25 New Social Articles on Business 2 Community

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• The Search Marketers Guide to Creative Testing and Optimization, Part 1
• Socially Network Your Way to a Better Job
• 3 Things to Keep in Mind For a Winning Social Media Team
• The Interest In Pinterest: The Ten Things We Love (and Hate) Infographic
• Who Was the Most Discussed Athlete of London 2012?
• 4 Ways To Step Out Of Your Social Media Comfort Zone
• Infographics are Hard! The Case for Instruct-o-Graphics
• 3 Best Practices For Facebook Sponsored Stories
• Is Your Blog Content Flabby? 8 Surefire Ways to Give Your Content Muscles
• Google Adwords Quality Score Is Not So Black and White
• The Unintentional Traffic Storm from a Kim Kardashian Blog Article
• What Does a Social Media Manager REALLY Need to Be? A Response to “Why Every Social Media Manager Should Be Under 25”
• Is your Google+ Stream Like an Empty Restaurant? Fix It – “Gordon Ramsay Style”
• Express Yourself: 6 Ways to Get Creative with Facebook Cover Photos
• Have You Embraced Frictionless Sharing Yet?
• 3 Things We Learned from Olympic Social Media Engagement
• What is Twitter All About?
• 6 Stupid-Taxes to Avoid in Your Online Customer Community
• Stop Writing (and Publishing) Crap
• Social TV: How Shark Week is Combining Online and Offline Content
• Do the Extras on Social Media
• How to Evangelize Google+ by Guy Kawasaki
• Finding Inspiration For Your Blog
• Romney’s Fake Twitter Followers and Why Social Media and Politics Sometimes Clash
• Win A Twitter Gold Medal: Tips From The 2012 Olympics

The Search Marketers Guide to Creative Testing and Optimization, Part 1 Posted: 13 Aug 2012 03:30 PM PDT In a search landscape where millions of keywords define intent, generating the most compelling creative can prove to be a daunting task. Understanding your audience and formulating a message might be easy but packaging up that message within the narrow limits of a creative is far from it. For paid search programs, big and small, creative optimization remains the single most impactful strategy for increasing traffic, lowering costs and acquiring more revenue. From selecting creative elements for testing to reaching statistical significance, this four part blog series will review basic and advanced tips for conducting a successful creative test. Novice and advanced testers will gain a complete understanding of how to generate, analyze and iterate on new creative to maximize performance across paid search programs. Furthermore, they will be equipped with the best practices necessary to make the implementation of a disciplined and statistically significant creative test a reality. Today, in part one of this four part series, we'll review how to select an appropriate test, maintain keyword relevance and limit opportunity costs. Select an Appropriate Test All creative tests begin with a choice, and marketers are subject to a plethora of test elements to choose from. Even at a basic level, creative can be characterized by and tested with functional, emotional or promotional qualities. Functional creative focus on the product or service and provide information such as pricing or features. Emotional creative pull at metaphoric heart strings and attempt to form a connection between the customer and the product or service. Promotional creative highlight discounts and evoke a sense of urgency. The table below lists common elements that helps define how a creative is characterized. Before engaging in creative testing, it is important to identify these elements and understand the benefits each one provides. Maintain Keyword Relevance Testing too many different elements can lead to a sacrifice in relevancy. For instance, removing keywords in favor of testing pricing or unique selling propositions may correspond to drops in Quality Score, resulting in increased cost-per-clicks (CPCs) and decreased CTRs. When testing creative, the objective is to generate and test compelling creative while maintaining keyword-to-creative relevancy. Let us use PowPow Sports, a fictional sporting goods retailer, as an example. A group containing variations of the keyword "mens hiking backpacks" has been set up to test between functional and promotional creative. Creative A describes various hiking backpacks for men, while creative B highlights a free-shipping offer during Father's Day weekend. A.       B.       C.       Because creative B only utilizes the phrase "mens hiking backpacks" once, it has become less relevant to the keywords within the group. Successful creative utilize compelling language, while remaining highly relevant to the user's search query. A more effective creative C incorporates the free-shipping offer, which influences conversion, without sacrificing occurrences of the phrase "mens hiking backpacks", which influences click. Limit Opportunity Costs Opportunity cost is the cost of any activity measured in terms of the value of forgoing the next best alternative. To better understand this, let us assume that our fictional sporting-goods retailer, PowPow Sports, has decided to generate and test three creative: A, B and C. The table below compares the performance of each creative, at statistical significance. Let us assume PowPow Sports decides to pause creative B, and continue testing creative A and C. Assuming that performance remains consistent, the opportunity cost of this activity, as well as testing creative B against creative C, is highlighted in the table below. In continuing to test creative A, even after achieving statistical significance, PowPow Sports has lost out on 100 clicks, five conversions and $375 in revenue. This is because half the available impressions were allocated to the under-performing creative A, rather than all the available impressions being allocated to just creative C. When testing creative, the adverse effects of opportunity cost are twofold. One, if you do not test at all, you forgo the benefits of running on better performing creative. But marketers also make a common mistake when testing – continuing to test after statistical significance has been reached. This results in the missed opportunity to simply run on the better performing creative. In our example, PowPow Sports should have paused creative A and B, leaving 100% of the impression share to creative C. To Be Continued Search marketers are constantly exploring ways to find and engage their target audience. No optimization strategy is more central to accomplishing this goal than creative testing. Continuously testing to find more relevant and more compelling creative serves to not only increase CTR and Quality Score, but decrease costs and drive more revenue. Adhering to best practices and avoiding common pitfalls will help ensure that new iterations of creative will incrementally improve account performance. Though search marketers cannot guarantee that all creative tests will be successful, they can guarantee that all creative tests have been set up for success. In part two of this series, we'll review two additional best practices for creative optimization. Download The Search Marketers Guide to Creative Testing and Optimization.

Socially Network Your Way to a Better Job Posted: 13 Aug 2012 02:55 PM PDT Gone are the days when you might pack a paper résumé, work samples and a cover letter into a large envelope and mail it to a company that is hiring. In fact, even attaching a resume to an email seems to be falling out of vogue. The key to the future of job hunting is and has always been social networking. We happen to live in an era where the Internet has digitized and democratized (but failed to monetize) that process. With all the different social networking sites available today, job seekers must market their own talents in a variety of different ways. The following tips will help you to land your dream job while utilizing the best social networking tools available. Clean up your Facebook account, and use it as a living, breathing résumé. Make sure all the photographs you are tagged in and post are something you wouldn’t mind your future boss seeing. Keep future employers in mind when posting any statuses. And above all, promote yourself. List your employment history, your interests and of course, all your other social media accounts. Most potential employers are going to attempt to find you on Facebook to learn a bit more about you — show them you have nothing to hide, and reveal your best self. Make sure you have a profile on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the largest business social media networking site, and it is being used more by HR professionals to pre-screen candidates and subsequently recruit them. Make sure your profile is as detailed as possible, and try to get as many recommendations from past coworkers, colleagues and employers as possible. Utilizing cloud-based file sharing websites in order to easily transfer your résumé to any potential employers. The easier they can retrieve your résumé, the more likely you will be to get that interview and with a little bit of luck, the job. Write your résumé so that employers can easily find it. This means in addition to having a well-designed résumé, there should also be keywords placed strategically throughout it so that it comes up first in an employer’s search. Keywords should include words in the original job description, so that your résumé appears relevant. Include your social networking information on your business card. This way, when you are at a live networking event or you meet a new colleague in town, they will know how to connect with you online. The more connections you build through social networking, the more likely you are to be considered for the job you've always dreamed of. Today’s global economy provides a competitive market, no matter what type of industry you are in or what your specialization is. It's important to stay on top of the latest social media techniques, and to keep up with the ever-changing technology of today. It’s likely that you'll never pick up a newspaper and flip through the classifieds again, and you may even be shying away from online job search engines. Social networking is not only the key to the future of business, but it may also be the key to your future employment and career as well. By utilizing social media — and doing it well — you will more than likely stand out as one of the best candidates for any given job. Not only will you prove you are qualified, you'll show your future employer you are willing to stay on top of the changing times.

3 Things to Keep in Mind For a Winning Social Media Team Posted: 13 Aug 2012 02:45 PM PDT Choosing the right person to run your businesses social media accounts is an important task. Some give the responsibility to younger employees who are social media savvy already to cut down on the learning curve; however, the reliance on inexperienced or junior staff adversely affects a company's ability to attract and win new customers (as shown on this chart by Act-On Software). This is because important functions like lead generation and lead nurturing which require a deep understanding of buyer personas, compelling content, story-telling skills as well as a solid marketing background cannot be performed by junior staff in most cases. Like many business decisions, there are a number of criteria to keep in mind when establishing a social media management team. Here are 3 key factors to keep in mind when doing so: Writing skills – First and foremost, the person who handles social media accounts needs to be a good writer. Whether they are writing full blog articles or sending tweets, it is important to have someone with excellent writing skills to ensure the correct tone for a business and prevent embarrassing gaffes. Additionally, all writing must be SEO and human friendly copy that will engage those who influence typical buyer personas. Clear understanding of the company – In order to most accurately represent a business, the employee or employees in charge of social media must accurately understand the company. They must know as much about the company as possible in order to answer questions, correctly comment on events and most importantly understand the customers and what makes them engage with the brand. Furthermore, they must be clear on the social media goals of the company and what the company is hoping to achieve from these interactions. This understanding must be passed down from the top level of the business in order to be fully realized by all employees. Legal/Common Sense – Social media accounts play many roles for a company. Not only are these additional platforms to reach customers with marketing, but many users and businesses use social media as a main form of customer service. With that in mind, it is crucial for the person or team behind a social media campaign to know the boundaries for what they can and can't say. A big part of this is a company having social media policy in place, but it's also important to choose someone who has the maturity to handle the job. When choosing a team or an individual to run the accounts there are many more factors to consider besides age. By taking the time to choose a proper social media management team, businesses will have spare themselves the potential for a PR disaster down the road. What are some other factors you think are necessary to manage social media campaigns? Let me know in the comments!

The Interest In Pinterest: The Ten Things We Love (and Hate) Infographic Posted: 13 Aug 2012 02:40 PM PDT Oh, there is interest in Pinterest, the visual social sharing site. But is the site that, in its first month, became the #1 source for referring web traffic (over Google+, Reddit, and LinkedIn combined) a "colossal waste of time," and "only good as a platform for scrap-booking," or will its "stellar design" help it keep moving it into the #2 social site? A few interesting findings to make you sound smarter at the water-cooler: The conversation is US-centric – Over 60% of you talking about Pinterest live in the US. While the US tends to be more chatty in general, this number is very high, which means that in the US, we love to talk about Pinterest. The overall view of Pinterest hasn't waned – Most sites tend to have "their day in the sun" and then we lose interest. However, over the length of the study, Pinterest has had the same sentiment score. Overall, people like it. Barack Obama would be beaten if Timberlake and Paris Hilton married – President Obama has a commanding lead of followers on Pinterest with over 16M. However, the combined power of Justin Timberlake and Paris Hilton would overtake him with 17M. Now if only we could get those two together? We reviewed the over 5M impressions from online conversations including more than 2.5M mentions of Pinterest in blogs, news articles, social networks. The results: Pinterest people are passionate and positive (Passion Intensity score: 80 and overall Net Sentiment score: 74). What does all that mean? The conversation is overwhelmingly positive and people who talk about Pinterest are really excited about it. But does that mean it is all good stuff? Alas, no. There is no positive without a negative. We explore the top 5 things we love and 5 things we fear about Pinterest. This is the second Social Intelligence report in a monthly series by SAP and NetBase analyzing the latest enterprise technology trends. Future Infographics will examine cloud computing, social CRM, mobile and more. To learn more, read our blog on Forbes.

