I meant to put this up yesterday but was inundated and couldnt find a second. Not to mention the computer mishap at home where it wont turn on. Which seriously stinks! But such is life.

Anyway, yesterday the most amazing tweet of all time went out into the interwebs.

If you haven’t heard about this until now, basically, a year ago yesterday, Gloria from @redcross tweeted out that she was getting #slizzered except it came from the Redcross account.

Red Cross tweeted back “We’ve deleted the rogue tweet but rest assured the Red Cross is sober and we’ve confiscated the keys.” I remember Wendy Harman Director of Social Strategy for American Red Cross, discuss this when I was at the Radian6 #social2011 conference in Boston. And it was an excellent presentation!

1 year later, Gloria can joke about it, and Red Cross escaped without any damage done. If this is not a prime example of how to correct a mistake, I don’t know what is.

Recently Pinterest has been the latest buzz in social media driving unreal amounts of traffic to sites. It has grown remarkably fast and apparently is expected to continue this growth.

There is one thing that stands out about Pinterest which I think makes it so valuable. Unlike other networks, what makes Pinterest unique is that users decide what updates they want to see and which streams they want to be apart of.

What do I mean?

On Twitter you follow a user and are subjected to every tweet they send out wheather you like it or not. On Facebook and Google+, it’s a step up in that page owners can put users in a group which they think they belong to. But still, as a user, I cant control what I see.

Pinterest is Different

Pinterest is differnt since users chose which ‘boards’ they want to follow, and which ones they don’t. Below is an example where I have chosen not to follow “09 news and politics”  and “out of doors” but would like to follow “Nerd Alert” and “Awesome Randomness”.

Interest Based User Information

The power is in the hands of the user. And even more, this information is very powerful because the user is already an engaged audience. Its golden!

The Problem

Sadly, there is not yet a way to find out who is following which boards. I speculate that as Pinterest matures, it will start showing this valuable information, opening a while world of tolols for marketers to better understand what drives their audiences. But currently, Pinterest is seriously lacking in this area.

The Solution

My colleague Matt Drobysh shared a great article with me which was all about tips for brands on Pinterest. One of the key tips which jumped out was that brands could EASILY identify users who are already sharing their content. When you think about it, this is incredible information to have since these users are ALREADY engaged with your brand.

All you need to do is type into the brower:

http://pinterest.com/source/digitalhighrise.com/ (replace the URL with your own page)

And this will show you all the content that has been shared from your site.

But still that doesn’t seem to be helpful enough since its hard to extract the information about your audience. So I figured it was time to call in the big guns.

The Solution For the Solution

I told my friend Josh what I was looking to get and within minutes he whipped together this unreal tool which lets you capture your pinterest audience, the ones who have ALREADY shared your information.

The Pinterest Audience tool lives on his site or you can just export a CSV below.

Just drop in that URL from above and the little tool he created will give you a highly target audience.

Export your CSV Here

Commence Rant about Google… Now

Allow me a moment to express my feelings about Google. I am fully aware that there are a lot of “Google haters” out there who believe Google is out to get us, steal our information, control the world, bring about the apocalypse, the list goes on. Same goes for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and any other service that we have willingly given our personal information to. Its kinda strange when you think about it. We willingly give all of our information to them, put all our eggs in their basket, and then go crazy that they are misusing it or making changes which are supposed to improve our experience. Oh, and lets not forget the important changes layout or site re-design.

Every time one of these services change their privacy policy, there is an eruption of criticism with people threatening to protest or leave the service. Honestly, I am more surprised that all these people actually read these privacy agreements in the first place when they first joined, because I know I for sure didn’t.

I just don’t care about these things. If it really bothered me, I would shut down my account. And if it truly bothered enough people, they would ALL shut down their accounts. If all the people who complain took action, eventually, Google, Facebook, etc. would start to get the message (remember the strike against SOPA). But we aren’t seeing that happen.

Why am I writing this now?

For two reasons.

1. Google has recently launched a new change in their privacy policy. This change was prompted because Google has over 70 differnt privacy policies across all their products. I think it makes perfect sense that they merge them. I am personally not at all concerned and doubt very much that  it will change weather or not I use Gmail or any other Google products. In fact, what they are proposing will make the way ads are served to you more relevant. I just don’t see the down side.

2. I just read 2 articles in Search Engine Land. One where Amit Singhal weighs in on Search Plus Your World (SPYW) and the other where Eric Ward said he gets about 6 million pageviews a year to his site, and Google is responsible for less than 6% of those visits (which is incredible and vert smart to diversify). I have no clue why anyone would be annoyed about SPYW. All its goign to do is enhance the user experiance. I will give it to you, currently the product is flawed and Search Results have not brought their A game lately, but I have faith in Google. Sure, they launch products that aren’t finished, but they are always working to improve them. I fail to see why that’s bad. And not only that, we have seen from the launch of Google Plus that not only are they constantly improving, they are also taking user feedback to make these improvements.

If you don’t like it, then do what Eric does. Don’t rely on them. But for sure don’t complain about it. People build entire businesses relying on the free service Google provides and then when it disappears, they cry foul play.

Their Strength is their Weakness

What I see as one of Google’s biggest strength and forward thinking is what they are most often criticized for, which I guess makes sense because thats just how things work (wait, what?!?!). Frankly, it’s insane to me. In fact, just yesterday, I had to clear my cache and SPYW stopped working on my computer. I am distraught over it!

