The Acqui-Hire: Rethinking the Trust We Place in Start-Ups

When Facebook purchased Instagram earlier this week, the resounding sentiment was one of anxiety. Avid Instagram users immediately announced they were deleting their accounts while others pleaded for Facebook not to change or “kill” the application. By now, this type of anxious, confused response to a start-up’s acquisition has become familiar; the acquisition announcement now marks the tipping point in a digital cycle we’ve all come to know quite well

1. Hear about a useful new application or service, try it out and love it
2. Start using the service more frequently, recommend it to friends and grow to depend on it
3. Wake up one morning to a glowing announcement on the app’s site that “We’ve been acquired by Facebook/ Twitter/ Google/ Microsoft/ Apple/ Amazon…!” and shortly thereafter…
4. Mourn the app’s closing while frantically searching for a similar one to replace it (and never finding one quite as good)
5. (Repeat)

It’s pointless to question why the acquired company allows itself to be purchased. Most of them know that the fruit of their blood, sweat, and tears will be reduced to an acquisition notice frozen in time; yet when that Godfather-offer is placed at their feet one can only imagine how difficult it must be to refuse. Other than those with obvious answers, the cycle raises some other important questions: Why purchase a profitable, marketable service just to shut it down? Who holds the responsibility towards existing users who are left behind after a shut down? And finally, how does this acquisition pattern affect the relationship between start-ups and potential users?

Companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Google etc. are transparent in their motivations for acquiring successful startups and then killing their products. As Mark Zuckerberg explained during a speaking engagement at Y Combinator’s Startup School in 2010, “We [Facebook] have not once bought a company for the company. We buy companies to get excellent people….” The talent acquisition Zuckerberg explains has come to be known as the “acqui-hire” and is increasingly commonplace since 2010.

Most recently (in December), Facebook acqui-hired Gowalla, a Foursquare-like social network, and speculation abounded as to what would happen to the service itself. Only a few weeks ago a heartfelt goodbye replaced Gowalla’s homepage, signaling what most people already knew would occur.

Simply put, acquirers are often just not interested in the acquired company’s product. To the acquirer the product is just proof of the acquired employees’ worth as new, high-rank hires. Yet what about the dedicated users who are left behind after an acqui-hire shut down? Less discussed is the trail of user anger, frustration and anxiety which an acqui-hire leaves in its trail.

In January, Summify, a start-up which “…creates a beautiful daily summary of the most relevant news from your social networks…” joyfully announced that they had been acquired by Twitter and posted a short FAQ explaining: “We will be disabling new account registrations immediately and we will also be removing some features. We will keep the email summaries for a few more weeks, but at some point we will shut down the current Summify product...”

Of the 308 responses to the announcement many were congratulatory, yet many others were of a different tone and echoed the following sentiments:

Brad Brooks (@ninthart) #

While I’m really happy for you guys, I’m really upset that you seem to be shutting down the whole Summify experience. I’ve come to depend on the iPhone app, and I’m in shock that it’s going away. Is there no way that Twitter will allow you to keep the app going?

January 19, 2012

                               

Max #

There’s got to be a way to keep the service up and running. This is so disappointing and is a real ugly move for your users who rely on Summify and would have come along as you grew and monetized it. So disappointing.

January 19, 2012

Philip Ryan Johnson #

Wow. One could only wish us all to be so happy, but it is clear Summify’s announcement does little more than throw its committed users under the bus. What a shame to have grown such an engaging, dedicated, and trusting community of users—a daunting ordeal envied by all startups—only to backhand everyone in the process. And unfortunately, the growing disappointment and anger easily rubs off onto Twitter for being viewed as the key player initiating the acquisition. Sad.

January 19, 2012

So many of the responses to the announcement reflected the above sentiments that the company felt compelled to issue an update to the announcement stating:

“Thanks for your notes of congratulations. We’re thrilled to be joining Twitter. Some of you have expressed concerns about the product being shut down. We appreciate your support and enthusiasm….”

