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.)

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!

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

Is your small business website ready for the new year?  It’s often difficult for a small businesses to keep up on the latest web design trends because it has not traditionally been considered a high priority to keep ‘in the know’. If your small business website hasn’t been updated in 2-3 years, or you don’t have a website at all, the time to update (or start) is 2011.  In general, if your website contains any of the horrible aesthetics rampant during the ’90s such as animated images (including an “under construction” / “electronic mail” graphics), glitter text from MySpace, auto-play MIDI music, blinking text, scrolling marquees, a hit counter, a “best viewed in Netscape Navigator” disclaimer, or your brother-in-law designed it for free using FrontPage, the time to pay attention to the public image and brand you give to your customers is NOW.

If updating your website isn’t in your immediate future, take the time over the winter break slowdown to make sure the existing content is up to date and relevant.  We have been to many websites that have incorrect phone numbers, hours, addresses or pricing that has caused us to turn to a competitor.  Have you followed all the links in your website to see that they are still working?  Is your contact information up to date? Are testimonials from clients or employees still relevant to your current products or services?

There are great web design ideas that small businesses should consider incorporating into their sites that are both inexpensive to implement and easy for small business staff to maintain.  Some of the major points you should consider when shopping for a new small business website and company to develop it are:

Future Proof Your Website

While any technology is only good until the next technology comes along, think about using a flexible platform to build your small business website on that will grow with you in the future.  Many older websites are written in such a way that you need to understand coding to change content or update the design.  That is not a practical option for a small business that may not have the expertise – or money – to hire a developer every time they need content updated on their website.  Software platforms called Content Management Systems (CMS) are a low cost and viable solution for most small business needs.  The content and the design structure of a CMS are separate, allowing you to easily update the look and feel of a website while keeping your content in tact.  At the same time, a CMS system allows you to easily input or modify your content in an editor similar to composing an email message or Word document.  Now you can keep your customers up to date without having to hire a programmer every time you need to update your website.

Lights Out For Flash

In the early 2000′s Flash websites were all the rage.  They were visual, interactive, and well, flashy.  Today’s heavy reliance on mobile devices such as iPhones, iPads, Blackberries, and Android devices have left many small businesses in the dust when it comes to accessing information on the go.  If your website is written in Flash, you are essentially invisible to most mobile device users.  Even the mobile devices that do support Flash don’t support it reliably.  Newer websites incorporate technology like HTML5, JavaScript, CSS3 and AJAX to to provide rich user experiences while being about to be navigated from a mobile device.  With that said, Flash is still a great technology to use when developing sites that can capture audio or video, do complex animations or run web games.

Being Social Is No Longer A Luxury

The time has passed for companies both big and small to dismiss the influence of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.  Even if you aren’t ready to jump in (that is an entirely different article to write for 2011), you need to recognize that your customers *are* actively involved.  Yes, even B2B customers.  When redesigning your small business website, be sure to integrate features such as a Facebook “Like” button, a Twitter “Tweet This” button, or a “Share This” widget so that customers have one-click ability to share your information with their networks.  There is a greater chance of your content getting seen on a social networking platform with 500+ million users than anyplace else on the Internet, so make it as easy as possible to get your content there.

Content Makes Cents

How many times do you go back and look at old marketing brochures or advertisements?  Once you ‘get the message’ you really don’t have a reason to keep going back and re-reading the same piece of content over and over.  There is nothing new to be learned.  Why would your never-updated small business website be any different?  One of the most difficult tasks for small businesses is to keep a steady stream of updated content on their websites.  Developing a solid content strategy is crucial for determining what you should be publishing to your customers on your small business website and social channels.  Fresh content means more repeat visits from customers and that means you position yourself as the expert in your field – and everyone wants to do business with ‘the best’.  Shameless plug, our friend C.C. Chapman co-wrote the book Content Rules with Ann Handley and we highly recommend purchasing it.  Content Rules will help you get you started on developing and identifying the best ways to develop content for your small business website, get involved with your customers and keep them coming back for more.

