Facebook celebrated its 8th birthday this month. How much has it changed? How much has it changed us? Are we all a little more batty now that Facebook has become a prominent part of so many of our lives, giving us insights into friends and family that we never had before and offering a venue through which we can exclaim the nuances of our lives for the world (or simply our world) to see?

This fun and somewhat creepy video by Daniel Koren, a NY based musician, touches a little too close to the truth for most to bear. Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

A Google+ update sent out by internet entrepreneur and FamilyLink.com founder Paul Allen hints there may be another reason to keep an eye on the recently launched Search Plus Your World. According to the post, Google looks to be indexing web content faster for users who are logged in to its social network than those who are not.

Allen says that while signed into the site, his post was indexed and already displayed in the search results within less than a minute. This was versus about 20 minutes for the post to appear for users who were not logged in.

Google’s new Search Plus Your World indexing your content faster is a huge perk as far as SEO goes. The timeliness of content on the web is more important than ever, and the faster you can get it to your audience, the better. It is essentially near real-time when considering that your content is made available in the results almost instantaneously.

This latest discovery appears to be a part of Google’s initiative to put greater emphasis on recency. Last fall, the search giant rolled out its freshness update, which aimed to showcase the most recently published material and was said to effect as much as 35% of the results.

Your World Through Google’s Eyes

For those who are not familiar, Google Search Plus Your World is a feature that serves up results that are more personalized and relevant to the user. The company is taking the recency concept even further with Search Plus Your World, and Google+ is the key piece of the puzzle. In order to get their hands on these enhanced results, the user must have the feature turned on, and more importantly, be logged into their account.

Apart from the possible faster indexing of content, Google Search Plus Your World basically consists of three components:

1. Personal Results – With Personal Results, the user can find information that is personally relevant to them. This could be content such as updates or photos they uploaded, or content that was shared with them by friends.

2. Profiles in Search – This component applies to both the standard results, and those that are displayed via Google’s Autocomplete feature. In a nutshell, Profiles in Search makes it possible for a user to easily find people in their circles or others they may want to follow on the site.

3. People and Pages – Hence the name, People and Pages enables the user to find people (by their profiles) and pages that are related to specific area they are interested in. Once a user finds a profile or page that interests them, they can follow it a few quick clicks.

It is important to note that Google has not confirmed whether or not it is indexing content faster for Google+ users, but that looks to be the case. If so, it could be another point for the argument of Search Plus Your World being the company’s biggest search update ever.

Every few months I take a serious look at my chosen profession and wonder if it’s really a tool for good or if it’s real “use” is to promote the negative in the world. There are many examples of good happening through social media whether through revolutions that weren’t possible a few years ago from oppressive regimes or the simple connection of people with others who they need to meet.

I normally come to the same conclusion every time:

1. Social media is neutral
2. Most who use it are indifferent
3. Some use it for good
4. Some use it for bad.

My final disposition at the end of each social media soul searching sessions is that it’s a wash. This time, I’m starting to lean towards social media being a bad thing.

Three of the four truths of social media are relatively constant. It’s the second one, “most who use it are indifferent,” that I’m starting to realize may lean towards the negative side of the argument (which, in essence, pulls social media as a whole towards the negative side). The indifference and self-promotion/exhibitionism that plagues social media might not be harmful in itself, but is it preventing people from becoming more? Are we becoming too indifferent to the real world, too complacent that our social media “goods” are enough to make a difference?

This is a question that social media users need to ask themselves, but before you try to answer it, watch this video first.

This is a spoken word poem video production and performance by David Bowden. This video is presented by Scott Klososky and Future Point of View consulting based in Oklahoma City, OK.

The numbers are rising on businesses using Social Media to their advantage and rightfully so, since 97% of customers will purchase from your business based on a review they find on the product they are looking for, even more so the review is through people they trust, hence why social networks work.

Using Social Media as a form to communicate with customers does leave businesses open for negative sentiment and this has to be the biggest worry or response as to why businesses have yet to figure social media as a part of their Marketing strategies. However, people are not always going to be happy with your services or products and that is always a pitfall to owning a business, therefore people are talking negatively about your business online already. Using social networks to share in customer service and share a friendly persona while furthering your brand online will entice many who are upset with your business to flock there, giving you the greatest gift, the ability to respond quickly.

