Watch this edition of the Spread Effect Show, as we talk to author and SEO industry leader Michael Fleischner. Michael has been in the game for 14+ years and is also the founder of Upward SEO.
We discuss:
View the full episode here.
Facebook makes changes, it’s what they do. In fact, any good internet company is constantly testing and tweaking design and functionality elements to improve user experience. Those that don’t, aren’t around for long – I’m looking at you Myspace. Sadly, while most of us that understand the “why” behind the changes get excited; those that aren’t “in the know” are the ones posting, sharing and commenting on how “this is the last straw” and these changes are going to force them to leave Facebook. Get real.
While these changes aren’t as big as Facebook announcing Graph Search, EdgeRank or improving the timeline, they’re certainly worth a notice for inbound marketers.
Well, this isn’t an official “change” just yet, but it’s a poorly kept secret that Facebook has been working on utilizing hashtags for some time. This points to complete Instagram integration at some point, as the service is the second biggest source of hashtags on the internet, with the first being Twitter.
Inbound marketers need to take notice. Threaded replies are here, and they’re intended to allow for greater flexibility when it comes to conversating with your userbase. Rather than finding creative ways to show people who you were talking to, now you can reply to people individually, and it’s probably a good idea to do so. Social media is about personal experience, and there is no better way to increase engagement amongst your fans than to conversate with them in the comment fields of your Facebook posts.
While it’s not going to make a difference for your typical Facebook users, the guidelines have changed when it comes to using cover photos as a call to action. Before, you weren’t allowed to have links, or promotional items such as coupons, or pleas to visit your website for a huge sale (even though it was rarely enforced). Now, all of these marketing tools and more are fair game for anyone with a brand page. Smart brands are going to be using this newfound freedom to create custom calls to action and Facebook-centric deals on their website, blog or landing page as well as adding contact details (such as an email, phone number or Skype username). Even if you don’t want to go all out with a custom Facebook call to action, it might be time to add a URL to the cover photo at a bare minimum.
The admin area at the top of all Facebook brand pages now have your engagement numbers, as well as an easy to find option to “sponsor” the post. Some brands had complained in the past about not being able to find the “sponsor” button or not wanting to dig through analytics to get a quick update on how you were doing over the last few days, or weeks.
It seems that Facebook is once again evolving, and all of these changes signify user experience is still at the top of their priority list. It’s an exciting future for social media marketers, and these changes certainly make the job easier.
LinkedIn is the ugly duckling of the social media world. Despite having heaps of potential, LinkedIn is often passed over in favor of its more attractive cousins, namely: Facebook and Twitter. For the average social media fan, this is all about preference, and that’s more than okay. For a business owner, or sales professional, there’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t be spending more time on LinkedIn.
In 2012, Hubspot found that LinkedIn generated the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate of any social networking site, and it wasn’t close. With a whopping 2.75-percent, LinkedIn crushed both Twitter (0.69-percent) and Facebook (0.77-percent).
On the Spread Effect blog, not only does LinkedIn produce more referral traffic than Facebook and Twitter combined, it also leads to a dramatically lower bounce rate, more pages visited per visitor, and an average time on site nearly three times as high as the traffic from the other two. From a content standpoint, that’s gold, and it’s not like we’re going out of our way to market content on LinkedIn rather than Facebook or Twitter. These are organic occurrences without much manipulation – if any – on our part.
The easiest way to meet like-minded people is to go to a place where they gather. On LinkedIn, this is in groups. If you’re into SEO, there are dozens of groups to suit you. If you aren’t into SEO, why not try a group for content marketing, inbound marketing, social media, design, small business or even blogging? There are groups for everyone, you just have to look.
The goal of LinkedIn is to connect you with others. Think of it as the cocktail party of social networks. It’s a networking event and your goal is to mingle. I don’t suggest the strategy that some LinkedIn users take, which is to add everyone in existence as a contact, but I do recommend getting out and finding people that are in similar or complimentary fields. Send them a request to connect and ask if they’d like to talk shop sometime, either on Skype, or in-person for coffee or lunch.
