If you ask a question on Facebook, you’ll only get responses from your own network of friends. That may not be a bad thing, yet, I believe in the wisdom of the crowd. I’ve received some really good answers to my questions I get from Twitter come from people who don’t know me, don’t follow me and vice versa.

This is not saying my peeps don’t have good answers. They do but throwing a question out on twitter is like polling the real public whereas asking your fans/friends is like – well, asking your friends which can skew your results depending on what you ask. Anyhow, I’m going down a different rabbit hole here so let’s get back to the point.

Besides asking questions myself, I like to search Twitter. Sometimes it is to find questions that I can answer or write a blog post about. Sometimes, to find people or experts whom I can feature. Other times, to find good stuff to share with others. These are just a few search phrases that can be used to achieve all that.

Find questions to answer or to blog about

• “Does anyone know”
• “Anyone know”
• “How do I”
• “How do you”

To find experts

• “Available for interview”
• “Expert available”

Finding holidays/events to blog about

• “Month is” e.g. “August is”

Looking to hire someone?

• “Hire me”
• “Available for hire”

More search options

If you think you will be searching some of these phrases over and over again, you can also save your search. After you complete your search, just click on the “Save this search” link on the top right corner of your search results list.

If you want to narrow down your search, filter out the noise, consider using these search operators.

Lynette enjoys discovering new ways to use technology or new technologies to use in a business and in turn help her clients apply them. You can find also Lynette at her blog, Twitter and Facebook

Did you know that it’s possible to see what people are saying about you on the internet?  There are a number of automated tools that will allow you to monitor your name, your company, and other words related to your brand.

If you are in sales or you own a business, monitoring your reputation is crucial.  People are talking about you online, whether you like it or not.  You need to be aware of what’s being said.

There are a few things you can do to set up an automatic monitor that lets you know whenever anyone talks about you online.

iGoogle – Awesome free monitoring dashboard

my iGoogle dashboard for Netbiz

iGoogle is a property that doesn’t get quite the love that it deserves.  While a personalized dashboard is something that the average consumer doesn’t really care about, a customized dashboard that allows you to easily drag & drop tools is extremely useful as a free tool.

We’re going to use this as your reputation monitoring home page.  If you don’t have one yet, go to iGoogle.com and create an account (it will link to any existing Google Account you have like Gmail or Google Calendar).  The default dashboard comes with a bunch of junk that you don’t want, like games & a calendar.  Delete the items that you don’t want by clicking on the little down arrow on the top right of each little biz.

Adding reputation feeds.  On the right side of the page, click on ‘Add Stuff.’  On the next page you’ll be given a bunch of pre-made widgets to add.  Ignore those.  On the left side of the page, below the categories, there’s a link that says ‘Add Feed or Gadget.’

Remember where that is.  We’re going to come back to it.

Next, I’ll go over some automated tools that will track your information.

Google Alerts

Google has a service that monitors news sites, blogs, and a host of other websites and will notify you when anyone mentions whatever words you have set up the monitoring service to listen to.  Go to Google.com/alerts and put your name in for the search terms.  If you have a really common name like John Smith, you might want to add an identifier, like the city you live in or what you do (ex. John Smith Realtor Crossville).  Make sure you put the name in quotes when you do the search so that it doesn’t return people with similar names.  It should look something like this:

“Cor Huff”

“Cory Huff” Blogger

“Cory Huff” Portland

The next screen is where you manage your alerts.  Next to your newly created alert, click ‘Edit’ and change the ‘Deliver To’ column from email to feed.  After that’s done, right click on the little orange icon and copy the link.  Paste that link into the Add Feed or Gadget space in your iGoogle page.

Go back to the iGoogle page home. You should see a little box showing the most recent three notifications.  You can mouse over them to get the full text.

Repeat this same process with the name of your company, the name of key executives, trademarks, and anything else you want to monitor.  Tip: Do the same thing with your competitors.  Knowing what the Interweb has to say about your competitors is enlightening.  You can also do it with important customers, vendors, suppliers, etc, etc….

Tweetbeep

There are several different Twitter monitoring services.  I choose to use Tweetbeep.

Tweetbeep can be set up to send you a daily email with a list of all the mentions of your defined brand on Twitter.  Using the same search terms that you defined above, set up a Tweetbeep alert.

You can also set up Tweetbeep as an RSS feed and add it to your iGoogle homepage just like we did with Google Alerts.  That way you have all of them set up in one place.

Why monitor Twitter?

Twitter is a real time conversation between thousands of people in a public forum.  Even if YOU don’t use Twitter, your customers do.  If you don’t monitor these conversations, it can become a huge headache.  Just ask Johnson & Johnson about the Motrin Moms fiasco.

On the other hand, you can also be proactively grateful when people say appreciative things about you.  If someone says that you rock, you can give them a very public virtual high five – which lets them and everybody else watching know that you are participating in the digital community and that you care what happens.

]]> http://www.sparkplugging.com/sparkplug-ceo/how-to-find-out-what-people-saying-about-you-online/feed/ 6 http://www.sparkplugging.com/sparkplug-ceo/follow-friday-071009-social-media-lovers/ http://www.sparkplugging.com/sparkplug-ceo/follow-friday-071009-social-media-lovers/#comments Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:42:23 +0000 Kelly McCausey http://www.sparkplugging.com/sparkplug-ceo/?p=2611 This morning I asked my Twitter peeps to tell me what they love about Social Media and what it is doing for their businesses.  I’m sharing their tweets with you here and recommending them for #followfriday since they’ve proved themselves to be responsive! (How much do you hate it when you ask a question on Twitter and nobody replies!?)

