When it comes to Google+, it seems like you either love it or hate it. Some people have really embraced it and others have totally ignored it or took it for a spin and never came back.

But what’s the situation for Google+ today? We seem to get a lot of information about how other platforms like Pinterest are doing but Google+ is always a little mysterious.

There are 3 recent events that will give you a better idea. Most importantly, it can help you make a decision on whether or not you or your business should include the platform in your social media strategy.

1 –  Growth

Larry Page recently announced Google+ has reached the 100 million active user mark.

There are 2 different points of view here. On one hand counting number of users seems to be how we measure success for a social network. It’s not, at least not the only element to consider. But on the other hand, the number of active users is at least telling you that there is an audience, there is a market to tap. This is what concerns you.

100 million users is not a small number. People underestimate this number because 1) It’s Google, they already own the Internet and 2) Facebook has 1 billion users, even if statistics point at a much faster rate, people still like to compare.

2 – Forced Users

The idea of forcing Google+ to its users through other products is something that has generated some controversy in the social web. For example, when you create a Google account, you automatically get a Gmail account and a Google+ profile.

Then you have the integration into other products, which sounds like the natural process to follow. The problem is that it is creating some discomfort in people. Wil Wheaton wrote about the Google+ Like button replacing the Thumbs Up on YouTube and how the user is being pushed to upgrade (even if it was only a test). Sure, maybe it doesn’t sound like such a big deal but it is. YouTube Thumbs Up is essential in marketing your content, specially if you run a high profile YouTube show.

In other words, some people say the numbers in terms of growth are questionable and some say the practices for user acquisition are more than annoying and pushy.

3 – Low Engagement

And lastly, the report just published by RJ Metrics with data indicating that Google+ has weak user engagement.

There is some very interesting data here:

• The average post generates less than one “+1″
• The average post generates less than one share
• The average post generates less than one reply
• 15% of people who published five posts don’t come back
• The average time between posts is 12 days

Now, the fact that these figures are extremely low does not mean your case will be at that level. Here is an example of a post from Mari Smith with 34 +1′s, 18 shares and 8 comments.

When I asked folks on the SocialMouths Facebook Page, the response was drastic, either “it’s working for me” or “I get no engagement”. no gray areas. Either people have given up or never even tried it and a few people that are getting good results.

We tend to compare engagement between Google+ and Facebook, I think we should definitely compare, this is marketing after all. What we should not do is have the same expectations, Facebook is an established media platform and you probably had much more time to build community.

And a bonus point, something that probably doesn’t have too much impact in why engagement is low but still a valid point that I’m sure is in the way for some of us in how we interact with Google+.

The Multiple Google Accounts Mumbo Jumbo

Dealing with multiple Gmail or Google Apps accounts can be the ultimate nightmare. I don’t know if this issue is considered low priority over at Google HQ but it prevents a lot of users from being active in a natural way. Let me explain…

I have 2 Google Apps accounts, one for SocialMouths and for Plural, there is no way around it. Then I have a personal Gmail account, which I used to create my Google+ profile when it launched. To spin your head a little more, I’m a Google Chrome user, which should make this easier but it doesn’t.

This means that I have to either toggle between accounts or use multiple browser windows and sign in with different accounts. I can’t even give a +1 to a post on a blog without going through all this mess, so I don’t.

That right there is the reason I can’t be more active on Google+ and I’m sure there are other people out there with the same issue.

Final Word

In my opinion, Google+ should not be off your radar, it should definitely be included in your social strategy taking the following considerations:

• If there is a discrepancy in the total number of active users, it does not matter. It’s clear that Google+ is not small
• Engagement doesn’t happen overnight, lower your expectations for now and go to work. Stop comparing with Facebook

If you are in the middle of the multiple account jungle and you find out how to fix it… let me know!

How About You?

It’ll be great if could share your own experience, add a comment and tell us if you are getting engagement, if you are getting any traffic back to your site or blog. Also, how active are you? how often do you post?

I currently have the fortune to experience two different fronts of digital marketing. Under Plural, I work with brands and, with SocialMouths I mostly jam with small business, personal brands, and bloggers.

One of the reasons I absolutely love this setup is that they are two different worlds in how the social web is approached, how it’s handled and how success is measured.

So I’m here to tell you that, despite the ridiculous budgets and unlimited resources, small business has a huuuge advantage over brands when it come to social media.

Here are my thoughts:

Strategy. Or Not?

This is a touchy subject, I’m sure you’ve seen tens or hundreds of blog posts about the importance of having a strategy in place. Listen to what I’m about to say here: An entrepreneur does not need to elaborate a huge document to handle social media marketing. You need the necessary product and industry knowledge and you need to have the sensibility on how to use the social networks.

Having a set of goals in place and knowing what you are aiming to achieve with your daily activities is enough for an entrepreneur to dive in and adjust as needed.

When it comes to big brands, that’s a whole different story. The requirements to manage social media presence are different. You now have to consider the involvement of employees and even outsourced efforts. We’re talking about heavy documentation here on how to represent the brand, the language, the tone, how to respond to problems and inquiries and even how to handle a crisis, when things are escalated to higher ground.

