It has been a very eventful and educational year at SMCpros.  Tim, Tyler, and I launched SMCpros a year ago this week with the vague premise that we could ‘help people understand and use social media’ (however that would pan out).  True, it was a very simple vision at that time (and probably sounds a little naive to outsiders and traditional business minds), but how the heck else could you approach such a thing as social media? At the rate at which things change in this industry, you really have to just play it by ear and be confident enough in your abilities to adapt, multi-task, fix, jerry-rig, bend, break, scrap, sketch, wait, ignore, test, exclude, A/B test, and extinguish fires with an ounce of charisma and a pound of foresight.  Remembering that we have no control over the development, execution, and support of third party platforms and applications allows us to maintain our sanity in a world of what seems like quarterly planned obsolescence…Not to mention that most web 2.0 products lack the same partner services that other IT and Enterprise IT companies provide to organizations interfacing between consumers and their products.

When the three of us came together to start a company, we each had very diverse backgrounds and interests that all hovered around a common interest in the web 2.0 space. I think what has really allowed us to differentiate ourselves is that we came to the table with no pre-conceived notions of what a social media company “should” look like…We simply started with one client, then two, then three, and so on — continually growing along the way. Each new project challenged us to figure out how to effectively ‘nail jell-o to the wall’ long enough to explain, educate, and train clients how to start at step 7 rather than square 1 (considering the rate at which an already overwhelming industry changes directions).

The ultimate question that we had to solve was how to remain relevant while not watering down social media so much so that clients wrote it off as a trend, but still maintain a level of technicality that would ensure that the market would respect the importance it needed to place on making social related decisions. (LOL) If you can effectively learn, experiment, problem solve, analyze your ‘in hind-sight discoveries’, and simultaneously teach others how to do it along the way, then a career in social media is right up your alley. It’s kind of like asking an artist to analyze the affect their art will have on viewers as he/she creates it on the fly.

There have been a few realities that exposed themselves over the last year. 1) There will always be an aspect of experimentation involved in any social initiative.  Social media is social because it involves people.  People are very social and people are very complex; making it a double whammy. Regularly, you are trying to shoehorn solutions together based on limited information and changing features/capabilities of said platforms and tools.  In the planning process, a feature is appealing, but by the time execution time arrives, the technology slightly changes and the critical aspect of the tool which had persuaded you to move no longer functions with the breadth you’d become enchanted with.  Rather than scrap the entire project, you scramble to figure out the ripple effects of the changes, adapt your game plans, and move forward aware that more changes will arrive in the execution process – (read: expect the unexpected).

Over the past year, a few common questions have remained at the forefront. I for one have learned that you truly have to do different to be different. It all starts with your actions.  All too often, people tell us that they ‘do not want to touch it’ and would rather have somebody else deal with all of their social media. But, this is missing the point. That’s like saying you would rather have somebody else exercise on your behalf for your benefit (Well, duh. Who wouldn’t?).  As ideal as that would be, it just is not physically possible.  You have to get in there and do it yourself to be most effective.  Fortunately, just like exercising, you do not have to be the most knowledgeable, motivated, or experienced person in the gym as you can always rely on others to motivate, educate, and guide your exercise routines.  It is those people who provide the training, coaching, and guidance over time to keep you on track.

As social media continues to grow, there will be a learning curve as late adopters try to hop onto the scene.  From a cultural studies perspective, the thing that fascinates me is that social media will just be an innate form of communication for future generations (just like past generations stepped right into telephones and AIM).  In the interim, questions will continue to arise, tools will continue to evolve, and problems solved.

Thank you to everybody who has helped us along the way. What started as helping people understand and use social media has grown into strategic development, implementation, advertising, training, monitoring, reporting, and many more services.

Who knows what day 730 will look like? Thanks for reading!

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Here is your roundup of all the top stories for the last week. Now, I have to get that buzzing out of my ears:

Facebook:

The first Facebook story is actually from today. Reuters announced that it looks like Facebook did $800MM last year in revenue, and had profits in the tens of millions of dollars. Considering that most of their revenue comes from ads, that means that they served something like 700MM ads last year, or about 2 million per day.

This is big news, because it is not only proof that these online networks can make money, it also shows that Facebook should be around for a while, which is good news for any marketers looking at running a campaign on it. (source)

Also in Facebook news, they finally decided to allow the creator of a page to be removed as an admin. This means that now, agencies can make the page and hand it off, rather than jump through all the current hoops that one has to. (source)

Twitter:

One of the biggest stories of the week was the trouble that twitter has been having recently. The uptime has been really poor as of late, and Twitter knows it. It is due to things like engineering changes, the World Cup, and the NBA Finals. They are working on it, and they fully admit that it is their fault. Look for it to be better in the middle of July, and even better beginning in August, when they change the way that 3rd parties authenticate with Twitter. (source)

Also, their new ads started rolling out. They show up in the “Trends” Section, and are distinguished from the rest with a little “Promoted” tag. The first one was for Toy Story 3 (source)

