Within the turmoil created from the ever changing the social spaces are making online more people in business seemed to forget how social networking now works. 

As a reminder, here is a Cheat Sheet for people in business to use if they want to develop more business deals online.

Rules for Business Social Networking:

1. Be social!
2. Repeat Rule #1  

There definitely has been a change in developing business through online social networking.  Getting in someone’s face during a social event trying to pitch  a deal does not work Offline, why would anyone think it would work Online.  That offline fast-pitch mentality seems to be growing online and all it is doing is running good people out of the social spaces.  A person can get away from the sales pitch offline, but online it seems there is no getting away from those who just post none stop promotions.  The clog up the streams to a point all is becoming Spam.

These people who are leaving the social spaces out of disgusted are consumers for a large number of industries.  When someone runs others out of the social space it hurts all the rest of the businesses and business people who understand how social networking really works.  Something really should be done to educate these people on how social networking and the social media used online has changed.

Not of the new ways of social networking for business has much to do with SEO or black hat internet marketing.  It has everything to do with being SOCIAL!

Not too many of the big box social media firms will agree being social for business development works but gathering up hordes of followers, friends or contacts is so 2009 and as the studies are showing that method does not work as well as putting a social face on the brand.

In an effort to help stop this madness here is what is developing out to be the real things a business..of any size… needs to do if they are after being successful in the social space online.  If you are in business this should be your outline to change.

The Social  Network Matrix for Online Business Development:

• Have a Plan that places being Social first and less emphasis on selling
• Dedicate an individual or group of individuals to reach out to the consumers in a social manor
• Place focus on being personable
• Show the face of the person speaking for the brand, not the logo.
• Post compelling content that is not a sale pitch
• Push interest to the business websites where a compelling design does the business’ selling
• Post links to the company blog
• Build a quality community of people who have been won over by the business’ social efforts
• Personally invite people to a ‘HangOut’ (video chats on Google+)
• Show a diverse interest in other things than the business’ product or service
• Be part of the community not a town crier
• Be witty, humor and fun going
• Find a social space that offers expanded reach outside of the social platform and then make it the business’ Social Home
• Be Patient

Try these out and don’t forget..Be Social!  Let me know how I can help.

If you have a LinkedIn account you have more than likely received a large number of invitation from of a remote aquiantence asking you to join their group. If not, they will be there soon.

It seems there are at least a few so called…and questionably certified… LinkedIn experts who highly recommend that you invite your entire contact list to join your LinkedIn group via mass email to that list. By definition that effort would be considered Spam, especially my those who or not interested or do not know the person well.

LinkedIn Groups are excellent forums for discussions. Unfortunately, many misguided experts are now telling business people that they are even better to promote a product or service. This is a huge Fail.

What I have found what works best is to Blog about the group or at the very least post a status update on LinkedIn and Google+. I have found that by placing info about the group in the form of content that is searchable is ten times better than Spamming several hundred people in an email. Letting someone find the groups they are interested in works the best.

Use the power of the search engines to help bring the people you WANT in the group. The days of just gathering up as many bodies as possible in hopes several of them like what you say are WAY over.

Get social people. It really works better than Spam.

A humorous look at how people see Golfers!

I have been looking for a blog app that works for my iPad. Looks like Blogsy Works. Sure makes it easy to blog on the run. If it holds up I’ll be adding it to my training package.

I recently spoke to 110 members of the Golf Association of Philadelphia on the subject of Social Media-How Private Golf Clubs Should Use It.  I was exciting to learn the GAP is looking towards the future of the golf industry and searching for ways to deal with the change facing golf today.  Hopefully, what I offered them will get them on the way to success.

Change or Be Changed

One of the issues most private golf clubs are addressing is how to deal with the culture change and the next generation’s attitude towards private golf clubs.  As more and more people and business accept the new technologies associated with improving their lives, so will private golf clubs.  Understanding social networking and how social media works is a must if a private golf club expects to solve this problem.

However, private clubs should not just go forward accepting the most popular method of social networking or a plan that is created as a template all private clubs should use.  Every private club has to determine what works for them and their membership.  The type of social media they should use and the style of social networking that will work for them is determined by the Club’s mission, goal and purpose.

Clear Mission

If the mission of a private golf club is clear and forward thinking then the direction the club is taking will lead them the right path to success.  If the mission is not clear are relevant to today’s fast paced world then maybe the mission of the club needs to change.