You joined a group or two, right? Get active. Start asking questions and providing value as a member of the group. Wallflowers are overlooked in these types of places, so start making your presence known.
Updating your status at least once weekly isn’t too much to ask. Try to be sure that each post you put out on LinkedIn either adds value, or starts a conversation. Your goal with a status update is to interact with those following you. Posting what you had for breakfast (I’m looking at you, Twitter) isn’t going to get the job done. Remember, this is a professional network, so keep things that you wouldn’t say to your co-workers out of your status updates.
Unfiltered information is the best source, and the best way to find this sort of information is to find the people that create the news in your industry. This is the single easiest way to stay on top of current industry trends as well as learning a thing or two as you go.
You don’t have to devote a ton of time to LinkedIn to get the most from it, but much like an accelerator pedal, the harder you push, the faster you go. Remember, LinkedIn is the absolute best social network in terms of lead generation, client acquisition and business-related networking. You get out of it what you put into it, so it might be time to give it just a bit more of your effort.
Content takes time. We know the importance of producing content that drives traffic, leads and ultimately conversions, but why produce content that you’d only use once? Content marketing pros not only produce marketable content, they recycle it to allow them to reuse the ideas again and again with minimal additional effort. Think of it this way – when creating content, would you prefer to write a dozen blog posts, or write one blog post and use it a dozen different ways?
I think the answer is pretty simple. We all want to get the most from our work, and re-purposing your content just makes sense.
Here’s how to do it.
You know that most of your textual content appears on your own blog, but it’s time to expand that idea. Where else can you use it?
Good content marketers have a plan on how to not only use, but re-use their content before they even create it. One blog post could be re-purposed to work in several other channels. For example:
Infographics – Take the complex ideas from your blog posts and break them down into smaller and easy-to-digest chunks with rich imagery. Infographics are extremely popular, and it’s due to the colossal shift in the way people take in content. We’re a visual society and infographics are not only nice to look at, they make it easier to understand stat or data-driven content.
Whiteboard Videos – SEO Moz does a great job with their “Whiteboard Friday” videos. These videos are simple to produce and popular amongst those that enjoy informative content in an easy-to-swallow format.
Podcasts – Whether video or audio, it’s never a bad idea to expand upon your ideas in a blog post into a podcast that people can watch – or listen to – on their mobile device. We’re an on-the-go nation and podcasts might expose your content to a whole segment of users that you weren’t previously reaching.
Slideshare Presentations – If you’ve ever used Powerpoint or Keynote, you can create beautiful slideshare presentations by simply pulling key points from your blog posts, expanding on them, and adding images.
“Best of” Posts – Many blogs that produce a lot of content have a weekly or monthly wrap-up of their most popular posts. By doing this, you’re exposing people – that read your blog regularly – to content they may not have seen. These are also social media gold. Everyone loves curated “best of” posts and these links are heavily re-shared on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
The goal of re-purposing content is twofold:
1.) You want additional content while minimizing additional work.
2.) Different people consume different types of content. Repurposing it brings eyes to your content that may have never seen it due to the format it was in. Some people prefer listening to reading, others prefer scanning an infographic to watching a video. Diversification equals broader reach.
Re-cycling content not only gives you more to share, it also piggybacks on the viewing habits of different types of consumers. There are an ever-growing number of social networks, and people certainly aren’t using them all. Since different types of users are active on different networks, diversifying the format of your content allows you to reach a bigger number of them.
How are you re-purposing your content?
photo credit: Kristina B
In a perfect world, businesses would all be using Twitter to reach their target audience, acquire new customers, provide support and build rapport amongst their existing customer base. As we already know, this is not a perfect world. According to a 2012 Nielsen survey, 45-percent of US businesses are using Twitter. That means nearly 6 in 10 aren’t. Hopefully, you’re not one of them. Twitter has its problems when it comes to justifying ROI, but those that argue against its effectiveness generally aren’t using it correctly. In an era that requires two-way communication between business and consumer, most businesses use Twitter as nothing more as a bulletin board to post outgoing messages. Maybe it’s time to re-think your Twitter strategy if this sounds like you, or your company. Here’s what you can do differently to build a loyal, targeted and engaged following.
