The concept of this site is pretty cool.  While everyone by now is aware of how useful tagging can be in terms of organizing a blog or searching through del.icio.us or similar sites, Brand Tags takes the same concept but reverses it.  Instead of posting entries and then tagging them and having them searched in multiple places, this site takes some of the most popular brands and asks you to apply one tag word or phrase to whatever brand it displays to you at random (though you have the option to skip a brand if you wish).  You can browse by brand, guess what brand it is based on the tags, or search for brands that were tagged with a certain word.

Brand Tags still appears to be relatively small--you can't add a new brand without contacting the site creator, for instance.  However, as a starting point, this is an interesting way to see how the big brands are perceived, as well as compare multiple brands that have similar offerings.  Check out, for instance, the difference between Target  and Walmart. Do the results on each page match up to your perceptions?  As anyone in business knows, how the public perceives your company and its practices can often have a huge impact on whether they choose you or a competitor.  Knowing these popular brand perceptions allows you to get in on the conversation and help address the negatives and possibly boost the positives (Jason Cormier just posted an entry the other day on staying in front of PR crises, which addresses some helpful tactics that should be used.)

If you are a savvy company, you are already tracking your brand reputation online through a variety of methods including Technorati, Twitter, Google, and of course myriad others.  The downside to this method is that you are relying on many different arenas to help provide an overall picture.  If a site based on something like Brand Tags caught on as more than just a fun experiment, just think of the possibilities when searching for smaller brands.  Assuming rival companies are not maliciously tagging their competitors, the results would speak of what the masses think of your brand in general, which can help during times when you are not headline news and the talk of the town.  The general impression gained by all of the tags inputted by hundreds or thousands of individuals will more than likely be a better reflection of long term perception of your brand by the public. Do you know how you will rank?

• Be who you are, be as transparent as possible.
• Don't play in your own playground, be active in communities that might find what you offer attractive.  
• It is imperative to be involved in the social networks on the Internet and the real world
• We live in a world where every person's word of mouth reaches a lot more people.
  

Lets look at some examples of these at work.

Being Transparent , Diverse, and Active in Social Networks. 

Companies that are talking back to their customers are becoming more transparent at it.  They are the ones who openly acknowledge mistakes and quickly respond to complaints   A lot of startups today are more and more engaged in the conversations of their customers. They are monitoring and answering questions on Twitter, getsatisfaction and responding to negative blog posts and comments.  Craig Newmark posted a responce on our own very blog, and many other companies are aknowledging social networks.

While being transparent is a proven tool to get more attention and buzz, it is not a must have.  There are a lot of successful companies out there that do not talk back.  After all, the bigger the business, the harder it is for it to innovate. They talk in glamorous product announcements, commercials and press releases, they drink brand juice and spend millions covering up or downright denying their mistakes. 

A World of Word of Mouth Marketing.

Word of Mouth is nothing new, NewEgg, Netflix, Apple, In-N-Out Burgers all had very strong growth partly due to word of mouth, but instead of talking back, they gained popularity through high quality of service, ease of use, competitive prices, elegance and tasty food - that's what makes good idea into a successful business. However, and this might sound crazy to some, talking back, fixing your mistakes and accepting your screw ups could be what brings quality of service up, makes product easier to use, lowers prices or create that absolutely amazing taste. Do not be afraid to try it.

Google Reader recently added ability to include a note with your shared items, and mentioned in their blog post that they monitor "Google Reader" on Twitter. Zappos has a special Twitter page set up and over 300 of their employees are encouraged to use Twitter, they host free parties, do contests and respond to peoples comments all through Twitter. John Fisher of Sticker Giant also tracks his and even his competitions name. All of those I have discovered through one of social networks, social events or at parties and gatherings, or simply put, due to word of mouth marketing.

While the question of "How do I talk back to my customers" is a subject for a whole different blog post, I would love to hear how you currently or plan to implement world of mouth into your business marketing plan? And if not, why not? Talk back and you can contribute to that post!

