What’s New This Week?

Social Network Launches for Social Media Industry: Social Media Examiner’s Networking Clubs just went public. “It’s a social water cooler for social media marketers,” says Michael Stelzner, CEO of Social Media Examiner. The free network has rich discussion and networking taking place.  There are three active clubs: The Facebook Club, the Blogging Club and the Small Business Club.

Social Media Examiner launches Networking Clubs for social media marketers

Online Search Introduces Their Social Media Jobs Salary Guide: This is a “comprehensive look at the best job markets, the most in-demand job titles and salary ranges for social media professionals in the top 20 U.S. cities.”

Click through to check out the current social media job salaries.

Tumblr Introduces Highlighted Posts: Tumblr users can pay to have their posts featured on the Tumblr Dashboard.

"For one dollar, your post will stand out in the Dashboard with a customizable sticker to make sure your followers take notice!"

LinkedIn Announces a More Secure Browsing Experience:  “LinkedIn now supports https for your browsing experience. This is currently an ‘opt in’ feature that will be rolled out gradually in the next coming weeks.”

On this Settings page you will also see a link to the https FAQ with more information about this feature.

Foursquare Improves “Explore” Search Feature: Foursquare’s Explore on the web features are now available on Explore for iPhone and Android.

The new mobile features include changing your location, filtering your recommendations and photos in your search results.

Here are a couple of social media tools worth noting:

Pholiofy: a Facebook Pages application that easily publishes your latest campaign, promotional coupons or branded messaging into your Facebook Page through WordPress.

Check out Pholiofy to publish your Pages on Facebook.

BuildChatter: a tool to build your Facebook app in minutes and without professional help.

Check out BuildChatter to build your own Facebook app.

And here’s another interesting infographic:

Yammer: 2011 by the Numbers:

Check out the stats for Yammer, the free private social network for your company.

What social media news caught your interest this week? Please share your comments below.

It’s not new. In fact, it’s almost as old as blogging itself.  It started becoming a standout tactic just a few years ago.

This post answers one of the most frequently asked questions: Is guest blogging good for “big guys?”

By the way, “guest posting, the time waster” is one of the myths I busted in my previous post for Social Media Examiner. Today’s article is one more argument in favor of guest blogging.

Guest blogging is about placing your content for free outside of your own blog to increase its reach. A guest post thus is a piece of content you write for someone else’s blog and include your author information to build exposure and awareness of your brand.

Here are eight familiar brands that are benefiting from guest blogging.

#1: Intel: Create and Support a Blogging Celebrity

Intel has definitely made a good choice.  Ekaterina Walter is a well-known guest blogger contributing to Mashable, The Next Web, Fast Company, Social Media Examiner and many more. She actively collaborates with readers by replying to comments and participating in discussions.

Caption: Intel's Ekaterina Walter answering comments to her guest post at Mashable.

So what is Intel doing right?

The company lets Ekaterina build her own personal brand. She always links to her personal blog while making it obvious that she loves working at Intel.

Ekaterina has become a social media celebrity and Intel handles that perfectly. It brings the company credibility, which is an invaluable advantage.

#2: Evernote: Share Your Own Success Case Study

Evernote is one of the best to illustrate the difference between self-promotion and sharing authentic case studies.

Evernote’s CEO Phil Libin is a guest contributor at TechCrunch, sharing the behind-the-curtain and first-hand experience of promoting an iPhone application. This post was an eye-opener for many people, as it shared some pretty awesome stats.

Caption: Evernote's CEO Phil Libin sharing his company stats after the first week on the App Store.

So what did Evernote do right?

Being really open and sharing your actual stats and tactics in a guest post on a popular blog may make you vulnerable to competitors who might try to copy your strategy.

But the loyal community of social media advocates and exposure the guest post brings is well worth the risk.

#3: Xbox: Dealing with a social media crisis

Stephen Toulouse, head of Xbox LIVE Policy and Enforcement, found a great place to explain the recent series of “unfair” console suspensions—the personal blog of his fellow Xbox team member.

The guest article has caused quite a buzz in the gaming community and an active discussion at the post.

Caption: Stephen Toulouse of Xbox deals with a social media crisis with the help of a guest post on a popular blog.

So what did Xbox do right?

To respond to rumors, the company needs to talk back to the community. A guest post shared on a popular niche blog is a great way to start the conversation.

#4: Klout: Promote your most powerful users

Megan Berry, the marketing manager for Klout, hits Huffington Post with a series of guest articles highlighting the most influential Twitter users (as per Klout stats).

Caption: Klout's Megan Berry features the most popular Twitter users (according to Klout).

So what is Klout doing right?

By sharing Twitter lists on a popular blog, Megan manages to achieve two important goals: (1) she shares Klout’s methodology and application example and (2) she attracts attention of those influential Twitter users to Klout (turning them into powerful brand advocates).

#5: Autodesk: Promote your message

The Autodesk team has been working hard to promote sustainable design. They are running an active contributing column at Fast Company called “Autodesk Sustainable Blogging Team” as well as guest posting actively around the web on sustainability in design. Here is a recent post on Designing a Sustainable World in 3D (at Forbes).

Caption: The Autodesk sustainable blogging team's guest column at the Fast Company blog.

So what is Autodesk doing right?

Guest blogging is a great way to increase brand awareness, but you don’t need to directly self-promote in your guest posts. Instead, focus on an idea, message or concept neighboring your brand. This will grow your (personal) brand influence and position you as a niche expert. For example, see how many times the Autodesk Sustainable Blogging Team is quoted online:

Caption: Screenshot of multiple quotes from the Autodesk Sustainable Blogging Team.

#6: O’Reilly Media: Increase your reach

One of the best-known media companies is hardly in need of more exposure, right? Wrong! O’Reilly Media started O’Reilly’s Radar, an online blog featuring emerging web technologies.