@Tracey_D

@business4moms

@KimDushinski

@DrMommy

@godtalk

@tracilove

@LataraHamYing

@integratedmom

@JendisJournal

Are you a business owner trying to figure out how your profiles on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter are going to create buzz for your business? Or, more importantly, are they going to create buzz that will lead to more business?

Social media is not a silver bullet no more than newspaper ads are or the 30 second radio or TV spot. Just like any form of advertising, the first thing you need is a strategy. You must use your strategy to help generate the keywords, titles & content that you will write in your profiles on all of these social media sites.

Lets start with a few questions:

• Who is my audience or who do I want my audience to be?
• What information will my audience be looking for and how can I supply that information?
• Who is my competition and how can I be unique enough to stand out?  EX:  How many other online wine retailers are there? Why does everyone know who Gary Vaynerchuk is and not them?
• What result am I looking to produce related to my presence on this site?

This is much easier if you do this before you start signing up for sites and filling in profiles but don’t worry if you have already signed up, most of these sites are easy to edit. Also, once you get this setup you can easily transfer this info to other sites so you have a consistent brand across the web.

Lets examine these…

Who is my audience or who do I want them to be?

Do you know who your audience is? Look at your product line and customer database and try to figure out who your ideal customer is. If you are happy with your current customer then focus on them. You already have the data, look at it and try to build a picture of your ideal customer. If you want to target a new customer the next question is very important.

What information will my audience be looking for and how can I supply it?

Create buyer personas (detailed descriptions, several sentences long, of your typical buyer) for each of your target markets. Depending on your product line you many have many of these personas.

Who is my competition and how can I be unique enough to stand out?

If you were going to buy a hybrid car, which one is the number one selling hybrid in the US? The Toyota Prius. Is it better than all the other hybrids that exist. Edmunds.com list 32 different models of hybrids from 14 different manufacturers. Yet one outsells all the others. Why? If you were going to compete against Prius you would have to be more than just another hybrid. What makes you stand out against your competition. Are you just another company performing the same thing or is what you offer unique and different.

What result am I looking to produce related to my presence on this site?

Why am I on this particular network. Is to build your brand? Connect with your customers? Drive traffic to your website that you can convert to sales? You need to give some clear thought to that and build your strategy around that. Understand that some networks are better at some of those goals than others. Some prohibit selling in their terms of service, others may not prohibit it but the members may not appreciate it and if you try that route you may have significant backlash from the community.

Just like the US Marines have different battle tactics for attacking from the water, in the mountains. or in the desert, you need to have different tactics in your marketing and you need to remember that social media is only one of them. Without a larger strategy to tie it all together you will likely invest a lot of time putting out an incoherent message that generates little to no results.

Christopher Johnston (@chrisjohnston) is 37-year old husband, father, christian, iPhone owner, and new Mac user. A recovering former financial advisor, passionate about the new green economy and how it will help my hometown, New Orleans, recover from Hurricane Katrina.

Image courtesy of  Pete Kim

Ever since I got my dual monitor set up a couple of weeks ago, Tweetdeck is almost my constant companion here to the right of my main monitor.  I love that I can casually monitor activity this way – just like I might vaguely listen in to chatter around me if I were working in a big office.

Here are my #followfriday recommends for cool peeps to follow this week on Twitter:

• @lindseypollak – Not just because she’s a blogger but because she says she loves cupcakes.
• @rockyourday – Dave Navarro has a kickass blog post you should read right away.
• @jenniferbourn – A print and web designer who gets it.
• @pajamaspr – Elena Verlee is a PR gal who describes herself as a serial entrepreneur.  (Who isn’t one?)

Who do you think I should follow? Feel free to leave a comment and tell me

@JessicaGottlieb -  Makes me wonder if I owe anybody any money and would a #followfriday settle the debt? LOL!

@iszuddin – Great attitude!

@andrewwee – Love to see a proud Daddy crowing about a new baby and loving that he registers a domain right away.

@bbgeeks – I’m a BlackBerry Curve owner and like keeping up on the latest and greatest news and applications available for it.  (Don’t tell them I’m actually tempted to go for an iPhone this fall.)

@drmani – Dr. Mani is a info marketing philanthropist.  He asked followers this week to share their favorite business books and created a big list you can check out here.

@dawudmiracle – Dawud used to write here on Sparkplugging and I enjoy following his tweets.  He has a lot of resources to share.

@ChristieIngram – Christie was a Mom’s Talk Network Blogging Intern this spring and has agreed to stick around WAHM Talk Radio for some blogging and occassional podcasting.  She’s got a brand new baby and I love seeing her tweeting about how much in love she is.

Who do you love following on Twitter that want to recommend to us?  Feel free to pipe up!

I’m enjoying a cup of coffee with about 6500 of my closest friends – well, with my 6500 Twitter followers anyways

I love Fridays.  I enjoy seeing the #followfriday tweets rolling by.

Today I decided to bring Follow Friday over here to the blog – and who knows?  If you enjoy it, maybe we’ll make this a regular thing.

Kelly’s Follow Friday Choices:

• @unmarketing – I have the biggest Twitter crush on Scott. (Love his eyes)  I don’t even have to feel guilty about it because he’s actually interesting and gives out great social media and marketing advice.
• @debng - Community Chick, Blogger, Social Media Addict, Community Manager for BlogTalkRadio, WAHM Advocate, Freelance Writer, laugh hard at my own jokes.
• @nicoledean – Mostly-Sane Internet Marketer. Work at Home Mom (WAHM) since 2001. I love Affiliate Marketing. Affiliate Manager to Jimmy D. Brown. I’ll follow you back.
• @stacijansma – Staci is a brand new VA and looking for opportunities to build her skills.  She works for cheap if you need something done, look her up!

