It seems when Google or Apple unveils some product the Twittersphere goes nuts for a few days or maybe a week. People have being flaming the comment streams and message boards over FCP X for the last week, Google Buzz was a huge topic of conversation for about three days. Wave, a little longer but even then, it turned out to be a giant flop. Oh, and do you remember when Google Voice was the invite to get?

However, Google constantly has a lot of new stuff and beta stuff happening. Maybe you didn’t know it but there’s also Music Beta happening (check it out).  And over at Google Labs you can tweak your search or check out new products that aren’t +. Also did you know about Google.org? Here you’ll find out how Google is trying to save the world.

This isn’t a puff piece about Google, I have good and bad feelings about how they’ve affected the advertising industry. What I am saying is that social media causes us to act very mob like. We get so focused on the present shiny object as a group that we fail to talk about all the other stuff that’s happening and, even more exciting, the larger trends that truly affecting our careers and lives. Like say, mob behavior.

New post at Kilgannon Says:

We’re in the midst of some rather transformative times. Especially if you happen to live in the Middle East.  Some are crediting Facebook and Twitter as key catalysts that helped to overthrow a 40-year dictatorship in Egypt. This phenomenon has spread throughout the Arab world from Yemen to Bahrain and is currently erupting in Libya. You can follow the revolution on Twitter. Read the rest…

Ever met someone who never takes sides. Never makes a clear decision. Always wants the group to decide so he doesn’t run the risk of making anyone upset. You probably called this person wishy washy, indecisive or maybe even weak. And never a leader.

Now imagine this person is your brand. A lot of marketers are scared to death that someone may call, email, write a letter to the editor or, God forbid, tweet their dissatisfaction. They would rather stand for nothing then have someone rant about their product on their Facebook wall.

Now think of a person with strong opinions maybe even famous people with strong opinions. Those people probably have a lot of lovers and haters. Most politicians are that way and many business leaders are that way too  –like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Yet their brands represent the two largest market capitalization in the world (Exxon is the only US company with a larger market cap than Apple).

People find their personalities both attracting and appalling as well as the products these companies offer. Sure, they are unique individuals and companies but that’s the point. So is Tony Heish and Zappos. Or Mark Cuban and his Dallas Mavericks and HDNet. And of course, Martha Stewart and Omnimedia.

A company doesn’t have to have a strong CEO to stand for something either. You probably don’t know who the CEO of Disney is now that Michael Eisner (or Walt) is gone but you understand what the brand represents (yes there are people who hate the mouse). And what about Porsche? Or say Burberry?

A brand can stand for something just through the products it makes or the service it offers. But is often communicated effectively through it’s marketing and advertising. I’m not going to dissect ad campaigns and say which ones run the risk of offending and which make a stand. It’s pretty obvoius when they do and when they don’t.

I know people who are bright, energetic and engaged in person but don’t come off that way online. They have Facebook profiles that are never updated and Twitter accounts they haven’t posted to in weeks. Or worse, a blog that has gone entirely dark for months.

Sure it’s hard to keep up with but with a little planning it is completely possible to keep it real online 24/7. Here are a few things you can do to plan for it:

1. Post to your blog at least weekly. Try to Tweet everyday. If you’re using Facebook for business try and do something there daily. You don’t have to post everyday – commenting on other people’s posts goes a long way.
2. Exploit auto-posting features. Most blogging platforms, like WordPress allow you to set a later publication date. If you know you’re going have a busy week, you can set it and forget it.
3. Put time on your calender for social media activities. Most people put other important things on their calendar but don’t bother to for social media.
4. Use mobile apps. Take a few minutes on the train or waiting for a meeting to hammer out a post or send a couple tweets.
5. Write non-time-sensitive material and leave it on the back burner. Then pull the material out when things get busy.
6. If you’re maintaining a business profile don’t be shy about delegating all or a portion of the responsibility.  You may find one of your employees is more comfortable in the space than you are. It can be better when someone higher in the food chain takes responsibility for social media activities but if you can’t maintain an active presence, it’s better to go ahead and delegate.