Needless to say the update gives little solution or comfort to those disappointed users who feel used and abandoned. Unfortunately, the acqui-hire product shut down doesn’t end there. About two weeks ago Posterous, announced that it had been acquired by Twitter and in their announcement included the following statement:

“Posterous Spaces will remain up and running without disruption. We’ll give users ample notice if we make any changes to the service. For users who would like to back up their content or move to another service, we’ll share clear instructions for doing so in the coming weeks."

The announcement set off familiar alarms for many users and amassed 850 comments. Along with the usual congratulatory replies were an unavoidable number of confused, frustrated and anxious responses:

Mark David Zahn responded:

Don't like the sound of this at all. Twitter ruined Tweetdeck. Better not happen to Posterous. I just spent a ton of time moving everything I had from Tumblr.

Ian Cummings responded:

This may sound odd because it's a free platform but I feel slightly betrayed by all this…

Mauricio responded:

Annnd that's a wrap for Posterous.

This is your "ample time notice" guys. Get cracking on "exporting your content"...

Joe Ross responded:

I hope this isn't another one of Twitter's acquire and kill/ignore or dis-innovate maneuvers. See: TweetDeck

Douglas Craver responded:

I hope you guys can turn around what has been the Twitter track record of ruining the technology it acquires. Posterous is a much more innovative platform for expression and I pray I don't have to waste a week moving my numerous SPACES to another platform in the future. If Twitter is wise it will provide deeper integration and use Posterous to grow an actual community of engaged users vs. a community of narcissistic users.

Note: Comments were disabled for Gowalla’s acquisition announcement.

Many of the Posterous responses equated the takeover to Twitter’s purchase of TweetDeck. Although TweetDeck continues to exist, it was stripped of many of the features which made it so popular with users (i.e removal of Deck.ly which enabled a user to tweet things longer than 140 characters).

You might be saying to yourself “It’s business, it’s not personal and this is how things work in the world of the start-up.” That may be true, but the acqui-hire phenomenon has deeper reaching effects that need to be considered.

Every time a successful start-up is purchased by a larger company and its product is thrown aside or stripped down it chips away at the basic trust that a user places in a new start-up as well as in the larger company. If a user comes to think of start-ups as experimental, temporary services who will sell themselves, their product and their user base to the highest bidder (as many start-ups are exemplifying), less and less people will be willing to make the necessary leap of faith alongside a new start-up; and the trust between the user and the acquiring company also gets damaged. This general sentiment of distrust is beginning to seep deeper into the general consciousness as was pointedly summed up by a hurt and disappointed Summify user:

Andy #

It’s impossible to trust apps like this. I’ve been through the experience before, here today and gone tomorrow. They think nothing of pulling the rug out from underneath you. Like I said, there’s no incentive to start using any of these   apps anymore.

January 19, 2012

Despite the air of disappointment and frustration there are rare instances when an acqui-hire shut down doesn’t succeed in crushing the acquired company’s product. In July of 2011 Twitter acquired the company BackType, and with it the service BackTweets which for $100/ month allowed users to search for URLs in a tweet history. As expected, BackTweets was shut-down shortly after the acquisition. However, this month the BackTweets.com domain was purchased after it unexpectedly went to auction and the service was revived, FOR FREE!

Needless to say, the responses were a refreshing change from the previous responses BackTweets was receiving:

Allie Townsend  

Hey, there's a new http://t.co/ElIBOMfq!

Black Daliah  

#Twitter bought it just 2 take it down. Some1 brought it back to life! http://t.co/S64Kcg7V

For old BackTweets users the revival must certainly be a breath of fresh air- I just can't help wondering how Twitter feels.

Bang for Your Buck? The Cost of Social Media Marketing

I’ve been travelling a lot lately working with a wide variety of companies from Olympic sponsors to global beer companies. I’m asked the same questions time and again – what does it cost to do Facebook marketing right? How much are other companies spending on social media marketing? What are the right measurements?

