A new report on a study done by Wetpaint and the Altimeter Group shows that those companies that have engaged in conversational marketing, or social media, have “on average increased revenues by 18% in the last 12 months”. And while you might think that those early adopters of successful conversational marketing campaigns would be those related to the tech industry, turns out that coffee giant Starbucks received the highest marks for their social strategy, including launching MyStarbucksIdea.com, which crowdsources future innovation for the company. Starbucks is also heavily involved in both Twitter and Facebook, answering questions through Twitter, and running promotions via Facebook like this week’s free pastry with a coffee promo to introduce the company’s new line of baked goods.

Other findings from the study:

The study found that social media efforts tend to build on themselves. “There is an exponential growth in the depth of engagement as the brand extends itself into more and more channels,” according to the report, titled www.engagementdb.com.

Companies that scored well generally had dedicated — if small — teams focused on social media initiatives. The most successful of these evangelized across the entire organization to gain broad-based support and cooperation. And instead of taking a traditional communications approach based on messaging and talking points, they embrace a conversational mode.

If you’d like to start thinking about adding social aspects to your marketing campaign, there’s never been a better time to engage. Be on the forefront of the medium, and you’ll reap the benefits of customer loyalty, retention, and maybe even have a little fun in the process.

A good backup plan involves having two copies of your data — one local and one offsite. A great plan involves having three copies! I’ll show you how to have either one.

1. External Drive + Time Machine

This first example is a no brainer. If you’re running the latest version of Mac OS X, then you already have Time Machine. All you need is a FireWire or USB 2.x external hard drive, which you then plug in (at least once a week) and you’re good to go. I recommend getting at least a 500GB hard drive. Having a bigger hard drive means you’ll be able to save more versions of your files, which means you’ll be able to recover files after they’ve been changed multiple times or were deleted a long time ago.

2. Online Backup with Backblaze

Online backups have finally come into being for the Mac. The first viable option was introduced by Mozy — a tool I’ve used for quite some time. However, a new service has emerged that is even better than Mozy called Backblaze.

Mozy throttles your upload connection, uses an unreasonable amount of resources, and can occasionally get in your face with application messages. On the other hand, Backblaze allows you to upload your files as fast as your connection will allow, appears to leave a very small footprint on your computer when it’s running, and runs completely in the background (I have yet to see a message pop up from it.)

Backblaze costs $5/mo (same as Mozy) and backs up everything quickly. When you download and install Backblaze, make sure you go into Preferences, click on the Settings button and turn the Throttle up (to the far right) in order to upload files quickly.

3. Online Backup with Carbon Copy Cloner + S3

This third option makes a good backup plan a great backup plan! This example is a little more time-consuming, but is one of the very best ways to truly backup your entire hard drive and have a secure offsite copy of it.

You will need an additional computer, like a Mac Pro, iMac or MacBook Pro, with enough hard drive space to save a copy of your laptop’s hard drive or an external hard drive.

Install Carbon Copy Cloner on the additional computer. Then, with your laptop turned off, connect both computers via FireWire. Turn on your laptop, but make sure you hold the “T” key when you do it. That will turn on FireWire target disk mode.

Once you see your laptop’s hard drive appear on the additional computer, open Carbon Copy Cloner and create a disk image of your hard drive. After you finish making the disk image, upload it to Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3). You can easily do that by signing up for S3 with your Amazon account and uploading it using Transmit, which supports Amazon S3.

Doing this third backup step will ensure that your data is always backed up and restorable. However, if the third step is still too much for you to do, the first two steps will still do the trick just fine. With the availability of Time Machine and Backblaze, there’s really no reason why you should ever lose your data again.

1. Evasive; shifty.
2. Unsound, unstable, and unreliable.
3. So risky as to require very deft handling.

As the SEO Manager at Sitening, it’s important to me that our client needs are not only met, but their expectations are exceeded. If we have to stay until 10 or 11pm to get the job done, then that’s what we’ll do. We’re all Search, Social Media and Internet Marketing geeks who love what we do (and we have the t-shirts to prove it).

However, one thing I’ve noticed with the proliferation of Social Media is the amount of people referring to themselves as Social Media Gurus, SEO Experts, or Internet Marketing Rock Stars.  People who are truly worthy of these titles don’t feel the need to give themselves a title — they don’t have to. Do you see @chrisbrogan referring to himself with such a title?

So, where do these new self-titled gurus come from? Can you really replace a seasoned pro with someone who knows how to get around on the Internet and expect the same return? You’d be surprised how many people think so and gladly hand these people and companies money. They think they’re getting a great deal because the upfront cost seems extremely reasonable. In the long run, though, it’s going to cost you twice - first for the first company to mess it up, and second for the second company to come along and fix the mess.

If you’re unsure about how to spot an Internet marketing company who doesn’t know their META Tags from their canonical URLs, here’s five ways to tell:

1. There is no semantic structure on the company’s website

H1, H2, H3 tags are important for separating out content on a page in an ordered manner. Companies whose pages are extremely long with no structure are either bad at formatting, writing for the Web, or both.