Sure, your offline existence is more important than your online one – no doubt. But the two are increasingly intertwined – so it makes sense to be your best both off and online.

This train wreck that’s been happening on all the gossip sites, new channels, and sports outlets should be driving two things home to everyone who lives in the digital age. There is no privacy and can’t control your personal brand.

So what if you’re not Tiger Woods with millions of dollars of endorsements to worry about? You have a potential employer, neighbor, girlfriend, or relative that will Google you and what comes up should be good. Also there several search engines created just to pull up all the good and bad about you.

So what’s a person living in the digital age to do? Fortunately, you can use some of the same strategies we advise companies to use every day that will help you give your personal brand the guiding influence it needs.

Monitor everything. It’s easy to set up a Google Alert on your name right now.

Create your own content instead of leaving it all up to others. That means:

• Start a professional blog. It isn’t as hard a you might think.
• Create account profiles even if you don’t use them often on Yahoo and Google and anywhere else you can think of that will reflect well on you.
• Tweet. It’s even easier than blogging.
• Create a profile on Linkedin. Everybody’s doing it and they search pretty well.
• Get active on social networks and tweak your privacy settings so what you want people to see is visible and what you don’t isn’t. I have mine set on Facebook so that anyone can find me but only friends can see personal information and updates, and so that search engines will not index my information. Most importantly, I set my photo settings so only I can see photos tagged of me (hey, I went to college before the digital camera revolution.) For all other networks, I limit my conversation to what would be appropriate discussion with clients and colleagues. For me, that’s probably broader than others.

Don’t discuss politics or religion online unless it’s your profession – meaning a political columnist or a minister. Why give someone a reason not to like you before they get to know you?

Attempt to correct any misinformation out there or at least ask to add your side of the story.

Stay up to date. If you got married, it be a good idea to remove that profile on a dating site, lest you looking like a cheater.

Oh, and don’t forget to be good. It’s hard to keep a secret these days, so you might as well not take any chances.

The interwebs got me in touch with an old friend last week I had not talked to since I moved east. I picked up the phone and we picked up where we had left off – it was a great conversation. It was also connection worth renewing. But there are some people I see every week where the connection isn’t as valuable to me.

In social media, connections are the same way. Most will read this post and never think to comment on it. Some may comment but never think to connect personally. Some will connect personally but never choose to do business. This is all great. Because some will.

How many followers/friends/fans does it take to make a million dollars? Well, that depends on what you’re selling and even if you’re selling. This website has only been at it’s current address for a month, doesn’t have a lot of readers yet, isn’t overtly selling anything, but it has gotten me back in touch with an old colleague who needs some help. No, not a million dollars worth of help. But help.

Focusing on the value of connections is not really new thinking in marketing. Direct marketers have always focused on the quality of their lists – it can cost a lot to mail a compelling direct mail piece.

Social media practitioners should think about their target too when they’re planning a social media effort. If you’re trying to sell a enterprise software, a select group of fans, followers, or readers may be a lot more valuable than 100,000 fans on Facebook. But if you’re selling potato chips, heck, just about everyone buys those occasionally – by all means, talk to everyone.

Like all parents of young children, I hate, hate, hate how much it costs to keep my kids in diapers. So when I opened a new pack of Huggies® I was happy to be notified I possibly had won a lifetime supply. All I had to do was fill out an online form. OK.

But the form kept going and I got to feeling they wanted more information than was appropriate. (Full disclosure, I’ve been a victim of identity theft.) Like my kids’ ages, birthdays, and names. Come on Huggies®, you’re kidding me. Right?

So I poked around for an email address. Fail again. But there’s a form, so I fill it out only to get a “do not reply”, canned email from a Huggie®. No, not Sue at Huggie®. But from a registerd trademark. Wow, I have confidence now. Let me send you my social security number too.

I’m bashing a little on Kimberly Clarke, but, really, a whole lot of companies are guilty of this kind of lack of respect for the individual. Hey, they’re giving something of value away, so they should get something, right? Some marketing data that can be used for the next direct mail piece and research for the next ad campaign or product line.

