Blog

Today, as I was going through my RSS reading, I came across a great article from Hubspot that vindicated my point. As you can read from the chart below (Chart Credit: Hubspot awesome Marketing Blog), “85% of users ranked company blogs as useful or better…”.
This is to show that Blogging can be, and should be, included in all small business social media marketing plans.
As I wrote before, it takes time, effort, and dedication. But, the ROI is much higher than any other social media sites!
If you are a small business owner and not yet blogging about your expertise, you are missing a great (cheap) opportunity to connect  with your customers.

Hubspot Chart

Social Media Hierarchy

I read an interesting article today titled “How Small Business Is Using Social Media”. The article presented data about social media sites that business owners choose to use to interact with their customers. What struck as odd in this article is the fact that having a Blog represented only 39% of what Business Owners choose to use as a way to communicate with their customers. I mean, what is a better way to educate your customers about your services and products than writing about it in a way they can understand?

As the chart below shows (copied from source itself), the most popular social media tools that are being used are also the easiest to create. It does not take more than 20-45 minutes to create a (good) Facebook page or a LinkedIn account (45 minutes if you have a lot of information to upload), but does it mean you are actually educating your customers about your products or services? I doubt it. Facebook, and LinkedIn can serve as a good distribution, customer service and listening platforms, no question about it, but what you really need to ask yourself as a business owner is this: what value am I adding to my costumers? Most likely not as much as writing a Blog about your area of expertise will.

How Small Business Are Using Social Media

The reason I think the percentage number of starting a blog is low is quite obvious. Blogging means hard work, period. First, you need to develop a good content strategy, then you need to optimize each page for keywords, and after that you need to find your “writing voice” (and also keep this “voice”), and to top all this you need to find your audience and create GOOD content. As you can now see, starting and maintaining a good Blog is a not an easy task if you have a busy schedule, but so as spending hours on Facebook, and LinkedIn every single day to monitor your clients activity.

The percentage number of starting a Blog is low, yes, but  I reckon that if the chart were to examine the ROI of each of these three social media approaches (Facebook,  LinkedIn and Blog) in the long run, starting a Blog will stand on top of the pyramid.

The Hierarchy of your Social Media approach as a small business owner should place starting a Blog on top, ahead of other social media channels. When people talk about ROI in the social media world, Blogging, in my opinion, can be a significant factor.

Remember this: content is king, no doubt, but creating value for your customers is the entire kingdom.

What do you think? Do you agree that Blogging can provide a better value to Small Businesses than Facebook,  or LinkedIn?

Google Chrome is my favorite browser for many reasons. One of the main reason, though, is the ability to install Chrome Extensions that can make the experience of using the internet to a fun (and addicting) experience.

There are thousands of extensions available on the Chrome Extensions website, and many of them are worth mentioning. Today, however, I am only going to cover one extension that really turned my Gmail into a Social Media central command. The extension is named “Gmail Facebook Integration”, and can be found by clicking here.

This extension will allow you to see friends notifications and newsfeed updates by simply staying in your Gmail Inbox (see photo below, or click here to see full photo). Furthermore, it will allow you to update your Facebook statues and share links on your wall without, again, leaving your Inbox. With Google Buzz, Facebook and Twitter already in my Inbox, I now have total control over my Social Media channels (well, some of them). The extension is fairly easy to install. Once you download it, all you have to do is allow it to connect to your Facebook, and viola! You have Facebook in your Gmail (Note: it will only work if you are using Google Chrome as your browser).

I want to mention that the Extension is not perfect, and there are many Facebook features it does not support yet. But, for the purpose of checking newsfeed updates, commenting on friends status updates, and updating your status it actually does very well.

Click the image blow to see the full description:

Gmail Facebook Integration

Google Buzz

On February 8 2010, 106.5 million viewers sat in front of their TV screens to watch Super-Bowl XLIV. In the third quarter of the most watchable game in the United States, Google launched its first Super-Bowl ad, demonstrating the company’s search functionalities. The ad created a lot of “noise” on Twitter, mainly by people who criticized Google for its lame attempt. Videos were made mocking Google, Hashtags were created on Twitter discussing and mocking the ad, and Blog posts were written left and right about Google’s ad.  People did exactly what Google expected them to do, they tweeted about Google, they mentioned the name Google in their blog posts, and they even talked about it at work with their colleagues. Google’s brilliant PR plan was working, and it was time for Google to shout back. The masses were ready to listen.

On Monday February 9 2010, less than 24 hours after the Super-Bowl game,  Google officially announced its entrance into the Social Media Sphere by launching Buzz. By Wednesday February 11 2010, two days only after it was officially launched, tens of millions of people have checked Buzz out, creating over 9 million posts and comments.  On top of this, there were also 200 posts per minute from mobile phones around the world. Brilliant marketing!

