Retro photo apps are all the rage. And for good reason. Fact: People love sharing pictures online. There are over 200 million photos uploaded to Facebook per day, which means there are more than 6 billion uploads per month.

Much to the chagrin of digital camera makers, smartphones are becoming more and more ubiquitous and are pretty much all you need to capture special moments or events as they happen. Thus, the old point n’ shoot cameras are increasingly being left behind to gather dust in the closet.

42% of Americans are using smartphones, and 49% of those users are accessing platforms such as Twitter and Facebook while on the move. Given our collective love of photo sharing and the increased use of smartphones to share all aspects of our lives, phone manufacturers and photo app developers have had to step up to the plate and provide quality products for our shutterbug population who are itching to instantly share their photos.

You all know that I love me some Instagram. It’s reliable, allows me to snap a picture, apply a cool filter of my choosing, and easily share my now hip and sometimes even retro-looking photos with my social networks. The popularity of this app is hard to debate as they recently hit 10 million users, and are focused on providing a great, free app to their users. The caveat to Instagram is that it’s only available as an iPhone app, and they don’t currently plan on expanding their app offering to other mobile platforms anytime soon. In my opinion, the fact that they have tallied up 10 million users on a single platform speaks volumes about the quality and ease of use of the app.

Instagram may be the hot ticket right now, but I recently came across competitor Streamzoo who might just give them a run for their money. Why? Well it’s doing a few things that Instagram is not. And that could be key.

Streamzoo’s app is available as an Android and iPhone app as well as a Web app. This broad platform support greatly increases their prospective user base. Even better – they encourage you to use hashtags when posting photos so your photos are organized into streams.

The use of hashtags also allows users to receive realtime feed updates, see what’s trending or connect with people in their stream with similar interests. It seems like Streamzoo is a little more focused on creating opportunities where a seemingly random photo can create a sense of community between users with similar interests. Hmmm, that might just be pretty wicked cool – and something that Instagram’s not quite doing.

As far as the actual apps themselves, Streamzoo and Instagram are well matched. With the release of their 2.0 update, Instagram actually added quite a few bells and whistles it was previously lacking. From a purely picture taking standpoint – both offer a wonderful range of tools that photographers of all skill levels can use to make a snapshot from their life on the move into something pretty cool.

So what about you, how do you use photos apps like Instagram and/or Streamzoo? Are you there just for the filters and editing tools? Or do you the like the idea of connecting with people with similar interests through the photos you are sharing socially?

Perhaps most importantly, what photo app are you using and why? Tell me about one I’ve yet discovered (please oh please)!

Photo credit: Mark

Coolest Retro Photo App: Instagram or Streamzoo is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

You may have noticed some of your nearest and dearest proclaiming their access to Timeline and wonder, “How the heck can I join the party?” Fear not, friends. We’ve combed through articles from several sources, including the Los Angeles Times, AllFacebook, PC World, CNET and The Huffington Post, each of which provides detailed guidelines on how to access this much-coveted feature. The best instructions we’ve seen come courtesy of the brilliant minds at TechCrunch, and we’d love to share their tips so that you, too, can have your own Facebook Timeline in a matter of minutes.

Before I dive in, I have to confess that our fearless leader, Shelly Kramer relied on her trusty manservant, @danieleagee for his help in enabling her timeline. She’s tricky that way, and not at all patient when it comes to figuring this stuff out. But according to her, he owes her, big time, so who am I to judge?  Don’t worry, you can do this without Daniel, we promise!

The steps outlined below are easy, and it only takes a few minutes to get your Timeline up and running. Ready? Let’s go!

1. Once you’ve logged into Facebook, type “developer” into the search box and click the first result. This enables developer mode on your Facebook account.

2. Access the developer app. Facebook may do this for you automatically, but if not, just click on the app in the tool bar on the left side of your page.

3. Create a new app, but rest easy — no one else will see what you’re creating. Choose a display name and namespace for your app. You’ll be asked to read and accept the Platform Privacy agreement. Note: At this step, you’ll need to have a verified account, so make sure a phone number or credit card number is attached to your Facebook account.

