New developments over the weekend from Facebook will give publishers the ability to communicate deeper with their likers. For example, let’s say you like this article.  Well, with these new options, I could possibly send a news feed item to all likers with a link to my follow-up piece, a thank you video or even a coupon to go and purchase my book.  This goes beyond the likes on facebook.com as well; it expands these interactions to all areas of the web.  Facebook even offers publishers the ability to track these interactions. Check out the documentation here.

This option really opens up more of a 2-way dialogue with publishers and fans of their content.  I’m looking forward to seeing how smart brands take advantage of this new option.

Kind Of A Big Deal: Facebook Allows Publishers to Contact Likers is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!

Twitter, Twitter, oh!
Everyone an expert. Link.
All I got are bots.

Twitter Haiku is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!

The Social Media Request for Proposal template is for companies to help them choose the right social media partner.  It runs through the mandatories such as strategy, reputation and monitoring as well as the almighty questions about R.O.I, metrics, project management and community.

If you’re looking for a social media agency, here’s a good jumping off point.  If you’re an agency, take a look at the questions.  How can you better position your organization to create real value for your clients?

Social Media RFP Template – Social Media Group

Social Media RFP Template is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!

Olivier Blanchard Basics Of Social Media Roi

Key Takeaways

Determining Social Media ROI is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!

So you’ve got a Google Wave invite and your chomping at the bit to integrate twitter into your waves?  Well, Danny Sullivan has the answer for you.

Basically, you need to add Tweety-Wave as one of your contacts (tweety-wave@appspot.com) and then add them to a new wave.  The application will verify your login credentials and you’re off an running.  There are a few downfalls as Tweety-Wave and Google Wave are brand new, so the features are on the short side, but that is to be expected.  Try it out and let me know what you think.

For those of you that were lucky enough to get a Google Wave invite, how do you like it?

How To Add Twitter to Google Wave is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!

According to a recent report by ViTrue, the best time to get a response from your fans is on Tuesday.  Click through rates peaked at nearly 10% on Tuesday and actually hovered around the same percentage on both Monday and Wednesday as well.

The worst time?  Their study suggests that click-through-rates plummet on Friday and Saturday with less than a 3% CTR.

The Best Time To Post To Your Facebook Fan Page is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!

Come out to Social Camp Memphis on Saturday, September 19th at the Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering.  Social Camp is all about social media, social networking and the community of people behind it.

They’re still looking for good people to present their ideas and knowledge. So if you’ve got some burning knowledge or something you’d like to share, let them know.

To register, sponsor the event, or find out more, go to socialcampmemphis.com or follow them on twitter @socialcampmem

Social Camp Memphis – Saturday, Sept 19th. Grab Your Tickets Today! is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!

I’m still a firm believer in developing a relationship and providing value to your user base FIRST, but once that’s accomplished and you’re ready to take your messaging to the next level here is some food for thought from web usability extraordinaire, Jakob Nielsen, on optimizing and beefing up your tweets. My synopsis:

• Readers only scan the first few words of a tweet, make them count.
• Use a URL shortner, but help give the user an idea of what they’re clicking to.  ShortURL.com/SEOStrategy is better than ShortURL.com/x6L9Mn
• Messages on twitter (and facebook, etc) are time sensitive.  Time your messages to reach your audience at the appropriate time they would likely read it and take action.  Once your message is off screen, its essentially dead.  Twitter time is 10x faster than email time.
• Answer “Why should they care?”

Twitter Postings: Iterative Design (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox).

Giving Your Twitter Messages More Punch and Credibility – Tips from Jakob Nielsen is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!

Instant Campaign, from Brazilian agency Gringo, recently created a self-promotional site poking fun at so-called social media rockstars and their digital drivel. Put in a big budget and watch Father Pop-up give you the golden treatment.  Via Adverblog.

Instant Digital Campaign is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!

Razorfish recently released their social influence marketing report. Download it, read it, give it to your boss.

Social Influence Marketing (SIM) is about employing social media and social influencers to achieve the marketing and business needs of an organization.

Social Influence Marketing is about recognizing, accounting and tapping into the fact that as your potential consumer makes a purchasing decision, he or she is being influenced by different circles of people through conversations with them, both online and off. It is not enough to market to the consumer anymore; as a marketer you also have to market to each individual’s social influencers throughout the marketing funnel.

