Google Social Search Enhances Online Visibility

This screenshot of my Google Profile page shows my social media links, recent tweets and posts, and my Flickr photo stream.

A few months ago, I completed my Google Profile online, which was great, except for one thing -- I didn't know what to do with it. Now, I do. Google has launched in Beta a new feature that enhances online visibility by producing search results that include the contacts in your Social Circle.

Who is your Social Circle and Why Are They Important? 
Basically, your circle includes all your online connections, including Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Friendfeed, LinkedIn, and of course, your G-mail contacts and Google Reader/Chat/Buzz connections. The idea is that when you go to research something online, you probably want to know what someone you already know thinks about it. Maybe it's a marketing tool, or a new restaurant or hotel, or even a book or movie.The SEO and "getting found" value of this is a huge plus. The more your name and links pop up, the more not only your friends and connections can find you, but others as well.

Here's how it works:

1. Set up your Google Profile (you need a Google account), and follow the prompts to fill in your contact information, social media links, bio, and any other information you like. Note that this isn't something you need to go back to and update -- if you complete it the first time you should be good to go.
2. When you are finished, you will get a profile link, which you can then add to your blog, social media profiles, signature tag, etc. You can also tweet it and promote it through all social media channels.
3. When you are next searching online, check the search results and look for an entry that reads: "Results from People in Your Social Circle." Here, you will see names that should be familiar to you, and just as their names are coming up, so should yours as well, depending on the topic. If you don't see the Social Circle results, click for More Results and continue looking on the next page or 2. I just did an experiment using the search terms "Video Marketing," and "Social Media Marketing," and in both cases the social circle names I recognized came up. 

Social Circle results for the search term, "Video Marketing"

My Social Search page on Google showing all my connections alphabetically

A quick footnote: a Google profile is also a great way to get a snapshot of your connection's online life, and features all their social media links, recent posts and tweets, and an easy way to contact them on e-mail. You can also see who their connections are as well, providing a cool social media window of potential friends and contacts.

I've included my Google profile link here, feel free to connect with me, and if you're trying out the Social Search, let me know how it goes!

Sneak Preview: Constant Contact Launches 5 New Features

As a Constant Contact Business Partner, I get a cool sneak preview whenever they launch a new feature. So today I got the news of 5 exciting ones coming up soon and being announced to Constant Contact users later this week. Without further ado, here they are:

1. My Library:  Formerly called "Image Hosting," My Library is a new image storage feature that will allow for up to 5 PDF documents to be stored right in your Constant Contact account. If you want to edit images, Picnik, the image editing software, is linked right into the account as well. If you need more storage, for $5 a month, you get upgraded to My Library Plus, which holds 50MG of PDF and image storage, as well as hundreds of stock gallery images.

My take on this: Yes! I was just thinking about PDFs while producing my July newsletter, and wondering why I could not include a direct attachment to a document, but only links. So this is a good evolution of events in the image and PDF category, although with a limit of 5 PDFs, most of us are going to need to go for the premium upgrade.  Picnik is definitely one of the easier image editing programs around and takes only a few minutes to learn. I have successfully used it to crop and resize photos many times and it's very user friendly. There are even some new features like increasing sharpness, that are impressive and really work! Picnik also offers image storage, with a premium account.

2. New Tweet and Share Option:
With the new "Tweet and Share" option, you can automatically post your email to your Twitter feed when it is sent. After sending an email, you can Tweet it again as much as you like or share it on Facebook and other social networks using the "Share" button.

My Take On This: It's a good move to automate the Tweet and Share, although I was doing this anyway by using the Share button on that appears whenever you archive your e-mail anyway. Still, this should make it more convenient. I don't know if retweeting one's own newsletter repeatedly is a good idea, since the concept of social media is that other folks ideally do this, (kind of like not Digging yourself), but it's nice to know it's available if you want to promote your newsletter to a new audience or group online.

3. Get a Facebook "Like" Button for Shared Emails: 

When you share your Constant Contact email on Facebook, a "Like" button appears at the top of the webpage view that is generated, making it easy for your friends and followers to promote your newsletter across the web.

 My Take On This: A great idea, but how about integrating this with the templates for the individual articles themselves, so they can be separately Liked and Tweeted? I have seen this on some other programs and also used the feature myself when I saw an individual story I liked but didn't need to necessarily highlight the entire newsletter.


4. Spread the word about your event through social media:




Your registrants can now share your event on Facebook. This exciting new feature makes it easy for your registrants to share your event right from your Registration Confirmation and Event Details pages. You control whether you want your event shared simply by hiding or showing the event on your event calendar.

Your registrants can now Tweet your event. Now, those registered for your event can help you spread the word. Easy for them to tweet that they're attending your event, and as with Facebook, you control whether you want your event shared simply by putting it on your Event Marketing calendar or not.

