She uses the photo tagging feature to tag the photos of her clients and in return they get posted to the individuals’ walls. From here the branding starts and the social media word of mouth advertising takes place.

Small, medium, and large businesses should always be looking for ways to build a brand and repertoire with their customers. Social media is another avenue to do this, and can be successful in effort, when done with a genuine approach.

Inbound Marketing Strategy Analysis Video

The Social Media Case Study – Transcript

Below is a transcription of the video for those that prefer it in this format.

Hi, I’m Mark Mathson with Keenpath.  As an inbound marketer, I’m always observing how others are using social media in their online brand building efforts and business efforts.  It’s important to use social media as a genuine method of communication.  Building brands is important, but more importantly it’s about building a connection to your customers, to your friends, to your family.  And that’s how it’s truly intended to be.

I wanted to highlight somebody today that I think is doing a good job on that while at the same time building up a good brand for her own business.

Cindy Cieluch is a well known photographer in the area.  What she does is she simply uploads photos to her portfolio to her photos on Facebook and then she tags them.  She’ll tag them with the person that she’s become friends with on there and in return the photo ends up on the person’s wall and in their photos.  This is a great way to do a brand building effort on social media using Facebook as the platform.  And in return, Cindy is probably getting more business through this because word of mouth advertising through social media is wonderful.

The benefit to this is that she’s able to simply upload pictures to her portfolio while building her brand and also the other people benefit because they get to see it on Facebook and share it with their friends, get comments, get feedback.

So the biggest takeaway for this, is whether you’re a small, medium, or large business there are small and simple things you can be doing with social media that will help with your brand building efforts while at the same time building those relationships and getting people what they truly want which is a relationship with the company before they make business and do business with them.

This is Mark Mathson with Keenpath.  Thank you.

End of Recording

More about Cindy

• Visit her photography portfolio online
• Visit her photography blog

Aimee, UserTesting.com's Director of Customer Support from their Twitter background

What are the pros and cons of putting a human face on your businesses social media presence? Should you brand it with your fancy corporate logo, or should you consider making it more personable… more human?

Our website, Keenpath.com, recently under went user testing through an online service called UserTesting.com.  They provide a service that connects you with qualified individuals (“crowdsourcing“), that based on certain credentials, background, demographics, and their ratings from other past customers.  You receive a video feedback of the user tester navigating throughout the site, and their impression and feedback, as well a written comments.

Like most businesses today, they have developed social media strategy as a supplemental campaign to help grow their business and increase their reach.

Their highly useful service is driving some much needed changes for our own web presence. Besides the great feedback received, one of the first things I noticed was the “face” of UserTesting.com is human.

Meet Aimee Williamson, the face of UserTesting.com. On the UserTesting Twitter profile you will find Aimee’s picture, as well as in the Twitter background. It introduces her as the Director of Customer Support.  Indeed she is, as a couple of days after receiving the results of the Keenpath usability test, I received a personable email directly from Aimee.  I responded with a bit of feedback, and she kindly responded back.

Needless to say, the reputation of UserTesting.com doesn’t hinge 100% on one person, because the service and website have proven to be self-sufficient in generating new customers through channels other than social media. For example, I found out about the service through an appSumo deal.

Talk with your customers, not at them

What I like most about UserTesting.com’s approach to using social media is that they are using it to truly have a conversation with their customers (who use social media). They aren’t using it as a direct-mail blast-em-away method, like some businesses do. The most effective means of generating new leads, as well as nurturing old ones is through the building up of the human side of business.

It is interesting how much customer service has transformed over time, going from face to face, to over the phone, to live chat, email and now social media.

A case study in social media: brand reputation

Social media marketers like to use the @ComcastCares story as an example of how customer support can be done via Twitter.  Better yet, what they’ve done after the original @ComcastCares guy, Frank Eliason, left publicly in July, is worth a thumbs up.  Since Comcast learned from their success at using social media for customer service, they are continuing on the path with Bill Gerth now managing the @ComcastCares Twitter account.  I would venture to say they have done this and made the transition without skipping a beat.

Putting a human face on your social media: Which platform?

