Author Archives: LaurenCandito

Google+ is Hot-Wired for Businesses, But Will it Catch On?

November 10 2011 | LaurenCandito | Blog, Campaign Strategy | Comment

What does the future hold for Google+? Can Google’s new, wet behind ears platform offer Facebook, the reigning champ of social networking, a run for its money? What about the business user? Will businesses embrace the numerous marketing features of Google+? It’s still too early to tell, but a recent study showing a 70 percent drop in Google + traffic is hardly encouraging. Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page is not concerned. He believes in magic, the Google kind. While boasting about the search engine giant’s stellar third-quarter financial results, Page revealed that his ultimate goal is to transform Google’s multiple applications into an “almost automagical ” experience. But even J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, doesn’t really believe in magic. With Facebook fast approaching 1 billion users, Google+ may not only need some magic, but a little luck of the Irish, as well if it hopes to challenge Facebook and avoid becoming another Orkut.

The Rise and Fall of Google+

When Google launched its invite-only trial run of Google + on June 28, the new social media platform was an instant hit and drew 25 million unique visitors in just four weeks. All was good. The reviews were in and they were spectacular. Wired Magazine raved about Google+’s superior photo sharing capabilities, declaring it made “Facebook look like a complex, bloated piece of junk.” And TechCrunch hailed Google + as the search engine giant’s best foray yet into social media sharing.

But since Google+ shifted to a public beta version on September 20, it suffered a shocking reversal of fortune. The data analytics company Chitika reported, that after an initial spike when Google + first became public, traffic dropped by 60 percent. Chitika has since taken another look and found that traffic to Google + is sinking like a stone, noting an alarming 70 percent drop in traffic. Some industry analysts attribute Google+’s traffic drop to social media fatigue. Others believe Google+ has failed to make its case to users that it’s worth the trouble to ditch Facebook. Chitika surmises Google+’s problems can be blamed on its decision not to provide developers with an API, its failure to “outperform” Facebook and Facebook’s quick response to fend off Google+. Whatever the case, Google+ has a small window of opportunity to gain traction.

Google+ Just Getting Started

It’s not all doom and gloom. Last week, Google announced Google+ now has more than 40 million registered users. Despite the dip in traffic, its growth is far superior to the initial growth of Facebook and Twitter. But does Google+ have the goods to become a Facebook killer? Larry Page thinks so. “People are flocking into Google + at an incredible rate and we are just getting started,” said Page in a press release announcing the company’s third-quarter revenue. But a rant by a Google engineer the day before, bashing Google+ as a “complete failure,” certainly placed a damper on Page’s exuberance. Senior Google Engineer, SteveYegge mistakenly made public, his lengthy rant on Google+, deriding the platform, as “a pathetic afterthought.” Ouch!

Goggle+’s One Stop Shopping Advantage

The full integration of Google’s extensive suite of free applications and business tools into Google+ could be a game changer, especially for business users. And slowly but surely, Google+ is headed towards full integration with Google’s features, such as Google Docs, YouTube, Picasa, Google Analytics, Adwords, Google Apps and more. Larry Page promises full integration is part of the company’s grand scheme. “Think about it this way: last quarter, we shipped the ‘Plus’, and now were going to ship the Google part,” said Page. If Google succeeds in transforming Google+ into a convenient one stop shopping social media platform, it may indeed start picking off Facebook users and reach its coveted “automagical” status.

Businesses Waiting it Out With Google+ Personal Pages

So far, Google+ is not accepting business pages, save for a handful of authorized test pages. But many businesses are biding their time and developing valuable user data, by using individual personal pages to promote their brands and engage with customers. When full-featured business pages launch sometime at the end of the year, businesses already having individual pages will be well positioned to take full advantage of Google+’s extensive marketing tools hot-wired into the platform. Google+ product manager Christian Oestlien hinted at the endless possibilities of the platform’s marketing capabilities. “We will be working on producing a business experience that is more unique to the Google+ experience and will focus on showing businesses the advantages of extending their identity across Google and Google products,” said Oestilien in a blog posting.

Circles, Hangout, Sparks, Messenger and Google + 1 Button

Businesses can leverage the unique marketing features of Google+ right now to promote their brands, build customer loyalty and develop quality leads, using their personal profiles. Google+’s Circles, allow businesses to neatly organize their groups of contacts for easy marketing, such as potential customers, current customers, industry peers and employees. Businesses can conveniently engage their Circles by sharing targeted value-added content. Hangout, a group video chat service can be utilized for video conferencing on the go or for business announcements. And Sparks, a powerful Google+ keyword-based search engine is invaluable for developing a database of potential customers. The messenger feature, formerly called Huddle, offers businesses integrated mobile, real-time messaging. Finally, the Google + 1 button, similar to Facebook’s Like feature, is now measured by Google Analytics and provides a boost in search engine rankings.