To increase its reach, correspondents for O’Reilly Media maintain regular guest accounts at top online publications; for example, Alexander Howard, government correspondent for O’Reilly Media, is a guest author for ReadWriteWeb, Huffington Post, etc.

Caption: Alexander Howard's guest post at Huffington Post results in a very active discussion.

So what is O’Reilly Media doing right?

Even huge brands with lots of online exposure understand that it is not wise to keep all of the content on their own sites. Yes, the constant stream of news might make other “outside” publications much stronger, but the exposure you get from regular guest posts on high-profile blogs is well worth it.

#7: Salesforce: Get the whole team involved

Salesforce is one of those huge brands that takes guest blogging really seriously. For example, their CEO Marc Benioff guest posts at TechCrunch on the future of cloud computing; their coders guest post at the official Google Code blog, sharing how to build a Google Earth app for Salesforce.com Foundation grantees and how to visualize your cloud’s data; and their MVPs guest post on file management.

Salesforce's CEO Marc Benioff guest posts at TechCrunch on the future of cloud computing.

So what is Salesforce doing right?

Incorporating your whole team in guest blogging means creating multiple voices around your business. Guest blogging should be a team effort. Salesforce gives its employees the freedom to talk about what they are good at and what they enjoy. The result: plenty of first-hand tutorials on using Salesforce and a lot of well-established contacts with bloggers.

#8: Forrester Research: Share the expertise

The leading business research company successfully uses guest blogging at powerful blogs to share their team members’ expertise.  For example, Forrester‘s vice president and research director J. P. Gownder writes on brand loyalty; their principal analyst guest posts on ICANN’s new domain registry options; and their consumer product strategy professional leader guest blogs on the future of digital music.

Caption: Forrester's vice president J. P. Gownder writes on brand loyalty.

So what is Forrester Research doing right?

Forrester Research makes great use of expert blogging. All of their leaders are blogging and most of them have powerful guest columns outside Forrester’s domain. All of the team members’ posts are highly professional—they all work to the benefit of the company’s image.

So are you guest blogging yet? Maybe you need to start!

What do you think?  Do you know of any other big guys who are using the power of guest blogging? What else can we learn from them?  Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

What’s New This Week?

Facebook Seeks to Raise $5 Billion in IPO: “Social networking titan Facebook filed to go public, seeking to raise $5 billion in the largest flotation ever by an Internet company on Wall Street.” Facebook shares are not expected to begin trading for several months.  Experts expect this initial public offering to be much larger than Google was when it went public.  Do you plan on investing in Facebook? Leave your comments below.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEXhNVDN-OI

Facebook IPO Reveals New Usage Numbers: Facebook’s nearly 200 page IPO documents revealed that Facebook now has 845 million active users, with 483 million people logging in daily.  Facebook also sees Google+ as a big competitive threat.

More Options for Google+ Badges: Google+ page owners now have a choice of badges to put on their website.  You can configure badges with a width that fits your design and choose one to complement your website.

Put a Google+ badge on your website to get more followers on your Google+ page.

Here are a few social media tools worth noting:

Salesforce Launches Desk.com and Desk.com Mobile: Salesforce‘s new services Desk.com and Desk.com Mobile are a “social help desk specifically targeted for small and mid-sized businesses (SMB).  Desk enables businesses to deliver personal customer service using a help desk that is social, mobile, and easy to use and deploy: key attributes for any SMB today looking to leverage social enterprise technologies.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UClF_DhDO_I&feature=player_embedded

Ifbyphone: Hubspot adds the Ifbyphone’s LeadResponder app to their marketplace. LeadResponder enables HubSpot customers to quickly connect with and convert qualified inbound marketing leads through the use of voice-based marketing automation.

"Ifbyphone’s integration with HubSpot solves the problem that occurs when a prospect completes a web form, then waits hours to receive a follow-up response."

So.cl: The social search experiment from Microsoft Research FUSE Labs.

Share your search. Rediscover search through your friends and community on the all-new social search...

And here’s an interesting infographic:

Is Pinterest the Next Social Commerce Game Changer?:

Have you had a look at Pinterest?

What social media news caught your interest this week? Please share your comments below.

Our third-annual social media blog contest generated nearly 600 nominations (almost twice as many as last year’s contest).

Our panel of social media experts carefully reviewed the nominees and finalists, analyzing the quality of their content, the frequency of posts and reader involvement (among other things).

With that in mind, here are ten blogs that need to be at the top of your reading list.

#1: Social Mouths

Social Mouths, the brainchild of Francisco Rosales, provides deep and honest looks at social media marketing and trends that impact our industry.

The site contains detailed posts with real-world examples, and addresses new and difficult topics.

#2: ViralBlog

ViralBlog provides a daily stream of social media trends and inspiration through case studies and other interesting articles.

The site has excellent content with useful tips and advice.

#3: Jeff Bullas

Jeff Bullas takes a close look at how businesses can get found online through social media.

The site has excellent content with solid social media insights.

#4: Hubze

Hubze has built an audience by focusing on social media trends and tips on social media marketing tactics.

The site contains a nice variety of media, including articles and podcasts.

#5: The Sales Lion

The Sales Lion from Marcus Sheridan is a blog that seeks to build community around inbound marketing, blogging, business and life.

The site fosters strong community with great participation through comments.

#6: Pushing Social

Pushing Social from Stanford Smith provides practical blogging tips and resources from a fresh perspective.

The site contains creative, informative and readable posts with deeper-than-average advice.

#7: Heidi Cohen

Heidi Cohen provides intelligent insights on social media tactics and trends, all while making the complex simple.

The site contains comprehensive and thoughtful content.

#8: MarketingTech Blog

MarketingTech blog provides a technology-focused approach to new media marketing.

The site covers a variety of topics and media, including radio and video.