Who Was the Most Discussed Athlete of London 2012? Posted: 13 Aug 2012 02:20 PM PDT The Olympics are finally over, the wonderful global event that featured three weeks of endless sport, and what most are heralding as a huge success. Team GB placed higher than they have in over a century and the opening ceremony was praised the world over. People took to Twitter and other social networks in their droves to comment on the athletes during the games, praising and, in some case cases, criticising the performances of the stars. At Brandwatch, we have the capacity to listen to that online activity and make sense of what's being said. We tracked over 540 athletes during the course of the Olympics to see which ones were being discussed each day. Looking at social data spanning the entire Olympic period, from the 27th of July to the 12th of August, we've compiled the competing athletes into a rankings table, as listed by share of voice. We know it's all about the taking part, and that everyone's a winner just for making it to the Olympics. However, we're also super-competitive and want to make this even more of a contest than the Olympics already are. Therefore, we've listed the top ten most talked-about members of Team GB, and have made a leaderboard, which you can see below. This is where the real glory is. Controversy-friendly diver Tom Daley convincingly leads the table with a whopping 11% of the online Team GB mentions being about the 18-year-old. The bronze-medallist courted lots of conversation around his bronze medal, yet even more so surrounding the media hype that resulted from this malicious tweet. Never far away from the limelight, Daley was a common discussion point for much of the Olympiad. Next up on the list was Andy Murray, who just missed out on his first Grand Slam at Wimbledon, a tournament that ended just days before the Olympics began. Returning to the lawn with a vengeance, Murray defeated his Wimbledon nemesis, Roger Federer, to win an Olympic Gold for Great Britain. This was all before teaming up with Laura Robson to earn the country a silver medal in the mixed doubles later that afternoon. National hero Mo Farah picked up two golds for Team GB, the second just at the Games were coming to a close, ensuring him third place in the buzz rankings with 5% of the conversation. Boxers Nicola Adams and Anthony Joshua both entered the record books as first female British boxing gold and Britain's fifth boxing gold in a single Olympiad. These discussion points proved worthy enough to provoke the public into tweeting like mad, earning these two a place in the social media top ten. The celebrated cyclists Sir Chris Hoy and Bradley Wiggins have also had a huge impact upon the social world, as their medal haul and general gentlemanliness means they were never far from people's Facebook statuses. 'Face of the Olympics' Jessica Ennis was also of course a focus of conversation, with the emotional scenes after her Heptathlon gold propelling her into 8th place on our leaderboard, one place ahead of 25 year-old Peter Wilson, who finished first in the double trap shooting event. Hold on. That's only nine. Who else has made it into the leaderboard? Step forward David Beckham, the only non-athlete we decided to track has wormed his way into the top ten. From joining in with the celebrations during the opening ceremony to being an all-round British ambassador throughout, and despite being snubbed by Team GB coach Stuart Pearce, old Golden Boots still caught the attention of the public, leaving him with 4% of the online conversation. Which athletes do you think were the winners of the 2012 Games? We're glad they were such a success, and we will continue to bring you analysis of all the biggest events that people are taking to social media to discuss.

4 Ways To Step Out Of Your Social Media Comfort Zone Posted: 13 Aug 2012 02:20 PM PDT Every person reaches a comfort zone. From salesmen satisfied with reaching their monthly quotas (and nothing more), to students who are content with just getting B's, individuals in their comfort zones work at an anxiety-neutral state and operate without a sense of risk. If you're in social media, your comfort zone state will usually creep in the moment you've reached a respectable number of likers and followers. Also known as being on a plateau, this is a stage where you've already settled into your social media routine and your initial networking efforts have started to pay off. Reaching your plateau isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's a steady state that's usually free from stress, and it's a good stage to be at when you're celebrating your accomplishments. However, staying too long on it and being too comfortable can lead to complacency and ignorance. While it's perfectly acceptable to bask in your success (after all, you deserve it), always be on the lookout for new social media heights that can you can achieve. Remember that there are a lot more readers, fans, and followers out there that you haven't reached yet, and there are still a lot of things that you can do to take your social campaigns to a whole new level. Not sure where to start? Check out the following ideas that are sure to stir up your current social media state: 1. Utilize the power of video Need a boost in your fan engagement? Then consider getting in front of the camera. Demonstrate your expertise using a how-to video or gain insights from others by interviewing them on camera. Want to interact with your fans? Do a webinar or conduct a Google+ hangout so can you can get first hand comments and suggestions. 2. Stop playing it safe when it comes to content Take a good look at the content that you've published. Are you being too safe or too much of a crowd pleaser? If so, then you may want to spice up your content strategy by producing posts that will open up discussions or debates. Take a stand on a current issue or trending topic, and voice out constructive criticisms and concerns. Invite your fans to do the same. Doing so will encourage conversation, and will guarantee that your social media strategy won't be boring. 3. Connect with other businesses Social media isn't solely about reaching customers. It's also about networking with potential partners or colleagues so that you can help each other succeed. Fellow entrepreneurs or companies can be sources for referrals and recommendations, so be sure to make friends with other businesses as well. Find other companies or entrepreneurs (preferably those that complement your products and services) and connect with them online. Tag them on Facebook, strike up a conversation on their wall, and find engagement opportunities. If you're on Twitter, send a couple of mentions their way, and be generous when it comes to Retweets. 4. Run contests or promotions Giveaways aren't just for those who want to gain more likers or followers; they also work great if you want to increase engagement and interactions within your current fan base. If you have a lot of inactive fans, consider waking them up with a promotion. This will not only stir up the activity on your page, but the excitement and contests bring can effectively get your out of your safe comfort zone. In addition to boosting interaction levels, a promotion also can also act as a funnel for users. For example, if you want your fans to check out your blog or sign up for your newsletter instead of simply hanging out on Facebook or Twitter, then conduct a promotion involving your blog or newsletter and use that as a funnel to direct users to where you want them to go. Author Bio: Francesca StaAna is from AdMedia, an online ad network that offers several advertising solutions, including ad retargeting, affiliate programs, PPC ads, and more. Click here for further info.

Infographics are Hard! The Case for Instruct-o-Graphics Posted: 13 Aug 2012 02:10 PM PDT We’ve been developing infographics for clients for a while now and have had tremendous success in using them to build up strong backlinks for SEO campaigns.  Infographics make for a very non-threatening, non-invasive way to ask another website owner for a link. Rather than your outreach email to a webmaster being perceived as, “Hey, look at me, link to me!”, it comes off as, “Hey, look at this cool picture, I think your readers would like it”.  That eliminates a lot of the doldrums of link building. But, a new problem comes along with creating infographics: they are hard work.  It can be difficult to gather large volumes of statistics, data, and facts to build the narrative that you are trying to achieve with the infographic.  Sometimes the research doesn’t exist, other times it is hard to find data to support your point; and even when the data exists, it can be difficult tracking it down. Take the following infographic for example.  It covers the success rate of day traders, and let me tell you, this data was hard to come by.  When the topic hit our idea board, we all thought the statistics would be readily available, but it just wasn’t.  This is the output of our research: Online Trading Academy Reviews from OnlineTradingAcademyReviews.org. You’ll notice that the infographic isn’t particularly long, either.  We boiled it down to just the best data and presented that. Now what if I told you that there was an easier, more straightforward way to create something like an infographic that packed the same SEO punch without the same upfront work?  Too good to be true?  Nope. Instructographics! We’ve been working on creating instruct-o-graphics lately.  These are visual representations in the style of infographics, but instead of the focus being on research and statistics, it is based on a list or a set of steps.  We’ve found that these are equally effective in obtaining links for SEO campaigns! Instead of doing a lot of original research, for many of these, we can just create 90% of the content easily ourselves and then just ask our client or a subject matter expert to fill in the holes and make sure everything is ok.  Take the instructographic below, for example.  It took about 2 hours to develop the content for it before handing it off to our graphic designer to build it out.  A typical infographic take 16-24 hours of research, so we are talking a dramatic savings in time spent here. Academic Advantage Infographic by InfoCarnivore.com Top 10 lists (and the like) are very popular these days, and the concept of instructographics is to turn those lists into visually beautiful images that people can’t resist sharing. It is a hybrid of top 10 lists and infographics, if you will. So next time your SEO campaign needs a breath of fresh air, give this technique a shot!

3 Best Practices For Facebook Sponsored Stories Posted: 13 Aug 2012 02:10 PM PDT The Challenge: Marketers are eager to take advantage of Facebook’s huge customer base and powerful targeting options, but Facebook’s most powerful tool remains relatively unknown. Few advertising channels heed the Voice of the Customer (VoC) more directly than Facebook Sponsored Stories. Users determine what they say, when they appear, and who they appear to. While some advertisers might see this lack of control as a disadvantage, savvy marketers recognize it as a guarantee of authenticity. Unlike traditional ad units, Sponsored Stories are not directly created by brands. Instead, brands must create meaningful and engaging content on their Facebook Pages. When users interact with that content – whether by Liking it, playing a game, or posting a comment – that engagement appears on their Timelines. Standard Facebook Ads display generic brand messages and offers, like “Go to Starbucks for 20% Off!” As we reported last month, these were often ineffective and driving high levels of engagement, because there was a mismatch between the purpose of the platform and the purpose of the ad unit. Google users may be looking for ways to purchase goods and services, but Facebook users want to check in on their friends. Sponsored Stories addresses this problem: ads provide relevant, social news – “Tom just checked in at Starbucks” – rather than trying to make a sale. The result: effective, scalable social endorsement campaigns. KEY TAKEAWAYS FOR MARKETERS » Fill Your Facebook Pages with “Engaging” Content Sponsored Stories can only be generated when users directly engage with content on your site, whether by Liking it, commenting on it, taking a poll, playing a game, etc. If you don’t keep your pages up to date, your fans won’t have any opportunities to engage–and you won’t have the opportunity to drive social endorsements with Sponsored Stories. » Provide Opportunities to Share rather than Opportunities to Sell The key to Facebook’s popularity is sharing: users of the site can share their own status and check up on others. They’re not there to buy and sell. To keep your social endorsements coming, build content that users will be eager to share – like fun games or interesting content – rather than more commercial content like discount coupons. » Give Fans Reasons to Keep Clicking As with every other marketing channel, digital or offline, no customer is better than a repeat customer. Give your fans a reason to keep coming back by posting fresh, relevant content to your Facebook Page on a daily basis.