Yesterday, James Clark and I had the pleasure of giving an "Understanding Social Media" presentation to the Colorado Ski Country Association. Roughly 95% of the PR and marketing communications experts for every ski mountain in Colorado were attending, eager to learn more about how they could leverage this thing called social media.

The topics we covered varied from social media planning, understanding RSS, best practices for community participation and the use of new and emerging tools like Twitter. Despite the groovy buzz around social media, one of the main subjects of concern with our audience dealt with how and when to engage in online conversations.

The typical problem relates to negative activity that gets picked up by the press. Something happens on the ski slopes related to closures, injury, even death, and before you know it the cameras are rolling and the phone is ringing off the hook. As a matter of practice, a marketing communications person is often reactive - bracing for the media onslaught and how his response will ultimately reflect on the operation, competency, brand, etc.

One marketer brought up the fact that a few people will get an idea in their head about why a lift line or portion of the mountain is closed, and just commence to slam the people and organization running operations for the mountain. The bashing shows up on blog posts, forums, tweets, you name it.

Staying ahead of negativity and crisis is typically not about avoiding it all together. More realistically, it's about you and your organization not getting buried and completely swept down the mountain as the slide begins and gains momentum. Not much you can do to stop the slide once it starts, but your preparation and ability to quickly react makes all the difference.

Be a Participant in the Online Community Beforehand
Forum moderators, online influencers and bloggers recognize the people who regularly comment on their web properties. They are appreciative when the comments actually contribute to the substance of the conversations, especially when it's from an authoritative source or subject matter expert. This means internal PR and marketing communications people need to consider joining conversations just as important (if not more) than creating them.

 What the mind doesn't know, it creates - and typically as a negative scenario. When the stuff starts to fly, people start looking for things to grasp. Remaining silent or inserting reactive, duplicate comments across blogs and other social networks (that you joined the day of the crisis) is usually going to make things worse (see Vonage astroturf post). Get your name and your voice out today so what you say holds weight and respect for tomorrow.

Anne Mitchell at Internet Patrol pulls Vonage's blog comment spamming punk card.

So yet again another company that can't resist the urge to go into blog comments without a thoughtful and authentic approach. Comment spamming is considered pure vile, so building on my "Resist The Temptation of Astroturfing Post", I'd like to offer some very straight forward ways to avoid this kind of mess that Mr. Kariolis has gotten Vonage into.

As you can see in Anne's links she points out Mr. Kariolis posted the exact same comments on Internet Patrol and DownloadSquad.

Mr. Kariolis Astroturf Trail:

1. Posting the Same Comment on Several Blogs. By definition and common sense, that's comment spamming.
2. No Link in Comment Name. When leaving the comment on Internet Patrol, Mr. Kariolis did not provide any link indentifying him with a company, blog, etc. Most comments allow you to put in your name, and then ask for an associated URL. If you don't have a blog or company website then link to your LinkedIn profile.
3. Disclosure. No where in his comments does he disclose that he is working for Vonage and can be a resource on this subject.
4. Newbie. Okay, here's the deal. Bloggers know who their regular commenters are. They know them intimately, and when someone new posts, like Mr. Kariolis and is clearly posting URLs in the comment to drive traffic to their own site - it's no brainer red flag for comment spam. Case in point, if you look at Mr. Kariolis' post on DownloadSquad you will see that the link from his name goes to his profile. He posted his comment on May 7th and look at what day he became a member:

Three Simple Ways to Be Transparent and Authentic and Avoid Astroturfing

1. Provide Full Disclosure in the Comment. Right up front Mr. Kariolis should state that he works for Vonage. This takes the edge off and let's you be transparent about what you're trying to communicate.
2. Contact the Blogger Directly Via Email Rather Than Leave a Comment Post. Mr. Kariolis could have emailed Anne directly stating clearly that he is with Vonage and appreciates her post, and provide a response. In the email state clearly that he is not a regular commenter, but does have a point of view on the story that he would like Anne to consider. Then it's up to Anne to update to her post with new insights, or she may even ask Mr. Kariolis to post his views in the comments area but to clearly call out that he is representing views from Vonage.
3. Be a Participant Before Hand. This takes planning, time and dedication. So if Vonage is serious about engaging in the online conversation about VOIP, they should have individuals that are active in the conversational community on an ongoing basis, so when an opportunity to discuss a competitor's news arises, they are not setting up new profiles on the same day they are commenting on it.