It sounds counter-intuitive when the pitch is to be more engaging and to start a two-way conversation, but scheduling your messages can, and should be something that your business is doing. Using services such as Hootsuite, or Buffer are great ways to not only be sure you’re covered for an entire day, week or months worth of updates, but to also ensure that these get sent during optimal viewing times for your audience. Sending out 20 tweets a day sounds great on paper, but if you’re sending all of them at the same time, you’re reaching the same audience on all twenty of them. You need to tweet throughout the day, and for most of us this simply isn’t possible, so we schedule. Now, don’t stop there. You need to actually engage in-between those scheduled tweets. Sending the tweets out is broadcasting a one-way message. A significant portion of your time on Twitter needs to be spent re-tweeting, engaging in conversation and finding new followers that fit your brands demographic.
#Moderation is the key word here. You shouldn’t be using hashtags on words that are irrelevant or that no one is searching for. Your tweets reach a much broader audience if you use hashtags on keywords people are likely to search for. For example: #Marketing #SEO #ORM #SocialMedia These are examples of hashtags that work. #randomhashtags don’t work, because there is far greater supply than there is demand.
Twitter chats are a great way to engage with people that have similar interests. Twitter chats exist in a wide variety of online and offline niches. A quick Google search will point you to relevant chats, and let you know when they take place. Social Media? Check! SEO? Check! Internet Marketing? Triple check!
Statistics show that tweeting more often, builds a following faster than someone who doesn’t tweet as much. Surprising, right? The key isn’t just tweeting often, it’s keeping the content relevant, using appropriate hashtags, tweeting at various intervals throughout the day, and reaching out to similar Twitter users. Following these simple steps will give you the foundation you need for Twitter success. After that, it’s a matter of perseverance As your follower count grows, so does your potential customer base. Keep the big picture in mind, and plan your Twitter strategy accordingly.
SEOs are just like anyone else. Some are good, some are bad, and most fall somewhere in-between. The difference between a good SEO and a bad one is in his ability to add to your bottom line. None of the popular SEO vanity stats (links, SERPs, traffic) mean anything if they are here today and gone tomorrow. If your SEO isn’t concerned about your future and keeping everything “Google safe” then he’s caught up in the vanity stats that most mediocre SEOs fall victim to. A good SEO knows that it’s not just about the now, but one eye needs to stay looking toward the future to avoid penalties and rankings drops that devastate businesses that rely on search to drive leads and sales.
Natural link portfolios are the time tested key to search engine optimization success. Building huge numbers of links means nothing if they aren’t of high quality and diversified across multiple channels. This sounds like it’d be a no-brainer, but many still fall victims to the “cheap” SEOs that automate the process and will – more often than not – negate any temporary rankings bumps with drops and penalties in the future.
A natural link portfolio can be broken down into three basic ideas.
These three ideas are simple enough for anyone in the world to understand, yet most people aren’t taking notice. Why?
Natural linking practices cost more.
People are motivated by achieving the best results in the shortest amount of time and for the least amount of money. This doesn’t lend itself to good SEO, which is why so many mediocre and bad SEOs are still in business. Bad SEOs can deliver thousands of links in a single sitting and deliver huge rankings increases over the short term. The caveat? It’s only a matter of time before Google catches on and slaps your website into the dark ages, a penalty that can take months or even years to recover from, if you ever do.
At Spread Effect, we don’t produce content for the sake of producing content. We look for strategic opportunities to provide quality content that has the potential of being picked up by multiple outlets.
Quality content costs more, but it’s the key to modern day SEO success. Backlinks are losing ground to more modern ranking metrics, such as social indicators. The only way to a positive sentiment on social channels is delivering content that people want to share, and that’s where we spend our time.
Good linking practices exceed the idea of links themselves. Delivering natural links blends marketing, design, strategy and content. Is your SEO thinking outside of the box, or is he focused on nothing but links?
