Facebook’s privacy settings have been an item of concern for several people recently – even driving some individuals to delete their account and quit Facebook.

Today Facebook unveiled an update of the privacy controls available to users.  I guess you could say they listened and took action.

The number one thing that Facebook executives heard was that there needed to be simpler way to control your information and who could access it.  This being the case the number one change is a simpler way to control your information.  There will now be a single control for your content and more powerful controls for your basic information as well as an easy control to turn off all applications.

With the new privacy controls being added to Facebook starting today Facebook  will:

• Provide an easy-to-use “master” control that enables users to set who can see the content they share through Facebook. This enables users to choose, with just one click, the overall privacy level they’re comfortable with for the content they share on Facebook. Of course, users can still use all of the granular controls we’ve always offered, if they wish.

• Significantly reduce the amount of information that must be visible to everyone on Facebook. Facebook will no longer require that users’ friends and connections are visible to everyone. Only Name, Profile Picture, Networks and Gender must be publicly available. Users can opt to make all other connections private.

• Make it simple to control whether other applications and websites access any user information. While a majority of our users love Facebook apps and Facebook-enhanced websites, some may prefer not to share their information outside of Facebook. Users can now opt out with just one click.

The video below is the statement that Mark Zuckerberg released to the press outlining the new privacy controls

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One goal that many businesses have that are using Social Media and Social Networking tools to market their business is that they will share or create something that will go viral.

viral: The buzzwords viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be word-of-mouth^[1] Viral promotions may take the form of video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, ebooks, brandable software, images, or even text messages. delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet. (from wikipedia )

This morning I saw a great example of success in creating something that will go viral and be shared by many.  This is a video produced by Evian.  It has a catchy beat, uses babies and get it’s message across — but leaves the entertainment factor in place.  When you watch it you just feel like you have to share it and you do not feel like you were promoted or pitched to.

Here is the video for you to judge for yourself — did they do a good job in creating something that potentially will go viral and be seen by many and shared?

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Twitter is a great tool for businesses to use in their overall marketing strategy.  There are many ways a business can use Twitter ranging from customer service to all out marketing and promotions.

We have seen a lot of companies use Twitter to share special deals with their followers.  This is a very effective strategy because in most cases these deals are not available anywhere else.  This encourages active followers who will watch for the special promotional tweets from the business they are following.

One of our local clients A-1 Custom Trophies has begun using Twitter and will periodically tweet a special just to their Twitter followers.  You can follow A-1 Custom Trophies on Twitter (@A1_Trophies).

This strategy of posting special deals on Twitter has also been used successfully by several other businesses.

Corner Coffee in Minneapolis MN is now using Twitter to send special deals to their customers.  (@cornercoffe)

Dell Computers is an example of a company added a very large additional revenue stream by using Twitter for special promotions (over $2 million a year) (@DellOutlet)

StarBucks is using Twitter very effectively and is communicating special Twitter deals on a regular basis (@starbucks)

Naked Pizza has also been using Twitter for special promotions – and in fact last year a special Twitter promotion brought in over 15% of the daily business for that day. (@NakedPizza)

As you can see businesses are using Twitter to send out promotions and specials to their followers and are having success in doing so.  As a business owner this is something that you do not want to miss.

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• Coffee Giants Starbucks To Take Advantage Of ‘Promoted Tweets’ (ronmedlin.com)

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One question that many businesses that are starting to venture into Social Media ask is are there others that are using Social Media effectively and are they seeing a return on the investment?

The short answer is yes

Here are some examples of companies that have been successful in implementing various forms of Social Media into their marketing mix with success.

Effective Twitter Use

Curtis Kimball is an owner of a crème brulee cart in San Francisco that has had great success growing his customer base with Twitter.  He currently has over 5,400 followers and every day he uses Twitter to post where he will be that day.  This allows him to be mobile and for all of his customers to find him.

See the complete story

Umi, a San Francisco sushi restaurant sometimes will get 5 new customers a night after learning about the restaurant on twitter.

Umi’s Twitter Profile

Umi’s Website

Effective Complete Social Media Usage

One local Steak House,  Caminito Argentinian Steakhouse, has done a very good job of incorporating several Social Media components into their marketing strategy to grow their business.

They have incorporated the following with great success:

• A Blog, Prime Cuts , which focuses on providing cooking and kitchen tips and tricks along with some recipes
• YouTube with Prime Cuts TV which expands the Prime Cuts Blog
• A Facebook Fan Page http://www.facebook.com/caminitosteakhouse

Before implementing Social Media strategies the restaurant was averaging a 5 – 10% decrease in sales each month.  Now they are seeing on average a 20% increase in sales each month over the previous year.

ProBest Pest Management is another example of a small business that is embracing Social Media and using it in their marketing mix.

ProBest Pest Management maintains a blog that helps educate the public on bugs.  This blog can be seen here: http://probestblog.wordpress.com/

They have also just embraced Facebook and have a Fan page set up so that you can connect with them and learn more. ProBest Pest Management Fan Page

ProBest Pest Management can also be found on Twitter @ProBestPest

The above businesses are just a few examples of businesses that are harnessing Social Media in their marketing and increasing profits and decreasing costs by doing so.

We will profile several other businesses over the next couple of months.

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Social Media and Social Networking are great ways to establish, build and grow your business and if you are not using Social Networking yet it is time to do so.

I have found though that often keeping on top of managing your Social Networking can be very overwhelming and often time consuming.

Over the last several weeks however I have been researching, testing and implementing tools and process that can assist you in managing your Social Networking activities so that it only takes approximately 15 – 30 minutes a day.

Your largest time commitment is going to be in setting up your profiles and structure in order to streamline your Social Networking.

