Congratulations, through some source or search I’ve conducted, I’ve landed on your website. I like what you have to say about the particular topic I’m currently reading. I want to hear more from you in the future, but I’m lazy, I like to have content force-fed to me, so, since you don’t seem to believe in RSS and its magical wonders, I won’t be back (most likely).

The number of news and information resource sites on the web that still don’t use RSS technology overwhelms me. It’s such a simple thing to implement, and it is such a great way to encourage that oh-so-sought-after returning visitor. Sure, there are some sites that people will naturally return to because of their very nature, i.e their local news site. Before lubbockonline.com had RSS, I did return to the site, but not nearly as often as I do now that they have RSS enabled.

Just Enabling RSS Isn’t The Answer

Okay, so you’ve realized that RSS is important, and you’ve enabled it. However, you’re stingy with your content. You’re afraid that if you put all of your post/article into the feed, then I won’t actually visit your site any more. So instead, you decide to just allow the headlines and a brief (and undoubtedly) vague summary of the post/article. Or worse, you just put the headlines in to the feed. WRONG.

Let me read what you have to say. I subscribed for that very reason. Don’t annoy me (and potentially cause me to unsubscribe) because you are stingy. “But, my advertisers want traffic to the website” you might be saying. True, advertisers are focused on maximizing their exposure, and for good reason. The way I see it, there are three ways to look at this:

1. Pretend you’ll get more website traffic by not encouraging RSS subscriptions (wrong).
2. Realize that more RSS readers equals more return visitors (and therefore more engaged and qualified visitors). Advertisers don’t just want traffic, they want traffic that is the right kind – return visitors offer them much better touch-point abilities.
3. Use RSS as an opportunity to get MORE advertising revenue by selling advertising inside your RSS feeds. There are multiple companies that provide this service. Google AdSense, Pheedo, and I’m sure there are others.

I usually read the articles in my Google Reader every morning (even on the weekends). If you don’t offer an RSS feed subscription when I get to your website, you are missing an opportunity to put your website, your brand, and your advertisers in front of me on a daily basis.

Did I miss something, though? Do you have a good reason for not including an RSS feed on your website? I’d love to hear what it is; maybe you can open my eyes to something I didn’t think of before. Let me hear about it in the comments below.

For the past couple of days, there has been lots of buzz around Google’s latest attempt at social media. There have been countless reactions to the new product, from glowing praise to raving anger.

Google has dipped it’s toes in social media before, and has in most cases, completely missed the mark. Google Buzz, however, some felt, had/has promise. At the very least, it has been regarded as Google’s best attempt at social media to date. While this may be true, I think Google is being awfully Microsoft-esque about it.

There were numerous headlines on blogs and news sites that made claims similar to “Google Buzz: Twitter and Facebook Killer.” This couldn’t be further from the truth.

There are three major flaws to Google Buzz, right out of the gate:

1. You have to be a Gmail user. Lame. Admittedly, I’m a Gmail user, but – and this is a big but – I do not give it out freely and I certainly don’t want to just so I can use this service. I’m convinced I’m not the only one that feels this way. One of the greatest things about Twitter, Facebook, and even LinkedIn is that they have established their network around the concept of a profile instead of an email address.
2. Google has completely disregarded people’s desire for privacy by making you follow all of your Gmail contacts automatically as soon as you sign up for the service. On top of the fact that you may not want to follow all of these people right out of the gate, Google ruins it even more by displaying the people you follow on your public profile without so much as a mention that they are going to do so. For more on this read this great article by Business Insider: WARNING: Google Buzz Has A Huge Privacy Flaw
3. Google is exposing your home address. And you probably didn’t even know it. Sure, when you’re on your iPhone or other smartphone and you’re playing with Google Buzz it asks you if you are okay with letting Google Buzz use your current location; but I don’t think most people realize that Google is going to take that location and turn it into an address. I know I didn’t really think of it that way at first; my initial thought was that it would just be a general proximity, whoops. I looked at all the buzz activity that was near me and discovered that I could stalked by just about anyone who wanted to, if they were so inclined and I decided to actually use Google Buzz. That’s just creepy. No thanks.