This is – without a doubt – the most important (yet oft overlooked) aspect to natural linking. Good content is content that people want to read, rather than content that is delivered for the sake of delivering content. When people want to read your content, they’re far more likely to share your content.
Sharing content delivers the diversification angle that most SEOs overlook. We often talk about content going “viral” but few SEOs actually have the ability to get that done, nor do they understand the importance of it.
For example, you deliver a single piece of content that is informative and well-written. This one piece of content is picked up by multiple other blogs, shared across social media channels, mentioned in videos, discussed in forums, and even has the potential to garner main-stream media attention. One piece of content has now delivered hundreds or thousands of natural, and diversified links back to your site.
While your “bad” SEO delivers thousands of backlinks through use of automation software, guest posts on shoddy blogs that accept anything, forum posting, blog commenting, directory listings and any number of other shady SEO practices, a good SEO delivers all of this by writing one good piece of content that is picked up, shared and linked naturally from a plethora of outlets.
Most would argue that they don’t have the means to create good content. It’s too expensive. This isn’t inaccurate, as good content is often ten times (or more) expensive than bad content. However, good content has viral appeal, while bad content is nothing more than content for the sake of content. This isn’t the sort of content that gets picked up and linked naturally. This is the sort of content that has to be “pushed” by the SEO to multiple channels. This isn’t natural linking. This is artificial inflation of link totals, and it’s the quickest way to a Google penalty.
A good SEO knows that it only takes one strong piece of content delivered to a strong content delivery channel to deliver natural links. A bad SEO uses mediocre content and pushes it manually (or using automation software) to multiple channels in an attempt to artificially inflate a sites ranking.
The bad SEO might deliver more links than the good one, but this in’t a game of quantity. One good link delivers far more in the results category than 1,000 bad, or low-quality, links.
The key takeaway here is that you’re better off doing nothing at all than hiring a bad SEO. Over enough time, Google will rank your content no matter what you do. It might not be a great ranking, but over a long enough span, you’ll always outrank the bad SEO. Why? The bad SEO is going to deliver short-term results and long-term penalties and rankings drops.
Content is the key to link building. Provide your readers with a good experience, an informative piece of content and the means to share it, and they will. Content is the new SEO. Without it you’re just another SEO.
I’ve been there, you’ve been there, and any SEO worth his weight in links has been there. The process starts just as it would any other day. You start by checking your analytics software and seeing that you’ve taken a huge downturn in your traffic for the day/week/month. You quickly start searching Google, or checking your SEO software to see if your rankings are in the same place as yesterday. They’re not. You start sweating while systematically marking items on your mental checklist. We’ve all been there before, and it’s certainly not pleasant. Typically after your site takes a ratings bump and begins to lose a small, or significant amount of traffic, the one question drowning out every other plausible explanation is; “Did I get penalized?”
How do I explain this to my client?
What did I do to get penalized?
What can I do to fix this?
These are the questions running through your head, and rightfully so. Explaining to a client that you’ve been slapped around by Google for something you’re supposed to be the expert in can be quite the daunting task. Luckily, these rankings drops aren’t always from a Google penalty. In fact, most of the time Google hands out penalties, they do so with notice. If you haven’t received a notice from Google, it might be time to start looking into what else could have caused this disaster and what you can do to bounce back. It’s time to systematically check everything that could have gone wrong, and begin checking these items off the list.
Are you ready? Here’s a list of some of the most common non-penalty related reasons your rankings could start to drop.
It should be easy enough to figure out if this was the problem. Did the trend downward start after the site was re-designed, or before? If it was after, there’s a good chance the site changes are (at least in part) the culprit.
This doesn’t only go for full-blown site re-designs. Changing elements of your site, or editing the overall look and feel of it can – and often do – cause temporary rankings drops.
With re-designs, the problem could be any number of things, but the most common culprits are:
How to fix it: You’ll have to wait it out. These types of rankings drops often fix themselves over the span of a few weeks. You can speed up the process by seeing if any of the above have been changed or omitted in the re-design process.