Is Your Blog Content Flabby? 8 Surefire Ways to Give Your Content Muscles Posted: 13 Aug 2012 02:05 PM PDT Is this you? You've heard all the craze about content being king online and it will help you to increase sales and stay ahead of the competition, so you did what any savvy small business owner would do and decided to start a blog. You've been blogging pretty regularly and consistently providing excellent content but no one seems to care. You aren't getting comments or other feedback from the internet universe and you feel like your blog is standing all alone. You automatically thought if you built it they would come because content rules, but now you are left scratching your head thinking it was all a bunch of hype and you've been wasting valuable time blogging instead of building your business in other more effective ways. If this is you, I have news for you —continue to blog at all costs, as often as possible. Small business owners MUST have a blog in order to remain competitive in today's marketplace. Blogging is not an overnight marketing solution, it is more a long-term task that will pay off over time as long as the content is great and you blog consistently. But I am doing that! Good keep it up. What your quality content is missing is muscles. In order to get your target audience to notice your blog it is important to get rid that flabby quality content and do exercises that will turn that flab into fab quality content muscles that you can flex {and they WILL notice}! Try these exercises to bulk up your content muscles, in order to increase sales and awareness about your brand: Use images Always use an image in your blog posts. People are very visual by nature so it is important to use images that will capture their attention. It is also important to use images that correlate with your headline to increase your chances of getting your post read. When posting images on your posts be sure to include keywords and/or your headline with your image, this helps with search engine optimization (SEO). Use captions with your images, in the event the images are unable to be seen due to problems with the end users browsers. Sum up your post utilizing a few words in the caption. Be careful to post only images that you have the permission to reuse in order to avoid litigation. Search for images with Creative Commons licensing. Personally, I use FreeDigitalPhotos.net. Some of the more commonly used sites are; Flickr, stock.xchng, Dreamstime, and iStockPhoto. For more detailed instructions about using images check out TopRank blog post, 6 Tips on Image SEO. Use videos Get rid of quality content flab with the use of video. Video has become one of the most powerful content formats on the internet. When using video content there are a few ways to make the content more search engine friendly. Be sure to use keywords that your customers and target audience are using to find information within your niche. Consider using text transcription underneath the video, where you transcribe the video into text. This is great for search engines to find your post. It also works for users that are having technical difficulties with the video's sound or viewing it altogether. Consider adding screenshots of the video file to the transcribed text in order to have images to support the transcription. Encourage comments from readers/viewers by posting a videos that are controversial, informative, funny, or strange and unusual. More comments create more traffic to your blog and entice readers to return to view and comment on what others are saying. Guest post Have a really great idea for a blog post? Guest post on other blogs that are more established within your niche. Writing articles for other blogs is an excellent way to attract a larger audience, quickly. In order to be really effective with guest posting consider writing for other blogs often and you will be able to build quality traffic in a relatively short amount of time. Syndicate your blog Share your content on reputable sites within your niche to maximize exposure. I share my content on BizSugar, Business 2 Community (here and here), and sometimes on Boss Chicks. It is important to monitor comments and reply on sites that your blog is syndicated on, because there is no point in starting a conversation that you will not be participating in. Also connect with other authors on the sites that you syndicate on and share their posts as well. On syndication sites, when possible add original content as well (similar to guest posting on other blogs). In your profile include links that will guide readers to your website and blog. Enter contests Entering contest can really give your content muscles. Not only do you have a chance to win some really great prizes but you can also reach a larger audience with your message. I recently entered BizSugar's 'Rock Your Biz' blogging contest and placed 2nd and 3rd with the help of Kimberly Crossland, The Savvy Copywriter. Not only did we reach a large audience, but the exposure was very desirable. I also was recently nominated as a 2012 Small Business Influencer via Small Business Trends and so was Small Biz Diamonds. I wasn't expecting a nomination because I just started writing about small business less than a year ago, and Small Biz Diamonds is only five months old! As a result Small Biz Diamonds has been named a 2012 Community Choice Winner. Again the exposure of something so highly received within my niche has been very beneficial to my content. Get social Leverage blog content by sharing posts across the popular social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Linked In, etc. Social sharing is a great way to share content and giving it the ability to go viral. Social Media Examiner has two excellent articles about social sharing here and here. Geo-target content When possible market blog content to local customers by geo-targeting. Geo-targeting is adding a location before or after keywords. So a chiropractor might use "Atlanta chiropractor" or get even more specific and use "Buckhead chiropractor" (Buckhead is a town within Atlanta, GA, USA). The purpose of this is to have less competition ranking on popular search engines, and local customers can find you more easily. Go mobile Blog on a platform like Tumblr that has mobile compatibility. More and more people are accessing their web via smart phone, tablets, and other mobile. Be sure that you can reach them. The above exercises are sure to get your blog content toned up and in shape, ultimately increases traffic which in turn increases sales. What techniques are you using to turn your blog content from flab to muscles? Leave your small biz diamonds in the comments section below. Image Credit

Google Adwords Quality Score Is Not So Black and White Posted: 13 Aug 2012 12:45 PM PDT During our last weekly Monday marketing meeting, we were discussing the performance of our Google Adwords campaign and how we could better increase our Google Quality Score to achieve higher web rankings and visibility for a lower cost. Rather than reaching any conclusions on the best way to move forward, our discussion went back to the basics. What is Google Adwords Quality Score? What components impact your overall Google rating? What can you do to minimize your spending and maximize your placement on Google? Upon realizing that the answers to these questions weren't so black and white, I was assigned the task to research the algorithm and determining factors Google uses for their Ad Quality Score in an effort to help build a solid understanding of the subject prior to making changes to our Google Adwords campaigns. Although this is not a typical blog topic that I choose to write about, it is an opportunity to share my findings and be a resource for those who perhaps use Google Adwords, but lack a basic understanding of how it works. Let's begin with how Google calculates your Ad Rank and your actual CPC. (Max CPC bid) (Quality Score) = Ad Rank Actual CPC = (Ad rank of the next highest bidder beneath you)/(Your quality score) Based on these equations, you realize how much your quality score impacts both your Google ranking and how much you pay per click. So, is quality score just some number that Google pulls out of the air? Or is it strategically calculated based on a number of different variables? After performing initial research on the subject, there are three different components that determine your quality score: your CTR (Click-through rate), your ad relevancy, and your landing page. Keep in mind that these three factors do not all carry the same weight. Your CTR is the most important factor, contributing about 60% to your overall Google Adwords quality score. Your Ad relevancy comes in a close second, at 30%, while your landing page comes in last, at 10%. Let's dissect each of these factors individually in an effort to help capitalize on your Google Adwords strategy. CTR (Click-Through Rate) CTR is the number of clicks that your ad receives divided by the number of impressions. We all know that users vote with their clicks. Google uses CTR to determine which ads are best based on the user's search query. Since CTR is largely dependent on the popularity of your keywords, a below average CTR could be a strong indicator that you are bidding on the wrong keywords. Ad Relevance Your ad relevance is the relevancy of a keyword to the ad, and the relevancy of the keyword to the user's search query. Your ad relevancy gauges how your ad fares against your competitors. If your ad relevancy score is low, you may benefit from seeing how your competitors' ads are different from yours and make changes accordingly. A "below average" status means that your ad or keyword may not be specific enough or that your ad group may cover too many topics. Landing Page Experience Although your landing page experience is least important to your overall quality score, it should not be overlooked. It has potential to put you slightly ahead of all your competitors, which can make all of the difference. A high landing page rating is achieved through original content, an easily navigable website, quick loading times, minimal popups, and how well site interacts with visitor's computer. If this score is low, it means that there is dissonance between what you say you do and what you really do. So, now the question is, what can you take from all of this? What can you do to improve your Ad Quality Score? Make sure each ad group focuses on a single product or service. Use keywords that are two to three words long rather than a single word. For example, "cupcakes" is a very general and popular keyword that will generate many impressions, but it becomes very difficult to get clicks on your particular ad. Choosing a more targeted keyword, like "vegan chocolate cupcakes" will result in a higher CTR. This is because, although you will get fewer impressions and fewer clicks, you will get a much better click through rate. Bottom line: Avoid using general keywords. Include your keywords in your ad text (especially in your ad's headline) Use a strong call to action in your ad text. Include prices, promotions, and exclusives in your ad text Create tightly-themed ad groups by makings sure that your ads are closely related to a smaller group of keywords Make sure to only make small adjustments to your ads or keywords at one time and allow enough time to judge the results of your changes. If the change(s) you made impacted your results positively, move on to another small change and see how it works. If your results had a negative impact on your traffic or cost, change it back and try something else. Making a continuous number of small changes, one at a time,  will tell you if you are moving in the right direction or not. Keep track of all of your changes, so you can go back if things don't go as planned.

The Unintentional Traffic Storm from a Kim Kardashian Blog Article Posted: 13 Aug 2012 12:35 PM PDT About two months ago, I wrote a Kim Kardashian blog article about three important marketing lessons to be learned from her quick and questionable rise to fame. In this blog, I embedded a photo of Kim that effectively captured how she is portrayed in the media. Based on the immense amount of Internet traffic we received and spurred from this very article, I decided to search for "Kim Kardashian Sex" on Google Images. To my surprise, the photo I used in my blog was the first photo that showed on top. I then held my curser over that photo and noticed that the link underneath this risqué picture of Kim Kardashian was directed to Email Answers,' Kim Kardashian blog article. This brought up a question to which there is no right or wrong, black or white, answer. Is untargeted traffic really worth it? Should I send Kim Kardashian a thank you note, or should I start sticking pins in her Voodoo Doll? When you segment and analyze the incoming traffic from this blog article, how many of these hits are 16-year old guys looking for something to do with their free time and how many of these are business professionals from companies looking for quality email marketing or email list validation solutions? Not that difficult to figure this one out, is it? Since the original blog article appeared on June 11, about 2 months ago, we have received 24,567 unique visitors to this blog article alone. This is more than 10 times the traffic than we have received to any other blog article on our website, ever. Is it really about getting as many eyeballs on your content any way that you can? Is that why Carl's Jr. advertises its burgers with Kate Upton as the star of their television commercials? Or why PETA gets so much publicity and contributions from its racy, "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" advertising campaigns? Originally, upon writing my blog article about Kim Kardashian's shallow methods used to build her brand reputation, I was operating under the impression that "there is no such thing as bad publicity." I just wanted to see how many hits I could get in as short amount of time as possible. Now, as I take a step back and do a bit research on the topic, my opinion has taken a slight turn. There is no doubt that untargeted traffic is not always bad – especially because it costs close to nothing. There is that small chance that, out of the thousands of perverts out there searching for Kim Kardashian's sex tape, a certain percentage of them are small business owners who are now made aware of and are interested in unique marketing platforms to promote their products and services. However, there are those who think that even uttering the words "untargeted traffic" is a waste of breath. When these critics enter the debate about "targeted traffic" versus "untargeted traffic," their question is, "Would you rather have 250 unique visitors to your site with 10 sales, or 5,000 unique visitors to your site with 1 sale?" What's the good in attracting loads of bogus traffic from uninterested viewers if you're not getting conversions? It's not about searching Google trends to see what is most talked about this week in Hollywood, and trying to make some link that is, to say it nicely, "indirectly" related to your company' s products and services. That's when you're going to get a number of hits from people who are lured in by the topic, read the first line of your article, realize it's not what they thought it was, and quickly exit in search of something that actually suits their fancy. Conversions occur when you focus your marketing efforts and tailor your blogs to the interests of your target audience. There is something you can take from both sides of the argument on the value of untargeted traffic. The bottom line is that every product on the Internet appeals to a niche market. No matter how "boring" or "uninteresting" email marketing can be to a porn addict, it can certainly appeal to a start-up company with limited resources trying to get their feet off the ground and some instant, inexpensive traffic to their website. It's all about trying to reach those who can benefit from and indicate a high interest in inexpensive, yet effective marketing solutions. Catering to the needs of this audience with catchy, yet relevant blog titles can make all the difference.

What Does a Social Media Manager REALLY Need to Be? A Response to “Why Every Social Media Manager Should Be Under 25” Posted: 13 Aug 2012 12:27 PM PDT Photo courtesy of Omega Web Social media pros are no strangers to controversy. Every week seems to bring new discussions and (sometimes heated) debate among those who use social networks to promote brands, businesses and organizations. The Hornet's Nest du Jour is buzzing around a blog post by a recent university grad and aspiring writer, Cathryn Sloan, and her belief that all social media managers should be under the age of 25. After all, only the kids know how to handle these newfangled tools, right? Predictably, the responses divided into three main camps: So true! Digital natives make the best social media managers. Those under age 25 don't know a world without digital technology, so it's not much of a leap to assume they'd use social media platforms more naturally and intuitively than folks who still remember looking up information (alphabetically, mind you) in the Yellow Pages. So NOT true! Social media managers need experience, missy! This viewpoint was delivered with both biting snark AND wary patience, depending on the author, but the gist was this: Even if you can Tweet up a storm, you might not be ready to be a communications professional. Knowing how to make a phone call isn't the same thing as knowing how to carry on a conversation. Hey, hey…. She's just a kid! Remember when you thought you knew everything? Can't we all just get along? Of course we can —once the controversy dies down. These benevolent folks credited Sloan with the classic twenty-something combo of both gumption and naïveté… and requested a little grace in response. Everybody has a point here – even the third crowd. It's not as though Sloan advocated putting social media managers over the age of 25 on an ice floe to drift away until spring. But in my opinion, she put too much emphasis on tools, rather than key skills and experiences. Social media isn't just "one more communication channel." It requires some tech savvy, plus a bit of patience to understand how platforms differ, overlap and connect –and the ability to find folks on social media who are having the conversations that matter to you. Not to mention that social media marketing requires skills in just that: marketing. And business. And service. You might know how to put up a post all your friends "like" on Facebook, but creating compelling content for potential and existing customers is a decidedly different proposition. So, without further ado, here's my wish list of traits for the ideal social media manager: Balanced experience: Knowing the technology is a start, but knowing the technology AND the industry AND the basics of marketing is what makes your contribution invaluable. And knowing something about how business actually works, well, that's definitely a plus. Agility: Whether you're older or younger, your capacity to keep up with change and evolution is incredibly valuable in the social media space. People person: At its core, social media is people connecting with other people. If being truly social isn't something you enjoy, then being social on behalf of a business won't be either. Common sense: Every marketer needs it, but not every marketer has it. Common sense is essential to dealing properly with concerns, challenges and hiccups in your social media program. A love of data: Big data, little data, long-term data, project-based data –you name it, a social media manager should embrace it. Carefully gathered and analyzed data gives you a solid sense of what's working and what isn't, and it provides insight into where your challenges and opportunities lie. There's no age requirement in my list for a reason: It doesn't matter how old you are. It only matters how well you do the job. What attributes do you think a social media manager should have?

