September 2011 Social Media Roundup

Sites with Twitter "share" buttons get 7x more links

A study of 4 million randomly sampled Tweets showed that websites with a Twitter share button get almost 7 times as many link mentions on average as ones that don't have them. Easy to install widgets make "social share" buttons available to any website owner, but only 53.6 percent of the 10,000 most popular websites are using social sharing buttons. This is a simple and effective way to boost crucial social media dissemination of your brand's content.

Have you tried Google+ yet? (25 million others have)

On Google+ yet? Social media maven Chris Brogan has six suggestions for how to get started.

1. Update your Google profile: add a photo, write something interesting in the employment section. That's what people see when they hover over your name anywhere on Google+.
2. Create new Circles (Circles are how you organize the people you're connected to on Google+) to suit your individual needs.
3. Find some interesting people to add to your Circles. Google+ is like Twitter in that you can follow anyone you find interesting.
4. Post something interesting yourself.
5. Share other people's interesting posts with your Circles.
6. Try a Hangout (multi-user video chat).

Google+ should have business pages going by the end of the year, and more and more Google products will incorporate Google+ for sharing and communication. It's definitely worth spending some time to get comfortable with.

More Americans using location-based services

A Pew Research study shows that use of location-based services (GPS, mobile applications for Twitter and Facebook, and check-in apps like Foursquare and Gowalla) is growing, especially among smartphone users. And there is evidence that people who check in at retail locations spend more money than those who don't. The study provides one more sign that mobile marketing is becoming a crucial place for local businesses to get active in.

27 more cities in the pipeline for Google Offers

Google Offers has gone live in Seattle, Denver, Austin, Washington, D.C., and Boston. These are in addition to six cities that already had the service. And the Groupon-like service is slated for rollout in another 27 U.S. cities. The service provides an easy way for local businesses to offer special discounts and other incentives to their customers, offering close integration with the powerful Google Places and Google Maps platforms.

It's beginning to look a lot like (mobile) Christmas

Google projects that 44 percent of last-minute searches for holiday gifts will be done from mobile devices this holiday season. The study is based on historical growth rates. Marketers who haven't optimized their mobile experience for their customers (which is 79 percent of Google's major advertiser clients as of February 2011) are way behind the curve. Tablet users are considered particularly likely to be more engaged and to spend more than other consumers.

Google Places "Report a Problem" button causes... problems

The "Report a Problem" button on Google Places can lead to abuse when someone incorrectly reports that a business is permanently closed. Google's Places algorithm does not distinguish false reports correctly. For some business owners, an email alert from Google alerting them of their "permanently closed" status was the only warning they received. Business owners who use Google Places (and all local businesses should--it's very effective) must be aware of the potential for this kind of problem.

9 amazing mobile marketing statistics for marketers

Need motivation to get started with mobile marketing? Here are two samples from a collection of statistics that make the case pretty compelling:
"Mobile coupons get 10 times the redemption rate of traditional coupons."
"70 percent of all mobile searches result in action within 1 hour." Read more.

Need some good models for your Facebook Fan Page?

Social Media Examiner's 2011 winners are all small businesses without big budgets. These are great examples of creative uses of the very successful Facebook Fan Page platform. Some of the reasons winners were chosen include: 1) appealing use of "photo of the day"; 2) excellent responsiveness to each individual commenter; and 3) good use of prizes for liking the page.

Foursquare is the most popular social check-in site

With more than 10 million users checking in more than 3 million times a day, Foursquare is the big player in this area of social media. (Facebook is giving up on its mobile Places check-in application, which was widely expected to be a Foursquare-killer.) Any brand can now create a branded Foursquare page, opening up some new ways to communicate with the site's fast-growing user community, which is very successful among younger, more affluent mobile Internet users. Get started on your own branded Foursquare Page with help from this article.

Daniel Lieberman is the founder of Daniel Lieberman Digital ("I speak Geek - You don't need to."). Based in Shelburne Falls, Mass., he helps companies, organizations, and individuals learn to use the Internet to communicate, market, and brand themselves using the most up-to-date tools and techniques. Contact him at 413-489-1818 or daniel@daniellieberman.org.