Do you need a break from Facebook?

If you’re like most people, a Facebook vacation may be in your future…

Facebook now has more than 1 billion users. That’s a lot. And most of us are aware the social networking site is the largest in the world. Facebook has seemingly proliferated nearly every crevice of the ‘interwebs.’ Websites are using Facebook widgets in place of the ‘traditional’ comment section, the Facebook share button sits next to nearly every blog post and most people check their Facebook news feed several times a day.

For many of us, Facebook is such a huge part of our lives that it can be hard to get away from the daily dose of friend updates, brand pages marketing their products and news about the site itself. I get made fun of for my constant social media consumption–I’m always on the hunt for articles spanning a wide array of topics just so I can share it across my networks. All this Facebook usage and consumption of updates from our online social networks can be rather taxing. Even I take a break from time-to-time. According to the infographic from onlinecollegecourses.com below, I’m not alone–61 percent of current Facebook users have taken a break from Facebook for one week or longer.

The infographic states several reasons why people feel the need to take a brief hiatus from Facebook. For me, it’s just nice to ‘unplug’ for a day or two just to clear my mind a bit. Take a look at the infographic below and let me know if you’ve taken a break from Facebook or if you plan to soon.

Social media played a role in this year’s brand bowl more so than ever before. If you’re a marketer reading this, I’m sure you’re well aware of the brilliant and timely posts delivered by the Oreo social media team. When the lights went out at the Superdome, Oreo pushed out the below image on Facebook and Twitter in a matter of minutes:

Power out? No problem. twitter.com/Oreo/status/29…

— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) February 4, 2013

This was an image with real staying power. It picked up another thousand plus retweets the day after the big game, the Facebook post got over 20,000 ‘likes’ and close to 7,000 shares and the quick and witty post picked up tons of free press. Oreo is certainly on top of its game and made sure its ’Cream Or Cookie’ Super Bowl spot was fully supported with social media build up and timely posts sent out before, during and even after the game. Social media activity like this can only be achieved with a command center and all hands on deck. The social media activity during the Super Bowl this year was certainly impressive, but it’s time to break down my favorite ads.

#5. Samsung Mobile USA – The Next Big Thing

I’m not usually one to fall for celebrity endorsements, but these two are hilarious. Not sure how much the ad will help in its epic battle for marketshare over Apple, but it can’t hurt.

#4. Viva Young – Taco Bell Game Day Commercial

This commercial is great. I can only wish I will be this cool when I’m sitting around in a retirement home a few decades from now. Only thing bad about it is now I have that Fun. song stuck in my head, which I spent most of 2012 trying to get rid of. At least it was in Spanish.

#3. OREO – Whisper Fight

A whisper fight in a library? Brilliant. Though I’m a little surprised it hadn’t been done before. Again, Oreo absolutely stole the show from a branding and marketing standpoint. They even took this moment to launch an Instagram account. Before the Super Bowl, Oreo had around 2,200 followers on Instagram and garnered around 35,000 followers by the end of Sunday night. Props to 360i and the Oreo social media command center.

#2. Budweiser Super Bowl Ad — The Clydesdales: “Brotherhood”

This ad literally brought tears to the eyes of some of my coworkers. With several terribly awful ads from Bud Light, Anheuser-Busch InBev totally redeemed itself with this tear-jerker of an ad.

#1. Ram Trucks Super Bowl Commercial “Farmer”

This one struck a chord with me from the first frame and had chills going through my spine by the end. Growing up in northwest Oklahoma and listening to farmers talk about the weather and wheat prices everyday definitely had an influence on this year’s pick. Paul Harvey had a big part in my life as well. Seemed like anytime I showed up at my grandparents house in Alva, Okla., Paul Harvey was delivering his famous “The Rest of the Story” segments on the kitchen radio. It also helped that the commercial was beautifully done with shots from a National Geographic photographer and a renowned documentary photographer. Nicely done, Dodge.

Bonus spots:

Because of my Oklahoma roots and because the Flaming Lips are just incredible in general: 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe | Big Game Ad | “Epic Playdate“

Because I love awkward moments: Unattended Laundry: You needed the machine. You got caught panty-handed (Speed Stick)

Because I love Amy Poehler: Best Buy – Asking Amy: Official 2013 Best Buy Game Day Commercial

My nine best on Instagram from 2012.

Another year has gone by. I’ve been through some fairly major life changes. New city. New job. New friends. New experiences.

Instagram has gone through some major changes as well. The photo-sharing app with vintage filters opened its doors to Android users and a few days later was purchased by Facebook for $1 billion in early April. A few Instagram users freaked out about the availability on the Android Market and even more freaked out after the news of Facebook’s purchase. Of course, this did nothing to slow its growth. In fact, during this 10 day period, the app saw explosive growth and ended up adding another 10 million users–1 million new users a day.

