Of course living here in Indianapolis, Indiana it’s impossible to really see first-hand what is going on in other parts of the world.  You have to rely on outside sources to keep you updated.  But still I get the feeling that people and businesses are finally starting to get it.  I can definitely say that I have seen a huge shift in my connections toward people becoming less resistant.  More are really starting to embrace this powerful tool we call social media.

I see people posting a new Facebook status every day that I never thought would be wanting to share updates with the rest of the world.  Why?  Because these are the same people that I was working with a year ago that ran for the hills when anyone mentioned Facebook.  I, of course, did my best to explain the value but for a lot of people it’s really just a matter of time.  Now they are making new connections every day and many share with me their surprise that it’s actually beneficial.

I see businesses every single day joining Twitter to find out what their customers are really saying and keep up with the latest news.  Some are even running contests to grow their following and expand their network.  They realize that this will later benefit them when those people are making purchasing decisions.

I see people creating events and promoting them through social media.  They realize that it’s one of the best tools to increase awareness and attendance.  Most seem to even realize that the people they meet at these events will eventually be their best friends and business partners.

Being in the Internet marketing/social media industry, I understand that not everyone will understand the full potential and that everyone will use it differently.  I also realize that my small sampling of people is not reflective of “everyone.”  Nonetheless I am still seeing a significant trend.  The points above were not made to show great case studies, but  to illustrate that people of all backgrounds are finally starting to come around.  Posting a status on Facebook definitely does not mean you are gaining any type of value from your post, but it does show that plenty of people are finally there and more are becoming active users.

If you read blogs from anyone discussing social media, you will no doubt find posts all about convincing people who resist social media that it’s here to stay.  You will see things like, “your business needs to change now, otherwise you won’t be in business much longer.”  So let me ask you this – are people finally starting to catch on?

It’s the easiest excuse in the book.  It’s also the most popular excuse.  It all has to do with attitude and the way you look at social media.  If you look at it as just another thing to do and think about everything else you have to do in your already busy life, then you probably don’t have time.  But if you look at it as way to manage your online reputation while generating more leads and more business for your company, then it’s a little easier to find time.  Break down your daily schedule instead of being overwhelmed by thinking about everything at once – then you will find that you really do have time.

As I am talking with other people that are considering a social media strategy, it helps to have some local examples in the Indianapolis, Indiana area of business owners using social media effectively.  One of my favorite case studies of a very busy business owner that still finds time for social media is Scott Wise at Scotty’s Brewhouse.  He is all over social media and is connecting with his customers in a very special way.  The bottom line is that his hard work is paying off.  Every Scotty’s location in the Indianapolis area that I have been to over the past year (and believe me I frequent all locations regularly) is always PACKED.  It doesn’t matter if it’s lunch or dinner…day or evening.  And I know that a large portion of this success is due to Scotty’s use of social media.  I know this because I have heard him say it and seen him write it…and he wouldn’t continue to invest the time in it if it didn’t work.

Next time someone tells you they don’t have time for social media have them check out Scotty’s online efforts.  Then have them read the below quote that Scotty shared as part of the description for his upcoming Blog Indiana session on “10 Twitter Tips and Tricks.”

“I don’t have time.” “There is no value for my company.” “It is just a stream of garble and garbage.” I have 600 employees, 7 restaurants, twin 1 years olds and a 3 year old. No excuses. If I can make it work, you can too. I will show you how… with value to you and/or your company.

I also encourage everyone to check out Blog Indiana coming up in August and be sure to stop by Scotty’s presentation.  I know it’s going to be great!

I am continually amazed at the ease of passing referrals using social media.  Recently a co-worker of mine was looking for a realtor in the Washington Township area in Indianapolis.  She is looking into purchasing a new home and needed a starting point.  I offered to post this request on Facebook to see if my network of friends could help.  It took just seconds to post my request online for all of my friends to see in my status update.  Within 30-40 minutes I had a list over 10 realtors to give to my friend!  But these weren’t just any realtors.  These were all realtors that came highly recommended.  And they were not just highly recommended by anyone, they were highly recommended by my friends and people I know.  I was able to confidently pass along these names knowing that my friend will have a solid list of realtors from which to pick.

These requests are taking place every single day on social media networks.  Keep your eyes open and take advantage of the opportunities!

Facebook Home Page has a New Look
So there is now a News Feed and a Live Feed on the home page?  Just like with most Facebook updates, the responses to the change have been mixed.  What does it all mean?  Why did Facebook make the change?  Click the link above to find out.  Just like with the last changes Facebook made – in the long run it is going to make Facebook even better and more organized!