4. You should be in the settings screen of your new app. To verify, look for your app’s name at the top of the page.

5. Click “Get started using open graph” under the “Open Graph” header.

6. You’ll be in a configuration page. Make a few changes to the default settings and make sure you click through each of the settings pages — there’s 3. Don’t worry about completely configuring your app — changing just a few parameters is all you need to keep yourself on the right track.

7. Wait a couple of minutes. Grab a cold beverage, and think about all the ways you’ll use Timeline, including the all-important cover photo.

8. Head back to your Facebook home screen and you should find an invitation to Timeline. Go forth and customize your new and improved page, and be sure to also include a status update letting your Facebook nearest & dearest know that you’re inside the velvet ropes.

What are you waiting for …. go check it out. We’ll admit, we think it’s pretty spiffy.

How To Enable Facebook’s New Timeline is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Coming from a family of jokesters, it was pretty much a given that I would ultimately learn to develop a thick skin (well, frankly, I was forced to do so). It was also imperative that I learn the art of quick repartee as a form of self-preservation much like other children learn to walk. For this, I thank my mother, Shelly Kramer, who apparently popped out of the womb lipping off about something.

Being a general smart ass about most things – sarcasm can and has gotten me into trouble.On more occasions than I can count. But oh how I love it so.

In fact, many friends have probably seen at least one text, Tweet, etc. from me with </sarcasm> in there so they know that I’m just kidding, and not just being a jerk.

As such, I was overjoyed to read that some fabulous interns for BBH are lobbying for the creation of  Sartalics, a bona fide sarcasm font. Hallelujah!!!

This campaign proposes that Sartalics, a reverse italics font, be created so that when Tweeting, updating your Facebook profile or emailing you can use Sartalics to indicate to those thin-skinned among us that you’re being snarky – not mean.

In the long run, this will save so many follow-up calls/emails to say, “Hey I was just kidding, you know that right?” In fact, it might just save a friendship or two. Sarcasm is a very hard tone to convey, so how’s it possible that a sarcasm font has yet to be created?

In all seriousness, with more than 110 million tweets  and an excess of 294 billion emails flying around in a given day worldwide, it only makes sense that we continue to adapt the communication tools we use on a daily basis to ensure our messages are properly interpreted.

Are you, like me, a sarcasm lover? If so, here’s how you can help the cause – visit Sartalics.com and sign the digital petition. As people continue to sign the petition, they will hit up the big dogs from Microsoft, Google, Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo, YouTube, Apple and Tumblr to encourage them to create Sartalics. Below is a cool tutorial the BBH Barn interns created to promote their campaign:

As a cause near and dear to my heart, this is my personal plea to help a sister out and help Sartalics become a reality. And yes, it’s all about me. This will be a great leap forward in my continual quest to quit annoying people with my oft misunderstood but quite adorable (just ask @danieleagee) quick wit.

Sarcasm Lovers Rejoice: Sarcasm Font Has Arrived is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Today I noticed two separate alerts about Facebook privacy breaches and thought I’d pop them into a blog post with instructions on how to remedy.

The first has to do with browsing – and I would have never noticed it had I not seen Danny Brown’s status update mentioning it. Kudos to you, Danny. Finally, you’re good for something.

If you use Facebook, stop what you’re doing, right now, and hop on over there. Look at your browser window. If it just starts with http:  or www: guess what – you’re browsing on an unsecured connection and your account could easily be compromised. As in hacked.

A secure account starts with https: as seen in my browser window in the image below. If yours does not start with https: that’s problematic. To fix it, do this:

Go to Account, then Security, then, on Security Settings, look at whether or not you’ve opted for Secure Browsing. If it’s not enabled, do it. Now.

Another thing I discovered today because of a heads up by the lovely Kristina Sorrelli is that it’s possible, depending on your settings on both Facebook and your mobile phone, that your contacts are all there, for Facebook’s viewing pleasure and or use as they please. I don’t know about you, but I don’t really need Facebook using my data and recommending friends for me – I don’t have any trouble finding them on my own. And that’s what this setting might allow.

