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Social media is the time machine everyone is seeking

I thought I would take a break from writing about business blogging and social media to explore some of the fun things available to us today.

Recently a team of Chinese scientists published a paper stating that time travel is not possible. The premise of the paper is time travel can not happen because a single photon can’t travel faster than the speed of light. Ok fine, but they are wrong!

See, if you want to travel back in time, it is real simple today. (What you talking about Willis?!)

Here is how it works. Let’s say I want to go back to 1974 and relive a day. It’s simple really:

1. Go to this website and find a setlist of 1974 Top 100 songs.

1. Go to Spotify or iTunes and create a playlist of the 1974 Top 100 songs
2. Drive around town in an old Camero SS and play your music

Get home from work and want to read the news?

This website has an archive of all the newspapers in the United States.

Go to the grocery store and buy your Swanson TV dinner of Salisbury Steak. Pull up your TV tray and catch a 1974 evening news report.

Yes, on Youtube, you can find old broadcasts of news for any year.

If you want to watch your favorite sitcom from 1974, turn on Netflix, Hulu or Youtube and chances are, you will find your favorite 1974 sitcom or police drama to relive the magic of 1974 television.

So with all due respect, I say the Chinese scientist are wrong. With the many social media tools available today, time travel is not only here today, it is here to stay.

Paul is the President of Professional Blog Service. PBS works with clients making strategic investments into business blogging, social media and search engine optimization.

Business blogging should be the focus of any social media campaign. We have spoken to prospects that started their B2B Social Media campaign or B2C Social Media campaign without having the content to back it up. They are on Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook with no content.

When I was in college, you could always tell the freshmen at a party because they’d be the ones hanging around the stairs talking about how cool the party was. Meanwhile, the upper-year students would be heading for the keg and, well, actually enjoying the party.

Twitter can be very similar. You’ve got a rush of new people hanging out, talking about how Twitter is such a great tool and sharing news stories on how many more millions have joined the feed. And then, over there in the back, there are a few people who are actually using it as a tool.

Unlike Diamonds, Twitter Isn’t Forever
The thing is, Twitter won’t be around forever. True, it may seem like everybody’s on it and it’s the place to be, but guess what? So was Friendster. Three years ago, Twitter didn’t exist. Five years ago, Facebook was a burgeoning idea on a Harvard campus and six years ago, everybody had a MySpace. The point is, things move fast and tastes can change even faster.

Which is exactly why though Twitter can be a useful part of a comprehensive marketing plan, it’s not the be all and end all.

So, What’s Next?
If I knew, I’d be calling my broker. Seriously though, if you were to pin me to the mat, I’d have to say niche communities.

Sure there are big providers out there like Facebook and LinkedIn, but there are also a lot of smaller, more niche-focused social networks popping up. For example, Identi.ca, which is a Twitter clone. That particular community is made of predominantly open source software developers and fans and, as a result, has a distinctly technical feel to it along with a great tech sense of humor.

As messageboards and listservs grow up and enter the social realm, you’ll see more niche-focused networks appearing. Then again, maybe not.

In the meantime, party with us on Twitter:

Paul Lorinczi
Erik Deckers

Paul is the President of Professional Blog Service. PBS works with clients making strategic investments into business blogging, social media and search engine optimization.

How to use B2B Social Media in a Slow Economy

Despite it being a slow economy, B2B social media and B2B social media play an important role in staying connected to the marketplace. During the great Depression of the 1930s, people still found ways to get together, despite the hard economic times.  Today, people are looking for business blogging sites, Facebook and Linkedin seeking jobs or just connecting with others.

They say a man is rich who has friends. What about a company with fans?

There aren’t many internet users who remember seeing Charlie Chaplin’s movies when they debuted in theaters. Thanks to the internet, though, just about any user can watch Chaplin ham it up as the Tramp who faced many of the same challenges as his original audience.

During the Great Depression, poor folks watched the poor guy do his best to find a job (and keep it), fix up his house (err, shack), and woo the lady of his dreams. The audience had something in common with Chaplin’s characters, so they got the jokes, and the jokes brought them all together.

