The Greatest Story You Can Tell

I had a very story-themed day earlier this week that reaffirmed for me that the best stories that any of us can tell are the ones we believe in, are connected to, and share with pleasure.

At a workshop focused on entrepreneurship in a new economy, the agenda followed Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and I presented during the Love and belonging part. As an entrepreneur entrusted to tell the stories of others for a living, love is foundational to how I approach my craft and run my business and I had a great time leading this workshop.

The morning workshops dealt with the themes of Physiology and Safety. After lunch was my bit on Love and belonging as well as Esteem. Then, to wrap up the experience, well into the night the group enjoyed a music party that celebrated the top of the pyramid: Self-actualization.

About thirty people attended my workshop. I first asked how many in the circle were entrepreneurs and close to ten owners raised their hands. I asked them each to take a few minutes to tell their story.

Having the opportunity for them to present themselves and explain what their small business provided was truly enlightening for all of us. If I did not ask these young entrepreneurs to share their story, there is a good chance the rest of the room would not have had the opportunity to know the incredible resources they had sitting around them.

Love Your Own Stories

The thesis of my presentation is that we must LOVE our own stories, and share our stories with the world. Our stories include:

• The stories of others - sharing the successes of a client, a vendor, or even a competitor
• The stories of products or services that will give value to your listeners
• The stories of yourself and or your team - always believe in the story you tell and don’t forget that you are the best in the world at what you do! And always tell your own stories with humility and without boasting.

When you share your stories, along with celebrating and sharing the stories of others, you form a supportive community that becomes an attractive magnet to others for more than just the information your stories transfer.

I left the workshop happy that I could share my story by encouraging others to love and share their own.

I jumped into my Dodge Caravan (yes there is a great story behind my choices of vehicles) and turned my satellite radio to the Grateful Dead Channel. The song that was playing was titled “The Greatest Story Ever Told”. I smiled as this song title validated my own story.

My story is centered around my mission to remind people, teams, brands and movements that their stories are relevant. My ambition is to empower people to share their relevant stories to the world with passion and effectiveness.

If a storyteller loves and believes in their own stories - and authentically (and humbly) shares them as if they are the greatest stories ever told - they will have engaged listeners. And engaged listeners are what brand evangelists and loyal customers are made of.

What stories can you tell on demand with pleasure?

We're Blowing Our Brains Out On Media

We're blowing our brains out on having everything that we ever wanted available, and then some, and we are unplugging.

Niche Communities Rule

There are so many interesting people to connect with, so much unique and varied entertainment, an entire world's collection of information available that people are filtering - they have to!

Reaching a target market is not about standing out anymore, as much as it is about standing for and offering something that people can identify that they need and care about. They'll find you when they need you. And when they do, you want your COMMUNITY speaking for how great you are, not just your marketing.

People don't have the time or the patience for the distractions that so many brands are throwing out. To win people's attention in Branding 1.0 we became loud, aggressive, and sometimes offensive to grab everyone's attention. Branding 2.0 is about being really great and known for one specific niche that has its own community of buyers and boosters.

We're Exhausted and People are Beginning to React

[STUDY] Twitter, Facebook More Addictive Than Cigarettes, Alcohol And Even Sex, Says Poll sologi.co/etMZD #learnsocial

— Sociallogical (@soclogical) October 15, 2012

Nobody wants the chaos that extreme indulgence in multi media - social, entertainment and knowledge media included - breeds. We've been there and we can't take it. We're starting to learn to filter noise and only let in what we believe will enrich our lives.

Brands should respect this and focus on being good and available. If not, you, too, will be filtered and ignored.

How are you filtering media in your own life? How is your business speaking to your niche audience so you don't get filtered?

Storytelling for Business : Your Most Powerful Marketing Asset

The story of your business - how it came to be and why you are in business today - is a mountain of personal connections and powerful marketing that you can build on. Until you build your brand on your own stories, you’re not building the social capital that you need to market yourself in the internet age. And until you realize the power of storytelling in all styles and formats then you may be missing out on an opportunity to create powerful community.

We (as leaders of companies and organizations) spend so much time, effort and money trying to find the best tool to market our product or services. We do this because we see the successes of other companies and brands that invest in robust ad campaigns, glossy print inserts, radio spots and big budget TV ad buys.

What many of us are missing however is that it is not just the medium that is the secret to success, it’s the content that the medium is presenting that creates and engages community, which in turn can birth successful outcomes. The most effective content that brands can use to attract audiences that convert to customers is the content based on authentic, personal storytelling.