The first thing to realize is there are two ways to execute social media marketing:

1. Stand-alone as a distinct separate silo within the company or marketing department
2. Integrated as part of a holistic marketing strategy

The first method – stand-alone Facebook or Twitter marketing – is good for companies with limited resources, who want to drive a small group of customers to take action.

Investing in a small stand alone social program can be $1,500-5,000 a month. 

The biggest bang for the buck is from Facebook and Twitter updates which drive traffic to a value-add blog. Knowing your audience and the different buyers you have, then doing a blog to them once or twice a week is the most effective way to leverage Facebook or Twitter. You can put a teaser – with a high quality photo on your Facebook site, and Tweet about the blog.

Using Facebook and Twitter to amplify a blog is a long-term strategy that can take 6-12 months to work, but once you have the machine working it is very valuable marketing. You build loyal followers and create an advantage not easily taken away.

To jumpstart a stand-alone program Facebook ads driving traffic to your brand page, and Google Ads driving people directly to the blog are the quickest way to get some return in a week or two on your investment.  For $30-100 a day you can use Facebook, Twitter or Google Ads to amplify your message. Be sure to set dedicated URL’s to analyze traffic using something like Google Analytics. And make sure you try three or four ads to see the response rate to different wording.

If you are a Fortune 1000 company and have dedicated web and online staff  then Facebook and Social Media marketing should be thoughtfully integrated into event marketing,  product launches and customer service.

For an incremental $100,000 a year you can start to get a much higher ROI from your events and sponsorships. If you allocate $5-10 million to social marketing and have dedicated staff for the social media function you should follow five best practices:

1. Integrate social media with product launch, events, and customer service. Read more aboutusing social media to drive revenue in one of my recent blogs.
2. Respond within minutes or hours (not days) to any comments on social media about customer service, product capability, sales locations etc. You need to track your company or product name to do this
3. Tell a continual story through social media – there should be a trend and voice to your efforts. This includes showing pictures from your events to giving Facebook fans sneak-peak videos and doing crowd sourcing .
4. Measure and Analyze everything. If you can’t measure it you can’t manage it. Getting great amplification from events through social media  experiences should be compared with direct response from  Google Ads and money spent on SEO.
5. Stay educated – Facebook has it’s EdgeRank, Google has it’s SEO algorithm, Twitter has multi-grouping and all these things change. This will change your strategy on a regular basis. Read a lot about it and attend seminars or find peer groups to get best practice.

Some companies we work with are spending $10million plus on social media. They are getting phenomenal returns in part because many f their competitors have not figured it out yet. Be the first ones in your industry to really leverage it and figure it out and you will reap the rewards.

If you want to find out more about using social media for your events download our eBook on Social Media Marketing at Events.

12 Key Social Media Takeaways from Top Social Media Experts

At Instant E-Training we recently concluded our popular “Social Media for Business” WebConference and Certification event. We had over 23 live Social Media training sessions conducted by over 18 leading social media experts. Understandably, there were some pearls of wisdom thrown by all our experts over the course of 6 weeks. So we thought to compile what we thought were 12 key takeaways from our Social Media WebConference event. You can implement these for your business right away.

So here are 12 key Social Media takeaways by 12 Social Media experts:

1.Act – If you aren’t getting pushback then you aren’t pioneering – Erik Qualman

Don’t be afraid to try new things and get reactions. Every pioneer makes a bold statement which not everyone always agrees to initially. Often people will hesitate to try new things, but don’t let that discourage you. Act, make bold choices and interact with your audience.

2. It’s not about creating accounts, It’s what you do with them – Krista Neher

There was once a time where companies and organizations created accounts just to say that they had them. Now, it is imperative to use them to connect well with your audience. Make your company one that can be personable and one that people can connect with.

3.Collaboration is necessary for Social Media success– Chris Barger

“No other business strategy executes independently; social shouldn’t either”.

All of your social media efforts should align themselves with the same purpose and remain consistent. Along with that, your whole team should also be on the same page with what their role is in order to work together effectively. Involve your legal team, build social media policies, and keep everyone in the know.

