Fact # 2 – I am a Partner at an agency that hearts social media. We effectively leverage it every day for our clients.

Fact # 3 – I am writing this piece knowing that it will be posted to our company’s blog and hope it will be spread quickly through social media.

Fact # 4 – Social media cannot do everything. As much as people in our circles think it can, I think it’s important to remember what it cannot do for us.

For example, social media cannot…

Shake someone’s hand.
Kiss you.
Sell to you.
Go on vacation with you.
Be ignored.
Replace your home life.
Be summed up in one sentence.
Be taught in a classroom (it must be practiced).
Mow your lawn.
Drink a shot with you.
Write its content.
Stop traffic.
Have lunch.
Call your mother.
Pick up your child.
Taste amazing.
Play 1st base on the company softball team.
Drive you to work.
Get your back.
Keep you warm.
Hold a door.
Help someone cross the street.
Give you a hug.
Smile.
Date your sister.

What do you think it can’t do?

-AJ Gerritson

The weekly reports detail the amount of Facebook Fans a Fan Page gains, the amount of wall posts on the Fan Page and the total amount of visitors to the Page per week. The best part of the weekly reports is that it aggregates into one email all of the Facebook Pages I administer.

Facebook Fan Page reports make reporting for clients much easier and more time efficient. Social media reporting can be extremely time consuming and tedious, but these updates are very helpful in moving the process along. It would be great if Twitter started sending weekly reports of RTs, mentions and amount of tweets in a week, don’t you think? LinkedIn should send out weekly reports to managers of Events and Groups too.

What do you think? Is Facebook missing anything in these weekly reports? Give us your feedback!

What are the reasons behind this drop in ratings? Well, one of the main reasons is the lack of social media use in past years. Until last year’s telecast, a lack of social media tie-ins thwarted the Academy from achieving higher ratings. The Academy wasn’t harnessing the power of Oscar pools on online channels, using social networking sites (i.e. Facebook and Twitter) to keep viewers engaged in real-time, streaming videos backstage at the awards ceremony, or utilizing mobile technology.

This year, the Academy used social media to boost ratings and connect with the Gen Y Audience. Here are some of the ways the Academy used social media to gain viewers and engage with the audience:

• Streamed nominations live online at Oscars.org, and on the Academy’s Facebook page.
• Revamped website by hosting video and exclusive content from nominees, as well as widgets for Oscar pools and predictions.
• Oscars iPhone application launched in late February. Fans use the app to see how their Oscar predictions faired against others.
• The Academy will release behind-the-scenes footage from the preparations and rehearsals leading up to the 2010 telecast. The videos will also be syndicated to online video sites and digital out-of-home networks.

Do you think these social media tactics helped boost ratings for the 2010 Academy Awards show? Next year, you can expect to see Facebook and Twitter integration for real-time engagement with viewers.  What are some other tactics you think would help in 2011?

Middleberg Communications and the Society for New Communications Research last month released a study titled, “Media in the Wired World.” The research team surveyed U.S. journalists regarding their social media use and the study found some interesting results:

• Almost 70% of journalists are using social networking sites, which is a 28% increase since the 2008 study
• 48% are using Twitter or other microblogging sites and tools, a 25% increase since 2008
• 66% of the surveyed journalists are using blogs
• 25% of those surveyed are using podcasts
• 48% of journalists are using online video
• Over 90% of journalists agree that new media and communications tools and technologies are enhancing journalism to some extent

According to the study, reporters are embracing social media and are active on various social networking sites. This is great for us because we can build relationships with reporters and connect with them in real-time. Here at 451, we use Twitter and LinkedIn to follow media contacts. Both tools are useful to see what reporters are writing about, and to watch for potential opportunities to pitch our company and/or our clients.

Do you connect with reporters and journalists through social networking sites? Have some success stories to share? Let us know!

Buzz is Google’s newest way of showing it is committed to making Google “as social as the web itself.” It’s also a way for Google to directly compete with Facebook and Twitter.