Your Story Cuts Through Noise to Your Niche

Ok, you will probably roll your eyes when I state the next fact:

WE ALL HAVE AN EPIC STORY TO TELL.

Many of us simply don’t know that our stories are relevant. Even more of us know that we have a story to tell, but can’t quite articulate what the story is or even how to tell it. Storytelling engages the people who could very well become your customers because your niche will identify with your stories and be drawn in.

“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” ― C.S. Lewis #learnsocial

— Sociallogical (@soclogical) September 30, 2012

We are all attracted to other people, groups and brands that dig the same things that we do. It’s been the case since the beginning of time, but now we can laser focus on it and develop communities around our brands by sharing content, information and stories.

Why is authentic storytelling so important? Because we are living in an age of connectivity where there is a lot of noise and very few things can penetrate through that noise the way that authentic storytelling can. (On a side note, I chose both the picture above and the background of my about.me page for their epic story value. I hope just leaving you wondering will make them interesting)

Friends tell friends stories

If you are a presenter of other people’s stories, or have a passion for sharing your own incredible stories, then you are on the right path. We can tell our stories in articulate, engaging and sharable ways via multiple platforms that will engage and grow communities.

I intend to show you how through this blog.

I am an entrepreneur, a filmmaker, and a professional storyteller. I want to share my experiences with you from working and living in the media production, television, and content marketing industries for the last decade. I am convinced that you and your brand have stories worth telling.

A great potential side effect of telling great stories and building a loyal audience is that they will become your brand evangelists and you will see an increase in sales! Stay tuned, this story isn’t over yet...

Does your company share your stories? I would love to hear them. Please post links or stories in the comments below so I can have a look and share them with others.

What the Maturing of Social Media Use Means For Business

In the mainstream, people are no longer excited just to be using social media. Users are becoming sophisticated about how they allow themselves to be interrupted by notifications and how they filter people and content based on their interests. This inevitability has implications for business and presents challenges especially for businesses who have been slow to embrace it.

The Fad is Over

The fad phase is over. That doesn't mean it is going away, it means online social discourse is the norm. As a society, we're not going back to relying solely on traditional media and the trends toward social will continue in that direction. But businesses can't count on just being there to ensure success in reaching their communities.

The novelty of making a video, posting a tweet, or writing a blog isn't enough for your audience anymore.

In the same way, just creating an event on Facebook or Google+ and sharing it is not enough to get people's attention anymore. Social media has become overwhelmed by events, especially on Facebook, so that it can be difficult to stand out or for people to even notice your event before the date arrives.

Tenets of Advertising Are Back

Advertising has been about getting noticed and remembered as well as having a clear call to action that appeals to your target market. Social media had a short run that could shortcut those first two requirements simply because it was on a novel platform with an attentive audience. Since social media has been mainstream for a few years now and the field crowded, the novelty is fading and getting attention online is becoming increasingly competitive.

Businesses that are not truly social will never be heard. Posting brand messages like an advertisement is not social and won't give you the engagement you're looking for. Getting to know the people in your community on a personal level is the only way to make the social channel work.

Unless a business can compel people to share its content because of its relevance to their lives, its importance to their friends, and the humanity of its approach, media creation will be a wasted investment.

The two principal measures of whether or not a piece of media content will be shared socially is 1. is it informative? and 2. Is it sharable? Without a yes to those two measures, your content is going nowhere.

Mature With Your Community

Businesses can buy media but they can't buy social. There is a learning curve that social media imposes that takes time and forces a company to really consider who they are and who they serve. Get started on the learning curve and know that there is no solution that doesn't involve you and your team using social media on a personal level.

How else can you be "social"?

Hangouts Are Not Your Parent's Soda Shop

Good times. Good times.

Yesterday afternoon 8 friends and clients of Sociallogical jumped on a free, high quality, responsive and easy to use video conference that was fun and shocked the heck out of more than a few of us. After our brief conversation, the whole thing was automatically uploaded to YouTube in HD quality where it can forever be watched and shared, hopefully for the benefit of others who want to give it a try.

This great experience was courtesy of Google+ and its Hangout feature and was simply a 23 minute chat for friends and clients who expressed interest in trying it out to do just that. We planned it last week, called it a Sociallogical Google+ Hangout Intro intended to last 5-15 minutes, and we broadcast it "On Air", which meant that anyone in the world could watch our discussion live as it was happening - and now anyone can watch the recording of it forever.

