Will the 'Questions' feature in Facebook be a great marketing tool in future?

Most of us use Facebook to remain connected with our social networks or friends. But now it's not an unknown fact that Facebook is an important communications tool, one that helps immensely in the marketing and promotion of a brand. To maintain its success and people's interests in it, Facebook regularly tries to modify itself by adding new applications.

Facebook has recently added "Questions" to its list of features. According to industry experts like Matt Rhodes, this feature has an enormous potential to be a valuable market research and engagement tool because:

• The interface is nicer than the Facebook Polls application.
• You can pay for Facebook advertising for your Questions (via the URL), which could provide a significant, targeted response for market research efforts.
• It's easy to share the questions with your friends and follow the question to keep a track of written responses.

Now, Facebook Questions are no survey-smashers at the moment, but with improvement can be among the best online-marketing tools. It just needs to find the balance between the depth needed for market research, the targeting options it has for brand page posts, privacy and the sharing options it currently features.

Now Google lets us "like" the pages on web

Following the success of Facebook's "like" button, now Google has launched its new “+1″ button that will appear next to every website that is displayed in it’s search results pages.

Facebook “like” buttons have been extremely popular for over a year now and have been a great way to to measure a brand's success. They have displayed social proof to viewers by revealing the level of “attention quantification” of a company’s Facebook page… as an example if 50,000 people are displayed as liking a brand's Facebook page, that shows the viewer that this company is popular and may be worth checking out further.

The like button has also provided the means for the company’s latest Facebook updates to potentially appear in the news updates of all people who have ‘liked’ the page. If a company posts an update to its Facebook page then potentially 50,000 people can receive the company’s latest news in their personal Facebook profile. So by posting your latest Blog post to your Facebook ‘page’ allows your content to spread and to be amplified across the web.

Now let's just figure out how the "+1" button works. When you search something on Google, a ‘+1′ button will appear next to the each and every search result. You can effectively ‘like’ the individual search result(s) by clicking on the +1 button. In this way, your searches will become a sort of public data where everyone will be able to follow how many users around the globe like or appreciate some particular search or link. But before you rush to try your hands on it, just keep in mind that it is not available to everyone at this point. Right now it is only available to random US based users. One also needs to have a Google profile. Also, to see the the +1′s in your search results you will need to be logged into your Google account.

Though we are not sure of its effectiveness at present, but it does appear to be a cool application from Google that is expected to enhance the social web further.

References: Jeffbullas.com

Elements of online public relations that are going to help me in my future career

This eight-month long program in Corporate Communications and Public Relations at Centennial College has been an extremely enriching experience for me. I had a chance to learn many new things that I did not know before.

A course on Online Public Relations is something that I have enjoyed the most in the entire program. I was inclined towards learning more about online PR as I have always wanted to establish myself not only as a good writer but also as a specialist in online communications and web content writing. But I came across many elements of online PR that I was not aware of while starting the course.

If I have to choose the most important thing that I have learnt in online PR that will be applicable in my future career, honestly I won’t be able to select just one. I used to blog earlier and knew what a blog was. But I learnt how blogs can be used as a PR tool through this course. This was something new and exciting. I saw how important blogs are in today’s business world and what a difference they can create in building and maintaining an organisation’s image.

The next best thing was working on creating a podcast. I never really imagined that a podcast can be such a powerful tool in corporate communications. In a team, we got an opportunity to do our own podcast – choose a topic related to PR, interview someone, record sound pieces and then edit them.

I also learnt a great deal about Search Engine Optimization and believe this is something that is going to help me in the long run. As I want to be a web content writer, this will help me understand my content better, choose the key words and direct them in such a way that they appear in maximum searches. There is a thin line between a hard worker and a smart worker. I believe my knowledge of SEOs and its applications will help me to be a smart worker in my future jobs.

This course also introduced me to social bookmarking and tagging. And I have learnt how to use these small but vital tools effectively.

Last but not the least, the knowledge of social media that I have gained through this course is surely going to be an asset in my career. I had been social media savvy for a long time but I never knew how important it is to have a social profile to rise in this industry. I never really liked Twitter and did not bother using it much before I joined this course. Today I am quite active in Twitter and have more than 200 followers myself. Now that I have got it started, I plan to work constantly towards building my online brand through Twitter and other social media platforms.

Overall, it has been a great learning experience, one which I have enjoyed personally.

The beautiful Andamans...

I had a chance of exploring the beautiful Andaman Islands in early 2010. It was a family trip and we spent six days and five nights in the wilderness and waters of The Andamans.

From blue-green waters to mangroves, from limestone caves to the mysterious Jarwa tribes, The Andamans is a small paradise surrounded by the Indian Ocean. It is an unexplored beauty which has not yet revealed all its secrets.

This picture was taken near the jetty while waiting for the cruise to the Havelock Island, a small island in the Andaman family...The travel comprised of being two hours on the deck on a high tide day with loud angry sea winds roaring, plus a sudden downpour that only ended up being the icing on the cake :)