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Social Media Strategist
arnoldi:mcpherson ~ the conversation starts here
p. 905-684-9393
e. robin@arnoldimcpherson.com

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Here’s a simple example of what happened when I went to Yelp:  Hi Janice. Yelp is using Facebook to personalize your experience. Learn More – No Thanks. 

Facebook says its had a great response this week with sites rolling out the new open graph, a.k.a.  social plugins. I highly recommend reading Facebook’s detailed description of what this all means to help you weigh the social network benefits vs. privacy.  If you decide to opt out here’s how you do it:

Go to - Account - Privacy Settings - Applications and Websites - Instant Personalization Pilot Program - Uncheck “Allow”

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Apple’s Steve Jobs and Adobe are at it again over Flash, the multimedia software used to create much of the animation, online games and to view a large percentage of video on the internet.  The fight’s been going on for some time but yesterday Job’s released a 1,700 word letter on the Apple website attacking Flash. 

Jobs has been critizing Adobe saying Flash does not work on iphones or the new ipad because it is proprietary software and closed to outside developers of iphone apps.  Jobs pointed out that other companies like YouTube developed an iphone specific app which comes loaded on the phone. Adobe says it is Apple that is being over controlling.

 As it stands, Flash runs on every mobile phone except the biggest player in the mobile multimedia market – the iphone.

But the reason for the change became clear at the company’s F8 conference on Wednesday when it announced a “Like” button plug in for websites which takes web surfing to a new personal level by linking back to Facebook.  For example, it means that if my friends visit an online store that I’ve been to they could call up what products I liked on that site.  Venture Beat has a couple of good articles and if you want the nitty-gritty details, check out Robert Scoble’s post -  Facebook’s ambition.

It also means that Facebook added Instant Personalization which it says “helps you connect more easily with your friends on select partner sites.”.  This has some people upset because it’s another privacy setting that defaults to ”allow” and has to be changed if you don’t want to share information.  If you want to change it go to:  Account – Privacy Settings - Applications and Websites – Instant Personalization.

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We’re really excited to announce the launch of Social Media Club Niagara.  SMC Niagara’s goal is to bring together everyone who is interested in social media, whether you’re using it for work, personal or just want to know what it’s about.  There’s no membership fee just come and join us.  Our first meeting is on Thursday, May 27 at 5:00pm at Doms Pasta and Grill at the corner of King St. and Academy in St. Catharines

SMC Niagara is part of the international Social Media Club organization, founded in 2006, which has 92 active chapters in nine (9) countries, and 65 in the process of forming.

Follow us on Twitter @smcniagara,  on our Facebook page or joing on our LinkedIn group.

Promoted Tweets are being rolled out with companies like Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America.

For now this may be for of big business but be sure this will be a great opportunity for smaller business to connect.

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From the twittersphere and into the U.S. Library of Congress which announced it is going to catalogue everything tweeted since 2006.  I’m big on social media etiquette but this is even more reason to think before you tweet.

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Not to make it all about Twitter, but Google also announced this week that it’s beefing up its real-time search which includes Facebook, My Space Google buzz and Twitter.  You’ll now be able to search tweets by year, month and day.  Here’s an example provided by Google:

Click to see larger image

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On a fun note, today is Foursquare Day, chosen because it’s the date of the fourth month squared.  The location-based mobile marketing tool has taken the world by storm, out doing its competitors Yelp and Gowalla in popularity.  It’s not an official Foursquare event but businesses are taking advantage and offering specials (get a special rate for checking into Arnoldi Mcpherson and requesting a quote).  Swarms – 50 or more people checking into a venue – are planned around the world.  Swarmers can earn a Foursquare Swarm badge.  If it’s successful, expect foursquare day to com around every April 16.

A new study of 1,400 B2C businesses by the Inbound Marketing company Hubspot shows that businesses that use social media well get more monthly leads than businesses that don’t.   The survey, The State of Inbound Lead Generation, looked at Google searches, blogs and Twitter.  

Here are some of the results: 

Google and social media

• Blogging creates fresh content and increases page counts which are major factors in improving your Google ranking,
• Repeating key words in your blog content also improves ranking.   
• Google Searches Twitter so relevant tweets help increase visibility.

Blogging 

• Sites with more than 20 blog articles increase leads by 77%.
• Companies that blog generate 67% more leads than those that are still relying on updated websites.

Twitter

• Companies using Twitter dramatically increased monthly leads.  Even those with just 20 followers doubled leads to 10 a month.
• Quality of engagement on Twitter and the content of tweets is as important, if not more, than your number of followers.  The study found that once your number of followers hit 500 lead generation began to all off.