Want to know more? Stop what you’re doing. Yes, now.

Go to Account, Edit Friends, Contacts. If you click on contacts, it’ll take a minute, but all the phone numbers that have been imported from your phone (if you have it set to sync) will show up, as will all the contact numbers that people have made visible via their Facebook profiles.

If you don’t want that to happen, select Remove Imported Contacts as shown in the example below.

There you have it. Two little things you can–and should–change and that might someday save you from a world of trouble. Thanks to Danny and Kristina, and lots of other folks in the Facebook and Twitter worlds who quickly notice things like this and pass them along to the rest of us.

Facebook Privacy Breach: 2 Settings You Need to Check NOW is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Anyway, Rapportive is great because it only takes a minute to install. Once installed, it pulls contact information from the Rapleaf database and, voila, the advertisements that typically appear are gone. Instead they are replaced with bio information and links to social media outlets that sender maintains profiles with. You can also create and store personal notes directly on their profile that appears as well. Note – if the sender doesn’t use that particular email address for their social media properties, Rapportive won’t be able to provide any bio information in the sidebar.

Here is what the plugin looks like in action:

Between my Twitter feeds, Google Reader and the various other aggregation tools I use, people tend to get lost in the shuffle. That’s what I love about this tool. While I’m checking email I have access to their Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook feeds right there in my sidebar. So if it’s a new connection I can easily access that person’s social information and see what he/she is all about – or if it’s that crazy Shelly Kramer, I see what the Chief Geek of V3 is up to and whether I should pester her about something.

My only concern with the tool is that it doesn’t require your Gmail password to access your contact’s information through your inbox, meaning it has access to your emails and some of your personal information could be vulnerable. Rapportive is working to get a privacy policy in place, though, so I hope this won’t be an issue in the long run.

Are you using this tool? If so, how do you like it? How do you feel about it having access to your emails? Any other great plugins that do something similar I should now about? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Rapportive: A Plugin That Makes Your Life Easier is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

You can get the full scoop on the new photo tagging feature here, but, to sum it up, Facebook pages can now be tagged in photos. This means brands, products and companies can now be tagged, as compared to former tagging abilities that only let you target individuals. We’ve been trying to decide if this is a good or bad thing–and I’ve got a few thoughts on both sides of the spectrum.

The Good

Any time you can make your mark on Facebook, it helps increase your brand’s visibility–and photo tagging is no exception. Kyle Lacy wrote a great post about the top 5 ways to use photo tagging. He cites benefits like increased ownership in brand use and encouragement of influencers to build a deeper connection, among others.

Kyle also points out that when you tag a photo as a page, it shows up in the Photo tab and not on the wall, which we like—this seems to deter photo clutter while still affording prime visibility to tagged images.

The Bad

I’ve read a lot of posts praising this new feature—and there’s certainly a lot of ways your brand or business can use photo-tagging to increase your visibility and engagement. But like a lot of good things in life (ice cream, happy hour, retail therapy), you can have too much of a good thing—and that includes a slew of photos tagged by your page.

If you’re planning on using this service, we suggest coming up with a brief extension of your company’s social media policy (you have one of those, right?!) to address tagging photos as a page. While it’s cool to pop in as a product and tag that item in an individual’s photo, this could quickly become overbearing—and annoy your audience. And that’s the last thing you want to do. Remember: Facebook is about building an audience and enjoying conversation, not driving them away to talk smack about your brand.

The Ugly

In a nutshell? Don’t be spammy with this feature. You know how I feel about spam. And if you don’t? I hate it. It’s annoying and intrusive. Instead, use photo tagging wisely. Your brand—and your audience—will thank you.

Have you incorporated photo tagging into your page? How are you using it? And what do you think so far? I’d love to hear about your experience so far.

Facebook Photo Tagging For Pages: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

We’ve all seen them. Facebook contests are all but impossible to ignore. Headlines scream “Be our 5,000th fan and get a gift certificate!” “‘Like’ our page in the next two weeks and be entered to win a prize!”

