www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfF95bCHc3k

I recently had the opportunity to be interviewed by Raoul Martinez on Fox five news. Even though the producers kept changing the subject topic and I wasn’t quite sure what we are actually going to talk about the morning of the show .(Pretty common for most news segments) Raoul was a pretty funny guy and a bit of a tech head so it was a really easy interview. It was funny while waiting to go on, I was tweeting about being on the news and I instantly got a reply from Raoul sitting across from me in the newsroom before we even met, talk about a small world! Make sure you follow Raoul at @RaoulFOX5 he tweets about some interesting topics. Let me know what you think about the segment and add your comments below.

Conversation From The Video:

Announcer: Serving all of San Diego, this is your Fox 5 News.

Arthel Neville: Still ahead on Fox 5 Morning News, the Landscape of Social Media is changing every day. Coming up an expert is going to join us in studio to discuss how we’re each shaping this evolution, plus…

Raoul: Okay, for better or for worse, social media we know has now started to dominate our lives – a strong word – and the power of the internet is amazing. Rob Burns, the founder of course of RobBurnsBrain.com joins us now to kind of clarify what all these things are, what they mean in our lives as we move forward. Rob, good morning.

Rob: Good morning.

Raoul: Now this is one of the first times that I actually met somebody five minutes ago via Twitter and then two minutes later look, we meet.

Rob: Hey and now we’re already Tweet buddies, yes.

Raoul: We’re Tweet buddies, and like two minutes ago I not friended you, I followed you, you followed me and we said hi. Okay my wife doesn’t tweet; I tweet because of work. Explain to people who may not be on board this Twitter thing, what it is, what it does, and really what the purpose of it is. That’s what a lot of people on Twitter started…what is this for, what does it do?

Rob: Right, right. So Twitter is actually a micro-blogging platform, and when I first started….

Raoul: How is that in normal English?

Rob: Okay, so you know what a regular blog is,  you have your website, and you have your blog, and they talk about blah, blah, blah and it’s a long page full thing. So a micro-blogging platform is actually only 140 characters, characters not even words. You have to get whatever your idea is across in 140 characters, so the beauty of Twitter is, you have to consolidate your thoughts, you have to get it down to 140 characters. It’s not a detriment, but it is a bit of  a con I would say too.

Raoul: Yeah, let’s talk about some of the pros and cons, some people would say what is the purpose of it, is it for advertising, is it marketing, you hear some people saying, “Oh, it’s cold where I live,” “I’m getting an Egg McMuffin.”

Rob: Right. Somebody’s like oh,I will  TwitPic – my Burger King burger or whatever, and it’s pretty useless. There’s actually a lot of useful things you can do with Twitter. The elections in Iran, when that all happened the government kind of had this whole thing where they said well this is what’s happening and everything’s fine and it was a landslide election but everybody in Iran, they all had all these cell phones and they took pictures and they tweeted. And they said no, things aren’t fine, people are getting shot, we’re having revolts….

Raoul: And it’s happening all over Twitter and Facebook, okay let’s talk about Facebook and the difference between Twitter. Explain to people what Facebook is really because a whole lot of people have joined up.

Rob: Okay so we talked about what a blog would be, so Facebook really is almost an interactive blog and it has all kinds of little different things you can do with it. One of the great things about Facebook is you can consolidate all your other social media things. So like Twitter, there’s a widget on Facebook where you can hook up your Twitter so every time you tweet….

Raoul: What’s a widget?

Rob: A widget is kind of like a mini program and it’s for people who are non-programmers so you just copy it off of Facebook and you activate it and then it does some kind of crazy cool thing on Facebook. And so with the Twitter widget, you activate your Twitter widget on Facebook and now every time you tweet, it will post your tweet on Facebook page, and you can also do this with your blog, and YouTube videos.

Raoul: So we’ve got the tweets, we’ve got the blogs, and then you’ve got your YouTube video. Now a lot of times when you go on new sites and you see on the bottom – this is just how prevalent this is now – you can tweet it, you can post it to your Facebook. This is kind of, what would you say, this is kind of a marketing tool, is it a kind of way to just expound on….

Rob: Really I’m a big proponent of ‘don’t tweet your Koolaid,’ and what that means is, have you ever been at a party and there’s a guy who’s in your face, “Hey, I’m the blue widget man,” and he gives you his card and the whole time at the party he’s selling you blue widgets and you’re just thinking, “ I just want to get away from this guy.”

Raoul: I’ve never been to a party with blue widgets.

Rob: Okay, yellow ostriches, who knows, whatever he’s selling. But that’s all he talks about is selling, I want to get away from this guy….

Raoul: Let’s give people some tips…

Raoul: Let’s talk about some of the do’s and don’ts of social media, that’s kind of what you were hinting at here. Give us a run down of the do’s and the don’ts, don’t abuse it, don’t overdo it, that kind of thing.

Rob: What you do want to do is provide quality content, something that’s compelling, something that’s going to make the world a better place, something that will make somebody laugh. Those are all things…and then people are going to be interested in you and they’re going to look you up, and then if it’s a business or whatever, then they’re going to say “hey, that guy tweets some interesting stuff, we have a personal connection. I want to buy from him!”

And talk about everybody else, so if somebody tweets something on Facebook, send that out to your friends because that makes you a hero. And if it’s good information then they’re going to think you’re smart for sending out that good information.

Raoul: You’re kind of an expert analyst I guess on the social media thing, what’s the future of this, where do you see this all in five years? Is it going to be everybody coming together, one big….

Rob: I think so. I think traditional media and social media are really kind of combining already. Just like the thing in Iran, I think you guys were actually posting tweets online as it’s happening live?

Raoul: Okay, alright. A lot of interesting stuff and it really changes by the day. Rob Burns, thank you very much, we appreciate it.