Wendy’s Follow Friday Choices:

• @barbarajones – Former music biz maven; Founder/CEO of One2OneNetwork.com-Engaging women and moms via social media, PR and word of mouth. Mom of 3. Snowboarder. SocMed Geek.
• @geekmommy – Random Muse – Social Media Strategist, Speaker, ex-CIS Professor, Geek, Mom, Wife, and Insomniac
• @jerseymomma
  – Admin/ Public Relations Coordinator for @alexisneely/Family Wealth Planning Institute, Writer, NJ.com, New Jersey Moms Blog, JerseyMomma.com.
• @katjapresnal – PR / Social Media Marketing Consultant – helps companies to market to moms. Owner SkimbacoLifestyle.com Mother, wife, skier. From Finland, lives in NY.
• @alliworthington
  – Founder- Blissfully Domestic Magazine, Worthington Wire. CoHost of Blissdom, Building the Digital Mom Guide. Mom of 5 boys. Cool Chick.
• @aruni – Serial entrepreneur responsible for 3 ventures: 2 kids and 1 company, www.babblesoft.com. And my day job is running operations at the Austin Tech Incubator.
• @charpolanosky – Web designer, niche site publisher, consultant, and digital mom

I feel obligated to say that I was never the “popular” girl in school, my blog does not bring in thousands of visitors a day and my Twitter and Facebook numbers are not the highest around. However a couple of weeks ago my blog showed up on Nielson’s Power 50 Mom Influencer List and I was floored and excited until I started to hear the negative comments about the list.

Some people were saying they just picked the most popular moms, the moms with the highest twitter followers or the moms that post every day on their blogs.

I was shocked to read a post by one blogger, “It makes me crazy when I see mediocre writers who get more time in the spotlight then they deserve because they know a lot of SEO tricks or market themselves incessantly while fabulous writers are dismissed as lacking influence.”

She even went so far to say that race was a factor in the decision making.

So does popularity automatically make you a power influencer?

In the end I don’t think so. I would imagine that being a popular blogger is great, you get PR reps calling on you all day to promote their product, you get to attend amazing events and you get a ton of traffic coming to your blog which increases your monetization potential. You are basically treated like an “online” celebrity.

Jessica from JessicaKnows.com has been on the receiving end of a lot of negative buzz lately but she is one blogger that I find inspiring and a power influencer. She said, “In my opinion, popularity does not equal influence. You might get everyone reading your blog because you’re funny, but it doesn’t mean they’ll take what you say seriously when recommending anything.” While she might also be labeled as a “popular blogger” she helps out other bloggers when she can.

A popular blog is fun and entertaining to read and on occasion you may even pick up a few tricks of the blogging trade from them. But a blog of influence is a blog that inspires you to do something or take some kind of action. An influential blog is where we turn to when we need blogging advice or help with our business ideas. Or when we are looking for parenting and relationship advice.

When I first began blogging I immediately was sucked into the popularity and traffic game. I was disappointed when my traffic numbers were lower than then shopping and giveaway blogs. I asked myself, where are all the visitors everyone brags about on twitter? I mean how would I be able to influence anyone with such low traffic numbers?

Then I started to receive emails from people that were reading my blog telling me they were actually inspired by all that I’m doing. A blogging friend, Rosina from BabyFriendlyLA.com said she would complain to her husband when she felt overwhelmed but was motivated by all the things that I am trying to do. I have to say I was humbled and grateful for her comments. Because there are days that I’m ready to just throw in the towel. I really just didn’t think I was popular enough to make a difference, to be a real influence.

A new friend of mine Felicia from icompletemeblog.com said, “As a new blogger I initially thought popularity and influence meant the same thing. I mean you have influenced people to believe you are popular, right? And you want to be popular because you want all that traffic coming to your site. But as I grow my online business and look for tools that can really help me, I realized I don’t want just any traffic. I need targeted traffic that will purchase my product. This is where the influence comes in. I feel that in order to be a person of influence you must be able to make people take action (whether good or bad depends on how you want to be remembered). As I grow my business there are some things I just will not purchase regardless of how popular you may be.”

So which type of blog will win over the PR reps? I think when it comes to endorsements and promotion the “popular” blog will always win. After all isn’t that how all of society works, why would it be different online?

However, when looking for support, answers and advice it will be the power influencers that people will turn to. What kind of blogger do you want to be?

At the end of the day it does not matter how popular you are nor does it matter how far your reach is, what matters most is if you influenced someone in a positive way. If your blog post motivated someone else to make a change or take a stand then you truly are a Power Mom Influencer.

Stephanie Elie (@BizzieMommy) is a transitional entrepreneur and mother of two children under the age of four. The editor of BizzieMommy.com and was recently listed in the Power Moms 50 list by Neilson Online.

The initial statement on the Twitter blog explaining the change was:

We’ve updated the Notices section of Settings to better reflect how folks are using Twitter regarding replies. Based on usage patterns and feedback, we’ve learned most people want to see when someone they follow replies to another person they follow—it’s a good way to stay in the loop. However, receiving one-sided fragments via replies sent to folks you don’t follow in your timeline is undesirable. Today’s update removes this undesirable and confusing option.

Here is an excerpt from Techcrunch that does a little bit better explanation of the change:

The basic premise behind the @reply system is that it allows you to create a semi-public conversation with another Twitter user. To prevent you from having to listen in to conversations you might not care about, the default setting has long been to only show these @replies if you were following both people in the conversation. And that’s the choice most people stuck with.