There is nothing wrong with building a following on social media platforms such as Twitter profiles and Facebook Pages with human faces, however here are a few things to consider.  Twitter may be the ideal platform to do this as it “flows” better because people can Mention, send a reply, or if mutually following, send a Direct Message to the Twitter account.  Facebook might not be an ideal platform for customer service. It is great for brand building around your corporate brand, building a repertoire with your customers and the world, but doesn’t have direct contact abilities for customers. The Wall is a less than ideal place to solve customer service issues. The Discussion tab might be better, but involves more work than a Mention or @ reply on Twitter.

Evolution of online customer service

Many companies continue to innovate on the customer service experience online.  Mobile technologies allow for more freedom and flexibility, and have also become a great way to receive quick customer service. RightNow Technologies, a customer service software technology company based in Bozeman, Montana, states in a customer service strategy article, “If you’re looking to drive loyalty and retain customers, it’s time to take a serious look at the mobile experience.”

The impact of Internet and mobile technologies, in an interconnected world, spans the wide sea of using the web and social media for business, pleasure, research, and staying in touch.  It is imperative that your business learn how to use these platforms, and mesh your brand and strategy throughout.

Screencast video steps on claiming your Facebook Place

Claiming Your Facebook Place – Transcript

Below is a transcription of the video for those that prefer it in this format.

Hey, this is Mark Mathson from Keenpath.  I’ve written briefly about how using Facebook Places to promote your business makes sense.  When people come and check in at your location using their mobile phone or mobile device, then it sends a status update out to their friends, which in turn they can comment on or like, or it may even notify their friends of where they’re at nearby and they may come join them.

So it’s a win-win situation for you, your business, and their Facebook friends.  And that’s a great relationship building tool.  But first of all, if you want to take the next step and claim your Facebook Place, which is recommended, this is simply how you do it:

Browse through your Facebook Place and look at the bottom of the page for a link that says ‘Is this your business?’ Go through the simple verification step which is pretty standard with Facebook.  And when you get to this page, it’s a simple form that you fill out.  Some of it’s already filled out for you.  You’ll need to find the documentation necessary to prove that you are truly the owner of this location.  So find this in your files, upload it through this simple uploader link, and then just click the link and hit submit.

I’ve already done this for my location and I’m still waiting for a return message on the status of my verification.  But it’s pretty simple and it’s worthwhile and I recommend doing it.  This is Mark Mathson from Keenpath.  Thank you.

End of Recording

Facebook Places is a Facebook mobile application that allows you to see where your friends are and share your physical location. You can check in to nearby Places to tell your friends where you are, tag your friends in the Places you visit, and view comments your friends have made about the Places you visit.  (source)

In an upbeat video put together by the Facebook team, they describe the new mobile app as a great way to connect with other friends whom are nearby, and to help record some places you’ve been for distant memories.

Facebook Places uses a combination of geolocation, a fancy term for the identification of an Internet connected device such as a mobile phone or computer, and an interface to connect with their platform. With this it enables them to connect Profiles and Pages to their Places application.

Other services such as Foursquare, Gowalla, and Yelp already have geolocation, “check in” capabilities. It only seems natural that a large social network such as Facebook built an in-house check-in feature.

To access Facebook Places you can use the mobile app for iPhone or browse to touch.facebook.com with an HTML5 supported mobile browser. They are in the process of updating their Android and BlackBerry applications to be compatible with this feature.

How businesses can use this new feature

Social advertising. A first initial benefit is that you can now encourage visitors to your business to check-in via Facebook Places which in turn will notify their friends they are at your location. Consider running a campaign encouraging visitors to check-in at your business.

Claiming your Facebook Place for your business

You can claim the Place for your business by searching for it in the normal search bar on Facebook and visiting the Place and then click Is this your business? link. They will direct you through some steps, including phone, or documentation verification to ensure you are the rightful representative. (more information on Facebook Help Center)

If you can’t find your Facebook Place its likely because it hasn’t been generated yet. The cool thing is you can create the Place yourself by opening the Places application on a supported device and click the Check In button! Then search again and claim it.