Google is a machine in constant motion. We hear about major algorithmic changes, but there are many smaller updates that are pushed live with some regularity that you may not have heard about. One of these updates could have devalued some of your links, causing the rankings change. This is often related to another site getting a penalty, or having some shift in the way Google values their links. For example, “Site X” gets a penalty for shady linking practices and drops from page one for a super-competitive keyword to page 14. With this site on page 14, the link isn’t worth as much as it was yesterday, so it affects your site as well.
It might not be that complicated. There’s always the possibility that those juicy pagerank 6 links you acquired through a few guest posts have gone out the window because the site is down, whether it be shut down by its owner, hacked, or even dropped due to the owner not renewing the domain. Long periods of inactivity have been known to affect link weight from these types of sites as well.
How to fix it: Do an audit of your incoming links (at least the important ones) and make sure the site hasn’t “no followed” your link, shut down or been a victim of a hack or malware attack.
If you recently changed the structure of your permalinks or redirected them in some way, Google could take some time to catch up. If this is the case, your rankings should come back after time, you’ll have to give Google time to re-index all of the pages from your site and sort out the redirect issues.
How to fix it: Wait it out. Submitting a new sitemap in Google Webmaster Tools could speed up the process a bit, but you’re still at Google’s mercy when it comes to playing catch up to your site changes.
This is rare, but it does happen. In this case, one of your competitors is sending spammy links to your site in order to devalue your SEO efforts. Links from adult sites, gambling, illegal sites or directories can be the culprit here. Regardless of where your bad links came from, the damage can be mitigated.
How to fix it: Use the Google disavow tool. The disavow tool notifies Google that you don’t want any sort of credit for certain links pointing to your site. Just like anything else, this takes time, but it is something you can fix.
This is typically due to a site re-design, but not always. Your Robots.txt file tells search engines which pages to index and which to ignore (amongst other things). Changes to this file could change the way your site is being crawled and/or indexed and this often results in duplicate content or additional pages (terms of service, privacy policy, etc.) being indexed that are sharing some of your domain authority without providing any real value.
How to fix it: Use the old Robots.txt file, submit a new sitemap, add some new content, basically anything you can do to get Google to crawl your site again to see the changes.
If you aren’t being penalized, and none of the above are the culprit, it’s plausible that you’re simply the victim of an algorithm update. In this case, you were in a spot you didn’t belong, and Google corrected the problem by placing you where it felt was your proper place. In this case, the sites above you have more authority due to age, backlinks, optimization and any number of other reasons.
How to fix it: Keep on plugging. You’ve got some catching up to do, and the only way to do it is to keep at it.
There are literally hundreds, or even thousands of variables at play here, so we can’t hope to possibly list them all without performing a comprehensive site audit. These are some of the most common causes of non-penalty related rankings drops. If you are looking for a more thorough analysis, contact us.
Spammers beware. It appears that Google is coming after you once again, this time with a super-sized version of the original Penguin update. Just to keep jealousy out of the picture for the Penguin’s equally adorable Panda brother, they’re throwing one of those into the mix for good measure.
It’s been over a year since Google’s war on spam and shady linking shook up the entire SEO industry, but in the aftermath, I think we can all agree that it worked out for the best. It added some light to an industry that was filled with snake oil salesman and, as it usually does, the cream rose to the top.
The news started to hit the SEO world after SMX West when Google’s own Matt Cutts hit the stage and told attendees to get ready for some big changes to the algorithm.
Barry Schwartz reports:
“Matt said that there will be a large Penguin update in 2013 that he thinks will be one of the more talked about Google algorithm updates this year. Google’s search quality team is working on a major update to the Penguin algorithm, which Cutts called very significant.”
Matt proceeded to warn of changes to the Panda algorithm as well, and those are said to be taking place Friday (March 15th) or Monday (March 18th).
Is this the end of the backlink era?
Is Google moving into the co-citation business?
One can only guess, but if trends remain accurate, it could definitely be a sweeping change to the way all SEO companies operate when it comes to linking.
We saw the last confirmed Panda update on January 22nd, which was version number 24. This is one of the longest spans between updates that we’ve seen to date.