Want to try this? Learn How To Get Ready For Your First Google+ Hangout

I don't plan to blog about every +Hangout we host or take part in. But watching people experience the power and simplicity of this new medium for the first time is a pleasure and I urge you to watch a bit of it (below at the end of this post) if you have never seen it before. I actually started recording it early because I didn't want to miss the surprise and pleasure on people's faces. A couple of people had trouble using their microphones or webcams for the first time, but that's expected. They won't have that problem next time.

A Powerful Brand Builder

Just think of how powerful this tool can be to reach an audience and build a brand community:

Idea 1: Discuss new trends with leaders of your industry Idea 2: Instruct your clients on something they're interested in learning Idea 3: Give demos of your product to clients, potential clients or partners

There are lots of ideas that you can come up with to help your business by using it to build community around your brand. Think about it and let me know what they are in the comments below. We love learning new ways to be social.

And let us know if you'd like to join us on another "first-timers" Hangout sometime soon because it really was a good time.

Special thanks to Garth Frizell from Prince George, BC who was our experienced guide on this brief tour. And I'm so happy that Kelly Lawson, David Hayward, Greg Hemmings, Judith Mackin, Sarah Tapley and Chris Boudreau were all able to join us.

How To Get Ready For Your First Google+ Hangout

Google+ Hangouts are an engaging social media channel that

1. connects you with guests and partners in a personal way,
2. allows you to speak directly to your audience, and
3. creates highly sharable and engaging content for your brand.

Because we host Google+ Hangouts regularly, we have prepared this simple outline for getting ready if you have never joined a Hangout before. If you're already using Google+, skip to step 3...

1. Get a Gmail or Google Apps account

Most of us already have one of these, but if you don't have a gmail.com account or an email account that uses Google Apps (gmail for your business), you'll need to get one. Since Google+ is the only social media channel that requires you to have a specific kind of email account, this is a necessary step if you want to get the most out of the Google suite of services (Youtube, maps, gmail, etc.)

I have a gmail.com account that I forward my other personal and work-related email accounts to so I only have one inbox and it is tied to the other great services I use each day.

2. Get a Google+ Account

Even if you're already using Gmail, you still need to say yes to sharing across Google's services by setting up your Google+ account.

3. Get the Tech

On a computer:

• Gmail: You’ll need to turn on Hangouts in Gmail.
• Google+: Hangouts is automatically enabled in Google+.
• Chrome browser extension: Download the Hangouts Chrome extension. A Chrome browser or Chrome OS device required. Windows 8 Metro Mode is not supported.

On a mobile device:

• Android devices: Download the Hangouts app. If you want to make phone calls, you’ll need to download the Hangouts Dialer to turn on calling in the Hangouts app.
• iOS devices: Download the Hangouts app.

4. Respond to the invitation from your friend

If you're getting ready for your first +Hangout that someone else is inviting you to, you'll receive an invitation in your Notifications section (a little box that lights up red in the top right of your Gmail or Google+ page - or any Google service page, for that matter - when there are any messages). The invitation to +Hangout will be there and all you have to do is click the link to join! And if you don't see it there, visit the Google+ profile page of the host and the invite should be one of their more recent posts.

A Few STRONG Recommendations

Use a headset with a microphone. I just use the headset that came with the iPhone I bought several years ago and it works like a charm. Most laptops, tablets and other devices made in recent years have built-in webcams but even those will often pick up a lot of the sounds around you and not just your voice. A personal microphone on a headset is much better at just picking up your voice, making the experience better for everyone.

Join a Trial Run

Every Thursday morning at 10am EST Sociallogical hosts a FTH (First Time Hangout) for anyone who wants to try one out for the first time or just practice with a new change to your video or audio setup.

No pressure. No agenda. Just practice.

You'll need to add the host, Sociallogical, to your Google+ circles to see the invite. You'll see an invitation to the next FTH in our recent Google+ posts so you can say Yes and get notified of the next one.

Do you have any questions that we don't answer here? Let us know in the comments below.

A Stunning Social Media Failure: Have the Olympics Lost Their Generous Spirit?

As Seth Godin would say, this is broken.

The 2012 Games could have tested the power of sponsored stories, social media advertising and online community engagement on behalf of high paying sponsors. But, instead, Olympic organizers hid behind copyright protection and old technologies - including social channels - to broadcast them instead of share them with the generous spirit of, well, the Olympics!

I agreed with a friend tonight that I am only now mildly regretting that we have been a cable TV-free home for many years now. Except part of me is happy to be boycotting these Games for not making every minute and every bit of content freely available across the web. I could take a video of my left foot this evening and potentially share it with more people on more channels than anything happening at the London Olympics this week.