#9: Likeable Media

Likeable Media keeps readers current on industry trends and new tools while also providing strategies and tactics for using Facebook and social media marketing.

The site contains very current information on new tools and platforms.

#10: SplashMedia

SplashMedia provides interesting takes on strategy, tips and trends, while their SplashCasts offer some great success stories.

The site features great use of a video show as well as diverse postings with good in-depth content.

Congratulations to the winners! Be sure to check out these amazing blogs.

The badge of distinction: If you’re a winner, you can post the image you see here on your blog and please link back to this page.

A special thanks to our judges: Andy Sernovitz (author, Word of Mouth Marketing and CEO, SocialMedia.org), Rick Calvert (CEO, BlogWorld) and Michael Stelzner (author, Launch and CEO, Social Media Examiner).

What do you think? Share your questions and comments in the box below.

What’s New This Week?

Google+ Allows Nicknames: Over the next week, Google+ will provide “support for alternate names—be they nicknames, birth names, or names in another script—alongside your common name. This name will show up on your Google+ profile and in the hovercards which appear over your name.”

To add an alternate name, go to your Google+ profile, click Edit Profile, select your name and click on “More options.”

New Google Accounts Generate Both Gmail and Google+ Accounts: Signing up for a Gmail account now automatically creates a Google+ account. This could impact how users use and network on other Google platforms such as YouTube and Google Docs.

New Gmail accounts also generate Google+ accounts.

Google Updates Privacy Policy: This update takes effect on March 1. It simplifies all privacy policies and makes it clear that if you’re signed in, Google “may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services. In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGghlPmebCY

YouTube Hits 4 Billion Daily Video Views: This is a 25% increase over the last 8 months. “Roughly 60 hours of video are now uploaded to YouTube every minute.”

Say Hello to the New Vimeo:  Vimeo gets a new design and puts a greater focus on your videos, which makes Vimeo easier, faster and more fun to use.

Vimeo has bigger videos and gives you more ways to discover things you like.

Here’s a social media tool worth noting:

AgoraPulse: An all-in-one Facebook marketing and CRM solution. Check out their unique comparison feature to see how your Facebook business page compares to your competitors’ pages. (This feature is only available to paying customers.)

AgoraPulse's competitive analysis of Social Media Examiner's Facebook Page.

Here’s an interesting infographic:

How to Get More Clicks on Twitter: Check out Dan Zarrella’s latest findings to improve your Twitter marketing results.

Use these insights to get more clicks on Twitter.

And don’t miss this (starting next week!):

Social Media Examiner presents Small Business Success Summit 2011! (online conference)

Join 25 experts, including including John Jantsch (author, Duct Tape Marketing), Anita Campbell (founder, Small Business Trends), Michael Stelzner (founder, Social Media Examiner and author, Launch), Mari Smith (co-author, Facebook Marketing), Jesse Stay (author, Google+ for Dummies), Hollis Thomases (author, Twitter Marketing), David Siteman Garland (founder, “The Rise to the Top” and author, Faster, Smarter, Cheaper), Joe Pulizzi (founder, Content Marketing Institute and co-author, Get Content, Get Customers), Brian Clark (founder, Copyblogger Media), Lee Odden (founder, TopRank Online Marketing), Ramon Ray (founder, Small Biz Technology and author, Technology Solutions for Growing Businesses) and Lewis Howes (co-author, LinkedWorking)—just to mention a few (scroll down to see full list)!

Go here to learn more.

What social media news caught your interest this week? Please share your comments below.

With the growing number of social networks, it can be a pain to keep on top of them all.

Below I’ve highlighted three tools to help you manage your various social networking accounts from one neat dashboard.

#1: Alternion

Just recently out of private beta testing, Alternion packs a punch with the number of networks and social profiles you can manage.

Each profile or account is added by logging into the original site and allowing Alternion to access your account.

From blogging to bookmarking, image-sharing to shopping, Alternion will cover more of your accounts than any other dashboard I’ve tried so far. For business and marketing purposes, you’ll find most of the accounts you would need: Facebook, Twitter, WordPress, Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Vimeo and YouTube are all here.

Alternion also places an emphasis on user privacy, with sharing options available for each linked account (perhaps having learned a lesson from Facebook’s privacy fumbles). You can decide whether to display a link to each account on your Alternion profile, and who can see your updates from a specific network.

Alternion's privacy settings are simple and easy to change.

The main dashboard page is a little reminiscent of Facebook’s once-simple layout—the blue and white design and clean structure make it easy to focus on your data and the task at hand.

Two sidebars keep your main news feed or message stream uncluttered.

Alternion offers three main viewing options: your social news feed, which pulls in updates from your social networks; messages, which allow you to interact with your various email accounts; and contacts, which is fairly self-explanatory.

One great feature that I was surprised to find is the ability to not only edit your Facebook and Twitter lists, but also to create brand-new lists from within the contacts tab.

Alternion also creates a user profile for everyone with an account. On your profile page, you can see updates you have made to any linked social networks, links to your various social profiles, photos and videos you have shared and some basic stats about your activity (number of profiles, number of updates, etc.).

The profile sidebar shows an overview of your activity from all accounts across the web.

#2: LiveGO

Unlike Alternion, LiveGO focuses on a smaller number of popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter. It also incorporates email accounts and instant messengers such as Gmail’s GTalk and AOL Instant Messenger.

LiveGO aims to be a simple way to communicate with others through email, social networks or instant messages.

LiveGO has several viewing options, allowing you to get an overview of everything at once or focus on a particular area. The standard inbox view shows your email inbox at the top, with mixed social network feeds underneath. Your instant message accounts live in a sidebar to the right, which can be hidden when not in use, giving you more space for other tasks.

