Social Media Trends for 2013: What Will Change?

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There are many predictions for 2013 as far as social media is concerned across the internet.

Increase in online marketing budget and better content

It’s not a secret that that online marketing is the best and most cost effective way to achieve marketing goals like increasing the demand for a product as well as sales. We are seeing companies increase the budget for online marketing and creating better content to ensure a successful marketing campaign. In 2013 this will be more and more evident as 2012 was a stepping stone towards investing in social media campaigns.

Cross-platform storytelling

This is set to be the norm in 2013, as brands start to use several different platforms at the same time to support their social media campaign giving them the ability to deliver a single minded message. The difference with 2012 is that the message will be more adapted to each platform instead of being just copy pasted which will create a different yet related buzz serving the same marketing goal. It’s also clear that companies will focus on visual platforms including videos.

Big data

Companies today gather enormous amount of data from various different sources online and offline. Processing it to give the marketing department the needed information accurately has become more difficult. The biggest software companies have been working hard to be the first to provide a solution that will make data manageable in 2013.

Mobile

2012 saw technology move towards mobile devices and serving consumer demand for mobile applications. That’s where companies will shift their efforts in 2013. Mobile becomes more intense together with social media giving the freedom and privacy that laptops and desktops can’t give. Mobile application will become a necessity and every company will have to create more stimulating and original applications. With most users keeping themselves updated over their mobile phones, everything from online advertising to commerce will be made mobile-friendly to ensure accessibility at all times.

Companies in the Middle East are catching up very fast and 2013 will witness more companies from the region investing in online marketing and social media. Where is your company heading in 2013?

6 Tips for Writing a Facebook Post with the Perfect Call to Action

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Writing a Facebook Post

Reaching potential customers while retaining current ones requires much more than just creating a Facebook profile. Constant work and improvement are necessary in order to build a community.

In this particular article inspired from a recent post on social media today, you will get a few tips on techniques and practices to help you keep your community interested and engaged.

  1. Formulate your ideas into questions: Ask short and specific questions that target your audiences’ needs, interests and wants. They will be more likely to respond to your question than to comment on your sentence. Also, don’t forget to provide feedback on their answers!
  2. Use the 2nd person singular pronoun and verbs such as “feel”, “want”, “enjoy”, “appreciate” and “give” to engage the readers
  3. Provide a Link: Direct your fans to other pages especially when your post is related to specific products. It can push them to purchase it directly online.
  4. Use images and visuals: You can ask questions that relate to an image or provide information through visuals. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words!
  5. Include small quizzes, true or false and fill in the blanks. Fans will enjoy competing over the right answer.
  6. Keep it positive: Fans should feel excited and pleased when they read your posts. They will also be more likely to share positive feelings!

Feel inspired? Go update your Facebook page! I am sure you now have plenty of ideas! Need training, don’t hesitate to contact Eastline Marketing.

Recognizing the power of digital dreams: Eastline Marketing’s founders among Executive’s Top 20 Entrepreneurs

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Beirut, Lebanon, November 10, 2012: Executive, a highly respected Lebanese business magazine, selected 20 outstanding entrepreneurs and featured them in an article published online on the 2nd of November 2012. Eastline Marketing’s founders, Marc Dfouni and Nemr Nicolas Badine, were among the privileged few to receive this prestigious magazine’s stamp of approval. Dfouni and Badine were chosen since they have shown they have the drive to succeed and the ability to rise to the challenges inherent in a country brimming with instability.

Founded in 2006, Eastline Marketing specialises in online marketing and has gained a solid reputation over the years. The team is now 15 members strong and revenues are steadily growing. In 2011 they were $800,000 and are expected to soar to $1.2 million in 2012 and $2 million in 2013.

The 35 year old entrepreneurs were honoured to receive this stamp of approval from Executive. Nemr Nicolas Badine commented that this was “Another great accolade for Eastline and the best is yet to come…” While Marc Dfouni stated, “We are very flattered to have been selected amongst the top 20 entrepreneurs in Lebanon and this comes with great gratification. Our aim is to become the leading digital marketing player in the Middle East region by 2016. This recognition is an encouraging sign that we’re on the right track.”

An award-winning online marketing firm, Eastline Marketing focuses on strategies that best address their clients’ needs and goals. Specialized in social media marketing, search engine optimization, paid search marketing, online advertising and online public relations, the firm has also created its very own technology to garner optimal results and impact.

Eastline Marketing has a vision and is taking steps to make it a reality by offering comprehensive digital marketing services (social media marketing, search engine marketing, display advertising and mobile marketing) and enlarging the potential of its social media marketing software platform. Badine and Dfouni’s digital dreams look set to leave their mark on the real world of business and online marketing.

The top 20 Lebanese entrepreneurs

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executive_cover_nov_12Lebanese with entrepreneurial spirit and a business idea are no longer left to their own devices. Locally, they can find an incubator willing to provide a place to work from and assist them through mentorship and support…

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Business Leaders Get Tech Savvy With Digital Media Strategies

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daily_star_sep_12Top experts in advertising and online content from the Middle East and Europe gathered in Beirut Wednesday to show how companies can take business to the next level through better digital content…

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On The Slack Track

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communciate_sept_12In the wrong hands, bigger online budgets may fail to materialize into market growth. No doubt, the Lebanese digital advertising market is set back by a relatively small online population. But beyond this sad reality, there’s a lot the industry could do to move forward confidently, faster…

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Nokia 808 PureView: Detail and Depth Never Seen Before

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Nokia 808 Pureview

Given that part of our work as social media ambassadors is to cover the live events of our clients by uploading pictures and comments on the pages we handle, Nokia Lebanon agreed to lend us the Nokia 808 PureView for a few days so we can test it and decide whether it is convenient for our work at Eastline Marketing.