+1 RT @jeffroach: #london2012 best example to date of what is wrong w/copyright laws. What a clumsy, sad content "strategy". #thisisbroken

— Burke Allen (@novologic) July 28, 2012

The International Olympic Committee needs to hear a clear message that this has to be the last "television network" Olympics. They'll hear it if enough of us consume non-Olympic content on the web over the next two weeks, share best wishes and support directly to our favourite athletes who are available online, and hope that the IOC wakes up and changes direction before Russia 2014 and what could be a turning point for the modern Games if they don't tear down this iron curtain.

If you could, would you prefer to consume the Olympics through the web where you can choose your experience and how you'd like to share it with others?

If such a massive, wealthy machine as the Olympics can misunderstand and fail so badly with social media, does this comfort or frighten you when you consider the opportunities for your business in becoming social?

Do the Yellow Pages Deserve Your Marketing Dollars?

When considering all the ways that people will look for you or what you sell, the yellow pages won't top the list for most target markets. Not anymore. So why do so many businesses still put their money there? I have 3 theories.

1. It's what they've always done.

For businesses who have been around for many years, the yellow pages have long been a resource that their customers have relied on to find them and they have good anecdotal evidence to support it. That evidence is getting old.

2. They are unsure of the alternatives.

The web and social media is not yet a comfort zone for a lot of businesses still apprehensive about committing wholeheartedly. Many have dipped their toe in that vast ocean but not a lot of them would express confidence in understanding how their customers use that medium and even fewer have figured the best way to respond to it.

And if social media is daunting, the complex algorithms and nuances of online advertising is an even tougher nut for many to crack.

3. They believe their target customer still relies on the printed directory.

That's fair, if there is evidence for it. After almost two decades of digital hegemony, there are still resistors and those who live unplugged.

Be where your customers will look for you

In the spring of 2011 I taught our first course on understanding social business to 10 people in 3 restaurants over 3 weeks. There were men and women from their 20s through to their 60s with varying comfort levels using the internet. One of the most poignant moments for all of us was when my friend Chris asked the room how many people still use the phone book to find a person or business. Two people put up their hand.

If you search for research on yellow pages usage you'll find a ton of articles and pseudo-research that is skewed and suspect at best. It makes sense that a dying billion-dollar industry would fight with the tools they know work and today the internet and the social web are just that. The industry is using as a weapon the mediums that are eating their lunch!

What really matters is for your business to be found by your customers when they decide they want what you sell and go looking for you. And the best way to find out how people discover and reach you is to ask them. Ask how they found you and ask how they would prefer to have found you.

And with so many of the most widely used channels available to businesses for free - search, social, online directories, and more - how does a business justify the cost of the yellow pages any more? Can you? I'm curious to know.

The simple back story: The yellow pages were delivered to our doorstep unsolicited yet again this week. The picture above was taken 2 days after delivery, showing that neither we nor our neighbours could be bothered to even pick it up off our step and toss it in the bin.

Social Media Is Not Busy Work, It's Business Intelligence

While social media gurus push hard for businesses to be busy writing content, posting links, and sharing media, most businesses can't help but become discouraged by what appears to be a lot of work without an obvious connection to sales.

While I see the matter quite differently, I understand the barrier and believe it exists because not everyone understands the real opportunity social media presents.

Business Intelligence Is the Big Prize

I have said many times that social media is in its infancy. But even at this early stage, gathering data and painting a picture of what a customer wants, why they want it, and how you succeed or fail to provide it is the great gift of social media.

Today there are powerful tools that give us an enormous amount of data that could employ teams of people to interpret. But it will get easier over time as tools provide more value beyond just the data. Even now, by staying focused on continuously improving your method of gathering data and interpreting it to honestly answer the big questions will keep you ahead of customer expectations and ahead of your competitors.

Start With a Question

Social media doesn't become social until business leaders become curious about their customers. Curiosity will create questions that you desperately need answered and those questions should start conversations that can help you give a better service worth paying for.

Start with a question you really need to have answered and start asking that question online. Ask it through the pictures, videos, blogs and tweets that you share, and answer the comments as they come in with conversation.

Social Media Strategy Belongs With Those Who Set Business Strategy

All of the traditional business functions need to take part in this effort. Public relations, marketing, sales, and human resources need to participate in the brand community but social media isn't just a benefit to any one of them and should not be owned by any one of them.

Social media is a lever that serves the bigger goals of the company and needs to be led by the leaders of the business, not any one department.

Here's my question that will help me serve you better: Who owns social media for your business and why?

