There’s an interesting trend on Facebook. People use their real names and talk about real life events. While many of these same people want to be anonymous on most of the internet, they let those barriers down on Facebook. And it may be, in part, due to the fact that much of Facebook’s information is not available to search engines. Users can restrict their profiles to be seen by friends only. And that makes them more comfortable with sharing personal information.

On the other hand, there’s Google. You need SEO, page rank, and search results with Google. People only find you when they’re searching for you - or more likely searching for your product. If you want the walk-in customers, you still need Google. But if you want referral traffic, you’re increasingly going to need Facebook.

As more people use Facebook, it becomes a place to find product and service recommendations. Do you want to choose a random business from a generic search, or would it work better if you got reviews from friends? Most people are going to prefer help from a trusted source. As people post links to videos, news articles, or cool new things they found, others are seeing those links and clicking them.

Your marketing plan is going to need to accommodate both sites. If you want people to find your site through searches, you’ll need to continue optimizing your site for Google traffic. But as more people get their information from Facebook, you need to make sure you’re providing the content that people want, and make it easy for them to share it with friends.

image: morgueFile

There are several reasons to use Facebook for your business. Networking with your current customers, finding new ones, launching products or pushing information out to a large group. All can be beneficial to keeping your business in front of people.

You can create a fan page based on your business or product, if it’s something that’s appropriate for what you do. People are fans of more than just musicians, causes, and TV shows. If your customers are naturally congregating on Facebook, you can give them a place to hopefully talk with other customers about your product. And you can push information out to them by posting news, promotions, and other information to the fan page.

If you Twitter, you can set your Twitter stream to cross-post to your Facebook wall. You can also set other services like StumbleUpon, delicious, and even a blog to post short blurbs to Facebook. Why would you want to do this? For starters, it keeps your content fresh. Secondly, if you’re sharing information with your customers — and it’s helpful information — you become a trusted source for them.

You can also see what’s important to your customers. By seeing what they and their friends are talking about, it gives you a better idea of how to best interact with them. Maybe you’ll see a problem they have that you can solve. If you can offer a solution without being pushy, just offer to help, you improve that relationship.

Just make sure than you join in on conversations and do more than just promote you or your product. Add some substance to whatever it is people are talking about. If you only say “Buy this, buy this, buy this” people will ignore you. Do it enough and they’ll start telling others to ignore you, too. Don’t spam. Offer value. Earn trust. Give a little something extra. Build a fan base.

image: lumaxart.com

Jobs in Social Media is booming. Every day more and more people are connecting, meeting and supporting one another. The boom has increased to job boards dedicated to locating people interested in working in Social Media jobs as well as social media networking opportunities at Jobs in Social Media. Watch this short video clip about jobs that are being created for Social Media professionals.

Here is a list of Social Media sites you may want to check out: facebook, twitter, NING, linkedIn, Friendster, ecademy.com, orkut, plurk, MIXX, DIGG, youtube, ping.sg, nuffnang, twine, squidoo, stumbleupon, kindernet, expatfinder, getsatisfaction, techcrunch

If you are interested in finding jobs in Social Media, do a Google search on Social Media Jobs. Check out the jobs and see if your skill set might help you transition into these new jobs.

Video Credit: Youtube

A few years ago, MySpace was the leading social networking website on the planet. Now, not only has Facebook caught MySpace in the social networking race, they’re on the verge of pulling away from MySpace.

MySpace (Flickr)

As part of that fallout, MySpace recently revealed that they will fire about one-third of their employees — or about 420 workers. MySpace says this move will allow the company to become more nimble and more comparable to Facebook. Considering before this move that MySpace had approximately 1,420 employees and Facebook had 850 employees, this move makes a lot of sense on paper.

However, this may be just a band-aid for MySpace. The company has obviously fallen behind in the technological race with other social networking websites and users are jumping ship at an alarming rate. Additionally, Google’s extremely lucrative advertising deal with MySpace will soon expire.

At this rate, MySpace is going to need to figure out how to turn around this negative trend. If not, MySpace could be in the social networking graveyard in a few years.

According to a recent report by Forrester Research, United States email marketing will reach $2 billion by 2014. That number comes about after factoring in 11% compound growth each year between now and 2014.

Forrester

If you are in the marketing world, you likely already know the power of email marketing. The report by Forrester Research points to falling costs, more online usage by consumers and high ROI as reasons why email marketing will grow by this staggering rate.

While the good for email marketers is mostly very good, one problem that may become an issue is the growing use of social networking messaging. For example, many online consumers now use Twitter, Facebook and MySpace more than their traditional email account. As a result, traditional email marketing will likely be forced to alter its current strategy in order to thrive down the line.

I see a lot of interesting writing and it really seems unfair to keep it all to myself. So here’s what I’ve been digging lately. I hope you find some nuggets of useful information. And if you have seen something fabulous recently, won’t you please share in the comments?

The #1 Conversion Killer in Your Copy (And How to Beat It)
There’s a troll hiding in your copy and you need to eradicate him before he scares off your customers. Sonia tells you how. This is a great post about consumer fear.

Deeper or wider
Seth talks about the buffet dilemma. How are you going to make your buffet stand out?

