There was a case a few days ago in Utah where some guy decided to take a woman hostage and hold a police stand off, during which he updated Facebook. His updates included messages to friends and family, and replies to comments of support as well as others trying to get him to turn himself in and do the right thing. In yet another societal break, the guy even made new friends on Facebook during the standoff. (Seems like every time I post something on here, it has some kind of bad societal implication – I don’t wanna think too much on that one.) Some of his existing friends were able to go to the location, see what the police were doing, and comment on Facebook, warning him as to their strategy and position.

All this doesn’t really surprise me, though the more tech savvy these folks become, the more savvy the rest of us need to also become. What I am wondering is how much of this is going to make it’s way into legislation? I mean, I am sure there are some laws on the books that can be applied to these circumstances, but the probability of news laws pertaining to the use of social media to aid and abet criminals will probably be written.

Social media has done many good things. It has also been used to do some not so great things. When you are using social media yourself, be mindful of what information you are putting out there, and who can see it. Don’t give the bad guys any more tools than they already have. If you’d like more information on web security, check out http://noodleonthis.com . This blog, written by my brother in law, is chock full of security warnings and other need to know items to keep you and your information safe online. Check it out.

Of course, this has been happening in bits and pieces for as long as the web has existed but I have been waiting to see the TREND. It’s starting to happen. There are many bloggers who create e-books, lots of how-to ebooks, etc. But it’s just starting to become a phenomenon when a whole book goes viral. Case in point, the rather disturbing/funny book written for adults, but looks and almost sounds like it was written for children “Go the **** to Sleep”. Sorry, not going to be typing out the “f” bomb on my blog. Call me old fashioned or whatever. This book, posted online last year, has gone so viral that people are actually now requesting hard copies of it. (I’m not sure what this says about our society in general, and I don’t really want to spend a lot of time pondering it.) This book has now been read aloud and recorded by the likes of Samuel L. Jackson and some other dude I don’t know, but others seem to think he’s something. Werner Herzog, or something. These video recordings of the book being read aloud are expected to go viral as well.

But this whole business of the book going viral on the web first, and then being published brings up a whole new question. And not “Why would people want a hard copy of this book?” Though that question does come to mind. (It’s one thing to laugh at it online, even commiserate a little with the thinking behind the book, but to want a hard copy lying around that looks like a real childrens book? Nah.) The real question here is: is the web going to change the way books are published? Will the trend in book publishing become such that you have to release it online first, maybe in chunks, to see if there is interest before you can get it published? I recently downloaded a “sample” of Steven Tyler’s book “Does the Noise Inside My Head Bother You?”. Curious, and it was a free sample.

I am sure publishing houses have folks trolling the web as we speak looking for great material to turn into a book. There are plenty of bloggers who have been approached about writing a book, to the point that bloggers often mistakenly think that perhaps they will be asked to write a book. But is this going to be the trend in publishing from here on out? Publish it on the web, and then it may go to hard copy (at least for as long as hard copies exist), or will it be more of a trial on the web before publishing?

What do you think, do you see a trend in publishing happening in your industry, or on the web in general? Have you read books on the web, and then felt compelled to buy the hard copy? Have you considered publishing a work on the web – bypassing a publishing house altogether?

One such niche site is Markdown.com, recently launched by Glenn Beck. This site is different in that it will only offer deals from companies with values that are near and dear to Beck’s heart. For example, today’s deal is from Chocolate.com. Chocolate.com offers products not from a mass wholesaler, but rather from small business owners all over the country. Beck’s vision for the site is much like his usual dogma “Value and Values”. He willonly promote sites on his Markdown.com that have the values he thinks are worthwhile. Therefore, he is able to reach a very niche audience who will appreciate his efforts, and will in many cases want to support his causes. In this particular case, it happens to be small chocolatiers from all over the country. Not a bad first choice – everyone loves chocolate, and most people in the country want to do all they can to help bolster small businesses. This site is different, enough so that WebProNews contributor Chris Crum posted the About Us page. I think it’s worth reading, so I would suggest you hope over to read all of it, but I’ll post part of it here just so you can see what I am talking about:

“To put it simply, we believe that we can only be a great company if we are a good one. That means being good to our employees, our partners and our customers. It means making the right decisions, not just the easy or profitable ones. But, most of all, it means being the kind of place that we’re proud to say we work at; the kind of business that we’d want to do business with ourselves; and the kind of company that we’d be excited to send our own family and friends to.”

That’s valuable. I think it’s important to do business this way, and honestly, I will look to support this kind of site more than any other – it’s the way business should be done, and it’s the way we do business here.

