So what exactly is Google Buzz? Buzz combines all of the social networking attributes like conversing, sharing and updating  -- all within the existing Gmail and Google.com infrastructure.

Buzz's features include:

FRIENDS LISTS - friends are added automatically who you have emailed on Gmail (there is also public and private sharing if you so desire)

SHARING - combines sources like Picasa and Twitter into a single feed, and it includes full-sized photo browsing

REAL TIME INTEGRATION - instead of emailing you with updates, like Facebook, Buzz features emails that update dynamically with all Buzz thread content

RECOMMENDATIONS - puts friend-of-friend content into your stream, even if you're not acquainted. Recommendations learn over time with your feedback.

To see how it all 'comes together' - view the latest YouTube video on Buzz:

Best

Denice MacDonald

In a recent Mashable post The Maturation of Social Media ROI; Brian Solis helps C-suite execs understand the validity and moving ROI target of social media. Is anybody getting this 'measurement thing' right? 

It is quite apparent that social media strategists in their eagerness to prove social media's importance are literally creating bogus measures of performance – not to mention their own jargon to explain results – or lack of results.   

Organizations need to establish what needs to be accomplished, what should be conveyed and what should be measured before any actual engagement. Like most campaigns that require integration and defined ROI, begin connecting social media activity with a clearly defined end game.

To learn more about ROI, social media and the strategies that bind, read The Maturation of Social Media ROI.

.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .   .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     . 

Brian Solis is a principal at new media agency FutureWorks, and author of the upcoming book, Engage. You can connect with him on Twitter or Facebook. 

Best

Denice MacDonald 

In today’s plethora of blogs, tweets and slideshare, how can you increase search engine rankings for your own organization? Simply by using social networks to help elevate your brand presence.

For example, I read and routinely respond to industry blogs that have a similar audience as MacDonald Consulting. 

Of particular interest is a blog response to an associate I’ve done work with:

Likewise, I take every opportunity I can to respond to questions on LinkedIn - hallmarking my industry breadth while helping fellow colleagues to be successful:   

Lastly, I’m asked permission to use my blog as an example in this scenario:   

This interaction has garnered MacDonald Consulting high rankings in Google search results while aiding in expanding my own social network.

Take some time each week to answer blogs, syndicate your own blog content and answer LinkedIn questions. See what happens. You’ll be amazed how quickly your own personal rankings now appear on first page results.

Best

Denice MacDonald

As Twitter continues to dominate the Internet, we can naturally conclude that users are adding more and more followers each day. How will you stand out as a differentiated brand amidst all the noise and thousands of other tweets?

1. Elevate Your Brand Name

Smart brands use Twitter in meaningful ways, and most of them use their brand name as a way to make sure customers can find and recognize them. See how these top brands are elevating their presence through creative use of their unique 'twitter' value proposition.

Resource: 40 of the Best Twitter Brands and the People Behind Them 

2. Custom Twitter Backgrounds

Most Twitter follows scan their tweets quickly to find what is of interest to them. In order to standout, you can begin to use images or custom backgrounds to get noticed.

Customer Backgrounds: TwitterImage 

3. Build Your Twitter Brand with Memes

Hash tags are ways to denote an important tag word used in a Twitter update. The purpose in doing so is to build a community around a given tag word, which encourages more activity around a topic of interest. Search engines and dedicated Twitter memes can pick up on these hash-tagged keywords and provide a streamlined, niche set of Twitter updates relevant to that topic of interest. It can also help you build your brand.

Global Tags for Twitter (Updated Daily): Twemes 

Great Resource:

50 Useful Twitter Tools for Writers and Researchers 

Related Posts:

Twitter Can Be a Real Tweet

Can't Get Enough of Twitter: It's Become Universal!

Best

Denice MacDonald

The application of social video - often referred to as using the strategy of video as the central piece for social interaction and storytelling online - is beginning to grow rapidly.  

Take for example Samsung's HD Camera Phone Trick. That YouTube clip was created and produced for Samsung Mobile by London's Viral Factory. Its traffic and engagement patterns were tracked and analyzed by Visible Measures – with unprecedented results.  

The social video piece was specifically designed for social interaction – prompting the consumer to take the challenge and solve the puzzle. The formula was a simple one (you’ll need to view to see why). To be perfectly honest – I was drawn in and wanted to take the challenge!       