A brand without this type of documentation is just an invitation to media disaster. One of the beauties of open voice channels is that the consumer can take your brand down in a few hours. If policies and processes are not in place, guess what…

Being Human

There is a huge gap here. Brands that are successful on social media have implemented communication channels for specific needs like customer service or promotions but they fail at reaching true engagement. Even in those areas most brands fail to reach their full potential. We have lately seen how Social Commerce and Social Customer Service are not performing as well as we expected.

Brands are far from becoming human and getting the user engaged for real. It’s simple, the average social media user is not online to interact with their bank in a conversational manner. They will take advantage of your special deal or rant about bad experiences but that’s it.

When it comes to small business, it’s easy for an individual to become the voice of the company, a personal brand that builds trust around a product or service with a human touch. This person becomes a resource of good advice, a problem solver that people feel comfortable interacting with. In fact, they’re responsible for huge part of the company’s success online.

I have a couple of examples of these individuals that do an amazing job representing a product and making it human: Leo Widrich from Buffer and Oli Gardner for Unbounce. These guys are not hired community managers, they’re co-founders of the respective companies, part of the key team, but they are also the face and voice, producing content, listening and interacting in the frontline and building community.

These guys are perfect examples of how a small business can be human online and reach true engagement.

Satisfaction

Another advantage of small business over brands is the possibility of ensuring satisfaction. Guys like Oli and Leo are approached with questions and issues on a daily basis (I know I bug them from time to time).

Small businesses are able to do this on a smaller scale and on a personal level.

@socialmouths Hi Francisco, great to hear from you. This guide should help: blog.bufferapp.com/how-to-add-the… Let me know how you get on

— Leo Widrich (@LeoWid) May 8, 2012

There are a few brands that are able to focus on satisfaction and do an excellent job on quick responses and providing solutions. Directv comes to mind. But I’m sure you’ve seen more brands handling customer service in a very poor way. Imagine how a customer with a problem feels when arriving to an endless Twitter stream of apologies…

I have contacted Time Warner Cable via Twitter for massive interruptions to my Internet service and after not getting a solution over the phone, to sadly have no response.

Management

If you are an entrepreneur that is naturally involved in social media marketing, chances are you don’t label daily activities such as brand monitoring, content creation and curation, front-end interaction, etc. But you are performing them. Something similar happens when a small business has designated two or three people to handle things, there is a small setup with basic agreements on who does what.

The other advantage is how quick a small operation can make an unexpected turn or have a reaction without the bureaucracy that comes along with corporate land. Small business can focus on honesty and satisfaction while a brand will often take the damage control approach, usually with a bit of delay.

But when it comes to the enterprise, management can get pretty complex. We talked about the need of having a strategy in place and even though employees are familiar with how to handle themselves, there is still a lot of management needed. Those daily activities become departments that at some point need to come together to measure things.

Which brings us to the next point…

ROI

Another controversial topic indeed. We often read about the complexity of figuring out return on investment. Think about it, a national fast food franchise runs a TV campaign, how do you measure if it resulted in an increased amount of sales. They do, they have systems in place that provide a clue when the needle moves in certain markets. Nothing is ever exact.

How is social media ROI measured? often times brands focus on shiny numbers like Likes and Followers. Numbers that are definitely part of social media measurement but not how the bottom line is affected. The fun part is when the CEO asks: “So now, how do we turn all those likes into actual sales?”

How is all that tied up to measure sales and profits?

Measuring ROI for global brands is still a puzzle.

Now don’t get me wrong, figuring this out can also be complicated for small business. But does it need to be?

What if you create your own formula to determine ROI? Let’s see…

In my previous business I used to run tons of advertising on different media vehicles. I used to measure the lead cost and sale cost to determine my magic number, I knew exactly what magazine ad or TV spot was working or not. In actual profit, not just percentages.

Cost per time spent. Not media.

When it comes to marketing in the social web, you do not have costs for media (unless you run Facebook ads or something like that) but you do have time spent. Either by your team or yourself. Can you measure that? Of course you can, you don’t need massive data to figure out that if you’re spending 4 hours a day to get only a couple of sales a week, things are not working that well… unless you sell cars.

A simple tracking spreadsheet can tell you if your time is being well spent.

Measure Sources

When you have a new client, do you ask him where he found you? Sometimes it’s obvious, you know you established contact on Twitter or Facebook, sometimes it’s not that easy, for example if this relationship started a while back. But the point is that by manually tracking this kind of information, you can easily get an idea of what channels are giving you better results and where to spend more of your time and energy.

I can easily tell you without looking at any numbers that 80% of my relationships turned into clients come from Twitter, even tough I generate more traffic more Facebook. That is enough for me to know I need to be present there but it also indicates that I could improve things on other networks as well.

Of course no system is perfect, my point here is that for a small business things are easier to establish and track, with a simple custom approach that fits your company needs you can get a better idea of your performance.

Final Thought

You, as an entrepreneur, might not have the budget and resources big brands have but I can guarantee you, the average digital citizen will interact with you before interacting with a brand and that right there, gives you a huge advantage.

The social web levels the field, if you are there to deliver what a brand can’t, you might just be able to create great opportunities. People like doing business with people.

Dive in with a short set of goals, be human, focus on satisfaction, manage your efforts and track your results in a simple way.

