On July 26 Ford is going to reveal their 2011 Ford Explorer. No, not at a car show or on a commercial—on Facebook. Didn’t have enough proof social media is used for EVERYTHING? Here’s your proof.

According to an article on Mashable, on reveal day, you can expect to see a number of videos introducing online users to the new vehicle. Scott Monty, the head of social media at Ford, disclosed that some of the videos will serve as virtual walk-arounds designed to mimic the experience a person would have at an auto show.

Along with the reveal of the new car, Ford promised  that if they’d reach 30,000 Facebook Fans, they’d give away a new Explorer. Well, their planned worked and 32,000+ fans later Ford now has quite the crowd of fans crossing their fingers for a new car—including me.  This campaign has now changed the entire auto industry’s tradition with revealing new vehicles and I wonder if other major motor companies are going to follow closely in Ford’s footsteps. Actually, who am I kidding? I know they will because social media marketing these days is viral.

So props to Ford’s Scott Monty for contriving yet another creative marketing strategy to add to the list— I’m sure the auto industry is pleased.

Yes, Facebook is distracting, but the reality is that graduates who are entering the workplace have been eating, sleeping, and breathing status updates, blog posts, photo/video uploads, and more. It’s time social media tools are put to good use in the workplace and collaborating in real-time seems like the perfect fit. An article on Mashable couldn’t better define the concept of immediacy when it comes to our obsessive habits when using Facebook and other social media outlets.  We aren’t home five minutes before we are posting pictures from our summer vacations even though we tweeted and updated family and friends everyday of our whereabouts and what we ate for dinner. Imagine how the concept of immediacy at work could change efficiency?

Mashable illustrates a side by side comparison of social media in the workplace vs. social media and personal life. My favorite comparison is “You follow @Starbucks on Twitter for the latest deals and customer service in your personal life, try following important customer accounts to be sure issues and open items are resolved.” Most of us already have our Facebook and Twitter accounts open in our browsers to periodically check on, how convenient would it be to work straight from Twitter? The best part behind this social move into the workplace is that we all know how Facebook and Twitter work—we don’t need the IT guy for this one.

The four most awesome Hootsuite updates

The Twitterverse no doubt woke up to great joy as the holidays have appeared to come early.  Hootsuite, one of the best free social media management tools, has again raised the bar in their offering by releasing a killer update, all in HTML5.  Here are what I view as the top four updates, and how they can be used.

1. Blue Steel and Magnum- Way to go with class and choose two of the Derek Zoolander’s mind-alteration, hip gyrating looks.  Points simply for being that cool.  But, beware Hootsuite, “it’s not easy being really really good looking.”
2. Google Analytics Integration- With literally a few clicks, users can port their Google Analytics data into Hootsuite, and even overlay tweets to try and match up site side with social media activity.  Without going on a rant but still slightly ranting, I’m convinced this is the direction of social media measurement.  Because of the inherent difficulty in tracking tweets, this type of measurement can at least directionally prove increased site traffic.  This has always been the next evolution in social media analytics, really good call on this one as well.
3. Drag and drop upload- Really cool feature allowing users to simply drag any type of file into the message box for easy posting.  Furthermore, it automatically generates a shortened link, giving you the ability to access robust stats on clicks and effectiveness.
4. GeoSearch- Maybe one of the coolest features to come out (except Blue Steel and Magnum), users can now search for tweets based on their location.  Wanna only see Tweets in Denver? Or maybe you want to monitor sentiment across different locations?  No problemo.

All in all, Mr. Owl you are my friend, and I appreciate all you’ve done.

Angie Pascale the communications manager at Location3 Media explains the difference between community and fan pages on Facebook. She explains what are the advantages and disadvantages and how brands can use them in their social media management campaigns.

