Considerations for Google and Microsoft

Andrew Keen of Telegraph.co.uk writes today that if giants Google and Microsoft want to succeed in social media, they must take a few things into consideration. For instance, Keen would like the giants to read Trust Agents. "The companies that will win in the social media economy are those who figure out how to both create and profit from trust," Keen says. Also, its important to remember that we are still in the "early stages" for social media; however, Keen contends that "we have yet to see the great social media company that will radically transform the world. And I suspect that this company’s secret-sauce will be based upon the agency of trust."

So what do you think? What can Google and Microsoft learn from Facebook and Twitter as they attempt to enter the social media sphere?

Social media's success formula

There is still a fear of social media marketing

This post on eMarketer highlights how most businesses and organizations have already adopted many forms of social media, the most popular being Facebook fan pages followed by twitter and then customer reviews. Yet, many retailers are still worried about losing control of their brand over social media platforms.

The goal of most online retailers is to boost customer engagement, and many believe that customer reviews were the best tool in driving engagement. One thing for sure is that businesses will have to learn to favor social media and not step away from it because there are no signs of it going away anytime soon. Here's a chart below from eMarketer that depicts the most popular online social tools used by retailers. Enjoy!

California taps celebrities and natives for travel California site

California Fives, a new online community for potential travelers to California, taps locals and celebrities to help potential visitors what are the five best of any part of their state to visit. This adds to the current arsenal of Visit California, which also includes Twitter, Facebook, and specific areas that cator to the different regions in California. Read more about the new initiative at PR Week.

Many states are jumping on the social network bandwagon. Do you think the additional of social media will help potential travelers? Hearing first hand from natives about what they enjoy in their state could shed exposure on local gems, as well as reaveal the real culture of some cities to interested travelers. Have you used a website like this to plan a vacation of yours?

The key to a successful online community: Listening

Eric Ries recently wrote a great article for Vator News discussing the importance of listening to your online community. Although we see many articles today that discuss the importance of listening to your online community, it's still a much tougher job to commit to. Many times, listening to the customers can be a defeating, trying process. They also need to understand that you're taking the time to listen to their opinions.

Read about their experience here.

Listening to the community is much like dealing with customer service. While you have great contributors who constantly interact and provide great information, many others will complain and criticize about your product you've worked hard to launch. How do you make sure that your community realizes you're listening to what they have to say?

Google vs. Bing: What's Your Choice?

Jennifer Van Grove recently posted on Mashable 5 reasons why one should switch over from Google to Bing. Bing is the fastest growing search engine which currently holds 10.7% of the search market compared to Google's 65% dominance. Here's a recap of 5 Bing features that separate it from the rest of search engines.

1. Travel Insight - Bing's farecast technology shows you when you search if airfare prices are expected to stay the same, get cheaper, or rise in price depending on market trends,
2. Cashback - The benefit here for consumers is that if they start their product search on Bing, they are able to save and cash in on rewards when they buy.
3. Visual Search - This alternative user interface allows you to search when you can't recall the name of something and it's a more powerful way to uncover valuable information.
4. BingTweets - Trending topics on twitter are shown side-by-side with Bing search results.
5. Enhanced Search - The enhanced view is a simple addition that gives more information on your result ensuring that the URL isn't relevant your search result.

Columbus synagogue serves the world

On the verge of the high Jewish holidays, The Columbus Dispatch looks at how one synagogue began to build and online Jewish community to serve the younger generation of online Jews, but soon found that they were serving many new commmunities they hadn't intended on: those who never felt comfortable in a synagogue, the elderly, shut-ins and those who grew up with synagogue. The rabbis also communicate with these online community members through Facebook and Twitter.

When you begin your online community, you typically have a target and focus of customers you'd like to find. As with this synagogue, they found that they could serve more than they'd originally planned. Have you found a new target you hadn't originally planned on by starting your online community? Have you found an effective way to communicate with this audience, whether it's through Twitter or another medium?

Study Says Stay-at-Home Moms Dominate Social Media

The Denver Business Journal reports today that The Retail Advertising and Marketing Association study released Wednesday showed that more than 60 percent of stay-at-home moms are more likely to use Facebook, more than 42 percent are more likely to use MySpace and nearly 17 percent are more likely to use Twitter. That's compared to average adults – 50 percent of which use Facebook, 34 percent that use MySpace and 15 percent that use Twitter. The article says that, the findings show retailers what advertising and marketing opportunities can be found on the Internet and within social media sites.

We've seen the introduction of "Mommy Blogs" and frugal homemaking blogs, but do stay-at-home moms really dominate the social media sphere? We'd like to hear your thoughts.

Study: Stay-at-home moms dominate social media

Good Riddance to Twitter Spammers, Impersonators, and Serial Abusers!

Jennifer Van Grove from Mashable recently posted a great article on a list of 10 people that we will no longer see on Twitter anymore. This comes after Twitter recently announced changes to its terms of service, in an effort to crackdown on bad behavior on the site. Here's a list of the 10 people we will no longer see, as detailed by Jennifer on Mashable.

1. The Impersonator
2. The Bot
3. The Naked Chick
4. The Serial Abuser
5. The Squatter
6. The Slimy Salesman
7. The Hashtag Spammer
8. The Plagiarizer
9. The Uber Oversharer or Bully
10. The Faker

Which are you most excited about never seeing again?

10 Twitter Tools for Serious Twitterers

I came across this list of top 10 twitter tools for all you twitterers out there from this post on Quick Online Tips. I'm pretty sure you might be familiar with most of these but there might be a couple that you haven't used so far so take a couple of moments to check them out below. Enjoy!

