Pinterest is exploding right now. Pinterest is a virtual bulletin board or pin board. You create boards, give them names, and then create “pins” which are mostly pictures you find on the web of stuff you like.

Then, you share your boards and pins with friends and everybody has a good time.

It has a reputation as being a site for women, but more guys are starting to use it.

The marketing potential for Pinterest is huge.

Check out the short video I made if you want to see a little of what Pinterest is about.

Here are the results…

Have you canceled any social media accounts?

How many social media accounts would you say you actively use (at least once every 3 days)

Which social network are you MOST active in?

Which social network are you LEAST active in?

Most active and least active social networks combined

What this means

I can’t tell you what this means to you. You’ll have to run your own poll for that. But I can tell you what this means for me: It means if I want to engage with my readers more fully, I need to spend more time on Facebook. If I hadn’t included StumbleUpon, Facebook would’ve been my own least-used social network. But according to this poll, most of you use Facebook almost as much as you use Twitter. This is something I have suspected but now I have some numbers to back it up.

Have you polled your own readers and customers about their social media usage? The results will be confirming or surprising and either result is good because it will give you confidence you’re spending your time and energy in the right places.

It could be a coincidence or it could be a trend. One way to find out is to conduct a poll and see what you say, and that’s exactly what I’m doing here.

The more people who take the poll, the better the results, so please share this post and encourage people to participate!

And the whole damn interwebz blowed up.

Nobody can shut up about Google+, it seems.

And right now, you’re probably wondering if you should get into it or not, and if so, to what degree.

Because, you know, you have all this free time with nothing better to do.

Another Social Network to Suck Away My Time? SERIOUSLY?

That’s the first thing I thought when I heard about Google+ (like we all didn’t know something was coming). I get invites to social networks all the time. All these new business networking or referral sites. For example, I keep getting invites from somebody for something called KILTR. Seriously? Sorry, but no.

Referral Key is a huge waste of time. It’s like they said, “Hey, let’s create a client referral network that completely ignores how actual word-of-mouth person-to-person recommendations work. In fact, let’s just make it into a bribery network!” I canceled my account there.

There are just way more social networks than anybody could ever have time for or care about. You want to be on the ones where your clients are, foremost, and secondarily where your peers are.

Buh-bye Now!

And there are social networks that come… and go. Plurk? Does anyone even use Plurk anymore? I mean, it’s still there, and clearly there are people on it, but Plurk doesn’t even rate against the big ones like Facebook or Twitter. That’s not to say it isn’t valuable to some, but I’ll never get back the time I put into it when I don’t use it, anymore.

And there is Google’s incredible track record of miserable, embarrassing failure with all things social.

On top of all that, you feel like you barely have time to manage social media marketing as it is.

And now there is insane buzz around Google+ and you feel pressured to join it.

There’s a Reason for the Buzz

There is a very good reason for all the buzz around Google+: it’s awesome.

Think about all the things you like about Facebook and Twitter:

• Lists and groups of people
• Easy sharing of content
• Easy posting of your thoughts in a variety of media
• Everybody you know is one or the other or both

Think about all the things you don’t like about Facebook and Twitter:

• Labyrinthine, circular  navigation (both)
• Limited features (Twitter)
• Too many features (Facebook)
• Privacy concerns (Facebook)
• Wants to just be the whole damn internet for you like AOL once did (Facebook)
• Spam (both, but mostly Twitter)

Now, imagine all the things you like, without the things you don’t, and that’s Google+.

Here’s What I Love about Google+

It works beautifully

The user interface design of Google+ is amazing. Stuff just works, and it works well. The navigation is clear and uncluttered. The functional elements are clear. You know what you can do and where.

Here’s an example of the little things that make a big difference: if you mouse over a person’s little info box in the Circles feature (Circles are like groups or lists), you can tell if they’ve already been added to a circle and which one because it will get a blue glow around its border. This is an important information need, met in an elegant, simple way.

By default you have preexisting circles you can add people to called Friends and Acquaintances. I really like that. Not everyone I interact with is truly my friend, no matter how much we may like and respect each other. The truth is that most of the people you deal with online are not your friends, they’re acquaintances. Google+ understands this and bakes it into the product.