After discussing the future updates, Matt went on to warn of another huge change. He discussed Google’s plans to take down a large link network (or two), but declined to mention who exactly it was. This in and of itself is going to send SEO’s scrambling. We can only guess which network he’s talking about, but it’s probably better to let it play out and see what comes of it rather than offering up wild accusations and conjecture. I think most of us have a good idea of what’s coming, and who they’re going after.
Backlinks aren’t the future. Each big change to the algorithm seems to favor backlinks less and less. In the future, we expect to see co-citation instances and social indicators playing a huge role in the future of the SEO world and backlinks… well, not as much. That’s not to say that backlinks aren’t still important. As of this blog post, they’re still the most important ranking metric in SEO, but they’re losing ground in a hurry.
It’s time to get social. Social indicators are the number two metric when it comes to site placement according to several major studies. Some have even gone as far as saying that Facebook likes are better than links when it comes to site placement. We have no way of knowing for sure, but we do know that the future is looking way more social than it did a year ago.
You can’t game the system… for long. Temporary ranking bumps aren’t worth the long-term implications of a Google penalty. Using automated linking software, producing bad content and buying links is a temporary fix that is going to cause long term problems. Good SEO revolves around great content, and strategy to push that content to the masses. It’s time to evolve.
This update isn’t going to be the last from Google. The war against spam and people attempting to game the system is being fought right in front of our very eyes. Which side are you on?
Entrepreneurs are a dime a dozen nowadays. People that have never really done anything, but are waiting for that one idea that will change their life call themselves entrepreneurs. People with pipe dreams in a business that is doomed to fail do the same. The previous two examples aren’t entrepreneurs, they’re dreamers disguised as entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs aren’t special… until they are.
It’s safe to say that some entrepreneurs are a cut above the rest. These are the guys that aren’t just talking about how they’re going to be rich one day; they’re out there actively obtaining the lifestyle of their dreams. It seems as if these people are unstoppable, but you’ll find that many share some of the same traits.
Here are 8 of those traits.
With a global economy and clients and outsourcers working during typical sleeping hours, early to rise isn’t nearly as important as it used to be. The idea here isn’t how early you wake up, but how much time you’re spending in bed. The successful entrepreneur gets a good night sleep, but doesn’t spend all day under the sheets. Sleep only as often as you need and try to avoid taking naps during the day. This is unproductive time, and you don’t really need the rest. Proper eating and exercise will curb this loss of energy. Work on your lifestyle; don’t mask the symptoms by napping when you are low on energy.
The underlying idea here is productivity. Taking down time for naps or sleeping 12 hours isn’t productive time and you really don’t need it. Entrepreneurs have a low tolerance for inefficient practices and this is definitely not the most efficient use of your time.
Entrepreneurs are master networkers. Conferences, conventions, seminars and coffee breaks with other smart and successful people improve your life and smart entrepreneurs see this. Whether making business connections or new friends, entrepreneurs who surround themselves with people that have equal or greater levels of drive, business savvy and success would typically say that this is a great factor in their development. The old adage is “you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with” will really get you thinking about who gets the bulk of your time.
Very few entrepreneurs get rich or achieve great levels of success by being lazy or lucky.
“I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” – Thomas Jefferson
There are cases of people that have overcome the odds to achieve massive levels of success by being in the right place at the right time or just getting lucky, but these are the exception, not the rule.
Good entrepreneurs work their butt off to establish systems, create connections and prove their business viable before ever taking much time off. Even in their downtime, most entrepreneurs will tell you that it feels like something is missing – work. It’s in their blood, and the best way to duplicate their success is to work just as hard.
Not every idea is a good one, nor is every pitch a success. Having thick skin when met with criticism not only reduces your stress levels but it allows you to focus on what went wrong so that it doesn’t happen again. Entrepreneurs learn from criticism, but they don’t dwell on it. Learning from things that went wrong or ideas that weren’t very good to begin with is what separates the successful from the dreamers. You have to be able to learn from your mistakes and recognize that criticism at its simplest form isn’t a bad thing. It’s better to learn the lessons sooner rather than later.
