Google+ has been the hot topic of discussion for a few months now as a possible competitor or replacement for other platforms such as Facebook or Twitter.  Some sources say that Google+ is skyrocketing with over 40 million users,others say traffic to the site has declined so drastically the end is near. We think Google+ is the most promising social networking platform for businesses and individuals to date.

Purple Stripe is putting together an overview (not a case study, it’s too early for that) of businesses using Google+ that have seen promising gains in their business goals. We know that numbers and traffic don’t mean as much as real results from real people and companies. We have been working with businesses and professionals that already see major gains using Google+ and I’m interested in finding more success stories.

If you are interested in participating, please complete the survey. Thanks everyone!

With Google+ becoming a major social networking platform within weeks of its ‘field release’, there is no longer any question that the social web is here to stay. The Google+ platform is not even open to the general public yet. No one knows exactly which direction it is heading, but by getting in and getting comfortable now you will have an advantage for when the floodgates open!

The Google+ Content & Strategy Webinar will provide tips and tricks that you can use to make the most of Google+ features such as Profiles, Hangouts, Circles and Sparks. The Google+ Content & Strategy Webinar will primarily focus on content generation, social media strategy and tactics, and show ways you can interact with others and provide value without alienating your followers.

Click the GOOGLE+ Training link in the menu above!

Lynette was interviewed this week by Shel Holtz for a For Immediate Release show about the Podcast Pavilion, the special podcast space that will be part of the BlogWorld and New Media Expo taking place in New York May 24-26.

In this interview, Shel and Lynette chat about the origins of the Podcast Pavilion and what attendees at BlogWorld East can expect from the special podcasting venue that will be set up on the trade show floor.

FIR Interview: Lynette Young on BlogWorld’s Podcast Pavilion

It’s no surprise that mothers love technology, especially when it comes to making their family and lives easier to juggle.  According to a recent eMarketer article, smartphone ownership is much higher among moms (6.1 hours per day) than the general population (2.1 hours per day).  What is surprising to some is how moms use their devices.  They underindexed on accessing content like maps, productivity tools, and financial and business information, suggesting they’re sticking to activities to help—or help occupy—their families.  What moms do show to be interested in is location-based coupons and deals.  The article does not indicate if the mothers surveyed are exclusively stay-at-home moms or working moms.

This report comes as no surprise to us, moms have been harnessing the power of the social web for years now.  New first time mothers are notoriously active on social networking sites, and can now use smartphones to bring that community with them on the go wherever their family takes them!  As parents ourselves, we have to agree!

Over the years of working with businesses to get them involved in social media, expand their success, or dig out of a failure, we have come across some of the worst business ideas around! This type of thinking has stifled companies from successfully moving ahead using social media. By identifying these ideas and working on improvements head-on you can improve the way your business interacts and attracts business.

1. Assume social media is a quick and/or cheap way to get business

We all know that accounts on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are free, but that’s about where the free meal ends. Earning customers on social media is no different that earning them anywhere else. It takes time, money and resources. Using these platforms on a personal capacity requires simple tools. Using these platforms in a business capacity requires business-grade tools. Even if you can develop a toolset using free software, the people using those tools are not free. Interns are free/cheap labor and are at a company to learn. They are never EVER a good idea to use as the frontline communication contact for your company. Would you put a professionally inexperienced person as your senior sales person? Would you send an intern to close a deal with possibly the biggest client your business has ever seen? Of course not. So don’t put an intern or someone without solid business and professional experience in front of potentially millions of customers. People with limited professional or social media experience can still be successfully, and inexpensively, utilized in the company’s social media plans. Just be sure they have strong leadership and guidance along the way, otherwise it can cost you a lot more than money.

2. Believe that current social media platforms are built to last

How is that MySpace page doing for you? Everything ‘hot’ can be everything ‘not’ very quickly. Facebook is not social media. Twitter is not social media. Social media isn’t defined by any particular website or platform, but is the notion of using online technology to communicate and share ideas with other people. Learn how to communicate online, create compelling content, share ideas, listen to others, and how to match the activity on social media networks to business goals. Those tactics and skills will transfer to the next great social network and will help you in all the currently-hot places on the Internet.

3. Skip training since times are lean

Most of your employees are on Facebook at home so why invest in training? Social media is a ‘no-brainer’, everyone’s using it so how hard can it be? Successfully using the advanced tools, monitoring platforms, workflow management and reporting is not as simple as posting a “status update”, not to mention the etiquette, technology and communication skills needed. When you use social media platforms for a business, you need business-grade tools to track and measure business goals. These tools require training. The success or failure of using these tools, and social media in general, is dependent on how well the tools are used. Training provides a sharp competitive edge that is critical in this economy. Simple as that.

