Hey, ‘Social Media Experts!’ Show Me the Money!

Social Media: A Shiny Object

You know the shiny object well – we’re the ADD generation. Social Media can be, for many, simply a shiny new object. It’s got cool minimalist designs with large lettering and c

ool transitions between features. Widgets are getting prettier, and colors are getting softer and easier to the eye. But seriously. Can you stand to read another “54 Ways to Retweet” blog post from some guy who’s ‘got it all figured out’ because he knows how to use features? Isn’t there something more to Social Media than just feeding itself? Maybe this would be clearer if I were to pose the question this way: “Do you want to read another blog post about blog posts?!”

So You Think You’re An “Expert?”

So you’re walking around calling yourself a maven and wearing “I’m big on Twitter” shirts. You call yourself an “Expert” in your Twitter bio. That’s great! You’re telling someone how to share on Facebook. that’s awesome! But Twitter was started in 2006. Facebook was launched in 2004. We’re in 2010 now. People are still trying and erring. You want to see experts? The writers at Mashable are experts. The writers over at TechCrunch are experts. The people at New Marketing Labs are experts.

Don’t call yourself an expert. You’ll make a fool

of yourself – and I’d hate to see you do that.

Show Me The Money!

If you want to be a Community Manager or a Social Marketing Consultant, however, you are welcome to do so! But what you need to do in order to join that awesome group is to prove that you can ge

nerate ROI. Here are some things you need to be able to do:

• Can you take a company who’s struggling t o get customer’s through the door and plug them in to the community?
• Can you then take that connection, hone it, and turn it into a conversation?
• Can you then take that conversation and turn it into business?
• Will the business you bring in be worth the time and effort that company put into the campaign, and most importantly, you?
• Can you do all of that through a well formulated strategy that includes listening, engagement, and, most importantly, measuring?

If you can do these things, great! As far as I’m concerned, you’re an expert. You have mastered what it takes to use Social Media to bring companies business.

In short, what I’m really trying to say is this: knowing how to use Social Media is like knowing how to drive. Knowing how to use Social Media to generate ROI is like being a NASCAR racer. So if you know how to signal, break, and drive 80 MPH, you’re a driver. That doesn’t make you a NASCAR driver, though. Just a driver. So stop telling us how to retweet, and start tuning in to what’s really important: the customer.

Twitter Timeline Having Mini-Meltdown

As of 11:20pm EST tonight, the twitter homepage is acting really strangely. The homepage www.twitter.com is showing only updates from the account logged in instead of a public timeline of people they follow. There is no word from Twitter yet. Here is a screenshot:

Love Conquers Hate on Twitter!

One of my core philosophies has always been: “If they hate you, love ‘em to death!”

Earlier this morning, I was delighted to see that I had been added to nine additional twitter lists all at once! I wasn’t going to be so delusional as to think that they were from different people. I knew someone had listed me a bunch of times. But I was not expecting this:

Naturally, I didn’t take offense because my tweets are not political, and they’re definitely not extreme. I don’t take offense when someone accuses me of something that’s not true. They’re just mistaken.

So rather than getting all mad at my good friend, @Roayora, I replied the way I reply to all of the people who list me. With all the gratitude I can muster:

And the resulting answer was something I couldn’t have expected. I was expecting them to misread the tweet as sarcastic. I was expecting a tirade of hatred right back at me. But no. Instead of all that hate, the love I showed showed love back:

Not only that, I was immediately removed from the hateful lists:

This is a prime example of how love conquers hate!

Do you guys have similar stories?

I’d love to hear some other stories about how being nice won out against hateful comments!

How To Use Twitter Search Queries to Help Others!

So you want to help others.

Well that’s an ambitious cause – but do you have the know-how to find the people who need help from you? Sure. You can go around clicking the “new tweets” bar all you like – but you’ll probably find that only 3 out of every 100 tweets is actually a question.

I was faced with this quagmire just a little while ago. I had just gotten back from Blogworld, and wanted to start helping other people improve their Facebook and Twitter activity, and help boost their strategy. I grew tired of typing out into the twittersphere “anyone need help?” and getting nothing – so I asked Chris Brogan what he thought I should do. He said I needed to find people who need help – not just passively ask who needs help. So I set out to do just that!

Now before I get into specific tailored questions you can search for, here is a short explanation as to how search operators work. They’re identical to Google search queries, and the Advanced Twitter Search actually spells out options with check-boxes. So here are just some examples of useful queries:

“Quotation Marks” will give you results that have those two (or more) words in that specific order, meaning the word “Marks” right after the word “Quotation” – click the link to see it in action!

No Operator gives you all results with those two words in them regardless of whether they are connected to one another or in any specific order.

The OR Operator gives you all results with EITHER word.

