I love being a Gen-Xer.  I’m right in between “Go outside and play” and “Sit in front of a TV all day.”  I’ve been able to live through amazing evolutions of technology participating in most every step of its transition.  When I was a kid, my understanding of tsunamis was limited to the school films of kids on beaches picking up flopping fish before disappearing into an animated wave. I also grew up in inland Jersey and Virginia, so the ideas of monsoons, typhoons, earthquakes and even hurricanes were relatively foreign then.

Traditional media did a great job of bringing us ‘up-to-the minute’, ‘after the fact’.  Seeing something real-time was rare, especially from a real person’s perspective.  In 2004 and 2005 the devastation of the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake and Hurricane Katrina, shocked everyone and glued us to traditional media that couldn’t get info out fast enough or from a perspective we could relate to.

Social Media – Enter Stage Right

Since 2004 as we know, social media has exploded and the race is on because real people can submit the news as it happens via social networks which can be more relevant and reliable. Our friends give a true perspective rather than polished news content and if you have a friend on the scene, you trust them to ‘report’ it as-is not as it should be. We also race each other wanting to be the first one to inform our Facebook friends of recent disasters because everyone wants to be in the know. Social Media’s role in the most recent disaster in Japan has further illuminated this phenomenon.

Because we see so much more news, as it happens, from a more realistic perspectives, mass social media exposure distorts our view of reality. We’ve gone from hearing signs and wonders to actually seeing and living it minute by minute.  This combined with the fact that the world is scheduled to end in 2012 has caused an increase in doomsday messages.

Now before you go hoarding canned goods and buying that ham radio, there is a website that will put your mind at ease.  The National Association of Radio Distress Signals (RSOE) has an awesome Alert Map that tracks disaster related events worldwide.

Disasters Occur Every Minute of Every Day

This perspective, shows that Earth really is a leaving breathing thing and there is always something going on with it so there’s no need to panic yet.  Now, if all your best friends disappear, that might be a cause for concern.

How has easy access to world events effected your view the pending end of days scenario?

Recently I attended a mixer with some friends and being my usual self, I played amateur photographer and snapped a few pics!  This morning I went to upload the pics, and Facebook went to doing its magic.

For those that don’t know, Facebook has a relatively new feature that not only recognizes faces but also has the ability to put names with faces.  Facebook knows your face!

In this case I’m always denying the possibility that I look like my mom. Well, I uploaded an album that both me and my mom and Facebook’s face recognition feature proved me wrong.

The two photos on the right are me, the left is my mom, you be the judge.

Below is what we look like under a professional’s lens.

Conversely, Facebook doesn’t always get it right!  During the same upload, Facebook got one completely wrong by connecting two of my close friends: Wendy Walker and Kim Finley.

Though this is clearly an incorrect correlation, it actually got me to thinking and I started comparing pictures and they do have quite a resemblance.

So what are your thoughts?  Is Facebook right?  Do I look like my mom?  And what about Kim and Wendy?  Is technology that advanced?

A few months back, Paul McGirt a Realtor in the Virginia Beach area wrote an interesting article in the Hampton Roads Association of Realtors Magazine called Social Media – Because We are Social People.  While going through my archives, I found that mag and it got me to thinking about the social media scene and the ‘experts’ and ‘gurus’ that populate it.

When we see The Social Network and shows like The Facebook Obsession, we get a glimpse of Mark Zuckerberg and get the impression that had he not create a multi-billion dollar, universe altering company, he would be stereotypical computer guy: anti-social.  On top of that, that most computer professionals like IT managers and web developers are stereotyped with similar personality traits, which further distorts the view of what trait a social media consultant should possess.

Before we get into that trait, you must first understand that social media is the fusion of sociology and technology.  Masterful usage of tools like Facebook and Twitter is essential to the art, but the ability to understand and interpret people’s behavior and translating that into how they will make decisions is the magic behind making social media work for business.  And regardless of how many books you read, it is virtually impossible to get to know behavior unless you socialize.

The explosion of social media as a truly organic business marketing tool, has sparked a rise of consultants and so called experts to meet the demand. But when was the last time you saw your social media ‘expert’ at a networking function?

To be successful at consulting in social media, you must be social.  Nationally known experts like PR Sarah Evans and Jeff Turner understand people.  They interact masterfully online, but can also work a room like nobody’s business and naturally attract people.  The social media manager’s job is to convert that knowledge and charisma into online social capital.

What do you think?  Is it possible to manage and teach people social media effectively without being social?