4. Life is not about being liked it’s about being effective – Chase McMichael

The goal with Facebook and social media is not just for people to merely nod their heads in agreement and throw a thumbs up, but to take action. It’s about getting your customer to be actively engaged with your product or organization through social media. You need to have the right content to facilitate the greatest interaction. Find the common interests that your brand’s audience shares and give them what they want. The goal is that through their engagement people would have a great sense of what your company is about and choose you when given the opportunity.

5. Content Isn’t Great Until It’s Shared – Lee Odden

Give your audience something worth talking about. Create content that is music to their ears. You can create this share worthy content via a blog and re-purpose it in many fashions. Participate in the conversations that form and engage the growing network to motivate your audience to share.

6. Twitter Golden rule – Give before you get – Hollis Thomases

You need to give your followers things of value to them. Don’t just ask for a sale – instead give them thoughts, ideas, and tweets worth re-tweeting. You want to give your audience information that is of value to them. It is then that they will pay closer attention to what you have to say. Just don’t expect to receive anything, and give, give, give. If it is done right, you will start to naturally get the attention you want.

7. Figure Out Your Customer’s Dream & Sell them – Brian Carter

Remember that the medium is the message. Something that you might share in an email might not be as well accepted as it would be on a Facebook wall. Whatever it is you share, you want it to be memorable. Selling the dream doesn’t mean the product itself, but rather what it represents for your audience. Sell them awe, connection, belonging, fun, happiness.

8. For small business owners, Word Of Mouth Starts With You– Sima Dahl

For a small business owner, no one is going to retweet for you or share your posts like it usually is the case with big brands. So the conversation starts with you ….Creating memorable moments starts with you. Select a social media channel, assess your content, start a conversation, and be creative. Be a real person with real honest opinions. Find people, engage them, and tell them what you are up to. Encourage the conversations that proceed.

9. Our networks are our most important assets – Neal Schaffer

Our personal and professional networks are the most important assets we have and so we should treat them as so. LinkedIn is a great way to access and form that network. Our network provides us with credibility and possible opportunities. On LinkedIn you can join groups, participate in events and even be introduced to new people that your friends and colleagues know. We have a platform to listen, engage, and connect. It’s simple and a great way to tap into one the most important assets you have.

10. Online Video can help captivate, engage, and stimulate your audience – Bob Tripathi

Videos are great because they captivate the viewer’s attention and stimulate their senses via sight and sound. They keep the viewer engaged. In most cases emotion is easily conveyed and thoughts are easily spread. It can be consumed on a variety of devices, making it also easily accessible. People are able to engage with this media by liking, sharing, and commenting, making this a valuable tool in persuasive efforts.

11. What can be found, can be optimized – Bob Tripathi

If there is any content found on the internet, there is a way to enhance its searchability via the web. Whether it be a blog post, video, or a website be sure to use the right keywords, tags, and phrases to ensure those who go searching will find you. Know what your audience is searching for and how they go about looking for it. There is always a way to enhance your content by way of optimization whether be it your web site, videos, images, or any other digital asset.

12. You cannot qualify a gain without the ability to measure it – Marshall Sponder

Not all social media marketing efforts lead to a ROI. You might need to examine your goals and modify them in order to measure your ROI. Figure out your goals and determine how you will measure progress. The ROI comes from tracking what was invested to execute your plan against the results as outlinedby way of Social Media Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s). Find a practical way to measure and qualify your gain.

These were just a few takeaways from selected speakers and by no means encapsulates the overall knowledge and insights shared by our awesome social media speakers. It’s your turn now, to decide which key takeaway do you identify with the most.

The Pros & Cons Of Tumblr For Online Marketing

One of the predominant questions surrounding Pinterest’s meteoric rise to the upper echelons of social media visibility has been “didn’t Tumblr already do this years ago?” Indeed, the very image-heavy microblog aspects which lie at the core of Pinterest’s astounding success are essentially copied from the Tumblr model which was attracting billions of page views well before Pinterest was a gleam in their founders’ eyes. 

