It’s impossible not to draw parallels between Facebook and the other network that could have been Facebook…

That network is, of course, MySpace, or my_____, or whatever catchy spelling that schizophrenic company is going by these days.

According to a study published last week, Facebook is on its way to a billion users worldwide in August. We’ll say that again, one BILLION!

MySpace, on the other hand, is on its way to zero… The once mighty network has watched its users leave gradually, then suddenly, then in droves.

Currently, MySpace is hanging out at around 20M unique visitors per month. While that’s nothing to scoff at — for a startup — it’s fewer unique visitors than a site like Reddit gets, a tenth of the visitors that Twitter gets. Here’s the real kicker, that’s half as much traffic as MySpace got a year ago!

Only four months after its official launch, Google+ has already surpassed MySpace.

So what did MySpace do wrong, so horribly offensive, that it caused their users to pack up and leave? And how did Facebook manage to steal tens of millions of recovering MySpace addicts?

Obviously, design was a big part — Facebook’s was much better. But it wasn’t the visual design that really made the difference… it was how Facebook designed its information.

The key is RELEVANCE.

We all know why people log in to their social media accounts: To see messages, photos, and updates from the PEOPLE in their network.

MySpace didn’t create or impose any of the firewalls necessary to keep annoying promoters from spamming your account. As a result, it became a lot harder to find relevant content, posted by actual friends.

Remember how, by 2007, your MySpace account was a big ugly mess of irrelevant, automated spam?

In contrast, Facebook was slow to allow its network up to non-college students, and even slower to open it to brands. Zuckerberg was wary of marketers, because he understood that relevance and genuine human interaction was the engine that drives social media.

It’s a lesson that has impacted all social networks since Facebook. And it’s a lesson that all marketers should drill into their brains.

Users have become much more sophisticated. They can tell the difference between real content and automated gibberish.

That’s why it’s so important to not rely too heavily on automated content distribution. By all means, have a human write your Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ posts.

The second that we suspect that a piece of software is generating messages, and not an actual person, it cheapens the user experience and destroys the perceived value.

Right now, a company is suing one of its former employees for…

… 17,000 Twitter followers — each valued at $2.50 per month.

According to the NYT, that’s a grand total of $340,000 folks!

It’s the first time I can remember a lawsuit that places an actual dollar figure on Twitter followers, but I’m positive it won’t be the last.

In a nutshell, the employee (Noah Kravitz) left the company (PhoneDog) on supposedly good terms. After leaving his post as a writer on PhoneDog.com’s blog, Kravitz switched his Twitter handle from “phonedog_noah” to simply “NoahKravitz.”

Can you see where this is going?

In the lawsuit, the PhoneDog is basically saying that the following Kravitz built while working for them amounts to intellectual property — a customer list of sorts. Therefore, even though the word “phonedog” has disappeared from his Twitter handle, the company alleges that they actually own the account.

Before you dismiss this as ridiculous, consider PhoneDog’s side of the argument. It would be one thing if Kravitz created a different account and tried to poach all of PhoneDog’s followers, but he literally took the account with him. The account and its followers were built by Kravitz as part of his employee duties…

Anyone interested in social media marketing, should be paying attention to this case…

BUT not simply for the legal outcome. Even though it probably won’t go to trail (few cases do these days), it will be interesting to see how PhoneDog tries to substantiate it’s dollar figures.

If there’s a settlement, it’ll require only a little long division to figure out how much PhoneDog received per Twitter follower.

Old school marketers are always asking: ‘What’s social media really worth? What’s the ROI?‘

Well, you’re about to get a pretty good idea.

If you haven’t watched the video Gary Vaynerchuk’s keynote speech at this year’s Inc 500, you SHOULD (be advised, the guy really likes profanity).

In the speech, he lays out some amazing predictions for the the future of marketing. In specific, he explains how social media is flipping the marketing model.

What I really like about Gary’s approach is that he’s clearly not a social butterfly. I mean, he’s funny and engaging…

…but he makes it perfectly clear that he doesn’t ENJOY obsessing over social media. He only obsesses over social media interaction because that’s how you sell stuff in today’s marketplace.

It’s an important distinction to make really. One of the challenges that I hear about constantly from marketers I meet is “I’m just not a very social person. I don’t like sharing my personal life on Facebook.”

Fair enough, but let me ask you this: Do you like cold calling? Do you like direct mail? Do you like spending money on ad buys that produce less and less ROI?

You don’t have to LIKE social media in your personal life. However, you do need to understand how to use it to connect with leads and customers though… It’s ONLY the future of marketing, folks. No big deal.

Think about it. Every time a new technology emerges, most of us say, “No thanks, Twitter’s not for me. I think I’ll sit this one out.” It’s human nature.

Of course, most of us have eat our words. Just imagine how ridiculous it would be if you decided to “sit this one out” when it comes to the internet, or cell phones, or texting.