One of the most common questions I get during seminars and consultations is: “Should I have a Facebook profile for my business life and my personal life to keep them separated?”   Before I answer that, I want to highlight a basic principle of social media: being a real person.  People are tired of dealing with the phony, shallow, and disingenuous.  Few customers use Facebook for the sole purpose of interacting with businesses and very few people are on social networks specifically to generate business, and those that are tend to be viewed as one of the aforementioned undesirables.

Most people are on social networks like Facebook and Twitter to connect with and get to know other people. That being said, sales professionals and small business owners looking to uses social media to generate business will need to learn to interact with and engage their target audience on a personal level. You are a total person and if you seek to add business contacts through a personal social network like Facebook, you should be open to letting your friends experience a controlled version of the total you.

People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care

One of the hardest concepts for business people to understand and embrace is the idea of interacting with their current and/or potential clients and customers on a personal level, but in business, before we had mass marketing, we had to build relationships. People want to feel like the businesses they patronize have a desire to be interested in them as an individual and a willingness to invest in their life through social capital. Showing interest in the lives of your clients builds trust and trust builds new and repeat business.

No one cares about your business

Though this is only a partial truth, the reality is that your business is only a small portion of your life overall. People want a snapshot of you and your business is part of that snapshot.  Separating your business from that snapshot robs your sphere of influence of a part of who you are and what you’re doing.

So as you embark on your Facebook business strategy, ask yourself: Does my business have enough personal and engaging content to stand alone?  If the answer to that question is yes, Create your own Facebook business page by clicking here.  If the answer is no, read up on Facebook Terms of Use (scroll to section 4.1 and 4.2).

Registration and Account Security

Facebook users provide their real names and information, and we need your help to keep it that way. Here are some commitments you make to us relating to registering and maintaining the security of your account:

1. You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission.
2. You will not create more than one personal profile.

That being said, Facebook is a personal zone.  Think about how much you would like to be specifically prospected by your Facebook friends, or any friends for that matter, then make your decision on how you plan to use Facebook.

Despite the appearance of a down economy, some businesses are surviving, and even thriving more than they ever could have imagined! It’s no coincidence that many thriving businesses are also aggressively marketing whether they can afford it or not. Though marketing in a shifting economy to sustain and even grow your business isn’t a new concept, the social media revolution is creating a new paradigm in the marketing equation: Organizational Buy-In.

Organizational Buy-In is the absolute faith in/and voluntary adoption of an organizations vision, mission, and policy with the genuine intention of improving and growing that organization by any reasonable means. In other words, you have an organization filled with employees who believe in what you’re doing and are willing to do what it takes to make that happen even if the if the end result means your business will become so efficient their job will no longer exist.

Employees taking pride in their profession and figurative ownership in their company isn’t a new concept either, but until now, marketing has mostly been up to business owners, sales people and in larger companies, the marketing department. The introduction of social media as a business tool adds a new twist to what businesses consider marketing and how they use word of mouth through social media to generate brand awareness and revenue.

Now more than ever, businesses rely on more intelligent, harder working, and loyal employees to stay afloat. Employees that meet this criteria are great for maintaining and even growing a business but inside those people is an untapped wealth of potential: they are your new marketing committee.

When was the last time a ‘behind the desk’ employee actively marketed for your business? Is that even possible? Marketing is hard work, and employees are working hard enough as it is to keep their jobs. Why would they go out of their way to get involved in marketing?

First of all, lets talk about loyalty:

Loyal employees tend to be loyal because of relationships they develop with ownership and/or management. Believe it or not, your employees like you, believe in what you’re doing, and want to help you do it better.

So your employees actually like you! Who knew? But saying they like you enough to start marketing; That’s a pretty big leap. Now before you building a bridge to nowhere STOP! Believe it or not, this is going to be a lot easier than you think! Most of your employees are already using the major social networks like Facebook and Twitter, so getting them to use it isn’t step one, and many of them are already talking about their jobs so that isn’t a major hurdle either. The trick is getting your employees to say and do the right things.  With the right education and company policy, your employees can become your main source of new and recurring business and a constant marketing committee.

I know that you’re excited about educating your new marketing committee and turning them loose on the masses, but before you do, consider this: Organizational Buy-In creates a relationship between the employee and the business that forces a win-win that if left unchecked could have a negative effect on your brand.  Once your employees start talking about your business and how awesome it is, they become an active component on the face of your business.  If you’re afraid of this, its too late, they already are. Their friends family and neighbors already know where they work, but now they are actively posting information that will entice people to your business without selling.  For your employees, this new tool can also be used as a weapon. If you treat them badly, they can use this those same methods of marketing to attempt to damage your brand.   So the win for the business is expanded marketing with proven effectiveness and the win for the employee is the necessity for a better work environment driven by ethics, and fairness and an environment that acknowledges the importance of every team member.  This is refresher of an old principle: treat your people right!