What does this engaging video tell us? 

1. Modern brand building with social video is a necessary part of the marketing mix
2. Due to its authenticity, engagement with video is beginning to rank higher and more desirable in comparison to TV viewing or radio broadcast
3. Bottom-line, people like to watch video, share it and get involved with it making it a natural word of mouth strategy

Obviously, everyone who uses social video as part of their marketing mix is curious about direct measurement – meaning, does it really work and feed the bottom-line?

As social video become more active, click thru activity as well as viewing and registration are good indicators of brand lift, interaction and sharing offering much better results than highly charged broadcast metrics. Based on the Samsung example – how could argue with its success?  

BTW – there’s a follow-on video that reveals the puzzle. Here’s the answer. 

Best

Denice MacDonald

You've spent a lot of time building up your reputation and image both online and off, so it's important to make sure that someone or something has not jeopardized your brand.

One of the simplest and easiest ways to track your reputation is to use Google Alerts. With this free service, you can search either all of Google's properties, or you can specify that only News, Blogs, Web, Video, or Groups is searched. You can then configure the Alerts results to be emailed to you either as it happens, once a day, or once a week. There is also a page where you can edit the alerts once they are created or delete them when they are no longer in use. 

If making a good name for yourself online is a priority, it's time to take a proactive approach to getting your name out there the way you want.  

BUSINESS SOCIAL NETWORKS – Complete your profile in its entirety and connect with key professionals in your network.

BLOGS – Consider a business blog and one that you contribute to – showing you are a thought leader will aid in elevating you or your products in your industry. Likewise, use blogs to amend or respond to bad hype.

WEB 2.0 PR – Get news interviews, podcasts, webinars with clients 'live' online. Third party testimonials by key constituents regarding your products and services will go a long way in building brand reputation.

LINKING – If you have a web site, consider carefully where and how inbound and outbound links are connected – bad links will reflect poorly on your brand.

SUB-DOMAINS - Add a sub-domain for careers, corporate and/or product info for little or no cost.  Not only will sub-domains elevate your search results but add depth to your reputation.

PPC/ONLINE ADVERTISING – This can only help protect your brand and will help influence visitors to see who is the real website that should be visited.

SEARCH - Take control of the visible results of any search related to your brand. By taking a coordinated approach to search engine optimization, you take greater control of the other nine slots.  

FREE MONITORING TOOLS:

Similarly to Google Alerts, Yahoo! Pipes is also a good tool for aggregating and combining feeds into one central repository.

Using Twitter search you can locate any instances of your name and decide whether you want to tweet back or ignore them. 

If you have a blog, then you have to be on Technorati. Technorati tracks “blog reactions,” or blogs that link to yours. Search for your brand on Technorati, and subscribe to RSS alerts so that when someone blogs about you, you find out.

Yacktrack lets you search for comments on your content from various sources, such as Blogger, Digg, FriendFeed, Stumbleupon, and Wordpress blogs.

Best,

Denice MacDonald

Website Magazine's March, 2010 cover story is about social media for business. And, as an educated audience of Web professionals in the industry, they want your input!

Please take just a couple of minutes to take their 2010 Social Media Initiatives survey. They want to know how social media is affecting your business, and what some of your objectives might be in 2010.

The survey is very brief, and they will share responses (anonymously, in aggregate) with all of their readers in the upcoming issue of Website Magazine. 

Take the survey now.  

Why should you care?

Social Media is getting quite a bit of hype – but is anyone truly doing it correctly?  With a lot of chatter and just plain noise – web strategist may need to get back to the basics: who is the intended audience and is the organization creating the right conversation that invokes engagement and sharing? I’ll be anxious to share the results of what others are doing in 2010.

More About Website Magazine (Denice's favorite web resource)

Website Magazine is the one magazine to focus exclusively on the business of running a website: tips for successful websites, solutions for enhancing website traffic, the latest Internet industry trends and statistics, as well as news analysis on the Internet industry.

Subscriptions (complimentary and professional/print and online)

Advertise (lots of opportunities and great pricing)

Best

Denice MacDonald

As always in January, we start to see a plethora of web predictions for the year. This year is not any different with the marked transition of mobile video, Android technology and geo mapping. In my estimation, the top technology to watch will be Social CRM.