Other:

In the other news of the week, Wordpress released WP3.0, the latest milestone release for the popular blogging software. Included in this release are over 1200 bugfixes, a new menu system, and the merging of the multi-blog and single-blog branches. It is also a recommended update for all users. (source)

Finally, it looks like Amazon has patented social networking. No one really knows whats going on here, but it is a fun patent to read. (source)

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Having taken a break from blogging, I am flooded with all of the cool things I could possibly write about.  Everything from f8, Chirp, Google I/O, Facebook Privacy issues, “Pants On The Ground”, and the new Ford Explorer Fan Page campaign all come to mind.  Considering all these more well-known items, I think I’m going to point out some of the less popular social media insights I’ve gained this spring; each cool nonetheless!

Did you know that you have to be a partner of YouTube to get a custom background?  It’s true.  Did you know such partnership entails spending at least $10,000 in advertising dollars or having a bajillion (yes) video views (read: be a video superstar). Want that custom background? Spend some money or go viral…

Did you know that you can hyper-target Facebook advertisements to people who work at specific companies? Yes, you can do that!  Imagine wanting to advertise your product to everybody working at a major retailer to 1) get exposure and possible customers and 2) attract a following at said retailer with the hopes that they contact you to carry your product in their store(s)..! Yes, it’s plausible – and fairly inexpensive (if you do it right).

Were you aware of the ability to have a customized landing page on your Fan Page?  The programming language is FBML (Facebook Markup Language — from HTML fame) and it allows you to create rich, graphic intensive and custom branded tabs for fans and prospective fans to view.  With a little ‘magic’, you can even have it set up to immediately display the custom welcome tab to anybody who is not already a fan of your fan page.

Lastly, did you know that I have an Evo? Yep! That’s true as well…and I highly recommend you getting your hands on one.

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HTML5 is the new proposed standard for how websites are made. While it is not official yet, many browsers and companies are already supporting it. HTML5 brings several new features to the table, and will make browsing the internet faster, easier, and more like working with a desktop program.

The main theme in HTML5 is to do more in the browser, and without plugins. Prior to now, most things being done on the web needed a plugin if it was much more complex than displaying simple text or images. Videos, games, and offline storage currently require a plugin, making the integration with the browser sloppy at best. HTML5’s new technologies remove the need for these, allowing the web to work a lot better, and enabling a new generation of applications.

New Features:

• The Canvas: The canvas is an all-new way to display graphics on the web. Previously, web graphics had to be static, or needed to be Flash. With the canvas, images, games, or other visuals can be created on the fly, in the browser, without the need for plugins.

• Video: HTML5 will change the way video on the web happens. Much like the canvas, the new “Video” element allows the video to be in the browser without needing a plugin, or using Adobe Flash.

• Geolocation: Rather than needing to look up an IP adderess to guess a users location (whether for a map or an ad), HTML5 will be able to tell a users location much more accurately, allowing the next generation of location-based applications to also exist in the browser.

• Offline: HTML5 includes a way for a website to function offline, without a plugin like Google Gears. This will make it much easier, and more useful, to use local storage, which will further increase the benefits of apps like Gmail.

For more information, Focus.com has an infographic that does a great job explaining it.

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Below is a list of our upcoming events. These events are open to you and your friends.

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Tyler Olson and Adam Maikkula attended the Minnesota Council of Non-profits event last week at the Hyatt Regency. The events’ speakers presented primarily on technology, communication, and social media.

When asked:
- How many of you are using facebook for your organization?
75% raised their hand

- How many of you are using twitter for your organization?
Over 50% raised their hand

During the event, we were keeping an eye on twitter and the tweets going through. On average, there were 3-5 tweets per minute that were relevant to the event. We replied back to those users with #mnnptech and encouraged them to stop by our booth.

Are you using social media for your organization yet? What’s working and what isn’t working?

Photo originally uploaded by Minnesota Council of Nonprofits

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Exporting my contacts from hotmail was completed in 5 clicks. If you think that sounds easy, read on!

I went over to my Gmail account to see how I could import these contacts. To my surprise, it had its own set of steps that were much easier to say the least! One thing that really impressed me are the options it presented me with to further facilitate my transition. It allowed me to import my contacts, import my mail AND import any new mail I receive from my hotmail account for the next 30 days! In addition, once the import started, it let me know that I can close the window and keep using Gmail, or even log out and close my browser. It would still keep working in the background.

Now, I am one of those people who has been using hotmail for the past ten years. Being in the social media and marketing community has proven me otherwise.  A few reasons I have decided to switch over to Gmail:

Google Calendar

Is web based and really easy to synch with your mobile phone. You can also create different calendars and color code them to your needs.

