Best of Asia

Over the weekend, I noticed that my latest photo set (Best of San Francisco) had experienced a huge surge of hits from both Google’s organic search and the San Francisco subreddit. In fact, over a 1,000 people had viewed the photo blog post in just two days, not something that happens everyday, which got me thinking about all of the photo blog posts on The Two Halves and wondering how they compared to each other in terms of traffic. Though these kinds of posts are some of the most enjoyable to put together, photo curation is harder than it seems. 

What puzzles me most is that some very quality photo sets (i.e. Best of Vietnam, which is my personal favorite) are not ranked very high. Whether it be a function of SEO, post timing, distribution or something else, I’m not quite sure. Below, I present to you the seven best travel photography posts of all time, ranked from most viewed to least, with a percentage right of the link indicating the share of total photo blog post views. To see all photo posts ever published on The Two Halves blog, click here.

Best of Europe

#1 Best of San Francisco (48%)

#2 Best of Slovenia (21%)

#3 Best of Thailand and Cambodia (10%)

#4 Best of Hong Kong & Philippines (6%)

#5 Best of Malaysia and Indonesia (5%) 

#6 Best of Vietnam (5%)

#7 Best of Las Vegas (4%)

Now it’s your turn! Which photo set is or was your favorite and why? Leave your vote in the comment section below.

Tags

Blogging, Photography, Travel

The Good: If you haven’t, first check out my previous SF photo set, capturing everything the city has to offer, from diverse Asian and seafood cuisine to lively nightlife spots that are hard to find elsewhere, like electro club DNA Lounge in SOMA. Add to this the accessibility made possible by a well connected public transportation system, the super friendly locals and the laid back, yet focused NorCal vibe and I was impressed. San Francisco has recently even been named the #3 best city for hipsters, based on factors like live music, tech savvy residents and even the availability of micro brews. There’s no doubt that it’s a very cool place and has been ever since the flower power days of the 60s. The recent economic boom means 1 out of every 4 jobs in SF are now tech related, employers like Twitter, Salesforce and Zynga are hiring by the thousands, and it begins to seem like a no-brainer to move there, until you consider…

The Bad: the city’s recent tech and social media boom is often compared to the go-go days of the dot com bubble back in 1999, two years before it popped, leaving devastation in its wake. Arguably, the difference between then and now is that search, social media and e-commerce have changed the way we live and work and that new businesses like Google and Facebook now actually make money. That’s not to say however, that some of today’s hottest SF tech companies are not overvalued. To their credit, nowadays they are much more hesitant to go public. For any of you that may want to check out the SF tech scene for yourself, here is a great Foursquare list of start-ups we visited. Keep in mind however, that even in this digitally connected town, real world connections are everything. Without a contact, don’t expect to get much past the lobby. One of the coolest places we pinged was a co-working office called NextSpace, right in the heart of the financial district, where you can rent space for as little as $300/mo. That brings us to…

The Ugly: unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably know that San Fran is an expensive city to live in. While the reasons are fairly obvious, it is hard to overlook the fact that rents have shot up by another 16% in just the last year. The city is now the most expensive city to rent in America, with an average rent of almost $2,000 for a tiny apartment. On my trip I was fortunate enough to have been invited to stay at Vox.io’s SF HQ for a few nights, where I got the chance to chat with the CTO of Zemanta about their new Blogspire product, which I encourage fellow bloggers to try. While the opportunity to get my foot in the tech/social media door in SF to advance my career definitely seems worth the high cost of entry, it is a question of making enough money to live and prosper, which is far from certain.

Yes, I’m still dreaming of San Francisco and welcome your thoughts as I face down my own fears and hopes for a life more fully lived in a cultural mecca with a teeming heart of innovation. Speaking of connections, I have been networking hard via LinkedIn and Twitter recently, so if anyone has any contacts at SF companies looking for social media marketing talent, be sure to pass my info along. Will all the effort be worth it? Only time will tell!

Tags

Blogging, Business, Global trends, Marketing, Social Media, Travel

1. Use hashtags – this is my first suggestion for a reason and a major factor in my own rise on Twitter. No matter what you’re tweeting about, when you tweet make sure to put a hashmark (#) in front of a keyword or two that best describe your tweet or the content of the article you are posting. For example, since I tweet a lot about social media, I will often use #socialmedia at the end of a tweet. For you it might be #tech, #fashion, or even #cupcakes. Regardless, by using hashtags when you tweet, people who search for that keyword will then be able to find and follow you, creating a win – win situation!  