We’ve seen the rise of Twitter and Facebook as social communication tools. This year, those modes of real-time communication will find their way deeper into the enterprise. Salesforce.com is set to launch Chatter, its real-time stream of enterprise data which interfaces with Twitter and Facebook and turn them into business tools. Startups like Yammer and Bantam Live are also making business more social.

As recently as last March, Jeremiah Owyang was blogging on The Future of Twitter: Social CRM. In that blog, Jeremiah inferred the various directions Twitter could go: create their own brand management system that they can resell to the world’s companies to monitor, alert, track, prioritize, triage, assign, follow-up, and report on the interactions with brands.

However, there is still one huge quandary – can CRM be ‘automated’ – that is, respond fast enough (daily, by the hour, by the minute) while still providing a personal touch to help and assist customers, continue to build relations and trust?

Again, Jeremiah Owyang presents and interesting blog on Matrix: The Four Social Support Strategies wherein he discusses the various ways in which to interact with customers – specifically the fourth strategy (automated social support) – companies will have the ability to quickly scale by responding to customers faster, and more accurately, using automated responses.

Bottom-line – whatever your social media strategies are for 2010, you’ll need to watch closely the rapidly changing landscape of Social CRM.

Best

Denice MacDonald

Sources:

10 Technologies That Will Rock 2010 by Erick Schonfeld, January, 2010

The Future of Twitter: Social CRM by Jeremiah Owyang, March, 2009

Matrix: The Four Social Support Strategies by Jeremiah Owyang, November, 2009

According to several leading experts, social media is a number one priority in 2010. Social media will be used by organizations to lift their brand, stay connected to customers while using networks to grow their lead-gen pipelines. To learn how your organization can capitalize on what others are doing, check out these ‘top’ resources, articles and blogs from leading subject matter experts.   

Social media on marketers' menu for 2010 by Helen Leggatt, Biz Report   

"It looks like social media is on the menu for most marketers next year. A survey of almost 2,000 MediaPost subscribers found that over half plan to have "a presence on social networks" as part of their marketing mix in 2010..."  

10 Ways Social Media Will Change In 2010 by Ravit Lichtenberg from Ustrategy.com

"It is impossible to separate social media from the online world. Facebook reached 350 million users last month -- 70% of whom are outside the US -- and it accounts for 25% of the Web's traffic, according to Pew nearly one in five people on the web use Twitter or some other service to check status messages, and 94% of enterprises plan to maintain or increase their investment in enterprise social media tools. The social media conversation is no longer considered a Web 2.0 fad -- it is taking place in homes, small businesses and corporate boardrooms, and extending its reach into the nonprofit, education and health sectors. From feeling excitement, novelty, bewilderment, and overwhelmed, a growing number of people now speak of social media as simply another channel or tactic..."

Why You Need A Social Media Policy in 2010 by Vanessa DiMauro, Customer Think   

"Policies are dull. No one wants to create them, no one likes to read them and certainly, few desire the job of enforcing them.  But they can play an important role in outlining the rules of engagement around a particular set of online behaviors and have a strong role to play in the face of new situations where the there are no standards.  This is especially true with the wild west world of social media in business..."  

Six Social Media Trends for 2010 by David Armano, Harvard Business Review   

"In 2009, we saw exponential growth of social media. According to Nielsen Online, Twitter alone grew 1,382% year-over-year in February, registering a total of just more than 7 million unique visitors in the US for the month. Meanwhile, Facebook continued to outpace MySpace. So what could social media look like in 2010? In 2010, social media will get even more popular, more mobile, and more exclusive — at least, that's my guess. What are the near-term trends we could see as soon as next year..."

Best to my network this holiday season!   

Denice MacDonald 

Grooveshark is the most inclusive and fully-featured on-demand music service on the Web. With an unmatched catalog of music, millions of users flock to the site to listen to their favorite artists as well as discover music and share tracks with friends.

Listening to any song instantly, creating playlists to return to later, or simply accessing a quick favorite song are the fundamentals of Grooveshark's offering.

How are they capturing marketshare?

Grooveshark delivers the world's music to the world more easily than any other site online and receives its support from advertising as well as a premium VIP subscription service. In fact, visitors and subscribers can opt out of advertising for $3 per month. 

