Do you know of any college students interested in a social media communications, journalism, or public relations internship? Purple Stripe is looking for two interns for Fall 2011 to work on the Women of Google+ project.

Social Media Internships

Seeking an energetic and creative individual 12-16 hours weekly to create and curate content for the Women of Google+ website and community. The ideal candidate can write clean and engaging copy; use desktop publishing, Internet and social media tools with ease; juggle multiple deadlines; work well independently. Be prepared to show us how you communicate in a multi-media environment. This is an on-site internship in Trenton New Jersey. Internship is unpaid.

Have What It Takes?

For more details about each position and how to apply, see the documents below:

• Social Media Communications / Journalism Internship
• Social Media Public Relations Internship

About the Women of Google+ Project

Women of Google+ is a destination for women to learn, share and explore what it takes to thrive on social networking platforms both personally and professionally. Thousands upon thousands of women (and even some men!) have found value from Women of Google+ profiles, videos, tutorials, chats, articles and events. It is our goal to transform this site into a community where you can participate in no matter what your reason for being on Google+ or other social networking sites.

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!

Within hours of becoming ‘closed beta’ status I received an invite to the highly-leaked new social networking platform from Google called Google Plus (Google+ or G+). After playing with the platform for about three days now, I’d like to share some of my initial thoughts, reactions, and predictions.  If you’re not familiar with what Google Plus is yet, be sure to watch their overview video.  I’m not covering every aspect of Google Plus here (we will cover that in depth later) but did want to share some of the things that stood out after three days of ‘playing’.

Please leave a comment in this post if you are currently in the beta program for Google Plus with your thoughts (or a link to your own post about it) or if you are curious on what the big deal is.

Initial Thoughts

This is not Facebook. It is not supposed to be Facebook or function anything like it. No walls, no pokes. There is a +1 feature behaves like a Like button and I’m glad there is a function for it. Any social network platform will become cookie-cutter if YOU let the content you allow into your space to be the same. For me, I’m going to limit the people I ‘follow’ to folks I have met in real life and consider to be friends in some capacity. In the beginning I will keep it social and not overly ‘business’ because it’s important to see how I can use this platform differently than I use Facebook.  By figuring out what you want this to BE will determine what it IS – to you.

User Experience

It seems that Google has learned a thing or two about user experience from epic failures like Google Wave and moderate flops like Google Buzz.  The main people-grouping feature called ‘Circles’ has a nice visual drag and drop interface that lets you click on the photo avatar of someone you want to put in a circle and just drop them in to include.  You can use a tab/checkbox format also, but I like the visual hand/eye movement of putting people in buckets.

My initial reaction was that Google Plus works better with how people want conversations laid out on a screen, but after doing a bit more of a deep-dive, I’m seeing where improvements need to be made.

Security Considerations

Although I have always been comfortable with how the security settings in Facebook work, a lot of people were not happy with either how they functionally worked or the granularity of control. Let me just first say that nothing you put on the Internet should be of such high confidentially that you wouldn’t risk it being on a billboard on the Turnpike. (In my opinion, no data online is every 100% safe and secure 100% of the time.)  With that said, Google Plus appears to have learned from mistakes both with Facebook and Google Buzz. When you first ‘follow’ a person they are granted no access in return, making it function similar to Twitter in that relationships can exist one-way.  Facebook requires a mutual connection, but also leave loopholes to your data depending on your contacts security settings.  While it seems initially that there is more work to be done to put people in buckets and control who can see what type of information, THIS is exactly what users have been asking for.  Google seems to be delivering.

Conversation Flow

Google seems to finally have gotten how people want to talk to each other. The concept of ‘Circles’ allows you to group people (notice I didn’t say ‘followers’ or ‘friends’) When at an in-person party, you don’t talk to the entire room at the same time, you have conversations in circles.  Google Plus allows you to publish content to specific Circles of people (and in extension excluding others), so you are not creating noise for the rest.

Hangout (Video Chat)

Wow. Just wow. You can create a video chat room with up to 10 participants – TEN LIVE VIDEO PARTICIPANTS – as well as have a text chat.  Any people beyond the 10 person limit can still view the video feed. If they add screen sharing and moderation abilities, Skype and WebEx should both be wetting their pants in fear.

Sparks

This is supposed to be a keyword content curator (hey, they are Google after all, it’s their job to find content based on your preferences) but I’m not finding I use or like it much. Google Reader would be a much better fit in this space. Reader allows me an amazing level of content organization and tagging, and it would be a much better use of space to just integrate a strong pre-existing product here.

