By now, most of us have heard that the Web is social, but are you taking action to encourage social actions on your blog or website? Of course we can socialize with our fans and followers on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and the like, but now even our websites and blogs can become places where social actions can bring big benefits.

Three Steps to Earning Tweets and Likes

Step 1: Create great content, stuff that gets people excited, interested and enthused about the content you create.  Think beyond basic website information, think about providing something that your fans will want to tell others about.

Step 2: Ask for the action you want people to take.  Be straightforward – instead of leaving it up to your website visitor to decide how to share, ask them to Tweet about it or Like it.  I like to call this action “a small yes”  vs a “big yes”, like opening their wallet to get out a credit card!

Step 3: Make it easier to take that step by providing buttons that make it easy! Grab the new Twitter Tweet code http://twitter.com/tweetbutton and make a customized Facebook Like button http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like.  Then just paste the html code into your blog or website.

Benefits of Buttons

The nicest thing about using Facebook and Twitter buttons is they are interactive and easy for the users.  It is a very small request to ask a visitor to Like or Tweet about you when all they need to do is click a button on your webpage.  If a visitor likes what they see, engaging with it, brings some sense of personal satisfaction.

A big benefit is that this action is social, letting the website visitors spread word about your offer to all of their friends and followers. Actions produce results that are instantly visible to the clicker.  As the button is pressed, the counter updates, showing number of times the page has been Liked or Tweeted.  It’s a small bit of feedback that encourages users who are social to take action on your page.

Sharing can be viral:  When visitors see others have tweeted or liked your content, it encourages others to share it too! Tweet Button is very well designed

Tweet Buttons Well Designed

The Twitter button is well thought out and features text you can define (default is the page title), a shortened URL and a link to your preferred Twitter account. Users of the code can also recommend a second twitter account to follow once the user confirms their tweet.  Twitter users can also edit the tweet to their desire.

Using the Code

Twitter Tweet Button code is super user friendly, because wherever the code is used, the tweet that is generated automatically creates a shortened URL to the page that was liked.  Once you’ve decided on the design of the button you want for your site, you can use the same code over and over again on any page that you would like tweeted.

The Facebook Like button is highly customizable.  Website editors can even choose to show the Facebook avatar (photo) of the last person who liked your stuff.

Facebook Like button could be better

One of the downfalls of the Facebook Like button code generator, is that the Url to Like must be updated for each page the code is placed on so that when people Like your content, the link in the Facebook status update links directly to the content that was liked.

Think about your site users and fans before determining how social to make your button.  Adding a counter encourages action, but I think most users might be hesitant to see their face show up on the webpage of a tourism business.  My preference is for a simplified counter to save page space.

Get Social on your Webpage or Blog with Facebook Like and Twitter Tweet buttons

If you are in the tourism business, there are big benefits to be had by creating content that engages your audience, just make sure you are making it easy for webpage visitors to share your content with their fans and followers by using Facebook Like buttons and Twitter Tweet buttons.

By now, most of us have heard that the Web is social, but are you taking action to encourage social actions on your blog or website? Of course we can socialize with our fans and followers on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and the like, but now even our websites and blogs can become places where social actions can bring big benefits.

Step 1: Create great content, stuff that gets people excited, interested and enthused about the content you create.  Think beyond basic website information, think about providing something that your fans will want to tell others about.

Step 2: Ask for the action you want people to take.  Be straightforward – instead of leaving it up to your website visitor to decide how to share, ask them to Tweet about it or Like it.  I like to call this action “a small yes”  vs a “big yes”, like opening my wallet to get out my credit card!

Step 3: Make it easier to take that step by providing buttons that make it easy! Grab the new Twitter Tweet code http://twitter.com/tweetbutton and make a customized Facebook Like button http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like.  Then just paste the html code into your blog or website.

Benefits of Buttons

The nicest thing about using Facebook and Twitter buttons is they are interactive and easy for the users.  It is a very small request to ask a visitor to Like or Tweet about you when all they need to do is click a button on your webpage.  If a visitor likes what they see, engaging with it, brings some sense of personal satisfaction.