When I hover over a person’s name in the Suggestions area (people I know–or may know–whom I haven’t yet added to a Circle), a menu appears letting me choose a Circle for them. Such a graceful and perfect feature.

Much thought has gone into anticipating user needs and meeting them in the easiest, most intuitive way possible.

It looks beautiful

Holy crap, somebody at Google woke up on the design side of the bed!

Google+ looks fantastic. It embodies that maxim that good design is what you have when you have removed all unnecessary elements. Google+ is supremely functional and utilitarian with a zen sparseness. There is no clutter. I happen to like the colors (coral is big this year, and it seems somebody at Google knows this).

Even better, the new look is being rolled out to Google Calendar and Gmail, for a unified experience. You already have the new look in your Google Calendar and you can turn on the new look in your Gmail by choosing that theme from your Gmail settings.

Everybody is On It (Or Soon Will Be)

Google actually has a chance with Google+. One important reason for that is the massive number of people who have Google accounts. Another is because Google is implementing a common top framed toolbar across their services. This toolbar features built-in Google+ integration (which, by the way, also works beautifully for catching up on your notices).

Check out the toolbar in my Gmail below:

I’ve circled the links that opens Google+ in the new tab (leftmost) and the notification area (right). To recap: massive numbers of Google accounts plus integrated toolbar equals “everybody is using it.”

No Stupid Games

Google+ has no disgruntled avians, no poking, no “can I bug you with stupid shit, huh? Please? Huh, can I?” apps.

No stupid games. No taking the time to refuse and block stupid games, because there just aren’t any in the first place.

What a breath of fresh air that is.

Annoyances

All is not flower petals and sparkles. There are a couple things about Google+ that bug me.

• No private messaging capability (everything is really public with the exception of private and limited Picasa photo albums)
• No way to currently send an invite to a single person

I understand there are crazy workarounds for these things, but they’re too much work to bother with. It’s easier for me to just remain mildly annoyed. We already have killer private messaging: it’s called Email (or in this case, Gmail).

I’m Off to Delete My Facebook Account

Just kidding.

I don’t say this lightly, because I hate just about every social network there is except Twitter (ironic, I know, considering what I do for a living, but at least you know I haven’t “drunk the Kool-Aide”), but I really think you should give Google+ a try.

If you can get in, that is.

You’re probably spending too much time on Facebook, anyway.

Which one stands out?

Are photos of yourself the best way to make your brand recognizable and customer friendly?

Only if you never change the photo.

This is swimming against the tide, I know, but isn’t the point of branding to create a consistently identifiable image?

Shouldn’t we make it as easy as possible for our customers to recognize us?

Personal vs. Business Branding

Photos make this more difficult than it needs to be. I understand the point of photos is to make the connection – that there is a you behind your business.

A large part of small businesses appeal is our ability to personally connect with clients. I understand how a photo can help with that. But is it the best way to brand your business across the spectrum of social media, e-commerce and individual sites? Especially when so much on the web is about visual, non-verbal recognition!

For many solopreneurs it’s difficult dealing with the whole personal branding issue. I understand how you are your brand, but as a newcomer to the online world recognizing brands by matching them up with photos and then remembering what the business is called is not always easy.

Chatting with @SuzieQ is lots of fun.  But Suzy’s site is called Purple Panties.  For those new to Social Media (and LOTS of people are) why make it more difficult for potential customers to find your store.  There would be nothing to stop you being @PurplePanties and telling people you chat to “Hi I’m SuzieQ.”

A few thoughts:

• What if you cut your hair? Or dye it another color? Shave your beard?
• Some sites (and screens) make the pictures really small and everyone looks a little alike..Smile, head a little tilted to look friendly…
• A photo as a favicon? Forget about being able to identify it
• Everyone (well, lots of people) are using photos – it no longer stands out.

Marketing 101

As a newcomer to PR, marketing and branding I’m on a steep learning curve. However, one of the most powerful pieces of information I absorbed was that your audience needs to see your brand/logo/ad 7 times before it sinks in. Consistency and repetition are the key. Make it simple for your customer.