But there was an option to receive all @reply messages from any users you were following. This led to an increase in noise, but it also exposed you to new Twitter users and conversations that you might have otherwise missed out on. I’ve had it turned on for over a year. But apparently that option has confused too many people, so Twitter is killing it.

This caused quite a backlash on Twitter and lead to some eventual backpedaling by @biz and the Twitter team.

So here’s what we’re planning to do. First, we’re making a change such that any updates beginning with @username (that are not explicitly created by clicking on the reply icon) will be seen by everyone following that account. This will bring back some serendipity and discovery and we can do this very soon.

Now at this point I was thinking that it was awfully dumb for Twitter to remove this feature and cause such a big ruckus so I dug a little deeper. I was wondering if there was a solid engineering reason as to why they made the change.  After a few Google searches I came across this very good explanation at Dare Obasajo’s blog. The important thing here is the update at the bottom of the post.

Without making this too technical it seems that the @reply feature as it was implemented was simply not going to scale well. With users like @aplusk, @TheEllenShow, or @oprah the amount of overhead on the system when they reply to someone is huge. This alone would not be a problem but when you aggregate with all the other users with 2k, 5k, or 10k followers it could bog the system down until it becomes unmanageable.

My personal opinion is that I liked the feature and was one of the 3% of users who actually used it. I think they should find a more scalable way to make the feature work and bring it back.

What do you think? Were you even aware the feature existed until it was removed? If so, did you use it? Leave your comments below and tell me what you think.

Christopher Johnston (@chrisjohnston) is 37-year old husband, father, christian, iPhone owner, and new Mac user. A recovering former financial advisor, passionate about the new green economy and how it will help my hometown, New Orleans, recover from Hurricane Katrina.

I  remember the day I discovered internet radio. I was working away on a graphic for a client, making about 50 cents an hour at the time, and I learned something powerful that I was able to put into action before the day was out.

From internet radio I found free telephone seminars and better yet—free teleseminar recordings! I became an internet audio addict. I just couldn’t get enough.

The internet is full of information. I had always been a big consumer of information to do with my business, but audio changed everything.  With audio I could put my ears to work at learning something while I kept my eyes and fingers busy at something else. Since most of my
income at the time came from doing web and graphic design, it was easy to multi task.

If you’ve ever heard me tell my story, you know that I went from an audio consumer to an audio producer not long after.
First I launched an audio newsletter—but that wasn’t enough. With the help and encouragement of my friend Alice Seba, I launched Work at Home Moms Talk Radio in November of 2003.  That sparked so many new opportunities for me, my life was never the same.

What about you? How can you put multi media to work for your business?

Adding audio to your website is easy. You don’t have to be highly technological to make it happen. I have long recommend the services provided by Audio Acrobat.   Audio Acrobat lets you record audio by telephone or by your computer microphone or you can record your own audio files on your computer and upload them. (You can even use an AA account for video as well.)

After you create your audio, you use their tools to publish the audio to your website. You can provide a simple download link or you can create a ‘audio player’ to cut and paste into your page so that your visitors can simply push play to listen.

It is so unbelievably easy you won’t believe it until you try it. Audio Acrobat offers a generous 30 day trial so go ahead and give it a shot!

Audio Acrobat will also allow you to set up recording lines to be used on your website to collect testimonials from your customers or just about anything else you could think of.  I use Audio Acrobat for my radio show ‘listener lines’ and invite listeners to call in and provide feedback on our topics and guests.

Think of how you could communicate with your website visitors via audio or video. The possibilities are really enticing.

• Provide a personal greeting on your main page for first time visitors.
• Record a longer audio for your ‘About Us’ page.
• Provide useful narration for your products and services… incorporate audio into the buying experience. Make your customers feel like they have your personal assistance every step of the way!
• Record a thank you message for completed orders and invite them to call into your feedback line with any comments or last minute concerns.

If you provide a product or services that will involve a serious investment, you know you need to provide your potential clients with more than enough information. One way to accomplish this is to provide some reassuring audios or videos.

Consider asking a friend to interview you—provide them with a list of common questions to ask you and rehearse together until you are both confident and ready to go. The more that this sounds like a real radio interview, the better! Make the audio available on your website
and end it with an invitation to contact you for any unanswered questions.

The idea is to use audio and video to establish trust. If your visitors trust you, they are much more likely to make a purchase or take your advice.

Besides using audio or video as a direct selling tool—you can incorporate it into your marketing effort in other ways as well.

Video is Viral

Ellen Braun is using video as a viral marketing tool to promote her website, Raising Small Souls.  Inspired by the video ‘The Interview with God” she wanted to create something that would draw people to her website and encourage them to tell others about it as well.

Because she had no personal experience in creating online video, she started posting on forums asking for help. Bids started to flow in and after interviewing several graphic artists by telephone, she hired Lena, a freelance designer. (You can find Lena’s information by visiting Ellen’s website.)

Together they picked photographs and after listening to a few different sections of classical music, Ellen ended up choosing an original composition created by one of Lena’s neighbors.
She received permission from a publisher to use the text from ‘Animal School’ a fable story she found in a parenting book.

Overall Ellen spent about $165.00 on the video. Considering that many are spending upwards of $10,000 on viral movies—isn’t that just incredible?

The feedback has been enthusiastic—everyone seems to know someone that can relate to the animal characters in the movie so they are doing exactly what Ellen hoped for—they are telling others about the video and sending them to her website.  (And she’s built an amazing mailing list along the way.)

Incorporating Audio & Video into Products

I have used audio as the major component in all of my information products. Ebooks are great—but ebooks accompanied by audio is a multi tasker’s dream.   I don’t think it should ever be an either or question—I am happy to deliver both so that both the audible learner and the reader are happy.