A big benefit is that this action is social, letting the website visitors spread word about your offer to all of their friends and followers. Actions produce results that are instantly visible to the clicker.  As the button is pressed, the counter updates, showing number of times the page has been Liked or Tweeted.  It’s a small bit of feedback that encourages users who are social to take action on your page.

Sharing can be viral:  When visitors see others have tweeted or liked your content, it encourages others to do it too!

Tweet Button is very well designed

The Twitter button is well thought out and features text you can define (default is the page title), a shortened URL and a link to your preferred Twitter account. Users of the code can also recommend a second twitter account to follow once the user confirms their tweet.  Twitter users can also edit the tweet to their desire.

Using the Code:

The Facebook Like button is highly customizable.  Website editors can even choose to show the Facebook avatar (photo) of the last person who liked your stuff.  One of the downfalls of the Facebook Like button code generator, is that the Url to Like must be updated for each page the code is placed on so that when people Like your content, the link in the Facebook status update links directly to the content that was liked.

Think about your site users and fans before determining how social to make your button.  Adding a counter encourages action, but I think most users might be hesitant to see their face show up on the webpage of a tourism business.  My preference is for a simplified counter to save page space.

Twitter Tweet Button code is super user friendly, because wherever the code is used, the tweet that is generated automatically creates a shortened URL to the page that was liked.  Once you’ve decided on the design of the button you want for your site, you can use the same code over and over again on any page that you would like Tweeted.

If you are in the tourism business, there are big benefits to be had by creating content that engages your audience, just make sure you are making it easy for webpage visitors to share your content with their fans and followers by using Facebook Like buttons and Twitter Tweet this buttons.

LinkedIn, Facebook and many other Social Networking sites have been suggesting friends and followers for a while now.  Do you follow these people just because the service recommends them to you.   Deep down inside where many Facebookers or LinkedIn users never get a chance to visit there is some formula or algorithm that figures out who you should know and offers suggestions based on your friends, there friends and a number of other criteria.

Twitter is now jumping of the “suggest a friend” campaign with their own “suggestions for you” program.

The Twitter blog has more information on how this will work inside Twitter.  Read the Twitter blog.

Are you the type to follow whomever is suggested to you?

What do you think about the automated suggestions?

In the LinkedIn world, I have used the suggestions to my advantage.  When I see a name pop up from someone I haven’t heard of in a while or a long-lost colleague, LinkedIn can be a great way to get back in touch with people.

But what do you think?

For travelers, getting advice from someone who has been there, done that has become second nature with traveler advice sites like TripAdvisor, Yelp!, Google Maps and others. But most of the time, we have no idea who those people are that are giving the advice.

Social Networking should be smarter
Is it someone like me? or are they someone with different values, interests and attitudes. I know I’ve seen reviews for places I’ve stayed that in no way reflect my experience.

It’s a foggy area that can make it difficult to interpret the relevance of travel reviews for me.  I want to know how much I have in common with the person leaving the reviewbefore assigning any level of credibility, validity or relevance.

The ideal travel review site would be a little more like LinkedIn and Twitter.

LinkedIn uses business connections to help me find people who are connected to people I know and easily network with people in my industry. Folks I’m connected to there have more in common with me than most, but the nature of my work, doesn’t fully define my interests and attitudes.

Twitter probably does the best job of finding people like me:
I’ve found quite a few people on Twitter, that I’ve later met in person and hit it off with from the get-go. I could have followed almost any early adopter on twitter and I would certainly have found a kindred spirit in the tech area, but these sort of connections clearly aren’t so easy for the non-techie. Twitters new “Suggestions of Users to Follow” tool may be a step in the right direction toward finding people who are a lot like me. Until now, twitter searches, twitter lists, Follow Friday advice has given me really neat, interesting people to follow, but it can be a lot of work. I wonder if Twitters algorithm, using people you follow and the people they follow as a starting point will offer users access to more people who are a lot like themselves.

