Today is Mother’s Day in many parts of the world so you can imagine how busy many of social sites such as Facebook and MySpace are going to be.

We live in a world where distance is no longer measured in miles, it’s measured in how long it takes to send an email, and whether it’s day or night where your loved ones are.

Special events like Christmas, Easter and Valentines Day have been commercialized to the extent that the true meanings are often lost. Mother’s Day seems to have survived thus far although the power of online marketing is starting to have its effect.

One of the best gestures that I have seen in recent years was a company that, rather than pushing its products with loud glossy ads, promoted one simple message:

MySpace is opening your profile data so that you can share the information across a number of other social sites. A report from Reuters News states:

MySpace social network will let users choose to share their public profile information, such as pictures, videos, and text, across the Web to spread its service beyond its own borders.

The benefit to you as a user of these sites is that you will only have to update your profile on MySpace and it will automatically update it on any of the other social sites that MySpace provides access to. These sites include sites owned by Yahoo, eBay, Twitter and its own Photobucket site.

At present it will operate in a one way direction only - that is, you can update on MySpace and it will update on say twitter, however, if you update on Twitter it will not update on MySpace.

The new approach by MySpace is an attempt to shore up its support as Facebook continues to grow. A statement from MySpace says it all.

The new function, available to any site that signs up, is a move by MySpace to protect its dominance in the social network category from fast-growing Facebook, even as it opens up its system to partners and rivals.

And yes, when they say they are happy to open it up for any other site to join, they include Facebook. It will certainly make life easier for those that have profiles spread around numerous social networking sites.

Social marketing is not about advertising, at least not advertising on its own. Social marketing is the art of getting others to talk about your brand or products. Brand awareness or product awareness should be your ultimate aim with social marketing. When someone wants one of your products, it should be your site or business that first springs to mind.

How you achieve this depends on the amount of time and energy you can put into visiting social media sites and, basically, socializing. The more time you can devote the more you will recoup. Social marketing is, in the early days, all about what you do.

Once you get people, particularly your customers, talking about your products or services and associating it with you, the more traffic and eventually the more sales you can achieve. There are several things you need to accept for your social marketing plan to work:

First, and most importantly, you need to place some trust in your customers. They will not always get it right, however you need to let them have their say without constantly jumping in to correct them. If a customer makes a statement that is bordering on the untrue, let it stand but take action on your site so that any visitors can see immediately what the real situation is. You need to let the conversation grow.

Second, the good, the bad and the evil. You need to accept that you will receive many different types of reviews. Some will be positive whilst others will be negative. People only ever talk from experience. If they have had a bad experience, fix it. If someone says that communication is poor, find out from them what the problem was and fix it. This can often be turned into good PR if they then discuss the positive outcomes.

Social marketing is the future so learning to get it right is very important. If you can participate and develop your brand or product awareness then the door opens to advertising both direct and indirect. Use the social marketing strategy carefully and and the results can last far beyond the end of any planned campaign.

Facebook have introduced an interesting new feature, ‘”People You May Know”. The idea is to help you to connect to friends that you may not have known were on Facebook.

The system will match data from your profile with many others to see if there are any common areas such as employment and schooling. It is understandable. If one of your co-workers is on Facebook then why not connect with them - then again, perhaps Facebook is your escape.

To quote from the Facebook blog:

We introduced this feature somewhat recently with the specific intention of helping the newest people on Facebook find their friends quickly

A noble idea and for most people, and ideal way to connect with friends. The blog article further explains:

If you are already friends on Facebook with some people from your last job, for example, you may find some more of your former coworkers (assuming they are visible to you in search) among the “People You May Know’ suggestions.

I wonder how many people will suddenly start working for some of the larger companies so they can snare the friends lists. I can see unethical individuals signing up for an account claiming to be a student from a certain highschool in the area they want to target, adding as many friends as possible and then spamming them.

Facebook has the best of intentions and this feature has a lot of merit. It will be interesting to see how Facebook handles any potential issues down the track.

Whether you are blogging or building a web site their is one piece of social content that will always grab a visitors attention and that is a graphic, picture of photo. Many people are visual and while the written word can send a message, a picture, as they say, can tell a thousand stories.

Humans are strange creatures. When it comes to pictures, it needs to be funny, cute, dangerous or just plain stupid - and I mean that in the nicest way. Social content that involves images that people can talk about will get shared. Cute animals, particularly if they are doing something strange, or acting human; funny cartoons; people jumping out of buildings and people doing something crazy to themselves like tattooing ads to their heads; these will all get shared
around the social networks.

If you think about it, finding a picture or graphic that fits one of these topics could be a social marketing dream. Place your site URL in one of the corners, or blazon it at the top or bottom, then let it go viral thoughout the social webisphere. Social content submissions like these can work wonders for your web site.

The next time you come across something that looks a little crazy, or a little too cute, think about whether or not you can capitalize on it through your social content programs. Opportunities don’t often come around like this, when they do you need to jump on them.

Podcasting has become as popular as blogging possibly due to the fact you can download and listen to the content at a more convenient time. If it is going to be played back through an MP3 player and headphones, the sound quality needs to be spot on. It really isn’t that difficult to produce quality podcasts in minutes.

