We are a culture that dreams big and we are continuing to realize the depths of our creativity through the tools that enable us. The expectation that the iPad contributes to what’s already been done is a huge fallacy. Here’s the crazy part – innovation doesn’t need to be over-baked and over-complex. It can be as subtle as doctors switching out their clipboards with iPads or allowing building contractors the ability take notes and review blueprints while staying mobile. Guess what? There’s no more worrying about a broken key on your keyboard or a squeaky mouse. It’s innovation by cutting out the barriers and providing what works.

The iPad is here and it will provide us with what the Tablet PC didn’t – a great experience and the ability to extend beyond what is possible. We are transitioning from “Cloud Computing” to “On the Go Computing” which is what Marc Benioff (CEO of SalesForce.com) has identified as Cloud 2. Do we know if the iPad is there yet? I’m not sure, but it is one giant leap towards opening the doors to a new realm of innovation and creativity.

• 50 Tools that can Improve Your Writing Skills (Dumb Little Man)
• HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI (Mashable)
• Things to ask before you redo your website (Seth Godin)
• 10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines (Smashing Magazine)
• Six Social Media Trends for 2010 (Harvard Business Review)
• 73 Ways to Become a Better Writer (Copyblogger)
• The Three Spheres of Web Strategy (Jeremiah Owyang)
• The five pillars of success (Seth Godin)
• 10 Things to Consider when Writing for the Web (Carsonified)
• Social Media, Web 2.0 and Internet Stats (FutureBuzz)
• 10 Harsh Truths About Corporate Websites (Smashing Magazine)
• 8 Predictions for SEO in 2010 (SEOmoz)
• Top 5 Web Trends of 2009 (RWW)
• 5 Ways to Get Your Blog Indexed by Google in 24 hours (ProBlogger)
• Best and Worst Practices Social Media Marketing (Online Marketing Blog)
• Social Media Analytics: Twitter – Quantitative & Qualitative Metrics (Occam’s Razor)
• 11 Ways to Influence People Online and Make Them Take Action (Dosh Dosh)
• Write Better Blog Posts Today (Chris Brogan)
• Framing the Future of Analytics: Top Five Trends (Web Analytics World)

Did I miss anything? What were your favorite posts?

The way to best examine your actionable intent is to walk through an extreme scenario so you can develop some fresh insights. The output of this exercise is to strengthen your ability to make strong actionable decisions in circumstances when it’s not all that clear (or when it’s just the small bumps).

Scenario – Joe’s Hat Outlet (website)

Figure 1 – August ‘09	Figure 2 – Sept ‘09

Joe’s Hat Outlet is a small ecommerce website that features a small selection of baseball hats. As you analyze the data, Figure 1 shows 862 visits (29 visits/day) for the month of August. The trend line next to the number shows that 862 is pretty average for the month.

Now look at Figure 2. What would happen if you checked the metrics for Joe’s Hat Outlet one month later and noticed a major increase of 1000 visits? That’s over a 100% increase for one month! Before you go outside to hug the mailman you’d probably want to do some double checking. Time to investigate some possible causes and effects. At this point, you’re now exploring your actionable intent and this is where you can start taking down notes. You’ve created the extreme scenario, now create some hypothetical responses…it’s OK to get a little creative here.

Investigate the following when walking through the scenario:

1. What questions am I formulating?
   - Did Joe’s Hats go viral?
   - Was there an article or blog post written about Joe’s Hats?
   - Could the website handle an increase in visitors like that?
   - Was the spike instantaneous or was it gradual over the month?
2. How would I investigate this (metrics)?
   - Examine where visits are coming from.
   - Examine bounce rate
   - Examine conversions: increase or decrease?
   - Visits coming from returning or new visitors?
3. What are some potential causes?
   - Joe’s Hat Outlet was featured in an external source
   - The outlet is carrying a rare hat
   - Website got positioned high for a competitive keyword
4. What does this value mean?
   - Visits more than doubled to the website in 1 month
5. What action would you recommend be taken?
   - Make sure the website can handle the spike in visits
   - Ensure that top entry pages have strong call-to-actions matching visitor intent
   - Apply A/B testing to top entry pages
6. What outcome would you expect from that action?
   - Server load testing
   - Increased conversion rate

And there you have it. What you’re doing here is exercising your analytical mind to come up with some new ideas for taking action (actionable intent). What you’re taking away is a list of clear insights to apply to your smaller analysis needs. Take these insights and examine how you can apply them to the current situation whether it be in small does or on a bigger scale. This is a great exercise to break out every 6 months for proactive approach to developing fresh ideas and insights.