Pick A Partner Don’t Hire A Vendor

When choosing a company to design and implement your new small business website, think long term.  While it may seem beneficial to go for the dirt-cheap or free option (or worse yet – do it yourself), realize that over the next few years you will likely need updates to your small business website that will require you to work with a website development company again.  The company you decide to work with is developing your brand and image to the outside world – so think about what your reputation and image means to your business, and choose accordingly.  A well run website development company will work with you to design a site that is easy for your company to maintain, easy for customers to find what they are looking for, and is functional and relevant for the next few years.  It should be their job to understand your business not just pick colors and graphics.  They should be as vested in in the process and product of your small business website as you are.

Be Human

There really isn’t any other way to put it.  Be human.  Make sure your small business website is designed for humans.  Not search engines.  Yes, it is undeniable that search engine optimization is a vital tool and tactic to use in helping people find your website, but what happens once they land there? Does your website look and read like it was written by a slick marketing company?  Try this, take a look at your “About Us” page and read it aloud.  Does it feel natural to speak the content and feel like a conversation?  Or is it full of buzz words and jargon not understood or spoken outside your industry?  While proper spelling and grammar rules still apply, the days of uptight written copy are over.  People want to do business with people – not ad copy.  How about the layout and secondary content on your small business website?  It it crammed full of keywords and tags to make search engines love you but turn people off?  Remember this, Google does not buy your products, people do.

Whether you are an independent businessperson, small company, or a small company quickly growing into a large company, it is in your best interest – and your customers best interest – to update your website and put your best image forward for 2011.  Of course Purple Stripe Productions can help you with your website, content, and social strategy and implementation.  We would love to partner with you to help your business – big or small – to get you to the next level right now.

LinkedIn is widely considered a powerhouse professional business networking tool.  The community on LinkedIn has its own ecosystem and set of ‘unwritten’ rules on use and etiquette.  One hotly debated topic is how to incorporate Twitter messages into LinkedIn – tactfully.  What you decide to publish and on what platform is up to you – but there is technology available that makes it easy.  The simplest way to bring in updates from Twitter is to use the #in hashtag when sending a Tweet to let LinkedIn know that you want to cross-post just that message.  Now your professional network connections on LinkedIn don’t have to read every Tweet you send, only the ones you feel they would be interested in!

What type of information do you find works best to cross-post between your social networks?

Connecting LinkedIn & Twitter

1. Log into your LinkedIn account
2. Click on your name in the upper right corner – choose Settings
3. In the “Profile Settings” section, choose “Twitter Settings”

Here you can make changes to how LinkedIn handles your Twitter messages and accounts:

Account

This is where you can add or remove Twitter accounts that you would like associated with your LinkedIn account.

Display your Twitter account on your LinkedIn profile

This option allows you to display all of your Twitter messages on the right side bar of your Profile Page (“Add an Application” at bottom of right side bar). This is not the same as having your messages show up within your LinkedIn ‘wall’. By showing the side bar with your Tweets, you will not flood your connections timeline with your Twitter messages.

Share your tweets in your LinkedIn status

This option allows you to gate what Twitter messages actually show up as a status update in LinkedIn. Selecting “Yes, share all tweets” will publish EVERY Twitter message as a status update in LinkedIN. Selecting “Share only tweets that contain #in” will ignore all Twitter updates unless they are specifically tagged with #in and then only publish those as status updates to LinkedIn.  (Note: #li also works but is not as frequently used.)

Tweet display

Your only option here is to display rich text links (or not). It is generally accepted as ‘user friendly’ to display rich links so that readers have more information to help determine if the content is worth a ‘click’.  Checking/unchecking the option will show you a live example of each display option.

Part of what the Purple Stripe training team teaches in our Small Business seminars is finding the right tool for the job. In this case, finding the right social media platform for your company’s marketing needs. For now, everyone has their eye on The Big Three (Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter) but we are quick to show that there are hundreds more tools available (and hundreds that have gone away…) Each tool has it’s own way of working, both technically and culturally, and each requires a unique approach to get the most benefit.

