If you are not familiar with Instagram, it is a fun, user friendly app that revolutionized photo sharing. Instagram became one of the most popular apps on the iPhone due to how easy it is to use. This app could make any photo look cool and easy to share anywhere. It could make even the most boring pictures of yet another family vacation look fantastic. There are all kinds of effects to use, from black and white, to sepia tones to retro looks. This app could make even the least talented with a camera look like they took a photography class. This is why Instagram became so popular in a short time. You could see their pics being shared all over the internet. It was a juggernaut that no one could get away from.

Now, with the purchase of Instagram, Facebook has positioned itself to bring more users to Facebook. It can also bring in even more money once they begin implementing more targeted ad campaigns. This is what it is really all about. Advertising dollars and buying more eyeballs for all of those targeted ads.

Instagram had no ads at all. Hopefully that will not change in the near future. Facebook is of course going to make some changes to Instagram, but we can only hope those changes are rolled out very slowly.

This purchase helps to put another nail in Yahoo’s coffin, according to Forbes. We all know that Yahoo owns Flickr, and that Yahoo has done very little with that.  It seems that Facebook will indeed stop at nothing to gain new users, even if they have to pay for them. This may seem silly for a social network that boasts over 850 million users, but that is exactly what Facebook has done here.

Facebook has no shame about wanting more users. They are the largest social network out there and they want to keep it that way.

When you are as big as they are, anything is possible. When Google purchased YouTube, it moved search in a whole new direction. Will Facebook do that for Instagram? We don’t know. Right now, it is impossible to tell.  We can only hope that Facebook does not mess with them too much, since what Instagram has already works so well.

Facebook has created its own impenetrable world.  From the Timeline feature that encourages users to share all about their lives to  games like Mafia Wars and Farmville, Facebook is everywhere and into everything. We even buy fake tractors with Facebook Credits, which is their own form of money. Every large corporation has a Facebook page, as does every celebrity. This is where you need to be if you want to be where the money is. Zuckerberg and company have created a world where folks don’t just visit once a day, they spend the whole day!

Overall, Facebook gets yet another feather in its cap and Zuckerberg again looks like a genius.  

Recently, Google changed their privacy policy and now your information is even more accessible to those who need it most – advertisers.

Here is where the problem lies – not everyone wants their browsing habits made public. Sure, you can do private browsing if your knowledge is sophisticated enough, or if you go in and disable cookies but most of us don’t think like that. We have this mistaken notion that what we look at online is secure and that Google doesn’t care where we are going online.

Of course they care. We are not who Google is in business for. We are not their customer.

Google’s buyers are advertisers. This is why when you check out a video on YouTube or give something a +1 on Google=, you find ads that are more and more targeted to where you go online. If that does not creep you out just a little, consider this – when we create an online account on a social network, we have to authorize them to use our information. Think about Facebook and the “people you may know” section where you often see people from the same school, company etc. Those who use Facebook for mobile and give their phone number will find that they have suggestions based on who they call or text!

Predicting buyer behavior is big business. Companies pay huge amounts of money to know the habits of their chosen demographic. It used to be that we got ads on sites that were pretty random. Then they started to become more targeted based on things such as gender, marital status and if we did or did not have children. Now, it is to the point where if you go to a site to buy something sexy to wear for your spouse, you can wind up with Viagra ads or even worse. This is all of course, to bring advertisers possible new customers.

To make this clear, let’s use an example. What if you were looking to get some new kitchen appliances? You post a question on a few social networks asking what your friends recommend, and then visit those websites. The next time that you type in a question to Google, you start seeing targeted ads for kitchen appliances. Coincidence? Not hardly. Google does this to try to drive you to another site to make a purchase. Never forget that Google makes its money from selling ads.

If you type an inquiry into Google, chances are that you will find targeted results based upon what your friends post on social networks, particularly on Google+. While we all knew that social would be added into the SERPs, it seems that posts on Google+ are much higher ranked. What would really be great would be for all of the social networks to have entries in the SERPs not just Google+.

For those who have not seen Pinterest yet, it is a massive board that “pins” to various items. Most items relate to clothing, or other luxury items. This is where spam is heaviest. The items on Pinterest often lead to affiliate links run by Amazon If an item gets “pinned” often enough it will wind up in the “popular” tab.  Legitimate people can make an honest living selling items this way, but it is also a haven for spammers since it can be rigged so easily.

There are spammers out there making 1,000 dollars a day spamming Pinterest. Since the story of “Steve” went viral, Pinterest is cracking down and changing its algorithm to make it harder to game the system. This person has since retracted their statements, saying it was a hoax.