While all the haters are complaining about Google, I will go back to enjoying my Gmail, Google Contacts and Google Calendar which are all synced to my Android powered phone allowing me to get all my information at my fingertips for free. I will also Google maps for directions when I need to get around chicago, along with the handy tool which gives me bus and train times built in. And when I need to call a friend in Canada, I will use my Google Voice account and call them, for free. Or perhaps I could video caht with them on a Google Hangout and bring more then one person into the conversation. Oh, and dare I forget the free, typically highly relevant, information I get when I search in the search engine they have created. Oh, did I mention this was all free?

You have my permission, not that you need it

Google, please continue to grow and innovate. And if that means combining my information to give me a better experience, go for it. I just don’t see a downside.

But please, haters, continue hating.  And watch this to make sure you know what you are really hating

Click here to view the embedded video.

End Rant

I want to be clear, I am striking against censorship! But Aaron Friedman’s little nothing blog on digital strategy shutting the lights and going dark for a day I suspect wont make much of an impact on the interwebs.

The Social Media movement to lobby against these bills has spoken, and we wont tolerate it. So, instead, to show my support, I am posting about the fight against #SOPA and #PIPA with information for you to read.

SIGN THE PETITION HERE AND TAKE ACTION

Why does this matter?

This video will explain it much better than I can:

Basically, the US Senate is considering legislation that would certainly kill the internet as we know it forever. The legislation is called the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), and would put the internet in legal jeopardy if we linked to a site anywhere online that had any links to copyright infringement.

That means, Google, Reddit, Facebook, Wikipedia and other sites that we all know and love will never be the same.

Do we really want to live in a world with this:

This

or this

The Internet has spoken and has had enough. If you are interested in seeing the internet as you know it stick around, then I suggest you join me and sign the petition.

Earlier this week my newest article was posted on Search Engine Land. It was about how to effectively optimize open graph tags and included a study I performed with Brightedge.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about Open Graph tags and how to effectively optimize them so anticipate more around this topic.

And in other cool news, my post, Freshness Update + Social Media = Happy Users was one of the top 20 search and social posts of 2011. So that was pretty exciting!

Now if only I could figure out a way to grow the user base on this blog

Feel free to subscribe!

By now I am sure most people have heard about the potential disaster FedEx was faced with. If not, I will summarize really quickly.

Basically, a guy caught a FedEx delivery driver on his home surveillance camera throwing a new LCD Monitor over the fence.

Here is the video if you are interested:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Obviously the internet went crazy about this and FedEx was potentially faced with a serious problem on their hands. Andy Beal, a blogger who I often read, rightfully asked everyone for their opinion on how they thoguht FedEx should respond to this. At the time I didnt say anything because, well, we have all seen how this goes. Companies often dig their own grave and everyone else learns from their mistakes.

Andy wrote a follow up titled FedEx Delivery Driver Debacle Ends With a Whispered Apology. The point he was trying to make was that since the situation has gone global and viral with over 2.6 Million views on Youtube, you have to wonder why FedEx isn’t doing more to protect its reputation.

But in this case, I don’t agree AT ALL with Andy. I think FedEx handled the situation flawlessly.

• They responded quickly
• They corrected the problem and
• They kept it an internal private and isolated incident

And sure enough, it worked. I haven’t heard much chatter about it and I know my twitter feed has NOT been going nuts abuot this. Well done FedEx! You set a great example for how to handle an isolated incident. Don’t make a big deal and it will subside. The dust will settle. 

Today is the last day of #Movember. Honestly, I have to admit, it has been a journey on so many levels.

Let me explain and try to sum up a month of experiences into this one small post.

First of all, without doing much promotion at all, my team raised over 2K. Good job everyone! That in itself is great to know that we helped raise money to support a good cause.

A few other insights that came out of participating in Movember:

• People are much quicker to ask about a mustache then they are about a beard. The simple fact that the MO was there, made people pause and seemingly gave them permission to start talking about it. I can’t explain the logic behind it, but something about a mustache causes people to talk. Which is why I think the guys who created Movember are some kind of insightful marketing geniuses.  I will admit that it was a relief to shave my stash last night knowing that I won’t get that question for another 11 months. But I liked telling the story. People didn’t always understand how a mustache cures cancer (my movember rebuttal post will have to be more thorough next year), but they were asking the questions and I told them it was for charity they usually just nodded and walked away. This was probably the best accomplishment of this entire month. Because I knew what to talk about, I was prepared to answer people’s questions or send them in the right direction for answers. For sure more people heard me talk about Movember than contributed money, but that in itself was an accomplishment.

• Stepping outside your comfort zone:  I regularly get into a conversation with a friend in my office about her comfort level using social media. You might guess by the simple fact that I have not linked to her that her comfort level is low (to say the least). Finally, I made a breakthrough while talking about the mustache that one of the great accomplishments with it is stepping outside of your comfort zone. I am a regular reader of Matt Cutts blog and something he has been doing, which I never gave much thought to, are 30 challenges. Staying committed to something new outside your comfort zone helps you grow as a person and experience new things. It keeps life exciting. Well, I consider this mustache a sign of commitment and the accomplishment of my first 30 challenge. My Next 30 day challenge will start soon. I think I will try meditation for 15 minutes a day.

A few more learning’s:

• When you have a mustache and your kid throws a temper tantrum in the aquarium, people WILL give you strange looks when you try to pull him away.
• Everyone has a doppelganger that not only looks like you, but apparently does the same things at the same time as you.

Well, that’s all I got for now. Thank you everyone for helping out, supporting a great cause and tolerating my Mo.

Mustache, out!