Social networks, in essence, are platforms for people to share and disseminate information. This sadly includes a number of things I could care less about, amateur food porn included. For those who don’t know, Wikipedia states that food porn is “a glamorized spectacular visual presentation of cooking or eating in advertisements, infomercials, cooking shows or other visual media.”

What is this?

This is one of the many activities that needs to be stopped across all social media. Another pet peeve of mine is overusing Foursquare. Now, I have nothing against Foursquare. After all, I used to be an avid user. But there was one thing I never did: share my location when it wasn’t cool. To be honest, I’ve deleted friends from Facebook and Twitter because 50 percent of their posts were Foursquare check-ins. There’s literally nothing I care less about than when you’re at Target. What value does this bring to my Facebook or Twitter feed? None. Now, if you’re somewhere awesome, like a museum, sports game, hole-in-the-wall bar or a concert, then by all means, check in. I want to know when you’re at a cool place. But please, stop telling me every time you go to the drug store.

I know this seems like an over-the-top rant–and it is–but things need to change. Food porn and Foursquare usage aren’t the only things that need to be reevaluated, either. The thing that concerns me the most is the status update (or tweet).

Everyone’s guilty of posting mundane, valueless statuses (myself included), but they’re getting a little out of hand. I think Jesse Eisenberg’s character in “Zombieland” summed it up best: “The best thing about Z-land … no Facebook status updates. You know, ‘Rob Curtis is gearing up for Friday.’ Who cares?” Exactly! Who cares? No one … well, not me at least.

I know it’s completely unrealistic for every status, tweet, check-in, etc. to contain meaningful content. There are things I’ll post that’ll violate my own rules from time to time, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive towards a future that has smarter social media.

Aside from sheer annoyance, there are actual real-world implications poor social content can have. We’ve discussed it a few times already, but Google has completely revamped how their search service works. Search, plus Your World has completely changed the game with social content (Google+) showing up in search results, which makes this even more important. If you’re a Google+ user, for the sake of everyone in your Circles, keep an eye on what you’re posting.

When I post something to a social network, I usually ask myself, “Would I want to read this?” If the answer’s “no”, then I don’t post it. You should do the same.

We want to know what annoys you in social media! Tell us in the comments.

In McCarty’s case, Google asked him, “Want to ask your friends about groin rashes? Ask on Google+,” and he’s not too happy about it. In his article, he writes, “I understand that your goal is to get everybody using Google+ and I know your reasons behind it. But I’m pretty put off by being asked on EVERY SINGLE SEARCH QUERY whether or not I’d like to ask my friends about something. It’s like the Facebook share button on a porn site. There are things that I don’t ever want to talk to my friends about, even if they’re not embarrassing, so please stop asking me.”

Sullivan echoed his sentiment and stated, “However, there’s no particular intelligence going on behind this prompt. It shows up for every search, which means you can have lots of fun with it.” He then gives the following example:

Clearly, Sullivan and McCarty are right. There is no need for this to be offered for every search query. It’s another way for Google to integrate their own social network, Google+, into search results. And while we have discussed the possible impacts of Search, plus Your World before, this feels like a bit more of an intrusion. It’s well-known that users tend to head to their social networks when a search query doesn’t give them the results they want, and because of this, the “Ask on Google+” link feels a bit pushy. No one likes someone who is constantly giving you unsolicited advice, and this is what that link feels like.

It’s clear that Google+ is here to stay, and Search, plus Your World is a solid integration of search and social, search should remain Google’s primary service. What do you think? Do you find the “Ask on Google+” link as annoying as McCarty and Sullivan do? Let us know in the comments!

The first thing you as a Facebook user need to know is if you want to permanently delete your profile or merely deactivate it. Permanently deleting a profile is exactly what it sounds like–permanent deletion. The account is closed forever and you’ll no longer have access to the information contained within your Facebook profile. Deactivating it, on the other hand, is kind of like cryogenically freezing your profile. It will stay stuck in one spot in time until you decide you want to thaw it out. When you deactivate your Facebook, it makes your profile inaccessible by your now former friends, but if you log back in, everything is just like it was.

Now that you’ve decided whether you want to terminate or freeze your profile, let’s get started. We’ll begin with Facebook Deactivation.

How to Deactivate Your Facebook Profile:

1. Go to your profile’s Account Settings. When you arrive at the Account Settings page, select the Security page to the left of the screen.
2. Once you are at the Security page, click the “Deactivate your account” link.
3. At this stage of the game, you will have to fill out a brief form explaining why you want to deactivate your Facebook profile. After filling out the form, you will select the “Confirm” button, which will prompt you to enter your password, then you will have to fill out a captcha to make sure you’re a human being and not a robot.
4. You are then automatically logged out and your Facebook is deactivated.
5. To reactivate your profile, just log back in like you would any other time.

It’s literally that easy. Now, if you’re one of the people who want to permanently rid yourself of Facebook, follow the steps below.

How to Permanently Delete Your Facebook Profile:

1. To access the Facebook Account Deletion page, go to the Facebook Help Center by clicking the “Help” link at the bottom of the screen.
2. When you arrive at the Help Center, type “How do I permanently delete my account” into the search bar.
3. That will bring you the “Account Settings and Deletion” help page, click “submit your request here” at the bottom of the third paragraph to access the Facebook Account Deletion page.
4. When you are at the Facebook Account Deletion page, click “Submit.”
5. After you click “Submit”, you will be prompted to enter your password and fill out a captcha (to verify that you’re a human).
6. Once you fill out the necessary information, click “Okay.” You will then be sent an email from Facebook that says your Facebook will be permanently deleted in 14 days (two weeks).
7. This may seem simpler than deactivating your account, but it comes with a caveat: You cannot log into your Facebook at all during that 14 day period or it’ll cancel the deletion and you’ll have to repeat the whole process over again. This includes using Facebook Connect, Liking or Sharing things on external sites (websites outside of Facebook).
8. After 14 days, your Facebook profile will be no more and you’ll be living a Facebook-free life.

One important thing to remember is if in your two-week period before your account is officially deleted that you decide you don’t want it deleted after all, just log in. When you log back, in everything will appear as it was before you preemptively decided to delete it.

Do you have any questions or comments about deactivating or permanently deleting a Facebook account? Let me know in the comments or contact us!

Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan discusses the new search format in detail saying, “The new system will perhaps make life much easier for some people, allowing them to find both privately shared content from friends and family plus material from across the web through a single search, rather than having to search twice using two different systems.”

This could prove to be the biggest change in Google’s search results, but as Sullivan points out, the company will surely come under scrutiny for promoting its own content over that of its competitors. And what sets this change apart from others that have been implemented is that it will be combining social search results with public search results into one big stream, as opposed to two separate ones. This could be useful for users because they would be able to see both results at once, but it could also confuse others for the same reason.

Sullivan notes that the singular list of search results could create privacy concerns for Google because people may think those are public listings. But don’t worry, they’re not. They only appear to you because they have been shared with you. Unless someone has had that information shared with them personally on one of their social networks, they won’t be able to see private content.

In Sullivan’s article, Google’s Amit Singhal said, “The social search algorithm, and the personal search algorithm, and the personalized search algorithm are actually one algorithm now, and we are merging it in a way that is very pleasant and useful.”

It’s important to note that Google has not integrated Facebook, Twitter, Flickr or any other social networks aside from Google+. But that is not Google’s fault according to Singhal who said, “Facebook and Twitter and other services, basically, their terms of service don’t allow us to crawl them deeply and store things. Google+ is the only [network] that provides such a persistent service. Of course, going forward, if others were willing to change, we’d look at designing things to see how it would work.”

But aside from the social aspect of Search Plus Your World, the new search format could also have big SEO implications. Now that Googlers will be seeing more personalized search results based on what has been shared with them, it could prove a challenge for websites trying to to rank highly on the first page.

Only time will tell exactly what the effects of Search Plus Your World will be, what do you think of the new search format? Is it an improvement of Google’s services or a hindrance?

Kravitz is a former writer who worked for PhoneDog Media, and when he was hired, he was told to create the account @Phonedog_Noah and use that for professional purposes. In the eight months of his employment, Kravitz amassed a Twitter following of more than 17,000 people and is now being sued for $340,000 by PhoneDog Media for changing the name of his account to @NoahKravitz post-departure.

Where does the number $340,000 come from? That’s $2.50 per follower multiplied by the number of followers he collected (17,000), multiplied by the amount of time he used the account for PhoneDog Media (eight months). According to this suit, each Twitter follower is worth $2.50. But that isn’t the most important issue. Rather, the most important issue is who owns the Twitter account @NoahKravitz (formerly @Phonedog_Noah)?

One of the biggest issues with this case, however, is the fact that Kravitz and his former employer don’t even agree on whether he was an employee or a contractor. Depending on which he was, it could have an impact on how the courts determine this case. If he was a contractor, he was essentially working as a freelancer. Whereas if he was an employee, he was working directly for PhoneDog Media. There’s also a question of whether or not the company had a social media policy covering the use of accounts created for work.

Personally, I operate two separate Twitter accounts; I have my personal Twitter account and my professional Twitter account, @MikeTMProd. I set up @MikeTMProd a few weeks ago so I would have space that would primarily be for professional use. But I was never told to set this account up by TM. I did it on my own volition. It still begs the question, since I am representing TM with not only the content, but the name as well, do I really own that account? I like to think so, but this lawsuit could determine who the real owner is.

I am a firm believer that it’s important to keep your personal and professional lives separate in social media. How many stories have we read about people not getting a job or losing a job because of something an employer saw on Facebook?

Not a week goes by where we don’t see a new story about how controversial social media can actually become. Kravtiz’s battle with PhoneDog Media is just the beginning of where things could go. What do you think? Does PhoneDog Media own Kravitz’s account or does he?

(Photo credit: cbhdesign)

We’ve discussed in a previous blog post why it’s important to have an online presence that’s both well-established and engaging , but one thing we didn’t cover is why your fans’ and followers’ recommendations are so important. The reason is simple–trust.

If there’s one thing that links people together through social media, it’s trust. Most people don’t add friends on Facebook or follow someone on Twitter if they don’t trust them and/or value their opinion. Just like you wouldn’t befriend someone you didn’t trust in the real world. This trust is what can make or break a brand, company or business in social media. People don’t usually share mediocre experiences with their friends online, but if you can provide your online community with an extraordinary experience, they’ll more than likely tell their friends about it.

This type of sharing is what can really help a business grow, especially a smaller, local business. If a few people are gushing about the hottest new place or product, their friends and followers will be more influenced to try it out for themselves, whether it’s a restaurant, automobile maintenance garage or boutique. This is why it’s imperative that your customers trust you as a company and a business. If they don’t, they’ll tell the world. But if they do, they’ll do the same and the results will be clear.

We want to know if you can tell us of any instance when you tried out a new product or business because of a friend’s recommendation online. What do you think? Is trust as important as we believe?

At Trademark Productions, we offer social media management services and were blown away at just how important this tool is in understanding the quality of your brand’s Page.  We’re all about having information at our fingertips here and it seems like most social media services don’t want you knowing what they do, or don’t want to make it readily accessible.  Not so in this case.

Facebook states Insights is for “… Facebook Page owners with metrics around their content. By understanding and analyzing trends within user growth and demographics, consumption of content, and creation of content, Page owners and Platform developers are better equipped to improve their business and create better experiences on Facebook.”

This tool is very similar to Google Analytics, except it’s solely dedicated to analyzing Facebook data. All data is updated on a daily basis and is available 24 hours after it’s analyzed. Insights provides Page owners with two kinds of basic information: User Insights and Interaction Insights.

User Insights will show you the number of fans, or Likes your page has, Like sources, new Likes and Unlikes, page views and unique page views, tab views, demographics, media consumption, and external referrers.

This information will allow you to see exactly how your Page is doing. It’s a great way to test out different social media strategies and see what works best. If you launch a social media campaign about your product and your Page views and Likes increase, then you know you’re doing something right. The opposite applies if Page views decrease and you are Unliked by users. Social media campaigns are often a trial-and-error system and these metrics will help you better refine your techniques.

User Insights

An the other hand, Interaction Insights show you daily story feedback (post Likes or comments) and your Page’s daily activity, such as discussions, mentions, wall posts, video posts, and reviews.

All of these Insights are excellent ways to determine how your individual posts are doing. It’s similar to User Insights in that it will help you better understand what posts work and what posts don’t. Interaction Insights also give you a look into how many people are directly interacting with your Page, a vital resource in determining how successful your Page is.

Interactions Insights

One of the best features of Insights, however, is the fact that the data provided can be exported, so you can keep a log of how your page is doing and track any progress on your own.

Whether you’re a big-market brand or a small mom-and-pop store trying to get your feet wet in social media, Facebook Insights are a vital tool for you to understand the health of your Facebook Page.

Don’t hesitate to contact us with questions about how we can help to improve your social media strategy; we’d love to hear from you! And as always, the coffee’s on us.

Yes, the network is barely six months old, but author Chris Brogan has told Mashable he believes it’s a game changer.

When asked why he thought this, Brogan said, “It’s pretty easy to explain. Google+ posts sent to ‘public’ rank fairly well in Google search results. You can’t get that with Facebook or Twitter these days. If almost 70 percent of people start their online trek to your website via search, then that’s fairly self-explanatory.”

In essence, the importance of Google+ brand pages boils down to one thing: search. People are using search engines more than ever to find company websites or information about a company. This is the main reason Google+ is so important for businesses, small or large, to invest time into.

Cultivating an online community is a challenging task that we discussed in a previous blog post, but with Google+, it’s not about the size of the community, but the quality. Google+ offers your brand things that simply aren’t available on Twitter or Facebook. One, as mentioned before, is the ability to have posts rank in search engines. The second is that Google+ Brand Pages are not passive networks like Twitter.

When something is shared on Twitter, it’s just thrown out into cyberspace. There is no guarantee that someone will send a @mention in return or retweet the post. And while those things are not guaranteed on Google+, there’s more room for encouragement. Brogan said, “… the visual appeal of Google+ pages encourages more clicking. Brands can host hangouts and have deeper interaction than on Twitter. Because Google’s search features are far more robust than Facebook, the opportunity to prospect and find more potential community members is much better.” This deeper interaction is why your company needs to invest in Google+.

Facebook and Twitter should not be discounted, though, since they are still the dominant social networks and should be treated as such. But Google+ offers your company a chance to do something different and it would behoove you to take advantage of that.

One of the things Brogan suggests companies do is host a Hangout, Google+’s group video-chat system. Hangouts are an asset that Facebook and Twitter don’t have. They could be used in a multitude of ways, such as giving your community advice or tips about your product. And this is just one of the many ways you can use Google+ to help your company gain better social exposure.

Do you have questions about how Google+ can help your business? Give us a call or shoot us an email! We’d love to discuss how we can help improve your company’s web presence with the use of  this and other social networks.

It seems pretty awesome, right? To have a tool to tell you how important you and your tweets are? I just signed up for Klout to check my Twitter influence and I have a Klout score of 51. But what does this mean?

For Twitter, what Klout does is use an algorithm to determine your influence by looking at your follower/following count and ratio, how many @mentions you have received, and retweets. Essentially, it looks at how many people you influence, how you influence them, and how influential they are. My personal Klout page is a great hub of information, but it’s still unclear what my score of 51 actually means.

Over the past several months, there have been countless articles written about the usefulness or uselessness of Klout. In one article, ReadWriteWeb writer Robert MacManus writes that yes, Klout is flawed because its “main issue right now is that nobody can figure it out. It’s at best opaque, at worst gibberish.” But MacManus also writes that people should use Klout because it can be useful to measure raw social data.

Not everyone is saying that Klout isn’t reputable, however. For instance, Jay Baer believes Klout critics are being too harsh and ignoring what Klout doesn’t measure, like real-life interaction. He writes that critics’ “slam on Klout is typically rooted in the fact that Klout doesn’t account for people’s offline influence (or even digital influence that isn’t expressed in social media).” In my eyes, offline influence is more important in the end. You can influence thousands of people on Twitter, Facebook, etc., but if you can’t influence people in the real world, then you are falling short.

I believe that Klout is, at best, an interesting measuring tool, but is not the end-all-be-all social data measuring tool some think it is. Now that I’ve signed up for Klout, I’ll still check back regularly. I think it contains useful data, but at the same time I am not going to be putting all of my efforts into raising my Klout score.

Using social networks has one purpose: sharing information with your followers/friends. And if you supply them with interesting content, you will influence them regardless of what your Klout score says.

What do you think of Klout? Do you use it?

(Featured photo © greensimagery)

This past weekend we saw Detroit Red Wings defenseman Mike Commodore provide us with both an example of how not to act on Twitter and then how to make up for a mistake. He received a tweet from a fan that took a jab at his lack of playing time and took offence to it. He retweeted the tweet (pictured at left), but preceded the post with a type of response that a public figure should never do.

This begs the question: What is an appropriate way for public figures to respond to criticism in social media? Clearly, the way Commodore responded is not the correct way. Throwing profanity in the direction of a fan is not a good way to boost his public image. (The tweet has since been deleted.) What he should have done was taken the tweet in stride and either a) not said anything to the fan at all, or b) not included the F-word in his response.

Personally, I have no problem with a public figure responding to criticisms or negative comments. In fact, I welcome it. But the manner in which Commodore responded was completely inappropriate. But wait…there is something positive that comes from all of this.

The day after his original response, Commodore apologized to the fan he responded to by tweeting, “I do have a sense of humor. Although u deserved it I will apologize for my language. My bad. I take it back. #Inappropriate.” He then followed it up with, “… Caught me at a weak moment …”

And while it is admirable that he took the high road and apologized, there are two things that should have never happened in the first place, a) dropping the F-bomb to a fan, and b) deleting his original tweet. We all know what was said anyway.

In short, we can take a few things away from this incident. First, public figures should be careful how they interact with their fans and followers to prevent a situation like this from occurring. It’s bad PR when something like this happens. And perhaps the most important lesson, is when something unfortunate like this happens, public figures should handle it like Commodore did and take the high road and apologize.

Tell us what do you think, was Commodore wrong to react the way he did?

Update 5:24p.m.: Commodore sent two tweets to TM in response to our blog post saying, “Read ur article. Pretty good. I disagree with the part about deleting the tweet being a bad thing though….reason I deleted…” and, “it was I didn’t want any kids to stumble upon it. That was the only reason. wasn’t trying to cover my tracks at all.”

This is a very classy move by Commodore. It shows that when people make mistakes online, sometimes all it takes to fix it is a little professionalism.

Social media is all around us. Everywhere you go (in person and online) there are Facebook or Twitter icons showing you that a company is online and social. The primary reason social media can get pushed aside and sometimes forgotten is simple: it’s time consuming. Cultivating an online presence is challenging and isn’t as simple as creating a profile and posting into the void. You have to be interactive and constantly evaluate what’s getting the best results.

Twitter is one of the most popular social networks used by companies to interact with their customers. But, like anything else, there are good and bad ways to use Twitter.

One of the worst ways to use Twitter is to send generic tweets that don’t have any substance. Case and point: the “Good Morning, Twitter” tweet. First, sending a good morning message across Twitter is the same as if one of us stood in the middle of Royal Oak and yelled, “Good Morning, Royal Oak!” at the top of our lungs. Sure, a few people may look, and a few people may even reciprocate our morning greeting, but most people will either a) not notice or b) look at us and go on with their morning. See what we mean? It doesn’t do anything for your company. Why waste the time and energy on something that has zero benefit to your business?

Another example of how not to use Twitter is to copy people’s or users’ tweets. One of the most commonly seen social media posts is the “Inspirational Quote” post, which are similar to the mundane “Good Morning” tweets. The reason being is that when you’re tweeting for your company, you want the content to be a) engaging and b) original. Copied content tends to be neither. Sharing others’ content is acceptable when it is relevant to your industry, but not when it’s a JFK or Shakespeare quote.

Re-tweeting content that has already (literally) been seen by thousands of people is another example of this; try to find content that is unique and under-shared. Helping out those who are lesser-known is good online karma, and usually comes back around. Part of the reason companies should use social media is to help build an online brand and community of followers. This community of followers will do wonders for your company once they are engaged. They will share your content and share content with you that they find relevant. That is one of the most important aspects of social media.

And finally, one of the most important tips for using Twitter is not to flood it with your blog posts. If your company has a new blog, you should definitely promote it, but no more than once or twice a day. There is no need to send countless tweets about it. Simply let people know it’s there and interact with them, the rest will take care of itself.

Over the last several years, we’ve seen social media’s importance rise exponentially, but many of us are still learning the ins and outs. That’s why the TM Team is here. Contact us with your questions regarding the best social media practices. We’d love to hear from you!