4. Think that social media will make up for deficiencies in the business

Putting lipstick on a pig does not make that pig any more attractive. If anything, it draws attention to shortcomings and generally makes the situation worse. If your products, services, customer support, distribution channels or any other critical part of your business is lacking, social media cannot fix it. One approach is to get your business in tip-top condition first before ‘going public’ with social media, otherwise you leave yourself open to well-earned criticism that just may dissuade you from going forward. It is perfectly fine to start improvement processes while utilizing social media, and even brining your customers along for the journey. Use the platforms to solicit help, suggestions, success stories, and criticism from customers. Just be prepared and willing to act on the suggestions and publicly show progress.

5. Read the latest social media books and blogs and do exactly what they say

Just as every diet does not work for every person, every social media plan or strategy does not work for every company. The beauty of social media communication is that is completely customizable to your business needs at the moment. While we highly recommend a few dozen books on business and social media marketing, it’s best to approach them like an a la cart menu. Pick and choose the ideas that resonate with your business needs and tweak them to make them your own. Following someone else’s path does not mean you will duplicate their success.

6. Incentivize customers to care about your company

Paying for people to talk about you does not generate the same success as people that want to talk about you because they like you. Constantly giving away coupons or free products in exchange for a “Like” on Facebook does not make that person loyal to your brand and can actually hurt the perceived value of your products. We have seen too many companies fall into the trap of buying Twitter followers, caught in the constant loop of running contests, or sending bloggers free products to try to win their audience. While these tactics do work in moderation, finding ways to get customers to willingly participate with your business online will result in longer term success.

7. Automate communications to be competitive

Using technology as a substitute for interaction is not the answer to staying ‘lean and mean’. Customers can see right through this and your credibility will be lost. You can’t fake involvement with an online community by setting up scripts to automatically send Tweets or participate in conversations on Facebook. Well, technically you can, but we only suggest it to streamline a process you would be doing manually anyway. For example, automate the cross-posts of content between a company blog and Facebook is a great way to reuse content. Just be prepared to monitor and participate on each platform, which again, takes time and resources.

8. Utilize social media platforms and expect employees to ‘just run with it’

Social media does not work in a bubble. Your employees do not work in a bubble. Isolating the social media endeavors of your business from the general employee population is asking for disaster. While not every employee needs the ability to Tweet on behalf of the business, keeping your staff involved, asking for feedback and suggestions, and giving them an outlet to contribute content is just as important as cultivating communications outside the company. Your employees are your biggest advocates of your business, treat them well.

9. Assume taking what made the company successful in the past and using it in social media will work

If the current economy has taught us anything, it’s that old ‘tried and true’ methods of attracting business no longer work. There is no going back. Going forward, things like progressive leadership, a healthy company culture, creative thinking and valuable products need to the cornerstone of every business. Included in those ideas is the realization that customers expect businesses to behave differently and understand how they want to do business. Customers do not want a mailbox full of unwanted postcards or email newsletters. Customers don’t want mindless, repetitive television or radio commercials for products they are not interested in. Unless these channels are extremely targeted (which costs a lot of money), they don’t work as well as they used to. Taking these same pieces of content and dumping them into Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube – and then ignoring the conversations that spring up – won’t work either. Advertising and marketing still work. But what works is content that is customized to the needs of each customers. Homogenizing content no longer works, and the tactic actually backfires on social media. Take the time to get to know what your customers want and deliver it.

10. ???

Wait! Stop the press! Where’s the #10 worst social media idea for business?! That’s what we would like to hear from you. What’s the worst idea you’ve seen for business? Leave your #10 in the comments below, thanks.  We would love to hear your take on the topic!

This week’s biggest buzz is Quora, an ‘online knowledge market’ that allows people to post – and answer – questions on a multitude of topics.  Quora aggregates questions and answers to many topics and allows users to collaborate on them, providing a bit of a social platform as well self-regulation of the community.

Quora is a human search engine, where people get to ask other people for answers or advice.  When you search for information on Google or Bing, your words go through an algorithm to help determine what existing content on the Internet has those words (or related words) and gives you a list of results to choose from.  In other words, artificial intelligence.  Quora lets people answer questions, not display search engine results.