Bonus: Once you’ve completed that exercise for a potential spike, create the scenario from the other side of the spectrum – a major plunge in a core metric. Go through the same process of questions.

1. “Dive in and ask for forgiveness later”
   If you’ve attended social media presentations or read from the experts, then you’ve likely heard this line before. It sounds great and enticing, but it should (and typically does) come with a disclaimer. The problem with this idea is that “diving in” shouldn’t mean bypassing the planning stage. Without a plan, campaigns are susceptible to derailment and/or abandonment. So, while the “dive in” approach isn’t terribly wrong, it needs to include some direction. When considering this approach, consider the people, objectives, strategy, and technology (or the POST Method) and create a basic plan behind this. The plan might not be perfect at first, but that’s OK because you can always change it later.
2. “Set it and forget it” **
   In the corporate environment, it’s easy to jump from project-to-project. Many marketing campaigns follow the process of “create, deploy, measure and move on”, but this approach is not effective in the social channel. For corporations to simply move on from a social campaign, they risk diminishing the trust of their loyal customers and brand champions. While it goes without saying, corporations must embrace a plan for the long-term and continue to nurture their social strategy along the way.
3. “We are in control”
   This is another way of looking at the improper evaluational of the risks. In some cases, there are corporations that give up too much control with a false sense of thinking that they are in control. Do I dare bring up the Skittles social experiment? While corporations can control the message, the audience will do whatever they want with it. In most cases, the more control you give up the bigger the payoff but the risk will be high as well. With that said, corporations must consider the risks and be prepared to take action if needed. Either over-prepare or think through if it’s really worth it.
4. “The campaign must be successful”
   Measuring ROI in social campaigns isn’t always cut and dry. Short-term measurement can be especially difficult and can be easily diagnosed as a failure. Corporations must not get discouraged by this and must realize that short-term setbacks are inevitable. Allowing these set-backs (or failures) to happen are a part of the process. Progression in the social space, requires a bit of trial-and-error and the reaction to these failures will dictate the long-term success. Addressing these failures to your audience allows for a great opportunity to humanize the company and build even stronger trust among the customers. Corporations must avoid succeeding from a social strategy at the first sign of failure. Keep focus on the overarching social strategy and long-term success will be achievable.

** If you remember Ron Popeil, he caramelized the line “Set it and Forget it” with his infomercial of the Showtime Rotisserie Oven.

The next day I woke up to my Oh Crap Moment. I just registered to attend SXSW and I’m going alone. No sidekick. No wingman. Just me and the driving force to go outside my comfort zone. The only way I can describe it is that it’s like when you are ready to go sky diving for the first time and you step to the door of the plane. What comes next is that Oh Crap Moment. Every thought and reflex in you mind tells you to turn around and sit down. But if you dig down deep and find the fire in yourself, you can take that next leap and start flying (or you’re pushed by your instructor). While you’re free falling the feeling is freedom. Freedom of pushing past a barrier. You’re now in control of yourself.

After you land safely, you take a long gaze up in the sky to determine if it really was worth it. It’s about pushing past that barrier that instinctively tells you to turn around. What I’ve learned is that if you want others to trust in you, you must first trust in yourself. You will succeed if you believe in yourself and the payoff will be as big as the barrier you’ll break through.

Stay tuned…

We’re still learning
There has been a lot of great information pushed out on social media and yet we are still baffled on how to use it for ourselves. Filtering through all the clutter of articles and blog posts can be a battle. We’ve spent all these years creating billboards and banner ads and now speaking directly to our audience is easier than ever! Unfortunately, “passive” marketing is what we learned, while interactive marketing was still the future. We seek quality information and gravitate towards articles that educated us.

Articles that tell us:

• What is social media?
• How do I use it? (who to engage with and tools to use)
• What can it do for me? (ROI)
• How are others using it? (case studies)
• What are some tips and hints?
• The are the risks? (reputation management)

The very articles we create and learn from become accessories in the social media circuit.

The Recession
Times are hard and we need to pinch pennies the best we can. In many ways the recession has accelerated the acceptance into social media out of pure necessity. Consumers have become more conscious of what they buy and word-of-mouth has become more powerful than ever. With people losing their jobs and they’re finding better ones via LinkedIn. Coupons and deals are cropping up everywhere and people are using tools like Twitter to find them. The point is that people are actively using social networking sites to find shortcuts. It’s up to the marketers to place those shortcuts correctly and capitalize on them. There are opportunities tucked away in this recession that have yet to emerge. As marketers, we seek to find this information.

Power of the Masses
Being a marketer you’re constantly looking for ways to stimulate interest in your product or service. Social media has put marketers in direct conversation with their consumers, but the masses is what really counts. We seek to find ways to energize the target audience through thought leadership and with the help of key influencers. The people in power are the people who can lead the masses.

It’s the Future
Let’s face it, our youth has embraced technology and social media more than we could have imagined. As we’re still learning of all the facets of social media, the upcoming generation has already generated full acceptance. A generation of youth comes up behind us that will not only be technologically savvy but will rewrite our best practices and create new ways of using social media. While we will write about ways to use social media, our youth will write about ways to use social media better. Social media is on track to continuously grow and in essence be very profitable.

Conclusion
While we may be convinced of the power of social media, convincing the decision makers is still the major piece of the puzzle in which we all struggle. It’s true social media has its risks and taking risks in today’s economy for some just isn’t possible. All we can do is outfit ourselves with as much information as possible, which is why our fascination with social media will continue. For many web marketers, social media is a trail of new opportunities waiting to be explored.

Pros:

• Clean, bite-sized stats and facts.
• Organized nicely by categories.
• A lot of potential for growth.

Cons:

• User interface is a little constrictive.
• Focused on collecting Internet stats for the UK. What about the US?
• Needs to be populated with more facts and stats.

Overall, this is an interesting step for Google to take and it still has a “beta” feel to it, which could potentially mean that it’s a precursor for something bigger yet to come.

• The People of Walmart – a collection of all the creatures that grace us with their presence at Walmart, America’s favorite store.
• Craigslist: Clowns for Kicks – anybody looking for a side job? Whether it’s real or not, this is one of the funniest Craigslist postings I’ve seen.
• Hitler Discovers He’s on Youtube – Hitler finally gets an Internet connection and he is none to happy to find out he’s been made fun of all this time.
• Brett Favre Sears Commercial Outtakes – at least Favre can make fun of himself.
• Stuff My Dad Says – one of the hottest viral sensations right now, Justin (a 28-year-old who moved back home with his dad) tweets everything his dad says. Let’s just say that his dad says some pretty vulgar but funny stuff which could be considered “synonymous with human waste that is unsuitable for a family publication”.

• Find a Purpose – this can be pretty obvious to some but can be more difficult for others. At the very least figure out what you’d like to accomplish. Don’t waste your time trying to figure out measurable goals right out of the gates. A simple purpose can help you develop your measurements along the way.
• Keep Learning – you don’t need to have all the answers to social media before you jump in. Have some goals and ideas ready (or a purpose) and then jump in (almost all the speakers expressed this idea). Build your strategy as you go and maintain the understanding that it needs to be an ongoing learning process. Constant measurement and evaluation is crucial for planning and honing your strategy. Much of social media is trial-and-error. Don’t be afraid to make some mistakes.
• Where to start? Internally – it’s amazing how much you can learn by the example of your own company base. Before you bust into an external social media strategy, launch your strategy internally and observe. This benefits by helping you build knowledge of what works and what doesn’t. In the grand scheme this will also help promote social advocacy by internal employees.
• Be Transparent – not only is this ethically right, but it’s what the groundswell expects. Lack of transparency in the corporate social media can lead to low acceptance and can sometimes have some harsh negative effects. Disclose your intentions, never pay for endorsements, and make sure your ads look like ads. “I work for ____, and this is my opinion”
• Humanize Your Company – by giving your social media team their own image and allowing their own opinions you create a more approachable environment. People want to engage with people (examples: Matt Cutts – Google; Jeremiah Owyang – Forrester Research). There are times when you can’t please everybody, but respect and trust is gained when the message is geniune and from the people.
• Listen > Participate > Lead –  your audience can make you or break you, so you must pay attention and listen to them. Participate as much as possible with your audience to gain trust and acceptance. Finally, once trust is established – lead the message.
• 70/30 Rule – try to develop an equation for how you engage with your audience. In this case, the 70/30 rule means 70% of your content should matter to your consumer while no more than 30% should be about (or promoting) your company. This can vary based on your business, but the key point is to put the focus on giving back before you receive.
• Build Content from the Users – the best kept secret with social media is that if you play your strategy correctly, your audience will naturally build out the content and spread the word for you. Once trust is gained, you just need to create the channels for your audience to engage with. Some prime examples are with Ford’s Fiesta campaign or the Betty Crocker community.

