It's not Facebook's fault you got robbed...(The Pros and Cons of Geo-tagging)

 There've been a few stories in the media this week about a rash of burglaries. Apparently, the burglar was able to learn what houses would be empty because of Facebook statuses and geo-tagging.

 For those who don't know, geo-tagging is a way to include actual geographic metadata location information to your websites or photos. Say you own a restaurant and on your website is a photo of the restaurant. I get a glimpse of your fantastic looking food and must drop everything and eat their immediately (melodramatic I know, sorry its lunch time). Geotagging allows me to find out where you are and get to you easier. We both win. Its also a great for those times when you are like "I'm really in the mood for some coffee, where's a coffee shop around here?" By plugging in your address into a maps site or phone or your car's GPS its gonna pull up the closest coffee shops. It will often times even show you how to get there.

 There are definite business benefits to geo-tagging. Used carefully and creatively they can be a fantastic addition to business digital media network. Contact us at Online Media Interactive (shameless plug) and we can show you how to make them work for your particular business. 

 Personally speaking though, the technology scares me a little. It's available in many of the new cell phones and Twitter and 4square are among the social media networks that utilize the technology. I'm not sure I want everyone knowing where I am all the time. For safety's sake, you have to be careful not to give too much of your personal comings and goings away.

 Here are a few tips for safely using social media:

1. Be careful friending people you don't know. If someone you don't know and have no mutual friends in common with sends you a friend request exercise caution when accepting it.

    2.   Don't  announce you are going away on vacation in status updates and tweets. If you absolutely must brag    about the killer two week vacation you're taking, use your privacy settings to ensure that only the people you trust and know will see it.

    3.  Wait until after you are back home to post those great vacation photos. Taking photos and instantly uploading them to Facebook or Twitter can alert potential thieves that you away.

    4.  Twitter gives you the option to include your location in the tweets you send out. Depending on the Twitter application you use this may be a default setting or something that you have to disable. For safety's sake consider disabling this location setting.

   5.   If you are making plans with people for the evening over Twitter or Facebook use the inbox and direct messaging features. Don't make these plans on your profile walls. Direct messages and inboxes are private. Walls can be seen. The great thing about doing this on Facebook is that as long as everyone you are messaging is on Facebook too you can write one message that includes them all.

Do you all have any additional suggestions on how to use social media safely? Or have you had any horror stories about someone who was victimized? Let us know.

What Viral Video Can Do For Your Business (The Phil Davison Lesson)

Surely you've seen this...



 We here at Online Media Interactive, spent a good fifteen minutes of our staff meetings last week laughing at it. Once we were finished making fun of it we had to acknowledge what a video like that actually says about the world we live in. This video is an excellent (and pretty hilarious) example of the impact social media has. Ten years ago, Phil Davision would have given that speech and only the 100 or so people in that room would have seen it and been talking about it.

 In today's Web 2.0 world, almost a million viewers have seen that speech. Many of them far removed from Stark County. Davison has made the rounds at Good Morning America, the speech has been all over cable and late night television.

 Viral video is a fantastic Web 2.0 and social media marketing tool for your business to consider. Depending on how creative and resourceful you are, videos can be produced relatively cheaply. Sites like YouTube, Google Video open your business to global marketing opportunities. Viewers are also allowed to comment on videos which offer you a way to gauge customer feedback and to engage them if you'd like.

 Davison didn't win the treasurer nomination, but to paraphrase his speech he turned difficulty into opportunity. The possibilities are endless for him and they can be for your business too.

Tell your friends and tell your neighbors.

3 Tools To Help Optimize Your Social Presence

By Rob Birgfeld (Source: SmartBlogs.com)

You have a great product. People love your content, your products or your services. You have even stepped up your game and created a blog, a Facebook page and an active Twitter account. Yet, the results are unspectacular. Enter social-graph optimization.

Yet another Social Media Week panel, fittingly titled “Social Graph Optimization” featured insights from Seth Sternberg, CEO of Meebo, Mark Ghuneim, CEO and founder of Wiredset and Trendrr, Hashem Bajwa of Droga 5, and Anna O’Brien of Citibank to help attendees grasp the idea.
While Social Graph Optimization might be a foreign concept to many marketers, the good news is that it is based on common sense. If search engine optimization is about getting visibility via search, social graph optimization is about getting your messages out there via social media. Whether that is achieved via your audience’s networks or yours, it’s all about increasing your reach. In some ways, this concept is what social media should be in its purest form: optimized word of mouth.
These activities seem logical, but they are something we take for granted and often lose sight of. SmartBrief on Social Media Editor at Large and WOM guru Andy Sernovitz reminds us to “Just ask” often, and every time I hear it I think of more applications.
Mark Ghuneim of Trendrr sees Social Graph Optimization as significant because with social media, we can now see what people are doing, what they are watching and where they are going. Now, he argues, we can target those spaces rather than just targeting the people. This represents a critical shift in thinking for many marketers currently “engaging” in social media. Optimizing social media is not about finding new ways to DM people on Twitter, it’s about leveraging your audience to help them spread your message for you. To build on these opportunities, we can use data. Anna O’Brien of Citibank underscored the importance of analytics in optimization. Once we’re looking at data indicating what’s being shared and what users are reacting to, she pointed out, we can use this data to shape our products. What does your customer want more of?  Create more of that and feed the hunger.

Seth Sternberg of Meebo mentioned that two years ago, Google was probably the most significant traffic driver for branded sites. While the big 10 blue links are probably still a big piece of that share, social channels are now a major player. He believes that providing current customers with smart and integrated sharing technologies is key to successful social media optimization. “After all,” he pointed out, “My pictures didn’t get any better when I bought an iPhone, but I certainly share them a lot more now.”

Now let’s get tactical and figure out what businesses can do today to optimize their social graph. Here are three tools to help you get started.

1. Retweet buttons. Many sites now use TweetMeme buttons effectively, and Guy Kawasaki has showed the impact they can have. They serve as a subtle, yet useful, reminder for your audience to share via Twitter.

2. Widgets and plugin and apps, oh my! Does your blog feature a Twitter feed? Not just of what you’re saying, but what others are saying (see: sharing) about you in real-time? Check out Collecta.  Does your Facebook fan page reference your blog or your Twitter updates? There are plenty of apps for that. While it’s important that each of these channels remains distinct, taking advantages of the qualities of each space, we have to remember to use them to feed one another. Your blog should be able to stand alone — but your readers should know that they can follow you on Twitter and fan you on Facebook for further engagement.

3. Web site/blog toolbar. I’m not going to shamelessly plug Meebo because they sponsored the event, took care of lunch or because CEO Seth Sternberg had some great things to say. However, the Meebo toolbar (and Wibiya, used on this blog) is a very tactical and smart way to get started integrating your social graph. The first step in social graph optimization is making it easy for your customers and readers to share your content, offers or information. These bars are a constant reminder to your audience, and according to Sternberg, if 1% of your daily unique visitors share your content, you’re doing pretty well.

If you have great content, don’t let it languish. The first step is integrating your business’ social profiles — but the real jump will happen when you give your audience the tools they need to make it easy to share with their networks.