Last week, Greenpeace started a campaign against Nestlé’s use of palm oil from the rainforest in Indonesia, causing deforestation and threatening the habitat of orangutans.  The issue exploded on the corporation’s Facebook page and has continued unabated.  A couple of things happened here.  The immediacy and reach of social media means Greenpeace was able to muster a lot of support.  Nestlé tore a page out of the what-not-to-do-in-social media handbook by threatening to delete any comments that used negative take-offs of its brand logo.  It then tried to correct the situation with a statement that it was new to social media and just learning.

I expect that the Nestlé Facebook fiasco over the past week will scare some businesses who are thinking of taking the social media plunge and those that have already established a Facebook or other social media presence.  A must read for large business is Jeremiah Owyang’s blog Crises Planning: Prepare Your Company For Social Media Attacks.

Small and medium sized businesses are not as likely to be the focus of such an organized, global campaign  Still, there are lessons to be learned from Nestlé:

1.  Stay in the conversation.  Trying to stop it only gets the detractors more fired up and will drive them to other platforms where you have no chance to manage the issue.  Nestlé last posted on its Facebook page on Friday March 19, four days ago, eventhough the conversations are still raging.   

2.  State social media rules up front on your sites.  For example, let people know that you will delete posts that have foul language or are defamatory.   

3.  Have a social media policy for you business in place.  Know who in your organization makes social media communication decisions.  Make sure your social media person has some experience in handling difficult situations and uses common courtesy.  The Nestlé staffer was, at times, condescending and rude.

When Toyota found itself in the hot seat on January it got to work using social media the way it’s supposed to work, reaching out to customers with sites like it’s Toyota Conversations where it’s aggregating information from across the web, putting the good with the bad.

Google gathered about 1,800 video and text questions that were voted on by 175,000 people, the ones with the highest votes were then put to the Prime Minister.  Google obviously considered this a true marriage of social media and politics.  The prime minister’s spinners obviously thought it was a great opportunity for the PM to get his message out and be cool to the younger, often non-politically acitve, crowd. 

The question is:  Did either achieve their goal.  CBC TV Rosemary Barton complained that it was not social media and there was no value because the questions were set in advance and asked by Google executive Patrick Pichette, who is both Canadian and bilingual, and not by journalists.  Other media pointed out that Google is a registered lobbyist in Canada so the interview has to be taken with a grain of salt.

I think they’re all missing the point.  First, social media is not about journalists asking questions.  It’s about conversations with you and me and the next guy and that’s just where these questions came from.  On top of that, they generated a lot of discussion, including on the CBC website.  Google may have lobbyist status but, again, the questions were submitted and voted on by the public, not arbitrarily picked by Google.  No doubt taking questions live would have been better, but taping doesn’t mean it’s not social media.  Engagement, conversation, connection – that’s social media.   

Frankly, social media or not, it was really, really boring.  Forty minutes of the ubiquitous chair-to -hair chat.  Great idea for Google to use a bilingual interviewer but it might want to remember sub-titles for next time so that both English and French speaking Canadians aren’t left out as the language switches back and forth.

If you use the voting as the pulse of what’s important to Canadians then it is overwhelminly the legalization of marijuana.  My favourite question?  Without a doubt the young man who took a good toke of pot before asking the question.  That was entertaining.

My advice?  Tell the people that her page was for family and a few close friends and make sure she checks her Facebook privacy settings.  I also told her that she should be using social media to connect with her clients.  She’s in the service business, she’s knowledgeable and a really friendly, fun and easy going person.  In short, a natural.

Most of the business people we talk to say two things:  they know that have to do social media but they don’t know where to start and they don’t want to share their private lives with everyone they do business with. 

This brings up the question:  where does business social media end and personal begin?  It’s true that the lines are blurred.  To be successful in social media professionally we need to open up and give a little of ourselves to make personal connections.  That doesn’t mean we have to invite everyone we do business with into our personal world. Dawn Foster on webworkerdaily.com has a great post on how to balance the personal with the professional.

A few weeks ago I hooked up with someone on Foursquare, the mobile location marketing app, who I’d never met.  I was walking past his office and recognized him from his photo.  We a fun chat about our Foursquare competition.  We’re now following each other on our business Twitter accounts  and are connected on LinkedIn.  But that’s the line in the sand.  I won’t be asking him to be a friend on Facebook and I’m pretty sure he won’t be asking me.

Social media and personal privacy is important and can be difficult to define but don’t let that stop you from the huge benefits it offers in business.  Just make sure you set clear boundaries when developing your social media plans.

We’re really looking forward to our first St.Catharines Thorold Chamber of Commerece Business After Five & Member Expo!

Hope to see you there.

For more info go to: http://www.sctchamber.com/events/files/030210_expo_ad_low.pdf

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