What does this get you?  As a question-asker, it gives you the opportunity to pick the brains of (potential) experts and gain from the knowledge and experience of others.  As a question-answerer, it gives you the opportunity to become seen as a thought leader in your industry and gain exposure with the very people that need you most.  No surprise, it can also help your search engine results as well.

Quora seems to be in direct competition with Yahoo Answers and LinkedIn Answers, but for the time being seems to lean to the tech crowd.  All three platforms have a specific niche, and at least one of them can be useful as a resource help promote yourself and your business in a non-sales / non-pushy way.  While the platform has been available for since June 2010, it is now just gaining momentum and popularity within the business community.

How should you utilize sites like Quora?  Take a browse around and see if there are any topics that you feel you can answer with some degree of knowledge and authority and try to log in an hour a week and answer questions.  The goal here is to get many quality answers listed and become a trusted and valuable member of the Quora (or Yahoo Answers / LinkedIn Answers) community.  Good luck and let us know what you answer on – post your link in the comments section, we would love to read about it!

(Find Lynette on Quora)

Even with a small number of Twitter followers it is possible to get your message seen and repeated to a larger audience. While every message is not reTweet-worthy, by making sure what you send is helpful and valuable to others you will grow your community as well as increase the chance for a reTweet!

Give insider tips & share something exclusive

Attending an industry conference, trade show or seminar? Just hear some news on the latest widget in your industry to be released? Tweet about it! Everyone likes exclusive information and points of view. Anyone attending the event will be interested in seeing what’s hot, and everyone interested in attending (but aren’t) will follow your Tweets and pass them along to their friends and colleagues. Using hashtags help. Using pictures is even better.

Example : Saw the most amazing thing at the Kenmore booth at #CES – preheat your oven from the Internet! (attach pic)

Anyone interested in CES (Consumer Electronics Show) can find you giving updates ‘from the floor’ as well as exclusive information – your unique picture attachment. [Links added for your clarity.]

Use a hashtag when mentioning a brand, newsworthy topic, or item of interest

You will have a better chance of getting found by the people interested in that topic as well as getting your message repeated to others in the community.

Example : Reading #Twitterville by @shelisrael. Great read, highly recommended. Come find me residents!!

This gets found and reTweeted by people reading and following the hashtag #Twitterville (the name of a book). Not only that, but the author of the book was watching and reTweeted that message as well! [Links added for your clarity.]

“Top 10 Lists” a la David Letterman

Numbered lists work well in catching people’s attention, and numbers don’t have to be spelled out (saving characters).  This post is a perfect example!

Example : Social Media Analytics: 6 Steps to Measuring What You Care About (attach shortlink)

Even if your Twitter name gets left out, at least you have a link to your site – and traffic and eyeballs are what you are after!

Technical Tip

Since Twitter messages can only be 140 characters, you need to make sure your message can accommodate RT @yourname as well as the full length of your message. Count how many characters are in your Twitter name (the maximum is 15 characters) and add 5 to accommodate for “RT”, “@” and two spaces – that’s how many characters or less your message should be to make sure nothing gets cut out for a reTweet.

140 – length of your Twitter name – 5 = maximum size of your Tweet

For example, PurpleStripe is 12 characters long, so the longest message we should send is 140 – 12 – 5 = 123 characters. Of course this is not a rule just a guideline to make it as simple as possible for people to pass along your Tweet.

PS – BONUS TIP!

Be sure to implement a ‘retweet’ button on your website or blog to help readers “1-Click” share with their social circles!  Want to see how it works? Click our reTweet button at the top of this post or the ‘Tweet This” at the bottom!

Diners have always been a traditional form of social networking in New Jersey and now we will be bringing one of the most famous and largest NJ diners into the social media sphere. Join Jeff Pulver and the #140conf Community for breakfast & networking!  Be sure to visit Eventbrite to register.  Some of the Purple Stripe team will be there as well (Lynette is helping organize the event with the ever-amazing Steve Lubetkin from Lubetkin Communications LLC.)

Besides an amazing breakfast (be sure to check out Mastori’s cheese and cinnamon bread – it’s a south Jersey thing!) you will have two hours of networking with other like minded people and professionals that are interested in the ‘real time web’.  Jeff has a very busy schedule but always seems to make a stop in the Garden State.  We are just that cool!  Space is limited & Jeff’s event sell out quickly, so be sure to sign up as soon as you can!