It is too early to tell, regardless of how impressive this data might be, what direction Buzz will take. What I can say at this point is what I think about Buzz thus far:

The Good

• Sharing on Buzz is much easier than any other social media service available out there. Pictures, videos, maps, and files can easily be shared in a few easy and fast steps (hmm, a sign to Facebook?).
• Unlike Twitter, replies are easy to follow as they appear under the original Buzz. In a way (no surprise there) it reminds me of Google Wave.
• Notifications are easy to find, although I do have an issue with this topic that I plan to cover  next.
• It has a huge Inbound Marketing potential, simply because information is delivered to our Inbox constantly. We can choose to erase it, but before we do so we still get a chance to read some of it. Companies that use Inbound Marketing the right way (Like this company), will have no problem getting attention from its followers.

The Bad

Unfortunately, there are many flaws that need to be addressed by Google,  but I am hoping it won’t be long before Google fixes them (there are already some major improvements taking place as I am writing this).

• No direct tweet. This is probably the most frustrating flaw I think Google should address. In fact, there is no way to choose which social channel one prefers to use. It took me an entire day to understand how the Twitter function worked (even though I did set my Twitter account in the Buzz settings).
• There is a significant delay with Tweets showing up on the Buzz stream, sometimes up to 5 hours! This is something that in the world of Social Media is unheard of. It almost seems to me Google is trying to push users to use Buzz directly, and not “migrate” to other social sites.
• One needs to have a Gmail account to operate Buzz. No Gmail, no Buzz. Isn’t that a bit pushy by Google? I am not sure if Google got scared of Facebook’s ultimate plan launching its own Email service, but to me it is a bit limiting.
• There is no tutorial videos/posts by Google. I know it has nothing to do with Buzz per se, but it does reflect something on Google as a whole. I personally learned about Buzz functionalities by using Twitter hashtags like #googlebuzz, and #buzz.

The Ugly

Design is something that is very subjective, thus I do not intend to discuss the design per se, but more like the way interaction appears on Buzz in the eyes of the user.

• The more people you follow, the more crowded and “noisy” your stream looks. It feels and looks like a social “soup”, with topics vary from Tech to marketing to private mundane messages. This to me is something that can be fixed by simply creating “lists” (the same lists Twitter and Facebook use) that can help organize and categorize  contacts.
• There are too many changes that need to be done in the settings section. A service should be something that is easy to use, and not a “seek and hide” procedure.
• There is a lot of information floating in the buzz stream that some users might not want to share with others. This function was uncleared to a few people I spoke to, and some of the “private” chats that were taking place among users were actually “public” for all to see and read. You can change this function in the settings, but it should have been clarified by Google from the onset.

In sum, we need to keep in mind that Google is a Data company, and not a social media company. If Google wants to succeed in this already competitive crowded market, they will need to listen and implement some of the changes users are “buzzing” about. And, because it is such a fast moving market, they will have to act fast if they plan to stand side by side with social media giants like Facebook and Twitter.  I have to admit that I am quite excited about this service, simply because it introduces progress and innovation in the way we interact online, and with that in mind I do look forward to experimenting more of what it has to offer, preferably during this coming weekend. Hmm, does it make me a social media geek?

What is your take on Buzz? Did you like it? Are you currently using it? I would love to read your opinion.

Social Media Hub

Facebook has completed a series of changes to its service in the past several months. The last of these changes was completed a few days ago and calls for a special attention simply because Facebook had just redefined its role in the Social Media sphere.

People I spoke to in the past 3 three days did not like (an understatement) the new design. The opinions vary from person to person, but mainly they tend to focus on the design, or the look if you will.

To be perfectly fair, design is something that is very subjective. One person’s favorite design is another person least favorite design. With this in mind, trying to analyze a business that is a content/search/social media based business by sheerly focusing on design is like trying to rank a Blog by its sheer look and not its content. It is simply the wrong way.

I tried, therefore, to put things in order and share with you my view on Facebook’s new design. Also in this post, where I think Facebook is heading in 2010, and how Facebook is turning into the biggest Social Media Hub.

This is how it translates from a Social Media perspective:

• We now have the ability to Bookmark applications. You can bookmark your favorite applications using the “Add Bookmark” button in an application, this will allow a one-click access to your bookmarked applications from the left-hand menu. This to me sounds as if Facebook is trying to create a Delicious Bookmark service.

• The left column gives a very RSS feed like feeling. Notifications, news, and updates  seem to appear live. The dashboard is surfacing the most recent application activity and your friends’ activity, which to me resembles a RSS feed feature.