Social Media Marketing and Management are both still relatively new, which makes creating a social media strategy all the more difficult. But, as previously stated, it’s important not to load all your resources into one network and neglect the others, or vice versa. The first thing you must decide is what your company’s purpose is going to be on social networks. Is it just promotion, or do you want to engage with followers to facilitate a large group of supporters? Or both? Once you have decided on your company’s purpose, you must then decide what social networks you’re going to be dedicating your company’s efforts too. Facebook and Twitter are the biggest, but you can’t discount Google+ either.

One of the best ways to not only build followers, but to also get your audience to engage with your company is to hold a social media-only promotion. Offer a coupon that can only be obtained via Facebook or Twitter. Or have a contest. This can not only attract new followers, but also keep your current followers interested in your brand. Simply put, both adding new followers while keeping the current ones invested in your company’s social media are crucial to a successful social media strategy.

Each social network functions differently than the other. For instance, Twitter is only comprised of posts that are less than 140 characters. Every Tweet has a set character limit, meaning that your company must choose its words wisely. You can’t be too wordy or too brief; you must find that 140-character sweet spot. Facebook and Google+, however, have similar functions. Each network allows users to comment under/share each post. Commenting on posts is where most of the interaction between brands and followers occur, unlike Twitter where most replies are sent to one or two people individually. Knowing how to use these different social networks can make or break your company’s social Web presence.

Social media etiquette is also crucial. There are no set rules on how much is too much or how little is too little on the social Web, but there are guidelines. First, you don’t want to flood your followers’ streams with constant updates. Unless you are directly interacting with followers, it’s a good idea to keep your posts spread out throughout the day. No one wants to see 10 to 15 posts per hour from a company; it can get noisy and you will lose followers. Finding that aforementioned sweet spot is imperative. Every audience wants to see different things, and catering to your audience is also crucial. Also, it’s very important to respond to your followers as much as possible, even if what they are saying is negative. It’s important for your company to be able to respond to negative feedback in a constructive manner. Interaction is what makes the social Web so effective. Utilize this and you will not only gain followers, but influence on the social Web as well.

The Trademark Team would love to discuss how using social media can help your company gain more exposure online, leading to more business. Contact Us to make an appointment today, the coffee’s on us!

Seth getting ready to roll.

The two-team, two-game tournament left one team standing tall and the other in the gutter. TM Administrator Kris was picked last, but did not let that hinder his or his team’s performance. His team (Team One) consisted of himself (Kage) Anthony (T-Bizzle), Tyler (Tae-Bo), Seth (Sailing) Jennifer (J-Dubs) and Dean (Deano) while their competition (Team Two) was Dwight (Dizzy), Eric (Easy G), Meredith (Mere), Jeff (Rhymin J) and Ryan (Rype).

Team One left the lanes on top, beating Team Two both games regardless of a hefty handicap in both games. Dwight, or Dizzy, was left dazed after only scoring 97 and 107-point games and rolling a grand total of 14 gutter balls; something that tickled the opposing teammates to no end. The winners were promised donuts the following day, but were left hungry, instead having to forage for their own food here in downtown Royal Oak. There are rumors that bagels might appear, but who knows?

The TM team waiting to bowl!

Here is a rundown of how the games went: The night’s top performer through both games was Ryan scoring a combined total of 250 points while Jennifer nipped at his heels scoring 226 points while the bottom two players who played two games were the men in charge, Dean and Dwight with 199 and 204 points, respectively.

Click here to see Tyler roll a big strike for Team One and here to see Meredith miss two spins to botch a spare.

Here are the scores for both games:

Team One

T-Bizzle: 110 points (he did not bowl the second game).

Tae-Bo: 123 and 121, for 244 points.

Kage: 101 and 119, for 220 points.

Sailing: 132 and 83, for 215 points.

Waiting to bowl!

J-Dubs: 130 and 96 for 226 points.

Deano: 115 and 84, for 199 points.

Team Two:

Dizzy: 97 and 107, for 204 points.

Eazy G: 84 points (He only bowled one game).

Mere: 95 and 83, for 178 points.

Rhymin J: 116 and 72, for 188 points.

Rype: 92 and 98, for 190 points.

In case you’ve been under a rock for the last twelve weeks, Google began beta testing their new social media platform, called Google+, about three months ago in an effort to continue to be awesome and relevant on the web.  Google+ is a feature-packed social media platform that allows users to add the people they know to “circles”, like family or friends.  You can also do an on-air hangout via a group video chat with any of those circles and pull in streams of articles on things that interest you.  These are just a few of the features that Google released on Google+ and that they’re continuing to improve.  In fact, over the last three months, Google has released 100 new features to its platform.

The 100th feature?  They’re open to the public!  Google announced yesterday that the proverbial flood gates are open and anyone can “join the project and connect with the people they care about”.  All you have to do to join is visit google.com/+ and sign up your account.

Out of the 100 features that Google+ has released over the last three months, Facebook is doing their absolute best to steal…erm…”copy” every single one of them, and to be fair, come out with several of their own new features.

Not to be outdone, Facebook announced yesterday that it is doing a complete redesign of their profiles and will be formally announcing it later this week at its f8 developer conference.  There aren’t many indications about what exactly will be changed on the new, updated profiles, but inside sources are saying that the changes are going to be “major”.

It’s expected that Facebook’s new updated profiles will be incorporating its new media platform, which is also going to announced at f8 this week.  This component is expected to keep track of what users are actually watching or listening to on a service such as spotify and then posting it on their profiles for their friends to watch or listen to.  This is a little too Big Brother for me. :/

There is also talk of making content on Facebook profiles more “sticky”, which would make people stay on their Facebook profiles longer.  Because we all need to spend more time on Facebook?!?

Other suggestions are that they will be getting more into social ecommerce, using special Facebook credits and that there may also be some moves in preparation for the new HTML5 mobile platform called Project Spartan, which is supposed to be launching soon.

With everything going on in the social media war between Google+ and Facebook, one thing is certain; this is a divisive battle of heavyweight proportions.   A social media civil war if you will.  As time goes on, you’ll see more people jumping off of the Facebook ship and moving to Google+.  Is there enough room for both to exist?  Will people use just one of them?  Are Facebook fiends going to have another addiction to feed?

What’s going to happen next?  Look out for Facebook’s big announcement and release of the new profile format tomorrow.  I’m interested to see what happens and how Google responds.

I’m not going to mention his name or link to the posts about him because doing those things is part of the problem. Let me explain:

A very large website that gets a lot of traffic “reported” on this man’s death, except their manner of reporting was lazy and weak, and neglected some important details, such as the fact that the death was an apparent suicide (they later updated their post to reflect this rather important bit of information). The reason this was news at all? This man was a “social media celebrity”. Yes, there are such things.

Social media celebrities are people who have reach a critical mass of Twitter followers (usually around the 100,000 mark) after which large groups of other people (Usually social media wannabes and others who fancy themselves future social media rock stars) hang on their every word and rabidly click the RT button and link to every blog post they write.

This site knew that this man was a social media celebrity and threw up a keyword-rich blog post as quickly as possible (which, again, they later had to fix—not that it mattered; they were there first). Since all the social media sycophants follow this site very closely, the news got tweeted and linked and retweeted, ad infinitum, into the Great Social Media Echo Chamber. They all talked about how sad, how tragic, and wrote blog posts and comments and tweets about how this made them think and how it inspired them to get to know one another better.

Each of those people, of course, got the Retweets and blog comments that they so crave, thus furthering the cycle. Nobody wanted to appear callous. Nobody wanted to admit that they had no idea who this guy was other than “they followed him on Twitter and read his blog posts once in a while.” Now they’re in tears and talking about how inspiring he was and how his death is a poignant reminder to hug the ones we love and are we sure we really know people, and so on.

It reminds me of being in eighth grade, when the horribly unpopular girl got into a car accident and died. Nobody knew her name (or if they did, it was to make fun of her) until she became a martyr. After her tragic death, every popular kid in school went out of their way to cry and show how much they cared about her and how fondly they remembered her and it was oh so sad. Signs, memorials, and speeches went on for about a week or two until they all forgot about her… again.

Well here we are again, in eighth grade. This time, it’s not an unlucky nerdy girl. It’s an unhappy nerdy adult. The popular kids are not cheerleaders and class presidents. They are social media experts and marketers.

I feel sorry for the family and (actual) friends of this poor man. I didn’t know him before his death, and I don’t know him now, so I won’t pretend that I’m horrified and saddened by his suicide. However, his death has become a social media circus, and his friends and family don’t deserve that. Social media experts, you should be ashamed.

Just a bit of news for your Monday.

The participants were Tom Nixon from Identity PR, Pam Perry from Social Media PR Solutions, Melih Oztalay from SmartFinds Internet Marketing, and myself.

As social media took the marketing world by storm in the last couple of years, PR companies have had to learn to quickly adjust to their clients’ needs and wants. Clients are becoming increasingly more educated on the latest tools and trends as the promise of social media fulfills itself: people are spreading news to more people, more rapidly than ever before. If a traditional PR agency can’t stay on top of it, their clients will go elsewhere.

We have seen a pattern over the years, as we’ve kept up on the trends; however, our focus has and always will be tangible results from any outreach efforts. We’re working hard to increase page views, increase search traffic, and get new business for our clients. Right now, social media tools are one of the methods we’re implementing to get this done. Social media can be a powerful force for SEO and we’re making that a part of our client strategy.

At the end of the day, social media is just another tool in the toolbox. The fundamentals have remained constant: a rock-solid code base as a foundation, semantically correct markup, and excellent content. These will continue to win the day, no matter how the message is spread. Regardless, whatever comes next, we’ll be on top of that, too.

Today I fired up Klout only to see a little YouTube icon at the top. That means Klout is adding yet another service to their overall social media metric. Again, Klout’s algorithm is a secret, but it’s a good bet that a high number of YouTube page views, friends, comments, and likes are all pretty good for your Klout score.

Klout is adding new services fairly quickly. It was only three weeks ago that they added Foursquare. Of course, the big question is how long it will take them to add Google+ to their metrics (once Google releases an API for it, obviously).

It’s exciting to see Klout becoming more and more relevant. I’d love to see them add as many services as possible. Gowalla? SCVNGR? Blog metrics from Postrank? Absolutely. They all provide a big picture of how influential you are.

Things I learned on this trip:

• The Fiat 500 is a fun little car to drive
• Parking the Fiat 500 is a joy
• The Fiat 500 can turn on a dime
• When you drive a Fiat 500, you will get a lot of attention from others
• Driving a Fiat 500 is extremely economical
• The Fiat 500 interior is roomier than I had thought
• Fiat enthusiasts are more like family than any other group of car enthusiasts I’ve ever met
• Community is a fundamental part of a brand’s success

That’s one thing I couldn’t shake—the sense of family with these enthusiasts and Fiat owners. Even though these guys and gals see each other online and in person at these events, every time they get together and talk about their cars, the love of the brand just shines through.

Fiat has done well to foster that sense of community. Fiat owners are fiercely proud of their dedication to the brand, and now that it has made a reappearance in the US market, they can say “we were there.” Well, the waiting has paid off. The Fiat community is sure to get a giant boost of new blood, excited new enthusiasts, and lifelong fans.

If you missed any of my posts about my day-to-day experience, you can catch up here:

Nashville bound in a Fiat 500

Detroit to Cincinnati

Cincinnati to Nashville (with call-in podcast)

Here is the slideshow of all the pictures I took (Lots of Fiat porn!)

Proudly proclaiming my affiliation with Fiat

I checked out of the hotel and went out to the car, and there was a new sign on it, proudly proclaiming that it was a part of the Detroit to Nashville Fiat Freakout roadtrip. That was sure to get even more eyeballs than I already had.

My hair was a shaggy mess, so I decided to stop and get a haircut before I left Cincinnati; I wasn’t on any super-tight schedule, so why not? I did what any modern, connected person would do in that situation: Turn to Google and Yelp to find the best barber in Cincinnati. They didn’t let me down; Russ was a character and I got a good haircut for a good price.

It was interesting talking to him because he was excited and bewildered at all the business the internet brought him. Through a combination of SEO (a solid code foundation on his website), social media (Yelp and Myspace, in his case), and excellent follow-through (very good haircuts, and excellent customer service) he achieved success.

Crossing into Tennessee

After the haircut, I got on the road and drove almost straight through to Nashville. When I arrived at the Music City Sheraton, it was like Fiat heaven. They were everywhere.

Here’s the interesting thing about the Fiat Freakout event: It has been going on for almost thirty years. Every year, a small group of Fiat owners and enthusiasts would meet somewhere to trade stories, show off their cars, and celebrate their like-minded community. Now that Chrysler has partnered with Fiat to bring the brand back to the US, the size of the group is sure to explode, as a new generation of American car enthusiasts becomes part of this community.

In the lobby of the hotel, a full-sized Fiat 500 was retrofitted to become what I call the “world’s most elaborate video game controller”. The (real) Fiat is hooked up to a giant screen which displays a driving game. The goal is to not race to the finish and get the fastest time possible; rather it is to get to the goal with the best fuel economy. The game is designed to show off the Fiat 500′s Eco:drive technology. I came in 26th place; clearly I need to work on my efficient driving.

Let’s talk about Eco:drive. It’s insanely cool technology. You download the application, and insert any USB stick into your computer, where the application copies some code to your stick. You then take the USB stick and plug it into the Fiat’s dashboard USB port. As you drive, the car records data and send it to the stick. When you’re done, you take the USB stick and plug it back into your computer. The Eco:drive application then downloads your driving data and goes into great detail about how you can improve your efficiency with smarter shifting and other tips. It’s truly fascinating.

The Fiat Freakout event itself begins today and goes through the weekend. On Monday, I’ll have my thoughts, impressions, and overall experience up on the Trademark blog. Ciao!

Update: Here are photos from the trip!

]

Alas, it was not rain, just insane heat and humidity.

I really wish it wasn’t so abysmally hot today—I wanted to drive with the windows down and the sunroof open. It wasn’t meant to be, however. The weatherman issued severe heat warnings, telling people to stay inside. Time to crank up that air conditioning to max.

My 2011 Fiat 500 to test drive. Mine...mine...mine...mine...

Driving in early morning rush hour traffic wasn’t very much fun. I was excited when I finally got outside of Detroit and really had the chance to open up and cruise in 5th gear. I found the climate controls, the cruise control, and the radio all very intuitive, and relaxed and settled in for a few hours’ drive. The Fiat that I got has a particularly swank Bose sound system, with a subwoofer and Sirius/XM tuner. There are buttons for voice commands and Bluetooth, but I didn’t mess around with those. I tuned Sirius to Alt Nation and let loose.

Interior of the 2011 Fiat 500

It’s been a long time since I sat in an awesome car by myself with wind in my hair (albeit, A/C in this case) and too-loud music. The car just called for it, though. It was liberating and made me feel like a kid again. As I drove down the freeway, I got points, stares, and even someone taking a picture of the car. It’s new, unique, and very charismatic. People are drawn to it.

I stopped at the Ohio border to visit a homemade jerky store that I’m fond of. I don’t get down that way too often, and it’s unique enough to be worth a stop. It was about 9:30am and two locals were sitting outside a barber shop. The town, Luna Pier, has a very small-town feel. As soon as I parked, the two men got up and started walking towards me. They were older, so I figured maybe they’d say something negative about foreign cars.

To the contrary, they were both as excited as kids. “Oh wow, I heard of these, but I’ve never seen one!” “Look at the painted calipers” “That is a sharp logo!” “Chrysler is doing well to bring these here!”. They asked about the performance, the engine, they looked at the interior, and were far more enthusiastic about the car than I had assumed they would be.

It was a neat experience, and it told me one thing: Americans are ready for smaller cars. We got into a conversation about the size and efficiency. He said he was thinking a small car like this might be nice for his wife.

I got back on the road and stopped for gas outside of Dayton, where a man came up to me and asked if I was driving a Ferrari. I guess the new Fiat looks like it could be a Ferrari? I got a laugh out of it.

The Cincinnati Fiat Dealership

I finally arrived in Cincinnati, checked into my hotel and then headed over to the brand-spanking new Fiat Studio (Kings Fiat). They call their dealerships “Studios” and there’s a good reason for it—when you go in to buy a car, you pretty much get to design it custom to the way you want it. The first thing I noticed was how many color options were available. Then, I noticed that every single Fiat on the lot (and there were quite a few) was totally unique; either it had unique interior color combinations, or custom pinstriping in a variety of ways, or an Italian flag decal on the front quarter panel, or something that made it different from every car on the lot. The manager told me that there are so many possible combinations that it’s a pretty good chance there are no two Fiats on the road that are the same.

No two 2011 Fiat 500s on the road may be the same.

I’m beginning to wrap my head around the Fiat culture. The people who walk in the door to a Fiat studio are far more than just people who are looking for a car. They are already part of a community. They are fans, enthusiasts, family members. They walk in knowing more about the cars than the sales team. They want to be part of a lifestyle. The sense of community is overwhelming with these cars. You’re not buying a vehicle; you’re buying a passport into this enthusiastic group.

I have a feeling that by the end of this journey, I will be a part of the community too. Even if I never own a Fiat.

Update: Here is the photostream from the trip:

The reason I’m doing this is because Fiat reached out to me and asked if I’d like to give my impressions of this tiny car while I check out the Fiat owners’ community at the Fiat Freakout event. Why they chose me isn’t perfectly clear, but it might have something to do with my experience with Chevy earlier this year when I was chosen as part of the Chevy SXSW Road Trip Challenge. Maybe it has something to do with my work on Icrontic, and the story I wrote there about Mopar. Perhaps it was my involvement with Tweetea, where I met Chrysler’s social media guru Mike Driehorst.

The point of that “Feather-in-my-cap” stuff wasn’t to brag. It’s to show that social networking works. Fiat wants me to be in this car because I will be honest, genuine, and tell them my thoughts. Have blog, will travel. They get exposure out of it, I get a neat experience where I’ll probably make some new friends, and have some neat memories to put into my scrapbook. Plus, I’ll have the confidence of being able to say, “Hey, Fiat chose me to write about their cars.” That stuff snowballs and turns into more opportunity. If I can share that success with our social media clients here at Trademark, then all the better.

I went to pick up the Fiat in Auburn Hills, MI (which, coincidentally is the home of Chrysler Group, LLC.) The car I get to drive is a dark silver, sporty little thing, with black checker graphics and a snazzy leather interior.

It’s a 5-speed manual; here’s where I embarrassingly reveal that I haven’t driven a manual since 2001 or so, when I had a 1985 Jeep CJ-7 that was built like a tank. It was like shifting a cement truck. I think I actually grew toned biceps from driving that truck for a half a year. So here, I have to get into this little sports car and pretend like I can remember how to drive a stick.

I stalled immediately upon backing up, which was no big deal except for the two people that worked at the facility who were annoyed with me in the parking lot. No worries! I’ve got this! I restarted it and lurched forward to the security gate and nonchalantly pretended like everything was A-OK while the guard filled out paperwork to release the car to me. Yep, I got this.

I got out of the parking lot and down the road, but I stalled again at the first red light. Now, here’s where I remember to tell you that I had my 13- and 12-year old sons with me. They were terrified. “Dad…” my oldest said dubiously. “You… uh.. you sure you know how to drive this…?” He was not at all confident. My younger son was silent as a ghost in the back.

The car behind me was irked, but I got ol’ bessie going again and realized that the next step was I-75, a major freeway. Did I mention it was rush hour?

Well, I’ll spare the details except to say that by the time I got home (40 miles later), I re-mastered the manual transmission, became a hero to my sons (very important), and didn’t damage the car in any way. Success!

Now that I’ve found my legs again, I’m ready to get this baby on the open road. The Fiat is tiny, zippy, and a ton of fun to drive. It’s very strange to get used to the “borders” of the car, since they’re so close to you, but it doesn’t feel strange now that I’ve spent a couple of hours in it.

I’ll update the TM blog, make sure to take lots of pictures and video, and try my best to share this fun experience with everyone. Wish me luck!

Update: Here is the photostream from the trip:

Well, not really, but their car was parked right outside our back door today, so we went out and snapped a few pics for geek porn purposes. Obviously, Google has their work cut out for them in terms of mapping every single road, alley, street, circle, route, and frontage in the world, so there’s a good chance this is not a very rare sighting, but at least it got us excited.

Last week, The Detroit Zoo (which is just down the road from us) got the nod as the first theme park in the nation to get mapped out by the StreetView team. This makes it the first pedestrian StreetView destination in the US. They’re using the StreetView Trike to make that happen, not this car, but still—we love geek porn just as much as you do. Enjoy!
Video:

Pics:

Now that we’ve got a few years of social media as an entrenched lifestyle, and technology platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus with millions of daily users on them, business owners are finally at a point where they can make actionable sales via social media channels. Tools like Klout and Groupon have demonstrated that with the right data, it’s possible to connect products and services with engaged and interested buyers, using nothing more than social media platforms.