The “-” Operator gives you all results with the word you’re searching, minus whatever word you put the minus sign in front of. Click here to see the querie: twitter -trending (which shows the query for twitter without the word trending)

You can find all of the operators as explained by twitter themselves here: http://search.twitter.com/operators

I started to craft very specific searches to find the questions I’m looking to answer. Below are just a few examples, and you can feel free to substitute words like “LinkedIn”, “Twitter”, or “Facebook”

“How-To” questions:

“How do I” Facebook?

“How can I” Twitter?

“Why?” questions

“I don’t understand” Facebook (with or without the ?)

“Why does” Twitter?

General Questions in statement form (these are good for when people are asking a question but phrase it as a statement)

“Having a problem with” Twitter

Recommendations

“What’s the best” LinkedIn?

“Anyone know” NYC?

These are just a few of the endless types of search queries you can type into twitter to filter the millions of tweets into exactly what you want to see – questions you can answer!

So give it a whirl, and let me know how it worked for you!

Go help people!

Exclusive Mashable’s NYC Holiday Party – 85 Tickets Left!

Mashable is hosting their annual NYC party at the Roger Smith Hotel’s Penthouse Floor! Adam Ostrow (Editor-in-Chief), Sharon Feder (Managing Editor), Adam Hirsch (COO), Tamar Weinberg (Community Manager) and Brett Petersel (East Coast Direct) are all going to be there networking, hanging out, and enjoying the party!

This is an exclusive 150 person event, and there are only 85 spots remaining – so this is an exclusive party – and a MUST to attend!

Click below to see the full details and to get your tickets! In the time I’ve written this post, at least two tickets have been sold.

I won’t be there because we expect to already have a baby by then

Businesses: Begin Preparations for Twitter Ads Now

It used to be the apple tablet that made all the noise in tech and social media rumorville. But now the main imminent change to the way we view the social space is going to be Twitter’s monetization of it’s content. There have been several articles written about how Twitter’s new ad system might beat out google ads. I can’t say much about that as it’s all still speculation. But what I domnow is that Twitter has mentioned that their ad system will be “non-traditional.”

So, businessmen of all calibres and ilks. The question you should be asking yourselves is not “why should I use Twitter?” If one of your employees (who might call themselves an “expert” like all the others) hasn’t already lectured you on the importance of Twitter to your business, have that done so you can catch up with the oher 97% of us who already know “why.” The question you should be askin yourselves is “am I ready for the next step?” or inmore technical and practical terms: “am I ready for twitter ads?”

There is no way of telling what the new Twitter Ads are going to look like, so naturally we need to be ready for any of several possibilities.

What Ad Styles to Expect:

First Come First Serve

Twitter will be almost certain to do everything in it’s power to make sure the content in the stream doesn’t get cluttered or overshadowed by advertising, so you should expect the “worst” which is that your spot might be taken by another company doing the same thing. As such, just make sure that you’re ready for Twitter’s Ads launch so that you can get your spot. Worst thing that could happen is that you’re the first anyway.

Exclusivity

Knowing Twitter, that same need for a clean presentation of the information, and an unobstructed tweet-stream might result in an uber-exclusive method of advertising where Twitter only dishes out ad space exclusively to one company at a time in any given area or service. However they cut it, you may only have on shot at getting

Bidding

It may sound ridiculous, but in this industry, where real-time is the hot commodity, real-time bidding on ad values may become the norm, and may even spill out to Google. But I think Twitter may do it first. If so, you want to be able to get in first to get the best deal for your ads before others jump in and start bidding. Lucky for you, companies are slower to adapt to new technology concepts than people – so you may have a day or two, but don’t count on it.

Again – Twitter hasn’t said anything more than “unconventional advertising” – so we have no idea what it’s really going to look like.

Tailor-made Ad Campaigns

A likely possibility is that you will be able to target your Twitter Ads to certain queries (like search terms you put in to search.twitter.com). This is possible mostly because it’s the only way it make sense! Twitter is too eclectic to shoot ads out into the air unless you’re a nationwide wholesaler. So expect to fill out query options like: Location, Demographic, Key words etc. Draw out a plan to make sure you know exactly which tweeps you’re looking to market to. If you’re a Deli in Livingston, New Jersey – you may want to cater to people who work in the area. Twitter may have an option to target people who tweet from the Livingston area between 9am and 5pm! How cool would that be?

Why You Should Care:

Your Competitors Will Be There

As Chris Brogan mentioned in one of his sessions, this has almost become a Mantra. I say “Why bother with Social Media marketing?” And you say “Because they’ll be there already.”

You can bet your bottom dollar that your competitors will be there when Twitter Ads come out. No matter what industry you’re in – everyone is in to social media right now, and they will be swooping down like hawks to get those ads in place. You should too. And if they’re not there yet – if you are the first of your ‘kind’ doing this – then the next reason pertains to you!

