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If you don’t have a Google Plus profile, here are links to profiles of three notables I think use Google Plus well.  Many notables haven’t delved too far into Google’s latest social networking site, and many more have scaled back their enthusiasm.

Mashable News – Mashable shares the most popular stories on Mashable, several channels where you can follow them, and articles they plus one-d.

Brian Solis – He shares news about Google Plus. He also did something interesting, in that he share the link to his Wikipedia page.

Sergey Brin – He shares his life in photos. Check out his Wikipedia page. The guy deserves a little fun.

People with Google Buzz accounts can get a head start on their Google Plus profiles. Whether or not you have a Google Plus account, you can follow people with Google Pus accounts. Once you have your Google Plus account, if you want to just follow people you can, or you will be able to add them as friends. Google’s new social networking site also integrates Twitter, so whatever you share on Twitter shows up in your Google Plus account in the Buzz tab.

Once you set up your Google Plus account, you will be able to choose if you want to restrict information you share to other just users, allow it to appear on mobile devices, or make it public for everyone to see on the Web. You will also be able to share your circles with other people or restrict visibility. And you will also be able to share articles people have posted to their Google Plus page.

Stay social, my friends!

Erick

If you’ve ever arrived at a store at 1:30 AM to try to make it to a 4 AM Black Friday sale, only to find a few hundred other people in front of you, chances are you encountered disappointment. Companies build hype by creating a need and giving consumers the illusion that a certain product will fulfill that need. Then, they only send the store five of that product, so as to create a sense of disappointment and jealousy when thousands of consumers aren’t able to fulfill that need. Google is building hype for Google Plus by rolling out invites to the chosen few.

Another thing Google is doing right is using a minimalist design, much like the Google homepage, to make it easier for people to navigate the site. Do you remember the first time you logged onto Facebook? Do you remember the sense of relief that you didn’t have to spend hours, feeling like a high school kid, trying to create the coolest Myspace profile with awesome graphics? Have you ever gotten frustrated at Facebook because you scroll through thousands of friends suggestions on an endless page, only to find just a few people you want to reconnect with?

Facebook may not have annoying graphics like Myspace, but it offers numerous pointless ways for people to waste time, and people are getting tired of feeling like they are mice in a the maze of Facebook.

Right now, Google Plus is The Fighter, analyzing Facebook’s footwork, along with its weaknesses and strengths, and strategizing how to deliver the blow-out punch. I think it just might send Facebook to the mat. Check out this video by LA Times tech reporter, Nathan Olivarez-Giles, on Google Plus and let me know your thoughts.

Stay social my friends!

Erick

In the restaurant industry, a good dining room manager will ensure the entire staff’s trained to take ownership. That means if a guest’s water glass is empty or nearing empty, whoever sees it and makes note of it should either fill that water glass or escalate it to the right person (the server). Social Media Monitoring works in much the same way, in that whichever person in a company sees a specific tweet or comment, should either respond or let the right person know so they can respond.

Now, on the social media initiative side, that is sending out Tweets, such as promotional Tweets or posting comments to blogs and Facebook, it should also be a collaborative effort. Companies that choose not to hire one or more people to handle their social media should consider setting up a social media task force that consists of one person from every department to head up the social media initiative for that department. Larger companies can assign one executive to act as liaison or Chief Social Media Officer to head up that task force and speak on behalf of the company.

If your company has a specific social media department, or a department assigned to handle social media, and that works for you, great. If you have one employee who handles all your social media, and that works for you, great. If you outsource your social media, and that works for you, great. Though, if your company’s large, and you are in social media limbo, consider a social media marketing committee.

I’d love to know your thoughts about what has or hasn’t worked for your company.

Stay Social My Friends!

Erick

The other day, my nephew looked at my Twitter account and asked me how I got managed to get more than 1,000 followers. I told him there was no secret and that it took me over a year to acquire those followers.

Of course, there are services out there that allow Twitter users to buy Twitter followers. But buying Twitter followers is against Twitter’s TOS.

Along with that, buying Twitter followers is a bad idea. While those services add geo-targeted followers to your list, those followers will not have the value of a person who chooses to follow you.

My nephew’s tweeting for his band, so I told him he wants to find people in the area who are interested in music, preferably the style of music his band plays. As long as he tweets regularly, respectfully, and reciprocally, the ratio will be about 3 to 1 at first. That means that initially for every three people he follows, about one of them should follow him back.

The more you tweet the right way the more you’ll attract followers.  And the more attractive you become the smaller that ratio will become. It’s tempting to not only close that gap, but to avoid that gap by buying Twitter followers. Just remember, it’s black hat social media that will lead to inflated, low quality Twitter followers.

Eventually you’ll close that gap and you’ll have more Twitter followers than people you follow. Social media is not a get rich quick scheme. The main thing to remember is to tweet respectfully, regularly, and reciprocally.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

Today, there’s a new location based app out called Banjo, which integrates Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. It tells you when your friends are near you, and it tells your friends when you are near them.

Other than for large events, such as conferences, I don’t use location based social media apps. The ability to know where we all are at any given time can take away our focus on the task at hand and/or attention toward the people we’re engaging with offline. And that task or person also deserve our attention.

Though, it is important to set aside time to make ourselves available for chance encounters. It’s important to connect off-line with those we connect with on-line. It’s important to engage. And a social media calendar, such as SquareBerry’s Social Media Planner, is one way to do that.

Using its social media calendar and other features, enables a person to let their friends and followers know when they’ll be at certain places or events. And in my opinion, a better way to engage off-line is to give people they engage with on-line the opportunity to plan accordingly, rather than to expect them to change their plans on the spur of the moment.