2. Engage with others – this is another big one, because being passive on Twitter will get you nowhere fast. If you want others to follow you, the best advice I can give you is to be pro-active. Seek out others who are tweeting about similar topics, follow people that seem interesting, watch what the Twitter superstars (those with 50K+ followers) do and try to emulate their best practices. Last but not least, re-tweet content that you find interesting and valuable. Other Twitter users will notice and in turn, be more likely to re-tweet you!

3. Tweet great content – this might be an obvious one, but without good content, you will get neither noticed nor followed. Do your research, read blogs and news sites that pertain to whatever you are interested in and come up with some creative ways to publish tweets that get noticed, re-tweeted and talked about! If you are a blogger, tweet your blog posts but don’t overdo it, lest you turn people off. Last but not least, think really hard about your bio and how you present yourself to the world. A good bio is absolutely essential! 

4. Utilize #hashtag memes - if you ever find yourself fresh out of ideas what to tweet about, go to the trending page on Twitter and see if any of the topics listed strike your fancy. Oftentimes, you can find a clever #hashtag meme that will get you noticed. Just make sure that whatever you come up with “fits” and makes sense for you to tweet about. Another hot tip: every Friday, make use of #FF or #FollowFriday (see Mashable’s article on this phenomenon) and recommend people you follow that you want to promote or give some love to. These tweets tend to get re-tweeted, sometimes dozens of times and it’s one of the easiest things you can do to spread your influence. Works like a charm! 

5. Track, monitor, adjust - all of the engagement in the world means nothing if you don’t keep track of results. Make use of the various free tools available out there. Without giving you a comprehensive list, two of the best that I use are Refollow and Qwitter. The former enables you to manage your follower lists, RTs and mentions, while the latter will notify you when someone unfollows you. Finally, if you’re serious about Twitter, use social influence measurement to your advantage, something I touched upon in a previous post. For instance, I like Twenity because it’s fun, check out my profile here. 

If you liked this post, feel free to follow me on @NickTaylor777. And if you have any tips to add, feel free to comment directly on this post! 

Tags

Blogging, Global trends, Marketing, PR, Social Media

After a few months back in my native Arizona with mostly uninspiring interviews under my belt, it is time to take a risk.  In the early hours of March 7th, this blogger will touch down in San Francisco, the city that dreams have been made of since the Gold Rush. Why, you might ask? Well, according to this SM Salary Guide from Mashable, the SF Bay area (inclusive of San Jose, a.k.a. Silicon Valley) has the most social media marketing jobs in America and probably the world! While SF and SJ both come in at #2 and #3, Phoenix despite its size is at a heartbreaking #20. As those of you who know me know well, I’ve never been one to rest on my laurels and wait for good things to come to me. Needless to say, it is time to go for what I really want!

Doesn’t hurt that I will get the chance to hang out with Slovenians living and working in San Fran or visiting on business, like my friend  and colleague Grega Stritar, c0-founder of Twenity. He is the catalyst to my decision to take the plunge and will be in the Bay Area around the same time to promote his innovative social media metric service and stir up investor interest in on one of the best gamification plays currently in existence. There are in fact many innovative Slovenian owned businesses calling SF home, including Iddiction, founded by Harvard educated Slovene export Andrej Nabergoj and recently funded to the tune of $3.5 million.

While I’m currently busy lining up meetings in the Bay area with cutting edge companies (e.g. High Tech Connect, which connects marketing consultants with leading brands), I am also salivating about the travel and cultural aspects of the trip. I will be staying in Little Italy, in one of the more interesting areas of the city near North Beach and the Fisherman’s Wharf and on taking lots of photos, as well as checking out all of the little ethnic neighborhoods including Little Saigon, Little India and Chinatown. Of course, no trip of mine would be complete without taking advantage of the raucous nightlife. A friend recommends the Cat Club, a divey, noisy little spot playing New Wave.

In conclusion, very much looking forward to my trip and hoping to successfully mix business with pleasure in the limited time that I will have there. If you have a lead or some unique travel, food or nightlife advice for me, or just want to meet for a drink, hit me up on Twitter, LinkedIn or e-mail. See you in San Francisco, kids!

Tags

Marketing, Social Media, Travel

So what is it and why is it so great that I’m bothering to write about it? XeeMe, pronounced “see me” is a new social media aggregation tool that for the first time EVER allows users to combine ALL of their entire social media footprint into one profile. You can’t do that with other sites. To give you a better idea of what it looks like, here’s mine. If you’re like me, you’ve had a hard time just keeping track of all of your social media profiles, much less any groups (e.g. this blog on LinkedIn) or pages that you manage. If you don’t do anything else but get organized, XeeMe is well worth the thirty minutes or so of effort it takes to get set up.