When online marketers think of social media, Tumblr is not necessarily the first candidate, but it does offer some interesting possibilities. Here’s a list of Pros and Cons to help you decide if you want to dive in.

Unintuitive interface

Tumblr is essentially a microblogging platform set up along Twitter lines, but it allows longer blog entries and incorporates an emphasis on images which Twitter lacks. The site is primarily utilized by visually oriented microbloggers to showcase their own art work, photography, or images. Tumblr is set up to appeal to entry-level bloggers and is significantly easier to master than a platform as onerous as WordPress.  

When it comes to learning curve, Tumblr unfortunately falls behind competitor Posterous as the interface is not intuitive and some functions are a befuddling. For example, the suggestions for first-time users are only accessible after the creation of the account and profile, which is a bit like the prototypical closing of the barn door after the horse is gone. 

Both Tumblr and Posterous could learn a lesson or two from the upstart Pinterest which is structured in such a way to accommodate the most computer-phobic user imaginable and is thus rated as super-simple.

Instances of utter obtuseness

Tumblr suffers from several instances of utter obtuseness:

• Three of the types of posts supported are quote, link, and chat. Why the first two are a “type of post” rather than an element of one is a mystery, and chat is not at all what you’d think it is (a way to chat with other users) but is an indication that the blog contains dialogue! Huh? 

• The dashboard is also obliquely designed to be too similar to your blog! Beginners could easily become confused and think that they’re actually composing their blogs when they’re in this Dashboard which varies significantly from the style of the blog along the lines of Google’s Blogger and the industry standard WordPress. 

• There’s not much in the way of analytics

• The text editor is not fully WYSIWYG and the text field would challenge a gnat with a magnifying glass as for some inexplicable reason it’s microscopic. 

• You can only place a caption on a new image post and not a headline. Why? Ask youthful entrepreneur-founder David Karp who is probably too busy relishing his billion dollar valuation to spend a few hundred bucks on fixing his site.

• They suffered the longest outage among any major social network, going down for a full twenty-four hours in December, 2010.

Features that merit wide adoption

On the plus side, Tumblr does have some features that work very well: 

• The Mass Editor allows you to view scores of posts all at once through a thumbnail view so you can tag, untag, or change tags on any you select, all at once. This is a feature that many blogging platforms would do well to adopt!

• Multiple blogs are easy to manage through a single dropdown menu.

• The Random feature allows your reader to choose one of your posts to read chosen by sheer chance, which can be fun.

• The site lets you search through your email contacts to see if any of your contacts are on Tumblr.

• There are a large number of attractive and functional free templates.

• Mobile-friendliness is a Tumbler keystone, and you can even create an audio recording post by phone.

Tumblr essentially works best when it is not considered as a microblog or as an alternative Pinterest, but a community where participants can “tumble” all their media together to share it with their friends. 

All of the usual social media prerequisites apply here too, therefore a marketer can only get back out of Tumblr what they are willing to contribute. However, the virality potential is definitely there if you are able to generate the type of content which is sought by the community.

Predicting the Next Social Media Trend Using Social Media Analytics

Track Social's Social Media Zone is a portal for assessing the activity of all Social Media Brands on the major platforms - Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

We looked at the leaders in Audience Growth Rate in order to predict what might be the next big thing in Social. Some of the growth leaders you've probably heard about in the news, others maybe not.

Social growth measures how many new connections a brand is making across the already well-established social media platforms.

In other words, how well are these new social utilities leveraging their visibility on more established social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter in order to spread their name, generate buzz and sign-up new members?

Track Social's Social Media Zone shows the Social Brand Map, which plots how social media sites are performing on, well, social media. The color of the balls represents how quickly it is growing - with red and orange indicating hot and fast growth. This means the hottest social sites are establishing new connections with online users faster than the rest of the pack. Only 5 social media sites out of our list of 147 can claim rights to a sizzling hot ball - here's the top 5 in social growth rate:

1. Instagram: Humans. Love. Photos.

We love taking them. Looking at them. Sharing them. And of course, digitally tweaking them so we appear to be much better photographers than we actually are.