Wow… has it already been five years since YouTube started taking over our lives with videos of amazing 4 year olds who might be the next American Idol? It seems like just yesterday I became addicted to spending endless hours  watching my favorite ceiling fan cat video.  A Soshable blog that celebrates YouTube’s fifth year in existence questions whether or not this monster of a company will be around in five years. Could YouTube plummet like MySpace or AOL and be eaten up by a newer, sexier version of broadcasting yourself?  My gut feeling says no, and you’d be happy to know that my gut feelings are about 99.9% accurate.

YouTube is huge-and by huge I mean “exceeds 2 billion views a day— nearly double the prime-time audience of all 3 major U.S. broadcast networks combined,” according to an infographic compiled by Website Monitoring. Broadcast networks should be the ones who are worried because this is where broadcast news, and everything else for that matter, is heading (and has been headed) for quite some time—online.

I’ve been living without cable now for three weeks and was pleased to discover the CNN YouTube channel for when I needed my daily fix of Anderson Cooper’s good looks and charming news coverage. Almost everything I want to watch is at the tip of my fingers online. Whether it be my favorite television shows, interviews with the casts of my favorite television shows, or coverage of celebrity news when I don’t feel like hearing Ryan Seacrest’s voice on E! entertainment, it’s all there right when I want it and at the quick click of a button. In the popular book The Longtail, Chris Anderson discusses how we’ve become a culture of wanting things and wanting them now, and most importantly for free.  Broadcasting online seems to fulfill this and then some.

Although I’m not watching all of my online videos on YouTube,  I’m not sure how quickly watching news and television online would’ve developed had we not had a platform of novice broadcasters that YouTube so kindly gave to us. The importance of implementing video as a company for social, PR, or any other outreach is an essential tool for marketing strategies today.  According to the infographic mentioned above, “the average person spends 15 minutes a day on YouTube.”

It is definitely worth any company’s time (and money), to build a strong video strategy and create a YouTube channel. If marketed right, you will be watched and you won’t be disappointed with the exposure it will bring.

I always knew YouTube was a phenomenon, but not until I read these statistics did I really sit back and think…wow.  So go ahead and check out the infographic I keep repetitively mentioning in this post. I’m sure you’ll be just as  shocked as I was to see the concrete numbers YouTube truly brings in.

Monetizing the effect of social media efforts can be difficult. In an industry where every click can be recorded and every mouse movement tracked, it’s hard to accept that there’s no definitive metric for deciding exactly how many sales/leads social media generated. Ultimately, it requires a paradigm shift to understand the value. A move from return on investment to return on engagement–where businesses start looking at the increased involvement and loyalty of customers, rather than direct conversions. However, there are some metrics that can be measured at this time, as a recent survey by Syncapse shows.

The survey provides an empirical look at the value of Facebook fans. They polled some 4,000 people who have “Liked” the top 20 brands that have fan pages and determined that these individuals will spend an average of $71.84 more annually on that brand’s products or services. In addition to spending, the survey also looked at loyalty, propensity to recommend, brand affinity, media value (Facebook’s comparative efficiency for reaching consumers) and acquisition cost. They estimate that the average value of any fan is $136.38. While I’m sure this varies widely for each brand (apparently, a McDonald’s fan is valued at $250.82), it’s interesting to have a set number that everyone can use as a jumping off point. And when you think about the typical cost of a lead, that’s a pretty reasonable number.

Naturally, these findings must be taken with a grain of salt. Not every consumer that has Liked a brand’s Facebook page is active and not every fan will spend more money. But if you can accept the shift in metrics–valuing increases in engagement, brand loyalty and brand evangelists (who do it for free!), instead of direct sales/leads–you will have a better understanding of your social media campaign and a better rapport with fans.

Social media tools are becoming a dime a dozen. I find at least five new ones everyone day. Many of them are pointless, some are exact replicas of other tools and others too complicated to comprehend. But everyone once in a while I’ll come across a social media tool or service that is not only beneficial, but pretty darn neat, too. Here are just a few of the cool and useful social tools I’ve stumbled on lately:

HOW SOCIABLE
HowSociable is a free service that provides an arbitrary social visibly score for various keywords. One-time measurement is useless; however, continued monitoring over time could reveal improvement or weakening.