What really makes XeeMe special to me though compared to Klout, where you can only connect about a dozen of your social media profiles and even then the results from only a few are counted, is that you can add anything you want! The site currently supports over 200 social media platforms, however it also gives you the option of adding any platform that may not be supported yet with a custom link. That’s right, no more of that “pre-set” bullcrap. As my colleague Becky Gaylord points out in a blog post, it’s smarter than Google too, as it allows you to combine your personal and professional SM presence seamlessly.

As for analytics, XeeMe has a tool called the “Social Traffic Report” which will actually count all of the links from your XeeMe profile to your various SM platforms. The results may surprise you! Within two days I had over 500 views of my XeeMe profile, of which most were to my Google+, Twitter and even Foursquare, not Facebook where I have the largest presence. In sum, XeeMe can be utilized as a tool to drive new traffic to all of your platforms and cross pollinate your SM presence. I’ve had a lot of fun so far discovering new people on various platforms and power networking the way it’s supposed to be done with people all over the world who have found ME! If you’d like to try it out for yourself, first view the tutorial and then register here to set up your free profile. Easy as pie!

http://xeesm.com/nicktaylor777 – my SM presence in 1 profile

Tags

Blogging, Global trends, Marketing, PR, Social Media

Tags

Blogging, Photography, Travel

As we kick off the New Year, social media has become an integral part of marketing (see my previous post Social Media Trends for 2011), yet so much more than just another tool used to increase awareness, drive conversion and impact brand equity. Through some research and a lot of introspection about what will be important to social media marketing professionals like myself in the year to come, here are the top 5 trends sure to feature prominently in 2012:

1. Influence Recognized & Rewarded

The hunt for influencers who can impact a brand’s metrics positively is on! The great thing about social media is that it is no longer just celebrities whose voice counts, in fact companies are becoming more cognizant of influencers who can speak to their target market demographic (see my previous post about social proof in marketing). Back in marketing class in college, we talked a lot about segmentation, however the conversation back then was about groups of people, not individuals. Case in point: I recently received a perk from Swaylo in the form of two free tickets to the exclusive preview screening of Albert Nobbs due to my perceived “influence”. Does Swaylo know I was a marketing executive for the largest movie theater chain in Slovenia? Could be… My friend alivea meanwhile raves about her free MOO cards, which she receives due to her high ranking on Klout. Just a few examples of how smart brands are starting to influence influencers to influence others!

2. Content Marketing Becomes a Necessity

With Google’s recent changes to its search algorithm, it will be harder than ever to “game” the system. As a consequence, from now on out, clever SEO strategies will play much less of a role, with truly great content that is shared AND talked about becoming the deciding factor. The challenge for brands will be to put out content that isn’t just good enough to find, but great enough to be shared via multiple social media platforms and discussed fervently.

3. Social Media IS the New Branding

Social media is becoming way more than just another “tool”. Through the transformation and fragmentation of consumer habits, it is slowly becoming the new branding. Consumers have come to expect a lot more from social media, and we can expect interaction and even customer service via social media to become the new standard. The days of planning obtuse communications for a large predictable audience is over; consumers will come to expect transparency, instant feedback and 24/7 availability. Smart companies will take advantage of this trend in 2012 to engage customers, innovate their service offerings and satisfy previously unaddressed needs.

4. Blogging Gains Momentum

Closely related to trend 2. above, blogging is becoming more, not less important to corporate marketing strategy. MarketingProfs just recently published their 2nd annual survey of B2B marketers, which shows that 90% of B2B marketers use blogging to support their content marketing goals. Compared to 2010, when 51% of B2B marketers reported utilizing blogging in support of their content marketing goals, in 2011 a whopping 65% of marketers used the tactic to educate, entertain and inform consumers. According to this article, companies that blog enjoy 55% more website visitors and a 62% cheaper cost per lead. Furthermore, there is now strong evidence that consumers trust blogs more than many other sources.

5. Internationalization

As this great post from the Global Business Hub points out, while in theory the internet has no borders, few companies know how to effectively garner and cultivate an international audience effectively. This last trend is probably the most futuristic of those identified in this post, yet represents one of the biggest long term challenges in social media marketing. That said, many brands are now global, even if they had perhaps not intended to be initially. Did you know that 88% of internet users reside outside of the US?