Each of your accounts has its own button on the left, with a pop-up menu that makes it easy to switch to specific feeds; for instance, Twitter mentions or email drafts. A menu across the top of the main feeds panel offers different areas of each network, giving you full, integrated access to your account.

The Facebook-specific view has menu options for your news feed, photo albums, messages and more.

Each Twitter account has its own panel as well, showing your main feed, your own tweets, favorites, mentions and direct messages.

LiveGO's integration with Twitter includes the ability to favorite and unfavorite tweets, see conversation threads and follow or unfollow users.

A constant update box sits at the top of the screen, allowing you to update any of your social networks with ease. Choosing the account you are sending from is clear (something I have had issues with in other dashboard apps), and sending the same update to more than one account is an option.

Finally, a couple of unusual features that caught my attention: First, the ability to add special characters (music notes, hearts, arrows) to your updates. Admittedly, this is not something I use often, but is an interesting addition to the update box, especially considering an “add media” button is conspicuously missing. Second, a feature I have never seen before: an automatic collection of updates from the same person. See the image below for an example.

Two recent tweets by the same person were linked automatically by a bracket to show that they came from the same author.

#3: Netvibes

Netvibes is more of a monitoring dashboard than an integrated updating tool. With the ability to add several social networking accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace (yes, really) and email accounts, it offers a good overview of your networks. Its focus is more on monitoring your brand across the web than communication, however.

Netvibes aims to be "everything that matters to you" collected into one dashboard.

With the ability to add several “dashboards” to your account, Netvibes offers a comfortable way to keep different areas of your work separated; for instance, personal and professional accounts or different brands you are monitoring.

Various widgets allow a huge degree of personalization to your dashboard.

Each dashboard view lets you choose widgets to add, which come as specific as the calculator, weather or to-do list widgets, and as indistinct as standard text or HTML widgets.

Social widgets allow you to monitor your email, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts.

Each social networking widget offers standard functionality, such as replies, comments, retweeting and other sharing options. The email widget, however, is disappointing in its lack of features, offering essentially an inbox monitor and nothing else.

Adding widgets is a fairly simple process, with categories to browse at the top of the page. Each widget can fit into different areas of your dashboard, and change size and shape accordingly.

Widget previews show user ratings, image previews and the number of users who have installed the widget.

The one thing Netvibes really does differently is the integration of RSS feeds. With RSS widgets, you can quickly get an overview of recent headlines, and open these in a reader view to see the full article.

RSS feeds can be read without leaving the Netvibes dashboard.

This integration makes Netvibes the perfect place to monitor specific topics across the web, without actually “traveling” across the web.

If you prefer to view the actual website, you still don't have to leave your dashboard.

Netvibes also offers the most extensive personalization options of these three apps, with several themes available to choose from, and color options available for each separate widget.

The Verdict

As always with these roundup posts, your needs will determine which app is of the most benefit to you.

What do you think? Let us know which dashboards you’ve tried, and what you like best. What features would you like to see added to your favorite dashboard?

What’s New This Week?

Facebook Announces Tight Integration of 60 Apps to Timeline, More on the Way: Facebook now allows developers a tighter integration with Facebook’s Timeline. “More than 60 apps are immediately going live, including such favorites as Pinterest, eBay, Foodspotting, Airbnb and Foursquare.”

Check out the new apps to add to your Facebook Timeline.

Web Goes on Strike to Protest SOPA: Last Wednesday, many websites maintained a blackout in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill currently in the U.S. congress. You can find out more about SOPA in the infographic and video below.

SOPA infographic from AmericanCensorship.org.

Foursquare’s Explore Feature Now on the Web: Explore helps you find interesting things nearby and your check-ins allow Foursquare to personalize recommendations for you.

Explore is powered by check-ins and Foursquare Tips.

Here are a few more interesting infographics: 

Social Login and Social Plugins Increase Page Views: Gigya analyzed their data from 2011 to measure how their technology impacted their clients and they share the results in the infographic below.

"The results clearly show that on-site social technology brings real value to sites."

Integration of Email Marketing and Social Media: GetResponse shares some interesting research results on email marketing integrated with social media.

Do you have social sharing buttons in your emails?

LinkedIn’s CardMunch App Reaches Two Million Cards:  CardMunch is simple: “a quick camera capture of any business card using an iPhone enables professionals to digitize their collection of business cards, but more importantly get access to richer information about the person behind the card via their LinkedIn profile.”

Have you munched any cards?

HootSuite Reaches Three Million Users:  This popular social media dashboard continues to grow, adding a million users in the last six months.

Do you use HootSuite?

And don’t miss this:

Social Media Examiner presents Small Business Success Summit 2011! (online conference starts in February)

Join 25 experts, including including John Jantsch (author, Duct Tape Marketing), Anita Campbell (founder, Small Business Trends), Michael Stelzner (founder, Social Media Examiner and author, Launch), Mari Smith (co-author, Facebook Marketing), Jesse Stay (author, Google+ for Dummies), Hollis Thomases (author, Twitter Marketing), David Siteman Garland (founder, “The Rise to the Top” and author, Faster, Smarter, Cheaper), Joe Pulizzi (founder, Content Marketing Institute and co-author, Get Content, Get Customers), Brian Clark (founder, Copyblogger Media), Lee Odden (founder, TopRank Online Marketing), Ramon Ray (founder, Small Biz Technology and author, Technology Solutions for Growing Businesses) and Lewis Howes (co-author, LinkedWorking)—just to mention a few (scroll down to see full list)! Go here to learn more.

What social media news caught your interest this week? Please share your comments below.

Rarely (if at all) have you heard the confident and unwavering response, “Yes, you can!”

In their book, How to Make Money with Social Media—An Insider’s Guide on Using New and Emerging Media to Grow Your Business, Jamie Turner and Reshma Shah explain that there’s a big difference between people who make money with social media and people who don’t.