Your first requirement is a decent microphone. Quality podcasting relies on a quality recording. You also need to either filter out unwanted background noises or use a recording area that provides a quiet recording environment. Avoid unwanted background noises however don’t go overboard and record in rooms that sound hollow or produce slight echoes.

Using music or related sound effects to introduce and end the podcast adds that little touch of quality and professionalism. The overall effect is a more enjoyable podcasting experience for your users. There are many podsafe music directories where podcasters can purchase music that is royalty free; this avoids any recurring charges when using the music in a podcast.

Use a title that is not only catchy but also related to the content. Podcasts can be found through search engines so you need to package and market the finished product as you would your web site including the use of keywords in the title.

Podcasts can be ideal vehicles to promote your products particulalry if you can provide ‘how to’ podcasts. These ‘how to’ podcasting files are ideal for users to take to a problem where they can listen and follow the steps. Sometimes you just cannot take your laptop with you.

By provide your users with a polished podcasting experience they will return for more. Gain a loyal following of listeners and you will have the perfect vehicle to promote your product. The spoken word can be very effective in the field of subtle persuasion.

I will preface this by saying that one size doesn’t fit all and sometimes, by a fluke of good fortune, terrible social content does go viral, occasionally as a case of how not to do something.

There are many articles written on how to produce social content to get your site noticed. There are not as many that tell you what can get your content totally canned - the social content turnoffs.

Incorporate the following into your social content and you may be doomed for failure:

1. Unprofessional design - there is nothing worse than a really amateurish looking site
2. Hard to read text - either the wrong font, size or color. If I cannot read it I am gone.
3. Ugly, inappropriate or obtrusive ads. Need I say more.
4. Pop ups; unders; overs. Considered rude and inconsiderate - my pet hate.
5. Poorly written content. Particularly grammar, spelling and lack of subject knowledge.
6. Bad, hard to find or missing navigation. Why is it when I want to read more I cannot find a link to any further articles - even though you tell me they are there? Bad news.

These are all major site turnoffs and, generally speaking, totally unnecessary. There are ad units that can blend in with most sites. Pop ups will chase away traffic. It is not difficult to publish pages that are easy to read and provide good navigation links. If your social content looks bad, so do you.

Provide the opposite and you will find visitors appreciative. Sometimes appreciative enough to send your social content viral.

Social and viral marketing is a trust issue - not a trust in you - more a trust between friends. It just needs the seeds. For any issue to become viral, the word needs to be spread, and that is done through trust, or at least perceived trust.

Social sites are everywhere and on many of these sites, your online friends are also your offline line friends, relatives or acquaintances. You may have five of these friends who each have another five friends. I need not go on - you know the story. One person says something positive (or negative) and it starts to spread.

What most people don’t realize is that many people will also accept recommendations from complete strangers. This happens frequently throughout the various social sites. Here the emphasis is often either weight of numbers, or the quality of the recommendation.

Take as an example, an individual who asks “who sells the best green widgets”. One friend may say company A. Fifty complete strangers may say company B. One stranger may say company C and provide examples - a good testimonial. As all three have levels of trust, who would you buy from?

I am not going to over analyze this - the answer is either A B or C. And that is my point. When it comes to social and viral marketing campaigns, you can trigger the viral component either through a close friend, or by simply having someone provide a good recommendation; we just need to be able to capitalize on it.

I am not a stats person, however some stats stand out and should be taken into account when planning any campaign. The stats from the Facebook stats page do make for some interesting reading. So here is a did you know?

Did You Know?

• There are more than 70 million Facebook users
• Facebook is the 6th most-trafficked website in the world (comScore)
• Facebook is the 2nd most-trafficked social media site in the world (comScore)
• The fastest growing demographic is those 25 years old and older
• More than 6 million active user groups on the site
• The top three countries are the USA, UK and Canada
• Remaining top ten countries are: Turkey, Australia, France, Sweden, Norway, Colombia, and South Africa
• No. 1 photo sharing application on the Web (comScore)

Apart from the traffic statistics, the over 25 demographic increase and the top countries list are interesting statistics. Where much focus of late has been on the under 25 age group, the balance is returning as moms and dads sign up to stay in touch with their children. The international numbers are interesting with Turkey and Australia at four and five respectively. These countries have much lower populations than France and many of the other countries that don’t appear in the top ten.

These stats could certainly be useful when trying to put together a marketing campaign, particularly if you are considering using Facebook as part of that campaign.

Jason Alba wrote an interesting post on “I’m On LinkedIn - Now What???” regarding his approach to ‘friend’ request on LinkedIn. I am not sure how ethical his approach is although I can see where he is coming from and why.

There are many social sites around and from the moment you join you start to receive ‘friend’ requests. It is a little like a pyramid scheme. You join and add a couple of individuals to your ‘friends’ list. Some else joins and adds you to their list and while they are at it, add your firends as well. LinkedIn is no different.

Jason’s approach is quite simple and fairly obvious as well. If you want to be my friend, do so on the understanding that everyone on my ‘friends’ list will receive my monthly newsletter. Sounds a little like bribery, or blackmail. I don’t know how LinkedIn looks at this type of activity.