Is your Google+ Stream Like an Empty Restaurant? Fix It – “Gordon Ramsay Style” Posted: 13 Aug 2012 12:15 PM PDT This article is about all of you out there, who have begun to feel that Google + is a Ghost Town, because you do not seem to get many circles or many responses to your own posts.  Indeed, for some of you, it is like you own a restaurant and nobody comes to eat there. I was thinking of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares TV show, where he uses a formula to make unsuccessful restaurants into much more successful destinations. I decided to apply his formula to the development of one's Google + Stream, because like with any kind of venture that depends upon engagement and/or conversion, there are some very basic rules we all must follow. CLEAN-UP When Gordon Ramsay walks into a restaurant that is failing, the first thing he does is check it for cleanliness.  On Google +,  there are people here of all kinds from almost everywhere in the world. Some of them (like me with my Marine Corps background) are known to let loose an invective every once in a while.  For me, I have curtailed my cursing to the absolute bare minimum, because for as many people might identify with my anger at certain things, there are at least 10x more who might not even read my post if it contains cursing.  Also, while I encourage and enjoy lively debate on my streams, I'm intolerant of personal attacks from anyone to anyone. It is not phony or inauthentic to clean up our language online or to ensure conflict does not become personal.  Nobody wants to eat in a dirty restaurant, and no matter how interesting you might be, if you curse a lot or don't ensure personal respect is maintained, you are probably repelling more viewers than you are attracting. MENU After cleaning up a dirty Restaurant, Gordon Ramsay then checks out the menu. Your menu is your Google + Profile.  If you do not share what you are all about, it is like looking at a menu that has nothing on it.  If you are a private person, that is all well and good, but then ask yourself, would you eat at a restaurant with a vague or very limited menu?  Take the time to use the security settings in your profile to share a few things public, and keep sensitive data private.  Save some information for people you circle back as a bonus for them, but if there is nothing in your profile for others to see, you are not going to get many followers, period. There is also the inverse situation of far too much information.   A profile, like a menu, which is crammed with too much confusing clutter discourages  viewers from the call to action to circle you. MAKEOVER With an established menu, Gordon Ramsay always seeks to make the restaurant as attractive as possible.  It never ceases to amaze me that there are still Blueheads on Google +. "Blueheads" is the less than affectionate term for Google + Users who do not have a photo or image avatar. Nothing will hurt your ability to engage with others on Google +, than not having an avatar. Personally, I do not believe that graphics are a good idea either, unless the image is part of your unique personal brand, and can easily be identified as belonging to you.  However, just having an avatar is not enough. Smile if you can, and try to look less like an ax-murderer and more like an approachable and thoughtful individual.   If you don't look like someone others would care to talk to in real life, why would you think they would be more likely to talk to you online? TRAINING On Kitchen Makeovers, Gordon Ramsay often finds people who call themselves a "chef" but really can't cook at all, and replaces them with someone who can. Now, on Google+, you really can't replace yourself with someone else, but you CAN learn to use the forum to an expert level and not embarrass yourself. Circle Jaana Nystrom or Denis Labelle and check their posts on how to use Google+ like a boss. (of course, you can circle me too…)  Learn how to control and manage your stream. Learn to use the Ignore and Block functions so that your stream can be exactly what you want it to be, once people start circling your profile.  You don't have to tolerate anything that undermines your security or the quality of your experience in this community.  Learn how to share posts correctly, use Hangouts and how to extend your Google + posts out to other social media platforms MARKETING Once Gordon Ramsay feels a restaurant is ready to rock, he gets the word out. He might invite townspeople to a re-opening, or hold a public event of some kind to get the restaurant some buzz. Now that you have got your act together on Google+, start POSTING!  In all of Google+, it is said that only 10% of users ever create public posts.  Even fewer Google+ members ever write a blog post or article and link it back to Google + for greater exposure and personal brand development. Don't be shy. If you have an interesting vocation, hobby, or activity, why not post about it?  I'm not talking about your barking Cat, you should post about yourself  or your activities. Post information that lets people know who you are, what you do, what you think, and what you are all about as a human being.  If you want a live stream with lots of followers, this is a MUST.  If you are an expert or are passionate about almost anything, you can find a following for it.  Although I write technical and marketing articles as CEO of my company, but I am also known on Google + for being the world's #1 Haribo Gummi Bear fan, and a badass Starcraft2 player. (come at me, you Zerg losers) It really does not matter what you post about, just let people know what your interests are, and you will gain an audience of like-minded circles.  Just as importantly, participate widely in others' streams.  This is a natural and easy way for others to get to know you and then follow up with a circle. FOLLOW UP Once a restaurant has been repaired, and been up and running like a well-oiled machine for a few months, Ramsay will plan a surprise return to see whether the restaurateurs are staying consistent to his advice.  The best way  for you to perform that kind of follow up on your Google + profile is to use the wonderful site CircleCount.com. The site will give you a day by day measurement of the growth (or decline) in your circle numbers, allowing you to determine whether your stream is growing in popularity, falling off, or remaining stagnant. If you post something offensive, or behave in an obnoxious manner, you can see the results of your actions on a daily basis.  If you do a good job, you'll see your trend line soar.  CircleCount also provides feedback to how many plusses and shares you get per post. Summary In the same way that nobody wants to eat in an empty restaurant, a few  want to engage on Google + with someone who is secretive, offensive, or frankly uninteresting. If you want a rocking stream of new friends and followers, the first thing you should do is avoid blaming the platform. With over 370 million users, Google + is NOT a Ghost town, and if you manage to do the above, you will discover the dynamic, engaging community of individuals that it is for yourself in no time flat. Make Gordon Ramsay proud by not being a Google + Nightmare.

Express Yourself: 6 Ways to Get Creative with Facebook Cover Photos Posted: 13 Aug 2012 12:10 PM PDT First impressions are lasting. So naturally it's important to make a good one. What does this have to do with Facebook? Well, a lot actually. When your followers land on your page, the first thing they notice is your cover photo. According to this study by EyeTrack Shop, visitors spend more time focusing on the cover photo than anything else on a Facebook page. This is perhaps one good thing about the changes that Facebook made a few months back. With the cover photo, you get the chance to show your fans what you're all about in one big picture. These cover photos set the tone for your entire Facebook page. These rectangular frames (dimensions of 851 x 315 pixels, to be exact) are an opportunity to portray your company's personality, campaign, mission, photography skills, etc. Now you probably want to jump back to your page to analyze the quality of your cover photo. But before you do, here are 6 ways to make a great first impression and express your brand's message with an amazing cover photo. 1. Set the mood. No, you don't need to dim the lights and add some romantic music. What you can do is show people what your company is all about in the blink of an eye. But make sure you set the mood you want. Whether it's peaceful, hectic, colorful, humorous — you decide. Give an uncomplicated message that shows visitors what they can expect from your page. CNN's Facebook cover photo says, "Hey, we're hard working people here." The Cooking Channel is all about keeping it "fresh". And the Yankees are inviting you to their playing field: 2. Showcase your latest campaign. You can promote seasonal items, topics, ideas, or milestones on your cover photo. It keeps your visitors up to date with what is happening at your company, and showcases your work. I mean, that is why they were following you in the first place, isn't it? Ray-Ban's "Never Hide" campaign is artsy and intriguing, much like their products. Adidas' latest campaign is invoking engagement and has gotten more than a thousand likes. Burberry uses their latest deep and mysterious editorial ads. Doesn't it make you want to buy their coats? I know I do. Breaking Bad shows what is to come in its next season by setting up its main character in what looks like a difficult situation. It draws you in and makes you want to watch—oh and they remind you the airtime in the bottom right hand corner without distracting from the big picture. 3. Use high resolution images. Don't use low quality, grainy images. They are an immediate turn off from your page and can make it seem like you have no idea what you're doing. If the cover photo sets the tone for the rest of the visit, make sure you use quality, professional-like material. Tiffany & Co. uses a beautiful shot of their nature brooches. Canon made a collage from colorful and vibrant pictures. 4. Be creative, but keep it simple. Play around with the design of your cover photo. It's impressive and it adds a "wow" factor. However, don't take it to far. The cover photo should be aesthetically pleasing, not overwhelming. Facebook's Cover Photo shows what they do best: connect people all over the world. Crumbs Bake Shop shows its followers what it does best: bake cute, mouthwatering cupcakes. Rock star Steven Tyler's cover photo embodies his work and style. 5. Put a face on your company. Cover photos with people adds humaneness to your company's image. Robots do not run your company. However, a community of hardworking people that make important decisions on a daily basis, do. Take The New York Times for example. They just began a new cover photo campaign that showcases their journalists working in the field. Each photo reads, "Over the next several months, we're going to update our Facebook cover photo with pictures of Times journalists at work in the field." And they then link to the journalist's topic page. This is a great way of showing what your staff does and shows appreciation for their work. Plus, the pictures truly set the tone that the journalists are bold and hard working. Here's a photo of their star photographer, Bill Cunningham, taking pictures on his bike in the middle of Times Square. The clothing company H&M uses its surprised models. Animal Planet showcases its favorite animals acting like humans. If community is very valuable in your company, make sure you show that through your cover photo. 6. Make your profile picture and cover photo match. This trick may take a little more effort, but the end results are aesthetically amazing. The top of your Facebook page looks sleek and it shows you took the time and effort to make sure the images matched. Nike did it. And so did Sprite. And Kate Spade New York. Don't you think these all send a clear message? So can yours.