Video is a valuable tool for showing someone how to do something. My friend Lynette Chandler  has made videos a central focus for her Blogging Starter Pack—a step by step tutorial that shows the new blogger how to set up, customize and promote their blog.  Simply telling someone how to do it would never be sufficient, the videos show them exactly what to do and when. It’s a perfect fit.

Be a Star!

A discussion of audio and video wouldn’t be complete for me if I didn’t encourage you to consider using Internet Radio and Podcasting as a venue for sharing your message.  There’s no better way to showcase your ability and get others to see you as an expert than by starring in your own online radio or television show.

There are more ways to do it than ever before.  Sites like Blog Talk Radio, Ustream and BlipTV have opened doors for techno-phobes with something to say.

By the way, if you’re a mom, take a look at what Maria Bailey and her partners are doing over at MomTV – a new niche video site that officially kicked off this past week.

It’s a multi media world out there. Don’t be afraid to explore it and put it to use for your online business!

I’m an all around tweeter, which means I am just as likely to ask advice about lunch as I am to tweet about business stuff – but the idea of actually saying what I tweet cracks me up.

How about you? Would your text tweets sound goofy in real life?

But in the fall of 2007, Google came down hard on the practice, lumping sponsored conversations with the practice of paid text links and labeling them as ‘unethical’. Flagship A-list blogs as well as trusted news sources such as Forbes and the Washington Post all saw a Google Page Rank drop. It was a strong warning from Google: stop the link selling, or we will drop you from our search engine.

Whether you agreed or disagreed with Google, in order to get their traffic, we now had to play by their rules. They even encouraged people to ’snitch’ on sites by telling people how to report paid links. Matt Cutts, the most public voice of Google, reiterated Google’s position again recently, in response to the release of Forrester’s report that Sponsored Conversations are here to stay.

The problem with Matt’s post isn’t that there is something unethical about selling links or posts. The problem is that the world of social media marketing has evolved faster than Google’s policies have evolved. Sponsored conversations come in three main ‘flavors’, yet it is Google’s position to lump all of them into the first kind, “Paid Posts”.

The First Kind of Sponsored Conversation: #1 – Paid Posts

Google has a problem with people paying bloggers to put up a post with organic links to other websites. Specifically, if a post is paid for, then Google considers any link in that post to be influencing the search engine unfairly. It doesn’t matter if you truly endorse the product or service or not, any link in a paid post is subject to disciplinary action (i.e., getting your site dropped out of search engine results).

Matt cites a great example as to why Google would have a problem with this in this image and post:

Example of Paid Posts Done Wrong

On this blog (more like a ’splog’), random posts are thrown onto a blog with no disclosure that they are paid, and they cover unrelated topics from ‘colon cleansing’ to ‘auto loans’.

I have to say that I don’t think any self-respecting blogger would ever stoop to this level of Paid Posts.

Why they are wrong:

• The links pass page rank
• There is no disclosure that the posts are paid for
• Their intention is to truly manipulate search engine rankings
• None of this is in line with the ethical standards set out by WOMMA, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association

Now, a blogger might write a paid post without the intention of gaming the search engine, they might actually only write paid posts that fit in with their topic, and only about products or services they believe in. To Google, they are all the same. Paid Posts = Bad.

The Second Kind of Sponsored Conversation: #2 – Trade

“Trade Posts” are somewhat different yet similar to Paid Posts, and are somewhat self-explanatory. Instead of giving a blogger money, they give them something in trade to put up a post on their blog, which almost always includes links. Examples include:

• Guest posts (trading free content for links)
• Contest posts (trading a contest prize for links)
• Link swaps (trading a link for a link on another site)

All of these seem fairly harmless, and I’ve not ever seen an instance in which Google has penalized a site for engaging in these practices. But Trade Posts can become a slippery slope in a number of ways. Giving 10 bloggers a free book to give away to their readers is pretty dang cheap compared to trying to buy links from these blogs. In other words, Trade Posts can be exploited. But since it is incredibly difficult to track, Trade Posts are flying under the radar for now.

In the past, Google has even encouraged these practices. Link exchanges date back to the beginning of the web. Yet ultimately, people are still trading something of value for a link. This is why I personally don’t understand why Trade = Good and Paid = Bad. And I’d love for Google to weigh in on this answer, but they have a vested interest in keeping people guessing.

The Three Kinds of Sponsored Conversations: #3 – Straight

A “Straight Post” is a term I made up, but I think it’s the right meaning for what true social marketing is all about – being straight with your advertisers, with your readers, and with the search engines. This means disclosure to your readers as to how you are being compensated, only picking advertisers that can add value to your readers, and putting a “nofollow” tag on your links so that the search engines aren’t fooled into thinking this is an uncompensated endorsement.

In Straight Posts, bloggers are extraordinarily picky about what kind of Sponsored Conversations they are willing to engage in, because they know full well that their name is on the line. They are walking a fine line between ensuring readers’ interests come first, maintaining their integrity, and being compensated for the value they bring to their advertisers.

What value are they bringing to their advertisers? Quite simply, Straight Posts are in a sense a ‘Co-Branding’ campaign. Companies align themselves with bloggers who have their own brand with which they want to be associated. Bloggers, in return, are selling access to their readership. And finally, Straight Posts create separation between sponsored and editorial content.