Establish Yourselves as Pioneers in the Field

Being one of the first companies in your field to experiment with Twitter Ads can generate more PR and Marketing opportunities than you may expect. Between Case Studies and simply story pitches, you’ll have a wealth of materials to go through. Think of other companies in your field coming to you with questions regarding your experimentation with Twitter ads – it can transform your image and place you right where every company wants to be – as an authority. Oh, speaking of authority – when Twitter Ads do come out – blog about it. Blog about it a lot.

What do you think of Twitter Ads in general? How do you think they will work, and how do you think you can use them?

“Happy Narcissism!” How To to See Retweets Now

Now that Project Retweet has been released to the public – there’s been mass confusion as to where to see your Retweets! Some people are still checking their @mentions

I really didn’t think this was bloggable, but I was surprised to find an overwhelming amount of people have no idea where they can see that they’ve been retweeted now!

So here are the URLS:

Your Tweets, Retweeted: http://twitter.com/#retweeted_of_mine

For the narcissists among us, which is the bulk of us, this is where you can see that people had passed on to their followers what you’ve written!

Retweets by Others: http://twitter.com/#retweets_by_others

This is where you can see what other people have retweeted. For some strange reason, this is always blank. Maybe Twitter doesn’t know what to do with it yet.

Retweets by You: http://twitter.com/#retweets

This shows tweets by people that you follow, that have been retweeted by you. Pretty simple and straight to the point!

For Technorati

KPP9FZP9YQ9T

One Tweet Sums Up Black Friday!

Oh! The joy I experienced from stumbling upon this tweet! This one tweet really captured the entire spirit of Black Friday! For those of you who can’t see the picture, it says, and I quote:

“Willowbrook mall ghetto ass bitches in there god had hold of my actions cause I was thinking stab these bitches with my car key….”

How Google Chrome OS Will Work for Your Business

Many of us just watched the Google Chrome OS announcement with screencasting and in-depth explanation.

Google will be creating a netbook that solves many of the technical problems that get you down on a regular basis.

But what does this mean for your Business?

Google Chrome OS will work very intuitively. There’s only one minor adjustment you need to make. You will need to wrap your mind around an Operating System that is used like a Browser. That means no Desktop. Once you’ve come to that understanding, you’re all set. Let’s go over the specs of what makes Google Chrome OS perfect for your business:

What is Google Chrome OS?

Now, “The Cloud” might still sound like a foreign language, but if you think of it this way, it might help. If you have an email account with Gmail, Yahoo!, or MSN, you are effectively storing your email in the cloud. Your email is stored in either Google, Yahoo! or Microsoft’s servers somewhere, and you access it through a browser – anywhere!

So let’s take that idea and work it further. Google has created an entire operating system that works on that notion. So when you are logging in to Google Chrome OS on your netbook, you’re telling Google to pull your info from “The Cloud,” and all of the applications, documents, emails, etc. would already be there. Log off of that computer and go to your friend’s computer. Log in there, and you’ve got the same exact info. Because you’re plugged in to “The Cloud.”

Another way of explaining it:

If you own a medium-size business, you can relate to this concept by thinking of the cloud as the servers you currently have, and think of the netbook as the ‘portals’ you use for your employees to connect to their logins on the server. Everything that appears in those portals, really just exists in the server in the backend, and is virtually displayed on the computer. That’s exactly how Google Chrome OS works! It pulls the Google Docs, Gmail, Google Calendar from the cloud onto your computer. Plain and simple.

How this will Save Your Company Time and Money

Until now, you’ve probably been using thin clients or regular PCs to connect to servers in your office. When you want to move computers, wires need to be rearranged, files need to be transferred, and your IT guy has a crying fit in the hallway.

With Google Chrome OS, your employees will be able to log in on any computer and have all of their settings, applications, documents, and emails waiting for them. This might sound like a small feat, but don’t forget about all the server space you’d no longer need. The only use you’d have for them is for actual bandwidth for your connectivity. You would eliminate the need for servers as storage spaces!

Another great feature that Google Chrome OS has is a self-correcting mechanism. Google Chrome OS has a built-in verification system. So when it boots up, if it finds an issue with one of the programs, it will automatically shut down, restart, and fix the issue on its own.

Another great feature that will save your IT guys a lot of headache is the application verification system. So if one of your employees decides to download an application, Google Chrome OS will automatically check it’s authenticity and whether or not it has harmful potential. As opposed to other OSes, Google Chrome OS starts off not trusting applications – so it checks every single one. Other OSes just checked to see if one was bad.

Another great security measure that Google Chrome OS has taken is the fact that no application under any circumstance will have the ability to mess with things that common viruses and spyware have been notorious for doing. So they will not be able to configure your power settings, color settings, pop-ups, or infiltrate your computer’s tasks.

The Google Chrome OS doesn’t come out until December of 2010, but just be ready to get the new netbooks when they do come out – they could end up making your entire infrastructure a whole lot smoother!

Now that we’ve been through the technical mumbo-jumbo and explained how great The Chrome OS is, please feel free to check out this great video given to us by Google which shows the demo that was released just earlier on today. Enjoy!