We all know what perseverance means, but we might not know how many doors are closed for entrepreneurs before they ever meet with success. Find me an entrepreneur that achieved any sort of wealth and I’ll show you a man (or woman) that met with a lot of “no’s” and kept going. You never know when you’ll hit your tipping point so why stop digging inches before you reach gold?
Your typical American spends 2-3 hours a day watching television to unwind. Entrepreneurs aren’t the television watching type (typically). Generally speaking, entrepreneurs prefer experiences to objects and items. Whether it be dinner and drinks with friends or a weekend of white water rafting, entrepreneurs know how to have fun in their downtime, without involving the remote.
Entrepreneurs are smart, that’s a given, but you might be surprised to learn that the average entrepreneur doesn’t have an IQ significantly higher than the general population. There are exceptions, of course, but in general entrepreneurs learn on the go and are widely open to new challenges and new experiences. Typical people leave college and focus very little on continuing education. Entrepreneurs are constantly evolving and in order to continue to stay ahead of the curve, their knowledge levels have to grow and evolve as well.
You’ll also find that entrepreneurs read significantly more than the average American. In fact, the statistics show that entrepreneurs read as much as 8 times more than the average US citizen.
As smart as entrepreneurs are, they can’t possibly know everything. The successful leave ego out of hiring situations and prefer to higher people that have potential to surpass them. The ego-driven hire those that they’ll always have a leg up on. The problem with this way of thought is that you’ll always be the smartest person in the room and that doesn’t lend itself to personal or business development.
Hire people smarter than you, or at least those with skill sets that compliment yours.
What would you add to this list?
Prepare yourself for the petitions, the grumbling and the overall sense of unrest that can only be caused by major changes to the way people use Facebook. Reports suggest tomorrow might indeed be the day that Facebook pushes their new timeline live, for better or worse.
“The news feed is one of the most important things we’ve built,” Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the press event. Likening news feed to “the most personalized newspaper,” Zuckerberg added that “the stories around you deserve to be displayed with more than just text.”
Let’s take a look.
According to Facebook, approximately 50-percent of the stories shared on the average users news feed are pictures. Facebook isn’t alone. Most major social networks are reporting huge increases in the amount of visual media shared on their sites. Facebook is adapting to a more visual userbase by increasing the image size on the news feed significantly.
Pinterest users should quickly become enamored with the news feed as well. Their pins will now get significantly more real estate in their feeds, assuming they connect the two accounts.
With reports this week that engagement amongst teens is dropping at Facebook in favor of more visual-centric social networks, such as Instagram, it looks like Facebook might have made the right move in purchasing the company for a cool 1-billion dollars last year. With the increased real estate devoted to images in the news feed, one can only wonder if plans to integrate the two services are coming soon.
It’s no secret that Facebook has embraced Spotify. They’ve even included some space for them in the news feed for users with connected accounts. While this isn’t new in and of itself, the new display options on the news feed, as well as the “music” tab are going to keep users second guessing their friends music choices for quite some time.
You’ve had the option to subscribe to feeds for a while now, but it hasn’t been adopted by the masses just yet. Recognizing this, Facebook made changes to feeds to allow users to subscribe to allow subscriptions not only to people, but to games, photos, and music as well. It is reported that there will be additional options to display these feeds as well.
Facebook is continuing to add new publishing partners to the feed, and you’ll have the option to subscribe to them as well. Wither it’s Yahoo Sports or The Huffington Post, plans are in the works to deliver feeds based on content that you want to see.
Facebook has struggled to deliver a uniform look and feel across mobile devices and within mobile apps. The news feed design was actually inspired by attempts to design a better mobile version of the site across all platforms. They hope to make the user experience more consistent, regardless of the platform you use to access the site.
The changes are in line with others we’ve seen in the past 12 months on other sites. The web is becoming a mobile hot spot, and sites are starting to accomodate by designing around devices other than laptop and desktop computers.
We’ll report back once we get to play around inside the updated news feed.
Spread Effect