Related articles:

• Download the guide to Places for Advertisers (facebook.com)
• Will You Use Facebook Places? [POLL] (mashable.com)
• Spotted: Facebook Location In Action. Meet Facebook Places! (techcrunch.com)

What are the changes and what you can do to be prepared?

First of all the Boxes tab which is displayed on some Profiles and Pages will be going away. This shouldn’t affect too many people’s profiles or Pages, however, it is something to be aware of if you have added a bunch of applications and information there. Go through and clean it up if you have added things there.

Second the biggest change on Facebook Pages is that the Application tab are being resized to a 520 pixel width. Landing page tabs with custom FBML  will be affected and will affect your layout and graphics especially if they are 520 pixels or wider. If you visit your Facebook Page now logged in as an Admin of the page, you should see a message that tells you that you can view your Application tab now with the 520 pixel width so you can make adjustments as necessary before the August 23 date. Normal non-admin viewers of the Page will not see the change until the switch over.

Do the math:

• If it takes you 30 minutes each to craft out a brief, but informative post about your product or service, 20 posts would take about 10 hours
• Break it down over a few days and spend 3 hours writing blog posts
• If you were paying yourself $50 an hour to write these posts it’d come out to around $500 right?

You can easily blow through $500 on advertising! Don’t get it wrong, there are purposes for paid advertising, but the beauty of inbound marketing is that if you can generate the content, it pays dividends.

Why is blogging so important with inbound marketing?

View blogging as an informal medium that allows anyone to have a voice; from CEOs to entry level employees, to citizens to President’s and high-ranking government officials.

The nature of a blog system; system referring to the structure, layout and sharing elements, is designed for a flow of information to be shared and collaborated on.

The beauty of blogging is that it only requires user generated content. What drives success with blogging is quality content, good design, how it’s promoted. Let’s break those down a bit.

Creating quality content

If time is put in to the creation of the core message and purpose, the story comes out stronger.

Ideas: Video is great for capturing visually, and often audibly, a message that can reach out and connect with the viewer. If they like it, it get’s re-shared with their friends. Reports and research, it doesn’t have to be boring to be a report and research, but can be something highly relevant to a niche audience. This may apply better to business to business, but consumers like reports as well!

Good design

The visual appeal of a website and it’s overall branded image does matter. The design is the front door that has a welcome mat by it. Content is the key that unlocks the door and welcomes the visitors in to stay a while.

Ideas: Spend the time necessary to research layouts, themes, templates, whatever you might need to create, buy, hire out to come up with something that is mostly if not completely unique to your brand. Strategize a bit – Is your content largely made up of one element such as video, or audio, or text? Do you want portions to stand out more than the rest. Think about the long term structure.

How should you promote it?

Better yet, how will you promote it. When social media first started hitting the mainstream there was a string of topical posts on how brand marketers where and are losing control over their brands. This is true, because what is going to stop false information from flowing, whether purposefully or accidentally?  Or misinterpretations of a campaign which backfires?

The key to rolling with the punches is to be able to take them easier. With a well armed blog army, whether that consists of one or many contributors, a well written blog post can be crafted to clear up anything. What happens if its dropped out into no man’s land?

Common mistake: A new blog owner starts generating content and never gets feedback and gives up. The feedback might come from multiple channels; actual blog comments or social interactions from a social network or real time search engine. Use tools like BackType, Topsy, Tweetmeme, and Facebook Pages, to see how much interaction is happening out there.

Something to do right now: Set up a few Google Alerts for your brand name or service. Use the RSS option if you prefer, or just receive straight email.

The place where outbound and inbound marketing work together

One of the places two world’s collide with marketing is the collaboration of an online and offline campaign. It can be as simple as a sign up form on a website that is reached from some printed material that was handed out an event, to something as complicated as a series of billboards that build up suspense for an online campaign. The possibilities are endless, and the basics are too easy to miss.
Ideas: Check your profiles – make sure your profiles are all linking back to your website and vice versa, when you drive someone to Facebook or Twitter from a cute sticker in your window at your location, you also want them to engage with your website and take other actions as well. This is done with social media nurturing, creating great content, and promoting your key areas of a website in multiple locations.