At least that was the great insight of Instagram founders who are now a cool billion dollars richer thanks to Facebook’s recent acquisition of the uber-popular photo sharing app now downloaded by over 50 million mobile users.

So now that Instagram has officially joined with the Zuckerburg and company, how is it using Facebook to engage with fans and recruit new users?

Instagram posts on Facebook are mainly re-posts from its official Instagram blog, which offers creative thematic challenges for the community, inviting users to submit their instagram-ed photos related to specific themes.

One regular challenge, the Weekend Hashtag Project, recently invited submissions for vacant places and empty chairs. These posts highlight the usefulness and uniqueness of Instagram’s app - no wonder Instagram is on track to hitting 100 million users.

On Twitter, Instagram has managed to rack up over 3 million followers. This is largely due to Instagram’s auto-follow policy. If you use Twitter to distribute an Instagram photo, you’re essentially agreeing to “follow” Instagram. And while that might make it easier to get people signed up, keeping that audience requires facilitating engagement through fun, regular challenges the Weekend Hashtag Project.

Instagram owes a lot to Twitter for popularizing both the format and language of a “sharing community”: “Feeds” and “Followers” are common to both and this overlap helps account for the large number of users who routinely use Twitter to distribute the photos they take with Instagram – a partnership we expect will continue to grow – unless Facebook decides otherwise.

[And just for good measure, the immanently shareable Pets of Instagram.]

2. MyYearbook: Engineering Serendipity

A recent marketing piece from one of MyYearbook’s co-founders helps define this new kind of social network as an alternative to traditional online dating sites. What makes them stand out from all the other dating sites? MyYearbook stands behind the idea that people prefer to start out as friends before jumping into a romantic relationship. According to the company, MyYearbook has signed up over 33 million members since 2005 - meaning over 33 million people are also on board with this idea.

The rise of social networks and the ubiquity of mobile devices have given way to a new crop of mobile social networks – the Meeting Networks – which threatens to eat the dating industry’s $4 billion lunch by making them a subset of a larger “meet new people” space.

Notice whose lunch they are not out to eat: Facebook’s. In fact, MyYearbook offers a “one click” registration if you sign in through your Facebook account, a clear indication they’re staking out a different kind of social media territory.

Call them Meeting Networks, call them Social Discovery Sites, MyYearbook attempts to connect people through playing online games, sharing videos, and giving virtual gifts (via an online currency called “Lunch Money” – we’re not making that up).  It’s a space intended to facilitate new connections that might ultimately lead, according to satisfied customer “Mike, 33” to finding your “soulmate.” Mazel tov, Mike.

3. Pinterest: Come ye pinners.

Our number 3 seemed to have blown up overnight, so it's no surprise that their significant audience growth has also given them office growth.

Technically, Pinterest is not just a photo-sharing site. It invites users (called pinners) to create boards where they can “pin” anything of interest they find on the web. If you've been living in a dark hole or haven't noticed yet, there has been a storm of "Pin It" share button that has hit so many sites - making it easy for internet browsers to quickly pin away.

Pinners compile collections on an infinite number of topics: wedding planning, say, or recipes. Or physics. It’s an organizer’s dream. If your users are mining the internet for cool stuff, some of those “pins” might just stir some buzz. A Dirty Dancing Page, for example, received over 13,000 LIKES on Facebook. As we stated earlier with Instgram, humans love photos.

4. Bebo: Didn’t AOL pay $850 million for this?

Sure did. After buying Bebo for $850 million in 2008, AOL unloaded the networking site in 2010 for $10 million. Bebo may have originally been conceived as an alterative and rival to Facbook but those ambitions (delusions?) seem to have been left behind. These days, Bebo is trying to occupy the same space as MyYearbook – with a dedicated dating site attached and you guessed it - its own gaming outlet. It looks like users are looking for a space where they can combine the perks of both Facebook and MyYearbook - which steers them toward our number 4 - Bebo.