If I Can't Find You, I Can't Hire You

If I want to find you online, can I? Five minutes of searching for my name on Google, LinkedIn, or Twitter should easily produce options to learn a bit about me, what I do, and - most importantly - how to reach me. And if a simple search like that doesn't yield results, I'm in big trouble.

Following on a great post by Trent Seely early this year on this concept for finding a new career, I think it's important to point out that the same need to be found and reached applies to those of us who need to constantly grow our network of connections and online reputation to grow our careers.

There's a lot of talk about search engine optimization, content creation and socializing online to grab attention so your target customer finds you and becomes interested in you. But what if a customer already knows who you are and wants to buy what you sell? Can they find you and connect with you?

We Meet Our Needs in Different Ways

This won't come as much of a shock, but most people don't look for people or businesses in the phone book any more. Organization-based business directories that are isolated from the mainstream services like Google+ Local or LinkedIn are of limited value. People who want to find you will go first to the tools that have given them the best results in the past and it's been a long time since the yellow pages has been the trusted resource it used to be.

Google Search is still #1 and should find something on you that will allow me to connect with you. Is it your LinkedIn profile? Your about.me page? Your business website? A news item you were featured in? Whatever it is, how many more clicks will it take me to send you an email or find your phone number.

Social Search is basically searching for keywords or user accounts on any of the online social networks (Google now being one of them). On Twitter you can find me and you can find posts in which my name was mentioned in a tweet. From there you can mention me and I'll hear it or send me a private Direct Message if we are already following each other.

On LinkedIn you will find me and 212 others with the same name as me. Because my photo, business name, location, and industry are all listed in the search results, you only need to identify one of those things to identify me, click my profile, and send me a message.

Google+ and Facebook are very similar in that people tend to be a lot less diligent about keeping their profiles complete and current on those channels. This is not wise since Facebook currently has the largest population of any social network and your Google+ profile is most likely to be found in a Google search, the granddaddy of search options.

Non-Existent - Cannot Be Found or Connected With

I worked with a large, international consulting company in 2011 and conducted a high level audit of 30 regional leaders before an off site session with them. I created a 10-point non-scientific scale (based on a few measuring scales like Klout and PeerIndex) to give me a sense of where they are at so I could help them. At the top end of the scale was "10 - Thought Leader, who has a large, niche audience, whose content is often amplified, and trusted." At the bottom end was "0 - Non-Existent- cannot be found or connected with."

From this senior group of consultants, in a company dependent entirely on the strength and reputation of their people, no one scored above a 2. Described as "2 - Observer - accounts on 3 networks, little to no activity." It isn't until 4 on the scale that "strong profiles" that allows people to connect easily emerges on the scale. Consider the challenges a business like this will face in the coming years as online reputations are increasingly important and their greatest asset - their people - have no online reputation to speak of.

It's Not Social But It's a Start

I have counselled many times that just getting accounts and not using them is not good for business. People won't want to connect with you on a social channel if it is obvious that you don't use it.

However, having complete profiles with the options turned on for visitors to connect with you directly is an open door for those who know already that they'd like to talk to you. And that's a great start.

Do you still find it hard to find some people you want to hire or connect with online?

The Biggest Myths About Social Media

What are the biggest myths of social media and social business that you have come across as a consultant or have dispelled as you have learned more about social media use in business?

This is not meant to mock the wrong-headed but to be a collection to help others steer clear of misconceptions that can take them down the wrong path or lead them away from a great opportunity. Here are a few from my list:

• Social media is a fad. It's too much work to post and people will get tired of it.
• Social media is just a new broadcast channel for marketing
• If I build it they will come - setting up accounts will do the trick

The 3 things on my list were easy to choose as they are incredibly common. If you end up blogging about any of the items on your list or have good resources to support them, please share links with your list.

What are the biggest social media myths from your experience? Please share in the comments.

The Facebook IPO and The Market Value of Trust

For those among us that follow the social business space and use the social medium to further relationships and to establish and build trust, the recent controversy around the Facebook initial public offering (IPO) has to seem a bit ironic.

Facebook is now the largest, and some would argue most pervasive of the social channels; a place where people come together to connect, share and nurture relationships - and build trust. Facebook is now the subject of a potential lawsuit from investors who claim the social network didn’t let them know all there was to know in the days and hours leading up to its offering to public investors.

Trust Is The Foundation of Investing in Relationships and Markets

For sure, Morgan Stanley and the slate of other underwriters who were shepherding the company through this process will now have to deal with an issue of mistrust (something they’ve seen before), but the bigger point here is that this whole story highlights the massive importance of trust up front – in relationship building, in corporate management and governance and certainly when it comes to investing.