How it all comes together

Inbound marketing is evolving. Just as many say it has been around for a long time in different forms, but with the modern age, the here and now, it has evolved to a point where its not OK to ignore and sit passively while the wagon strolls by. No matter the industry or the apparent hurdles, its key to stick to the basic marketing elements which have driven commerce around the world to succeed on many fronts, and apply them to bleeding edge technological changes and innovations that happen daily. Social networks are growing rapidly. Social media, a buzz word, but with purpose is leading a charge to empower all with a voice, from consumer to brand to connect on a different level than ever before.

(Photo credit:  door key – Kriss Szkurlatowski / chess – Laura Leavell)

Social media, a hot topic across virtually every industry this year has merit, value and has brought to light a new form of telling your story.  The backbone of social media has existed for some time; with blogging and social networks ranging from the earliest Internet forums to chat protocols such as IRC (Internet Relay Chat). One could say that the first social networks were those held around campfires, talking and telling stories. While this may be true, the digitized aspect of social networking now has changed everything.

Over time social media centric networks such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn began to take us on a roller coaster ride that felt wobbly at the beginning and then we realized that we like it and want to stay on the ride for a while. Some are still debating whether the ride is worth getting on, and some may be getting off, but the smartest know this ride is in it for the long haul.

A typical story told on social media

There are countless social media case studies that show how connecting with their target market, while offering compelling, unique and valuable content whether written, visual or audible, can harvest the ultimate story telling situation, maximize sales, create a community around, and build your brand.

One organization that we worked with, American Red Cross of Montana, found they were able to leverage social media as a way to raise awareness of their mission and day-to-day services.  They are able leverage social media to not only create an awareness around their emergency services, but also around training and volunteer opportunities, creating a community around their mission. During Internet marketing workshops we’ve presented, a theme that shines through is to use an approach that works best for you, that is tailored to your niche and marketplace, after putting thought and research in to what really matters in your overall marketing objective.

What your story should portray about your brand

A great story has a couple of elements worth noting.

• First of all, its memorable. There are many different ways stories are memorable. It can either be outright crazy, funny, sad, weird, and filled with useful information. A great story is worth repeating. If your goal is to create a viral marketing message, then you may consider using out of the ordinary methods to tell your story. It doesn’t have to be a video to “go viral”. It can be a well crafted article or blog post, or podcast. The point is think outside of the box and put yourself in your market’s shoes. What is interesting to them?
• Second, a great story is told with conviction. If someone stands before you, tells a story and is monotone, doesn’t have a sparkle in their eye or seem to care about what they are telling you, do you listen, or at least feel inspired to believe them? No! Why would you? People have big lie detectors ingrained in their brains, and social media amplifies this instinct. If you aren’t genuine and are not sharing what is truly of value to your market, then don’t even try it.

Your story should always portray what the core focus of your organization is all about. If you are a florist that wants your arrangements to spread the message of love and inspiration to the world, tell us about it! If you are a Fortune 500 company that has a goal to sell your product that you are certain will change the world in a positive way, then tell us about it! Don’t hold back, now is the time to tell your story using social media.

Use the inbound marketing tool set for success

After crafting a memorable story filled with conviction, now is the time to share it. There is no better way than to use the tools in the inbound marketing tool chest to do so.

• Blogging
• Social Networking
• Landing Pages
• Email Newsletters
• Well written copy

Now tell your story with social media. It is worth telling, your audience is listening, and the bounce back marketing effect it will have is tangible and increases the awareness of your brand.

Pipl recently released a beta version called Pipl Contacts Search which allows you to search your entire address book and use an address book style interface to see deeper information than you may know such as the various profiles they may have across the Internet, media like images and pictures possibly associated with them, publications whether PDF file or other documents with their name in it, and also of course web pages and blog posts.

Following are a few screenshots of what the interface looks like as well as a few comments (click on the image to make it larger):

In this first screen you simply enter email address and then authenticate with your email provider. So far Gmail and Yahoo are verified to work.

After authenticating with your email provider, Pipl begins loading your contacts and then displays this screen while you wait for a few (20 or so) contacts to be processed

Now that some contacts have loaded you can begin click on a contact to load in the right pane a detailed panel of information such as Profiles, Media, Publications and Web Pages about the contact

Whoa nelly, this is crazy!