Razorfish Releases Social Influence Marketing Report is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!

Facebook let it all hang out to a select group of members to test their new search interface.  The system would allow members to search their news feed for recent updates, photos, links, videos and notes being shared on friends’ profiles and fan Pages. Users who have made their profile and content available to anyone will also be searchable.

SEOMoz yammers it up during Whiteboard Friday to talk about visualization.  I think visualization is one of those new and sexy fields that you’ll hear more and more about in the near future.

SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday – Visualization from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.

12seconds is updating their iPhone app to take advantage of the new OS 3.0.  The app, which should be available soon, will allow you to send short video messages directly to your friends via twitter.

Back ‘dat thing up and pick up some great tips about landing page design through CopyBlogger’s Landing Page Makeover.  Their most recent tutorial covers CarsHelpingAmerica.org.

If you’re a fan of Indie Rock, I highly recommend The Veils – Sun Gangs. Rock out this weekend.

Facebook Universal Search, Visualization, 12Seconds and Landing Page Design is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!

Here are the interesting posts at the top of my reading list this week.

The fine folks at the Red Cross are working diligently on crafting a Social Media Policy Handbook.  They’ve got a great start and are light years ahead of even most for-profit businesses. As it should, its available online for your viewing pleasure.

Staying with the non-profit side of things, NPR has a great feature of The Extraordinaries.  Its a micro volunteering iPhone app that allows people to give small blocks of time (< 5 min) and knowledge to a non-profit. Some of the first tasks available are tagging images for the Brooklyn Museum building a map of childhood playgrounds.  It’s a beautiful concept.

SEOMoz updated their SEO Best Practices to account for new industry data.  They clear the air and a lot of confusion in regards to new search engine optimization standards.  The synopsis is H1 tags are not all that necessary anymore, stop trying to sculpt PageRank with nofollow, use footer links, java and flash sparingly, traffic to a site doesn’t determine its ranking and quite a bit more.

Smashing Magazine compiled a great list of web design checklists and resources that will help improve your writing skills.

Rumor has it that Google is experimenting with product ads that would would work very similar to AdWords, but display an image ad along the right hand side of the SERP when the user searches on a particular term.  These ads would run on a pay-per-action basis rather than a pay-per-click (PPC) basis.

Non-Profits Kicking Butt, New SEO Best Practices, Web Design Checklists and Google Advertising Rumors is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!

Jeremiah Owyang speaks with Blake Cahill on what he sees the future of the social web is going to bring us. He theorizes that there will be 5 era’s of the social web. He believes that people will start to own the market instead of companies and that communities will continue to take charge over brands. Here’s a break down of each era.

1. Era of Social Relationships – Simply connecting with others online (i.e. – facebook, myspace, twitter)
2. Era of Social Functionality – An era we entered in 2007 where third-party applications could be built on top of social networks to allow the user to do something extra. Jeremiah believes we’re still in the early days of this era.
3. Era of Social Colonization – Your entourage of friends come with you wherever you go online or with your mobile device. You will make decisions based on what they’ve purchased and what they recommend.
4. Era of Social Context – Content (web, advertisements, TV, etc) will be tailored to your preferences. The more data that a user reveals about him or herself, the more relevant the content they receive. Brands will offer added benefits to those who have favorable preferences to their products or services. He predicts the death of the registration page.
5. Era of Social Commerce – Communities will come together and define entire products and features they want. These groups will then bid out their wants to competing brands. PR models will flip and agencies will now represent groups rather than companies.

What Will The Future of The Social Web Bring Us? is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!

Here is a simple Greasemonkey extension for Google Analytics that adds social media metrics right in with your web reports. The developer promises more services to come, but as of now it measures Digg, Sphinn, Mixx, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Del.icio.us and Yahoo inLinks.  Check it out.

Social Media Metrics Plugin for Google Analytics is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!

If you collaborate with others on developing and executing a social media strategy, it may be important that you keep some sort of calendar or record so that everyone is focused and headed in the same direction.  That was the main reason I created this social media calendar template last year.  I know it’s an old-school Excel file, but feel free to download, mashup and hack this template any way that fits your needs.

Download Social Media Calendar Template (Excel)

Social Media Calendar Template is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!