We’d love it if you joined us in this latest topical discussion about social media. Also, be sure to join us next week as I call in from the road; I’ll be travelling from Detroit to Nashville in a Fiat 500 for the Fiat Freakout event.

Now, for those poll questions: Brian says three months before Klout adds Google Plus to their metrics. Dwight says six (or maybe never). Who’s right?

This is good news for me, personally, because I’ve been called a “Foursquare whore” (and worse).

Still, it’s good to see that Klout is continually adding services to track. Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn aren’t the end-all, be-all of social media engagement. Klout’s self-stated mission is to measure one’s influence. You can certainly be influential and not be active on, say, Facebook or LinkedIn. The more services get added to Klout, the more accurate the measurement will be.

There’s no information yet on how Foursquare activity will influence one’s Klout score, but it can be assumed that longevity of account, whether or not you’re a Superuser, number of check-ins, number of tips you created that other people have done, and badges may all come into play.

Foursquare is the first location-based social media metric to be introduced into Klout, which is interesting. Will we see situations in which a person will have more Klout in certain geographic regions? Foursquare certainly makes it a possibility that we may begin to be able to identify influencers by region. For example, I don’t think anybody would listen to a restaurant recommendation that I make for Los Angeles… but Detroit? Sure.

Of course, the big “buzz” in the social media world (get it? har.) is Google+. Since day one, those in the social media business were speculating about when Klout would be adding G+ metrics to their measurement. Obviously, that’s going to take time, and it may not happen while G+ is in beta, but the fact that Klout continues to add social media networks at a fairly regular pace bodes well for our hopes that it will come eventually.

If this past week has shown anything, it is that social media is an ever-shifting field. Two weeks ago, nobody would have considered Google to be a serious contender in the social space, yet today people are using it with fervor, making posts about how doomed Facebook is and how much better G+ is than anything else before it. Next year, who knows what the hot social network will be.  Whatever it is, there’s a good chance Klout will be on top of it.

That’s kind of what happened to us recently. Because of a past relationship at events and through mutual friends, I happened to know this cool fella named Josh Bartlett. He handles SmartWater and VitaminWater marketing for this region. So when I started here at Trademark, I gave him a call.

“Hey, I’d love to have you come down and check out this new place I’m working. It’s cool, it’s got a good feel, you’ll like it.” He said, “Okay!” and we made a date.

Boom. A few days later and we have this:

Score! A cooler full of goodies for guests and clients

Now when guests or clients visit, we can offer them delicious hydration in the form of VitaminWater or (huge, 1.5L!) bottles of SmartWater—which is good for this rash of beautiful but hot weather we’ve been having.

We’ve got lots of cool ideas on how to help promote SmartWater and VitaminWater locally. Dwight, our CEO, even had the idea of throwing bottles down from our second-story window to hot and thirsty passers-by on Main Street. We’re still working out the details on that one…

So hey, next time you’re in downtown Royal Oak and you want to talk about web development, SEO, social media, or what we can do for your web presence, stop in. We’ll hook you up with a bottle of VitaminWater or SmartWater and you can enjoy our awesome conference room that overlooks Main street. Maybe, if you’re really lucky, you can throw a bottle out the window… (Note: you can’t throw a bottle out the window.)

It’s interesting to note, too, that the Zuck took a few stabs at Google today during the unveiling.  One can’t wonder if Google will return the favor since between these two titans, one seems intent on taking over the world and the other on selling your private information to the world.  Will they ever just get along?

Naturally, this announcement comes on the heels of Google introducing Google+ along with its own video chat feature.  Could Facebook be starting to show its age with the competition picking up in innovation where it left off?  I smell a From Zuck To Zero article coming in the not-too-distant future.

There is another interesting point worth bringing up.  Some companies have blocked sites like Facebook (including Facebook itself), yet allow Skype since they utilize the service.  They’ve always been good together, but strictly as separate entities, so how will they interact–if at all–now in the business world?

In the meantime, this could be a nice boost to Skype since its 145 million regular users stands to grow.  And, who knows?  Maybe Skype will be what takes Google and Facebook over when the social media bubble bursts!

Let’s face it: under most circumstances, forwarding an email is a bad idea. It’s the lazy way out. Somebody sent you some funny or interesting content, and you like it enough to share with your friends. What’s easier than clicking one button and going about your business?

Well, as time has shown us all, that wasn’t such a good plan. Forwarding emails is now considered bad etiquette; something the non-savvy and elderly do. It’s now associated with “mom and dad using the computer again”. Mostly, this is because the quality of the content is awful. How many times have you seen an email with a subject line that goes something like “FWD:FWD:FWD:FWD:FWD…”?

Enter the Twitter

Well here we are now, firmly ensconced in the golden era of the social media age. Twitter’s been around long enough to have a field of experts, its own culture, etiquette, and protocol. However, one aspect of Twitter feels sort of like a black sheep. It’s the retweet function.

“ReTweeting” is not something Twitter invented. Rather, it came from the same basic human behavior that created the “FWD:FWD:FWD:” phenomenon—sheer laziness. You see something you like, whether it be a funny Tweet that a friend posted or a link or a motivational quote. People would simply copy and paste it with the letters “RT” in front of it and the person’s Twitter handle behind it, like so:

“RT @primesuspect I’m fat, let’s party.”

The nice part about this is that the RT can provide context for your own commentary:

“Hahaha this guy is a riot to hang out with. RT @primesuspect I’m fat, let’s party.”

Back in 2009, there were some disagreements about protocol, over things like whether or not to put the word “via” in there, or to put the attribution at the front of or back of the Tweet, and so on.

Well, the RT became such a commonplace piece of Twitter behavior, that it became an actual Twitter feature—which solved that issue. In August of 2009, Twitter announced a native RT feature, which is what most of us use today. Some still use the manual cut-and-paste method, and tools like Tweetdeck allow you to choose which style of Retweet you want. Many people prefer the old style because it allows you to add commentary.

It’s been almost two years since the native RT went into effect, so what’s the consensus?

Back to the lazy board

Well, anecdotally, I’ll say that the RT function is something of a failure; the times I see it used are when people just want a one-click way to spread content. It’s the most low-effort form of “engagement” there is; your audience gets content (albeit, someone else’s), the person you RT’ed sometimes thanks you, and you look like a hero, right? The curator, indeed.

But there is no real engagement. There are people who do nothing but RT. Chances are, the thing being RTed is just something “funny” or cute, or a picture or a link to an event. It kind of goes against the very fundamental of Twitter, which asks “What’s Happening?” (and before that, it was “What are you doing?”). It doesn’t create conversation; rather, it essentially advertises.

The problem is: social media scoring services such as Klout and PeerIndex weigh RTs quite heavily when factoring one’s online influence. If you can get a bunch of people to RT your content, well that must mean you’re an interesting person, right?

Not really. Take a gander at some of the worst offenders. There are Twitter clickfarms that do nothing but have a pool of user accounts that RT each other and then RT specific Tweets for paid clients. They can sell that: “Look, we got 3,000 people to retweet a link to your website!” But, all those clicks are worthless: They’re sometimes not even real people.

The question, as most things with Twitter, comes back to one of engagement. If a person RTs something, does that actually create any value for you? Does that sell your product or get a customer in the door? RTs show up as messages from people you don’t know and don’t follow on Twitter. Therefore, one is much more likely to ignore the message—most of the time it just looks like clutter in your timeline.

I think time will tell the story on this one: RTs will go the way of the Forward; they’ll be seen as an occasionally useful feature that is for older or non-savvy users. I only hope that scoring services don’t continue to focus on RTs as a heavy metric.

Yes, instead of doing things the old-fashioned way and trying to generate genuine interest from folks who might like your brand and follow your Twitter account, companies have decided to take the easy way out and pay for an advertisement that, given the right search criteria that you type in, will come up at the top of your results.  Honestly, does this excite you the way it excites these companies?  Is it going to get you to try their coffee, buy their brand of clothing or shop in their store for items you wouldn’t have given a second thought about?

These promoted tweets are already being labeled by some as no better than e-mail SPAM and I’m prone to agree.  Are they even necessary when social media has allowed businesses to create pages or accounts, gain a following and interact with their fans?  What’s worse is that older promoted tweets will be hanging around the top of your screen, too.  Oh, joy.  Oh, rapture.  See enough of them and you’re liable to start avoiding those companies altogether…or mentioning them in a poor light in blog posts or your own tweets.

Twitter already tried this with the iPhone and their Quick Bar, shortly thereafter dubbed the Dick Bar in humorous-yet-biting honor of COO Dick Costolo and his grandiose plans to raise the company’s profit margin.  Users hated it, told Twitter exactly what they thought about the promoted trends and it was eventually removed.  If you’d like one person’s view of why they found it offensive, you might check out Why the Quick Bar is still so offensive.

What is it about ads ads ads these days?  Where’s the innovation?  Where’s the unobtrusiveness?  Where’s the real progress being made that doesn’t drown or choke us?  I can’t help but wonder what an ad-free internet would look like…

True or False?

Oddly enough, true.  We’ve gone from checking in to going through the check out at places like H&M, Sports Authority, Union Square Cafe and Blue Smoke.  Those last two are in NYC, so perhaps you’ll want to look for future discounts at the airlines if you plan on saving some money in a New York eatery.  Now, what kinds of discounts will be offered?  How does a $10 credit for spending $75 at H&M sound?  Even better, how about a $20 reward for spending $50 at Sports Authority?  Even I have to admit that the last one isn’t a bad deal at all.

This could just be the beginning of a beautiful friendship depending on how many people participate in the new endeavor.  It may also give Foursquare an additional nudge, keeping them safe from the other Internet big boys who’d like to see them gone or absorbed into their own entities.

Honestly, I shudder to think of the kind of media monster Susan Stark might have become if we’d have had Facebook or Twitter back then.  She could be a little on the insulting side, only not in a remotely fun way.  And as much as I wasn’t fond of her, the downside now is that there are so few film critics left in the newspapers.  It used to be that I looked forward to opening up the movie section each Friday to read all the reviews.  Good luck finding more than one or two nowadays, though.  And the few big names who are left?  They’re finding a way to be as contentious as ever on Facebook and Twitter.

Look what happened to Roger Ebert on Monday.  He wrote a Facebook post chastising folks for coming down on an Olympic hopeful caught setting fires in Vancouver.  Folks complained and his page was taken down, then restored on Tuesday.  Ironically, no better reasons were offered to him for the removal than any of us would have received.  Ebert followed it up with a tweet on Tuesday and made a less-than-well-thought-out comment regarding the death of Ryan Dunn from Jackass fame.  People were less than thrilled.

This brings up an equally contentious question; if you’re a film critic and you have a Facebook fan page–and even public Twitter account based on your celebrity status–shouldn’t you use it for being a critic and keep your personal thoughts to a personal page?  You have some say, then, as to who you are friends with and who will have access to the private content you publish.  Not that anything on Facebook is private and if they think it is, they’ll most likely attempt to find a way to make it less private in an effort to sell it to someone.

See how easy that was to go off-topic?  It didn’t make it any less true, but it probably wouldn’t be appreciated by some folks.  In the case of Ebert, nothing specific other than speed has been attributed to the death of Dunn, only there was a picture on the man’s page that showed him drinking prior to the accident.  This is what Ebert latched on to when he suggested that “Friends don’t let jackasses drink and drive.” Cautionary tweet?  Sure.  In good taste?  Probably not.  Even worse because it may not be true?  Tragically so.

But, again, was it something that should have been tweeted out or left to a private twitter and/or Facebook account?  What do you think?

It’s also an amazing way to get more business. Therefore, we owe it to ourselves to take it seriously. This is not a fad.

There is a bit of a cancer in this industry though, in the form of self-titled “Social Media Experts” who have demonstrated success in some niche or another—whether it be in a single industry or on their own personal blogs—and figure they have what it takes to sell the snake oil to others. It’s the .com boom all over again (PS: The bust is coming, but that’s another blog post for another day).

How, then, does a company who wants to engage in this space and get their message out to more people using these new tools know who to turn to for advice?

Nerds vs Jocks?

I’ve found that there is a line in the sand in the social media world. On one side you have people who come from traditional PR or marketing backgrounds, and who know how to write well, talk to people, form a message, and get the word out. On the other, you have the technologists—people who know the tools in and out, know the ebb and flow of the internet’s whims and cultures, and who are always on top of the trends.

One would think that true success can be found somewhere in the middle, then. That’s partially true, but the thing we have to take into consideration is the fact that social media exists on the cutting edge of technology. Not the cutting edge of marketing, PR, or writing. Therefore, I believe that true success can only be achieved by being a techie.

I have a lot of friends with traditional PR/Marketing backgrounds, and I know this is going to irk them, so please allow me to explain.

A person who doesn’t have technical skills is always running into frustrations and roadblocks that they have to call in outside help for—whether it be IT or the support line for a software product or going to Google to search for “how do I…” This takes a lot of time and saps efficiency; an especially poignant point when you consider how fast this world moves and how real-time social media can be.

Let me give a real world example that happened here at Trademark:

I noticed a glaring problem with our blog; our commenting system isn’t that great. You can’t reply to an individual comment and commenters are not notified when someone else posts. That makes conversation basically impossible, and encourages a “come once, post, and leave” mentality. I wanted to fix that.

I saw a great commenting system on SpinSucks the other day. I posted a comment and was enamored with the richness of the conversation. 173 comments, people arguing and discussing, and just a great deal of activity. It’s called Livefyre, and I wanted it immediately. I’m convinced that the commenting system was partially responsible for the great conversation (yeah, and the great content didn’t hurt either…)

Always bet on the nerds

See, now here’s why I’m lucky: I work at a web development company, which means that it’s full of techies. Everybody here is extremely skilled in a variety of tech disciplines. That enables us to implement technology to get things done in a very quick fashion. We’ll very likely have Livefyre up in a day or two. This will be a massive improvement in our blog system, it will empower conversations, and it will be good for business.

Now, I can recall working at other places in the past, where implementing platform changes was an onerous and foot-dragging process. First, I would have to make a case for the tool. I’d have to write a proposal explaining why I think it would be helpful. Then I would have to explain how it would fit in to our sites. Then I’d have to get approval. Then I’d have to start a conversation with our contract, off-site IT person. Then … you get the idea.

So many steps, and any one of them would put a standstill to the project if something broke down; and you know how these things go—something always breaks down.

Of course, this is not just a tech thing, it’s a culture thing. But still, having the tech equation “out of the way” means that I don’t have to explain this tool and why it’s a good thing to everyone. They spent the same five minutes I did looking at it, checking out the demo, and immediately understanding why this would be helpful—because we’re all techies. We just know how this stuff works.

Having developers in your pocket is pure gold, of course; you need a change implemented and they can make it happen without having to bring in anyone.

Ya kinda gotta be a nerd

When people think of “social media” they usually assume “Oh, that means you use Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and stuff to spread your message and talk to people.” What they never seem to remember is that you need a solid infrastructure to make those things work for you—you need lots of technology to create video, lots of technology to have a solid blog that works well, and so on.

Even using the basic tools becomes more efficient if you’re a techie. Crashes, speed issues, bugs, and other things can make non-techies throw their hands up in the air and say “Ugh, why won’t this just work?”. Techies know how to fix things, and if they don’t, they know where to go to find out how.

If you’re doing social media and you don’t have a strong tech background, it’s time to embrace your inner geek. Shrug off the last vestiges of your reluctance, get a book on the TCP/IP stack, learn how to say “Hello World” in Ruby or Python, learn how to hack a WordPress plugin with PHP. These are not bonus skills in today’s social media world. I believe that when the bust happens, those of us who have the tech skills will be the ones to survive it.

However, he fat-fingered his phone or something, and the Tweet went out on the @ChryslerAutos main corporate account. Ouch.

No big deal, right? It was an accident, we’re all human, it happens.

But in the world of social media, the news spread quickly. NMS was fired by Chrysler and it got talked about for weeks afterwards. In the Detroit social media scene, it was the topic of a special gathering of local social media businesspeople, and Chrysler had reps on hand to discuss it. It was, for lack of a better term, a Big Deal™. No matter what side of the debate you fall on, the end result was: NMS lost a client because of a simple mistake on Twitter.

Well friends, it has happened again, but the details are slightly different.

A few days ago, a major video game release came out. Called “Duke Nukem Forever”, the game had a lot of history (the story is long and interesting, but a summary is that it was supposed to have come out ten years ago and it’s been an amazingly fractious development process. There is a lot of emotion involved). The game was published by a company called 2K Games and represented on the PR side by a one-man PR firm called The Redner Group.

As reviews for the game started pouring in, they were almost universally bad. After ten years of development, one of the most hotly anticipated video games of all time was getting torn to shreds in reviews. Jim Redner didn’t like that. He was invested in this title, 2K Games was his biggest client, and his big game was getting panned. He got pissed, and unfortunately for him, he took it to Twitter.

He said a bunch of things, but the thing that got him into trouble was this: He said that based on the bad reviews, he would be re-evaluating who gets review copies of games in the future. In the gaming PR industry, this is called “blacklisting”, and it’s not supposed to happen (though it does).

2K Games, Redner’s client, did not like that. At all. They fired him almost immediately.

Now we’re left with the discussion and debate amongst PR, Social Media, and game media. Was Redner fired fairly? Did he screw up that bad? Should he be strung up? The opinions are all over the map.

Just like the Chrysler F-bomb: Regardless of where you stand, the end result is that a man lost a big client yesterday. Hit him directly in the pocketbook. If he hadn’t Tweeted what he did, he may still have a job today.

Right or wrong, keep that in mind when you Tweet on behalf of a business.

Photo Credit: Anthony Kelly on Flickr

The rationale for Twitter follower counts goes something like this: “If I can get 10,000 followers on Twitter, that means my message can be seen by 10,000 eyeballs when I tweet.”

That sounds really excellent; free advertising to 10,000 eyeballs? There are newspapers that don’t get that much circulation, right?

The fallacy is: The majority of the time, those 10,000 followers are not eyeballs. Many of them are very likely not even people. Twitter is rife with spam accounts (ironically, most of the spam accounts exist because of shady social media ‘experts’ who have pools of fake Twitter accounts they can sell to customers).

Facebook is slightly different because Facebook is a bit harder on spam accounts (but not much). The problem with Facebook “Likes” is that while you may be able to get people to “Like” you on Facebook, they tend to hide company Facebook profiles from their feeds—meaning they’ll never see your messages. The reason many people “Like” on Facebook is to get something (Like us and get a coupon, etc.). They engage once (when they “Like”) and then tend to not come back. Think of the way you personally engage with companies on Facebook. You probably don’t visit a company Facebook page on a daily basis, even if you’re a big fan.

Despite all this, there is definitely value in having Twitter followers and Facebook fans. The question becomes: How do we sort through them all and separate the good from the bad?

It can be frustrating, to be sure. That’s where companies like Klout and PeerIndex fit in.

What's your Klout?

Social Credit Score

Klout and PeerIndex are services that attempt to assign a digestible, easily communicable score to a person. Think of it as a social media credit score—they take a variety of factors into account and summarize it with a single number.

While neither company makes their algorithm public, we can assume a few things: They’ll look at your followers, attempt to discern how legitimate they are, look at the way you engage (Do you do nothing but post links to your own site? Do you ever retweet anyone? Do you “talk” or simply sell?). They’ll also look at things like how much history you’ve had on the network, how many people talk to you, and how you use the service’s other features such as lists.

They aggregate your presence on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn (Klout just started including LinkedIn yesterday, actually). and come up with a score as well as attempt to categorize you in a variety of ways. By this method, people who check your score can find out how genuine you are and what topics you are an influencer in.

The method is not perfect; not by a longshot—it can be gamed. However, if you are savvy enough to game your score, you have influence and expertise in your own sort of way and the question becomes: do you even need to game it or is that genuine influence? I digress.

However, despite its imperfections, these types of social aggregates are currently the most useful method of discerning the effectiveness and influence of a particular person.

What is Klout good for?

So what good is it knowing that someone has a higher Klout or PeerIndex than another? Klout is using this information in very creative ways. They can connect brands with top influencers in particular categories. For example: a company like HP may want to connect with tech influencers and offer them review products in exchange for blog posts. How does HP find those people? Klout can easily hand them that information. Klout has started handing out “perks” which allow brands to reward influencers in a fair and transparent manner.

This is good for influencers in that they get rewards (of course, most of the time it is implied that these rewards are in exchange for good content), and it’s good for brands who can get their products and messages into the hands of people who will spread their message appropriately.

That’s fine for bloggers, but if you’re a business owner, how does having a good Klout score get customers to walk through the front door?