Labs

There are so many features that are being developed by the community everyday that further simplify your life. Two examples I found to be helpful are the Undo Send & The Title Tweaks features.  The latter isn’t as clear so I’ll further explain it. It basically changes the order of the elements in the browser title bar from “Gmail – Inbox (10)” to “Inbox (10) – Gmail” which allows you to see if new mail has arrived even if the Gmail window is minimized!

Labels

I don’t know about you, but I like keeping my emails organized.  You know those emails you get, the ones that have a tendency to fall into numerous categories? With the label feature, you don’t need to assign it in ONE folder! You can have multiple labels for it which is easier to search for should you want to refer back to it.

Archive

If you don’t want to delete the email, yet it is something you have already read, archiving it is the way to go. All archived mail remains in the archived folder and you can use the search bar to find it later.

Reader

Reader allows you to subscribe to websites you frequently visit and brings you their latest updates right to your email! You can also share your entire list with friends.

Documents

With this feature, you can create a word document, excel file, presentation and/or form all within your account! Not only does it allow you to do that, but also, you can share specific documents with friends and co-workers.

Go on, give it a try and let me know what you think!

Now that’s taken care of, I’m starting to buzz! – add me to your buzz environment!

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I have had several chats with people recently about blogging, and want to share some thoughts on it. There are several groups of people who should be blogging:

Students:

As a student myself, I see blogging as the #1 way to set yourself apart. It does not matter what industry you are in, you should be blogging. Accounts can talk about and show their knowledge, marketing people can show off their chops, political science majors can show their opinions, report the news, and give analysis, and artists can use it as a portfolio. I challenge you to give me a major where it would not help to blog.

Business owners:

If you have a business, take one hour a week to blog. It can be from a teaching perspective or a company news perspective, whatever it might be, make sure you are getting it out there and sharing your knowledge and expertise.

Moms/Dads/Parents:

This is a perfect way to document your kid’s childhood, to share your child with everyone, and to share (and gain) tips and tricks with other parents, or soon-to-be parents.

Job Seekers:

Basically the same as students. You can use this to show your potential and what you have done. It is a great way to share what you would want to do with your current employer, without mentioning names, without the risk of confrontation.

So yes, this basically covers everyone. One thing I tell everyone is that others are blogging about it, you should be too. This applies especially to students and job seekers-for instance, I am a student, and I blog. This will help put me over students who dont blog, putting them at a disadvantage.

I will blog next week about the benefits of blogging-the less obvious ones, not the “you can get exposure” ones.

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It is no secret that I have something similar to a love affair with the open source content management system Wordpress. I have stickers all over my laptop and notebooks, and even on a lamp in the office.

People often ask me why I love it so much, or why they should use it themselves. I have finally written down my answer:

Some of the things I love about Wordpress:

• Ease of use:
  • Wordpress has a very nice back-end, which allows anyone to be able to add or edit content site-wide.
  • It is also very easy to add functionality using plug-ins.
  • Design is handled by themes, allowing you to either use one you like or create/modify an existing one.
• Reliability:
  • Wordpress is one of the top content management systems, and has a vibrant community around it. This allows it to be updated constantly, making sure there are no bugs.
  • It is also really easy to get support for because of this community.
• Power:
  • Wordpress can handle anything from a simple one page blog to a massive website, and anything from no traffic to 100,000 unique visits a day.
  • Wordpress can be completely customized, allowing people of every level of expertise to leverage it

Why you should use Wordpress:

1. It’s free
2. It’s easy
3. It’s powerful
4. It’s supported
5. The community behind it is there for you
6. Any business can benefit from having a blog.

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It was recently brought to my attention that I have consumed my life in the online world and everything that goes around it.  When I was in college my major was marketing.  Social Media as a marketing tool was not fully being embraced in school, yet students were using it as case studies for projects.  Like every other college student, I used Facebook but it was not the same as it is today.

My life recently has been consumed by tweeting on Twitter, checking in on Foursquare, messaging and chatting on Facebook and the list goes on.  Some of the important people in my life started taking a back seat.  It suddenly hit me one day (after multiple people telling me multiple times) that there was a problem.  Now that I have acknowledged that there is a problem (after all that’s half the battle and the first step) I realized I needed to fix this immediately.

I am working harder at unplugging.  This goes to all aspects of my life. Further than social media.  Writing blog posts, surfing other blogs, chatting on Facebook, these are all part of the problem.  It is all being connected.  Taking time to just go for a drive with a loved one.  Cuddling up and watching tv with your significant other.  These are examples of how to unplug.

Lately I am trying to embrace the concept of unplugging a little more often. When I am with ones that matter most, I do not necessarily need to check the text the minute it comes in.  The truth is, if someone is dying they will most likely call not text.  Before you say how can Joel be saying this, hear me out.  Spending a few hours with no Twitter or any real connections for that matter, turns out is nice.

This is not to say you should not be on Twitter and other platforms.  I have made invaluable connections and relationships which I would not trade for anything.  With all that said, I am enjoying unplugging more often.  The point is make sure there is a balance, make sure one thing does not consume all your time.

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