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Last week, Avinash Kaushik tweeted that some people don’t think before they Tweet, and that can lead to adverse consequences. I Replied, “It makes one consider that the freedom of speech has given rise and justification to the freedom of criticism.” I thought I’d write out a Social Media Marketing Rights version of U.S. citizens’ Miranda Rights:

“You have the right not to post or tweet everything you’re thinking or doing all the time. Anything you post or tweet can be used against you by anyone, anytime, anywhere for any reason at all. You have the right to maintain a social media presence separate from your everyday social and personal life, now and during future interactions with your friends, followers, and fans. You have the right to hire or consult a social media marketing agency, before you engage in social media. If you cannot afford to hire or consult a social media marketing agency, you’re on your own. If you must let everyone on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and other social media sites know what you’re doing and thinking all the time, all those free social media tools you use may cost you your job, privacy, and dignity.”

Like your Miranda Rights (If you’re a U.S. citizen), which are meant to remind you that you don’t have to incriminate yourself under police interrogation or in a court of law, your Social Media Marketing Rights should remind you that when engaging with your friends, fans, and followers on social media sites, there are just some things better left unsaid because not leaving those things unsaid could spell trouble.

Stay social, my friends!

Erick

No matter whether you’re a social media novice, aficionado, or expert, there is bound to be something in this book you can glean from. It’s a great resource for teachers and students, and it covers all of the basis from blogging to the importance of a social media plan.

If you’ve read this book, let me know your thoughts. I’d love to glean from you, and learn what has and has not worked. If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, you can buy it below.

The Social Media Survival Guide by Deltina Hay

You can learn more about Deltina by visiting her website, Social Media Power, or following her @Deltina.

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

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

Last week, I downloaded a new desktop application called Facebook Desktop. Much like FriendFeed’s desktop application, friends’ status updates on this desktop application appear in the upper, right-hand corner of your computer screen. If you want to respond to a friend’s status update, just click on their picture, and a link will bring you to that person’s update. You can also post your own status updates in a box that appears in the middle of your screen.

Facebook desktop doesn’t consist of all of the SaaS features of Hootsuite or Tweetdeck, but it also doesn’t consist of an impersonal FAQ page. At least not yet.  What impressed me most about Facebook Desktop weren’t any of the features, rather it was the personal attention I received from creator Charles Bihis.

When I Tweeted Charles to let him know about some initial bugs, he thanked me for letting him know, fixed the problem, let me know he resolved the issue, asked me to tweet him to let him know if it worked okay, and made himself available.  Yes, Hootsuite, Seesmic, and other social services will respond to your tweets; though, you’ll most likely get a response like, “Thank you for the Tweet. We’re looking into the issue.”

Charles’ personal touch told me we can expect more from him and Facebook Desktop, so keep watching and keep connecting.  Charles personal attention and quick response impressed me so much that I told him I’d write a blog about his new desktop application.  If you want to learn more about Facebook Desktop and connect with them, you can follow them @FacebookDesktop.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

In this scenario, Facebook is Tiffany—the popular cheerleader—and the new Facebook “Send” button is what it’s wearing. Klout is that nerdy student who knows everything about everyone. Klout knows who’s talking to whom, what they’re talking about, and who’s listening.

Yesterday, a day after Facebook introduced the new “Send” button, Klout rolled out the beta version of the New Klout. Google “Facebook’s new send button,” and you’ll get more than 10 million results. Google “Klout Redesign,” and you get less than One million.

For those caught up in the gossip of Facebook’s new “Send” button, you may have missed the news about Klout’s redesign.

Here are some new Klout fatures:

Perks – Influencers will be invited to take part in special offers they can then tweet about or share on their Facebook pages. Though, one’s acceptance of those offers or decision to talk about those offers does not effect one’s Klout score.

Lists – Create lists of people to better watch their Klout scores.

Influencers – See what topics anyone is influential about, who influences whom, who influences you, and whom you influence. (This is one Klout needs to work on, as a person is not necessarily influenced by a person just because they thank them for a mention or a retweet.)

Comparison – Compare your Klout score to anyone else’s or even those of two other people to give you a chance to study how to raise your Klout score.

They’ll roll-out more features, and they’re open to receiving feedback, so check out their blog and chime in.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

In order to understand the future of social media, one must understand the future of technology. Check out this video, which shows how Pranav Mistry’s SixthSense integrates the digital and physical worlds.