The 5 Things People Really Buy
Customers all buy some variation of five basic things. See what they are and then look at your marketing copy to see if you’re using them.

What You Don’t Know about Internet Marketing - The Massively Detailed FAQ
If you’re new to internet marketing or just don’t understand why - in the age of short, punchy information - companies continue to use long sales letters, then you should read this post. It helps explain some of the thought behind this type of marketing.

Facebook: the gateway drug to social media, & other thoughts on SOCIAL networks
Sites that are consistent in design across the board, and easy to use, are gaining new users in huge numbers. As Susan mentions, Facebook is a place where people of all interests come together and find people from quite a few different areas of their lives.

Web Site Copywriting Secrets: Rocket Your Sales with These Two Easy Tips
Who do you talk about on your web site - yourself or your customer? And how well have you envisioned your target customer? Erica talks about the best ways to remedy these issues.

image: morgueFile

Not even Microsoft can ignore the success of Twitter and Facebook. On Monday, Microsoft announced that they will be adding Twitter and Facebook to its Xbox Live experience.

With millions of users who spend an ungodly amount of time their social networking sites, Twitter and Facebook are growing in their importance on the online world. Now that Microsoft plans to allow Twitter and Facebook users to stay on their Xbox 360 during the process, this could be a great way to add more usability to the gaming console.

In addition to Twitter and Facebook, Microsoft also plans to integrate last.fm, a service that streams music, with Xbox live.

Said Shane Kim of Microsoft: “This expands the reach of Xbox live. We have had an effort of making Xbox live a next-generation social and entertainment network.”

It’ll be interesting to see if this move will be a hit with the Xbox Live community.

XBox 360 -- Soon with Twitter and Facebook (Image: Flickr)

My daughter is in the midst of a job search this summer. If you have been reading my posts over the last three years, than you know that I expect her to work when she is not in school. There is no option. She had an interview this afternoon. As she and the hiring manager were discussing her skills and abilities, he asked her about her extracurricular activities. To her amazement, he was well versed on her Facebook profile and freely shared his knowledge with her in the interview.

She was surprised, and of course my response, “why are you surprised? I have told you over and over that people, organizations, hiring managers and recruiters will check out your online profile (s).  If you have an online profile on one of the social media sites, understand that organizations will find you and learn information about you that you may not necessarily want to share. For my daughter, she was not embarrassed by her profile, but she was surprised. I am glad for her experience. She has a crystal clear, tangible experience that she will never forget.  She understands that her profile is visible and that somehow hiring managers, HR recruiters have access. She understands from her experience how important that she represents herself well.

My daughter was surprised, so I thought I would say it again for the record for your benefit, “HR folks really do check out your Facebook profile.” Stop living in the world of self deception. Believe it. Believe me when I say that it matters what you do, what you say and what pictures you have on your profile. Your conversation matters. Your status updates matter. In my daughter’s case, her profile is fine. Yeah! The hiring manager was not discouraged, nor did he give her bad news at this point. But he clearly wanted her to know that he took a look and he learned information about her that she had not included on her resume.

Image Credit: sxc.hu

Think Computer Corporation had a few outstanding claims against Facebook due to registered trademarks that were in question. However, the two companies recently reached an agreement and have settled all of their claims. Think Computer Corporation has agreed to no longer claim registered trademark violations.

In a weird twist to this story, the founders of both Facebook and Think Computer Corporation attended Harvard from 2002 until 2004. Aaron Greenspan of Think Computer Corporation and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook where both programmers who had their mind on entrepreneurship.

Said Zuckerberg: “Aaron and I studied together at Harvard and I’ve always admired his entrepreneurial spirit and love of building things. I appreciate his hard work and innovation that led to building houseSYSTEM, including the Universal Face Book feature. At school, I was even a member of houseSYSTEM. We are pleased that we’ve been able to amicably resolve our differences.”

Greenspan made sure to publicly indicate that there were no hard feelings between him and Zuckerberg.

“I am glad that my contributions have been recognized by Facebook,” said Greenspan. “Mark has built a tremendous company at Facebook, and I wish them continued success in the future.”

Mark Zuckerberg has plenty to smile about with Facebook (Image: Flickr)

If you any type of surgery planned at a hospital, don’t be surprised if the hospital asked for your permission to broadcast your surgery over the internet. With more competition in the medical field, some hospitals are starting to utilize Web 2.0 type marketing tactics. In fact, hospitals are on Twitter tweeting during surgeries, posting videos of their surgeries on YouTube and connecting with others on Facebook.

One such hospital is Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan. The hospital, which was founded by automobile legend Henry Ford in 1915, is using the latest in marketing technology. On Twitter, you can visit @HenryFordNews and find a wealth of information including links to live tweeting during surgeries. Henry Ford Hospital also has a YouTube channel with videos of the surgeries that were being tweeted about.

Here is one such video:

What do you think of hospitals using Twitter, YouTube and Facebook to market their services? Does it cross an ethical line or is it simply a sign of the times? Comment here and let us know.

Twitter During Surgery - Do You Agree? (Image: YouTube Screen Shot)