Social Networking Archive

Today I was reading through an invite for an event featuring social media experts being held next week and at the end of the invite, the company hosting the event “explained” what it is that they offer. At least now we know what services social media agencies offer!

Since 2009, (redacted) has had the first business intelligence solution for Social Media and Performance Marketing for brands and agencies.  (redacted) uses cutting-edge software for data gathering, reporting and evaluating trends and patterns to effectively create and execute campaigns geared towards a specific audience and help business’s receive a great response rate on their pages.  An example of what (redacted) can do for a business is the increase in response rate takes what recent Social Media experts and press deem as impressive with results of a click through from other firms with 35 out of 1000 to (redacted)’s typical result of 40 out of 100 engagement, conversion and click through rate through its methodologies which emphasize quality over quantity.

(redacted) helps you get the most natural and profitable results for your online marketing.

Note: I removed the company name for the purpose of clarity

A couple of days ago, I created a fun, fake joke post about how you could attend my seminar on how to become a Google+ expert. Most thought it was real (no idea why) and some were very upset and/or angry that I would offer a course for a social network that has been live for less than a month, has already been notified changes are coming and is only used by social media experts to talk about social media experts and Google+. Of course once they realized that it was a  joke, everyone had a good laugh.

But apparently one person saw a gold rush and decided to actually offer a one-hour course so soon post launch — that person? Chris Brogan. Before I continue, let me say that while I have never met Chris, he does come across as genuine. I’d place him second in terms of being able to round up the sheeps – and unlike the person I’d put first, Chris appears to have built his following organically which is awesome. He’s also been one of the few people to be able to post paid affiliate links into his streams without huge backlash. My issue isn’t that he is offering this course, but rather that he should have waited at least six months for the network to balance itself.

Chris is offering a one-hour session for $50 on, “How To Learn Google+ for Business and Networking”. He plans to teach attendees the following:

• Profile tips and tricks.
• Organizing people in circles.
• Finding the good stuff.
• How to post engaging material.
• Keeping up with comments.
• Making the most of your time.

Funny enough some of his agenda items match mine – and the others on his list are very general. He is also going to offer a Q&A session for an hour after the learning takes place.

Continue reading “Srsly? My Google+ Seminar Was a Joke, Apparently This One’s For Reals” »

Two years ago I created a history of online experts – everything from the early “html experts” to the more modern “social media experts” and everything in between. Sadly I’ve been up way late at night recently and have seen television infomercials that can help you become an eBay expert, Facebook expert and even how to make buckets of cash pushing products on Twitter.

Since the launch of the new Google+ social network and subsequent explosion in users (apparently the count is going up faster than the U.S. debt), I realized that it would make sense for someone like myself to offer a Google+ Expert Course. You see I was one of the earliest users, I have an avatar and I understand the difference between share, like, vote +1 and comment.

UPDATE: The first city has sold out – we filled up the 50,000 seat arena in just two days. Stay tuned for the second city launch or join the waitlist (there’s a $100 waitlist fee)

The Google+ Expert Course will be offered in 4 cities in 2011 – the city list will be announced shortly as I want to make sure we secure a space that can hold at least 50,000-100,000 in each city. The course will also be offered as a “hangout” on Google+ for the 10 people who can get in before space fills up.

Continue reading “Launching The Google+ Expert Training Course! Limited Availability – Register Today!” »

Well the holidays came early this year for early adopters with the clinical field test trial of Google+ (or is it Google Plus?). I like to think of myself as an early adopter who acts like a normal and frankly so far Google+ seems a lot like Friendfeed.

There is a video feature which will be a huge hit in the adult sector once/if G+ makes it past the e-adopter set. Last night I watched Robert Scoble eat some fried chicken while he and 10 others talked about some technology – I can certainly see why this is the future now.

In all seriousness, I find the interface a bit confusing in terms of where to find updates and if they auto-refresh in real-time but I am sure I will get it at some point. The nice thing I hear about Google+ is that there is no much richness in terms of all the apps and friends and stuff that you may never want to leave!