If you have a high Klout or PeerIndex, people will notice you. When they notice you, they’ll talk about you. When they talk about you, people walk in. Therefore, seeking out ways to genuinely increase your Klout and PeerIndex scores is a valid social media strategy.

As social media evolves, there will continue to be an evolution of ways to measure effectiveness and influence. Klout and PeerIndex are on the cutting edge of that world, and it’s important to at least be familiar with them.

Apparently, a 29-year-old woman has been going through a rough divorce, so she created a fake Facebook profile of a 17-year-old girl named “Jessica Studebaker.” The woman intentionally created the profile to try and find some dirty little secrets from her soon-to-be ex-husband.

Angela Voelkert disguised herself as “Jessica” and started to interact with her 38-year-old husband, David. Turns out, Angela may have stopped her own murder from happening!

According to various reports, David was messaging “Jessica” and asking the fake girl to run away with him and then he told her he had already installed a GPS tracking system within his wife’s vehicle. He later to go on and tell “Jessica” that it would be much easier if his wife “was out of the picture.”

Voelkert started to show these messages to the proper authorities and she believed she provided them with enough information to put her husband in prison for a very long time. Unfortunately for her, David was able to convince prosecutors that he knew the “Jessica” account was a fake the whole time. In the end, the charges on David were all dropped.

Below are a few examples of the Facebook messages, which were included in the court’s documents:

“Once she is gone, I don’t have to hide with my kids…I can do what I want and not have to worry about not seeing my family anymore. You should find someone at your school. There should be some gang-bangers there that would put a cap in her ass for $10,000. I am done with her crap!”

“Will you be ready to go with me on the 10th? Let me know, baby!”

To close, the main thing you need to take from this blog post is that if you are in the middle of a divorce, stay away from using social media…obviously only bad things can come from it.

Give Away a Gift

Everyone loves to receive free stuff; I mean who complains about receiving free gifts? Many organizations will give away something small like a cupcake, a gift card for 10% off a product, gas cards, etc. Other organizations try very creative tactics by assembling scavenger hunts, trivia questions and various other means. Basically, give your followers an incentive to become one of your followers. Just like the old clichè goes, you need to spend money to make money.

Feed Them Knowledge

Now, I will personally admit I am a trivia junkie. Yes…I have a problem. I DVR Jeopardy and I usually go out for trivia night once a week at a local watering hole. When it comes to Twitter, trivia and product knowledge can be a great way to generate positive engagement amongst your audience.

Trivia is fun, but it can’t become receptive or some people may start to find it somewhat annoying. Instead, mix it up a little bit. Every once in a while throw a trivia question out there about your products/brand. Also, offer product knowledge and information pertaining to your organization and the industry which you work in. We do this very often here at the TM Office, with our Twitter and Facebook pages, and they have been proven to spark conversations with our audience.

Put a Smile on Their Face

We can’t be all serious every waking minute of the day; we need to laugh every now and again. Some organizations steer away from this tactic because of the professional nature of their business. This is completely understandable, but you don’t won’t to come off as an uptight and unapproachable individual. For example, let’s say you are a lawyer who uses a Twitter page to find prospective clients and inform the world about your practice. Now think about a major news story that is currently flooding the papers. How about Rep Anthony Weiner, you could say something along the lines of “I’m not going to lie, but I couldn’t even help Weiner get out of the hole he’s in.” I understand that post is a little bit racy, but people will find it funny and that could just spark people spreading word about your practice through word of mouth.

In the end, use your Twitter pages to actively engage in conversations with your audience. The more you keep them involved in the Twitter world, the more likely they’ll purchase your products as a loyal customer. They are your followers, but they want to be known as your friends. If you treat them as you treat your friends, only good things will come.

Well, if you did…we were both wrong! Soccer/Football was the number one Twitter topic for May 2011. I honestly don’t get it. I understand that soccer is the most popular international sport and I also understand the soccer playoffs must have contributed to the increase in Twitter traffic. But I still can’t believe that Twitter conversations about soccer are more important than the death of Bin Laden!

Apparently…I was wrong. According to statistics from Mashable.com, soccer/football was not the only topic more popular than the death of bin Laden. Justin Bieber was an even more popular topic!

Are you kidding me? The world’s most dangerous, evil and craziest terrorist is finally dead after spending 10 years trying to find him, but more people are interested in the way Bieber styled his hair on a given day? Again, I don’t get it, but at the same time, I’m not a Bieber fan and I don’t have Bieber Fever, so that could be a good reason why I don’t get it.

Please look below at a complete list of the top 10 Twitter topics for May 2011:

1. Soccer/Football
2. Justin Bieber
3. Osama bin Laden
4. May21st/The Rapture
5. Lady Gaga
6. Mother’s Day
7. NBA Playoffs
8. Jonas Brothers
9. Super Junior
10. The Vampire Diaries

Leave us some comments on your opinion of the top 10 Twitter topics for May 2011. What topics do you think should have been on the list, but didn’t make the cut?

This brings us to the latest Twitter controversy involving Democrat New York Rep. Anthony Weiner. If you haven’t been paying attention to the news in the last week or two, then you probably haven’t heard about Weiner’s wiener. Here’s the scoop. Earlier last week, a young female college student received a tweet from Weiner containing a picture of a man’s waist in his underwear…showing off a massive bulge. Needless to say, the media has been having a riot with this story.

Weiner completely denies sending the picture through his Twitter account and claims that it must have been a hacker who sent out the photo.

“This is a circumstance where someone committed a prank on the Internet…I didn’t send [that] picture out,” said Weiner.

The thing about this story, which is still pretty fishy to me, is the fact he isn’t denying that the picture is a picture of…um…well…the outline of his manhood! He constantly states he didn’t post or send the picture out, but according to Weiner himself, he “can’t say with certitude” that the waist-down picture showing off a male’s private member is his or not.

Later, Weiner was asked by a reporter for a reason why he didn’t notify Capitol Police to investigate the alleged hacking. Weiner said “I’m not sure I want to put national, federal resources into trying to figure out who posted a picture on Weiner’s website, uh, whatever. I’m not really sure it rises, no pun intended, to that level.”

People continued to blast Weiner with his questionable activity of not hiring someone to investigate the alleged scandal. So, Weiner finally decided to hire a private security firm to investigate. When asked why Weiner didn’t request a police probe he said “if it turns out there’s something larger here, we’ll take the requisite steps.”

So what do you think? Do you think he sent out the picture to the young college female student or do you think this was all a hoax put together by a devious hacker? Do you think Weiner has been handling the press properly or is his ways of including humor into his responses only hurting him in the long run? Let us know what you think; this is definitely a funny story we would love to chat with you about!

————————–

At the time I first wrote this, Weiner hadn’t admitted to anything yet and the blog post went live this morning.  However he admitted sending the pictures out.  So, in light of this, do we believe the sincerity of his apology? And do we believe like Jon Stewart does that it’s really Weiner’s wiener?  My bologna has a first name…it’s A-N-T-H-O-N-Y…

TRUE OR FALSE?

TRUE: Earlier this week, Twitter launched its brand new Follow button. This button gives Internet users the ability to subscribe to organizations and people’s Twitter feed by just a single click of the mouse.

Originally, when you would click the “follow” button for Twitter, the webmaster would have you redirected to the appropriate account on Twitter itself. This new Follow feature is sure to spark the word “incentive” within the minds of website publishers. This is primarily because the new button won’t redirect a user away from their website. Great move by Twitter to get the webmasters of the world on their side if I do say so myself!

If any of our friends out there wish to add the new button to their website, just click this link.

Just as they did in John Carpenter’s They Live, spammers have come to mimic everybody else. They look like your hot next door neighbor—not mine…mine are…well, ick—and they interact with people. Well, sort of. One thing I’m seeing in terms of spammers starts with their direct messages to me. They either thank me for following them and direct me to a site—which I don’t click on—direct message me and act like they’re picking up on a conversation that hasn’t taken place while directing me to a site—which I don’t click on—or use a hash tag in a tweet with my name that makes me think we’ve interacted while also directing me to a site. And I don’t click on it. Either way, I don’t click on it and while I’m prone to wanting to simply ignore those kinds of messages, I’ll actually get curious and click on their profile for a closer look.

Their profile is usually decently written and their picture legitimate looking, so the proof in the pudding is actually in their tweets. It looks like there’s interaction because of all the hash tags, but it’s not. Not really. Nobody is responding to them and if they are, it’s typically another spammer’s computer. The messages are also all business and very little personality. Any profile I see with a tweet history like that is automatically unfollowed and blacklisted—yes, I keep a list.

Some of them are advancing even beyond this. I received a reply to a tweet I sent out and the response seemed genuine, so I responded back. The next response had nothing to do, really, with mine, so I questioned it. “What does that have to do with my reply?” The message that came back suggested confusion at what I’d said and asked if I could rephrase it so that it was more easily understood. Yes, I was talking to a computer that was sending out random responses meant to engage people, only if it didn’t understand something, it queried the person. Buggars!

There’s no real easy way to rid yourself of this kind of garbage, but I do have a few suggestions. I take 5-10 minutes a day and just read (at random times) tweets and if I see this kind of “do you want more followers?,” “want more money?” or, my favorite, “want to please her more?”—pal, know your audience here because it’s never going to happen—I unfollow them and don’t feel the least bit bad about it. Then, during the weekend, I’ll go through my latest followers, click on their profiles and see if anything is amiss. If it is? Sayonara!

How do you tame these temptresses of the Twitter tweets?

First, you as an individual need to make an effort to get a better understanding of your daily consumption habits and how they effect the world around you. If you were supporting eco-friendly practices, this is the time when you make sure to start purchasing more eco-friendly products and become more of a socially responsible shopper. This is a good time to use tools like the Internet to research products and organizations and their tendencies as they relate to a cause you are working to support.

Next, you should start to engage in conversations with organizations/causes through their social media pages. Join causes and non-profit groups which will keep you involved with the specific cause/movement you are trying to promote. This will help you to learn about organizations that make practice actions of a cause you are working to promote.

Now, normally you’ll start to promote the positive things about the brand, cause, etc. that you are trying to become affiliated with. You will start to find yourself commenting and badmouthing organizations which don’t follow the standards of the cause you are working to support. This is also the same time you’ll normally spread positive word-of-mouth comments about the cause to your friends and through social networks.

Then, you will start to push specific brands/organizations a lot more through social media pages. You may start to film videos or write blogs about specific brands/organizations that are sympathetic to the cause you are supporting and actively try to spread the word about. You will also start to “Like” or “Recommend” certain articles, brands, products, etc., through social media pages. This is the stage when you have started to establish yourself as a loud voice for a specific cause.

Now, you’re becoming somewhat of an expert on the cause and you begin to provide people with statistics and your opinions. You may decide to share this in a variety of ways. Possibly through interviews, webinars, books, blogs and tweets.

On the next level, you are calling out to the public for supporters. This is the time when you try to organize with other people to establish a community with the same ideals working towards the same goal.

In the final stage of this process, you need to start working with other organizations and coordinate events collectively. This will help you to disseminate large amounts of information to multiple audiences with the same interests.

In the end, you are trying to establish a large community with a collective message to be used under a single plan which will have a big effect on making a change.

Beginning

In the beginning of your social media campaign don’t think about advertising efforts and ROI. This is not necessarily the time to start messaging an audience or a time to start positioning your social media audience. This is the time for users to establish what type of social media page you’ll create for your audience. Customers are always going to come back to something they are interested in.

Facebook started by simply giving people a place to share information with friends. This model has remained the same for Facebook, but has evolved greatly since the beginning and now you can even do your shopping through Facebook. You need to think like Facebook and give your audience something simple to expand on.

Community

Most social media communities, like Facebook, are extensions of what happens in our everyday life. Your online community relationships should imitate the positive interactions you’ve formed through your organization. If a number of your connections are established at trade expos, then start to construct conversations and questions you would generally hear at a trade expo.

Keep it Short and Sweet

Facebook’s News Feed does a great job of disseminating information to its users. You need to remember, people just glance through the News Feed until they find something they are interested in. If your posts are long and detailed, more times than not, they’ll just skim past your posting.

These are just three principles to always keep in mind. Many organizations come right out of the gate running and fail soon thereafter. If you follow these three examples, you’ll be on the right path to social media engagement success.

Both Trademark Productions and POAM worked relentlessly to get donations. POAM spent a great deal of time working through their Twitter and Facebook pages to acquire donations. Because of our joint efforts, we were able to provide really entertaining donations from Anchor Bay Entertainment, ABC Warehouse and Sony. Also, we were fortunate enough to receive numerous donations from Spartan Foods, Detroit Athletic Club members and various anonymous donors. On behalf of Trademark Productions and POAM, we would like to express a heartfelt thank-you to everyone who helped to make this donation a success. The people who received your gifts at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center were very thankful for everything you were able to provide them.

For a more detailed interpretation of exactly how things worked out on May 13, 2011 please watch the video below to get a better understanding of what POAM and Trademark Productions did to help some of America’s heroes.

First, be ready to be surprised. Harold Camping had to revise his date. Are we really going to buy the new one from someone who couldn’t get it right the first time? Even his wife had to tell him during their first night together “Honey, that’s not it.” Heck the Jehovah’s Witnesses have given up after four failed dates have passed and said “Enough with this $hit.” And the Scientologists? I haven’t been hearing the phrase “Beam me up!” lately, so I’m thinking they’re going to be sitting back and chuckling while watching the skies for the mothership…or Kathy Griffin. Rumor has it she’s their leader and making fun of them in her act is just a clever disguise to test their faith. The moral of this is to keep an open mind.

Second, come to terms with whether you’re on Team Edward or Team Jacob. And while you’re at it, can we please check Justin Bieber’s scalp for a 666? You never know who’s going to be leading the way in the underworld and it might be in our best interest to pick up a couple of his CDs just in case to show our support. We might want to pick up David Hasselhoff’s albums, too, because you know he and Tony Danza are going to be sitting on a throne of human bones swapping stories about being showcased on the walls of the Trademark Productions office.

Yeah, exactly.

Finally, I highly recommend buying very comfortable, very expensive underwear just in case we’re wrong and it does happen. This way, at least we’ll be pulling them down with some dignity as we’re about to take it in the bum for ever having doubted the whole thing in the first place. If not, we’ll be seeing you Monday morning. Come to think of it, I may be doomed to being left behind for Monday morning anyway. Oh, Kirk Cameron…how I wanted to mate with you back when I was in high school.

Most brands are using their social media pages to create a perception of a “personality” to the public. They want people to believe that they are just friends who care about their customers. This makes sense because all social media has been designed for is to connect people with people, but not to connect people with brands. For the most part, a brand’s social media page is not the #1 concern for the typical social media user.

Each social media page has created specific relationships with people and how they communicate. For example, let’s discuss the social media network LinkedIn. LinkedIn has come up with a different way for people to communicate through a social media platform. LinkedIn is more of a professional conversation rather than the social conversations most people participate in on pages like Facebook and Twitter. You may not even want to connect with a friend you have on Facebook through LinkedIn precisely because of the professional manner of the conversations on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has the right idea folks. It’s something different which combines social life with a professional persona. You can post your resume, professional experience, letters of recommendation for careers and connect with specific brands of your interest. These brands often post discussions and give the consumer the opportunity to get involved in their conversations and ask questions directly to the brand. It’s also a great way to keep up with an organization that you have been eying for a while. If you really want to become an employee of an organization, connect with them on LinkedIn and help them answer questions. You never know who may be paying attention.

Now, let’s discuss the relationship between a consumer and a brand. The conversation is nether professional or casual. This is why some people perceive brands commenting on their conversations through Facebook and Twitter as a little weird.

This is becoming an issue and it’s a head-scratcher. What’s the right thing to do with your brand on social media? How do you conversate with your consumers without coming off as a creepy brand? These are all questions/problems brands a dealing with currently. It seems like LinkedIn has started a foundation of change within the social media world, but there needs to be more out there to help a brand succeed in the social media world

We want to hear from you on this topic. What do you think? Do you really care about a brand’s Facebook page? Or are you just not really concerned with those pages?

First and foremost, never stop monitoring your consumer’s social media tendencies. You need to be aware of what consumers are buzzing about relating to your brand. Also, monitor your competitors’ conversations with their consumers. This will help you to understand what people within your target market are talking about. You need to focus on listening to your consumers and not just spitting out all the information you want to express. That’s just perceived as selfish and spammy.

Next, you need to work on improving how EdgeRank will rank your Facebook posts on people’s news feeds. EdgeRank is Facebook’s algorithm which determines what information will appear first on users news feeds first. A good way to start improving this is to add photos and videos to your Facebook posts. These items will help to create “Likes” and comments on your brand’s Facebook page, which in turn increase the rank of your Facebook posts on your consumer’s news feeds.

Another good thing to remember is that you need to use non-traditional means to engage in conversations with your consumers. You need to actively monitor your social media pages and continue conversations with people commenting or asking questions. Social media needs to be used the same way as a conversation with a close friend. Back-and-fourth communication is vital to establishing favorable engagement with your consumers.

Next, you need to make sure you respond quickly to people who post negative content on your social media pages. 2011 is very different from how things were conducted a decade ago. Back then, if someone was calling to complain about your brand, you could just leave them on hold for hours on end. Well, those actions are easily avoidable now for the consumer with the emergence of social media pages. In today’s environment, people can slam your brand with negative comments, and if not responded to quickly enough, you will be dealing with the issue of a negative image being spread like wildfire throughout the Internet. One thing to always remember is the two most important words in social media…”I’m sorry.”

Don’t forget to engage with people leaving positive comments on your social media pages, too. These people are normally the biggest supporters of your brand. If your brand actively engages in conversation with these people, you’ll increase your chances of adding new customers to your brand base.

You need to be as genuine as possible to your audience. For example, which celebrity do you believe has the most fans on Facebook? Your first few guesses would probably be something along the lines of Brad Pitt, Kobe Bryant or Megan Fox. Well, you’d be wrong. Believe it or not, Vin Diesel has the most fans out of celebrities on Facebook. This is primarily related to the fact that Diesel includes photos, videos and stories about his family and personal life. He is being very authentic and engaging with his fans as a real person and not a product. These are the types of things your consumers will respect.

Another great thing to do is tell stories to your audience. In the past, you would have had to spend a ridiculous amount of money to tell a story through a 30 second TV advertisement. Use the advantages of social media pages! People are interested in stories about how your brand overcame a problem, the founding of your organization and even customer service examples from the past. You can tell these stories with social media through text, video and photographs.

Finally, don’t use your social media pages to sell products. It’s great to give consumers the ability to find an easy way to buy your products, but you don’t want to over sell your products on these pages. With social media, put yourself in the shoes of the consumer. Whenever you post something, think to yourself “would I hit the ‘Like’ button on Facebook if I wasn’t an employee here?” Once you think outside of the normal marketing box, you’ll be on the right track to social media success.

Skype has become extremely popular, especially for people who work in a profession which requires a lot of travel. Skype gives these people an opportunity to still see their family and speak with them when they are far away. Sounds like a pretty interesting site right? Well, despite the fact that Skype’s revenues were more than $862 million last year, the organization still lost $6.9 million overall! That’s why I found it funny that Facebook and Microsoft were fighting over who was going to buy out the company. Obviously, both these prestigious organizations came to their senses and ended the idea of purchasing a money loser.

TRUE or FALSE:

FALSE: After a long battle against Facebook, Microsoft came out on top and purchased Skype for $8.5 billion. Microsoft is very excited about this purchase and will be adding Skype to their services very soon. You’ll be able to access Skype through Microsoft Outlook, Xbox 360 and Kinect and the Windows Phone.

This is obviously a very expensive purchase for Microsoft, especially because they lost money last year. Many people who have been chatting through blog posts are split down the middle on Microsoft’s decision to buy Skype. This is understandable, because Skype did lose money last year, but there are also endless opportunities for Microsoft. Microsoft is fully aware of the potential downsides, but they are convinced they have made the right decision. Tony Bates will remain the president of Skype with the new title, Microsoft Skype Division president.

What do you think about Microsoft’s latest purchase? Leave us some comments and let us know if you think Microsoft made a good choice or not.

TM President Dwight Zahringer thinks it’s a smart thing that higher government is staying away from social media. Why? “They don’t know how to use it (social media) and during a time when everybody is cutting back and budgets are being slashed, citizens might see it as an unjustified use of money to pay someone to be on Twitter or Facebook.”

I’ll play a little devil’s advocate with that and start by asking: can you name a politician who doesn’t take advantage of a social opportunity to flap their gums? Social media is social and it’s an outlet. On the other hand, Terms of Service for sites like Facebook and Twitter won’t cover them if they say something libelous about somebody else. That right there should make a nether region of their body pucker right up.

