February 22, 2012

Is the “Accept” Button the End of Our Relationship?

Are you Using LinkedIn?

People don’t know why they’re on LinkedIn…other than being trained like monkeys to click the “accept” button. I don’t need connections on LinkedIn, I already have actual friends on Facebook. I need shared-value/shared-interest connections where I can add value to our relationship. This is really the magic of LinkedIn – finding people who are passionate and can help create something greater than we can achieve individually.

Google Gets Social – Beta Feature

Google Gets Social

I was doing some research today and saw this popup for the first time: “Results from people in your social circle for low back pain – BETA” It is completely fascinating to me how social is going to be implemented into and impact search results. For companies not in this space – or moving quickly [...]

38 questions to assess your company’s cultural readiness for social media [SmartBlogs]

chaos

The authors of the forthcoming book, “The Now Revolution” provide a checklist to assess whether your company culture is ready for social media. I completely disagree with this assessment tool. First off, a company with a fractured culture is dysfunctional by nature and will lead to “mis-evaluations” on the part of the leadership that got [...]

The science of the hashtag [Twitter]

hashtags-image

The key takeaway is that your network is not about volume, it is about the connection and shared relationships and interests that are cultivated. As search engines begin to integrate social media into the ranking algorithm, the intensity of the interactions (through comments or retweets) will matter much more than sheer numbers.

ShopSocial Raises $1.2 Million For Its “Commerce As A Social Service” Idea [TechCrunch.com]

shopsocial

“Basically, ShopSocial enables brands and merchants to include buttons within display advertising units or on product pages that enables people to share and recommend products and services with their friends (via email, Facebook or Twitter).” I view this as an affiliate marketing play with a social media overlay. People are going to get paid for [...]

Social Media Success Pyramid

As someone who loves frameworks to learn and explain how things work, I think Drew Neisser from Renegade in New York does a really nice job of conceptualizing how social media should work. Social Media has to work within the scope of the larger organizational goals including making sure that brand, tone and content all [...]

Facebook Lead Generation for Local Businesses [PPCBlog.com]

For those “non-believers” about the effectiveness of Facebook advertising, here in an excellent case study that demonstrates a how-to to setup your own local campaign. I’ve successfully used Facebook advertising before to generate thousands of fans for our soccer coaching website – something I couldn’t do with Adwords as cost-effectively. With the ability to geo-target [...]

From Community Management to Command Centers [BrianSolis.com]

Social Media command centers to listen to social media outlets and customers? Really? Wow! Are these bold customer service initiatives by Gatorade and Dell or paranoid brands overzealously trying to protect their image? I thought it was only Intel that said, “Only the Paranoid Survive.” When we talk about the mindset change from transaction to [...]

Myspace vs. Facebook — There Can Be Only One [Gigaom.com]

It is hard to imagine that MySpace, once dominant in the social networking sphere and acquired by NewsCorp for $600, seems to be fading fast. It’s announcement yesterday to cut half its workforce highlights the dominance by Facebook in social networking. And, this despite MySpace’s redesign and focus on the entertainment sector. It would seem [...]

Social Media Affecting Search Engine Results

social-media-search

Last night, I led a discussion on the future impact of Google and Bing announcing that social media is now considered part of the search engine results algorithm.