Marketing on discount sites such as these will continue to be a trend. Since women are the main shoppers, and so many have started shopping online in the last 10 years or so, they are going to expect coupons and discounts. Whenever we go to buy something online, I know I search for a coupon code or wait for some discount first. The ability to target your audience, through niche or location, or a combination of the two, is going to become more and more important, and a great way to drive traffic to your site.

So, have you used a discount site to market your product or service? How’d you do? Would you do it again?

Anyway, LinkedIn went Public yesterday, selling shares at the start for around $45. I think WebProNews reported that they are now somewhere around $105. Pretty sweet, and fairly amazing, considering that LinkedIn not as popular as Twitter or Facebook – yet. Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, and his cohorts are probably pretty darn happy today. I hope that the company continues to grow – they’ve been doing some pretty interesting things over at LinkedIn lately, and this will give them the opportunity to expand their products even further (assuming we’re not looking at some sort of social media bubble like the tech bubble of the mid nineties to 2000). Looking forward to seeing what the come up with, I mean, if I’m still here Monday – or Zombies haven’t invaded or anything. I think I’ll go leave a set of my clothes draped over my office chair. Come Monday morning, most of the Group will think I’ve been “raptured” and I can go play golf – who’s with me?

LinkedIn was launched on May 5th, 2003. It has probably grown a little more slowly than other social media platforms, but I also think it that is a good thing, I think it indicates longevity. It currently boasts more than 100 million members. I think the slightly slower growth points to the fact that people take it seriously – they don’t open an account just because, they have a purpose behind it – whether it is networking, looking for talent, or promoting yourself or your business. The profiles are carefully constructed, and I think most people who make connections on LinkedIn do so because they have actually met, they want to recommend someone, or some other fruitful purpose – not simply because they found their profile, or they went to the same college, even if they graduated 10 years apart. And best of all, you don’t have to look at vacation pictures of your boss in a speedo.

LinkedIn has rolled out new features over the last several years. This year they have added Twitter and blog feeds, TextIn, LinkedIn Industry specific news feeds, and various other new features that make using LinkedIn pretty handy. One pretty relevant feature is the Student Job Protal which helps recent graduates find jobs in their field. Pretty cool – if you’re a recent graduate, you should check it out. So here’s to eight years for LinkedIn – if you haven’t set up a profile, I would recommend it – go check them out – they have a fun video up on the blog that shows the growth of the company over the last eight years.

Social Media can be great for your business – great opportunities for marketing. Awesome with local search, etc. But do I think this is now the one and only way to market your business? No way. Do I think that Search Marketing, in a more general sense, that includes social is the one and only way to market your business? No, but it is the best, most cost effective and targeted way to market your business.

Just a couple of the more salient points in the argument – search engine marketing helps people who are actively looking for your product or service to find it – they don’t have to know who you are first. Social media primarily helps spread the word among friends and followers. Someone has to know who you are first, even if you initiate the relationship – it’s not going to go anywhere if no one knows who you are – so search engine marking needs to be the first priority when planning a marketing budget for your web site. This will lay the ground work for any social media and local search. I mean, if you are gonna use local search, you should probably optimize for it, especially if you are offering goods and services that are locally based, as in they can’t be shipped. If you are a dentist or install pools, you’ll want to optimize for your locality as well as the goods and services you are offering. Once you have that all in place, or concurrently, you’ll want to get into social media to “spread the word” – social media really is the new word of mouth advertising – so you should use it to your advantage as much as possible – and track what is being said about you online. People are much faster to complain about a restaurant or other business via Twitter or Facebook, than they are to promote it – so if you want it to be used to your benefit, make sure you are paying attention to what’s being said so you can rectify any complaints or issues ASAP.

This will continue to be an discussion as social media gets bigger and bigger. Social media has absolutely changed the way every size of business markets – of course it did – it’s cheap, it’s relatively easy, and it gets some results. It’s essentially put marketing in the hands of the consumer – which is great – more power to the consumer – but this is also why you really have to pay attention to reputation management – it’s essential to know what people are saying about you – the good and the bad. Social media has made it essential that you be friendly, outstanding, and special, or you are going to be tweeted about. If you are rude – tweet, tweet. If you are ordinary, no tweet. If you go above and beyond, likely tweet. Gotta go for the above and beyond – and really that makes everyone work harder, try to be nicer – win win, right?

There’s a great article over at Mashable with some tips on how Social Media has changed Marketing, as well as some things you can do to get started. The author recommends getting your employees tweeting and using social media to promote your company. This is a great idea – but I’d keep in mind that it is the first place they will turn sour on you if you part ways in an unfriendly manner – just sayin’. We’ve all seen it happen a time or two.