Embracing a consumer trend before the government demands it. Now that's the entrepreneurial spirit that Marc German, CEO of Spicy Pickle embraced when he paid to have an independent company provide a nutritional analysis of 30 of his top selling dishes.

It's a smart move not only from a regulatory perspective (many cities are now passing laws requiring chain restaurants to post nutritional information), but simply from a customer service and marketing approach.

As our level of awareness about the connection between our diet and our health becomes more ingrained, we begin consciously seeking healthy choices about what we eat.

More, More, More
The more information we have, the more active the conversation will be and consequently the more involved consumers become in embracing a brand.

So more is better in the food industry, because what the mind doesn't know it creates and it's more than likely to create a conspiracy theory than it is to create a reasonable discussion.

Because I love this customer-centrist approach so much, I'm offering some tips for Spicy Pickle to really take the lead and extend this customer centric approach online.

Three Simple Conversational Tactics

1. Become an active participate in Yelp. Spicy Pickle can go through the Yelp for Business Owners process to create a more robust and informational rich experience for Yelp visitors. By being a Yelp sponsor Spicy Pickle can enhance its business page on Yelp with a slide-show, a personalized message from Marc Geman, a featured favorite review and timely business news and announcements.

2. Create a video blog with Kevin Morrison, Chief Culinary Officer to show how each sandwich is made and discuss the nutritional values. Giving people insights to the kitchen is a great way to promote Spicy Pickle's commitment to quality and nutrition.

3. Set up a contest for customers to submit a healthy sandwich to add to the menu. This is a great opportunity for Foodies to get active in the process. Leveraging the Build Your Own option, really come through on the promise of "Our kitchen is your culinary playground".

Note to Spicy Pickle: Because we like you so much, we've gone ahead and secured the Twitter URL: http://www.twitter.com/spicypickle for you. We're not squatting on it, we'll just hand it over when you're ready.

Source CNN: Would you eat a 2,900-calorie cheese fries?

Facebook is still a great way to connect and share information.  Not only does your profile inherently have a high "trust" rating in Google, but it can also serve as a highly custom landing page for you or your company.  Here are a few tips to keep your profile professional and up to date without ever touching it. The hardest part of this process is keeping it personal enough to share your interests while keeping it interesting to the people that do not know you. 

1. Have means to contact you easily accessible on the top.  Out of Instant Messaging, Phone or Email or website URLs you should provide at least one.  Listing multiple ways to contact you is obviously the best.  The websites you list will be getting very tasty Facebook flavored link juice, which always helps.  At the same time, do not use it purely for your corporate contacts, keep in mind that facebook is for connecting outside work, so listing interests and personal you-and-your-dog websites is very much encouraged. 

2. Use apps that link into your other social profiles.  Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Google Shared Feeds and even just rss blog feed all can be integrated without being too spammy, and will always keep the content on your page fresh and current. Most of the apps I linked for your convenience, to import your rss feed, just go to the official Notes application and click on "import your own blog" link at the bottom. If you do a lot of stumbling, tagging through delicious or sharing items in google reader make sure to disable them from updating mini feed otherwise they will overwhelm it and your friends would probably not be very happy with you.

3. Finally, use Facebook for its intended purpose.  There are plenty of ways to deal with the never ending stream of "Just for Fun" app spam, and one of them is just to power through.  Organize events, be active in groups, constantly be on lookout for people you know, and stay in touch with your current friends.  You never know when or who will bring you a new client or provide a new business opportunity.