Yep—Facebook contests and promotions are becoming increasingly prevalent as brands and businesses seek to expand their audiences and increase community participation within the undeniable communication juggernaut that is Facebook. Besides, who doesn’t love winning? (Just ask Charlie Sheen.)

Yet when it comes to hosting a Facebook contest, the Mighty Facebook Powers have a lot to say on the subject. Trying to wade through the latest promotion guidelines can be rather intimidating, so instead, try these tips to launch a seamless (and TOS-friendly) Facebook promotion.

Use an app. Seriously. Kelly Clay wrote an excellent post for Locker Gnome on the topic of Facebook contests, and she recommends Wildfire. It’s a paid app that will allow you “to choose among 10 different types of promotions, including photo, video, quiz, trivia and more,” she writes. Whether or not you choose to use Wildfire, you’ve got to run your contest through an app or risk a visit from the Facebook police.

Don’t require Facebook usage. We’ve seen numerous contests that reward visitors for “liking” a page. According to Facebook, this is a big no-no. A user might like a page and then get access to the promotional app, but Clay writes that you still need to allow them other ways to enter contests without first requiring a like.

And on a similar note, avoid asking people to use Facebook in order to enter your contest. You might think it’s a great idea to encourage people to sign up for Facebook in order to enter, but this is prohibited. You can suggest that people visit your third-party app (which they’ll need a Facebook account to do), but you can’t go beyond that.

Notifying winners. It may seem logical to notify contest winners through Facebook, but promotion guidelines say that you can’t reach out to them using messages, chats or by posting on a profile or page. What you can do, however, is enable your third-party app to collect contact info, like an email or physical address, and use that information to notify the winning party.

Contest vs. Promotion. What’s the diff? Not sure what the difference is between a contest and a promotion? According to Facebook’s Promotions Guidelines,

A “sweepstakes” is a promotion that includes a prize and a winner selected on the basis of chance.

A “contest” or “competition” is a promotion that includes a prize and a winner determined on the basis of skill (i.e., through judging based on specific criteria).

More On Apps. We already mentioned Wildfire, but there are ton of other third-party apps galore that you can check out if you’re thinking of running a promotion or a contest. Some of our current favorites include:

NorthSocial (One of our new favorite shiny toys, for so many reasons.)
BuddyMedia (Always impressive. Always.)
PromoBoxx
Freepromos
Momentus Media
Fanappz
BulbStorm

Contest Success Stories. If you want to read about some amazing Facebook contest successes, Tripwire magazine serves it up nicely.

And if you want an in-depth look at Facebook Promotions, with tutorials, check out Mari Smith’s post over at Social Media Examiner.

What are your thoughts on Facebook contests? Have you run them? If so, what were the results? And if you have any additional recommendations on third-party promotional apps, we would love some suggestions in the comments.

How to Run A Successful Facebook Contest is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

We work with a number of very large organizations, many of whom are just venturing into the social media realm. Without exception, the prevailing notion we encounter is that social media is for young people.

And, in our experience, the people most often likely to ascribe to that notion are middle-aged professionals and businessmen.

Here’s the thing – if you think that way, you’re misinformed. Not a little bit misinformed. A whole lot misinformed. Just because you may not be reading blogs or have a Facebook page, be participating on LinkedIn, engaging in forums, etc., doesn’t mean that everyone else is just like you. In fact, that might just be the most dangerous assumption you could make.

Don’t believe me? I’m used to that – I have 5 year olds. I’ll ask you the same thing I ask my kids – give me the benefit of the doubt before making a final decision. AdAge recently published an infographic outlining the demographics of social media. The stats might surprise you – I know they surprised a lot of our clients.

Focusing entirely on men, while there are certainly a lot of 21-24 year old men on Facebook (17.5% of the entire Facebook user base), there are almost as many 25-29 year old men (13.2%), 34-44 year old men (15.3%) and a surprising number of even OLDER men, those in the 45-54 age group (10.4%). Do “young” men dominate? Sure. But significantly so – not the way I see it.