Have You Embraced Frictionless Sharing Yet? Posted: 13 Aug 2012 12:00 PM PDT I have been exploring frictionless sharing for years in the form of auto-tweets, retweets, automatic cross-posting, and attention data. What is it, you ask? Well, according to Wikipedia, frictionless sharing refers to "the transparent sharing of resources using social media services." What this means is that all you need to do is look at a particular piece of content such as a news item, story, video, or content, and that piece of content is linked to on your Facebook Timeline, in Google Plus and in other social media. We all have been frictionless sharing with advertisers, social media companies, big data minters, and search engines for a decade in the form of implicit attention data, part of an attention economy. While people are freaking out about how privacy-invading frictionless sharing is, we have all been frictionless sharing everything and anything — sometimes even including our credit card information, Social Security numbers and secret questions' answers — with everywhere and everything, including Friendster, MySpace, eHarmony, match.com, Facebook, Twitter, AOL, Yahoo!, Microsoft and the No. 1 data-vacuum, Google. On Facebook, the most common frictionless sharing experiences come from their social sharing apps, with the Washington Post's app being the most famous and infamous – though TechCrunch and ESPN and quite a few other media platforms have invested. Trouble is, none of these social sharing apps perform very well in new Facebook because their new stream of news Timeline algorithm prioritizes friends and family above the social shared content. Choose a setting early on and you're good to go The framework that Facebook, Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Twitter is based upon — requiring liking, digging, redditing, thumbs-upping, or retweeting — demands way too much commitment from the casual visitor on a daily basis. Even something as passive and easy as Facebook's Like button can be too intrusive and too intentional, thus ignoring the true interests and honest habits of all but the most committed and engaged. Oh, what a pity. Much more effective is sharing content and recommendations with each other based on our implicit decisions rather than our explicit ones. This has been going on for years in the form of those apps that allow you to shamelessly share what you're listening to on iTunes, real time, as you listen to your status update, be it Skype, Twitter, or Facebook. That's frictionless sharing by definition: All you need to do is choose a setting early on that says you'd like to share what you're listening to and then whenever you listen, all your friends know what you're shaking it to. Mind you, sharing frictionlessly can result in embarrassment, I mean, you're a 42-year-old man and you spend half your day cruising lolcats on I Can Has Cheezburger? That's embarrassing, sure, but so is the fact that you spend the entire day listening to Glee interpretations of popular music all day – now that's embarrassing! But not really, right, because in so many cases, what you're really doing is more often meat and potatoes than jellybeans and cotton candy, especially during your work day. And, since all of these tools have become so wary of embarrassing you – all that privacy crap is about embarrassment and about not letting the world know you're obsessed with domestic house kittens and show choir even though you attended Harvard Law* – there are very simple ways of turning sharing off or making it selective. More recently, I have fallen madly in love with GaggleAMP, a tool that allows my blog to automatically share itself through the LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter profile accounts with 211 folks who have opted in to become members of my Gaggle, sharing without friction–automagically and pre-authorized. It's pretty stellar. New ways to cross-post using GaggleAMP With GaggleAMP — a social marketing platform that lets companies Amplify their social media reach by leveraging individual employees, customers and partners — anything that's tweeted from my blog is shared through GaggleAMP. However, when it comes to my personal @chrisabraham Twitter profile, I really want to be more intentional because my Twitter stream is mostly links to icanhascheezburger.com and fox.com/glee, so I have it set up so that the only way my posts will enter GaggleAMPlification is if I append an #ga to my tweet. Same thing with Selective Tweets on Facebook that allows you to frictionlessly share to Facebook from Twitter just by appending an #fb or how LinkedIn allows you to crosspost frictionlessly to LinkedIn from Twitter with a quick #in hashtag. It saves a lot of angry jazz-hands, I tell you. At the end of the day, it's up to you. However, to me, the convenient always trumps everything else. For me, signing off on what I de facto want to share every time, such as a morning read of the Washington Post, and then expecting what I read to be shared, does it for me. Automatically retweeting, sharing, cross-posting, and autoposting the content I have pre-approved from platforms, media outlets, and friends – content I would have shared and retweeted anyway (were I to have all the time in the world to peruse and explore and read, but I don't). I am completely sold on frictionless sharing myself. I am so happy that I have GaggleAMP to work for me when I am asleep or at lunch or perusing lolcats while listening to the Glee cast's rendition of "Don't Stop Believin'." Are you sold on frictionless sharing? What's your take? *I never attended Harvard Law – I chose Harvard for effect. My degrees were in American Literature and Creative Writing from The George Washington University, somehow not bearing the same level of gravitas as "Harvard-educated-lawyer."

3 Things We Learned from Olympic Social Media Engagement Posted: 13 Aug 2012 11:25 AM PDT It's over. After 16 days, 962 Medals, 31 world records and over 150 million tweets, the Olympic games drew to a close last night. Even before it started, the games had been dubbed the social media Olympics and it lived up to that name with unprecedented levels of social media engagement over the two weeks. So after the controversies, the records, the triumph and the despair, what did it all mean? Was it just two weeks of sporting achievement? Or was there more to it? For marketers, there's a lot we can take from the social media engagement around the London games. 1.    Second Screen can't be ignored If it wasn't clear enough already, the Olympics once again demonstrated how important second screen is going to be for social media engagement. There were nearly 10 million Olympics related tweets per day during the games. The majority of these occurred during the biggest events, Usain Bolt's victory in the 200m sprint for example, racked up 80,000 tweets per minute. The majority of these would have come from people watching the games on TV. Second screen isn't just a clever buzzword anymore; it's a natural, every day occurrence. Getting your brand onto that second screen is a target every marketer will need to consider when planning their social media engagement. 2.    Brand Awareness can be the Difference There was an overwhelming level of advertising and brand promotion during the games, but we'll come to actual business brands in a moment. Lets look at the other brands on show during the games, the athletes and their sports. Usain Bolt was the most talked about athlete at the games, according to Twitter. No surprise considering he won gold in two of the most popular events. But there would be many who would argue that British athlete Mo Farah's achievement of winning both the five and ten thousand metres, only the seventh man in history to do that, was up there with Bolt. Yet Bolt leads the table of most talked about athletes, while Mo Farah is nowhere to be seen. The difference is branding. Usain Bolt is an international brand, he's heavily involved in his own promotion and social media engagement, so he was always likely to get more mentions. 3.    Official Partners Vs. Unofficial Guerillas One of the key talking points before the games were the incredibly strict rules imposed by the organizers to protect their official sponsors. These rules saw policemen eating chocolate bars out of clear plastic bags and a butcher's Olympic rings shaped sausages removed from their window and suggestions that mobile phone's used as mobile hotspots would be confiscated. It also meant the organizers got a lot of bad press, and provided an opportunity for rival brands to exploit. Companies like Nike and Paddy Power didn't just dodge the Olympic advertising rules, they actively used them to promote their own brands. Paddy Power continue their trend of guerilla marketing at big sporting events with a billboard inspired by a question on their Facebook page. Meanwhile Nike had some success with their 'Find Your Greatness' campaign generating plenty of media interest and social media engagement. In the meantime, the official sponsors got to place billboards and got their ads into the official TV commercial breaks. But for the most part they faded into the background. The guerillas were the clear winners in social media engagement and sentiment. It's been an amazing 16 days of television, a great two weeks for sport and an unprecedented fortnight of social media engagement. The spectacular moments will live long in the memories of fans, while these social media lessons should live on for marketers too. Have you taken the time to really get to know social media? There is so much more to it than just creating a profile, adding some photos, and updating your page every so often. Discover the benefits of social media, connect with your customers, engage with prospects, promote your products and services and market your brand. Click here to download our guide on getting to know social media.

What is Twitter All About? Posted: 13 Aug 2012 10:05 AM PDT At its heart, Twitter is about conversation – be it between long-lost friends, or brands and their audiences. The same could arguably be said for all of the major social networks, but the beauty of Twitter is that you're forced to think carefully about your words. After all, you only have 140 characters in which to get your point across; hence the term 'micro-blogging'. With Twitter, it's all too easy to get lost in the noise of its 500 million users. That's why it's important that brands recognise how best to utilise this simple conversational tool. There are already plenty of guides that demonstrate how to get started on Twitter – but here are the three key things your brand can do to really get involved in the action. Use it to… Learn Imagine having access to the conversations your audience is having every single day; knowing their likes and dislikes, as well as the types of information they like to receive. The power this could give your brand is overwhelming, allowing you to target your consumers/prospects in the most relevant way possible. Twitter can give you this power. By tracking your brand's followers' habits, you can gain a significant insight into their lives. For example, you can track: Who they follow and re-tweet What they are tweeting themselves When they are doing it Where they are (i.e. checking via Foursquare or just saying they are at XYZ) Why they use Twitter (i.e. is their feed mostly conversational, or mostly re-tweets?) Just think of the ways in which this data could influence your marketing – for example tweeting followers at the times they're most likely to be active on Twitter, or tailoring your content to the types of content they're already re-tweeting. You can also learn about your competitors by doing some Twitter research. Check out how they're interacting with their followers, what sort of content they're tweeting and their overall engagement levels. Then, outsmart them. Use it to… Educate Now that you've started learning, you can start educating. Use that information you gathered from your competitors and use it to target their followers quicker than they can. Provide them with content you already know they'll like, at a time they're likely to read it and your engagement levels could shoot through the roof! So what sort of content should you use to educate your prospects? Well, this all depends on what stage of the buying process they are at. Of course, you can't provide a bespoke Twitter stream for each of your followers, so be sure to publish such a variety of content that you can appeal to buyers at all stages of the process. For example, those who are in the 'Awareness' stage (i.e. they have a need for a product or service, but don't know where to get it from) can benefit from purely educational content – like how-to guides/videos or whitepapers. Prospects stuck at the 'Evaluation' stage (i.e. they know what they want, but are trying to device where to get it from) might find case studies or webinars useful; whereas 'Purchase' prospects are best targeted with content that explains how your specific product/service will meet their individual needs. This could be achieved with targeted email marketing, for example. There is a one-size-fits-all type of content you can utilise too – neutral, industry news. This subtle approach allows you to nurture your prospects, who will come to view you as a reliable source of industry news; a brand that is fully aware of what's happening in its market. Use it to… Join the conversation The last – and perhaps most important – way in which brands should use Twitter is to join the conversation surrounding… well, them! The conversation has already started and be it good or bad, brands need to get involved. Although a common fear for brands is that when they open themselves up to social media, they also open themselves up to complaints. There's no point denying that this is true, but consider this – if you had a complaint about a brand and voiced it on Twitter, would you feel better if they just ignored you? Or would you have more respect for a brand that listened to your opinion and was pro-active in improving it? I know which I'd choose! Not only can you placate those who have a less-than-rosy impression of your brand, but you can also build engagement with those loyal followers that love it. This invaluable source of custom won't keep itself engaged; you have to do that for them. Use Twitter just to talk to these followers, or even to provide VIP offers or discounts. Get their opinion on products and encourage them to share their opinion with their network. It can't hurt; in fact it's likely to do the opposite – helping your brand become bigger, better and more profitable than it ever has been. Now tell me, what brand wouldn't want that?!