• The new Email approach is very welcomed in my opinion. I really found the process of opening private messages on Facebook tedious. I do have to admit that the new email system reminds me very much a Gmail mobile experience. I want to dare and say that Facebook is heading toward taking a slice of the Email market, and to be honest I think they have a great advantage if they decide to do so. In the future, I will not be surprised if your new Facebook email address would look like this: Username@facebook.com. Hmm, did anyone say Email Marketing? This will open a great debate in the Inbound Marketing community.

• Another proof that Facebook is turning into a Social Media Hub is their plan to upgrade its photo service. Upload photos, and creating new albums on Facebook is also a tedious process. This process is coming to an end, and soon we will all experience a new way to share and upload photos to our Facebook account (installing a plug-in is required). I am not going to go into details, but it is very much similar to the Flickr service

• The Chat application had also received an upgrade, and a big one too. By shifting it to the left side column, Facebook is saying that they want us to pay attention to it. What you see is a list of some of your online friends in the left-hand menu. This list is not comprehensive, but includes people who you communicate with frequently. I think Facebook has bigger plans than we actually think. I will not be surprised to see in the near future some sort of a Mobile interaction, the same one we saw in Google Voice, and  Skype.

The list goes on and on, but suffice it to say that Facebook is slowly shifting itself to become the biggest Social Media Hub in the Online sphere, or at least is trying to, and it will be interesting to see how things will develop in the year 2010.

What do you think? Do you think Facebook can become to Social Media what Google is to Search?

Steve Jobs with the iPad

For the past year now, just like many other tech geeks, I followed the numerous rumors covering the biggest event of the year, the upcoming (now released) Apple iPad. Finally, after long waiting, Steve Jobs introduced the iPad to the public in an event that was broadcasted live…from an iPhone. Apparently, Apple did not allow any camera crews to broadcast the event to the masses. Strange, but it is not why I write this post.

By now, there are possibly hundreds of blog posts floating in the blogosphere covering every inch of the iPad, analyzing the pros and cons, and telling us why we should or should not purchase an iPad. Fair enough, but still it is not why I write this post.

There is also a lot of disappointment among many tech geeks who think that Apple did not do enough to provide an “iPhone like” product, something that will flip the industry upside-down, and will create the same revolution the iPhone created when it was first released. Good point, but wait, did Apple really talk about a revolution?

This type of high expectations unleashed quite few reviews, most of them negative reviews, numbering the reasons why iPad is a big disappointment.

The question that came to my mind is this: Is it fair/right to blame Apple for the lack of adobe flash, camera, signing with AT&T, not providing USB port, not having E-Ink for easy E-book reading, lack of multitasking, no drag and drop management, no SD slot, no HDMI Out, no 1080 Playback, no Native Widescreen, no full GPS, no Open SDK? The answer, I think, should be No. I will explain:

All the features I mentioned are great and needed features, but unfortunately we, the masses, created them. All the rumors and speculations we read over the past year, created in our mind the “perfect’ iPad. The iPad we, the masses, wanted to have, and the iPad we the masses thought Apple will introduce.

I agree the lack of all the features I mentioned above left a somewhat bitter taste from yesterday’s event, almost a defeat, if you will, to our high exceptions. But wait, I see hope in the horizon. Look at Apple’s products over the years (iPod, Macs, iPhones, etc), they all prevailed, and they all started as a tool that lacked one or two features (e.g. iPod: was too big. iPhone: not as fast as 3GS). No matter which Apple product you will pick, they all ended up turning into something we never expected (a great example would be the latest redesign of the iPod Nano).

When I talk to Apple users/fans all over the world, I always detect the sense of pride and admiration they hold toward Apple products. There is always the feeling that you are talking to Steve Jobs himself. In that sense, I can see why people will get angry with Apple, almost resentful at the fact that they did not release the iPad we ALL wanted, you know, the one that “will show” Microsoft who is the boss, who will teach Google how it should really be.

No, not yesterday, not today, and probably not tomorrow either. Apple is a company that strives on innovation, true, but it is also a company that is strategic, and their strategy this time is simply to “wait”. There are currently at least 5 companies who are developing a tablet, and one of them is a big “whale” name Google, thus from a strategic point of view it would not make sense to introduce a full product when your competitor is trying to learn your steps.

In sum, even though we did not get the iPad we all desired, the future for this type of devices looks promising then ever, and in many ways the current iPad is indeed a revolution.

Do you agree?

I attached a video of a different point of view :-) enjoy:

One of the more memorable event for me in Cambridge was attending the Hubspot.TV online show, and get a taste of what I like to call the number one Marketing Software company that invented Inbound Marketing, and redefined Marketing entirely.

The work atmosphere at Hubspot offices is something I have never experienced before. I felt it the moment I stepped in the doors, and it stayed with me hours after I left. There are “vibes” coming out from every corner, and the short walk from the front door to the “studio” was full of a positive overwhelming feeling. This is how I define a workplace you actually happy to go to every morning.

