Circles; In the immortal words of Offspring we often want to “keep ‘em separated”, that is, groups of friends, co-workers, ex-fiancé’s and the like. Google+ lets you separate posts into groups where they will only be shared with certain recipients. This feature  goes one step further than Facebook, by ensuring that the pic of you doing a keg-stand isn’t re-posted to your boss accidentally by auto-blocking anyone you haven’t specified as a recipient. It also has posting fail-safes that are more deliberate than those on Facebook.

Hangouts: Hangouts are video-lounges where you can invite individuals or whole ‘Circles’ to join you for a debate on the merits of pet-neutering, or just a little one-on-one flirting, a la Skype.

Sparks: What makes sparks fly in your life? This feature allows you to follow a huge variety of topics ranging from the mundane to the bizarre, and even allows you to create your own category for direct content discovery. Into fly-fishing? Spark it, and you’ll be kept up on the latest in fishing from waders to wall-eyed pike.

+1: Sounds like you’ve been added to a list at a hot nightclub, right? Alas no. This is similar to the ‘Like’ button on Facebook, and automatically stores the content you’re viewing on your profile; all the easier to transfer the topic to your ‘sparks’ later on.

Is Google+ that much different than Facebook? Not to the casual observer. But, remember that all of this programming is ultimately designed to generate ad revenue from increasingly streamlined targets and the best way to do that is to let your client do it for you. The way that Google+ divides (it’s users), allows their sponsors to conquer. That is, the user categorizes his or herself by customizing their profile, likes and dislikes, and that makes it easier to pinpoint and maximize the specific demographic for an ad campaign or service using social network members as brand recruiters. Is your company using social media to maximize the effectiveness of your ads and the reach of your brand?

Google announced last week that voice-activated searches and quicker search time technology will increase ease and efficiency for PC users on their search engine.   Google’s big announcement on June 17 comes amid a slew of ambitious product-debuts this summer as the “Big 5” (Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft and AOL) battle for supremacy in the expanding online consumption market.  Google first introduced the technology in mobile devices over a year ago, a nod to the fact that quick-searches for bars and restaurants spike at night and on the weekend, and mobile searches overall have increased 500 percent in the last two years.

Utalkmarketing.com reported that The PC version of the voice-activated search requires the use of Google Chrome and a separate microphone plugged into the PC. It would not be unusual for manufacturers to follow the Internet leviathan’s lead however, and make built-in microphones standard in future PC models.  Two additional features the company unveiled at the San Francisco conference are ‘Instant Pages’, which will potentially  knock 2 to 5 seconds off the loading times of web pages and enhanced image recognition (EIR), with which users can search the Internet  by dragging images into a box.

As demonstrated by Google’s new tech, the nature of the beast is ‘more, easier, faster’. Companies need to maximize their presence to consumers via social media and internet outlets as consumers become increasingly enmeshed in our digital society.  As such, it hardly seems necessary to have the futuristic jet-packs promised to us by The Jetsons anymore as shopping,  searching and personal interaction no longer require leaving the house much less flying around strapped to a missile. Nowadays, the mountain comes to us. Search engines and social media outlets are now the leading means of marketing products to the public, and now consumers simply need to tell their PC what they want in order to find it. The future is here and it resembles ‘I Dream of Genie’, more than ‘The Jetsons’; if you want something simply ask for it and it appears. The only difference is the genie requires a valid credit card.

At worst this technology is another building block in America’s move toward immobility, at best it will engender a new era of green advertising and marketing as monolithic billboards and tacky neon signs go the way of the dinosaur.  For certain it means that the best way to reach consumers is through their internet connection. The question is this; as advertising and marketing ascend into the technosphere ™, is your company maximizing or missing your opportunity? And when they’re searching, who’s saying your company’s name?

Here’s a short list of do’s, don’ts, and suggestions for marketing on YouTube:

• Use YouTube to introduce new products or services that your organization offers.
• Create an alternative or fun identity for your brand. A great example of this is the Old Spice ads and videos. Old Spice essentially used YouTube to drive the new (and very successful) branding of their products.
• Make sure you track your efforts! YouTube offers a full suite of analytics information called YouTube Insight. Insight makes it easy to see the traffic, source, and view information to any or all of your videos.
• Consider purchasing ads to be featured in other videos. Ads extend the reach of your products/services to consumers who may not see your videos in the first place.

These are just some quick tips to help your brand get started. Contact us today if you’d like us to help implement a YouTube strategy for your brand.

Caution, adult language.