Of course, the Depression was no joke.

During these modern days we’re slogging through our own recession that doesn’t offer much to laugh about. A lot of Americans are facing those same struggles with work, housing, and even relationships. Just like Chaplin’s films portrayed the angst of those times, more and more people today are sharing the anxiety and worry of these modern times. Only we’re not doing it with slapstick and silent movies. We’re posting on blogs, sharing photos, and twittering.

.com-miserating
According to a recent trend report from Netpop Research LLC, online social networking has almost doubled since 2006 while the economy has only weakened since then. Netpop reports that about 3 out of 4 web users are personally sharing over the internet by contributing to blogs, rating products, uploading photos. etc.

Today about 29% of US broadband users communicate with each other specifically through social networking sites. Tough times do bring people together, and the results of this report point to even more online sharing as these recession days continue.

What This Means For Business
Commiserating with like-minded people can bring relief and comfort, but it can also impact our decisions. We aren’t sheep, blindly following anything willing to lead, but when every penny counts, it’s good to know how friends made similar choices.

While we’re updating microblogs and profile photos, we’re also rating products and declaring ourselves as fans of certain services. While we’re connecting through online chats, we’re also bidding at online auctions and sharing the scoop on great deals.

Netpop’s research revealed that social networkers currently spend more money online than “non-contributors,” and that they are likely to rely ever more heavily on the recommendations of their fellow networking media participants as this recession intensifies.

That’s why business owners need to get involved in social media. Reaching out to their existing customers who are already participating in venues like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.com will bring them into an ever-increasing network of contacts on the same wave length.

Just as Cate Riegner, VP of Research at Netpop Research, LLC, noted, “Brands that experiment in social advertising now will be in the best position to leverage these important media channels when the economy turns the corner.”

And, rest assured, this economy will indeed turn the corner, just like Chaplin always bounced back from that slapstick fall.

Paul is the President of Professional Blog Service. PBS works with clients making strategic investments into business blogging, social media and search engine optimization.

B2B Social Media and Linkedin

For effective B2B Social Media, Linkedin is a great place to participate. Active participation can help with your online reputation management building your personal and corporate brand. Often times, individuals and companies can make some mistakes when participating in b2b social media.

We love LinkedIn for both personal and corporate networking & promotion. However, we see a basket full of blunders that any informed networker would be ashamed to own up to.

Here’s Our List

1. End your title with the word “Expert,” or “Guru.” Exception: if your name actually is “Guru” or you are wearing a Karnac the Magnificent Hat in your profile pic, you are welcome to use the term Guru.

2. Toss the word “foremost” or “leading” in front of your title. Everyone loves someone who is humble enough to know what they think you should think of them.

3. Combine #1 and #2 – and become the “Leading Organic Fertilizer Guru”

4. Don’t recommend people. Unless, of course, you wouldn’t like it if someone recommended you…

5. Use your logo as your profile picture. Unless, of course, you actually look just like your logo.

6. Don’t connect with anyone. LinkedIn becomes more useful with more connections. Why? Because you only see LinkedIn members you have a connection to. More connections means more search results and more potential connections.

7. Join groups and post “I am growing my linked in network please connect with me” spams in discussions. No one joins LinkedIn to shrink their networks.

8. Decorate your name with funky characters. People really want your to see ___**>>> Beth Badass <<<***___ in their Outlook. Oh, and funky character break features that people use to find you in Outlook, like say SEARCH. If your name is Beth, it starts with the letter “B” not the “_” character!

9. Ask spammy questions like, “Did you know you can make millions with my secret process revealed in my latest ebook!?” That “report spam” link is really easy to click.

10. Begin your title with “Professional,” “Competent,” or “Qualified.” You wouldn’t have a job if you were an amateur, would you? Why would an adult be less than qualified?