6 Stupid-Taxes to Avoid in Your Online Customer Community Posted: 13 Aug 2012 10:00 AM PDT In life and in business, we try to avoid as many stupid-taxes as possible. A stupid-tax is imposed when you make a seemingly avoidable mistake that has financial implications or you miss an opportunity because you weren’t aware or didn’t understand something. For instance, if you don’t understand how to set up and manage a PPC advertising campaign on Google Adwords, you could easily cost your company a stupid-tax in the form of wasted budget. Business is full of traps like that. You can even find stupid-taxes in social business strategies. When engaging customers, employees, and partners, there are little things that your organization can do to avoid missteps that can quantified in real dollars. Here are 6 stupid-taxes that your organization can easily avoid. Stupid-Tax #1: Not Having a Community Manager In an online community, the community manager is the person or team that wakes up each morning with the responsibility to make sure that the online community is successful. Without a dedicated community manager, who is visible to employees, customers, and partners, deadlines slips, deliverables are ignored, and the internal blame game goes into overdrive. Make sure that your online community managers are empowered with the title, access, and authority to work across your organization and customer groups to get stuff done. Here are some tips for selecting the right community manager to get you started. Stupid-Tax #2: Letting Questions Go Stale In J.M. Barrie's story about Peter Pan, it is said that every time someone says that they don't believe in fairies, one drops dead somewhere in the world. In a less dramatic way, every time a question, comment, or discussion goes unanswered in your online community, the reputation and reliability of your customer community dies a little bit in the eyes of that customer. Next time they might wait another half day before engaging your community to find an answer. Then, the next time they need help, they may put your community even further down on their list of places to look. Before long, your online customer or member community is a forgotten resource. Don't let this happen to you and your customers. Following the "24-Hour Rule" is a simple way to increase engagement and momentum in your online community. Stupid-Tax #3: Turning On All Forum/Listserv Subscriptions for All Customers Check your inbox. How many emails did you get yesterday? Your customers or members probably received a similar amount. Now imagine that you join a work-related online community today. Then tomorrow, you receive email notifications and digests from ever group, forum, and listserv in that you have access to. The manager of that online community has lost you before you even got started. They not only risk being blacklisted by major email providers, but are also training their customers or members to ignore email communication from them. Instead, online community providers must sparingly auto-subscribe members to only those lists that are relevant to specific customer types, as well as make it clear to members how to manage their subscriptions. Stupid-Tax #4: Overtly Selling In Your Community Great! Your customers are engaged! They are talking to you and you have even found many of them willing to cut through the noise and listen to you. Now you can ready your cannons with all of the marketing language that you have been stockpiling so that your customers will go forth and generate buzz, advocate for your company, and build your brand. This is how it works, right? Not so fast "Captain Disengagement!" You customers or members engage in your online community to support others and get help with their jobs and careers. All marketing and selling should be done with an eye toward providing educational advice and insightful information. Once you have shaped your messages around helping your community become more successful, go through your communication again and make sure it doesn't have too much of a company or product focus. Your customers will thank you…and stick around in your community. Stupid-Tax #5: Posting Information for Community Members Outside of the Community One of the primary reasons that customers or members return to your online community is to find, share, and interact around content that is exclusive to community members. If your target audience can get the same information in the public domain, the social density and activity level in your online customer community will quickly drop. While you should publisher teasers on your public website and on social networks, you must consciously drive members back to your private customer community to get details. Stupid-Tax #6: Spamming Customers Due to the credibility of your organization, your customers or members are going to give your online community a chance. You online customer community is provisional for even your most tenured members. Don't blow it by sending irrelevant information via email. Use the targeted email communication tools in your online community software to send applicable helpful information to specific customer segments. Studies show that if you can nail this value equation, you can send multiple emails per week without risking being unsubscribed or ignored by community members. Online Community Takeaway All settings, strategies, and tools are not created equal. There are things your company, association or user groups needs to know about creating a thriving online community that will help save money, minimize rework, and avoid brand-damage down the road. Avoiding many of these stupid-taxes takes that same amount of effort as running head first into them. So, take some time and discuss the ideas in the article with your teams to avoid needless engagement, financial, and reputation hits to your online community.

Stop Writing (and Publishing) Crap Posted: 13 Aug 2012 09:05 AM PDT So evidently, the ideal age for a social media manager is under 25. Wait… no… the ideal age for a social media manager is over 25. Are you kidding me? Age? We're talking about age? Like… the ideal age to be a CEO is 45-65? Or the ideal age to be an HR manager is 43-52? Would anyone with the slightest bit of credibility ever write a piece like that? No. Not without concrete research to back it up, at any rate. So why is it acceptable when it comes to social media? Why? Because it's still en vogue to write complete nonsense about social media management? There is no ideal age to manage a social media program, just like there is no ideal age to manage a PR or marketing or HR campaign, program or department. Unless you're a professional athlete, age is pretty much irrelevant when it comes to your ability to do a job. Any job. Some people are already good at 20. Others still suck at 40. There is no magic formula. What you are looking for is competence, professionalism and a sharp, agile mind. That is what you should focus on. Not age. Let's take a look at this piece published by Inc. just a few days ago: 11 Reasons a 23-year-old Shouldn't Run Your Social Media, by Hollis Thomases. So first… who is this Hollis Thomases person, and more importantly, why does Inc. feel that she is qualified to write an article on this topic? Well, there's this: Hollis Thomases is the President & CEO of Web Ad.vantage, which provides outcome-based digital marketing and advertising services to up-and-coming brands. She is also the author of Twitter Marketing: An Hour a Day, a contributing expert to Social Media Marketing Magazine, and has been a Media Planning columnist for ClickZ since 2005. She has taken her subject matter expertise to television, radio, and trade conferences. Here is her Twitter account: @hollisthomases (6,820 followers). Note the url, by the way, which is different from the title Inc. eventually went with: http://www.inc.com/hollis-thomases/social-media-dont-put-intern-in-charge.html – don't put intern in charge. Ah, well. We're already off to a killer start: what's a 23-year-old good for? Being an intern. Great. Now don't get me wrong: anyone who puts an intern in charge of their social media program is clearly being negligent. But we aren't talking about interns here. We are talking about 23-year-olds and "young hires." Not to put too fine a point on it, but that hoodied 23-year-old you just crossed in the hallway might not be the intern anymore. In this day and age, he or she might be the CEO, and a solid one at that. There are "kids" right now building companies at 23 that will reshape the face of business, technology and communications in the next ten years. There are guys leading combat teams at 23, and I can tell you from experience that they are supremely competent and plenty mature. There are young women right now, today, already on their way to revolutionizing dozens of fields, from particle physics and presidential campaign strategy to industrial design and popular fashion. A few of them even won Olympic medals in London over the last few weeks. So how about this: instead of discounting young twenty-somethings as quasi-worthless, not particularly dependable assclowns, why not get to know them instead? But no. It's much easier to fall back on crap stereotypes to write a poorly researched article, and then somehow get Inc.'s editorial staff give it the go-ahead. And thus begins an 11-point exercise in shameless clichés and assumptions. Let's have a look-see: They're not mature enough. They may be focused on their own social media activity. They may not have the same experience – or etiquette. You can't control their friends. No class can replace on-the-job-training. They may not understand your business. Communications skills are critical. Humor is tricky business. Social media savvy is not the same as technical savvy. Social media management can become crisis management. You need to keep the keys. Where do I begin? Do I even need to explain how absurd this is? It seems that professional, capable twenty-somethings have suddenly become as immature as ninth-graders on a school field trip. 1. They're not mature enough. Right. Based on what data? And compared to whom? I have a friend. Let's call him Tim. Tim is 48. Tim has been going through a mid-life crisis for the last four years. You want to talk to me about the maturity level of a 23-year-old? You don't get to unless you've spent a Friday evening around Tim. Tim is a CEO, by the way. But that isn't even the point. The real point here is this: if someone isn't mature enough to manage your social media program, regardless of their age, don't be an asshole and put them in charge of your social media program. Instead, hire someone who is qualified and well-suited for the job. Is that too simple? Too obvious maybe? Or should we keep going on the stupid stereotypes? Okay. Let's keep going then. 2. They may be focused on their own social media activity. Yeah, and they also may not. Because age has not a damn thing to do with that. Not hiring unprofessional assholes usually takes care of that problem. 3. They may not have the... oh, whatever. If they don't have the experience or etiquette, why did you hire them to manage anything, let alone your social media program? Regardless of their age, if they don't have the skills or experience or etiquette, don't put them in charge. But if they have the experience, skills and etiquette, and they happen to be 23, don't be stupid: hire the shit out of them before someone else does. I know. This stuff is really hard to grasp. 4. You can't control their friends. Really? Is that because 23-year-olds are just party-going loudmouths who will post obnoxious updates on Facebook? So naturally, yeah… a 23-year-old is going to be a liability to your brand, right? Nice! Except, no. Show me the data that supports your theory. What… no data? Hmmm. That's too bad. My next question would have dealt with how you intend to "control" angry customers and trolls. Ms. Thomases, your personal prejudices against this age group suck. 5. No class can replace on-the-job-training. I have no idea what that even means or what it has to do with age. 6. They may not understand your business. This article is starting to give me a headache. What if that 23-year-old has been a fan of your business since they were a kid? Say you're Nike or Disney or Nintendo, you really think a 23-year-old managed to live their whole lives without knowing what you do and how? Why do you think they're applying for a job at your company in the first place? Here's another one: a 40-year-old new hire and a 23-year-old new hire are going to go through the same onboarding process. Why would the 23-year-old be somehow less qualified than the 40-year-old to manage the company's social media program solely based on "not understanding the business?" Is there something physiological about 23-year olds that makes them incapable of learning your business model? If you are hiring someone to manage your social media program, they'll need to understand your business, regardless of their age. Train them. Get them ready to manage that function. This is not an age issue, it's a preparation issue. This argument is invalid. 7. Communications skills are critical. I can't even wrap my mind around this. Let me just quote the writer and see if you can make any sense of it: "Communication is critical to solid social-media execution. Before you let a young hire take over your company blog posts, take stock of his or her writing skills. Also: Many young people have not yet learned the "art" of communicating. Make sure they know how to read between the lines, rather than taking things too literally." That's it. That's the whole explanation. Between you and me, I have no idea what half of that means. "Many young people have not yet learned the 'art' of communicating?" "Make sure they know how to read between the lines, rather than taking things literally?" Let that be the point: communication is indeed critical to solid social-media execution. Which is why social media professionals who write expert commentary for Inc. should learn how to express themselves clearly. "Make sure they know how to read" between what lines, exactly? Is there something about 23-year-olds that makes them read everything literally? And can we at least get some kind of idea as to what the "art" of communicating is? I wonder if it involves learning proper comma usage. Here's an example: "Make sure they know how to read between the lines rather than taking things too literally" instead of "make sure they know how to read between the lines, rather than taking things too literally." I know a bunch of young 20-somethings with terrific communications skills and a shit-ton of people my age with horrendous communications skills (and many of them are in PR and marketing). So can we please stick to competence and skill instead of crapping on young twenty-somethings for the sake of it? 8. Humor is tricky business. Let me guess… because young twenty-somethings are incapable of understanding the boundaries and cultural nuances of certain types of humor… As opposed to 35-year-olds or 50-year-olds? You're right. Humor is tricky business. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with age. Not one thing. Something just occurred to me: if you took that piece and replaced "young hire" with "women" or "old people," it would be taken offline immediately. Prejudice is prejudice, and the opinions listed in these eleven points reek of it. 9. Social media savvy is not the same as technical savvy. Excuse my French, but… (cover your ears) what the f*ck does that have to do with age? This argument is invalid. 10. Social media management can become crisis management. Yes. It can and it does. What does that have to do with age? Do you want me to list every PR crisis in the last ten years that was completely botched by people over the age of 25? Here's a taste: BP, Nestle, Enron, Toyota, Southwest Airlines, Chic-Fil-a, United Airlines, Eurostar, FEMA… We could be here all day. This argument is frightfully invalid. 11. You need to keep the keys. Yes. That's a basic social media program management 101 lesson that is applicable regardless of your social media manager's age. This argument isn't just invalid, it isn't even an argument. Here's an idea: instead of writing (and publishing) pointless pieces of hateful, misinformed garbage that fail to a) offer relevant reasons why young professionals under the age of 25 are somehow not qualified (or under-qualified) to manage a social communications program, and b) provide evidence to back up the writer's opinion, why not write a piece that outlines the qualities and skills you should look for in someone who will help you build and manage a social media program? You know, things like competence, skill, talent, personality, adaptability, resourcefulness, even cultural fit with the company, for instance? But no. Let's focus on age instead. Let's talk about age as a qualification to run a social media program… Good grief. How did we even get here? Really. WTF. I can't leave you like this though, so here's basically all you need to know about the ideal candidate for your social media management job. Are you ready? Here it is: Hire someone wonderful and competent. Who gives a shit how old they are? Okay? And if you want some pointers on what to look for, I'll be back tomorrow with a few. Cheers, Olivier * * * As an aside, you can find some pointers on how to hire (and train) a social media manager in Chapter 6. (Pages 73-82.) Social Media ROI – Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in yourOrganization was written specifically to teach managers and executives how to build and manage social media friendly business programs and incorporate social technologies and networks into everyday business operations. The book is divided into four parts: social media program strategy & development, social media program operationalization, social media program management, and best practices in measurement and reporting. If your boss doesn't yet have a copy, time to fix that. If everyone on your team doesn't yet have their own copy, fix that too. It makes for a great desk reference. (Now available in several languages including German, Korean, Japanese and Spanish.) CEO-Read – Amazon.com – www.smroi.net – Barnes & Noble – Que Filed under: social media Tagged: brandbuilder, business, olivier blanchard, social business, social media

Social TV: How Shark Week is Combining Online and Offline Content Posted: 13 Aug 2012 08:55 AM PDT The Discovery Channel's Shark Week turns 25 this year and they are pulling out all the stops in celebration. Over the years, Shark Week has taken on new life. In 2000, they debuted a Sharks 3D episode. Last year, the channel's ads used Lady Gaga's "Show Me Your Teeth" to broaden their appeal with young audiences. This year, there's Shark Week Plus–an addition to the Discovery Channel's iPad app that automatically syncs content online to what you're viewing offline. Most notable additions to Shark Week this year to better engage the audience: 1. Shark Week Bingo – available during certain shows 2. Social TV – automatically syncs online content with the show you are watching through your iPad mic 3. Shark Cam – On sharks 24-7 for the week and fully controllable. 4. Ongoing series beloved by fans – This year's take on Air Jaws I, II and "Ultimate Air Jaws" is "Air Jaws Apocalypse" 5. New sponsorship with Volkswagen – a underwater car will double as a shark cage 6. Further integration with Twitter & Facebook – you can put your thoughts here and watch to see if they end up on TV. The innovation of Discovery Channel, mixed with some creative ad and app creation, can only propel the popularity of Shark Week. Are you watching?