People who fail to make money with social media are those who never get their plan off the ground. They’re the ones who (among other things):

• Don’t know how to set up a landing page
• Don’t remarket to “customer prospects”
• Don’t know how to turn a social media campaign into a sales campaign
• Think they can do social media in ten minutes a day
• Sit on the sidelines
• And other faux pas

But people who make money are different. They set objectives, create a plan and execute the plan relentlessly.

And that’s what this book is all about—The Plan. You’ve heard the old adage, “People don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan.” Well it’s true. And to make sure that it doesn’t happen to you, the authors provide a thorough, “no-wiggle-room” roadmap that will put you on the path to social media success.

Here’s what you should know about the book.

Authors’ Purpose

The goal of the authors is to teach you some innovative ways of using social media, in order to generate real revenue and profits for you and your company.

Jamie Turner

Reshma Shah

In this book, Jamie Turner and Reshma Shah explain that by following “the roadmap,” you can use social media effectively to grow your business and make money as well.

So whether you’re a small business owner, a regular business-to-business company or you run a huge division at a large global organization, the authors provide a practical plan to help you set up, launch and run a money-making social media campaign that will work specifically for you.

What to Expect

At 275 pages, this book is not meant to be read cover-to-cover in one sitting. It’s much too extensive for that. Fortunately it’s an easy read, has many interesting examples and lots of bullet points, and is therefore very skimmable.

The book starts with a brief history lesson on what advertising and marketing looked like before the Internet. It goes on to talk about how things have changed and where social media is going to take us in the future.

But the core of the book is literally a roadmap that starts by laying the groundwork for success, and on to measuring the only really important thing – money!

Also notable, toward the end of the book is a checklist of 59 things you need to do on your way to a successful social media campaign.

Some of the more interesting ideas that the authors introduce are:

1. How to tell if your brand is a social media magnet
2. How to use circular momentum to build your brand
3. How to conduct a social media competitive assessment
4. How to build new relationships with customers using augmented reality
5. How to use different social media platforms to network, promote and share (they’re not the same!): Facebook is like a pub, LinkedIn is like a trade show, Twitter is like a cocktail party, YouTube is like Times Square on New Year’s Eve, MySpace is like Woodstock, and perhaps in their next edition, the authors will give us an analogy for Google+.

Key Highlights

For the most part, this book is rather elementary. But don’t write it off altogether, even if you’re a social media pro. There’s still a good chance that you might learn one or two cool things such as:

#1: How to Tell if Your Brand is a Social Media Magnet

A social media magnet is a brand that people want to be associated with. Big brands such as Nike, Apple and Harley-Davidson have no problem there.

The first step to acquiring social media magnetism is to use traditional media to drive people to your Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn pages.

This Smirnoff ad prompts viewers to check out their Facebook page.

If you’re a small and underfunded brand, you’ll probably lean heavily on word-of-mouth marketing to promote your social media profiles.

The authors suggest that you ask yourself the following questions to figure out if your brand is a social media magnet:

• Do people wear your logo on their sweatshirts?
• Do people put bumper stickers with your logo on their cars?
• Do people wear hats with your logo on them?

Obviously the vast majority of small business brands will answer “no” to most, if not all three, questions and the authors know this.

Their intention in asking these “trick questions” is not to shame you or make you feel like a loser, but to make the case that social media is about running a successful business, not about being social. They want you to know that by applying the lessons you learn from their book, you too will be on your way to running a successful business.

#2: How to Think About Social Media

Some people use social media platforms as if they were all exactly the same. What they need to know is that each platform is different and should be approached in a completely unique way.

Facebook is a casual space (like a pub), LinkedIn is a space where you talk strictly business (tradeshow), Twitter is a noisy place where you share helpful links to position you as an expert (cocktail party), YouTube is packed with people clamoring for attention (Times Square on New Year’s Eve) and MySpace… well, that’s history unless you’re a musician.

On LinkedIn, it's important to focus on networking and to carry out professional conversations.

Your job is to review the parallels among these platforms and their analogies (i.e., pub, cocktail party, tradeshow and so forth), and share those parallels with people in your office so that they can get comfortable and figure out how to use each individual platform. Visit other people’s social media pages to see what they’re doing on their various platforms.

Also when reviewing the different platforms, keep in mind that some of them help you to network (LinkedIn), others help you to promote your brand (Facebook) and others help you to share content (Twitter and YouTube).

#3: How to Create Circular Momentum

Turner and Shah suggest that we’re all connected through six degrees of separation.

What that means in business parlance is that your product is linked to a lot more people than those who’ve had direct contact with it. So if people have had a negative experience with your brand, then word will get out very, very fast! This is called circular momentum.

Now, if you can create positive experiences for people using your social media channels, you’ll be able to leverage circular momentum to bring about a great outcome.

Equifax, for example, is a very conservative company. They realized the benefit in allowing fans to vent their frustrations on their Facebook page. After they vent, customers feel much better and Equifax then uses this opportunity to provide support and encouragement. As a result, their customer retention rates have improved by a huge margin, thus justifying their social media efforts.

#4: How to Use Augmented Reality to Generate Business Leads

Augmented reality (AR) is a phrase used to describe a direct or indirect view of the physical, real-world environment through a computer-generated sensory experience. Companies can use AR technology to build new relationships with customers and to persuade prospects.

Side note: You might have experimented with some AR apps on your iPhone; e.g., WorkSnug to identify nearby wi-fi hotspots, DishPointer if you’re into cabling and CarFinder if you can’t remember where you parked the car!

Businesses are also using AR in very interesting and innovative ways. IKEA in Germany for example uses AR to get prospects to try out new furniture right from their homes. Prospects can simply aim their web cam at the current furniture in their living room to see a stylish new piece of IKEA furniture superimposed over their old couch! Just think of how often you could virtually redecorate your house!

