Google is using their patent invite system to slowly let people in.  This is in itself a social experiment.  They start with letting users with clout in.  Then from there, people are given invites to share.  Each day they allow so many of these invites to enter the golden gate.  Suddenly these invites go viral.  People start posting on Facebook (oh the irony) that they have invites.  People start asking others for invites.  It becomes a interesting study in who knows who.

While I don’t have the clout or the social network that Mark Zuckerberg has, I managed to get an invitation.  Time to start looking around and trying to guess what they are up to.  My first impression?  Disappointment.  The biggest issue I have is that the invite system does not work well for an application that requires a large community to thrive.  How many times will I check my plus account only to find out that I have no new news to read?  How many times will I make a most if nobody is +1-ing (hmm doesnt sound as nice as liking) them?  Facebook didn’t have this problem because it targeted social groups.  Let’s assume that Google can overcome the adoption rate issue, because well they are Google.  Then what?  What will this tool do for me that Facebook doesn’t?

Here are some of my first impressions:

1) Integrated Search.  This is a no-brainer for Google.  I can only postulate that Google is going to add to its formula, allowing Social Reviews and +’s to tailor my results.

2) Ease of sharing.  Those with an Android phone can share photos more easily.  I am assuming this is Googles way to combat Windows Phone 7 social features?

3) Circles.  These will either become overkill or set Google apart. Can users figure out a way to structure their social networks so that Circles add value?  Google is betting they can.  I am betting that a small minority can, but it will become overkill for most users.

4) Is it too Techy?  This might be the biggest obstacle Google has to overcome.  Facebook is simple.  Twitter is simple.  Google+ isn’t as simple.  Remember when Facebook became un-cool..the day your parents joined?  Will your parents join Goolge+ and be able to use it?

5) Do I really want another social network?  In order for Google to get enough market-share to support their shiny new platform they need a value-add proposition.  What is it?  I can speculate on what it might be, but is that enough?  Google needs to tell us.  Why should I spend time creating a new profile, inviting people, figuring out my circles.  Why?  What’s in it for me?  Don’t make me spend time getting everything setup just right to figure it out.  Tell us and we will come.

These are just my “24 hours using Google+” thoughts.  Lot’s to explore and learn, and despite my strong desire not to, I have a new social network to build.

Like a million LinkedIn users, my Friday morning started with a gracious email from Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn’s CEO.

Dear Leslie,
I want to personally thank you because you were one of LinkedIn’s first million members (member number 150978 in fact!*). In any technology adoption lifecycle, there are the early adopters, those who help lead the way. That was you.

In one sentence, I was granted membership in the first million customer club, and positioned in the first 15% – a true early adopter.  How cool, I thought. That is, until I went on to Twitter and Facebook and saw the numbers posted in my  circle of my friends, our followers and people we follow. (We have some crazy lead users in our r2i community, by the way.  Rock on #34,162 and #28,055!)

What started as a personalized email, a classic piece of installed base direct marketing, quickly became part of the real-time conversation. For a while, LinkedIn’s founder was trending on Twitter.

The thing that is really amazing about this campaign, though, isn’t just that it provides you bragging rights you can promote in your status on your other social networks. (Don’t get me wrong, that part in itself is genius.) But the real brilliance is in the fact that your number, your social ranking in this network, is actually part of your personal address on that network. The letter goes on to say:

Your member number is the number embedded in your LinkedIn profile URL (after “id=”).

Unlike your Technorati Authority or your Klout score or your PeerIndex rating, this badge of honor will never change. You never lose your place in line. Your status as an early adopter is now part of your virtual business card. For those who love game dynamics, the fact that you can’t spoof or work the system may come as bad news.  You simply can’t move into the top 10%, because this recognition is merely about tenure.

Social CRM isn’t just about acquisition, it is also about loyalty.  Most importantly, it’s about turning your customers into brand advocates, social braggarts who want to rave about their enduring connection to your product.

Nicely done, LinkedIn. To paraphrase Monty Python, you’re not dead yet. And, thanks for the email, Reid.

(P.S. Got a LinkedIn member number? Tell us in the comment section below.)

It was refreshing to hear that as a marketer I was able to relate to the individual that controlled the budgets for our campaigns. So it sparked a question, what are marketing departments talking about when they pitch for the budgets? As we all know general marketing spending is down the last couple of years. The economy is partially a factor, but I also think that people are still speculating on the notion of “build it and they will come”. Recent research indicates that Social Networks which were originally conceived to be an inexpensive marketing tool are actually only successful when serious dollars are allocated to it. Those dollars are in the form of personnel, promotion, research, content creation, and strategy.  Using Social Networks for marketing should be treated no differently than any other campaign that you would launch.