Twitter has evolved as a great place for news, entertainment, updates, and general chit-chat. Facebook is great for forming (or rekindling) relationships, social gaming, and socializing. LinkedIn is all business networking and job fulfillment. What goes on in one platform is generally ill-received on others. For example, Farmville would not be tolerated at all in LinkedIn and similar games have failed in Twitter.  Connecting with coworkers, past or present, may be frowned upon in Facebook where things stay fairly personal, but on LinkedIn not only is it expected, the platform actually helps you locate, connect and recommend each other.

Outside of the people you connect with on a social platform, the content you share should be unique across the networks.  Twitter excels at sending text messages and links because of the text-only media and character limitations.  Facebook is amazing at sharing multimedia content such as pictures or video – in addition to text and links.  LinkedIn is wonderful for sharing text and links in a professional business networking capacity.  The problem with these tools is that sometimes they are used to promote exactly the same message to very different user populations.

Just because you CAN doesn’t mean you SHOULD.

It is very easy to post the same message to all three platforms.  But should you?  Are you really serving each community to the best of their needs?

Updates from Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook can all cross-pollinate, sometimes resulting in messages infinitely looping between the three.  Messages from Twitter about what movie you just streamed from Netflix is automatically posted to your LinkedIn profile.  Foursquare checkins go to Twitter and Facebook, and then by association LinkedIn.  How is that helping anyone besides YOU?  Do the professionals on LinkedIn care what movie you are watching? Probably not.

There are ways to cross-post without becoming annoying.  For example, LinkedIn allows you to only bring in Twitter messages with #in.  Hootsuite allows you to enter in a status message and choose exactly what platform you would like to publish it on.  Our advice is be selective in where and what you post on each social network platform.  Not sure how to divide and conquer?  Create a unique strategy for each platform that accommodates your business goals and master social marketing plan.  Take a step back and determine who follows you (or that you want to follow you) on each platform, zero in on their top three needs from you, and deliver.

Done right, the interaction and value you get from each space will increase by having the right conversation on the right platform with the right people for the right reasons.

Starbucks’ Vice President of Brand, Content and Online, Chris Bruzzo, appeared at Mashable Media Summit today and gave away a bit of a ‘secret’ – he revealed that last year’s Free Pastry Day drove more than one million people to stores to grab some free baked goods.  This promotion was almost entirely conducted via social media channels.  According to Mashable (who hosted the Summit), Starbucks has managed to dominate on Facebook, made news as the first company to offer a nationwide Foursquare deal, and was selected to try out Twitter’s Promoted Tweets ad platform before other advertisers will have the chance.

Love them or hate them, Starbucks is the brand to beat on social media channels.  Or at least the brand to take a closer look at and see what creative ideas you can glean from them…

It’s been said time and time again for a business to succeed in social media, they need to understand their customers.  Designing and incorporating a strategy for social media isn’t a checklist, it’s an evolution.  Jumping in and talking is fine if  you are a person, but as a company, there are some things to consider first.

1. It’s important to understand the culture of  the platforms you are interested in engaging on.  Fark or Digg has an entirely different persona than LinkedIn.  If you are interested in talking to college-humored males with a penchant for Photoshopping funny pictures – Fark and Digg are the place for you (hey, they spend a lot of money…)  Looking for sales professionals?  LinkedIn is where you need to be.  Know your audience, know your platform.
2. Don’t start with the technology – start with the goals.  Just this week a project came across our desk from a company looking to enter social media. They had already determined what technology and social media sites they wanted to be on, without having the slightest idea who they wanted to talk to, what they wanted to talk about, and who actually hangs out on these sites.  Backwards.  Goals first, tactics second.
3. Don’t just talk about your business.  Be a person first and have fun.  While it seems counter productive to chit-chat about personal items on company time, the fact that you present yourself as a human being goes a long way to building trust.  No one is saying tell everyone what you eat for lunch every day, but sharing some volunteer efforts your company engages in or publicly thanking co-workers for decorating your office (and sharing a quick picture) for your birthday shows you aren’t just about the end sale.
4. You have to be a listener, not just a broadcaster.  Ever take part in a conversation where the other person talks about themselves for 20 minutes, and when you finally get a word in, they are gazing over your shoulder looking for the next person to pitch to?  Try practicing ‘active listening‘ on the social channels before starting to start your own agenda.
5. Does it blend?  How does social media fit with your entire PR & Marketing plan?  Social media marketing is a subset of a larger comprehensive plan to launch your company into a new era of customer communication. Abandoning everything that’s worked in favor of something you know little about is a guaranteed failure.  Stick with what works, and add to it.

