David Binkowski.com

Recently Facebook took the search world by storm launched GraphSearch, their supposed answer to Google's search dominance. You know, your friends know better than a collection of experts on a topic, right?

 Facebook's GraphSearch has been, in a word, abysmal. The results are irrelevant or non-existent and, even worse, they can't find basic Facebook-specific content which forces you to Google it and then click back to find Facebook content.

 But, GraphSearch launched not too long ago -- so why the change? Even with its poor performance, it must have turned people off -- or worse, they're flat out not using it. Today Facebook changed the search box to be a more prominent white instead of the blue bar that used to sit at the top of your browser. See for yourself here:



 Will it pay off? Does it matter? Honestly it doesn't. Facebook won't win in search, and GraphSearch will eventually land in a long list of me-too products that the company felt okay throwing in to …

I submit to the jury:

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, I've seen brands doing Like or retweeting promotions whereby they'll donate money to the Red Cross et al for each action followers and fans take.

Don't. Please, don't.

I'm calling this distasteful phenomenon "socialteering".

Damaging your brand by trying to capitalize on a tragedy is tasteless. Just donate the damn money and tell your fans that you did. You'll gain respect, or at least not lose it, for doing the right thing and not acting like complete marketing douchebag.

Updated at 8:44 PM: Chrysler's RAM Trucks brand posted this on Facebook and it's the perfect example of HOW TO GIVE -- not by forcing people into gimmicky Pinning, RTs or Likes. Do the right thing and your customers will remember why they buy and talk about you!

This post originally appeared on the Large Media blog.


There's been a lot of talk about Twitter followers lately, including both presidential candidates, celebrities, musicians and the like utilizing services to game their numbers. Specifically, a lot of the "Top 10" have been found to have a substantial amount of fake followers, in some case to the point where 70% of their following is either bots or inactive profiles. Most articles and infographics on the subject are telling, however with a little digging you can find out that there are also social media "experts" utilizing the service to give the appearance of bloated numbers. Intrigued, and given our rare propensity to tweet as an agency, we wanted to see what the fuss was about.

So we gave it a try.

Discovery

In August we saw some ads on a third party Twitter "profile checker" site  saying they can send a thousand followers your way for $9. The process is pretty simple: select how many followers yo…

I can't believe I'm writing this post in 2012 but as recent events have come to light apparently some advice about ethical blogger relations needed to be published as a reminder of what it means work with bloggers the right way. And by "right way", I'm not even going to touch myriad of "Don't call me a Mommy" or ignoring Dads or other issues that come from not knowing the people or space you're pitching. This is about general, ethical blogger relations and two specific examples of big agencies that are doing it wrong.

Case 1: Yes, You Can Pay Bloggers

The first example I want to discuss comes from a blogger who sent me a pitch that she received for a product review. The response from the blogger was that she ultimately had a fee schedule;  it costs money if you would like her to write about your product. It wasn't a lot of money -- especially given the hourly rates large agencies charge -- but ultimately she wanted to be compensated. Oh, and i…

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo recently revealed some startling numbers about the microblogging service at Web 2.0 in San Francisco that will blow your mind. 250 million tweets are being generated each day, new user signups increased at a 3x rate thanks to integration with Apple's iOS, and 50% of their user base is publishing daily. That's sort of growth is incredible, and it was all made possible thanks to Apple.

While at one time we were bearish about Twitter, if you were a Large Media client, you'll know that the announcement from Apple was something we advised would be a game changer for Twitter. Putting the service at the fingertips of every iPhone and iPad user took Twitter from being an early adopter phenomenon to scale almost overnight. It was a bold move by Apple to embrace the microblogging platform, no different than how iMessage quietly changed texting forever for those using iOS devices over wifi.

There's a great takeaway here for brands looking at playing with …