This video clip shows how IKEA uses augmented reality to get more customers:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4nnLti-72A

#5: How to Conduct a Social Media Competitive Assessment for Your Business

You’re already familiar with how competition in business works. In the last few years, for example, we’ve seen Amazon grab the lion’s share of the book market, as Barnes & Noble and Borders battled each other for physical retail dominance. What they didn’t realize is that competitive shortsightedness can actually render a business extinct, as Borders later found out.

Today your competition is not just your direct competition, it is actually anyone who competes for your customers’ disposable income—more so now because of social media and the universal competition for consumers’ attention.

This makes social media competitive assessment very challenging.

At the very least, you want to figure out how your competitors are using social media so that you can analyze how to compete against them.

However, you might also want to deliberately place yourself on the competitive grid as far away from them as possible. So if your nearest competitor has hired a specialist to manage his social media networks on a frequent basis, you might decide that you’re only interested in a few channels, say only blogs, and that you will be relentless in that one area.

Personal Impressions

I don’t like the title, How to Make Money with Social Media. It sounds like a scam, and in any case the book doesn’t live up to it. However, the subtitle, An Insider’s Guide on Using New and Emerging Media to Grow Your Business, is a lot more accurate.

I also thought the book was rather elementary. Save for a few novel ideas, it might not be very interesting to the experienced social media marketer. Also, most case studies used are big-name companies. Small businesses will have a tough time relating with Coca Cola, Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, IKEA, Colgate Palmolive and other industry giants.

That said, if there’s one social media book that executives and senior managers should read, it is this one. I believe they will be drawn to its interpretation of social media from a commercial perspective, and how social media activities tie to the bottom line.

This book serves as an important reminder that social media is only a means to an end to generate value for your organization. Ultimately you want to set up a social media campaign that is designed to make money. Everything else is just a stop along the way.

Social Media Examiner gives the book a 3.0 star rating.

Over to You

What social media strategies are you using to generate value for your company? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

This article highlights nine small businesses of various sizes and industries that have transformed their online presence with innovative social media marketing practices.

You’re guaranteed to find inspiration for your social media marketing efforts here.

These tactics will work for just about any business—from solopreneur to multi-employee manufacturer. So let’s dive in!

#1: JarvieDigital Photography

Scott Jarvie takes world-class wedding and nature photographs and he has trained a number of photographers using his unique methods. He’s even had a photographic method named after him: The Jarvie Window.

The Jarvie Window has generated interest in Scott's photography around the world.

As a photographer, you would expect Scott to have exceptional photos on his site, and he does. But he uses them on both Facebook and Google+ to create personal engagement and promote his products and services. In fact, Scott has developed different engagement strategies for each platform.

On Scott's personal Google+ profile, he is highly engaged through sharing resources and commenting.

On his Google+ business page, Scott features his photo services.

While Scott is a premium photographer and trainer, he demonstrates his expertise and generosity to photographers worldwide through sharing resources on his website and through his social sites.

Scott not only shares valuable resources, he also promotes the work of his students—a great way to show social love.

#2: The Prospecting Expert: A Consultant

Steve Kloyda founded The Prospecting Expert, a business-to-business consulting firm that helps salespeople with their prospecting skills. He has developed a powerful social presence through the use of video and podcasts.

Steve provides valuable content through a regular podcast show and video channel. Notice also the use of social sharing buttons.

One thing Steve understands is branding. Through the use of his photo and logo, he has created a consistent look and feel across all of his social channels.

Steve's brand is instantly recognizable. Notice also the friendly picture—important when your face is your brand.

One ninja trick executed by Steve is the creation of an iPhone app for distributing his content. While it could cost from hundreds to several thousands of dollars, the marketing benefit of having your content delivered straight to your users’ mobile devices could be invaluable.

Let your customers directly access your content on their mobile devices with a customized app.

#3: Coconut Bliss: An Ice Cream Company

Coconut Bliss is an organic dessert company based in Eugene, Oregon. Their products have become widely popular due to their social media practices.

Coconut Bliss conveys a fun, social brand through rotating photos on their home page.

Technorati discovered in their 2011 State of the Blogosphere report that bloggers use photos more than any other type of media (80% use photos, around 50% use videos and many fewer for all other formats). Coconut Bliss makes an effective use of fun and friendly pictures to show customers eating their dessert products.

Coconut Bliss integrates photos across social platforms.

Coconut Bliss makes an effective use of promotions to engage their fans. In this year’s Veggie Awards, they were able to partner with VegNews to offer a unique prize to Coconut Bliss fans while also getting partnership in a much larger promotion to all readers of VegNews. Two smart strategies: contests and partnerships.

#4: JamaicansMusic: An Online Music Channel

Casey Hibbard highlighted JamaicansMusic in a Social Media Examiner post, but they have some unique social practices worth emulating. After all, they have achieved astronomical growth through smart social media practices—1.5 million new fans in 4 months!

When visiting the JamaicansMusic website, one instantly gets the feeling that this is a social company. In fact, there are three different places on their home page to connect socially.

Make it easy to connect socially, especially if there are multiple offers on your home page.

By providing contests, free music, games and other valuable resources, JamaicansMusic has given their Facebook fans lots of reasons to revisit their page—and tell their friends about it.

When playing this creative songwriting game, JamaicansMusic offers fans more ways to connect socially.

#5: SEOMoz: A Software Company

SEOMoz is a search engine optimization and social monitoring service provider. One thing that distinguishes their site is the use of gaming mechanics to spur participation from their writers and site members. Each post, comment and Like generates points that help distinguish the experts from the crowd.

Gaming mechanics encourage site members to actively participate if they want to rank well against their peers.

Not only does SEOMoz invite social engagement on the first visit, they also use social proof to earn the trust of visitors. See the recognizable brands in the image below.