Watch Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV at SXSW. Gary discusses his knowledge and expertise about video blogging and self branding in the ever growing world of online video blogging.

These are the best highlights in a 10 minute reel.

ComScore reported that more than 11 million videos were viewed by U.S. residents in May 2008. More importantly, 52% of those viewers took some sort of action after watching.  From watching past episodes of Lipstick Jungle on Hulu.com, to viewing conference and keynote speakers, there’s something for everyone.
gWave has been highly recommending and consulting several clients in the B2C and B2B markets on how they can use video for their business. But, most importantly is how they can take advantage of video in a slowing market. For example, one of our clients holds quarterly ‘lunch and learns.’  They’ll invite 100 people, but have 40 RSVP’s and 30 people attend. What about the other 60 people who couldn’t make it? Well, video is a great way to reach these people. So now, they are video taping their lunch and learns and following up with clients who were unable to attend with the video.

So now you have video, how do you optimize it for the web?

1. Educate your marketing team and/or videographer on SEO basics. Choose keywords to use for your title, description and other tags.

2. Create a company YouTube.com account. For example post and or host your videos at YouTube.com/companyname

3. Add a video sitemap to your site. Here are some Google guidelines.

Post or comment on what your experience has been with video and promoting your business.

RSS is the new benchmark of the modern website. RSS tagged content reaches people in your business’s existing sphere of influence. These are the people and businesses that you’ve already inspired to subscribe to your feed. They are your fans and they want to keep tabs on you. A great RSS feed gives additional value to subscribers:

- access to whitepapers

- members only content

- discounts

- free videos

- free webinar access

- free consulting

These are all great ways to nurture enduring relationships with your existing fans. But what about the millions of people outside of your sphere of influence who haven’t discovered you yet?

That’s where a PPC (Pay Per Click) campaign comes into play.

PPC broadens your sphere of influence on the web. PPC ushers in more “would-be” clients from outside your sphere of influence. This is why PPC is still necessary in an RSS crazed world. PPC campaigns are the modern Conquistadors of Internet marketing. They broaden your Internet marketing empire by drawing in new people (visitors) and places (online communities).

Once these publics are drawn into your realm it is RSS that acts as spokesperson for your brand and culture. An addictive RSS feed keeps you in front of your fans who might have otherwise jumped off your company bandwagon due to neglect.

A balance of inbound (RSS) and outbound (PPC) marketing is a most fruitful way to harvest prospects for the top of your conversion funnel.

On today’s show they interviewed Melani Gordon from gWave Consulting.

• Internet Trends – how to win with the online spending gap
• Social Media – Barry & Barry learn more about Twitter & Utterz
• Best Practices – drip email marketing

http://www.realestateradiousa.com/blog/interviews/melanigordonep125.mp3
Thanks Barry & Barry would love to come on again.

Social Media Marketing (SMM) has both advantages and drawbacks. While many SMM strategies are free and readily accessible to anyone willing to invest the time and effort, you have only so much control of peoples’ perception of you and your business once you put yourself “out there.”

One benefit of SMM is the potential viral nature of the spread of a message. We’ve all seen how a certain email joke or home video can rocket to superstardom apparently overnight, raising the question for entrepreneurs and established businesses: how do I become the next big thing?

Though there are those unlikely instances where some random tidbit hits global status, but most of us prefer to take a little more control over our positioning online. For some, the natural response to the overwhelming scale of the online world is to withdraw, but just because your company isn’t actively involved in social media doesn’t mean your customers and constituents aren’t. Following are a few hints to help guide your Social Media Marketing campaign.

Define Your Own Image – While the word-of-mouth nature of publicity online can cause a message to spread like wildfire it can also get similarly out of control if we don’t know how to manage it. Although we can’t control how people evaluate or recommend us, we can help ensure that our message is consistent and that it gets at the heart of what we are as a business.

There are networking sites such as Biznik, LinkedIn, Plaxo and Naymz where you can develop profiles for yourself, your company or product. Make sure that you’re presenting a common message in all cases, and take advantage of the options to tie in websites and personal pages from MySpace, Facebook and the like so people can easily learn more about you.

The more that people encounter a consistent and positive brand associated with your company, the more likely they are to entrust you with their business when the need arises. With Facebook for example, you can add HTML, Flash, or even Facebook applications to your pages to extend their functionality and the depth of experience users can have with your brand.