KNOWEM?
Knowem? lets you check to see if your brand terms have been registered on numerous social networks, allowing you to snag your names while you can. Free service provides results from 300+ networks.

COPERNIC
Copernic monitors updates made to websites, not just blogs. Good method for keeping tabs on competitors and other related businesses.

COMBO
Combo is an all-in-one platform allowing you to publish to multiple social networks and microsites at once, manage campaigns from one interface and learn about fans/followers using realtime social media analytics.

YAHOO! PIPES
Yahoo! Pipes aggregates and mashes up content from around the web, among other functions. Select the keywords, sources and other variables to mash up into your own branded Pipe.

TWEETSTATS
TweetStats creates graphical representations of tweets for individual profiles. Graph by tweets per hour, tweets per month, tweet timeline or reply statistics.

SENDIBLE
Sendible allows you to manage social media networks much like email. You can manage multiple accounts, monitor you brand, incorporate your RSS feed, schedule messages (not just tweets, but Facebook, MySpace, SMS and email as well) and track success through analytics.

TWEETPSYCH
TweetPsych provides a psychological analysis of Twitter users. You can only analyze one account at a time for very generalized results, but it’s pretty amusing, nonetheless.

Your LinkedIn profile doesn’t have to be just an online resume. Yes, it’s important to have information about your current position, experience and education; however, there’s so much more that can help you build business relationships through LinkedIn. You can pimp your profile with numerous apps and other items. Here are six tips for enhancing your personal LinkedIn profile:

I. Vanity URL

LinkedIn assigns each profile with a random string of numerals at the end of their profile URL. You can easily customize your URL with your name and/or personal brand. Here’s how:

II. Blog Feed

You can easily add your blog feed through one of the many applications offered by LinkedIn. Depending on the type of blog you have (e.g., WordPress, TypePad, LiveJournal, etc.), you will either use the WordPress application, or the BlogLink application. Because our blog, www.expertSEM.com, is on WordPress, I will use that as my example below. However, adding any of the LinkedIn apps is super simple—LinkedIn walks you through each step of the process.

The WordPress application allows you to select specific types of feeds. If your blog has numerous authors or different categories, you can choose to show only your blogs or only those in a specific, relevant category. For example, this is the feed I use on my LinkedIn profile:

III. Twitter Integration

You can add your Twitter feed in two ways: 1. through an application or 2. in your settings. If you do this, however, remember that your tweets will be automatically posted as your LinkedIn status. Be sure not to double-post by clicking on your LinkedIn account within HootSuite or whichever Twitter client you use.

IV. Share Presentations

You can add presentations and documents that you have created to your LinkedIn profile with the SlideShare application. You must have a SlideShare.net account to import documents.

V. Share Documents

Although you can add PDFs to your profile with SlideShare, you are limited to three documents. We recommend using SlideShare for your three most recent presentations, and using another app for PDFs or other documents.

VI. Strategic Anchor Text

LinkedIn allows you to add three website links to your profile. These links should direct to your corporate website, corporate blog, personal blog, corporate Facebook page or other relevant sites that you own and control. The key to these links is using strategic keywords. For example, I’ve used “interactive marketing agency” to link to the Location3 Media website on my profile.

That’s it. Easy as pie! Follow these six tips and you’ll be well on your way to an enhanced LinkedIn profile—a living, breathing representation of your professional life and an interactive avenue for establishing new business relationships.

What makes one tweet better than the next? Why do some get retweeted by hundreds of people, but others pass by unnoticed? What should you be tweeting about?

Attend our free webinar, “The Twelve Tenets of Tweeting” to learn what you should say in your tweets, how you should say it and who you should say it to.  Or rather, who you should be conversing with. This short webinar (only 30 minutes, finally one you actually have the time for!) is presented by yours truly. It takes place on Wednesday, April 28, 2010 at 11:00 a.m. Mountain Time.

Register for the webinar today.

