Janet Fouts

NOVEMBER 7, 2011

Everybody’s been arguing over the value of Google Plus lately. Some say it’s only for geeks and others say it’s a waste of time. Well, Google just changed the conversation in a big way and just in time. The announcement of Google pages for business came just in time to turn the whole argument on it’s head. Why? Because this is clearly a direct assault on Facebook pages.

Google 141

Google Real Estate Avatar URL 141

Janet Fouts

NOVEMBER 17, 2011

Sure Google+ can be a powerful tool to share your message with, but this network is in it’s infancy, and with millions of users your message can be left largely unheard unless you have created circles who care about what you have to say and will share it with their own circles and help you get the word out. What you need to do is dig for people who are sharing a lot, get re-shared often and maintain a level of interest in what you want to talk about.

Google 138

Google Content How To Badge 138

Janet Fouts

JANUARY 27, 2011

It’s a given these days that before at least 50% of the first-time meetings you’re about to have you and the person you’re meeting will have Googled each other to learn a bit more about the person. It used to be this would return a list of scholarly papers, some nasty pictures of you at a bachelor party, a random smattering of form posts about cupcakes or software and possibly your connections on some social networks.

Klout 138

Klout Brands Social Media Postrank 138

Janet Fouts

OCTOBER 11, 2011

On Twitter a Retweet can be a valuable way to share information with your network, build your following and pay homage to the person retweeted. Or it can be spam and a vain attempt to draw attention to yourself. You get to decide. But what’s a retweet you say? A Retweet is when you re-post a tweet from another person that you found interesting or useful.

Posterous 138

Posterous News eBook iPhone 138

Janet Fouts

AUGUST 8, 2011

I ran across a post about Johnathan Stark’s crowd-funding experiment this weekend and I couldn’t resist playing along. Here’s the story. Johnathan created a web page on his site and uploaded a screen shot of his Starbucks Card. Anyone who wants a free cup of coffee can download the card to their phone, scan it at any Starbucks that accepts mobile cards, and–if there’s enough money on the card–get a free cup of whatever.

Twitter 137

Twitter API Analysis Mobile 137

Janet Fouts

MAY 11, 2011

People who want to use social media to advance their professional reputation, attract business or build a brand often struggle with deciding where the line is between personal conversations and professional ones. If you’re using social media for your business, know this. People are more likely to do business with a friend than they are somebody they don’t know.

Social Media 137

Social Media Trends Reputation Authentication 137

Janet Fouts

FEBRUARY 18, 2011

Authors Jay Baer and Amber Naslund sent me a copy of their new book The Now Revolution for review, and although I expected a lot from these two they delivered. The book is a smart and well written guide to how businesses can change the way they think about work and customers and get rid of the old kludgy practices that are holding them back. The book is full of practical advice on how to move your business forward, even if not everybody is fully on board or comfortable with this new way of worki

Social Media 137

Social Media Microsoft Transportation Applications 137

Janet Fouts

JUNE 14, 2011

Whether you work with a grass roots organization or a humongous nonproft you know that social media can be an effective way to make your message more visible out there in the world. But just posting a video, creating a Twitter account or a Facebook page will not bring droves to sit at your feet and learn from the master and it certainly won’t guarantee the success of your fundraising initiative.

Virtual World 136

Virtual World Collaboration Education Curation 136

Janet Fouts

JUNE 2, 2011

I’ve been gratified and a little puzzled by some of the people who follow me on Twitter (or any other social network for that matter). I mean, sure I hope you follow me, and a lot more people too, but sometimes a girl’s just gotta wonder what makes people choose to follow one person and not the other. I did a little rough surveying of my Twitter friends and it seems there are really only a few ways people make the decision to follow or not follow on Twitter.

Twitter 136

Twitter Curation Survey Hashtag 136

Janet Fouts

MAY 29, 2011

People have been telling me I’ve “just GOT to sign up for Empire Avenue “, and “it’s a true measure of the real social influence of the experts&#. Bullshit. It’s a game. It’s a relatively interesting game, especially if you like to watch ant farms. Anybody who is signed up can tell you how quickly you’re inundated with private emails telling you “I’m a great investment&# stating their growth and asking for participation to get them more

Influencer 136

Influencer Price Foursquare Buy 136

Janet Fouts

JANUARY 4, 2011

I had a very interesting conversation with a Facebook application developer today. He’s a very smart guy and we agreed and disagreed on quite a lot of things. Here’s the crux of the discussion from my point of view. If it’s not yours, or if it is, please– for the love of community –pitch in and SAY something! We were talking about how to build community on a Facebook page and whether or not that’s really even possible.

Communities 136

Communities Forums Posterous SEO 136

Janet Fouts

APRIL 18, 2011

I say it wherever I go, whether speaking to a large group or coaching my clients one on one. Listening is the most important part of any social media strategy. Thing is, effective social media listening isn’t as intuitive as it may sound, and some never really get the value of it until I can show them cases. For those that do see the value there’s still a problem, and that’s HOW to listen.

Social Media 136

Social Media Attensity SM2 Radian6 136

Janet Fouts

JUNE 8, 2011

Recently the topic of syndicating content came up in conversation. You see, lots of bloggers have their blog posts syndicated on other sites that aggregate content, and sometimes we write posts specific to a site just to get our names in front of more readers who frequent that particular web site. It’s like guest blogging, but more focused. Over time you can build a following on some of these sites, and while at first look that seems really great (look ma I’m FAMOUS!!

Syndication 135

Syndication Aggregator Engineering Sites 135

Janet Fouts

JUNE 23, 2011

If you are at the panel tonight for Hastings School of Law please let me know what you thought of it in the comments. It’s a big topic, and there’s no way I can cover Twitter for lawyers in the allotted 10 minutes plus Q&A, so I thought I write up a bit more here for those who attended and those who didn’t. The slides will be added below as well.

TweetBeep 134

TweetBeep Twitter Privacy Directory 134

Janet Fouts

JANUARY 16, 2011

That’s a question not a statement. Here’s what I think, but I’d love to hear your perspective in the comments. Any good sales or PR person will tell you, what they do all about the relationships. You build solid relationships and that equals respect and trust which leads to referrals. Whether those referrals are for sales or knowledge gathering depends on the situation.

Social Media 134

Social Media Class Sports Conversation 134

Janet Fouts

AUGUST 13, 2011

Today I’ve got a guest post from Christian Arno. Read below for more info. Most businesses are now well aware of the benefits that using social media can bring, such as driving sales, getting customer feedback, building brand awareness and more. However, the majority are still only focusing on major social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Social Media 134

Social Media LinkedIn Banking Social Networking 134

Janet Fouts

NOVEMBER 5, 2011

If you’re one of those people who insist on being followed back OR ELSE don’t bother reading this. You’re not going to be pleased. I woke up this morning and reviewed some of my clients’ Twitter streams to find a few posts like this one. “FOLLOW BACK please!!!” Now naturally I went to look at the person’s profile to see why the follow back was so urgent.

Twitter 133

Twitter Conversation Sites Features 133

Janet Fouts

DECEMBER 2, 2011

All my clients are asking and it’s a tough question for many. For most small businesses I’m saying no, wait a bit. Why? There are so many things business page can’t do yet. For example: A page can’t follow you until you follow it first or mention it in a post. A page doesn’t get notifications by email, text or in the Google+ bar, so it’s hard to keep on top of your discussions.

Google 132

Google HootSuite Feed Feedly 132

Janet Fouts

JUNE 13, 2011

For the price of a grande extra-foam half-caf non-fat hazelnut latte you could change lives. Really. Five bucks can help the UNHCR support refugees around the world. You think they get lattes in a refugee camp? Nope, but there are places you could feed a person for a day or two on what you spend on designer coffee every morning. The Blue Key Community is a growing contingent of Americans to support over 6,000 UNHCR staffers working with refugees around the world to find them shelter, food and th

Price 132

Price Feed Feedly Issues 132

Janet Fouts

JANUARY 31, 2011

Part of my job is to try out applications, tools, networks and such so I can tell my clients if they’re worth the learning curve or a waste of their bandwidth. Frankly it’s a lot of fun and I find some really cool stuff. I also find a lot of stuff I wouldn’t suggest you waste your time on. When Chris Turititzin from Momentus Media told me about One True Fan I thought I’d give it a spin.

Delicious 131

Delicious Widget Sites Applications 131

Janet Fouts

FEBRUARY 11, 2011

As you might have already heard, Facebook just rolled out the new Facebook Pages design and features as a preview last night. The goal is to make pages look more like profiles and although you still won’t have the same options as you do on your profile it’s a big step in the right direction. Now, this isn’t official until March 1, so for the moment admins will have the opportunity to preview how your pages will look with the new layout.

Facebook 131

Facebook Notification Features Social Media 131

Janet Fouts

MARCH 1, 2011

Everybody is talking about the deadline on March 11 when Facebook will no longer allow users to add new FBML applications to their Facebook page. Lots of people see this as a good thing, (including me) as FBML has lots of quirks and any coder is doing back flips to be able to design real PHP pages and deliver content in a frame instead of having to thread it through all the FBML and strip out a lot of the functionality they could be offering on a typical web page.

Facebook 131

Facebook Applications RSS Feed 131

Janet Fouts

FEBRUARY 4, 2011

By now you’ve heard of Kenneth Cole’s Twitter fiasco. This isn’t the first such blunder , nor will it likely be the last. So what lessons can we take away from this kind of thing? You are not in a vacuum. Anything you say online is instantly permanent. There are no take-backs. Think before you say something “cute&#. Social media types love to skewer high profile people for gaffes.

Reputation 131

Reputation Social Media Twitter Types 131

Janet Fouts

NOVEMBER 10, 2011

You might have seen my post last week when Google+ launched business pages or attended my webinar to help people get started with Google+. Since then I’ve had a lot of questions from readers and clients about Google’s newest network, so two things are in the works I thought you’d like to know about. I’ve just launched an e-learning course about Google + on Udemy.

Google 128

Google Embedding Newsletter Course 128

Janet Fouts

SEPTEMBER 5, 2011

I am asked this question every day. Is social media really good for my business or is it just a time waster?? Easy. It’s both. Social media is what you make of it. If you really want to use social media for your business then you need to stay focused on what your goals are. You need to have goals for how you expect it to work for you and a social media plan.You may need to hire a social media coach, or a little help with implementation, or you might be able to do it all on your own.

Social Media 127

Social Media HootSuite Energy Applications 127

Janet Fouts

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

According to Altimeter Group’s Jeremiah Owyang , social CRM will give businesses a way to really focus on listening to what their customers want and still have time to do business. In it’s most basic form the concept is to allow you to cross reference what your customers are saying in social media circles as individuals and as a group with what you know about them from a business standpoint.

Social CRM 127

Social CRM Lithium Collaboration Small Business 127

Janet Fouts

JULY 16, 2011

I saw a message on Google+ yesterday from the-ever on top of the newest app-Louis Gray that made me cringe. It was about an import tool called Facebook Exodus. Basically it allows you to invite your entire Facebook friends list to Google+. Of course you could pick and choose but if you’ve got a lot of friends you could be tempted to just invite them all.

Google 126

Google Applications Tools Social Networking 126

Janet Fouts

JULY 19, 2011

Social media engagement does not happen by accident. It does not do itself. Sure, there are those random occurrences where you get a referral or a hit from someone you just met on Twitter , but trust me, it almost never happens until you’ve put some effort into your Twitter presence. If your blog is an automated sales pitch with comments turned off, do us all a favor and just go take out an ad and get over it.

Social Media 123

Social Media Energy Authentication Engagement 123

Janet Fouts

JULY 5, 2011

If you’re as into social media networks as I am you’d have to have your head in the sand to miss the launch of Google+ , a shiny new social network from Google. If you weren’t lucky enough to score an invite, here’s a demo to tease you. The network itself is reminiscent of a mix of the best features of FriendFeed , Facebook and a few other networks, and as Kit Eaton pointed out in her Google+ post on Fast Company the network seems positioned to take over from Foursquare ,

Google 123

Google Syndication Foursquare Social Networking 123

Janet Fouts

MARCH 31, 2011

Naming your page isn’t so important when you set it up.You want it to be evocative of the mission of the page, sure, but you’re probably going to change it anyway, and until you get that precious 25 followers the url is going to look something like this: [link]. Geez. How do you even begin to share that with somebody? I suggest you immediately create a bit.ly link to use with your page so you can send the URL to everybody you want to visit it.

Widget 123

Widget Facebook URL Engineering 123

Janet Fouts

JULY 28, 2011

There seems to be a tendency for people to want to fit in in social media networks. This is natural in any social group, but sometimes it’s more like high school. You want to be re-tweeted by the cool kids. You hang out around the edge of crowds of people and listen before you join in and are loathe to be the one who points out the emperor has no clothes.

Social Media 121

Social Media Groups Groups Blogger 121

Janet Fouts

APRIL 13, 2011

Maybe not anymore. In February Google rolled out an update to their algorithms likely directed at sites that duplicate content for article marketing as well as those that “spin&# articles (replacing phrases and words so they aren’t exact duplicates and then posting to article hosting sites). They’ve just rolled it out globally to English speaking countries as well.

Guidelines 121

Guidelines Widget Marketing RSS 121

Janet Fouts

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

This time the changes at Facebook are really big. Graphically pleasing perhaps, but also very noisy and cluttered with duplicate information and graphics. Good thing we’ve all got broadband these days isn’t it or it would take forever to load Facebook’s Timeline. I did a quick video overview of what is in the new Facebook profile and a few thoughts on how we might use it (or not).

Social Graph 120

Social Graph Overview Facebook Examples 120

Janet Fouts

AUGUST 28, 2011

This post showed up on Google Plus on Saturday from journalist Andy Carvin , and I think it raises quite a few flags for anyone thinking about using Google products, including Google Plus. Andy Carvin was at the Edinburgh International TV Festival and had an opportunity to ask Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google how Google can justify their policy of real names only on the Google Plus service when using real identities could put people at risk.

Privacy 118

Privacy Google Adwords Policies 118

Janet Fouts

APRIL 8, 2011

I get asked a lot how one should choose a social media coach or consultant and my answer is always the same. Talk to their clients and look at their own social presence online. It’s not about how many followers they have–or their promises to get you thousands of followers–but whether they can show you the ropes and teach you how to engage your own followers and create a presence that attracts like minds.

Klout 118

Klout Radian6 Social Media Hubspot 118

Janet Fouts

MAY 17, 2011

Public Relations is a changing field and it can be a challenge to manage and control corporate messaging in these times of lightning fast responses and broad data dissemination through social media networks. The advancement of good listening tools allow a PR team to keep an ear to the ground for news about their clients and enable them to lend their voices to ongoing discussions, but it’s even better if you’re already in the conversation to start with.

Social Media 115

Social Media Sample Samples Social Networking 115

Janet Fouts

JULY 24, 2011

Let me first say that I am shocked and horrified by the events at Utøya. My heart goes out to the family and friends of all on the island, and I cannot imagine what they must be feeling right now. As the news reports came in through social media and traditional press I think we were all mesmerized by the tragedy. I ran across a translated post from one of the girls at the camp on the island written the night after she escaped to safety, and I wanted to share it with you.

News 112

News Social Media Social Networking Google 112