From target audience, to times, networks and programs -- a new level of access to TV advertising has just been born.

Google's Ad Creation Marketplace provides help with all aspects of the program, even assistance with hooking you up to video pros to produce your ad. Anyone with an Internet connection and credit card now has an opportunity to place television advertising, and even monitor the results.

Consider the opportunities that are being opened for marketing and advertising production people as a result of this. With the level of access being offered, I suspect more companies will be taking a serious look at budgeting for TV in the future. What do you think about this new offering? How will commercials change? How will pricing be effected?

1. ScriptLance - ScriptLance is probably the least organized out of the bunch, but as a result it is also the cheapest.  Once in a while you will find a diamond in the rough and therefore pay very very little for his work.  Its primary focus is flash, photoshop, html and programming services, so if you are looking for a redesign or a custom site on the cheap, this is the place to go. 

2. Guru - We use Guru for copy writing, and I had pretty good luck with it on programming and flash projects.  Guru has a huge population of Freelancers from the United States, and while it tends to be more expensive, there is an inherit security that the quality of their work will be higher.

3. oDesk - This site is by far the most professional Freelance management portal on the web.  You can even run your entire company and hire full time people through it.  The process of hiring somebody mimics the interviews in real life and once you actually do hire somebody, their work day is tracked through desktop screenshots and by them logging all their progress.  There is also subversion and bugzilla to manage your source code. 

Ultimately I find each one of those used for a different purpose.  ScriptLance is great if you are looking for a quick customization of one of the open source platforms, Guru is great for US based freelancers of any type and oDesk helps me manage large projects with the help of great tools provided by the oDesk.  What are your experiences with freelancer search tools and have I forgotten any? Let us know!

Two days ago, Chris Brogan asked his followers on Twitter to 'tweet' him "Hi Cross Tech?" as he was in a business meeting, and I assume was discussing the effectiveness of Twitter. I wonder just how many people responded @chrisbrogan "Hi Cross Tech?" (I don't think Quotably has included all responses) I did. If you're pitching to a potential client about the uses of Twitter - you just backed your excact theory and possibly wowed them while in the process. Chris Brogan has 7,140 followers - even if only half of them were online at that exact moment - that's an outreach to 3,570 people that most likely blog.

Here's a seperate example: TechCrunch just posted today about Project Vino, an Australian wine site focused on community recommendations that tested a Twitter wine tasting model today. The post states:

"This event is one of the earliest instances of using Twitter to transfer an event as social and active as a wine tasting, into online realms. The end result? A resounding success. When you have a social drink which is best enjoyed sharing experiences with friends, it works perfectly with online communication tools."

If you check out the comments, some people loved the idea, some people simply hated it. Some people hated that TechCrunch even wrote about it. Remind you of something? Yep, that  translates directly to what the masses have to say about Twitter. You either love it or hate it, however, no one can deny the power of words or the buzz those words create.

Following are recommendations for the best sites for Creative Commons blog photos and another just awesome image site. The link provided will take you to Wikipedia to further explain the different levels of Creative Commons licenses. The key piece to remember is to always provide a photo credit and link below.

1. Flickr. By far the largest resource for photos. Note: make sure you use the advanced search options and select the "Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content "
2. EveryStockPhoto. This is a license-specific photo search engine.
3. Pixdaus. By far I think the most interesting of the three, but not reviewed for licensed content. The photos shown below are all from Pixdaus. I've linked to Pixdaus and to the user profile that has uploaded the photo. When using Pixdaus be sure to avoid photos with copyrights on them.
   

"Dubai" posted at Pixdaus by Jorge

"They Are Here" posted at Pixdaus by Luke

While there can be advantages to outsourcing your online persona in this manner, there can be possible disadvantages as well.  As someone creating an online presence, you should be sure that you understand what you want to use your personal site for (if indeed you even choose to have one amid the sea of social networking sites).  Social sites often let you create a profile where you provide links to personal sites--these can help drive traffic to your personal page.  Likewise, providing links to these social sites on your personal page can drive traffic to these external representations of you.