Back to the original thought, what are marketing people saying about leads and conversions? With this particular client, a recruiting agency, we had the fortunate opportunity to be able to track and ultimate hiring of every individual to a specific lead source. We were then able to track the total number of leads back to dollars allocated/actual dollars spent. So I was able to discuss marketing successes and failures as it relates to pure numbers, which for the CFO and ultimately the board was refreshing and enlightening.

If you have a conversation with me, you will soon find that I love the numbers of marketing; page views, conversions rates, click thru rates, unique visitors, etc… I just get giddy. Mainly because it is a tangible item, which in marketing can be difficult. So I am challenging the marketing departments and the specialist and anyone that launches a campaign…. Know the numbers, understand the implications, go back and research and find out what happened and how you can do it better next time, and then present that to a CFO and see if he/she gets it. I guarantee that if they get it, the money for your next successful campaign will be much easier to ask for. If you can’t track those numbers, work with your tech and sales team to make sure that you figure out how to track it. Content may be king on the web, but numbers win in the board room.

As always – open to discuss this post or how we can help you with your next successful campaign.

There are numerous, obvious reasons why Facebook and other social networking platforms are worthy of our attention. Social networks facilitate online connections by providing people with alternate ways to interact and share. These connections aren’t just for personal consumption; more and more businesses are building a Facebook presence to showcase their strengths and keep the social aspect of doing business alive and well. After all, isn’t it just as important for businesses to be sociable?

Making the best of your time on Facebook is all about common sense. You won’t find too many businesses taking the “What Your Kiss Says About Your Personality” test anytime soon but what you will find are pages that are professional and reflective of an organizations’ mission, team and customer base. Businesses that can successfully harness this connectivity and stay social will reap the benefits of growing a larger fan base and in turn, reaching their audience directly with product messaging.

Take as an example a recent Facebook application R2i created for Yamaha, designed to connect Yamaha artists to band members and aspiring musicians across the nation in an effort to generate brand awareness and increase Yamaha instrument sales. The Yamaha Facebook app provides tips from Yamaha artists and gives subscribers the ability to share videos, information and much more. By connecting Yamaha artists to students and musicians, Yamaha indirectly reaches their target audience via a platform where information and interests can be shared. The expectation is top of mind awareness for the Yamaha brand and amplified Yamaha instrument sales. Read the full case study here: Yamaha Case Study

Facebook offers businesses additional opportunities to increase their brand awareness. On Facebook, businesses can create specific events and invitations, introduce new products, offer discounts and incentives directly to “fans”, in an online, social environment. At R2i, we use Facebook as a repository for our Digitips Widget, a place to upload client case studies, showcase videos and share experiences with our audience. Check us out.

Inquiring minds would like to know: How do you use Facebook to do business?

This post comes courtesy of Jackson Hole, Wyoming at the base of the Grand Teton’s National Park. Having lunch over the 4th of July weekend at Bubba’s BBQ (which I totally recommend if you ever visit this area) I overheard a conversation regarding a recent purchase and the desired upcoming purchase of a new horse. While I have no interest in owning a horse the conversation intrigued me as the three cowboys conversed on the pro’s and con’s of a fairly little known breeder in the area. How does this relate to social networking? This is the very root of social networking… just a difference of how it is administered.

To them this was their twitter – this was the blog entry for the day with comments and commentary, this was the status update on Facebook, “Just bought a horse – need to figure out what to call him”. People often ask me to explain what social networking is or how do you twitter, or should our company blog, and I often use the analogy of asking a couple of friends for advice when you travel or are buying a new car. Here I had come across a conversation (Browsing or Searching for content) and was eavesdropping (Reading the post or tweets) on their dialogue and if I had needed advice on where to buy a horse I could have easily jumped in (Commented or Posted) but instead I just listened (Followed) their content.

What the difference was and how this example should be applied to your organization is that it wasn’t about the cowboy or the horse it was an open and honest conversation about an experience, about sharing some piece of knowledge that might be useful to the next person. Cowboy 1 wasn’t trying to sell anything – he was merely sharing his opinion so that the other 2 might benefit from it. This is what more companies need to figure out as they ask themselves – Do I need a social network? First, figure out if you have something to say that anyone really cares about. Secondly, understand that others might be listening even if they don’t jump into the conversation.

So the next time someone ask me to describe Social Networking I might find myself explaining it just a little bit differently.

Photos by: Eric Jones

Social technologies have sharing attributes and features that have changed the way we architect our content. Now, all content can be distributed with the goal of a follow on sharing action. This sharing action accelerates the message distribution. Just last week we sent out a press release about a new partnership with InfoGroup. Within a few hours this announcement was being sent to thousands of people on Twitter who in turn sent the message to numerous others. We monitored the process closely and witnessed the distribution speed and efficiency that socially engineered content can bring to an organization. Since Twitter has limitations on characters, we had to engineer the message to fit and therefore we say that the content was socially engineered for Twitter.