I say could be and maybe because there are always going to be some reasoning a club will have that would explain why they are not going to be able to use social media.  These will be the clubs who will find it hard to replace members as the result of natural; attrition.

The mission tells potential members where the club is heading.

Solid Goals

Every private golf club should have a goal.  Without a goal the club will quickly become stagnant.  Nobody wants to be a member of a club that is going nowhere.

A goal every club should have is to take on the changes facing them and accomplish the goals by teaming with the membership.  Every club should have as their goal to offer their membership modern amenities.

Worthy Purpose

The purpose of every private club is different.  However, no matter what purpose the club has set forth as why it is a club, it should service its members and community.  The club being social online is one way to communicate its purpose.

What type of social media the club should, would or could use is determined by its mission, goal and purpose.  There is no template or one way that works better than others for private clubs.

Every club needs to make ‘being social’ part of their mission, goal and purpose.  This one change will help the club move forward and attract new members.

Since it launched last summer Google Plus has been somewhat of a mystery to many people.  What confuses them the most is not Google Plus as a whole or how it works, but finding out that the game of social networking has changed.  I take it from the many people placing me in their G+ circle that most of them did not get that memo about the change.  There are still millions out there who still feel developing fake popularity is part of social networking.  Boy, are they in for a rude awakening.

As little as a few months ago achieving fakedom was the drive for most people in the social spaces.  It was the primary part of the game many played to develop a large community of anything that generates a social profile.  The feeling most people had was the need to be popular.  This feeling was also mixed by their need, or in some cases their requirement, to have a large base of Things to broadcast to their promotions.  Their feeling of worthiness in the social space was based on the number of people they had in their Following.  If someone had few followers they were marked as a loser, millions of followers they were a Rock Star.

At the beginning of last year this act in futility was starting to fall a part as people started finally seeing that nobody in their very large community was listening.  Report after report was coming in from everywhere that people were just fed up with the constant pounding of self promoters and spam and just walked off leaving millions of inactive profiles.  Even the celebrities of the social spaces who were getting hundreds of comments to each of their posts were seeing it not accomplishing their goal or being fulfilling to their personal or professional needs.  A dark shadow was falling over the entire social networking arena all because the lack of trust was building in the core base of people using the social spaces.  Most had given up that there were actually any real people left to interact with.

Google Antis Up

So in walks Google, the master of the internet, the lord of supreme knowledge and senior of all internet icons, to pull up a chair to the table where the high stakes game of Social Platforms and anteed up to play by laying on the table their crown jewel..Google Plus.  Pokerface is not how I would describe Facebook’s and Twitter’s reaction to Google stepping into their little high stakes money game.  I envision the expression would be more of a look of them feeling nauseated knowing the big dog finally has entered the playground.  This move Google made less than a year ago the game of social networking changed.

The game of gathering up thousands of people to fulfill whatever need also stopped.  The rules of quantity over quality changed and all of this came at the perfect time.

G+ started off a little rocky and made changes to allow people use fake names that will probably bite them in the butt, but over all the game of social networking on G+ is much more real.  Yes, you can still go into G+ and start accumulating hundreds of people to put in your circle.  What that will get you is nowhere because those people in the circle can’t see anything you do until they put you in their circle.  Are they going to put someone who has thousands of followers in their circle?  Well that is where the game has changed.

Lesser is Cooler

More than likely a person with any intelligence is going to see quickly someone who all of the sudden entered G+ with several thousands people is probably up to something..mostly no good.  The game now is who to put in your circle since who you put in your circle is who you want to see what they offer.  What you have to offer is what is going to get people to want to put you into their circle.  If you have nothing to offer, look like you have nothing to offer or giving off any smell that you having nothing to offer you are not going to be put into anyone circle other than those who also having nothing of value to offer.

Google Plus offers up a real simple game now and it being accepted by more and more professionals, businesses as well as the regular social butterflies.  Yes, G+ has a way to go to get things ironed out so it is more visually appealing and easier to use, but the concept is outstanding.  The game is not really a game anymore.  It is the direction Social Networking is heading which will at the same time change how social media will be used.

It’s all about social now people.  Google holds a solid hand and is set to be a spoiler for the social spaces who are still playing the numbers game.  When you get social, you get real.

Let me know how I can help.