Definitely not a Twitter/Facebook killer if you ask me. People already fear Google’s overwhelming ability to invade people’s privacy. With Google Buzz and the unfortunate methods by which Google has released it without being more proactive about protecting people’s privacy, I believe Google has yet again proven that it doesn’t know what the heck it’s doing when it comes to social media. Even Yahoo! got the chance to punch the big kid in the nose, stating on Twitter: “Two years after #Yahoo! launched #Buzz, Google follows suit. Check out the original: http://buzz.yahoo.com/”

This is a situation where Google should learn from it’s “evil-doing” nemesis Microsoft, and listen to Business Insider when they say, “Enough, Google — Just Buy Twitter Already.” Microsoft owns a portion of Facebook - smart, especially considering Facebook is giving even Google a run for it’s money when it comes to daily traffic. If Google really wants to stir up the social media world, they’d invest in a platform that has proven successful already – Twitter.

People Don’t Want or Need Another Social Network

I don’t have the slightest clue how many social networks have been started and/or failed in the last 10 years – and I’m not interested in taking any time to do any research on the matter, either. I do know this, though, of all the networks out there, only three really seem to have been successful enough to find their way into smaller communities like Lubbock.

See, in Lubbock, I am given a front-seat view of which trends will stick around and which will die. I consider the local adoption of new technology a good way to read the pulse of the long-term potential of a new thing. Sure, the Texas Tech students jump on the bandwagon early with a lot of things. But the business owners, working professionals, and the stay-at-home parents are usually very late to the party. Twitter has already passed the peak of media promotion, and yet, there are still numerous people in Lubbock that don’t even know how it works or what it’s all about. They’ve heard of it. They’re learning about it, and they are joining the party, but we are well past the curve compared to bigger metropolitan areas. The same goes for LinkedIn. Facebook caught on quite early though.

When I talk to my clients about social media, I can mention companies like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter (and in that order) and generally get at least an acknowledgement of having heard the names. If I mention Google Buzz, I suspect I won’t find anyone that has even heard of it for at least the next 3 months (unless they are friend or in the industry). To me, that is the measure of a social media success – how fast the normally late-adopters join the party.

People are already worn out by the existing social networks. Google has arrived late to the party, and not in the “guy that shows up just in time to get ready for the after-party” kind of way either. Google has arrived when all the cool kids have already left for the after-party and now they look like a big dork.

Overall, my prediction for Google Buzz: yet another Google social media fail. Unless, of course, they make some drastic changes and/or I’ve completely missed something. What are your thoughts? Have you messed with Google Buzz yet? Do you think it will kill Twitter/Facebook?

When Al Gore invented the Internet the Internet was new, few people expected it to become as commonplace as it is today. Now that it is, many traditional media outlets are suffering the wrath of innovation. I don’t know who first said, “Change or die!” but the message can be applied to all facets of life, especially newspapers in this critical transitional period. The cliché’s undeniable truth is clearly illustrated with the current ill-fated demise that newspapers across the country are experiencing on a daily basis; including Lubbock’s own Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. The A-J recently put the sticker you see in the above picture on a distribution of papers.

The picture is a little fuzzy, the phrase is:

Attention Lubbock Businesses!
-FRONT PAGE ADVERTISING-
Reach 1,000s of Households for Less Than the Price of Postage!
Call to hear a
FREE
24HR RECORDED
*Exclusive” Message
800-530-4585 / EXT 55

I am confident that the saving grace of our written news will soon reveal itself in the form of ereaders or similar devices. Many predicted the new Apple iPad would be the magic solution prior to its release. Now that’s it’s here, I think people are far less convinced. I personally don’t think printed newspaper readers will make the jump on a wide scale for at least 5 more years. I still like to touch the paper; I like being able to cut out the comics that made me laugh and put them on the refrigerator. I know I’m not the only one that feels this way.

The inherent problem with change isn’t the predecessor or the successor; rather it is the intersection of the two. Right now is that unbearable time where people give up on the old, yet haven’t adopted the new. This is the true killer of newspapers. In 5 years, the newspapers that survive this transition period will be the ones that we’ll all be reading on our tablets, our phones, our laptops, our netbooks (heh, that’s funny, my computer thinks netbooks is misspelled), and even our TVs.