What a great response we have been getting to our new Ahead of Social newsletter! Did we mention you can WIN a year subscription to Ahead of Social for FREE?  We’ve been getting entries, but as it turns out a lot of you just want the newsletter for $4.99 a month and don’t want to wait around to see if you’ve won!  Keep in mind that once the contest is over the price doubles to $9.99 – still an amazing price for 8 highly detailed social media tricks a month that get results.

Here is a sneak peek of what goes on inside just one of our Ahead of Social newsletters.  The tips aren’t quick & dirty bullet point items but highly detailed, step-by-step information and instructions on how to utilize a very specific technique to get results in social media for you or your company.

Ahead of Social Newsletter

LinkedIn is undoubtedly the most popular business networking social platform available today, but did you know that by creatively filling out your profile you can gain higher search results within LinkedIn AND Google? By making sure the things you want to get found for are listed in the *right* sections of LinkedIn, you have a much higher chance of getting found – both on LinkedIn and on Google. We are going to show you how you can change your LinkedIn profile RIGHT NOW to get results.

First, a bit about LinkedIn and Google together. LinkedIn is a very highly ‘trusted’ site in the eyes of Google. What that means is that (based on a lot of proprietary calculations and some behind-the-curtain-voodoo) Google has determined that information on LinkedIn – including your 100% complete profile – is relevant, important, and valuable and will display LinkedIn information ‘above the fold’ on the first search engine results page (SERP) in Google. LinkedIn’s high trust value combined with location-aware search results (Google can determine approximately where you are located by your IP address & customizes your search results to display results that may be physically close to your location) packs a powerful punch in getting your information SEEN by those that are most likely to want to connect with you or do business with you.

How can you take advantage of this?

The key is to know what fields and information Google looks at within LinkedIn and make sure it matches the types of search terms your prospective connections would be typing in.  Now of course by increasing your ‘searchability’ helps inside of LinkedIn as well.  Below are the main areas that LinkedIn (and Google) value the most in finding information:

Subscribe to Ahead of Social to find out!!

How would you like the best of the best in social media tips, tricks, strategy suggestions AND the “latest & greatest” in social media and technology news delivered to your inbox?  To celebrate Purple Stripe Productions brand new professional education and information service we are GIVING AWAY 5 free subscriptions to Ahead of Social!  Our introductory price is $4.99 a month (it’s a steal… we know!) but you can enter for a chance to win a year subscription for FREE!

The social networking space moves fast – Ahead of Social is your ‘drip feed’ to getting ahead in the social space!  Ahead of Social is a email newsletter filled with tips and tricks for finding, using and excelling with social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and more – tips you can use right away to see results! Whether you are an individual looking to make the most of social networking or work at (or own!) a large company looking to get to the next THREE steps in social networking, Ahead of Social is for you!

To Enter

To enter the Purple Stripe Productions Ahead of Social Contest we want to know your social media story!  How did you get started using social media?  Do you use it for work or personally?  Have you always wanted to get started but think it’s too difficult?  What are you excited about trying in 2011?  Do you have a success story that sets you apart?  Come on and be social – we want to know!

To enter, you can choose one of the following methods:

• Write your story on your own blog and link back HERE
• Leave a comment HERE with your story
• Tweet it! Just be sure to use #AheadofSocial in the tweet
• LIKE us on Facebook & leave your story on our Wall!

Contest Rules

Each blog post, comment, or Facebook Like you write and link back to this post will count as a submission.  Winners must have a valid email address to receive newsletter content.  Entries will be discovered via trackbacks to this post, comments on this post, and by searching #AheadofSocial on Twitter.  Contest closes Sunday January 16, 2011 at 12pm Eastern Standard Time.  Winners chosen by Purple Stripe Productions staff based on quality of submission.  If you are an existing paid subscriber of Ahead of Social your free 12 months will start at the beginning of the next billing cycle.  Good luck!

PS…

When the contest closes, our subscription price DOUBLES (still a cool $9.99 a month) so you may want to consider taking advantage of the offer now!  If you do win the contest, we will halt your payments and subscribe you for FREE.  If you don’t win – you still get Ahead of Social for HALF PRICE for as long as you keep your subscription active!

The Purple Stripe team is actively working on a suite of professional education and informational products that you will not want to miss!  Since it is still under wraps, we’ve decided to at least kick off the new year with a bit of a ‘teaser’ product – Ahead of Social.  Enjoy!

(Comments closed – stay tuned for the winner announcement!)

Winners : AngiePedersen, FtballCoachDoug, writingtosanity, mercerchamber & cecilyk