If you've done business with name-recognizable companies, ask if you can tell others. It provides significant social proof for your business.

#6: Ana White: Carpenter

Ana White is a carpenter billing herself as a “homemaker” who has a website to empower women to do carpentry projects. With over 51,000 Facebook fans, Ana has created a massive following among women (and quite a few men) who love her easy-to-follow blueprints for do-it-yourself furniture projects.

Ana's Facebook page has over 51,000 fans. Her fans post tips and projects here frequently.

Since late 2009, Ana has been publishing free how-to guides for furniture. She also asks her fans to post pictures of their success stories—the very thing people love to do (talk about themselves). As a result, she has a very popular site where most of the posting comes from fans. Very smart!

Ana's fans love to post pictures of their successful home projects.

Notice all the social sharing options Ana makes available at the end of the post above. She makes it easy to share with friends.

Ana has also created a very engaged community on her Facebook page that complements, but is distinct from, her blog.

Remarkably, she doesn’t post that often—she doesn’t have to. While she comments on at least half of the posts, her fans are busy posting and answering questions for each other.

#7: EasyLunchboxes

Kelly Lester founded EasyLunchboxes out of a personal desire to find healthy ways to package food she sent with her children to school. As a solopreneur, she has found unusual success due to her wise social practices and great social branding.

Her blog presents a clean, compelling look into her company. On her website, Kelly has integrated multiple opportunities to connect socially and to subscribe to her newsletter.

In addition to inviting social connections, Kelly has positioned herself uniquely as the "Singing CEO," a title that will be easily remembered.

An important piece of social real estate is the Facebook welcome tab. Kelly makes good use of this space by keeping her brand exciting, telling visitors what to expect from her page and promising valuable content.

Your welcome tab should give visitors a sense of what to expect on your page.

Kelly has created a focused plan to market through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and her blog. She delivers unique content on each channel and integrates them with each other—all while maintaining her personal life as a mom and actress.

With her acting background, Kelly has distinguished her YouTube channel by creating her own TV series. This includes over 150 videos where she has even given her audience a chance to share videos of why they like EasyLunchboxes.

If you or someone you know has an acting flair, think about creating your own video series.

#8: Social Media Explorer: An Agency and Online Service

Social Media Explorer is a business-to-business education and information products company focused on social media and digital marketing.

On their home page, Social Media Explorer has taken advantage of Intent, a Twitter plugin. This allows a user to see if he or she already follows this business.

What is seen before following Jason Falls' Twitter account

What users see if they are following Jason Falls.

As a blog, Social Media Explorer features numerous guest authors. To show social love to these authors, Jason Falls and Aaron Marshall have prominently highlighted the social profiles of each of their authors. This allows readers to quickly connect with the experts and enables the authors to expand their influence.

Each Social Media Explorer author receives prominent recognition for their articles and an easy way for readers to find them on various social platforms.

#9: Orabrush: A Dental Product

After years of failed attempts to market his innovative tongue brush, Dr. Bob Wagstaff decided to give YouTube a try. Spending only $500, he created his first video. In less than 3 years that video has been seen more than 16 million times and helped to generate over $1.6 million in sales and contracts with Wal-Mart and CVS Pharmacies.

While you can’t guarantee a video will go viral like this, there are some lessons to be learned:

1. Talk about something that people care about—in this case, bad breath.
2. Keep your video short—Dr. Bob’s video was only 2 minutes long.
3. Embed your video on your home page.
4. Grab people’s attention in the first 5 seconds—with some minor editing, this video incorporates quick, edgy statements that pull the viewer into wanting to hear the solution.
5. Offer something for free—your first Orabrush is free, if you’ve watched the video.

Here are more tips on video marketing.

Orabrush embedded their popular video on their home page, while answering a problem that concerns many people: bad breath.

Some other best practices used on Orabrush’s website: They made it easy for users to tell their stories with video clips. They also prominently feature quotes from the traditional press on their page. Finally, they make their YouTube channel prominent, because this has been a key to their success.

Let individuals and the press sing your praises through videos and quotes on your website.

Finally, Orabrush understands the importance of keeping customers on their website, so they integrated Facebook onto their site.

Integrate Facebook to keep fans on your website.

These nine small businesses have many more things to teach other small businesses everywhere, but they aren’t the only ones.

What do you think? What have you learned that you’d like to share? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

Still in its infancy, Google+ has become a very hot topic.

Amid concern that this “new kid on the block” couldn’t compete in a social media landscape owned by Facebook, some have opted to dismiss the platform entirely.

While Google+ and Google+ business pages are still in the early stages, there is growing evidence that they’re here to stay.

You Can No Longer Ignore Google+

Google+ may be the newcomer in social media, but it can no longer be dismissed. And don’t take my word for it. Chris Brogan claims Google+ “changes EVERYTHING.” In a recent article, he cites two factors as being game-changers:

“Search is probably the biggest reason it changes everything. Second, a very wealthy company (Google) is pushing Plus to be a very powerful effort to change the way we share information on the web. They’ve spent money on commercials during many mainstream events, and they’ve changed up many of their disparate applications and processes to point harder toward Google+. They’ve really quickly moved towards building a social backplane that is a lot more functional than any other social network.”

Google+ Updates Coming Fast

Over the past few weeks, there has been a slew of Google+ updates that should make marketers sit up and take notice. The platform already included several integrations with other Google offerings that, according to Jesse Stay (author of Google+ for Dummies), ensure the platform’s staying power.

Google+ is here to stay, with updates coming out almost weekly.

Included in the more recent updates are features such as multiple admins for business pages, “On Air” hangouts, free voice calls, integration with Google Music, face-recognition capabilities and heftier integration with Gmail and contacts. And more exciting updates are on the way, including Google+ check-in deals.