Privacy advocates may or may not find this new feature interesting, but one thing for sure, it will likely catch their eye.

If you are have questions about how Pipl handles data check out their privacy policy.

If you are interested in removing personal information from the web there is a lengthy Squidoo Lens on How To Remove Your Personal Information from Google and Internet.

What can I use this for?

There are many uses really for a tool and feature like this. There are many positive uses, and to focus on a few:

• Due diligence on a potential business partner
• Find social media profiles that you might not have known for a contact
• Find media and images associated with a person that could be used in research, articles, newsletters

For those that are wanting to monitor their personal brand, try searching your email addresses by uploading into your address book to see if you can find anything unique about your personal brand that you may not have seen before.

Question: What do you think of this new beta feature by Pipl?

Happy Social Media Day!

Come join us for a short lunch celebrating Social Media Day! Let’s chat about what you are getting out of, and putting in to social media.

Time: 1:00 PM, June 30, 2010
Location: Downtown Dog House, 4 5th St S, Great Falls, MT
Link to more info: Official Great Falls Social Media Day Meetup Page

View Larger Map

It happens all too often that the perception of a target market may be the opposite of what affect you wished to have on it.  With inbound marketing, the driving of traffic and converting it into leads and customers, you have the chance to be concise, clear and effective in your message, while affecting the bottom line, while increasing customer and client satisfaction. This happens with the product or service being found by the right target market and their perception being more qualified, or in line with your desired result. Both sides find success.

There are a few key differentiators from an effective message and an ineffective one:

1. Unclear value – Can the reader, viewer, listener understand the core value that your product or service offers?
2. Difficult to follow calls to action – Some calls to action are utterly miserable and are difficult to follow for the “end user”
3. Boring - Keep it lively. People interact better when the message being relayed to them isn’t dull and stiff, even if the subject is

By combining the natural desire you have to promote your brand in a vein of positive light, be authentic with the message and by using smart inbound marketing techniques your Internet marketing and social media marketing campaigns will have natural success.

(Photo credit: Sameer Vasta)

Online marketing isn’t about shooting rubber bands back and forth at your potential clients and customers. Even if you write a compelling message on the band before whirling it across the room (think global), they are going to shoot it right back at you, empty handed, or worse yet, it might end up in the wrong direction. Think pain in the eye, not fun.

When attending parades as a kid, I always looked forward to being on the receiving end of the candy throwers. You know, the red convertible carrying the mayor, while his assistants would whirl tasty candy in the direction of the excited youth.

I found it even more fulfilling when I was on the candy throwing end a few times. While walking with some non-profits that were getting out the message, we threw out candy with messages attached. You could call this lead generation, and hey the advertising was cheap.

The idea of bounce back marketing isn’t new. Online and digital marketing changed the game years ago, and continues to hype it up. Your best bet is to continue working hard to tell a story your customers will repeat.

(Photo credit: Thomas Hawk)

Social media marketing puts businesses where consumers hang out. As marketers we love the plethora of information available from status updates, profile information, and other pools of data. Our society has become adept to weeding out the crap, and shoveling in the good, high quality information. Cream rises to the top.

If you look at the following chart comparing traffic metrics of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter in the light of sheer volume of people to market to you might right off the bat say, lets jump on Facebook! They have massive amounts of traffic, wahoo!

Now of course there are many other social networks that deserve attention, but for sake of making a point, those three are the ones chosen.

Go where your people are

Taking a holistic approach to Internet marketing and social media marketing is key to success for any business or individual. But taking the time to find out where your target market “hangs out” is critical.

Take a look at the following world map of social networks, courtesy of vincos.it:

You probably see at least some social networks on the map that you’ve never heard of, I know I did. The key is to find out where your market is and to listen, participate and act upon where they are.

The business case and ROI regarding social media has been made time and time over again. Consumers, individuals, businesses, government, and organizations communicate daily using social media and social networking. It is becoming mandatory that customer service monitoring, response and action take place via social media as so many opportunities to build loyalty and solve real problems now exist.