This article is part of a series on social media success.

What’s the ROI of your telephone?

Your phone is a critical tool to communicate and listen, just like social media is a tool.  Who ever said that social media is a direct pipeline of prime leads for your sales team?  Twitter isn’t a fat database of people sitting around waiting for you to pitch to them.  Facebook is not an e-commerce site.  Yes, you can make money from social channels (Dell claims $3 million in sales from Twitter alone).  When planning your entry into social media, items like ROI need to be addressed early and revisited often.  On the other hand, we are not saying that efforts in social media shouldn’t earn money.  How you earn (or save) money for your company should always be taken into account, but sometimes items like brand awareness, employee retention, idea generation, or customer satisfaction don’t have hard numbers or formulas to follow.

So how do you make money from social media?  It depends on why you use social media.  If you are using it as a customer service outreach (Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us is an amazing book on the topic) then not only can you save hard money on the cost of an employee’s time picking up the phone, but the frustration and negative word of mouth so rampant with bad customer experiences.  How much money does it take to win back (assuming you even can) a customer that you’ve lost due to poor service?  How many customers do you loose even before the sale due to weak brand awareness or negative word of mouth?

Utilizing social media for sales generation?  Be there *before* the sale.  Offer help even if it means suggesting a competitor’s product.  Ask questions.  Listen.  Do more than sell – do anything but ‘sell’.  Be human.  Be well-rounded and showcase other facets of your company.  Talk about philanthropic efforts.  Provided your product or service is top-notch, all this is building trust between you and “people that may-or-may-not someday purchase your product or refer someone to you that might.”  Funny thing is, social media being structured the way it is, everyone gets to witness your efforts online and draw their own opinions on your company based on interactions they see you have with others.  In the past, the sales transaction took place ‘behind closed doors’ and not many people outside of the people involved saw the process.  That means a very limited amount of people could form their own opinions on your company outside of their own experiences.  Now the entire world can see how you treat customers, before, during, and after the sale.  The idea is scary to a good number of companies that aren’t used to operating in the new social economy.  Those companies that ‘get it’ realize that you could never put a price on (let alone actually pay to have done) the amount of positive exposure you get on social platforms.

How about using social media for talent acquisition? Product research and development?  Competitive analysis? Each group has very unique goals and should have very different strategies to using social media.

Sometimes the goal isn’t even to make money, but to save it.  Pepsi saved $20 million dollars on the 2010 Superbowl and put it towards the year-long Pepsi Refresh Project.  PepsiCo is getting much more than $20 million dollars in media coverage from the move.  Pepsi can afford to take chances like this, but can your company?  Social media is supposed to be a supplement to already successful outreach programs.  Dropping newspaper ads (if they work) to launch a Facebook Fan Page is not a smart business move.  Dumping your email campaigns (if they work) in favor of Twitter is a setup for failure.  Incorporating social media means having to take a good hard look at what you are involved with right now and cutting every single item that operates in the red.  For example, car dealerships may cringe at the thought of abandoning newspaper ads.  Just because your company (or your industry) has always done it a certain way – doesn’t mean you need to keep doing it that way.

End result, if you don’t know what your goals are, you will never reach them, social media endeavor or otherwise.