Also, the much anticipated Grooveshark Mobile applications will further monetize the service and Grooveshark's unique and innovative platform for breaking artists keeps it one step ahead in being a competitive, sustainable and profitable business.

Bottomline, these guys are awesome and you need to check them out! 

Features – see how unique and differentiated Grooveshark is relative to other music on-demand sites 

Free Stuff – all types of wallpaper from Abstract to Shark wallpaper free for download

Join Now – fast, easy and worth it!

Best,

Denice MacDonald 

[Source info and company background taken directly from Grooveshark]  

According to Wikipedia, a review site is a web site on which reviews can be posted about people, businesses, products, or services. These sites may use Web 2.0 techniques to gather reviews from site users or may employ professional writers to author reviews on the topic of concern for the site.

Just for fun, I have compiled a list of review sites for your use and review. Not only can you use these sites personally, but there certainly is a plethora of learning and insight relative to functionality and user interaction. This learning can be translated to both business and consumer web sites. In particular is the wide use of mobile technology.

MOVIES:   Rotten Tomatoes

Fresh or rotten, this site sums up what all of the critics are saying about most every movie and DVD. From ratings to polling’s, you can insure that this site offers ‘transparent’ critiques. 

RESTAURANTS:     Yelp!

Yelp is the fun and easy way to find, review and talk about what’s great – and not so great – in your area. the site includes restaurants, shopping, nightlife and more. By setting up a profile, the site will automatically serve up content that is important to the user - including mobile alerts and content. 

SHOPPING:     RedPearl

RedPearl provides ratings, rankings, and reviews for thousands of web sites including the top sites in over 100 shopping categories. The site is extensive and includes ratings for anything from baby to garden supplies to travel gear. There is definitely something for everyone at this site.

FAMILY FOCUS:     Pluggedin Online

Plugged In is a Focus on the Family publication designed to help equip parents with the essential tools that will enable them to understand, navigate and impact the culture in which they live. Site includes reviews and ratings on TV, DVD, Music and Movies available online and by mobile alerts. 

MUSIC:     MSN Music

MSN Music includes concerts in your area, latest music releases and access to ratings on all types of music genre. The site also includes timely music news, a dedicated blog and mobile downoads. 

Enjoy!

Denice MacDonald

We all have seen the surge in the use of social networks like Facebook and MySpace allowing us to connect in unprecedented ways. The acceptance of social networks has allowed niche networks to flourish - offering topics and resources to specific targeted markets. 

Marketing through social sites 

While these sites' traffic may pale in comparison to the big networks, there's a good opportunity to connect and market to a dedicated audience who might be more open to learning a little more about your product, services or offerings. If you provide real value to members, they will be much more willing to engage your brand. 

Finding that 'niche' social network 

Try spending a some time investigating your industry - chances are there's a network out there where you can promote and/or brand your business to a specific target audience. Begin with associations or affiliations that are tied to your industry segment. Then, research specific topics or issues that resonate with your customers. Yes, your competitors will be right alongside you, but consumers will be there too. And they will be looking for an expert in the field.  

Lastly, if you can’t find a specialized community for your industry, you could always create one.   

Get started: Learning from the best 

How to Identify & Target the Right Niche Social Media Sites  by Chris Winfield

Fastest Growing Niche Social Media Sites and Networks by Jessica Merritt

Nine Ways to Build Your Own Social Network by Mark Hendrickson

Best,

Denice MacDonald

When you mix Jeremiah Owyang, Charlene Li and Forbes – you know for sure that the dialogue on social media and social media marketing has definitely elevated to a fever-pitch.  

In a recent article posted at Forbes, Owyang was able to provide readers a summation of the Forbes CMO Summit recently held in Palm Beach.     

Basically, Owyang contends, the dialogue on social marketing has elevated:  

1. CMOs are on a holding pattern for growth
2. CMOs admitted they were losing power to the empowered consumer
3. Social media was on the lips of nearly everyone
4. Social media is difficult to measure--yet marketers know
   they must be there
5. Beyond monitoring, insight from the social sphere is untapped 

READ THE FULL ARTICLE: 

Behind Closed Doors: What's On The Mind Of Chief Marketing Officers?   

