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An Irish company specialising in Facebook applications has made waves across the pond with its new Facebook Places application.

Just weeks after Facebook Places was made available in the UK, Betapond, a company with offices in Dublin and Waterford, has launched the world’s first online league table of popular places created by tourists for tourist authority VisitBritain.
Top 50 UK places is based on the new Facebook Places technology, a feature that lets users “check in” to Facebook using a mobile phone, tablet or computer to let a user’s friends know where they are at that moment.
The app from Betapond encourages visitors to ‘’check in’’ by mobile device every time they reach a notable British location and write a review of what they find. This information then goes automatically to update the new list of ‘’Top 50 UK Places’’.
They will automatically receive information about which of the traveller’s friends have also been there – and what they said about the location.
Arrows will show whether particular attractions are rising or falling in the league table as more “check-ins”’ arrive.
It is the first time the system has been used to promote a whole country.

Apple wasn’t the only organisation to launch a social network for people with a love for getting their music on the web this month. September also saw the World’s first social network dedicated to music video from Muzu Tv.

The most stark difference in how Irish-owned Muzu Tv differs from Ping on Apple’s iTunes is that users of the Muzu.tv website have access to over 80,000 music videos for free.
Muzu Tv generates high premium advertising revenue across a series of formats, both on-site and via its players and licensed content which it syndicates to major publishers.
The website aims to be the ultimate destination for music fans. Mark French, co-founder said: “These days music sites need to do more than just provide users with content. Our visitors are part of the social networking generation and they’re looking for a site that puts them in touch not only with bands and fellow fans but also keeps them updated on the music scene.”
He added that the company has created the only space online where music fans can: “get all their news, videos and more in one place, share content with their friends and meet new people.”
Members of Muzu’s network can also receive updates from music publications and personalities such as Popbitch, NME and The Fly magazine meaning they’re never without the latest news on the music they love, whatever the genre.
A newly created dashboard gives fans real-time news updates and videos from their favourite artists, as well as access to tens of thousands of free music videos.
The site also features a new intelligent recommendation engine which highlights videos for members based on their viewing habits and suggests other members with similar musical tastes for them to follow. Muzu members can also create and share music video playlists and share content with friends across the site.
The Muzu catalogue includes the Official Top 40, live concerts, back-stage footage, documentaries, tutorials, music news and interviews.

A recent report from public relations company, Wildfire, states that technology companies are missing the point when it comes to social networking sites.
Their research has found that nine out of ten of these companies have a presence on at least two social networking sites, but most of these are disregarding the feedback from customers, and are therefore missing out on the powerful interactive aspect of these sites.

Essentially, these companies are viewing having a social networking presence as a box that must be ticked, but not a resource that can be of value. They miss out on a valuable business resource, but worst than that, they ignore the reality that the modern consumer audience will punish a brand for aloofness.

The study concluded that less than half of these leading technology brands have ever responded to a tweet on their Twitter pages. While only one in four companies responded to comments on their Facebook pages.

According to Danny Whatmough, a consultant at Wildfire “These organisations are using social networks like a press release or old media, but it has to be a two-way dialogue.”

“In some ways, not replying is worse than not having a presence at all. Firms have to monitor networks for mentions of their brands, and certainly respond when people get in touch.”

“These companies should be using these services to let people know about updates or patches and software changes,” said Whatmough. “But more than that, if people have questions then they should be responding with helpful advice and it becomes part of customer service.”

“It’s about being transparent and consumers react well to that, but it requires a big mind shift from companies,” he said.

Surveyed companies didn’t fare any better with their blogs, the report concluded, with less than half even bothering at all with a blog.

Where companies did have a blog, only 25% of blogs received comments on a regular basis, and only 9% of companies replied to comments on their posts.