1. Evernote (your scratchpad for note taking and research)
   If you haven’t heard about Evernote yet then you’re gravely missing out. Evernote allows you to collect information for your own repository from the web. It’s a great tool for research and information gathering. The more I work with it, the more I love it. Let it be your quick snippet information repository and reference it when you can’t quite remember where you heard that great tidbit.
   Tip: don’t get stuck trying to organize your notes, focus on gathering.
2. Delicious (your online bookmarking)
   This was a big jump for me. For the longest time I’ve used the built-in browser bookmarking utilities – FireFox uses “Bookmarks” and Internet Explorer uses “Favorites”. After years of bookmarking things my bookmarks have turned into something emulating my college dorm room from freshman year (disclosure: picture knee deep dirty clothes strewn everywhere). Delicious is the remedy for this painful occurrence and the best part is that it resides on the web so you don’t have to worry about losing anything when you switch computers. You can share bookmarks too – check out my Delicious bookmarks.
   Tip: again, don’t get caught up in trying to organize all your bookmarks. Stick with the default tags provided by Delicious and utilize the search feature for finding bookmarks.
3. Popurls (your eye on what’s hot in the news)
   I’ve grown to love this web site and I check it religiously a couple times a day. Popurls states that it is the “Mother of All Aggregators” and I would totally agree. While it could be geared more towards the the social media power user it provides a great mash-up of all the latest news and trends from all the big web sources. Great for getting a quick snapshot of what’s hot and generating ideas.
   Tip: Popurls works great with the iPhone and mobile phones.
4. Alltop (your favorite feeds)
   Just think of Popurls but you have control over what feeds are shown. Great tools for creating your own mash-up of your favorite feeds. Check out MyAlltop page.
   Tip: Browse the topics from the homepage that you are interested in to find great feeds.
5. Twitter (your audience)
   I consider Twitter to be my best judgement of my blog audience. Use twitter to keep an eye on what your audience is buzzing about and how they’re reacting. Your followers are following you for a reason and believe it or not some like what you have to say. Use this to your advantage and find out what your followers are buzzing about.
   Tip: Pay attention to the users who Re-Tweet or engage with you.
6. Google Reader (your deep research tool)
   There’s just so many blogs and feeds out there. Whenever I come across a blog that’s enticing and shows promise of good content, I add it to my Google Reader and categorize it appropriately. While the reader is great, the most under-rated feature Google Reader has is its search feature. Now that my feed base is pretty well established (297 feeds) I now utilize the built-in search feature for collecting good information around a topic.
   Tips: a couple of my favorite feeds that I enjoy reading are Problogger (focuses on blogging and writing) and Chris Brogan (all things social media).
7. Google Documents (where you start to compile your blog posts)
   Where you write your blog post is important. I use Google Docs. Prior to utilizing Google Docs I used MS Word and the actual blog WYSIWYG. The problem with MS Word is that the documents live in one location (probably on your computer). The problem with using the blog WYSIWYG was that it distracted me from the writing component. Styling and imagery becomes an obsession. Instead, use Google Docs to focus just on the writing and when you’re ready transfer your post to the blog WYSIWYG to focus on the styling and imagery. The best part is that you can access Google Docs from anywhere.
   Tip: If you have a guest blogger or co-contributor, utilize the share feature for collaboration.