Facebook integration with Travel Reviews

Many Facebook users I’m connected with have credibility and I trust their opinions because I already know most of the folks I follow there personally.  User profiles, photos, uploads, status updates and activities give me a good overall picture of any Facebook user’s interests and attitudes.

Wouldn’t it be great to connect my trusted sources to my upcoming trips?  Having my Facebook friends, Twitter followers, LinkedIn connections offer travel advice would be much more valuable than a collection of reviews whose credibility is in question.

As if in answer to this half-written blog post, along comes TripAdvisor TripFriends and Bootsnall Traveler Connect app.  Both connect with Facebook to enhance travel experiences.   TripFriends helps me connect with my Facebook friends to get advice from people I already know.  As Steve Kaufer, TripAdvisor founder says, “Get great travel advice from your friends before you go.”  Traveler Connect helps me find other travelers going to the same place I am, or connect with locals living there. According to Bootsnall founder Sean Keener, “I can ask travel questions, arrange to meet for a drink, and create some unique experiences not found in a guidebook.”

What’s Next for Travel Review sites?
I see a future where I’ll be able to get travel advice exclusively from people who share my outlook on the world.   Connecting all my social networks to travel reviews will take time, but these two projects are a great start.  Over time,  I’ll be able to quickly bring into focus the 10% of travel reviews that really mean something to me.

Have you seen any social network that comes closer to finding people like you than Twitter or LinkedIn?  Seen anything to rival the new TripAdvisor TripFriends and Bootsnall Traveler Connect projects?

Everyday I get asked by someone who is wanting the “quick win” with their marketing.  What do I have to do today to enable the phone to ring tomorrow?  Well, that is a very good question.  I am one hundred percent sure there is some marketing guru out there who can give you some quick win success formula that will enable this happen.  A couple a tweets here, a Facebook status update there and you are off to the races.  You need to simply spend two minutes on Google and you can easily find them, there are lots of gurus and ninjas and self-proclaimed experts who can help you.  Sure get the quick win, lots of promise but they all lack real substance.

Success in marketing doesn’t come overnight, I know…I haven’t been marketing for several years and it takes blood, sweat and tears.  It takes works and it takes time.  It takes patience and most importantly, it takes commitment.  The only thing overnight about marketing is your blunders that knock you down.  Those for some reason they seem to occur overnight, but success doesn’t.

I was reading on the side of my cereal box this morning about healthy eating.  Same thing, healthy lifestyles isn’t a race it is a journey and the same thing can be said about your marketing and especially your social media activities.

Success with social media is definitely not a race.  It is a journey and a tough uphill journey at the best of times.   It takes commitment from you and your entire team.  It takes more than just opening a Twitter account, Facebook Page and throwing up a free WordPress or blogger site.  Social Media takes planning, preparation and it requires everyone in the company to play a role.  I don’t care if you have three employees, thirty-three or three thousand and three.  Everyone must play a part.

This is what we do at Ulistic, everyone plays a role in our social media activities.  David, Frank and myself (soon Melanie) all play our parts and we all have the same goal just different paths that are strategically laid out in our marketing plan.  We all blog regularly and we participate in blog commenting almost daily, we are active on Facebook, Twitter and others and most importantly, we are active in our communities and this includes online and face-to-face.  I mentioned this in my podcast with Daniel Gutierrez and Bob Burg the other night…nothing will replace a face-to-face meeting, your social media fills these gaps and helps you get to face-to-face.

Are you expecting that quick win?  You may be a tad bit disappointed with this mindset.  For those who are out there consistently adding value and enriching the lives of others you will have success and it will take time.  Success with your social media marketing is helping others but also getting paid to help these people.  Bob says’ “Give more in value than you take in payment”.  You need to provide value but don’t do it for free.  Never lose site that you are in business and you must convert visitors, fans and followers to clients.  If you don’t you have a big network.  That’s it.

Need help figuring all this out, give me a call 403.775.2205.

Last week our team from Ulistic met with the great folks at MSP University in Garden Grove, California.  Together, we started to carve out what will become an awesome relationship.  MSPU is one of the leading managed services firms globally and the clients they work with are market leaders and enjoy the fruits of the hard work. I have personally known Erick Simpson and Gary Beechum for a number of years, they are rock solid guys and the entire team at MSPU is built on the same core values Gary and Erick bring to the table.