Your Turn

Do you have a strategy in place? How often do you revisit and adjust this strategy? How do you measure success? How do you approach issues? Share with us in the comments section!

Photos are mine, I’m a “saved by the filter” wannabe iPhone photographer. The coffee shop is Single Origin in the L.A. Farmer Market, they serve hand-brewed coffee that rocks your world. 

Guest post by Brad Shorr from Straight North.

Everybody knows social media and SEO are connected, but how? The better you understand the nature and strength of the various connections, the better you can focus your efforts on activities that get results.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to sort things out because the social-SEO relationship is becoming more intertwined (some would say, muddled) all the time. In this post, I’ll bring up a few points we’ve been discussing at our agency as we try to respond to the changing environment.

Comments and ideas welcome! We are all learning together here.

Ranked Results versus Display in SERPs

The first thing we’ve been trying to do is distinguish between rankings and display visibility on Google SERPs.

• Ranking optimization is the traditional way of thinking about SEO. We apply a set of activities to specific URLs and domains in ways that leverage Google’s search algorithm and improve the ranking position of particular pages of web content.
• Display optimization applies to making content visible in new/other sections of Google SERPs – personalized search, time subsections, and search subsections such as “Blogs” and “Discussions.”

Google is now giving much greater emphasis to personalized results, at the expense of traditional results. Social content, such as Google+ postings and blog posts, appear prominently in SERPs. As time goes on, it’s likely that Google will give equal weight to content in SERPs that is both subjective (i.e., content that is favored by people in your social networks) and objective (i.e., content that is indexed and ranked according to Google’s traditional algorithm).

So, as personalized results gain emphasis, display optimization becomes more important. Here is an image that shows the complexity of Google SERPs, and how traditional search results are being deemphasized:

In light of all this, here are three strategic points worth thinking about from a social and SEO perspective.

1. Social shares – Tweets, Likes, Google +1’s, etc. – carry weight in Google’s ranking algorithm, but as yet it’s hard to establish more than a ballpark impact.
2. In contrast, social media content and shares have a clear and significant impact on display visibility. Original Google+ and/or blog content is indexed and displayed in regular, personalized, time-sensitive and social subsections of a SERP. Content endorsed with shares by your social connections is visible. (Original Twitter content has been devalued lately, but I think in the long term it is likely to gain prominence.)
3. User behavior and preferences are critical element in devising SEO strategy. The importance of display visibility depends largely on whether a user is logged into Google, and the extent to which a user has an active social media network. If your target market is not logged in and/or has few active relationships, traditional search results are all that will matter to them.

10 Social SEO Action Steps

In terms of focusing on social media activities that have SEO impact, here are things most worth doing.

1. Add Google+ buttons to your blog and most sharable web pages. Make social sharing as easy as possible across all popular/relevant social platforms.
2. Create a Google+ company page and share your content on it.
3. Write keyword optimized, original content on Google+.
4. Shares and original content on Google+ matter more if your company page is circled by many users. It therefore may be helpful to make a strong effort to build your Google+ community.
5. Encourage people to +1 your content.
6. For Facebook and Twitter, having an active social media presence is useful IF social sharing is generating links to your content. Links, not shares, are the more important social media metric from an SEO perspective.
7. Content that is unlikely to be shared on social media, such as a company’s About page, should be optimized in the traditional way. Pushing social shares is not worth the effort.
8. Content that is likely to be shared, such as a blog post, should, conversely, be promoted heavily through social media activities.
9. If your target market isn’t active or interested in social media, focus less on content sharing through social media and more on traditional link acquisition activities. If your target market is active in social, balance the two.
10. Measuring traditional rankings is pretty straightforward: what we need are ways to measure display visibility. Any tips for how to do this?

Brad Shorr is Director of Content & Social Media for Straight North, a Chicago-based SEO company that works with B2B firms in a variety of specialized niches, from merchant credit card processing for gas stations to orthodontic web design.

Photo credit: Go Local Search

Guest post by Sookie Shuen from Zoober Inbound.

Something big has happened to social media.

In case you hadn’t noticed, social media is big – and getting bigger all the time. What was once the domain of just a small number of people is now everyday currency in and outside of business. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc are now familiar channels for many of us. Now 23% of all the time we are online takes place on social networks and blogs. Internet users are now spending more time on Facebook than on any other web brand combined (Source: Nielsen).

Business is quickly catching on to the potential, with recent research showing that a third of companies in the UK now put up to 20% of their marketing budget into business social networking (Source: Regus).

Why many businesses still aren’t getting it

Social media’s growing profile can make it look like a relatively simple way to generate leads. Social media was the leading emerging channel for lead generation in 2010 (Source: Hubspot Marketing) and many companies already see it as the next step in attracting more customers. But the reality is a great deal less simple. Here are just a few reasons why:

• More noise: As the business take up of social media increases, so does the marketing ‘noise’ – making it even more of a challenge to stand out.

• Missing links: Many businesses have the drive, but lack the strategy. They see where they want to get to in terms of income or leads, but they’re missing the crucial links to make social media work truly effectively for them.

