First I would like to say sorry for the delay. I had some major issues with our puppy over the past two weeks. She is doing better now.
So, I wanted to talk about something that I was thinking about over the weekend. What would we do without social media? We all know that some of our friends, family, etc. aren’t on Facebook or do not understand Twitter, but for my family it is a great way to keep in touch with family and friends and to keep them updated on our lives, for example the status of our puppy.

I was talking with some friends over the weekend and many don’t even check their email anymore. Most only use Facebook and Twitter to keep in touch with others. I have heard the reports that younger generations don’t use email at all, which really surprises me, but at some point in the future I can see email not being used at all.

For me, I love using Facebook: to keep in touch with friends and because it is part of my business to help others understand how to use social media.

I have proven to myself that I can break away from social media when I need to (vacations, family time, etc.), but it is tough and I don’t know what I would do without Facebook and Twitter on a daily basis.

So my question to you, what would you do without social media?

So, I have been talking a lot in the past few weeks about Facebook and I thought I would change up the conversation a bit. Over the past week or two, we have been hearing about Facebook and the privacy issues, so I thought I would write this week about Twitter and how some companies I have been following are using it.

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed one tweet I directed towards a fairly large company. The surprising thing is, this large company (we’ll call them “big green”) have a huge fan base, but they aren’t using Twitter at all to communicate with their fan base. They started following me, but I haven’t received any response from them, even though I blasted them about how the poor quality their product is. The thing that shocks me the most is they don’t follow anybody now (they must have stopped following me) but they have 418 followers. It’s amazing how some companies still understand the power using social media.

I have also been reviewing a few companies for a side project (totally different arena now) and I’m amazed on how some companies don’t interact with any of their followers or fans via Facebook. I’m hoping as social media matures more, we’ll see better use of social media. Think about the savings that companies could use via social media. There are really a ton of ways.

On the flip side, I have had some really great conversations using social media. One company that I was really surprised on how well they answered my questions any how they also have a large following on Facebook and Twitter is Bowflex. They did a great job answering all the questions I had before the sale as well as after the sale. It really changed my perception of Bowflex and I was quite impressed with them. That really led to me buying a Bowflex system. So, kudos to them for doing a great job with social media.

My question for you is, have you tried reaching out to companies via Twitter or even Facebook and were either pleased by the response or shocked for the lack of contact? I’d love to hear your story.

I am shocked that in the past few weeks the Facebook Fan Pages I have visited haven’t been updated in quite awhile. Years ago we had that problem with websites not being updated in long spans, but it seems like now, it is much more important to have an updated FB fan page.

Question for you: How many FB fan pages have you visited in the past week? Out of the FB fan pages, how many have been updated on a regular basis?

If the FB fan page wasn’t updated in over a week or month, did you leave right away or come back a few days later to see if it was updated?

During our lacrosse season, I was the admin for our lacrosse FB fan page and I tried to update it as often as I could. In my research, I was on many sports team FB fan pages and there were many that were just abandoned. As one of the NFL commentators says, “Come on man”. Keep your FB fan page, updated and relevant, it’s one way to grow your fan base and audience.

If you could change one thing about social media what would it be? I have heard many people say they would love to change something about social media.

So I was curious, if you could change something, what would it be? It can be anything. I would love to hear about it!

First, I would like to apologize for the delay in getting this blog posted. It has been a busy month already!

As we are now in February, what social media trends have you noticed from last month? I have noticed the amount of Twitter users has gone down since last year. Many friends that started using Twitter have now phased out or disappeared completely. I have noticed that many of the small businesses who started using Facebook Fan pages in 2009 have gone down, but some are still using Facebook fairly well. Also on LinkedIN over the past few weeks, there has been more spam through the groups and much more people trying to connect. While I am on that topic, one word of advice for people looking to connect on LinkedIn or Facebook, always make the message to somebody new personal. Don’t use the generic message on FB or LinkedIn. If I don’t know you and I get a generic message from you to connect, most likely I would not connect with you.

What trends have you noticed in January so far? I’d love to hear your feedback.

Happy 2010! I can’t believe it’s a new year already. 2009 was a great year and I am looking forward to another exciting year. As I reflect back on 2009 and look forward to 2010, I am excited about the endless possibilities. Here are a few things I am very excited about.