During our chat last week we got looking at Facebook Marketing and how businesses can leverage Facebook to market their offerings.  It is no secret that Facebook is growing.  Their recent partnership with Microsoft BING has shot Facebook up to the 6th most popular search engine.  One in Four page views on the Internet is Facebook related and the average person spends anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour on Facebook each day.  Still many question Facebook’s effectiveness in the market place.

During our time with MSPU, a number of ideas were discussed, but it was this fact amongst all the others that kind of surprised me when I stumbled upon it.  There are almost as many Facebook users in California that what there is in the entire country of Canada.   This is no secret really, we have heard for years that there are just as many people in one state in the US than what we have in Canada.  15.4 million Facebook users in Canada and almost 15.5 in the entire state of California.  What does this mean for business?

Does marketing on Facebook now make sense to your business?

If you look at the numbers closely, the 15 million or so folks from either California or Canada represent about 50% of the population.  That represents a good portion of the Canadian or Californian landscape uses Facebook.  Pretty impressive.

Are you leveraging this to get your message out there?
How can you use Facebook to market your business?

There are many ways to do this from Pay-Per-Click or Pay-Per-Impression ads, Facebook Pages and regular interaction with people.  Engagement with folks on Facebook, talking with your community, the people in your network and simply serving the market.

Do you need to know more about how to create a Fan Page that sings?
Want to know how to engage with Facebook?

I invite you to reach out and let’s have a chat about how you can use Facebook right now.

There are a number of opportunities and Facebook can be another important channel for you to help with your marketing.  You know the old saying about LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION or what Wayne Gretzky has always said “skate to where the puck is going, not where it is”.

Need a hand to figure it out…visit my Execute On Facebook or Marketing On Facebook page and take the first step in creating a marketing strategy for Facebook today.

Google gloats that over 2 Billion videos are viewed on YouTube each day, but don’t discount the value of posting video to your business fan page on Facebook. After all, Flickr was the most popular photo sharing site until sharing on Facebook became so popular. Now photo sharing on Facebook dwarfs that on Flickr. Youtube has big advantages over Facebook

Although views of videos uploaded directly to Facebook have more than tripled over the last year, according to comScore, and more and more phones have video cameras built into them, I don’t expect the video sharing on Facebook to take over Youtube’s positioning. For one thing, many video cameras including the iPhone make it super simple to upload video directly from iTunes to Youtube. Also, Facebook video quality is relatively poor compared to dedicated video sharing sites.

Facebook lacks HD Video

One thing that Facebook could do to encourage growth in video uploads to the social networking site is to provide HD video upload capability. As of now, file size and file quality are still too low for most folks to spend the time rendering their video files for the relatively small video audience on Facebook. For now, linking out from Facebook fan page to your HD video hosted on Youtube, Vimeo, or Blip.tv are best bet.

According to a recent Nielson report, three quarters of Internet users are social, so surely by now you’ve dipped your toes in the blogging and Facebook pool.

Way back in the old days, 2006 or so, you might have been forgiven by your guests and prospects for not having a life outside your own Website. Conversely, today it is more than likely the first interaction your prospect has with you will be via photo or video sharing by friends and family, reviews of your services on sites like TripAdvisor or Yelp!, or a story by a travel blogger.

So this week, it might be worth considering how deep to dive into the social networking pool?

Since the average Internet user devotes 22% of their Internet time to social networking, how much of your online marketing budget time and money should  be focused around social networking?

Links:

• http://mashable.com/2010/06/15/time-spent-online-nielse/
• Nielson Report on Internet Use
• photo credit Seattle Municipal Archives

I am flowing a very interesting discussion on one of my LinkedIn groups which focuses on Social Media.  The question raised by one of our members was on “what makes or what qualifications does a social media administrator require?”  Interesting question since the person asking the question has a title of “Certified Social Media Strategist”.  I was shocked to hear that there is actually a program for a Certified Social Media Strategist.  It is provided by Social Media Academy.  Very interesting.