Let’s face it. There are enough politicians out there who tell folks what they want to hear in order to get elected that it ends up screwing it up for those who don’t. And while you can remove a tweet or Facebook posting, once something is out there, someone is going to have seen it. Does the name Gilbert Gottfried ring a bell? Business CEOs and political figures have resigned over what they’ve posted in the social media world, so why would somebody want to risk that if they don’t have to? Why be held accountable for something when it’s easier to avoid it altogether?

But Dwight is right; they don’t know to use social media. Paul Egan of The Detroit News mentions that folks aren’t entirely sure how they’d get followers of Rick Snyder’s campaign Facebook and Twitter accounts to migrate over to another page or account. Attracting folks is difficult enough, but getting them to move with you? It’s not likely to happen and they’re certainly not going to spring for an agency like ours to assist them.

Yet, despite the cons, some agencies within the government have had some solid luck using social media. The Department of Natural Resources and Department of Agriculture attract a solid amount of likes and interaction, so perhaps those folks ought to be teaching the other folks in Lansing the art of keeping folks informed without libeling anybody.

Of course, given the current state of economics in Michigan, it could just be that opening up social media channels would give folks another opportunity to express their displeasure to a group of folks who prefer to ignore any criticism pointed their way. In the immortal words of Judy Tenuta, “It could happen!”

1st: Establish a Plan/Goals

I’ve personally seen a few organizations start up a social media page with no foundation, no planning, and for the most part, no idea what they are doing. Who are they targeting? What is the ideal outcome of this social media strategy? How/who will be running the social media campaign? These simple, but crucially important questions must be answered and identified before an organization launches a social media page.

2nd: Don’t Hope People Will Just Come Find You

Rarely will you see a social media presence with a large amount of friends and little promotion involved. This pretty much only happens if the organization/brand is well know and already has an established following.

More common than not, it’s the complete opposite for most organizations. Companies need to work on gaining support through blogs, e-mail blasts, online articles, online books and traditional promotions. This will generate momentum and intrigue into the minds of your consumers, resulting in the consumer becoming a friend of your social media pages.

3rd: PR Personnel can’t do Everything for You

Public relations agencies can be a tremendous help when launching your presence within the social media world. Receiving help from PR agencies is great, but in the end, they can be very expensive for the long-term. At some point, your organization will have to pull back the reigns from the PR agency.

You need to understand/remember people love to see authenticity. They want to hear from the CEO, the secretary, the director of marketing and even your newest employee. People need to hear from the men and women who deal with an organization’s day-to-day operations.

Once this happens, you may now have a decent following and people will want to engage in conversations with your organization. You need to plan ahead to have someone monitor these conversations and have the ability to represent your organization in a positive light.

4th: Don’t Ignore Traditional Media Marketing

Just like with print advertisements and other media marketing approaches, social media needs to be supported by other marketing assets. Experts have started to notice over the past two years that many organizations have put the majority of their marketing and advertising efforts into their social media campaigns.

Yes, social media is important and isn’t going anywhere. But it’s just another piece to the marketing puzzle. Organizations that use their entire marketing strategy to promote their social media pages may want to rethink their approach.

5th: Not Everyone can be a Social Media Strategist

It’s very hard for anyone to state that they are a social media “expert” or “guru” when social media has only been around for about seven years. My advice is to sway away from self proclaimed “social media gurus” since most of these people only have one to two years of experience. When you launch a social media presence, you need to find the right person to handle the long-term social media monitoring as well as the ability to manage his/her normal day-to-day operations.

In the end, the most important aspect of all of this is that social media needs to be incorporated into all of your marketing and advertising efforts. Print, TV and viral promotions are very important to the success of your social media presence. Make sure to establish goals in the beginning of your campaign, avoid all the misconceptions mentioned above and you’ll be on the right track to social media success.

Facebook is a great way for any organization to actively engage its local community and inform fans—or in this case parents and students—about upcoming events. But what specifically are some things schools could be doing with Facebook, but may not be currently doing? We must remember to protect the students of the school, but also increase engagement of the school’s students, parents and teachers.

Before a school decides to create a Facebook page for themselves, there are certain protective measures that need to be taken into consideration. You need to first make sure that you receive consent from parents as to what, if anything, will be posted about their child. This relates to videos, the use of their names, school work samples, etc. It’s recommended by experts to not use the last names of students within a school’s Facebook network.

Once all the safety protections are in place, it’s time to start creating a Facebook page for the school. So, what should you be talking about on your page? Let’s start out simple. Facebook is a great way to stay connected with families and students and also a great way to find out up-to-date information regarding the school. If a school is consistent with providing this information, it’s likely that families will go directly to the Facebook page when inquiring about school news, especially if the school doesn’t already have a website of its own.

Next, share information about what’s happening at the school. Is there an upcoming football game? Band concert? Choir concert? Facebook is running 24/7 and can be utilized at any time. It’s always fun to take pictures of events going on around in the school, too. Think of a pep rally for example. You could take photos, post them to Facebook, and let students’ families see how much school spirit their children have.

Another great idea is to share information about upcoming events and official school announcements. You can create event pages and have students and families RSVP right there, which will also help you to get a proper head count.

Finally, updated information about snow days would be perfect for teachers and students. If a snow day were to occur, then everyone who was a fan of the school’s Facebook page would be notified before anyone else. It’s a great way to maintain the communication between the school and the families directly connected with the school

What do you think about this issue? Leave us some comments about your stand on schools and Facebook. Do you think Facebook is a good thing for the schools? Or do you think that Facebook will only be detrimental to the educational institutions?

According to a collective research report on behalf of Forrester Research and GSI Commerce, social media has little to no effect on the influence of consumers’ online purchasing habits. The study was conducted during a month long period during last year’s holiday season. The data from the report indicates less than 2 percent of online orders were directly related to social media efforts.

On the other hand, traditional Internet marketing efforts, such as e-mail marketing and search engine advertising, were shown to be very successful for online retailers. The study showed 82 percent of soft goods purchased through online retailers were directly related to some form of a traditional Internet marketing tactic.

According to Fiona Dias, executive vice president of strategy and marketing for GSI Commerce, social media outreach is great when running short-term sales or promotions. But in the long run? Traditional online marketing is much more effective.

Social media pages still have great uses for organizations. They help to keep customers engaged in conversations, which relate directly to the organization and the consumer. But according to the study, sales pitches on social media can be very annoying to the consumer.

What do you think about the results of the study? Do you agree with the findings or do you share a different opinion? And while we’re on the subject, do you think social media pages help boost sales for organizations or do you think social media is better utilized as a tool to project the image of an organization and actively engage your consumer base?

We look forward to reading your thoughts.

TRUE or FALSE?

TRUE: On May 2, at 2:15 p.m., YouTube plans to stream a live interview from space with the crew of the upcoming Endeavour expedition. The interview will consist of questions that have been compiled by numerous YouTube users via Google Moderator. Users who plan to submit questions to the crew of Endeavour are advised to submit videos no longer than 20 seconds. Also, incorporating the use of figures, statistics and props are strongly encouraged. The questions must be submitted to Google Moderator by April 30 at midnight EST. The video questions with the most votes by YouTube users will be the questions asked directly to the crew of Endeavour. The interview will be streaming live on PBS NewsHours’s YouTube channel on May 2.

Back in August, a young teen flooded the toilets of a public library located in Portsmouth, UK. Apparently, the teen (whose name has not been released because of his age) flooded the men’s room toilets on the third floor of the public library. He used toilet paper to fill the toilet holes and then turned on all the taps. This prank resulted in over $247,000 in repairs and the library had to stay closed for five months. Originally, the teen denied any involvement with the prank, but he was eventually caught in a lie.

The boy initially told police officers that he had nothing to do with the destruction, but then the cops caught wind of a Facebook question that the teen answered. There was a question from one of his Facebook friends asking if the teen was guilty in any way. The teen’s response, “Kind of, yeah. I’ve kept it to myself. A few mates know.”

The teen was near tears when he finally admitted to committing the act of vandalism…only after he was caught through Facebook. In response to the teen’s confession, District Judge Anthony Callaway stated the following: “What you have done was a major crime in which considerable damage was done. It resulted in the library being out of action for the period of time we have heard, and all because of your act of vandalism. I accept that you have now belatedly admitted what you did and were previously a young man of good character. Nonetheless, you should understand that the court is now likely to send you to custody.”

Facebook is becoming more and more useful for people working within law enforcement. The person who was caught obviously was young, but still…if you’re going to pull such a big prank, cover your tracks a little bit. I look forward to the near future to see this teen featured in television’s “World’s Dumbest Criminals.”

A non-partisan agency, Elections Canada, has been facing harsh criticism because they’ve stated that they will enforce laws with the Canada Elections Act, specifically section 329.

Section 329 reads as follows:

“No person shall transmit the result or purported result of the vote in an electoral district to the public in another electoral district before the close of all of the polling stations in that other electoral district.”

This law was enacted back in 1938 to prevent radio stations from stating election results on the east coast four hours before the polls closed on the west coast.  But there was no such thing as Twitter or Facebook back in those days. This law seems somewhat preposterous to people in this day-and-age because social media is not the only media outlet which people can potentially provides poll information preemptively.

“It’s not like Elections Canada will be monitoring your Twitter stream. However, if there are complaints, the Elections Canada Commissioner will investigate,” said a spokesperson from the Vancouver Sun.

This has sparked outrage within the social media community, especially with Canadians! People are tweeting, blogging and using all means of social media to spark conversations and debates about this ridiculous law. Still, it doesn’t seem like Elections Canada will be actively targeting people. With how accessible information is in today’s technical age, it’s almost impossible to rid the Internet of any information.

Here’s the delightful little conundrum we encountered; several of our team members have Facebook accounts they’ll admit to, only each time they’d enter in their employer information, they’d have one minor difference from everybody else and that went and created multiple employer pages.  We fiddled and fiddled with it, trying to get at least one person to be able to link up with the TM business page, yet Facebook just wouldn’t allow us to do it.  We ended up settling on deciding the best name for the employer, creating it in one profile and adding in everybody’s name who we worked with (who had a Facebook account this particular individual was friends with).

One of our clients approached us a couple of weeks ago because they were having the very same problem and we decided to reexamine the issue.  Lo and behold, the answer was out there.  And while it seems and probably is a bit technical, keep in mind that I’m not a technical person by nature.  Despite this, I got it to work.

Rather than steal somebody else’s thunder, I’ll simply provide you the link to Jon Ochs’s post on the subject.

Now, having gone through what he suggests, including downloading the Google toolbar add-on, there was one issue that crept up.  Each page on Facebook is supposed to have a series of numbers at the end of the web address, which is a unique identifier of that business.  Ochs will have you identify that code to be used after you download the add-on.  Unfortunately, the Trademark Productions page didn’t have this code.  What to do?  On a lark–remember, I"m not a technical person–I clicked on “Edit Page” and the code miraculously appeared at the top.  Color me happy!  And surprised.

Rather than have every employee go through identifying the code, download the toolbar and figure out what to do from there, it’s easiest if you have one person as the designated test subject.  Once he or she has the correct employer, all that has to be done is have every employee become a friend of that one person.  That one account can then edit the employer and add each and every co-worker automatically to it.  All everybody has to do then is log into their account, they’ll receive a message that they have been tagged, and approve it.  They can even go and unfriend that person if they want to since the employer information will stay the same.

Facebook is supposed to be easy and all about linking people together, but they haven’t gotten around to helping people link to their employer.  Oddity or a sadistic little game?  Please drop us a line if you’re still having issues with this.  We’ll see what we can do to help.

TRUE or FALSE:

TRUE: There is a brand new app called Songasaurus which gives you the ability to connect with other users. You can do this by searching for friends or by searching for people nearby to your location. The app will show you what songs your friends are listening to the most. Users must accept your request to view their music, so if you have been spending the last week listening to Kid ‘N Play, you won’t have to be forced to share this information with your friends. Songasaurus gives you three main ways to gain access to your friend’s musical listening activity. The first way is the ability to see what songs you have in common with your friends. This option will also tell you how many times you and your friend listen to a particular song. Also, you can find out the ratings of a specific song. The second method shows the songs that you and your friends listen to the most. The last method gives you a timeline of the last time your friend listened to a particular song.

This sounds like an amazing app. I’m so intrigued by this, that I am presently downloading the app to my iPhone as we speak! Tell us your opinion of this interesting app. Do you think Songasaurus is a cool and innovative idea? Or is it another app which should be thrown to the wayside?

So let’s discuss the findings of Buddy Media’s report. According to the study, brands that posted things outside of business hours had 20% higher engagement rates. The study reported that there are three major peaks throughout the day when people should be posting content; early morning (7 a.m. EST), after work (5 p.m. EST) and late night (11 p.m. EST). However, not every brand has the same time peaks. For example, Playboy saw peaks throughout the early hours of the morning. You need to be aware of product information and the customers of the brand to gain a better understanding of the best engagement times.

The day of the week is very important for timing purposes as well. Friday has been shown to have an 18% increase of engagement, implying that Facebook is a tool to pass the time when you’re trying to get out of the office. Buddy Media’s study found unique patterns for various industries. Below are a couple examples of the best engagement times for specific industries:

Business & Finance Industry – The best engagement peaks were during Wednesday and Thursday. These are the best days of the week for you to try and receive favorable engagement for the business and finance industry.

Automotive Industry – Their best engagement times are on Sundays, but Buddy Media’s study showed that less than 8% of posts go out on Sundays.

Next, the study showed that sometimes all you need to do is ask for engagement. For example, a post that starts with “like us if you…”—is a much better idea than a long drawn out explanation of why people should “Like” you. Try to add the words “tell us,” “post” or “comment” when trying to gain higher engagement with your Facebook posts.

These tips should help you get started gaining favorable engagement with your brand’s Facebook page. If you are still having problems, contact the people at Trademark Productions. We are all more than willing to help you.

Carter believes that PR people are destroying the social media industry and that they are just a bunch of “ignorant opportunists.” Since the decline of the need of public relations over the years, Carter believes that PR professionals are switching tech jobs with little or no experience. The first thing I noticed here, though, is that he presents absolutely zero research or information to back up the thought that PR jobs are on the decline. We only have Carter’s word, so you decide.

Next, Carter states “[PR people] are blocking the growth and effectiveness of Social Media, and they"re confusing both the people who need to be using it and and and the people who are paying for it.” Do you notice anything wrong with that quote? Take a good hard work at the word double “and.” Now you see it! It’s pretty hilarious to read something by a self-proclaimed social media expert, battering PR professionals, but he can’t even fix the typos in his blogs. Petty? Maybe, but blogs are part of social media too, so strike one Mr. Carter.

Carter then goes into great detail about “Why PR People Think They’re The Best People For The Social Media Job, and Why They Aren’t.” His main premise is that PR professionals work constantly to be involved with the communication being broadcasted to the public. He finally arrives at the statement that “public relations has always been involved with communicating to the public, so it would make sense for them to do so through Social Media. But in the same breath, they’ll tell you that Social Media is all about conversation and listening.”

What is Carter trying to say? Is he saying that social media can only be used to communicate to the public? Or that social media is only about the conversation and listening? Did he ever stop and think that social media has the ability to engage in conversations with the public and also give you the ability manage conversations and listen to your consumers opinions? In my opinion, social media is able to do all of those things and more. It seems like Carter truly doesn’t understand all the great ways social media can be utilized.

I want to highlight some additional points Carter mentions in his article:

• “PR has not historically been involved in listening more than marketers have. Ever heard of market research? Marketing surveys?”
• “PR has not traditionally been involved in conversation, especially personalized intimate conversation. In fact, pushing press releases is exactly the kind of 1.0 push that they strongly recommend against.”
• “PR has not been interested in another way that digital marketers listen to and understand customers: web analytics”

Let’s break down each one of these points. First Carter states that PR professionals have been historically “involved in listening more than marketers have.” He then asks if PR people have ever heard of market research or marketing surveys. To answer Carter’s question, yes I have heard of market research and marketing surveys. Just because the word “market” is in the title of something doesn’t mean that only marketing professionals conduct that work. The truth is that PR practitioners are taught a great deal about marketing and advertising in college. Then, once they start a job, many PR people are the ones conducting this research. How do I know this is all true? Because I have conducted numerous amounts marketing research reports, primarily because of my familiarly with the market and the public’s perception. So, believe it or not, PR people do a lot more than just listen to people.

Carter’s next point states that PR professionals have not normally been involved in conversations. Where is his research coming from? Anyone who professes to know anything about public relations knows that one of the main focuses of PR is maintaining the conversation between an organization’s interior and exterior stakeholders. So, if the PR people are managing the communication between an organization’s employees’ and their customers, how are they not involved in the conversation?

His final point states that people in public relations are unwilling to conduct web analytic research. Again, this is absolutely untrue. I personally review web analytics for our social media pages on a daily basis, normally a few times throughout the work day. These points might actually be offensive, only there’s no merit behind them and that simply diminishes their impact.

The entire article is located here. I would love to cover the rest of Carter’s rant, but to be honest, this guy is basically talking out his derriere throughout the rest of the article. I sincerely hope public relations professionals didn’t read his article and start to think lower of themselves. People need to understand that there will always be someone upset with another person’s profession. Don’t knock yourself after reading it; just remember he’s just one person with one opinion and no research to back it up.

Sheen’s mental breakdown was out in the open for the whole world to see. We all learned a little bit more about the rockstar from Mars and his everyday life around the house with his goddesses. Sheen’s biggest social media accomplishment was breaking the Guinness World Record for receiving 1 million Twitter followers in the fastest time. He bragged about his Twitter success, and then started to use his Twitter page for advertising efforts. Now even though Sheen gained a huge following on Twitter, it seems as if people are getting bored with Sheen’s antics.

Then in the middle of March, the world was introduced to the YouTube phenomenon Rebecca Black. Black, the 13-year-old girl who created the song “Friday,” had more Twitter mentions than Charlie Sheen during March. The song “Friday” has been referred to as “The most annoying song in history,” according to numerous circles online. This is kind of weird when you think about it. If the song is the most annoying song ever, than how does the video have more than 70 million views on YouTube? I guess most people just need to hear the most annoying song ever before they make fun of Black. Black was one of the most popular topics during the month of March 2011, but believe it or not…something was more popular than Black and Sheen last month on Twitter.

I was absolutely relieved when I found the results of the Top 10 Twitter Mentions for March 2011.  It feels good to know that the Japan Earthquake/Tsunami tragedy was the most popular Twitter topic for March 2011. I’m not saying I’m thrilled about the tragedy; I’m thrilled so many people care about such devastation. I hate to admit it, but I was surprised the Japan situation was first. With all the media coverage of Sheen and Black, I thought for sure they would easily be the #1 and #2 Twitter topics. It’s a good-hearted feeling to know more people are concerned with helping people, rather than laughing at people’s antics. A list of the top ten Twitter topics, for the month of March 2011, are listed below:

1.    Japan Earthquake/ Tsunami
2.    Rebecca Black
3.    Charlie Sheen
4.    Soccer/Football
5.    U.K. Comic Relief
6.    Justin Bieber
7.    Harry Potter Movie Series
8.    Carnival
9.    NCAA March Madness
10.    Lady GaGa

TRUE or FALSE?

FALSE: According to ExactTarget’s figures, sending e-mail messages directly to customers’ inboxes is still a practicable way to spread the word about your brand and products. According to ExactTarget’s research, 93 percent of consumers are subscribers to an organization’s e-mail list. Most people check their e-mail before they do anything online, and e-mail marketing messages will greatly improve your chances of reaching a larger audience. E-mail is also more commonly checked on smartphones over Facebook, Twitter and other social media pages. Not to mention that 45 percent of those people check their e-mails several times a day. So, in the end, social media is not the end to e-mail marketing. E-mail marketing is still a great way to engage in conversations with your consumers. These e-mail messages also convey information to your consumers that they would not have been aware of if they hadn’t received your e-mail and they would not be able to learn about in such detail through social media pages. So stop neglecting your e-mail marketing campaign, and remember, social media is not the death of e-mail marketing.

There are a few common mistakes PR professionals make when working on their company’s social media pages. We’re going to highlight these mistakes, and give recommendations of the best ways to avoid these mistakes.

First we’ll talk about the mistake of repurposing press releases for your social media pages. We all know that press releases are normally boring little tid-bits of information for the press. A lot of PR people will just post a URL to these press releases on their Facebook or Twitter pages. This is wrong! Instead try to ask your audience a question about the article, pull a quote or stat from the press release which is interesting. This will highly increase the likelihood of people visiting the URL you posted.

Next we’ll focus on how you should represent the personality of your organization with social media pages like Facebook and Twitter. You need to understand that when people come across your social media pages they have an attention span of about 10 seconds. If your messages are as dull as communication that goes on during an annual report meeting, you are almost guaranteed to never be read by potential customers. Now if you are in an industry such as law or financial practices, you obviously don’t want to sound like some punk kid having fun. At the same time, organizations need to loosen up a little bit. You need to pull people into your conversations. The goal in-the-end is to engage in conversations with your social media audience. Ask your customers questions, believe it or not it’s OK to show a little bit of personality.