Let’s take a look at some of the cool feature of this new service:

Source: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/google-buzz-in-gmail.html

• Buzz will work through Google’s mail service, Gmail. It will allow users to post status updates, photos, and links to “friends,” or the people users email or chat with the most on Gmail.

• Users will be able to choose to make posts public or private, and they will receive new comments and updates in real-time.

Source: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/google-buzz-in-gmail.html

• The service will also pull in activity on other sites like Google Reader, Twitter, Flickr and Picasa and have inbox integration, so updates will go directly to users’ email inboxes.

• The coolest thing, in my opinion and no offense to any of my friends, is the “Just the good stuff” feature. With this feature, Buzz recommends interesting posts and weeds out info a person is likely to skip.

What do you think of Google Buzz? Do you like the idea of having a more socialized email account?

-@cristinalepore

When I was 11 years old, I remember moving into a new neighborhood with my family during the summer. I didn’t have any friends, I didn’t know where the other kids would meet and play and it was kind of a daunting experience (although, an 11 year old would never say the word “daunting” – maybe, replace with “scary”).

Back then it was the age of “just make sure you come home before the street lights come on” and sex offenders didn’t seem to be hanging on every corner of Main St, USA. So, as almost anyone else would do, I grabbed my gun-metal Huffy with the cool stickers and just rode around until I found where some kids were playing.

I remember walking over to the kids and how I hoped they would let me play wiffle ball. At first, they told me that they had enough players and that “they didn’t need anyone else.”  Instinctively (even then) I knew they thought of me as an outsider, someone they didn’t trust. So, I sat there, watched them play and shagged foul balls for them when they shanked them down the make-shift third base line.

Eventually, one of the kids had to leave and so they asked me if I wanted to play. Hazaah!

There is a lesson here to be learned for social media and selling. Yes, I said selling. A term that makes people cringe when they see it put in the context of social media.

Before I go any further, I should be clear that traditional selling has no place in social media. The companies that succeed through using the medium are those that provide meaningful interactions, valuable content, and genuine contributions to the social community. With that being said, I believe you are effectively selling yourself and your company every time you engage with others in a genuine conversation online (again, not spamming – we all have no time or patience for that) and/or providing real value to someone else or the community. For example, when you refer someone to a competitor, or a vendor that is completely unrelated to your business, you have effectively sold yourself as credible to the information recipient (Chris Brogan would refer to this as a “Trust Agent” move).

So one might ask, “How does this apply to me growing my business?”

Fair enough question. Let’s first think about what we know.

• Traditional selling doesn’t work online. To be effective you need to be an expert, a resource and genuine.
• Not everyone online is a potential customer of yours, so you don’t want to spend all of your time talking to everyone.
• Technology has afforded us the ability to track the activities of those that may be prospects or existing customers.

With only so much time in the day, you need to spend your time  effectively. One way to do this is by focusing some of your social media efforts on shadowing your prospective customers. By “shadowing” I mean being involved in all of the conversations your prospects are having online, when they are having them, while being an expert who is genuinely part of the conversation (think back to me shagging balls for the neighborhood kids).

So how would you start shadowing? First, you need people to shadow. There are many ways to develop a list of these people. This list could include existing prospects that you are pitching, people with the right positions at the companies you would like to work with, anything really. Next, you are going to set up a monitoring system for these people across the different social networks. This could be as simple as setting up real-time Google alerts to track their comments on Blogs, monitoring their Twitter handles on whatever Twitter client you are using, and subscribing to any content they might publish.

Since many business people are using LinkedIn today, I would strongly advise using this platform to shadow as well. To do so, I would start by connecting with the person directly and monitoring their status updates daily (I prefer using Google Reader for this). If you do not have a direct connection with this person, you still can follow this person’s discussions across groups. (FYI, LinkedIn rolled out this new feature in November, and has made shadowing non-direct connections a lot easier. More information about this process, visit this link: http://blog.linkedin.com/2009/11/06/ian-mccarthy-look-whos-following-you-across-groups-on-linkedin/

Finally, you just have to monitor and join the conversation consistently in a meaningful way. Again, be an expert, be genuine and be a resource.

If you practice shadowing, good things will happen.