I think you get my point.

As Vaynerchuk points out, social media is rapidly replacing the old “push” model. Email, banner ads… all that stuff is losing value.

Will it die out completely? Probably not, but marketing today is becoming more and more about the “pull.” Rewards marketing, thanking you gifts, and offering customers special deals based on their unique interests, that’s the future of selling.

Here’s the beauty of it though, with social media your customers actually tell you all kinds of information about themselves automatically.

Forget surveys, follow your customers on social media. You’ll learn a lot more about them — what foods they like, where they shop, what football teams they like, etc.

It’s always been a marketer’s job to study and connect with customers. Now, social media is taking the guesswork out of the equation.

Consider Facebook’s new Timeline feature. A marketer can go on timeline and learn all about a FB user’s life. It’s like peeking into their scrapbook.

Scratch that, it IS peeking into their scrapbook… and they’re inviting you to do it.

In a weird way, Facebook and Twitter are helping to create the most valuable and complete customer profiles that any marketer could ever hope to buy. Use those profiles to turn your customers into your friends.

Tweet
Twitter is launching their official Tweet button that can easily be embedded on your web pages to make it even easier for customers to share your articles, videos, and images.

Although there are currently solutions for Twitter buttons on your web pages, this button will stand apart in a few ways.

1. Provides the most comprehensive count of retweets and shares across Twitter’s network
2. Automatically includes your @ mention in the retweet
3. The option to follow the page creator is given after a retweet
4. The retweet process doesn’t require the user to leave your site
5. Allows you to connect a unique Twitter account for every page you embed the button on
6. Allows you to give an additional Twitter account to recommend a follow
7. Allows you to create a default tweet for the page you place the button on
8. Allows you to provide shortened link versions in the retweet

The best part is how easy the creation of the embed link it.  Twitter provides a form for you to fill out all the necessary info and it spits out a 1 line embed code for you to slap up on your site.

It’s rumored that Twitter will release use of this button to all user accounts sometime this week, so keep an eye out for it and get ready to use it. I’ll be adding it to all my pages. Why?

1. Keeps users on your site/page longer. If they don’t have to leave you page to retweet, chances are that they’ll keep browsing once they’re done retweeting.
2. Makes it easier for users to take action. If they’re already logged into Twitter, they’re more likely to retweet the content because it’s so easy.
3. Get your content in front of more eyes. Combine this with a Facebook Like button and your content gets way more exposure than just tweeting it on your own account.

Do you think this Tweet button will be better than the already existing alternatives? Comment Below

Tweet

I’ll admit that I have a love/hate relationship with Twitter.  I LOVE that Twitter is hyper effective tool to grow our online friends/fan bases and get content to go viral.  I HATE that Twitter is constantly not working due to some unknown technical error.

After having to shut down for 12 hours on Monday due to a database error, Twitter is tired of all the technical issues too, so they’re opening their own Data Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.  (sigh of relief)

Until now Twitter used NTT America’s data center where they did not have full control over their network and system configurations to meet their very specific needs.

Here’s what we should be able to expect from Twitter having their own data center.

1- Twitter is tacking on new users at an ever increasing pace, one of the reasons Twitter can’t seem to stay up and running.  A new, dedicated data center will allow Twitter to configure their data center to handle the growth. (the extra power will help as well)

2- With events like the World Cup, people Tweet A LOT more and Twitter has been pretty shaky trying to handle the massive amount traffic.  The increase power of the new database will enable Twitter to facilitate way more Tweets with out interruption.

3- Twitter has had to shut down a lot of applications to conserve space and power to keep up with everything.  The new data center will give them room to expand their applications and push their new Ads layout.

The data center’s potential positive effects are all great, but even Twitter engineer, Cozzatti, stated that “We frequently compare the tasks of scaling, maintaining, and tweaking Twitter to building a rocket in mid-flight,” meaning that this could all take a bit to fix and straighten out.

Do you think Twitter is yet to reach it’s full potential as they still struggle to find a way to accommodate all their new features and users?  Comment Below, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

There has been some debate as to whether or not Twitter is an effective or appropriate platform for customer support. Personally, I’ve made my mind up about it. While I’d never use it as my primary customer support desk, I still field concerns from my Twitter followers.

There has been a few times where my customers have utilized Twitter to get a quick response from me when they really needed one, allowing me to delegate a customer representative to take swift care of the person in need.

Even in my case, 140 characters can be extremely limiting when trying to give the appropriate response to a customer in need.  And for those of you who use Twitter primarily for customer support, this is even truer.

Here is how Zendesk is going to help you out.

If you’re not familiar with Zendesk, It’s worth taking a look at if you’re shopping for a good web based customer support desk.  I’ve used it now for a few years, and love it.