The newspapers that find a way to monetize their online versions (something none of them have found a way to master yet) before they lose the majority of their old-style print-version subscribers will be the success stories we’ll be getting our information from (as we’re reading about the good ol’ days and being nostalgic about our old newspapers that we used to read and clip articles and comics out of). Those that fail to keep their revenues up while in this transition period will undoubtedly fail or be forced into a less-than perfect circumstance.

Opportunity in the Wake

Many advertisers have seen this as their queue to run for the digital hills, and in many cases, rightfully so. However, as the above image illustrates, the drastic decline in printed newspaper advertisers provides tremendous leverage for those businesses that can still gain from advertising in the newspaper. Print newspaper advertising is more affordable than ever. If it makes sense for your business to advertise in the newspaper, take advantage of the fact that so many businesses have pulled out of newspapers.

Twitter has exploded past the mainstream growth curve and is finding its way into marketing programs that are run by people with little to no experience using social media as a community building tool with a marketing mindset.

When rookies join Twitter on behalf of the companies or programs they work for, veterans can sniff them out in a split-second. And when this happens, your chances of Twitter promotional success are destined for failure. Want to make sure your prospective customers follow you instead of shaking their heads in disgust and moving on? Be sure NOT to do any of the following:

• Use a default avatar. This is by far one of the fastest ways to be ignored on Twitter, even by not-so-veteran users. It shows that you’re lazy, uncreative, and probably not in the right mindset for the Twitter community. It’s obvious all you care about is spamming people with your promotion.
• Use a default background. Okay, this one is not quite as bad as using a default avatar, but not by much. It still shows that you’re lazy and uncreative.
• Use the wrong background. Perhaps worse than using a default background is using one that associates your program with the wrong message. For example, don’t make the same mistake of one local branch’s Twitter account for a coupon program of using a picture of a local Mormon church as their background. Especially don’t use a picture of something when you don’t even know what it is a picture of (which is what this group did). A coupon program and a Mormon church don’t go together, unless the program is going to be funding the church in some way through proceeds.
• Follow 5x to 20x more people than are following you. When you follow a ton of people, and they don’t follow you back, even more people are not going to follow you back. It’s obvious to veterans and non-veterans alike that you don’t know what you’re doing, and you’re on Twitter for the wrong reasons. If your following count is 653 and your followers count is 54, you’ve got it wrong.
• Retweet people and promote yourself in the same tweet. Retweeting is commonly considered a large compliment in the Twitterverse. But when used incorrectly, it’s annoying to veterans and non-veterans alike. People care about retweets when they useful messages, not you taking an opportunity to promote yourself because someone happened to mention something related to your program.
• Not engage in actual conversation with other people on Twitter. Twitter is a social community, not a place for you to blast your marketing messages at people. Just because you happen to retweet someone, also, does not mean you are having conversation with them. Using an @ reply to send someone a marketing message also does not qualify as a conversation either.
• Only post a few posts to Twitter. This is almost always followed by spam-following 500 people, furthering the frustration on the part of those being followed. People enjoy being followed, but not amateurs, they want to be followed by people that they can connect with.

Don’t be an amateur

Before you jump on Twitter and make it painfully obvious that you don’t know what you’re doing, read some of these great articles on how to use Twitter for marketing effectively. They are written by people that have proven track records in the social network, and should be listened to.

Chris Brogan

• How to Manage Twitter
• Get More Twitter Followers TODAY
• How I Tweet – A FAQ

MarketingProfs

• Making Twitter Success Measurable
• The Dark Side of Twitter: What Businesses Need to Know
• Social Media 101: Use Twitter To Attract Prospects and Engage Customers

Mashable.com

• The Twitter Guide Book
• FOLLOW FAIL: The Top 10 Reasons I Will Not Follow You in Return on Twitter
• Twitter Marketing: Free Downloads for Your Tweets
• 40 of the Best Twitter Brands and the People Behind Them
• Twitter Promotion Done Right: #moonfruit

I’m just spit-balling here, but I’d guess that if you looked at all of the creative and many business agencies in the world today, you’d probably find that at least half of them use the phrase “think outside the box,” or something strikingly similar. The term is a cliché. And in my opinion, the concept itself is just wrong.