Great examples of Straight Posts are usually not limited to a single blog post, either. Rather, they are more frequently an ongoing relationship between bloggers and advertisers, or part of a larger campaign. Some recent ‘Straight Campaigns’:

• WalMart’s 11Moms
• Sparkplugging’s Epson Campaign
• ReadWriteWeb’s Advertorial Posts (written by advertisers, not bloggers)
  

Now, Marshall Kirkpatrick from ReadWriteWeb would disagree with me on characterizing his advertorials as anything close to a Sponsored Conversation, but I wholeheartedly disagree. Marshall has clearly stated his love for his Advertisers in unpaid posts, and everyone who knows Marshall and his reputation know full well that he wouldn’t sell Advertorial spots to just anyone. So, Marshall has met the criteria I outlined above, in which he has associated the ReadWriteWeb brand with a product he loves, and he has sold access to his readership to this advertiser. It isn’t a Paid Post, but it is a Straight Post.

Why Google Wants to Lump us all into the Paid Post Category

Now, I could go on for pages and pages as to why I don’t think it’s Google’s place to be regulating bloggers. But I do understand their obligation to keep spam out of their index.

The problem is this – there is a fourth factor in these three categories, which I’ll call the Fade Factor. This means that not all Sponsored Conversations fall neatly into these three categories.

What if a blogger doesn’t even know what NoFollow means?

What if a guest post on a blog links to a site that is later turned into a porn site?

What if a blogger wants to talk about a sponsor in a random post as a natural part of the conversation?

Now you might understand why Google wants to treat all of us the same way. I think most of us can agree where it’s OK for Google to say “hell no’, but we might not all agree on how that Fade Factor makes one link right and one link wrong.

Sponsored Conversations Aren’t Going Away

The fact of the matter is that after measuring social media influence over the last few years, advertisers now know that engaging in Sponsored Conversations will produce real, trackable results.

Google simply can’t continue to say “NO PAID POSTS” and have that be their blanket answer for all social media marketing campaigns that include a link.

Additionally, consumers now expect to have a say in how brands market to them. Never again will people be willing to put up with untargeted, intrusive advertising now that brands have become a part of the conversation.

We can’t ask consumers to stop talking about brands.

And we can’t expect brands to not participate in online conversations.

Nor can we expect consumers to help brands market their products for free.

There is no going back to the way marketing used to be.

The reason that WOMMA was established was to provide an Ethics Code in line with the Federal Trade Commission’s fair advertising goals. The blogosphere doesn’t need people telling them that they shouldn’t be compensated for the value they bring to advertisers. The blogosphere DOES need more education and awareness on how to ensure that word of mouth marketing is done in a way that adds to our community, rather than detracts from it.

Of course, the Twitter community responded – who wouldn’t want to talk to the people behind the nation’s largest and longest running morning news show? I suggested they do a Today Show segment on Twitter, and kind of flipped when they actually responded back and asked what I thought would be interesting to their audience. I mentioned the breaking news stories, Obama’s savvy election strategy, & how Comcast and Dell were offering faster customer service than someone could get if they picked up a phone. Oh, and by the way, I said, I certainly would be an appropriate guest to talk about it on your show!

I never heard from them again on that idea, but we did tweet back and forth a bit every now and then. I pretty much forgot about that conversation until the morning of February 24th, when I got a Twitter Direct Message from @TodayShow:

“Hey, when you have a chance, call me at xxx. Thank you.”

After I picked myself up off the floor from falling off my chair, I called up Ryan, the show producer. He reminded me of our Twitter conversation, and then told me they were doing a segment on Digital Moms.

And I almost couldn’t believe it.

I had just landed a spot on the Today Show because of a Twitter conversation.

It was a perfect story of social media done right. A company on Twitter with a real person behind the profile. A mom with a good story to tell. And both of us on Twitter for all the right reasons – to not only market ourselves, but to build real relationships, add value and be part of the conversation.

I suspect that the Today Show is going to get a lot of new followers and story pitches thanks to this post. And I bet a few other news shows might, also. But here’s my advice: Don’t expect to land on national TV if you spam these shows with your ideas. Remember, again, that there are real people who run TV shows, and real people don’t like spam.

I think he was jealous of my daughter. She’s actually been blogging for a couple of years, but because I get all freaked out about internet creepies, I wasn’t comfortable shouting out about it until she got older. Her passion is animals (especially ocean animals) and her blog is at AnimalCrazed.com. But two weeks ago, she was hired through IZEA to write on SeaWorld’s new Dolphin Bubbles blog – and I really don’t think my hubs could stand the thought of two women in his house earning a living through blogging without getting in on the action.

Here’s me breaking the news to her that after two years she’s now officially a professional blogger:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cCj69AL6aU[/youtube]

OMG could I be more proud???

Anyway, Dave is following his own passion – music. He’s a seriously talented singer-songwriter and has 30 years of excuses as to why he never did anything with his talent. So I have to say that even though I spent all weekend working on his stuff, I’m uber:proud of him, too for finally getting up off his butt and doing something with his songs. And he’s even got some friends who are writing on it with him.

I’ve spent many, many years teaching people to follow their dreams. Even before I started this blog, I was coaching both friends and colleagues to do what they were put on this earth to do. And I think I’ve done a pretty good job of leading by example on that one…

But to see both my daughter and my husband pursuing their own dreams – and it’s because I’ve pursued mine that I can help them pursue theirs… holy cow, it’s almost too much to put into words. It all started with this little hobby blog that I never thought would go anywhere – and today the power of blogging and social media is touching every thread of my life in such a powerful way.

Wow. Just wow.

Never in a million years would I have guessed that some software on a web server and a few words on a blog could have so much power to do good.

I’d love to hear your stories of how blogging and social networks are changing your lives for the better, too – please share them in the comments! I’ll highlight the best stories in a future post.