This last point can be examined from a few different angles. Investors who are taking direction from givers of advice need to have significant trust – that goes without saying, I think. No one is going to entrust their life savings to someone where trust is lacking.

Interestingly, though, trust is also at the very foundation of the investment process. That’s because when you invest in the shares of a business, what you really are doing is investing in the leadership and management team to ethically and responsibly grow the equity value for you – the shareholder.

Even after you have done all of your analysis and due diligence, at the end there is a leap of faith the investor must take. If you can’t trust management and directors by virtue of their actions and words, how can you have trust that your investment is in good hands?

Besides the safety and well-being of our families, our finances and investments require trust in anyone we let into that part of our lives more than anything else. It is our livelihood and the measure of our ability to live the lives we choose. For Facebook to be perceived as falling down in a test of trust in this fundamentally important domain is really ironic.

The Foundation Needs Repair

From my perspective, this is now part of the battle that Facebook has to wage. Trust has been tarnished. Whatever level of trust they have built among their user base over time and in their brand, I have to think has now been set back, at least a little.

Surely, there are a significant number of users among their new investor base. And, that Facebook's IPO, a most significant and memorable event in any company’s history, appears now to be mired in a controversy of trust means that they now have a longer road back to the level of trust they had even a week ago.

Now that the shares are changing hands in US markets, another question is whether the valuation on the business was fair. But, what is the market value of trust?

I’d say it’s immeasurable. How about you?

Subscribe to Trevor’s new bi-weekly email of insight into trust-based investing to launch on May 31.

Another Prediction of the Demise of Google+

The simple observation is that Google+ is trying to be Facebook and won't make it because it doesn't have the same critical mass of mainstream users. I say "yet". Comparing Google+ to Facebook is like comparing the dashboard of a BMW to an entire Mercedes Benz. The right comparison, if there is one, is to compare Google with Facebook.

Yesterday I read yet another commentary on the demise of Google+ by a myopic marketer using a tool that is less than a year old and couldn't resist a rebuttal. In this age of rapid innovation and transient clientele, it is not wise to dismiss any new connecting tool in the social space, especially one created by the world's greatest conduit to data, knowledge, and online culture.

Comparing Apples to Thanksgiving Turkey Dinners

Comparisons between Google+ and Facebook only account for the time that people spend looking at each of their stream-like social interfaces. In the same way that you might send messages, sign up for an event, or link to an article or video from Facebook, Google's offering needs to be similarly regarded.

To look at Google+ in its entirety, it's necessary to account for how much people use services like Youtube, Gmail, Google Drive (formerly Docs), Google Maps, Google Search etc. (and that's a big etc!)

Google+ is the sharing backbone of Google - all of Google - every service they have in their formidable collection of useful services. I'm confident that Facebook isn't nearly as dismissive of the challenge Google presents as some of the pundits are.

Facebook Needs To Be Popular

As Facebook launches its new career as a public company today, more than a few analysts recently have acknowledged that the Facebook product IS the people who use it. Without the content that we, the users, share into our news feed (sorry, "Timeline"), there is no Facebook and the network's success depends on it continuing to be the place where the critical mass visits and shares regularly. As soon as it loses our interest, even a little, the house of cards is likely to fall.

The argument that Google+ is less potent because less people use it than Facebook is valid - from a Facebook point of view. The reason we use Facebook is because a critical mass of the people we know are there. That's why I use and enjoy it every day.

In contrast, Google+ continues to grow at an astonishing rate despite not possessing that critical mass of people we know. Millions of people have found Google+ useful for reasons other than the one reason we all use Facebook. Imagine what will happen if and when it does reach a tipping point and your parents and kids start sharing their lives with you by hitting the +1 continuously across the entire web.

That observation is why I continue to recommend this new network, still in its infancy, to my clients and friends.

Top: A pic of the Ford Edsel, often the symbol of commercial failure. That won't be Google's fate any time soon.

Note: Yes, I changed the title of this post. I thought it was too harsh. Reading another commentary taking a a surface view of the matter got the best of me.

How To Get Into Google+: Share Everything

The best way to get into Google+ is to get into the habit of sharing everything.

For a long time I have advised clients and friends to spend more time listening online and worry less about what to share. By listening we can find conversations to start or jump into and truly enjoy social interactions.

So my advice to become a sharing fiend to really get into Google+ may sound contradictory but I think it is the best way to let yourself get sucked in and appreciate what this powerful network has to offer.