Then Instagram changed its privacy policy and people freaked out again–this time with the idea that Facebook was going to start selling users’ photos. This would all come to a close soon enough after Instagram apologized to its users and vowed to remove language that suggests they have the right to sell users’ photos. Oh, and a new version with a new filter was recently launched. Nice timing.

Now that you’re all caught up on the latest happenings of Instagram; let’s take a look at some of my personal top photos. For the second consecutive year, I have combed through my hundreds of photos and picked my top 10 of the year. I posted a good number of images shot with my Nikon D90, but this list is comprised of only photos shot and edited with my iPhone. You can take a look back at my top 10 photos of 2011 to see I have continued to grow as a photographer and get more creative with my shots. To view all my best photos from 2012, follow my on Instagram (@eric_wheeler) and view my hashtag #wheelers_best_of_2012. Take a look at my top 10 and let me know what you think!

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 36,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 8 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

Remarkably, Apple is able to remain in the limelight incessantly while still holding out on social media. Indeed, Mashable recently had a nice write-up on four huge brands still not on social media. There Apple was, the largest company in the world, at the bottom of the list. It seems silly. For the amount of traditional advertising the company does for each new product launch, it seems like a natural next step would be to layer social media on top of that and create online communities to further push its messaging throughout the Web. Maybe social media is finally in Apple’s future?

From the looks of this infographic, Apple might need to shake things up a bit to be sure it doesn’t ‘plateau.’ As you can see Apple has gained some huge ground in the past five years. For one, the iPhone alone now has higher sales than every product Microsoft has to offer. With a $500 billion value, the company is either going to continue thriving or simply flat line. This infographic even says its fan base is leveling out. But the underlying question? Is Apple’s financial skyrocket peaking or is it merely preparing for the next big launch? Check out the infographic from onlinebusinessdegree.org below and draw your own conclusion:

Take a look at the infographic below to see how social media has impacted this election so far. First, a few stats that jump out at me. For one, 9 out of 10 Senators and Representatives now have a Twitter account. Of course, these accounts are mostly being run by the campaign team or other staffers, but I think this still helps to emphasize the importance of social media in the overall strategy of politicians. Other stats that really jump out at me are based on the sheer volume of Tweets this year’s election has sparked. Barack Obama inspired over 52,000 tweets per second during the 2012 DNC–4 million tweets during his 39 minute speech. The first presidential debate even saw a quarter million mentions for “Big Bird.”

After you skim through the stats below, think about how social media has played a role in shaping your opinions. Would you be voting differently without social media?

Created by: Open-Site.org

Using meta tags properly can help with SEO. Image via

I read a blog post a while back titled “How to Optimize Content When You Don’t Know Jack about SEO” and it made me think of all the SEO-related questions I get. Search engine optimization is definitely an important function of digital marketing, but I think a lot of PR professionals would rather just outsource the work to someone else. However, it is an important skill to have and just about anyone working in communications will need to know the basics of SEO at some point. I definitely do not claim to be an SEO expert, but I do know a few basic tricks and I seem to be the go-to guy at the agency I work at when someone has a question. This blog post focuses on using image tags on the WordPress platform.

Before getting too deep into things, please keep in mind that SEO is constantly evolving as search engines (namely Google) are always tweaking their algorithms. These tips are also coming from a blogger’s point-of-view and can be easily incorporated into the typical WordPress blog post.

Boost SEO by Using Images with the Appropriate Tags/Description

I’m a firm believer in the power of images to boost your chances of showing up in searches. For one, people perform image searches a lot. Another reason is it allows you to throw in a bunch of extra searchable data that Web crawlers love. For bloggers on WordPress, that means filling in every field in the form that appears after you upload an image (shown below).

WordPress makes it easy to add meta tags to images. Just be sure to fill in each field. It’s also important to have a basic understanding of what each field does.

A few things worth pointing out. Notice the original file name is “boost_seo_with_meta_tags.jpg,” which not only describes the image, but also aligns with the topic of this blog post. This is important for a couple reasons. WordPress will automatically create a link incorporating the original file name in the URL so it’s important to use a descriptive file name. Therefor, uploading a file named something like “photo.jpg” is going to do you no good.

Title and alternate text can be rather confusing as they both do essentially the same thing, but they each serve a slightly different purpose. Basically, alternate or “alt” text is meant to be an alternative information source for an image–it should describe the image without the user actually having to see it. This is important for browsers that have images disabled and for meeting ADA standards. The image title is meant to supply additional information to an image. The key takeaway here is to use both a title and alt tag, but to use different phrases in each. Obviously it is a good idea to use your primary keywords (in my case “SEO” and “meta tags”) in both tags, but to use them in a natural way and without “stuffing” them with your keywords. If this is confusing, I suggest reading this article in Search Engine Journal.

The caption tag is pretty straightforward. Not every image in every blog post necessarily needs a caption and sometimes you might choose to leave it out for aesthetics or other reasons. However, you will be missing out on some free SEO “juice” when doing this so it’s definitely a good idea to use a caption when you can. Again, this should either describe the image or otherwise provide additional information or supply additional context to your blog post. Keep your keywords in mind, but don’t force them.

