by Paul Joseph
January 12, 2012
Featured
At restaurants, at movies and at the office, checking Facebook has become a regular habit for many of the internet social network’s more than 800 million users. Now that habit has reached a new frontier: the automobile. Mercedes-Benz USA is bringing Facebook to its cars, with a special version of the service that is built-in to a new in-vehicle telematics system that will be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. Accessing Facebook on the road is not the exactly the same as using the social network on a personal computer or a smartphone. The version of Facebook offered in Daimler AG’s Mercedes is stripped down to a limited set of features, specially designed for drivers and centered around the locations of friends and businesses. But according to Facebook Vice President of Partnerships and Platform Marketing Dan Rose, the Mercedes version of Facebook reflects the social networking service’s expansion to a growing list of settings where screens and internet connections are available. “Now that cars have screens that are intelligent, you would expect that more and more car manufacturers will want to make those screens capable of allowing people to connect with their friends and take advantage of the social context that comes along with that,” Rose said in an interview. “One of the core things that people do on their screens in the car is GPS navigation and the ability to see which of your friends are nearby is something we think will be really interesting for people.” He noted Facebook is also increasingly being integrated into televisions, with various TV manufacturers expected to showcase built-in Facebook integration at CES. DirectTV will show off a new social TV app with Facebook capabilities at CES, allowing people to share what they are watching and to add commentary. But unlike television sets, offering Facebook in motor vehicles involves critical safety considerations, particularly at a time when lawmakers and safety advocates are increasingly focused on distracted driving. Robert Policano, Mercedes’ Product Manager for Telematics Services said the service is no more distracting than a standard in-car navigation system or radio. Any Facebook activity that requires a user to enter text is disabled while the car is in motion, he said. The Facebook application displays a variety of standard, pre-written postings that a driver can publish on Facebook with quick taps or turns of a knob. If a particular destination is already entered into the car’s navigation system, the driver can automatically publish a Facebook posting stating they are en route to that destination, along with an estimated time of arrival, based on the current traffic patterns. Drivers can also quickly access a list of friends that are nearby, or restaurants in the vicinity that their friends have “liked” on Facebook. The Mercedes Facebook offering is the result of a collaboration between the two companies that started about six months ago, according to Policano. A Mercedes engineering team based in Palo Alto actually built the Facebook application, with input from Facebook on various aspects. Facebook is one of several specially designed apps, including Google Inc and Yelp, that Mercedes drivers can flip between by turning a knob. The apps are part of Mercedes new mbrace2 telematics system, which features a high-resolution color screen near the dashboard and a high-speed wireless Internet connection. The mbrace2 system will be available with the launch of the 2013 SL-Class Mercedes in the Spring. The company plans to make it a standard feature on all Mercedes 2013 models that will roll out throughout the year. One popular Facebook feature that Mercedes drivers will not get, however, is the ability to play social games such as Zynga Inc’s Farmville. Mercedes’ version of Facebook does not support third-party apps.
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by Paul Joseph
January 9, 2012
Featured
Facebook is a social network, and to have more fans your page needs to have consistent social interaction. Consistently posting fresh content, will bring more visibility to the page while attracting more fans. Everything you post on Facebook should sound like your brand instead of an individual post. There are few important elements which needs to be considered before creating a content strategy : Who is your target audience? Understanding when your audience is most engaged, and timing your content delivery around those windows. Understanding what your followers are interested in by looking at your click stream data and creating more content around those topics. Achieving a balance between informative and fun posts like photos, videos etc Content shared should be of high quality and relevance. By staying regular with such content, will make users visit your page and interact. This will also help in building the trust amongst fans and let them stay longer on the page. The most important aspect which needs to be considered while creating content strategy for Facebook is: How Often should you post and what to post How often should you post: posting with the right frequency is very important but your frequency should not lean towards spamming. Define your post frequency depending on the engagement level. We would suggest having 1 posts a day which can be increased if the response from fans is good. Daily posting is very important as it will keep fans waiting for what’s coming next on the page. What to post? Apart from posting about your own brand you should have post which would interest fans like breaking news related to your brand, useful tips etc. If you are sourcing content from other sites then it should be from a trusted source. You should have news about your brand, Type of content collaterals can include: Updates: simple text updates about your brand and related information is a vital part of content as it let the fans know more about the brand Events: You can create events to give info about the events happening in near future. Fans can easily RSVP. Quiz: Quiz or contest is a great way to make your fan page more engaging, and they also give incentive for potential fans to join. Contests that include giveaways can be excellent marketing tools if they’re done properly but keeping in mind the new promotional guidelines of Facebook. Videos: videos are another great way of engaging fans. Develop an extremely engaging video as these get viral very soon. Any engaging and relevant video will definitely attract more fans Campaigns: Running campaigns are an interactive way of engaging more fans and increasing your fan base. Campaigns can be of social cause or related to your own brand, the only thing that needs to be worked on is the creativity, because the more creative the campaign, the more engagement you can expect Photos: Photos are the best way to generate engagement and arguably the most important type of content. Photos generally get more comments and likes. Events photos, product photos etc can get more traffic to your page Now that we have a wide variety of content with us, here are few points which will help generate engagement: Always try to end you update with question, to initiate comments. Answer the comments to keep the conversation going on. Reply to the fans questions every time.
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