New to Forbes.com? Become a member for free! 

[Article and Photo Credit: Jeremiah Owyang, a Web strategist, is partner, Customer Strategy, at Altimeter Group]

Best

Denice MacDonald

MacDonald Consulting has just been notified by Surchur, the dashboard to right now, that it has launched a new socially powered search feature to add to an already advanced set of real time search tools. BTW - this is on top of a record month in which Surchur outgrew every one of the independent real time search engines on the web.

The socially powered search feature aggregates information from twitter, digg, other social sites and their own site users to give a view into the hottest websites for a given topic.

You can view the new feature by visiting a sample ‘surch’ for “social networking” at http://surchur.com/all/social+networking. The new ‘popular tab’ contains the socially ranked results alongside the original related feature tabs: blogs, social news, news, video, pictures and products.

Also, Surchur, is asking if you or your organization is interested, you can interview their founder, Todd Hogan -- he’d be happy to give you a web demo of just how powerful the new set of features are – and why Surchur will be driving the next wave in real time search innovation.

About [from Surchur website] 

“surchur.com is the ultimate dashboard to right now. Built by a team that is passionate about what the real time web can offer, we're constantly improving and updating our site. Our latest version takes a giant leap forward with a massive social implementation. User input is taking a much needed front seat in determining what we show. Check it out - we think you'll swoon.” 

I highly recommend that you take a look at this great search tool! 

Best

Denice MacDonald

Ahhh….social media and social media marketing are quite the buzz these days. My user groups and close business colleagues remind me how ‘hot’ this topic is.  Although social media can be the silver bullet for some, e-mail marketing is still quite viable for others.

Customers still want to hear from you

Your strongest (and most loyal customers) still want to have a personal interaction with you. E-mail allows a strong format for segmented content to your customers – reminding them of your products, services or news. 

Some prefer to have the message delivered to their in box

Undeniably, no one can underestimate the power of a third party sell through a strong social networking community – but believe it or not, some prefer to have targeted information sent to them routinely, if not daily through e-mail.

E-mail can be delivered based on opt-in parameters from your mail list (what, when and how content is delivered). That way, there is a win/win for both parties: customers get the content they want and you have a way to stay connected - intimately.

Social Media – some not getting it quite right

Overzealous fan pages, corporate pages with no viable links, as well as poor content will lead to a marginal social media experience – possibly eroding any chance that your company will get noticed – nonetheless virally promoted. 

In order for social media to be successful, there needs to be a strong integrated interactive marketing strategy.

Until a strong social media plan is place, continue some form of e-mail marketing to stay connected to your customers.

Other exceptional thought leaders who agree: 

Social Media vs. Email: Which Is A Better Marketing And Communication Channel? By Robin Good, MasterNewMedia  

Social Media Marketing Vs. Email Marketing By John Chow Dot Com 

Is Email Marketing Endangered? By ExactTarget (White Paper Download)                                         

[Photo credit: Vacuum3d from MasterNewMedia Website]

Best

Denice MacDonald

If you are looking for the technology to put your video on the web, the variety of choices can be staggering. That’s because as web video has flourished, so have the number of companies providing the tools to deliver video across the Internet.

Large media companies and individual video bloggers can now choose from among multiple firms when looking for a web video product. Many of the technology providers are quite similar and anyone in the market for a web video platform should 'test the waters' and try out the ones that seem like the best fit.  

Web video technology services can be divided into the following categories:

CONTENT MANAGEMENT: The process of ingesting content, moving it around, converting to different files and organizing video properly before it goes online.

PROGRAMMING AND PUBLISHING: The presentation of the video on the web site, including the player and the playlists.

DISTRIBUTION: Delivering the video across the web, to either the main site or to distribution channels and portals.

MONETIZATION: Making money off the video, by integrating advertising or offering video on a download or pay-per-view basis.

REPORTING: Providing analysis and reports on number of views, length of views and other similar data. 

Check out these vendors and resources: 

Dragonfly (world-class multi-media content delivery network)

Kickapps (great for online communities or any type of 'sharing' portal)

Maven (online video advertising)

Magnify (good for both b2c and b2b)

UPDATED: Video for Mobile, Twitter and YouTube: 

Check out the recent craze for using video in social media campaigns posted October 1st by Adveristing Age: How to Mobilize Your Social Media.

