest photo site. In large part, this is attributable to the fact that photographs are not only visually appealing, it generates a call to action for people to contribute and share over social media.

2. A fit to a T for companies that rely on aesthetics or offer tangible products. The visual nature of Pinterest makes it particularly appealing to visually-based businesses such as weddings websites and graphic design sites. (SaySo Weddings and Skyring Architects). Pinterest provides a simple way of visually communicating with the clients and they drive the customers back to the corporate websites. (PS: These are SMEs that are benefiting.)

3. The numbers don't deceive. Pinterest accounts for 3.6 percent of referral traffic, while Twitter just barely edged ahead of the newcomer, accounting for 3.61 percent of referral traffic. In July 2011, Pinterest accounted for just 0.17 percent of referral traffic, proving the site's blockbuster growth. (PR Daily) Pinterest has 10.4 million registered users (and growing).(AppData) More than 2,000,000 Facebook-connected users are on Pinterest daily. (Mashable)

BUT…

NAY

1. The hype may be receding. According to Compete, the site only gained 1.95 million unique visitors from February to March 2012 as compared to their January - February figures where they gained 5 million visitors that month and 3.9 million the month before. Google stats also show a slump in traffic and AppData suggests that the Pinterest Facebook app isn't being used as much as it used to be, as monthly average users (MAUs) are down.

2. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn, Tumblr - With so many existing great platforms that you can tap on, maybe it's a better idea to refrain from jumping on all networks. Reach is no longer about ensuring your brand has a profile on every social site, but it involves more of a social strategy that your business employs. You don't want to join Pinterest, create a few boards, and pin a few images only to abandon the content because you're too busy maintaining your other social media sites.

3. Pinterest spam problems.  Last month, a spammer claiming $1000 a day in revenue garnered a firestorm of attention online and in the media via Pinterest. (Source.) Of course, when a platform proves to be effective for marketing, it's inevitable that it could be exploited for personal gains.

We've laid out the good and the bad so now it's up to you to decide if your brand is ready to take on Pinterest.

Senior social media specialist from Sony, Callan Green, made a valid point: "There are a million and two social networks and unless you have team of 100 social media strategists, you aren't able to do them all."

Twitter broke the news of Whitney Houston's death 27 minutes before the press.

In 2011, a Facebook status sparked the Egyptian uprising and snowballed into a movement to oust Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Where do you get your most updated news today?

With the revolution of social media and the accessibility to it, everybody is sharing content and getting news about the world from Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms. This is good news for social networks but a worrying sign for the once media giant of the century - print news. To date, online news is making more revenue than traditional print.

Of course, even if there is a rising trend for people who are eager to be the first to announce a story before anyone else or the media, some 50% of news consumers have received "breaking news" via social media, only to find out later it was erroneously reported.

Nonetheless, the release of media apps (Huffington Post, The Guardian, Yahoo news, MSNBC.com etc) on Facebook built with Open Graph gives a platform for users to discover and share news content that are credible. Facebook wrote in a blog post that its news apps have driven significant traffic, increased engagement and introduced media outlets with a new, younger demographic.

Facebook also released some numbers on the reach of its first wave of apps. Yahoo News has seen 25 million people opt into Social Bar and the app has 2 million daily users. The Guardian's app has been installed 5 million times, with 50% of users ages 24 and under. Digg Social Reader has driven a 35% increase in readership. Source.

Blottr, a UK-based online local citizen journalism company, recently launched a Facebook app. It allows readers to share on the network naturally and report news and add content to the Blottr site. Source.

With social media making its presence in the news industry, how will it change consumers behavior today and in the future?