Ultimately, these two types of sites--personal and social--can balance each other out and drive more traffic and attention to you than you might otherwise have experienced if you were to forgo one of the options.  However, the more you outsource, the more potential for less traffic to your personal site, and if this is where you house the most important content, you might see smaller readership. 

You might also want to consider the implications of giving up direct control of the hosting of your content and what it means if these external sites were to change their policies or suffer a major outage.  The more sites you sign up for, the more you have to keep up with in terms of updating, which might be cumbersome depending on how many social sites you use.

A reader in the comments of this blog entry did make a good point though in stating that giving out a personal URL somehow doesn't have the same weight that it used to.  In a time where virtually everyone has their own Myspace or Facebook account, people want like to respond with like.  For the average person, these social sites are sufficient--there is no need to bother with HTML and creating a custom site.  It's also that much more effort to remember a personal URL than it is to know that you can look someone up later on Facebook and friend them.

Is there a need for an average person to have a personal site anymore, or is it completely redundant when the info can be found on multiple social networking sites?  Should one keep all content in-house, or outsource it to other sites such as Flickr, Del.icio.us, Myspace, Youtube, etc.?  I for one have not formulated a definite answer to these questions, but I would love to hear any opinions on the matter!

The top two questions I think this research addresses are: 1.) is UGC a fad?, and 2.) Can it be monetized (what every good marketer wants to know)?

The answer to the first question is no. As the executive summary of the report suggests, any notion of UGC being a passing fad should be put to rest.

I remember in the late 90's, leading web developers and UI strategists knew there were great reasons to push for "interactive experiences" on the web. What many had no clue about was that so much of the experience would actually be created and driven by the users themselves.

Knowing where we are today with this should seriously prompt organizations to look at how they might use UGC as part of their marketing and customer service loop.

In terms of monetization, the research is in the context of you guessed it, advertising. The main thing I get from the report are that advertisers are hesitant to enthusiastically push advertising next to UGC. Or, as Andrew Keen was quoted in Newsweek last month, "nobody wants to advertise next to crap."

Still, there are reports of organizations that plainly state they are having success selling ads next to UGC. Video sharing site, Veoh, is one of them -- selling banners as well as video advertising for approximately $8 - $20 per thousand impressions (CPM).

What's your opinion of UGC? Do you think advertising will continue to find its way into the mix?

One of the problems with twitter is that once you follow around 50-100+ people you get overwhelmed with the conversations going on, and the slow, manually refreshing web interface hinders your ability to participate.  Here are 3 tools to help you be on top of the discussions happening on twitter. 

1. Quotably. This is a web service that takes the linear twitter timelines and converts them into meaningful conversation threads.  It's a great way to see a ton of replies to questions asked by some more popular twitter-ers.  Its really cool to see a solution, or how you stack up against some of the other replies.  Check out Chris Brogan's, Scoble's Quotably page to see some examples.  As an icing on the cake, you can talk to the people you do not follow directly from quotably website.  The downside is, since it has to figure out how to structure the threads, pretty often it gets it wrong and while they have a system set up that fixes threading, its still a manual process.

2. Twhirl.  Twhirl is a huge time saver as it brings every twitter feature to the desktop as well as include some juicy extra features.  You can lookup users, view their timelines, follow them, quickly reply and direct message with just 1 or 2 clicks.  The app also has pretty good keyboard shortcuts so most of the time you don't even need to use the mouse. It has a great support for multiple accounts, so if you constantly have to switch between accounts this app is a godsend.  Its built on Adobe AIR and can be used on both Windows and Mac, so 98% of us are covered.  Check out this great Twhirl review post by Derek from derekville.net which covers installation and basic usage.  It also lists some alternative applications, in case Twhirl isn't to your liking.

