Some exciting news for those of you who like tracking and stats (who doesn’t?): Twitter is launching their official Tweet button this week — possibly by tomorrow. The button, meant for keeping track of retweets and sharing articles from websites, is slated to be the most efficient and comprehensive tool of its kind (so far Tweetmeme has reigned supreme).

Not the technical type? Don’t worry — the Tweet button will be a single line of code that you’ll be able to easily add to any website (or CMS, or blog post). It’ll be available in three options: 110×20, 55×20, 55×63 — and have various customization settings.

Here’s an idea of how it’ll work:

Posted under Social Media

For weeks, there have been rumors about Google looking to get into the social networking game, and it’s not surprising. (The search giant already has the social networking portal Orkut, but that is only really used in India and Brazil). That fact that Google is such a huge player when it comes to just about everything else on the Internet (Google Search, Gmail, Google Docs, Places, Google Checkout, Buzz, Google TV, Blogger, YouTube, Chrome, Android — the list is seemingly endless) makes it somewhat shocking that they haven’t taken the high-dive into the deep end of social networks yet.

Of course, there’s the Facebook issue. With more than 500 million users (and growing, growing, growing…), the social behemoth seems completely unstoppable. Then again, it probably seemed that way about MySpace “back in the day,” as well and we all know how that has ended up. However, if any one would be able to beat (or even come close to competing with) Facebook — it’s Google.

But the real question is, should we be excited about that? While we don’t know anything definite about how Google Me will look or work, Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said the company is not trying to imitate Facebook. Of course not. Surely, they want to be better, different, bigger, faster — further adding to the company’s importance, wealth — and ultimately, our overall dependence on them as Internet users.

Should one company be such a huge player in everything Internet-related, creating online monopolies in just about everything? Will we one day stop “surfing the Internet” and instead just “Google” — Google networking, Google marketing, Google dating? I’m sure they’ll try.

Posted under Social Media

As a social media specialist, I’ve emphasised the importance of using the platform for online reputation management and customer engagement to clients for years, but have never before been on the other end. Until last week.

To make a long, frustrating story short, I had dealt with some pretty awful customer service from two separate Comcast reps, where I felt I was being upsold to a more expensive package, and the package that was available online suddenly was not available. After what seemed like an afternoon wasted on dealing with the issue, I cancelled my order and did what any Internet-obsessed person would do these days: I Tweeted.

Though I did technically direct the Tweet to the cable company, I didn’t really think anyone would pay attention, let alone respond. It is really just more of a habit of including someone’s Twitter name, if it’s available. But, lo and behold, TWO minutes later, a Comcast staffer Tweeted me back.

TWO MINUTES! I wouldn’t have been able to reach an actual human on the phone had I called the 800 number trying to reach someone high up enough to complain to. And that hold music is not something anyone should have to listen to for longer than one minute. ComcastBonnie and I went back and forth a few times (it’s tough to explain everything when you only get 140 characters at a crack), and it ended with her giving me an e-mail address to explain the situation further, to try to get things resolved.

I e-mailed, as instructed, and couldn’t believe someone e-mailed back right away to say they’d look into the situation further. I assumed that was the end of it, that despite ComcastBonnie’s quick response and genuine concern, my case would be lost. However, I was called this morning (that’s right — someone called ME) and I can now say the issue is totally resolved and I will not be canceling my Internet (smart considering I sort of need it, you know, for work, for fun, for life …) and will be able to watch True Blood (aka @TrueBloodHBO) by next Sunday. Thank you, ComcastBonnie. Thank you, Twitter for making actual people who can make actual things happen accessible.

Let this be a lesson for all, no matter which side you’re on. Social media is becoming increasingly instrumental in reaching customers and companies. It’s easy to reach out and provide great customer service, thus maintaining a good online reputation. Don’t sit back and let people Tweet about being unhappy when you can make a difference.

Posted under Social Media

Twitter announced some major — and much needed — upgrades last night on their engineering blog. While the microblog is not promising the end of the dreaded “fail whale” just yet (much of their plan involves more long-term improvements) we can only hope this effort gets us a step closer to avoiding any more major outages, such as the one that occurred earlier this week when many users were unable to login, update or sign up for an account.

According to their blog, “Keeping pace with record growth in Twitter’s user base and activity presents some unique and complex engineering challenges. We frequently compare the tasks of scaling, maintaining, and tweaking Twitter to building a rocket in mid-flight.”

The company has more than 50 upgrades and optimizations planned to help do such mid-flight rocket building, including:

• Doubling the capacity of our internal network;
• Improving the monitoring of our internal network;
• Rebalancing the traffic on our internal network to redistribute the load;
• Doubling the throughput to the database that stores tweets;
• Making a number of improvements to the way we use memcache, improving the speed of Twitter while reducing internal network traffic; and,
• Improving page caching of the front and profile pages, reducing page load time by 80 percent for some of our most popular pages.

If that sounds too technical, just cross your fingers and hope to kiss that whale goodbye … someday!

