Stats on Facebook Like button

Facebook has 500 million members but it’s grasp is reaching deep into the web. The Like button had 250,000 extranal links in the last 12 months – sites outside of facebook connecting to Facebook. These are stats from Facebook as quoted by www.readwriteweb.com

10,000 websites integrate with Facebook each day.

More than 250 million people engage with Facebook on external websites

More than 2.5 million websites have integrated with Facebook (including over 80 of comScore’s U.S. Top 100
websites and over half of comScore’s Global Top 100 websites)

Over half of the 25 fastest growing Comscore U.S. retail sites use Facebook

Media sites were among the first to adopt the Like button, and as a result see an increase in Facebook activity

The average media organization has seen a greater than 300% increase in referral traffic from Facebook since the beginning of 2010.

Is the Internet growing smaller?

Help your business or not for profit make the most of online

So you have a website. That’s not enough. You need to make the most of the social web and free services and tools that make you findable – on mobiles as well as on “line”.

Perhaps your one of the 60% of businesses that have a website. Don’t stop there. Become one of the 1% who actually make online work for them!

1. First of all have a website that works – use a domain that suits, adds meaning and is credible. For example a church should ensure it has a “.org” for credibility. Ensure the content is good and updated regulalry.

2. Make it local – Submit your website and business location to Google Places. It’s free and it’s like Google giving you a website that they want to rank highly! Grab your listing or add it now: Google Places See my earlier posts on that.

3. SEO – Add your business to local free business listings such as Light FM for Melbourne – click here and submit your URL to as many spiders as possible. Try this.

4. Social – Create a Twitter account for real time search hits coming to your website. Post meaningful, relevant information. Remember this is all about adding value and content so know your readers/followers. Read tribes. Start your following and be patient. It takes time.

5. Connect – Create a newsletter using constant contact . This is important. Feed your tribe. Connect with them. They are down on what they are not up on. Remember to send up to date newsletters often and build that community.

6. Converse – have conversations with people. Reply to their comments. Have a blog. Try blogger or wordpress or Vibe.

7. Enjoy – you’re never “there”. Accept that it’s always evolving.

Search is changing

A work colleague sent me a very informative video explaining how Google SEO worked. However this made me ask the question: how relevant is google’s way of search now anyway?

Google’s way of scrubbing the web will always have it’s place. However it is changing very fast and may soon be fiction, or simply a back-up system that some systems connect to. This is largely due to a) social search – search results based on what your friends recommend; and b) geo-location based search – search results based on your location. (See Facebook Deals). Google has attempted social search however they may lose this race as fast as they have lost the social race.

Google is not very good at social. Google Wave failed. Google buzz failed. And now with Apple launching Ping, and Facebook becoming a platform (not a social network) with Facebook Connect and Facebook Integration (see http://developers.facebook.com/?ref=pf) Google’s way of searching may become less relevant, or more in the background. (See my article on Facebook Platform).

Social Search is where people search for what they are looking for by searching through their friends/networks preferences, suggestions, posts on facebook, etc. With Apple TV and Google TV being a reality people are now seeing that social search will be king of media. Who wants to search through 100,000,000 TV shows, when you can see what Jonathon “liked” and simply watch that…

Facebook deals

Google has laid a platform of search that we can all build on. Now social is built on search. Add mobile to the equation and you get a great user experience. Add location (geo-location) to mobile and you get Foursquare, Facebook Places.

Now Facebook is becoming a social platform in the way Google is a search platform. People are building on social. My business is now findable on a mobile phone because you are standing near my business location and then you share that with your Facebook friends. Nice.

Today Facebook is doing “Deals” See:

http://mashable.com/2010/11/03/facebook-deals-platform/

Complete Guide to Facebook Deals

http://www.facebook.com/blog.php?post=446183422130

This Week in Google Episode 64

Jonathon’s rules

1. The rules (of business) have changed
2. (All) Marketing is now social
3. You must lead your flock (as in your customers are your tribe). Search my posts for “tribes”.
4. Every business is a niche business (no matter the size treat your customers as niche/cult followers.
5. Continually adopt new technologies – change will not stop. You must ride the wave or you will miss it. Denial is failure.
6. Think ahead – future is the market. Start to market to your customers using tomorrows methods or die.
7. Be the best (at what you do. Offer quality no matter what. Customers are smart). Love your tribe. Do what they want. Serve them. Give them what they want. Listen.
8. Reinvent. Constantly.
9. Don’t have a business model. (That doesn’t mean don’t plan. It means be flexible). Rather have your finger on the pulse of the heart of your niche tribe.
10. Break the rules. (Yes these rules). In other words be yourself or fail.

Recommended reading: What Would Google Do – by Jeff Jarvis

Wisdom from the inventor of viral marketing

Seth Godin writes about the virtue of success on the Internet or in ANY business:

Patience.

Google was a very good search engine for two years before you started using it.

The iPod was a dud.

I wrote Unleashing the Ideavirus 8 years ago. A few authors tried similar ideas but it didn’t work right away. So they gave up. Boingboing is one of the most popular blogs in the world because they never gave up.

The irony of the web is that the tactics work really quickly. You friend someone on Facebook and two minutes later, they friend you back. Bang.

But the strategy still takes forever. The strategy is the hard part, not the tactics.

I discovered a lucky secret the hard way about thirty years ago: you can outlast the other guys if you try. If you stick at stuff that bores them, it accrues. Drip, drip, drip you win.

It still takes ten years to become a success, web or no web. The frustrating part is that you see your tactics fail right away. The good news is that over time, you get the satisfaction of watching those tactics succeed right away.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/08/the-secret-of-t.html

Tribute to the book “Crush it” by Gary Vanderchuck

Official Website: http://crushitbook.com/

Buy

Everything has changed. The social media revolution has irreversibly changed the way we live our lives and conduct our business. There are billions of dollars in advertising moving online, waiting to be claimed by whoever can build the best content and communities. Despite this change, most people keep working at jobs that don’t make them happy and businesses continue to ignore the major marketing and public relations benefits that can be found online.

Amazon review:

Learn: Why social media has evened the playing field, destroying the “gate-keepers” who had previously dictated the distribution of content.

Learn: How to beat unemployment and create wealth-building opportunities by building and maintaining a personal brand.

Learn: Why storytelling is the most important business concept in the current marketplace.

Learn: How you can build an online business around your passion without quitting your day job.

Learn: Why Twitter and Facebook are just tools and not a social media strategy.

Learn: How to take advantage of the half-billion dollars in advertising that are moving to the internet.

Learn: Why transparency and being true to yourself are now winning marketing formulas.

Learn: How to build and maintain an online community around your passion and brand.

Learn: Strategies for turning attention into money.

Learn: Why the legacy element of the internet era is so underrated.

Foursquare links social to business and the ‘real world’

If you don’t think social networking is the real world then you will soon. Foursquare eloquently organises what I have been doing for some time now with other apps such as Urbanspoon and church finders.

This Week in Google

Every week I listen to watch, read and subscribe to TWIG. It is the most amazing podcast about technology, the internet and the cloud.

Hosted by Leo Laporte “…US-based journalist specializing in technology coverage on radio, TV, and the Internet. With weekly guests Jeff Jarvis author of What What Google Do? (yes I’ve bought it) and Gina Trapani, blogger and founding editor of Lifehacker.org.

Between them you really do see the world from a different perspective. The value of TWIG is that you see the world through the eyes of Google, a company that is innovative and unique in that it sees what’s going on with the web.

Enjoy last weeks episode;

You can catch the show notes here: www.twit.tv/twig