2. They Have a Flash-Based Website

Unless a brand is extremely well-known (I’m talking about the Nikes and Adidas of this world), then avoid a website where the primary content is presented in flash. I’m not biased against a flash website, but we’re talking about Search Engine Optimization here, not your animation skills (or your template designer’s animation skills). I am fully aware that Google has improved its algorithm to include indexing textual content in flash files, but if the purpose is to rank and rank well, why use flash to begin with?

3. The URLs Aren’t Optimized

I’m a stickler for the details - the small things that other people may not notice or even care about drive me crazy. Not many things on a website drive me crazier than an unoptimized URL. I mean, really, there are so many forum software builds, Content Management Systems and e-commerce stores that have plugins to help you do this. Even a static page.  For example, I recently came across a website who’s homepage was index1.html, the ‘about us’ page was index2.html, the service page index3.html and, well, you get the picture. What a waste of a good URL.

4. The Company Has No Page Titles

No, that was not a cue to laugh or swear. There are SEO companies out there who claim to offer SEO services who have no page titles. Seriously, if all you see at the top of your browser when looking at SEO companies is Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer, then get the heck out of that website and don’t look back. If that company has no comprehension of a page title and the impact it can have on their own website, they are certainly not going to be effectively optimizing your page titles anytime soon. If there is a page title and all it has is a company name, that is still not good enough - ranking for your brand name is not SEO.

5. You Can’t Find them in Google

If the company hasn’t shown the competency to show up in Google for their own name or targeted keywords, the likelihood of their increasing your presence in the SERPs is less than negligible.

The five items I listed may seem obvious to the seasoned SEO or Internet marketer, but I’ve seen companies offering Internet marketing services who are guilty of all of the above.

Honorable Mentions:

• They have a splash page
• They offer to have you at #1 in Google in 24 hours
• Part of their SEO service is to submit your website to all the major search engines
• One of their SEO Strategies is keyword stuffing

“Tomorrow, Wednesday May 13 we will be continuing the database maintenance work we began last Friday. We will be taking all Twitter services offline for one hour beginining at noon Pacific.

We are begining this work earlier in the day to ensure that we have the full resources of our team to respond to any problems that might arise. Thanks for your understanding.”

I had two initial reactions, apparently 57 million dollars of VC money did not buy them spell check and what is a poor boy to do. What if it lasts more than an hour? My fear-based hyperventilating quickly leads to hatred for the most loathsome icon of modern society, the fail whale. I must have a plan of action. So here is how I think it will pan out:

12:00pst. Site goes down. Curse and put $1.00 into the swear jar. Hit refresh, just in case, curse again and another donation is made to the jar. Start the countdown on my trusty Timex. One hour, I can do this.

12:05pst. I try to figure out how to call someone using my cell phone; it has been so long since I used it for such a primitive means of communication. Heaven help me if I actually manage to call someone, is it possible to have a conversation using more than 140 characters and only sentence fragments?

12:06pst. Refresh, curse, donate to jar and get out a DVD copy of Moby Dick. Before I start the movie, telepathically let Ashton Kuthcher know that he is loved and relevant.

12:07pst. The fail whale is looking at me from my monitor. I have my “Go Capt. Ahab” t-shirt on and I am ready to watch his quest to kill his whale….my whale…..our whale. Refresh, curse, donate and start movie. I watch at 16x speed trying to get to the relevant whale hunting. I seem to recall that the whale wins in the movie, but one can hope and in my murderous rage, I am convinced that divine providence will grant me some consolation in my hour of need.

12:31pst. Whale 1, Ahab 0. Donation is made to swear jar. Refresh, put IOU slip into swear jar. The movie did give me another idea. I appear to be capable of linear logic…in Moby Dick the first mate’s name is Starbuck. Starbuck’s is named for that character. I like coffee. Nope, just can’t seem to rid my thoughts of the whale.

12:38pst. Feeling guilty about advocating violence against whales, so I go to greenpeace.org and make a donation. Still feeling guilty so I go to savethewhales.org and make a donation. However the music on their homepage has caused me to crack. I can identify with Greg House’s character on House. Is this some weird hallucination? Am I beginning to detox off of twitter? Did I really hook up with Cuddy? What did I use to do before 2006 and the greatest invention since the garden weasel? Are my children at school hiding under their desks with their heads covered as shrill sirens echo in the distance? Time to escape.

12:45pst. Pray, refresh, curse, add to IOU. Walk down to local coffee shop. Line is long. Take out my cell phone, pretend to know how to make a call (something about the green button) and say loudly “twitter is back up! Great news.” Line disappears as crowd floods out to get back to their compounds. One guy is still in line talking to his broker, apparently the last time he looked at his 401k it was in 2006. It is a good thing that he did not bring his swear jar, which he could not afford anyway.