Zendesk released an app that allows you to integrate your Zendesk with your Twitter Account. Essentially this will enable a customer to turn a Tweet in to a Twicket (Zendesk Ticket).

I really like this for a few reasons: 1- If you need more than 140 characters, you can easily get it by transforming the Tweet to a Twicket. 2- If you want to pass it to a customer service rep, then you can turn into a Twicket and get it assigned immediately?

What are you using for customer support? Do you see a need for a tool like this?  Comment Below!

Traditional advertising doesn’t have the viral capabilities of social media primarily because it doesn’t provide a platform where consumers can immediately respond and share. Most marketers out there are turning to social media for sales promotions long before traditional channels.  We all want our products to go viral, right?

One company is recognizing this trend shift in advertisement and they’re going one step further by valuing a single Tweet as sufficient payment for one their products.  Simply put, if you tweet for their product, you get it for FREE.

Social media promotions have become so valuable that this is now a viable and profitable advertisement option.  The best-case results of accepting Tweet Payments: one tweet by a customer could potentially generate many more tweets or even a few sales.

In the end you pass up making $27 or $97 dollars and in return you get your product exposed to many more consumers who in turn may decide to make a Tweet payment.

See the viral momentum building?

I could see this tactic serving as a great pre-launch momentum builder. Give away a lower valued product and let Tweets do a lot of the legwork for you.  This is could be especially powerful for those of you without any large affiliates.

Would you be willing to accept Tweet payments to help your products go viral?  Comment Below.

Twitter is in the process of rolling out promoted tweets, so needless to say their monetization ball is rolling.  And apparently all the new money coming in has their creative juices flowing too.

Twitter has announced they are in a testing period for Promoted Trends. You’ve Probably noticed it on your Twitter page.

Off the bat, I like this because it shows that Twitter is aiming to have a diverse and profound Ad platform for its users.  They are really going after it, and we have a lot to look forward to.

Here’s what we know so far about how Promoted Trends will work.  An advertiser can purchase a spot on the trends list that a user sees.  When the promoted trend is click on, the user will arrive at a results page that would list the advertisers promoted tweet at the top of the list.

Some talk seems to allude that a promoted trend spot for a whole day could cost tens of thousands of dollars.  Sounds like a lot, but the right offer could easily be worth that kind of investment.

Twitter is still testing how this will all look and work.  But what do you think about this?  Comment Below and let me know.

A lot of us know that Twitter works, because we’ve seen it work.  It’s amazing that if you know how and what to Tweet, you can really drive a load of traffic to your sites and build a solid list…For FREE!

The tough part is that there isn’t an honest way to do analytics on your Twitter account so that you can do the fine-tuning to boost results. Because of this, Twitter can feel like a monotonous venture at times. Right?

Well Twitter ain’t no fool, and maybe they actually listen to what we’re saying. Why?  Twitter just acquired a web analytics company called SmallThought.

SmallThought is an analytics teams that Twitter has worked with before to create their online internal networks.  From what I’ve read, they sound like a scary smart group of coders that are capable of doing some serious good for Twitter.

What does this mean for you?

Twitter is working with this new team to create and integrate a new analytics tool that you can use to gain truly pertinent information regarding your Twitter account’s performance.  We don’t know specifics yet on what info you’ll get, but I’m guessing it will be highly useful  based on SmallThought past work.

What can you do with it?

Well, hopefully the information will enable you to tweak your Twitter efforts and assess your performance.

What metrics would you like to see in Twitter Analytics? Comment Below, I’d love to know what your brains are thinking!

Shortened URL’s totally drive me nuts.  Some people open each of them like a Christmas gift, not having a clue what’s in them but dying to find out.  For me, it’s more like lifting a box in the back of my garage and hoping there isn’t something living underneath it. Ambiguous shortened links are all over Twitter and they often turn out to be malware, phishing attacks, or just a crummy sales pitch.

Twitter is changing the game, and they’re taking control of shortened URLs.

They are doing this in a few big ways. All links will be auto-wrapped with t.co (a twitter domain).  But this doesn’t mean every link will end in t.co.  On Twitter.com you’ll most likely see part of the original link, the page title or the entire link if there is room. However, in a text message you may actually see t.co since there is an sms character limit.

Example: http://www.reallylongname.com/superlongdirectory/crazylongpagename.html will appear as reallylongname.html or reallylongname.com.

Twitter also changed the character limit to 140-characters after link wrapping.  This means if your update is too long with an included link, Twitter will wrap the link up to fit the 140-character limit (in most cases).

In the end this does a few important things. It protects you from malicious links that are potentially harmful, and it also puts an end to the obscure links you’re tired of.  All in all it allows you to browse Twitter and know what people are actually linking to, greatly enhancing your experience.

I’m a fan of this change, are you?  Do you see a way this could play for or against you?