11. Refusing all connection requests by clicking “I Don’t Know This Person.” While it may be true you don’t know that person, LinkedIn actually punishes people when you click “I don’t know.” And worse, LinkedIn tells the other side that you hate their guts and wanted them gibbeted. Hit the “archive” button instead of the I Don’t Know button. It has better karma.

12. Log in once a quarter. Unless you like calling people and finding out that deal they sent over back in September, it closed three weeks ago.

Paul is the President of Professional Blog Service. PBS works with clients making strategic investments into business blogging, social media and search engine optimization.

Blogging for Business? Social Bookmarking Can Help

Social bookmarking can be an important part of a social media campaign. By sharing your content on social bookmarking sites, blogging for business just got more powerful. Effective business blog marketing requires content to be distributed and shared. Social bookmarking can play an important role in this strategy.

Social bookmarking can help drive relevant and interested traffic to your website – in other words, social bookmarking doesn’t just put random and isolated single links out there, it puts out “targeted feelers”. Instead of casting a line, you’re now casting a carefully baited net. And not only are you pinning down your focus niche of potential readers or customers, you’re also getting some PageRank juice with the search engines.

Social bookmarking sites let users post links or bookmarks, make comments and invite other users to comment. These comments or votes will often increase a link’s value and its visibility. The more votes a page gets, the more perceived value it acquires and the higher it ranks on the search engines. The higher it ranks, the more people who see it and… well you see where I’m going with this…

So, if bookmarks are so great, where do you post them? Try my top 8 social bookmarking services that will work in any niche:

Blinklist

Users can ‘Blink’ their favorite sites and even create a personal ‘blinklist’. The site then allows users to sort, describe and tag their favorite blinks. The community has over 450,000 users who are extremely active.

Faves

Faves lets users save their favorite web pages, videos, news stories and music and then share it with the Faves’ community. Sign up and try the Active Topic Groups tool to see what subjects and links are generating a lot of heat.

Delicious

Del.icio.us was one of the first social bookmarking sites and still my personal favorite. As a result, it has a massive following and an extremely active community. Users can submit and share links with each other, but they can also categorize them across a wide range of interesting categories. Most sites see an improved search engine ranking and massive leaps in traffic after using Delicious with targeted tags and link descriptions.

Diigo

Diigo is like a highlighter in your browser that lets users highlight text online and even add sticky notes. The site is predominantly used for research and it’s a great way to promote web sites that are heavy with factual or research-worthy information.

Mister Wong

With over 4 million visitors every month and a site that serves 6 different languages, Mister Wong is a massive and global social bookmarking site. The site features a Spotlight section and advertises its top topics or tags.

Mixx

Mixx is a social bookmarking site for popular news stories and compelling videos. Users post their favorite videos and comment on popular political, business, entertainment and local news stories. If you’ve got a press release, this is the place to link it.

Multiply

Multiply lets users create personal web pages containing their favorite photos, links, music and videos. It’s extremely popular with families and has over 11 million members. Create a profile for your business or yourself and start adding links.

Netvouz

Netvouz lets its users set both public and private bookmarks using a standard formula of organizing links into folders or topics and tagging them with keywords.

Time Saving Tip for Social Marketing Pros
The core audience for each of these services is a bit different, both by industry and geographic location. So, as a social marketing pro, you’d better be submitting to all of them just to be sure you are sending “targeted feelers” into each nook and cranny of the Net.

Instead of logging into each one individually every time you want to promote a link, try a service like SocialMarker. Social Marker allows you to submit your link to dozens of different bookmarking services in less than five minutes.

Paul is the President of Professional Blog Service. PBS works with clients making strategic investments into business blogging, social media and search engine optimization.

Time to Manage our Social Media Campaign

Social media campaigns need management.  Now that we have selected our b2b social media networks, we now have to figure out the social media management of networks.

In the previous post we outlined a few things to consider when choosing social networks to participate in. Now that you’ve made your choices, it is time to manage them.

Step 2: Managing Your Social Networks

To start, you’ll have to manually add all of your profile information. You can begin with the basics and fill each of these out over a period of time. Ideally, you want to be updating all of your social profiles about once a month. As you get involved with each social network you will see what type of profile information is necessary to attract the best relationships.