Posted under Social Media

Many companies are scrambling to jump on the social media bandwagon. And that’s OK. These days, it’s unusual to not be connected to fans,customers,clients,colleagues, and even competitors. Everything has gone social, and people will talk about you, your brand or your services whether you’re involved in the conversation or not. So, you might as well make yourself available, right?

The problem is, though, that many people think of using social media networks like Facebook and Twitter simply as lead-generation tools. This has to stop. There’s an interesting post on this phenemenom on the American Express Open Forum, which asks, “Is Social Media Failing to Produce Business Leads?”

Sure, generating leads is of course a goal. But if that’s the only hope or focus, a company will surely be disappointed. Besides, there is so much more you can get from participating in social media, like:

• Engaging your community. Becoming part of a bigger conversation, which offers a more long-term impact.
• Improving brand awareness.
• Online reputation management. Is someone talking negatively about you or your brand? Help solve their problems and answer their questions. Being accessible and attentive to peoples’ concerns goes a long way!
• Be an industry expert. Say, for example, you have a small roofing company. If you’re available on social networks, post blogs, answer questions, people will see you as an expert in roofing. They’ll want to see your updates and get information from you, because you put it out there.
• Opportunity for re-engagement. If people are connected with you, sure, one blog post or status update may not result in a lead. But, maybe they’ll share, or re-tweet, or bookmark what you put out there. And once they’re connected with you, they’ll get other things you share, as well.
• Say goodbye to focus groups. Really. Why wait months and months for research data when you can find out almost immediately what customers like/don’t like? Social media is power!

Are you ready to move beyond thinking just in terms of leads?

Posted under Social Media

Still think social media is “just a fad?” Tell that to Victoria, British Columbia. The Canadian city’s Mayor just signed a proclamation making Wednesday an official social “holiday.” So far, according to Mashable, Victoria is the only city to make Social Media Day official. No word yet on whether that means workers will get the day off. Most likely they will just be updating Facebook statuses and Tweeting more often.

So what about the rest of us who don’t live in BC? Well, we can participate online, of course. Mashable.com/smday has plenty of ways to get into the social spirit this week, from meet-ups in your area to Flickr uploads, following SM Day on Twitter and so on. Ideally, it’d be great to attend a meet-up in a city near you, check into Foursquare, share your check-in on Twitter, which is linked to your Facebook, viewable on the smart phones of all your contacts — who are likely standing in the same venue, updating their LinkedIn status, or sharing a photo of you checking into Foursquare on Twitpic.

Who said we social types don’t know how to celebrate?

What will you do for Social Media Day?

Posted under Social Media

I’m a bad blogger

There I said it, I will say it again. I am a bad blogger.

It has been several weeks since I have posted a new update.  Excuses? Sure I have lots. I have been working on several projects like:

-Touching Home

This amazing movie based on the true story of Logan & Noah Miller, staring Ed Harris opens this Friday!

Yes, I just did a plug. I am allowed to do that once in a while.

Im going to get back on track and post weekly. I can do it.. right? What should I be blogging about?

All kinds of things. Lets see there is..hold on. Better yet, let me share it with you in a list. People like lists.

1. How to engage your community

2.Using Geolocation in your business

3. Do you need a blog anymore?

4. My favorite non-social media blogs

5. How to covert your online community into brand advocates

6. Do you need a Facebook Fanpage?

7. Why schools should use school media

8. Online communities: Your probably part of  one and don’t even know it

9. How MySpace went wrong

10. Is Podcasting over?

11. Do you really need to be on Twitter?

Okay the list can go on and on.. what would you like to see a blog post on?

Is there something in particular?

Help a guy out.

Posted under Blog, Social Media

Another year down.. it seems to me as we get older the years just move faster. I swear I was 16 years old just last week. Well, I know I act like I am a kid still. I will grow up soon, I promise.

I want to take a moment to look back at some of the top Social Media moments for this past year. Instead of you reading what I think, let us take a look at what you guys think are the top moments. I reached out to my community for their opinions. Let me share their responses and thoughts in list form. As well, people like lists.

-Lisa Whelan, Business development, strategy & marketing consultant: It’s been a great year in social media. These are a few of my favorite moments… The results of the 3rd annual research study conducted by UMASS Dartmouth researchers on the use of Social Media within the Inc. 500. They found “social media matters and is here to stay,” with 91% of respondents using at least one social media tool (versus 77% of respondents in 2008 and 43% saying that social media was a “very important” part of their marketing/business strategy. Dell announcing that directly attributed $3 Million in revenue generation to its use of Twitter between June 07 and June 09. Motorola’s release of the CLIQ with MOTOBLUR was interesting. It highlighted the growing convergence between Mobile and social media and provided a new way for consumers to easily access their social networks from a mobile device straight out of the box.

-Tamela Coval, SR Vp Business Development at Rentwiki.com: For those of us who never cease to be amazed by the “truth is stranger than fiction” idiom, it’s a toss-up between…
When Ashton Kutcher became the first ever to roll over the “1 Million Twitter Follower”mark. OR   When John Mayer and Jennifer Aniston broke up because he was addicted to Twitter.You can ROTFL or roll your eyes over these stories, but they made history, social statements regarding our culture (or lack of it) and influence how we all live work and play.

