Here Are the 12 Best Facebook Marketing Campaigns From the Past Year | Adweek

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The Ice Bucket Challenge was the past year’s best use of Facebook marketing, according to the social network, which just announced its ad award winners. It’s no surprise the viral campaign got so much praise—Mark Zuckerberg even participated.

Zuckerberg was one of the millions of people to douse themselves in ice water to raise awareness for ALS in what became a powerful moment for online marketing. The best part was that it cost the ALS Association no money to generate all that attention—440 million people saw the videos.

The lesson was not lost on Facebook, which is holding it up as an example of how to use the platform for maximum impact.

This year marked the fourth Facebook Awards, which are timed to coincide with the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity—starting next week—where the ad world assembles to honor its top creative work.

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5 Things to Know Before Using Wikipedia as a Marketing Tool | All Business

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Wikipedia has been, and will continue to be, one of the best marketing tools for your business. Having a Wikipedia page will not only help lift your brand to the first page of Google, it will also help increase the page rank of your website after it’s linked to your Wikipedia page.

Marketers have been using Wikipedia for years to help clients climb in rank. After all, Google gives quite a bit of authority to Wikipedia; even having a simple link will help with your marketing efforts.

I make my living editing Wikipedia, spending countless hours each day creating and cleaning up entries for various clients. Throughout my time, I have run into the dangers of using Wikipedia as a marketing tool. If not done properly, a page can cause more harm than you can imagine.

Before you jump into editing Wikipedia for yourself or a client, there are a few things that you should familiarize yourself with:

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Eight Ways Goofing Off Can Make You More Productive | Forbes

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0x600One of my colleagues used to head to the men’s room and brush his teeth every time he felt a surge of writer’s block. He swears it did the trick. Another exits the building and walks around the block to clear his head. I sorely miss the mid-day yoga sessions that Forbes offered in its old offices in Manhattan. After an hour of downward dog, shoulder stand and corpse pose, my body was relaxed, my mind was clear, and I attacked my work with new energy.

A growing body of research suggests that the longer you keep your rear end in your chair and your eyes glued to your screen, the less productive you may be. Getting up from your desk and moving not only heightens your powers of concentration, it enhances your health.

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Fast Food Social Media Strategies Tell Restaurant Brand Stories | QSR magazine

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Q: What are the best kinds of posts to share on Twitter, Facebook, etc.?

A: There are a lot of ways to generate “likes” and “shares” on social media, but to use it to build a sustaining brand, you should align your social content with your brand strategy.

Videos of cute cats and aphorisms like “life is better with bacon” may get shared widely and boost your brand exposure, but they don’t do anything to build your brand equity. If you only care about the number of retweets or favorites you get, you’re missing the opportunity to tell your brand story and create a compelling narrative on social media.

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Google Must Expand Privacy Delistings, Says French Watchdog | TechCrunch

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The French data protection watchdog has ordered Google to widen its implementation of the so-called European ‘right to be forgotten‘ so that links are also delisted from all Google domains, including google.com, not just (as is currently the case) from the .fr French subdomain.

Quick backgrounder here: the rtbf refers to a legal ruling by Europe’s top court last year. It identified search engines as data controllers and required they process requests from private individuals wanting outdated, inaccurate or irrelevant information delisted from a search result for their name.

Google, which is by far and away the dominant search engine in Europe, started processing these requests last summer. However the way Google implemented the court’s ruling has created a trivial workaround because it only delists links from European sub-domains (such as .fr and .co.uk), not from google.com.

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  Where Does Your Money Go? |Getentrepreneurial.com

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downloadWhen setting up a payments system for your business, it is important to do your research. Not only is it critical for you to get paid for your products and services, you also need to know how each potential option affects your bottom line. Interchange plus pricing and tiered or flat rate pricing both have their benefits, but it is also smart to understand how each works so you can make the best decision for your operation.

Interchange plus pricing is traditionally reserved for large companies and has the lowest possible costs for accepting cards as a form of payment. Fees applied to transactions are upfront, with rates determined on a per-card basis. Tiered pricing is the most common form of pricing for credit card processing services. This is also known as “bucket pricing,” and prices are usually high enough to cover fees.

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Nestle faces setback in KitKat trademark battle | BBC News

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Confectionery giant Nestle’s attempt to trademark the shape of its four-finger KitKat bar in the UK does not comply with European law, a senior European Court lawyer has said.

The opinion of the advocate-general effectively ends Nestle’s attempts to trademark the snack.

It also brings to an end the latest chapter in the internecine chocolate wars between Nestle and Cadbury.

The High Court had already rejected Nestle’s trademark application in 2013.

Advocate-general opinions are usually, although not always, followed by the European Court judges.

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How This Shark Tank Superstar Is Monetizing Bad Breath | Inc.com

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BreathometerMint_30599Landing an investment from all five hosts of ABC’s Shark Tank was just the beginning for Charles Michael Yim.

The 31-year-old entrepreneur, who closed the first million-dollar deal in Shark Tank history with his smartphone breathalyzer company Breathometer, is launching a second product, the breath-monitoring device Mint. Whereas Breathometer’s Breeze product focused on analyzing blood alcohol content (BAC) to prevent drunk driving, Mint measures oral health indicators, such as bacteria and hydration levels. It may even save consumers a trip to the dentist, according to Yim.

“A lot of people think halitosis is just bad breath, but it’s really a byproduct of poor oral health,” he says. “We measure what are called sulfuric compounds, which have a direct connection to the amount of bacteria in your mouth.”

The beta version of Mint, which works in conjunction with a mobile app, shipped this week to contributors to the company’s Indiegogo campaign that raised more than $94,000 in March. Yim says the final version will be available to consumers in September.

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The Americans studying medicine in Cuba | Mashable

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HAVANA, Cuba — After Hurricane Katrina devastated parts of Louisiana and Mississippi in August 2005, Cuba offered a cadre of doctors and medical supplies to help treat injured and displaced Americans. Cuba is renowned around the world for the quality of its doctors — but the United States government declined the offer.

Of course, that’s not exactly surprising given the two countries’ decades of animosity. Tension between Cuba and the U.S. is most visibly epitomized by a still-in-place trade embargo imposed by the U.S. in 1960, one year after Fidel Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara led a revolution to turn Cuba into a communist state.

Given the frosty relations and how the U.S. declined Cuban medical aid in 2005, one might reasonably assume the island just 90 miles south of Florida is the last place an American would go for medical school.

One would be wrong.

Lillian Burnett, who is from Oakland, is proof — and she’s not alone.

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