Share Because You Can

Whenever we come across something we like online we don't react to it by sharing all of it because we know (or should know) that we'll drive our friends and followers crazy if we do. Most social networks are giant soapboxes through which everyone we're connected to can see everything we share. Sure, Facebook offers other sharing options but they are not intuitive and rarely used.

With Google+ nothing gets shared at all without first selecting one or more circles to share them with. If you want to share something with everyone, it's as simple as selecting the Public circle and sharing.

But here's the difference: when I snap a photo of my kids doing something cute my thought doesn't jump to sharing it because I consider that to be private and personal. Unless there was a way to just share it with my immediate family or close friends, which there is with Google+.

So now, for me, I just share everything and select the right groups to share each thing with. Google+ makes it easy to make that choice and when I use the smartphone app it uploads everything I create automatically so I just need to select who to share it with and I'm done.

Sharing Leads To Engagement

While over sharing leads to disengagement on most networks, on Google+ it leads to more engagement because not everyone is going to see everything you share. You may still only share the same number of things with everyone that you do on Facebook, but you may share so much more with your hiking circle, your curling team circle, your jogging buddies, your family, or whatever other circles you've created. And if you are thoughtful with how you curate your circles they will rarely overlap.

The result is that you'll have content that others will see, comment on, share and +1 that will pull you into the network naturally, just like on Facebook and Twitter.

So have fun sharing. It's what the network was built for and once you get into it you'll find it more natural than you expected. Maybe in time you will back off a bit, but to really get into it, let yourself loose with sharing for a while and get in the habit of choosing which content is right for each circle of relationships. For me, it has resulted in Google+ becoming my favourite online social channel. I don't even email my wife any more when I find something interesting, I just hit the +1 button, and enter her name.

If you're staying away from Google+ because "no one is there", be one of the first ones who is. What else is keeping you from jumping in?

Why Your Location Matters in Your Online Profiles

You are not from "everywhere", "the world", "the globe", or "the web". You are a human with your feet planted somewhere on the earth that influences your view of the world, your business, and your society. So tell us where it is so we can get to know you better.

Whenever someone new connects with me on a social network I check out their profile to find out if they are a real person, and a few other characteristics I have mentioned in earlier posts. And one of those key characteristics is a person's location. More than almost any other profile element, location gives me context for that person. And when a new connection doesn't tell me where they are or where they've been it significantly lowers the likelihood that I will add them to my list of people I want to listen to.

We All Care About Place

Where we live and where we have lived in the past influences how we see the world as much, in my opinion, as our education and work history. I know that every city I have lived in has had a significant influence on me, both while I was living there and after I left (that's one of the reasons why I love the "places I have lived" section of the Google+ profile). Think about the top 5 questions you ask someone new that you meet at a trade show, webinar or when you're away on vacation. I'm willing to bet that "where are you from?" is on that list.

So it's best not to be coy or cute about where you live and just tell us. It doesn't have to be a street address or your detailed latitude and longitude coordinates (The long code after "UT" that very precise people use). Just your neighbourhood, city, state, or region. Something that gives the people you want to connect with you a sense of where you are in the world so we know a little more of who you are so we can get to know you better.

How do you feel about sharing your location? Is there a reason why you are ambiguous that overrides a potential friend's need to get to know you a bit better?

Culture Shift | The End of Small Talk, Part 1

Before social media, many believed that small talk held us together. It was how we kept things at the surface where we could show courtesies, respect, and basic kindness and stay away from areas of friction. Small talk, they said, was the fabric that held our society together. Instead, I believe we just wasted a century talking about the weather.

Religion, politics, sex, crime, children, and money are all discussed openly through social media. Real debate occurs now. There are few taboos. Many of the limits society placed on itself in earlier generations are gone and it is liberating and energizing. Every day we learn about and discuss issues that matter.

That's the positive view. The dark side of this is that many are not part of this exchange and have opted out because they fear and misunderstand this new world. I hope this changes.

Many say social media reduces our privacy, and I agree. The fundamental difference between the previous generation and this one is that this one generally doesn't see that as a bad thing. It is an issue of culture and values and the "you're either with us or against us" paradigm labels these big 21st century changes as "bad" or "good". Privacy: good. Openness: bad.

Collaboration was a buzzword in the last century. It is the model for this one.

Some think that too many people share meaningless things through social media. It keeps us "communicating" too much of the time so we spend less time living and relating to each other in a real way. Hogwash.

What social media does is bring public places into our personal space. We now have access to the city centre, the marketplace, the sports field, or the trade show floor wherever we are, whenever we want it. In these places we are public, not private.