As you whittle together your effort to leverage this communication mechanism for the greater good of your business and customers, it is imperative that you take some time, now, to put together a social media marketing strategy. The following is a guide to get you started on the right path, and give you some food for thought.

Key points in developing a social media marketing strategy

The purpose of a social media marketing strategy is to outline the goals and objectives of an online presence and campaign. Three basic getting started steps to developing your strategy:

Gather information

• Do you currently have social networking accounts? If so, how effective are they currently being utilized?
• If you do not have social network accounts set up, what are the goals and objectives in having them? Have you chosen target networks?

Market research

• What social networks is your target market using?
• Conduct a survey of your own, or use available resources on the Internet that may have the demographic information you are looking for. Often social networks themselves will release information in press releases and reports to the public.
• What is your market using the social networks and community for?
• Are they currently engaging with brands, or using it purely for pleasure? Is there room for your message, and are they ready to receive it?
• Listen and the message will come
• Have an open listening ear to the conversations happening in real-time about your brand and/or industry. Use real-time search functionality of major search engines such as Google or Bing. Fine tune by using niche real-time search engines such as Topsy.
• Set up Google Alerts. If you need advanced functionality, look at using services like Trackur or Radian 6

Make sure you have the ability to measure your results

• Leverage freely available tools such as URL shorteners like bit.ly to track clicks
• See social engagement and audience reach of your content by using BackType
• Don’t consider follower count to be a tell tale of your social media success. Always weigh engagement and response to your activity high.

Use available talent

• Social media and networking is all about participating, listening, and adding value. The best way to do this is to simply just get started! Iron out the kinks as you go along, and with some basic thought and foresight your campaign will be solid.

Free getting started download

This post summarizes the key points, however, sometimes having it in a downloadable format is convenient. Click here if you’d like to download the key points in getting started in building your social media marketing strategy.

(Photo credit: Intersection Consulting)

Twitter glitch reset followers to 0 (click for larger image)

Never thought I’d see the day that my Twitter followers count was equal to @Oprah @APLUSK @cnnbrk.

Today while Twitter fixes a bug that allows you to control who follows you on Twitter, they had to reset the following and follower count to zero. Their engineering team is working on a fix. For now, many people can bask in being on an equal plateau as some of the largest followed accounts on Twitter.

And remember, that even though you may have a million Twitter followers doesn’t guarantee your influence is spread as wide. Always add value to the conversation, and listen.

Update #1: Twitter solved the issue, follower and following counts are back to normal. More on their Status blog.

Or is it the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution? This video details out social media facts and figures that are hard to ignore. This video is produced by the author of Socialnomics.

Erik Qualman, the author of Socialnomics produced an updated version of his popular YouTube video on social media. He has titled this new video Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh).

Facebook posted the following information in their Help Center to give you an idea of what the changes mean to you, as an admin of a Page, or of a Page you may “Like”:

Why did “Become a Fan” change to “Like”?

To improve your experience and promote consistency across the site, we’ve changed the language for Pages from “Fan” to “Like.” We believe this change offers you a more light-weight and standard way to connect with people, things and topics in which you are interested. (Source: http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=17167)

What does it mean to “Like” a Page?

When you click “Like” on a Page, you are making a connection to that Page. The Page will be displayed in your profile, and in turn, you will be displayed on the Page as a person who likes that Page. The Page will also be able to post content into your News Feed. (Source: http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=17115)

Can I still “Like” a News Feed story about my friends Liking Pages?

No. When you see a Feed story about a friend Liking a Page, there will be no feedback links below that story. However, if you hover over the Page name, you will see a small preview of the Page and the number of other people who have also Liked that Page. You can then Like that Page to add it to your profile, or you can click through to the Page itself. (Source: http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=17116)

Is there a difference between “Liking” an item a friend posts and “Liking” a Page?

Yes. Liking a Page means you are connecting to that Page. When you connect to a Page, it will appear in your profile and you will appear on the Page as a person who likes that Page. The Page will also be able to post content into your News Feed.

On the other hand, when you click “Like” on a piece of content that a friend posts, you are simply letting your friend know that you like it without leaving a comment. (Source: http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=17168)

The Fan Box Widget appears to be changing the button to Like

The Fan Box Widget appears to be affected by the change and many of the buttons are appearing to change, reflecting the Like button.

