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Yesterday, I came across a blog with the term “Google +” in the title. Chances are you’ve seen a blog or article with this term. Just as the + symbol holds a different value than a digit in math, it holds a different value than a letter for the purposes of SEO.

For example, check out the SERP for +, or Google “Google” and then “Google +.” As of this morning, both resulted in 12,240,000,000 hits. As the Internet expands, that 12 billion will increase; but both will always show the same number of results.

So, how can bloggers and Web content writers get Google to recognize the + symbol, which is normally used to search for two terms together (i.e. social+media means “social media”)? Type “Google+” with no space or “Google Plus;” though, I wouldn’t use “ Google Plus,” since that’s not the title.

Now, you want to know why the search giant used this symbol for their latest social media endeavor. My guess is to condition people to think of the + symbol, so they would become accustomed to using the +1 button. Though, I argue the +1 button won’t work for the social search purposes for which Google created it for.

Now, if I could just find the article in which a top Google executive said the +1 button will only reach about 1% of social search potential (I calculated about 3%, but they’re the experts). If someone else saw that article, it would be great if you would put it in the comments or tweet me. Thanks!

Stay social, my friends!

Erick

Over the last few years, social media sites like Facebook and Twitter had to answer the question as to how they would make money. One way for a publisher to make money is to sell advertising inventory. So, Facebook introduced Facebook Ads and Twitter introduced promoted Tweets.

Last night, I found a blog about a book I found interesting; though, I had no incentive to Tweet it because I had no advertising inventory on which an affiliate link would bring me revenue. Since Governor Jerry Brown of California signed the Affiliate Tax into law and Amazon discontinued the affiliate program, I, along with 25,000 other people, have no incentive to advertise for Amazon or its sellers.

Unlike selling Facebook ads and Twitter’s promoted tweets, tweeting out an affiliate link for a book does not a guarantee revenue, but the probability incentivized people enough to go those few extra steps. Now that the incentive’s gone, former affiliates must look for something else to incentivize them.

I don’t agree with California’s Affiliate Tax law, but I hope it encourages people to think like publishers instead of advertisers. I hope more people will become producers, creating and selling products, instead of passive promoters, waiting for products to sell.

Think of it like the sign spinner, standing on the corner, advertising a new housing development. If that house sells, the sign spinner receives little revenue, but the real estate agent receives a great deal more. The real estate agent is focusing on selling, rather than just telling. I know it’s not a perfect example.

The point is just like Facebook and Twitter, if you’re a social media marketer, you should think like an online publisher, offering your audience a product, rather than telling them about another person’s product.

Stay Social, my friends!

Erick

Everyday, I connect with people all over the world, and everyday we only see images of one another. The truth is I hate suits, and I don’t always have a big, toothy grin.

Perhaps, you spend your mornings running around your house in your bathrobe and slippers, chasing your kids. Maybe you make business calls before your morning shower or tweet from your smart phone while lying in bed. But the truth is, just like me, you don’t wake up as beautiful as your picture suggests.

Last night, I volunteered for a homeless ministry in Temecula, CA called Project Touch. The dinner wasn’t served at a shelter; it was served in a church parking lot. And once a week, as a way to give back, the “clients,” as they’re called, maintain the church grounds.

After dinner, many of the “clients” find solace in transitional housing in nearby apartments or a local motel. And every morning they look for employment. A few of them, who continue to need help with housing, have jobs. And all of them, whether employed or not, are expected to give a little financially each month.

The “clients” of Project Touch are not self-serving. They are not looking for hand-outs. They are not “bums” or “whinos.” They want jobs. They want their homes back. They want their lives back. They are productive members of society, who refuse to allow society to cast them aside.

If we allow social media to become about maintaining images of ourselves, and not as a way to make this a better world, we’ve lost our humanity and allowed the machines to win.

Stay social, my friends!

Erick

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

Smart phones are like the bathroom mirror cabinets of the 21^st century. Before smart phones, if you wanted to find out about a person and their personality, you would look in the cabinet behind their bathroom mirror to discover their dirty, little secrets. There, you would discover what kinds of lotions, medications, and other items they hid from plain view.

Bathroom mirror cabinets were, and still are, a great way to find out more about the person you’re dating, a potential or current roommate, co-worker, or anyone else. Though, now, if you want to find out more about that person, the answer might lie in the apps on their smart phone. Here’s the list of those apps on my smart phone I think reveal the most about my personality:

1. Car finder – I am notorious for forgetting where I parked.

2. Goodreads – Yes, I am a book nerd.

3. Vocabology – Along with being a book nerd, I am a bit of a word nerd.

4. Minesweeper and Chess – I am not one for games, especially social games, but I enjoy the occasional strategizing game.

5. Find iPhone – I don’t plan on losing my iPhone, but I have been know to lose cell phones.

6. Bookmyne – This is a great way to locate libraries near you and peruse their collections.

Okay, those are the apps that best reflect my personality. What apps do you use that best reflect your personality? Or at least what apps do you use that reflect your personality, and you’re willing to share?

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

When it comes to a person’s online reputation, there are two sites that are most commonly used as a barometer—Klout and PeerIndex. My Klout has been bouncing between a 49 and 50 for a while, whereas my PeerIndex rank just bounced from a 21 to a 22. Just as we use those sites as barometers to measure our online influence, those sites’ online influence is measured according to sites like Alexa and Compete.

According to Alexa, Klout ranks 390 in the U.S and PeerIndex ranks 7,891 in the U.S. Alexa also records that 1,567 sites link to Klout, but only 254 sites link to PeerIndex. Google records different numbers, but we’ll leave it at that. Compete is  much more incognito and stricter about how they rank sites, and why they rank sites the way they rank them. They rank Klout at 14,533 and PeerIndex 100,341. You get the idea that those sites that measure those sites that measure people’s influence consider Klout more reputable.

Whether you use Klout or PeerIndex or another online reputation monitoring site, I would advise you to get a holistic understanding of your online influence and not just one site’s bulk number. There are many more sites you can use; though, as I mentioned in a recent blog, due to so many sites shutting down, I am going to steer away from linking to other sites unless I am confident they’ll stick around for a while. If you’d like to research for yourself, search here or here, or peruse the cloud of blogs to the right.

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

Before I sat down to write my novel in progress, I determined a writer should focus on three things to be publishable: Writing a well-crafted story, writing well, and marketability. Too many self-published authors have lowered the publishing bar. There is a time and place for self-publishing; though, a writer should always remember publishing, self or traditional, is about sales, not a winning smile. Of course, a smile helps.

For that reason, I decided to go the traditional publishing route. I recommend if you plan to go that route, you follow the rules. AgentQuery gives tips and advice for querying agents. And Nathan Bransford wrote a great blog about what you should do before you start the querying process.

First, make sure you have a well-written, finished manuscript. Literary agents want to know you have a good story idea and can complete a book, and they might ask to read it (Make sure the agent is legit). Next, learn about the publishing business by reading blogs, going to conferences, asking questions, and engaging.

If you heard you need to be published before you get an agent, don’t believe it. I don’t believe it. AQ says it’s not true. Yes, publishing credits help but so does being Justin Bieber. If your book can sell, it can sell. Literary agents get paid for selling books, not previous publishing credits.

Remember, I’m not yet published, so all advice is that of authors, agents, and publishers, not my experience. So, authors, agents, and publishers, I welcome your insight.

Stay social my friends,

Erick