Because of our online familiarity with each other, when we find ourselves face to face we don't waste time with the small talk, that's all out of the way. We dive straight into the meaningful, interesting, productive dialogue that enriches us, informs us, energizes us and challenges our creativity.

As a result, the people of this age are more creative, energized by ideas and opportunities, connected and, most importantly, collaborative. Research even shows that the more social people are online, the more social they are offline. That's a fact that many on the outside of social media will have a hard time understanding or even believing.

It's not a matter of intelligence. It's a matter of culture and perspective.

Small talk is so 1999. Wasting face to face time talking about what we had for lunch, what we think of the weather, who we saw walking down the street - these are true wastes of opportunity and relationship when we are together. This is what constituted most social interaction in the last century and now occupies a minimum of our conversations online today. This is what critics believe is so valuable and is being lost on the online folk. Seriously?

On twitter I sometimes share things of this nature in addition to sharing the most interesting experiences of my day, ideas, articles, perspectives, news, data, and opportunities. My relatively closed network on Facebook or my controlled circles on Google+ see my family photos, my interests, and the events I am attending. If you care to know me, it's there. No one is forcing you to read about my life but it enables you to know me better. Your daily news becomes the news from my life and the lives of the other people you know and have chosen to connect with.

The Dialogue That Builds a Society

Forget the period pieces of hillbillies and yokels; the pioneers of the 1800s built a society with confidence, aggression, vision, and tenacity and there is plenty of historical evidence that these pioneers said what needed to be said, did what needed to get done, and built the foundation for a middle class that fed our economy for the century that followed. I see the same traits emerging in the young people who have entered the workforce in recent years.

What the new generation knows is that the present and the future have a creative foundation and communication feeds that creativity. As these people mature in their careers, understand the sophistication of their professional relationships, and gain confidence in their abilities and experience, expect social media to grow even more crucial in bringing them together so they can make big things happen. They'll have the most powerful tool for collaboration humanity has ever known and the strength of character and perspective to use it in a powerful way.

I've learned a fair bit about how this dynamic plays out in business cultures and how we can plan for good outcomes. I'll hit on that next week...

[Video] GoPro Creates a New Entertainment Category for Their Target Market

I have a new pleasure: watching GoPro HD videos. What are they? They are videos shot using the GoPro HD video camera. And they are amazing!

So amazing that these videos are a new form of entertainment as well as an incredibly powerful weapon of marketing. I sit here glued to my laptop, unable to look away and miss another great adventure I had never even imagined before. All shot with the product the producers of the video are selling.

This is a fine example of amazing inbound marketing.

1. Create content that is extremely interesting for your target market and associate it with your brand.
2. Share it and engage directly with parties closest to your community.
3. Make it easy for fans to share.
4. Bonus for GoPro: Create your content using your own product.

Their camera is tiny, incredibly durable, waterproof, films in HD quality, and can be attached to a growing number of devices and helmets so it can capture unusual perspectives. Those are unique features that differentiate it from the competition. So they chose to use these cameras for some of the most extreme uses their fans could conjure to show their value through a unique entertainment product.

The people in their videos are the heroes of their target market. They are an irresistible draw for the people they want to sell their cameras to.

What content could you create that would be extremely interesting or useful for your target market?

Social Business Is Constantly Changing, And So Are We.

This week Sociallogical is rolling out several updates to the content of our online course, Understand Social Business, that includes Pinterest, Instagram, Google+ and other developments over the last few months that have changed how we create and share content, build brand communities, and run companies.

• Pinterest introduces a new form of content curating that has become a useful tool for bringing new people into brand communities based on visual bookmarking and sharing that influences so many.
• Instagram is a new phenomenon in how we take and share photographs that has been a pleasure for so many iPhone users and is soon to arrive on the Android platform. It has caused amateur and professional photographers to reconsider their craft and how they attract new audiences to their work and we are happy to have renowned photographer Mark Hemmings give his views on Instagram to the course.
• Google+ is only nine months old this week but, with the release of a new feature every day, is having a profound impact on how we share content with each other as well as on how competitors such as Facebook rethink the future of their own platforms. Our lesson on Google+ include an update on how a business might consider involving this platform in their community strategy. It also includes new recommended links to how-to resources to help you make that happen.

There's a lot more that we have added, removed, and updated that you'll see in the course over the weekend. To keep up with the rapidly changing technology and cultural shifts that change how we grow companies, we're excited to bring this fresh perspective to the business teams who subscribe to our course to make the shift to social.

We want to help companies transform their cultures by helping their people understand the opportunities and goals of becoming a social business. What decisions have you made for your company this year to keep up and get ahead?