We have all put tremendous effort into our businesses. I want people (aka potential clients) to see my logo and colors and say, “Thats Silver Magpies.”

With one minor exception, I use it everywhere because:

• It stands out.
• It works online and in the real world.
• It’s scalable – from favicon to full page ad.
• It’s on my packaging, card, invoices, websites – all opportunities to reinforce my brand.
• It’s mine ™ and all.
• There’s no disconnect between my Social Media presence and my business name.
• If I were ever inclined to do so, I could sell the business without new owners worrying about re-branding.

What about the personal connection?

Useful content, tweeting, email, conversation, Skype, video, and prompt customer service for clients and visitors are some of the ways I establish and develop relationships.  But if you hunt, you might find my photo somewhere on my site.

Nancy Stuckwisch of Silver Magpies has had a life-long fascination with vintage silver. She believes we should get the silver out of the cupboard, onto the table, and then into the dishwasher.

The report is concerned about how gender should be best addressed in social media marketing.

They use the word “targeted” but I don’t like that. Your ideal client is more than a target. Targets are shot at, not helped. You can’t build a relationship with a target.

Anyway…

Check this out:

Which gender should brands be targeting to help spread their message? While women outnumber men online — 53% vs. 47% — males are more likely to share digital media content — 51% vs. 49%

Interesting! Women outnumber men online. I already knew that, and my own audience breakdown reflects the same. Here’s the thing: knowing this, I adjust my social media game accordingly. This study bears out what I had intuited:

Men are also more likely — by a clear margin of 41% to 32% — to share information they deem “important” and feel will be helpful to others, from how-to tutorials to traffic reports.

“Men will share content that positions themselves as experts,” explained Kristin Kovner, senior marketing director at AOL.

Conversely, women are slightly more likely — 33% vs. 31% — to share information pertaining to a common interest like politics, arts and parenting. In other words, said Kovner, “women share to build community.”

Women “start businesses at 1.5 times the national rate”  and the “…number of women-owned firms grew by 50%, well above the 34% increase in the total number of small businesses” according to the latest U.S. Census information.

What’s not addressed at all in the MediaPost article is…

What should we do with this information?

Well, maybe nothing, because the differences are slight.

But it’s different for all of us. For myself and this business, the difference is more than just slight.

And it’s all based on the same question: who is your ideal client or customer (or as Jenny B says, your Perfect People)?

Most of my clients are women. This could be due to several factors, first and foremost of which is my dashing good looks (ahem). I believe it’s because of two factors, really:

• The statistics cited above on the overall numbers of women vs men-owned businesses and online presence.
• I’m pretty good at not turning off women to my content and marketing.

I don’t claim to have any special prowess with women (insert joke here) because I never set out to market to them over men. In other words, I never concentrated on either gender at first, this is just the hand which fate has dealt me (and it’s such a  terrible punishment, I know…).

When I now envision my idea client, she’s a she.

So… I tweet like a woman and I’m perfectly okay with that

I’m not being a phony. I’m not pretending to be a woman by using aliased or pseudonym social media accounts. What I am doing is remaining aware of the differences cited above in how men and women share content in social media.

If you take a look at my Twitter and Facebook streams you will see a mix of manly how-to practicality and just plain ol’ socializing and fun. Sometimes even slightly flirtatious fun, too. And I do mean slightly. Fun is good, creepy is not.

My main point here being that I kinda tweet like a woman, and while it doesn’t make me phony or manipulative, neither is it an accident or done unconsciously.

My masculinity is saved by my epic beard, which instantly out-beards all other beards in any room I enter and shrivels them in emasculated shame.

What do you need to be doing?

And the answer to that may be: nothing. Maybe gender and how it affects sharing and communications on social media doesn’t matter to you. If you’re a guy with other guys for clients, you probably don’t have to think too hard about it. If you’re a woman working with women, same thing. It’s all perfectly natural.

But… you may be the exception to the rule and not realize it. And you wondered why your social media marketing hasn’t gotten the traction you’d hoped for. You may want to attract the opposite sex as a client, but have felt like you had a cold reception or that people were just unresponsive.

