Who Owns the Photos You Share Online? Part Two

Posted on May 13, 2013 by in Advertising, Instagram, News, Social Networks

Where we left off, Facebook-owned Instagram suffered a backlash last December when they introduced a new Terms of Service agreement whose wording led many users to believe that Instagram would now “own” their photos and as such could sell them to advertisers. That wasn’t true, but in response to the fury Instagram changed the wording again — and this time, it gave advertisers even more leeway with user photos.

Instagram was able to put the controversy behind them, but the incident underscored the growing debate over ownership rights for individuals who share photos online. And now, that debate is getting even more complicated.

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Who Owns the Photos You Share Online? Part One

Posted on May 9, 2013 by in Advertising, Facebook, Instagram, News, Social Networks

Since Facebook announced its intentions to acquire Instagram a little over a year ago, everyone’s been on pins and needles to see what — if anything — would change.

We got our first big hint last December when Instagram released its new Terms of Service, scheduled to go into effect the following month on January 19.

What happened then? Well, in short: absolute bedlam.

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Facebook to Adopt the Hashtag?

Posted on May 7, 2013 by in Advertising, Facebook, Marketing, Twitter

You may have heard: hashtags aren’t just for Twitter anymore.

And you, like me, may have noticed their proliferation over the past several months — Instagram recognizes them, as does Pinterest and Google+. Flickr, in fact, has recently added hashtag functionality. They appear on everything from billboards, to television commercials, to news articles, to cola bottle labels — it truly seems that I can’t go anywhere, online and off, without seeing them anymore.

Their gaining traction across a variety of platforms proves that at some point, hashtags ceased being a way for people to aggregate and organize content on Twitter, and became a standardized way for people to aggregate and organize anything — at least on the Internet.

But there’s one place where hashtags haven’t been adopted, and it perhaps has the biggest reach of all…

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The Rise of “Native Advertising”

Posted on May 2, 2013 by in Advertising, Marketing, Usability, Websites

We’ve heard of all types of advertising before — but what the heck is native advertising?

If you’ve never heard the term before, don’t worry: it’s only recently been widely adopted by the advertising community. But get ready to hear a lot more about it, because native advertising will define the next phase of our collective user experience online.

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The Secret Door: A Social Media Marketing Win

Posted on April 29, 2013 by in Google, Integrated Marketing Campaigns, Marketing, Raves, Social Media, Tech, Tools, Websites

No doubt you’ve played with Google Maps’ Street View before. It can be handy when looking up addresses, or for checking out neighborhoods you’re interested in living in, or even for scoping out the places you used to live.

But what I didn’t fully understand until recently was how limiting of a name “Street View” actually is. Over several years and with the help of countless volunteers who have contributed 360-degree “photo spheres,” Google has amassed a litany of panoramas that go way beyond just street-level. And they’re all available for the whole world to see.

One of the coolest ways to check out these views is through an interactive experience called “The Secret Door”…

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Pinterest Introduces Analytics for Brands

Posted on April 25, 2013 by in Branding, Pinterest

Pinterest recently added new functionality in the realm of analytics.

Available for business accounts, Pinterest’s web analytics will measure pins, repins, impressions, and clicks over time. Now brand owners can more accurately measure and track numbers such as how many people are pinning from their websites, how many people are seeing their pins, and how many people are clicking their content.

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Social Sharing Equals Success in Email Marketing

Posted on April 22, 2013 by in Email, Facebook, LinkedIn, Marketing, Social Media

Social media is over-hyped. I get that.

It feels like you can’t open a marketing email anymore without seeing buttons urging you to share the email content across social media channels. Sharing buttons seem so ubiquitous, one starts to wonder if they’re even effective. Have they simply become visual noise that people have learned to ignore on their screen, like display or text ads?

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Think Before You Like: “Like Farming” and the World of Facebook Spam

Posted on April 17, 2013 by in Facebook, Social Media, Social Networks

I was scrolling through my Facebook feed the other morning when I spotted a photo of a man stopping traffic on a road to let a duck and her babies cross. The caption read, “Hats off to this man….How many likes for this man?!!!”

Well, awww. How could anyone not like a heartwarming photo of a human helping animals? One of my friends had, and she wasn’t alone — this particular photo already had almost 200,000 likes, as well as over 5,500 comments and 11,500 shares.

In a cold world where it sometimes seems as if most of the news is bad, it’s nice to collectively celebrate a feel-good moment with others. After all, “liking” something is an easy way to agree, and to show you care.

But unfortunately, your “like” doesn’t always end there.

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Six Steps to Successful Inbound Marketing

Posted on April 2, 2013 by in Blogging, Integrated Marketing Campaigns, Marketing, SEO

Here at Dowitcher Designs we we deal a lot with matters of inbound marketing — that is, when leads or potential customers come to you.

And let me tell you, success starts with careful, precise planning. After all, in order to achieve your goals you must establish them first. But being that inbound marketing is a results-focused process, it seems like many businesses just want to skip right to the results without, you know, working for them.

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Mopping Up the Internet’s Muddy Carbon Footprints

Posted on March 27, 2013 by in Environment, Facebook, Social Media, Tech, Twitter

We all know the impact that cars, factories, and even our own bodies have on the environment.

But have you ever stopped to think about the environmental impact of the internet?

It’s true: every time you load a page, send a tweet, share a post, or “like” something online, you’re emitting carbon dioxide — CO2. A small amount, sure, but consider how many people the world over are loading, sending, sharing, and liking, too.

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