5. Scoop.it: Make your own magazine

Scoop.it is an online content curation platform allowing users to create their own blog-like spaces that allows you to pull content from all over the web and re-publish it into attractive templates. Effectively, you become the editor of your own online magazine.  It’s part of the mash-up movement the web has sparked, repurposing, remixing and re- contextualizing content into something new.

Scoop.it is promising because of the nature of their service. Just like Pinterest, Scoop.it offers users an easy way to collect and curate the things they discover online. Spotlighting some user-generated gems might be a great way to attract Facebook Fans and Twitter Followers, as well as showcasing the value of the app itself.

Rounding out our top 10 social media sites and apps with the highest growth rates are:

6. reddit
7. Buffer
8. Bit.ly
9. Draugiem.lv
10. Hacker News

Follow the stats, trends, news and updates for the entire Social Media universe at Track Social’s Social Media Zone. What shows up on today’s Leaderboard, might just be tomorrow’s most ubiquitous platform.

Cracking the Facebook Code

In every generation, there are game-changing advancements that redefine business. From the automobile and television, to the VCR and Internet, the evolution of technology drives our consumptive habits. Today, there are arguably fewer more engrossing, time-consuming habits than that of the world’s current phenomenon, Facebook.

While more than 900 million people worldwide have active accounts, few businesses take full advantage of this enormous marketplace. For most, this is not due to a lack of desire—it stems from a lack of knowledge. When industry stalwarts such as Anthony Robbins and Frank Kern sought to leverage Facebook’s tremendous reach and recognized their limited ability for effectively making this happen, they turned to Jennifer Sheahan. Jennifer has cracked the Facebook code and created powerful strategies that are neither complex nor expensive. To affect a veritable Facebook frenzy and drive this powerful, captive audience towards your products and services, of her many strategies, Jennifer recommends beginning with these two.

1)     Create both a personal and business page.

Do not make the mistake of having one Facebook presence that combines personal and business items. Taking this approach will result only in confusion. Business customers may be temporarily amused with funny pictures of your nephew, but in the long run they’ll view you and your company as being out of touch with their needs and wants. And while those close to you may find your new white paper intriguing, they’re not likely to be your ideal customer and may be annoyed by your business-related postings.

A personal page should be exactly that—personal—and reserved for friends and family. In other words, avoid letting everyone into your home. Doing so is not only potentially dangerous, but could also have harmful repercussions. A business page should be reserved for business—nothing more, nothing less. It should serve to enhance your brand, generate sales, and disseminate corporate information.

2)     Determine if you have a ‘Direct’ or ‘Indirect’ sales/brand-building strategy.

Indirect sellers seek to expand their online presence but do not sell products online. These include companies such as Coca-Cola and Starbucks. Yes, they may offer t-shirts, mugs, coupons and special offers that can be redeemed locally, but you can’t put a cup to the monitor and grab yourself a Venti Vanilla Latte. Therefore these businesses are considered indirect sellers.

Successful Facebook indirect marketers understand that building and maintaining a successful company hinges on its ability to engage. Coca-Cola, for example, runs contests, encourages interaction, and offers customers the opportunity to send a “virtual pick-me-up” to friends and family. They currently have 36 million fans. Pepsi, on the other hand, introduces multiple products but fosters little interaction among customers. They currently have slightly more than 6 million fans. Considering Coca-Cola sells around twice as much product as Pepsi, that it garners six times as many fans is remarkable.

Coca-Cola clearly understands that, above all else, its Facebook presence is about the creation of an entertainment-driven experience, not the provision of a direct call-to-action. Loyalty is created when strong intangibles are delivered. In other words, what’s not said ultimately creates permanence and establishes position in the customer’s subconscious. When customers head to the marketplace, purchase decisions are directly tied to their brand connection. Indirect sellers view Facebook as an opportunity to strengthen such customer relationships.