Back to the question at hand, what skills or requirements does a social media administrator need to have?

Does business acumen matter?

How about a marketing degree or equivalent career history?

What risks does your business take by having someone who doesn’t get it?

I believe that alignment with the overall marketing strategy of the business is crucial, social media doesn’t stand on its own for many companies.  It is very important but the company can’t rest everything on the modern tools of the day.  Most businesses today who are looking at or implementing social media are not dumping their existing or proven marketing or communication activities.  The successful organizations continue to send postcards, making phone calls and hosting meetings. Their social media activities play a supporting role in many of the activities of the corporation including marketing, corporate communications, customer support and forming strong business networks.

Alignment is critical to the overall success of social media into your business.  Does your social media administrator need to understand where they stand in the pecking order?

Social Media is just another spoke in the wheel of your business.

What about maturity, is this important? Would you rather have someone who has a proven track record in your industry or someone new.  Everyone has to start somewhere but when it comes to maturity I mean you don’t want to risk having someone, regardless of age, tweeting what they had for breakfast on your company Twitter account.

Is social media deeper than Facebook and Twitter? What is the depth of knowledge of your social media administrator?  Do they have press contacts or know where the industry or your clients go to research information?  Is your administrator’s depth of Social Media knowledge stop at Facebook or Twitter?

How about thinking out of the box? In other words, creativity!  Can your social media administrator come up with creative solutions to enhance your company’s reputation or ability to serve your clients better?

What about the size of their ears? Well, not physically.  Can they listen to what is going on around then.  What is happening in the marketplace?  How about understand what news Bloomberg is reporting and what it means to the organization.  Can they listen and then approach the leadership to formulate a response or plan to seize opportunities which may exist.

Lots of stuff to consider.

If you would like to engage with the Social Media group on LinkedIn and our discussion, click here.

Hot off the presses…I pulled this off of some newswire stories today.

According to PCWorld’s Carrie-Ann Skinner, Facebook is reconsidering some it’s privacy settings after a backlash from their members.  Maybe not so many changes, but making privacy and controlling what others see in Facebook easier for the average user of Facebook.

Carrie-Ann included a quote from a Facebook representative in her article “We’re working on responding to these concerns. Watch this space”.  Privacy commissioners here in Canada and privacy groups in the UK have called Facebook privacy settings “unacceptable” and are on a rampage against the US-based social networking service.

Privacy specialists are lobbying Facebook for an opt-in vs. an opt-out policy for who sees what with your information on Facebook.  Some Facebook users are even threatening to take extreme action on May 31st, 2010 by deleting their accounts if Facebook doesn’t fix their privacy.  You can share your intention to quit Facebook by signing up on quitfacebookday.com.  Funny thing, according to Facebook, they added 10 million new users since the uproar on security first was reported.

Once again, I need to remind or caution you all that if you wouldn’t email a photo or even share it face-to-face with someone..then posting it on Facebook is also not a good idea.  When you elect to post something to any online service you must practice “sensibility”.  This goes for posting, sharing, status updates or anything that could be used against you.  Almost sounds like a court of law.

But, Facebook is just the whipping boy this month.  I still remember when Microsoft was the whipping boy for all the security holes in Windows…have we forgotten about Windows.  Next month or some time down the road it will be another program or social networks turn in the spotlight.  Maybe it is Twitter or LinkedIn’s turn next.

How can you test your Facebook privacy settings?

There is an answer for all of you who are concerned about your Facebook privacy settings and don’t understand how to lock everything down.  There is a great website and serve that does all the testing for you and ensures your Facebook account is properly secured.

Are you interested in testing and then ensuring your Facebook privacy settings are set correctly?

I stumbled across this interesting site today that helps you determine you level of privacy online.  Check out reclaimprivacy.org and test your online privacy. When you hit the reclaimprivacy.org site, read the instructions very carefully and run their tool against your Facebook privacy settings.  The service will offer up recommendations to tighten up your Facebook security and actually fix them for you.

Give it try to see if you have any privacy holes that need filling.