Read the report: http://www.wildfirepr.co.uk/documents/social_media_report.pdf

While the return on investment still isn’t clear for many, social networking has been used by 2 in 5 businesses in Ireland to gain new business.
A new survey from workspace solution provider Regus has confirmed what many in the business already know – that social media has become a mainstream business tool in Ireland. According to the Regus survey, 40% of businesses in Ireland have successfully used social networks to win new business.

This robust figure could be attributed to the lower number of respondents in Ireland that doubt the effectiveness of social networking for business. In Ireland, 21% of respondents were sceptical that social networking could ever become an effective customer retention or prospecting tool compared to the 34% global average.
On a sector basis, the ICT, Retail, Media & Marketing and Consultancy sectors had above average use of social networking, while Media & Marketing and ICT sectors companies were more likely to win new customers via social networking compared to other sectors.
Globally, the most popular use of social networks is staying in touch with business (58%). In Ireland this use has less of an impact (48%). The main usefulness of social networks was the possibility of managing and connecting to customer groups for about half of respondents (both globally and in Ireland). 53% also use social networks to find important business information.
The Regus survey asked business leaders whether they believed the channel effective enough to be awarded its own portion of marketing budget. Just over a quarter (26%) of Irish businesses have set aside a proportion of marketing budget for social networking activities and in Ireland, 41% of companies plan to devote a proportion of their marketing budget to social networking activities by the end of this year.
Surprisingly, however, only 22% of respondents had found new employment through social networking, and a smaller than average number of employees at small firms had found new employment through social networking. This result can best be interpreted in light of slower staff turnover in small companies than their larger counterparts. Employees in medium companies were the most likely to have found employment via social networking (25%).

A new Facebook eye-tracking study will give companies that wish to make an impact on Facebook food for thought.

Mulley Communications worked with the Centre for Research and Innovation in Learning and Teaching at National College of Ireland (NCI) on an eye-tracking test to see what Irish people pay attention to when using Facebook.

Using usability technology in NCI’s National e-Learning Laboratory researchers watched the eye movements of participants as they looked at their Facebook Newswalls, Profiles and Business Pages.
One of the things that any Facebook page admin for a business will wonder is how to get more fans – or people to ‘Like’ a page.

Word of mouth marketing

According to the research findings the most popular way to find out about a page is through a virtual word of mouth. Mirroring the real world, people look to their friends for recommendations and suggestions. When asked ‘how do you find out about a page’ 76% of the 40 people surveyed said when their friends recommend it. The study explains that this happens when either the user’s friend joins a page and the user can see that they have done this and then the user joins the page themselves. It also happens when a friend forwards a link onto a user.
One in five participants said they find out about pages by searching for a page themselves via the search bar. One participant commented that they heard about a page on radio and then went to Facebook to join that page.
Another quandary for many trying out social media to market and advertise their business is whether to go down the advertising route.

Advertising analysis

During testing, the gaze of 38 of the 40 test participants were analysed in three different areas/types of pages in Facebook: the News Feed page, the Profile page and a page with information about TV shows.
While users spent about 13.8 seconds on their News Wall page and 11.7 seconds on TV pages, they spent only 8.2 seconds looking at a their profile page.

Within the News Feed page itself, users spent 12.6 seconds looking at news wall (containing updates) and 1.2 seconds looking at right hand side of the page (containing Facebook updates and advert).

The research team also data to see if users looked at adverts in Facebook and which adverts on different pages received more attention. On average, across all pages, 42% of users looked at adverts. 31% of users looked at adverts shown on News Feed Wall pages, 39% of users looked at adverts on TV pages and almost double the amount of users (71%) glanced at adverts on their Profile page.

In the post test interview, one in five users said they noticed advertisements while carrying out tasks.
More than half of participants said under normal circumstances they would notice adverts. Out of 40 participants, three have purchased a product they’d seen advertised on Facebook: two of whom were female, one male.

Of those who said that they did not usually notice advertisements, most said that they are aware of the presence of adverts but did not usually pay any attention to them. Just 5% of participants said that they actively zone/blank them out.

View the full survey results at: http://mulley.ie/facebook