Quick poll: vote below

Do you like the fact that “Become a Fan” was changed to “Like” on a Facebook Page?

(Photo credit: andreacanton)

Real-time search is a hot commodity. Rightly so, because of the power and sheer volume of information available at your fingertips, well, in real-time. The collaboration and syndication of social network information by the big players: Google, Yahoo! and Bing is an indicator of the increasing importance of real-time search.

What’s the big deal about real-time search?

Real-time search enables social data in the form of status updates, posts, and information stemming from social media and social network sites to be semantically flag and produce the information relevantly in a search result. Simple terms: it puts the good stuff from actual people right in front of your face, giving you what you are looking for quickly, instead of digging through long articles written by professionals.

I heard an interesting comment by Brian Solis on a HubSpot webinar today regarding his thought that Google is adapting PageRank for people. This is something he called “The Human Algorithm”. While he didn’t present any hard evidence of this, it is clear that through the vast amount of information freely available to be gleaned from status updates, blog posts and other social information would be of interest to companies from startups to largely known search engines and services. The question of how these companies can monetize on this is coming to light. Twitter, recently announced their first rendition of an advertising platform, is piloting Promoted Tweets with a select bunch of organizations. Startups such as OneRiot have discovered creative ways to monetize by partnering with large blogs such as Huffington Post for example, to display ads for articles that match real-time search requests.

While the general population doesn’t like advertising to be in their face, understandably, real-time search presents a unique opportunity to target a plethora of already built in relevant social data, with creative, but highly relevant social advertising.

Google, Bing, and Yahoo! have their work cut out to increase advertising revenue in their real-time search efforts. The best thing they can do is to continue developing their platforms to make it appealing and simple to advertisers wanting to target real-time data, with relevance.

I’m fine with all of this development around the social search advertising space, as long as its done with usability and user-friendliness in mind. People already show their dislike for advertising through using browser plugins such as AdBlock Plus or AdThwart. Marketers and organizations looking to get their message out need to continue focusing on developing great content and useful information and presenting it in the least obtrusive way possible. That is where the bread and butter is.

Question: What do you think about the real-time search monetization challenges, and do you think so far its being done right?

(Photo Credit: Jeffrey Beall)

Etiquette aside, living the Golden Rule is not only enriching, but a key driver for, or against an individuals’ or business’ success.

Customer service is not to be considered paltry, or something that is done with feedback forms only. Gary Vanyerchuk renown author and entrepreneur implies that everybody has a voice, everyone listens, everyone will be in customer service.

WIFM – What’s in it for me?

What’s in it for your customer, client, prospect? What’s in it for the stranger that has never had any contact with your organization that would drive them to want to do business with you?

Word of mouth spreads fast and far, and can be the best advocate or worst advocate for you. Recommendations from personal acquaintances or opinions posted by consumers online are the most trusted forms of advertising, according to a Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey.

A few tips to extending the Golden Rule in social media marketing

• Listen - Get as complex or stay as simple as you’d like. Simple – Set up Google Alerts and get email alerts or subscribe to an RSS feed of your alerts.  Complex – Subscribe to a service such as Radian6 or RightNow Cloud Monitor
• Participate in the discussion - Tell an interesting story to your customers. If its worthy of repeat, they will gladly do so.
• Create a campaign around your market’s needs - If you have listened and discussed with your market, you will be able to create a campaign based off their needs, not what you perceive to be theirs.  Perception isn’t always reality in this case. Run surveys, polls, and actually read the comments.

By remembering and acting on the Golden Rule in social networking, you will effectively add value to your social network and not be seen as a bump on the log.  This will prove to be a measurable driver for your success.

Chris Brogan made a suggestion on Twitter to consider creating a blog post with your Twitter follow suggestions, rather than the run of the mill #FollowFriday tweets. It does a couple things, increases traffic to your blog, while creating a semi-static place for your suggestions.

My take on this is to use Twitter Lists. You spend time building them, hand picking the best to be added, and should share them.

Below are a few of the lists we’ve created that are useful for organizations to learn about the latest trends, business resources, media and connect with others trying to make a difference in the world by working smarter and being innovative.

