If you go back to the recent incidents happening in Lebanon from theft, violence, and public sector corruption and the outrageous reaction of the Lebanese on social media towards the absence of governmental actions to find solutions, you would expect at some point to see this coming as i have previously written about Social Media in Lebanon: A Powerful Force for Change.
Social movements do no just happen, but develop through different stages. “طلعت_ريحتكم” or “YouStink” is the result of oppression and injustice that Lebanese have endured equally for a long period of time and the garbage crisis was only the straw that broke the camel’s back. Despite their religious, socioeconomic status, Lebanese society came together as one, to voice their disgust over the garbage crisis that united them together for the first time in years.
The Lebanese cabinet failed to agree on a solution for the country’s long-running garbage crisis while trash piled up across Beirut and elsewhere posing a threat to people’s health and environment. Anger about the massive amounts of trash accumulating on the streets provoked the rise of a trending “online campaign” after thousands flooded social media with pictures and posts telling the government you stink.
The campaign became trending worldwide gathering more than 200k tweets and “طلعت_ريحتكم” Facebook Page managed to attract more than 120k people in less than a week.
Fed up with the situation, a group of activists urged people using different social media networks to join their protest and the demonstration that started with few hundreds developed to thousands of Lebanese who took the streets with the support of civil society groups against the government’s failure to take action and have the large piles of rubbish which have been building up in the capital for weeks removed. The demonstrations led to clashes with riot police after police fired rubber bullets and doused demonstrators with water hoses. Dozens of demonstrates and police were injured and now “YouStink” is demanding the government to resign.
Lebanon’s garbage crisis has managed to reveal political paralysis. Whether “YouStink” will succeed in achieving a revolution or transform into a political movement, it has definitely given hope that the spark of change has not died in Lebanon.
2015 Social Media Map: Update Guide with Live Links
If you are feeling overwhelmed by social media and wondering how to keep track with the latest networks and tools emerging everyday, check out the updated social media map that sums up all you need to know about the evolving social media landscape.
The map has been released by Overdrive Interactive. Its main purpose is to act as a social media reference guide and is organized into categories including a list of:
Social Networks, Social Media Listening, Content Discovery and Curation, Photo Sharing, Wikis , Social Commerce & Payment, Video Sharing, Social Music Networks, Social Media Management & Tracking, Social Reviews, Social Q&A, Social Recruiting, Blogging, Social Travel Networks, Professional Social Networks, Live Streaming, Micro Blogging, Social Gaming, Social Search, Local & Location-Based, International Social Networks, URL Shorteners.
If you are interested in finding any website, mobile app, tool or platform related to social media you will definitely find it here. The interactive map includes live links and is definitely a great reference for marketers to widen their online branding, strategies and marketing channels.
This social media marketing resource is free, you can download the full Map by clicking here.
Ello is an ad-free, invite-only and independent social network that has been going viral over the web for the past few weeks.
Ello launched in March but has recently received sudden popularity which was completely unexpected even by their own team according to Ello’s founders, designer Todd Berger.
It’s the anti-Facebook
Ello’s manifesto starts with a clear message directed towards Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, “Your social network is owned by advertisers.” ” Every post you share, every friend you make, and every link you follow is tracked, recorded, and converted into data. Advertisers buy your data so they can show you more ads. You are the product that’s bought and sold.” The menifesto ends with the following statement: “You are not a product.”
Another reason for this unexpected popularity may trace back to what the Daily Dot called “Great Gay Facebook Exodus” prompted by Facebook about using their stage names in which Ello has welcomed people switching from Facebook in protest about Facebook’s controversial naming policy, which forces users to use their legal names.
Features
Ello has limited features such as posting status updates, posting photos, commenting on their friends’ posts and see the number of Views per post. The new built features include Video integration (Youtube, Vimeo, Dailymotion), Audio integration (Soundcloud, Mixcloud) andNotification Center filtering.
Ello is still a beta version and a lot of features are currently being worked on.
It’s private
For people concerned about the amount of personal information and for those who hate the massive amount of ads on Facebook and other social networks, Ello Founders stated that: “Ello is a USA Public Benefit Corporation, making it virtually impossible for Ello to ever sell ads or user data.”
Ello is growing at an amazing pace, claims report that right now Ello is receiving massive number of requests with more than 30,000 requests an hour.
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If you would like to join Ello, just send me your email or ask for an invitation code!
The term digital marketing also known as internet marketing or e-Marketing refers to the use of different marketing strategies to promote a certain product or service through different forms of digital media and has the ability to give numeric reports and exact results unlike traditional marketing which helps figuring out what works and what not. The internet is the most used channel when it comes to digital marketing others include wireless text messaging, mobile instant messaging, mobile apps, electronic billboards, digital television and radio channels, etc.
The picture below shows the usage of three terms according to Google trends:
The importance of Online Digital Marketing lies in the ability to drive traffic to websites, increasing the number of visitors which in terms will increase revenue, attention, impact, interactivity, and other related goals. When it comes to Digital Marketing the following questions should be answered: What is SEO, Social Media, E Newsletter, Blogging and the impact of it all.
Below is a brief introduction to each section: 101 Intro to Digital Marketing for Beginners.
– SEO: Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization is the process of getting traffic from the search engines and into the website. The focus is usually on Google, which holds 80% of the market in addition to Yahoo and Bing. You don’t need to be a developer to understand how it works but if you are then it is much easier. When you open Google and type few keywords, Google will show the most relevant website according to certain measures.
SEO is divided to two sections On-Page optimization and Off-Page optimization and there are two types of SEO strategies: Paid (SEM) vs Organic/Free. Organic or Free is competitive and free yet involves coding and is affected by the number of people visiting the website while Paid includes using Google adwords, which is based on the amount of money invested, the higher you pay for certain keyword combination the higher you rank.
– SMO: Social Media Optimization
SMO is the process of increasing awareness of a service, product or brand by using different social media outlets to achieve viral publicity. The most popular Social Media Platforms are Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, Youtube…. which are web-based and mobile-based technologies used to turn communication to a more interactive form among organizations, communities and individuals. The most popular terms used by those social media platforms are: “Like”, “Follow”, “Connect”. The importance of social media lies in the number of people involved on those networks that surpass one billion users. You can see the picture below showing the number of users on each social network.
– E Newsletter (Email Newsletter)
E-Newsletter is a correspondence sent via email, which is basically a single webpage and is considered one of the most successful mechanisms of communication and eMarketing on the web that really works.
There are two types of E-Newsletters, Emails and Text/Mobile Messaging. E-Newsletter forces you to build a list of emails of people or a community interested in your product or services that is a key to a successful campaign. The power of newsletters lies in maintaining customer relationship and persuading clients to purchase a product or use a service.
– Blogging
A blog is discussion or information site where the user determines the content.It i s an interactive form of publishing content on the web. The most powerful softwares are WordPress and Blogger which belongs to google.
Now what is the impact of all this, in time, the number of visitors will increase and thus helping your business grow.
If your checking a Facebook page with the new layout, then you are definitely wondering where this came from! Get Updates from……in your News Feed
If you haven’t liked the page, a white Like strip will show up as you scroll down the Facebook page! Don’t Worry, once you close it, it won’t be showing up again! It’s one of the best features of the new layout page surprises!
All pages will be updated to the new layout gradually. Page admins keep checking the admin panel for a notice to join the wait-list, Reserve your spot and expect the change!
Other changes you will notice is the new page dimensions, a “More” drop down menu within the Facebook tabs, more insights within the admin panel and much more!