Take a moment to think back to what it was like when you were a kid – or if you have kids, think back to the last Christmas or birthday you celebrated together. Boxes were very special things. Many times they were more special than the objects/toys that came packaged so neatly inside them. Whatever that toy was that can in the box, even if it did a bunch of cool things, was still just a toy that did those things. Now, a box, that’s a completely different story. A box can be anything, as long as you use some creative power.

I recently watched the video below of a TED talk given by Tim Brown on creativity and play.

Direct Link to video
Tim Brown’s profile on TED

He mentions that one of the interesting things about when you ask adults to be creative, is that you will hear many of them saying, “sorry.” He correlates this to us being afraid of sharing our ideas for fear of rejection – thereby hindering our own creativity. Children, on the other hand, typically are very liberal in their application of creativity to the world around them.

I Challenge You To Think INSIDE and AROUND the Box

Why think outside the box? When you give a kid a box, they will turn it into a number of things. They have more fun with the boxes on Christmas than they do with the toys inside of them. Toys typically only do one thing; a box can be a thousand things.

Think inside and around the box. Find innovative ways to turn the box into something completely different. Some of the best ideas come from improving existing things. There are many examples of this, but my personal favorite is Twitter. They took the concept of a status message and turned it into a social revolution that has forever changed the online landscape.

What do you think? How do you find new ways to think inside the box in your life, at work, with your family? Do you apologize when you make attempts at being creative?

Chris Brogan is a highly respected social media veteran; he has posted a great video of a discussion about social media between himself and Joe Sorge, who runs AJ Bomers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and a few other restaurants in town.

Original post by Chris Brogan here
Direct link to the video here

Restaurants, Bars and Social Media – A Match Made in Heaven

Built by Twitter

Joe Sorge, in the video, matter-of-factly proclaims, “AJ Bombers was built by Twitter.” He explains that AJ Bombers and some of the other restaurants and bars he runs owe most if not all of their success to the power of Twitter. He uses Twitter to promote specials, and to promote his other restaurants for those people that may not want to come out to AJ Bombers that night.

Social Media Promotion Ideas

• First, make sure you include your Twitter address everywhere your name appears: menus, blackboards, websites (where you have a link to your Twitter and Facebook pages), Facebook pages (and you should put a link to your Facebook page on your Twitter page), put it everywhere.
• Offer a prize for people who follow you. For example: “Follow us by 5pm cst to be entered to win a free dinner for two on us!”
• Promote a Twitter-only special.
• Promote a Facebook-only special.
• Ask followers for feedback on something specific. You could ask them if they liked the new menu items, or if they would like to see a particular band come and play.
• Promote a happy-hour event, a new or returning band. The key here is to make these different each time. If you promote the same thing every day, people will tune you out.
• “Twitter Tuesday” is an easy to remember slogan that can be very powerful to use
• Use your businesses name as a #hashtag and encourage everyone to use it. Put a monitor up on the wall in your location and stream mentions of your businesses so that everyone in the place can keep up while they are there.

Your Own Social Media Community

A really cool way to encourage a community following via Twitter for AJ Bombers was to let people put “Twitter graffiti” on the walls and tables of the bar. People wrote their Twitter names and all sorts of self-promotion, names like @ironcupcakemike and @jungbow are all over the walls at AJ Bombers further engraving the concept of the tight-knit community of people that have been or regularly go to AJ Bombers.

If you aren’t comfortable letting people write on your walls, find some other way to encourage your patrons to connect with each other outside of your location. A great way to do this is to come up with interesting to-dos on Foursquare – a new social media tool designed specifically for the purpose of connecting with other people in the same geographic area. Come up with Foursquare Mayor Specials and promote them on Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare.