-Spencer Helm, SEM Specialist at Amplify Interactive: The Iranian elections proved Twitter and Social Media could be a force for change and valuable information aside from what your favorite celebrity is doing, or suggestions from your friends.

-Kevin Lockett, Founder at HireJam: Key moment of the year, bar none was Michael Jackson’s death on Twitter. I’m a MJ fan and I was saddened that he died, but to me, that was the day Twitter (and TMZ) became a force for not just social media types, but non social media types worldwide. Information was coming so fast and furious that people on Twitter were dispensing the news faster than professional news outlet. I was able o send my MJ Tiwitter info to non social media friends MJ info via text, emails, and my Web.20 friends on Facebook and MySpace. That day in June is one that I will never forget, but it is also a day that I realized the true power of social media.

-Lous D. LoPresti ll, Strategic Consulting: The utilization of twitter’s platform by the Iranian protestors was and is PARAMOUNT to everything else. Coverage of a pop-star’s death pales in comparison.

-Margie Clayman, Director of Development at Clayman Advertising: I agree, the use of Twitter during the Iranian protests was really an astounding preview of what the world could be like perhaps a mere few months or years from now.

-Adam Metz, Principal Metz Consulting: The ROI moment: When Salesforce launched the Chatter program, which allows brands to discretely track outcomes on a customer-to-customer level for large scale-social customer management implementations.

What do you think the top moment for Social Media was in 2009?

Posted under Blog, Social Media

Yes, it is that time of year. When you sit around the dinner table with your friends and family. A warm fire is burning inside. The nip is in the air. Your just enjoying the moment and sipping some warm apple cider.

Rightttttttttttttttttt!

I live in California. Its more like this. I am sitting around the table. The  air conditioning is on, I am in shorts. I just finished  a Corona ( I like mine with lime).  Football is on and whatever team I want to win is losing.

So now that the Hallmark moment is over, let me tell you why I am thankful for Social Media and the Community it gave me. I will do this in list form, as people like lists.

-. I now have thousands of people I can reach out to when I need something. Take this blog post. I had total writers block today. I reached out and Colby Gergen said ” How about why you are thankful for social media? I think it’s that time of year…” and here you go!

-I learn something new everyday about the world. The amount of information and knowledge I get is just off the hook.  I know anything I need is out there for me to find. Wanna learn about lepercons ? The information is out there. Wanna learn about marketing? Its out there. I can find that information. BUT with  that being said, I am learning about things I am not looking to learn about.  Huh? I now know where random small cities are, cause people in my community live there. I learn about things like science, art and plants. All because people share this in my network.

-Need to raise money for a friend in need like Liz Strauss? Create a fund and people will help like they did for the The Get Well Liz Strauss Fund

Then there are the simple things I am thankful to my community for  like:

-The way I can travel to a city, get lost and ask for help via a social networking site. Within minutes I will have 50 replies with directions, information or even a phone number to call for directions. Plus someone in my community more then likely lives there.

-When I type up a blog post and need someone to review it, I post the link and get instant criticism and corrections. Keeping in mind I only asked for spelling help

-When I want to kill some time, bored waiting at the dentist, there is an unlimited number of people to chat with.

-Telling me what movie to see when I cant decide.

-I want something different for dinner and I need a recipe, they are there

-I just want a good laugh.. they can give me one.

-I have something bugging me and want to vent. They are there for me.

-I have an urgent message I want to pass on or breaking news. They pass it on for me.

The list can go on and on. So I ask you this, my community.

What are you thankful to Social Media for?

Posted under Blog, Social Media

So the following comments are my own personal thoughts regarding the 140 The Twitter Conference. They are impartial   and not biased. You may think they could be biased due to the following things, which I will share in list form, as people like lists:

-I was on the “Best Practices: How to be a Twitter God(dess) panel with Tara Hunt and Ijustine.

-LSF Interactive was a Media Sponsor

-There was a press release

-There was a fancy bio about me.

-I well…use Twitter a little..just a little really!

-I got to stand on stage! Here is what it looked like from my point of view:

Okay, so disclaimer is out of the way, now back to the review of the conference.

So instead of me typing up a review about what happened who did what, etc, etc. I thought I would try something different. Ill let the links do the talking…

-Live blogging from #140tc Alex Payne (head of Twitter’s API team)

-The Twitterverse, a map of Twitter tools

-Live blog of the @anamitra keynote at #140tc

-Tara Hunts ” 40 Reasons Why Twitter Rawks”

-Heck here are some more presentation slides

-What I learned at the 140 Twitter Conference

-Pictures..we have pictures

-Mercury News Article

-140tc Search Results

So there you go, seems to have been a pretty cool event. Fingers crossed it happens again next year

If you have any links that I missed, which no doubt I did. Please share them!

P.S. Not sure who to give photo credit to at top. Let me know if it is your photo!

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Posted under Blog, Social Media, Speaking Engagements