Which Form of Social Media is Right for YOU?

Social media has EXPLODED over the past 5 years. Once a novelty has become one of the most powerful marketing tools available. Social Media marketing has gained an expansive amount of popularity due to its cost effectiveness, ease of use, broad appeal, and mass distribution. It has given power to people with small marketing budgets to send messages to their potential clients no matter how small or niche the industry.

Businesses big and small have jumped on the social media marketing band wagon. Managing an account on every single social network is time consuming and not effective for smaller businesses. It is important to realize which social networks your demographic uses and how to effectively use it. By targeting specific social media networks and ignoring others, you can dedicate your time (and budget) to the most cost-effective marketing channel.

The first thing to consider when choosing which social networks to join is whether or not you are part of a niche industry. If you have a general content than creating a Facebook fan page and a twitter account could suffice. You will be able to target people in your area using Facebook and then redirect them to follow your Twitter account. For niche industries, you may want to promote your business more direct networks such as Digg or Reddit.  If you want to create a professional profile for business to business networking, I highly recommend LinkedIn.

Another important thing to consider is how much content to share and how often. If you want to distribute a lot of content to your followers, you may want to use Digg, RSS feeds, Delicious, Stumble Upon, or your blog. If you plan on giving short updates or holding contests, you will want to take advantage of Twitter's abilities. You should also set up these networks to your smart phone or mobile device so you can send updates to your followers no matter where you go.

There are also many services that can aide in managing these social networks. I would recommend checking out TweetDeck and HootSuite. These services allow you to manage all of your social media sites at the same time along with scheduling updates. You can set timers to when you want your updates to be distributed so that you send out the exact message at the right time, even if you aren't on the computer.

There is no question that social media is a great tool for marketing. I recommend that every business, no matter the size, take advantage of the tools associated with social media. However, it is important to always be aware of change and what is on the horizon. While social media is popular right now, we know technology is changing as we speak.

For more information, check out the following articles:

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/04/08/how-to-target-the-right-social-media-sites/

http://traffikd.com/resources/35-must-read-articles-for-social-media-marketers/

http://www.capecodseo.com/social-media-no-brainers/

How to Protect Your Google+ Account

There is a lot of talk lately about internet privacy and how to control who sees the content on your social networks. Many people feel uncomfortable using social networks like Facebook due to privacy concerns. There is a lot of anxiety over where you’re personal information actually goes and who can see it.

Then along came Google+.

Google+ is the hottest new social network to hit the web and for good reason. This new network has vowed to protect users’ privacy and keep privacy settings simple and transparent. Here are the basics to controlling your privacy, who sees your posts and profile, and other various tips for your G+ account.

Edit Your Account Settings
On your Google+ home page, Click on your ‘options’ button in the upper right hand corner of the page, then click ‘Google+ Settings’. Here you can adjust the following:

• Delivery Options
• Control SMS notifications
• Add or change a phone number
• Photo tagging and geo-tagging
• +1 button permissions

Every option is simplified yet thorough, and leaves no question as to what you’re sharing with the rest of the world. If you want to look at your profile through another contact’s point of view, click on the ‘View Profile As…’ search box on your profile page.

Privacy Optimization While Editing Your Profile
While signed in on your Google+ profile page, click the ‘Edit Profile’ button to the right of your name. Not only can you fill in all of your profile information here, you can change who sees it. Click on any section to edit. A window will pop up with a text field. If you click on the ‘Your Circles’ button, you can change who sees that information. With just one click, you can share with the following:

• Anyone on the web
• Extended circles
• Your circles
• Only you
• Customize a personal list

Understanding Circle Privacy
Circles are a great way to keep your contacts organized. Adding different people to different circles creates a perfect way to keep control over what your contacts can see. Family, coworkers, creepers – you can create any type or amount of circles to share only certain information with. All of your circles are private by default too. Essentially, you could have a professional profile and casual profile all under the same user account.

When you add someone to a circle on Google+, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re in one of their circles. However, if someone adds you to one of their circles, there is no approval process – so make good use of your privacy controls and be conscious of your settings.
In a new age of the internet, it is fundemental to know what your identity is up to in the virtual world. Among any other social network, Google+ is leaps and bounds ahead of any other, leaving you finally feeling safe and secure on the web.


For more information check out the following articles:

http://www.buzzom.com/2011/07/how-to-protect-your-privacy-on-google/

http://www.flyteblog.com/flyte/2011/07/managing-your-google-privacy-using-circles.html

http://betanews.com/2011/08/25/google-forces-facebook-to-tweak-sharing-settings/

The Google+ Explosion

In early 2006 Myspace had more than three-times the number of users than Facebook. In four short years Myspace is almost bankrupt and Facebook now has 750 million users worldwide. Since the social network revolution Google has decided that the time is right to jump on the bandwagon. Taking some of the best elements of Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and adding some of their own innovation in June 2011 Google+ was launched.

In two short months Google+ has grown to over 25 million users. This comes much to the dismay of Facebook who hoped to go public by the end of the year. This new competitor in such a small market will severely devalue Facebook’s market share. Even Facebook’s CEO has a Google+ account and carries many followers.  Many developers are overjoyed with the emergence of Google+. To develop plug-ins and software to incorporate with the social network Google is only taking a 5 percent royalty from developers, much less than the 30 percent Facebook charges.

While many people see Google+ as “just another social network” there are many technological advances you will find in Google+ that you won’t find in Facebook:

Circles: Google introduces circles their innovative way to separate and manage your friends list. Circles allow you to make sub-groups in your friends list. You could create a circle for your close friends and another for your work friends. This comes in handy when trying to control who can see content you upload.  Maybe you want to throw a work party and only want to invite your work friends, you can simply send the invite to that specific circle.

Hangouts: Hangouts are a way to live-video chat with your friends. You can create a hangout for just one friend or for a whole circle. Multiple Google+ members can live chat in one hangout simultaneously. Imagine you want to watch a football game with a bunch of your buddies who all live in different states. You could create a hangout and all talk and chat about the game live while you watch it.

Sparks: Sparks are a way that Google+ delivers content to you based on your specific interests. You enter terms that you are interested in and Google+ constantly updates you with articles, blogs, and content based off of things you tell it you love or want to know more about. For example, I love baseball so I put Boston Red Sox into my sparks. Every day Google+ will find headlines, game scores, and links about the Red Sox to keep me updated.

As you can see Google+ is shaping itself to be a major competitor in the Social Network industry. It will be very interesting to see what happens when public invites begin this fall.

For more information you can check out these articles:

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Google+adds+more+than+million+users+since+June+launch/5288426/story.html

http://webtablab.com/web/6-google-plus-features-that-you-will-find-missing-in-facebook/

http://googleplustip.com/the-best-google-plus-tutorials.html