1. Twitterfeed – This automatically publishes updates from any RSS feed to your Twitter account.

2. Tweetdeck - Great twitter desktop clients that allows you to manage several twitter accounts.

3. Twitpic – TwitPic lets you share photos on Twitter.

4. Tweetmeme Button – A button that allows your content to get retweeted.

5. Twitter Counter - A statistics tools which allows you to show off your Twitter followers count on your blog.

6. Wickett Twitter Widget – Displays tweets from a Twitter account in the sidebar of your blog.

7. Twitter Search Widget - Official Twitter widget which provides a cool custom interface to display your own profile search results in your sidebar.

8. Twibbon – Lets you add a logo of your website or a cause you support to your twitter profile avatar. This also enables your supporters to add the same logo to their profiles and show support for your blog or cause and is great to develop a community of supporters and get lots of publicity.

9. Twitterberry – A popular Twitter client for Blackberry mobile phones.

10. Twitbin - A firefox extension that allows you to keep up with all of your Twitter conversations right from your browser sidebar.

Create Infinity: First Look

As a social media professional, we wanted to give you a first look at our new online community -- Create Infinity. Join other futurists, trend hunters, free thinkers and idea generators explore all things possible and transition the believers of “Infinity”. Where the intersection of personal and professional issues come together – spanning disciplines, generations, industries and mindsets – first in a virtual sense – later in a physical one.

Will the community ask for an innovative look at the future of marketing or will the community seek a community based entirely around the future of social media?

As we continue our growth, we'll keep you updated!

We'd love to have you join us! Create Infinity

Online community shares local police reports

The Medford Transcript of Massachusetts sheds light on a new community that shares local information from the police department on crimes taking place in specific neighborhoods. CrimeReports.com takes call logs from local police departments and provides the crime data online. Individuals can sign up to receive daily, weekly or monthly updates about the crimes that have taken place in their neighborhoods.

This kind of community intrigues me. It combines both online and offline communities for the benefit of the people involved. What do you think about online communities like this?

How Charities Harness Social Media for a Social Impact

Jina Moore of The Christian Science Monitor writes that as the Internet comes of age, social media has changed the way nonprofits do business. They’ve advanced beyond getting the word out on Facebook and raising money with Twitter to find a unique overlap between the mission of nonprofits and the methods of new media.

For example, the best blend of Web 2.0 and social activism may come from innovators who set out to exploit the collaborative potential of media tools. It’s just that potential that Ory Okolloh wanted to tap last year, during the election crisis and communal violence in Kenya.

A Harvard University law graduate and a well-known Kenyan blogger, Ms. Okolloh asked readers to use her blog to report on the violence in real time, subverting a government ban on live reporting. “I got overwhelmed by the amount of information coming in,” she remembers. So with the help of some tech-savvy readers who volunteered their time, she set up Ushahidi, an open-source mapping software.

Ushahidi changed the reporting on Kenyan violence. Ordinary Kenyans sent text messages about attacks, which were then mapped online. A Harvard study found that Ushahidi reported on a significant number of incidents the mainstream media missed. Okolloh and her team have been refining the code since then, and the tool has been adapted to crowd-source reports of violence in Congo, medical supply shortages in five East African countries, and election monitoring for national votes this year in Afghanistan and India.

For more examples of how charitable organizations are harnessing the power of social media, we encourage you to check out Moore's original piece here.

How charities harness social media for a social impact
Networkers shift from sharing info to linking up to effect change.

Publish Your Facebook Content Over the Web

Mashable recently posted how Facebook released several widgets including Fan Box, Photo Badge, Page Badge, and Live Stream Box that allows its users to embed Facebook featured on 3rd party websites. Users are able to show off their photo albums, logos, statuses, number of fans, and general info from a Facebook fan page.

It was took a while for Facebook to catch on with these widgets since Flickr, Twitter, and others have released similar applications but it looks like they are finally there.

European Online Advertising Spending Growth Down in 2009 but Expected to Grow

According to this article in eMarketer the spending growth of online advertising in Europe has fallen in 2009. This information comes from research conducted by IAB Europe, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and Screen Digest. Even though there was a slight setback in 2009, online ad expenditure is expected to grow in 2010 rising nearly 6.5% year over year, which is still a little sluggish when you compare it to the 21.3% hike in 2008. It is extremely evident that the economic downturn has affected online advertising spending growth. Here's a chart below that details the change in 2009.

Is there a need for more privacy online?

The USA Today has a news story discussing the current push by consumer and privacy advocacy groups asking Congress to begin to protect consumers rights online. Currently, online sources have free reign to collect data on habits to predict one's internet search. The Interactive Advertising Bureau is strongly opposed to regulating privacy on the internet, and this is the first time advocate groups have spoken out against the advertising policies online.

While tracking internet habits is critical for a business, do sites like Google need to be freely monitoring all internet surfing habits? Should Congress listen to consumer groups and take steps to protect internet surfers privacy?

NFL Says Social media OK Before, After Games

Players in the NFL are now permitted to Tweet, blog and chat before and after they toss the pigskin. The Associated Press reports that, "the NFL said Monday it will allow players to use social media networks this season, but not during games. Players, coaches and football operations personnel can use Twitter, Facebook and other social media up to 90 minutes before kickoff, and after the game following traditional media interviews.

During games, no updates will be permitted by the individual himself or anyone representing him on his personal Twitter, Facebook or any other social media account, the league said."

This comes after San Diego Chargers cornerback Antonio Cromartie was fined $2,500 by the team for criticizing the food service at training camp on Twitter.

Will other sports now have restrictions on the use of social media?