Be sure to provide a description tag as well. You have a little more freedom to provide more context here and to freely incorporate your keywords. However, there’s really no need to get too carried away as this information is not visible except when viewing the page source. But Web crawlers like them, so don’t leave it blank.

Finally, you’ll notice the last field contains the link URL. You are free to change this to link to another website or another page within your blog, but according to SEO expert Tom Pick, you’ll pass some SEO “juice” when doing this.

Top image via DigitalSherpa.

Are the Groupon days over?

Think back for a minute to 2008 when Groupon opened shop. Can’t remember? If you’re like me, you probably don’t recall the first time you signed up to receive daily deals in your inbox–it just sort of happened. And, if you’re like me, you may have even thought “how can this type of site possibly last?” But, if you’re like me, you drank the Kool-Aid and before you knew it, you were getting Groupon emails everyday, were using the Groupon app and eventually signed up with other daily deal sites like LivingSocial or DealChicken or one of the other nearly 800 daily deal sites.

According to the infographic below, the Groupon business model is starting to crumble with one in three daily deal sites having already failed. Groupon itself has been failing pretty miserably for the last year or so. In fact, between a saturated market and retailers who claim to ‘hate’ Groupon for the small profit margins the deals bring in, Groupon could soon be history.

I think it’s pretty clear deal sites will continue to close left and right. However, I’m not so sure the end is coming as fast as this infographic claims. What do you think? Does Groupon have time to turn business around and get back in it for the long hall? Will another daily deal site rise to the top? Or is it just a matter of time before the entire ‘Groupon Bubble’ bursts?

Infographic by CreditScore.net

Fallon put together a rather nice package of swag for its 10,000th Twitter follower … me!

I’m a little slow on this one, but I definitely owe a big thank you to the great Minneapolis ad agency Fallon Worldwide. Out of pure luck, I became @wearefallon’s 10,000 Twitter follower on July 11, 2012 and I received a surprise @mention the next day announcing me as the winner of Fallon prize pack. The surprise is two-fold: 1.) Considering I have a PR & Advertising list on Twitter and I’m a big fan of their work, I was surprised to learn I wasn’t already following Fallon and 2.) I had no idea they were planning to reward their 10,000th follower. Here’s the surprise tweet:

Congratulations to @eric_wheeler on being our 10,000th follower on Twitter! DM us your address & we will send you a package of Fallon swag.

— we are fallon (@wearefallon) July 30, 2012

Of course I sent in my address right way. However, I didn’t really know what the prize pack would include. I assumed it would be some pens and a note pad or something. Little did I know, I would have a box of high-quality goodies show up at my doorstep the day before my birthday.

The swag pack included a Lands’ End vest, an aluminum water bottle, ball point pen, journal, bracelet and rather nice coffee table book celebrating 25 years of Fallon’s work. But that’s not all, I even got a signed and framed picture of Pat Fallon to hang on my wall (which I did).

From a social media marketing standpoint, there’s a couple key takeaways here. First, the power of a surprise reward can be just as good as a full-fledged online contest. Sure, you might not get all the consumer information as you might with a sweepstakes (users’ email, mailing address, demographics, etc.), but if you do it right, it can still work for you. After Fallon announced its winner on Twitter, they also posted photos on Facebook and Google+ to get a little more traction. It also helps that Fallon’s 10,000th follower also happens to maintain a blog (I’m now writing about my experience). 

Another takeaway was Fallon’s decision to go big on the prize package. It would have been much easier and cost effective to send me the pen and note pad I was thinking. However, I don’t think I would have gotten too excited about that. By including a book, vest, framed photo and other swag worth around $100, I definitely felt obliged to brag about it on my social networks and, eventually, blog about it.

Again, I thank the good people at Fallon Worldwide for taking time to reward a random Twitter follower. I’m looking forward to wearing my vest this fall and The Work: 25 Years of Fallon compliments my favorite advertising book, Juicing the Orange rather nicely.

Another impressive infographic has come through my inbox and is definitely worth sharing. This one shows the true power of the Internet in bringing people together for social change. Information flows so fast these days that it can be easy to overlook or forget some of the major events powered by social media and Web broadcasting. The Internet as the public knows it is roughly two decades in and is as much a part of peoples’ lives as life itself. OK, that might be a bit dramatic, but you can definitely get a feel for how important the Internet is as a communication vehicle.

Some of the information in this graphic that really jumps out at me include the fact that a computer programmer in Pakistan tweeted about the Osama Bin Laden compound raid hours before the mainstream media reported it. More than 10 million Internet users signed an online petition opposing  the Internet censorship bill, SOPA, while another 3 million emails were sent to congress. The Internet is a true tool for social change and a vehicle for revolution. Check out the infographic below to see how the Internet plays a role in society: