While I was impressed with the technology back then it was really nothing to write home about. To Google’s defense, they have been determined to understand the value of integrating social within the framework of search. I made a short video clip back in January, when the Toyota domino recalls were happening – this is what it looked like nearly a year ago.

Since then, Google has made vast improvements and beneficial enhancements to how they have integrated social into search. It is less intrusive. They show the real-time updates subtly instead of the constant scrolling updates.

If you do choose to click on the recent social updates below the news results, you’ll be taken to a real-time search results update page, a trending timeline and the – pièce de résistance – top links! See video clip below.

Initially, I looked at this page and said, “Okay, this is pretty cool but who cares?” So I took a closer look and came up with a few good ways all of us marketers may be able to take advantage of this new offering from Google:

Trending

• Share Something New: The majority of people who are RTing on Twitter, commenting/sharing on Facebook and other social platforms are most likely saying the same thing over and over and over again. This is your chance to share something new. Join in the banter, but offer a fresh perspective, valuable piece of information or other. Something that out of all 585 comments yours will standout because you are offering a new sound into the noise. Incidentally, at the time when I looked on Wordloo.com this morning to get the top trending search, the most popular item was “Beyonce Pregnant” – just in case you are curious about the title of this post – we thought we would play along in the trend and offer up some new information to be shared (highly irrelevant to the folks that care about Beyonce’s pregnancy, by the way, Beyonce congratulations).
• Profile Audiences: Without going into too much detail on this, clearly the folks commenting on Beyonce being pregnant are not the same folks commenting on Virginia Thomas, but it is a good way to understand what your target audience is most interested in (if you don’t know this already).

Top Links

• Early Bird Gets the Worm: If you can’t be the first to create the news, you can be the first to comment on it, and quite possibly get a link from it. If you can watch (obsessively) for trending topics in your industry, Google will show you who is the most authoritative for that trend – get a comment on there – maybe with your link and you’ve got exposure.
• Identify Authority Sites: If you aren’t the early bird, you may still be able to get the worm. By observing which sites are visible for your target topics, you will discover new opportunities for SEO, such as who to interview or be interviewed by, guest write for and comment on.

These are just a few ways Google’s new social search can benefit you, there are several more.

What is your take on social search results?

Here are four pieces of advice to getting your comments and links approved:

1. Be real. I find the most successful way to get your back links approved is to be your authentic self. Go ahead, state your opinion on the topic, as long as you can tie it to the topic of your link or keyword. This way you’re posting a real comment as if there was no link there. Saying “Great Post, I will bookmark your site and read more.” is not a real comment, it’s spam.

2. Be relevant and respectful. Always make sure that the blog or article you’re posting a comment to is related to the link you’re posting. Once you find a relevant site, read the article and leave comments that reference something that was mentioned in the article.

3. Be a social non-spammer. If you think of link building as providing the author and readers with helpful information or added value in your commenting versus trying to get a link, you will likely see an increase in the number of approved comments. In my experience, being myself has worked to my advantage when link building. Occasionally my efforts are misinterpreted as spam since I’m including a link. On the other hand, there are occasions when people comment back and a conversation begins, which to me is very valuable because you are building a trust with the individual whose blog or news source you are leaving a comment on. They know you are leaving a legitimate comment and the fact that there is a link there is fine by them because they either like that your comment was real and related to their post or know that you may be working an angle by link building, but they are okay with that since you are adding value.

4. Don’t take it personally. It will get frustrating at times when your comments and links are not approved. Experiences like these can teach you about your link building approach and technique. For instance, you may find that you need to shorten your comment or try another approach, or maybe the topics don’t relate like you thought they did. There are so many factors that can determine if your link gets approved or not, but the bottom line is to not get discouraged and to keep it real.

photo love to: seattleclouds.com

Photo by bb_matt

This month, Twitter sent out an email to API users stating that over the coming weeks they would be making two important updates that will impact how users interact with Twitter applications. (Update 1: Starting August 31, new authorization rules for applications and Update 2: t.co URL wrapping (long URL will display with t.co)).

And just last week we saw vast improvement to the user interface with regard to the account setup process and next steps to additional features and functions on twitter.com.

While these updates seem harmless and almost predictable, are they indications of how Twitter is positioning for the future? And what is that future?

The release of their iPhone/Android apps and ad platform earlier this year coupled with new UI changes and new API technology updates has led me to make either a “very bold” prediction or “very insightful” prediction as I look into the crystal ball of Twitter’s future.

Twitter to Require Payment for API Use
There I said it, and with good reason. There are currently over 250,000 applications built using the Twitter API – some are free and some are paid. Why should everyone else (Radian6, CoTweet, etc.) make money off Twitter’s technology and userbase except Twitter? Does it not seem reasonable, that now that so many have built a business on Twitter’s platform, Twitter should start building a business on it?

If this actually comes to fruition, imagine the effect it will have on paid applications or those that are VC-funded and rely solely on the Twitter platform. For those third-party applications with a large user base their entire business could go by the wayside if they don’t cough up dollars to keep themselves in business. Especially if Twitter sees profit potential in that application’s niche.

With 145 million registered users (roughly 20% are highly active tweeters) it may not make sense to just shut off their API entirely to third party apps; this would only frustrate and cause friction amongst the current user base who use one or multiple third-party Twitter applications, but why not monetize the asset that has been built. It looks like it is going to be a reverse of the Facebook business model (Facebook built the user base on their platform then opened it up to developers).

Supporting Evidence Keeps Mounding
CB Insights reported a 50% decline in VC funding from June 2009 to May 2010 in early-stage investment of Twitter startups. Mashable’s Jolie O’Dell said that “While third-party apps have drifted toward the shallow end of the investment pool, Twitter itself has been raising healthy rounds to continue growing its staff and infrastructure.” Last Fall, Twitter raised $100 million and just six months later closed another round of funding. This has to be an indication that something big and magical is happening under the Twitter birdcage.

Do you agree and what are your favorite third-party Twitter apps and if they go away will you go directly to the source?

As a kid growing up in a small town in rural New Hampshire, I explored the roads surrounding my home with such frequency that I got to know them as well as I know the lines in the palms of my hands.

Now, like many of my 20 or 30-something peers, I’ve moved away from my childhood home and rarely get the chance to visit. But those streets are so clear in my memory I can still see the heaves and pot holes in the streets my sister and I used to play in.

Being somewhat nostalgic for childhood, as well as increasingly interested in the uses of HTML5 (I am in Internet marketing after all), I was excited to hear about Arcade Fire’s new experiment coinciding with the release of the band’s third, full-length album, The Suburbs.

The experiment, created by Google developers, writer/director Chris Milk and Arcade Fire, utilizes HTML5 capabilities to take you on a virtual tour through the streets surrounding your childhood home.

“Browsers and the modern web have indeed come a long way since Chrome was introduced, and we hope this project provides a glimpse at some of what the future holds,” wrote Google Creative Lab’s Thomas Gayno, on the Google Chrome blog.

The project, called “The Wilderness Downtown” is set to Arcade Fire’s, “We Used to Wait”, and includes an interactive amalgamation of Google Maps and Google Street View with HTML5 canvas, HTML5 audio and video, an interactive drawing tool and choreographed windows.

“These modern web technologies have helped us craft an experience that is personalized and unique for each viewer, as you virtually run through the streets where you grew up,” writes Gayno.

The resulting media experience is enthralling. It’s also creating some buzz around HTML5, which will soon (hopefully) be fully adopted by most web browsers. Google Chrome is currently at the forefront of the HTML5 frontier, but most other major web browsers are close behind.

Check out the accompanying graphic for an illustration of what HTML5 will change and improve in the language of the web.

Visit the Chrome Experiments blog for an explanation of the techniques used in “The Wilderness Downtown”.

What is the Annotation Feature in Google Analytics?
The annotation feature allows GA users to add notes to a website profiles’ traffic, they can share these with other users of this profile or mark them private. See example below. Notations were made to indicate when internal IP traffic was filtered, when an action to promote the site was performed and when campaigns launched.

What are the benefits of this feature and how can they make a difference for you and your company?
There are many spokes to an organization’s wheel such as PR, marketing, and customer service. In addition, there are the spokes that are not entirely under our control like social media channels. Since there are so many moving parts in an organization it is difficult to keep track of what may be influencing or impacting your daily web traffic.

The annotation feature in GA allows users to tell a story through site statistics. Perhaps major site changes were made, a new campaign was launched or a high profile blogger mentioned your company. These are just a few of the types of items that can be notated in the time-length of your web stats in GA. The possibilities are endless when logging and reviewing quarterly activity within your company – what happened this month, last month, the past 90 days? By allowing all departments to add notes to the site traffic they can provide insight into how their efforts are effecting the overall mission and understand which activities were most successful.

Think of annotations as a shortcut to digging into that spike in traffic or boost in sales. If you can follow traffic on a specific date or length of time when a specific campaign was launched you will be providing yourself and your team with a visual on its performance.

I’ve included a 58 second demo video from Google on their annotation feature below, enjoy and get to posting the notations in your stats regularly for the benefit of your entire team.

Groupon, the popular, online coupon service that launched less than two years ago in Chicago, has become a hit with money conscious consumers. But as it continues to expand to more and more cities including right here in Phoenix, local business owners are discovering the service isn’t without its downsides.

A Local Story

Dana Mule, part owner of Hula’s Modern Tiki at 4700 N. Central Ave., recently participated in a Groupon deal offering $30 of food for $15. The resulting hoard of customers that descended upon Hula’s to take advantage of the 50 percent off deal created havoc for Mule’s restaurant.

“Initially, it was disaster,” said Mule. “Far more people showed than we could accommodate, which made for long wait times … and angry people (which counteracts any benefit you’re supposed to get from this kind of marketing).”

How Groupon Works

The way Groupon works for consumers is relatively simple. Every day, a new local deal is featured on the Groupon homepage, sent to subscribers in a daily email and updated daily on the Groupon iPhone app. If the pre-determined minimum number of people purchases the Groupon within the established time frame, then the deal is active. If the minimum isn’t reached, then the deal is cancelled.

Mule initially decided to take part in Groupon to get additional exposure for his business and to expand his customer base, which are two of the key selling points Groupon uses to attract businesses. But as some experts have pointed out, there can ultimately be a backlash if the discount price ends up taxing a business’s ability to serve its customers, thus eroding their brand.

“The race to the bottom is never the way to get to the top,” said Ellen Malloy in a recent Reuters article regarding the Groupon phenomenon. Malloy promotes high-end restaurants in Chicago and blogs about the topic of discounting for Restaurant Intelligence Agency.

Groupon Threatens Customer Experience

According to Malloy businesses risk a cheapening effect on their brand and that the customer experience can be threatened if an oversubscribed offer ends up producing a short-term spike in demand.

Mule’s own experience with Groupon was uncomfortably akin to Malloy’s cautionary advice.

Groupon provides the business no tools to help manage the number of coupons sold – they up sell you to drive the value of the coupon up (making them more money),” said Mule. “They are not responsive with concerns – the amount of the sell given to the restaurant doesn’t even cover food/liquor cost – and they will not let you put a limit on the total number of Groupons you’d like to sell (we had to beg them to stop it at 1,000).”

After his initial experience with Groupon, Mule said he wouldn’t participate in the service again. He also advised businesses that require appointments, such as salons, to avoid Groupon altogether.

“We’ve talked to other businesses where they had sold so many Groupons that those were to only appointments they could accommodate for months, allowing them to take no additional new clients who would more likely become repeat customers,” he said.

So what do you think?

While Toyota is scrambling to figure out a solution to the “accelerator pedal” crisis, GM is utilizing the Social Media accelerator. By monitoring their competition and listening to their customers, they were able to act quickly and possibly lure customers away from Toyota. Based on Toyota’s reliable and trustworthy reputation, Jake Fisher, senior automotive engineer at Consumer Reports, said “It’s very difficult to pry someone away from Toyota.” Which is why the competition must be paying attention to how they can now find a way to gain some of Toyota’s market share.

Less than 24 hours after the recall was announced GM announced an incentive program to any Toyota owner:

• Toyota lease holders can get up to $1,000 in lease payments to terminate their Toyota lease and buy or lease a GM vehicle. It applies to Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC vehicles.
• Financing buyers can get zero percent interest rates for 60 months on most GM vehicles.
• Cash buyers can get $1,000 down-payment assistance to get into a GM vehicle.

Social Media Lessons Learned…so far:

• Monitor your competition, you never know when an opportunity may present itself.
• Listen to your customer – on and offline.
• Fail fast, act quickly.

Turkey Mishap teaches SEO

1. Due to appropriate preparation and continuous basting, the turkey browned nicely. It looked good from the outside but this was merely on the surface. Similar to optimizing your web site for search engines, optimizing your titles and metadata isn’t enough. Make sure all elements of your site are optimized, from site architecture to content and multimedia to alt tags. Some of these elements are proving to be more influential and are often overlooked by many so-called SEO practitioners.

2. Once the turkey was in, it was on the “set it and forget it” method. Like cooking a turkey, SEO is not a “set it and forget it” initiative. Just as I should have been monitoring the progress of the turkey, your SEO efforts need to be monitored continuously for progress and adjusted accordingly to achieve desired results.

Turkey Mishap teaches Social Media

1. Although I was mortified by my mistake, I assembled the appropriate team to help me deal with the situation and I didn’t hide from my mistake (although I wanted to). In your Social Media communication it is important to remember that your customers know you will make mistakes, but it is how you handle them that they will be watching. Remember, be human. People make mistakes and don’t be afraid to get others involved to help you solve the issue.

2. There was no mistaking that the turkey was undercooked when we cut into it. Same for your Social Media communication, people will see through the golden brown coating if you don’t have a well planned and executed social media strategy. A good product and great customer service are only two of the ingredients in a recipe for social media success.

3. If at first you don’t succeed, fail fast, and then re-evaluate how to resolve and respond to the situation. Then, move forward quickly, the side dishes are getting cold and people will start to leave if you are unable to respond to the situation or provide an adequate solution.

4. Don’t try to do too many things at once, but if you do, have a plan. Most importantly surround yourself with people who can help you implement and execute your plan seamlessly.

Gobble Gobble Lessons for SEO and Social Media

1. Track and monitor progress; adjust along the way. Don’t get to the end to find out only half the plan worked or yielded you half the results you were expecting.

2. Check to see if the oven is on. Review all elements and components of your Social Media Plan and on-site and off-site SEO. Sometimes it can be the most simple and obvious things that can foil your plan.

3. Share your experience. Mistakes create an opportunity…for content! Case studies, articles, contests, etc. How can you share your experience to benefit your customers or provide added value to others?

Happy to say this year the turkey was juicy and delicious…and cooked all the way through. Picture above. Happy Holidays.

Catch up with me at 10:15a on November 12, 2009 for a panel on Shoestring Marketing, where we’ll be discussing ideas on how to market effectively on a small budget, marketing processes and approaches for startups, and upcoming online trends.

My fellow panelists are:

Chris Johnson, CEO for Terralever (Moderator)
Eva Voorhees, Owner, Tiny Advertising,
Ed Tankersley, Owner, Eight Trails

We hope to see you there.

Social Media: 27 Lessons Learned / Advice You Should Take

1. Answer your own questions and seek your own ways to communicate with your audiences – Brian Solis
2. Social Media is about sociology not technology – Brian Solis
3. Content is spread by people not portals therefore is not reliant upon the social graph – Angela Courtin, MySpace
4. Understand what your brand stands for then how to communicate in the associated spaces your audience gives you permission to be in
5. When you give your brand to the consumer (it’s scary) because the consumer will mold it and shape it
6. Everyone in your company is accessible, create Social Media Guidelines for employees to suggest how to talk about your company, outline things they can talk about about the company, etc. – Chris Heuer
7. Know what your goals are then build metrics into everything to measure against those goals
8. Be careful if you use your traditional agency to get into this space – Randy Sprenger, Harley-Davidson (Amen, Randy!)
9. Be intentional. – Jeremy Holley, Warner Bros.
10. Objectives make you money. – Billy Sanez, American Airlines
11. Facebook is not the only game in town. – Ziv Navoth, Bebo
12. Take the bad with the good – social will correct itself. – Billy Sanez (I love this.)
13. Build small success stories to build internal buy-in and morale.
14. There are many ways to skin a cat, don’t rely on case studies. Listen and learn from other companies, then find what’s right for your company.
15. Social Media Marketing is a tactic in support of your objectives.
16. Everything in moderation.
17. Figure out how to build sustainable relationships vs. traditional campaign relationships where you start from zero, build base, then abandon).
18. Empower your employees – train them to be conversationalists and not marketers. – Chris Barger, GM
19. Be there before a crisis happens to have earned credibility.
20. Live up to the follow up.
21. Think through the logistics ahead of time – if you have something that is really fabulous be prepared for it to take you to a new level and be as prepared as possible and ready for the unexpected.
22. Listen! Don’t be afraid to stop or change course if your audience doesn’t like something. It’s okay to reverse tactics.
23. Integrate and embed social media early on. Social is Word of Mouth so it should be entwined in everything and not looked at as a channel.
24. When you are right, don’t be afraid to fight for it.
25. Don’t be afraid to say no, your community will back you up if it is what they want and agree with.
26. Give yourself time and permission to think big. At the same time, the idea is not enough, it must be well executed – be prepared for a great campaign to take you place you weren’t prepared for. – Chris Chambers
27. Digital and Social are not add-ons, they are starting points.

Add your sage advice below or share this article with others.