Therefore, on Wednesday evening, while the JLP band was performing at The Angry Monkey, we, as social media ambassadors, were using the phone to take pictures for the launch of the new Stoli chocolate Raspberry.

If you’ve visited the Stoli Leb page on Facebook or if you follow us on twitter, you’ve probably seen the pictures posted on Wednesday, the 8th and Thursday, the 9th of August 2012. Amazing, aren’t they?

With its 41 MP sensor and Carl Zeiss Lens, the Nokia 808 PureView’s camera enabled us to take wonderful high quality pictures and instantly share them on our Facebook and Twitter pages for Stoli Lebanon. The camera on the new Nokia 808 is surprisingly powerful and it even has amazing pictures at lower resolutions. Finally, we can take amazing pictures for our clients with amazing quality without having to invest in an expensive professional camera.

However, the downfall encountered is when it comes to sharing the pictures on Facebook as we were only able to upload to a profile and not a page so we had to share the pictures via email. Although it is certainly a limitation, it is not that irritating since it is fast and easy to share them via email.

With more than 70 likes for each picture uploaded, we can say that this phone has really lots of potential (as long as the camera is concerned*). Only, for the next version, we hope that Nokia 808 will run Windows 8 OS because it is more flexible and adapted to the geeks that we are!

(* We’re not talking about the phone’s characteristics in general. As social media ambassadors, we are interested in the camera’s functionality.)

Twitter Community in Lebanon

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Twitter in Lebanon

Twitter in Lebanon

Did you participate in the 14th of January protest against rape?
Did you attend the last event organized by Sarah’s bag “Behind the scenes”?

Where did you get your invitation from?  Twitter. Of course!

Citizens, governments and companies are becoming more and more active on social networks in Lebanon and especially on twitter since the beginning of 2011. Whether to post interesting links to articles, invitations to events or encouragements to participate in manifestations, people are constantly tweeting and re-tweeting.

But it seems that Lebanese personalities are ahead of the competition.

Haifa Wehbe has already tweeted 8,949 times and has 308,429 followers!

In fact, if we look at the current top 10 twitter ranking in Lebanon based on the amounts of followers, we notice that it includes 4 Lebanese singers: Elissa Khoury, Ragheb Alama, Nancy Ajram and Haifa Wehbe, 2 Lebanese politicians: Saad Hariri and Najib Mikati, 2 Lebanese talk show hosts: Zaven Kouyoumdjian and Mona Abou Hamze as well as a religious figure Sayyed Ali El Amin and a Lebanese actor and director Nadine Labaki.

In addition, although not currently in the top 10, Myriam Fares has 137,819 followers and has tweeted 1,092 times. Moreover, Marcel Ghanem, host of many famous TV shows on LBC, has 69,334 followers. Ministers Ziad Baroud, Nicolas Sehnaoui and Gebran Bassil are also very active on Twitter and the list goes on…

The domination of these public figures on social network affects the online community since many Lebanese sign up on twitter just to follow a certain personality and sometimes even just to criticize him by tagging him in mean comments. In addition, Lebanese citizens exteriorize themselves on twitter, as “it is the only place where they can talk and be heard”.  They create hash tags such as #Lebanese electricity to complain about electricity cutoffs.

As for social causes, followers feel encouraged when personalities re-tweet their tweets and it helps them reach a larger audience.

Therefore, through this social networking platform, public figures discuss political or musical events with their followers, share some quotes or ideas, support and encourage certain happenings and respond to questions asked by their followers.

Most of them have more replies than tweets!

Not yet on twitter? Too bad! You won’t be able to catch up!

Social Media is Business: Virtual Reach, Real Profits

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leb_opp_june_2012_coverBusinesses are wising up to the enormous possibilities afforded by the strategic use of social media.

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We All Love a Lebanese Meme

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What’s the fuss all about lately? Ever since the Lebanese Meme page has been created on Facebook end of February 2012, the online community has exploded with satirical views sharing memes that depict so vigorously the Lebanese community.

And who hasn’t shared and laughed over these hilarious anecdotes of the country? Anyone who is anyone in Lebanon has been featured in these memes, from local famous diva artists, to politicians, to your typical bimbo ladies and gigolo men.

Buzz Lebanese Meme

Naturally we had to have a share of the fun! So during the launch of the online campaign for Buzz Vodka Mix, aligned with the current TVCs running on the local broadcasting channels, we created a funny meme and shared it on the Lebanese meme page.

The result was surprising and the post went viral among the Lebanese memers community, 551 likes, 77 shares, and 66 comments in the same day!

The aim of it was to create “buzz” around the new online activation that requires from the Buzz Facebook fans to complete the ad and submit their idea in order to win a trip to Ayia Nappa with 4 of their friends.

Moreover, other viral memes were created by Facebook users mimicking the Buzz scenario.

Either ways, strong TVCs can always give the online marketing a strong push and increase the viral effect and brand visibility, of course spicing it up with a funny meme targeting the product consumers is always a plus.