Of course next week Facebook is apparently launching some video tool so look forward to posts that explain why G+ is dead.

Continue reading “Comprehensive List of Dead Companies/Technologies Due to Google+” »

During my corporate days, my team attended several leadership workshops led by John Maxwell.  Over the next few years I realized that John became my favorite leadership/motivational speaker. His ability to draw in an audience and keep a story moving is great- since I left corporate America, I miss his workshops.

Early on in one of his workshops, he explained something that had everyone from my team looking at each other wondering if we should stick around because clearly this guy was off his rocker. He said that everyone does something 80% well – whatever that thing is. Yet in life we try to work on the other 20% – why? For those of you who have worked in a corporate environment, you know what this means. Your yearly progress reports always want you to work on the areas that your boss thinks you need to improve on. But Maxwell said this really makes no sense – what would happen if you focused on the 80% and made that part absolutely amazing? If we work on the 20% we aren’t good at, the best we can do is probably a passing grade, but if we focus on the things we do really well, we would own those areas. Take a minute and think about that concept…

I sit at my desk and day after day I read another blog post or journalist explaining that Google either needs to get into social to compete with Facebook or they are doing a crappy job with the efforts they have put forth to-date. Today Google soft-launched Google+ which Danny Sullivan calls a Facebook competitor.  So here’s what I propose…

GOOGLE…FU** SOCIAL.

I am dead serious – stop trying to fix the 20% that you aren’t good at and focus on the 80% that made Google the powerhouse company that it is. I get that Facebook is the sexy social marketing superstar right now and you are a boring utility company and want to feel sexy – forget it – it’s your 20% and it’s a short-term play anyway. And guess what – the utilities stick around for a long time.

Continue reading “Hey Google…F*** Social.” »

Two years ago I wrote a column with the results of my first Facebook Ads campaign. Interestingly, one of the screenshots I used in that post in December 2008 showed a picture of television personality Rachael Ray with the caption, “The Rachael Ray Diet”. As I use the Facebook website, I’ve often wondered if anyone actually verifies any of the ads that appear on the site.

I think the world of Rachael, she has busted her butt to get where she is. Several years ago I had the very lucky opportunity to spend a couple of days on the set of her 30-minute meals television show. The fun pictures I have of Rachael and me on her set are some of my favorites of all time. Just watching her at her craft from five-feet away was amazing. It is so hard to believe she would be endorsing so many different “diets” on Facebook.

Today I saw the following ad as I browsed through my feed:

There are two things that stood out to me immediately in this ad:

1. The incorrect spelling of Rachael’s name in the headline
2. The URL pointing to rachaelrayshow.com

The URL displayed in the ad is the correct RR show URL. However if you click the ad, you go to a URL that looks close to the correct URL with a “.com-2.tv” tacked onto the end. Does Facebook require that the displayed URL be the same URL before the slash? Or is there a bug with Facebook that somehow made the “.com-2.tv” url appear only as .com?

Continue reading “Does Facebook Do Any Ad Verification? How Did This Get Through?” »

Last week I attended a 15-minute presentation at SXSW 2011 by blogger Julia Allison titled, “Social Media or Sado-Masochism? Cyberbullying & Celeb 2.0″. I’ve posted the video from her presentation below. The takeaway for me was that people are picking on Julia and she wants the police to setup a “cyberbullying” group that will go after anyone who says mean things online.

Before I go forward, I think bullying of kids (and adults) is horrible. Bullying someone about their size, shape, color, ethnicity, race, sexual preference, etc. should not be tolerated at any level and it’s great to see the government getting involved with education and other ideas to help end bullying.

After I left Julia’s presentation, I was walking around the expo hall and started to wonder if a personal brand is any different than a corporate brand? Should we be expected to treat personal brands different than corporate brands? Technically a corporate brand is made up of individuals so perhaps it’s the same?

Continue reading “Is There a Difference Between Julia Allison and United Airlines?” »