I know this concept sounds scary but the business of today is about internal and external collaboration.  Marketing for small and mid-sized businesses especially, will rely more on the efforts of everyone in the organization.  Start thinking about how your team players fit into your marketing model and how they can be maximized in getting the word out about your business.

So the news came down today that Google is going to limit/deny Facebook users’ ability to import contacts directly from GMail until Facebook allows Google users to reciprocate.  Though I see Google’s position this still has to be one of the dumbest and most immature moves ever seen on the interwebs!

For those who missed it, in March of this year (2010), Facebook surpassed Google as the most popular site on the internet.  Google gets over 2 BILLION searches every day, and yes, Facebook is even more popular than that.  With that being said, this move is Google’s way of saying, you beat us so play nice or we are going to make it harder for your users to import contacts.

What is this, Prohibition??  This is a penalty on Facebook USERS not on Facebook.  People aren’t addicted to Google, Facebook however is a different story.  Google helps people find things.  Facebook helps people connect to the world.  You do the math.  So if anything, this could hurt Google and cause them to lose users.  I recommend GMail to many of my clients simply for the importability to social networks.  If they lose that capability, I will be forced to stop recommending it.

Secondly, any GMail user with 0.37 seconds on their hands can search Google and find a fairly simple way to export their contacts from Gmail so they can upload them to Facebook, or just click here.  :)

Google, you can’t win.  People will still love you as long as you don’t mess with their Facebook addiction.  Take your ball and go home.

Every time I teach a Facebook seminar I am asked “should I friend people who request me but that I don’t know?”  My answer to that is “it depends.”  One of the hardest things for most people to understand is that Facebook is and should be treated in many cases like real life.

The easiest way to determine if someone is genuine is if they include a personal message with their friend request.  I love getting requests that say “Hi, I’m so and so and this is why I want to be friends with you.”

Facebook is your sphere of influence.  In life you have many connections that exist at different levels:  same with Facebook.  Some are close friends that see everything, others are loose connections that you may like to know better and want to control level of access.

The first step is looking at the person’s profile.  You can usually judge a person’s worthiness in 30 seconds.  A quick look at wall posts and pictures will give you a reasonable window into someone’s intentions.

If the person has mostly business content, you know that more than likely they are on Facebook primarily for business and could be a spammer.  If they have drunken pics from last week’s bar crawl it may require you to dig deeper.  The point is to find people who are on Facebook to engage, not to sell something or be vulgar.

If the person passes the wall and photo test, check out your mutual connections.  Sometimes you can see what type of person you’re adding by the types of people they associate with.

Depending on how popular you are, you may be what is known as connector if this is the case, mutual connections wont work for you.  Connectors know lots of people and are more than well known.  If you are a connector, evaluate your overall purpose or purposes for being on Facebook.  If it is exposure to new spheres of influence, then add away but categorize your friends and secure your privacy settings so that you know who has access to what on your profile.

Have you ever gotten a friend request from someone you didn’t know?  Social Networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are all about making ‘friends.’  But what is a friend really?  In recent time’s it has translated into a status symbol for popularity.

First of all, Facebook has a “Friends List,” and in my book, this list is a catalog of people who have raise their hand and said “YES, i would like to interact with you,”  It is not necessarily a list of your friends.

The simple Psychology behind ‘Friending’

We all have a natural desire to make friends.  When someone says “will you be my friend,” its hard to say no.  It appears rude in person.  On Facebook we don’t have eye contact but psychologically, we have a similar feeling.  We don’t want to say no and this allows Friend Farmers to use you as a number.

What is a Friend Farmer?

A Friend Farmer is a person who seeks to add as many friends as possible with no intention of engaging them on a personal level.  In most cases, the intent is to generate a list of people to blast messages via posts or messages or  send repeated friend, fan/like page, and event requests.

So what are some types of friend farmers?

“So and so has so many friends, they must be popular“

I always get a kick out of it when I see I have mutual friends with someone so I say, “how do you know ‘so and so’?” And the response is “I don’t, they just added me on Facebook.”  Friend Farmer’s rely on the kindness of humanity and request people to be their friend with no real desire to engage or interact with anyone.