Using SixthSense, I foresee we will point to an article in a magazine and “Like” it. Two people will “friend” each other on Facebook or follow each other on Twitter by shaking hands. People will converse, one will mention they enjoy Italian food, the other will mention a great Italian restaurant three blocks away, and the first will “Like” it by smiling.

The aesthetic value of social media (interdependent value based on physical interactions) has existed since the world’s first social interaction. Current technologies (Facebook’s “Like” button and Google’s +1 button) rely on an augmented value of social media (value based on the use of artificial intelligence). SixthSense will integrate these two values by encouraging people to exchange ideas and emotions through human interactions they can further exchange in the digital world.

Think of it this way, when investing money, it is better to invest in that which gives the greater return over the longer period of time. Apply that to relationships. There is usually greater emotional return in developing relationships with people we interact with in the physical world. For that reason, one should invest more time in the aesthetic value of social media than in the augmented value of social media.

In other words, get out there, shake some hands, and smile.  You’ll add greater value to your life and the lives of those around you.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

Think of social media monitoring tools like garages where you can store social media boxes (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). You no longer need to worry about outside elements, but the social media garage does not take away the social media clutter.

Let me explain. When I move, which is sometimes more often than Jason Bourne, I often think I should list specific items in those boxes. I never do. Even though my boxes are in a garage, their location does not solve the problem of needing to dig through them to find specific items. The location of the boxes just makes the boxes easier to find.

Don’t get me wrong. I am a huge proponent of social media monitoring tools. If you would have asked me a year ago about the future of social media, I would have said social media monitoring sites need to offer ways for people to listen and respond. While that is still true, another component of the future of social media is apps for smart phones that use voice recognition technology to allow people to update their social media status by talking.

If I wanted to go George Orwell on you, I’d blog about technology that allows people to update their status just by thinking. That technology will happen. For now and the foreseeable future, apps that allow people to update their Facebook, Twitter, and other social media statuses by talking is the future of social media.

Voice recognition technology has been around for at least 25 years, companies have integrated it with the World Wide Web for at least the past ten years, and those and other companies have integrated that technology with smart phones and social media sites for the past few years.

So, why do I say this technology is the future of social media instead of just telling you it exists? Because while that technology exists, other technologies, including social media sites, social media aggregation sites, and social media monitoring sites should integrate with those voice recognition apps to offer more seamless ways for people to listen, respond, and integrate with social media.

Voice recognition apps that integrate with smart phones and social media sites:

Optimus 7 by LG Shoutout by Promptu Vlingo Lighthouse SQ7 MID IM+ by Shapeservices

Blogs I’ve written on social media monitoring:

The Omission Factor of Social Media Monitoring Branding Your Identity with Integrity

Playing the Social Media Market Identifying Your Audience’s Common Denominator

The Value of Monitoring the Social Web: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4

Monitoring the ROI of Social Media Marketing

Using Google Analytics as a Social Media Monitoring Tool

Listening to the Conversational Web Techrigy Allows You to Play e-God (Techrigy’s Alterian)

Stay social my friends,

Erick

Facebook will use curated search to rank the popularity of search results according to a link’s popularity in one’s social graph. Google’s Plus 1 button will work in a similar way, in that it will show people search results based on how their friends ranked their sites they visited. I’ve said in various blogs these are mistakes because they are based on the assumption that where my friends from 20 years ago, who now live 1,000 miles away, eat dinner or shop matters to me.

When it comes to social search, Google and Facebook should consider each person’s social radii. That is that they must consider the physical and relational distance between people. Google’s thus far failed in social media, but the average Facebook user has 130 friends. Of those 130 friends, each user may only maintain regular contact with 80. And of those 80, a user may only live within 50 miles of 55 of them. And of those 55, while the average Facebook user may know people in that circle of friends from work, school, church, and other organizations, they may only be good friends with 20 of them. Of course, the only number I know of for a fact is the 130.

Google and Facebook should develop a social media algorithm—a ranking system that groups users according to interests rather than common acquaintances. They should send users within those groups results based on the rankings of others within their group rather than friends they knew 20 years ago who now live 1,000 miles away.

What do you think? Will social search work as it is? Should they develop social media algorithms based on social radii, or do you have a different idea?

Stay social my friends,

Erick