And I’ll qualify this by also saying that every time we talk about stats there are always naysayers. I get that – I’m routinely one of them. Or at least a skeptic. But I believe best way to assimilate and interpret stats – especially those like these – is to look at multiple sources and compare results before making any judgments as to which are the most accurate. In the comments on the AdAge piece, you’ll see several links to other stats that you might want to explore if you want to dive into this issue more deeply.

Demographics of Social Media Users

Also interesting, from a visual standpoint, is the part of the AdAge infographic, which shows you the differences between males participating on social networks and females participating. As you can see, there are a greater number of men in the 34-54 year old age group participating on LinkedIn than there are participating on Facebook. Doesn’t that only make sense? Is it any big surprise that people who are serious about building networks and prospecting for new business and developing contacts and – imagine this - selling stuff to people - are actively participating on the world’s largest social network for business? And that they’re doing it more when they’re older than when they are young and relatively inexperienced?

Hmmmm. Have something you want to sell, do, be a part of, learn about, build? Doesn’t it only make sense to investigate social networks, where you’ll clearly find plenty of people, of all age groups?

Don’t Make the Same Mistakes I Did

Want an analogy about assuming everyone –including your clients and prospects – are just like you. I used to design jewelry. Really awesome, fairly expensive jewelry, mostly made of sterling silver and semi-precious gemstones. I only designed with sterling silver because that’s what I like. I never wear gold – and somewhat arrogantly decided that since I don’t wear gold, nobody else must really like it. Thus, all my designs were constructed only using sterling silver elements.

When the jewelry line launched nationally, I sold a lot of it. But at every single venue, I had women ask me if I had pieces that incorporated gold into my designs. When I replied that I did not, they sadly shook their heads and told me that they loved my work. And that they would love to buy my products. But that they like gold – and I didn’t have any. And even if I had only used a little bit of gold in my designs, that would have been enough to compel them to buy. But since I didn’t – since I overlooked the fact that there were people who like things or wear things or even do things that I don’t, they couldn’t become my customers.

I listened to those customers and immediately began integrating gold into my designs. The result: we quadrupled our sales – immediately.

The Bottom Line – Men Are Using Social Media

Moral of this story: don’t assume because you don’t do something – or like something – that your customers and your prospects don’t. Don’t judge social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or others if you don’t have all the facts. Don’t assume that because you’re not interacting on them, that no one else is. Don’t make the same kind of mistake I did – learn from it.

Men, especially in those in the 35-54 age group, are all over LinkedIn and Facebook. If those men might potentially be your clients or your prospective clients, doesn’t it only make sense to consider diving into social networking? Once you do, you might just be surprised how far it can take you and how much of an impact it can make on your business development efforts. Our clients are certainly finding that to be the case.

In fact, with roughly one million new members joining LinkedIn every week, at a rate equivalent to about one member per second, and 2 million companies having LinkedIn pages, I’m not sure why anyone would not strongly consider participating there.

Image Credit: Laura Leyshon

Men Using Social Media? Oh Yeah. is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Although many major companies are still skeptical about getting involved in the social landscape – research shows 96% of these brands expect to dedicate more time and resources to social media initiatives over the next year.

While more brands are familiar with social media now, knowing that you probably need a presence in the social space and knowing what you’ll do there are two entirely different things. And, speaking from personal experience, selling social to the skeptics – in the C-Suite and beyond – is still a whole lot of work. As it should be.

It always helps if you come prepared with a concrete outline of exactly what you can expect from spending time, effort and budget dollars on integrating social media into your marketing strategies. It also helps if you can be sure you’re working with a team who understands marketing – and the importance of a comprehensive strategic plan – and not just some social media ninja who talks a good game but wouldn’t know marketing if it bit him – or her – in the nether regions.