But actually they could have gotten similar data and much cheaper and frequent reach just by requiring I fan them on Facebook. And I would be using them as positive example right now. But as annoyed as I am about this, my wife will still buy those diapers. At least for another year.

A few months ago I worked on an advertising project that came up because a client was promised some free production and media. This offer was too good to pass up so they asked the agency to add some value and help make the most out of the opportunity.

I bet you know where I’m going with this. What was promised to be “free” ended up costing far more than free. I could provide a long list of costs but that would just be boring. Let’s just say, the man hours it took to turn something free into something that represented the brand well was nothing close to free.

Free social media is exactly the same way. There are all kinds of not so obvious costs that need to be considered before starting an effort.

Monitoring: Either you have to pay for a service or tool. Or you need to pay someone to spend time with the freebies and Excel.

Strategy: You need to know what and where you will be engaging.

Moderating and community management: You will need someone experienced to engage and respond to customers.

Tools: Sometimes you need to purchase technology to make the best use of your social media.

Plan for success: What happens if things go really well? You need a plan and financial resources manage success.

Our client was smart, they recognized the need to spend on free media to make the most of it. And once you spend money on something you tend to put more value on executing it correctly. And then you’ll have a better chance of it paying off.

I can’t tell you how many people have told me in the last year that TV is dead. Unlike the changes we’re seeing in printed media, this couldn’t be further from reality.

Nevertheless, the way we’re watching TV has changed. But there are some misconceptions about the way we’re watching TV. For example, that everyone is using DVRs now and this is going to kill TV advertising. Actually, DVR use is up with older folks but the younger, more sought after audience, is watching programs on Hulu. And Hulu is capturing more money per eyeball than traditional television. Also, more people are also watching programs on mobile devices. Some programs people actually pay for on places like the iTunes Store.

So what’s the takeaway here? People are watching. But TV isn’t just on the same old box anymore. So it’s going to take different ways for advertisers to engage consumers than just running a spot on the idiot box. And it’s going to take more than just selling ad space from networks if they want to continue to generate the same revenue from their programing.

People still want to watch Lost but they’re just not so interested in appointment viewing anymore without a really good reason to tune in on time.  Fox gave it to them with “tweet peats” and Barack Obama, CNN and Facebook hit a home run with the State of the Union. This is not to imply that social media the solution to all of TV’s problems, just one of many solutions that will be required for TV to adapt to a changing world.

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When initially discussing social media with clients, often the first thing brought up is using Twitter or Facebook as an outgoing tool to push their advertising messages. If you’re thinking about social media from a traditional marketing perspective, there’s nothing wrong with this concept. It’s obviously a cheap media buy, and we all know that it’s a bigger and bigger audience every day. So it makes total sense to dive in, right?

In case you haven’t heard, volume of social media is absolutely huge, including 133,000,000 blogs, 250,000,000 active Facbook users and, now, over 33 million Twitters. This vast sea of information contains connections and ecosystems that even the most adept brand manager or CMO will find confounding without the right tools and people with a dedication to finding them.

After the individuals and connections are found, marketers must learn what customers are saying and gauge their sentiment about their product, brand and company. Marketers may discover there’s a lot being said by more people than they would have thought possible.

Once all this information is gathered, it becomes obvious that simply getting a line in the water isn’t enough. Marketers need to develop a unique strategy to engage their audience that’s a lot deeper and more involved than getting on Twitter and Facebook with the same message they’ve been using in traditional marketing.

OK. You get it and you’re ready to start and want to know your options.

Hire an agency or consultant to do the listening and strategy for you.

Buy a tool like Neilson’s, Radian 6, or Social Radar and make a go of it yourself.

Don’t have the budget or buy in on the importance of social media? Start with the free tools and and Excel spreadsheet. A couple graphs and some solid numbers may help you illustrate the importance of social media to decision makers.

A couple free tools are:

Google Blog Search

Twitter Search

Social Mention

Ice Rocket

One Riot

There are literally hundreds of tools out there, these are just a couple I’ve used. The important thing is pick a tool and stick with it if you want to do any tracking because they will all provide different results. What they won’t give you is easy tracking, graphing, and sentiment.