Do the Extras on Social Media Posted: 13 Aug 2012 08:40 AM PDT Here are some extra's that I have come across through my own work and tips I have received from others regarding particular social media sites. The people I come in contact with and that I connect with always go the extra mile to deliver the best content and find ways to succeed. Social Media Extras to Consider Blog Make sure you include an image with your post. This is critical for being found. People connect with an image and try to tie the image to your content. Write with confidence and transparency! Better yet, be yourself, don't try to write like someone else. Continue to post on a regular basis. It is far too easy to quit. It takes time to develop a market. Pick a niche topic and you will get the right readers. Why would anyone want to write content that is the same as everybody else? Have a focus! Google+ Make sure when you leave a comment, you address someone directly by typing a "+" sign and then typing their name. This will help insure that the person views your comment and he/she will know who it is from. It also helps show that you connect directly with people and you do not just leave general comments. Add some hashtag keywords to your comments to help your search rankings. (This process works) Finally, keep your presence, even if it is just once a day. Somewhere down the road, Google+ will make some changes that will put it into the mainstream. It's not there yet, but it can't be ignored. Twitter Make sure your tweet is eye-catching and gives people a respond to click on your link or reply to your content. Follow great people and keep connected with these people. (See last weeks post, "Who you follow on Twitter speaks volumes about you" )This really shows that you place a higher value on the people you follow. Make sure you take time to thank people personally when they mention your name or retweet you. (This will really help people realize that you actually care about people and not about the number of tweets you post or worse yet, the generic thank you message) Linkedin Update information in your profile once a week. By doing this, you will keep your profile active with your connections when they receive their weekly update email. (I have really found a lot of value with this process) Become more active on Linkedin. Business people are starting to post more updates on Linkedin and like the fact that this platform keeps the discussion professional. Use the Like button on Linkedin and add a comment. People actually watch for people who like their content and comment on their updates. (Much more powerful than Facebook for Business Professionals) Facebook Read more and post less. For me I learn more personal information about people, but I don't have to leave comments about people Facebook is great for connecting with friends and family. No need to pursue business with this group. Company page is more of a newspaper page. By focusing on more broadcasting and less on engagement, I have realized that I can reach people. (Disclaimer: If you have found success on Facebook, please ignore the above statements. I know some of you find this platform a wonderful place for business) From my experience, I have received more return on your investment, (time, money, content) by doing the little extra items like the items mentioned below. I hope you find these items helpful to you. If you have an "Extra" tip that you feel would be helpful to others, please leave a comment. Photo credit: +fatman+ via photo pin cc

How to Evangelize Google+ by Guy Kawasaki Posted: 13 Aug 2012 08:35 AM PDT Think Different Macintosh evangelists were the unsung heroes of Apple. Apple did not pay them, and most Macintosh evangelists were not shareholders. Their motivation was a love of Macintosh and a desire to help people become more creative and productive by using Apple's new computer. They provided support when Apple couldn't or wouldn't and helped keep Macintosh alive during the dark days of the late 1980s. To evangelize Google+, or anything else, people need to help others "think different." In the case of Macintosh, potential Macintosh users had to think different rather than default to Windows. In the case of Google+, people need to think different rather than default to Facebook or Twitter. In the course of trying to convince thousands of developers to write Macintosh software, I learned that the most effective way to evangelize something new is to demonstrate it. This chapter explains how to evangelize and demonstrate Google+. Demo Different I've demonstrated Google+ to hundreds of people, and these are the features of Google+ that have worked well for me: • Editing. Show people that you can edit a post or a comment after-the-fact. You can't do this with Facebook and Twitter. You can do this with Pinterest, but few people compose long posts or comments on Pinterest so editing doesn't matter. • Customizing. Reorder the icons in the navigation ribbon on the left side of the window. For example, move "Circles" above "Profile" by dragging and dropping. I don't know of any place on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest where you can customize the user interface this easily. • Ripples. Select a post that's been shared at least twenty times (it doesn't have to be yours" and launch "View Ripples" to show the utter coolness of ripples. The easiest way to find a popular post is to click on the Explore button in the navigation ribbon on the left side of the window and peruse the "What's hot" area. While you're mentioning Ripples, you should discuss Facebook's Edgerank system where only 10% of your friends and family can see your updates. Roughly speaking if Facebook has ten times more people but only 10 percent can see your updates, that puts it on par with Google+, right? • Google+ search. Ask your audience what their passions are and do a search for the keywords in Google+—not a regular Google search but a Google+ search. Show people that almost every search yields people, posts, and circles. In other words, everyone can find people who share the same passions on Google+. • Circles. Add a few people to an existing circle and show how to create a new circle. Explain that this is a way to organize people along parameters such as interests (knitting, hockey, etc.) and relationship (friends, family, colleagues, etc.). Also, demonstrate how to remove people from a circle. • Block and report. Pick a post in your stream and show how easy it is to block and report a person for the unfortunate and infrequent instances when you want to get rid of a bozo. Other services can do this too, but you should at least help people check the "get rid of bozos" box. • Notification. Show people the notifications you've gotten for +mentions and explain how useful it is to know when people have mentioned you anywhere in Google+. Other services can do this too, but Google+'s method is very elegant. • Creative Kit. Click on one of your pictures in your posts, launch "Creative Kit" (upper left corner) and show people the built-in picture editor of Google+. It's very handy to have photo editing built into one's social-media service. • Social search. Perform a search of a term that is relevant to your audience. For example, if you're with entrepreneurs, search for "venture capital" and show them how the results of a Google search now include the posts of people that you circled. (To make this work, you have to know that the people you follow have shared posts about the topic.) Also, point out how the right sidebar provides suggestions of people to circle who write about the topic. • Hangouts. Start a hangout to show how you and nine buddies can video conference. Point out how cool this is for communicating with family, friends, and customers. Then show a YouTube video of two guys that people might have heard of, the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, sitting around and shooting the breeze. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_HqVFEzY2U Conclusion The word "evangelism" comes from a Greek word that means "good news." With this list of tips and ones that you perfect on your own, I hope that you'll go forth and spread the good news about Google+.

Finding Inspiration For Your Blog Posted: 13 Aug 2012 08:35 AM PDT There are two common challenges faced by professionals and small business owners entering social media, one is technically knowing how to get their communities set up and the second is knowing what to blog, post, share and talk about. The second challenge is far worse than the first, because it is ABOUT YOU. Many business owners, marketers and even professionals suddenly find themselves faced with bloggers writers' block or a form of stage fright. A recent social media coaching client of mine, with many years in experiential marketing, branding and digital campaigns is getting back into blogging but is faced with the fear of judgement. She says that when she wants to write, she cannot get the words out (I know this is despite years of document creation for clients, as we worked at the same ad agency in the late '90's). I know she has experience to back up her ideas, and that they can sometimes be polarizing opinions (which both Seth Godin and Mike Michalowicz says indicates you will be successful), so I had to get her talking about what she could blog in specifics. "Success is achieved by getting some people to be emotionally attached to your message and others to be pissed at your message. This gets the people that love you, defending you. And the people that don't like you, talking more and more about why they don't like you. The result is you get increasing exposure and more feverish loyalty." From The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur by Mike Michalowicz While we were chatting, to uncover her passion for her field, I asked what she thinks about the majority of people who are media buyers in Toronto and what she would say to them if they were paying her to advise their careers. Her response flowed with ease, was passionate, developed from years of client experience and observation, and included the f-word. I told her to blog exactly that; in 300 words to write the thought, and then just edit a bit and POST. She was shocked I said she should even include the swear, suggesting that it makes her content much more authentic, impassioned and authoritative, and to back it up, I sent her a link to a video of a Gary Vaynerchuk keynote speech in July 2012 where he is passionate and authentic the way he is, and he drops the f-bomb at least 20 times in a 1 hour keynote. The whole conversation also reminded me of this great little video interview I shot at Social Media Week Toronto 2012 (in February) where I asked Jon Sinden who is the social media lead for MLSE (The Toronto Maple Leafs, The Toronto Raptors, The Toronto FC and The Toronto Marlies) about finding inspiration for new sports bloggers. He confirmed that although my insecurity in my new position sports blogging and social media for the Toronto entertainment district venue The Ballroom was not unusual, it was definitely unfounded. I could be casually involved in watching MMA UFC events and was able to blog about them with some interesting fact, research and community tactics that made my blog posts draw in some of the higher traffic to their website, until the MMVA's in June. We can all feel unsure about what we're doing, the key is just to do it. You will get better with time & experience and that is the only way to improve from your starting point. What do you do, say to yourself, or who do you talk to to stay inspired? Let me know in the comments below! Want my take on your blogging, social media or business challenge? Email me at debbie@theSparkleAgency.com or request to join my Wednesday 8pm weekly meetup on Google+ Hangouts on Air by sending me a message at debbie.horovitch@gmail.com