Before I go ahead and write about the show, I have to state a few facts:

First: Mike Volpe is much taller than I thought he was. With all seriousness, he is quite tall and big too (in a good way).

Second, Karen Rubin is not short at all. I know she might look short on the 13.2” screen, but in person she is quite tall. More on Karen Rubin, she was actually the first person to introduce herself to me. She remembered me from a twit I left a few days prior to the show. Thanks Karen, it was nice meeting you (thanks for the stickers too, I have them on my Mac already :-).

Okay, back to the review.

It was very interesting to actually meet all the people in person. Brian Halligan, Rick Burnes, Rebecca Corllis, and many more. I did not realize it until the end of the show, but Brian Halligan (CEO of Hubspot) was actually sitting behind me, and at the end of the show he took the initiative to introduce himself to me. We chatted for a few minutes about random topics such as where I am from, and what I do for a living. I noted to him how much I admire everything Hubspot has been doing in the past 2 years, and was hoping that maybe one day I can find myself working for them (wishful thinking at this point -:) .

The room itself was packed with people (I am not sure how many, but it looked like a good 80-90 people), drinking free beers and enjoying different snacks. I never thought the show had so many people, but it did, and it was great.

Overall, it was a great experience. I only wish I lived in Cambridge again, so I can attend the show every week. Maybe next year, when (hopefully) I will come back to Cambridge to complete my MBA.

Hubspot.tv

Hubspot.tv

Our next and final stop after the Indian Restaurant, was Finale Desserterie and Bakery in Cambridge.

Finale is a place we always associate more with good memories with friends and family,  than with its delicious desserts. We used to go there so often, that by now we are familiar with most of their wonderful desserts.

We decided to order three different plates to share with each other.

Our first dessert was the Molten Chocolate signature desserts. The Molten is a baked-to-order warm chocolate cake with a gooey center, served with coffee gelato, milk chocolate covered almonds and Valrhona chocolate sauce. This is a rich and tasty dessert.

Our second dessert was the Boston Cream cake. The Boston Cream features a delicious yellow cake, cream and chocolate. Also includeed are chocolate whoopee pies, a vanilla gelato sandwich with cherry almond florentines, apricot sauce and fresh fruit. We enjoyed this one.

Our third and last dessert was the Hot Fudge Sundae. If you love Sundae ice cream, this one is for you. It featured Tahitian vanilla gelato with fudge brownie pieces, hot Valrhona fudge sauce, fresh whipped cream and topped with a candied maraschino cherry. Heaven!

To be honest, we could not finish all of what we ordered. We came to Finale soon after we finished eating at the Indian restaurant. A better idea would have been to take a long break, and then come to Finale. It was still very good, and highly recommended. If you find yourself in Cambridge, craving for something sweet, Finale is definitely a place you want to try.

Finale Desserts

Saturday night we decided to explore some Indian food, and the first place that came to mind was Tamarind Bay in Cambridge. Irm dined in the place a few times, so we decided to follow her advice

The restaurant is very small, and located at the basement level. There is something about small restaurants that does not agree with me, but it was not that bad that I was going to say no to a good Indian food.

For appetizers, we had the Chilli Batata: Potato edges and bell peppers cooked in chili sauce. This dish was very delicious, and also spicy (very spicy), so I suggest ordering some Naan to go along with it.

Our second appetizer was the Saag Aloo Tikki:  Spinach & potato cakes served with tamarind and mint chutney. This dish is highly recommended. The combination of the mint and spinach is a culinarily haven, especially when topped with the special sauce that is provided.

For our entrées we ordered three different dishes:

The Raahra Gosht, lamb simmered in a wok over a period of time until it turns crisp brown & garnished with fresh coriander, was a bit too oily to my taste. In fact, it was our least favorite dish because of its high level of oil (literally, the lamb was floating in oil). Suffice it to say we did not particularly like the dish, although it was not so bad that we could not finish it.

Our second entrée, Bhindi Adrak okra seasoned with ginger and onions sauce, was a little bit better, but we found the okra to be somewhat softer than traditional Bhindi (it had “mashed potato” like consistency).

Our third entrée was the Murge Malai Palak. Tender pieces of chicken cooked in spinach & cream sauce. The dish is a good choice if you enjoy eating creamy spinach and chicken. I thought it tasted better mixed with the Raahra Gosht, but it is only me.

We did not order any desserts, since we planned of going to Finale shortly after (review coming).

Overall, I enjoyed the appetizers more than I enjoyed our entrées. I will consider going back there, because I find their appetizers to be the most unique and flavorful Indian appetizers I have ever tasted.

The pictures below are the dishes we ordered.

Our Appetizers: Saag Aloo Tikki, Chilli Batata

Our entrées: Raahra Gosh, Bhindi Adrak, Murge Malai Palak