When Google+ first launched just four-months ago, SVP of Engineering Vic Gundotra, pledged the new platform would “fix ” online sharing. Does social networking need fixing? Facebook doesn’t think so. But Google is banking its entire future on the belief that it does and that Google+ is the solution.

Unleash the Power of Social Media for a Successful Job Search

November 7 2011 | LaurenCandito | Blog, Job Postings, Social Media | Comment

Social media channels and professional networking platforms are becoming critically important in the job-hunting process. In fact, the relative strength or weakness of an online identity can make or break a job search. In a highly competitive jobs market, an indiscreet, unprofessional online presence may convince a hiring manager to toss your resume in the trash. Conversely, a well thought out, strategic use of social media to create a professional online brand could send your resume to the top of the pile. Potential employers and recruiters are not only screening applicants by investigating online identities, they are also utilizing social media channels to post jobs, recruit and hire. If you are not strategically plugged in and LinkedIn: expect to be left out and Linked-out.

Use Attraction Based Marketing for BrandBuilding

The tools and the nomenclature may have changed, but the basic tenets of personal brand building and networking have remained constant. Dale Carnegie, author of the iconic self-help tome, “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” knew the importance of building a solid reputation and developing “soft” people skills. “There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it,” said Carnegie.

In the 21st century, job seekers are connecting to the world through the social media channels of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others. Professional networking sites, including LinkedIn and Xing, provide opportunities to engage, impress and scout out employment opportunities. Building a personal brand is simply taking charge of what you do, how you look, what you say and how you say it, online. Attraction based marketing leverages your carefully crafted online brand to bring employers and recruiters to you. Creating content, and positioning yourself as an expert in your field impresses and attracts recruiters.

Create Powerful Online Profiles and Bios

Taking the time and effort to create muscular, keyword rich profiles and bios for social networking sites is key. LinkedIn, a popular professional networking platform boasting 115.8 million members, is a great way to network, engage with industry professionals, keep up to date with industry trends and set up a professional online identity. Your LinkedIn profile is the first thing recruiters and hiring managers see, so make it shine. The same goes with your Twitter bio. The 140 character micro-blogging platform is widely used by companies, senior executives and recruiters. Before diving into the Twitter universe to make contacts and establish professional credibility, make sure your bio is carefully crafted and links to a personal-branding blog or your LinkedIn profile. You should devote the same care and attention to your online profiles, as you do a resume.

Be Proactive and Take Charge

It takes time and perseverance to develop a personal online brand using today’s social media tools. Every tweet, every Facebook posting, every LinkedIn query, blog postings and comments on professional forums should positively impact your personal brand. It’s up to you to be proactive and take charge of your online identity, your job search and career. Attraction based marketing and personal branding is about burnishing your professional online reputation and connections, as opposed to blatantly selling your skills. In this depressed economy, companies are becoming increasingly risk averse. Hiring managers want to feel confident that a candidate would provide a solid financial return on investment. Setting yourself apart from the pack as an expert, by creating a personal brand using social media channels, will set you on the path towards professional success.

Top Five Twitter Profile Metrics and the Tools to Track Them With

October 26 2011 | LaurenCandito | Blog, Campaign Strategy | Comment

Social media marketers spend their days endeavoring to win lots of new friends and influence people in the digital universe. Twitter, the micro-blogging platform that has transformed global communication, is now a vital part of any marketing strategy, especially for small businesses. And more than any other social media platform, Twitter use is analyzed to death. There are now so many tools and widgets to measure the Return on Investment of your account, it boggles the mind. Twitter tracking tools and the women who love them! Why are marketers so obsessed with Twitter metrics and their Klout influence scores? There is much at stake. A successful marketing strategy depends on targeting the appropriate niche market, and engaging the influencers and brand advocates. Analyzing the right Twitter metrics and implementing corrective measures to improve your reach can make all the difference in the world.

Followers: Numbers do Matter

Although the quality of your followers is ultimately more important than the quantity, you have a better chance of engaging influencers and thought leaders if you, at first, cast a wide net. Moreover, steady growth is a sign of a healthy Twitter account. How do you track the numbers of your followers? Twitter does most of the work for you. The micro-blogging platform automatically keeps tabs on the number of your followers and the numbers of people you follow, as well. To dig deeper into your growth over time, TwitterCounter provides a useful historical analysis of the number of your followers. The tool also takes a look at your growth pattern and hazards a guess, as to when your followers would double in number. Would you like to know where in the world your followers are? Tweriod mines your followers’ time zones from their bios, placing the information in a handy graph.

What are Your Followers Into?