2009 Masters of Business Online  Summary from Douglas Karr
If you are involved in the Indianapolis, Indiana social media scene, you were likely exposed to all of the buzz that came along with the Masters of Business Online.  Landing pages, online video, search engine optimization, pay per click advertising and social media – these were just some of the topics covered at this great event.  Get an inside look at what took place during the event from Douglas Karr by clicking on the link above.

Thank Goodness It’s Monday
One of my favorite people to follow online is Scott Stratten, President of Un-Marketing.com.  On Friday I was checking out his new initiative, Thank Goodness It’s Monday and I just had to share.  It’s a great concept: stop letting the day of the week determine your attitude.  Embrace each day and make the most of it.  Scott is forming a group of people he calls the” 1%” that refuse to fall into the “TGIF” mentality.  Click the link above to check out his video on why he’s doing this.  If you like what he has to say, enter your email address to get signed up.  He will follow-up immediately, as always, with an email welcoming you to the “1%.”

Drew Olanoff was diagnosed with cancer on May 20th, 2009.  Instead of giving up like many would, he has turned to social media to help increase awareness in an attempt to raise money for Livestrong.  The basic idea is that when something goes wrong just pause for a moment and take that energy to write a tweet using the hashtag #BlameDrewsCancer.  The idea is to have sponsors that will donate $1 for every participant.

To top things off, Drew has taken his effort to the next level announcing that he will be auctioning off his Twitter user name, @drew ,and donating the money to the Livestrong cause.  Who would be interesting in paying money for a Twitter username?  Drew Carey has indicated that he will pay as much as $100,000.00 for the name.

A great case study for using Twitter if you ask me.

Well now it can.  On Seth’s Blog today he officially announced the launch of Brands In Public.  This is part of Squidoo, a company he founded.  Brands in Public already has some large brands like Home Depot, Guinness, Allstate and Hello Kitty up and running. 

The basic idea is that each of these brands have a page where all tweets, blog posts, news stories, images and videos about that brand show up.  Everything in one central place.  Good or bad.  It’s one thing for people to be ”talking” about you, but it’s another thing for you to participate in this discussion.  And the goal of Brands in Public is to make that participation easy.  Because that is when the real value comes in.  The question is – are you willing to pay $400 a month to do so? 

What do you think?  I am curious.

I have talked with many Facebook users that are not Twitter users.  They seemed to be a little confused on exactly what the @Mention allows you to do and how it will benefit them.  Will many Facebook users even care about this update?  Let’s not forget how users have reacted in the past anytime Facebook makes a change.  While this update will be nothing as drastic as a new design, the initial reaction to Facebook changes have historically been  negative.  At first glance, the same group of people who think Twitter is for stalkers are likely to think now Facebook is even further supporting Twitter’s stalker habits.  Now not only can I tell you that I am have coffee with someone else – I can link directly to his/her profile from my status update.

My guess is that it will take awhile for native Facebook users to being adopting this new functionality.  But once people within your network begin to use @Mentions as a part of their status updates on a regular basis, their friends will likely follow.  The hope is that this will allow Facebook users to continue to connect to others within their network to share more meaningful information.  Let’s see if this holds true.

I do think this will go a long way in helping the business brands on Facebook.  It is now going to be much easier to share that you are going to eat @(restaurant) and link directly to their fan page.  This will also encourage more incentives to be offered for customers as sharing becomes easier.  I will continue to update my blog as this is rolled out to analyze the trends.

But in the meantime, what is your take on it?

Below is the breakdown on exactly how it will work from Facebook engineer Tom Occhino:

Now, when you are writing a status update and want to add a friend’s name to something you are posting, just include the “@” symbol beforehand. As you type the name of what you would like to reference, a drop-down menu will appear that allows you to choose from your list of friends and other connections, including groups, events, applications and Pages. Soon, you’ll be able to tag friends from applications as well. The “@” symbol will not be displayed in the published status update or post after you’ve added your tags.

Friends you tag in your status updates will receive a notification and a Wall post linking them to your post. They also will have the option to remove tags of themselves from your posts. We hope that tagging your status updates and others posts from the Publisher will enable you to share in a more meaningful and engaging way, and connect with even more people. We’re rolling this feature out over the course of the next few weeks, so you may not see the new feature just yet.

After a lot of hard work, last week Kyle announced that the book was available for order on Amazon.com.  This is a huge accomplishment for Kyle and Erik.  I know many people involved in the Indianapolis social media scene are very happy to see this success.  Both Kyle and Erik are always looking to reach out to help others and this book is right up there with sites like SmallerIndiana.com as far as efforts that are really putting Indiana and more specifically Indianapolis on the map when it comes to big ideas/social media marketing.  Ironically enough, social media marketing tools like Twitter have played and will play a big role in the success of this book.  Kyle has done a great job of promoting this book and today I would like to take a closer look on how he is doing it:

• First off, the lead with Wiley Publishing to be considered as an author of the book came from a participant in a social media class about using tools like Facebook and Twitter.  A class which was promoted using social media among other things.
• Kyle frequently posted Twitter, Blog and Facebook updates about his progress asking for feedback and suggestions in some cases.
• He even posted a blog entitled Help with Twitter Marketing for Dummies Book where he gave everyone that read his post and tweets an opportunity to get published in the book by submitting Twitter marketing thoughts in 140 characters or less.  Simply put, this was a chance to have your Twitter thought and username go out to everyone that will be reading this book.
• Now that the book is available for purchase he is doing something that I think is huge – offering 100 free copies of the new book in exchange for a commitment to publish a review.   The 100 copies will be split between people with a good network, or large following on social media, the Internet or their community and reviewers in magazines/newspapers.  This is the perfect way to potentially have 100 different people (assuming everyone follows through) telling all of their friends, followers, business partners, etc. about your book.  This has viral marketing written all over it.

Kyle has consistently reached out to help me in getting me personal blog started.  He has also contributed in helping to promote Fusework Studios on Twitter and other social media tools.  His reputation and eagerness to help make me sure that this book will be a success.  I know I am looking forward to receiving my copy!  Please join me in congratulating Kyle and Erik on this great accomplishment!

Coming up ranked #1 in a local business Google search is great.  It can mean more phone calls and more online leads resulting in more business.  Or it can work against you.

Still being relatively new to the Fishers area I was searching online for a local medical doctor to visit.  I will not mention any names or the particular type of doctor I was seeking.  The first place I went, as always, was to Google.  I did a Google search for this type of doctor – local search results and the continued #1 organic listing underneath both turned the same doctor’s office.  I checked out the Web site, determined this would be a good place to start…but wait…I went back to the results page and noticed there were also 6 reviews of this particular doctor/medical practice.  I went on to read all 6 reviews.  They were horrible.  6 different people provided “one star” reviews and stated they would NEVER visit that particular doctor again.  In their reviews, they cited everything from waiting hours to get in to see the actual doctor, to the doctor making them feel so bad that they left in tears.

Now it’s hard to say if all of these negative reviews were 100% authentic, but the fact that there were 6 of them with descriptive encounters was enough to influence my decision to continue looking for someone else.  The sad thing is that this same turn of events is happening  for a lot of businesses that are spending money and working so hard to rank high in Google search.  What is even more sad is that most have them have no idea, or if they do, they are doing nothing about it.

Kevin Hood wrote a great blog post about the impact of a review he saw online while searching for a place to purchase a tailored suit in The Internet Reflects Your Business.  While he stated that the likelihood of someone leaving a negative review is probably higher than someone leaving a positive review…the bottom line is the negative reviews still influenced his purchasing decision.

Think if this particular doctor’s offered a free service or 25% discount to 50 of its best patients just for doing an online review.  By targeting your best patients, most of the reviews would be positive. 50 positive reviews vs. only 6 negative reviews certainly makes coming up #1 in Google even more powerful.

What do you think of this idea?  How much do you weigh online reviews into your purchasing decisions?

Here is the basic gist:

As writers we can often play it safe by using words like: quite, fairly, often, sometimes and may.  These words are boring, show a lack of confidence and thus turn readers away.  This is where the vampire analogy comes into play- these words act like vampires and suck the life right out of your sentence.   So the next time you are thinking of writing a headline like “You May Gain More Customers and You Might Make More Money” you need to stop and stake the vampire words to keep your readers coming back for more.

Douglas Karr did a great job of this today over on the Marketing Technology Blog with his post entitled “Why I Don’t Like Facebook.” This instantly caught my eye and I had to read it.  Now if his blog title had been “Why I Kinda Sometimes Don’t Like Facebook” I would not have  been as inclined to read it.  Heck he even went so far as to put “facebook-sucks” right there in the URL.  It’s not every day a social media superstar proclaims that!

So the next time you are writing a blog post title, take a moment to review and find those vampires there as well.  Today’s theme:  Be confident.  Be Bold.