The Iranian election is an interesting case study in socially engineered content distribution. The challenger in the election has many supporters who are using social spaces to push messages to others. Ask yourself: How does this content need to be created to encourage sharing? Keep in mind tone, word count and call to action. Social spaces provide powerful platforms for sharing and we need to create content with this in mind.

As with any set of tools we need to continually ask ourselves: Why would someone share? What is the value proposition for sharing? What is the reason? The latter is the question that matters most and the one that we often fail to answer. Let’s be honest – your content may seem great to you but will your customers, partners and community share it for you? The answer is probably not, unless of course there is a compelling reason. Find that reason, architect your content for sharing and place it in social spaces. Then let your message acceleration begin.

1. Reach out to an existing community.
2. Create your own community.
3. Accelerate your message using sharing tools.
4. Market research.

In the last post we talked about the first part of our social marketing framework.  Now we are going to talk about part two – creating your own community.

The first thing I want to talk about is creation of a community; you can’t just create your own community.  Communities take time to form and when we try to build a place on the web and then expect all our community members to show up, we usually come up empty.  All companies already have the building blocks for a community in their customers.  You may have an email database.  You may have a user group.   You may have an advisory board.  You may have a number of prospects that are thinking of using your product and are in the sales process.    All of these people are potential community members with the word potential being the key term.

In addition there are probably a number of already existing communities in your industry that may not be yours but still have a number of potential community members.  If you look at the first part of our framework, we talk about reaching out to existing communities.  The people in these communities can become part of your community if you use the right tactics and build real relationships with them.

So what is the approach to building your own community.  Here is an approach which we call the “social bridge.”  A social bridge is when you take someone, provide them with a high piece of value and have them interact with the value in your community.  The result is a new community member.

1. First, identify customers, influencers and prospects that already know you well and that you can access.
2. Then identify all the existing communities and the different access points you can use to reach them.
3. Create a compelling piece of value for the community.  This step is the hardest but also the one that determines success and failure.  Do not sell to them.  Examples of value may be free tools, content if it is really good, access to experts that are your friends (or on your payroll – did I just say that).  The key is the value has to be there.
4. Build a place on the web where community activity takes place and provide accessibility to this value.  Don’t send just an email, have the content on your product feedback portal and have people interact with it there and then let the community add to it.
5. Once users have interacted with your value in your social space, reach out and build a real relationship with them.  Do this slowly and bring more value to the table over time.  Grow their engagement.

What many of us missed in the early days of community speak is that the tools that allow a community to form are not the reason they form.  Being able to chat, share, tweet and comment are just things you can do.  And yes, your community space has to offer that type of interaction.  But that is not why people come.  They are there for the value proposition.

So in the end if you want to execute on part two of our model, identify your existing circle of potential community members and also find the already existing communities in your industry.  Reach out to them with real value and have them interact with that value in a “socially powered” place.  Then build on that interaction slowly and build a real relationship.  When they are ready to buy they will do so.

R2i traveled to San Fran late in April to unveil the latest version of their social networking mash up technology, R2i Live, as the focal point of the Inbound Marketing Summit 2009 Conference. Assigned the aptly named moniker “Smash”, short for social mash up, R2i SMASH provides a robust and friendly environment which integrates the popular heavyweight social networking capabilities of Twitter, Flickr, text messaging, mobile video, Ustream, webcasting and multimedia messaging.

Extending on their open source frameworks, the R2i SMASH platform leverages a slick and easy to configure CMS backend, a modular what you see is what you get approach. The platform is easily configured for each service, allowing for direct streaming of text, image and video feeds in a readily malleable look and feel.

With R2i SMASH you can quickly setup anything from a simple page with grouped social streams, to a full event conferencing web property, complete with locations, sessions, abstracts and schedules to conduct a full social networking world’s fair online or shared and in person.

R2i SMASH has been used for simple websites used to act as the one-stop takeaway point for single day conferences, to multi-day extravaganzas. It can have a custom user interface for each event, or a set of shared layouts for quick setup for use in any setting.

•    Quick setup
•    Custom URLS
•    Popular social networking feeds
•    Twitter tweets by tags and phrases
•    Flickr pics by tag and author
•    SMS texts from custom email addresses
•    SMS pictures with automatic scaling
•    Video streams with web capture
•    Built in moderation capabilities
•    Quick export of all multimedia types for archiving
•    Adjustable and skinable layout

Custom dimension flexibility appropriate for any display requirements like:

• laptops/desktop
• conference booths
• TV and HDTV
• standard and widescreen projectors

R2i SMASH brings you the best features of social networking, in one centrally located package.

R2i SMASH has been used for GBTC’s TechNite 2008, OpenForce ‘08, Inbound Marketing Summit San Fran, and DPAC III. It will be appearing in upcoming events such as Inbound Marketing Summit Dallas and Boston, DigiDay Social, MD BIZ EXPO, and more.

For questions or to learn more, please contact Lindsey Hill @ lhill@r2integrated.com.