1. Meeting more new people via social media in 2010. I can’t tell you how many great people I have met in 2009. I am looking forward to meeting many new social media friends.

2. To see where Twitter, Facebook and many other social media applications will go. We have seen many exciting things in 2009 and I think it is only going to get bigger and better this year. Are you excited about it? Can you tell I am
Towards the end of 2009, I saw more work for FB fan pages and I think itis going to continue strong into 2010.

3. Social media analytics! More and more consumers are using social media. How do you go about finding these new clients? How do you find the trends and much more. Social media analytics is going to be huge this year.

4. Jobs! Not that I’m looking for a new job, but many of my friends have been looking for quite awhile. A few of those friends have found jobs in the past month and I think many more will continue to find jobs. So if you are looking for a new job, keep going strong. I think in the next few months, many of you guys (and gals) will get a new job.

I am wishing everyone a very happy and successful 2010. If we haven’t meet or connected, I look forward to meeting this year.

What are you excited about in 2010?

Great article by Connie Bensen on Social Media Today – “2010 The Year of Social Media ROI“.

I believe what Connie said is 100% true. Over the past few months I have seen many new jobs created due to Social Media. I also agree that the use of Social media measuring tools will become a necessary skill set in the future. Check the article out above, it is a great read.

I have asked the question before, but what is your companies plans for next year? Are you starting to use social media, have plans to use it or will your company continue to sit on the sidelines until later in the year?

Happy Holidays to all my friends, family and loyal readers. I look forward to another exciting year.

Last week, I had the opportunity to listen to a webinar with representatives of Google, Microsoft and Yahoo discussing their plans for the coming year regarding search engines and other ideas. There were some good questions answered by all three and I think we will be seeing some exciting things by all three search engines next year. I am looking forward to it.

The one question on the webinar that struck me was: Where will your company being spending money in next year? Either in social media, SEO services, PPC campaigns or somewhere else? SEO won hands down. That surprised me. I am happy to see that, of course, because that is one thing that I do, but from what I have heard from many others the past few months is they will be spending much more money & time in social media.

So let me ask, what are your plans for next year? Is the survey answers true or are you planning on using more social media next year to get more business? I would love to hear your opinion.

First, I hope you had a great Thanksgiving with family and friends. One major clothing store surprised me on Black Friday that they were not using social media. They have actually been on a holiday for an extended period as they have not used twitter since earlier in July. It appears from some of the past tweets that they were really just blasting out sales information, not listening to their customers at all.

Sorry our store is closed!

I read an article over the weekend, via Wall Street Journal, that mentioned many shoppers were frustrated with the website, due to slowness and other issues. Many people posted comments on their FB page that were left unanswered by the company. What is up with that? Why not use FB to help you and help your customers. No answers = unhappy customers that will shop elsewhere.

5 quick lessons we can learn from this retailer:

1. Use social media as a communication tool between customers and your company.

2. Don’t just blast out special sales and other product offerings (see #1)

3. If there is an issue with the website, use social media to tell your customers what is going on and also to answer their questions / requests.

4. Have a face! Tell others what is going on with the company. Look at Zappos and HomeDepot for great examples.

5. Above all, have a social media strategy! This clothing retailer obviously didn’t, hence why they haven’t been on twitter since July and also their tweets are now protected.

Black Friday is one of the biggest shopping days of the year and I would like to hear what companies impressed you with their social media use over the big holiday sales weekend?

So, I was thinking the other day, it is great to see that many companies are starting to use social media, but is it possible to use it in the wrong way? Many companies are asking questions to potential, past or current customers – to find out what exactly they can do better, products that would make sense for customers, etc. Can the company also ask the wrong question?

I read an article earlier today that mentioned how Best Buy was asking the wrong question. Here it is: “What do you think about offering Bestbuy.com in Spanish?” It seems like a simple question, right? Well, many people were offended by this question.

Companies need to have a team together in order to make sure they are asking the right questions and that they are not offending any of their customers. Even the simplest of questions can upset some one. This is a great example of what can happen when you ask the “wrong questions” via social media.

I am interested to see how Best Buy reacts with the negative exposure. Will they use the “wait and see” approach or will they react pretty quickly? We are all waiting to see.

So what do you think? How could they have avoided something like this from happening in the first place? I would love to hear your feedback.

More information on Best Buy’s wrong question on Social Media Today.