Brands and Businesses

On my third day in Google Plus I started seeing companies show up to the party (Ford Motor Company and Hubspot for example.) I can’t begrudge them for wanting to come in and experiment at all. What I will be on the lookout is to see if businesses regurgitate content from Facebook and fret over how many circles they are in (which would be the closest relation to a Fan Page count). Please, I’m *begging* you, do something different. Innovate. Create. Find the box and kick the snot out of it – but whatever you do, don’t go IN the box please.

Recommendations for Google Plus

• Make it customizable like iGoogle has the ability to be.  Let us move around widgets and change colors.  You know, all the things Facebook denies their users…
• Let me determine how I want to view order in my main stream of content – newest updated, FIFO, or possibly even have a VIP list that messages always bubble to the top from.
• Mute a conversation Sometimes you follow chatty people, or a particular thread catches fire, and I don’t always want it surfacing to the top of my stream all the time. — This was actually implemented last night due to requests submitted (PS – Google is taking suggestions and implementing changes at a lightening speed, their interest and response is refreshing.)

A word on the purpose of a closed beta program…

Note that Google Plus is highly beta and very closed right now. The invite system was shut down by Google due to the onslaught of invites sent by those of us that got in ‘first’ (guilty!)  Google Plus is a work in progress and will evolve and thrive when the current users inside the beta actively work to test the system, submit bug reports, test drive features, and submit constructive feedback. It’s not a place (yet) where people should worry about being left out of conversations or purchase invites on eBay. To be honest, the geeks need to be in there right now to stress the system and look at it with a critical eye. Wanting to be a part of Google Plus just for bragging rights is not a valid reason to be in a closed beta program.

Twitter is a great platform to use as part of social media marketing plan, but if after using Twitter – following people, having people follow you, getting amplification by re-Tweets, etc. – you are not finding value, maybe it’s time to clean up your relationships!

After four and a half years on Twitter, my account is overdue for a purge. It’s bloated and is not as useful as it could be. For the first year or so on Twitter, there weren’t that many other people around, so we ALL followed EVERYONE.  I knew it was time to clean house because I was no longer reading my Twitter stream, but reading my Twitter lists or visiting people’s Twitter page directly. Part of me didn’t want to ‘offend’ anyone by un-following after I had already extended an olive branch. You know what? Chances are I’m not providing value, entertainment, knowledge, or a service to a good number of their accounts either. After finding TheTwitCleaner.com, I have started the process of the purge, and set a calendar entry for every six months to revisit the process. While I have no hard and fast rules for keeping a follower versus un-following, there are some general guidelines I have in my head as I visit each page TwitCleaner recommends to un-follow. Of course as they will state, these are suggestions, it’s up to you to visit each account and make your own judgment call.

I’m sharing my fast and loose guidelines for un-following a Twitter account here. Now you understand why I don’t follow you anymore — or why I still DO.

Un-Follow Guidelines:

• You tweet in another language. It’s not you, it’s me. Sorry.
• You offer no original content. If your entire Twitter stream consists of ReTweets that tells me you have no original thoughts or opinions of your own. If you are a business on Twitter, I will make exceptions, but not many.
• Your Tweets are nothing but links back to your blog. Again, businesses I expect this from and are saved from the cut (@CNN this mean you) but as a HUMAN with a Twitter account, I want you to talk with me, not link-bait to your content. That’s what RSS is for.
• You don’t have anything interesting to say above the fold. That’s right, I’m lazy. While the scroll wheel works fine on my mouse, I choose not to scroll to find conversations of value. You’re only as interesting as your last 10 Tweets.
• You like to kill things. I am not joking here. Somehow I managed to follow a good number of hunters and fishermen. I’m not against hunting or fishing, but not a fan of shooting wolves from helicopters or details about breeding night crawlers let alone reading messages about it.  If your personal ethos or morals are in direct conflict with mine, you get un-followed.
• You are overtly pornographic. Trust me when I say I’m no prude, but honestly, I don’t care about YOUR *personal* life, I care about MINE. And mine is not on Twitter.
• You are pushing the ‘hard-sell’. Listen, we are all selling. All day, every day, we all are chasing coin. I am not interested in getting more Twitter followers, losing weight, getting whiter teeth, or higher rankings in Google. Well, actually, I am interested in all of those things, just not from YOU.  If all you talk about is your own product or company and providing no other value, I have no need to follow your account.
• Anyone trying to sell me what my company already does. Seriously, did you even READ my bio before you started spamming my DM? I work at a social marketing and technology firm. I really don’t need to hire you to teach me how to use Twitter to increase traffic to my website.  If you aren’t selling but providing value, entertainment, or resources then I will follow the account.  It is when they reach out or auto-Tweet pitching to me it all turns sour.