The lists by topic

• Entrepreneurship – Entrepreneurs, innovators, startups, CEOs, business owners
• Business Resources – Resources for business both big and small
• Marketing – Marketing freelancers, agencies, innovators
• Creatives – Graphic designers, photographers, writers and artists
• Developers – Developers, programmers, optimizers
• News Media – Old school and new school news media entities

In a recent discussion with a client in the real estate industry, we discussed ways to truly make their website a hub of useful information to current and prospective customers. At the top of the list was creating genuinely interesting content on their website’s blog. This ranges from telling stories about the local history of the area, highlighting some of the fun things to do, including pictures.

Become a master story teller

Whether speaking or writing on behalf of a small or large business, the end desired impact and hope is the same. To extend the value and importance of your brand. Extended reach can be accomplished with a wide network, whether offline or online. Not only from a public relations perspective, but also a relationship building perspective.

Do you like to be talked at, or conversed with? Its no different with Internet marketing and social media marketing strategy. I was listening to a very interesting webinar featuring Gary Vaynerchuk talking about passion inspired video and creative content, and something that he zeroed in on caught my attention. He said real relationships are key, not the tools.

Business and Consumer Whac-a-Mole

The cycle of word of mouth is intriguing. Don’t view business to consumer and business to business in the traditional sense. Your story, product, service will get sent through the channel of B2B, B2C, BCB, and so forth. Yes that’s right, BCB: Business Consumer Business. How about Consumer Business Consumer. Is that possible? Break the molds, tell the story to your target audience.

(Image credit: Colin Brough)

I respect that. But at the same time, you can have it both ways. For the sake of time, I didn’t have the opportunity to explain why its important, particular in the industry of business he is working in, however, it got my wheels spinning and I have a few thoughts as to why it is so important to connect online and offline.

Blend offline and online networking

Like I’ve said before:

The blending of online and offline contacts in a social network is key to good networking.

Some of the best businesses have been built on those strong, and key face to face relationships.

Letting your foot hit the pavement and getting out, meeting up, discussing, brainstorming and collaborating with others to build up something, whether is a business, or organization, is effective. The same effect can be realized in a different dimension with online networking. I’ve connected with many clients and business contacts that I never would have realized if it wasn’t for social networking and social media. At the same time, those existing relationships I have with people I may see every day have been strengthened through using the Internet as another channel of communication.

Take the opportunity to introduce others to this dimension

Like all good things that you realize, its always fun to share it with another. I’d challenge you to take the opportunity to reach out to your clients, contacts, and others who you desire to connect with on another level in business, and invite them to join your network, community, or group. Its likely you already have done this, but think about someone who you know isn’t quite there yet, show them the light and advantage of online networking.

(Photo credit: Loic Lemeur)

Workshop presented in Great Falls, MT

In October 2009, I co-presented a workshop titled Social Media 101 for Business, with Jeff Mangan, a friend, colleague, and owner of Fat Moose Media. Our purpose was to get local Montana organizations and business owners excited about social media and social networking, as well as to educate them on best practice and strategy. We had a great turn out, filled the room to capacity and had lots of participation.

Below, embedded is my slide deck, in which my focus was on LinkedIn, and a general overview of inter-mingling your social networks and existing web sites and blogs.

LinkedIn, the niche business networking social network site, focuses on building detailed and valuable profiles, connections, and groups to help collaboration and increase the level of communication.

Here are three tips to help you and your organization to get the most out of LinkedIn:

1. Connect with the people you know – use the import contacts feature to quickly find out who you know that already has a LinkedIn profile, and optionally invite those that don’t.
2. Make sure your profile is filled out in detail and accurate – Write a short power statement to place in the Summary on your profile and catch people’s attention. Remember that the key words on your profile help you get found in the People search feature, which is used frequently.
3. Join industry or professional groups - Find a group of your interest; alumni, organization, industry focus. Join, and participate in the conversations, read through the news articles that are shared, and submit anything you find interesting.

Using LinkedIn as a resource and guide to your online professional social networking will help you leverage a powerful, well-connected network of individuals, companies, clients and prospects to maximize your value.

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