I think the point that is made to back up this requirement is very valid. If you have 100 or more ‘friends’, how often do you really interact with them. Many of these ‘friends’ add themselves and then you never hear from them again. With LinkedIn you can get away with a requirement like this so you know the people you do add will get some value from the ‘friendship’. You are interacting with them, even if it is by newsletter.

A larger benefit is that you wont get 100’s of friend requests. People will think twice before requesting to become a ‘friend’. Whilst I applaud the novelty of using this tactic to combat irrelevant friend requests, I hope it doesn’t become commonplace. I certainly don’t want to receive 100 newsletters each month, one from each of my ‘friends’ on LinkedIn.

If you like to keep up with what is going on with your friends on Facebook then you may like this handy little social blogging plugin. The plugin requires WordPress 2.5 and above.

To quote from this social blogging plugin’s homepage:

this plugin will process your Friends status updates RSS feed and/or your Facebook notifications feed, and add a widget for each to your WordPress admin dashboard.

This social blogging plugin enables you to keep up with your friends without having to visit Facebook. Handy if you are not able to log into Facebook for any reason.

When we consider social sites we automatically think of Facebook, MySpace or perhaps Bebo. Social media sites include YouTube and Flickr. There are many social bookmarking sites that can be used to deliver traffic to your sites.

Digg and StumbleUpon are the two most popular sites although del.icio.us is is also well respected. These are not the only sites around. The following bookmarking sites could well be worth a visit depending on the genre of your site.

Reddit: this is one of the social bookmarking sites that relies heavily on your interaction within the community. In fact if you don’t have the time to invest on this site then you will not get the most from it. Reddit really is a social networking site - the emphasis is on the networking. The more you network the more successful you will become.

De.lirio.us: this site is very similar to del.icio.us - in fact you can import your data from del.icio.us if you wanted. De.lirio.us works in a similar fashion to del.icio.us although when submitting a post, you need to use your own tags - but then you already use tags don’t you?

Linkagogo: a site that is perfect for novices. It is easy to use and easy to get a good understanding of. Whilst no where near as big as some of the other sites, sometimes smaller is better - there is certainly less competition and as the site grows popularity, so too will your authority as an ‘old hand’.

These are just three social bookmarking sites that could be used to bring in new traffic. The keys to these sites include good tagging and good networking skills. The more you network the more authority you will gain.

One aspect of social marketing which every business owner should be aware of is that it’s completely free. However, the most preventable marketing mistake that a business can make is to focus to heavily on themselves, their product or their service.

Don’t get me wrong, social marketing is all about promoting, but it is how you promote that matters. Social sites are, by their definition, places where people meet to socialize. They don’t want products shoved at them from all directions. What they do want to hear is what you can do for them.

Solving questions or providing solutions to problems will win you many fans and should be the starting point for any social marketing plan. Gently promoting your product or service along can be done if it is part of the solution. Social media can be a great vehicle for releasing new products, again if you can feed the ego’s of the members of these site.

Many sites don’t approve of open promotion, or the social marketing of products or services, and for good reason. The focus on many of these sites is to provide a forum where people can meet and socialize. People in these situations will naturally discuss anything and everything. It is through these general discussions that you can develop your own following.

If you really want to capitalize on the wave of traffic that flows through many of these sites then you could purchase open advertising on a pay-per-click basis. To date many of these campaigns have failed. The reason behind these failures comes back to the nature of the sites. People are gathering to socialize and share stories, not buy. Social marketing needs to be subtle.

Find the knack of delivering your social marketing strategy in a subtle way and you will find success. The number one rule for social marketing success, answer the question, what can I do for you? Social networking will be so much easier.

Web page design is becoming more important as each day goes by. StumbleUpon joined the thumbnail team earlier this month with thumbnails of stumblers favorite web sites displayed in their profiles.

It is becoming a trend that I feel will only spread further since many members of social networking sites feel more comfortable seeing images. StumbleUpon provides users with two options, either grid or list.

Your web page may soon become your social brand with thumbnails appearing like foot prints behind either your activities or your social friends. Until now, web pages have been designed for the benefit of visitors and search engines, you may now need to consider the thumbnail appeal of your site. Social sites like StumbleUpon are not shy about the size of your thumbnail either. In past thumbnails were very small, these days they are a reasonable size with good clarity.

If your web page is not up to scratch then perhaps it is time to do some housekeeping. Put on a pretty face for all those thumbnails that are going to continue to appear on sites like StumbleUpon. Your thumbnail is now a part of your social marketing face - capitalize on it.

Did you know you can now host your videos on Flick? Flickr have incorporated video streaming onto their site and you can now save up to 90 seconds of video per file. In other updates the storage capacity for each photo has been increased to 20 mb for pro members and 10 mb for free members.

[source]….you know that Flickr is all about sharing photos that you yourself have taken. Video will be no different and so what quickly bubbled up was the idea of “long photos,” of capturing slices of life to share

As can be seen, Flickr primary aim is to get short videos of ‘life’. I am sure we will soon find ways to incorporate marketing videos into the system.