Now if you happen to be a PR professional, I bet you’re saying “I’m a PR manager, my job is to send out messages!” Again, this is a new day-and-age, you’re going to have to get over yourself a little bit, and adapt to the new technologies of social media if you want to see any productive results. Trust me; I know it’s different from what you learned and how you conduct business as a PR professional, but PR practices will have to adapt to be more successful.

Next we need to focus on how many people should be working and becoming more familiar with social media practices. This is something that is definitely not a one person job; everyone within an organization should start to become familiar with social media practices. Now this doesn’t mean the VP of media relations needs to spend a few hours tweeting every day, but every member of a team should be encouraged to practice social media. The more people familiar with a concept, the more ideas can be discussed in a meeting atmosphere.

Finally, you need to make sure you get the basics down before you start to use cool flashy apps on your social media pages. Ask yourself, “Am I focusing enough of my social media efforts on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter?” These need to be taken care of before you start to use the apps.

All the instances discussed above are big mistakes PR people make. Hopefully we were able to help put these practices in the light for you and your organization. The main thing you should take from this is that you need to “engage” your customers. Get them talking and starting conversations, and then you will see a positive result very soon.

E-mail changed the face of the planet since we no longer had to add postage to an envelope and communication was almost instantaneous. Then there’s texting, only that doesn’t quite get the word out if you want to share something with tens, hundreds or a couple thousand people. Twitter allows you to do just that. It’s quick and it goes out to everybody who’s following you. Have a good day because you just received the rare Megaforce soundtrack in the mail? Share the news! Catch Charlie Sheen sniffing some Pillsbury All Purpose Flour? Share it! Take a picture with your camera phone, too.

And speaking of celebrities, they seem to be tweeting their little hearts out these days and we, the public, are getting an inside look at just how human—and sometimes awful—they can be. I’ve actually been at a convention before and a celebrity has announced what their Twitter address is. Next thing you know, they’re sitting on stage and tweeting with people in the audience. Annoying? Yes. The point is everybody is curious about somebody and Twitter has opened the door to satisfying some of that curiosity. Explore! Have fun! Learn to lower your expectations!

Twitter trends are actually set by a meager 20+ users, mainly news outlets. That’s an awful lot of control to have. Fortunately, there are a number of other users out there who have massive followings and share news and information that the media outlets won’t. Ask yourself what you want your followers to take away from reading your tweets. Are you just another “That girl looked at me. She obviously wants me!” kind of person or are you a “I have an opinion about something I feel is important and I’m going to express it” leader?

Finally, you’ve got 140 characters to set your example and make your presence in the world known. This forces you to think about the most important point about what you’re trying to say, yet also makes you realize how it’s being said. Using Twitter is a bit like playing a game of Battle Ship; some tweets miss and others hit their mark. You just have to play and learn as you go. Just be sure to play wisely.

You need to make sure your social media pages are very solid. When someone comes across you page, you have merely seconds to grab their attention. Your pages need to be appealing in some way to your prospective customers. The profile should give people an incentive in some form, so these people feel they are following, or getting connected with your organization for a good reason.

Now let’s spend some time getting more familiar with LinkedIn. LinkedIn is very important and should not be ignored. Did you know the average household income of people on LinkedIn is substantially higher than the people on Facebook and Twitter? So if you just so happen to be in between jobs, people that are on LinkedIn are more than likely the same people that are going to hire you to a new job.

So you need to take some time and really polish up your LinkedIn profile. Make sure you are very detailed with past work experiences, and everything overall is grammatically correct on your page. Another great tip is to join LinkedIn groups that engage in conversations with their members. A lot of the time, when these organizations are hiring, they let members of their groups know about job openings through discussions on their LinkedIn page. This is a great way to network with a company you hope to work for in the future.

Finally, utilize the “Answers” section of LinkedIn. If you check out the “Search” tab on LinkedIn and select “Answers” from the drop-down menu, you will then have the ability to search all the questions LinkedIn members are asking. I searched “social media campaigns” the other day and more than 300 questions appeared in the results. This means that I could potentially help 300 people with a problem they are having. If I was able to solve a problem for one of those questions, the next thing I would do is let them know I could help them in the future through e-mail. From then on, the ball would be in their court for whether or not they would like to pay me for my services.

In the end, you need to make sure you get the most out of your social media campaigns. There is always something new to learn about the various social media platforms. Trademark Productions will always be here to guide you down the right road to success.

TRUE OR FALSE

TRUE! Yes, believe it or not social media has made its way into the cultured art world. Presently the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has a piece, from a collection of a bunch of random Flickr photos. The Volta art fair in N.Y., which happened this month, had videos uploaded from the video-sharing site Vimeo. And the four Guggenheim Museums presented 25 videos, which appeared on YouTube. This is a growing trend, which some experts are excited about. Hugh McGrory, creative director of Culture Shock Marketing, stated “we think that art"s meant to characterize its time and explain what it’s like to be alive now.” While showing these things at museums is an accurate depiction of the life we in today, some experts don’t believe it’s really art. These people believe that people should be going to museums to find out what important art is, not random imagery from a website. But for now, the social media transition into the art world is moving fast, and shows no signs of slowing down.

“Online videos, blogging and social media offer new effective tools that can really build awareness for a small business with very little additional cost,” said Brown. “To be most effective, business owners need to develop a strategy for their participation so that they are able to connect with prospects and realize sales growth for their company.”

Each one of his workshops lasted approximately 90 minutes. They were titled “How to Use Your Blog to Attract New Customers,” “Social Media Strategies that Market Your Business,” and “Use Video to Improve Your Marketing Results.” Each session was designed to give solid advice to everyone who attended, as well as the understanding needed to jump right in and get started.

During his blogging workshop, Brown explained to people why blogs are important marketing tools. Brown believes blogs allow business owners to connect with their readers. These blogs give businesses the chance to tell a story, incorporate photos and videos and invite readers to visit your blogs and comment.

When Brown held his workshop on videos, he gave people the opportunity to learn how to use new tactics in a hands-on atmosphere. When business professionals were given this opportunity, they were able to create videos in the workshop and post them to their websites right then and there.

These are all very useful tips to help you get you started, and they will also answer some questions you may have. Maybe you don’t think blogs really do anything to sell products. Videos may not appeal to you. We at Trademark Productions will make sure you are consulted properly on social media tactics, as well as how to make videos and blogs part of your everyday marketing plan.

I will say that a smaller, fairly unknown company that manages to get a large number of followers on their Facebook fan page has my respect. They’ve been working overtime to build that up because Facebook doesn’t make it easy and the rules are very much not in your favor. So they’re doing something right. But Twitter?

One of the folks who works here in the TM office has some ties to the publishing industry and something authors need are readers. No readers, no sales. However, when someone fairly well known in the industry has 2000 Twitter followers, but someone much more unknown has 5000? Something’s not quite adding up. It might look impressive to someone unfamiliar with how Twitter is supposed to work versus how it can be manipulated, only one has to examine just who these followers are and how many are legitimate.

Part of the key to social media is indeed legitimate users. Having 2000 fake or spam accounts following you isn’t going to look impressive to your other followers when they see the kind of crap that gets tweeted out. And it’s not just about having an account with legitimate followers because how likely are they to convert into potential customers or recommend you to someone if you never actually interact with them?

Interaction is the key. Sending out a thank you message to folks who follow you is a start. If they like that sort of thing, and most do, they may respond just to see if you’re still listening. If you consider them important enough to have added to your online social media portfolio, then you’ll dash them back a quick note, which is something they’ll remember. Do that and if something comes up where they have a question, chances are they’ll remember you and come to you first.

The same can be said on Facebook. You can bait your followers with posts and links until you’re blue in the face, but miss responding back to a question or comment someone makes and your job just became many times more difficult. Make the time, take the time and even if you only manage to get 100 followers in a month or two on Facebook, at least you know you’re getting the right kind of followers.

Would you rather have 100 followers you interact with or 5000 followers who don’t care they’re following you and you never interact with?

Now, just because you can’t find “Comments” through search engines anymore, doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t find information on your friends “Comments.” You can use platforms like Disqus, Search Engine Roundtable, or Intense Debate to still find the “Comments.” These have ways to gain access, to what has been referred to as “The Walled Garden of Facebook.” Basically this is where all the “Comments,” or anything you write on Facebook, are saved at. In the end, all this content belongs to Facebook. But recently, someone tested Facebook’s ability to remove their comments from search engines.

Basically, all you need to do is copy and paste a “Comment,” that you find from one of those platforms, into a search engine, and presto your comment pop-ups on Google. So Facebook still has some fine tuning to conduct their new policy.

Facebook’s ultimate goal seems to be to remove all “Comment” information from search engines. This actually could be a very big problem for search engines like Google and Bing. “Comments” through Facebook give an accurate insight to what people’s true opinions are about any given topic or product. These comments also have potential to create keyword systems, and they also give an accurate account of what is new, trendy and popular. All these big marketing aspects go out the window, when Facebook deprives search engines of “Comment” content. This tactic of depriving Google of source texts is a bold and aggressive move by Facebook.

Facebook may be doing this because they are trying to remove people’s attempts of cluttering people’s Facebook accounts with spam “Comments.” By removing “Comments” from search engines, increases the likelihood of not receiving spam “Comments.”

This move by Facebook could potentially reduce Bing and Google’s ability to send traffic through these sites. This may be the beginning of a major shift in website traffic.

True or False?

False: The belief that social media campaigns just jump-off and start making businesses money, is a little ridiculous.  Now that may not be the case for a big conglomerate, such as Pepsi, which already has a devoted loyal customer base. But for most companies, this is not an easily achievable task.  You need to start slow; you should consider yourself the tortoise vs. the hare in the social media race.  Companies that expect huge results right away have the potential to be unsuccessful and be referred to as spam by social media subscribers.  While social media campaigns seem like a lot of fun, it’s truly hard-work.  It’s not easy for a company to get people to “Like” their products and/or services right out of the gate, but with patience, most organizations will see a steady amount of progress.  If organizations do not practice the proper procedures with their social media campaigns, they risk the wrath of being “Unliked” by everyone in the social media audience.

Some organizations are lucky enough to hit the ground running and gain thousands of impressions within weeks, but these organizations are the big boys in marketing and media. Organizations like NFL, Pepsi, Nike, Gatorade, etc. These groups already have a loyal customer base that will always stay up-to-date with the organizations daily business.

Most companies, on the other hand, have a much harder time acquiring these friends/followers. For a new social media campaign, it’s much more common to see favorable results within a few months, not a few days/weeks.

Social media campaigns seem like a very fun and entertaining campaign to work on, but the truth of the matter is that these campaigns can actually be a lot of hard work. These campaigns need to be managed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, because as we all know, the news never sleeps.

People look to social media for new and exciting content, so you must always stay up-to-date with your campaigns. The majority of people check Facebook, Twitter, blogs and other social media platforms to find out the freshest and sexiest ideas/news at any given moment.

Another misconception is that social media campaigns are cheap. Well, if your campaign seems to be doing very well, it’s probably because you have hired a team to take care of your social media campaigns, who write up-to-the-date content, monitor activity and engage with customers. This has the expense of paying a team to run these campaigns. While this may seem pricey from the outside looking in, the potential revenue you could bring in has the potential to substantially increase your profits in the future.

If an organization is unaware of these situations, they may have very unrealistic expectations for receiving favorable impression from their social media campaigns. Contact Trademark Productions today to learn how we can help you manage your social media campaigns.

Okay, you know what? Since we’re on the subject of annoying people, here’s an idea that’ll not only help annoy identify thieves, but also Time Magazine’s Personal Information Seller…sorry Man of the Year, Mark Zuckerberg; just don’t use Facebook. We’ve actually just solved the whole problem right there. That’s not going to happen, though, right? Fine. Let’s move on.

Rather than use your main e-mail account, set up a separate one, maybe gmail so you can have any updates from Facebook forwarded on to your regular e-mail account from the gmail account. Should someone get into your gmail, they won’t be able to access your actual main one. It’s also wise to use very different passwords on each e-mail account, plus a separate one for Facebook. Why make it easy for someone, right? One final thought on this; don’t list your e-mail address on your page. If somebody wants to get a hold of you, they can send you a message using Facebook.

Some folks also suggest you not put your date of birth on your Facebook page since your closest friends will know it’s your birthday. I disagree. Not only do some of us appreciate the extra attention, but have you seen our economy? Giving your friends an out to say they “forgot”—convenient of them, I might add—is not an acceptable excuse to not treat you to a dinner or certificate to Best Buy. Besides, if somebody wants to know your date of birth, they’ll find out. Maybe don’t put your year and then lie like hell when somebody guesses. That usually works.

Keep up with the ever-changing privacy settings that Facebook introduces, often without making the effort to really let us know what they’re doing. If you don’t, your personal information could be sold to third parties without your actual consent—apparently not saying “no” means “yes” in Zuckerworld. If they’re not going to give you a cut of the profits, why allow them to use it?

Finally, unfortunately, you have to use your actual name when creating your account, only you don’t have to display your personal information for people who aren’t your friends to see. If you do use a pseudonym and the Zuckerlemmings find out, your account will be deactivated.

So, protect yourself by limiting the information folks see, use a separate e-mail account, use different passwords, avoid telling people the year you were really born and keep up with all the posts the other folks who keep an eye on Facebook’s privacy policies—obviously written on a dry-erase board—since they’ll keep you in the loop.

True or False?

False: Facebook does not allow administrators of fan pages to ask people to like their fan page through Facebook.  Now, this doesn’t mean on your personal Facebook page that you can’t ask your friends to like your business’s fan page.  You just can’t do this while logged in as an administrator of your fan page. Professionals recommend you find a way to get people, who already like your fan page, to start discussing your organization through their personal Facebook pages.  This will spread the word of mouth of your organization through a mass amount of channels on Facebook.  In the end, it takes a lot of work to get your organization recognized, but with enough hard work, you’re able to maximize your organization’s potential to be seen by the massive Facebook community.

Recently, antseyeview.com came up with a five-stage process to describe where a lot of businesses are with their social media efforts. This very interesting process helps organizations to understand where they stack up in comparison to their competition, pertaining to their social media practices. So let’s discuss briefly the five stages, and then maybe you can understand a little bit better how you stack up against your competition, and what your organization may need to do to improve for the future.

Stage one basically states that companies, within this stage, are still using the traditional means of marketing, and primarily only using one-way communication with their customers. Primarily, social media in this stage is done on an individual basis and shows little to no effect.

The second stage states, organizations within stage two usually consist of one to two teams/individuals that are messing around with social media, and start to receive a great deal of customer data, but little or no customer connection.

Stage three is when a business starts to take social media practices very serious. In this stage, many organizations start to make sure their efforts, with improving social engagement, become one of their primary marketing goals. This is when organizations start to emphasize business training, social media policies and common engagement platforms. The people at Trademark Productions provide training on numerous social media situations to help you figure out how to improve your business’s social media efforts.

The fourth stage is when organizations are seeing real results. Multiple groups/members start to engage directly with customers and their projects. Organizations within the criteria of stage four will focus annual plans by engaging social media efforts and forecasting for the future. The system and tools associated with social media sites are being utilized to their full potential, and executives are also brought in to overlook the overall plans.

Stage five is reaching the full potential of engaging people, with you business’s social media practices. Customers start to become very loyal to your brand, and more than likely will not shop with your competitors. Your primary customers start to trust your business and feel very safe dealing with your business and it’s products. You will also see senior executives starting to play a leading role with engaging their customers. This stage is pretty rare for an organization, primarily because the tools to reach this stage are not readily available for most businesses.

After reviewing this social media platform, what stage do you believe your organization/business falls within? Do you have questions about improving your social media practices? Trademark Productions is available to improve, or expand your social media practices for the future. Contact us today to learn what they can do for you.

Shall we recap? We discussed why you want to blog, why you should always edit your blogs before you post them and then why you want to establish a set schedule to consistently blog, then we topped it all off with getting you to see the creative side of exciting your readers in your blogs. Excellent. Still with me?

What could possibly be left? Plenty.

See what I just did above and at the very beginning of the blog? Those lovely little headers? If you’re blogging about something technical or a fairly complicated subject, you can break it down for your readers by adding the headers. That way, they’ll have a pretty good idea how the blog is going to proceed and what each section is going to be about. This tends to make it reader-friendly in their eyes and they will be more prone to pay attention. There’s an added bonus, too. When the search engines crawl your blog, they’ll see the headers, especially if you designate them as H1 tags or H2 tags. Now, you don’t always have to use headers, but they do come in handy if and when you need them.

Add a little something to your blog if it’s lengthy.

Didn’t realize you were feeling as talkative as you were when you sat down to write? Did you find that the more you typed, the more excited you got and the more you said about your product or service? That’s the beauty of writing and discovery. And while you may think that what you’re saying is good enough to be considered for the 11th Commandment, if you make it too long, you are going to lose the attention of your readers. How can you stop that from happening? Add a relevant picture of your product (nothing static or boring, though) or a graph that best represents a trend you’re referring to.

There. Are we done yet?

No, not so much. There are still some additional tips we can pass along to you and we will. It still remains for you to find the will to sit down and start blogging. Or, if you have ideas for blogs and still don’t feel like you can do it, Trademark Productions has folks like myself on staff who do blog for our clients. And, no, we never post something without their approval. Either way, your business stands to win through this crazy little thing called love…er…blogging.

You’ve read the title of this blog, right? And did you by chance look at the titles of the other blogs? Blog titles are the first thing folks are going to see when visiting your page and they’re going to pick and choose what it is they’ll read based on the interest of the title. You have to find a way to grab a reader’s attention! Titling your blog “Write Blogs,” “Edit Blogs” and “Post Blogs Often” is just downright boring. It sounds like you’re going to be throwing a whole lot of blah…blah…blah… at them. Few people like that. Personally, I loathe it.

So, aside from titles, the battle now begins with your overall presentation. “You should blog. Because it’s good. It might help you earn money.” Okay, bad! Bad blogging person! You may be an authority in your own head, but that is so not how it’s going to look to your readers. They’ll love you, but only because you’ll have become their answer to insomnia! Get a little creative. Be a little crazy. Throw in a “Friday the 13th” reference. Getting a little loose with your word choices isn’t always a bad idea either. Well, as long as you aren’t dealing with something incredibly technical that’ll be read by the current presidential administration. But for your average everyday internet readers? They’ll appreciate the effort.

Excite your readers. Blogging grows hair and brings you untold of riches, so you’ll never have to buy a bad hairpiece like Donald Trump! That’s a complete fabrication, but you’ve just gotten their interest. You get the point. Maybe your company makes Catnip Scented candles. Imagine the fun you could add to a blog using some pictures or those funny little cat videos on YouTube to break up some of what you’re saying. And the cat jokes? They’d never stop, but folks would be paying attention.

Still have a boring topic? Relate it to something going on in the world today that people have heard about it. Where there’s a will and a headline, there’s a way. Don’t be afraid to interject a little of yourself, too. Readers like to know that there’s a real person reaching out to them, not some corporate suit. And remember, no blah…blah…blah…

Since President Roosevelt declared March “Red Cross Month,” each president has followed suit and declared the same recognition for March of each year. The organization is a non-profit that always needs the support, and donations of blood, monetary efforts and food for local chapters.

With the big winter storms slamming much of the United States this year, the American Red Cross has lost nearly 30,000 pints of blood and the number is still climbing. They need the help of everyone to help replace this blood, especially since they provide blood for nearly 9 million blood transfusions a year. The American Red Cross is able to do this because of people across the U.S. providing nearly 6.5 million pints of blood a year for the organization. To help in this effort, please visit the American Red Cross’s website to search for the next blood donation in your neighborhood. By donating to their organization, you will be greatly helping Trademark Productions efforts to provide support!

The American Red Cross is calling out to the general public to join them! They help nearly 200 neighborhood emergencies every day, provide communications to nearly 150,000 military families and have provided assistance to more than 3.9 million people effected by International disasters. They are able to do this because of monetary donations provided from local citizens and organizations within each chapter’s community.

This year the American Red Cross is inviting youth’s from all over the country to submit their artwork to their organization. This is a contest themed around the idea of getting people to “Join the Red Cross.” The youth with the winning artwork will have their work turned into a social media avatar for the organization’s Facebook and Twitter pages. The Red Cross will have the right to edit, reproduce and publish the artwork submitted, which will be primarily utilized for youth marketing efforts and internal communication tools. To find out more about the contest, go to the American Red Cross website for more information.