3. Twinkle or Hahlo. A lot of times you are nowhere near your computer, but if you have a Jailbroken iPhone (step by step instructions how to do it can be seen here, and even computer-illiterate James was able to do it successfully), I strongly recommend app called Twinkle.  Every tweet you do comes with your geo-location (if you choose to include it) and you can easily snap a pic and attach it to your tweet, bringing photo-twittering to a whole new level of simplicity. If you do want want to or cannot jailbreak your iPhone, there are a few mobile safari apps that work pretty well.  My favorite is Hahlo, it has ability to add friends, view their tweets, quickly reply and of course send your own updates. If you do not own an iPhone or if you just want to send a quick update, you can always use the built-in texting support by sending a SMS message to 40404 after you set it up under device settings in your twitter account.

There has been a lot of development in the 3rd party app space for twitter lately, and some of these might change over time, but for now I believe the 3 ways above will greatly improve your participation levels as well as ability to keep on top of your twitter addictions.  If you have any other essential tools that you use with twitter, let us know in the comments!

Marshall Kirkpatrick of RWW posted Five Wrong Ways to Pitch RWW and One Great Way . The list of don'ts:

• Email the wrong email address
• Phone calls
• Twitter, espcially DM
• Facebook
• IM

Now that you know, don't do it. But let me call attention to the one DO:

• RSS Feeds

"PR people, please send us the RSS feeds of your clients' blogs and news releases"

Oh baby, how we love it when our ideas and concepts get affirmation like this, especially from someone like Marshall. I'm not going to go into the past two years of actively prophesying this approach, but instead focus on:

1. What a great RSS feed management program looks like and....
2. Why corporate communications teams and public relations agencies need to invest in a robust RSS system.
   

Many communications and PR professionals struggle to understand RSS feeds. Most media rooms are absent of RSS feeds, and other tools that offer online media rooms are lacking any RSS managementso the media room itself gets one RSS feed.

We've worked with a few PR firms on an active client strategy for RSS feeds. So the what this looks like is easy:

What you see on Catapult PR/IR Client RSS Feed Page are a list of client RSS feeds the agency actively and independently manages on behalf of the client. So the agency avoids the technology void of working with its clients web team to get an RSS feed on the company's news room, and more importantly trying to get someone to actively update the feed.

Why a Robust RSS Platform?

Because PR needs to move at the speed of conversational requirements.

Think about what RWW is asking for. A direct line of communication to all content updates from your client. They want to track it, see what activity is coming out of the organization, and probably, from my perspective to see if you have any new media communications competency at all.

The sign at the door reads: No Shirts, No Shoes, No RSS Feed, No Coverage.

Now, if PR and communications are reading this there is a rush for an RSS feed on the media room. But that just won't do. How about a RSS feed dedicated just for RWW, giving you the ability to directly update and communicate with the RWW team about your products, updates and other pertinent announcements.

Any good PR person knows that mass outreach tactics (press releases, form emails) don't work. You better know what the journalist is writing, blogging or podcasting about and be able to tie your story into the trends and readerships they are addressing. So a single RSS feed that is giving mass updates is a step in the right directlon, but take it one step further.

Set up a RWW RSS feed, create a custom video to embed in the feed and have your spokesperson send a personal message with what they are trying to achieve with RWW coverage.

Of course to set up that RSS feed, you'll need to be able to set up and manage your own RSS feeds: Post Zinger

1. Monitor Google. I've read that if you only monitor your brand through Google, you'll receive 70-75% of the conversations surrounding your business. That's a lot of chatter that you might be missing that involves your brand and/or products. You will want to do a Google Blog Search for your company name, prominent keywords for your business, name of your products, name of executives, and other important factors you find relevant, but make sure to start with at least those four. Grab the RSS feed for these and you'll be on your way to getting the latest and (hopefully) greatest things consumers, clients and potential customers have to say about you on their blogs. Don't forget to do the same for Google News.
2. Tweet Scan. I just started Twittering myself and will no longer question the power of Twitter. Someone might mention your product in one quick update and it could spiral into a conversation among dozens of people. After subscribing to the Tweet Scan feed revolving your business, keywords and products, make sure to set up a Twitter account for yourself so you can follow the people twittering about you.
   