Though, that’s just me. Maybe you like giving people you engage with on-line the opportunity to run into you at random times. I’d love to know whether or not you use location based social media and how it’s helped you engage offline.

Stay social my friends!

Erick

This last weekend, the writer of this blog went through his Twitter list and un-followed many Tweeters he never followed or who don’t tweet consistently. Most of the profiles gave basic information, but the writer of this blog noticed a mistake a few tweeters made.

The writer of this blog wants you to know people who use Twitter should not write their bio in the third person. People want to connect with the person they think they’re connecting with, and the bio gives the first impression. It’s important to note one of the worst possible ways to give the wrong first impression is to write a Twitter bio in the third person.

The writer of this blog feels it’s important to let you know if you outsource your social media to a company like SEO Bridges, you should continue to engage, while using that company to send promotional and informative tweets. General ‘thank you for the retweet’ and other such tweets are also okay.

The writer of this blog is of the persuasion that if an author, speaker, business owner, or other person can afford to outsource their Twitter duties to a company like SEO Bridges, he/she can afford to pay that company to write their bio in the first person.

The writer of this blog wrote this blog in the third person to make the point that writing one’s own stuff in the third person makes that person seem disconnected.

Stay social my friends,

The writer of this blog

Today, I’m starting to blog on Fridays about my journey toward publication, beginning with my search for a literary agent. I’m not an expert, so I’m not going to offer any advice. However, I’ve done much of the research for you on how to use the online world to connect offline. So I’m going to let you know how to use the tools I’m using, starting with AgentQuery (AQ).

On the left side of AQ, you’ll see the ‘Quick Agent Search.’ AQ consists of a database of 972 agents, so you might find it easier to use their full search below that. AQ suggests finding ten agents.

AQ recommends you narrow your search down to the ten most likely agents to want to know more about your work. It doesn’t hurt to keep a list of more than ten agents, but make sure you prioritize which ones you’ll contact first.

For more advice on how to obtain an agent, read AQ’s writers’ section, get advice from writers with agents, follow the conversations I listed in this blog, and sign up for AQ’s social networking site—AgentQuery Connect. They offer forums, a calendar, a live chat room, and other ways to connect.

Along with using AgentQuery and AgentQueryConnect, I recommend you join Goodreads, post book reviews on Amazon, and check out my blog. Next week, I’ll update you on my progress, so come back and join me on my journey toward publication.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

If there are two things you like, it’s free and it’s lists. Blogs with lists of free stuff always get the most views. I try to write my blogs in list or bullet point format as much as possible, but I don’t list free resources (i.e. other sites) as much as I once did. If I list a social media or related start-up and that start-up goes under or is acquired by a larger company, I am left with a broken link. And that’s not good for SEO.

Recently, someone contacted me about trying their site and writing a review. Someone else asked me to review their book on social media marketing, which I will post within the next week or two (e-mail erick @ seobridges . com if you’d like me to review your book, site, or product).

I stopped focusing on posting lists of free resources because while it is great for my initial SEO because it attracts visitor, it is potentially bad for my overall SEO because those sites may cease to exist or the URL may change.

While I may post the occasional review of a social media or social media related site, which has been around for a while, that’s not my focus. My focus is to help you understand the principles of SEO and social media marketing. Yes, I will continue to give you tools, when it’s appropriate; but understanding those principles will prove of higher value to you over time.

What do you find most valuable about my blog?

Stay social my friends!

Erick

Over the last 48 hours, I’ve had little Internet presence. I used the time to catch up on my reading and writing, spend time with friends and family, and just refresh.  I tweeted once or twice from my iPhone, a few scheduled tweets went out, and I checked my e-mail.  But I had almost no interaction on the Internet.

When I came back online, I discovered the Internet went on without me.  Seriously, my short hiatus didn’t effect my online presence negatively.  The SEO Bridges Facebook fan page gained fans, I gained Twitter followers on my personal Twitter account and the SEO Bridges Twitter account, people read my blog and perused my site, and so on and so forth.

Even though it was just a couple of days and it wasn’t that much growth, it was growth.  It was growth I experienced because I left a positive impression.  At least, I hope and assume I experienced that growth because I left a positive impression.  I am not saying this to boast. I am saying that when you tweet, comment, or otherwise engage online, you leave people with an impression.

I encourage you to set some but not all of your social media presence on auto, so you can engage offline and online or across various channels at the same time. I encourage you to engage in such a way that you leave a positive impression. I encourage you to consider the impression you leave.  And I encourage you to disengage every once in a while.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

When determining whether or not you should create a Twitter account, consider not all tweets are created equally. The value of your tweets is determined by your Social Media Radii (SMR).

Factors to determine your SMR:

1. The type of business your operate (If you’re a restaurant, people in your area have greater value than those outside).

2. People’s demand for your product or service.

3. The number of people who follow you.

4. How well and often your followers use Twitter (If a person follows you, but hasn’t used Twitter in months, it is unlikely they will see your tweets).

5. Your followers’ location(s) in proximity to you (See number 1).

6. Your followers’ potential to buy your product, come to your event, or otherwise engage with you in a way that is profitable to you.

7. Your followers’ potential to retweet or otherwise inform others about you, your business, and your product and/or service.

8. How well you integrate your twitter account with your other social media accounts.

The best way to determine your SMR is to use a social media monitoring service like Postrank or Sysomos. I also listed some free tools to help you get started.

Klout Trendsmap Mentionmapp Hootsuite

Your social media radii determines the value of your tweets and all your social media efforts. So, when determining whether or not to put up a Twitter account, how often to tweet, and what to tweet consider the above eight factors. Can you think of any other factors to include in considering Social Media Radii?

Stay social my friends,

Erick