Interact, Involve, Improve

The critical factor to successfully building a social media community is to make sure you reach out to your customers. Ask them questions. Thank them when they mention your business. Give them helpful suggestions. And even more importantly, listen to what they are saying. Involve them in your future planning; what items should you put on your menu, what specials they would like to see, etc. Improve you business by interacting with your community, involving them in the future success of your business.

Not Just Food Service

Retailers, hair and nail salons, department stores, grocery stores, even specialty designers can take advantage of forming an online community using social media tools. Take this example of Rebecca Minkoff, a designer and founder of Rebecca Minkoff handbags. She posted this message to Twitter:

And 3 minutes later she posted this message to Twitter:

Considering the fact that most of her items sell between the $300 and $500 price, she was able to produce at least $750 in sales (minimum) in a span of 3 minutes. That’s the power of Twitter and social networks.

What About You? How Are You Building Your Online Community?

Have some other creative ways you’ve seen Twitter/Facebook used to generate business through the use of a community? Add to the conversation in the comments below.

In a recession-driven economy, when other competitors are cutting back on their marketing plans because they are costing them too much money, you can take advantage of their slow-down by increasing your efforts – and with these free ideas, you can do it without spending any more money.

1) Start a Blog

If you do, or if you don’t have a website, a blog is a great way to provide useful information to your existing and prospective customers – or just people that may be interested in your business or industry. Blogs are powerful tools that search engines love; when they are updated frequently. Dread the idea of having to write? No problem, if you can at least come up with useful topic suggestions, you can outsource the writing to  a copywriter that will turn your topic ideas into blog posts (this part wouldn’t be free, but it would still be worth it if you hate writing).

Great resources for learning about starting a blog:

• Problogger
• Blogussion
• Copyblogger

Places to find an inexpensive copywriter (or just Google ‘copywriter’):

• Writers on Guru.com
• Writers on oDesk.com

2) Join Social Networks

Unless you’ve been locked away in a time capsule, you’ve heard about social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Even if you don’t quite understand their usefulness for your specific business at this point, join the networks anyway and start listening to what your customers and prospective customers are saying about your industry and about things in general. Learn what they like, what they don’t like, and modify your marketing approaches accordingly. Then, when you see an opportunity present itself, start engaging people through the networks.

3) Make Sure you’re listed on Local Search Engines

Sure, everyone knows that being at the top of Google is the holy grail of business. But many businesses don’t realize they have the ability to control how they show up in the local searches (these are different than regular search results listings) as well. You know, where they list multiple businesses in the area on a map (do a search for your business with your city name after it and you should see what I’m talking about if you don’t know already). Google, Yahoo!, and Bing all offer this ability; if you’re not taking steps to make sure you show up in these results the right way, you’re taking the chance of letting something else control it (i.e. that misprinted phone-book listing from 3 years ago that you can’t seem to get the phone book company to fix).

• Google Local Business Center
• Yahoo! Local Listings
• Bing Local Listing Center

4) Give Something Free, Volunteer or Perform Pro-Bono Work for Non-Profits

One of the best ways to get your name into the local community is to provide your services and/or products for free to local non-profits. Most non-profits are managed by a board of directors which typically consists of local community leaders and business owners – people that would be great for spreading the word about your business! We all know how great a personal recommendation from a friend is. Imagine the influx of business you would receive if a respected city-council person told their friends about your wonderful catering services or how knowledgeable you are in your field because they saw you in action at the last charity luncheon.

5) Incentive Programs for Current Customers

Word-of-Mouth is by far the greatest weapon in the marketing arsenal – for better or worse. It has been said that a happy customer will tell 3-5 people and an unhappy customer will tell the world (or something like that). Both have incredibly lasting effect on the success/failure of your business. Encourage the happy customers to do more of the talking by doing two things: 1) be awesome at what you do, and 2) give customers that have actually paid for your product or service an exclusive incentive to promote your business. Send a direct mail piece only to them, or an email that is only for them, and if you have the technical wherewithal, setup a login only page on your website for them to access and get more information about the incentive program.

6) Setup Google Analytics and Quantcast Tracking on your Website

It’s incredibly difficult to organize a successful marketing campaign when you don’t know how your customers are finding you now. When you have information about where they come from, how they heard about you, and what demographic sub-group they are from, your marketing campaigns can be markedly improved. Both Google Analytics and Quantcast are free services that provide more data than the average business would ever have the ability to consume about their customers and prospective customers that visit their website and/or blog.