12:59pst. Back at my desk. Timex is chiming. Whale is laughing. I am researching alternative religions, desperate for guidance in these dark times. When I do the unthinkable. I turn off my computer.

We are becoming the servants in thought, as in action; of the machine we have created to serve us. ~John Kenneth Galbraith

On Tuesday afternoon at 11:29am, I left the following message on Twitter:

If any Honda dealership in mid TN wants to give me 0% APR for 60 months on a black 09 Fit with navigation, I’ll come buy it today.

Not an hour later I had a response from the Twitter user Alicia_at_Honda that said:

I’m not well connected with dealers but I’m gonna see if I can’t get one to reach out to you! Want to get you into a Fit!

First of all, mad props go out to Honda for not only paying attention to the conversation about their brand on Twitter, but for the very prompt response to my inquiry. You see, I wasn’t aware of this before I started this little experiment, but Honda dealers are independent contractors of Honda corporate, so their aren’t many ties there. She did however have a contact with a regional sales representative and passed my contact information along to him.

Tuesday afternoon I get a phone call from this sales rep who I had a fantastic conversation with, and he went way out of his way to put me in touch with some dealers who had what I was looking for. Even though the deal fell through on finance rate issues, the sales rep called me again today to make sure I knew that I could contact him at any time if I had any other questions.

So while I’m not in a new 2009 Honda Fit just yet, this is a fantastic story about a company who is listening to the online conversation of potential clients, and doing everything in their power, including channels of communication they’ve never tried before, to not only secure a new client but build brand loyalty. Can you afford to NOT be in the social web and listening to what people are saying about you?

But the article does raise some fair points. While we in the industry might be existing in a social media bubble all day every day, it still has yet to reach mass adoption. The numbers, as much as we might want them to, don’t lie:

For example, in the past month, the Twitter community has been titillated by South by Southwest, AT&T, “Lost” and the redesign of Skittles.com. Missing from the list are things the Communispace and Lightspeed surveys, both separately commissioned on Ad Age’s behalf, found that the general population is fired up about, such as the AIG bonuses and the bank-bailout plans.

There’s also the straight numbers game: While 64% of Communispace respondents had heard of Twitter, only 6% used it. The Lightspeed responses indicated even fewer users had heard of it (3%), and most of the 58% who had knew of it from someone they know or — get this — TV.

While it may be a harsh reality to live in for someone such as myself who lives and breathes community, to the article I counter with this: just because it is a small cross section of your overall audience, does that mean their voice has no credence in your brand? Your most vocal and tech savvy supporters (or even dissenters) are going to be your biggest cheerleaders as well. Just merely engaging with them on a small level could pay huge dividends for your company.

The article gives us these tips on “how to listen and respond more effectively” to your consumer:

-Know your consumers’ social media habits
-Have a response mechanism in place
-Look for changes in chatter
-Pinpoint passion

Advice I think any marketer should live by.

By now there is no brand, Fortune 500 or not, that can afford to not be listening to the conversation. My five or so tweets about wanting UVerse should’ve been immediately met with a rep from AT&T keeping me posted on rollout progress in my neighborhood. With word of mouth now spreading at exponential speeds, there is no reason to not be completely engaged in the conversation surrounding your brand full time, especially if your competitor is participating in the space. The chatter will happen whether you are participating or not, so why not hop on board? Is it because there is too much corporate red tape? Does no one at your company fully understand how to participate? Or do you just really not care?

Whatever the answer to those questions may be, there is absolutely no excuse to not be smack in the middle of the discussion about your brand. The channels of marketing have changed forever, and if you don’t quickly adapt and move along with the flow, you will be left behind in the wake of your competition. The power of community is an amazing thing to behold, and if you jump in and participate, the benefits will far outweigh the drawbacks. I may just be one customer, but there are millions like me out there just waiting for you to find with the push of a search button.

And hey AT&T, I can be found on Twitter with the user @alisongroves. Feel free to send me a reply so we can set up an install.

As the use of Twitter has grown by leaps and bounds in the few years it has been alive, the definition of the service has grown along with it. In the beginning, it truly was about “what you are doing?”. Now, it’s more like “what conversation are you having?”. As we amass followers, many who live in the same city as we do, hang out in the same social circles, and work in the same industry, conversations begin to take place within Twitter. The conversation that you’re having in Twitter with fellow PubCon attendees really doesn’t have anything to do with what’s going on with you, the singular entity. So why would you send your latest tweet to Facebook?

Chances are that a good majority of the people you are following on Twitter are also your friends on Facebook, so why would you want to give them duplicate content? As we immerse ourselves further and further into the social space, the chatter gets louder and more intense. So when I see your eight tweets in a row about how awesome Jack Bauer is, do I really want to roll over to Facebook and see the same thing? And in really poor grammatical form as well? Not so much. So why would you send your latest tweet to Facebook?

Do you see a pattern forming here? Help us all out and take that little plugin right out of Facebook and draw a line in the sand between the two mediums. Because, seriously, Alison Groves is tired of reading your duplicate content.