3. FriendFeed. Another new tool that I've grown to love. If you just want to set something up that will simply do work for you, FriendFeed is it. Although you will want to eventually be tracking SumbleUpon, Technorati, digg, Tumblr, del.icio.us and other social media sites, FriendFeed is a good starting point.
   

Now organizing your reader and subscribing to various blogs that are important for market research, customer interaction, product ideas, industry trends and other insightful conversations and learning what to do with those conversations is another post for another day.

John Speck (aka Frymaster) had one of my favorite responses to this on his own blog: "This is Your Brain. This is Your Brain on a Server." In his "not so humble opinion" he talks about how the Internet is still a toddler, about a three-year old to be exact.

His point: don't put too much stock into all the social media apps (facebook, twitter, etc) because they are all transitional. "The Internet has a lot to learn about communicating with the society around it."

We are the Internet... we are the children, we are the ones to make a brighter day, so let's start living. Oh, sorry, got distracted there. I'm wondering what will eventually qualify the Internet as teen-aged. Because it is the collective of society, won't it always be childish?

I'm finding the phrase "social media" is more of a fad than the phenomenon that actually encompasses it. EMarketer's report on User Generated Content, released this week, shows that social media (for lack of a better term) is here to stay.

To Frymaster's and Chris Brogan's point, I say the "experts" are the children who can behave older than the rest:

They are the ones that actually help pick up (it's messy out there), know when to obey (some laws of marketing should never be broken), and get invited to more play dates (client gigs).

http://www.capturetheconversation.com/feed/blog.rss

The old feedburner URL will stop working at the end of the month and to keep subscribed you need to change it to the url above.

We'd like to also take this opportunity to thank all of you for subscribing and apologize for this inconvenience. 

James Clark - Blog | Twitter | FriendFeed | LinkedIn | Facebook | Digg
Jason Cormier - Blog | Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook
Jennier Eubanks - LinkedIn | Facebook
Ben Castelli - Blog | Facebook
Ingrid Getzan - Blog | Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook
Stepan Mazurov - Twitter | FriendFeed | LinkedIn | Facebook | Digg | Pownce

Look us up, we love to talk to all our readers. We will keep this post updated until we get our own little profiles here at CTC.

Uh, yeah! I'm not shocked at all by the recent report from Pollara that garnered data stating:

"Of more than 1,100 adults polled in December, nearly 80% said they were very or somewhat more likely to consider buying products recommended by real-world friends and family, while only 23% reported being very or somewhat likely to consider a product pushed by "well-known bloggers."

Marc Macalua, had a great post referencing this study and how prevalent WOMM initiatives laser focus on A-List bloggers, forum veterans and senior Diggers to spread the message.

It's a strategy that if done right and the content is compelling, the story had a differentiation edge, there's good emotional content and it's simple to understand - you've got something that can go viral.  So that equates to about 1% of all the stories out there that WOMM agencies are trying to work with.

Litmus Test

The true litmus test for an organization is to see if it's employees believe in the product, service or program enough to tell their "real-world" friends - many of which by the way they are connected to, and communicate with via social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace.

This of course would require that your employees are maintaining social media profiles, but even more importantly, would require that your employees are proud enough of the company, their role in the company and its achievements to tell their friends and family.

Swallow Your Pride And Do The Following:

1. Ask your employees if they would be willing to discuss your company's product with their friends and family on their social networking sites.
2. Find out how many of them actually do it.
3. If people are not willing to do it, ask them why.

The answers might just be the solution to the problems that are plaguing your organization.