• Google Analytics
• Quantcast

7) Setup a Callfire or Similar Phone Call Tracking Service

Phone book companies may have tried to sell you on tracking numbers, you may have even bought one; what if you have a listing or ad in multiple categories in the phone book, that one number doesn’t help you know which ad is actually generating the most calls. With a service like Callfire, you are able to setup an inexpensive tracking number – both local and toll-free numbers are available – for ALL of your individual marketing pieces. This will give you incredible insight on which promotional products, billboard ads, newspaper ads, social media campaigns, etc are actually generating calls to your business.

• Callfire Call Tracking

BONUS: What are your ideas?

Seven is a fairly short list. What FREE marketing ideas do you have or have you implemented successfully? Add them in the comments below.

A good friend of mine who also happens to be an up-and-coming MMA insider, has recently started actively using Twitter – partly, I claim, because of my constant prodding. He brought up an interesting point today: should you use “teaser” tweets to get people interested in something you are working on? Or are teaser tweets simply an annoyance in the already clogged data stream that is Twitter?

Personally, I don’t like teaser tweets, simply because I value my time dearly. I want to read what the people I follow on Twitter have to say – if I didn’t, I wouldn’t follow them, but I don’t enjoy reading messages that don’t carry much meaning, which, in my opinion is typically where teaser tweets get categorized.

I am an instant gratification type of person – if I don’t get it right now, I probably won’t get it. My wife accuses me of this all the time – I’m impulsive, I’ll admit it. I’m impulsive in both directions, though. If I want something bad enough, I get it right then. However, on the opposite hand, if I don’t get something right then, I tend to believe “it wasn’t meant to be,” and/or “I obviously don’t want it bad enough to actually get it,” so I typically let that thing fall off of my radar – at least for a while.

This is particularly true for information/news/blog posts. If it isn’t available right now, I am not (typically) going to go to the effort to setup a reminder for myself to catch it when it becomes available later.

That’s me, though. What do you think? Are teaser tweets a good idea, or a bad one? Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Thanks to the awesome work of the peeps over at Brave New Code my blog readers can now read my posts on the go on their iPhone! I am using their ridiculously awesome iPhone theme plugin for Wordpress called WPTouch. If you have an iPhone, check out my blog on it!

As an added bonus, I learned how to take a screenshot on my iPhone today. It’s actually really simple (no real surprise there): you just press both the lock and home key at the same time. If you don’t know where those buttons are, there is a graphic below to help out (graphic and process credit – Daniel Nations at Examiner):

If you check it out, let me know by commenting below.

You wouldn’t go to a party with duct tape on your mouth, so why would you make your Twitter account private?

Twitter is a social media network. Granted, social can mean a private social club, but that isn’t what Twitter is all about. Twitter is about connecting with the world, whether that’s people in your local neighborhood, or people across the planet.

It’s about being approachable, not snobbish

That’s right, I said snobbish. I think people that have private Twitter accounts are snobs. They think that the conversations they have with their “friends” on Twitter are too exclusive to share with the world.

If you’re on Twitter, you’re theoretically there to take part in the community Twitter has created. The concept of sharing information, resources, and bits of life is the foundation of Twitter’s success. If everyone suddenly decided to make their accounts private, the success of Twitter would come to a screeching halt.

For work groups, private accounts do make sense

Okay, so there is one good reason I can come up with for people to have a private Twitter account – if they are using Twitter to communicate within a work group. If your private account falls into this category, then apologies for calling you a snob.

If your organization is using Twitter in a work group, I would actually be intrigued to see what impact it is having on productivity. Is it helping with productivity, or is it hurting? Do your employees like using it, or do they simply revert back to traditional “get up and go talk to the person” actions?

What do you think?

Do you use Twitter with a private account? If so, tell me why, maybe I’m completely off-base with this snob-thing. Do you agree with me? Do you think people with private Twitter accounts come off as snobbish? Let me know in the comments below.