Best

Denice MacDonald

Is Social Media a fad or is it the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution?

Check out this latest YouTube video by Socialnomics to learn how this amazing trend is now a mainstay.

New to Social Media?

Social in Plain English by Commoncraft.com

A simple story that illustrates the forces shaping social media.This video comes in an unbranded "presentation quality" version that can be licensed for use in the workplace - simply go to Common Craft to learn more.

MacDonald Consulting Related Blogs:

Social Media as a Primary Business Tool

Social Networking Can Boost Your Business  

Best

Denice MacDonald

Social recruitment is the practice of leveraging social and professional networks, online and offline, to acquire talent -- and Jobvite is leading the way.

Jobvite, a native SaaS application built on Web 2.0 technologies. is a recruitment application built to involve all employees in the hiring process, leverage their social and professional networks, and manage all aspects of hiring in an easy to use platform that’s effortless to get up and running.

To learn more about Jobvite and what 115 human resources and recruiting professionals said about how they use social recruitment now and the changes they see ahead -- click here.

Report Highlights:

• What social networking sites are used now for recruiting
• What social networking methods recruiters plan to use more this year
• Percentage of hires companies get from employee referrals
• Spending on referral bonuses

This is a very impressive tool built by a very impressive company – Jobvite!

More Resources:

Wanna Job? How many friends do you have on Facebook? by Stephen Baker, BusinessWeek 

Beyond Job Boards: Targeting the Source by Joseph De Avila of the Wall Street Journal

Best

Denice MacDonald

Sensidea, a digital media consultancy, has launched an amazing social monitoring tool called “socialseek.” 

According to Sensidea: “With wide reach, cool charts, comparing topics, and exporting results and charts, socialseeks makes it simple and easy to understand your social status, track against the competition, and make decisions to stay in the scene...and do it right from your desktop.”

The application includes the following features:

>Seek Blogs, Tweets, Videos, Images, and Events 

>Add any site you want to track, no problem

>Real-time automatic updates and notifications

>Track all the chatter by city or anywhere

>Find something interesting? One click away

>Compare topics to see what's making more noise

>Quick charts to see trends and track what's hot

>Export results to CSV & PDF

>Brands Track yourself against the competition

>Windows & Mac Compatible 

Get socialseek here now.

To learn more about Sensidea, an incredible, upcoming digital company, go here.

Best

Denice MacDonald

Before Web 2.0, organizations would take old brochure copy, poor graphics, a couple of cheesy widgets and off they go to build a web site in bad html code. With today’s user expectations, web sites have to be a bit more sophisticated, offering the best-of-breed in user experience and delivery.

To truly build a great web site presence, compete on a level playing field and convert customers, organizations must do a bit of homework before developing their web site.

Review competitors – in order to compete, organizations need to see how they fare against the competition. A comprehensive competitor’s analysis will allow the organization to provide a similar interactive experience when vying for customers to their products or services.

Know your audience – most web sites try to cater to a broad-base audience using a ‘hit or miss’ approach. With today’s web savvy user, web sites need to address exactly who their customers are. In most cases, audiences are looking to be entertained, informed or persuaded - but knowing specific industry focus, generational disposition and online behavior will go a long way in getting your audience to engage, drill down and act.

Create relevant content – with the growth of social communities, blogs and rich video media, content can be served up in many formats. Key to the use of these great Web 2.0 applications is providing relevant content to users.  Similar to ‘knowing your audience’, organizations must segment content based upon visitor types.

Enhance the experience – the visitor experience relates to ease of use, access to relevant content and tools that will help engage, connect and convert customers. Reviewing appropriate navigation, Flash or graphics, web tools or gadgets as well as call-to-action scenarios will enhance the experience and have the visitor coming back for more.

Integrate online and offline strategies – successful organizations have realized that integrating online and offline marketing strategies is the best way to tap into a large customer base and get customers to spend more. Moreover, when an integrated strategic plan is executed for online and offline simultaneously, customers get a single, unified message from the organization that reflects a cohesive brand.

More Related Strategy:

Engagement Redirects the Marketing Trajectory

Web Site Success Requires Companywide Collaboration

Web Personalization - No Longer the Next Frontier

Best

Denice MacDonald