Why would you want these people to crowdsource for you? Look at them. Teenagers. Derelicts. Hippies!

Ok, that’s sarcasm.

I’ve been really into the idea of using other properties for marketing for a while.  I really got into a Twitter kick last year, and am still active.  I’ve played with every social bookmarking, social voting, image network, and tagging sites.  I’ve recently been working with my company on a social media marketing offering via Facebook.  It’s not a new concept, but it is.  It’s still very much fluid, and very much worth exploring.  A lot of companies turn their nose at it.  Yeah, but we’re used to that.

Remember when we used to try to talk CMO’s into letting us post on forums?  They were worried about negative responses (at the cost of the positive responses).  Then we had to convince the CMO’s that blogs were good!  We often got the go ahead as long as we had a dedicated moderator to cut out the negative stuff.  I admit it – I had that job once. But somewhereb thanks in part to the slow adoption from major brands like Dell, Zappos, and Amazon, the publicly posted negative feedback and reviews stopped getting censored.  When they would get censored, there would be a public outcry.  Progressive CMO’s were more worried about that outcry than the negative posts on their domains.  Good call.  If the products can stand for themselves, then let the social media prove it for you.  Now we’re talking about something truly valid.

The social media space really evolved this past year.  The community noticed the companies making these efforts, and taking these risk.  The companies were embraced for it.  Fans and followers became as faithful as NASCAR fans are to their brands.  And even when the quantity is few, their presence was very illuminating.

So here I am, getting really into marketing on Facebook, and finding myself excited about the opportunity of riding a wave that will either dissolve before reaching the shore, or smash into beachfront property like a tsunami.  My only regret is that I wish I had the foresight to jump on it sooner.  Actually, my regret is that more businesses still don’t have the insight to jump into it now.

It’s a tough sell.  I can completely relate to the business owner.  It’s very similar to convincing a CMO to try building a blog in 2006.  By the time they were all convinced, every company had one and none were being used properly.  A lot of noise.  But how do we convince the CMO’s that these teenagers, derelicts, and hippies are all extremely important components of your business, and not just because of their dollars?  It’s now officially a different world online, and I’m afraid business is once again way behind.  The CMOs are reading all the trades, and the “social media is where it’s at” articles, but it’s not sparking enough passion in the CMOs to pick up all the Lego pieces and start building.  How big does the bang need to be this time?

But what about the content, cross-channel implications?  They’re huge.  Maybe Facebook marketing doesn’t seemingly pass as much SEO value based on the structure of the Facebook platform, but SEO is so much more than algorithms.  It’s marketing.  It’s content.  It’s helping search engines adore your business, content, and value.  Facebook (and the content it provides) means more than most people think.  To me that’s the hurdle you have to get over first and foremost.  With passion.  Show that it’s rock n’ roll, yeah, but it’s not dangerous.  It’s cultural.  It’s last year’s next big thing.  Let’s get a move on, already before the crowd actually moves on!

With real-time search being rolled out, I asked questions about how Twitter would be able to handle the volume.  I don’t want to see the “Twitter is over-capacity” whale in Google results!

But however they’re handling it, it looks like Twitter finally made some money by opening their tweets to Google (at the cost of about $15 million) and MSN (at the cost of about $10 million).  Beats the hell out of the limited calls us regular folks get!

I was so sure it was going to be the Paypal-esque money transferring model first.  At least it wasn’t as cheesey as buying and sending virtual gifts for a dollar (I don’t care if it worked, Facebook – it’s cheesey!).

For more check this out.

Update: Since this post was written, many things have changed.  You don’t need this Greasemonkey script to see Tweets in Google’s search engine result pages.  It’s now baked in as a Google feature.  Here’s what Google’s Twitter powered real time search looks like.  Pretty smart move since Twitter is now the second largest search engine.

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Oh Twitter, I love thee more than bourbon for breakfast (what?!?!).  Thanks to a cool new Greasemonkey script, I love you even more.  What is Greasemonkey?  Only the coolest Firefox plugin ever built by human hands.

I always like talking about the value of vertical and social searches.  There’s also a concept of ‘real time search‘ that I really like.  Twitter is essentially that – information is available to find immediately after it’s been posted, and the usual Google delay is history.  Is Twitter going to show the same results as our trusted friend Google?  No, certainly not.  But with thousands and thousands of Tweeters out there, you’re sure to find something pretty cutting edge for many of your queries.

So this new script for Greasemonkey creates a block for Twitter results, and I couldn’t be happier.  Best of both worlds if you ask me.

Pick up the script at MT-Hacks.com.

Real Time Search via Twitter… on Google?

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In today’s online climate, you constantly hear about how brands should be monitoring social media for conversations.  Most brands don’t do this now though many agencies and vendors are offering services to do the monitoring, and providing recommendations to effectively act on these conversations (whether it’s damage control or customer acquisition). I have seen brands like Zappos pay attention to my social media posts on Twitter, and reach out to me personally – well, maybe it was an agency. Still I couldn’t help feel a unique connection with this otherwise faceless brand. From that reach-out, I now have a one on one connection to Zappos through Twitter. I’m a perfect target for their marketing.

