Around 1,500 people responding to a Facebook birthday party invitation in Germany invaded a Hamburg neighborhood and clashed with police, authorities said.

The crowd showed up after a 16-year-old girl posted an invitation to the party for family and friends on the social networking site and accidentally listed the party as a public event, the Hamburger Morgenpost reported Sunday.

More than 15,000 people responded confirming they would attend, and although the 16-year-old attempted to correct the mistake by posting a cancellation on Facebook, hundreds of young Germans began arriving the evening of the party from Hamburg and around the country.

Police were forced to cordon off the home where the party had been scheduled.

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French broadcasting officials are saying "non” to any mentions of Facebook or Twitter on television. Pourquoi? - asks All Facebook.

Some say it’s the French being French, that is, expressing resentment toward the Anglo-Saxon culture of their neighbors across the pond.

But the decision to halt all mentions of phrases such as, "like us on Facebook,” appears to stem from a rather obscure 1992 French law banning clandestine advertising on television.  Seems that the French believe that encouraging the liking or following of brands on certain social networks would squash all of those other social networks competing for attention.

Christine Kelly, a former French television anchor and spokesperson for the French broadcasting authority tried to explain the decision by saying it "would be a distortion of competition” to "give preference to Facebook, which is worth billions of dollars, when there are many other social networks that are struggling for recognition.”


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"Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all - the apathy of human beings.” - Helen Keller


Facebook. Half a billion people - writes UnMarketing in his blog.  One of the greatest things to come out of the Internet for many reasons, without it there would be so many social media consultants that would go hungry and have to go back to shilling "video email!” from 1998.

The biggest threat to Facebook and it’s success isn’t a change in format, structure or infrastructure. It’s user apathy. And more specifically when it comes to Facebook for business, event apathy.

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"Note this post is about how ridiculously amazing I’ve been treated by a company, but fair disclosure, I got an awesome compensation package to be part of their campaign. Seriously, cash and ice cream. Cash. Ice cream. Ya, amazing."

There are countless blog posts online about how out of touch PR people are with trying to reach influential bloggers/social media types. From mass-emailed blind press releases to not understanding how social media really works.

UnMarketing has a story that is the opposite.

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Almost forty years ago, storied ad man David Ogilvy sat down in an office somewhere in India and recorded a little film confessing the - as he put it - "secret weapon” of the advertising world. - wrote Copyblogger.

It was a hot day, so he took off his jacket, exposing his infamous red suspenders. Ogilvy spoke simply and directly to his audience on the other side of the camera. The prophecy he uttered in that grainy 7-minute film all those years ago has come to pass, with a bullet.

Though visionary, Ogilvy could not have imagined just how powerful his "secret weapon” would become in the age of the internet, or how it would ultimately be wielded by individuals building media companies with nothing more than a laptop and sufficient quantities of sweat.

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Admit it, every once and again - maybe more - you check to see how many friends are still in your Facebook stable-just to make sure that shiny new number isn’t down by a few.

It’d be great if all our buds hung on our every post, but sadly that’s not always the case. These days it seems everyone is clearing out the clutter when it comes to Facebook friends and, friend_list ccsurprise, you may be on that list.


Here are some clues that you’re about to be removed from someone’s friend list:

1. Minus One… Or More Friends
2. You can’t view your friend’s wall posts
3. Ignored friend request
4. You’ve been blocked.
5. You are not allowed to view photo albums
6. Can't see who else you might know on friend's list
7. Friend's list without your name on it
8. Never receive a comment
9. Tracking friends
10. They removed your name by accident

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Until recently, many chief marketing officers were only focused on gathering millions of Facebook fans - says All Facebook. The next phase is all about building relationships with them online.

Here are seven ways CMOs can tap their Facebook fanbases for customer relationship management.

1. Build A Single Database
2. Prioritize Engagements
3. Identify Your Most Important Fans
4. Give Value To Your Fans
5. Tie In Your Other Loyalty Programs
6. Communicate The Value You Offer
7. Measure Return On Investment

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You’ve done the hardest parts of writing a blog post: Gotten the reader to your site, evoked a strong enough emotion to make them feel they need to add to the discussion and leave a comment, and they submit it and see this:


"Your comment is awaiting moderation”

"Your comment is awaiting approval”

"You need to register first”


Congratulations, you’ve just halted the conversation on your post.


For the most part, moderation is used to stop spam from appearing not necessarily to censor comments, but you’re hurting the voice of the very people that can be your biggest evangelists.


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At search engine marketing conferences speakers are often asked for advice on how to hire people for in-house search engine marketing jobs.

Usually over lunch a business owner turns to them and says something like, I came here to learn more about all this search engine stuff and what I learned is that I need to hire somebody to do this, but how do I do that? Or, how did you get your job?


Have an honest debate with yourself about comfort level - ask yourself these questions:

• How well do you trust yourself to manage an in-house hire and know what they need to do?
  
  
• Could you learn more by starting off with an agency and pushing them to increase your education level?
  
  
• Do you feel like you eventually will want this role in-house and are willing to put in the time to educate and train in-house?

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The bedrock of conversion rate improvement is testing - wrote Search Engine Land. However - says - testing is almost always easier said than done. You might lack the technical or executive support to implement a test program. A test or series of tests might already be in the works, but you’re sitting on your hands while the data is being collected.

What can the motivated marketer do to improve conversions today?

1. Remove One Unnecessary Web Page Element
   
   
2. Reduce The Load Time Of One Page
   
   
3. Add One Call To Action To Your Thank You Page
   
   
4. Replace One Block Of Text With Bullet Points
   
   
5. Use Analytics To Uncover One Actionable Insight

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