• Minus the strategy: The returns of social media can be tempting. After all, the proportion of UK companies successfully winning new customers through social networking activity rose from 33% in 2010 – to 41% in 2011 (Source: Regus). But many businesses are still engaging in social media activity without a long-term strategy, often creating initial interest, but failing to convert it into sales.

What does it take to turn social media into business leads?

Most companies have a drive to make the most of social media.  The 2011 IBM Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) study showed that 82% of CMOs plan to increase their use of social media over the next three to five years – yet just 26% per cent are tracking blogs today. This suggests how detached the drive is from the approach. So what do companies need to do to turn social media activity into real business leads?

1. Go the distance (and take a road map)

Using social media as an answer to winning more business is one thing. Actively generating leads from your specific social networking activity is another. Avoid the temptation to act for the short-term. Take some time to develop a clear strategy for your social media activity that relates to your overall business goals, your sales strategy and your company’s value proposition. Ensure that you carefully adapt this long-term plan so that it fits with each individual channel, whether it is Twitter or LinkedIn. Think long-term about what it is you want to achieve and who it is you want to reach, rather than moving in too quickly.

2. Do your homework first

Get your homework done first, before you rush straight in to social media activity. Success with social media is all about doing your research. You can use inbound marketing technology to undertake keyword research that gives you an up-to-the-minute viewpoint on what your target market is looking for – and where. Don’t do anything without applying this detailed insight to help shape your lead-creating success.

3. Create content around your dream connections

Who are your dream social media connections? Driving leads successfully with social media depends on great content which is directly relevant to your target audience – whether it is 140 characters or 1400 words. Create and distribute content with a clear and consistent focus on attracting the interest of your ideal potential leads. But make sure you back up all your content up using resources such as inbound marketing technology to research what interests your audience. Then you can create content that answers the most important questions your contacts have.

4. Make the connection

Generating leads for the long-term starts with a joined up approach. This means carefully aligning your social media activity with your other marketing activities – and your wider business strategy. Carefully plan a structure to your whole marketing process to take your new connections from initial interest to consideration, by attracting them to useful and relevant content on your website. This will allow you to engage with them on a deeper level and encourage them to provide vital data that you can utilise in your sales approach.

5. Start and end with your sales team

Make your sales team a staple part of your social media lead generating strategy. Your overall plan is all about turning your social media connections into leads and then into customers – and your sales team is an essential part of this. Use inbound marketing technology to give your sales team more up to date insight about who to contact. Once your social media contacts have been drawn to your website to download your content, your sales team can take over and make the most of the hot leads. They’ll have more information and a better focus, allowing them to maximise your social media presence.

Where is social media taking you right now?

Social media is no longer an optional extra for business. By 2014, social networking services will replace email as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20% of business users (Source: Gartner, Inc). There is no doubt that social media offers a huge array of opportunities for companies to connect with and convert new prospects. But there are still too many companies missing out because they fail to approach social media strategically. Avoid the temptation to take action without a plan and get the right research, resources and sales response in place and you could look forward to generating leads from social media.

Here’s a free PDF version of this downloadable eGuide on How to Generate Leads from Social Media. Click here to download it now.

Sookie Shuen is the community manager at Tomorrow People, a leading UK inbound marketing consultancy. She provides free advice and updates based on her experience of helping businesses evolve through her Zoober Inbound Marketing Blog.

Photo credit: EJP Photo

One of the first thing I quickly realized when I started my first business was this: I do NOT want to chase business.

I’m not that old by the way, that was 12 years ago. The landscape was completely different even though it wasn’t that long ago. I think I shared this with you before, I got started by doing some small print ads on local magazines and ended up producing my own TV spots and running them on national networks. I had to learn everything from writing to casting, producing and even doing my own media buys and running all kinds of reports.

I did all that just to avoid chasing business. The end result was about 600 incoming daily calls.

I did learn how to generate a lead through Inbound Marketing. But there was something I figured out besides making the phone ring 600 times in a day. The quality of the lead generated through inbound is much much higher than outbound, where you are pretty much trying to convince a person about something they did not ask for.

The concept of Inbound Marketing remains the same, only today, we have the social web providing a leveled field and a potential for exposure that was never put on the table before for small businesses. See, just now I was shamelessly bragging about how I was able to generate that volume of calls, what I didn’t mention is the investment that took. Let’s just say that when I think about it today I feel sick.

Let’s not make a mistake here, while it offers incredible opportunities, marketing in the social web is not free. Having a presence online is one thing but turning actual leads and sales is something else. I have no statistics about this but my feeling is that more and more small businesses have been actually getting to that point in the last 2 or 3 years.

This infographic shows a few interesting facts about how small business is adopting inbound marketing strategies more aggressively than brands. I specially like the breakdown of where marketing budgets are being allocated, small businesses are clearly investing more on social media, SEO, blogs and email than on paid search, direct mail and telemarketing. Also, notice how the closing rate (leads to sales) is clearly higher on inbound initiatives like SEO and direct traffic.

Over to you

What is your online inbound strategy? What kind of results are you getting from this strategy compared to outbound initiatives? How are you measuring the results of your blogging, SEO or social media efforts?

I’d love to hear from you. Enjoy the infographic!

This infographic is courtesy of gplus.

Some of you have experienced customer service from brands via social media. Of course with different outcomes. And some of you have never taken advantage of this medium to get product issues solved.

Sure, I’ve had my share too. When I was stuck in a Delta flight waiting to departure for 45 minutes and tweeted my frustration (just being an inpatient jerk, really), they got back to me almost immediately. Some time ago when my site was hacked, I contacted Network Solutions customer service department over the phone and they said it would take about 48 hours to get my site back up, I turned to Shashi Bellamkonda on Twitter and had my site back up in less than 2 hours.

Of course you can also run into issues with companies like Time Warner Cable that will completely ignore you no matter how nasty your tweets are.

Social media has proven to be a great vehicle to ensure customer satisfaction over the last few years. Companies that identify this are able to turn issues, something that’s considered negative, into positive outcomes right in front of the public eye.

But what is the current state of customer service in social media? The Social Media Customer Service Report by TNS answers this question in this nice infographic by Our Social Times.

What’s clear in this infographic, is how even tough we’re slowly starting to turn more to social media vehicles to address our issues with companies, the traditional platforms are still very important and, despite the clear advantages for these companies to establish this type of connection with consumers, 60% don’t even care about responding to these direct messages.

When people in this survey were asked what companies should do to improve their customer service experience, 53% responded that companies should address possible issues by posting video demonstrations and tutorials online and only 11% said companies should offer an immediate response on services like Twitter. It’s kind of surprising to me that 68% said they wanted companies to have a prominent contact number on their website, specially when we all know what a hassle a call to a customer service department can be.

A few weeks ago I talked about Social Commerce and the fact that, even tough we are used to making purchases online, these purchases are not happening on social platforms like Facebook as fast as we thought. We also know how, even tough brands are able to acquire spectacular numbers of fans, true engagement is very low.

Today we’re looking at something similar in customer service. Is the user only looking at social media as a social networking vehicle? Or is it that brands are not being successful in adopting these technologies to establish new communication channels?

One more thing I’d like to see, and I’m frankly surprised is not reflected in the infographic, is how platforms like GetSatisfaction are performing in the customer service segment.

How about Small Business? How about you?

I’d love to hear from you on a couple of subjects here:

• From the consumer perspective, have you considered approaching a brand with the purpose of solving an issue via social media? What was your experience? Do you prefer to get on a phone call?
• And as an entrepreneur, do you use social media channels to solve your customers issues? What is your experience?

Thank you. And, here is your infographic.

Infographic courtesy of Our Social Times

It’s no surprise to me that one of the most asked questions I get from clients and readers is how to get content shared more and pull new traffic.

Of course we know dropping valuable content, being consistent with that content, put some focus into blog post SEO and effective social networking are some of the key elements at the top of the list. But today, in this hyper-competitive blogosphere, those things are kind of a given. Everybody does that.

That’s why sometimes focusing on the little things is where we can make a difference over our competition. One of those things is providing great sharing options, at least I know it made a huge difference for me.

There are tons of options to integrate social sharing buttons in your blog. Believe me, I have tested all of them or at least most of them. The one that really changed the game for me is the Digg Digg bar. As you can see it’s the one I’m rocking on SocialMouths right now.

Digg Digg is a WordPress plugin that has been around for a while, but it was recently acquired by the guys at Buffer and it got a pretty cool facelift and some updates in the back-end, including the addition of new sharing buttons from networks like Pinterest and of course, the already famous Buffer button.

So here are 3 simple steps for you to increase sharing of posts with Digg Digg:

1. The importance of Social Sharing buttons on your blog

Of course, first off we need to lay out why focusing on these sharing buttons really matters. I know what you’re thinking, we all know this… but do we? According to a recent research by BrightEdge, only 53.6% of the 10,000 largest websites display sharing buttons.

But they went deeper to analyse websites that featured social sharing buttons prominently on their blog, versus sites who didn’t. The results are quite mindblowing:

“Websites that display Twitter sharing buttons are linked to on Twitter nearly seven times more often than sites that do not display tweet buttons”

That is quite powerful considering this is supposed to be a very simple task, right?

Make sure your sharing buttons are prominent on your blog posts.

2. Setting up Digg Digg for optimal sharing

Digg Digg is as easy to install as any other plugin for WordPress. It allows you to display your buttons in different ways and positions.

Here are some of the features:

• Over 30 sharing options including the latest networks
• Supports lazy loading of buttons, to make your website load faster
• Choose to display buttons on posts/pages/categories only
• Easily adjust the floating position right from inside settings

As you can see in this image, configuring your options is a matter of minutes.

3. Optimizing button placing with Digg Digg

One thing I realized is that there are a few tips on how to place buttons that will help drive more shares. A key problem to avoid is button overload, which largely has the effect of less shares on articles I found.

In my experience I found that no more than 5 sharing options will guarantee a roughly equal use of all of them (of course I recently added the Pinterest button so I have 6 now).  On top of this, the one combination I found to work best is to use both the floating bar and the “below content” option.

The reason for having the floating bar is that it shows readers the option for sharing, also displaying social proof as soon as they land on your post page. At the same time, they remain present on the screen as the reader scrolls down.

If you worry about being too intrusive, I’ll tell you that in over 8 months of using a floating bar in my blog, I only had one complaint from a person that said she felt like the buttons were following her. True story.

Buttons at the bottom of your post are probably more conventional and most people are used to them, this positioning makes a good call-to-action to share your post. It’s clear that if your reader made it all the way there is probably something they find worth sharing.

Over to you now

I know you like bloggers to share actual results so I’ll share a couple of the areas where I saw improvement when I started using Digg Digg:

• I used to get absolutely no love on LinkedIn, after using the floating bar I’ve seen posts get to nearly 700 shares
• I thought adding the Buffer button was kind of redundant since I already have the retweet button. I also didn’t know how many people were actually using it. Let me tell you that it gets lots of action
• I saw a big improvement on loading times after moving away from systems like ShareThis

Which are some of the techniques you are using to get shares of your blogposts through the roof? Let me know any thoughts you have below.

Happy sharing!

Guest post by Erika Napoletano from Redhead Writing.

Aside from the fact that you’re staring at this post’s headline with a healthy dose of WTF right about now, it’s 100% true. How often do you think about what you’d give up in order to get more?

And in many cases, it’s not even about more. It’s about better. More loyal. More committed.

We’re going to talk about four ways that you can – starting today – lose traffic to your website or blog, yet still come out ahead in the long run.

Clean Your Room

You are a dirty (dirty, I said) little social media user, aren’t you? When’s the last time you cleaned out your Twitter account? Purged your Facebook friends? Took a really long, hard look at your LinkedIn connections.

Your audience should make you proud, plain and simple. If you haven’t taken the time to clean out your audience, how do you know who’s really there? Sure, you can automate some of these tasks with monitoring tools like TwitSweeper – a service that scans your Twitter followers for spam and blacklisted accounts each week and sheds the riff raff automatically – but the onus is on you. Think like a kid on this one: If you have so many toys in your toy box that the lid won’t even close, who are you going to get to the ones you really want to play with?

You can’t. Because they’ll have fallen to the bottom of the box.

Cultivating and curating your audience is a neverending obligation. And by ditching the wrongs, you make room for the rights. The people you truly want to develop relationships with.

Loss: People who aren’t really customers or never will be.

Gain: Space for real fans and time on your end to spend with them.

Quit Acting Like You’re Walmart

You do not have something for everyone. I promise. This is a short point, but great businesses are built because an audience knows how to use that business. Walmart is great if you want to go fill your cart with piles of crap, heave that crap into the back of your car, and then heave that crap into your house.

Don’t make your audience heave and haul crap from place to place. When you take the time to admit what it is that you love, what offers you the smartest profit margins, and makes you smile at the beginning and end of every day – that’s what you should be focusing on.  The people who wanted to heave and haul crap? Sure, they’ll go away. But the good news is you’ll have a lot more time to spend on the audience who will gravitate toward who you are and what you do…and that’s because people who get what you do will refer you to people who need what you have to offer.

And then suddenly, being Walmart doesn’t matter anymore. You’re a specialty bistro.

Loss: Time wasted on trying to serve people things you don’t love serving. People who don’t really know what they want and don’t understand enough about you to bring you more loyal customers.

Gain: Focus. Fans who know who your brand is and what it’s all about so they can hand-deliver more people just like them to your doorstep.

Have an Opinion

If you’ve ever stopped by RedheadWriting, you know I’m not afraid to have an opinion. It’s time to stop thinking that having an opinion is bad.

When’s the last time you went to a dinner party and everyone around the table agreed on every single topic discussed? It’s the same way with brands and their audiences. We won’t always agree with our customers and customers won’t always agree with us. But great brands are willing to take a stand and abide by a certain set of beliefs. People will fall by the wayside – but that’s just it. They’re people. They have their own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Just like your very human brand.

Don’t believe me? Think of one (just ONE) wishy-washy person in your life you’d be willing to throw yourself in front of a train to save. (Aside from a relative…) You want to cultivate an audience for your brand that will throw themselves in front of trains for you. And wishy-washy just doesn’t get that type of fan in your corner.

Oh, and I might as well tell you now: You’re going to tick some people off along the way. It’s okay. Because by ticking them off and sending them away, you’re keeping the ones who truly matter and eventually, attracting more people just like them.

Loss: The fear you’re going to offend some folks (because you are). The people who are easily offended by who you and your brand truly are. The people who never really liked YOU in the first place.

Gain: People who share similar views and even when they don’t respect you and your brand for putting it out there.

Say No (duh)

With everyone crawling out of the woodwork saying that Pinterest is social’s destination-du-jour, maybe your brand should be the one saying no. Maybe you should say no to Twitter. Quora. Facebook. Honestly, maybe the only place you should be is LinkedIn or perhaps an industry-specific forum in addition to your blog (do you need a blog?).

The beauty of our business climate is that it’s ripe with choices. It’s also a time- and soul-sucking curse. It’s time you say no to outlets that don’t serve you or your audience. And if you’re afraid of the 38 users you might miss on Pinterest by focusing on your 3800 Facebook fans who chat, share, like, and promote your brand and result in conversions, I’ve got news for you. Those 38 people? They’ll still be on Pinterest if and when you decide it’s a good move to spend your time there. And if they’re not, well – no loss, really.