I’ve written up a word of mouth marketing case study on the project from start to finish over at my finally-revamped WendyPiersall.com.

Another project that is a hot topic lately is the Kmart / IZEA campaign that was done last December. Ted Murphy released a fantastic case study on it a few weeks ago, but I decided to take it one step further and dissect the differences between the bloggers that participated in the campaign, Chris Brogan, Loren Feldman, Julia Roy, Jeremy Schoemaker, Michelle Madhok, and myself. Thus, my post is a true case study of how different influencers bring different assets to every campaign they work on. And most importantly, it does pay to find the right influencers with the right following to match your campaign goals.

Both of these campaigns had strong viral components that created significant buzz – buzz around the brands, buzz around the agencies, and even buzz around the bloggers. I’m very proud of the work I’ve been able to do with these campaigns thus far, knowing they were great brands that I would put my own name on the line for without hesitation.

Being Paid for One’s Influence

With the furor around paid posts and sponsorships of late, I’d also like to make a very important point to those who think that mixing money and content are somehow immoral or bad. Besides the fact that these kinds of sponsorships date back to Olympians in ancient Greece, and besides the fact that these campaigns were all run with the highest ethical standards recommended by WOMMA, and besides the fact that we’ve been asking brands to do ‘Conversation Marketing‘ for years… there is one more thing I would like to add.

If I were to add up the amount of money I have turned away over the three years I have run this site due to my unwillingness to endorse the companies for whatever reason, I’d guess it would easily add up to $50K, if not more than that. And although many people think I am getting rich off of Sparkplugging, for the first two years I didn’t make a penny, so I certainly could have used that $50K at some point along the way.

The fact of the matter is, the bloggers that took part in the Kmart campaign aren’t people who really needed $500 in Kmart merchandise. We did it because we believed it would add value to our readers first, and to the brands, second. But most of all, it is completely unjustifiable to judge a blogger’s ethics based on what they are paid for, unless you also know how they are unwilling to be bought at any price.

I’m going to shut up now on this subject, because I will go on a never ending rant about people who think their self-defined “morals” should be everyone else’s morals too… and neither one of us wants to go there.

Truth be told—Twitter can be great for promoting your small business.  And while proponents of social media like to say “anything goes, there really are no rules”—that’s not necessarily the case.

There are a few unspoken etiquette rules when promoting your business on Twitter and if you don’t pay attention to some of the tips mentioned below, it can cause people to ignore your friend requests or unfollow you all together.

Just remember, Twitter is a community—not advertising space.  People will accept the promotion of your business in balance.  Don’t expect to sign up for twitter, put out a few of your links and have whopping sales or clients pouring in overnight.

Seriously– not gonna happen.

But, if you work to make relationships and connect with your target audience, you’ll be on your way to getting sales or clients in no time.

And I do say this from personal experience.  As a freelance writer, all of my well paying writing gigs have come as a result of the connections I’ve made on Twitter.  Same goes for my network marketing business. While the venture is relatively new, I’ve been able to speak with prospects and sell a few products because of my connections in the space.

So without further adieu, let’s get started with some basic do’s and dont’s in promoting your business on Twitter:

• DON’T sign up for twitter and follow hundreds of people all at once.  Instead, sign up and follow people sloooowwwly (You don’t want to be mistaken for a spammer).  If a person follows me and they have one update, 500 friends and 2 followers, I just assume it’s a spammer and won’t follow.
• DO follow a manageable number of people and try to keep your followers to followee ratio relatively equal until you get the swing of things.
• DON’T make all of your updates about your company, blog or service. Instead, have REAL, friendly conversations until people get to know you as someone they can trust.  This requires you following what other people are saying and engaging in conversations that go beyond yourself or your business.
• DO post links to your latest blog entries, sales, etc.—but KEEP IT BALANCED.
• DO share (or Retweet) links to other people’s giveaways, blog entries or sales items.  By paying attention to what other people are saying, those people will be more likely to give your stuff a look when they see it come across the screen.  It’s called karma and it works.
• DON’T auto DM! Auto Dm’s are those pesky little personal messages you are probably sending out to your followers that say “Hi! Thanks for following!  Here’s the link to my site _______!”  If that’s you, STOP.  Again, get to know the people you are following before you hit them with your links.  Anything a person needs to know about you can be found on your bio line.  Keep it that way.
• DO DM someone about something that relates to THEM (again stepping outside yourself).  For example, I followed back someone today that wrote how she had 50 some followers and her husband was impressed because that was more than Jesus.  Well of course that made me laugh so I DM’ed her to say hi and that I was cracking up over her comment.  Friendly conversation in a DM is A’ok
• DON’T announce to the world how many followers you have!  I know it gets exciting when we feel like we are finally connecting to our target audience and people want to hear what we have say, but keep your numbers to yourself!
• DO use twitter to invite people in your target audience OFF the space and onto your blog.  From there you can be more promotional of your products, your services, etc.  On twitter you’ll make and foster the connections—but you’ll actually convert sales, clients, etc. on your own turf.  Keep that in mind before you spam

And to help the Twitter newbies out there, please weigh in below with the Twitter habits that annoy you the most.  By nicely telling people what NOT to do, we can have a much better experience in the world of social media.

Photo Courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons Artist wisleywoven

About Amber Watson-Tardiff

Amber Watson-Tardiff is a freelance writer, virtual assisant and solopreneur.  When shes not writing or teaching people how to start their own home business, Amber can be found starting trouble here on Twitter or hanging out on her own blog, jerseymomma.com. To contact amber, email ambertardiff at gmail dot com.