Try making a spreadsheet of all your social networks. Your column headers should be the social network name and URL, your user name, password and finally, the last date of update. It will help you stay on track of all of your profiles.

TIP: Be sure your profiles are similar on each network you choose to participate in. People are leery of chameleons who have a different “facade” in each community. Also, I think it is important to get connected to services that essentially become “profile aggregators” like Disqus, Gravatar, BackType and coComment. These services collect your various presences, show how actively and intelligently your social participate is and are quickly becoming important as credibility tools.

Now, here are some tools you can use to help automate some of your social networking, but be careful not to overuse (and certainly not ABUSE) these tools.

If you’re into viral videos or video updates, Tubemogul is a great tool. After inputting your login information for the corresponding sites, Tubemogul lets you submit a video once and it will then load your video on to sites like YouTube, AOL Video, MySpace TV, Blip.tv and more. Yes, it’s free.

Twitterfeed.com lets you syndicate RSS feeds through Twitter. It can be your blog’s RSS feed or other feeds you think your Twitter F & F’s would find interesting.

Ping.fm makes it easy to update your status on multiple social networking sites at once. Adding status updates on your LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc many times a day could take you hours – Ping.fm takes just seconds for each update. You can update by phone, by email, even schedule updates with your email client like Outlook. Hellotxt.com is a similar service.
Hootsuite is gaining in popularity, even with some mainstream Internet users. The site basically consolidates all of your social networking accounts and turns them into one feed that you can feed back into other sites (like your Facebook account) in the form of a feed, a tweet or post on Facebook. In that sense, Hootsuite is similar to the “profile aggregators” mentioned above. There is some overlap with Twitter but Hootsuite has enough stand alone features that it is great for managing multiple social media accounts. In addition, it has excellent analytics tracking clicks, analytics and reach.

The Final Word
Avoid social networking burnout by refining your lists of social network profiles to a manageable number that you can update regularly. Also, be careful not to “hook” too many social networks together and accidentally become a big social spam engine where one update triple-posts Twitter and Facebook making your friends & followers think you have social network OCD.

If we missed other tools that are better than what has been listed above, feel free to share them in the comments below.

Paul is the President of Professional Blog Service. PBS works with clients making strategic investments into business blogging, social media and search engine optimization.

Why should you consider a B2B Social Media campaign?

You have heard it over and over again, Generation Y has now surpassed Baby Boomers as the largest population in the United States. This makes b2b social media more important than ever. Business blogging is changing and requires more use of mobile browsing. Twitter has become the primary tool for passive aggressive behavior for b2b social media complaints.

There are literally thousands of social networks out there. You can’t join them all, nor would you want to.

So, which ones should you join?

When you spread yourself too thin over too many networks, you run the risk of being unable to properly maintain your presence on all these channels. You could also find yourself associated with a social network that has a lame image or that disappears as quickly as it appeared.

How do you prioritize? Easy…

Fish where the fish are. Go where the users are. Just like a blog with no comments or a message board with no posts, a social network with no users has little value. This seems obvious but is often ignored because many less experienced marketers decide to place all their chips on a little used “up and comer” hoping to be on top when the masses convert to that social network. Problem is, the conversion rarely happens.

Social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter have millions of active users. While, many “gurus” might scoff at marketing on these well established social networks, don’t be persuaded. Usually, these guys are trying topoint you away from the obvious in a clever attempt to sell you some unconventional “wisdom”.

Go for the safe bets because people are there, actively participate in what is a massive marketing opportunity for your brand.

With that said, there are situation when some major players should be avoided and opportunities in the new or lesser known communities… if you know what to look for. And yes, choosing the right social networks to join goes way beyond user numbers – here are a number of other factors you’ll also want to consider…

Step One: Choosing Social Networks

Site Credibility and Reputation
If you’re a Fortune500 CEO you really have no place putting yourself on MySpace (unless you happen to run a company where the target market is teens). A site may have a million users, but if they’re not your market then it’s not worth going there.