The good news is the perceived value of being engaged in social media is becoming more apparent to brands. 85% of marketers view their Facebook fan pages as a good place to gain consumer insights – as well as a tool that can help them build consumer loyalty. A lot of brands seem to be putting more eggs in the Facebook basket than what I think is prudent, but that’s a topic for another post. Smart businesses – and smart business people – are also flocking to LinkedIn which, with 100 million users, only makes sense. We spend a lot of time using LinkedIn for our own business, as well as training our clients to leverage this powerful platform for networking, prospecting, sharing resources and more.

But, knowing where to spend your time in the social media realm is always the difficult part. We don’t ever recommend diving into social media without a solid strategy in place – one that takes into consideration where your customers and prospects are, what your ultimate goals for reaching, connecting with and/or engaging them in the social space is, and what represents success for you as the result of the effort and monies you spend.

So if your brand is starting to “get it” and you want more specifics about various social media sites and what you can expect for them to provide (e.g. more web traffic, better SEO, more opportunities for engagement, etc.) check out this chart that was developed by the smart folks at CMO.com called The Social Media Landscape 2011. This chart outlines a variety of social networks and includes key features and benefits of each.

And, because we know you’ll wanna, if you’d like a handy-dandy downloadable PDF of the chart, get it here. Of course, if you’d like some help with figuring all that social media stuff out, we’re here to help. We’ve been told we’re pretty good at it.

Photo credit: brycej

Venturing Out Into Social Media? Start Here is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

People don’t often associate warm and fuzzy feelings with visiting the hospital – or even the doctor’s office for that matter. In fact, dealing with hospitals often feels about as personal as talking with someone who shows up with a paper bag over their head like this joker.

But social media – wait, let me rephrase that: smart social media marketing – might be just what the doctor ordered (forgive me – that was just screaming to be used).

What few hospitals and other providers realize is that social media can actually help them connect with patients. And it can also serve to extend their brand and help build goodwill within their community.

According to recent research, Facebook is the primary outlet that hospitals are using to try and reach patients, but few are engaging them in meaningful ways. Less than 40% of hospitals post daily, 80% do not using Facebook discussion boards and less than 50% posted relevant, actionable information (such as posting health or hospital related events). Infrequent posting, not soliciting fan feedback and irrelevant or worse, boring content is pretty much the Facebook fan kiss of death…

People are not – let me say that again – people are not interested in reading about all the great (when, oh when will someone design the “sarcasm” font?) things that hospitals, doctors or other health care providers are doing when they use social media sites to simply promote themselves. Instead, they are interested in information, resources, videos, etc. that might be valuable to them. Imagine that – consumers actually want information that’s valuable to them – a novel concept (again, a plaintive cry for that sarcasm font).

When consumers can use social mediums to connect with hospitals or other health care providers and not only engage with the “human” side of those organizations, but also to gain valuable tips, resources and information, that makes them more likely to not only befriend a hospital or other health care provider online, but to actually stay engaged and connected with them. And, oh yes, and that naturally leads to patronizing that health care provider when they need care.

Research also shows that hospitals who maintain a high engagement level in the social media space regularly had patients, friends and members of the community provide unsolicited praise of the hospital and/or its physicians, as well as recommendations for their services. What a fantastic way to integrate best practices in social media usage into your overall marketing initiatives!

It’s no secret that social avenues can be a great way to actually engage your consumers. And social media can even help when it comes to rehabbing a company image if it happens to carry a somewhat negative connotation. For instance, people pretty much universally loathe going to the dentist – but if a dentist had an impressive Facebook, YouTube or other social media presence, it might just make you look forward to a visit instead of dreading it.

Maybe more hospitals should really consider using social media as a way to engage their prospective “clients” and create a more positive perception of their businesses within the communities they serve. I don’t know about you, but I’d be way more inclined to patronize a hospital that was not only known for providing great care, but which also had a robust social media presence, and a “personality” behind their brand, than one that didn’t.

What other business, like hospitals, doctors and dentists, carry a unintentional negative image and might consider using social media to build a more positive image? Funny – when you start thinking about it, you come up with all sorts of ideas, don’t you?

How Hospitals Could Use Social Media is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency