Personal branding – don’t leave it to chance

Like it or not a personal brand is something that follows you wherever you go from your personal life to the work world and beyond.

It’s the combined information (Internet postings, social media updates etc.) about you that shows up when someone searches online. So it probably makes sense to figure out how to make your brand the best it can be.

5 steps to take this weekend to boost your personal brand:

1. Define your tactics:
Ask yourself: What do you want people to find when they search for you online? Someone they’d like to …

• Hire: Then focus on optimizing your Linkedin profile (and not just to get it to Linkedin’s 100 percent complete status, but adding images, videos, examples of your work etc.) Consider using other channels too: A blog to demonstrate your knowledge, Pinterest boards to demonstrate any visual work and interests, and Twitter to share your work and to network without the barriers of Linkedin.
• Get to know: Start by picking three platforms to focus on that will allow you to tell your story. For example, if your interests are sports, travel and reading consider creating boards on Pinterest for each of you specific interests.

2. Define yourself:
Develop a short description of who you are, what you believe in and what you do best. In other words: How would you tell your online audience why you’re the right person to work with or connect with? 

This two- or three-sentence statement is for you, but should guide how you describe yourself - everywhere. Be sure to describe what makes you different from other people with the same or similar expertise. 

If you’re not sure what that is, do some research on well-known people in your field. Observe what they do and adapt it to your own way of doing things.

3. Define your expertise:
What particular skills and knowledge do you want to be known for? Who do you hope to connect with?

Determining what makes you unique helps you understand what sets you apart from crowd on the Internet. 

Your areas of expertise define who you are and what you do. They should be included in your social media profile descriptions and should include your main keywords.

4. Define your approach:
How will you use various social media platforms to advance your brand? For example, will ...

• You only use Linkedin to post things relevant to your career or will you also post a few things that show some of your personality?
• Facebook be strictly for people you’ve met in real life or consider personal friends?
• Twitter be a place to share industry news and find new connections?
• You use a scheduling tool such as Hootsuite or Buffer to schedule posts to maintain a regular social presence or will you post organically as you find interesting material?
• You use tools such as Empire Avenue, Kred and Klout to monitor your efforts and guide your progress?

5. Define your success:
What will success look like to you?

• Making lots of online connections that become in real life (IRL) connections?
• Enhancing your current job/career?
• Getting a better job?

Whatever you settle on set some future calendar reminders to look back at what you’ve done. Then decide which efforts are worth continuing and which should be dropped.

Remember your personal brand is an evolving, living thing. The only thing you can do "wrong" is to ignore it and let it change, or worse: stagnate, while you remain blissfully unaware…

Does this help? Will you use social media and a plan to boost your personal brand? I’d love to hear back from you.

Related posts:
Quality SM connections for personal branding
Blogging for personal branding

Quality SM connections for personal branding

Making connections is what social media is all about. When it comes to personal branding however, the quality of those connections is important.

For example, imagine a recruiter looking through your Twitter Followers and finding a spammy “Buy 5,000 Twitter followers” account or, worse, a porn account. What does that say about you that didn't block such accounts?

And, if you’re still using the number of followers to measure your social media success, it’s time to rethink your strategy. Do an audit of your audience and determine which users are the right ones, and cull your lists accordingly.

Once you’ve completed the audit what can you do in the future to ensure you have quality connections that will enhance your online personal brand?

Start by having a thoughtful approach to who you’ll follow.

How to decide who to follow on social media for personal branding success

Linkedin
When someone asks to connect with you, ask yourself:

• Are they in your industry or a related industry? (Related question: Are they in any Linkedin groups you belong to?)
• Are they active on Linkedin and other social media?
• What do they talk about and what do they share on SM?

If you are seeking new connections, first ask yourself:

• Who do you want to connect to? Why?
• How will you find these people? Using advanced search in Twitter and Linkedin, and Facebook’s graph search are good places to start – search for people mentioning the terms relevant to your interests.
• Are they active on Linkedin and other social media?
• What do they talk about and what do they share on SM?

Twitter 
In some respects Twitter is a better starting place to find industry-relevant people. It is a place where you can connect with anyone (unlike Linkedin where you need to be connected or pay a premium to contact people you aren’t connected to).

Basic tips to assess whether to follow someone on Twitter include:

• Does their bio indicate relevance to your purposes on social media?
• What kind of content have they shared in the past few days?
• Is their Following-Follower ratio in balance – in other words are there either more Followers or are they about the same. If there is a much higher Following number they are either new to Twitter or desperate for followers.

Still in doubt? Use one of the free tools that assesses Twitter accounts:

• Twitteraudit: It seeks to answer the question: "How many of your followers are real?" But it also evaluates the Twitter accounts of others. Anything higher than 10 percent fake followers indicates someone who indiscriminately connects or does not block spammy followers… i.e. they’re not very careful on Twitter.
• Status People: It sorts any Twitter accounts followers into Fake, Inactive and Good. A high number in Fake (more than 10 percent) or Inactive (more than 20 percent) should also be a warning sign.

Facebook
First, decide if Facebook is a place you want to open up to people beyond friends and family. Some people draw that line at Facebook.

But if you are OK with connecting professionally on Facebook you can use FB’s own search engine to find people who may be worth connecting to.

Start by using search terms such as keywords related to your industry and move on to search on relevant hashtags. And, although its focus is marketing the tips here can be applied to personal connections too: How to Use Facebook Graph Search to Improve Your Marketing

Google+
Any discussion on personal branding has to include Google+. Whether you’re a fan or not is somewhat irrelevant – it’s a Google product so you better believe being there helps in Google search results.

Using the Google+ search or a regular Google search use keywords and the usual Google search operators.

For more on doing better Google searches see How to Use Google Search More Effectively.

Was this helpful? Wil you invest some time in social media and ensuring your connections are worthwhile? It is the only way social media can help with personal branding.

Related link:
Blogging for personal branding
Personal branding – don’t leave it to chance

College freshmen needs – laptop, books, oversized sheets and caring about your online rep NOW

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Social Media 2015: 10 Perspectives

Social media saw some big shifts in 2014, but what will 2015 bring? 

The only thing that is certain is that change will continue and at least one new network will come along and surprise everyone with how quickly it gets broadly adopted. In the meantime here are … 

10 Views of What 2015 Will Bring in Social Media

Heidi Cohen (@heidicohen on Twitter) of Heidi Cohen’s Actionable Marketing Guide says in 2015 Facebook will retain its social media marketing dominance, but continue to lose its key demographic, namely teens and twentysomethings. Among her other predictions: Amazon will rock social commerce, Twitter will continue to lose market share and importance, and Instagram and Pinterest will keep growing in importance. Read more at: 2015 Social Media Predictions: 10 Forecasts You Need.

Neal Schaffer (@NealSchaffer on Twitter) of Maximize Social Business gathered the opinions of 11 social media CEOS into a SlideShare presentation. Among the more interesting predictions are that "…schools will recognize social media as an asset, rather than a liability" (from Ryan Holmes, CEO at Hootsuite) and "Social Media Marketers are being phased out in favor of Community Managers that understand social media in context of a broader ecosystem. " Read more at: 11 Social Media Predictions for 2015

Stephanie Frasco (@StephanieFrasco on Twitter) writes that in 2015 Facebook will see a lot more "pay to play" … i.e. more advertising. As brands try to stand out on the crowded platform they will need to spend more money to do so. She also says: Hashtags will have a heyday, consumers will seek more online privacy, online influencers will be more important than ever for brands and everyone’s decreasing attention spans means anyone on social media must use more and better visuals. Read more at: 15 Digital Marketing & Social Media Trends That Will Shape 2015.

Angela Hausman (@MarketingLetter on Twitter), an Associate Professor of Marketing at Howard University, writing for Business 2 Community says big trends in 2015 will include brands merging the notion of a customer journey with content marketing, brands understanding the value of building social media community and increase in paid advertising in social. Other things she notes include mobile finally living up to its potential and visuals dominating social networks even more. Read more at: 5 Megatrends: Social Media Predictions For 2015.

Rob Nightingale (@robnights on Twitter) writing for makeuseof.com says the next year in social media will see more video, more paid posts, more use of big data and even more use of mobile. It will also see hashtagging become more mainstream and LinkedIn having a renaissance… at last. Read more at: Social Media In 2015, Predictions and Potential.

Adele Halsall is the lead writer and researcher at Customer Service Guru (@gurucustomers on Twitter), a customer service blog based in Britain, predicts a rise in interest-based, not people-based, social networks. "Newer platforms like Foodie, Fitocracy and PlantWorking are geared towards individual audiences rather than taking a ‘everything, everyone, everywhere’ approach," she says in a guest post on the Jeff Bullas’ blog. She also predicts mobile will continue to grow as a priority for brands, social shopping will become far more common and vlogging (video blogging) will become an increasingly common advertising channel for brands. Read more at: The 7 Top Social Media Trends That Will Impact Your Marketing In 2015. 

Bill Sussman (@BillGSussman on Twitter) CEO of Collective Bias, a publisher of user-generated content, writing for Entrepreneur magazine says 2015 will see a rise in location-based mobile marketing along with personalized media. It will also see the aligning of SEO and social media strategies and marketers creating their own newsrooms to cut through content clutter. Read more at: 3 Social-Marketing Predictions for 2015.

Elena Nicosia (@Numerounoweb on Twitter) is Project Manager at Numero Uno Web Solutions and in writing for Business 2 Community predicts that consuming information on smartphones and tablets will really take off in 2015. She says trends by definition are fleeting, but "the one bet you can bank on in 2015 is that social media will officially become the most important tool for marketers and advertisers." Read more at: Social Media Trends Set To Dominate 2015.

Kimberlee Morrison (@KymleeIsAwesome on Twitter) a writer and editor with the Freedom Writers Foundation writing for Social Times gathered some expert opinions and says 2015 will bring – Apple’s power as a social identity manager will increase while Yahoo’s will continue to decline, so-called native advertising will crease on social media, niche networks will continue to grow and the full power of YouTube will finally be realized and utilized by marketers. Read more at: 10 Social Media Predictions for 2015. 

My 5 Predictions:

• Niche social networks will continue to gain strength – the days of the one network for everything are numbered. Therefore … 
• Facebook’s dominance will begin to show more (and bigger) cracks 
• Twitter, sadly, will continue to struggle to grow
• Linkedin will build on its 2014 success and become a dominant network
• Social media will continued to be "normalized" as a set of communication channels 

What do you think 2015 holds for social media?

10 Social Media Resources for Small Businesses

Any small business owner knows that it’s always about being short on money and short on time … which is why social media can be such a good investment. 

By carefully choosing a few social media platforms and allocating a little time each day small businesses can reap rewards including new customers/increased sales, competitive intelligence, better customer relations and greater word-of-mouth marketing. 

The question is where and how to begin. To help here are 10 resources for small business owners. 

10 Resources for Small Businesses on Social Media

1. Your Guide to Benefitting From Social Media by Bar Charts Inc is a good intro to social media for business purposes, has some helpful "Getting Started" tips and also answers the question for small business: “Why be on social media?”

2. Top 5 Social Media Platforms for Your Business by Gold Coast Design Studio covers Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin and Pinterest and offers reasons you should use them and a few best practices for each.

3. Small Business & Social Media by Purolator is a basic explanation of five key platforms and includes need-to-know terminology and "7 Tips for Getting Started in Social Media" for small businesses. Its Canadian focus on social media usage numbers is hardly surprising given that Purolator is a Canadian shipping and logistics company.

4. The Small Business Guide to Social Media Mastery produced by MarketMeSuite and Placester shares some powerful stats about why small business needs to be on social media and then offers useful tips, recommends some social media leaders to follow and warns against "spreading yourself too thin."

5. Unlock the Secrets of Facebook (For Small Business) by Intuit – offers solid beginner tips on the set up and operation of a small business Facebook page. It also offers a couple of friendly reminders about maintaining a tone of voice and scheduling posts on social media.

6. All About Twitter for Small Business by Search Engine People offers plenty of reasons to be on social media, insights into why customers might connect there and tips for optimizing a small business Twitter account.

7. Small Business Guide to Twitter by Simply Business is a great flow chart approach to answering questions a business owner might have about social media. Each of the 21 boxes in the flow chart then has a clickable link to a useful resource.

8. 5 Go-To Tips to Master Pinterest For Your Business by Infinista Concepts is a useful step-by-step graphic to get better engagement through Pinterest.

9. The Small Business Guide to Google+ by Simply Business consists of a nice interactive flowchart that answers questions and directs readers to more resources based on their knowledge and/or interest level in Google+.

10. The Power of the Hashtag for Small Business by The Huffington Post is a brief history and overview of hashtags and how they can be used by small business to get new customers and learn from other businesses.

There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of other resources for small businesses on social media available on the web, this is just a starter list. I hope it is helpful.

Class: This list has been put together ahead of a new class I’ll be offering at the Rochester Brainery. For more see Social Media for Small Businesses.

A New Online You, Part 2: Platform by Platform

Check each social network

And now the cleanup begins! Once you've found mentions of yourself all over the web and cleaned up the stuff you control the next step is to take care of undesirable material across search engines and social platforms. 

This is the second of a three-part series on how you can assess and improve your online self. (For Part 1, see A New Year: A New Online You)

Today: Cleaning up your reputation platform by platform

Google offers a variety of pages that help you clean up content on the web:
   • Steps for removing content on someone else's site from Google Search results
   • Report or remove content from Google’s services
   • How to keep personal information out of Google Search results
   • Request removal of an image
   • Request removal of a cached page
   • To report concerns over YouTube content

Facebook:
   • Check your Timeline for material that should be deleted.
   • Check your Photos folder and untag yourself from any images that you no longer wish to be associated with.

And for "Friends" who insist on posting stuff you find objectionable or feel may reflect poorly on you:
   • Step 1: Sign in to your Facebook account.
   • Step 2: Scroll through the news feed in the center of your home page to find the offensive item that you want to delete.
   • Step 3: Hover your mouse pointer over the top right-hand corner of the post to reveal the down-arrow button. Click the down-arrow button.
   • Step 4: Select “Hide Story” from the context menu to delete the offensive post.
   • Step 5: Select “Unsubscribe From [Username]” in the context menu to delete the offensive post and remove all other posts from the user who posted the item.  

Other tips:
   • If you select the Unsubscribe option, Facebook will stop displaying updates or posts from the user in your news feed.
   • You can also report Facebook members who post inappropriate or offensive material. Click on the user’s name in any of his posts in your news feed. Scroll to the bottom of the left-hand menu under the user’s profile picture. Click the blue Report/Block link. Click the radio button beside Block or Unfriend to completely block the user or just remove him from your friends list. Click the button that best describes why you want to report the user; Click Continue to submit the report to Facebook.
   • Report a Facebook Page for offensive content by clicking the "Report this Page" link at the bottom left-hand corner of the Page.

Linkedin: To hide entire sections of your profile:
   • Step 1: Place your cursor over the menu displaying your name at the top of the page and then click "Settings."
   • Step 2: Click "Edit Your Public Profile" under the "Helpful Links" category near the bottom of the page. Options for hiding your profile's content then appear under "Profile Content" on the bottom right side of the page.
   • Step 3: Click "Make My Public Profile Visible to No One" to hide all profile information from appearing.
   • Step 4: Click "Make My Public Profile Visible to Everyone" to show your profile and selected information to the public.
   • Step 5: Clear the box beside any categories listed below this option to hide different sections of your profile, including your headline, current and past positions, certifications, education, websites, groups, interests and skills. However, you can't hide your name, industry, location and number of recommendations.
   • Step 6: Click "Go Back to Settings" to apply the changes.

To Edit or Delete content inside sections of your profile:
• Go to "Profile" on the top left-hand side.
• Click on "Edit Profile" and then click on the section you would like to edit.
• It gives you the option to edit current information, and add and remove content from the section you choose.

Twitter:
   • To report violations such as harassment, impersonation or name squatting, or breach of privacy

Desperate measures:
   • Tweeteraser allows for specific word searches or by-date searches to find tweets you’d like to delete
   • Twitwipe will erase all of your tweets (or at least as many as it can get to)
   • How to deactivate your account

Pinterest:
   • Report objectionable content, spam, a user or a comment

Instagram:
   • Step1: Go to Instagram, click on "Support"
   • Step 2: Click on "Privacy & Safety Center"
   • Step 3: Select the appropriate category

Of course as much as possible you should not ever post anything online that you might regret later. But if you or others have, these links should help.

So what other platforms should you check out and clean up?

Previous post: A New Year: A New Online You

A New Year: A New Online You

Look at all your online presences

The New Year is a great time to assess how you appear to the online world.

Are there unflattering comments about you on a blog post? Are you tagged in inappropriate images on Facebook? Are there things attached to your name online that give the wrong impression?

You exist online in so many places you’ve likely lost track of how the world sees you. So use the excitement of New Years to do an inventory of your online presences and your overall online image. Then get busy with your online makeover.

This is the first of a three-part series on how you can assess and improve your online self.

Today: Where you are now online and the basic clean up

Step 1: Search for yourself online: Things to remember …
   • Use quote marks around your name and the most-common variations of your name
   • In Google, make sure that the Personal/Global results button (upper right on the Google search window) is toggled to Global so you’re seeing the results that the rest of the world sees
   • Go through at least the first five pages of results – the first 10 to 12 would be better
   • Also look at other services such as 123People
   • Check all results that are unfamiliar/surprising and make a note of the results you’d like to change or delete

Step 2: Clean up the obvious:
For pages and accounts you control:
   • Make sure all of the "About" and "Bio" sections of all online accounts are accurate and devoid of typos
   • Edit and improve your Google profile, which is a public bio that comes up as one of the top search results for your name
   • Delete posts from your blog that don’t show you in the best light

For pages and accounts you don’t control:
   • (From Google) Contact the owner of the web page or the webmaster and work with them to get the problematic content updated or removed
   • (From Google) Work with the appropriate legal authorities to get the content removed from the web

Step 3: Overwhelming the negative: One do-it-yourself approach to getting rid of negative web content is to bury it with positive content. For example, by starting a blog and posting to it regularly.Other ideas:
   • Comment on other, highly rated, blogs
   • Ensure that content you control (your blog, for example) is correctly tagged and the text is search engine optimized
   • Seek endorsements and recommendations on Linkedin (and only display the most positive)
   • Help others on social networks in your area of professional expertise
   • Accept opportunities to be quoted in the media (and therefore on their websites)

These are just a few of the things you can do to improve your online reputation.

Next up: How to work with Google and the biggest social networks to clean up negative or other inappropriate content; to be followed by a guide to professional services that help clean up your online image.

What other steps would you recommend to clean up an online image?

5 Ways to Undermine Your Linkedin Profile

As Linkedin continues to grow (now close to 150 million members) it seems more and more people may be rushing to get their profiles published there.

In their rush to be live on Linkedin (or maybe through a lack of thought earlier) they may be doing things that will make them look bad on this social network, specifically, and in social media generally.

So if you’d like to deliberately waste your effort on the world’s leading social network for professionals, here are the 5 Ways to Undermine Your Linkedin Profile:

1. Use a bad profile picture: By "bad" I mean any image that makes you look like someone I would not want to work with, collaborate with or in any other way connect with. For example, you may look like you’re in a police lineup or you’ve decided to use an image from your webcam that makes you look serious. But, your picture is there to help people remember you or identify you quickly from all the others with the same or a similar name.
Best practice: Have a picture that’s a tightly cropped image of your face and shows you at your best. And, this should be obvious, smile!

2. Write a poor Professional Headline: In the area of your profile right under your name is the opportunity to have a “headline” on your profile. Simply saying "student" or "engineer" is a great way to keep people guessing. But when someone is searching on Linkedin they will usually just see this shortened version of your profile.
Best practice: Use this headline as a "King of Elevator Pitches." In other words, in as few words as possible say what you do professionally and why people might want to connect with you. For example: "Children’s book author and teacher" or "Marketing and sales professional" or "Deep thinker and inventor of the widget."

3. Have an ineffective Summary: Just saying something about who you are and what you want is all that matters right? Wrong! This is the space where you need to sum up your professional experience, how you like to contribute to others’ success and how people can connect with you beyond the URLs Linkedin allows you to post.
Best practice: Write your summary in short paragraphs as though a reader might drift away at any moment – they will. Start with a short paragraph that sums you up – your Professional Headline explained, if you will. The next paragraph talks about a current position and how it fits into who you are professionally. Take what journalists call the “Inverted Pyramid” approach (newsiest item first, second-newsiest second and so on) to these paragraphs. Round it out with you contact points such as where you can be found on other social networks and a phone number.

4. Ignore how your Public Profile looks: If you think that just "being on" Linkedin is far more important that "doing anything" with your Linkedin profile then just walk away now. But if you want Linkedin to act as an online resume or CV then spend the time (just an hour or so) to make it the best it can be.
Best practice: In the "Edit Profile" view of your Linkedin Page you’ll see a nicely boxed area that contains all the information that appears at the top of you profile when it’s displayed. The last item in this box is call "Public Profile" and to the right of that is the URL for your page and a link to "edit" this. Click on the "edit" button. The page you arrive at will show your profile as it appears publicly and over on the right side allow you to control what others see. Make sure that as much as possible you are displaying everything about your work history and expertise. Also take a minute to personalize your URL so that it has your name in it rather than the alphabet soup URL that Linkedin provides.

5. Make your Connections open: By leaving your Connections open to the public anyone can "creep" on your profile and find other people to connect with. If you know them well that’s fine, but, lets be real, do we want all our connections to be open to everyone we connect with?
Best practice: Under Privacy Controls click on "Select who can see your connections" and select "Only you. " Then take a short paragraph at the end of your Summary to explain that your Connections are kept closed to assure privacy, but that you’re willing to open them at an agreed upon time to people you know and trust.

These are only the most basic mistakes – there are plenty of others. Perhaps that’s fodder for a future post.

What do you think? Are people being sloppy with their Linkedin profiles? Are they looking bad in social media because of it?

Possibly related posts:
5 signs you need help with social media strategy
Is a "Dr. Death" Undermining Your Social Media Efforts?

A social media - Twas the night before Christmas…

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

The only thing stirring was the click of a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that social media St. Nick soon would be there;

The children and adults were nestled in beds,

While visions of Facebook danced in their heads;

Would mentions of iPad on Twitter be met

With stockings stuffed with tablets once hard to get?

Would discussions of smartphones for using Linkedin,

Bring gifts of devices with keyboards, but thin?

Would plus-oneing that post about the spirit of Christmas

Help earn us the gifts we circled on Google+?

Would favoriting a YouTube video about Christmas afar

Help to deliver that coveted DVR?

No, it seems good old Santa may be unaware

Of our postings to networks both here and there

What his spirit seems to say about material needs:

Christmas is not about you, but about your real deeds

So as you sit with loved ones perhaps by a fire

Consider again your real social media desire

Is it followers, friends, business leads or even money?

Or is it helping others, giving often … even being funny?

You see giving is easy on social networks – they’re free

You really have no excuse not to give … times three

Next time you sit down to network or share

Tweet, share, like – but make sure that you care

Because the true Christmas miracle is giving not getting

Be sure to give more than you get in a social setting

Spreading goodwill in deed both big and small

Will help spread the spirit of social Christmas to all

Merry Christmas and goodwill to all!

2011: The Year of Klout

Got Klout? In social media 2011 is turning out to be the Year of Klout.

The service that began in September, 2009 has rocketed to the front of the pack of tools that attempt to measure overall influence across social platforms.

So what is Klout? It takes social network data and measures the likelihood that each user’s connections will act upon anything that user shares on their networks and then calculates the influence of those connections and their ability to cause actions. In other words it tracks online influence and gives each user a ranking on a scale of 1 to 100.

Initially Klout measured its users’ Twitter and Facebook influence, but 2011 has seen some big changes:

Early 2011: Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome offer add-ons: This allows users of these two browsers to instantly see the Klout score of all the people in their Twitter stream.

May, 2011: Launched a new section on the Klout website highlighting Klout Perks. According to the company’s blog: "Klout Perks are exclusive offers or experiences, given as a result of your Klout. Perks allow brands to connect with influencers in their area of expertise."

Jun 1: Introduced +K: This is a way, as Klout explains on its blog, to augment the data captured by Klout. The tool lets Klout users vouch for their peers’ influence in topics Klout has associated with each user.

June 14: Added Linkedin data to the influence score because with 100 million users of the professional network Klout said it believed adding Linkedin would make for a more accurate overall score.

July 12: Announced its data is in high demand: Klout says that it served more than two billion API calls in the month of June – or four times the demand of three months prior. This means large numbers of services are now seeing value in pulling Klout data.

July 14: Announces that Foursquare is now integrated into Klout scoring. According to a Mashable interview with Klout CEO Joe Fernandez adding Foursquare "is the start of an aggressive process from Klout to add more data sources and granularity to the Klout scores."

And possibly in the near future?

Google+ integration: According to a July 20 post on Klout’s official blog the company has "already started work on ways to assess your influence on Google+"

More on Klout:
• For an example of how Klout stirs passionate debate over the whole topic of measuring social media influence check out Mark Schaefer’s The making of a social media slut blog post (especially the comments area).

• For insight into where Klout has come from and where it is headed read the Forbes interview of Klout CEO Fernandez by Tracy John: Klout CEO On Raising Your Score, Google Plus Integration And Justin Bieber’s Perfect 100

So if you haven’t yet had your fill of Klout keep watching this space because in social media 2011 is most assuredly the Year of Klout.

Offering social media thanks

Thanks for the great platforms that make social media part of every day of my life.

Thanks to Twitter for being my No. 1 source of news – and this from a guy who worked for more than 20 years in the newspaper industry!

Thanks to Linkedin for hosting such great groups – places I learn something every time I check in.

Thanks to Facebook for allowing me to stay connected to people I would have lost touch with years ago.

Thanks to YouTube for showing me aspects of life and this world I would otherwise never see (and the fact that so much of what I see on YouTube is funny doesn’t hurt either).

Thanks to foursquare for getting me to explore the planet – or at least whatever part of it I happen to be on at a given moment.

Thanks to Social Media Today for being the best aggregator of serious and accurate insights into the developing world of social media for business.

Thanks to Mashable for being the quickest and flashiest aggregator of news about social media.

Thanks to Alltop for allowing me to set up a social media feed tailored to my particular interests.

But, most of all, thank you to everyone I interact with daily, weekly or ever on social media you teach me so much and make every day insightful – I can’t thank you enough.

Related post:
A Social Media Feast for Thanksgiving

Pardon the Phrase, But You Need to Avoid the Social Media ‘Quickie’

You glance across the crowded room and there he/she is: Surrounded by adoring fans, looking fabulous and giving you – yes you! – a sly look. This tempter/temptress glides your way and before you know it you’re leaving the party for a brief, perhaps rapturous encounter with your new best friend.

At some point we have all fallen to the temptation of a “quickie” – perhaps not of the sexual kind, but perhaps of the eating kind (that fast food burger when real food would have been a smarter choice) or the entertainment kind (that episode of The Real Housewives of New York when a far more informative and useful episode of Nova was on the local PBS station).

But if there is one place businesses and individuals should stay clear of the “quickie” it is social media. Trust me on this: No good can come of it.

So let’s acknowledge: Yes it can be exciting to jump into the metaphorical social media bed with a few well-known social networking apps. But businesses especially need to stop and ask: “How will I feel in the morning?’

Yes those apps that everybody seems to be drawn to – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube can look very attractive and easy to conquer. The makeup is just so, the curves/muscles are just in the right place and, well, you’ve been hearing so much about social media that at this point you may be wearing the virtual “beer goggles” and blind to some of the potential problems.

So how to avoid the social media morning-after regrets? Try asking yourself these four questions:

1. Should you think twice before jumping into bed with someone you haven’t built a relationship with?

2. Are you prepared to become deeply involved and ready to deal with the long-term commitment and consequences?

3. Is this something you have time for at this point in your life? Your business? Your career?

4. Can this new relationship fit into your existing relationships or will the old ones suffer because of the new?

Answer “No” to any of these and you likely are not ready for social media. As in life social media relationships take work.

What other relationship questions would you ask yourself before deciding to jump into a particular social medium?

Possibly related post:
10 Ideas to Help Business Navigate Social Media

Beware the Social Media ‘Cone of Silence’

Can social media suck you into believing you know everything? Absolutely.

I call this phenomenon the Social Media Cone of Silence … and it could be deadly for you and your business.

The “cone” is that space where you are so surrounded by online input that it feels like you’re on top of everything: You’re following the best blogs in your industry. You follow the smartest people on Twitter. You are involved in the deepest discussions on relevant LinkedIn groups. In a nutshell you’re so plugged in you’re the go-to person for what’s hot, what’s new and what’s over the horizon.

But this “cone” of information is a trap … and you need to see it for what it is. It has taken your attention away from some more basic information sources and can lull any business into a false sense of security.

So who are you likely ignoring (or at least not paying enough attention to)?

Sales people:What’s the word from sales? What are they hearing and seeing that you aren’t? They’re in the trenches day-in and day-out and they literally hear from customers all the time. What are they hearing? Is what they hear changing?

But don’t stop there. What do they know about competitors and how competitors are perceived in the marketplace? What opportunities are sales folks seeing? Given the chance to change one thing about your business or your product what would they suggest?

Sales people have your goals too, listen to them.

CRM specialists: Your customer relations specialists likely have obvious and not-so-obvious responsibilities. But the one thing they all have is a gut feeling about what is going on and what should be getting more attention.

Find these people throughout your organization … and look hard. For example the front-desk security guard or the delivery driver may not seem like customer relations types but they are. The handle customers every single day and because of this they know a lot of stuff that you don’t. Find them and listen to them.

Carol: This person may have another name in your organization, but in the first newsroom I worked in many years ago Carol was the secretary and receptionist. That is to say she was the smartest, most community connected person in the room. If Carol said something was a big deal the reporters and editors would always come to regret not following up on her ideas. Who are the Carols in your organization? Get to know them. Listen to them.

Can social media provide you with a lot of real-time business intelligence? Yes. But don’t forget to mix it in with a heaping helping of smarts from the real people around you. Who will you go talk to today?

Possibly related posts
Just How Big is Social Media?
10 Commandments for Social Media

4 Steps to Social Media Success

What’s the secret to a successful foray into Social Media?

It’s likely there is no one over-arching secret, but I do believe that there is a pyramid (or order of doing things) that likely improves anyone’s chances of being successful in their Social Media efforts, whatever those may be.
The pyramid is designed to show the steps to a peak with the width of each step indicating the frequency or commitment of time and energy at each level. Ideally you will spend at least twice as much time engaged in Step 1 as you do in Step 2 and so on.
Here there are my 4 Steps to Social Media Success:

1. LISTENING
This is what Social Media is for … no really. It’s the thing that’s hardest for newbies to grasp: That just by paying attention to what others are saying, sharing and asking you can learn so much.
Do this well and your future success in Social Media (however you define it) is assured.
How to do it: Follow, fan or connect with a few key people on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn – people important to your industry, your business and/or your interests. Start following a few blogs on topics you care about. And then read, read, read. You might even want to start making note of who seems to have the “best stuff” in the areas you care about and when they are active on their particular Social Media platform.

2. CONNECTING
It’s not enough to just be a “spy in the room” – sooner or later you will need to engage with people. Start by saying Hello. No, really. Imagine your time in Social Media were a cocktail party. Would you simply sit in a chair against the wall listening in? Of course you wouldn’t.
How to do it: When people accept your offer to connect, become a fan or follow – thank them. When they ask you a question, answer it. I’m serious. You don’t think this needs to be said? Just hang around in Social Media long enough and you will see that the “Faux Followers” far outnumber the “Real Followers.” If you liked or appreciated something in a blog, leave a comment saying so. By being human at this stage your credibility begins to build.

3. HELPING
If you thought Social Media was all about what’s in it for you, you’ve really grabbed the stick at the wrong end: It’s all about what your time in it means for everyone else. Your reputation (and therefore your trust and influence) are directly related to how human you are and at this level that means being helpful and giving.
How to do it: Start slowly by answering a few questions that you are able to as they pop up. Share links to really good stuff you’ve found on the web. Introduce two people who don’t know each other but who could help each other. Connect the dots for others. In the karmatic way of Social Media this help will be repaid with much interest.

4. ASKING
Yes, you do get to ask for help once in a while and you can ask others if you may offer them a solution to a problem that just happens to be related to your business. BUT, you do this rarely and with great care.
How to do it: First you need to know your audience (your followers, fans or connections) and you need to pay attention to how they react when others make “offers.” If you have established a relationship and you believe your audience really wants/needs what you have you can make the offer. BUT (again with emphasis), be sure to make the offer at the right time and only once. Handled incorrectly this last level of the pyramid can easily destroy the other three. You have been warned.

If this all seems like too much work, perhaps Social Media is not for you. The real trick is to keep Social Media “social” and to build relationships.

Related links:
10 Commandments for Social Media
10 Social Media No-Nos
7 Ways to Tell How You’re Doing in Social Media