1. Regional questions pertaining to local activities and restaurants
a. What’s your favorite night to eat out?
b. What is your favorite restaurant?
c. Do you buy more chicken or beef?
d. Do you buy the same groceries every week, or shop the sales?
e. Would you rather see a baseball game or a football game?

2. Fundamental Brand Questions
a. Coke or Pepsi? (just kidding)
b. Do you buy car parts from the dealer or an auto parts store?
c. Do you still buy CDs, or just download music?
d. Old Navy for price or Gap for quality?

As you can see, the possibilities are endless, and I think have the potential to reveal some pretty good buying trends. Take advantage of the trends with specials and coupons. A restaurant owner may tweak his menu based on responses. Local store owner might have a better real time understanding of food buying trends (look for low heat homogenized milk to be a growing trend in foods).

People are funny. You can watch the Food Network and almost predict what the next big grocery item is going to by, just by what the chefs use in their shows. Very subtle marketing. Now Panko breadcrumbs are everywhere. Same with olive oil. Ten years ago, that was Popeye’s girlfriend’s name. Now many American households just can’t be without the stuff – mine included. Pomegranates seem to be the next big thing. The same thing will start to appear with the FB Questions (just as Twitter has trends, so will Questions). A good marketer will watch these questions for clues to the next big things, but business owners will be able to employ this easily to gain knowledge in real time about customer wants. It will be interesting to watch.

Have you tried out FB Questions yet? What question did you pose?

It’s a pretty cool idea, and can probably help you get the news that is relevant to you. The way it works is fairly obvious, the news stories shared the most often by your connections, coworkers and peers will be presented to you in an industry specific. If you follow more than one industry, as many would want to, clients’ industries, others that affect your business, etc. then the top five news stories that affect the industries you follow will be highlighted.

From the LinkedIn Blog, “By following industries, you can get the relevant news on your Front Page and in the top navigation. We’ll also send you a weekly email of the top industry headlines across all of the industries you follow. And, no matter how many industries you follow, we will only send you one news email per week.”

They also have apps for your phone of course. If you are pretty busy, and don’t want to wade through all the regular news to try and get the industry specific news you are looking for, this could be a beneficial tool. Aren’t we getting lazy? Too many clicks through a news site, just pipe the news I want right to me and forget the rest! In any case, you can do just that now, on your LinkedIn profile. Kinda cool, sort of a one stop for the business community, which I am sure is the whole point.

I think LinkedIn is a great tool. I think this could make it even more useful, unless it clutters up a good thing. We’ll see how it pans out.
If you want to read more about it, check out the LinkedIn Blog post, or watch the video below, originally posted on the LinkedIn Blog.

While I wonder what people are thinking, it’s impressive really, that Cafe Press and Frazzle have already started producing merch, and did it quickly, according to a report on Fox News. Cafe Press says they can start producing things like t-shirts and coffee mugs in about an hour after seeing a new trend. Why is this possible? The web, of course. If you’ve been living under a rock and have never purchased anything from Cafe Press, then you need to know that they make t-shirts and other personalized items. You can create a t-shirt or whatever, and have it printed and shipped to you. They also have just about any saying or cause you could ever want already designed and ready to print. So, once they start seeing a certain trend, they knock out a design and put it on their site for purchase. Pretty cool, very much making use of the money making opportunities the web has to offer. It’s smart. I am sure they have folks watching Facebook and Twitter, as well as their own site, gauging the trends and predicting what will come next. Smart, but a little reprehensible. Is there anything they won’t print? A quick search of Cafe press revealed a baby onesie that says “My Conduct is Bitchin”. I really hope nobody buys that for their kid.

As for Charlie Sheen, he has helped some folks make a little money on all his crazy antics, but I continue to wonder what that says about the society we’re living in?

That being said, social media is good, too, and should be a secondary consideration. Jamie Turner over at Mashable has a pretty interesting post about the Social Media ROI Cycle. According to Jamie’s post, there are three stages of a social media ROI cycle: Launch, Management and Optimization. A bit backwards from the way we do and SEO strategy, at least from a web developer’s best practices standpoint. We would, depending on what the client wanted to undertake, recommend for a new site, while the copy is being developed, optimization going forward would be a great thing – ready for the search engines at launch. Any social media strategy should be on top of a traditional SEO campaign.

This is of course the best case scenario, but it makes the most sense. Once you launch, you manage, or analyze and tweak your on going SEO efforts, which might include some social media. Regularly re-examining your strategy will help you decide if social media is a good fit for your company. Regular tweaking of your ongoing SEO is a must. Good copy, a well developed site, and carefully constructed SEO is always going to give you a good ROI. Social media is great, and has been the icing on many cakes so far, and it will continue to be a major part of any online marketing strategy. But SEO is the cake, it’s fundamental.