Biznology

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You probably heard about the little announcement that Google made this week. Google finally has its social network. Again. If you don’t count Orkut or Google Wave or Google Buzz, then it is Google’s first try at dethroning Facebook. At least that is what all the stories say. Google vs. Facebook in that virtual steel-cage match–winner take all. Except none of that is the real story, which is much longer term, much broader, and much less focused on Facebook then you’d think. If you want to know the bigger story behind Google+, check out my post on Search Engine Guide, “This is not a post about Google+.”

I try to read through my RSS feeds every day. Today I stumbled upon an article by my friend Christopher S Penn, entitled Social media now directly influences search rankings, that shows that Google is playing Tri-D chess in a world where most companies are mastering checkers:

If you’re marketing something, there’s now a direct incentive to build your network as large as possible among your prospective customers. Size matters.

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In my presentation on Sunday to the IEEE Board of Directors on organizational social media, I got a great question from a member of the board, “Our organization is not like the others that you’ve worked with. We have many local chapters that we can’t order around. How can we work with them to succeed in social media?” Read the remainder of this entry »

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Sometimes an idea that seems simple is actually a lot more difficult. Social media is like that. You might tweet, you might blog, you might watch YouTube. You might use social media, but that doesn’t mean that you know how to manage your organization’s use of social media. But it’s seductive to think that you would know. I mean, it seems like anyone who can tweet can tweet for business reasons. And they can, but they might not know how to set the policies for their organization. They might not know the four steps every organization should take to succeed in social media. But you can, by checking out my presentation to board of directors of the IEEE yesterday, called “Organizational Social Media.” As a member, it was great fun to address the board and heartening to see the IEEE continue its leadership among membership organizations in social media.

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Have you ever heard the expression in business saying that things won’t be able to change until we have “clean air”? It’s an expression that comes from racing. Since I hail from North Carolina, the home of NASCAR, I am taking liberties and simply applying the term to the Internet marketing industry. Read the remainder of this entry »