If you haven’t done so already a good place to start is by setting up profiles on a few of the top Social Networks.  The ones that I would suggest you start with are:

• Twitter
• Facebook Personal Profile and Facebook Fan Page
• LinkedIn
• YouTube if you are going to be using videos

There will be several more that you will want to integrate into your Social Media plan down the road but for today start with setting up profiles on the 4 sites listed above.

SourceOne Technologies is available to assist you with your Social Networking Profile Creation if you would like to have this handled for you.

In the next posts we will discuss more on tools that are available to help you manage these accounts.

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As we wrap up the year and set aside some time to focus on our friends and family and celebrate Christmas and prepare for the New Year I wanted to take a minute and reflect back on 2009.

2009 in my opinion and many others is the year that Social Media and Social Networking came to life.  This year we saw many individuals and businesses jump into the Social stream and start using Social Media and Social Networking as a way to grow and market their products and services.  This movement also created a lot of success stories and cases to take note of.

Since 2009 is the year in which Social Media and Social Networking has come to life and jumped into mainstream marketing there was a lot of wonderful content shared.  This content was shared and spread with the following tools; blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and several other tools.

Here are some of my favorites for 2009:

50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business

Freebies for Social Media Marketing

101 Ways to Promote a new blog

50 Social News Websites from DoshDosh

Social Media ROI: Socialnomics

This is why HootSuite is one of my favorite tools

If you Have an Extra Half Hour

Here are some great links to posts from others that are highlighting some of the top posts from the year:

Adam Vincenzini shares the top 99 of 09

SimplyZesty shares Top 50 Social Media Stories of 2009

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As you jump into Social Networking and Social Media I am sure you will see that there are hundreds of tools that you can use to manage your activity and there are several new tools surfacing every day.

I have tried several of these tools and use a handful on a daily basis.  I have however found a few that I would consider my favorite tools.  HootSuite is one of my favorites.

HootSuite is a web based tool that I have been using for several months to mange my twitter account and the accounts that I mange for others.  Here are a handful of reasons of why I originally selected HootSuite as a client to use:

• You can manage multiple accounts:
  HootSuite allows you to manage multiple Twitter Accounts from the dashboard.  You are able to add multiple accounts and even set them up with their own tab so that they are easily organized.  This is very helpful for those of us that have multiple Twitter accounts or mange accounts for others.

• HootSuite allows you to authorize multiple editors:
  This is a great feature.  HootSuite allows you to add people to your HootSuite account so that they can help manage your Twitter account, without you having to provide direct userid and password access to your Twitter Account.  This feature makes it really easy to set-up a business Twitter account and share the duties with others in your office.

• HootSuite allows you to schedule tweets:   (one of my favorite features)
  HootSuite allows you to set up your tweets to be tweeted at a scheduled time.  This is a great feature and it really helps you manage your time on Twitter.  This allows you to schedule a block of time during the day where you find great content to tweet and then you can set it up in HootSuite to be sent at a pre-scheduled time.

• HootSuite Offers Link Tracking: HootSuite has a built in tool to shorten links  ”ow.ly”, but in addition to just shortening your links you can also track who clicks on your links.  This is a great tool and it allows you to see what tweets are the most interesting and valuable

• Keyword Searches:
  HootSuite is great for monitoring keywords.  You can add a search to a tab and this will allow you to monitor tweets in real time on the keywords that you have selected.

• Nice Dashboard Interface:
  HootSuite has a nice dashboard that is set up with tabs.  You can select which tabs you show and also have groups of tabs.  I have one group of tabs for one profile that contains my home feed, my @replies, my dm’s and then the keywords I am watching as well as my scheduled tweets.

• Management of those you follow:
  HootSuite may not handle the follower management the best, however it is easy to select someone and either follow or un-follow them from HootSuite.

The features above are the main things that attracted me to start using HootSuite, however recently HootSuite has added several new features that are fabulous.

HootSuite now supports Twitter Lists as well as the ability to  update other Social Networks from HootSuite.  HootSuite has added support for Facebook, LinkedIn and Facebook Pages.

I am still testing out the new features for LinkedIn and Facebook, however from what I have seen so far I am really impressed.  I can now schedule posts to the Facebook Fan Pages I manage – this is a great time saver!

I will report back more later on my results of using HootSuite for Facebook and LinkedIn.

I would encourage you however to check out HootSuite and then stop back by and post your thoughts and results.

Here is a great video tutorial of HootSuite from HootSuite

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One question I see asked a lot about using Social Media and Social Networking as a strategy for marketing and consumer engagement is …..  Will I get a good return on my investment or am I wasting my time?

My friends at Socialnomics have produced a great video that does a wonderful job of answering this question.  I think once you watch it you will see that there is a significant ROI on using Social Media and Social Networking as a strategy..

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• Feeding Your System (chrisbrogan.com)

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One question I see asked a lot about using Social Media and Social Networking as a strategy for marketing and consumer engagement is …..  Will I get a good return on my investment or am I wasting my time?

My friends at Socialnomics have produced a great video that does a wonderful job of answering this question.  I think once you watch it you will see that there is a significant ROI on using Social Media and Social Networking as a strategy..

Related articles by Zemanta

• Feeding Your System (chrisbrogan.com)

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Scott Monty  holds the role of Head of Social Media with Ford Motor Company and also writes a regular personal blog on Social Media at The Social Media Marketing Blog.  Scott’s blog is one that I visit and read frequently and often gain a lot of great insights from.

I came across this video of a presentation that Scott Monty did the other day that I wanted to share with you.  It is about 50 minutes long, but it is well worth it.  Scott covers a lot of history and information on Ford and the use of Social Media and then he shares some great nuggets on Using Social Media to maintain your brand.

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