Your continued efforts and support greatly increase Trademark Productions ability to help the American Red Cross during National Red Cross month. Thank you in advance from everyone at Trademark Productions!

You may have the best product in the world and you may have written one blog in the last two months, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to keep people coming back to your site or drum up any new interest. Blogging requires a certain amount of dedication on your part to maintain some consistency. For instance, I started off blogging once a week on my own personal site and the number of visitors increased, but the numbers weren’t considerable by any stretch of the imagination. Things outside of my writing got complicated and I ended up going down to blogging once every 3 or 4 weeks. The less-than-stellar audience I had dropped and barely registered when I did blog. Folks enjoyed my writing, but they strongly disliked how inconsistent I was in posting, so they went elsewhere. The same will happen in your business.

I finally decided to re-prioritize a few things in my schedule—believe me, it was NOT an easy thing to do—and forced myself to start blogging twice a week. There’s a new piece up on Monday morning at 7am and then Thursday at 7am. Once a blog has been posted, it’s announced twice a day on MySpace, Facebook, a Facebook fan page and Twitter. Anymore than twice a day is probably overkill, but I space it out to twice because I have followers on both sides of the globe, so if I miss one set in the morning, I make sure they know about it in the evening. I should point out here that I just gave you a reason to embrace social media, too.

Something else I did worth mentioning is that I had a back catalog of blogs from 2006-2010 that I’d posted on MySpace. Since nobody really knows if they’re going to be able to turn their site around or simply cease to exist, I went ahead and copied and pasted 210 pages of MySpace blog postings into word. Then, every Saturday, I run a classic blog post, which I can pick and choose from and use the best of the older material that folks may never have read. So, now I have three blogs being published each week, but only two actual new pieces. The number of readers on a Saturday is usually a bit lower, but that’s okay. The classic posts are really just there as an added bonus.

The consistency has definitely helped me over the past three weeks, the numbers of visitors are rising and people are leaving me comments. This all leads to yet another blog on blogs, which will hopefully be tomorrow. I’m on a roll!

It seems to be all about relationships these past two weeks. Facebook added in the options last week to allow users to list that they’re “in a civil union” or “in a domestic partnership.” Are most unions actually civil these days? That question aside, the new app allows users to monitor the relationship status of people they’re friends with and even be notified by e-mail when that status changes.

Do you like somebody and want to know when they get dumped or have dumped the person you despise for being with the person you’d rather be holding or held by? Yeah, it’s like that or like watching an episode of Gossip Girl. A few people have suggested that it makes stalking a little bit easier while the rebuttal seems to focus on users needing to be all the more careful about who they allow to become their friends. Does that really work, though? The whole point of stalking is that it’s fairly anonymous and most people who have or develop that tendency don’t always tell their closest friends about it.

I suspect the answer to this app might be the Facebook Breakup Notifier Notifier that notifies you that someone is tracking your love life. That would certainly make it much easier to play with their mind and turn the tables, which might just be appropriate.

Facebook apps… What will they think of next?

Have you ever tried to run a social media campaign that fell flat on its face? Was it because you didn’t know what you were doing or because you knew what you were doing, only the lads and ladies upstairs didn’t know what they were doing and instead unknowingly set you up for failure? Or perhaps you knew what you were doing and they thought they did, too, only they changed their mind partway through and insisted on changes that fell flat?

Welcome to a nightmare on corporate street.

Too many people have the “just make it happen” attitude when doling out assignments to their subordinates. Nobody likes that. Really, we don’t. Like many other things, social media requires a game plan and that starts at the very top. So when you’re called in and you’re going to be running a social media campaign, generate some discussion. It’ll annoy the executives, but it’ll make you feel SO much better!

What is it they want the campaign to accomplish? What is it you’re being asked to achieve? Are you trying to gain followers? Are you trying to get current followers to buy a new product or service you’re offering? Are you running a Facebook ad campaign and need to narrow down specifically who the ads will target? What happens if things start to go poorly? How will it affect your business’s reputation in the social media channels? Finally, what kind of an investment in time, money and manpower is willing to be put into the project to achieve the desired outcome?

These are all questions you’ll want to explore before moving forward in your social media campaign. And, sure, I jested a little about your questions annoying executives. They will, though, but that’s okay. Once they see just how on the page you are with this, they’ll start to appreciate your desire to see it be as successful as possible. Or they won’t and you’ll be escorted out of the building.

The biggest misconception I’ve been under the impression of is that people like you and me—more you than me—have been responsible for deciding what gets Tweeted out, what catches on and what gets communicated. This also sets the trends shows on Twitter’s site. Not so. HP released a study that a mere 22 users were responsible for setting those trends. Of those 22 users, +70% of them were run by…are you ready for this?…traditional news media outlets.

This is both fascinating and a little scary. It’s fascinating because, again, I was under the impression that folks were spreading the news and chatting about topics because it was their toy, their outlet. It’s scary because, once again, if so many of these 22 users who set the trends are filtering folks to mainstream outlets, then we risk being manipulated by the very agencies this is theoretically supposed to be circumventing.

Okay, it’s not quite an X-File and, sure, we can’t believe everything we read, especially on Twitter and especially if you’ve read some of the crap that gets tweeted out. Regardless, now we have to be even more cautious of what we believe and consider the source or at least where the source is directing us.

What was the big fuss last week? Ah, yes. I found it odd that I only saw the same people’s posts on my personal page over and over again. I have almost 1300 friends because of my books, but I was only seeing a handful of updates and all from the same people. Honestly, I started to wonder if folks were leaving Facebook, just not bothering to post or if so many of the friend requests I’d received were bogus despite my looking at their profile pages. Nope. Someone tipped me off that was yet another new change made at Facebook that wasn’t conveyed to users. It’s really getting tiresome, folks.

The change? If you scroll all the way to the bottom of your Newsfeed—which is fiasco in itself since every time you get to the bottom, older posts keep appearing, thus annoying you to the point where you realize you may never get to the bottom of the screen—there is a little “Edit Options” button you can click on that will then allow you to only view posts from folks who you’ve recently interacted with (apparently the default) and then seeing everybody’s posts (which is what most of us would prefer, so, naturally, that’s not what they gave us).

The kicker about this little feature is that I’ve read postings from people who say previous postings about it were mysteriously deleted. I can’t confirm or deny that, but I can relay that it’s what people are saying.

On the other hand, there are some positive things going on with the Facebook fan pages. They’re being made to operate more like regular user profiles and that’s a plus. Fan pages—I have one—never really allowed you to do much in terms of terms of interacting with the pages of people who “liked” your fan page. That always had to be done using your own personal page. Some people weren’t comfortable with that since their private page was just that, private. The public page was for everybody else. Hey, we all enjoy some amount of privacy, right?

Truth be told, the changes to the fan pages will be extremely helpful to those of us who engage in helping clients with their social media. It’s all the other crap that goes around everything else on the site that tends to irk people. I’m patiently waiting for someone else to come forward with a similar kind of service for people minus all the privacy headaches and multiple changes rolled out without anybody’s knowledge. Who will that person be? Our hero? I’m thinking so.

Some business owners are still reluctant to put much effort into making their presence known on the internet. And when they do take that first timid step, it’s often trial and error with more error than anything else. Many don’t even know to establish a basic social media policy, which we’ve offered for free on our site since the beginning of January.

All of us at TM have also been engaging our customers in conversation about social media and asking what they’re confused about as well as what they feel would be helpful to them if they were to looking into hiring someone to take over some of those services. Their feedback is what helped shape a group of three social media packages we’ve rolled out this month. It’s our first step forward in offering what folks want without all the fluff. You get the results and we deal with the headaches.

What headaches? Not a fan of Mark Zuckerberg and all the privacy issues Facebook has despite his being named Time Magazine’s Man of the Year? Neither are we, but we keep up on all the latest updates and news about the service. Don’t know what a hash tag is on Twitter? We do. I’ve even learned how to “converse” with somebody through a series of tweets. Yes, it’s as ridiculous as it sounds, but it can be done. I’ve learned it, so it’s not entirely impossible to figure out.

Finally, if you’re looking to see what kinds of things get posted on Facebook or tweeted out, we’re extending the invitation to you to become a friend on our Facebook TM page as well as our Twitter page. Remember, if it weren’t for social media, there wouldn’t be any confusion. And without confusion, you wouldn’t need us!

That being said, the end goal for blogging is still the same; interaction with your readers while also growing your readers. To accomplish this, there also some common rules we follow regardless of whether it’s Dean, myself or anybody else in the office. The first is a big one; editing. Nobody likes to do it and I blame high school English teachers for this one. Not only did they get us to hate writing, but these sadistic people then made us rewrite what we already hated writing in the first place. The process is still the same now, but the end result these days is far more satisfying.

Most people like to do things once and the goal of a business tends to be to do something right the first time. The same does NOT apply to blogging. Business owners don’t write a letter to their employees, customers or other business owners and not proofread or edit it. They get their thoughts down, the meat and potatoes of what they want to say, then they start to shape it into the tone of how they want to get their message across. Once that’s done, they check for typos and other grammatical errors. One way I’ve found that works for me is to print the letter or blog out, have it sitting in front of me with a pen and read it out loud. You can catch so many more errors and potential flubs that way!

And if you’re someone with poor grammar skills, that’s okay. Hand a copy of your blog off to a member of your staff who does have a solid grasp of how the written language works. Learn who you can go to so that you can get consistent feedback. Best of all, when you see that you’re making the same mistakes again and again, you’ll catch on and stop making them.

Why do you want to go to such lengths? Because you not only want people reading your blogs and suggesting others read them, too, but you also want them to leave comments. Wouldn’t you rather read “Wow, great information! Looking forward to finding out more in the near future.” than “Your first paragraph is one long run-on sentence and you spelled your own company’s name wrong. Seriously?”? Don’t laugh. It happens.

Musicians play music, composers compose, plumbers plumb and oil companies have disasters that they point fingers at everybody else about, but when you’re representing your company through a blog, you’re going to have to look and sound like you know what you’re doing. If I can, you can, too.

Regardless of that, many of our clients and potential clients tend to view blogs as just a way for someone to vent about their feelings, which is hardly business-like. On the opposite end of the spectrum, some folks think a blog for their business is simply taking a pamphlet of information about a product they sell, typing it in and publishing it. That’s a no-no. Besides, if somebody wanted to read the pamphlet, they would. What people want and why they look for a blog is to see what “you” have to say about that product.

A blog is your company’s loudspeaker. Instead of just telling people how arbitrarily great your business is—think about all those interviews you see with actors talking about how fabulous their latest film is and giving the same statements that we always hear—give them some specifics. Mention some testimonials given to you from clients. How about some articles written about your company in magazines or newspapers? And if you’ve been featured on the news, why not post a link to the video or just skip that and post the video itself on your site? Remember not to be so self-congratulatory that it comes off as arrogance. Readers don’t like that.

Do you have things coming up? New advancements? New products? Are you wondering what people think of your products? Tell them. Ask for their feedback. Maybe instead of asking “Do you drink your morning coffee from our officially licensed Dean Duncan Jones coffee mugs?”, try “What do you like about drinking your morning coffee from our officially licensed Dean Duncan Jones coffee mugs?” Then there’s always the “If you don’t, what would you like to see different with the product that might get you to purchase one and have coffee with Dean’s likeness staring back at you each morning?”

Open-ended questions will produce better results than simple yes or no answers. Yes or no doesn’t help you figure out what’s working or what isn’t. And blogs are a phenomenal way to reach out to people and get their feedback.

That will be my final point with this today, too. Feedback. Writing and publishing a blog is only half the battle. You need people to read you. You need people to stay interested in what you’re saying and you need them to feel like they’re an important part of what you do. Your company exists because someone buys your products or services. Treat them well and they’ll stick around.

What kinds of blogging success or horror stories have you had?

My partner was traveling by car from Phoenix to Chicago recently and when I asked that he please call me once in a while during the day so that I knew what his progress was, he suggested I “get with the program” and finally log in to Google Latitude. Yes, get with the program. Isn’t that a lovely way to show one’s gratitude when the other is concerned about your well-being? He embraces technology and I stand there looking at and muttering “Uhhhhhhh…”

But, yes, I finally gave in, logged in, accepted his share request—which means he can now apparently also see my whereabouts and that’s boring since I’m only ever at work or at home…or Best Buy—and can now see his location on a map. There are two catches. First, he has to remember to activate the feature on his phone, which he doesn’t always do. I asked how difficult it was to do since he has one of those Android phones. He answered my question with the same question since I apparently have an Android phone, too. Revelations, I tell ya. Second, the feature actually has to work. I find that it’s all too often not quite accurate.

During my aforementioned partner’s trip to Chicago, I did monitor his progress because I took the very same trip two years prior and remembered the route. Then, when I saw he was miles off course, not an uncommon occurrence in his life, I’d call to ask what he was doing instead of paying attention to the GPS. This usually triggered a response of the sarcastic kind and Latitude corrected itself a short time later. Well, he (that partner guy) is now overseas and I’m attempting to see how Google Latitude does there. It has him in the water so far. On a plus note, at least they have him in the right country.

Latitude also allows you to save a history of the places you’ve been. It sounds neat, but then I’m not fond of that function either. With the amount of cyberstalking going on these days, friends, family and employers being able to track and store your every movement…I believe it’s just adding to the “too much information” available out there. Then, too, my generation didn’t start off with pagers, cell phones, GPSs, wireless modems and the internet and we survived just fine.

First, yes, I admit that I’ve taken a couple of shots at founder Mark Zuckerberg over the past couple of months. Anybody who’s made TIME Magazine’s Man of the Year for leading a company with more privacy issues than Lindsay Lohan has legal issues is bound to catch some flack. It might have been nice if he’d had the company fix the issues and then let that clear the way for TIME Magazine’s honor. Still, when you’re in Zuckerberg’s position, he really doesn’t have to give a rip.

Second, the one main strength of MySpace, which was their blogging feature that search engines loved and ranked, is the one feature I haven’t seen emerge on Facebook. They have a “Notes” application that I’ve used and never been able to get my content to show up on Google. Not helpful. And if it goes back to those privacy settings again, really? It might be nice to know or at least have something that says “Click this box if you’d like your Notes to show up in search engines.” Just my opinion.

But I’m also going to point out a few things I really do like about this social media outlet. Aside from the instant updates and ability to chat with people—when the system doesn’t lag or glitch—it allows users to hide or block third party updates coming from applications our friends use. This is one of the most annoying things to constantly see popping up. I don’t care that you reached level 112 on something I’m not interested in and am never going to play. By blocking those updates, one can streamline their news feed…at least until some other hapless victim indulges in another third party application.

I also don’t receive many spammy e-mails. Someone’s account gets hijacked once in a while, but my inbox is really rarely used unless someone is legitimately trying to contact me. That’s a huge plus in my book, especially considering how many domains and specific e-mail addresses I have blocked on my regular e-mail service account.

So there, I’ve come clean about liking some of what Facebook has to offer. The irony is that while we’ve been able to get our clients to delve into social media, especially Facebook, I still can’t get my mother to take the plunge. I guess it’s a good thing she doesn’t have a website. Well, not yet.

Hash tags… Really? H1 tags, H2 tags, H3 tags and now this? Fortunately, one of the lads here, Craig, is fairly “in the know” about these things and the first word of the explanation that came out of his mouth more than set the stage; Twitter. I used to be able to handle MySpace quite well until it went down the toilet. I’m even fairly adept at Facebook once I learned to navigate through the endless sea of changes to their pages and privacy settings. But Twitter? I started an account simply to appease my publisher, but I don’t believe I’ve ever sold a book because of it. That aside, the service and reason for its existence confounds me, so it’s a good thing Craig embraces the heck out of it.

So, hash tags, right? It’s a # sign. Nothing more, nothing less. A # sign. And the point of adding this little marker is that if you happen to be following a conversation on Twitter—apparently people actually have these—you can participate by adding the # sign next to the subject that you’re following. For example, if you happen to be a fan of music pioneer Vangelis, then you’d type #Vangelis in your tweet along with your message. “Saw a YouTube video that used Song of the Sea by #Vangelis.” Anybody searching for Vangelis on Twitter will then see your tweet.

And for those of you who love musicians, TV shows or movies with more than one word in the title, all the words are simply run together. If you happen to be a fan of Keeping Up With The Zahringers, then you’d type #keepingupwiththezahringers in your tweet. Anybody with an interest in the Zahringers would then be able to keep up on all the gossip merely by searching for it on Twitter and seeing where the hash tags were used.

Hash tags are almost too simple to explain because if I can get it this easily, there’s a problem. Actually, the real problem comes in because I’ve still never found a personal use for them or Twitter, but I’m learning. I do have to say, though, that I am a huge fan of Keeping Up With The Zahringers.

The traditional way of advertising usually involves a healthy budget set aside for tv and radio commercials, plus newspaper and magazines ads. Not only does it cost a bit, but companies then have to wait and wait and wait to find out if their efforts are paying off. That’s a whole lot of guesswork. Now, with social media, the major cost is going to be the time you have an employee set up your accounts, design the pages, post, tweet and blog. The main advantage, however, is the instant access to be able to interact and listen to your followers, existing customers and potential customers.

Think of it like this. Let’s say you have a new product coming out. Rather than wait for the press releases to go out along with your other avenues of traditional media, you start using Twitter and Facebook to generate interest and anticipation. And your blogs? It’s the perfect opportunity to go into detail about what the company hopes are the strong points of the product and why people will want to buy it. Even better than that, the folks who follow your accounts and read your blog have the immediate opportunity to respond and share their thoughts. This allows you to know what may or may not be working in your upcoming marketing approach.

Also, if you have a product that deals with technology, chances are there will be questions that come up that people are not going to want to call the company about or read in a brochure. A customer is going to want to talk to somebody directly involved with the product who can give them an answer, not an operator reading from a computer screen. Your developers or people who know the product will appreciate being able to use the social media postings to know what needs to be addressed, then actually respond either on Facebook or direct people to blog posts about it. It’s reciprocal, builds customer confidence and hopefully some customer loyalty along the way.

Finally, if you’re developing a product, customers may be able to give you some insight into what they think of your ideas, if there’s actually a need for it and any potential stumbling blocks your company might not foresee.

It all goes back to communication and having the opportunity to listen to your customers. Social media isn’t just about posting, blogging and talking up your product. It’s also an inexpensive and underused goldmine for doing what so few companies are taking advantage of.

The first prediction Mashable brings up—and we’re not going to hit on every one of them—is in reference to Google’s failure to develop a social program that sticks and doesn’t fall flat on its face. I’m in agreement with this since very little Google has ever put out social-wise caught my attention. YouTube is about as close as they’ve come and that’s not what I would consider a traditional social site, though some may disagree. It’s unlikely that Google’s luck will change this year based on their success rate in 2010.

Prediction #2 is that MySpace will be sold off. That’s actually a more positive outlook on the situation than I have. My thought is that MySpace will just shut down and go away. The one thing I always felt was stronger than Facebook, and continues to be stronger, is the blogging ability. For one, MySpace blogs are picked up by the search engines while Facebook’s notes aren’t. Unfortunately, the stats that I found helpful in order to gauge hits on my blogs are no longer there and what remains is a much lesser tool. Not helpful. MySpace itself has simply become not helpful.

I really don’t have an opinion about Bebo or Facebook going public—I’d rather Facebook deal with their privacy hemorrhaging—but I do agree with Mashable that Twitter will have a fairly flat year. Twitter seems very feast or famine to me; it either works wonders and clients have a ton of followers that drum up some business or there’s a trickle. I tweet, but I can’t say that it’s ever brought me any attention or customers. Still, there’s potential and that cannot be ignored. We’ll see how it goes. Maybe it’ll really break out or maybe it’ll just go away with MySpace.

Finally, they have some predictions about sites getting move involved with mobile photos. And considering how easy it is to have a phone with a camera on it, take candid pictures that would make a politician blush or a government work overtime to put a positive spin on something obviously otherwise, this will be an arena ripe for expansion.

The fun part, of course, will be seeing in how all of these predictions play out. Any thoughts of your own out there?

January is National Blood Donor Month and TM is encouraging you to do just that; donate.  Centers are asking and hoping that folks will give at least 2 to 4 times throughout the year and January could be your first.  It’s said that someone in America needs blood every two seconds and more than 38,000 donations of blood are needed on a daily basis.  Here’s something else to think about; the average donor gives about 3 pints of blood and a car accident victim may need up to 100 pints.  Additional facts and statistics can be found here .