For example, think about a marketing consultant. He’s going to get more contacts and worthwhile links from maintaining his LinkedIn, Facebook and even Twitter accounts. But, he probably won’t see any returns from investing hours of time into his MyDogSpace account (a social networking site for dog lovers).

However, if he can build a presence on StartUpNation, he could get tons of great small biz consulting work form a relatively small network.

Ask if it’s Relevant?
Of course, another type of consultant could be barking up the right tree setting up a profile on MyDogSpace.com if he happens to provide consulting service for dog breeders and trainers. Why? Because the other users on that site are relevant, they fit into his niche. Obviously, right! Then why don’t more folks find these social networks and engage?

The Site’s PageRank
Despite what some say, we feel that PageRank is still critical to improving and controlling your Google (and other) search engine rankings. That means, if possible, you want to sign up for and invest your time on social networks that have a high PageRank value with lots of visitors.

For example, try googling the names of some of your friends. You’ll often find that if they have a LinkedIn, Twitter or even Blogger account, these profiles will be on the first page of their Google results. That’s because these sites have significant PageRank (6 or higher).

The Site’s Staying Power
If you don’t think a social network has staying power or enough users to keep it running through this rough economic storm, don’t waste your time setting up a profile and building up a community.

Being an early adopter can pay dividends, but then again you may just be wasting your time. If you go with a new social network, do so only if your gut tells you it is unique or compelling enough to be around in a year.

Make a Social Network Checklist
Before you invest hours of time into developing an online profile for yourself or your business, run a potential social network through a personal checklist. Ask questions like does it fit my niche? Are my current contacts using this site? Are there groups the site that I could join? How many users does it have? What’s the PageRank? Will joining this site benefit or hinder my brand?

Think of Every Profile as an Introduction
First impressions are important, so you want to avoid spreading your brand too thin. Ideally, you want every social network profile that you or your business has to be up-to-date and functional. Nothing says “deadbeat” like a profile that hasn’t been updated since 2006 or at least deleted.

You should also think of every social profile as a potential first introduction, the first handshake with a new acquaintance. Is it limp or firm and steady?

Each profile may be a bit different, but you want them all to put forward the image and information that is congruent with your brand or blog.

Everyone wants to jump into social media with Facebook. I have seen some large companies put all their eggs into Facebook without the assistance of a business blog. Social media has been around the web far longer than Facebook. My saying is, “Social media networks come and go, but your business blog is forever.” 

One question that gets asked a lot by new clients is “Should we start with a blog or should I start with building social media profiles?”

Some social media experts say this is a bad idea because a blog is worthless without a network to read it. They argue you’ll get more eyes by guest blogging on a bigger website. They’ll say that you need to develop relationships with “influentials” or “A-List” bloggers.

And they are right…

I do agree you need to work on building a social media network. I do agree you should guest blog. I can’t agree more that it takes a lot of time to get serious blog traffic.

That said, I disagree with putting off blogging for several reasons:

1. Getting your organization on a cadence to keep up with posting new content is hard to do and takes time to get right. The first 90 days of blogging rarely are the hardest. It’s hard to get used to having something to say every day. And it’s hard to find the time to say it.

2. You need more than a few articles to be credible. People know what they are getting when they go to a blog with two posts. And they leave. And they don’t comment. And they don’t “reblog”.

3. Getting the message right on your blog takes a little time. You have to learn how to converse with your readers. It’s hard to learn to converse with your readers if you don’t have anywhere to talk. I’ve seen it take days and I’ve seen it take months for conversation to develop. Once it does, though, it’s amazing what happens.

Which leads me to the great chicken and egg of internet marketing:

Content doesn’t work without traffic.
Traffic isn’t useful without content.

You have to have both content and traffic for a website to work. Blogs are no exception to this.

Paul is the President of Professional Blog Service. PBS works with clients making strategic investments into business blogging, social media and search engine optimization.