So, you know how many folks are plugged into your Twitter account and you even know when they are sleeping. But what interests do they have? If your efforts to engage your Twitter followers have fallen flat, maybe they just aren’t that into you. Attempting to engage a bunch of retired folks to patronize your college-town bar, that serves ten-cent wings and watered down pitchers of Bud Light, is an exercise in futility. TwitterSheep analyzes the stated interests of your Twitter followers by collecting the keywords in their bios and placing them in a handy word cloud. In one glance, you can determine if your followers fall in the right niche.

Are You Influential?

According to an anonymous quote, “Influence may be the highest level of human skills.” How can you measure whether your Twitter marketing efforts are influencing others to act? There’s an App for that. Actually there are several. But Klout is the most widely used and most buzzed about Twitter tracking tool. Klout, the San Francisco-based startup boasts it’s “The standard for influence.” Klout employs a propriety algorithm that measures your influence across multiple social media channels. You are awarded a score from 1 to 100 that’s largely based on the engagement and reactions of your followers. Retweets, clicks and comments, all weigh heavily in arriving at your score. Klout scores have become so prevalent that companies are targeting individuals with high Klout scores, and offering them special deals and promotions, according to The New York Times. PeerIndex and TwitterGrader provide useful influence scores as well.

It’s All About the Retweets, Clicks and Links

How effective is your messaging? Have your Twitter marketing strategies inspired your followers to act? Analyzing the number of retweets and clicks on your links provide you with the information you need to make the most of your Twitter presence. If certain messages are not getting retweeted, you can switch up your content to achieve better results. You can easily track your links using Bit.ly, or Ow.ly, Hootsuite’s URL shortener tool. Retweets and links generate clicks and clicks produce conversions. Hootsuite and TweetDeck are not only superb tools to effectively manage your social media activities across multiple channels; they also track the all-important action metrics, as well.

Conversions, Conversions, Conversions

Ultimately, the only metric that really matters to your bottom line is the number of conversions. Successful Twitter marketing campaigns convert followers into customers. Analyzing your followers, their interests and their habits provide you with the information you need to direct your followers to your website. Tweet it and they will come. But before you can drive your followers to your website, you need to analyze the right Twitter metrics, make the necessary adjustments to your marketing strategy, and lather, rinse and repeat. A new Twitter tracking kid on the block, Twitter Web Analytics, measures how many of your Twitter followers visit your website. It’s still in beta, but it’s scheduled to roll out in the next several weeks.

With 200 million Twitter users and counting, you can’t afford not to strategize and maximize your social media marketing efforts. The key is knowing which metrics are important to your business model.

Tagged metrics, twitter, Twitter tools

Jazz Up Your Dull Social Media Profiles

October 24 2011 | LaurenCandito | Blog, Social Media | Comment

“An image is not simply a trademark, a design, a slogan or an easily remembered picture. It is a studiously crafted personality profile of an individual, institution, corporation, product or service.” ~ Daniel J. Boorstin

Your social media profiles form the gateway to your online presence. Profiles are your identity. A compelling profile spiced up with just the right amount of personality and joie de vivre beckons your audience to come inside for a look around, a friendly chat and a cup of Joe. Every action you take online makes up your social profile, from posting photos, comments and blog articles, to the videos uploaded to your YouTube account. But your official social media profiles for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other platforms are your first point of contact with your audience. And you need to make them shine with authority and personality, using compelling text, images and media. Even business profiles can benefit from a little pizzazz.

Wow Your Audience With Facebook Applications

Applications provide creative ways to let your freak flag fly. Start by perusing Facebook’s application dashboard. PicBadges provide a free and easy way to adorn your profile photo with colorful badges that promote campaigns, events, causes and personal brands. You can add a tagline, a call to action and a provocative title. The sky is the limit! Apps can add sparkle and interest to your Facebook presence. And there are thousands of innovative third-party Apps to take for a spin. Try adding a customized banner to replace the lineup of recently tagged photos that adorns your profile, using FBanners. Instant pizzazz!

Information Week recently reported on the top Facebook Apps that help businesses and individuals boost their social connections. Some of the more intriguing Apps, include Pagemodo Pagebuilder, a free tool to create jazzy Facebook pages using pre-designed templates and Kremsa, a free Facebook poll App to engage your audience with fun and wacky polls.

Winning Twitter Backgrounds

Twitter profiles are somewhat limited, but savvy users have learned to add customized backgrounds for an extra dose of personality, visual interest and actionable text. You don’t need to be a graphic arts expert to create an engaging background. Numerous applications make it a breeze. MyTweetSpace offers a selection of free themes and badges, as well as personalized options for a small fee. TwitBacks offers dozens of free templates, with the option of uploading your own custom art. You can really go to town with your branding, by adding links to your social networks, contact information, logos and a personal photo to get the most bang for your buck. Bring out your inner artist and perk up your Twitter profile for maximum ROI.