Rob: Okay, thank you.

Raoul: Alright, Chrissy over to you.

The other day while checking some search results, I noticed something interesting, a new bit of information was popping up on the bottom of the my findings.

social search results "professional organizer"

So what is this new tidbit of data gifted to us by the almighty Google, and what does it mean for us search marketing folks?  Well this is Google social search my friends, and it means we will have to stretch even further away from traditional SEO methodology into something that is more akin to social SEO. In my humble opinion Google social search could be a welcome addition to our overall search marketing bag of tricks.

For some time now  we have been reading about how Google is planning to integrate more social media into the regular search results. First we saw twitter results at the top of our searches and now Google is integrating the folks you are connected to via social media with their keyword search results, further blurring the lines between organic SEO and social media.

Back in the olden days before the term social media was even coined, and twitter was some kind of an eye condition. Googles main priority was making the connection between relevant sites and how they related between like minded communities on the net. The more relevant the connection the more important Google thought the site was and thusly aid site would show up higher on the search results.  Not so entirely different than what we are calling social search today.

So with that bit of ancient history in mind it is easy to see how social media would eventually become an ever increasing part of the search mix.

Google Social Search 101

I am going to call the communities we are connected to via social media our “social footprint” the more folks we are linked to the larger our social footprint will be. With social search, Google is measuring and including our social connections as an ever increasing relevance factor in our overall search results.

One way Google determines your social footprint is in your public Google profile. There are two kinds of connections.

The first is a direct connection These are all connections from friends you follow on your social media profiles like twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Gmail chat connections and any social media connections added to your Google profile. These connections may be added to your Google profile or Google might just find them on its own.

Next are secondary connections. These are people your direct connections follow. You can see your connections by visiting Google social dashboard, The social dashboard takes information from your public profile and any other data it has collected from your public social media content and provides you with Googles view of your social footprint.

Now once your social circle has been determined Google will add this information to its regular search mix and viola you will have results related to your individual social circle connected to the phrase you are searching for showing up at the bottom of Googles organic search results!

To have social search show up you have to be signed in to Google. Since Google has about a billion products folks could be signed into like Gmail, Google Reader, Picasa and so on, so there is a good chance your target market is signed on and will be able to see you in their social results.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlpTjP6h6Ms

Here is a Video from Google explaining social search, featuring Googles Matt Cutts sporting a nifty new chrome dome look.

Okay so now that we know little bit more about what Google social search is, how do we integrate it into our regular Internet marketing and SEO practices? Here are a few tips that will help get you started on the road to an integrated system. Since this whole social search thing is so new I’m sure the rules are going to change and new features will be implemented so use these tips as a starting point.

The first thing I would recommend is to sign up for a Google profile

Next I would go through all the Google products and sign up for any and all products that either have a social media profile or an RSS feed. Now add these to your Google profile.

After you add all the Google related products to your profile go to Ping.fm they have a list of around 60 of the most popular social media sites that you can join up from Ping.fm . There is a lot of great SEO and Internet marketing value from using Ping.fm but that is a different subject for a later time. So as you’re going through the list and signing up for the social media sites also add them to your Google profile. I would also recommend filling out as much of the profile information as you can since this will help indicate to Google you are a real participant and not just goofing around.

Photo sharing seems to be a big deal on Google social search, so I would highly recommend adding as many photo sites to your Google profile.

Make sure you optimize your social media post and photos for your target keywords. And of course just like in regular SEO and marketing do it naturally don’t just start trying to game the system and inflating your post with spammy keywords. If you do it will probably get you kicked out of most social media platforms and I’m guessing eventually Google will throw a penalty your way just like they would for organic search.

Last and most importantly, increase your social footprint. Remember Google not only looks at and shows results for people you are connected to but also the people they are connected to. So the larger your social footprint to more people will view your social results. That said make sure the people you follow  are not part of the new wave of social media spammers, as I believe eventually not only how many people you follow but who you follow will be an important factor. This of course is just speculation but  appears would have to be the natural evolution of social search, if it  is to succeed  and not just  become another useless medium overrun  and ruled by spammers.

So to wrap things up in my humble opinion I think this new social search will be a good thing. I think for serious marketers it will be a new tool in our growing  marketing toolbox and help separate the wheat from the chaff in the Internet marketing  realm. Mostly I  hope it will limit a the tidal wave of fat freaking unemployed middle-aged men that are declaring themselves “social media gurus”. As if social media  was an ends to itself  and a solution to all the worlds problems instead of being a tool in a well-rounded Internet marketers   repertoire. Okay rant over I feel a little better now.

I hope this article was informative and helpful. I would love to hear your thoughts and reactions so please feel free to add your comments below. Last but not least you can follow my Google profile here

I just finished a segment on “The power of social media” with my new amigo’s over at Fox 5 news San Diego. It was a blast , during the broadcast I promised to post some social media examples viewers could check out. So here are a few examples of folks doing social media right. I will keep adding more examples as I find them,  If you  find any social media standouts  that you think  might be interesting and educational  let me know and I will add them to the list.

Social Media Examples

Twitter:

http://twitter.com/zappos
Uses Twitter for employees to communicate with Zappos customers about their shared love of footwear.

http://twitter.com/don_draper

AMC’s Mad Men: Twitter account of Don Draper a character on hit TV series Mad Men

Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/AbsolutTopBartender
Top Bartender series: Facebook fan page promoting Absolut Vodka’s reality TV series Top Bartender. Looks kind of like Top Chef only with booze.

http://www.facebook.com/fox5sandiego
Fox 5  Facebook fan page: Spread the love become a Fan!

YouTube:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRAz6fkr5RQ

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmpDSBAh6RY

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U

www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0u0wWOMIsE