US regulations state that someone can only donate once every 56 days, are at least 17 years of age, and weigh at least 110 pounds.  Also keep in mind that someone will ask you questions regarding your health, which is kept confidential, you’ll want to have a solid night of sleep before you donate, eat a meal beforehand (preferably with something like red meat, poultry, fish vegetables, nuts, raisins or anything else that will boost your iron levels), take any medication you normally do and relax.  It takes about 10-12 minutes to donate, then you’ll want to avoid heavy lifting or strenuous exercise for the rest of your day.  Further questions and answers about donating blood can be found on the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

The major way donors donate is typically through the American Red Cross and they have a page that allows you to find out where you can donate during specific dates.  Or, if you’re local to Michigan, you can always use the Michigan Blood website for the latest news, educational services and list of donation centers.

No matter where you go to donate, just remember that the life you save could be a relative, a friend or even your own.  Please join Trademark Productions in celebrating National Blood Donor month.

The challenge for me, since I handle a good deal of the content around here, has been learning to scour the internet in order to keep up on stories about technical things that excite a certain kind of reader. Well, the kind of readers around here. I frequently don’t understand them—or the articles—but I am learning and also trying to insert a little of my own personality into the mix. I may write a little something on Google Places one day and then extend Cookie Monster a happy birthday the next. That’s usually when the COO knocks on my door and threatens to feed me to the developers if I don’t keep on task. It’s the tech version of feeding someone to the fishes.

I’m a true believer in social media, too, and mostly because I’ve had it work for me on a professional level outside of work. TM is also a huge supporter of businesses using it, only convincing clients sometimes takes a little work. The other big push we’ve been working on is getting clients to blog. I blog on my own site and can see the difference in traffic when using Google Analytics. Then, too, there’s an art to blogging just like there is with social media. Craig, one of our account managers, is teaching me the fine art of the business version of social media versus what I use it for. The nice thing is that he’s patient and hasn’t threatened to feed me to the developers. Well, yet.

We had some fun earlier this year in October discussing SEO nightmares, which were some fun blogs and worth checking out. Dwight and Dean also embraced the idea of continuing monthly National Blogs like Adopt a Shelter Dog Month, National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, National Adoption Month and National AIDS Awareness Month. This is something we plan on continuing in 2011 with the upcoming National Blood Donor Month in January.

So stay tuned for more fun and mayhem from you Trademark Productions crew!

This is first and foremost not a personal attack of any kind.  I’ve never met Mark Zuckerberg, so I cannot comment on his character.  He is the creator of Facebook, though, and in charge of what goes on there, so I can comment on that.  The easiest place to start is by stating one look at the sheer number of privacy issues Facebook has caused over the last couple of years should raise a majority of eyebrows.  The sheer number of changes to their privacy policy is another.  Change after change after change, some of which were not transparent to users of the site.

Maybe some of this wouldn’t have bothered users so much had they been able to find a clear way to contact Facebook and work through the problems, but that was nearly impossible, too.  Perception is everything and the perception was that Facebook didn’t want to be bothered with our issues.  Advertisers made good use of the changes and continue to make good use of our information, which translates into dollars for both them and for Facebook.  Honestly, and this is just my opinion, it doesn’t strike me as an issue of greed on Facebook’s part as much as it does a lack of experience or foresight.  Still, the issues are there and it’s unlikely we’ve seen the end of them.

Facebook has also had its share of censorship issues.  A former local author, Frank Anthony Polito, had a page for his comedy/drama novel removed for the sole reason of one of the words in the title.  There was no research done to see if the book was actually offensive or how it related to the story, but it was suddenly gone.  Frank tried several times to contact Facebook and it wasn’t until his story was picked up by the media that it was finally restored.  His is not an isolated incident either.

Perhaps if Facebook had been more transparent about its shortcomings and made strides to make its users feel they were a little more important, all under the prominent direction of Mark Zuckerberg, I could see him being made Man of the Year.  Unfortunately, I can’t and there were certainly more deserving names on that list.

We also offer Social Media services to our clients.

There are, however, still a few naysayers out there who claim that businesses entering the world of social media has done nothing—or at least very little—to boost sales or brand recognition. I’ve had some fairly serious conversations and playful banter with one person in particular about it and neither of us seems to be budging. In light of that and in an effort to expand our look beyond our own office, I thought I throw it out there to all of you.

Have you noticed a difference using Twitter? What kind of a difference? How often do you tweet and are you consistent? How about Facebook? Are your posts constant hard sales or are you developing interaction with your fans? What kind of interaction?

See, these are all questions worth exploring because who knows what 2011 is going to bring? There will always be the next new social media site, the next form of paging or tweeting, the next big search engine and the next call to arms in terms of advertising. It happens at a breakneck speed, so it’s important to look at what we’ve learned, file it all under lessons learned and approach the future with a pro-active action plan instead of setting ourselves up for failure.

So, how about it? What have your experiences been with social media?

HIV is a human disease.  This means that contrary to what you may or may not have heard, it can infect anyone.  And while there are lists detailing ways HIV is spread, a huge factor in its increase is a lack of education on the subject.  Fortunately, when it comes to education and programs if you live in southeast Michigan, there’s the Michigan AIDS Coalition.

The Michigan AIDS Coalition (MAC) exists today as a merger between the Michigan AIDS Fund and the Midwest AIDS Prevention Project, thereby creating a combined 30 years of HIV/AIDS advocacy, education and outreach experience.  Between the two MAC offices–one in Ferndale and the other in Detroit–the organization offers HIV Testing, counseling, education programs, advocacy, bolstering self-esteem, sensitivity training, W.A.G.S. (a program that assists people with HIV/AIDS in caring for their pets) and a great deal more.

These programs all come with a price, however, and as MAC’s CEO, Helen Hicks, points out, the current economic conditions haven’t helped.  All non-profit organizations have taken a hit over the past several years, so donations continue to be needed and welcomed.  For more information about all that MAC has to offer, to donate or read Helen’s Blog, check out the Michigan AIDS Coalition’s site.

A National Look

We then decided to expand our search from a local standpoint and take a look at the sites that are out there on a national level and, as we did with National Breast Awareness Month, see what features of them we liked and what we thought could use a little attention.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (http://www.cdc.gov/)

This is probably one of the most comprehensive sites out there.  It’s information-heavy, embraces social media, offers podcasts, e-mail updates, a site-map, how to link to the site, versions of the site in nine languages and then some term translations in additional languages.  The master navigation at the top is helpful if you already know what you’re looking for and there’s a notification at the bottom telling you the last time the site was updated.  Some real effort went into this one.  The only things we thought could use some finesse is how busy the pages tend to look and feel.  There’s so much information that it feels a little overwhelming, but that’s really a small complaint considering what the site is offering.  It might be nice, too, if there was an area with recent updates or current additions/news items.

AIDS.org (http://www.aids.org/)

Not nearly as information-heavy as the CDCs site, this one looks to still be in its online infancy.  Fortunately, it’s easy on the eyes, easy to navigate, there are recent headlines, posts and a detailed site map.  There’s a search feature and while we like to see those, it really doesn’t come back with much after putting in simple single keyword searches.  Complicating the search feature is an ad that pops up if you run your cursor over it and covers the search box, making it a hassle to get to.  Furthermore, clicking on the “Contact Us” link at the bottom of the page gives you a prompt to open up an application versus clicking on the “Contact Us” at the top in the “About Us” navigation, which actually takes you to a contact page.  So, some good information, but the site still has some bugs and doesn’t feel like it’s been around very long.

The Body (http://www.thebody.com/)

This is a site that claims to be the complete HIV/AIDS resource and you know what?  We’re not going to argue.  Like the CDC’s site, this one is a little overwhelming to look at, but the navigation is user friendly, the main information topics you’re probably looking for is right there at your fingertips and there’s a wonderful selection of blogs, which keeps the site relevant and most likely keeps folks coming back.  There’s a search function that yield solid results from the site, a video series, the ability to sign up for e-mail updates, contests, an extensive forum, the site in Spanish and the ability to contact the site or ask an expert a question that may not be addressed.  The only minor thing we’d suggest is a different color scheme.  The site is meant to be an uplifting one, yet the darker color used tends to bring things down to a sobering tone.  Okay, we’d also like to see them embrace social media.  How about a Facebook page?  Why aren’t they tweeting?  Despite those areas that could use some improvement, of the three national sites we’ve looked at, this is the one we were most impressed with.

AIDS is an epidemic, but it doesn’t mean somebody’s life automatically ends after being diagnosed as HIV+.  The first thing we can hope for is prevention of future cases, which starts with education and these sites, including the local Michigan AIDS Coalition site, offer information that can help with this.  Beyond that, we can donate money to increase funding for research and one day, hopefully, a cure and even our time to those suffering from it.  Please join us at TM as we kick off recognizing National AIDS Awareness Month.

Think of it as working for a company and going to the airport where you’re potentially interacting with hundreds or thousands of other people (depending on the airport). Maybe you strike up a conversation with some of them, they ask what you do and you find a unique way to mention the highlights of your employer. They’re intrigued. You’ve done your job. The airport is obviously a social media site somewhere on the internet and you’re catching people going to and from.

Now, imagine that your company’s social media policy is the security checkpoint before you enter the main terminal area of the airport. You get screened, but there are rules to the screening, a list of dos and don’ts as well as dos and don’ts when you enter the terminal section. You are representing your company and are expected to act in a manner that is respectful of that; you don’t insult the people around you or make disparaging remarks about your employer, co-workers or products/services your company offers. It really boils down to common sense.

On the flip side, there’s been a tremendous controversy over the new full body scanners and pat-downs implemented at many airports. While John Pistole, the head of the Transportation Security Administration, defends the procedures, there is still widespread discontent with how invasive they are. The same can be said for some aspects of social media policies. Where is the line drawn between employee and citizen?

ESPN came under some scrutiny a few months ago for rolling out a social media policy that felt like it was cutting off blood flow to the body. The big sticking point for me in reading through their guidelines was the part stating “Personal websites and blogs that contain sports content are not permitted.” Excuse me? Chances are if I work for anything having to do with sports like ESPN, it’s because I love that area. If my publisher informed me that I couldn’t discuss anything literary on my personal website or my blog, I’ll tell them something fairly unsavory and unsanitary. ESPN is a job, not a dictated way of life.

Best Buy is another one that, while not nearly as explicit as ESPN, still steps a little over the line. Not only does an employee’s responsibility to Best Buy not stop when they’re off the clock—if you’re not paying me, then bet me it doesn’t—but employees are supposed to identify their affiliation with the company when discussing matters within their job responsibility. The clincher is that if someone is commenting on the business, it’s considered speaking on behalf of Best Buy and hourly employees are not allowed to do so if they are off the clock. Could that be anymore confusing to follow?

Social media policies should be fairly simple and common sense, period. And I’m not suggesting that when someone walks out the door that they shouldn’t continue to use common sense when at home and online on their own time. There are tactful ways to express one’s opinion about a job, for better or worse, or about something that goes hand in hand with their job (i.e. sports) that shouldn’t be trampled on. And people should be able to express themselves. A company’s reach is not limitless nor should it be.

So while a social media policy remains a good thing to have, the ones that go off the beaten path or like one of those Gone Wild videos need some scrutiny as apparently do those full body scanners and pat-down searches at the airport.

On the other hand, even I have to admit that companies that have a social media presence offer some unique opportunities. The main one that comes to mind is the chance to interact with them and share opinions or suggestions about a product or service that might have a chance of getting back to the people who make the business decisions. That, however, is only going to be as successful as the planning that went into why they have a social media presence in the first place.

If you happen to be a company on the cusp of entering the social media realm or you already did and yielded minimal results, here’s what you might want to consider. First and foremost, set goals. What is it you are hoping to get out of it? What is your purpose for existing there? Furthermore, do you know who in your company is going to be responsible for understanding these goals and making sure they’re accomplished?

A very common mistake is for a company to generate the idea of jumping into social media and then passing the buck to people who don’t understand why it’s being done, don’t have the tools or understanding to make it work and who are then essentially set up to fail. Mixed messages are a huge cause of this. The owner states that the goal will be A, B and C, then it filters on down and pretty soon D, E and F are added by others who feel the need to interject their own opinions. Not good and everybody needs to be on the same page.

The second thing that needs to happen is making sure you have the resources, usually time, manpower and know-how. The right people in the right place all communicating with the time available to do what they need to do is paramount. Anything else usually ends up coming out, if you’ll pardon the phrase, half-assed. Communication itself is worth mentioning at this juncture because these folks will need to be keeping everybody else in the loop as to what’s going on. Coordination is key and you’ll be surprised at how closely some of your people will be working together as the social media project progresses.

Finally, and this has really come into importance during the last year and a half or so, it helps to have a social media policy for your company. Why? If employees are putting information out there about your company as a part of their job, then it’s your right to make sure they are doing it in accordance to how you want it portrayed as well as what information will and won’t be made public. It’s a business and they are getting paid to be online during business hours, therefore you have the right to monitor what they are doing and employees need to be aware of this. Second, it also lets your employees know the dos and don’ts of what they can express in terms of not opening your company up to claims of sexism, racism etc.

This all probably sounds like a great deal of work and you may be wondering if it’s worth the effort. Several companies have had very good luck in the social media world. It’s not all about sell sell sell and those who have embraced that concept, set up very specific goals to accomplish and freed up the resources necessary to make the campaign a go have come away with more than they expected.

Google’s Hotpot Takes Social Recommendation Local

Think of hotpot as a personal, local recommendation engine that uses data from Google Places to show you ratings and reviews from local businesses. Also, Hotpot will show you personal reviews from your friends on the local businesses near you. Using the data from your reviews and your friends, Hotpot will then give you recommendations on businesses you may be interested in.

Is there room for Hotpot in the location-based market?

Despite being late to the local business party, Google must feel confident the party doesn’t start until they get there. The market is currently dominated by Yelp and Foursquare, both of which have a large community of users. And, let’s not forget Facebook’s announcement last week of their newest location based service, “Deals”.

What makes Google distinctly different is their strength and influence as the world’s most used search engine. Hotpot looks to actively engage users from a social aspect, but will also help develop their data for local searches. However, people are going have to commit to Hotpot in order to achieve any results.

What are your thoughts on Hotpot? Are you going to try it out or are you already committed to another location-based service?

Maybe you’re introducing yourself as the Midwest SEO King of All Things Social Media.  Pretty good keywords, huh?  And it sounds impressive…until somebody enters that into Google and finds out you’re also a complete and total tool.  Or maybe you’re an author and somebody casually happens to find out that you’ve written and published a couple of books.  Naturally, they’re going to see if you’re legitimate.

So what could potentially come up during a search?  There will more than likely be some hits from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and a publisher’s website, which is a surefire way for them to see if you really are published and how available your work is.  If you’re really lucky, there will even be some reviews from sites that pop up, so then they’ll have an idea of how your work is being received.  But that’s all really subjective.  What you want others to see is if you have a website and how you’re making use of that website and blog.

Looking at someone’s website can send a pretty strong image of what that person is like.  Are they stiff and formal?  Or formally stiff?  Do they give the impression that they think they’re smarter than everybody else?  Unwilling to commit to anything, including friendships?  Humble?  Caring?  A website will give you a taste of that.  And if they’ve blogged, the search engines will show you that, too.  What sorts of things have they blogged about?  Does what means something to them mean anything to you?  How they deal with knowing people will read what they have to say gives you a pretty clear indication of how they’ll handle talking to you.

How about social media?  Are they on Twitter?  Are they tweeting about things that interest them or are they passing along ads?  How about MySpace?  And Facebook?  All of these things begin to build a profile of the person you’re looking at.  It’s probably safe to say that you don’t want to be one of those deep-Googlers and, by that, I mean where you go into the fourth and fifth pages of the search results.  That might be kinda misconstrued as the start of cyberstalking.  Keep it simple.  Keep it relevant.

I remember when I started writing reviews for a website a decade or so ago and how excited I was to see my name pop up in search engine results.  It was like buying Blu-Rays today…that same feeling…only cheaper.  I don’t mind being found online these days either.  Many people who have done casual checks have actually turned into good friends and folks who have become supporters of my work.

And I love those “Oh, my God.  You’re real!” emails that I receive when they find out I’m exactly who I say I am.  Oh, and that I’m not a tool.

The problem unfolded when Buzz automatically pulled every Gmail user into this new social network whether they wanted to be in it or not.  This then led to a compromise of user privacy by exposing their contacts without consent and making any updates visible to folks who they e-mailed frequently regardless of whether it was a boss, someone they strongly disliked, were carrying on in secrecy with, family member, BFF or pretend loved one.  You get the idea.

I Can’t Get No Dissatisfaction
Now, as any reasonable person outside a corporate setting might expect, folks weren’t happy about this and voiced that unhappiness.  And, as any reasonable person inside a corporate setting might expect, someone surely said “But…we’re Google.  We’re God.  Why are the little people complaining?  Even Oprah won’t mess with us!” And a class action lawsuit was born.

The beauty of it is that Google will be putting $8.5 million dollars into an independent fund used to support Internet privacy education, something it seems to be a tad lax in understanding itself.  The irony of it is that because both sides settled, Google is allowed to deny all legal claims against it or that any law was broken.  Can we all just say it together?  “Typical.” There.  We said it.  Yes, putting that much money into a fund doesn’t look remotely suspicious of what they thought their chances of winning were.  I suspect the way they got around it was using the old “We’ll take this to court and appeal it as many times as possible so that your legal costs become astronomical” routine.

I mean, seriously, what’s next?  Maybe they"ll start selling a Google doll in the form of Search Engine Master that says "May the Privacy never be with you!"?  And people will probably pay good money for it, too.

All Odd Things Must Come To An Indecision
The settlement isn’t the last we’ll be hearing about this issue either.  There’s a “fairness hearing”–more irony–that will be taking place at the end of January next year where interested parties can debate the proposed settlement before a judge rules on it.  Or, members can opt out of it by December 6th and decide to sue Google independently.

It makes you wonder if things would have turned out any different had folks on the Death Star used Google as their search engine.

One of the things we’ve started doing here at TM is referencing other blogs we’ve written or parts of our site that address something in our Twitter tweets or Facebook updates.  First of all, it stops us from having to go into detail and cover something we’ve already covered, plus it lets readers delve more into a topic if they choose to.  It’s all about choice, right?  Second, it builds additional links.  The thing to remember is that you can have 100+ links pointing to a blog or part of your site, but if the content isn’t good, those links won’t help you much.  So please remember that content is king.

How many Twitter accounts are you using?  How efficient are your folks with it and how many people are following you?  Most companies we deal with here only have one account, but there are larger places out there that play in more than 200 accounts.  Why?  They want to get their links out there and reach their audience.  Admittedly, that many does sound like a bit of overkill.  Yes, your fries are crisp and salty.  I get it.  I’m not hungry.  Yeah.

These companies note, too, that they’re not counting on people retweeting their links.  It might be a nice, though, plus if you’re able to build up a reputation and generate anticipation, people retweeting you just goes to show what you’re doing is working since they’re excited enough to do that.  It’s all about the excitement.

Another way to build links is to syndicate your links.  This basically entails sending your link in to a site that goes and posts it on 100-300 other sites.  The thing is that you pay for this service.  And the more you pay, the more places your links will be posted, which can work to your advantage in expanding your audience and building on it.  Or, if your content isn’t any good, it’s merely a waste of money.

One trend that’s become noticeable on web sites is the use of buttons for people to click on, which link to social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace etc.  More information about your company is a single click away, which makes it a cinch for people to find and follow you.  I’m not sure how that would work for 200 Twitter accounts, but I’m sure somebody’s paid bigger bucks to figure that little problem out.

So, suffice to say that linking and finding new ways to link is good.  Not linking is bad…or at least not as good.

Let’s not forget targeting social news and bookmarking sites!

But that’s another story…

Ideally, you have people in your business who are out there trying to find ways to get your business found. You also hopefully have a team of folks working on your social media. These two groups actually work hand in hand and can benefit from what each other does.

Let’s say that you have your website built and are now performing monthly maintenance on it. Where are you performing well in the search engines? What keywords or phrases are people finding you through? Is your site being updated to reflect where you were weak in the search engine results and also maintain where you came out strong? That’s hopefully the case and your team is succeeding in building a better SEO success story for you. Now, are they copying your social media folks in their results?

If your social media group knows what keywords the company is weak on, they can go to work incorporating some of those words in the social media profiles and status updates. Plus, if they’re also writing blogs for your site, they can start to incorporate those into there as well. The more organic keywords they can place, the better chances of the search engines picking up your efforts.

Is there a nice moral or warm fuzzy to take away from this? Yes. Make sure the lines of communication are open between the two teams. Look at those of us here at TM. We have hundreds of…well, a couple of ones, two people, actually, looking at our rankings and keywords each month. They analyze the data and hand it over to my team. Me. As in one person, really. The rest of my team exists only in my head, but we’re darn efficient at what we do!

The three of us then take that data and coordinate our efforts between blogs, site updates, our online profile and social media status updates. And if we’re really lucky, we’re even getting others to pass our information along, which builds links.

But that’s another story…