In that case, maybe you do need to tweet like a woman… or a man.

Image by Mike-wise

What is Quora?

Quora is a place where you can ask and answer questions. How Quora differs from previous Q&A sites is that it’s community-curated, like Wikipedia. You could describe Quora as a cross between Yahoo! Answers and Wikipedia. Because of the community policing aspect of Quora, people can’t just come on and ask any ol’ stupid question they want. Trolling is practically impossible. By the same token, self-promotional or unsubstantiated answers are also weeded out.

Here’s a screenshot of a question which I answered, and which was voted on by users as the best answer (click to enlarge):

Everything about the questions and much about the answers is either editable or at least votable by users (is votable a word? it is now! ). If I felt the tags on a question were inaccurate, I could delete the questionable tags and add in better tags.

Quora has rules for how questions can be phrased to prevent trolling and just general dumbassery. So far, it seems to be working.

Why should you care about Quora?

If you’re reading my blog and you’re a client/customer of mine then you’re probably a single-person business operating as a coach, consultant or freelancer (not all of you, but most of you). Authority and expertise are two very important currencies for you. One of the main reasons why you blog in the first place is to have a channel for developing your authority and expertise as a means to acquire customers (business blogging, in other words).

From what I’ve seen so far, Quora is an excellent avenue for building authority and expertise. Because answers are voted on by users, an element of social proof is introduced to further cement your authority and expertise.

Consider the benefits of the following:

• You can link to your Quora profile from your blog
• You can link to your Quora answers in posts you write
• Your Quora answers can inspire blog posts
• Any content on Quora might inspire blog posts, for that matter
• You can cross-link your Quora answers on Twitter and Facebook
• You can reach out to new people and be genuinely helpful, which is a powerful form of marketing that doesn’t seem like marketing at all

This paints a compelling picture in my opinion for giving Quora a try. If you do, I invite you to connect with me on Quora. If you’re not already a Quora user, access is by invitation only still at this point. If you’d like an invite, just email me with “Quora invite” in the subject line and I’ll hook you up. You can use my contact form here on the site or just email michaelmartine@gmail.com.

Have you tried Quora yet? What’s your impression?

The commercial shows two middle-aged businessmen seated in a diner having coffee and reading the newspaper (on actual paper–you know, that kind). Each man is absorbed in what he is reading. The first man puts his paper down, looks at the second man, and says, “We gotta get online.”

The second man puts his paper down, looks at the first man, and asks, “Why?”

The first man looks back at his paper again for a moment. Then puts the paper down again and says to the second man: “Doesn’t say.”

Now, here we are, over 15 years later. Replay the scene in your mind and swap “online” with “on social media.”

Scary, huh?

Yeah, that’s pretty much what most businesses are doing. What about you? Got strategy?

Twitter Analytics & Power Features

Twitter analytics of some kind lets you see and measure the following:

• Which links you tweeted got the most clicks
• Who your most engaged and active followers are
• Who you’re following who may be “dead weight”
• Retweet effectiveness

Many of the companies that provide Twitter analytics also provide a host of “power services” so business can use Twitter most effectively:

• Tweet from multiple accounts and/or multiple users
• Post-date tweets
• Repeat tweets at timed intervals
• Automatically retweet specific feeds, hashtags or other twitter users
• Suggest people to follow or unfollow
• Cross-post to other social networks like Facebook or LinkedIn

Pluggio

Pluggio is a great starter service if you’ve never done this sort of thing before. Pluggio lets you create a free account which has some limitations but it’s definitely enough to get you started so you can try it out. Here’s a brief video on how to set up link tracking in Pluggio using the popular Bit.ly URL shortener/tracker service (if you can’t see the video in your email or reader, please visit Remarkablogger to watch it there).

HootSuite

HootSuite offers a much more robust (but more complex) feature set. This is the “big guns” of Twitter analytics and power services, capable of servicing large as well as small business. Here’s a video overview of HootSuite:

PostRank

PostRank has slightly different spin on measuring Twitter effectiveness. They take several factors and use them to calculate engagement events & points. A higher number of engagement events or points means your tweet reached more people and saw more action.