I found a great online tool who’s goal is to “deliver the most relevant and current conversations happening in the world of social media.” - Whostalkin.com . It’s a bit like BlogPulse, though I’m not sure who has the deeper spider. Whostalkin does let you segment different networks which is a useful feature.

Update April 3, 2011
I originally wrote this article in 2009. It’s still one of my most popular, but I have to say, I don’t really recommend this method anymore. Twitter is five years old now and has really changed since 2009. The auto-respond practice has really been beaten to death. Now, when I follow people, I often have second thoughts about them if I get an auto reply. It feels spammy, and I sometimes look at the person I just followed with more scrutiny especially if the auto reply has a marketing message. Though more time consuming, I would recommend reaching out to your new followers in the public stream with personal attention or overall global value… Not an automated triggered response. Still, for those of you who’d like to know how to do it, read on.

Original article:
Twitter is a great marketing tool if you use it right.  Like any social media, it’s a relationship building tool.  When you earn the love and loyalty of your network, you find your stage has a pretty bright spotlight.  The more you use Twitter and contribute useful content, the more you find followers will find you.  There are many tools where your authority can be found aside from just surfing Twitter itself.

Twitter offers the ability to send a direct message to people who follow you.  Have you ever noticed on occasion when you opt to follow someone, you immediately receive a direct message with something like “thanks for following – check out my site at www…”  For that direct message to be sent, the Twitterer is either doing it manually (unlikely, especially if they’re busy) or using a web 2.0 tool like Tweetlater.  This Twitter auto respond tool lets you schedule your tweets, but also has a convenient “auto-reply” feature:

click for larger view

Pretty useful to market yourself a little further.  Just make sure you have something to say in your Twitter auto messages.  It’s a great way to Twitter clients specifically, as well.

For those who were curious but didn’t ask, my Twitter obsession also hits Tweetdeck, Twhirl, TweetEffect, TwitterGrader, TweetBurner, Tweepler, MyTweeple, and TweetVolume pretty often.  I’m about as addicted to these as I am Firefox extensions. (more…)

“The search landscape is evolving” – sure, we hear that everyday in this industry, but when you log on to Google, it’s hard to drink the Kool-Aid.  I have to admit, I think I’m finally starting to feel the “hype” thanks to some inspiriting things from the Yahoo camp.  When Yahoo said they were going to “Open Up”, I didn’t think they’d kick the barn doors open this wide, this fast.  This is exciting.  On the heels of SearchMonkey, Yahoo recently announced BOSS, another component of their “Y!OS”, or Yahoo Open Strategy.   I think vertical / social engines are finally going to get their 15 minutes, and I couldn’t be happier. (more…)

So there’s noise that Google’s going to buy Digg.  Is this breaking news?  Not really, unless you consider “breaking news” anything as old as March.  But the rumor part seems to be becoming less of a rumor according to TechCrunch .  A few days ago, news about a signed letter of intent started to circulate:  Google will aquire for $200 million-ish .  Like most engines, acquiring is part of Google’s big plan.  Monetizing these services with ads typically follows.  With Digg, this might be the biggest purchase yet in terms of mindshare (the previous winner being YouTube, but this was a bit befor YouTube was the bohemeth it is now).  Google bought Picasa, Blogger, Writely, and several others.

Digg uses Microsoft now for ads.  I’m not sure if they’re still using Federated Media in conjunction.  Obviously, MSN gets pushed out of the plan when Google steps in.  Plus, Google will likely start importing its other products and technology into Digg.  My question is, on the heels of my last post about Google’s social interface (that’s now testing), how much of Digg will go into Google’s search engine?  Is there technology that Google can leverage, or is it just simpler for Google’s engineers to develop it themsleves than shape to fit?  Maybe the Digg brand is the real driver.  When you think of social in any sense, you think of Digg (definitely not Orkut).

I think it all sounds pretty, well, normal, but I hate to see the purity of Digg disappear.  It’s a little like a big business swallowing up a pioneer, like record labels did with the Sex Pistols, or Wawa did with my favorite corner store.  No matter what good comes from the big, new, shiny neighbors, some of the charm is gone in this independent social-space neighborhood.

A little bittersweet for me, I guess.

Image from web connoisseur.com

A couple people in the agency were blessed by Google today.  They got to try out a new social-driven interface.

This could be huge.

We knew Google was coming with something like this.  Once you’re logged in with a google account, you’ll have the options to remove listings you don’t like, change the orders, voting, add comments, and more.  PLUS – there’s a link that you can see how OTHER people organized the search for themselves.  Sound like tags.

Will the voting affect the natural search?  I have to think it might… since Google always says they’re about recommendation signals.  But would a thumb’s down hurt your rankings?

I also have to think that the traditional relevancy will stay very important to Google.  They put too much stock into their algos, and this kind of social search could be gamed.  But looks like the SEO 2.0 philosophy is going to start paying off.

More on TechCrunch.

Here’s a relatively light-hearted post at Stage Two Consulting about what Social Media actually means.  I enjoyed the frustration, because sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who doesn’t see the wildly rampant (and growing) misuse of this term in some of the forums, blogs, etc.  In my case, frustration loves company.  I found the post, and the comments, to be useful… like a support group. 

I think Amanda Vega made a great point in the comments.