Follow Guidelines:

• You are a friend. A real life in the flesh friend that I would invite to my house for dinner. Even if you Tweet about your goldfish all day, I still love you and value the insane babbling you publish on Twitter.
• Rockstars in my profession. Yes, it’s the popular kids thing to do, but they wouldn’t be rockstars if they weren’t providing value. Chances are a lot of them are my friends as well.  This seems to conflict with my guideline for not following people in my own industry.  Think of this as ‘aspirational marketing’ rather than stealing or stalking.
• You provide a valuable community service. @RedCross and @InstantAmber are perfect examples. I will never drop an account where there is the possibility that just one message can save one life.
• You are a business that ‘gets’ IT and knows how to use social media / social marketing to build community. Trust me, I have private lists for those of you that don’t get IT, as well as some slides in the conference talks I do.
• You are a client or business industry I have my eye on. I’m a very good businesswoman. I know how to use the information that comes out of the magic box and onto a computer screen to work my business. By the time I walk in your front door, everything there is to know about your firm that’s in (digital) print has already been implanted on a chip in my brain.
• You are a person that behaves like a human. Sometimes I just like to follow people because I find them interesting, or know other people that would find them interesting or valuable. Being a connector is just as important as being connected. Expand your circle, your interests, and maybe you will grow with it.

For now, this is what will get you kicked out of my club or in the door with a handshake. Don’t take it personally, it’s my club, not yours. You have every right to un-follow ME. Of course if you think I’ve un-followed your account in error and you are about to Tweet the meaning of life or the next PowerBall winning numbers, feel free to @ me and get my attention. But DM the PowerBall numbers to me, don’t make it public, I really don’t want to split the prize. I need a vacation and could use the coin.

I am finding myself un-following a good number of people/businesses but categorizing them in lists instead.  This is a GOOD thing (for me anyhow).  Filling up my Twitter stream with pages of links to Etsy items or makeup tips is counterproductive to me.  By having you on a list, I can still consume your ideas/content/links but on a better schedule for me.  Don’t take it personally, instead, find a way to make your content and message relevant to ME – then I’ll pay attention and open my wallet.

(Edited and republished from an article written by Lynette in 2010.)

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!

As a small business, we are constantly attending in-person professional business networking events.  More often than not, we are the ones facilitating the event!  Over the past few years we have seen the process of how professionals network evolve, and wanted to share some tips with you.  On Tuesday February 1st we are helping run the New Jersey Social Media Diner networking event at Mastoris Diner in Bordentown New Jersey, so it’s a refresher for us as well!

Come prepared.

There is no use going to a business networking event if you aren’t ready!

1. Think about the types of questions people get asked at networking events and be prepared to answer them. “What do you do?” is one of the most common ice breakers, be prepared with a creative answer. Better yet, come up with a few unique questions of your own to ask. A quick glance at a person’s business card can tell you what they do for a living, a thought-provoking question will start to build a real conversation. It will jolt people out of giving routine answers and make you more memorable in the process. Examples of interesting questions could be “what would your perfect client referral look like?”, “what type of client are you trying to break in with?”, or “if money were no object, what would your ideal job be?”
2. Bring up to date business cards! Your business card is the only thing about you that will go back to work with the contacts you meet. Visit your local printshop, Vistaprint, or Overnight Prints for cards, they aren’t expensive and make a lasting impression. Even professionals in-transition should have cards made up with their contact information.
3. Browse through the attendee list if possible. A lot of today’s networking events are orchestrated online and allow you to see the names of other attendees. Do a little research (use LinkedIn!) to see if there is anyone there you want to connect with and be sure to reach out to them at the event. If you have chosen the right networking event, you will be meeting numerous people that either have interest in your business, or that you are interested in. An offset printing company may not make the best connections at a networking event filled with medical technology professionals – unless of course you have a product offering for their industry.

Make a positive first impression.

You have EXACTLY one opportunity to make a great first impression. This doesn’t seem like a point worth mentioning, but having probably 100 business networking events under our belt, we can say from experience that it needs to be talked about. Be sure to wear clean and pressed clothing appropriate for your line of work. Even plumbers and landscapers can wear khakis and a polo shirt! If you are not a suit-and-tie or skirt-and-heels kind of person, wear something that you would wear meeting a client for the first time. Don’t carry about a laptop bag or gym bag around, and ladies, please don’t carry around an oversized purse you have to pull out all your kids toys from to get a business card out. Your first impression needs to convey you as a neat, organized, and professional business person.