The Google+ team is actively soliciting and responding to user feedback and suggestions on their Google+ page, hinting that more updates are in the works.

How Top Business Brands Are Using Google+

So which brands are finding the most success with Google+ business pages?

I took a look at both the most popular business pages and the most engaging page posts according to Socialstatistics.com. The findings were insightful and uncovered some conflicting pieces of data.

For example, the most popular profile on Google+ belongs to Britney Spears with almost 1 million followers. However, the top 10 brand pages are all dedicated to technology and not one page could be categorized under pop culture or entertainment.

Also revealing is the fact that despite the masses flocking to celebrity Google+ profiles, it’s the smaller communities that are actively engaging.

So how do business owners use these insights to help them mount their own Google+ campaigns? Let’s take a closer look at the strategies employed by the top brands on Google+.

Unlike Facebook, Google has prohibited the use of contests or promotions on its business pages. This higher level of engagement on Google+ adds even more value.

After studying the top pages and posts on Google+, I was most impressed with the activity on these pages:

• +Android
• +NASA
• +Funny Pictures and Videos.

Here’s a breakdown of their top-performing content.

#1: Android

Android boasts the most popular business page on Google+.

Android’s Google+ page is THE most popular business page with more than 140,000 fans. Unlike many other big brands’ business pages, Android’s audience is engaged and posts are averaging hundreds of +1′s, comments and shares.

Post frequency on the page runs the gamut from a few posts a day to more than 10. And there doesn’t appear to be any pattern as to which days the page admin is posting the most content.

The page header and many of the posts throughout December centered on their big “10 billion app” celebration. Which begs the question: Have all these promotional posts boosted sales in the Android app store? At this point, Android community managers aren’t ready to comment.

So what’s getting the Google+ Android community all hot and bothered? Here’s a look at their most engaging content:

• 10 cent apps promotion—In celebration of reaching the milestone of 10 billion app downloads, Android discounted selected apps to only 10 cents. The discounted app promotion ran for 10 days beginning December 6. Each day, the list of discounted apps changed and was posted on the Android Google+ page. These posts were the most engaging, with the initial announcement of the promotion gaining more than 2,000 shares and more than 3,000 +1′s.
• 10 billion Android app downloads infographic (This post had a +Android callout in the actual post copy, providing two ways friends of users who shared the post could find the page.)
• Google Currents announcement (Also had the +Android callout in the post copy.)
• Video content—Original video content posted on the page was also very engaging. Topics included Android game developer interviews, Google+ hangouts demo on a Galaxy Nexus smartphone, animation trumpeting the more than 200 million Android activations and an interview with Keith Richards presented by Google Music.
  

  Google Music is a hot topic on the +Android business page, tracking more than 2,500 interactions.

• Google Music promotions—Top albums discounted to just $1 in the Android Market and free music from bands like Coldplay, which can be instantly shared with your circles on Google+.

#2: NASA

NASA's Google+ page engages followers with almost 15 posts daily.

NASA’s Google+ page is one of the most popular and engaging among all business pages. The page is updated between 5 and 15 times daily with the latest news, photos and videos from NASA.

The active space and science community on Google+ may support speculation that platform users are mostly tech-savvy early adopters. This finding contradicts the fact that the TOP Google+ profile belongs to pop star Britney spears. However, her page garners less engagement based upon the number of followers than the top brands I’ve outlined in this article.

So how is NASA beating out Britney? Here’s a look at their best-performing content:

• Invitation to send holiday greetings to the International Space Station crew.
  

  This video explaining the upcoming lunar eclipse was among NASA's top-performing content on Google+.

• Video content—Topics include NASA shout-out from an elf starring in the new film Arthur Christmas, NASA’s Mars rover’s journey to Mars, Thanksgiving greetings from the new International Space Station commander and a video outlining the upcoming lunar eclipse that garnered a whopping 1,022 shares.
• News updates—The latest discoveries from the NASA Mars rover, the Kepler mission’s search for inhabitable planets and Voyager’s discoveries at the edge of the solar system.

#3: Funny Pictures & Videos

One of the most engaging pages, Funny Pictures & Videos delivers on its promise.

So I know Funny Pictures & Videos isn’t an actual brand, BUT they are getting outrageous numbers of shares, +1′s and comments on their posts. The content isn’t selling anything and stays “on message” by delivering exactly what they promise: funny pictures and videos.

The absence of any discounts, deals or promotional posts dispels the myth that consumers on social media are only interested in these types of offers.

The page averages about three to five posts daily, with each post receiving hundreds of comments and sometimes THOUSANDS of shares. The page photostrip that spans the top of the page has two simple calls to action: 1) Share This Page and 2) Add to Circles. That message seems to be resonating as the page ranks 13th among the most popular pages, with more than 60,000 followers. Here are some examples of their most engaging content:

• Animated photos—Topics include a white blood cell chasing down bacteria, importing Facebook data to Google+, a man with his two pet lions and a dog covering himself up with a blanket.
• Angry birds—Photos depicting the real-life version of the cartoon characters.
• Cartoons—Good old-fashioned comic-strip style cartoons.
• Cute animal photos—No explanation needed.
  

  This animated photo depicting Bart Simpson and his classmates interacting with smartphones generated more than 5,000 shares on Google+.

• Tech-related content—Some of the most engaging content on this page revolves around technology and commentary on how it’s impacting our lives.

Is the Jury Still Out?

I’m convinced that Google+ is here to stay and that it will continue to provide value to business owners. With capabilities such as video hangouts, free voice calls and slick integration with all of Google’s other tools, new users will continue to flock to the platform. There are many skeptics who completely disagree and feel Google+ will likely go the way of Google’s other failed projects such as Google Lively and Google Buzz.

What are your thoughts? Do you feel it’s time to get onboard the Google+ train? Or are you going to be left waiting on the platform? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.