“I’m an Expert: I have (this many) Facebook Friends“

In the social media realm, there are a lot of  ’experts’ around and they are staking their expertise on the fact that they have an account with a lot of friends.  How nice.  Question: If you walked in a room could you recognize most of them?  The answer is usually no, and the reason is that many experts are simply adding friends for numbers to appear more popular.

How to Spot a Friend Farmer

If the purpose of becoming friends online is to engage and interact the the easiest way to recognize a friend farmer is by how engaging they are.

First, when they update their status or post something, how many of their friends actually engage them?  My personal goal is 1 – 2%.  If I have 1000 friends, I would expect 10 to 20 interactions on my postings.  (This is in no way an industry standard, but a good indicator for me of how engaged my friends are).

Second, how often do they engage others?  For every one post, how much time does the person with tons of friends spend engaging (or commenting) on the posts of others?  If you look at someone’s page and all you see is them posting updates and they never comment, in my opinion that’s the equivalent of giving a speech or talking to yourself.

Contrary to popular belief, social networking isn’t about the you.  Its about your connections and how well you engage them.  If your intention is to grow your sphere of influence, be engaging.  Send a personal message with your request, and engage your new friends by commenting on and/or liking what they post.

If your intention is to gain as many friends as possible, remember the popular guy in high school?  Where is he now?

Facebook Fan Pages are all the rage and with good reason: Every business that deals with people needs one because Facebook is where the people are! Problem is most business owners are busy, don’t have time and would simply prefer to have someone else do it for them.  Facebook “experts” everywhere are offering to help create with the ‘difficult’ task of creating Fan Pages for busy professionals who want them.  Fact is, a basic Fan Page is very easy to create and sometimes you’ll hear someone say “sure, I can do it for you,” but before you let them, here are a few pointers to ensure that your Fan Page is the property of your business.

The Creator has the Power:

Fan Pages must be created though an existing Facebook Profile.  The profile that creates the account will always have primarly administrative control over the Fan Page forever.  So what does that mean?  It means that person has indefinite control over the operation and destiny of your Fan Page.  Yes you can be the admin privileges of the Page, the creator can never be removed.

I know you may be thinking: What could Possibly go wrong?  Well here are a few examples:

The Disgruntled Employee:

So you have an employee who’s a Facebook ‘expert’ and they offer to create the Fan Page for your business and even manage it.  Well, six months from now, there is a slow economy or something else that forces you to lay them off or fire them and they decide to delete your Page and the 800 Fans you’ve generated and you have no legal discourse.

The friend or associate who claims to be a ‘Facebook expert’:

First of all, there is no such thing as a Social Media or Facebook ‘expert’. Second, similar to the disgruntled employee, friends often have disagreements that lead to ended friendships. You never want to be pessamistic about friendships, you have to be realistic as a business owner and know that you have to be prepared for the worst and in this situation, it isnt much to ask a friend to give you primary control of what’s already yours.

What if the person who owns your account gets flagged for spam?  What if their account gets deleted or they delete the account themselves?  Consider all these factors considered when creating your Fan Page and make your final decision to be that the page will be created in your name through your profile OR get ownership in writing!  Claim what’s yours!

Are you using social media to grow your business? I get a lot of questions from business owners and other busy professionals about how to develop strategies for business growth using social media. My goal has always been try to simplify the social networking equation, and through my calculations I have determined that social media can be simply describe down to a three step process that when implemented properly can explode your business online and in person.

Having a well developed social media profile on a website like LinkedIn or Facebook is the first step toward growing your online presence. Before you can attempt to share a single product or service online, you must first be able to sell yourself (branding if you will). Branding yourself as a person first and not a sales robot instantly creates a unimposing medium for your friends and potential customers to become aware of who you are and hopefully what you do.

Blogging is simply a medium for relevant material. And what is relevant is relative to the viewer. First you have to find out what is relevant to your target audience, then you use your blog to convert that material into a format that is attractive to them. The more relevant material you provide, the more your expertise becomes apparent and your popularity grows.

Cycle of Social Media

Finally, you need the website you probably already have. What you don’t know is that unless you have something and/or someone pointing to your website, you’re probably wasting valuable time and money that you put into it. Blogging and social media outlets do the pointing for you. On the surface, they give people a reason to want to know more about you. Beneath, they are a free way to lead the google spiders right to your website.

The key is constantly having your social media trifecta pointing at something of relevance. Your blogs and profiles should always be pointing at your website and vice versa. Constantly be looking for relevant links, events, and other info you can share with your target audience. When they see value in what you have to share, they will also see value in and want to do business with you.