Saying no in the social realm is something that we must get better at in business. It’s okay to while away the hours on one site or another sharing funny images and whatnot, but our businesses deserve a definitive NO. By walking away from outlets that don’t serve you OR your desired audience, you can stop being a follower and become a leader.

Which is why I’m betting you went into business in the first place.

Loss: Tendonitis caused from a wicked case of Helium Hand (you know, saying yes all the time). Audiences who aren’t interested enough in you or what you have to offer to understand where YOU live and hang out with you there. Audiences who probably aren’t very committed to a platform to justify your investment in it – especially if it’s the Next Big Thing.

Gain: Smaller audiences that will – if they’re committed to you, find you in the places you do spend time. Time to focus on the outlets that mean the most to your brand and audience. A greater understanding of your brand and its audience, as you’ve listened to who they are, what they want, and where they live enough to know where you’d be best off spending your time.

Images by: leg0fenris, code poet,

I know what you’re thinking just by reading the headline of this post: Of course LinkedIn is better for B2B marketing and Facebook for B2C.

But wait, that is not necessarily the case. I have to admit I’m not as active on LinkedIn as I am on Facebook, or even Google+. That’s probably because my focus on this blog is to talk to entrepreneurs and small business.

But when it comes to approach Corporate America, I automatically think I need to get out of these networks and go to LinkedIn. Some of you probably don’t know I’m also a partner at Plural and Partners, a digital agency in Los Angeles and Chile that works with brands and big ad agencies.

Even though I have established Facebook connections with some individuals, when I want to connect with people about Plural, I’m not sure that I want to poke folks on their personal profiles, it feels like I’m coming to your family BBQ on Sunday to discuss business.

On the other hands, it feels to me that LinkedIn does not offer the same level of engagement. I heard people say they never check their messages or invites to connect. I have actually sent invites that were accepted 6 months later. By then, I don’t even know who you are anymore.

But how about results? How about learning a bit more about where my prospect is hanging out, or what kind of people should I approach on LinkedIn or on Facebook. That’s the objective for this infographic from Bop Design that starts by saying that conventional wisdom says LinkedIn is better if you play in the B2B league but…

And this is what I’m taking away from it. Of course I’d love to get your thoughts on this in the comment section:

• You should target individuals by their level, looks like top level execs are more likely to do “business” on LinkedIn while middle management use it to network and entry level are just looking for jobs
• Regardless of the numbers, I think I will follow my intuition on where to approach people
• Just because my target prospect spends more time on Facebook doesn’t mean I will add to the pile of invites, messages, likes, and other forms of digital pokes. Maybe a channel less congested will have more impact
• Does this mean I will scratch Facebook from my B2B marketing strategy? Of course not, you should not ignore Facebook at all

Infographic courtesy of Bop Design

Let me guess, you heard about Pinterest. Or more like, you can’t spend 15 minutes online without hearing about it…

And now you’re thinking, “should I jump on the wagon too?” or “another social network to keep up with?” and on top of that, everybody is talking about using it for marketing and getting tons of traffic and, you just don’t see it.

Alright, I hear you. I’ll give you everything you need to know about Pinterest and a bunch of resources so you can decide if you or your business are ready to join the hottest trend online.

Let’s start with what it is…

Pinterest is another way of collecting and organizing stuff (images) you find online. Think visual bookmarking, publicly and with a social network in it. Some see it as a vision board, some as a catalog and others as a great way to promote your products or generate traffic to your site/blog.

This content is organized in “Boards” that work as categories you create and the images you pin in them are called… yes, “Pins”. See how fast we’re moving here. Pins are like posts on a blog or a Tumblr and other people can “repin” them or comment on them, as well as like them or tweet them, of course.

You can follow people and they can follow you.

Some Demographics

Some think the majority of the users are females, they’re right. According to data Ignite Social Media collected on Google Ad Planner, only 20% of Pinterest users are men. That’s pretty one-sided, don’t you think? This tendency gets started by how Pinterest presents itself to the market, which I personally think you should totally ignore.

But there are other interesting numbers in this data, for example that the biggest age groups are between 25 to 44, 60% of its users have some college and largest percentage of household income is between $25 to $75k. In case you see your target market waving at you here.

How big is Pinterest

I understand, you need to know if it’s worth putting some of your marketing energy into something before you jump in. Here goes, according to a study conducted by ComScore back in November, Pinterest had already joined the big leagues in Unique Visitors with 4,855 million right behind Google+ and it takes the 3rd spot on Time Spent on Site with 88.3 minutes only behind Facebook and Tumblr. That’s pretty impressive.

Then in December, Compete reports that Pinterest reached 7.2 million visitors in the US only. Experian Hitwise on the other hand, reported 11 million total visits during the week ending December 17.

But Pinterest is really rising eyebrows for becoming one of the highest referral traffic sources. I can tell you for personal experience, just so you don’t think this is only for brands and retail websites, that with just a couple of Pinning sessions, it has already started sending traffic to SocialMouths and in the last week, it’s actually in my top 20 traffic sources (overall).

Update Feb 3: Just ran a traffic report for this blog, Pinterest is the #7 traffic source in the last 2 days above StumbleUpon and LinkedIn. That’s not including traffic from “m.pinterest.com” (mobile), which is #30.