Romney’s Fake Twitter Followers and Why Social Media and Politics Sometimes Clash Posted: 13 Aug 2012 08:35 AM PDT I recently read an article on VentureBeat on a study that found that more than 15% of Mitt Romney's Twitter followers are fake. The study, conducted by Barracuda Security, analyzed Romney's account in light of the recent public discourse surrounding Romney's suspicious followers and found that the presidential hopeful has followers "generated by paid services that artificially inflate social media influence." Barracuda points out that many of Romney's Twitter supporters are shrouded in shadiness: Almost all of Romney's followers' accounts are new: more than 80% of accounts are less than three months old and 25% are less than three weeks old. Romney gained 150,000 followers in one day in July! (Trying to claim that this isn't the result of follower purchasing is like trying to claim that Michelle Obama's wardrobe isn't 50% J. Crew, minimum). One in four of Romney's followers have never sent a single tweet. Barracuda also reports that 10% of these new followers have already been suspended from Twitter. They connect the fake-follower situation to a larger endemic termed (oh-so-dramatically) as "the underground economy of social networks." Apparently, fake-Twitter-profile sellers are ubiquitous; the Barracuda study conjured in my mind images of "dealers" roaming the internet, offering desperate individuals an easy but underhanded way to boost their number of social media followers. A Google search for the phrase "buy Twitter followers" generates over 252 million results, and you can even find sellers on eBay. Social Media and Social Proof I think buying followers is a very shady practice, but I can understand why Romney (or rather, Romney's staff) engaged in this practice. And I think the fact that Romney purchased fake Twitter profiles speaks to the issues that surround social media in general. Here's the dilemma Romney faces: he obviously needs votes come November, and one way to acquire votes and supporters in our social-media-savvy society is through social proof. A brief Psychology 101 lesson: social proof is the concept that people conform to the actions of others because they believe those actions reflect correct behavior. If I walk by a restaurant or bar and see a large crowd outside, I'll most likely think that said establishment is popular, serves good food/drinks, has a nice atmosphere, etc. because of the crowd outside. I might be inspired to try out the restaurant or bar the next time I go out. When it comes to social media, a large Twitter following and/or a great number of Facebook likes are signs of social proof. It's the digital version of a restaurant crowd; it's corroboration that an account is well-known and valuable to the masses in some way: the account may provide humor, breaking news, well-written articles, or it may be a celebrity's personal account. One the important dynamics surrounding social proof is its ability to inspire trust in everyday individuals. I recently followed Mashable on Twitter. One of the first things I noticed is that Mashable has close to three million followers. Because so many people follow Mashable and presumably use Mashable as their source for the latest social media/tech/business news, I receive the impression that the website provides interesting and accurate news. Their large following directly inspires in me a sense of trust. This same phenomenon comes into play with Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, and any politician on Twitter. Not only do high numbers of followers have the power to inspire trust, but they also speak to someone's influence and clout. Mitt Romney faces a dilemma in this regard: at the moment, he has only 791,414 followers to Barack Obama's 18.3 million. For someone who is as immersed in the public sphere as Mitt Romney, his small following presents a problem: one, because it doesn't inspire social proof and two, it might raise doubts as to Romney's ability to defeat Obama. Romney will be the face of the Republican Party in a few months, he doesn't even have one million followers? Even Ron Paul has one million! For such a public figure to have a (comparatively) small number of Twitter followers simply doesn't look good. It raises doubts when what Romney really needs to do is foster confidence in his ability to lead the U.S. Enter, the practice of buying followers. I'm not condoning Romney's actions, and clearly these fake Twitter profiles backfired because instead of boosting faith and trust in Romney, they're casting doubts upon his credibility and honesty. Yet, I think the fact that Romney (or his staff) even felt compelled to buy followers speaks to the problems with this close connection between social media and politics that has pervaded contemporary culture. What We Expect of Politicians Eighty-two percent of U.S. adults use social media sites; social media is the medium through which we interact with people, so it's natural that we expect brands, businesses, celebrities, and politicians to have social media accounts. Digitas conducted a study that found that 60% of people expect presidential candidates to have a social media presence; the interesting thing about this finding is this expectation is common among people of all age groups. Many people talk about how younger generations are more tech-savvy and in tune with social media, but actually over 50% in the 45-54 age group and in the 55+ age group believe that candidates should have a social media presence. Also, 51% of social media users plan to use Facebook and Twitter to learn about the presidential candidates for the upcoming election (though I'm hoping that for the sake of our country, "learning" doesn't mean basing one's opinion of a candidate on a Daily Show or Colbert Report video posted by a Facebook friend). Clearly, presidential candidates, and all politicians in general, need Facebook and Twitter accounts. Fortunately, social media offers politicians several advantages. These sites place them in direct contact with the American people and allow them to easily and quickly reach a large audience. Plus, when politicians have Twitter accounts and/or Facebook profiles, they seem in touch with the public: they're up-to-date on the latest technological trends and they use the same mode of communication used by the overwhelming majority of Americans. Social media has officially arrived in Washington. Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney tightly integrate social media into their official websites by offering people a variety of channels through which to "connect": Prospective voters can also like the candidates' Facebook pages and follow them on Twitter right from the websites: On first glance, this socialization of politics seems positive. It strengthens the connection between voters and their elected representatives. Politicians no longer seem distant and insulated in a kind of D.C. bubble that keeps them removed from the American public; instead, they are readily accessible, a mere 140 characters away. Yet, this prioritization of social media in politics isn't all good. When Social Media and Politics Clash Here are my reasons why social media and politics don't always mix, especially in the Presidential election this November: 1. Social Media Goggles I recently wrote a blog post where I talked about the ways in which social media distorts our view of reality. Kind of like graduation goggles (shout out to HIMYM fans), social media can give us an unrealistic impression of people and events. Comparing Mitt Romney's Twitter following to Obama's, it would seem that Romney doesn't have a shot at winning the Presidential Election because he has far fewer supporters. In actuality though, the latest poll from Huff Post Politics reports the numbers as: 46.8% for Obama and 45.5% for Romney. In reality, the percentages are extremely close, but one would never know that from looking at only Twitter or Facebook. Also, there have been several infographics (like this one and this one) that pit Romney and Obama together in a social-media match and then declare Obama the winner. Obama clearly has a greater social media presence, but those numbers are not necessarily representative of reality, as the polls indicate. Maybe Romney's social media pull is sub-par, but does that even matter? The fact that he is only 1.8% behind Obama in the polls suggests Twitter followers and Facebook likes are not the be all, end all. 2. Staff-Run Accounts Another issue with the politics-social media combination: Mitt Romney and Barack Obama don't run their own accounts. Barack Obama occasionally sends out his own tweets (which are signed "-bo"), but these tweets are sparse. I don't think anyone should criticize Romney or Obama for having primarily staff-run accounts; they're consumed by other things that are far more important than Facebook or Twitter. Yet, I think the fact that these accounts are not run by the individuals whose names they espouse conflicts with the very nature of social media: to connect to other people. We follow others, friend them, or like pages because we want to connect with them. We want to read their tweets and statuses and hear what they have to say. If Barack Obama's account is run by his staff, I'm really not connecting with Obama at all. The same goes for Romney. I'm not reading their thoughts or opinions; I'm reading statements crafted by staff, which have a more impersonal, detached, and generic feel. Obama has over 18 million Twitter followers and over 27 million Facebook fans, so clearly people don't mind the staff-run nature of these accounts. However, I think they are drawn to more personal social-media happenings: when Barack Obama himself sent out a tweet on the 4th of July, it received over 4,900 retweets, while all other tweets sent out on that day had far less. The candid photo of Barack and Michelle after the 2009 State of the Union is the most popular pin on Michelle's Pinterest boards, with 762 likes and 592 repins. 3. Superfluous PR Overload The staff-run nature of Obama and Romney's accounts connects to a second problem that arises when social media and politics merge. Because staff send out tweets and post Facebook statuses, these accounts have a very PR-heavy feel. Many posts are like mini campaign ads. These posts are perfect for rallying popular support and sparking word-of-mouth marketing through shares and likes, but I question the real value of these promotional posts. I've written before on how social media users tend to follow and like people who align with their pre-existing beliefs, so in most cases, if I see a tweet sent out by Obama's account praising the President for his support of small businesses, I'm already following Obama. Thus, I'm most likely already a supporter, and the vote I will cast in November is set. So, are these promotional posts really necessary and are they effective? They're sent out to gather support, but I'm already a supporter. I think the only value of these posts would be if I retweeted or shared one of them with my friends, and a friend who was committed to neither the Obama nor Romney camp saw it and was influenced by it. 4. Unnecessary Apps PR-heavy tweets and statuses aren't the only things that are superfluous when it comes to social media. Consider an app launched by the Romney campaign called Mitt's VP App. This app allows people to get the news on Romney's VP as soon as it breaks. This app seems extremely unnecessary, as all the major news networks will be following the announcement of Romney's vice presidential candidate like guys follow women's Olympic beach volleyball. The news (coupled with intense, in-depth analysts by political pundits) will dominate broadcast networks, Twitter, websites. Do I really need to download an app? Obama also has an app (naturally) termed the Obama for America app. According to Obama's official website, the app allows people to find local volunteer events, obtain a list of voters to talk to in their neighborhoods, access state-specific voting info, and stay up-to-date with breaking news. The site says this: This app isn't about being flashy—it's about giving you the tools you need to make the biggest possible difference between now and Election Day. Obama's app does provide people with useful tools (it was recently named App of the Day on Gizmodo). However, despite this and the not-so-subtle dig at the Romney app, I don't think that automatically means it is not an attempt to keep up with our technologically inundated society. I think this applies more so to Romney's app, but oftentimes social media has a "keep up with the Jonses' feel." Candidates are under pressure to be tech-savvy and stay in touch with the latest digital trends; hence the apps. However, I think this attempt to keep pace can come across as a frantic (or desperate) effort, and then we get things like pointless apps. I would rather see candidates and their staff focus on things that matter rather than rolling out apps that I don't really need. I don't think I'm alone in viewing various politics-related social media apps as fluff. Mitt Romney's Facebook page that features an app called "What's your take?" where fans can answer survey-like questions and weigh-in on key issues in the upcoming election. The question with the most responses had 1055 "weigh-ins," meaning that 1055 people answered this question. Romney's Facebook page has 3.6 million fans, meaning that less than 1% of his Facebook fans answered the question. It seems like most Facebook fans don't engage with this app; thus, this app seems extraneous. Rob Delaney: Mitt Romney's #1 Fan Even if we can't expect to directly connect with Mitt Romney and Barack Obama through Facebook and Twitter, we can at least connect with their biggest supporters. There are a lot of people on Twitter who are in the Romney camp, but I think Romney's number one fan just might be comedian and tweeter extraordinaire Rob Delaney. (view original post via Mainstreethost)

Win A Twitter Gold Medal: Tips From The 2012 Olympics Posted: 13 Aug 2012 08:25 AM PDT If you're on Twitter, you've most likely noticed a shift in subject matters this past week. The Olympic games have taken over prime time, my go-to news websites, and now, my Twitter feed. Since the Beijing games, social media usage has increased dramatically all-around, which has naturally lead to more online coverage for this year's competitions. So far we've witnessed good and bad practices by athletes and audiences on Twitter- it could be beneficial for businesses to pay attention to these practices to learn how to tweet like champions. See below for tips on how to use Twitter as an effective business tool. Brand Management Twitter is just another extension of your business. Although you treat Twitter differently than your Facebook and LinkedIn pages, you still need to maintain your brand's image and message across all platforms. Some athletes were criticized, and even kicked out of the Olympics, for forgetting to do this. Here are some examples: Think before you tweet. Voula Papachristou, a triple jumper from Greece, was kicked out for posting a racist tweet (as deemed by her country's Olympic committee). She has since then made a public apology, but she will not be competing in this year's games regardless. Switzerland's Michel Morganella has also been expelled from the Olympics for posting an offensive message on Twitter. One senseless act can ruin your business and its reputation – don't let this happen to you. Use common sense. Stay positive. Nobody likes a "Negative Nancy". During soccer games this past week, U.S. soccer player Hope Solo made remarks on Twitter bashing former U.S. player and commentator Brandi Chastain for her comments regarding this year's women's soccer team. Solo has been getting a bad rep for speaking her mind. You should always try to cater to as many people as possible, without being offensive. By staying positive, your business will be more appealing to more followers and potential customers. Customer Service Monitoring your followers and what others are saying about your business on Twitter can really help you stay on top of your game and make necessary improvements to your business. During some games this year, many people were unable to purchase tickets when there appeared to be many unused seats at the same games. Olympic organizers responded to the problem by directly contacting people on Twitter who had been complaining and distributing tickets to them. By responding quickly and helping those who could not obtain tickets before, the Olympic organizers built a better reputation. You can do the same for your business. Check out these ways some businesses are responding to tweets. Promotion Promoting your company's content is one of the prime roles of Twitter for businesses. The same goes for the Olympic games. The official Olympic Twitter page shows a variety of engaging tweets that inform and intrigue followers. By using images and embedding links, your posts can serve as CTAs for your content. The Olympics page also interacts with athletes and other followers through retweets and shout-outs. You want your business to be personable, especially on Twitter. Respond to your followers and produce content that they would like to retweet. The more exposure, the better! This photo on the Olympic Twitter page is interesting, funny, and engaging – look at all of those retweets! So now you have some tips on how to conduct successful Twitter campaigns, but what about Facebook? View our Facebook Timeline for Business Checklist for ways that you can increase engagement on your Facebook page!

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