This will please the 34% of those who complain online more so than the ones that go ignored. As a business part of your job is to respond even to negative feedback. Look at it as a way to improve what may be lacking at your company and a form to build the trust back from the customer, which begins with a response that is customer service oriented.

We are spending way too much time on satisfied customers and little to no time on ones that are unhappy with our companies. Businesses need to hone in on the unhappy consumers to truly build a stronger company. People who tell you about their negative experiences are telling you a way you can improve which will make businesses more money. There is no flaw in that, except the fear of hearing failure and let’s be honest, that comes with the territory.

In the Infographic below created by odmgroup will show you statistics of what businesses are doing right and wrong and how consumers are relating to businesses in this day and age.

(Click to Enlarge)

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Read More Social Media News on the Soshable Blog.

It seems almost silly to be looking at how brands are behaving on social media these days. Shouldn’t this be old hat by now?

Sadly, it’s not. A mere 20 percent of 200 businesses questioned by Forrester Consulting in a Dell-commissioned survey said social media efforts were at the core of their marketing efforts. Frighteningly, 27 percent called their social media efforts “experimentation.”

Some of that may be due to the fact that 42 percent of the company representatives surveyed said budget was the greatest internal challenge to their efforts.

Could that be because so many companies run around saying how social media is free? How it doesn’t cost anything? How they spent nothing on marketing, yet got amazing results.

I was at a meetup in New York City recently where the fitness app owner went on and on about how he spent no money on marketing, yet went viral and got amazing results, blah blah blah.

During the Q&A, I asked how much he spent on social media and social media marketing and asked him if it was kind of disingenuous to say they spent no money on marketing, when they obviously spent money on social media. Got a blank stare. Then the explanation, “Oh, I just meant that we didn’t spend any money on traditional marketing.”

That’s not what he said, though.

I’m not going to mention the company, because he’s not even close to being the only one who pretends that social media is without cost.

Can you spend less? Is it possible to go viral and get tons of free publicity on top of what you spent? Is it possible to cut back on ad dollars, go totally social and have better results? Yes. Yes. Yes.

Does that make social media and social media marketing free?

NO.

To do it right, you need to spend money and time making sure you’re targeting the right people in the right way. You need to spend time listening. You need to interact.

Marketing is different. Marketing is community now, not just saying, “Hey, our brand is great, buy us!”

Take a look at this infographic from GetSatisfaction, which nicely details the Dell/Forrester report. Very curious to hear from both marketers and brands about how you’re shaping your social media efforts and how you use it.

Just don’t tell me it’s free, OK?

Created By: MBA Online

I lost all my phone contacts recently, which of course was a pity, but it led to an interesting discovery about privacy. Here’s my story.

I wanted to restore my smart phone to its original state – it started to work pretty slow after some time. The thing is that I simply forgot to copy my contact list backup. Shame on me.

But no use crying over spilled milk. I started installing some apps, configuring etc. and after a while I noticed that I have a few hundred contacts! How’s that? Android simply imported all my Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn etc. contacts, merged them, and displayed on the contact list.

Since I didn’t want such a mess in my phone, I found and option that said something like Display only contacts with a phone number and… I still had tons of contacts displayed!

Ok, I admit it was less, but still quite a lot. As it turns out, lots of people enter their private or/and work phone numbers, their home addresses and other personal data. I always had doubts entering such data and saw no particular reason to do that. My friends simply have my phone number, and even if they don’t know my exact address (though they usually know how to get to my place ) – there’s no problem asking me anytime. So why would I leave such information on my social media profiles? “Because there’s a field to be filled” or “because I can” are not real reasons.