Tags

Blogging, Business, Global trends, Marketing, Social Media

Top 5 Most Popular Posts

1. Top 5 Social Media Trends for 2011 (Social Media/Global Trends)

2. Best of Slovenia Photo Collage (Photography/Travel)

3. Guest Blogger Jared Dillian on Greed (Business/Guest Bloggers)

4. 3 Things I Will Miss Most and Least About Europe (Society/Travel)

5. Savski Blok Party 2 (PR/in Slovene)

Realizing how popular photography content could be was as one of the big surprises for me. What didn’t surprise me was that the post with the most uniques was on the topic of Social Media. Of the Guest Bloggers on TTH this year, Jared Dillian received the most attention, aided by the publicity for his new book Street Freak, lauded by Bloomberg as one of the best business books in 2011.

Top 7 Countries for Traffic

1. United States (36%) 2. Slovenia (21%) 3. United Kingdom (5%) 4. Canada (5%) 5. India (3%) 6. Australia (2%) 7. Philippines (2%)

The site has been viewed in 118 countries of the world, with the English speaking countries of the West predominating. Visitors from the US, UK and Canada alone were half of the blog’s readership in 2011. That said, the Asia Pacific countries are slowly (but surely!) trending upwards. After Slovenia, Germany was the top source of hits from Europe.

Top 7 Sites Driving Traffic

1. Google 2. StumbleUpon 3. Facebook 4. Expat-blog 4. Reddit 5. Twitter  6. LinkedIn 7. Yahoo

StumbleUpon has performed admirably for the Two Halves, becoming the second most important referring site. Facebook has been less useful this year at generating traffic, while Twitter has increased in importance and Reddit is just blowing up! All this likely only mirrors the wider shift in social media consumption overall.

Top 7 Keywords Searched

1. Jared Dillian 2. Daily Dirtnap 3. Microlocation 4. Trends in society 5. Social media trends 6. Ambasada Gavioli 7. Blok party

Tags

Blogging, Global trends, Social Media

If you have been following the latest trends in social media, you have probably noticed that sites attempting to measure online influence have been popping up like mushrooms after a rainstorm. With the mass of content available online, the marketers behind it certainly all have a vested interest in jockeying furiously for position. For a great rundown of the phenomenon, go to this TechCrunch article on social proof. As I cannot possibly review all of the social influence sites out there, I will only take a stab at those I know and use currently making waves and which appear to be best-in-class.

1. Klout: certainly the most popular and well known social influence measurement site out there, with a VC firm recently investing $10M in the concept. Spotify took advantage of Klout to launch by invite only, while artists like Will Ferrell and Stephen King are using it for their product launches, giving early adopters the chance to preview their content exclusively. I like how it rates users on the types of topics they are influential about; here’s mine. Without a doubt this is THE site to beat as 2011 draws to a close. That said, there are considerable drawbacks to the way the site, currently still in Beta version operates. While it purports to score your online influence on three factors (true reach, amplification and network), its scoring model leaves a lot to be desired (see: Klout is broken). I have been on for months circling a respectable 53 score and have yet to see my FB activity stats updated, which makes me wonder if they’re even counted. Looks like Klout has its work cut out for it; that said, I think it deserves credit for its ambition. You might also be interested in 7 surefire ways to increase your Klout score from Mashable.

2. Twenity: this brand new, cheeky entrant to the social influence measurement contest from Europe has a lot of style. The site’s tagline “Vanity is the spice of life” pokes fun at how seriously social media marketers are taking ourselves, all the while delivering a rich and engaging user experience.  The concept is much truer to gamification than Klout as you directly compete with peers in your timezone or industry, and in fact the site advertises its ability to identify the Top 20 people or brands with the most influence. I  like the quirky badges the site gives you when you reach certain milestones. Twenity currently only measures your influence on Twitter on the basis of three factors: your followers, your tweets and your lists to come up with a total score. Check it out, the service doesn’t officially launch in the US until January 20 of next year.

3. Others: one of the better rated new social media influence measurement sites which I have not had a chance to try out yet is Peerindex. It uses a ”Topic Fingerprint” to score you on 8 categories. Another one that sounds really cool is Empire Avenue, which bills itself as the Social Stock Market. Then there are many, many others, including PostRank, TwentyFeet, Sprout Social, Twylah and Traackr, each with their own unique or not-so-unique claim to fame. Please comment on this post if you have utilized any of these and tell us what you liked or didn’t like about them.

For more posts about social media on the #TwoHalves click here. For the best rated post about social media on the #TwoHalves EVER go here.

Tags

Global trends, Marketing, Social Media