Update Feb 8: ComScore announces Pinterest just became the fastest standalone website EVER with 10 million Monthly Unique Visit, only in the US.

Just a couple of day ago, Shareaholic published a report on Referral Traffic from Social Networks, the big surprise: Pinterest is referring more traffic than Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube. Combined! And it’s now breathing on Twitter’s neck.

I’m adding an infographic at the end of this post for other related and fun facts.

How do you get in?

Pinterest is still on an “Invitation Only” stage. Some people have told me they have been waiting for a while so at this point you have better chances to get in if you ask a friend to share an invite with you.

How to use it to promote your business or website

You need to get passed the idea the site is only a collection of wedding gowns images to get creative on how to promote your business, website or blog. Chances are you can already find brands and competitors using the network, find them to see some examples and get inspired.

Here are a few ideas entrepreneurs and brands are already implementing and some of the benefits you can leverage from:

Promote your products

Create a specific board for your own products, each pin should link back to that product page on your website. When you add a price in your description, make sure to use the $ character because Pinterest generates a price label on your image.

It’s pretty obvious here that depending on your line of work or services, there is more or less potential to do this, a photographer or a cupcake ninja can really do something interesting here with portfolios.

Content Marketing

This could also be good to integrate in you content marketing strategy and how you distribute blog content as well as creating exclusive Pinterest content. If you’re a chef, how about creating special recipes for the Pinning crowd.

Another form of content is “user-generated”. You can set a board to accept content from other users, meaning they can also add pins. Although it can be tricky and you’ll have to expect to run some kind of moderation, this can be fun for your followers.

Content Curation

This is probably one of my favorite things about how to use Pinterest. We all know content curation can be a very powerful way to build authority around a topic. Select a couple of topics related to your industry and create boards to curate all kinds of content around them.

If you are a heavy user of any of the other networks, chances are you already curate content at some level. Do a test and bring some of that content you already share on Twitter or Google+ and start dumping it into a board.

Promotional

As soon as we talk about showcasing products on specific boards, the next step is pretty obvious, you can run exclusive contests and promotions for Pinners or you can use it to complement existing campaigns.

Market Research

It’s nature also provides a great environment to conduct all kinds of market research for future products and services. Imagine the possibilities for crowdsourcing or focus groups.

Network

Connect, comment, like and repin others, this is a s-o-c-i-a-l network after all. Interact with others as you do on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.

You can also expand your reach by getting out and sharing Pins on other networks. Or promote specific boards. Pinterest is also ready for frictionless sharing on Facebook’s environment, in other words, you can set your pins to go automatically to your timeline.

Humanize your Brand

This is a great opportunity to humanize your brand or really take your personal brand to the next level. Think about how to add lifestyle to your brand, you can’t be strictly business all the time.

With the rise of visual-centric and timelines in the social web, we are presented with great potential for storytelling. Don’t miss this opportunity.

SEO

When you pin something, specially from your own site, make sure to leverage that description box below the image. Use it wisely to write a keyword-rich description. Think of it as the meta description on your blog post.

Smart use of images

The next time you are searching for a good image to use on your post, wherever you get your images from or if you create them yourself, think of how they will be posted on Pinterest to maximize its potential. Your images are becoming more and more important with this kind of image-centric bookmarking.

How to Pin Content

The easiest way to pin content is through the “Pin It” browser bookmarlet. You can just drag and drop the button provided here to your Bookmark bar.

Mobile

Another way to create and add pins is through the iPhone app, where you can Repin, Like and comment on existing pins or you can use your camera and add location to your images.

You can stay tuned for news regarding other platforms on the Pinterest blog.

Good Examples of Pinterest Use

I’m adding a few examples here, of course I’m not showing Redbull, Whole Foods, and the rest of the usual suspects but rather smaller businesses and personal brands so you get to see real examples.

P.S. – I made this…

University of Pennsylvania

Chobani

Evan Sharp

Integrate Pinterest into your Website

“Pin It” Button

Obviously one of the best ways to make your content “pinable” is to add the “Pin It” sharing button on your site or blog. This is as easy as choosing the kind of button you like and grabbing the code from the “Goodies” page.

If you use a sharing floating bar such as Sharebar or Digg Digg (now owned by the guys at BufferApp), you can add the button through the plugin (like mine). If you use the Thesis Framework on your WordPress blog, Derek Halpern has a great tutorial on how to add the Pin It button on their User’s Guide.

Follow Button

If you want to take it even further, you can also add the “Follow Me on Pinterest” button. Same thing, head over to the “Goodies” page and grab the code from there to place wherever you want on your site. I added mine here so you can see it:

This is clearly missing a shiny Infographic

The post couldn’t be complete without the shiny Infographic. And since I know you’re not going to read anything below it, I’ll add my closing before.

Over to You

It’ll be awesome if you participate in the comments by sharing how you are already using Pinterest or any new ideas you’re planning to implement as well as any questions you have.

If you want to connect with me on Pinterest, here is my profile: pinterest.com/francisco << Check out my profile URL, a clear sign of an early adopter (virtual high-fives!)

Happy Pinning evrybody!

Infographic courtesy of Monetate.