Spammers will overload the site and “pin” these items. This is gaming the system at its worst. We have talked about gamification before and how just about every site has some gamification to it. Gamification can be found on all kinds of sites, and it is an important part of how we do business these days. If you think gamification is not here to stay, we have one word for you – Farmville.

Spammers will find a way into anything. Look at Facebook. That is a site full of spam. Think of how many times you have seen your friends with the spammy “look who viewed your profile!” postings on their wall. That is spam in its purest form. The site that runs that particular scam is called fast2earn.com. What they do is redirect you to an affiliate site once you fall for the bait about seeing ‘who viewed your profile.’ This kind of spam is actually even more harmful than useless ads, because of the insidious nature of the hook. It allows you to wonder about who could be looking at your profile, and then gets you to click in it voluntarily.

The problem with spammers on any site is that the problem is not going to go away. Bots create more fake accounts to populate sites. The best we can do as marketers is catch on to them faster and report them quicker. There are no easy answers to problems like this except perhaps to have stiffer penalties for those caught spamming.

We all know the most basic ways to spot spam accounts. Most spam accounts have names that make no sense, or the ubiquitous egg avatar. Some spammers are getting more sophisticated and are using better names and photos. It comes down to reading the comments and seeing what rings true and what does not.

Whatever the outcome, Pinterest is here to stay and unfortunately, so are the spammers. The best that we can hope for is to tighten up requirements on sites like these to discourage spamming.

What makes LinkedIn so popular?

LinkedIn is so popular among businesses since it focuses on business. Businesses can now have a company page on LinkedIn that can be followed and shared with your professional contacts. Since businesses can be liked on Facebook and followed on Twitter, it makes perfect sense for LinkedIn to offer something of a similar nature. Since these pages focus entirely on what is offered, it can often be a better indicator of a company’s value. On LinkedIn, users are there to create networks of valuable contacts. The pages that will be shared will be of a much higher quality than what can be found on Facebook or Twitter. There are also no cutesy kitten pictures or GIFFS like you find on other networks.

Facebook Can Be Fickle. LinkedIn is not

A business can have all of the Facebook likes that it wants and it may or may not impact the business. On LinkedIn, users are there looking for your specific business based on keyword searches and other criteria, such as recommendations. On Facebook the interaction is much more social. On a site like LinkedIn, it is all about finding the right people to do business with. This is the very reason that businesses must not ignore LinkedIn. This is the one network that is always appropriate, no matter what kind of business you may have.

How Do I Create A Company Page?

Creating a company page is similar to creating a personal profile. You still want your page to reflect your business and what you do. You will want to make sure to use keywords and optimize it for SEO purposes. If you are a brick and mortar business, make sure to add your location and hours of operation. Give users several ways to contact you and follow you. If you have a blog or a Twitter feed, link to that as well. Make sure if you are using a logo, that it is still readable when shrunk down. Run a few tests before creating your company page. Having an ill-fitting logo will make your page far less attractive than the more polished ones.

Image is everything

Proofread all of your copy before it gets posted. Make certain there are no spelling or grammar mistakes. Unless your company has a distinctive logo, try and keep the profile pictures of a person, perhaps the CEO of your company. Make sure the picture has no shadows and is professional. Keep your pets and kids out of this photo. This profile will be seen by potential buyers along with potential investors. This is a professional network, not a social one.

This change benefits businesses by allowing you to tell a story. The story of your business and the clients you serve. There are wonderful examples all over Facebook of companies showing what their company, sports team or nonprofit organization is all about. We tell our stories through not only words, but also photos and video. The biggest benefit about this change is that pages with excellent content have a great chance of being seen. This means Facebook is pushing for even more engagement on these pages.

What changed this time?

Okay. Facebook changed a lot about these pages. The first thing you notice is that you have a large (851x315px) area to have your “Cover photo” The items that MAY NOT appear in this space are: any kind of CTA (calls to action) NO contact info and of course NO red arrows pointing to the “like” or “share” button. There is an about section directly underneath the cover photo where you can link to your blog or website. Make use of that about section and make it interesting! Be sure to also fill out all of your contact information so that potential clients can find you.

While we are on the subject of pictures, you need a 180×180 pixel photo for your profile pic. It will display as either a 125×125 or 150×150, depending on the user’s computer.

Facebook page admins can still of course access insights which are now more useful. This time Facebook began showing us what fans interact with most. This will give page admins the chance to change their content as needed, creating more comments, and of course more shared content.