My Take On This: I have not yet tried the Event functions using Constant Contact, but this looks to be a big improvement and should serve as an incentive for more folks to try out the Event tools.

5. Contact and Bounce Management:
In one quick step, you can move "bounced" contacts directly into your "Do Not Mail" list, making contact management easier and more efficient. You can now also import "All Contacts" from Gmail. In addition to "My Contacts," select any contact list you have in Gmail and import it into your Constant Contact account.

 My Take On This: Both of these improvements should be huge time savers, although I'm surprised that given the number of Gmail users out there, that it would have taken this long to automate the address book feature. Also, personally I'm hesitant to use the address book feature as an all-in-one move, since I like to invite potential subscribers through a personal invitation first, and that way subscribers opt-in on their own initiative.


Feel free to comment here on how you like the new features when you try them out!

Could Video Kill the Blogging Star?

One of the great things about social media (and video), is that with today's tools, everyone can become a communicator. But as with everything in life, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should always do it, or do it in excess. This morning as I was sorting through my inbox, I noticed a concerning trend...too much video!

My philosophy of video is that it should provide information, entertain, enhance marketing efforts and messaging, and reinforce brand. There are times, however, when it can backfire on the publisher/communicator:

• when it's done too much
• when the quality is lacking, either on the video or audio side
• when the content is dull

A favorite blogger who I have heard speak many times, recently sent at least 12 new videos from a trip he is currently on. This is a person who has always advocated that "less is more," so I was surprised to see this amount, which I do not have time to watch, by the way, so I deleted the message. If he had sent one really good video about his trip, I would have watched it.

Another blogger I generally enjoy, recently sent a video about the virtues of --you guessed it--creating video. It was long (over 3 minutes), and included a lot of circular discussion about video without any how to's or pointers. The video added absolutely nothing to her brand or expertise, and in fact damaged it, as for some reason she had another pop up sign up video appear on the same screen. Double videos? I don't think so. I'm keeping my subscription, but am pretty likely not to click on her videos again. If she had done a video about tips on creating or uploading them, or maybe links to some of her favorites, I would have watched it.

Another very prominent blogger whose books I love and have actually been promoting, posted a video a few months ago, where he was in a hotel room in the middle of the night, and had ordered room service. So while he was talking away about social media, we got to see and hear him munching away on his room service meal. Maybe this was his way of creating intimacy, but it seemed awkward. Ever heard of the phrase: "don't talk with your mouth full?" If he had created the same video and waited until after he had eaten, I would have watched and enjoyed it. 

Here's a video I always love to watch, for those looking for great ideas.

Takeway message: be mindful of what, how much, and why you are posting video, so that you enhance your brand rather then take away from it. And remember, too much of anything can just seem, well...old fashioned.

What do you think?

My First "Jing" Video Tutorial: How to Add a YouTube Widget to Blogger Sidebar

This is a screen capture of the Jing video launch for my tutorial. Click here for the tutorial.

 Welcome to my first screencast! I had a great time preparing this little tutorial on one of my favorite topics -- widgets! Here, I show how to easily add a YouTube widget that will show your channel in the Blogger sidebar. The reason I chose this particular widget is that there are some setting that pop up on the menu options that can be confusing. For example, if you leave the "keyword" options in, other videos will load in addition to or instead of yours, and you won't be showing off your videos. This might work if you are wanting to show your favorites, but if you are creating video content like I am, you're probably going to want to share that first.

Even if you aren't using Blogger and this topic may not be relevant, I added a quick note about Jing, the screencast program I tried out, with a quick review...

 A Note About Jing

Pros:
*I found the program fairly easy to use, in that it was only about 15 minutes between the time I downloaded it to when I started preparing my tutorial. It was simple to crop the area I wanted on my desktop to become the screen, and the control panel of choices was straightforward: capture video, images, save to hard drive, save to screencast.com.

*I loved the customized buttons you can create on your control panel to automate sending files to Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr, and I'm going to test them out next. I also did something that was probably advanced for a first go-around, and created a "Screencast Embed" icon that would produce HTML code right away. Woohoo!

















 *I really liked how the sun image sits on your desktop with 3 navigation "rays:" HOME, HISTORY, and MORE (Help)

*The tutorials are numerous, clear, and to the point, and the voiceover is a pleasant speaking voice. I really enjoyed them and clicked on then a lot more then I have in other learning situations.

*The program is free, but...see CONS

Cons:

*You cannot upload directly to YouTube unless you upgrade to a PREMIUM account, which was about $14 a year. Without that option, you are left to get the embed code from the screencast program, and it was a awkward to retrieve it. I had to keep going back to the video to upload it again and get the code. A simple pop up widget would have helped a lot in this regard. Even when I did get the code with a test video, I had to go into the HTML to change the size of the video and other details that were a bit complex for the average user.