Barack Obama may have won the presidential debates during five key moments, each of which was viewed hundreds of thousands of times on video-sharing sites on the Internet in the ensuing days, according to an analysis of viewership figures of every video uploaded to the major video sites — including YouTube, DailyMotion, Veoh, MySpace and MetaCafe.

Although users of video sharing websites likely skew younger and more liberal than voters as a whole, … much can be learned about viewer preferences in general by analyzing which moments video watchers zero in on. It’s a technique that doesn’t just work for politics — … the same method accurately predicted the winner of the last American Idol.

YouTube Consumer Insights

Auditude is the company that was able to pull together the data point and chart the spikes (full report can be viewed here.) While I think this is interesting, valuable, and great for politics, this isn’t just about who wins elections or contests on American Idol. YouTube has a simpler but still powerful built-in Hot Spots tool so that you can see your own highs and lows on any video you upload:

Youtube Viewing Trends

If you are selling anything via video, doing video blogging, tutorials, or just about anything, this tool is priceless. It will tell you when you’re losing viewers. And it will tell you when people are responding to your message. While you might not get as much data to play with as Obama and McCain did, just having this data is reason enough to do more with video. And you can use it to predict what content will be most popular, what trends people are most interested in, and where your content might be confusing viewers.

It has been both a blessing and a curse for both candidates that this election has been the most recorded in history. A blessing, because sites like YouTube have been able to carry their campaign messages to the voters that they have been unable to reach via traditional media. A curse, because both candidates are getting attacked with past words that contradict current positions.

It’s too early to tell if YouTube made or broke the election for either candidate’s bid for the white house. But I can guarantee you that YouTube made or broke millions of independent votes for both of them. Highlights of campaigns like the “Joe the Plumber Moment” or the “Colin Powell Moment” spread rapidly within minutes via email, Facebook and of course Twitter.

But the real fascinating story thus far is how the Presidential campaign turned the tables on social media and changed the way we used it - most of all via Twitter. Whether you love Obama or hate him, I believe this was one of the most brilliant moves his campaign made:

Thinking we’re only one signature away from ending the war in Iraq. Learn more at http://www.barackobama.com. 2:04 PM Apr 29th, 2007 from web.

- Barack Obama’s first post to Twitter

By being such an early adopter of Twitter, Obama forced his opponent, his fans, and even mainstream media to pay attention to this little tech startup based on the simplicity of sending 140 character messages to your friends.

Election 2008 on Twitter

Twitter can now be found being incorporated into live broadcasts from CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. CurrentTV broadcast all of the debates with a stream of live Twitter commentary captions beneath the candidates. And now if I want the absolute latest news on the campaign, I know I will find it on Election.Twitter.com before I will find it anywhere else.

I honestly think that Twitter is now on the way to becoming a part of all of our everyday lives.

Obama & McCain Battle for the Small Business Vote Barack Obama’s Small Business Plans John McCain’s Small Business Plans

The Brilliance of Campaigning Via Twitter

To make this relevant for business owners, the use of social media and Twitter in this campaign was a strategic and brilliant marketing move straight out of Seth Godin’s book Unleashing the Ideavirus. Based on the premise that in order to induce a viral response to your campaign, one must first sell the idea to the “Sneezers”. Sneezers are at the core of any ideavirus. Sneezers are the ones who when they tell ten or twenty or 100 people–people believe them. Obama found his sneezers on Twitter. And McCain has now, too.

Step By Step, Here’s how Seth Godin’s Ideavirus Tactics Work

· Make it virusworthy.

If it’s not worth talking about, it won’t get talked about.

· Identify the hive [Target Market].

You won’t get the full benefit of the ideavirus until you dominate your hive.

· Expose the idea.

Expose it to the right people, and do whatever you need to do to get those people deep into the experience of the idea as quickly as possible.

· Figure out what you want the sneezers to say.

You’ve got to decide what you want the sneezers to say to the population. If you don’t decide, either they’ll decide for you and say something less than optimal, or they won’t even bother to spend the time.

· Give the sneezers the tools they need to spread the virus.

After you’ve got a potential sneezer, make it easy for him to spread the idea. Give him a way to send your idea to someone else with one click.

· Once the consumer has volunteered his attention, get permission.

The goal of the ideavirus marketer is to use the virus to get attention, then to build a more reliable, permanent chain of communication so that further enhancements and new viruses can be launched faster and more effectively, under your control this time.

· Amaze your audience so that they will reinforce the virus and keep it growing.

Why do some viruses burn out more quickly than others? The simplest reason is that marketers get greedy and forget that a short-term virus is not the end of the process, it’s the beginning. By nurturing the attention you receive, you can build a self reinforcing virus that lasts and lasts and benefits all involved.

Whether or not either of the candidates’ Twitter strategy works to get him into the white house is yet to be determined. But it did work to change the rules of the game – and no presidential election will be the same again.

Edited to add side note: A story came up today about the McCain campaign’s frustration with blogging coverage of the election:

“[The McCain campaign has] become to be rather disdainful of the hyper-blogging that takes place on the press bus, and they think it has increased this mind-set of “gotcha” journalism, where every time John McCain would say something, instead of asking a follow-up question, people would go scurry off to their laptops and post to their blogs. And the McCain campaign believes that’s not what journalism ought to be.”

I agree that the immediacy of reporting via blogging is changing the dynamics of campaign coverage. Stories are indeed breaking faster and over shorter periods of time as blogs break news. And it brings up the old argument of the fuzzy (extinct?) line between mainstream media and blogs.

I guess the question is that if blogging is not going away (which it isn’t), what, if anything, should bloggers and candidates do about it?