How do I manage comments?

You manage comments the same way as before. Instead of having fans posting all over your page, fan postings are in one area of the page so that page admins can respond appropriately without having to search the entire page looking for postings. Fan postings appear in the center of the right hand side, directly above any “likes” that your page may have. The new timeline focuses more on sharing links to blog posts and photos that others can comment on. If there is a post you want your fans to see, click the star button to have that story highlighted on your page. This will make your post go across both columns.  Use this only for special stories. Not every story needs to be highlighted.

What are Milestones anyway?

A Milestone can be anything from when you opened your business to when you moved. Updating your Timeline with milestones will show fans and customers the story of your business in a chronological way. This is also a great place to announce changes in personnel, especially upper management.

How are you using the new Timeline feature? Please let us know in the comment section below.

The answer is simple. The snake oil salesman is going to give you a one-size-fits-all cookie cutter package that is not tailored to your business or your target audience. A good social media consultant will take a look at your website, and decide on a few good networks for your business to be on depending on your goals. It seems these days that every hipster with a laptop can now hang a shingle and call themselves an expert in social media. The phrase is so overused that it almost has no meaning.

If your target audience is “married men over 50” a good social media consultant will find where those men are hanging out online. Are they reading blogs? Which ones? Do they tweet? Are they on Facebook or Google Plus? They take this information and then decide which social networks are most important for you and your business.

A snake oil salesman just wants to get you on Facebook and Twitter. The reality is, some businesses do not lend themselves to either network. If your audience is not there, then you are wasting your time and resources being there. Be where your clients are. That is rule number one. Be where they are, and then do not spam them.  Even Facebook with all of its 850 million users will be useless if that is not where your buyers are. The first question your social media expert should answer for you is “What social networks should my business be on?” If they cannot answer that and give you good reasons for their choice, they are not worth the time or money.

If your business is going to go be on Twitter, do not DM (direct message) every new follower with a link to your website. Instead, monitor the conversations, and when the time is right be helpful but never spammy. Twitter can be a great way to make business contacts, but it is also the easiest network to make a mistake with.

Any good social media consultant will sit down with you and show you how to monitor and use these networks. Tweeting on your behalf is something that is a slippery slope. Some agencies do tweet for their clients, but remember they make mistakes too. We all recall what happened to Chrysler right?

The last thing to remember is that there are no hard and fast rules for social media. Stay true to your company’s values, stay on message and be yourself. Those are really the only “rules” of social media. If you are trying to be something that you are not, users will see right through that. The snake oil salesman wants you to fit into a neat box. Don’t fall into that trap. Don’t be the same as your competition. Be yourself.

What are your best tips to avoid snake oil salesmen? We would love to hear from you in the comment section below.

Here is the deal – you have very little online privacy unless you know how these social networks are set up and the ramifications of posting highly personal content on these sites. We talk again and again about not allowing yourself to be tagged in a picture drunk at the company holiday party. We talk about this for good reason. In this day and age, employers are looking at your social profile to get a better sense of who you are. That means, they are checking Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and any other social real estate you may have.

This means, you have no real privacy online. Accounts get hacked every single day. Facebook is notorious for their poor security practices, and the best that anyone can do is make sure that all of their social networking security settings are as tight as possible. If it can happen to Zuckerberg, it can happen to you too.

So, what can be done?

Simple. Practice common sense. Remember that anything you post online can be found by someone. Even deleted files can be found by someone who knows what they are doing. This means that if you have only a small amount of privacy online, please be careful about what you put out there. Facebook, Twitter, any other social network is not the place for your drunken pics or the dirty details of your horrible break up. Now, we all have a friend or two that like to share every detail of their life. While we can’t make anyone do anything, we need to warn you, that is not your best idea. That information can always be found, and you as a result could wind up hurting your business.

Would you want to do business with someone who was careless with the details of their life? 

It seems like such a simple solution, yet many do not do this. Treat the online world like it is an extension of your office. Potential clients see you in this mode, and may make decisions about whether or not to do business with you because of what you post. Do you really want to lose money because you can’t keep certain things off Facebook? That is no way to attract or keep business. We need to make sure our accounts don’t get hacked, but we also need to make sure that even our private postings would not embarrass ourselves or anyone else, should they become public.

As long as you realize that anything you post can and will be found, it makes life a lot easier.

Lets use an example: say you sell skateboards. You are not going to market to 35 year old housewives. That would be a waste of time and money. You want the 18-25 year old male crowd. What are they doing? What do they like? Think about what else they might be doing with their time besides skateboarding. What music do they listen to? What websites are they on? Make that picture as complete as possible. Then you can move on to really seeing what they are doing online. Some may even want to draw a picture of what their ideal client looks like and even give them a name.

Use listening tools – Your company should be using Google Analytics to see where leads are coming from and should also be using Google Alerts to listen for their brand being talked about online. Once you determine what is being said, you can also determine where they are saying it. Are people blogging about your product? Are they on Twitter? A group on Facebook? Find out where they are. This will also help refine your strategy and trim the fat. You do not need to always be everywhere. What you do need is to be listening, and aware of what your target audience is saying about you good and bad.

Once you have determined who your target audience is, what they like, how they spend their time and most important – where they are online, it is time for the last step. Be where they are. Talk to them. Don’t sell every minute of every day, but be where they are so that they see and think of your brand first. If your brand has been listening properly, and is targeting the right audience, then you can cast your net much easier. Facebook and Twitter are huge, but if our buyer is not there, we do not need to be there. We need to be where our buyers are, and then be useful in a non-spammy way. This keeps us in front of our ideal buyer so that when they are ready to buy they are coming to us and not your competition.

The problem? It was not Coke in a red can. That red can is their branding. Iconic brands like Coke simply do not have the ability to change that drastically and not expect consumer backlash. The consumers thought they were buying Diet Coke, or thought their favorite soda tasted different in a white can. Never mind that Diet Coke is in a silver can. The consumer who is in a rush at the convenience store just wants a can of Coke. People are always in a hurry these days, and so the can needs to be red for those people who are grabbing and going. We are, as consumers so conditioned to loving our brands as they are that we often resist even the smallest change

Take GAP for example. It is not that long ago that GAP decided they wanted to change their shopping bag. They released a new shopping bag that fans hated. They took to the internet to complain and GAP realized it had a major problem. No one wanted the new bag, they wanted the familiar one – the one the branding was built around.

This begs the question – was anyone going to the buyers and asking for input? Coca-Cola has a huge presence in social media. I would have suggested to them to crowd source the new holiday can. Offer a few choices, and let the fans vote.  The can chosen by fan vote becomes the new can. This way, fans can give feedback on why they do or do not like a particular can design and you have the added knowledge of who is voting. Take that data and then work with it to further reach out.

GAP could have avoided disaster too, if they would have done something similar. Both companies pulled the items and GAP had those blue bags back within days. Coke says it may take a bit longer to get a different holiday can onto shelves. Both companies should realize that the way to consumer loyalty is consistency. Change may be fine for your personal life, but brands must stay consistent.

Take Starbucks for example. They changed their logo this year. They kept most of it intact. The green is the same, the lady is the same, the logo is still in a circle. This is how you change a logo and not give yourself a headache. It is changed, but in many ways it is still the same. Had Starbucks changed the shape or the color of the logo, they would have the same problems Coke and GAP had.

Remember, branding is crucial. This is not something to mess with. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Melen LLC finishes in the top three!

About Empact100

Launched by Empact, the Kauffman Foundation, Opportunity International, the Startup America Partnership, and other partners, the Empact100 recognizes successful American-based companies established and run by young entrepreneurs 30 years old and younger. According to their website, the actual Empact100 List is a compilation of companies based on their revenue, but the rank of each company is based on its popularity with clients and fans.  Empact100 commends these companies and young entrepreneurs who work to improve our economy and encourage others to participate in the movement to stimulate our economy. Collectively, the Empact100 companies employ almost three thousand people, and together, they earned a total revenue of over 374 million in 2010. This is all impressive especially when you consider that the average age of the participating company founders is 27 years old. In addition to bragging rights and an award, the honorees were invited to a special recognition event at the White House with senior administration officials.

Young entrepreneurs are not just America’s future. They’re America’s present. The Empact100 list represents the talent and potential of today’s young entrepreneurs. It is meant to inspire others to join the movement to revitalize our economy by starting a business.

-Carl Schramm, CEO, Kauffman Foundation

At a time when it is difficult for many people to simply find employment and as many small businesses are forced to shut down, this kind of support and gratitude is refreshing. The businesses who have worked hard throughout these tough economic should be recognized, and the young entrepreneurs who have not been jaded by the pessimistic state of business should be rewarded. With that said, it is important that we acknowledge all of the businesses who participated in the Empact100 as well as Empact100 and all supporting organizations.

Thank you, and good luck to all in future endeavors!