After the webinar, we’ll send every attendee our newly-minted Social Media Survival Guide–an expansive tool kit for developing a comprehensive social media strategy of your own. This survival guide discusses the various functions of social media, general best practices, best practices by network and more.

The internet and social media has made PR both simpler and more complicated at the same time. Simpler because you can get the word out to people worldwide in a matter of seconds, establish connections and communicate with the public without always relying on others to speak for you and find the proper people to help you convey your message and get it right. PR is more complicated because there are now even more channels to communicate with and a million and one tools to help you do it. How do you know which channels and tools to use? And once you’ve selected them, what’s the proper process?

Reaching out to the media is still important, even in the concept of “media” is changing. While editors, producers and reporters are still the main contacts for traditional media outlets, there is another set of contacts that you must consider—bloggers, online news editors, podcasters and web TV producers. Before you ever contact any type of media, though, you must communicate through your own channels, such as your website, social media networks and other sites where you control content and messaging. You must follow a logical sequence when posting a press release on these various channels, one that starts at the core of your online assets (i.e., your website) and branches out to other third-party sites that you control but don’t own, allowing the message to sprout and grow from the most credible source. However, you must factor in aspects that you do not control, such as time, to ensure the release is being pushed out across numerous verticals at nearly the same time. Here are the steps for publishing a press release through your online assets:

I. Press Release Distribution Service

Use a distribution service to place your release on the wire. We prefer PRLeap because it is the most SEO-friendly, however, PRWeb, PRNewswire and eNewsrelease have wider distribution and target specific traditional news sources and journalists. The service you use depends on your goals, but we strongly recommend PRLeap.

This is the first step because most distribution services require at least day of lead time. All uploaded content is run through their editorial team; it must be approved before they’ll publish it. Next day release is typically available for all services, sometimes requiring an package upgrade.

II. Website Press Room

Now you can upload to you core assets, starting with the ones closest to your company. Upload your press release into your online press room or news room. Make sure you upload the actual text of the release, not a PDF. This makes the content crawl-able, and therefore index-able, by the search engines. Include anchor text links to other pages of your website. If you have a “meet the team” page on your site, link the author of quotations back to their section on that page.

Add logos, photos, videos or any other element that will make the release more interactive and informative. Press releases don’t have to be the bland, text-heavy documents they once were. You’re not faxing this thing (if you are, stop now!); so take advantage of the new features and capabilities.

III. Facebook Note

Once your release is uploaded into your website, you can create a note in Facebook. Essentially, you’re just copying and pasting the content of your release into the notes section. Again, add anchor text links to your site and upload a relevant picture or logo. You should also tag any fans that are included in the press release. To share the note, publish it to your Fan Page’s news feed and send a message to specific fans.

IV. PitchEngine

PitchEngine is a social media press release platform, allowing you to effectively package stories and share them with media influencers around the world. Upload your release content, add SEO-friendly elements, include a custom Twitter pitch, add brief news facts, incorporate photos, videos and images, add resource links and include relevant keyword tags. The social and interactive elements of PitchEngine are helping to update press releases and bring them into the media landscape of today. Essentially, this is what your website press room should look like as well.

V. Twittter

Now that you have the content uploaded on various sites and ready for others to view, you can begin to share it with your contacts and the online community. Tweet the announcement and include a link to your website or use a service such as TwitDoc to upload a PDF versions. Be sure to use hashtag keywords and include contact info in tweet.

Reach out to specific Twitter users—reporters, bloggers, producers, other influencers—by sending custom @ or DM messages.

VI. LinkedIn and Other Third-party Sites

Use the LinkedIn’s Boxes.net app or another similar app to upload the press release to your profile, then update your status with a link. Again, reach out to specific contacts within LinkedIn to share the story. If you belong to other sites that allow you to upload files to your profile, include the press release here as well.

If you follow this sequence, your content will be represented on all the major channels and you will be ready to share it with even more contacts. After reaching out, when these reporters/bloggers/influencers go to look for more info or check the validity of your message, they will find it in a number of credible locations, thus validating your message and making it easier for them to cover the story and get the information right.