A few posts back, I did a video post on Social Media Starting Points, where I recommend that individuals start participating in social media via LinkedIn. The reason as I stated in that post:

"Because on LinkedIn you can quickly connect with individuals you have had personal relationships with through previous employers, universities, groups, etc. It's human nature to be more comfortable around the people we already know."

With the adoption of aggregation services like FriendFeed where in one place we can now see blog posts, family photos, articles they liked, restaurants they loved and music they are listening to - it's becoming easier for us to maintain communications and stay up to date with what  our "real-world" friends are doing out there in the wild and wacky world.

More  of a Reason to Encourage Social Media

So this report that states real world friends and family are more influential to purchasing decisions only strengthens the case for companies to actively support and encourage it's employees to participate in social media programs.

While people with more common names will have a harder time ranking for your own name as the first result, the tips below are helpful to everyone. First and foremost it is important to not be afraid to use your name on social websites. As Gary Vaynerchuk pointed out, your legacy, which starts with the name, is more important than money (currency) you currently make.  You are your own brand in Social Media and New Media Marketing, so to rank high for your name on search engines you must not be afraid to use your name.

There is 2 main ways to get this accomplished. First goal is to get your profile and your name on as many high trust sites as possible, here is a list of must-haves:

• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Pownce
• Flickr
• Digg

The big thing about these sites is they all allow you to link 1 or more sites, Pownce, Digg and LinkedIn being the best about cross linking your websites.

Second way to get the site ranked for your name is to simply comment on blog posts you find interesting.  Best way to provide an insightful comment is to ask a question related to the post to initiate conversation. Check our our tutorial on how to post a blog comment. If you have troubles finding interesting blog posts, I suggest you check out reddit, digg or stumbleUpon, across those 3 sites, you have unlimited amount of fresh interesting content to read and ultimately comment on.

Keeping those 2 tips in mind, you should have no problem getting even the toughest names ranked well on search engines.  If you have any other suggestions, please let us know in the comments.  We would love to hear how those tips help you rank well for your own name.

Offline, salespeople are always roaming around looking for people who might need help, and if they aren't, they are generally easy to spot to ask for assistance.  Online usually requires a few more hoops to get to an online chat--assuming you're shopping during hours where they have someone available.  In the event that you are unable to chat with someone, your only option is usually to email someone.  Of course, you do usually get a response, but that can take a day or two.  What if you need an answer right now??  This is definitely an instance where offline has the upper hand.

Another factor that Ed didn't mention, but one that is most important in why I even do any offline shopping at all is that of sizing.  Women's clothing is notorious for coming in seemingly arbitrary sizes.  Even if you know your measurements, you still have to do a bit of guesswork to figure out what size you might be in a particular designer's clothing.  Not to mention, you simply cannot get the same idea of how color and shape of some clothing will look on you without trying it on.  Sure some sites offer those cool little applications that put the clothes on a couple different generic body types, but most people don't fit exactly within one of those forms.  There's also something to be said for being able to see how it fits on you as well as feel the fabric and whether or not it is comfortable.

And don't even get me started on shoes.  While I tend to be the same size, I know many people who vary quite a bit depending on the brand and type of shoe.  The issue of comfort is also something you can't know until you've tried it on.  You can read reviews and see if the sizes run true and how they felt for the majority of people, but it's still no guarantee.

Sure, online sites tend to offer excellent return policies, and while I prefer the amount of laziness that online purchasing affords me, returning items infringes on my lack of effort.  To return something often requires calling someone for an authorization number and then contracting a shipping service to take your package.  Either that or a trip to the post office.  All in all I feel it is far less hassle to return something to an actual store, something that is often not possible depending on where you made your online purchase.

I'm all for online shopping, and it is indeed how I purchase the majority of holiday and birthday gifts for my friends and family.  When it comes to certain items such as apparel, I tend not to want to make the purchase unless I am very sure I know how it will fit or am able to return it to a nearby store.  While online shopping is popular for good reason, there are still some key points where, for me, it can't replace the immediacy of the offline realm.