Direct sellers seek to sell products and services directly to end-users online. These include companies such as TechSmith, Zynga, and University of Phoenix.

Effective direct sellers focus on benefits and encourage sampling. The harsh reality is no one cares about fancy logos or gimmicks. In the social media world, people have little patience and want to get right to the meat of the product.

Answering the customer’s question of, “Why do I care?” as quickly as possible is key. Today’s marketers leverage the power of video and show the product in action. This is often complimented with video testimonials. Once hooked, discounts and incentives to purchase should be provided immediately. The online customer loathes waiting for the “ask.” Once they’re ready, show them where to enter their credit card information.

Drama doesn’t cut it. Neither does fancy. Customers today are much too wise and have moved far beyond old methodologies. If they feel too much money was spent on building a site, they automatically equate this to increased costs. Attempts to over-impress lead to the worst sound in the world—wallets snapping shut.

There’s little doubt that Facebook offers immediate and powerful opportunities. That said, so did CompuServe and MySpace. The Internet is a vast, often volatile, landscape reminiscent of the Wild West, and can be just as unpredictable. Business longevity is the direct result of being proactive, maintaining awareness of the market’s evolution, getting while the getting’s good, and being adequately prepared for what’s next.

Facebook should absolutely be a component of your overall promotional strategy, but you shouldn’t depend on any one resource for your marketing. As with investing, always diversify, because there’s no telling what the future will bring.

How to Use Google+ Hangouts on Air

On May 7th Google started rolling out the Hangouts On Air feature worldwide. (http://goo.gl/tbL4l)

Here is our take on how to use it. While it is still in the introductory age, one still needs a jumping off point.

What Exactly is Hangouts On Air? (http://goo.gl/AjUpx)

Hangouts on Air is a built-in feature for hangouts to stream your hangout within Google+ and YouTube records it. The recorded video then will be available on your YouTube Account after the Hangout has ended. The Google+ post will then contain the recorded video once it's processed for prosperity and possibly better SEO rankings and traffic for your YouTube page.

How Exactly Does it Work? (http://goo.gl/O3rM5)

Start your hangout as usual, invite people,  and give it a name. Make sure to enable Hangouts On Air before you click "hang out."

After that you have to agree to the Terms of Service and Legal Agreement and you are ready to go. If you don't have a verified YouTube Account yet, the hangout will prompt you to do so. (http://goo.gl/dO6yS)

Now you can invite more participants and get ready for going live. At this point only you are able to see the live video.

You are not public yet...

The host who started the hangout is the only one allowed to invite more people to the hangout; unfortunately you can't invite publicly. You can also copy the embed code from within the hangout to include your live event on external websites like a blog or company site.

Going Live 

When you are ready to go live, hit the button "Start broadcast." Now your broadcast will be posted on your stream and on your YouTube channel publicly and anyone can watch it.

Can You Reshare the Post?

Of course, use the regular share link and Google will reshare the post including the player and the description.

Are there any moderation features?

As of yet, not so much. You have the regular features like muting and blocking a user, however only the host/broadcaster is allowed to invite more people via the hangout. You can still share the link publicly or with your friends.

I have some issues what can I do?

If you have trouble setting up your Hangout On Air or experience any other issues feel free to use the "send feedback" link in the hangout, post your question in the help forum: http://goo.gl/6eRNx or use the send feedback on the hangout page (https://plus.google.com/hangouts)

This new feature for Google+ pages may just be the feature that is needed to attract more users, and more businesses, to the struggling Social Network. The possibilities seem to be quite vast and it will be interesting to see just how the medium gets utilized. Small Businesses may be able to supplant their local TV marketing efforts and focus on a G+ distribution model and self-produce adverts themselves. Experts in their fields, Social Media gurus and mechanics alike, can take the late 2000s popularity of  Audio Podcasts to video with a better distribution model and not have to self host the content.

How will you use it? Will it work for your business?