Another important difference is that PostRank is for measuring your website’s social media effectiveness. It’s not a twitter client like Pluggio or HootSuite. What PostRank does best is show you how effective your blog content is in the social media sphere. You can use PostRank in addition to either Pluggio or HootSuite. Here’s a video overview of PostRank:

What are You Using?

Are you using any of these tools? How do you like them? Any others we should know about? Tell us in the comments!

To someone who hasn’t been steeped in web culture from its beginnings in the early 90s (and even earlier in some cases), social media doesn’t seem like an appropriate business marketing channel. After all, it’s… social. It seems like a waste of valuable time: we’re just shooting the breeze or even playing games with people and other silliness.

Where Does “Social” Happen?

Pretend we’re back in the old days before the advent of telecommunications. Where did a lot of business actually take place? In places of business? Sure, of course, but where else? Star for you if you said cocktail parties, pubs, conventions, golf courses, hunting trips… in other words, social gatherings of some type.

Let’s jump back to the present day (whew… the hygiene is much better here!). Same question: where does business actually happen? A high percentage of it still takes place in social settings. It’s just that now we have a new social setting: the web. And because people are social creatures, this new social “setting” (or tools, depending on how you look at it–kind of like the whole photon vs. particle thing with light, but I digress…) is where business takes place. It’s available to us 24/7 on any internet-connected device.

It’s possible for web-based social settings & tools to be the only ones we use, but using “real life” settings & tools along with the web still gives us the best relationships with other people. And that’s what matters, and what gives us the best results in the long run (if we were to be so focused on the bottom line).

The Two-fold Job of Social Media in Online Marketing

Social media has two jobs to accomplish for us in online marketing:

• Build relationships for mutual benefit
• Send traffic back to your blog

These two goals reinforce each other, too. Each needs the other for social media as an online marketing channel to be effective. And while these two points are the “job” of social media in online marketing, there are a number of benefits wrapped up in this:

• You have listening posts in social media so you can always understand how your business is perceived and what your market is really hungry for.
• Opportunities will come from your social interactions online just like they do from offline social activities.
• You will get greater traffic to your money-making online properties, resulting in greater sales.
• Your authority in your market will grow.

How Social Media Accomplishes This

Here’s a quick rundown of how, exactly, using social media accomplishes all this wonderfulness for you:

• Each social media site you belong to gives you a profile page with links back to your blog and often a biography and picture.
• Your interactions with others in social media, if done correctly, will cause people to want to know more about you, so they will visit your profile page to do so. From here they can add you as a friend and/or visit your blog.
• Profile pages tend to show up in search results, too, which means that even if someone else has the same name as you, your name will show up top in search if you have a bigger social media footprint. There are other Michael Martines out there, but none of them are ever going to beat me in a search for that name.
• In your interactions with others on social media, your goal is to provide information your market wants and to be helpful to your market. This builds trust, traffic, and, ultimately… sales.
• One of easiest ways to do this is to simply post links to helpful information in your social streams. Some of those links (the minority) should be to your own blog posts in order to create value for your market and send traffic back to your blog.
• Engaging in chat-style conversations to help others is another easy way to do this: just be there for people and offer a helping hand when you can.
• One of the goals of social media is to drive traffic back to the blog. Make this easier by adding in social media tools to your blog so that your readers can help you with this.

What About Tools? Which Ones?

You’ll notice that in all of this I haven’t mentioned a single specific social media tool, like Facebook, Foursquare, or Twitter. There are good reasons for that. This is not a “how to” article for any tool. The main tools right now (note that emphasis) are Facebook and Twitter. There are plenty of others that resonate with some folks but not others (Reddit vs. Digg vs. LinkedIn, for example).

New tools are created, old tools fall out of favor. The tools aren’t the important thing, it’s what they do for us: they help us connect with other human beings. There are a bazillion posts out there on specific tools and even blogs dedicated to them. The top ones are good, just google it and you’ll be golden.

How is it Working for You?

How are social media and blogging working for you as closely related online marketing channels? Any frustrations or insights you’d like to share? Have at it in the comments!