Now what you probably want to say is that there are privacy settings, right? I can allow such personal information to be displayed only for specific people or groups and no one else will see it. That’s true, but I think it’s rather saying “don’t worry too much” than solving the problem. First of all, we do hear about a bug or inconsistency from time to time – people simply find ways to outsmart those systems. I’m not sure whether one day someone won’t say “Hey, I know how to get someones data from Facebook, even if they don’t allow it. All you have to do is…”

Of course you may think I’m paranoid, the same way I think I’m reasonable not to put some of my information at risk if I simply don’t have to. But there’s actually one more thing about publishing such information. Privacy settings may even work great, people may actually configure all this and keep their addresses top secret. Still, it doesn’t always do the trick.

What I observe (and what worries me) is that it’s pretty easy to make people accept friend requests. “Hey, let’s connect on Facebook!”, “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn” and so on – I’m not any kind of a popular person in the web, yet even I get such messages all the time. And people actually respond “sure, why not – that’s what social media are for”.

It’s very nice to make friends, chat, exchange thoughts etc. But it cannot be only “yeah, let’s do it!”, without any thinking whatsoever. Kevin Mitnick (and I’m sure you know the guy) claimed that he used mostly social engineering to get passwords. And this means people simply told him or allowed to easily get such information (for example, they were letting him into the office, where they had yellow notes with their passwords on monitors!).

What I’m saying is that privacy protection systems can be even designed and implemented well, but we are the weakest link. It difficult for most of us to find the right balance between socializing and being reasonable on the Internet. So far, so good – let’s just hope there’s no critical point to be reached here…

When the Patriots of New England take on the Giants of New York—a game that could be decided by kicking a oblong ball made of pigskin through a giant “H” for a most ripping victory—thousands of football fans will converge on Lucas Oil Field and the surrounding areas for Super Bowl XLVI. The vast majority of attendees are sure to use mobile devices to disclose various details of their fun during a full week of events. An unprepared city could experience a social media logjam, but the city of Indianapolis has taken all of this into consideration.

We all know about the importance of the commercials during this annual event. Advertisers who are able to pay the price for any multiple of 30 seconds in between the hard-hitting action gladly do so in order to communicate their messages to a captive audience of millions. Additionally, recent history has shown that viewers have used Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and different blogs to vote on, share and otherwise interact with these spots. As important as that is to these advertisers, this is not the only proof of social media’s importance today. When the Patriots of New England take on the Giants of New York—a game that could be decided by kicking a oblong ball made of pigskin through a giant “H” for a most ripping victory—the thousands fans will converge on the Lucas Oil Stadium” the most wired stadium in the country.

Social Media at Your Command

Since social media is the medium by which so many people communicate nowadays, a digital team will be monitoring the Super Bowl Week conversation via numerous platforms from the day after the Pro Bowl through Sunday, February 5^th. This team of strategists, analysts and other techies will also tweet directions to fans in search of parking, direct visitors to Indianapolis’s best attractions, and stand by to provide information in case of a disaster.

The digital marketing company, Raidious, will be in charge of handling all of this as well as measuring all of the analytics making a great study of how to prepare for and handle major events of like this as well as how many people have checked into the Super Bowl on Foursquare.

Can You Tweet Me Now?

Verizon has joined in on the fun reinforcing their own network from 3G to 4G LTE to WiFi by adding:

• 9 Antennas that are part of a Distributed Antenna System (DAS) outside the stadium to handle increased downtown traffic.
• 400 Antenna Internal DAS to handle 3G and 4G LTE voice and data inside the stadium.
• 600 Antenna WiFi system capable of handling 28,000 simultaneous connected users. Free for Super Bowl XLVI.
• 3 Cell on Wheels (COWs). Stand alone generator powered cell towers to handle the extremely high demand areas.

While these additions vastly help those lucky enough to watch the game live and in person, there could easily be a time when someone int the stands needs to chat with their friend at home about whether or not the previous play should be challenged as they both watch the television coverage up close and personal. #humblebrag

Why is This Important?

Believe it or not, it’s 2012 and somehow there are still people out there who don’t think social media is an important part of a marketing mix. Because the Super Bowl is one of, if not the most important day of the year to advertisers, paying attention to how customers receive information is imperative. The statistics collected here will determine how they reach out and touch those who they are trying to influence to buy. Plus, a few extra shares never hurt anybody.

We won’t be posting until the 19th. Go away. Here’s why: Stop SOPA.