Irish Social Media Awards 2014 Open Nominations

socialmedia-awards-2014 The Irish Social Media Awards are being held in June in Dublin and nominations opened today.

As with other years nominations are 100% free.

This year’s categories are:

Facebook categories:

Facebook Page for a Business (Non Campaign)
Facebook Page for a Non-Profit/Organisation
Facebook Page for a Business (owner managed)
Integrated Facebook Campaign: Page, App, Ads

Twitter categories

Best Business Twitter account – marketing, sales
Best Business Twitter account – support, CRM
Best Business Twitter Campaign

Mobile categories

Best Mobile App (Marketing)
Best Mobile App (Events)
Best Mobile Campaign Using Social Media

SME Categories

Best Use of Social Media by an SME (new)
Best Blog of an SME

Other Categories

Best Experimental Format (Vine, Instagram, Snapchat)
Best Social Media Only Campaign (not linked to any other media)
Most Innovative Use of Social Media
Best Use of Social Media by State Body
Customer Care using Social Media (Integrated)
Best Video/Video Campaign (non broadcast)
Best Online PR Campaign
Best Use of Social Media for a Sponsorship Campaign
Social Media Effectiveness – conversions, metrics etc
Best Integrated Social Media Campaign

Full details on the event site.

Pinterest Engagement Graphic

Pinterest has made changes to their systems in the last couple of months that make it easier for brands and businesses to use the social network.

But what’s actually going on?

This graphic from Curalate gives some interesting insights:

pinterest-infographic

Do you use Pinterest? Why? Do you like it? Hate it? Let us know in the comments!

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Social Media Revealed

A lot of the companies flogging social media services to businesses probably shouldn’t be in the business at all.

A lot of the “advice” they’re giving companies is terrible and yet they charge their clients “top dollar” for it.

(Not all of the companies operating in the space are “evil”, but a lot are)

The Onion’s recent video in the style of “Ted Talks” is brilliant and worth watching if you have any doubts about social media gurus:


Via

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Nike Running #Fail

Nike Running. Wonderful device (and software) if it works, but one of its key elements (and raison d’etre) is the GPS functionality. Without it there’s not much point in using it.. Or so you’d think:

Am I missing something? Or did they just almost ask him to run with his computer?

No – they’re just going to plough ahead with even more “good” and “helpful” advice:

 

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IIA Net Visionary Awards Revamps Social Media Category

This year’s Irish Internet Association Net Visionary Awards features a social media category, as it has done for the last few years. However this year is slightly different. Instead of simply having a “best us of” type award they’ve renamed the category to:

Most Creative Use of Social Media for compelling customer engagement

And they describe it as being for:

The person or company who receives this award will have demonstrably displayed best practice use of social media for driving business growth; Social Commerce, Social media for customer engagement and customer support. They will have displayed expertise in delivering integrated Social Media across a minimum of two social media platforms.

Full details and nominations on their site.

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Heinz Launch Commerce Via Facebook But Get Security Wrong

Heinz have launched a special offer via their Facebook page that allows “fans” to buy a “limited edition” ketchup.

Heinz limited edition ketchup

Heinz limited edition ketchup

Unfortunately it’s pretty clear that the people behind the integration don’t really understand security or privacy.

In order to order the ketchup you need to fill out this form:

ketchup-order-form

Now why do they need ALL that information to send you a bottle of a ketchup? A delivery address is obviously going to be needed, but why would you need my date of birth?

Sorry, but that’s really intrusive.. too intrusive really

Of course to get to that page you really have to trust Heinz .. because whoever setup the “social commerce” doesn’t know a lot about secure certificates or ecommerce judging by this:

Heinz SSL error

Heinz SSL error

I’m sorry, but unless you can actually get the ecommerce basics like SSL certs right then all this talk about “social commerce” being the next big thing are just more fluff

And if a company the size of Heinz can’t get it right I doubt smaller ones will ..

 

 

 

Facebook Getting Serious With Places

It looks like Facebook is getting set to make a serious play in location based services in Europe.

According to an article in today’s Guardian the social networking behemoth is about to launch of “Deals” which would give users benefits and discounts at local retailers.

The company has announced partnership deals with several “heavy hitters” including Starbucks and Debenhams:

Through deals with partners announced today, the first 30,000 Facebook users to check in at Starbucks stores in the UK can claim a free coffee, the first 1,000 to check in at Debenhams will receive a free mascara and makeover and the first four to upgrade their contracts and check in at O2 stores will win a free Xbox or Playstation.