Pick Your “Friends” Carefully – Some people believe that the larger our circle of acquaintances are online, the better off we are. However, this is not necessarily the case. For example, for every legitimate “friend” request on social networking sites, there can be a handful of false profiles looking to use your profile as a billboard to promote their less-than-savory services.

If you automatically approve all new friend requests without screening them first, don’t be surprised if the next time you sign in you find questionable content posted in your comments sections. When possible, always set public comments and images so that you have to approve them before they appear.

Many people find that swapping links with other websites is a great way to get your website in front of more folks, but keep in mind that any links you post on your site or personal pages will be associated with you. It’s better to be discriminating about the affiliate partners you choose than simply to play the numbers and link with anything and anyone who asks you to.

Establish Your Expertise – “Group” sites like Yahoo Groups, MSN Groups, Google Groups and AOL Groups are excellent ways to create dialogue with people of similar interests. You can do a quick search on each group site to find existing groups that align with your business interests. Join the groups, introduce yourself, ask substantive questions and offer thoughtful comments and advice to others. In time, you will build a reputation as someone who not only knows what they are talking about, but who is willing to share your knowledge to benefit others.

Can’t find a group that meets your needs? You can also easily start your own group and invite people to the conversation. However, take the time to consider the audience you are attempting to attract. Are you trying to network with other business owners, or directly with consumers? Are you more invested in building rapport and trust, or in promoting a product?

It only takes a few bad experiences for word to get around that you’re little more than another opportunist, trying to exploit the open networks online solely for personal gain. But if you invest in others, the social collateral you can build in return can be invaluable for your long-term business.

There are always stories of overnight phenomena where people rise from obscurity to fame in a matter of days or hours. However, such a meteoric rise is not only rare, but it also is unpredictable. Rather than gambling your online reputation on a sensational message or by spamming strangers, the best approach is to deal with people the same way you would in person: with respect, over time and with their needs and interest at the top of your mind. It’s a more gradual build, but the benefits of a solid professional reputation are worth the careful effort.

Some people mistakenly assume that “Public Relations” has only to do with mitigating bad press. However, when we consider the concept of public relations in a broader context, we see the value in developing and implementing an ongoing strategy for handling our company’s public image. All businesses, whether they are sole proprietorships or publicly-held corporations, need to ensure that their public image is consistent, positive and appropriate for their industry. Public relations involve many levels, including the image we present not only to customers, but also to vendors and even employees.

One of the greatest advantages of online PR is that we have a unique opportunity to bypass the traditional media filters used to determine the few stories that make it to the public. Now, with web portals like Yahoo and Google, along with “vertical sites,” which actually pull several websites of common interest together, you can go directly to the media source. The biggest challenge becomes, however, how you ensure that your message rises to the top. After all, people can only identify you as an expert in your field if they know you exist!

The quality of your public relations plan can be the difference between success and failure, but how do we begin, and how do we know how well it’s working? Following are a few simple steps to follow when creating your professional public relations plan:

Step 1 – Hit Your Target: Your business needs to have a public relations plan, just as it has a business plan and a marketing plan. In today’s information-saturated market, sending out a few press releases a year to the local paper doesn’t qualify as a viable PR plan. With the benefit of the Internet, news about your services and achievements can be distributed nationally, and even globally, as well as to local media outlets. Newspapers, ezines, blogs, business and social networking sites all can help you get your message to the public for little or no cost. However, be careful to not waste your time with a shotgun-blast approach to publicity. Taking the time to identify your target markets, and recognizing which media outlets are most likely to connect with that target, can save you time and headaches in the long-term.

Step 2 – Become a Virtual Networking Guru: Online Public Relations involves connecting with people in a personal way that is more effective than advertising alone ever could be.

• Social Networking sites: Free sites such as MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo and others allow you to set up a profile, keep it current and get to know other like-minded people.
• Newsgroups and message boards: Do an Internet search for your type of business. Find out where people are “hanging out” online. Spend your time on the busiest boards for maximum exposure. You have to be ready to invest your time and resources in others too; don’t just advertise. Give advice, seek advice, and get to know your fellow posters, and they’ll come to see you as a valuable business partner.
• Referral and affiliate programs: Offer tangible incentives to people who bring business your way. It’s good business etiquette to spend as much time thanking and recognizing people as you spend asking them for something. Always recognize when a lead comes from an associate, and make it worth their while to do it again.

Step 3 – Be an expert in your field: Having knowledge that others need makes people come to you, which is always better then you going to them! How do you become an expert? You’ll have to come back next month to find out. Read Part two of Online Public Relations in the April Issue.