Know what you have to offer and be able to present it quickly.

Develop a one sentence introduction as well as a presentation of about four sentences. The introduction explains what you do and for whom. For example, “I work with companies to help with their technology needs to reach their customers on networking platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.” This introduction serves as an ice breaker and helps determine if the person you are talking to is interested in your line of business. If they are, they will usually respond with asking a question about it. Be prepared with your follow up sentences, customized if possible so the person you are chatting with can relate. You must be truthful, genuine and authentic. No bluffing or padding out your experience, you never know who the person you are talking to is connected with!

Approaching others at the networking event.

It’s not easy to go up to complete strangers and start up a conversation, but it is the entire reason you are at the event. Just remember, everyone is in the same situation as you, they are here to network and expect and hope you will do just that. Wallflowers do not make connections!

1. Make the first move. Introduce yourself to others rather than waiting for others to come to you – this allows you to choose who you talk to
2. To ease yourself in try heading for the one person you know and say hello. Ask them if there is anyone they can introduce you to.
3. Look for the wallflowers and talk to them. Think how pleased they will be to talk to you, and you can see about ‘teaming up’ to make talking to others easier on your both.
4. Read body language. If there are a few people standing side by side then this means they are open to being approached, but a group standing in a closed circle is a bit harder to break in to. Save them for later.

Don’t hand out business cards to everyone.

This goes against every old-school networker out there. It’s not a numbers game, giving out more cards does not increase your chance of gaining a client. After talking to someone and seeing if there is an interest in each other’s business, then offer a card. Of course if you are asked for a card, ask for one in return! We have binders full of business cards for products and services that we will never need, and can’t refer out to someone else. It’s a fact of life, not everyone is a potential customer or source of referrals. Everyone is worth a few minutes of your time to chat though, so be polite.

Breaking from the pack.

You’ve introduced yourself and you’ve had a good conversation with someone but want to meet others, or the connection just isn’t clicking and it’s time to move on. It’s not personal, just effective business networking. Tactful ways to move on are:

1. Introducing them to someone else asking them to introduce you to someone else you know
2. Suggesting you refill your drink or grab a bite to eat
3. Saying ‘we only have a limited time today to network, so I will let you continue networking’
4. Saying ‘thank you for your time…do you have a business card so we can connect later and continue our conversation?’
5. If all else fails just say ‘shall we go and introduce ourselves to some more people now?’

Follow up after the event.

Networking events are useless without followup. Most people fail to connect after the event, yet the follow-up is the most important aspect of networking. Within two days after the event, you should reach out to your new contact via email, or better yet, LinkedIn. Be sure to include information on where you met them, what you talked about, and why you would like to connect. If using LinkedIn, please do not use the default connection message! If the contact you made has the potential to become a good relationship, arrange for coffee or lunch within two weeks of the networking event. This will give you the opportunity to learn more about their business, the challenges they face, and how you could potentially help them. This is NOT a sales call – it is a relationship building meeting.

Thank the organizers.

Organizing a business networking event is a thankless job!  It’s usually a volunteer position and the people involved usually do not have much time to network themselves.  The organizers are most likely know a good deal of the attendees, so by thanking them you stay top-of-mind and open yourself up to more business networking connections!

In-Transition Professionals:

Please do not attend a networking event and openly solicit for a job. If you identify yourself as out of work / in-transition, everyone else understands you are looking for employment. Don’t put anyone on the spot by asking if there are openings at their company, if they would walk your resume in to HR for you, hand out your resume in place of business cards, or complain about how you keep getting interviews but never get hired. Most of us have been in your position, we truly understand how difficult it is. Help them to help you! Let people know what type of referral would be beneficial for them. For example, “I’m looking to make connections with people in the training departments of pharmaceutical or financial institutions” gives people a starting point to dig through their contacts and help you out.

Be prepared to talk about what you have been doing with your time while looking for employment. Talk about the volunteering you are doing that somehow relates to your line of work. In finance? Talk about how you are volunteering at your child’s school and raising money and organizing the class trip. Graphic designer? Chat about how you are donating some time and talent to local non-profits that could not normally afford your services. Better yet, try to network with people that you could do a bit of volunteering for, just be wary of businesses trying to get free services out of you.

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!

Think that Twitter’s 140 character messages don’t amount to much? Think again…

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)