Search Engine Optimization consultants will often tell you that it is the only way to go. For the best results in online traffic,  Search Engine Optimization usually is. After all, 89% of the traffic on the front page can get clicks. Pay per Click can see a smaller click through rate on impressions. But that does not mean that SEO is the be all, end all. LIke anything, it may or may not be better to do SEO over PPC over Affiliate Marketing over Business Blogging and Social Media. The reality is every company and market is very different. Some of the niche markets are very competitive and require both to be done. If you are getting traffic from PPC, it is not recommended to get rid of it completely.

The thought process around PPC vs. SEO makes the assumption that PPC and SEO are zero sum game where a click to a natural link is the same person that would have clicked on a paid link. BAD ASSUMPTION. The math doesn’t add up. Canceling one source of traffic may save money, but it will not result in growth. Why? Because at the end of the day, if you are getting 10,000 visits from PPC, then add 10,000 visits from seo, you are getting 20,000 visits.

PPC (10,000) + SEO (10,000) > SEO (10,000)

Any way you cut it, stopping PPC just because you are successful with SEO doesn’t necessarily result in anything other than losing your PPC traffic. The question is, will stopping PPC because of SEO success really help you? Most likely here’s what happens:

• The quality of your traffic goes up or down a little bit.
• You lose the traffic PPC contributes. Despite what a lot of SEOs claim, you get what you pay for in traffic. Free traffic isn’t always good traffic.
• Your sales probably will go down at least a little bit.
• Your boss, who learned his lesson when he killed the yellow pages when a radio campaign got leads for cheaper will either fire you or get to teach you a marketing lesson.

That’s it. Oh, and if you use content networks (ads on non-search websites) with Google, killing your PPC will 100% certainly result in reduced sales. Which brings me to Mike’s Law of Marketing:

NEVER EVER BUY INTO A CAMPAIGN WHERE WE ARE USING A SMALLER SAMPLE OF THE SAME MARKET AND COUNTING ON HAVING A BETTER CONVERSION RATE.

Why is this true? Because at the end of the day, if you don’t change the makeup of the market (i.e. better targeted demographics, change keywords) you rarely will get better sales. Why? Because your market is a big part of dictating your conversion rate. The old replace PPC with SEO scam usually breaks Mike’s Law: you aren’t changing your market – people still find you for the same keyword, except you shrunk your market because those PPC ads ran all the time, and on more sites than just Google’s search engine!

Paul is the President of Professional Blog Service. PBS works with clients making strategic investments into business blogging, social media and search engine optimization.

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What is the definition of Social Media?

Social media is conversation. It is about having conversations with people online. It is about framing the conversation online. Imagine, it is like being in a room of people and knowing how to talk to everyone and directing the conversation.

It’s like the story of the girl who wanted the iPhone:

One evening, a colleague watched a teen age girl trying to talk her dad into buying an iPhone. Dad wanted something a lot simpler and was really wanting a free phone (probably so he could afford an iPhone for his daughter). The daughter saw the iPhone as one half gadget, one half fashion statement and one hundred percent hers on evenings and weekends.

In the end, Dad had to go to the bathroom. And that’s where the conversation that mattered occurred. An older gentleman, probably one with daughters was wooing at a less uber-cool phone. He looked at the girl, who was still oogling the iPhone and said, “You know, I bet you let your dad get the free phone and you get one of those for Christmas.”

The girl looked at him like he was crazy and shot back, “My dad would never do that.”

Then the old guy smiled and replied, “Do you know why your Dad dresses the way he does?” The girl shriveled her nose and said, “You noticed? It’s really bad.”

“It is. And look how he dresses you. That’s why I’m pretty sure your going to get that iPhone.” After a few uneasy seconds, the girl looked up and said, “I never saw it that way.”

When Dad got back from the bathroom, his daughter didn’t say anything – she just gave him a big hug. And said thank you to the old stranger who was finally checking out the iPhone he had been waiting on.

The old guy was present in the room and influenced the conversation. Social Media requires participation.

Paul is the President of Professional Blog Service. PBS works with clients making strategic investments into business blogging, social media and search engine optimization.