*Audio. My iBook is a few years old and the built-in microphone is not that great, however I have used it with iMovie and it's worked OK.
The audio, as you can probably tell, is not great, but if I were to create a lot of these I would definitely get a separate microphone anyway. I did find it odd that there were not any options for equipment add-ons in the audio department?

Overall, I would definitely recommend this screencast program. Comparing it to one other that I tried, Screentoaster, it was infinitely better, both in terms of image quality and sound. Screentoaster does have a new improved version in Beta, but I tried it on a test video, and the video image came up distorted and pixelated. So that's the end of that, for now.

Interested to hear your experiences with screenrecorders and favorites you might have...blog on!

Marketing Monday: What's Wrong With This Picture?

Welcome to another installment of "Marketing Monday," where I look at some real life marketing experiences, where I am the guinea pig and another company/person/entrepreneur is marketing to me, and offer insights into what worked, what didn't, and sometimes just a plain old: what's up with that?

What We Have Here: So, here we have an opened box of sodas from the Hansen's Natural soda company. They had contacted me on e-mail a few weeks ago saying they had seen my blog, and would I be interested in a sample of the soda. I filled out a form saying "YES!" since as a blogger I generally do have opinions about things- social media...communications....soda....why not? Writers need refreshment too.

The Good Part: They found me. They really found me. These days, finding someone counts for a lot. Someone did their marketing homework and thought I'd be good to send this stuff to.

The Not So Good Part: Well, the soda arrived, but as you can see, there is something seriously missing from the box. Yes, you guessed it...a Call to Action! Why would a company that went to all the trouble of sending me a box of sodas, (which were, by the way, quite tasty although a tad sweet...my favorite was Mandarin Lime), completely drop the marketing ball and not send so much as a little note saying:
Why not Fan us on Facebook? Follow us on Twitter? Make a video of you tasting our sodas and we'll post it on our YouTube page? How about a blog post? Or, please enjoy this $5 coupon off your next purchase of our soda?


The Takeaway: So, Hansen's Sodas and other liked-minded groups, if you had enclosed that extra note (Call to Action) with your box, I would have focused my post on why I really liked the Mandarin Lime, instead of what was missing from the box. You had a great idea to start with, you just needed to finish it. Otherwise, thank  you for the 6 cans of soda, that are now finished. I would get more, but I don't have a coupon.

PS. I just checked the Hansen's web site, no social media or blog to be found, but nice site otherwise, with cool bubble icons that come up when you click on the nav bars. Now, that's clever marketing.

What do you think?

I Changed My Look

It's Carrie's blog here, and I decided it was time for a little makeover. So, I've been up late being tweaked and reorganized, and I have to say, I feel pretty good. Kind of like a weight has been lifted off my HTML, if you know what I mean. It was also good to see some of Blogger's new features, which are:

*Ability to add pages (up to 12), so I can feel like a real web site, cool!

*Some interesting new templates, of which this is one. I like the blue background and think it works well with the butterfly logo. I also think the type is easier to read.

*Handy plug-ins, like a Share widget that's more updated then previous ones, and also the ability in the Design template to move around the different elements of the post, like the date and time, links, etc.

*Finally, a retweet button, although I know Carrie had to dig around a little for this as it was nowhere to be found in the Blogger features...hope you are listening, Google. (Note: I'll be posted next on how to set up a retweet widget in Blogger for those who haven't done it yet, you have to go into the template code, but don't freak out, it's all good...)

*Carrie streamlined my sidebar, which was getting a little out of hand, even I admit it. Maybe it was all those late-night Oreos.

*Carrie just realized (ok, she admits it) that she didn't see until she went into her Settings mode, that she could choose between the traditional Blogger toolbox, and the new and improved. So of course, she went with the newly updated one, which has an improved Preview function -- you actually get a whole new window -- and more choices on the placement and sizing of photos.  Just for the record, I'm all for that.

*Carrie decided to highlight some of her cool awards she's gotten lately, like her 2009  Contact E-Marketer Allstar, right in the sidebar...she should have thought of this sooner. I'm so proud.

*I'm liking the Amazon Association widget that automatically appears when she's writing a new post, another new feature. This allows her to automatically insert an image and link, just by typing in her item in the search bar. Cool.

*I think I hear something...Carrie must be back from her adventures in Advanced Template land... but before I go, please post a comment here on how you feel about my new look. I love feedback, really, I do, just be gentle, it's my first makeover in a while.

It's Carrie here, sorry to break things up, but it's 4:00 am and we all really need to go to bed!