Enrich You LinkedIn Profile

Like Facebook, the business-networking platform LinkedIn offers a slew of nifty tools and applications to add personality to your profile. Open up the gallery of LinkedIn applications and get cracking. Start by adding your blog content to your profile, using the Blog Link or WordPress Apps. This is a great way to stay connected with your audience through multiple channels. The Tweets App adds your tweets to your profile. Google Presentation is by far, the best App for adding color and visual interest to your LinkedIn profile. You can upload or create engaging, professional PowerPoint presentations that are directly embedded into your profile. My Travel is a fun, interactive way to share upcoming trips with your network, which opens up opportunities for face-to-face meetups. Try the Reading List by Amazon App. Not only does it create additional opportunities for engagement, the book graphics add color and interest to your profile page.

Remember, personality sells! And a little eye candy never hurts. Thankfully, there are numerous fun, yet professional ways to add personality to your social media profiles. With just a few little tweaks, your profiles can go from drab to fab in no time flat.

Tagged facebook, Social Media, social networks, social profiles, twitter

Social Media Sharing Etiquette: How to Avoid Becoming a Social Media Pariah

October 12 2011 | LaurenCandito | Blog, Branding, Social Media | Comment

Oscar Wilde once pithily remarked on the importance of social etiquette saying, “The world was my oyster but I used the wrong fork.” Today’s modern global village is certainly a far cry from the constrained Victorian era that Wilde inhabited, but good manners and etiquette still count, even in the digital world.

Unfortunately, the online world trips many people up, when it comes to manners and social courtesies. The social media channels of Facebook, Twitter, blogs and others, are governed by a unique set of rules, and for the uninitiated, confusing Internet jargon as well. Unless you take the time to familiarize yourself with the social media rules of the road for interacting and sharing, you risk being viewed as an ill-mannered dolt, or worse, becoming a social media pariah.

Play Nice With Others

When playing or conducting business on social media channels, remember the lessons learned on the playground: play nice with others, share your toys, don’t take things that don’t belong to you and no bullying. These childhood lessons will serve you well in life, as well as on Twitter.

Nancy A. Shenker, author of, “The Sins of Social Media and How to Avoid Them,” stresses the importance of minding your manners in the digital environment. The 21st century social media community is home to a diverse group of folks representing the baby boomer generation to the millennial generation and it’s vital that we “Not only coexist, but also play nice,” according to Shenker. And in this wired world, in which our entire online existence is available to everyone with just a click of the mouse, behaving badly can have serious consequences both professionally and personally.

Twitter: Give Credit Where Credit is Due

Many folks run into trouble when using Twitter, the wildly popular micro-blogging platform that restricts messages to 140 characters or less. Either users forget that their shockingly intemperate tweets are viewed worldwide in a matter of seconds, or they tweet other’s ideas or content without providing attribution or credit. Both offenses can land you in a heap of trouble. Don’t poach photos, videos and blog posts and pass them off as your own. That’s stealing. It may seem like an obvious no-no, but it’s done more often than you think. The more common form of poaching is sharing content without giving credit to the creator.

Retweets should always give credit to the original tweeter. And with Twitter’s new Retweet feature, there’s no excuse not too. You can also simply add “RT” to the tweet you are sharing, if you decide to add your own commentary. If you rewrite another’s original tweet, it’s customary to add “via” at the end providing credit. Finally, when sharing an article, blog post or Facebook post, always provide a link. And if you receive inspiration from a post or article, it’s polite to mention the author’s name, as well as linking, using the “HT” symbol meaning hat tip.

Blogs: Linking, Linking, Linking

The same basic rules of social media etiquette apply to blogging: don’t steal and give credit. But it’s not enough to mention the source. A link to the source should also be provided. An Internet writer’s biggest pet peeve is having their content quoted or discussed on a blog without a link directing readers to the writer’s website. When using an author’s piece as a jumping point for your own blog post, social media etiquette dictates that you also add a “HT” at the end of your post naming the author, as well as including a link.

Facebook: Share and Share Alike

Social media is all about sharing and engaging others in your network. Facebook’s platform simplifies the process of sharing and giving proper credit, with its Share button. Most websites and blogs feature a Facebook Share button, as well, allowing you to automatically add interesting content to your Facebook wall to share with your friends. If not, make sure you include credit and a link when sharing another author’s content on Facebook. If for some reason, you decide to share another’s Facebook posting, via Twitter or on your blog, make sure you include a link to the author’s Facebook wall. Oftentimes, the original context of the post can become lost in translation, if a link isn’t provided. But if you are unsure about sharing another’s posting, it’s polite to first ask for permission.

Old-fashioned good manners go a long way in ensuring you make the most of your social media experiences and avoid becoming a digital outcast.

Tagged benefits of social media, best practices, Blog, blogging, brand awareness, Campaign Strategy, communication strategy, community, networking, Social Media, social media marketing, social networking, twitter

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